Madwoman On the Bridge and Other Stories (7 page)

Meng, aware of his wife’s mood, said, ‘I don’t really
know what we talk about. He wants to sit there and talk,
so I just talk back. When there’s something to say, we
talk, and when there isn’t, we sip tea. And while we’re
sipping, we come up with another topic.’

Ningzhu frowned and said, ‘It’s very odd. He’s always
saying he’s so busy, but if he is, why is he always sitting
around our home all evening or afternoon?’

‘Are you annoyed with him?’ replied Meng. ‘He’s not
just some run-of-the-mill acquaintance, you know, he
did us a huge favour.’

‘You’re right, I shouldn’t be irritated. I don’t know
what’s happening to me, but as soon as I hear that razor it
just gets to me. It’s like a swarm of mosquitoes buzzing in
my ears. If I’d known it would be like this, I’d have made
him take it home when we first gave it to him.’

They were greatly in Qi’s debt. Except for their parents,
their brothers and sisters, was there anyone as interested
in their affairs? When the toilet flush broke, it was Papa
Qi who fixed it. They felt the deepest gratitude towards
him, realizing you could scour the earth and never
find another friend like him. On the other hand, they
developed an ever-deepening dread of Saturdays. On
Friday evenings, when Meng went to bed, he would laugh
hollowly and say, ‘Tomorrow’s Saturday. Papa Qi will be
coming again.’

They had once supposed that Papa Qi had an ulterior
motive, but the two of them quickly came to realize that
to think that way was to do him an injustice. Meng was an
automation programmer, Ningzhu an accountant; what
use could they possibly be to him? They realized that
Papa Qi was someone whose word was his deed; a person
utterly devoid of ulterior motives, who paid them visits
purely out of friendship. Neither Meng nor Ningzhu was
odd or eccentric, and in their opinion making friends
was a nice, harmless thing to do, but they didn’t understand
why Papa Qi had to come
every
Saturday, and why,
when he did, he had to stay quite so long.

Ningzhu hatched a variety of schemes to curtail the
length of Papa Qi’s visits. Once, when Papa Qi and Meng
were chatting in the living room, she carried out a pile of
accounts books and explained that she was helping a coworker
make a little cash by doing extra bookkeeping, so
she had to have them ready for the next morning. Then
she sat down right under their noses, thinking it would
be seen as an obvious hint. But Papa Qi seemed totally
undisturbed, and concentrated on the political joke he
was telling. The joke was in fact very funny, but Ningzhu
couldn’t bring herself to laugh. Instead she enquired
of Meng, ‘Can’t you hear that the water on the stove is
boiling? Go and pour it into the Thermos!’

Before he could get up, Papa Qi was already on his feet,
saying, ‘I’ll do it.’ Then he rushed into the kitchen as if he
was in his own house while Meng, caught between sitting
and standing, said to his wife, ‘You’re going too far.’

Ningzhu rolled her eyes at him, picked up the things
from the table and flounced into the bedroom. Once
there, she had a private temper tantrum, throwing Meng’s
pillow viciously to the floor and stamping wildly all over
it. That was the day Papa Qi brought back the repaired
wall clock. When he had gone Meng wanted to hang it on
the wall, but Ningzhu wouldn’t allow it. Meng realized
then that she was very angry with Papa Qi.

What could account for his behaviour? Did he really
not see how they felt or was he merely pretending not
to? Ningzhu sighed, ‘I practically ordered him out. How
come he didn’t react?’

‘He’s the straightforward sort, that’s all. He’s not used
to people beating about the bush,’ Meng replied. ‘Besides,
it probably hasn’t occurred to him that he annoys you.
He’s helped us with so many things without the slightest
hope of getting anything in return. Why would it even
cross his mind that he annoys you?’

‘Nothing in return?’ Ningzhu shouted. ‘He takes our
time away, he takes our Saturdays away. Other people
have seven days in a week, but we only have six. Isn’t that
compensation enough?’

Meng could think of no immediate response. As a
bookkeeper, Ningzhu had a way of presenting facts so
clearly that others always saw her point. He chuckled
for a moment, and then said to his wife, ‘If he’s really
getting on your nerves, why don’t you just go home to
your mother’s on Saturdays? I’ll stay here and keep him
company. He’ll only be stealing my Saturday that way, so
we’ll be cutting our losses by fifty per cent, right?’

The next Saturday closed in on them with quick steps.
In the morning, Meng was shaken awake very early by
Ningzhu and took fright when he saw her haggard face
and bloodshot eyes. His first thought was that she must
be ill, but Ningzhu said, ‘I’m not ill, I just haven’t slept.
I’ve been thinking the whole time of what will happen
when Papa Qi comes. I try to force myself not to think
about it, but as soon as I close my eyes, I hear the sound
of that damned razor.’ Then she said, ‘I can’t take it any
more, really I can’t.’

Meng felt the issue had become a major concern and
tried to console his wife, saying, ‘It’s not as bad as all
that. Think of his good points. If you remember all the
things he’s done for us, you won’t feel that way.’

‘I
did
think about them. I’ve thought all I can about
his good points, but if he hadn’t helped us at all,
wouldn’t we still have been fine? We could picnic on
the mountain, we could go to the movies, or we could
not go out at all and stay in reading, just the two of us.
Wouldn’t that be nice? Why did he have to force himself
between us?’

‘What do you mean, "force"? He’s our friend, after all.’

But Ningzhu was no longer interested in the topic of
friendship, being steeped too far in resentment. ‘No,’ she
said suddenly in a tone that brooked no argument, ‘you
can’t stay at home today. You’re coming with me.’

Meng was the kind of man who cherished his wife, and
though he was extremely reluctant to agree, in the end
he was unable to dissuade her. Before leaving home at
noon, he wrote a note informing Papa Qi that they had
gone out. Ningzhu was against even this, and said, ‘If you
say you’re busy today, what about tomorrow? He’ll come
back tomorrow for sure.’

‘But won’t he notice we’re avoiding him on purpose?’

‘We
want
him to notice! Didn’t you say he was straight-forward?
This time we won’t beat around the bush, we’ll
let him find out. Maybe he is straightforward, but not to
the point of idiocy!’

That night, when they returned home they discovered
several cigarette butts outside the door. Meng counted
them; there were six altogether. He picked them up one
by one and threw them in the rubbish. A strange sensation
accompanied the action, as if, bit by bit, he was picking
up his friendship with Papa Qi and throwing that
in the rubbish too. He felt empty inside, but strangely
enough his movements seemed filled with exaggerated
glee. Meng himself could not have explained his frame
of mind that evening. All he could remember later was
the first thing Ningzhu said after they got home: ‘Now
he gets it! He won’t come back next week.’ And he also
remembered how full of joy and hope her voice was.

* * *

Indeed he did not come. Having waited until two in the
afternoon, the Mengs felt certain that he would not; they
had become familiar with the pattern of Papa Qi’s visits.
When the clock struck two, they looked at one another
and smiled. Ningzhu said, ‘Like I said, he won’t come
today.’

Meng replied, ‘He didn’t come today; he’s given us
our Saturdays back.’ He’d meant to say it in a humorous
tone, but could tell that somehow he’d sounded nervous,
serious, anything but humorous.

Papa Qi did not come, and Saturday afternoon
seemed very tranquil and empty. For a time, Meng didn’t
know what to do with himself; it felt as if this interlude
had been stolen from Papa Qi. Somehow, he couldn’t
bear to fritter it away. He wandered around at home,
and in the end asked Ningzhu, ‘Tell me what I should
be doing.’

She said, not without satisfaction, ‘Anything you like.
Why don’t you read? You haven’t read in six months.’

So Meng took a specialist book out, read a little and
then raised his head, saying, ‘What’s that sound? I keep
hearing something.’

Ningzhu put down her magazine, too, and said, ‘You’re
right. It’s some kind of droning. I can hear it. Weird. The
noise doesn’t seem to be coming from anywhere.’

Both their glances came to rest simultaneously on the
shelf underneath the coffee table where the Philips razor
lay silent. Since no one had switched it on, it couldn’t
possibly be making any noise, and both of them knew
that this incident could only be attributed to their own
hypersensitive nerves.

Meng couldn’t remember at what time – perhaps it was
three o’clock, perhaps four, in any case later than Papa
Qi usually came – they suddenly heard the sound of a
bicycle bell outside. Before Papa Qi knocked on the door
he always rang his bicycle bell; it was practically a rule.
Meng felt stunned for a moment; he watched Ningzhu
jump up from the sofa. Panic-stricken, she grabbed his
hand, and before he had worked out what was going on,
she had pulled him behind her into the bedroom.

‘Don’t say anything.’ Ningzhu covered his mouth and
hissed at him, ‘You mustn’t say anything – you mustn’t
open the door to him. He’ll knock for a little longer and
then leave.’

Meng felt like a burglar, his heart beat so fast it
threatened to stop altogether. He stared at Ningzhu,
wanting to laugh, but couldn’t get the sound out. ‘Are
you sure this is a good idea?’ he mumbled as he put out
his hand and quietly shut the bedroom door.

Outside Papa Qi knocked on the front door, and as he
knocked he called out their names. Initially, the knocking
was gentle and patient but gradually it became louder
and more urgent, like thunderclaps they could hear all
the way from the bedroom. Meng’s hand kneaded his
chest while Ningzhu covered her ears. They looked at
each another and saw the resolve on one another’s face.
They waited for about five minutes until finally it was
silent outside.

Meng sighed first and said to Ningzhu, ‘We’re going
too far. He might realize we’re at home.’

She shook her head at him, and walked stealthily to
the window. He understood what it was she intended
to do as she carefully turned up a corner of the curtain to
peer outside. Suddenly he had a premonition, but it was
the kind of premonition that comes too late – already he
could hear Ningzhu’s hysterical screams.

She later described to him the scene as her eyes met
Papa Qi’s as he rang his bicycle bell about a metre from
the window. When he saw her, his expression became
vacant and confused, a sight that made Ningzhu feel
so ashamed she wanted to sink to the ground. ‘I’m so
terribly sorry,’ she said, choking on her sobs. ‘When I
think of the way he looked, I regret everything. I went
too far . . . oh, I’m so terribly sorry.’

Now that matters had reached this point, Meng had no
way of consoling his wife, and when he imagined Papa
Qi’s expression, he too felt wretched. He said, ‘There’s no
point regretting it now. He gets it. He won’t come back to
our home again.’

After that Papa Qi didn’t return; not on Saturdays, nor
Fridays nor Sundays either, not to mention any other day
of the week. Meng knew that he had lost his friend for
ever. For a very long time after that he would imagine
sounds every Saturday: the ringing of bicycle bells in the
street always drew his attention, and between two and
two-thirty in the afternoon he would dimly hear the
buzzing of the razor. One day he took the head off and
saw that there was a thick layer of stubble inside, looking
just like black dust. He went outside his door, puffed out
his cheeks and blew the head clean of stubble. If Papa Qi
wasn’t going to come round any more, then the razor was
Meng’s to use. Afterwards, without his even noticing, the
imaginary sound disappeared.

How many people meet every day on trains, only to go
their separate ways when they reach their destination? In
the end, the relationship between Papa Qi and Meng confirmed
the conventional wisdom. Of course it was sheer
coincidence that they saw one another once more on a
train platform; the difference this time was that Meng
was getting on a train to go out of town on business while
Papa Qi had come to the station to see off some guests. It
was a group from the north-east, and Meng guessed that
these were Papa Qi’s new friends.

Meng was positive that Papa Qi had seen him – his eyes
skimmed past Meng several times, but his gaze deliberately
blanked him out. Meng was too ashamed to greet
him and kept his own head down, observing Papa Qi
while he anxiously waited for the train to start. When it
did, he saw Papa Qi waving from the platform but Meng
knew that he was not waving at him; he was waving to
those new north-eastern friends of his.

‘The thief reminiscing in a box.’ An intriguing phrase
like that doesn’t just come out of nowhere. In fact, it
originated from a word game. It was late one Christmas
Day and a few Chinese people, in an attempt to be
trendy, had consumed a half-cooked turkey and quite a
large quantity of red and white wine with surprisingly
few ill effects. They chatted until at last there was
nothing more to chat about, and finally someone
suggested they should play a word game. The rules
called for the participants to write down subject, verb
and location on separate pieces of paper. The more
slips of paper submitted, the greater the number of
sentences that could be randomly assembled. They were
all old hands at this, adept at choosing peculiar phrases.
Consequently, the pieced-together sentences could be
quite amusing, and sometimes there were real side-splitters.
The participants wracked their brains before
writing down the words on separate slips of paper and
piling them all on the table. Afterwards one of them,
a young man called Yu Yong, picked out the following
three slips: ‘The thief/reminiscing/in a box.’

The game’s purpose had been achieved. The Yuletide
merrymakers broke into uproarious laughter. Yu Yong
laughed too. When the hilarity had died down, one of his
friends teased him, asking, ‘Well, Yu Yong, do you have
any reminiscences like that you can share?’

He responded, ‘What, you mean thieving reminiscences?’

And his friends all said, ‘Of course. Thieving reminiscences.’
They looked at him as he scratched his cheek,
searching his memory, but he didn’t seem to be exerting
himself unduly, and they were about to start the game
again when Yu Yong cried out, ‘I’ve got one – a memory. I
really do have a thieving reminiscence – there was something
like that, a long time ago . . .’

And to the surprise of everyone present, Yu Yong began
a story which no one could have interrupted, even if
they’d wanted to.

I’m no thief; of course I’m not. I suppose you all know I’m
not from here originally. I was born in Sichuan and grew
up there with my mother. She’s a secondary school
teacher and my father was serving with the Air Force as
ground crew at the time, so he was rarely at home. I’m
sure you’ll agree that a child who grows up in such a
home isn’t likely to become a thief. The story I want to
tell you, though, is about thieves. Keep quiet and I’ll pick
out some typical anecdotes . . . Actually, I’ll just tell one
story. I’ll tell the story of Tan Feng.

Tan Feng was my one and only friend in that
Sichuanese town. He was the same age as me: about
eight or nine. Tan Feng’s family lived next door to us.
His father was a blacksmith and his mother was from the
countryside. They had a lot of kids but the others were
all girls, so you can imagine how the rest of the family
spoiled their only boy. They really adored him, but they
didn’t know what he got up to, as Tan Feng stole things.
He didn’t dare steal from my house, but apart from that
almost every household in town had lost something
to his thieving ways. He would swagger into people’s
homes, ask whether their kid was in, and that was all
it took – while he was there he would swipe a can of
peppers or a picture book from the table and slip it under
his clothes. Sometimes I would watch him steal and my
heart would thump like mad, but Tan Feng was always
as cool as could be. He didn’t hide these things from me
because he thought of me as his most loyal friend, and in
fact I used to cover for him.

Once, when Tan Feng had stolen somebody’s
wristwatch – remember that at the time a wristwatch
was something really expensive – he was suspected of
being the thief. The whole family came out and shouted
for him outside his house, but Tan Feng blocked the door
and wouldn’t let them in. Then the blacksmith and his
wife came out. They didn’t believe that their son would
have stolen a watch. Tan Feng swore like a sailor, so the
blacksmith kept pinching his ears, but he wouldn’t be
quiet; he just yelled loudly for me to come and testify
for him. So I came, and said, ‘Tan Feng didn’t steal that
watch, I can vouch for it.’ I remember Tan Feng’s pleased
smile and his parents’ grateful, tear-filled glances at me.
To the onlookers they said, ‘That’s the son of Mrs Yu the
teacher. He’s taught good manners at home and he never
lies.’ And because of my intervention the matter remained
unresolved. After a few days the victims discovered the
watch at home. They even went to Tan Feng’s home to tell
them they had found it, apologized for having done him
wrong and gave him a big bowl of sweet soup dumplings
to boot. He carried it over to share with me and the two
of us were very proud of ourselves – I was the one who’d
told him to go to their house and secretly put the watch
back.

My mother disliked Tan Feng and his whole family, but
people were very progressive thinking in those days, and
she said that being friendly with proletariat children was
a kind of education, too. Of course, if she had known
what I was getting up to with Tan Feng, she would have
gone bananas. ‘Pilfer’ – my mother liked to use that word
– and ‘pilfering’ was the sort of aberrant behaviour she
hated most, but what she didn’t know was that this word
and I were already inextricably linked.

If it hadn’t been for a certain toy train, I don’t know
how far my alliance with Tan Feng might have gone. Tan
Feng had a hoard of treasure, all of which was stored in
the pigsty of old Mr Zhang, who lived on communal
welfare. Tan Feng was clever to hide his spoils there as
old Mr Zhang was no longer good on his feet and the
pigsty had no pigs in it. Tan Feng just burrowed a hole in
a pile of firewood, and put all the things he had stolen
inside. If anybody saw him, he could say he was bringing
Mr Zhang firewood, and in fact he really did bring wood.
Half of it was for the old man, and the other half, of
course, was to hide his treasure.

Now, let me tell you about this treasure, although the
things it contained seem laughable now. There were a
number of medicine bottles and capsules which might
have been stuff women took as contraceptives; there was
an enamel cup, some fly-swatters, bits of copper and iron
wire, matches, thimbles, a red neckerchief, a clothes rack,
a long-stemmed pipe, an aluminium spoon – in short, a
random assortment of tat. When Tan Feng let me in to
see his hoard, I couldn’t hide my contempt for it. Then,
however, he delved into the pile of medicine bottles and
brought out a little red train.

‘Look,’ he said. He carried it with extreme care, at the
same time elbowing me away roughly so I couldn’t get
close to it. ‘Look,’ he said, but while his mouth repeated
the word, his elbow blocked me from getting any closer
to the train; it was as if his elbow were saying, ‘Just stand
there. You can look, but you can’t touch.’

Ah, that little red iron-plated train: a locomotive and
four cars. On top of the engine was a stovepipe, and inside
it was a miniature conductor. If children today saw a
train like that, they wouldn’t think it was so amazing, but
at the time in a little Sichuanese town, you can imagine
what it meant to a boy. It was the most wonderful thing
in the world. I remember my hand felt like a piece of iron
being drawn to a magnet. Overcome by an irresistible
impulse, I kept making grabs for it, but every time Tan
Feng fended me off.

‘Where did you steal it from?’ I almost screamed.
‘Whose is it?’

‘The Chengdu girl’s from the commune hospital.’ Tan
Feng gestured for me not to speak too loudly, then he
stroked the train for a moment and laughed out loud. ‘I
didn’t really steal it. The girl’s such a dumb-bell that she
just left it by the window. So since she was practically
asking me to take it, I took her up on it.’

I knew the Chengdu girl; she was short and fat, and
it was true that she was stupid. If you asked her what
one plus one made, she would say eleven. I suddenly
remembered having seen her crying that day in front
of the commune hospital. She had cried herself hoarse,
and her father, Dr He, had carried her home over his
shoulders like a sack of potatoes. Now I was sure she had
been crying for her toy train.

As I imagined the scene of Tan Feng taking the little
train through the window my heart filled with a kind of
envy, and I swear that this was the first time I’d felt such
a thing for him. Strange to say, even though I was only
eight or nine, I was able to disguise my emotion. Calmly,
I asked him, ‘Can you make it go? If you can’t make it go,
then it’s nothing special.’

Tan Feng flashed a little key at me, and I noted that he
had taken it out of his pocket. It was the sort of simple
key used to wind up a spring mechanism. A sweet, self-satisfied
smile appeared on his face as he put the train on
the ground and wound it up. Then he watched as it began
moving around the pigsty. It could only go in a straight
line, it couldn’t turn in circles or blow its steam whistle,
but for me it was a wonder even so. I didn’t want to seem
too excited, though, and simply said, ‘Well, of course you
can make the train go. If you couldn’t make it go, then it
wouldn’t be a train.’

My own terrible plan was hatched at that instant.
It took shape vaguely, when I saw Tan Feng cover his
treasure back up with firewood. He looked at me with
anxious eyes and said, ‘You’re not going to tell anyone,
are you?’ By now, my idea was rapidly taking hold and
I said nothing. I followed him out of the pigsty. On the
way back, he caught a butterfly and seemed to want to
give it to me as some sort of bribe. I refused; I wasn’t
interested in butterflies. It felt as if my idea was gathering
momentum, weighing on my mind more heavily until it
became hard for me to breathe. But still I didn’t have the
strength to chase it from my brain.

You can probably guess what I did. I went to the
commune hospital and sought out Dr He, telling him
that Tan Feng had stolen his daughter’s train. So that he
wouldn’t recognize my face, I wore a big surgical mask,
and after I rushed through what I had to say, I ran off. On
my way home, I happened to meet Tan Feng, who was
playing football on the school sports grounds with some
other children. He called out for me to join in, but I said
I had to go home for dinner and vanished like a puff of
smoke. You know how the aftermath of tale-telling is the
worst thing? That evening I hid at home and pricked up
my ears so I could hear what might be going on in Tan
Feng’s home, and before long Dr He and his daughter
paid a call to the Tan family home.

I heard his mother shout Tan Feng’s name at the top of
her voice; then the hammer in his father’s hand ceased
its monotonous banging. They couldn’t find Tan Feng.
All his sisters went around the town calling out his name,
but they couldn’t find him either. Seething with anger,
his father came to our home and asked me where his son
had gone. I didn’t answer, and then the blacksmith asked
another question, ‘Did Tan Feng steal Dr He’s daughter’s
toy train?’ Even then I stayed silent; I lacked the courage
to say yes. That day, Tan the blacksmith’s dry, haggard
face spluttered with rage like a soldering iron – I thought
he might kill someone. As I heard Tan Feng’s name resounding
through the town in the shrill, crazed voices of
his family, I regretted what I had done.

But it was too late for regret; soon my mother returned
from school and stopped for a long while outside Tan
Feng’s home. When she came in and pulled me out from
underneath the mosquito nets, I knew that I had got
myself in a fix. The blacksmith and his wife were right
behind her and my mother said to me, ‘No lying. Now,
did Tan Feng take that toy train or not?’ I don’t have the
words to describe the severe and indomitable expression
in my mother’s eyes then and my last line of defence
suddenly collapsed. My mother said, ‘If he took it, nod. If
he didn’t, shake your head.’ I nodded. I saw how Tan the
blacksmith jumped with rage like a firecracker, and how
Tan Feng’s mother sank down on our threshold, sobbing
and blowing a string of snot from her nose as she cried
and tried to communicate something. I didn’t pay close
attention to what she was saying, but the general idea was
that Tan Feng had been led astray by someone and now he
had gone and ruined his parents’ good name. My mother
was livid at this insinuation, but she was too well-bred to
quarrel with her. Instead, she took out her anger on me
and gave me a smack with her exercise book.

They found Tan Feng in the water. He had wanted to
escape to the other side of the little river outside town,
but the only stroke he knew was doggy paddle, and once
he reached the deep water he just thrashed around wildly.
He hadn’t even called for help. The blacksmith reached
the riverbank, fished his son out and pulled him back
on shore, then he dragged Tan Feng, who was soaked
to the bone, all the way home. People from the town
followed the pair of them as they headed back. Tan Feng
was rolled over and over on the ground like a log, but
with great effort, he lifted his head to see curious faces
on both sides of him. He began spitting and swearing
at these people who’d come to see the public spectacle:
‘What the f*** are you looking at? What the f*** are you
looking at?’

Just as I had expected, Tan Feng refused to confess. He
did not deny that he had stolen the little red train, but
he refused to reveal where he had hidden it. I heard the
blacksmith’s oaths and Tan Feng’s cries, each louder than
the last; the blacksmith had always raised him using a
judicious mixture of spoiling and savage beatings. I
heard the blacksmith give a last ear-splitting howl,
‘Which hand did you steal it with? Left or right?’ Before
the sound had died away, Tan Feng’s mother and sister
began to wail in concert. It was an atmosphere of pure
terror. I knew something terrible was going to happen,
and I didn’t want to miss my opportunity to witness it, so
while my mother was busy washing vegetables, I rushed
out.