Madwoman On the Bridge and Other Stories (12 page)

But Fatcat shook his head and said, ‘You can’t go.’ Bao
Qing felt one of Fatcat’s hands restrain his arm like a
handcuff. ‘We’re not finished drinking. No one can go
until we’ve finished drinking.’

Bao Qing said, ‘I
am
finished drinking. I can’t take any
more.’

Fatcat said, ‘It’s up to you if you drink or not, but
Shaohong offended you, so she has to drink the forfeit.
And as I haven’t shown you a good time, I have to drink
a forfeit, too. Renzheng and Ms Zhong were invited to
make pleasant company, and for failing to do a good
job of it, they have to drink forfeits too!’ Then Bao Qing
heard Fatcat roar to those outside, ‘Where the hell have
you gone? Hurry up and bring more drinks! And don’t
bring them by the bottle – bring a crate in!’

Bao Qing felt like he was sitting on a bed of needles
and deeply regretting giving in to his pity for Renzheng
and foolishly getting on the motorcycle. When a waiter
arrived carrying the crate of liquor, Bao Qing felt a twinge
of dread. He asked Fatcat, ‘What’s that for? One bottle
will be quite enough, make them take the crate back.’

But Fatcat patted Bao Qing on the shoulder, ‘We won’t
necessarily drink the whole crate, but it’s my habit to
do this for my guests. Don’t get flustered; you’re an
intellectual, so my policy allows an exemption. If you’ve
had enough, then fine – don’t drink if you don’t want to.’

Bao Qing said forthrightly, ‘I
have
had enough to
drink. I’m setting off tomorrow. I’ll have to change buses
and connect to a train, so I need to go home early tonight
and get some rest.’

Fatcat said, ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Are you
worried you won’t get back to Beijing? If you miss your
bus because you’ve been drinking with me, I’ll have them
take you there direct, in an Audi.’

Bao Qing smiled but shook his head, gritted his teeth,
stood up and said, ‘I’m afraid I can’t stay. I’ll have to bid
you farewell.’ He watched as Fatcat’s expression turned
sombre. This time, Fatcat didn’t try to stop him, but the
others at the table looked at Bao Qing with expressions
that were almost fearful.

Renzheng looked at Fatcat, then suddenly took a big
stride towards the door to block it. He spoke quietly,
‘Bao Qing, don’t make us lose face. You can’t go now.’
Bao Qing saw that Renzheng’s expression was one of
desperate entreaty, and at such close quarters he noticed
the crow’s feet at the corners of his bloodshot eyes; his
half-bald pate, too, seemed to tell a tale full of misery.
The two men confronted each other at the doorway.

Shaohong staggered over to them, hooked her arms
around Bao Qing’s neck and pulled him towards the
chair. She said, ‘I have to say, the great professor is really
fastidious. I said the wrong thing. OK, so I had to drink
three big cups to make up for it, and you’re still not satisfied.
Maybe you want me to do a striptease?’

Before Bao Qing could refuse, Fatcat chuckled and
clapped his hands, ‘Good idea! Her forfeit will be a striptease.’

The liquor had obviously made Shaohong speak
lightly, but now that she was expected to perform, she
sobered up and became mulish. ‘You know Ms Zhong is
still an unsullied maiden. How could I possibly dance in
front of her?’

‘Don’t make excuses. We’ll have Ms Zhong go outside
for a moment,’ Fatcat said. Ms Zhong turned bright red,
stood up and made to leave, but Shaohong held her back,
‘You’re really going to pretend an old woman like me is
an innocent girl? Pah! You think I’ll let you see a free
strip? What about money? Where’s the money?’

Fatcat turned in his chair, grabbed a briefcase from a
small table and said, ‘The money’s right here. What’s your
price for tickets plus tip?’

Bao Qing saw the joke was reaching the point of no
return, so he took Fatcat by the hand and said, ‘That’s
enough nonsense. It’s all my fault; I’ve made everybody
unhappy. Why don’t I drink a forfeit, too?’

Bao Qing sensed that he needed to make a sacrifice, so
he took a drink. As soon as he did, the atmosphere at the
table warmed up substantially. Bao Qing had intended
to go as soon as the atmosphere returned to normal, but
Fatcat made his driver fetch a damask box, declaring that
he wanted to show Bao Qing something. He opened the
box and Bao Qing saw a coloured porcelain vase lying
inside. Fatcat said, ‘You’re the expert. Make an estimate.
How much is this vase worth?’

Bao Qing said, ‘I’m in geology, not art appraisal,’ but
Fatcat responded, ‘Don’t be so modest. In any case, you
know more about it than any of us.’

Renzheng came over and carefully removed the vase
for Bao Qing to have a look at. Bao Qing glimpsed an
inscription in the floral design which said Tang Yin,
⁸
but
his expression was suspicious. ‘This was painted by Tang
Bohu?’

A little nervously, Fatcat answered his question with
another, ‘Why, aren’t Tang Bohu vases valuable?’

Bao Qing said, ‘That’s not what I meant. I think there
might be a problem with the vase.’ Bao Qing took the vase
and looked it carefully up and down; finally he could not
suppress his laughter. ‘You’ve been cheated. I’m not an
art expert, but they’ve written Jiaqing reign
⁹
on this vase.
By that time, Tang Bohu had been dust for years; so how
come he was still painting vases?’

Fatcat blanched, ‘Take another look, carefully.’

Bao Qing, ‘No need. You’ve definitely bought a fake. It
might even be that the vase itself is counterfeit as well as
the attribution. How much did you pay for it?’ Bao Qing
didn’t hear what Fatcat said in response. He raised his
head and saw that everyone was staring at him with wide-open
eyes, as if they were waiting for him to retract his
comments. Fatcat’s expression was exceedingly strange:
part of it was embarrassment, but a greater portion was
rage.

He gave an oblique, squinting look at Renzheng,
whose face had already paled, ‘I’ll go to Shanghai tomorrow
and find Sanzi. He’s the one who vouched for it – he
guaranteed it was real.’

Fatcat snorted and said, ‘How much was your kickback?’

Renzheng, panicking, shouted, ‘If I got one single
penny, may lightning strike me dead; may the first passing
car run me down.’

Fatcat sat down, staring sternly at Renzheng, who had
dropped his head while looking up with an expression
of pure innocence. Fatcat dropped the matter for the
moment and rocked back on his chair, looking around
the gathering, ‘Oh, stop all looking like your daddy just
died. I’m the one who’s lost money – what the hell is it to
you?’ He waved his hands dismissively and said, ‘Never
mind. It’s only two hundred thousand yuan. I’ve been
in business for long enough; it’s not like it’s the first
time I’ve been cheated. I get cheated out of two hundred
thousand, fine; but I’ll earn back two million.’

Everyone sat in silence; only the dishes on the table
still sent off their warm fragrances. Bao Qing realized
that he was at the root of all the unpleasantness and it
filled him with regret. Bao Qing stood up and offered
Renzheng a toast. He had been wearing a frozen, funereal
expression, but now he bounded up as if there had
been some pleasant surprise.

‘I’ll drink a forfeit! A forfeit!’ Bao Qing felt that,
indirectly, he had also harmed Shaohong, and so he
offered her a toast as well.

Shaohong, said ‘Now this’s more like it. You’re not
even red in the face; you can keep drinking.’ Bao Qing
noticed that Ms Zhong’s gaze seemed to linger on him. It
wouldn’t be right to ignore Ms Zhong, so he offered her a
toast, once again with reference to her father, his teacher,
saying that he had always remembered his kindness, but
that when he went home it was always so busy with his
family that he had never got around to visiting him.

Ms Zhong said nothing, so Shaohong put in her
tuppence worth, ‘You can still go and see him now. Go
and check out his grave.’ He knew Shaohong was taunting
him, but still he explained earnestly to Ms Zhong, ‘I
won’t have time this visit. I’ll go next time.’

Bao Qing returned to his seat, labouring under a
misconception that he had now done his best to carry out
his obligations. He took up his soup spoon, intending to
take a sip of chicken soup, but a liquor glass was suddenly
extended to him from the side, bumping against his soup
bowl.

It was Fatcat. ‘Bao Qing, we haven’t drunk yet. Why
don’t you have soup and I’ll have wine? We’ll have a little
drink, OK?’

Bao Qing put his bowl down and picked up his wineglass,
saying, ‘If I have any more I’ll fall down.’

Fatcat said, ‘And if you fall over I’ll get a car to send
you home. You’re drinking in Maqiao and you still worry
about getting home?’

The liquor was stronger than Bao Qing. In his forty
years, it was the first time he had drunk so wildly and he
began to throw up. He remembered Renzheng taking him
to the bathroom where he threw up out of the bathroom
window and saw that the rain outside had stopped. The
night was bluish, and you could vaguely hear the sound
of firecrackers coming from the town. Bao Qing remembered
he was about to go home: ‘I want to go home. My
mum must be worried out of her mind.’

Renzheng said, ‘You’ll go when Fatcat lets you go. Have
another drink with him and ask him to let you go.’ He
was half pushing and half carrying Bao Qing. Renzheng
remembered an autumn day when they had pushed him
in the river. He hadn’t been able to climb the bank by
himself, and in the end it was Renzheng who had felt
sorry for him and hauled him out of the water and onto
the bridge.

Suddenly, Bao Qing said to Renzheng, ‘Renzheng, I
know you’re a good guy.’ But this displeased Renzheng
and he spat out curses fuelled by alcohol, ‘What f***ing
use is it being a good guy? If you don’t have money, a
good guy turns into a bad guy soon enough.’

When he returned from the bathroom, Bao Qing kept
Renzheng’s advice in mind: have one more drink with
Fatcat and go. Taking the initiative, he proposed a toast,
but Fatcat said, ‘Farewell toasts have to be three cups.’
Bao Qing vaguely knew that he was being toyed with,
but he didn’t know whether it was because Fatcat had
had too much to drink or because he was annoyed with
him. But clearly he was being toyed with. ‘Never mind’,
he thought. ‘I’m not afraid of you now. I don’t depend on
you for my livelihood. I’ll put up with it for a while and
then go.’ But things did not turn out as he’d anticipated.
His body was acting unreasonably and impatiently. It
was soft and intractable. The gravity of the earth was
exerting an extraordinary force on him, and Bao Qing
suddenly slipped off his chair and fell to the floor. He sat
by Fatcat’s feet and drank the last cup of wine. What Bao
Qing saw were Fatcat’s black leather shoes and piercingly
white cotton socks. The shoes had a little streak of
mud on them that made Bao Qing feel uncomfortable.
Sometimes, the so-called corridor of memory can be
bridged in a single step. The past had stealthily crept up
on him and now Bao Qing heard a crude, familiar voice.
The voice carried violence and threats in its commands.
‘Wipe the mud off! Wipe it off! Wipe it off!’ It was Fatcat’s
voice when he was young: ‘Faster! Wipe the mud off!’
Bao Qing obediently took a napkin, just as he had been
forced to do many years ago, spat lightly on the shoes and
said, ‘I’m wiping. I’m wiping.’

Bao Qing heard the ebb and flow of their laughter, but
he had no time to look up, for he was too absorbed in
the task of shining Fatcat’s shoes. He saw that they had
become glistening and new, and were now emitting a
luxurious sheen. Then he heard a crisp bang and felt a
slap on his face; Fatcat had struck him. The abruptness
and unexpectedness of the blow ensured the slap was
powerfully felt. Bao Qing had to put his hand out not to
keel over. At the same time, he heard Fatcat snarl irritably,
‘Why have you only shined the left shoe? What about the
right shoe? Hurry up! Shine the right shoe!’

Professor Bao Qing returned to Beijing on the third
day of the new year. Everyone in Maqiao knew that his
New Year’s visits were brief and hurried. Once again, it
was his sister and her husband who accompanied him to
the station, and once again they encountered Renzheng
there. Bao Qing turned his back to him and blatantly
ignored him, but Renzheng ran over and squeezed a big
paper bag into his hands saying, ‘It’s wine, a present from
Fatcat. The Wuliangye brand.’

Bao Qing was determined to fight off Renzheng’s
hands and said, ‘I don’t drink. Take it back to him. He
already made enough a fool of me last night.’ Renzheng
held the wine up, carefully selecting his words.

‘He had a drop too much last night, but he asks you not
to take it to heart. This is high-quality wine, a token of
goodwill for you to take back to Beijing.’

Spitefully, Bao Qing responded, ‘I don’t drink. If I take
it back to Beijing, I won’t drink it. Why can’t you guys get
that through your thick skulls no matter how often I tell
you?’

Renzheng winked and said, ‘That’s true. You intellectuals
don’t drink all that much.’ He took a look at Bao’s
sister and smoothly slipped the wine into her hands. He
said, ‘Well then we’ll just let your brother-in-law take it
home. In any case, I can’t take it back to Fatcat. He’d have
my head.’

Frostily, ignoring Renzheng, Bao Qing took out his
cell phone and phoned his wife from the station waiting
room. Renzheng took the hint, but just as he was about
to leave, Bao Qing’s hand restrained him, pulling him all
the way down the steps. ‘Renzheng, you’re a good guy.
When I was making such a fool of myself yesterday, why
did you just stand by and watch? Tell me the truth: did I
shine Fatcat’s shoes? Did he actually slap me?’

Renzheng’s eyes were sparkling, but what he said was,
‘No, no. Nothing like that.’