by Su Tong
‘If it’s not right I’ll only pay you half your fee.’
The tailor didn’t respond to that but stood sideways on to her and measured every detail of the way Wenqin’s body corresponded to the cheongsam’s measurements. Identifying a problem, he suddenly took hold of something; it was one of the frog fastenings of the cheongsam.
‘I almost forgot – I’m going to have to take off one of these lute frogs. They’re really hard to make. If I don’t have one for the pattern, I can’t make them from scratch.’
This immediately made Wenqin anxious, and she rolled her eyes, warning him to bear in mind that the madwoman was behind the curtain. Then she lowered her voice to confer with him. ‘You can draw, can’t you? You can draw it now and make it from that.’
‘What a great idea!’ the tailor responded. ‘And then I’ll draw an aeroplane and make that too, shall I?’
This retort struck Wenqin dumb momentarily and she twisted her hands and said, ‘Then what are we going to do? I couldn’t bear to take one off. If she was normal, we could discuss it with her. But her mind’s gone and, besides, she’s petty; she’d never agree to it. What if you didn’t make lute frogs but some other nice ones instead?’ Before the tailor could even answer yes or no, Wenqin shook her head. ‘No, no. I really love these frogs. If I’m going to go to all this trouble to make a cheongsam, I can’t have just any fastenings.’
‘Well then, what should we do about telling her? Shoot first, ask questions later? Tell her after we’ve already gone through with it?’
Wenqin looked at the printed curtain, then at the tailor, gritted her teeth and said, ‘Take it off. In any case, we’ll sew it back on when we’re finished.’
The tailor picked up the razor blade near him and was about to cut the frog off when he hesitated and said quietly, ‘I don’t know. I’m a bit nervous about this. I mean, not only is her mind gone, this cheongsam is her life. If we take off a frog, don’t you think she might make a scene?’
Wenqin put one hand to her mouth. ‘My heart’s beating like mad,’ she said. ‘A beautiful thing like that . . . obviously it’s hers, but we’ll never get anywhere by asking her.’
The tailor blinked. He thought it over for a moment, then he found a safety pin and gave it to Wenqin, saying, ‘I’ll take the frog from the collar, it’ll be less noticeable. In a second you’ll have to fasten it for her with the safety pin. If we just keep talking, maybe we can get away with it.’
Wenqin was staring directly at the lute frog, her expression wavering between fear and resolve. I want this frog. I must have it, she thought, and in the end she said, ‘It’s not as if it’s important. I’m just borrowing it for a few days. Whether she notices or not, we’ll have to do it. Take it off.’
As evening approached, Wenqin and the madwoman were seen walking down The East is Red Street. The two women attracted attention in different ways. Naturally people noticed the white velvet cheongsam the madwoman was dressed in, and the sharper-eyed among them soon observed what was different about the madwoman’s collar. The safety pin totally ruined the elegant effect and made people burst out laughing. But because they knew all about the state of her mind, the bizarre appearance of a safety pin seemed perfectly reasonable and no one gave too much thought to the question of what had happened to the frog. The impression the madwoman had always given was that she loved to show off her elegant appearance, and now they assumed she had lost even her vanity. But no one really cared; let her wear whatever she felt like. Let her dress in a cheongsam if she wanted, and if she wanted to fasten it with a safety pin, then so be it.
Luckily, the walk passed without incident. When they reached Wenqin’s home on Sunflower Alley, she tried her luck. Tentatively she asked the madwoman, ‘Now, you can get home by yourself. You know the way, don’t you?’
But the madwoman was not fooled, she had a crystalclear recollection of the promise Wenqin had made. ‘The silk scarf. Your black scarf with the golden flowers, you promised to give it to me. You’re a welcher if you don’t.’
Wenqin rolled her eyes and said, ‘Your memory’s better than mine. Are you sure there’s anything wrong with you? It’s just a silk scarf; I’ll give it to you like I promised. Wait here, I’ll go in and get it.’
‘Oh no,’ the madwoman said. ‘What if you go in and don’t come back? I’m coming with you.’ Wenqin was growing angry. ‘What are you talking about? Just because you’re ill, you can’t go around behaving like this. Following me around like a little dog, sticking to my heels.’ Having raised her voice, Wenqin noticed that people were looking at them, so she adopted a milder tone and said, ‘My father-in-law’s ill in bed and not in any state to be seen. If you really don’t trust me you can come along, but you can’t go inside. My mother-in-law is very superstitious, she won’t let anyone like you into an invalid’s house.’
The madwoman stood outside the door of Wenqin’s house on Sunflower Alley. There were no sunflowers to be seen, but people had planted white, yellow and purple chrysanthemums on their windowsills and in their gardens, all of them half dead by now. As the madwoman waited for Wenqin’s silk scarf, she bowed her head to examine the chrysanthemums in front of the door; then, not satisfied with merely looking, she bent down to pick some. Just at that moment, a loud noise behind her gave her a fright. It was a little girl wearing a red neckerchief, who approached her while twirling a skipping rope. Girls in red neckerchiefs always reminded the madwoman of her daughter.
‘You’re not Susu. I thought you were my own girl, Susu.’ She ran after the skipping girl and asked, ‘What time is it? Do you know my daughter Susu? You’re out of school now, aren’t you?’
The girl stood still and stared at the madwoman in astonishment. First she looked at her face, then nervously she examined her cheongsam. ‘Why are you wearing a dress like that? That’s the sort of dress women spies wear in the movies!’
The madwoman said, ‘This isn’t a dress at all; it’s a cheongsam. Everybody used to wear them, before.’
The girl seemed only partly to understand this. Finally, her curious gaze rested on the madwoman’s collar. She pointed at the safety pin and said, ‘You’re so lazy! Why don’t you sew on a new button if the old one fell off? Why did you use a safety pin?’
The madwoman lifted her hand to her collar and let out the first sharp cry. By the time Wenqin came out with the silk scarf, the little girl who had provoked the disaster had vanished without trace, leaving only the madwoman. Her face was pale as snow, she had thrown the sandalwood fan to the ground, and her left hand gripped her collar tightly. Her right hand was pressed against her chest and she sent forth one sharp scream after another. Wenqin knew that there was no sense in denying the truth; the game was up. She was flustered now, too, and the neighbours were converging on the door to her home. But there was something that frightened Wenqin even more: as well as the missing frog, according to the madwoman’s choked cries, a gemencrusted brooch had also disappeared!
In her desperation, Wenqin forgot the madwoman’s precarious state of mind. She poked her in the face with one finger. ‘What brooch? What precious stones? That’s a malicious lie! I’ve never seen you wear any brooch.’ How could Wenqin be anything but flustered? The frog was a small affair – and it was true she bore responsibility for that, but it was only a frog, it didn’t really distress her – the brooch, on the other hand, was a catastrophe that had materialized out of thin air. How could Wenqin fail to be confused? And in her confusion, she began to abuse the victim: ‘What butterfly brooch? What precious stones? You loony! Be mad if you want to, but you needn’t try and con me while you’re at it.’
The incident that became known as ‘the time the madwoman raised Cain’ consisted of the events of that early evening. In fact, the madwoman did not raise Cain; she merely gave sharp cries and wept. Everybody there learned from her cries that she had lost two articles: a frog fastening and a brooch. Although exquisite, the frog was only a dress fastening; but the brooch sounded rar
e and valuable, and its loss accounted for the gravity of the situation. Everyone looked at Wenqin with eyes that demanded an explanation. Then the madwoman seized a part of her dress, as if that would make her produce the missing belongings, and refused to let go; meanwhile, Wenqin refused to explain. She held a black scarf in her hands which she tried to wrap around the madwoman’s neck; but the madwoman wouldn’t accept it, and the impression given was that she was refusing some kind of bribe. Soon the women were fighting, madly entwined, accompanied by sharp screams from them both.
Wenqin’s pretty face flushed red as a pig’s liver with fury. ‘She’s mad! Mad! You all know that!’ She tried to shake off the madwoman and raised one hand to make an oath to her neighbours: ‘She’s sick in the head, but you aren’t. I’ll tell you what really happened. I borrowed the frog to make a pattern from it. But this brooch or whatever, that’s her madness talking. If I’ve ever seen this brooch of hers, may lightning strike me down!’
At one point, Wenqin’s husband Luo came out and tried to part the two women, but to no avail. He took no further steps, apparently thinking of the undignified impression it would make, and instead stood by with a sombre expression on his face and his hands on his hips. That was all he could do as the women flew at one another; for whenever women fight, no man can feasibly intervene, much less if one woman is the Mahogany Street madwoman and the man a cadre in the Ministry of Health. Luo heard the madwoman crying. His wife was crying too, and as she cried she turned around to reproach him, ‘Luo, you wimp! Why don’t you do something to make this loony go away? Hurry up and make her go away!’
Luo rubbed his hands, took a step forward and grabbed the madwoman with one hand. But then, realizing he couldn’t bear the loss of face, he retracted it again. The next moment the neighbours saw him clap himself on the forehead – evidently he had found a solution to the problem. They watched him run down the alley, a few children at his heels. They all ran down to the public phone outside the general store – apparently Luo’s solution was going to be found at the end of the phone line – and the children listened as he made the call, instructing someone to dispatch an ambulance right away. Who was the patient? Luo bawled into the receiver, ‘What do you mean, is it high blood pressure? Is it heart disease? What do you mean, is it serious? If it weren’t serious, would I be calling you? Since you have the nerve to ask, it’s a loony, a wild loony on the loose, making a scene in front of my house.’
Eventually a white ambulance drove down Sunflower Alley. By that time the sky was almost pitch black and the ambulance lights worked like searchlights, lighting up Sunflower Alley so it seemed as bright as day. The lights dazzled Wenqin, and on her despairing face arose the dawn of triumph. The light shone on the neighbours gathered for the spectacle and they looked stunned; one by one they blinked and began whispering to one another. When the lights hit the madwoman’s face she lifted one hand. It looked like surrender, but at the same time as if she was struggling against the light. It was then that the people in Sunflower Alley heard the madwoman emit the most forlorn of all her cries; it came like a thunderclap from a clear sky. The people couldn’t help but cover their ears; cover their ears and watch the madwoman as she tried to escape. She ran a few steps forward – but the ambulance was in front of her; so she ran a few steps back – but the people were behind her. The madwoman, lost to any sense of shame by now, sat down on the ground, covered her face with her hands and cried. She kicked her feet; she even kicked off her T-bar leather shoes, and said, ‘I’m not going to cry. You can have my frog, you can have my brooch, just don’t come over here. I beg you, don’t come over here. Don’t come over here.’
But those who had to come over came over. Three men jumped out of the ambulance; they were wearing white suits and surgical masks, and one of them even had a length of rope in his hands. They seemed prepared for the patient to resist, but now that it was actually happening, the madwoman had lost all her strength. She just curled up into a ball and her whole body shuddered violently. She said, ‘I beg you, don’t come over here.’ She raised one hand, meaning initially to ward them off, but in effect meekly presenting them with it. She said, ‘Susu’s out of school. I should go home.’ With this, she raised another hand, and thereby gave that up, too. In the end, the madwoman ended up cooperating with the ambulancemen. The people on Sunflower Alley watched as two of them lifted her into the ambulance. The third looked to be very strong, but he wasn’t going to be needed today. He was the one who took the T-bar shoes from Wenqin’s hands and put them inside the ambulance.
Most intelligent people know where an ambulance would carry a madwoman, but some people are born stupid, and they ran after the ambulance asking, ‘Hey! Where you going to take her?’ And the people in the ambulance answered, ‘Where do you think? Sanli Bridge, of course.’
Sanli Bridge was about twenty kilometres from Mahogany Street. To get from here to Sanli means changing buses three times, and in the end you have to take the suburban line from the South Gate. People younger than me all know that Sanli Bridge is ancient and seven-arched. Under the bridge is a white building with a red-tiled roof; that’s the activity centre for retired cadres. What they don’t know is that under Sanli Bridge there used to be a shady patch of willows, and that there among the willows there used to be a mental hospital. So ‘going to Sanli Bridge’ didn’t mean going to the actual bridge, it meant under it. Just a simple rhetorical technique; I expect you know that.
Weeping Willow
Even when he had long since passed the scene of the accident, near the village of Siqian, the driver remained badly shaken.
The highway in the rain was a lonely stretch of road. Outside the lorry’s windows the sky was the colour of lead and the rain drummed down without interruption. The wipers swung feebly to and fro and there was a constant but irregular flow of water on the windscreen. In the rear-view mirror the road seemed like a black tide pursuing his lorry, which was buffeted by the wind and rain like a solitary boat. Also reflected in the rear-view mirror was his face, wan and fatigued, with traces of sweat faintly visible on his forehead, and an expression, a look in the eyes, that showed he had not yet recovered from the shock. He had a feeling like carsickness, or more precisely seasickness. He felt as if the road was tossing him up on sky-high waves. In his long career as a driver, this was the first time the highway had provoked such feelings of profound dread.
The rain still hadn’t stopped, but once he turned off and drove through a mountain pass the drops became noticeably smaller; the sound of the rain hitting the corn leaves was no longer so pronounced and the swift current of a river could be heard above it. The sky was still dark to the north, but towards the south it had become both bluer and brighter. Now, a few shabby red-brick sheds appeared ahead of him on the left, the sonorous voice of a pop singer drifting faintly from them. It was a song praising the highlands of Qinghai and Tibet. The driver knew he had reached Weeping Willow. He had passed through here a year earlier and the tape player had played that same song all day long: ‘Oh, the highlands of Qinghai, and the highlands of Tibet.’ Today it was still the same song, but these were neither the highlands of Qinghai, nor those of Tibet. Weeping Willow was a place that survived by serving long-distance drivers and which consisted of three roadside establishments. One was the petrol station, one the general store for cigarettes, alcohol and food, and the last a cross between a restaurant and an inn. The restaurant boldly fronted the road, while the inn was half-hidden behind it. Local people had told him they were all one business, belonging to the same woman.
A girl in a green miniskirt stood beneath an umbrella, trying to stop vehicles and attract customers. She extended one of her arms from under the umbrella in a gesture intended to be seductive, but which looked more like a traffic policeman ordering vehicles to proceed. The girl stood with her legs apart and exposed below her skirt. They were half light, half dark and extremely eyecatching. The driver took a long look at her and realized that it was because she
was wearing black silk stockings, onto which were sewn glimmering mock pearls, like a patch of starlit night.
‘Hey, big boy. Have a drink and relax for a while.’ The girl gestured to him, and after she had finished, she covered her mouth and giggled.
The driver was used to gestures of this kind and didn’t respond immediately, letting his eyes wander between the girl’s face and the road, undecided. It was his hand that took the lead and chose to stop by pulling the brake. The driver’s mind obeyed his hand and his tightly wound body suddenly slumped forward over the steering wheel. ‘All right, I’ll rest here for a while.’ The driver knew his own nature, and was quite astonished by the way the girl’s invitation had been able to calm him down so quickly. As he was backing in and parking the lorry, he studied his face again in the rear-view mirror: although it was still pale, his eyes were already more lively, shining with obscure expectations, filled with intense light.
The girl was rather childish, and her graceful smile seemed both ingratiating and shy. She demonstrated great interest in his cargo, standing on tiptoe to look in the back of the lorry. When she saw that it was empty, she was evidently disappointed, and exclaimed, ‘Empty! The guest who just left had a lorry jammed with Coke!’
The driver said, ‘So what? It’s not as if he let you have any.’
The girl didn’t yet understand how men’s flirtatious small talk worked and concluded mistakenly that he was making fun of her. She closed the umbrella and shook off the water. ‘I wouldn’t drink it even if they did give it to me. It tastes like cough syrup. Totally gross,’ she murmured.
Weeping Willow looked the same as it had a year before. The muddy ground in front of the restaurant was rutted with tyre tracks, which turned into countless puddles of differing sizes as soon as it rained. By the garage wall was a mountainous pile of wet, discarded tyres. A few chickens that belonged to the restaurant wandered among the puddles, looking perhaps for something to eat.
