Madwoman On the Bridge and Other Stories Read Online Free Page A

madwoman behind a printed curtain,
into what passed for the tailor’s bedroom. There was a
wooden-framed single bed and a portrait of the heroine
from Azalea Mountain 1 was pasted on the wall over its
head; her eyes stared fiercely, while the position of her
hands suggested cool calculation. Underneath the bed
was a spittoon that hadn’t been emptied in several days
and emitted a sour, noxious odour. Wenqin had changed
in there before and immediately took care to pull the
curtain shut behind her before fastening both ends with
iron clips. Despite her precautions, the madwoman was
far from reassured and cried out in alarm, ‘What kind
of place is this? I want to go out. I don’t want to change
here.’
    ‘You’re driving me mad,’ Wenqin replied. ‘You’re not
the MC for the cultural ensemble any more. There aren’t
any dressing rooms: the women who come to the tailor’s
all change here. There’s a curtain. What are you afraid of?
Do you think Mr Li’s some kind of pervert?’
    On the other side of the curtain, Mr Li was indeed
behaving well. First he went to pour himself some tea
and glugged the aromatic liquid down, then he hummed
something from a revolutionary opera: ‘Rosy aurora-aha,
mirrored in Yangcheng Lake’s waters-a-ah-a.’ 2 In his
bedroom, all was not so harmonious. The madwoman
refused to strip and Wenqin was too impatient. After
much twisting and turning the struggle died down, and
all the tailor heard was the light swishing of cloth against
cloth and the sound of rubbing hands. After a moment,
Wenqin lifted up the curtain and walked out of the bedroom
clad in the white velvet cheongsam. She stretched
both hands out to the tailor, then made a half turn. She
modelled the clothing in a bashful yet confident manner,
as if to ask, ‘How does it suit me?’
    The tailor called out, ‘Ooh-la-la!’ and clapping his
hands as he advanced on her, he grabbed her by the
waist and said, ‘It looks great. Even better than it did on
her.’
    As the tailor took Wenqin’s measurements, he forgot
the madwoman even existed, and after some overzealous
measuring, Wenqin suddenly gave him a resounding
slap, saying, ‘Nasty hunchback! I’m in a good mood
today so I’ve been letting you get away with it, but you’d
better keep your mind on this cheongsam. If you do a
bad job, don’t think I’ll let it go lightly.’
    ‘If I were going to make a mess of it, I wouldn’t have
taken the job,’ he assured her. ‘Even if I were ten times
braver, I wouldn’t dare put anything less into it than you
deserve.’
    The two of them suddenly became aware that the madwoman
had begun to pace restlessly behind the curtain.
‘What time is it?’ she muttered. ‘The time? Oh, no – it’s
totally dark outside already. Susu must have left school a
long time ago.’ The curtain suddenly bulged – the madwoman
had thrust her face against it and was saying, ‘It’s
dark outside. Why don’t you let me go home? Give me my
cheongsam back and let me go home!’
    Wenqin assured her, ‘It’s all right, all right. There’s
nothing wrong. What are you screaming about? Are you
scared of the dark? There’s no light on in there, so it is a
little dark. If you’re afraid, I’ll get Mr Li to turn on the
light for you.’
    For some reason the tailor smirked as he went to turn it
on. As soon as he lit it, the silhouette of the madwoman
was clearly visible through the curtain. The sudden
appearance of the shadow frightened the madwoman
and she shouted, ‘Oh!’ The shadow giving a little jump.
    Wenqin saw immediately that the light wasn’t helping
and rushed to turn it off. Then she turned back to rebuke
the tailor. ‘I should have known. No sense in trying to
stop a dog from eating shit, is there, you wretch?’
    ‘What are you swearing at me for?’ demanded the
tailor. ‘You told me to turn on the light yourself.’
    Wenqin was confused for a moment. She went to the
curtain again, intending to lift it back, but then