Madwoman On the Bridge and Other Stories (16 page)

Wenyan couldn’t hold it after all. She had peed again.

I bolted up, clapped and laughed out loud. The sound
of my laugh was keen and resounding. The class teacher
rushed at me from the front row and pushed me down
onto my stool, but still I couldn’t stop myself, and I
opened my mouth wide and carried on laughing. Then
the class teacher slapped me in the face.

Would you have laughed like that when you were
twelve?

And I guess that was the story I wanted to tell you
about dancing.

I’ll need to tell you about what happened to the other
two kids to round off the story. Before Wenyan even got
to high school, she was selected for a dance school in
Shanghai. From what I heard the selection committee
took one look at her face and those two long legs and
refused to part with her. She really was a born dance
genius. Later, I was lucky enough to see her do the lotus
dance, and let me tell you, it was a far cry from
The Red
Children
. She moved you to tears with her beauty when
she danced.

Once I was watching TV with a friend and I said,
‘She used to pee as soon as she got on stage.’ My friend
laughed; he thought I was just talking rubbish.

‘I’m not kidding. I danced with her once. Why would
I lie to you?’ And that’s all there was to it. In the first
year that Wenyan danced in Shanghai, her mother
hanged herself; now that Wenyan wasn’t at home, her
suicide attempt had finally succeeded. I don’t know
what it was she died for. In the end, it was as if Wenyan’s
mum had a furrow in her neck. It was the mark left by
a noose.

That leaves the nincompoop Xiaoguo. If I tell you
what happened to Xiaoguo, you’ll really think I’m
making things up. Xiaoguo’s the handicapped guy on
our street who goes around in a wheelchair. One day,
while he was working on a construction site putting up
scaffolding, he fell ten metres through the air and broke
both legs.

I think that’s called a tragic fate. A tragic fate is when
you’ve only danced once in your life but you break your
legs. And that’s all there was to it.

I often discuss dance with my wife. As it happens, my
wife was one of the twelve red children back then. Remember?
She was the one dancing with the broom. Now
she hates it when I talk about dance with her. She says,
‘Men who like dancing disgust me.’ And when I think
about it, she’s right. It’s not quite normal for men to like
dancing.

Can you tell me what dance is all about? My wife
asked me once, ‘When did you first fall in love with me?’
and I said, ‘When you were a kid in that Tibetan dance
– you used to throw your sleeves back and forth; it was
incredibly beautiful.’

‘Really?’ she said. ‘Did I do a Tibetan dance?’

I watched her expression carefully. It was totally blank
and not at all like she was pretending. I could only conclude
that she really had forgotten about her own dance.

And that’s all there was to it.

Can you tell me what dance is really all about?

The river flows east. The boat, filled with oil drums,
floated wearily on the water’s surface. The rhythmic
sweeping of the oars seemed hesitant, even shy. The oil
boat passed under the arch of the bridge and emerged,
leaving behind an oil trail of irregular width, its colour
changing depending on the reflected light. The oil boat
moved along on the open expanse of the river’s main
current, and the girl on the bridge could see the seven
colours of the rainbow glistening in its wake.

The girl stood on the bridge, and gradually saw off
the oil boat with her gaze. She could just make out
another bridge, and a bend in the river where the boat
disappeared. By the bridge was a factory, which stood out
because of its chimney stacks and a cylindrical tower. The
girl didn’t know what the tower was for. Though it was far
away, its discharge culvert was clearly visible where it met
the water, and the girl used her glass prism to shine light
on it. Just as she had expected, it was too far away and
she failed to make a glare, so the tower was completely
unaffected. The clouds in the western sky, floating across
the water surface, began to redden, and the sky around
the tower began to dim.

Yes, the sky began to dim. The girl saw her aunt walk
past the bridgehead and quickly turned away, but she
had already been spotted.

‘Look at you! Why don’t you stay at home instead of
running around on a scorcher like this? What are you
doing here, anyway?’

The girl said, ‘Nothing. My mum said I could go out.’

Her aunt said nothing more and turned to leave, but
when she had walked off the bridge she turned back and
yelled, ‘Don’t be home too late. If you’re going to stand
there like a lemon, they’re bound to come and bully you
again.’

The girl stood on the bridge. She didn’t want to go
home yet. A boy with mumps wearing a striped sailor
shirt ran up; he lived above the general store at the
base of the bridge and the girl knew him. He covered
his cheeks, which were coated with medicinal herbs.
‘What’s that in your hand? Show it to me,’ he said. The
girl knew he meant the glass prism, but she clutched
both hands behind her back and fixed him with a bold
stare.

‘I won’t,’ she said, but suddenly held the glass prism up
in one hand. ‘Don’t touch it. It’s for shining on the water
demon.’

The boy, who had intended to plunder some treasure,
drew his hand back. ‘Liar,’ he said. ‘What water demon?
Where is it then?’

The girl pointed at the river beneath. ‘He’s in the water
now.’ She indicated the trail of oil, which had not yet
dissipated. ‘You can’t see it, but I can.’

‘You’re lying. Tell me where he’s gone.’

A mysterious smile appeared on the girl’s face. She
tucked the prism away. ‘I’ve found out where the water
demon lives, but I would never tell you where.’ She began
to walk down the bridge, then suddenly turned back to
say, ‘You all think he lives in the water, but that’s not true.
You’re all wrong.’

As she left the bridge, she could still see the boy standing
there, covering his cheeks and staring vacantly.
He didn’t know a thing. And even though he could
see the distant tower, he would still never guess its
secret.

A young man slid into the water with frog-like hops
while another young man followed behind, using a kind
of doggy-paddle. Maybe it was because they couldn’t go
any further, or maybe they had got to where they wanted
to be, but suddenly they stopped beneath the bridge and
hauled themselves out of the water to sit on the rocks
beneath the arch.

The girl opened her nylon parasol and, standing
on the bridge, watched for them to come out from
under the bridge. She’d assumed they would keep
on swimming, but now that they had stopped under
the bridge, she couldn’t see them. They were talking
loudly.

‘That water’s disgusting. Shit, man, did you see the
dead cat? I nearly threw up.’ The other boy caught his
breath, and said, ‘Yeah, I saw it. Sort of tawny. It probably
ate rat poison.’

The girl attempted to bend over the railing so she could
see the faces of the two young men. Instead, she could see
only a leg with a very dark tan. There was a dense mass of
hair on his calf and it looked like he had recently cut the
back of his foot; there were obvious traces of antiseptic
left on the skin.

‘A dead cat! That’s nothing!’ said the girl, breaking into
the conversation from above. ‘A few days ago I saw a dead
boy! He looked just like a rabbit.’

‘Who’s talking up there?’ one of them asked.

‘It’s got to be that stupid Deng girl,’ the other one
answered. ‘She’s got a screw loose. Ignore her.’

She drew back her head, then stuck it back out over the
railing to spit, ‘You’re the stupid one!’

After delivering this furious retort she went back to
playing with her glass prism, making shapes on the
water. The only target she could find was the dark, hairy
leg. Then she heard someone below say, ‘Don’t pay any
attention to her.’

The girl said, ‘No one’s paying any attention to you,
anyway.’ She heard her own voice amplified by the arch.
It sounded clear and sweet. She began to twirl the nylon
umbrella one way and then the other.

‘Cross my heart and hope to die, a dead boy floated
past a couple days ago. He was swimming too, like you,
but then the water demon grabbed his foot and dragged
him down to the riverbed!’

The two youths under the bridge chuckled, then one of
them flopped into the water and started yelling, ‘Oh no!
Help! The demon! The water demon! He’s got me!’ While
the other youth laughed even harder.

The girl watched them toss up riverweed from the
water with their horseplay. ‘Don’t be so noisy,’ she said.
‘The water demon’s away right now, but if you make him
angry he’ll swim through the water and grab you.’

‘He’s here!’ The youth somersaulted in the water and
cried out, ‘My leg! The water demon’s got my leg! Somebody!
Help! Help!’

The girl knew they were just playing around and ignoring
her warnings. It made her a little angry, so she picked
up a shard of glass lying on the bridge and threw it into
the river. ‘Fine. Go on playing your stupid games; carry
on swimming if you can. Why don’t you swim all the
way to the tower, because that’s where the water demon
lives.’

Her mother did not allow her to go out by herself. One
day her mother dyed her nails with jewel-weed, saying,
‘We agreed, didn’t we? If I dye your nails, then you won’t
go and do those foolish things. Today you’re going to
stay at home and do your schoolwork.’ Her mother saw
that the girl was sitting by the door, carefully examining
her ten peach-red nails. ‘The sun’s fierce today. If you go
fooling around outside again, everyone will think you’re
a dimwit.’ The girl held her ten fingers up for the sun to
shine on them. She saw that they had become like ten
jewel-weed petals, sparkling and transparent.

‘I’m telling you, the sun’s really fierce today,’ her
mother said. ‘If you go outside today, the sun will
definitely scorch you. If you sneak out again the sun’s
sure to burn you to death!’

Outside, the sun seemed to be boiling. Barely visible
white smoke was rising from the concrete road. A woman
was hawking cold water somewhere in the distance. The
schoolteacher from across the road, Ms Song, hurried off
with a jug and a nylon parasol in hand to go and buy
some.

‘Other people are going outside,’ the girl mumbled.
‘Who says no one’s going outside? As long as you have a
parasol it’s fine.’

She looked back and forth, searching for something.
Her mother knew what it was already and said, ‘Don’t
bother looking. I’ve put your parasol away. You don’t take
good enough care of your things. With such a fierce sun,
you’ll ruin it if you take it out.’

Her mother sat in the bamboo chair and seemed to
doze off. She could vaguely feel her empty hand where
the palm-leaf fan had been, but she didn’t open her eyes;
it had probably fallen on the floor.

The girl had sneaked off again with her mother’s
palm-leaf fan. The girl was standing on the bridge using
the fan to keep off the afternoon sun. Nobody noticed
her newly-dyed fingernails or, for that matter, the girl
herself.

Just as she was walking onto the bridge, a man walked
off in her direction with a plank on his shoulder. He
almost swept her off as he passed, and she called out,
‘Watch out!’ The flustered man turned around. He was
a stranger, a farmer or something like that. The girl saw
that his wife-beater and trousers were wet and dripping
as he walked past. The girl laughed and asked, ‘What are
you doing?’

For a moment, he seemed not to understand her question,
but then he asked back, ‘What do you mean, what
am I doing?’

‘Why are you so wet? Are you the water demon?’

The man shifted the plank from the left to right
shoulder. ‘The water demon? What water demon?’

He looked at the girl in puzzlement, but after a moment
seemed to understand and chortled. He pointed to an
embankment not far from the bridge and said, ‘No, I’m
not the water demon. See? We’re working in the water.’

The girl’s eyes followed the direction of his finger.
Labourers were assembled on the embankment by the
factory. They were all bare-chested, some standing on
the embankment and some of them in the water making
a terrible noise. The girl hung on the railing and said, ‘I
want to see.’ She turned back towards him and repeated,
‘I want to see.’

The labourer squinted at the girl, then laughed,
revealing his yellow teeth. The girl watched as he walked
off the bridge with his plank. She noticed the sturdy,
protruding veins on his legs, like so many worms. His
shins and ankles were stained all over with yellow mud.

That summer a gang of labourers constructed a small
pier for the chemical factory. The girl stood on the bridge
and patiently observed the entire process: how they
drove in the piles, built the retaining walls and pumped
out the water. At the beginning, no one noticed the girl
on the bridge. She just stood there, holding a palm-leaf
fan to keep off the afternoon sun. No one knew what
she was doing or what had provoked her interest; she just
stood and watched. Sometimes she adjusted the fan’s
position in her hand, so that it was still covering half of
her face, then she carried on watching. Once she called
out, ‘Here comes the water demon!’ At first she called out
tentatively, feeling a little bad about frightening them,
but later it seemed as though she wanted to provoke their
enmity, as she called out loudly, ‘The water demon! He’s
here! Quick! Get out of the water or the demon will get
you by the feet!’ Often the labourers would stop what
they were doing and stare angrily at the girl on the
bridge. Each time the girl would run away, tearing down
the bridge with only a few strides. Then in the blink of an
eye, she was gone.

The labourers started talking about the girl on the
bridge; they all thought there must be something wrong
with her. Fortunately the girl had made no impact on
the progress of their work. They had planned eight
days to build the pier, but it was complete after only
seven. The day they finished work, they kept looking
up at the bridge, but they saw no trace of the girl. They
didn’t know why she wasn’t there that day, just as they
had no idea why she had been there on every other day
previously. Without the girl, the bridge seemed very
empty.

The labourers did not know she was away, visiting her
aunt.

On the seventh day, the girl had crossed the city to visit
her aunt. She returned home only at dusk, and cried out
in surprise when they crossed the bridge. Her mother
had been dragging her along by the hand, but now she
dropped it. ‘What did you do that for?’ her mother asked,
‘You scared me half to death. There’s nothing the matter.
Why did you scream like that?’ The girl stood on the
bridge, looking at the new pier not far away. She wanted
to stay there, standing on the bridge, but her mother
dragged her away roughly with her powerful grip ‘You
shouldn’t be standing there like a halfwit. Do you know
that’s what everyone thinks you are? Standing all day on
the bridge in the heat. If you’re not a little dim-witted, I
don’t know what you are.’

As the girl was being dragged off the bridge, she said,
‘Don’t pull so hard. You’re going to pull my hand off!’

But her mother replied furiously, ‘If I don’t drag you
home, you’ll just stand on the bridge for everyone to
laugh at.’

The girl struggled to free herself, ‘Don’t drag me! You’re
as bad as the water demon!’ She looked at her mother
pleadingly and suddenly the girl screamed, ‘I can see the
water demon!
You
‘
re
the water demon!’

Her mother raised her hand and slapped the girl in the
face. ‘It’s just non-stop nonsense with you, isn’t it? One
day I really will tell the water demon to drag you down to
where the Dragon King lives!’

On the night of the seventh day, the girl sneaked out of
the house, right under her mother’s nose. She had never
gone out at night before, so when her mother spotted her
walking around the bamboo chair and going out with
something like a flashlight in her hand, it didn’t occur to
her that it might actually
be
a flashlight. And that was how
the girl sneaked out, right under her mother’s nose.

On both sides of the concrete road there were people
who had come out to cool down in the night air. A few of
them looked over at the girl and called her name: ‘Where
are you going so late?’ they asked.

The girl said, ‘I’m going down to the bridge to cool
down.’

‘Smart girl. It’s windy on the bridge; good place to cool
down.’

The girl walked towards the bridge, where a few young
men there leaned on the railing with their cigarettes.
When they saw the girl, they stopped talking and turned
to look at her. Someone started chortling, saying, ‘It’s her
again! The Deng family dumbo, standing all day on the
bridge.’