Su Tong: Madwoman On the Bridge and Other Stories

My father didn’t finish his sentence. He couldn’t; his eyes filled with tears. I didn’t need to say anything more, either, and the truth is that I don’t much like to dwell on these things any more than he does. Over the years I have often recalled the tears of the old man on the train, and when I recall those tears, I suffer.

In any case, the Q of Hearts was just a card. I still like to play poker with my cards, and every time I pick up a Q of Hearts, I feel like the card has some kind of singular import — no matter whether it’s a good move or not, I don’t let the card out of hand lightly. I don’t know why, but I’m used to playing it last.

Yongshan was taking her son back to Licheng to visit relatives, but when she reached her brother Yongqing’s house, she discovered he had recently moved away.

Some of her relatives had passed on, others had left the city, and yet more had simply grown distant. Her younger brother was the last of her close relatives in Licheng, so as you can imagine, his disappearance deeply embarrassed Yongshan in front of her son. Her brother’s home was totally empty — Yongshan could see that through the round hole where the lock had been. The narrow parlour was quite dark and the only thing that could be clearly seen was a broken white toilet; perhaps it had broken when they’d attempted to take it out, so her brother had left it there, a shining white ring. Out of sheer disappointment or fury, Yongshan beat heavily on the door. But a few knocks was not enough to calm her frustration, so she switched hands and beat the door even more. Her son let go of the rolling suitcase and sat down on it.

‘They’ve moved out. What’s the point of knocking?’ he said, looking calmly at his mother. ‘Don’t your hands hurt when you go at it like that?’

A neighbouring couple came out of their apartment, obviously confused about the connection between these two people and their former neighbour. The man asked her, ‘Are you related to him?’

‘I’m his sister,’ she answered.

The woman standing behind her husband looked Yongshan over and said, ‘You mean cousin? On which side?’

Yongshan, understanding the meaning of the couple’s doubtful looks, answered quietly, ‘Not cousin. I’m his older sister.’ She blushed as soon as she finished speaking, for she knew her tone made it sound like she was lying. The neighbours asked no further questions, but suggested to Yongshan that she should call her brother’s cell phone. Her answer was, ‘I called the number, but it’s out of service. Maybe I wrote it down wrong.’ The woman then suggested that Yongshan enquire at the gas company, because if she remembered correctly that was where he had worked. Yongshan smiled confidently and corrected her, ‘Not the gas company; the water company. I know that. My brother called me back in January to wish me a happy new year.’

Then they went downstairs. Her son took the suitcase and walked behind his mother, but rather than rolling it properly he began to drag it so that it grated against the cement steps. ‘You don’t have to take it out on the suitcase!’ Yongshan shouted, looking behind her, ‘It’s new!’

Her son said, ‘Oh, so now I’m taking it out on the suitcase? You’re the one getting all worked up, not me.’

‘Me? Worked up? About what?’ Her son looked as though he would no longer bother to reply, so she explained, ‘Your uncle holds a grudge against me. He didn’t tell me on purpose — on purpose, I know it.’

Her son and the suitcase were standing crookedly on the steps when he said, ‘Do you call this a family visit? So what are we going to do? Are we going to look for Uncle Yongqing, or what?’

Yongshan stood still, not answering; she had stopped by the window on the third floor landing and looked outside. ‘This used to be the countryside. Something Commune. "Victory Commune".’ She went on, ‘I used to take Yongqing here to watch the open-air movies; we would walk along the paths at night, beside the pitch-dark paddies, and there were vegetable patches, too, where you could hear the frogs croak in the flooded fields, and there were fireflies sparkling back and forth.’

Her son wasn’t interested in hearing about her endless reminiscences, and said, ‘A family visit, you said. Well, might I trouble you to produce the family?’

Yongshan turned round to rebuke him, ‘Shut up. Who said anything about a family visit? I haven’t been to Licheng in six years; I’ve just come here to pay my hometown a visit, if that’s all right with you.’

Her son looked at her a little afraid, and his taunting turned to lamentation: ‘So, now we’re going to drag our suitcase around the streets. People will think we’re migrant workers.’

Yongshan twisted away, still looking out of the window. ‘There’s nothing wrong with coming back for a visit,’ she said and seemed to have settled on this idea. ‘We can go and see your uncle, or we can just forget it. We’ll stay in a hotel if we have to; it won’t break the bank.’

It was an afternoon in May, and the sun was very fine. They were on the north side of Licheng and the air was seasoned with the foul smell of dust and a faint, unidentifiable floral scent. The two travellers crossed the little square inside the gates of the housing complex; it was a crude, cramped little square, featuring concrete grapevine trellises, and though there were no grapevines on them, there were flowerbeds filled with roses and peonies. The sun lit up the faces of a few strangers here and there, making them look golden from a distance. They stopped for a moment in the square and her son went to the store to buy a Coke, and when he came back he saw that Yongshan had sat down to chat with a woman who was knitting on the flower terrace — so he went off to watch two men playing chess. Soon Yongshan lifted up her suitcase and said, ‘Hurry up! What are you watching the chess game for?’

Her son ran up to her, ‘I thought you’d met someone you knew. What on earth were you chatting about if you don’t know her?’

Yongshan said, ‘Can’t I talk to someone I don’t know if I want to? I thought she was someone else — Huang Meijuan, a girl who went to elementary school with me, that’s who I thought she was.’

She looked forlorn for a moment before turning back to look once again at the knitting woman, who had her head bowed as she worked in the sunlight. The yarn was a garish shade of peach, so she remarked casually, ‘What a tacky colour. I wonder who would wear it?’ Then she heaved a sigh and said, ‘Strange. It’s not as if Licheng is all that big, but I haven’t met anyone I know since I got here.’

Her son took a sip of Coke and tilted his head to look at the greyish-blue May sky. He pondered a moment, then said something that sounded as though he’d learnt it from a TV series. He must have been a good mimic, for it struck his mother speechless.

‘It’s a shame you still remember Licheng,’ he said, ‘because Licheng forgot about you a long time ago.’

They took the public bus to Cabbage Market; the trip was Yongshan’s decision.

‘No matter what, we must go to Cabbage Market to take a look at the old house. We have to go this time, because next time there’ll be nothing left to see.’ She tried to push her son onto the bus, but he wouldn’t let her touch him and shrugged her hands off.

‘Don’t grab me. What is this? A kidnapping?’ he said. ‘I’ll visit whatever you make me visit — we can tour the outhouses for all I care.’ He had likened the old house to an outhouse. He regretted the comment as soon as it left his lips. He stuck out his tongue, not daring to look at his mother. Fortunately for him, Yongshan was trying to find seats and had paid no attention to her son’s mumbling. She claimed a seat and told him to sit down, but when he refused Yongshan took the seat herself.