Madwoman On the Bridge and Other Stories (2 page)

At first the madwoman dodged her, then the Shaoxing
woman caught her by her cheongsam and started
tugging at it. The madwoman’s heart bled for her
beloved cheongsam and she began to resist, swatting
the Shaoxing woman’s hands as if they were flies. But
they were strong and persistent, and the madwoman
grew flustered. She raised her sandalwood fan and struck
out at the Shaoxing woman’s arms once, then twice, but
when she saw the anger in the Shaoxing woman’s eyes
she didn’t dare continue. Instead she forcibly thrust the
old woman away. The Shaoxing woman staggered back,
features twisting into a ghastly expression. She stamped
her bound feet, gave her clattering milk cart a shove
towards the end of the bridge, and said sharply, ‘Fine.
Don’t listen to me then. Hit me with your fan. Just stand
there like a peacock flaunting your feathers. No wonder
people are cruel to you. You reap what you sow. Even a
peacock doesn’t spread his tail for just anyone.’

* * *

On that autumn afternoon, the madwoman stood on the
bridge waiting for her daughter Susu. She would leave
school and come home only in the early-evening, at
about five o’clock, but the madwoman was standing on
the bridge by a little after two. Perhaps she had nowhere
else to go; perhaps she had already lost any sense of time
passing. Everyone knew that something had gone wrong
with her mind last spring. I suppose what happened next
was pure coincidence, but it’s often the case that if you
wait for blossoms to open, you are rewarded with a bee
sting. For Susu did not come, Cui Wenqin did.

Cui Wenqin came . . .

Forgive me for interpolating a few explanatory
sentences at this point. Wenqin was the youngest doctor
in the clinic on Mahogany Road, as well as one of the
most famous women on the north side of town. She was
extraordinarily beautiful, and she gave injections; it was
therefore only natural that some people were given to
unwholesome flights of fantasy about her. Apparently
there were even a few who, although perfectly healthy,
were so obsessed by her that they submitted themselves
to injections just so they could be in her company. What
they hoped to gain by this you can probably guess
without my telling you.

Wenqin had in fact administered injections to the
madwoman, but they had turned out to be ineffective
for her illness, and were discontinued, so although the
madwoman had no recollection of the doctor who had
treated her, Wenqin remembered her clearly. The shocking
sight of a beautiful woman in a state of mental collapse
had touched her, and she kept pointing at her as if she
were a painting, gasping in admiration. An intelligent
woman openly admiring another woman’s appearance
is unusual enough, but since the latter’s mind had gone,
Wenqin’s gasps were genuinely heartfelt. Some people
wondered if this admiration might simply be a form of
pity, though the madwoman provoked no similar feeling
in others. Instead, the women who took their children to
the clinic for inoculations would try to curry favour with
Wenqin by saying, ‘Look how pretty auntie is. Look how
simple her clothes are. And it doesn’t hurt at all when she
gives you your injections.’

But Wenqin liked to talk to people about the
madwoman’s illness, appearance and clothes – especially
when it came to her startling, beautiful clothes, Wenqin’s
praise was unstinting. She would say, ‘There’s nothing
she daren’t wear, and she looks good in it all. Have
you seen her cheongsam? A white velvet cheongsam!
Except for people in movies, I’ve never seen anyone
look as good in a cheongsam as she does.’ A colleague,
although disapproving, hit the nail on the head when
he said, ‘You would look good in it, too. Too bad
there’s nothing wrong with your head! Because even if
you did have a cheongsam like that, you’d never dare put
it on.’

Wenqin walked past the bridge and spotted the
madwoman at a glance – or rather her white velvet
cheongsam. You could tell that she approached the
madwoman only in order to be closer to that cheongsam.
And though she exclaimed, ‘Why ma’am, fancy meeting
you here!’ in her voice, so filled with pleased surprise,
there was a quite different greeting, ‘Why, white velvet
cheongsam, fancy meeting
you
here!’ Anyone could see
that Wenqin was madly in love with that cheongsam,
and that it was a love that ran bone deep, though at the
moment it burned white hot as well.

People had only ever seen her in the tailored-to-fit
military uniform she always wore; never in a cheongsam.
It wasn’t that she wouldn’t give cheongsams a chance,
rather that cheongsams hadn’t given her one. She was
Wenqin, after all; she wasn’t the madwoman, though at
that moment who could have said which one of them
loved the cheongsam more? Wenqin’s eyes betrayed her
secret though; the way she gazed at that white velvet
cheongsam was like a famished bee discovering a flower
garden. She stopped in her tracks and began talking to
the madwoman, although really she was talking to the
cheongsam.

‘What soft material. And tailored so snugly. And aren’t
the fastenings beautiful. Are these called lute frogs? How
are they made, I wonder?’ At first, when Wenqin touched
the white velvet, she did so reverently, with utmost care,
so as not to damage it, but gradually the movement
became more rapacious, almost abandoned, her hand
stroking in circles about the madwoman’s waist. It was
as if she were surveying something with a caliper, the
result of which always remained unclear and had to be
repeated constantly. When her hands slipped down to
the madwoman’s buttocks, she realized she had gone
too far and immediately slid them up to her back. But
she was not yet sated and clutched once again at the
madwoman’s shoulders.

‘How unbelievably well it fits!’ Wenqin exclaimed. ‘I’ll
bet it was the one you used when you were MC in the performance
troupe, wasn’t it? You couldn’t find another one
like it in the whole world now. This kind of velvet – you
can’t buy material like it any more, even in Shanghai.’

The madwoman gave her a charming smile, and at the
same time inspected the cheongsam. Wenqin’s fulsome
praise gratified her, though she was a little concerned
there might be wrinkles where Wenqin had touched it.
She arranged her fingers in the orchid position to act like
an iron, and flattened out the tiny creases. Wenqin was
a little insulted by this and remarked, ‘You really take
care of this cheongsam, don’t you? It won’t hurt it just to
touch it. Still, no wonder. You only have this one, don’t
you? I saw you wear it in the summer, too.’

Stung, the madwoman replied, ‘Who says I have only
one? I have six cheongsams: this white velvet one, then
there’s the red velvet, two of silk – they’re patterned – and
two that are cotton but look good anyway. So altogether I
have six cheongsams, only my husband cut up the other
five so this is the only one left.’

Wenqin was looking at her sideways, listening somewhat
doubtfully. Abruptly, she interrupted the madwoman,
asking, ‘Red velvet? Can you make cheongsams from red
velvet?’

The madwoman replied, ‘Naturally. They all say my red
velvet cheongsam is the one I look best in.’

Wenqin’s eyes lit up. ‘They
do
sell red velvet in the
fabric shop. And I won’t even need coupons – the clinic
bought some so we could make cloth flowers!’

Wenqin lingered on the bridge a moment longer. She
had now stopped staring at the madwoman and her
cheongsam, and instead she was looking around herself,
deep in calculation. She clapped her hands, reaching a
decision, and said, ‘I’ll go and buy it right now.’ With
that, she turned round and walked off the bridge.

At first, the madwoman didn’t realize what Wenqin
had gone to do; she was just waiting for Susu, but instead
of her daughter, once again it was Wenqin who appeared.
The madwoman watched her as she crossed the bridge
with a bolt of red velvet clasped in her arms. As she approached,
the madwoman asked, ‘What have you bought
all that red velvet for?’

Wenqin grasped her by the arm and said, ‘Do me a
favour. Come with me for a moment to the tailor’s. I
need you to lend me your cheongsam so Mr Li can make
a pattern from it.’ Strangely, whenever it was anything to
do with clothing or make-up, the madwoman cottoned
on right away. She stared at Wenqin, her eyes widening,
and protested, ‘No, I’m not going. I don’t want him to
make a pattern from my cheongsam.’

But Wenqin had clearly prepared for this. She caught
the madwoman’s hand tighter in her grasp. ‘Don’t be so
petty. I’m only borrowing it to make a pattern. It’s not as
if anything bad will happen to it. Besides, yours is white
velvet, mine is red – they’re different, don’t you see?’

But the madwoman kept trying to free her hand,
and said, ‘I don’t have time to go with you to the tailor’s.
I have to wait here for Susu; Susu’s about to leave school.’

Wenqin looked at her wristwatch, ‘Oh, nonsense. It’s
only three thirty now; much too early to leave school.
Don’t run away. People will think that I’m dragging
you off to do something awful.’ Still trying to subdue
the madwoman and protect herself from her flailing
hands, Wenqin finally managed to catch her tightly by
the elbow. In desperation, she grasped at straws and told
the madwoman, ‘I don’t mean to be unfair. If you do me
this favour, I’ll give you my black scarf with the golden
flowers. When you came for your injection, didn’t you
keep saying how you admired it?’

This one sentence carried more weight than the dozens
preceding it. Wenqin felt the madwoman’s resistance
fade away as soon as she finished speaking. A silk scarf
had conquered her. Her eyes glazed over for a moment,
as if she were trying to picture the scarf she had just
been promised. Then she laughed. ‘My cheongsam,
with a black silk scarf. A black silk scarf! Wouldn’t they
look smart together?’ She smiled at Wenqin, then said
abruptly, ‘Fine. I’ll hold you to that. And don’t tell me
you regret it later or I’ll think you’re a welcher.’

Now that it was already too late to take back her
promise, Wenqin was a little discomfited. Frowning, she
said, ‘Who says you’re soft in the head? You earn a silk
scarf just for lending me your cheongsam – seems to me
you’re shrewder than anyone else I know.’

At half past three in the afternoon, the madwoman
was seen following Wenqin off the bridge. With one
hand she gingerly held the hem of her cheongsam while
the other hand was clasped tightly in Wenqin’s. They
walked towards The East is Red Street. From the back,
they could have been two women of equal intellect,
their steps imbued with a similar grace. They looked like
sisters out for a walk.

Li the tailor had a hunched back. On his head he wore an
army cap, and a tape measure hung around his neck. He
was drowning in the shop’s disorder, the clothes and cloth
piled and hanging everywhere. The shop didn’t seem to
belong to the same era as the spotless street outside, and
Li’s apologetic expression acknowledged this. Whenever
a female customer entered, Li would rise obsequiously
from behind his sewing machine, like someone from
a grass-roots unit welcoming an important leader for a
visit. But it was different when Wenqin came; with her
he somehow achieved a surprising role reversal. As soon
as she arrived, he began acting like a spoiled woman
himself. At first he acted deliberately coy, tilting his head
to see who was standing behind her, and when he saw
that it was another woman, he heaved a sigh of relief and
asked, ‘So you’ve brought along another customer for me
today? That’s nice.’

Wenqin had brought not only a roll of red velvet, but
also a woman in a white velvet cheongsam. She prodded
the madwoman towards Li, and told him, somewhat incoherently,
‘Make me a cheongsam . . . a cheongsam! I’ve
talked to you about it before – the white velvet cheongsam.
I’ve even brought her along!’

‘A person is a person, a cheongsam is a cheongsam.
Tell me exactly what you want.’ First, though, the tailor
took a look at the strange woman: she was in her
thirties and pretty at first glance. But she did not bear
close examination well: at second glance she looked
strained, and yet a third revealed a kind of torpor in her.
The tailor’s eyes lit up, but she was not looking at him,
instead she was fanning herself and having a look about
the shop, casually criticizing all the clothes: ‘You call this
clothing? So ugly!’

The light in the tailor’s eyes faded and he stared hard
at her cheongsam. ‘I’m not dreaming, am I? Is history
going backwards now? I didn’t think anyone still showed
themselves in public looking like that!’

Wenqin, standing behind the madwoman, gestured to
her head, which the tailor misinterpreted. ‘Hard to deal
with, eh? What, you or her? I’m not afraid of difficult
customers – that’s for other people. You know all about
the quality of my work.’ Wenqin gave up, and without
further explanation threw the bolt of red velvet onto the
sewing table. Prodding the madwoman again, she said,
‘Take this as the pattern. Make me one like hers.’

‘What’s got into you? You want to have a cheongsam
made now? Well, I won’t do it. Even if I did, you’d never
dare wear it.’ The tailor seemed to want to keep her in
suspense. ‘Last time I made you bell-bottoms, but I
haven’t seen you wearing them.’

‘How do you know I haven’t worn them? I don’t wear
them for
you
,’ she started in a bullying tone, then suddenly
switched back to sweetness and light. ‘Oh, what does it
matter anyway? First, you’re not my boss, and second,
you’re not my husband. You’re my tailor, so your place is
just to do the job. Besides, where is it written that if I have
clothing made I have to wear it outside the house?’

‘I make clothes for you, and then you’re too scared to
wear them? I suppose you want to be named a model
worker, afraid of being criticized by your superiors?’ the
tailor said. ‘You mean you’ll only wear it at home? Just for
your husband? What a waste!’