The girl stood on the bridge. She didn’t want to go home yet. A boy with mumps wearing a striped sailor shirt ran up; he lived above the general store at the base of the bridge and the girl knew him. He covered his cheeks, which were coated with medicinal herbs. ‘What’s that in your hand? Show it to me,’ he said. The girl knew he meant the glass prism, but she clutched both hands behind her back and fixed him with a bold stare.
‘I won’t,’ she said, but suddenly held the glass prism up in one hand. ‘Don’t touch it. It’s for shining on the water demon.’
The boy, who had intended to plunder some treasure, drew his hand back. ‘Liar,’ he said. ‘What water demon? Where is it then?’
The girl pointed at the river beneath. ‘He’s in the water now.’ She indicated the trail of oil, which had not yet dissipated. ‘You can’t see it, but I can.’
‘You’re lying. Tell me where he’s gone.’
A mysterious smile appeared on the girl’s face. She tucked the prism away. ‘I’ve found out where the water demon lives, but I would never tell you where.’ She began to walk down the bridge, then suddenly turned back to say, ‘You all think he lives in the water, but that’s not true. You’re all wrong.’
As she left the bridge, she could still see the boy standing there, covering his cheeks and staring vacantly. He didn’t know a thing. And even though he could see the distant tower, he would still never guess its secret.
A young man slid into the water with frog-like hops while another young man followed behind, using a kind of doggy-paddle. Maybe it was because they couldn’t go any further, or maybe they had got to where they wanted to be, but suddenly they stopped beneath the bridge and hauled themselves out of the water to sit on the rocks beneath the arch.
The girl opened her nylon parasol and, standing on the bridge, watched for them to come out from under the bridge. She’d assumed they would keep on swimming, but now that they had stopped under the bridge, she couldn’t see them. They were talking loudly.
‘That water’s disgusting. Shit, man, did you see the dead cat? I nearly threw up.’ The other boy caught his breath, and said, ‘Yeah, I saw it. Sort of tawny. It probably ate rat poison.’
The girl attempted to bend over the railing so she could see the faces of the two young men. Instead, she could see only a leg with a very dark tan. There was a dense mass of hair on his calf and it looked like he had recently cut the back of his foot; there were obvious traces of antiseptic left on the skin.
‘A dead cat! That’s nothing!’ said the girl, breaking into the conversation from above. ‘A few days ago I saw a dead boy! He looked just like a rabbit.’
‘Who’s talking up there?’ one of them asked.
‘It’s got to be that stupid Deng girl,’ the other one answered. ‘She’s got a screw loose. Ignore her.’
She drew back her head, then stuck it back out over the railing to spit, ‘You’re the stupid one!’
After delivering this furious retort she went back to playing with her glass prism, making shapes on the water. The only target she could find was the dark, hairy leg. Then she heard someone below say, ‘Don’t pay any attention to her.’
The girl said, ‘No one’s paying any attention to you, anyway.’ She heard her own voice amplified by the arch. It sounded clear and sweet. She began to twirl the nylon umbrella one way and then the other.
‘Cross my heart and hope to die, a dead boy floated past a couple days ago. He was swimming too, like you, but then the water demon grabbed his foot and dragged him down to the riverbed!’
The two youths under the bridge chuckled, then one of them flopped into the water and started yelling, ‘Oh no! Help! The demon! The water demon! He’s got me!’ While the other youth laughed even harder.
The girl watched them toss up riverweed from the water with their horseplay. ‘Don’t be so noisy,’ she said. ‘The water demon’s away right now, but if you make him angry he’ll swim through the water and grab you.’
‘He’s here!’ The youth somersaulted in the water and cried out, ‘My leg! The water demon’s got my leg! Somebody! Help! Help!’
The girl knew they were just playing around and ignoring her warnings. It made her a little angry, so she picked up a shard of glass lying on the bridge and threw it into the river. ‘Fine. Go on playing your stupid games; carry on swimming if you can. Why don’t you swim all the way to the tower, because that’s where the water demon lives.’
Her mother did not allow her to go out by herself. One day her mother dyed her nails with jewel-weed, saying, ‘We agreed, didn’t we? If I dye your nails, then you won’t go and do those foolish things. Today you’re going to stay at home and do your schoolwork.’ Her mother saw that the girl was sitting by the door, carefully examining her ten peach-red nails. ‘The sun’s fierce today. If you go fooling around outside again, everyone will think you’re a dimwit.’ The girl held her ten fingers up for the sun to shine on them. She saw that they had become like ten jewel-weed petals, sparkling and transparent.
‘I’m telling you, the sun’s really fierce today,’ her mother said. ‘If you go outside today, the sun will definitely scorch you. If you sneak out again the sun’s sure to burn you to death!’
Outside, the sun seemed to be boiling. Barely visible white smoke was rising from the concrete road. A woman was hawking cold water somewhere in the distance. The schoolteacher from across the road, Ms Song, hurried off with a jug and a nylon parasol in hand to go and buy some.
‘Other people are going outside,’ the girl mumbled. ‘Who says no one’s going outside? As long as you have a parasol it’s fine.’
She looked back and forth, searching for something. Her mother knew what it was already and said, ‘Don’t bother looking. I’ve put your parasol away. You don’t take good enough care of your things. With such a fierce sun, you’ll ruin it if you take it out.’
Her mother sat in the bamboo chair and seemed to doze off. She could vaguely feel her empty hand where the palm-leaf fan had been, but she didn’t open her eyes; it had probably fallen on the floor.
The girl had sneaked off again with her mother’s palm-leaf fan. The girl was standing on the bridge using the fan to keep off the afternoon sun. Nobody noticed her newly-dyed fingernails or, for that matter, the girl herself.
Just as she was walking onto the bridge, a man walked off in her direction with a plank on his shoulder. He almost swept her off as he passed, and she called out, ‘Watch out!’ The flustered man turned around. He was a stranger, a farmer or something like that. The girl saw that his wife-beater and trousers were wet and dripping as he walked past. The girl laughed and asked, ‘What are you doing?’
For a moment, he seemed not to understand her question, but then he asked back, ‘What do you mean, what am I doing?’
‘Why are you so wet? Are you the water demon?’
The man shifted the plank from the left to right shoulder. ‘The water demon? What water demon?’
He looked at the girl in puzzlement, but after a moment seemed to understand and chortled. He pointed to an embankment not far from the bridge and said, ‘No, I’m not the water demon. See? We’re working in the water.’
The girl’s eyes followed the direction of his finger. Labourers were assembled on the embankment by the factory. They were all bare-chested, some standing on the embankment and some of them in the water making a terrible noise. The girl hung on the railing and said, ‘I want to see.’ She turned back towards him and repeated, ‘I want to see.’
The labourer squinted at the girl, then laughed, revealing his yellow teeth. The girl watched as he walked off the bridge with his plank. She noticed the sturdy, protruding veins on his legs, like so many worms. His shins and ankles were stained all over with yellow mud.