Madwoman On the Bridge and Other Stories (13 page)

Bao Qing watched Renzheng’s expression nervously,
‘Don’t play dumb with me. Why didn’t you stop me when
I was shining his shoes? He used the drink as an excuse
to go crazy and you just watched as he slapped me!’

Renzheng waved his hand and said, ‘Hey, nothing like
that happened. You shined his shoes, you say? You think
he slapped you? We’re all grown-ups now – Fatcat would
never have made you shine his shoes, let alone slap you.
Besides, he would never dare to bully you any more.’

Bao Qing instinctively rubbed his cheek, thinking,
Well, it doesn’t hurt, but I wasn’t in a very clear state of
mind at the time. He looked at Renzheng suspiciously, ‘It
seems drunken people all make fools of themselves, and
there isn’t any stopping them. Or am I perhaps remembering
things wrongly? Did you shine his shoes? Were
you the one he hit?’

Bao Qing watched Renzheng lift up his head, and on his
face was a remarkable expression; a mixture of wiliness
and pride that was hard to describe. ‘No, I didn’t shine
them, sure as I’m my mother’s son. Ever since we were
kids, I haven’t shined his shoes for him, not even once.
And he’s never slapped me, either.’ Suddenly he laughed
and poked Bao Qing in the stomach. ‘Don’t let it stick in
your throat. You can’t make a fuss over what people do
when they get drunk. Forgive him this once. A great spirit
forgives the trespasses of his inferiors.’ Without knowing
why, Bao Qing suddenly covered his face with his hands.
Then he heard Renzheng sigh: ‘You can never tell what
changes time may bring. You’ve both made good. Out of
all of our friends and classmates, you’re the only one who
can stand up to him. If he hadn’t been drunk, he would
never have dared to slap you.’

As they were speaking, the long-distance bus emerged
from the depot. A crashing noise gave Bao Qing a fright,
until he realized it was the sound of the doors opening
automatically. The holiday was over and everyone glowed
with health. Even the bus had celebrated the New Year,
for it seemed that the doors had been fixed.

The steamship pier was far dirtier and more crowded
than a village market; people loitered around, some
squatting, some standing, some lying with their limbs
splayed wherever space would allow, their mouths wide
open, breathing in the filthy air and snoring indulgently.
The piercing whistle of the steamboat didn’t bother them;
it was quite obvious they weren’t passengers.

Miaoyue and Li Yong were almost the last two
passengers aboard. Li Yong was pulling Miaoyue along
firmly by one hand. With the other hand, she held up her
long black skirt as she was dragged like a puppet towards
the ticket-taker. She seemed to know what sort of a figure
she cut, judging by the mortified expression frozen on
her face. Reaching the ticket examiner she bumped
into someone who looked like a farmer, and instead of
apologizing to the man, her reaction was to shrug off Li
Yong’s hand. ‘What’s the bloody rush? The boat hasn’t
even left. There’s no need to hurry.’

Li Yong turned back to cast a fleeting glance at his
girlfriend; he was carrying a travel bag slung over each
arm and shoulder and Miaoyue’s purse hung around his
neck. Li Yong realized she was angry, but he remained
calm. He stood on his tiptoes to look up to the deck of
the steamboat and called out loudly, ‘My bro! There’s my
bro!’ He waved to a man on the deck, at the same time
pulling Miaoyue towards him in an embrace. ‘Do you see
my bro? He’s waving at us right now.’

Miaoyue could see a man wearing a collared blue-and-white
striped shirt. A cigarette was dangling from his lips
and he was leaning on the railing, one hand raised high
in a salute. It was a quick, casual wave, much like that of
a VIP. Miaoyue’s automatic reaction was to look behind
her, but of course there was no one there; in fact, she had
realized immediately that he was waving at her, but she
deliberately looked away. Actually, even without Li Yong
pointing him out, she would have known that he was Mr
Cui.

As they boarded the ship, she continued to look
steadily in front of her; but then she said, ‘Your bro?
Hmph! Is
that
your bro?’

Miaoyue was quick to make remarks, often resulting in
comments she didn’t even know the meaning of herself.
She was a girl who liked to take men down a peg. With
regard to Mr Cui, the truth of the matter was that when she
had seen him on the deck she had found him taller and
better built than she’d imagined, and also a little younger
and a little more handsome than she had expected.

* * *

The three of them had reserved a second-class cabin.
The room was not particularly big, but quite clean. It
was Miaoyue’s first time on a boat and her face lit up
with pleasure despite herself; her eyes strayed over the
room, then she felt the bedclothes with her fingers,
‘Pretty comfy, huh?’ As soon as she spoke she regretted
it, for she saw the look Cui cast towards her. It was only a
brief glance, but it made her desperately want to take her
words back.

Smiling, Cui said, ‘Is it your first time on a boat?’

‘Maybe. So what if it is?’ Miaoyue said. ‘Is it such a big
deal to take a little steamboat? It’s not like we’re on an
aircraft carrier or something.’

For a moment Cui was taken aback, then he looked at
Li Yong and remarked, ‘Pretty tough.’

‘She talks tough,’ Li Yong said, ‘but she has a good
heart.’

‘Who says I have a good heart?’ Miaoyue said. ‘You
don’t even know me.’

Li Yong laughed awkwardly and changed the subject.
‘Fuck, man. It’s just the three of us, nobody else. This is
gonna be nice. That was really smart, bro, to book the
cabin.’

‘Oh, he’s got the money. When you’ve got it, flaunt it.’
Miaoyue had retrieved a cosmetic case from her bag and
was delicately retouching her make-up. Addressing herself
to the little mirror, she said, ‘Well, at least I know
I
wish there was someone else here; someone a little more
fun, otherwise I’ll probably die of boredom.’

When neither man had anything to say in reply, she
felt she had finally worked off her anger. Still, she was
free to consider them as clumsy conversationalists, and at
this thought she smiled secretly. She sneaked a glance at
the two men in the back of her mirror; they were smiling
with similar expressions of tolerance. Li Yong approached
her and spoke quietly into her ear, ‘You could be a little
politer to my bro. Have you forgotten how he got you
your job?’

Miaoyue curled her lip, but swallowed what she’d
meant to say. She was prepared to regard her revenge as
complete, but she hadn’t expected Li Yong to commit yet
another blunder straightaway. He was taking three pairs
of slippers from underneath the bed. He gave the first
pair to Cui, the second to Miaoyue, and slipped the third
pair on himself. Miaoyue looked with great displeasure
at the order with which he had distributed the slippers,
but it was Cui who began to speak. ‘Now that wasn’t
right, Li Yong. You should have given the first pair to
your girlfriend.’ But before he’d finished his sentence,
Miaoyue had already kicked the slippers away.

‘Useless!’ Miaoyue shrieked at Li Yong, ‘Are you even a
man at all? Just because he’s got money, you’re happy to
be his slave?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean? He’s my big bro.’
Li Yong’s face flushed scarlet, and he said awkwardly,
‘They’re just slippers. Does it matter who gets them
first?’

Cui, sitting to one side, shook with belly laughter, a
kind of laughter simultaneously merry and suspect. And
while he was laughing he slapped Li Yong on the back,
then leaned over and whispered something in his ear.
Miaoyue glared at them; she wished she could make out
what they were saying. She saw only that Cui had his eye
on her, and that the look he gave her was a little peculiar.
It seemed to be approbation, but then again somehow it
was not. It struck her as a secretive kind of look.

Without knowing why, Miaoyue didn’t dare to look
Cui straight in the eye, so she turned her face away and
gazed out of the window instead. Outside, the scene on
the pier was beginning to move and the turbid river-water
was slowly retreating: the boat had finally left the
harbour. The trip had begun, and with that, little by
little, Miaoyue’s mood slowly improved. Place names
flashed rapidly through her mind – Nanjing, Wuhan,
Wanxian, Chongqing – the names of cities she knew
they would pass along the way on this Three Gorges
trip. Miaoyue’s mood slowly improved as she imagined
the beautiful, magnificent scenery of the Yangtze Three
Gorges. It seemed to her that she could already dimly
perceive a strangely shaped, precipitous mountain peak:
the famed Goddess Peak. Miaoyue had found out about
it from a Yangtze tourist map, and the shape of Goddess
Peak really did resemble a woman holding vigil over
the river, though Miaoyue couldn’t be sure why it was
Goddess Peak alone that had inflamed her boundless
imagination.

She found the crumpled tourist map in the small bag
and let her fingers move along the scenic spots of the
river, then suddenly her finger paused on the red dot that
indicated Goddess Peak: ‘Goddess Peak,’ Miaoyue smiled
and sighed. ‘This boat is so slow. When are we going to
get to Goddess Peak?’

Li Yong had already taken off his shirt, and had picked
up a towel to rub under his armpits. ‘What’s your hurry?’
Li Yong said, ‘The boat has only just left. Whatchamacallit
Peak’s on the Three Gorges and the Three Gorges come
after Wuhan, so you can see it once we’re in the Three
Gorges.’

‘Thanks for the newsflash.’ Miaoyue shot him a
contemptuous glance and realized that her question had
been directed at Cui, but for whatever reason, as soon
as her glance met Cui’s she felt discomfited and looked
away. Miaoyue stared down again at the map and said, as
if she were talking to herself, ‘Goddess Peak will probably
be on the third day. Or maybe on the fourth?’

‘I don’t know what day it’s on, either,’ Cui, who was
sitting on the other berth, put away his newspaper, ‘All
I know is that we get to Wuhan on the second day, and
that’s where I get off.’

‘What’s so great about Wuhan?’ Miaoyue asked, still
bent over the map, ‘My aunt lives in Wuhan, and my
mum’s been there. She said it’s boiling in summer,
freezing in winter, and boring all year round.’

‘I realize the Three Gorges are stunning and Wuhan
is Dullsville, but I don’t have time to keep going upriver
with you – it’s just a question of time. If I were as free as
you guys, then it’d be fine, but the businessman’s life is
hectic, and I can’t afford to keep you company all the way
up.’

‘Bro has to get off at Wuhan,’ Li Yong sat down next to
Miaoyue, ‘I told you, remember? Bro has a lot of business
in Wuhan.’

‘I’m sorry, was anybody talking to you?’ Miaoyue
pushed Li Yong away with her elbow and frowned. ‘You
know, I really don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite so
annoying. When you open your trap all you do is jabber.
Aren’t you worried you might exhaust the human word
supply?’

It seemed Li Yong would never lose his temper with his
girlfriend, for he switched from her side to Cui’s with a
wink and said, ‘What do you think? Tough cookie, eh?’

Cui just gave his belly laugh, ‘Don’t be angry, little
bro,’ he said, slapping Li Yong several times on the back,
‘a man is lucky when he has a girlfriend with a sense of
humour. If you can’t take a woman’s fury, then you aren’t
a real man!’

Miaoyue sniggered, or to be more precise, a knowing
snigger was emitted somewhere between Cui and
Miaoyue. This subtle event had come about very
suddenly. Miaoyue’s heart gave a little thump and
she suddenly turned her face, having felt a faint pang
of discomfort. She didn’t even know how this had
happened – suddenly it seemed like she and Cui had
reached a secret understanding, an alliance to tease or
bully Li Yong.

The boat growled slightly as it moved over the water.
Looking out the window they could see the sky growing
dark, and the rural scenes along the riverside became
shrouded in the thin mist of evening; a monotonous,
hazy aspect. Miaoyue wanted to open the window, but
it was nailed shut. Li Yong walked over to her and tried
with all his strength to pull the window up. This time
Miaoyue didn’t censure him, she simply pointed at the
nails and informed him with a look at the ceiling what
an idiot he was. Then she popped a preserved plum in her
mouth and picked up a fashion magazine.

Even before night had fallen the two men began to
drink. Miaoyue couldn’t understand the pleasure of
drinking, but they plunged into it with gusto, especially
Li Yong. With his fair skin and delicate features, the flush
of drink quickly began to show, and at the same time
his speech became more animated and coarse. He talked
the whole time about a colleague who had embezzled
five million bucks of public money before absconding
abroad. ‘Bro, you wouldn’t believe it. Monkeyman really
had the balls to do it.’ Li Yong said. ‘Fuck, man. I thought
I knew the guy, but I didn’t know what was going on in
his head. Monkeyman was totally yellow, but then he
really had the balls to do it. Fuck, man, people today are
crazy for money.’

‘You’ve said that a hundred times,’ Miaoyue said in
disgust. ‘It looks to me like you’ll be crazy for money
soon, too.’

But Cui was very patient with Li Yong’s talk and remarked,
‘If we were all crazy, it’d be fine. If we were crazy
then we wouldn’t want any money.’

Miaoyue sniggered a little, or to be more exact it was
again the snigger of understanding between her Cui.
She was a little embarrassed and turned away, looking
at the small bottle in Li Yong’s hand. Of the two roasted
chickens that had been on the table there was now
only half a chicken left. Li Yong was still trying to tear
off a wing and Miaoyue was poking at him with her
magazine.

Li Yong turned to her, ‘What’s the matter? It’s not as if
the news about Monkeyman is a national secret. It’s been
all over the papers; why shouldn’t I talk about it?’

‘I don’t care about your stupid Monkeyman or
Elephantman or whatever,’ Miaoyue said. ‘I was trying
to tell you not to be such a glutton. You didn’t buy the
chicken, but you’ve eaten it all up.’

‘Hey, what are you talking about?’ Li Yong said, ‘Me
and bro, we don’t split hairs. Me eating it is the same
thing as him eating it. Isn’t that right, bro?’

That secretive smile once again appeared for a moment
on Cui’s face and he nodded at Li Yong to indicate his
approval. But then, to her surprise, Cui extended his
liquor glass towards Miaoyue. ‘Boat trips are boring,’ he
said, ‘How about it? Have a sip?’

‘I don’t drink!’ Miaoyue almost screamed. The movement
with which she pushed away the liquor glass
seemed too shocking, her voice too piercing, as if Cui
had offered her a glass filled with poison. She realized
she had been rude. Her face flushed with shame and she
walked to the cabin door, glancing first at Li Yong, then
at Cui, then suddenly she opened it and ran out.

Underneath the lamps the deck was half-lit. Deeply
perturbed, Miaoyue stood in the darkness. The river was
murky in the night and not many people were looking
out into it from the deck. The sound of their talking fell
into the oblivion under the thunderous slapping of water
against the hull. According to the original plan, Li Yong
ought to have been out there with her, watching the night
scene. But the trip had taken a somewhat peculiar turn;
now she was standing alone, and what she saw in front
of her was a liquor glass, the liquor glass Cui had held in
his hand. Miaoyue reflected that perhaps she had been
too sensitive – maybe the liquor glass had no particular
significance. He and Li Yong were so close; what significance
could it have?

The curtain of darkness was hanging heavily over
the river’s surface, the nightscape being admired by the
passengers on deck was in fact just a boundless navy blue,
with a crescent moon, pinpricks of stars and scattered
lights near and far. The breeze from the river was both
strong and fierce, and after standing in it for a long time
she felt a little chilled. An odd thought suddenly crossed
her mind: if Li Yong came now and draped a piece of
clothing over her shoulders, perhaps there might still be
some hope for their love, but she knew it was only her
romantic imagination.