Madwoman On the Bridge and Other Stories (14 page)

Miaoyue went back to their cabin to fetch some
clothes, but when she had reached the door she decided
to eavesdrop on the men’s drunken banter. She put
her ear to the door, but all she heard was the sound of
someone throwing up. Then she heard Li Yong’s voice,
‘What’s a girlfriend, after all? A bro is like an arm or a
leg, but a woman’s like clothing: you can throw her off
whenever you feel like it.’ Miaoyue could hardly suppress
her anger, but just as she was about to storm in, the door
opened and Cui dragged Li Yong out, totally soused. Cui
wasn’t at all surprised to see Miaoyue. ‘He’s drunk,’ Cui
said casually. ‘I’m taking him to the bathroom. He’ll be
fine when he’s finished puking.’

Miaoyue walked a few paces with them and saw that
Li Yong had a slipper on one foot, but that the other
foot was bare. They had only taken a few steps before
Li Yong threw up. A foul liquid spouted from his mouth
and splattered onto the floor of the corridor. Miaoyue
stopped instinctively, turned her head away and
screamed, ‘Yuck!’

The cabin reeked of liquor. Miaoyue waved her hands
around in a vain attempt to dispel it, but after a moment
gave up. Then she removed a jacket from her travel bag and
hurriedly took to her heels. As she passed the bathroom
she caught a glimpse of the two men crouched inside; one
puking, the other with his head raised high, throwing a
look at Miaoyue that was bright but penetrating. She
lowered her head and walked on quickly, then she heard
Li Yong call out her name, ‘Miaoyue! Miaoyue! Where
are you? Why are you ignoring me?’

She laughed coldly and carried on walking, ‘You’ve got
your bro. Puke away! Puke away and get right back to
your drinking!’

Miaoyue had nowhere to go, and her steps led her back
onto the deck. A crew member was working on something
by the railing, but kept on looking up to stare at her. She
blew up at him. ‘What are you looking at? I’m not going
to jump!’ She rolled her eyes, then leaned on the railing
to sulk. She was angry with Li Yong and she was angry
with Cui. She didn’t know why she was angry with Cui,
maybe it had something to do with that glass of liquor.

A few people came on deck and a few left. A couple
snuggled up to one another under the cover of darkness
– the girl’s hair had been blown loose by the wind and
the boy was holding it in both hands. Miaoyue began
observing them covertly but it made her feel dejected
and heavy-hearted. All at once she remembered a night
not long ago, when she and Li Yong had kissed in the city
gardens. It had been just as ardent, just as romantic, but
now it had become impossible to call to mind the flavour
of those hot kisses. It had all become false and distant,
and Miaoyue didn’t know whether it was a problem with
Li Yong or herself.

The steamboat passed another port, and the lights in
the houses slowly dimmed one by one in the distance.
The faint sound of a TV emerged from somewhere on the
banks; the evening news had just pronounced its earnest
farewells. More people went below, and now only she
and the couple remained. Miaoyue was still reflecting
on her relationship with Li Yong; but since those are the
kinds of questions that actually get more confusing the
more you think about them, she ordered herself to stop.
Instead, she spread her fingers, and counted them one by
one. She didn’t know how many times she had counted
them when she realized a shadow had crept up softly
behind her. It wasn’t a stranger, though, it was none other
than Cui.

‘Don’t bother counting.’ He laughed, ‘No matter how
you count, there will always only be ten.’

Miaoyue glanced at Cui and said nothing. After a
moment she enquired, ‘How is he?’

‘Asleep. He threw up all over the bathroom,’ Cui said,
‘Don’t worry. Getting drunk is nothing to worry about,
he’s fine now that he’s finished puking.’

‘And why did you stop drinking? You’re not drunk,’ she
said.

‘I don’t get drunk so easily,’ Cui said, ‘Don’t you know
what they say? Good guys are easy drunks. Li Yong’s an
easy drunk; ergo, he must be a good guy.’

‘I know he’s a good guy. You’re not, though.’

‘For a bad guy, I’m a good guy. Li Yong’s a good guy
straight up.’

‘Why are you telling me this? That’s a weird thing to
say.’ Suddenly she laughed and turned her head towards
the river. ‘What’s all this good guy, bad guy stuff? Is this
a morality court?’

‘A morality court is wherever you conduct one.’

‘Is this a trial? What right do you have to judge me?’
She lifted her head to look straight at Cui, her expression
one of defiance.

‘I don’t have the authority to judge you; I just suspect
you.’

‘Suspect me of what? Of being an American spy?’

‘Oh no, a simple girl like you wouldn’t make a good
spy.’ Cui muttered to himself and one of his hands kept
hitting the railing. Then he said, ‘Li Yong’s a pretty simple
guy. He doesn’t really have women figured out, but I saw
right away that you don’t love him.’

Miaoyue’s heart gave another thump and she turned
her head to look at the faraway riverbank. In order to
cover up her bewilderment, she wiggled her shoulders
with a forced display of nonchalance. ‘Maybe I do,
maybe I don’t,’ she said. ‘And what does it have to do
with you?’

‘It has a little to do with me.’ The equivocal smile still
played on his features. He brought out his cigarette pack,
shook one out and stuck it in his mouth. ‘Li Yong’s a very
nice guy. As you know, he depends a lot on me.’

‘I know he does,’ Miaoyue said, ‘You men like to say
that when a friend’s in need, sharpen your knife. Are you
going to stab me now?’

The smile on Cui’s face appeared even more mysterious;
and his eyes were luminous in the night. After a
spell of silence, Cui said in an exceptionally tender voice,
‘No. I’d stab anyone who told me to first.’

The darkness of night obstructed Miaoyue’s face,
which suddenly flushed. She had lost the courage to look
straight at Cui. ‘You don’t have to go on,’ she said, almost
faltering. ‘I get it now.’

Whenever Miaoyue found herself in a bewildering
situation, she would slowly count her fingers. But on that
night, when Cui’s eyes were so bright, Miaoyue couldn’t
even see her own fingers; all she could see was his hand,
a large hand which stretched leisurely out to her, and
gathered up all her fingers. Miaoyue did not resist him,
and the only thing that made her uncomfortable was that
it all happened too fast.

Miaoyue let him hold her fingers. She could not
speak.

‘We get to Wuhan tomorrow,’ Cui said. ‘There’s no
Goddess Peak in Wuhan, but there is a Crane Tower.
It’s not as exciting as Beijing or Shanghai, but it can
be a pretty fun city. Why don’t you come along for the
ride?’

Miaoyue could not speak and gazed fixedly at Cui’s
hand. After rather a long time, she said, ‘My aunt’s in
Wuhan. She keeps writing for me to visit.’

When Miaoyue had finished this sentence, she saw the
moon swaying in the sky. Then it seemed to go behind a
thick cloud, for the deck seemed vaster and darker and
all the banners on the mast were flapping in the breeze,
making clear, splintering noises.

It was near evening of the second day that the boat
reached Wuhan. Many passengers got off the boat there,
taking a great deal of luggage with them, so the pier was
unusually chaotic. It took quite some time for the boat
and the docks to quieten down. The crew on the pier
closed up the exit’s iron door, took down the plank that
had been used as a gangway and the steamboat pilot
pulled the departure whistle. Just at that point, we saw a
strange young man running madly from the second-class
cabins, his clothes dishevelled and looking like he’d just
woken up with a hangover. We watched him bumping
around in the corridor, and as he ran he shouted a girl’s
name, ‘Miaoyue! Miaoyue! Where are you? Miaoyue!
Miaoyue! Where have you got to?’

Anyone could see that the young man was mad with
worry, which was only natural; if someone else’s girlfriend
had disappeared, he too would have been driven
to distraction. But the spectator is always more clearheaded
than the person affected. Someone said, ‘If you
were in the second-class cabins, why don’t you go and ask
the steward there?’

The young man was in a dream-like state and asked,
stupefied, ‘Where is the steward?’

A large group of people led him towards the steward.
Luckily, he was extremely competent and thoroughly
familiar with the particulars regarding every traveller
in the second-class cabins. ‘You mean the girl who was
dressed like a crow? She got off in Wuhan, didn’t she?
She left with her boyfriend.’ At this point, he realized
something and scrutinized Li Yong with questioning
eyes. He said, ‘That’s what I wanted to ask you. There
were three of you in the cabin, right? Two guys and a girl.
Now, the girl, just whose girlfriend is she exactly?’

We all interrogated him with fervent eyes. His face
was ghostly pale and he gave off a series of snorts, then
he slowly squatted down and clutched his head in both
hands. He turned first to the right, then to the left, and
refused to answer any questions. His behaviour confused
everybody. We vaguely remembered the young man
travelling with him, dressed in a brand-name tie with a
brand-name collar. Somebody had seen him with the girl
on the deck the night before. Who would have thought
that a simple matter could become so strange? And whose
girlfriend was the girl called Miaoyue exactly?

After the boat left Wuhan, the trip towards the
Three Gorges began. That was the destination of most
remaining passengers. We all remember that Li Yong was
in low spirits for the rest of the trip, but when the boat
passed the famous Goddess Peak, an unusual, peculiar
smile appeared on his face. He fixed his stare on Goddess
Peak for some time and said, ‘Fuck, man. Is that thing
Goddess Peak
¹⁰
?’

The inspector looked at the suspect who had been brought
in for the incident at the city wall. He was an adolescent
of fourteen or fifteen, poking his head out and peering at
them, with his hand clutching the door frame. He had been
picked up at a swimming pool and brought to the station
immediately, so his hair wasn’t yet entirely dry. Some tufts
of it had congealed into two spikes that resembled a pair
of scissors poking up from his forehead. His swimsuit,
which was dripping water on the floor, consisted of two
Young Pioneers’ red neckerchiefs knotted together. The
inspector saw that his eyes were full of fear and that his
long thin arms and both his legs were trembling. It looked
like he knew he had caused a disaster.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Snot.’

‘I didn’t ask for your nickname. Don’t you even know
your own name?’

‘Li Dasheng, but no one calls me that. They all call me
Snot. Even my mum and dad call me Snot.’

‘Where do you go to school?’

‘Red Flag Middle School. But we’re on holiday, no one’s
at school.’

‘I know you’re on holiday. Don’t get smart with me, just
answer the questions, OK?’

‘Yeah, OK. I won’t get smart.’

‘Good. Then, scoot forward a little. Not on your ass
– move the chair. Are you really that stupid? You little
thugs, every last one stupid as a pig.’

‘Little thug,’ the teenager mumbled. ‘I’m not a little
thug.’

‘If you’re not a thug, I don’t know who is. What are you,
then? A model student, I suppose?’

‘No.’ The teenager squirmed in his seat, his eyes avoiding
the mocking gaze of the inspector.

He looked at a water stain on the floor, cleared his
throat and said quietly, ‘I almost made model student
last year, but I thought they’d laugh at me, so then I did
badly in my exams on purpose. Wang Lianju even had
a talk with me because of it. That’s the truth, cross my
heart and hope to die.’

‘Who’s Wang Lianju?’

‘The class teacher. But that’s just a nickname, too. You
know, Wang Lianju, the traitor from
The Red Lantern
. All
the teachers at our school have nicknames.’

‘All right, that’s enough of your wittering. Let me ask
you this instead: were you the one who threw that stone
from the city wall?’

The teenager stole a glance at the inspector, then hung
his head and said nothing. With his finger, he traced
some words on his knee.

‘So you’re not going to admit it now, huh? Just goes to
show you little thugs are all cowards at heart. You have
the guts to do this kind of crap, but you don’t have the
guts to own up to it.’

‘I was just tossing it. I didn’t think it would hit anybody.’

‘And why did you toss it?’

‘I dunno. Cat Head and the others dared me to. They
cheated, you know; they made me throw it and then they
chickened out and didn’t throw any themselves.’

‘Are you totally brainless? They dared you to throw it
so you threw it? Don’t you know you can crush someone
if you throw a stone from that height?’

‘I didn’t think about anything like that. They were
below the wall and I was thinking, We can see them,
but they can’t see us. I didn’t think it could kill anyone.
If I had thought it could kill someone, I wouldn’t have
thrown it.’

‘Did you know either of them?’

‘The couple? No, I didn’t know them. But we saw them
a whole bunch of times when we went to the wall to hang
out. They always went there to meet up and hide in the
bushes, and we just, we just—’

‘You just what?’

‘Well, we were on the wall . . . and we watched.’
The teenager became a little embarrassed and tried to
suppress a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. ‘They
were . . . they . . . Cat Head said he knew the girl; he said
it was the girl from Fresh Wind Hairdresser’s. She shaved
his head once, he said.’

‘How often did you watch them?’

‘I don’t remember. In any case, if we were there at five
in the afternoon, eight or nine times out of ten they were
there too. Below the wall is the People’s Park, you know,
and they used to buy their tickets and go in through the
back door.’

‘Did you go to see them on purpose?’

‘It wasn’t exactly on purpose.’ The adolescent’s face
suddenly glowed crimson and he twisted his head
uneasily this way and that. His voice faltered as he said,
‘In any case they didn’t . . . they didn’t do much . . . of
that stuff. Really, they were mostly just hiding there to
talk.’

‘And you were eavesdropping.’

‘We couldn’t hear them, or at least it wasn’t really clear
what they were saying. Once the girl started crying, and
she cried for a while, and then the guy started to cry too.
When he started crying we all laughed. We thought they
would hear us and that they wouldn’t come back next
time. We didn’t think they were such morons, but then
they were back in the same place the next day. They were
really dumb; they must have thought with all the trees
and bushes and stuff that no one could see them. I bet
they never imagined we were watching them from the
wall.’

‘Oh, so you were watching them? Then why would you
throw a stone at them?’

‘I dunno.’ The teenager hung his head again. He pulled
on his fingers and cracked the joints. Suddenly he asked,
‘Are they dead? Did it hit the guy or the girl?’

‘Which were you trying to hit?’

‘I didn’t think it would hit them. I just wanted to scare
them a bit.’

‘You’re still trying to wiggle your way out of it. If you
just wanted to scare them, you could have thrown a
pebble, couldn’t you? Why did you have to pick such a
big rock?’

‘I just took the stone Cat Head gave me. He said I
couldn’t take the real shit.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘He said I was chicken. He always says I’m chicken.’

‘He said you were chicken and so you have to kill
people if he says so, is that it? Just to prove him wrong?’

‘They’re all right, aren’t they? They’re not dead, are
they?’ The teenager was watching the expression on the
inspector’s face, then he gave a light sigh of relief, unable
to conceal a self-satisfied grin. ‘I can tell they’re fine from
how you’re talking. You were just trying to scare me.’

‘I can’t believe you just smiled. If you smile one more
time, there’ll be no more Mr Nice Guy, understand?’

‘I wasn’t smiling.’ The boy covered his face with his
palm and mumbled under his breath, ‘It’s not like smiling
proves anything, anyway.’

The inspector was silent for a moment and ran over the
notes he had on his pad with the tip of his ballpoint pen.
He hadn’t written much, so he added in the punctuation
he’d omitted.

‘Where did you go after you did it?’

‘I took off. When I heard them screaming I took off
right away. I thought maybe I’d killed them, you know.
I ran home, but it was boiling there so I stood in front
of the electric fan forever, but I was still hot, so I ran to
the swimming pool to go for a swim, and I swam five
hundred metres, no, actually more like a thousand, and
then I saw you guys standing there. I knew I could run
away if I wanted to, but I didn’t see the point. Like they
say, you can run but you can’t hide.’

‘You were swimming the whole time? You didn’t go
anywhere else?’

‘No, I didn’t go anywhere.’ The boy looked at the
inspector in confusion. ‘I just couldn’t stand the heat, so
I went swimming.’

‘That’s a lie. Why don’t you tell me the truth? Where
did you go after you came down from the wall?’

‘It’s not a lie; I swear it isn’t, cross my heart and hope
to die. I was scared stupid and I went home to cool down
by the fan but it was no good, so I went to the swimming
pool. You can see I’m still wearing my swimsuit, can’t
you?’

‘Well then what happened to the couple?’

‘Can’t you find them?’ The boy’s eyes grew large, but
then he quickly regained his composure. He scratched
his head and said, ‘If they’re not in the park, that just
proves they’re fine. I bet the rock just hit them on the
foot. I guess it must have hit the girl’s foot, because she
screamed louder than the guy.’

‘I would advise you to shut up now, because we already
know all the details, and let me tell you, it’s shaping up to
be pretty serious. There are bloodspots all over the path
in the People’s Park, and the guard hasn’t seen either one
of them.’

‘What does that prove?’ the boy asked, blinking.

‘That’s for you to say. Why don’t you tell me, now,
honestly? Was it you who moved the bodies? Where to?’

‘That’s a load of crap!’ The teenager, alarmed, had
forgotten where he was. Even before he had finished his
sentence, he realized he had spoken impudently. He bit
his finger, as if by doing so he could take the sentence
back. Then his dark features began to twitch, and finally
he began to cry. He said, ‘You just want to scare me. I
know they’re fine, they’re not dead. If they were dead
they couldn’t have gone anywhere. There can’t be bloodspots
on the path.’

‘Go ahead, now that it’s too late you can cry. After
you’ve already killed someone you start to get weepy. You
little thugs are all the same, every one a coward. You’re all
tears as soon as someone mentions a coffin.’

The teenager covered his head and cried, ‘I know they’re
not dead. Why do you all keep talking about corpses and
bodies? As long as they’re not dead, you have no right to
talk about bodies.’

Apparently the teenager wasn’t a bad student. The
inspector gave him an hour to write his account of the
case, but he finished in thirty minutes. Furthermore,
his handwriting was clear and the composition logically
structured. When the inspector read up to the part where
he threw the stone, he couldn’t help but smile. The
teenager had included an elaborate, rather overdone half-page
explanation of his conflicting emotions: to throw
or not to throw, and whether to throw a big stone or a
little one. It was very much in the style habitually used
by middle-school students for essays assigned to record
their good deeds. The inspector didn’t know whether
to laugh or cry, so ended up saying, not without irony,
‘Well, it’s quite a good composition.’

The teenager knew that the inspector was mocking
him. Nevertheless he took advantage of the opportunity
to expand on the topic of his writing talent. ‘I’m best at
compositions. Wang Lianju often gives me full marks for
them. I know he just wants to encourage me, but I do
write pretty well all the same.’

‘Well I’d have to say I’d give you full marks for crime
too; you’re even better at that. You kill someone and
remember to dispose of the bodies.’

The teenager didn’t say anything, but turned his face
to look out of the window. It was already pitch-dark. He
gazed around the room a few times, finally resting on the
inspector’s wristwatch, and asked timidly, ‘What time is
it?’

‘What does it matter to you what time it is? You still
think you’re going to go home tonight?’

‘Is it eight thirty yet? If I were at home I would be writing
my diary.’

‘What do you write in it? How many crimes you commit
every day?’

‘Wang Lianju assigned it as our homework for the
holidays, one page a day. We have to hand it in when
school starts. Actually, keeping a diary’s pretty fun, and
it kills time.’

‘I don’t think you’ll be handing in your holiday
homework. When other people start school isn’t going to
matter too much to you any more.’

‘I only have three pages left to write, because in three
days the holidays will be over.’ The teenager sat in front
of the desk and stared at the ballpoint pen and paper in
front of him. He hesitated a moment before making a
peculiar request. ‘Let me write my diary. You’re not questioning
me any more anyhow. Can’t I just write the entry
for today?’

If the inspector assented in the end, it was mostly out
of a curiosity about what this juvenile delinquent would
write.

An Entry from the Diary of Li Dasheng,
Middle School Student
28 August 1974, sunny

The wind blows strong, the red flag flutters, splendid are the
hills and rivers of our motherland.

Today I went to the People’s Park. Walking past a
construction site, I suddenly heard cries of distress. It
seemed that a large stone had fallen from the scaffolding
and hit a passer-by on the head. At the crucial moment
of this catastrophy, disregarding my own safety, I rushed
over immediately to help the victim. I helped the hurt old
man into a sitting position. The blood from his wound
spurted onto me like a fountain, dyeing my new white silk
shirt red. I was concerned about getting myself dirty, but
as I relaxed my support of his body, the glorious images
of Lei Feng, Wang Jie, Qiu Shaoyun and other heroes
¹¹
,
flashed through my mind. I realized that when the lives or
the property of the people are at stake, heroes do not shy
away from anything, even death. Was I going to let myself
be frightened by a little bit of blood? Having remembered
this, my heart was filled with revolutionary pride. Moving
as fast as I could, I carried the old man to the hospital on
my back, the blood from his wound and the sweat from
my body dripping along the path. The whole time I kept
thinking of how important it was for him to get medical
attention quickly, entirely forgetting about being tired or
worried about stains. We finally reached the hospital and
the old man was saved. The doctor asked me my name,
but I said, ‘When you do a good deed, you shouldn’t leave
your name. I only did what I should.’

It was really a very interesting day!

When the inspector had finished reading the teenager’s
diary entry, he didn’t speak for a long time and his face
turned very grave. He folded the diary entry up lengthwise,
and put it in the drawer. The teenager said, ‘It’s our
summer homework. We have to write a diary. Everybody
writes their diaries that way.’ He was trying to offer him
some kind of explanation and the inspector knew it, but
he didn’t need an explanation, he just said, ‘Today you
hand your homework in to me.’