Madwoman On the Bridge and Other Stories

Su Tong

TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE BY JOSH STENBERG

The madwoman was wearing a white velvet cheongsam,
and in her hand she held a sandalwood fan. Standing on
the bridge, she revelled in her own elegance. For those who
knew her this was not at all surprising, but other passersby
assumed she was an actress here to shoot some footage.
She gazed around her and raised her fan to wave at the
children going past, but they ignored her. The boys stuck
out their tongues and grimaced, hoping to frighten her,
while the girls pointed at her cheongsam and, whispering
confidentially, paid no further attention to her.

They were like lively clouds, floating one by one across
the bridge, only to disperse at the slightest puff of wind.
The madwoman’s constant companion was a pot of
chrysanthemums, which stood watch over the bridge
with her. November chrysanthemums: from a distance,
they seemed still to be in bloom, but up close you could
see how they dropped. Just like the madwoman. At first
glance she seemed beautiful, but closer scrutiny revealed
that she was as faded as her flowers.

The madwoman on the bridge appeared very lonely,
unbearably so in fact, for she kept twisting her head and
body this way and that, looking from side to side. Her
brow furrowed as she glanced over at Mahogany Street,
on the near side of the bridge, then mumbled something
which sounded like a complaint. What was she complaining
about? Or whom? No one cared.

Besides the pot of chrysanthemums, her intimacy
extended only to the sandalwood fan. All those who
knew her were familiar with this article: it was dark
yellow, threaded with gold and had green tassels hanging
from the handle. You could smell its fragrance from far
away. Although the season for using sandalwood fans
was already long past, the madwoman clutched hers
whenever she went out. She spread the fan so it shaded
her brow; golden strips of sunlight slatted her pale
countenance. At times it looked like dazzling make-up,
at others like terrible scars.

Occasionally, when the figure of an acquaintance
floated towards her over the bridge, the madwoman’s
dim eyes would glint suddenly, and her whole body
would set itself in motion to strike a seductive pose. She
would wave at them with her fan, slowly undulating her
svelte waist in greeting. Then she would poke playfully at
their hands with her fan and say, ‘Oh, the heat. I’m just
burning up.’ At this point, whoever she addressed would
avert their face and glance towards the bridge. They wore
impatient expressions, for they were normal people, and
normal people pay no attention to madwomen. They just
waved her away unfeelingly and hurried from the bridge.
To be honest, there weren’t very many people on our
street who embodied the warm-hearted spirit of revolutionary
humanitarianism. I don’t know whether the old
woman from Shaoxing was one of these or not, and it
doesn’t much matter now either way, but I do know that
the Shaoxing woman stayed on the bridge that afternoon
to talk to the madwoman; she stayed for quite a long
time.

The old Shaoxing woman had bound feet, but still
undertook to deliver milk to the whole of Mahogany
Street. Since feet were bound for aesthetic delight rather
than practicality, the Shaoxing woman had trouble
walking, and had to pause every few metres as she
pushed her little cart. She shouted rhythmically as she
walked to keep her spirits up. Her afternoon was devoted
to collecting the empty bottles, and as she hobbled
along, she groaned for people to bring them out. Today
the Shaoxing woman had about thirty bottles as she
tottered onto the bridge.

As usual, the madwoman remarked, ‘Oh, the heat. I’m
just burning up.’

The Shaoxing woman took a handkerchief from her
bosom to wipe away the sweat and replied nonchalantly,
‘Yes, I’m sweating like a pig.’ Suddenly she realized who
she was speaking to and cried out in surprise, ‘Oh, what
are you doing here? Why aren’t you at home like you
should be? What did you come here for?’

The madwoman opened her fan and wafted it a few
times, saying, ‘It was so hot, I came to the bridge for the
breeze.’

The Shaoxing woman gave her a hard look and, sizing
up the situation in an instant, said, ‘I don’t think so. It
looks more like you were worried your cheongsam might
go mouldy in its chest, so you thought you’d come here
to show yourself off. Do you know what season this
is? You must think it’s still summer, coming out here
wearing your cheongsam and waving that fan around.
Winter’s coming on, you know!’

The madwoman seemed unconvinced; she looked
up at the sky, then reached out one hand to pass it
over the chrysanthemums. ‘Summer’s over? But the
chrysanthemums are still blooming. How could summer
be over?’ she mumbled to herself. Then, suddenly, her
eyes lit up as she asked, ‘When will winter start? When it
does, I should wear my fox-fur coat.’

The Shaoxing woman gave a startled sound and
replied, ‘How can you still bother yourself with things
like that? Haven’t you been through enough already?
Look at you, all dressed up and looking like a fright.
That’s what made them terrorize you in the first
place – and that’s what made you ill. Don’t you understand?’

The madwoman did not, and remarked, ‘With the
fox-fur coat I’d have to wear matching boots . . . What a
shame they stole my lambskin boots.’

The thought of her lost finery caused a mournful expression
to appear on her face. She walked a melancholy
circle around the Shaoxing woman’s cart, then another.
‘No more high-heeled shoes,’ she said with a glance at
her feet. ‘No more jade bracelets,’ she said with a glance
at her wrists. ‘No silk stockings either,’ she said, stroking
her knees.

The Shaoxing woman couldn’t suppress a cry of protest,
‘They’re gone, and rightly so! Otherwise you’d probably
be dead by now! Don’t you understand?’

The madwoman did not and lowered her head to study
the milk bottles in the cart, or more specifically the
multicoloured silk threads wound around the empty
mouths of the bottles. ‘Look how pretty those threads
are,’ she said. ‘Won’t you give them to me so I can weave
Susu an egg cosy? At mid-autumn festival next year we
can hang salted eggs in it.’

But the Shaoxing woman protested. ‘You’re not
going to make a fool of me again. Last year I washed
all those threads and gave them to you, and what
happened? Before you even got home, you’d given them
all away. Susu didn’t get a single one, poor thing. What a
shame such a sensible girl is saddled with a mother like
you!’

The Shaoxing woman was old and her vision fading.
She hadn’t noticed at first that the madwoman was
wearing a brooch. But when she bent down to put
the milk bottles in order and looked up again at the
madwoman, she caught sight of something on her
chest: something sparkling, glistening in the sun. It
was quite dazzling, and the Shaoxing woman gazed at
it vacantly for a moment in disbelief. ‘Oh, no! Whatever
possessed you to go out with that on? A treasure like that
. . . it cost your grandmother a bar of gold. Quick, take
it off!’

It had taken a moment for the Shaoxing woman to
realize what she was seeing. Now she rushed towards
the madwoman and clutched her by shoulders. The
madwoman raised her sandalwood fan and tried to fend
her off, cheongsam rustling as she swayed this way and
that to evade those grubby, gnarled hands. The fan was
beautiful but impractical as a weapon, and the slippery
white velvet cheongsam even less threatening. In the end
the madwoman was no match for the Shaoxing woman,
and she stood with her arms by her sides and suffered the
brooch to be removed.

It was a remnant of a bygone era, a butterfly-shaped
brooch executed with exquisite craftsmanship. The
butterfly’s wings were outlined in blue enamel and inlaid
with several gemstones shaped like grains of rice. Its
precious wings dominated the front of the cheongsam,
secured at the back by a clasp, skilfully designed to
prevent theft. No matter how hard she tried, the Shaoxing
woman was unable to undo it.

‘Who made this? They must have made it so difficult
to undo on purpose,’ she complained, then she went
on to complain about the madwoman: ‘And what can
I say about you? I don’t care how vain you are, or how
much you love to wear your cheongsam, you mustn’t
ever wear this brooch when you go out. I know just
about every stick your family owns, and the only
valuable thing left is this brooch. If you lose it, it’ll be
too late to start wailing. Now help me take it off. I’m not
going to swipe it, I’ll just take care of it for you and give
it to Susu tomorrow.’

Still the madwoman didn’t cooperate, and the Shaoxing
woman practically had to force the brooch off. Finally
she tore some sealing paper off a milk bottle, wrapped
the brooch in it, and concealed it in her bosom. ‘There
are lots of bad people about, looking to prey on people
like you. Don’t you understand?’ The Shaoxing woman
peered vigilantly all around and, finding no bad people
in sight, gave a sigh of relief. Brusquely she nudged the
madwoman towards the end of the bridge with the cart,
saying, ‘On a chilly day like this, you shouldn’t stand out
here and freeze. Go home now, go home.’

But the madwoman obdurately refused, saying, ‘I’ve
lost my key. I’m going to wait here for Susu and go home
with her.’

The Shaoxing woman frowned at her. ‘Even if you’re ill,
how can you just forget from one day to the next how to
do the simplest things? What does it matter if you don’t
have the key, just go next door to Li Sannian’s, and climb
in through your window from their courtyard.’

But the madwoman shook her head, and said, ‘I won’t
go to Li Sannian’s. They won’t let me. His wife says, "The
troll! The troll’s coming!" as soon as she sees me, and
their youngest son starts crying and throws things at
me.’

It took a moment before the Shaoxing woman understood
this, but then she remarked levelly, ‘You can’t really
blame them, not when you get yourself all dolled up like
that. If a child ran into you in the dark, of course he’d
think you were a troll. But grown-ups shouldn’t say these
things; it’s wrong to bully someone like you. I’ll take you
home. We’ll go through Li Sannian’s together, and see if
she dares swear at you then.’

But the madwoman persisted shaking her head, saying,
‘I won’t go through her house. I can’t climb through the
window. I’m wearing my cheongsam; I can’t get through
the window.’

‘Well,
that
‘s true enough. A thing like that is no good
for anything but making an exhibition of yourself.’
The Shaoxing woman glared disapprovingly at the
madwoman’s cheongsam. She fingered the neckline for
a moment and patted the waist. Then she asked, ‘Can
it be comfortable to wear it that tight? It’s really more
than just ordinary vanity with you, isn’t it? I was just
remembering how, when you were young, you used to
wear a cheongsam even when you went to measure out
the rice. Wiggling along, carrying the rice in a straw
bag.’

The madwoman objected, ‘It wasn’t a straw bag. It was
a woven craft bag. They were made for export, but I got
one surplus.’

‘A straw bag for export is still a straw bag – don’t try
and impress me with your fancy foreign garbage,’ the
Shaoxing woman retorted harshly, ‘The reason you’ve
had such hard luck is that your thinking is rotten through
and through. If you think wrong, you act wrong, you rub
people up the wrong way. It’s not all your own fault that
you’re ill, though, half of it is your own problem and
half is other people’s. If I were your mother-in-law,’ the
Shaoxing woman ran on, lifting one hand as if to hit her,
‘I would beat you. I’d beat you every day, and when I was
tired I’d get my son to beat you. I might beat you half to
death, but at least I’d make sure you knew how to be a
good wife!’

The madwoman reacted instinctively to the Shaoxing
woman’s hostile tone and gesture, retreating and raising
one hand as if to shield herself. The Shaoxing woman
was usually so kind: why would she want to hit her?
The madwoman could not distinguish between rhetoric
and reality. Bewildered, she backed away from the cart,
and the hem of her cheongsam caught under one of its
wheels. The madwoman cried out loudly and freed the
hem, craning her neck to examine it for grime. Just then,
a bespectacled man was passing by. He jumped off his
bicycle and eyed her for a moment, then he grinned,
straddled his bike again and rode off.

When the madwoman noticed the man, her eyes
kindled and she waved vigorously after his retreating
figure: ‘Mr Zhang! A real scorcher, isn’t it?’ It distracted
him and he made as if to stop, then decided against it,
the hesitation nearly causing him to fall off. He had to
put his foot down hurriedly, coming to a stop by the
end of the bridge. The madwoman and the Shaoxing
woman both looked at the man, or rather at his back.
He was clad in khaki trousers and a tunic, with sagging
shoulders. The strange, sunken-looking figure hesitated
for a long moment on the bridge before glancing back
with undisguised interest, but in the end he kept silent
and rode hurriedly away.

‘Do you know him? And if you don’t, why did you call
him Mr Zhang?’ the Shaoxing woman asked, looking
after his receding figure reproachfully. Then she turned
back to the madwoman. ‘See how you’re always accosting
people? No wonder they say you act badly. You’re
indecent, that’s what you are.’

The madwoman exclaimed, ‘Who’s indecent? You’re
the indecent one. I know him. Mr Zhang – he was the
make-up man for the ensemble. He used to do my make-up.’

‘Make-up, make-up! Is that all you can talk about?’ All
the time, the Shaoxing woman was nudging the madwoman
towards the end of the bridge, saying, ‘You have
a nerve, calling a woman
my
age indecent. Still, your
mind’s gone soft, and I’m not going to quibble with you.
You doll yourself up like that and stand on the bridge if
you want to. What do you think you look like? A painting?
That would be all right – a painting for people to
look at – but why is this painting looking back at
them
?
Do you have any idea how people think these days?
There are so many bad sorts. If they gang up on you, you
won’t be able to report them, and even if you did, they’d
ignore you. Why don’t you go home?’