Su Tong - Madwoman On the Bridge and Other Stories

‘The water demon! The water demon’s coming,’ she shouted.

Although the shadows on the bridge swayed a little, no one responded. The girl began to be really afraid and started to bolt back along the bank. The flashlight in her hand swung wildly back and forth, and as she ran she saw the river running silently beneath her feet. The water in the darkness was darker and deeper than the night as she carried on running across the newly built pier. She could hear the sound of her rapid breathing, but she could hear the breathing of the water demon, too. It was there! Her sandals were suddenly held down by something. She screamed and looked down at her feet, but it was only the drying cement; her sandals had got stuck. At the same time she heard a burst of jumbled noises from the water and caught sight of a shape emerging from the dark water, dripping with glistening algae. The girl gave another piercing scream as she saw the labourer with the plank who she had seen on the bridge.

‘The demon! The water demon! The water demon!’ she screamed.

The man was holding something in his hands.

‘The demon! The water demon! The demon!’

If the young men on the bridge had believed in the legend of the water demon, they might have testified to the Deng girl’s story, but they did not. That was what made the account, which was at first only a few sentences from the girl, into a real story.

On that night, at about nine o’clock, they had dimly heard sounds coming from the new pier. One of them had wanted to go and see what was happening, but was prevented from doing so by one of his friends, who had said, ‘What water demon? Don’t pay any attention to that stupid girl. She’s just screaming for the sake of it.’

So they stayed on the bridge smoking and shooting the breeze. Later, at about ten o’clock, they saw the girl coming towards them. They didn’t know what had happened, but they did notice that she was totally wet and that she held something cupped in her hands. None of them had wanted to acknowledge her, but she seemed to be crying. The youths on the bridge ran over to her. She looked as though she’d only just got out of the water. She was crying as she approached them on the bridge, and in her hands was a lotus flower. A very large, red lotus flower. At first they were all quite baffled by the flower. The young men surrounded her to look at it. It was a real lotus flower, not plastic, and there were still drops of water on its petals. All talking at the same time, they asked her where she had got it. The girl was still crying, crying as if she were in some kind of dream. She cupped the flower tightly with her hand, and between her pale fingers, drops of water fell, glistening. One of the young men said, ‘Let’s not get overexcited about something like this. It must have floated to the bank from the lotus pond in the park.’

The others looked questioningly at the girl, ‘Is that right? Did it float there?’

The girl said nothing, but clung to the flower and walked towards the road. The youths walked behind her and someone else said, ‘You stupid girl! Did you really jump into the river to dredge out lotus flowers? Aren’t you afraid of drowning?’

That was when the girl turned suddenly around, her voice hoarse and unsettling. ‘The water demon gave me the lotus flower,’ she said. ‘I met the water demon.’

This story circulated all summer. If she were to relate it herself it would be incomprehensible, so it’s better if I summarize it. In fact, it was a very simple story: the Deng girl had met the water demon. Not only that, he had even given her a red lotus flower.

A very large red lotus flower.

The train was late. Under the dim lamplight, the platform was cast in half shadow. As Meng left the train, a snowflake floated down and landed on his neck. The wind was blowing open his coat at the bottom. It produced a whistling sound which reminded him that the weather here in Tiancheng was colder than he’d expected. Bag in hand, he walked with the throng towards the station exit, and though he kept looking around him, he couldn’t spot the brick Song Dynasty tower that he remembered. Beside the darkness and the lamplight, he saw nothing but the ungainly contours of the high-rises, which looked the same here as everywhere else. No doubt the buildings had blocked his view of the tower.

The station square, covered in snow and mud, was almost empty, since the people, cars, pedicabs and bikes were all crowded chaotically up against the railings by the station exit. The people all seemed so familiar to Meng, though every last one of them was a stranger. He set down his bag, a little surprised that he couldn’t find his cousin waiting for him outside the railings. He glanced again at his watch; he was two hours late, and it occurred to him that his cousin and the others might have gone somewhere to kill time.

Suddenly someone tugged at his arm through the railings: ‘Comrade, do you need a place to stay?’ It was a middle-aged woman with an accent that marked her as a non-local; there were also several others, similar women holding signs, soliciting for this guesthouse or that hostel.

‘I don’t need any accommodation. I’m a local, myself.’

But then he began to laugh, because even he could hear how stiff his dialect had sounded. After more than ten years away, he could no longer speak it.

Meng smoked two cigarettes. The people who had come to the station to meet arrivals had all departed, and still Meng hadn’t caught sight of his cousin nor, for that matter, any of his other relatives. He had no idea what could have happened. Meanwhile, the wind, sweeping in off the square, had a bone-chilling edge to it, and Meng was growing a little anxious. So when he saw a battered old Chinese-made van drive up and stop by the entrance to a public bathroom, it raised his hopes. As soon as the man got out of the van, however, his spirits sank again. He watched as the man walked towards the station exit, the sign in his hand growing clearer and clearer as he approached. It said, ‘No. 2 Education Hostel. Excellent service. First-class facilities. Low price. Discount for teachers.’

Meng looked around and heard several of the guesthouse women urgently expounding something to him. He paid no attention to them; he didn’t need to. Even if he didn’t have anywhere to go tonight, he still wasn’t going to put himself up randomly in some dive. He evaded one of the pestering women and turned to look at the big billboards on the square. They were left over from the summer season: one of them showed a striking girl in revealing clothes holding a bottle of something and grinning at the passers-by. The slogan was even more summery: ‘Refreshing to the core’. Meng smiled involuntarily, which was when he noticed the guy from the van again. The man was smiling, too, smiling at him and waving the sign he held in his hands. His eyes motioned for Meng to read it, but Meng shook his head and said, ‘I’m not a teacher.’ Without a word, the man flipped the sign over. There was something else written on the other side: ‘Everything you need: home-style comfort, colour TV. Air con, sauna/massage.’

The man’s face seemed familiar to Meng, particularly the smile, which looked a little stiff. He concentrated and fixed his eyes on the man for a moment. Suddenly an odd term popped into his mind: atmospheric pressure. Meng was suddenly positive that the man was his highschool physics teacher. He wanted to call out to him by name, but once he’d opened his mouth, he realized that he had forgotten it. His surname was Di, or was it Ding? Or maybe even neither? Meng just couldn’t call it to mind. Instead, he could only recall the nickname they had given him: Diesel. Meng felt a little sheepish although, whatever the look on his face, it must have given the man some grounds for hope, since Diesel — let that be his provisional name — winked at Meng and said, ‘On a freezing day like this, what’s the point of standing around here shivering? Why don’t you come to our guesthouse. You won’t regret it. We’re a school-run guesthouse, and you can bet the people’s teachers aren’t out to cheat the people.’