Madwoman On the Bridge and Other Stories (9 page)

As you will all have guessed, it was the key. The key to
wind up the little red train! I remember that it was very
wet, though whether from sweat or the rain I couldn’t
say. I was very surprised; I hadn’t expected things to end
like that. Even now I feel surprised by the way it ended. I
wonder what Tan Feng meant by it?

None of the man’s friends seemed willing to answer the
question. They were silent for a moment, and then someone
asked Yu Yong, ‘Do you still have the train?’

He said, ‘No, not for a long time now. On the third day
after we got to Wuhan, my parents packed it up in a box
and sent it back to Dr He.’

Someone said awkwardly, ‘That’s really too bad.’

Yu Yong laughed and replied, ‘Yes, I suppose. But you
have to consider it from my parents’ point of view. How
could they have agreed to conceal stolen goods? How could
they have let me become a thief?’

It was last winter that the folklorist paid his visit to
the village of Eight Pines. Carrying his rucksack by the
straps, he jumped off the public bus from the city and
started walking north-east. The road was covered in a
thin layer of fine snow which, from afar, assumed a light-blue
tint; shadows from the winding lines of high-voltage
wires and telephone poles chequered the surface evenly.
Occasionally, flocks of birds passed over the man’s head:
sudden, but orderly nonetheless. The folklorist walked
towards Eight Pines. By now, he too has become part of
the landscape of my memory.

By the entrance to the village, an old man sat on the
ground mending a large ceramic urn, his kit bag lying to
one side. A tiny, dark red flame licked at a piece of melting
tin; the smell of it crept through the air, which otherwise
held only the crispness that comes after snowfall. The old
man grasped a tin clamp with his tongs and squatted to
examine the urn for cracks, but hearing the crunch of
footsteps in the snow, he interrupted his work and glanced
behind him. He saw a stranger walking towards Eight
Pines, then turning back to the task in hand, he took no
further notice of him. Spitting on a crack in the urn, he
exerted all his strength to force the clamp inside; it held
for only a moment before falling into the fire. The old man
frowned, and as he did so he discovered the stranger was
now standing behind him, gazing intently at the urn.

‘I held it in too long, now it’s gone too soft,’ the old
man explained.

‘What period is it from?’ asked the folklorist.

‘What?’ said the old man.

‘The urn.’ The folklorist flicked the side of it with his
index finger and a clear ringing resounded from it. Then
he observed, ‘Dragon-and-phoenix pattern.
Longfeng
.
Qing Dynasty.’

The old man picked up another clamp with his tongs,
and this time it fitted easily into the crack, filling it. He
grinned at the folklorist and said, ‘There! That’s the way
to do it! I’ve been mending pottery for fifty years now all
around these parts. Where are you from?’

‘The city. Is this Eight Pines?’

‘More or less. What brings you here?’

‘I collect folk stories.’ The academic had hesitated before
answering, thinking that an old man from the countryside
might not understand what he meant by that.

‘Then you’ll need to find a storyteller. Who do you
have in mind?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know anyone here yet.’

‘You should look for Wulin.’ The old man grinned
again. Then he bent over to blow out the fire and
repeated, ‘Go and look for Wulin. He has stories coming
out of his ears.’

The folklorist rested one hand on the urn and gazed
around at the village in winter. The sun shone dimly
on the paddies which were turning dry and white. The
trees, scattered among the graves and ditches, had all let
their leaves fall, and there was nothing to be seen of the
pines he had envisaged. The most striking thing about
the scene was a solitary scarecrow among the paddies,
blackening with age, wearing a straw hat, in whose brim
an intrepid bird had pecked holes.

Apparently the folklorist stayed in a classroom at the
primary school. There are no hostels of any kind in Eight
Pines, so that’s where outsiders are generally housed. You
can sleep on the desks free of charge, but you have to be
out by the time the morning bell rings. So in the mornings,
the folklorist put on his rucksack and set out from the
primary school. He demonstrated a particular interest
in the village’s recessed doorways, walking in and out,
examining them. His face was very pale and his upper lip
clean-shaven; this, along with his beige anorak and the
rucksack, made a deep impression on all the locals.

Before long, some of the older villagers of Eight Pines
were relating what they knew of the area’s remaining
customs while the folklorist took notes. They would
sit in front of the village tavern’s stove, eating meat
and drinking rice wine. By paying for everything, the
folklorist was able to reap a new harvest every day. Once,
remembering what the old man on the edge of the village
had told him about Wulin, he asked the old people,
‘Which one of you is Wulin?’ The strange thing was that
none of them could recall any such person, but then one
of the old men, looking startled, called out, ‘I remember!
Wulin . . . Wulin the ghost! But he’s been dead almost
sixty years. He’s the one who drew the ghost, back when
they used to cast lots for them.’

That was how the folklorist discovered that Eight Pines
had once had a custom of casting ingot-shaped lots to
designate a ‘man-ghost’. Immediately he sensed that this
was likely to be the most valuable find of his research.
He told the old people to take their time and give him a
complete account of the practice, but they were all over
eighty and expressed themselves so vaguely that he was
only able to note down these brief impressions:

Notes

The custom of ghost-casting in Eight Pines was passed
down from ancient times until the thirteenth year of the
Republic
⁵
. The ceremony, held once every three years,
consisted of choosing a human sacrifice from among the
living in deference to the dead ancestors of the clan. All
the people of the village gathered for the ceremony at the
clan hall. Small ingots made of tinfoil were placed on the
altar and unwrapped, one by one, by an elder. A single
ingot was marked with the outline of a ghost, and the
villager who drew this became the man-ghost. The man-ghost
was then wrapped in white cloth, thrown into the
large
longfeng
urn and beaten to death with sticks.

The folklorist was not particularly satisfied with these
sketchy notes. Never in his entire career had he encountered
such an appalling custom. In the heat of the tavern
stove, his thoughts began to race feverishly, and finally
it occurred to him that the ideal way of recording this
custom for posterity would be to recreate it. Turning to a
white-haired old man, he asked, ‘Do you recall how the
ceremony used to be performed?’

The old man replied, ‘I remember it very clearly. No
way of forgetting.’

‘Well then, why don’t we cast lots for a ghost, just so I
can get a sense of it?’ said the folklorist.

The old man laughed merrily. ‘You can’t cast lots for
ghosts any more.’

But the folklorist bought more bottles of rice wine and
meat dishes and placed them in front of the old people,
saying, ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll do it just for fun. But
I need you to help me a little, all right?’

From what I hear they were quick to consent, setting
the winter solstice as the date and the elementary
school as the location for the ceremony’s re-enactment.
The arrangements were made in accordance with their
recollections: they said that ghost-casting had always
been conducted on the winter solstice, and that the
school had been constructed on the grounds of what had
once been the clan temple.

The weather preceding the solstice was chill but humid,
and as the thin layer of snow melted into the black mud,
the village recovered its former austere appearance. With
the snow gone, barefoot farmers began to venture out
into the paddies. They gathered the dried rice straw that
had fallen throughout the autumn, and hurried home
with it. Only the scarecrow stood still, watching over the
frozen endless lands.

At the edge of the village, the folklorist saw the urn
once again. It was listing slightly and an inch of water had
accumulated in the base – melted snow, he presumed. He
bent over to feel the moulded
longfeng
pattern of dragons
and phoenixes, and then, giving it a few raps, said to himself,
‘This must have been the urn.’ The cracks had now all
been filled by teeth-like tin clamps sunk solidly into the
fissures. He nearly burnt his fingers on them, they were
still scalding hot. He looked around and glimpsed the old
pottery-mender with his kit bag, passing behind a grave
mound and gradually disappearing from view.

‘Wulin,’ murmured the folklorist, remembering the
ghost of sixty years ago. Then he couldn’t stop himself
from laughing out loud. He walked around the urn once
more; it was like walking into an older era in village life.
It seemed as if the urn, which had once held corpses, was
revolving on its base behind him. The fantastic customs
of this village were provoking his imagination to greater
and greater heights.

‘Wulin.’ Now he stretched his hand into the urn and
felt the imaginary outline of Wulin’s wrecked skull. It
was a mixture of blood and flesh, like jellyfish floating
on the surface of the water. Removing his hand from
the urn, he shook it to rid himself of the sensation, but
nothing came off. Of course there was nothing in the urn
but an inch of melted snow, and beneath that grey-brown
moss. Nothing else. He hadn’t even really believed the
illusion. Nevertheless, he couldn’t help but wonder
about the old man who had given him that useless, even
malicious piece of advice to look for Wulin, a dead man,
and ask him to tell stories.

The folklorist examined the fingers he had put in the
urn, but there was nothing unusual about them except
for their bloodless pallor; the result of the weather and
his own anaemia.

At the winter solstice, the ghost-casting ceremony was
re-enacted at Eight Pines. Some of the participants were
old people who had come spontaneously, and through
the help of the village council, the folklorist had managed
to assemble even more of the local people. The folklorist
wanted the ceremony to be as realistic as possible, saying
that for him the best thing would have been to go back in
time sixty years.

The altar was formed by pushing together school desks
in a long line on the dirt floor. The villagers lit several
candles and set these on the altar, along with offerings
of meat, fish and dried fruits. More troublesome was the
question of the foil ingots. Since there were approximately
three hundred villagers, it was necessary to make that
many ingots to put on the altar. The folklorist helped the
old people as they rolled the foil into shape. Finally, on
the paper lining of one of the sheets of foil, he sketched
the outline of a ghost in red ink. This he gave to the
venerable white-haired old man who rolled the foil into
an ordinary-looking ingot and threw it on the pile. Next,
four people standing with their backs to the table mixed
up the shimmering pile of ingots. Numbering over three
hundred by now, these were arranged in a single long
line, which wound from one end of the altar to the other,
ceremonially confronting the villagers.

The villagers waiting to draw ingots stood solemnly
in a similar winding line and filed gradually towards
the altar. One after another, each of the villagers took
an ingot and gave it to the old man. He unfolded each
in turn, spreading it out on his palm. It was a long and
solemn procedure and the villagers kept their eyes fixed
on the old man, waiting for him to raise one of the pieces
of foil above his head and say, ‘The ghost. This one’s the
ghost.’

The folklorist’s place was towards the end of the line,
and while he proceeded towards the altar he paid close
attention to the events unfolding ahead. The villagers
were passing one by one through the old man’s hands;
the ghost was proving slow to appear. A thought occurred
to the folklorist, but he dismissed it as too improbable.
Shaking his head, he continued shuffling slowly towards
the altar. Reaching it, he took one of the ingots, just like
all the villagers had: there weren’t many left, but he had
to choose one of them. As he walked up to the old man,
he saw that there were thin white streaks of light, like
snow, shining in his long beard, and as the old man held
out his hand to take the ingot, it too was streaked with
grey-white rays of light. The eerie sight made the folklorist
shudder. Giving the old man the ingot he had selected, he
thought, That’s not possible. It would be too theatrical.
But he saw that the same light was now shining from the
old man’s eyes too. He opened the ingot and raised it
slowly above his head. Then the folklorist clearly heard
the old man’s voice, brimming with emotion.

‘The ghost. This one’s the ghost.’

The folklorist laughed. He felt light-headed, although
he knew there was no good reason to be. He turned
around to face the now restless crowd. Laughing, he
said, ‘Isn’t that funny? I’m the ghost.’ At this point, four
men rushed out from behind the old man, dragging a
large sheet behind them. They wrapped the folklorist
in it from head to foot and, lifting the bundle, ran
outside. Initially the folklorist retained his composure
at this turn of events, but when he heard their wild, earsplitting
cries, he began to feel afraid. Summoning all his
strength, he cried out, ‘Where are we going? Where are
you taking me?’

The ghost-bearers answered, ‘To the
longfeng
urn!
How could you forget? It was your idea!’ At this the
folklorist calmed down again. Through the white sheet
he could dimly see a dense crowd of villagers running
along like madmen. Some of them were shouting, ‘The
ghost! The ghost!’ He was being carried above Eight
Pines now, soaring, flying over the village. Suddenly he
remembered the old man at the urn who had mentioned
Wulin’s name. The memory made his heart skip a beat.
The ghost-bearers gradually picked up speed. They were
heading to the urn so quickly that their feet barely
touched the ground. The folklorist could dimly see the
great urn, with its cracks and clamps, its inch of melted
snow and moss. He suddenly called out sharply, ‘No! Put
me down! Put me down right now!’

Finally, the ghost-bearers and the crowd stood still
and set the folklorist down. They unwound him from
the enfolding sheet, and when his face emerged it was
deathly pale. He kicked himself free from the sheet,
brushed down his clothes and hair and told the village
elder, ‘This is purely a re-enactment. It’s not real. I
research folk customs. I am not a ghost.’