Madwoman On the Bridge and Other Stories (17 page)

She swept over them with disdainful eyes and said,
‘You’re the dumbos. You’re the ones standing on the
bridge all day.’

She leaned on the railing on the other side, wearing
an expression that said as far as she was concerned they
should just stay out of each other’s business. She shone
the flashlight on the riverbank below the bridge, then
turned it off again. What she had wanted to see was the
new pier; the new pier that been raised above from the
waters. The newly poured cement diffused an indistinct
white light under the moonbeams. The girl stood there
and felt strangely hurt, yearning as she did to go down
to the pier. She had kept watch for six days, seeing every
detail of the labourers’ work, missing only the process of
raising the structure out of the water. She wanted to have
a thorough look at it, but the horrid young men behind
her were talking, laughing in a peculiar way that made
her feel uncomfortable.

Suddenly she decided to leave the bridge. She began
walking away and headed in the direction of the riverbank.
The young men on the bridge yelled after her, ‘Hey,
dumbo, where are you going?’ but she ignored them.

To herself, she said, ‘If they want to monopolize the
bridge, then let them, it’s not like I can’t go whenever I
want to.’ She turned the flashlight on and began to walk
towards the new pier. She saw the river water rushing
underneath the bridge, and in the darkness the water
looked thicker and darker than the night itself.

A large block of cement ground lay bare in the moonlight,
emitting its naturally fishy smell, welcoming her.
She carefully stretched out one of her feet to test the firmness
of the cement. It wasn’t yet completely set, and in the
flashlight’s beam, the girl could see her sandalprints in it,
clearly marked.

The building shed had not been taken down. It was
very dark inside and there was no movement. She shone
inside it with her flashlight. The beam hit a straw mat
and next to it was an enamel washbasin and a mess tin.
This told the girl that there was still someone guarding
the pier, but though she shone all around with her
flashlight, she saw nothing and no one besides the large
wooden cases and discarded machinery the chemical
factory left there all year. A little further away, in a spot
where the river was suddenly hidden from sight, the
tower was bathed in moonlight, giving off a somewhat
reddish glow. The discharge culvert wasn’t visible at all.
The girl listened carefully to the sounds of the flowing
river, her ears filling with the sound of the river talking
to itself. Suddenly, coming from the tower she heard the
unfamiliar sound of something smacking the surface of
the water, getting closer and closer. With her eyes almost
popping out of her skull, she stared at the surface of the
water but saw nothing. There was no one swimming. But
there was the sound of something striking the water,
becoming ever clearer, and ever closer. She began to feel
quite frightened and looked towards the bridge in the
distance. The young men were still there.

‘The water demon! The water demon’s coming,’ she
shouted.

Although the shadows on the bridge swayed a little,
no one responded. The girl began to be really afraid and
started to bolt back along the bank. The flashlight in her
hand swung wildly back and forth, and as she ran she
saw the river running silently beneath her feet. The water
in the darkness was darker and deeper than the night as
she carried on running across the newly built pier. She
could hear the sound of her rapid breathing, but she
could hear the breathing of the water demon, too. It was
there! Her sandals were suddenly held down by something.
She screamed and looked down at her feet, but it
was only the drying cement; her sandals had got stuck. At
the same time she heard a burst of jumbled noises from
the water and caught sight of a shape emerging from the
dark water, dripping with glistening algae. The girl gave
another piercing scream as she saw the labourer with the
plank who she had seen on the bridge.

‘The demon! The water demon! The water demon!’ she
screamed.

The man was holding something in his hands.

‘The demon! The water demon! The demon!’

If the young men on the bridge had believed in the
legend of the water demon, they might have testified
to the Deng girl’s story, but they did not. That was what
made the account, which was at first only a few sentences
from the girl, into a real story.

On that night, at about nine o’clock, they had dimly
heard sounds coming from the new pier. One of them
had wanted to go and see what was happening, but was
prevented from doing so by one of his friends, who had
said, ‘What water demon? Don’t pay any attention to that
stupid girl. She’s just screaming for the sake of it.’

So they stayed on the bridge smoking and shooting
the breeze. Later, at about ten o’clock, they saw the
girl coming towards them. They didn’t know what had
happened, but they did notice that she was totally wet
and that she held something cupped in her hands. None
of them had wanted to acknowledge her, but she seemed
to be crying. The youths on the bridge ran over to her. She
looked as though she’d only just got out of the water. She
was crying as she approached them on the bridge, and
in her hands was a lotus flower. A very large, red lotus
flower. At first they were all quite baffled by the flower.
The young men surrounded her to look at it. It was a
real lotus flower, not plastic, and there were still drops
of water on its petals. All talking at the same time, they
asked her where she had got it. The girl was still crying,
crying as if she were in some kind of dream. She cupped
the flower tightly with her hand, and between her pale
fingers, drops of water fell, glistening. One of the young
men said, ‘Let’s not get overexcited about something like
this. It must have floated to the bank from the lotus pond
in the park.’

The others looked questioningly at the girl, ‘Is that
right? Did it float there?’

The girl said nothing, but clung to the flower and
walked towards the road. The youths walked behind her
and someone else said, ‘You stupid girl! Did you really
jump into the river to dredge out lotus flowers? Aren’t
you afraid of drowning?’

That was when the girl turned suddenly around, her
voice hoarse and unsettling. ‘The water demon gave me
the lotus flower,’ she said. ‘I met the water demon.’

This story circulated all summer. If she were to relate
it herself it would be incomprehensible, so it’s better if I
summarize it. In fact, it was a very simple story: the Deng
girl had met the water demon. Not only that, he had even
given her a red lotus flower.

A very large red lotus flower.

The train was late. Under the dim lamplight, the
platform was cast in half shadow. As Meng left the train,
a snowflake floated down and landed on his neck. The
wind was blowing open his coat at the bottom. It produced
a whistling sound which reminded him that the weather
here in Tiancheng was colder than he’d expected. Bag in
hand, he walked with the throng towards the station exit,
and though he kept looking around him, he couldn’t
spot the brick Song Dynasty tower that he remembered.
Beside the darkness and the lamplight, he saw nothing
but the ungainly contours of the high-rises, which looked
the same here as everywhere else. No doubt the buildings
had blocked his view of the tower.

The station square, covered in snow and mud, was
almost empty, since the people, cars, pedicabs and bikes
were all crowded chaotically up against the railings by
the station exit. The people all seemed so familiar to
Meng, though every last one of them was a stranger.
He set down his bag, a little surprised that he couldn’t
find his cousin waiting for him outside the railings. He
glanced again at his watch; he was two hours late, and
it occurred to him that his cousin and the others might
have gone somewhere to kill time.

Suddenly someone tugged at his arm through the railings:
‘Comrade, do you need a place to stay?’ It was a
middle-aged woman with an accent that marked her as a
non-local; there were also several others, similar women
holding signs, soliciting for this guesthouse or that hostel.

‘I don’t need any accommodation. I’m a local, myself.’

But then he began to laugh, because even he could
hear how stiff his dialect had sounded. After more than
ten years away, he could no longer speak it.

Meng smoked two cigarettes. The people who had
come to the station to meet arrivals had all departed,
and still Meng hadn’t caught sight of his cousin nor,
for that matter, any of his other relatives. He had no
idea what could have happened. Meanwhile, the wind,
sweeping in off the square, had a bone-chilling edge
to it, and Meng was growing a little anxious. So when
he saw a battered old Chinese-made van drive up and
stop by the entrance to a public bathroom, it raised his
hopes. As soon as the man got out of the van, however,
his spirits sank again. He watched as the man walked
towards the station exit, the sign in his hand growing
clearer and clearer as he approached. It said, ‘No. 2
Education Hostel. Excellent service. First-class facilities.
Low price. Discount for teachers.’

Meng looked around and heard several of the
guesthouse women urgently expounding something to
him. He paid no attention to them; he didn’t need to.
Even if he didn’t have anywhere to go tonight, he still
wasn’t going to put himself up randomly in some dive.
He evaded one of the pestering women and turned to
look at the big billboards on the square. They were left
over from the summer season: one of them showed
a striking girl in revealing clothes holding a bottle of
something and grinning at the passers-by. The slogan
was even more summery: ‘Refreshing to the core’. Meng
smiled involuntarily, which was when he noticed the guy
from the van again. The man was smiling, too, smiling at
him and waving the sign he held in his hands. His eyes
motioned for Meng to read it, but Meng shook his head
and said, ‘I’m not a teacher.’ Without a word, the man
flipped the sign over. There was something else written
on the other side: ‘Everything you need: home-style
comfort, colour TV. Air con, sauna/massage.’

The man’s face seemed familiar to Meng, particularly
the smile, which looked a little stiff. He concentrated and
fixed his eyes on the man for a moment. Suddenly an
odd term popped into his mind: atmospheric pressure.
Meng was suddenly positive that the man was his highschool
physics teacher. He wanted to call out to him
by name, but once he’d opened his mouth, he realized
that he had forgotten it. His surname was Di, or was it
Ding? Or maybe even neither? Meng just couldn’t call
it to mind. Instead, he could only recall the nickname
they had given him: Diesel. Meng felt a little sheepish
although, whatever the look on his face, it must have
given the man some grounds for hope, since Diesel
– let that be his provisional name – winked at Meng
and said, ‘On a freezing day like this, what’s the point of
standing around here shivering? Why don’t you come to
our guesthouse. You won’t regret it. We’re a school-run
guesthouse, and you can bet the people’s teachers aren’t
out to cheat the people.’

Meng gave a little laugh at the sound of Diesel’s voice
– it was the sonorous kind people sometimes call a
‘mallard voice’. Diesel looked Meng over before squatting
down. A cotton-gloved hand came through the bars and
started to drag Meng’s travel bag away.

Diesel said, ‘We have a special car for pick-ups and
drop-offs. On a day as cold as today, I don’t want to
loiter around here either. If you come along with me,
we’ll head off immediately, OK? How does that sound?’
Meng reflexively grabbed his bag, while a strange urge to
apologize flustered him.

‘Sorry. Sorry. I’m not accustomed to staying in guesthouses
like yours.’

Diesel’s eyes flashed. He stood up and, still wearing
his stiff smile, looked right at Meng. ‘Guesthouses like
ours?’ he said. ‘Sir, I would suggest that you have no right
to judge without having seen it. What makes you think
the conditions will not be to your liking? Our hostel
operates under the aegis of the ministry of education.
We’re not like these others; we don’t take anyone for a
ride. If it says central heating, there’s central heating; if
it says colour TV, there’s colour TV; if it says hot water,
there’s hot water!’

This impatience reminded Meng of what physics class
had been like long ago. ‘Atmospheric. Pressure. Who’s
that talking? Whoever doesn’t want to be here can bugger
off right now!’

Meng had concluded that Diesel didn’t have the faintest
recollection of him, but it was for precisely that reason
that his inner urge to apologize was even greater.

‘That’s not what I meant. I’m not a big fan of TV.
Actually . . . actually, I’m only staying one night. The
facilities don’t really matter as long as it’s clean.’

He saw a frosty smile play on the corner of Diesel’s
mouth, a smile just like the one he used to wear whenever
he entered the classroom, their exercise books
stacked under his arm.

‘How do you know we’re not clean? I’ll have you know
we’re a model of hygiene.’ Diesel looked a little angry
now. ‘You think I’m a cheat, do you? I was a people’s
teacher for thirty years; I sacrifice time in my declining
years to do a little something for society, and you accuse
me of coming down here just to con people. Is that it?’

Meng began to feel uncomfortable; the sense of
desperation that Diesel used to provoke in physics class
returned vividly. Meng had never been able to answer
his questions correctly, and Diesel had had a special
proclivity for asking him. Meng wondered why he had
recognized Diesel at first glance, but still Diesel hadn’t
recognized him? The women outside the gates were
exchanging confidential whispers; they shot reproachful
glances at him which seemed to mean, How come you
let him butt in? Meng blushed deeply and carried his
luggage around for a moment inside the railing, then
he glanced at Diesel, but Diesel wasn’t looking at him;
he was slapping his sign against the railing. You could
tell that his teacherly anger had not yet cooled. Meng
took another few tentative steps. Then, in the space of a
moment, an uncharacteristic decision became reality. He
walked up to Diesel and said, ‘OK. I’ll stay the night at
your guesthouse.’

Absolutely everything about the city had changed.
Development is a hard truth. The city had turned into an
endless succession of construction sites and neon lights.
He bumped around in the battered van for about half
an hour, then it stopped and he heard Diesel say, ‘We’re
here. I said it wasn’t far, didn’t I? This is the old town. In
the thirties, this was the commercial hub of Tiancheng.’

Meng had no idea where he was. The whole city
now consisted of indistinguishable demolition zones.
The ground was covered in rubbish and broken bricks,
and only a few reusable wooden doors and windows
were tidily stacked. And when there are no longer any
buildings or trees by which to tell your way, it’s inevitable
that you lose your orientation.

‘Where the hell are we? Where the hell is this?’

He saw a three-storey building standing solitary in the
rubble, with lights on only one floor. ‘This is a wasteland.’

Diesel didn’t respond, but wrested Meng’s luggage
from him and ran towards the building, shouting, ‘Miss
Zhang! A room!’

The guesthouse was filled with a raw, damp smell.
A woman at reception was huddling against an electric
heater, and she looked over at Meng with a glance neither
defiant nor apologetic.

Meng stood hesitating at the counter: ‘From the looks
of things, you couldn’t possibly have central heating
here.’

The woman said, ‘There’s air conditioning.’

Meng said, ‘What was all that about first-class facilities?
From what I can see, you don’t have any facilities here at
all.’

The woman looked at Meng, then over at Diesel, then
she puckered her lips into a smile.

Meng continued, ‘They tore down all the other buildings
around here. How come they’re not tearing yours
down? This place looks illegal.’

Before he had even finished his sentence, he felt a hard
shove on the shoulder. It was Diesel. Looking at him
angrily he said, ‘Is that any way to talk, sir? If you want
a room, then fine, but if you don’t, bugger off. But to
come here and insult people! Illegal! What do you mean,
illegal? What kind of people do you take us for, huh?’

Meng reflexively took a step backwards. ‘I was just
joking. There’s no need to get all worked up.’

Diesel was still glaring. ‘That’s no way to joke with
anybody. When you make a joke, you don’t do it at the
expense of other people’s dignity, do you understand?’

Meng said mockingly, ‘Yup. Got it. Got it, all right.’

Meng had already retreated to the exit and was
looking out through the glass doors. It was pitch black
outside and the little van had already left. He could not
rid himself of the feeling that he had been taken for a
fool, and this thought made him baulk. He stood by the
window and scratched his head. The woman suddenly
gave a cough and said, ‘If you don’t want to stay here,
we’re not going to force you. If you go out the door and
walk four hundred metres, there’s a hotel that’s in a little
better shape.’

Meng looked at her gratefully and asked, ‘Do they
have central heating there?’ But before the woman
could answer, Diesel glowered at him and shouted,
‘This is Tiancheng, not Beijing. What the hell kind of
central heating do you expect? You’re lucky to have air
con!’ Meng shook his head. The sound of Diesel’s voice
still held an awesome power over him – ‘Atmospheric
pressure! If you can’t do it, then that’s that! Don’t try to
fake your way out of it!’ he remembered.

Meng wondered what attitude Diesel would adopt if
he recognized him. He gave the door a push and then
quietly closed it again.

‘It’s really cold out. Why is Tiancheng so cold nowadays?’

Diesel rolled his eyes at him, which seemed to mean he
wouldn’t deign to respond to such stupid questions.

‘I lived here for eight years; I went to school here,’
Meng remarked.

He saw how Diesel’s exceedingly hostile expression
grew somewhat milder, then he gave a snort and said,
‘Well, then, that’s good. You’re a native son returning
from his travels. You ought to have some feelings for
Tiancheng, so what’s with the snooty airs? Complaining
about this, that and the other.’ Meng watched Diesel,
hoping he would expound upon his theme, that he
would ask him where he had lived and what high school
he had gone to, but Diesel picked up a newspaper and
seemed unwilling to continue the conversation. This,
too, conformed to Meng’s recollection of the man, for
if memory served him right, he had never been eager to
forgive a student who had crossed him. He was a person
who made others feel awkward and that much hadn’t
changed. Meng scratched his head, still hesitating. In the
end, it was the receptionist who tactfully convinced him.
She said, ‘It’s late and awfully cold; I think it’s best if you
stay here the night.’

The room was as crude and dilapidated as Meng had
expected. The patterned sheets and cotton quilt were
damp to the touch. There was a Peacock TV at least
a dozen years old, and with the colours distorted so
the female broadcaster acquired a green face and lips
that looked like they had been smeared with blood,
a horrifying shade of red. The only surprise was the
presence of a balcony, and quite a sizeable one at that; a
solitary luxury feature futilely fixed outside the window.
Diesel turned the air-conditioning on with the remote,
which he then slipped into his pocket. Noticing the
surprised expression on his guest’s face, he began to
explain the guesthouse rules and regulations.

‘I can’t do anything about it. It’s not that I don’t trust
you, but we’ve already lost four remotes.’

‘Do you really think I’m going steal your remote?’

Diesel shook his head, ‘Not that
you
would steal it. I
just told you, didn’t I? Those are our rules. After I turn on
the air con, I have to take it with me.’

‘You really don’t trust me, do you? When all is said and
done, what you’re afraid of is that I’ll run off with your
remote.’

‘Hmph! You, sir, have an unpleasant way with words.
Everyone has to obey the regulations. I’m on duty today,
and if the remote control gets lost, it’s me who has to
replace it.’