An ethical tragedy that leads to a long and arduous journey of redemption for several people. In addition to the long road that spans the world and echoes from afar, what Ai Wei wants to explore is also the possibility of placing the human mind at the metaphysical level.
In the Mirror (novel)
Ai Wei
I see them all as old contracts
The executor of the eternal root,
Make the world multiply as if it were an act of reproduction,
Unable to sleep, it brings doom.
- Borges, "Mirror"
Everything that has a way of doing things, such as dream bubbles, such as dew and electricity, should be viewed as such.
- The Thirty-second Pin of the Diamond Sutra
Symmetry has an unparalleled beauty.
- Author
Part I
One
Hearing the news of the accident, Zhuang Runsheng could not react for a while. He felt his body and mind being emptied at that moment. He heard the sound of blood rushing to the door of his head, and it made him dizzy. It takes a long time for the pain to appear, just like the hand is cut by a sharp weapon, and it takes a while to drill the pain of the heart to be transmitted to the brain.
The call came from Gan Shiping. There was a rare tension in Shiping's otherwise calm voice. Shi Ping is calm when things go wrong, and any problem can always be solved in his place. Runsheng was surprised by his nervousness at paying attention to Shiping at such a moment, as if it was Shiping's nervousness that made him even more uneasy.
Shiping asked Runsheng where he was now, and whether he needed to pick him up. Runsheng said, I myself passed.
Runsheng sat in the car, his mind still in a blank state. Outside the window was a bright and dangling day, and the sun shone on everything on the earth: buildings, cars, pedestrians, trees, flowers, grass, but Runsheng felt that he was crossing a dark tunnel. For a moment, he felt himself walking through a building full of riddles: the light was in the distance, and people didn't know what kind of mystery would eventually emerge under the light. Later, he felt that it was a sin in itself to think of architecture in that chaotic moment.
Shiping was waiting for him at the hospital gate. Shi Ping looked worried and asked, first go to see Yi Rong or see the child? Runsheng thought about it and said, let's go see the child first.
Shiping takes Runsheng to the morgue. There is an elevator leading directly to the mortuary in the basement of the hospital. After getting off the elevator, I saw a long walkway with a row of chairs on it, supposed to be for the relatives of the deceased. At the end of the aisle, there was a snowy light.
Turn right at the end of the aisle and enter a world of bright and dangling. The lights are as bright as day. Rows of cold iron cabinets stood in the hall. When he came in just now, a gloomy-looking old man recognized Shiping, and Shiping took out a list from his pocket—Runsheng guessed that it should be a voucher for storing the bodies of his son and daughter, and the old man waved his hand and said that he didn't need it. The old man led Runsheng and Shiping to one of the rows of cabinets marked Nos. 56 and No. 57. The old man looked at Runsheng and handed Him a pill. The old man said, you ate it. Runsheng refused. The old man handed the medicine to Shiping and asked Himing to hold it. Shiping took over.
Before Runsheng fainted, the impression that remained in his mind was actually the appearance of the high monk of feilai temple when he died. The Zen temple built under the ground was originally the wish of the senior monk before his death, and it can be said that it was built for the senior monk. He thought that the monk should be in good shape when he died, but no, the monk was shrunk into a ball, and the flesh and blood were blurred, not like a perfect feather, but more like a self-extinction because of some kind of pain. The monastic side initially proposed placing the flesh of the monk in the new building. This is contrary to Runsheng's design philosophy. The new abbot who succeeded the senior monk in presiding over the monastery traveled extensively in his early years and was well informed, and when he traveled to Bhutan, he collected a half-meter-high thousand-year-old buddha statue. Under the persuasion of Runsheng, the enlightened abbot agreed that the underground Buddhist temple would be made into a labyrinth of life and a place of meditation, and the flesh of the monk would be burned to ashes and placed in the small statue of the thousand-year-old Buddha, placed in the center of the underground Zen temple for people to pray. For Runsheng, the key to design is how to leave enough blank space.
The body of his son Yiming is still intact. At the time of the accident, Yi Ming should have been sitting in the back seat, but it was obviously not a corpse, wrapped in a blood-stained shirt. When Runsheng saw his daughter Yibei's appearance, he suddenly burst into tears, her beautiful face was completely unrecognizable, her chin and face were separated, her collarbone was broken, and the white bones were exposed in a pile of uneven and swollen flesh. Shiping kept holding him, but he still fainted.
When Runsheng woke up, he found himself lying in the hospital. Shiping has gone, leaving a note:
I'll go deal with something first, and you wake up and call me, and I'll come right over.
Runsheng remembered the tragic situation he had witnessed in the morgue again, his body slowly curled up into a ball, he tugged at his hair, and sobbed silently. He pulled the rubber tube of the hanging needle, and the needle slid out of the blood vessel, scratching a bloody mark on the back of his hand. The nurse rushed over and persuaded him. He was covered with his head covered and trembling. The nurse injected him with a sedative. After a while, he went to sleep again. In his sleep, he saw the bright smiling faces of his son and daughter, and he saw the children's bodies draped in brilliance, as if they had become children of heaven.
In the middle of the night, Runsheng woke up. Maybe because of the drug, he felt that he didn't have any strength, and even his emotions were a little numb, but he could still remember the dream he had just had. He felt himself removed from the hustle and bustle of the world, placed in some barren place, surrounded by emptiness, as if he were the only one in the whole hospital.
It was the quietest hour of the night, the early hours of the morning were about to fall, the buildings outside the windows were pitch black, and the sky was glowing gray, as if a huge lake with calm winds and waves was covering everything. The patient in the next bed made strange whispers in his dreams, vague, as if speaking the language of heaven or hell. Runsheng remembered the Yiming and Yibei he had just dreamed of, and thought that they were lying in the morgue in a blur of flesh and blood at the moment, which felt like another dream.
Two
Yesterday afternoon, Shiping came to the scene of the accident, and it was he who took Yi Rong out of the cab and put it on the stretcher of the hospital's 120 ambulance. Yi Rong had fainted, but he remembered that she opened her eyes, the whites of her eyes facing upwards, and threw a glance at him, the shattered face and the glass shards glued together, and could no longer see any expression, but Shiping could feel Yi Rong's deep sadness. When holding Yi Rong, Shi Pingqiang held back tears. She is alive, but how will she face the loss of her son and daughter? Her damaged face may not be repaired by the most brilliant modern beauty techniques, she loves beauty so much, can she bear such a faceless self? How will she spend the rest of her life?
The car accident was purely an accident, occurring at the turn of the tiger running road into the Qiantang River Bridge, the car was in an out-of-control state and violently hit the iron fence on the right side of the Qiantang River Bridge, the fence was knocked open a gap, the car was stuck in it, and the right side of the car was smashed. When Shiping arrived, the police had just arrived. He saw Yi Ming's head crashing heavily against the glass and collapsing in the back seat. A shell in the front seat was wrapped in the car's broken steel plate. Shi Ping later thought that fortunately Runsheng did not see this scene, if he did, he would immediately faint like in the morgue, and was taken to the hospital by ambulance with Yi Rong. Shi Ping also thought that the nightmare would probably haunt him for the rest of his life.
On that day, the police also told Shiping that Yi Rong was drunk driving, and there was a bottle of half-drunk brandy hidden in the gap on the left side of the car. The police come to Shiping, is she usually an alcoholic? Shiping hesitated, shook his head, and said he didn't understand. Shiping thinks that the police probably think of him as Yi Rong's husband, but the police immediately dispelled his idea, and the police asked, her man has not been contacted? Shiping set his sights elsewhere.
The tragedy came so unexpectedly. On this morning, he and Runsheng took Yoko Yamaguchi and their party to investigate the Zen Temple of Feilai Temple. As a representative work of Runsheng's architectural career, Shiping has taken guests to visit this underground Zen temple countless times, and each time it will bring unexpected feelings. Light is projected from the glass pool overhead, projecting on the ground of the Zen room, forming the shadow of a lotus flower. It was a long projection of the lotus flowers falling on the glass pool in the Zen Temple. Although the Zen Temple was built underground, Runsheng cleverly used the mountain to leave gaps between the Zen Temple and the mountain so that sunlight could shine through these gaps. These gaps have been carefully designed to allow sunlight to shine through the walls like a sword, presenting a certain chaotic line, and they reflect the shadow of the lotus flower. What is even more wonderful is that the lotus flower and the sword do not clash, but are quite harmonious, exuding a certain serene atmosphere. With the flow of light, different patterns appear in the Zen Temple, and sometimes, the shadow of the person becomes part of the Zen Temple pattern, and the pattern formed in an instant of each frame represents both the passage of time and the continuation of some kind of eternity. At this time, Runsheng and Yoko Yamaguchi are in front, and Shigenobu Kimura, the representative of Shipei and Yoko Yamaguchi, is behind. Sehei saw lotus flowers and swords hit Runsheng and Miss Yamaguchi on their bodies. They had not communicated all the time, and Miss Yamaguchi's face showed a sacred and solemn expression.
"It was Mr. Tadao Ando who recommended you to me. I now know why he recommends you. Yoko Yamaguchi said.
Runsheng and Mr. Tadao Ando met once, and that year Runsheng won the Aga Khan International Architecture Prize, and Mr. Ando attended the award ceremony. Each edition of the Aga Khan International Architecture Prize is presented at the Museum of Islamic Art, designed by Mr. Pei on the doha seafront. The first time Runsheng saw this building, he was shocked by its magnificent power. The simplicity and intricacy of the building, like a folded boulder, stands on the azure sea, and its simplicity and complexity are reminiscent of the essence of Islamic architecture. At the cocktail party after the award, Mr. Tadao Ando, as a senior, took the initiative to come to Runsheng and congratulate Runsheng. Mr. Ando is one of Runsheng's idols, both Oriental, and stands out among the Western and Arab faces. That time, Runsheng and Mr. Ando had a good conversation. In recent years, the so-called Orientalism has become popular in the entire architectural world, and the oriental Zen-style modern architecture designed by Runsheng has attracted wide attention, especially the underground palace architecture of Runsheng and the use of light, which has been praised by the famous Italian architectural design magazine DOMUS as "nestism". The magazine believes that the "nest" is the starting point of human architecture, and is closely related to our innate subconscious, but the "nest" of Runsheng is not dark, but bright, mottled with light and shadow, and achieves the perfect combination of the "yin" of the underground and the "yang" of light, and DOMUS believes that this design method originates from the Chinese yin and yang philosophy. That time, Mr. Ando and Runsheng seriously discussed this topic. Mr. Ando said that this trend is inseparable from Western-centrism. Runsheng felt that Mr. Ando's words were in it.
"You know what? Mr. Ando was in poor health, and he found cancer in his gallbladder, bile ducts, and duodenum, and he had to undergo major surgery to remove these organs from his body, along with his pancreas and spleen. Yoko Yamaguchi said.
Runsheng was taken aback. Mr. Ando looked very healthy the last time we met, and as a former boxer, he still had a tough and stubborn expression on his wrinkled face, and his movements were more agile than those of his age.
"Will his life be in danger?" Runsheng asked.
"All I can say is that Mr. Ando needs a complicated operation, but I'm sure he'll be alive." After speaking, Yoko Yamaguchi stopped talking.
Runsheng's heart is heavy. During his architectural career, he drew a lot of inspiration from Mr. Ando's architecture, and ideas about light and minimalism have become part of Runsheng's design philosophy. Runsheng thought about when to visit Mr. Ando. However, as a former boxer, Mr. Ando is probably reluctant to receive visitors as a weak person, and he is afraid that he will refuse Runsheng's visit.
On the sidelines, Shiping listened to yoko Yamaguchi and Runsheng talk. He immediately understood the meaning of Miss Yamaguchi's words, this project Yamaguchi Yoko originally wanted to find Mr. Ando designed, Ando is seriously ill, recommended Runsheng. Yoko Yamaguchi brought up this topic at this time, and she should have had a fixed opinion, and she was conquered by the Zen Temple designed by Runsheng.
Shi Ping didn't sleep all night last night. Yesterday he spent an afternoon in the hospital, physically and mentally exhausted, but he could not sleep, thinking of Yi Rong's car accident, his heart was difficult. The morning light began to fall on the earth, so he simply got up, ate an early breakfast, and drove to the building office. This morning, Yoko Yamaguchi was scheduled to exchange details about the Nagasaki project with Runsheng, but he did not expect that Runsheng was suddenly so unfortunate that the talks would not be able to proceed as usual. He thought about how to explain it to Yoko Yamaguchi, and finally he decided to tell the truth. He believed that Miss Yamaguchi would understand, and perhaps she could return to China a few days later and wait until Runsheng was relieved.
Runsheng Architects is located in an abandoned factory complex on the Qiantang River, which has now become a cultural and creative park. The architecture of the industrial age, after being transformed, has produced a broken poetry brought about by unexpected years, and it also meets people's nostalgic needs. Towering chimneys and steel elevators attached to the buildings have been preserved, and the exposed red bricks on the mottled walls have been properly reinforced. The office is located in a quiet corner in the northwest of the park, basically retaining the zigzag structure of the factory building, but making a glass wall in the middle of the small building, forming a huge patio. The landscape in the patio is well designed by Runsheng and is very Chinese. Chinese aesthetics are inseparable from three things: water, stones (or mountains), and plants. Runsheng did not choose the kind of Taihu strange stone full of holes, which is not in line with Runsheng's aesthetic, he needed a style that is both traditional Chinese and modern, so he found white stone in a quarry in Yunnan, let the workers chisel into the shape of a stacked mountain in the Chinese painting, a few stones are placed there, like the small peaks in Chinese paintings, under the stones are paved with some gray fine stones, and the plants are pure bamboo. The bamboo is tall and simple. The row of green bamboo lined with mountain stones makes the whole glass patio interesting, and from any direction, it looks like a painting. The corridor surrounds the patio and can be accessed from four directions. Every office viewed from the patio resembles an elaborate stage.
At eight o'clock, two other designers and three interns from the firm arrived. Seihei would like to discuss with you how today's meeting will proceed before Yoko Yamaguchi arrives. Colleagues have heard about the changes in the Runsheng family, and their expressions are heavy. Everyone asked Shi Ping, how about Runsheng? Shiping shook his head, saying that the situation was not good, and I was afraid that I would not be able to come today. Shiping said that when Yoko Yamaguchi and her party came later, please attend together to show our respect for the owners. Shiping is an administrator, does not understand the profession, usually these designers do not put him in the eyes, the current situation, but everyone is very cooperative.
The meeting room is on the second floor on the north side. The light here is relatively dim, and closing the curtains becomes a dark box that can play the projection. The cassette is the meaning that Runsheng gives to this place: thoughts come from nothing, light is born from darkness, and darkness is also conducive to the concentration of thoughts. Runsheng often discussed the problems that needed to be solved in the design with everyone in the dim light, and he did not let everyone look at the manuscript paper, and the thoughts in his mind were casually said, even if they were absurd thoughts. Today is not an internal meeting, Shiping came to the conference room and opened all the curtains. The moment the curtains opened, he felt the scenery in the patio rushing towards him, as if he wanted to squeeze into the conference room.
At nine o'clock, Yoko Yamaguchi took Shigenobu Kimura and his party to the office. It was Shiping who asked the driver of the office to pick up Miss Yamaguchi from the hotel where she was staying. Shiping greeted yoko Yamaguchi outside the office, exchanged a few words of greeting, and then led Miss Yamaguchi and her party to the conference room. Colleagues are sitting in their seats. Such self-discipline by colleagues was extremely rare in the past. Miss Yamaguchi immediately noticed that Runsheng was not there, frowned, and sat down in the place marked with her seat. She greeted everyone generously and joked that my project was not so big, I am afraid I don't need so many designers. Then Miss Yamaguchi beckoned to Mr. Kimura, and Kimura came to Miss Yamaguchi, who whispered a few words to Kimura. Kimura nodded his head in a rather large range, and although he didn't make a sound, the Japanese-style "hi" seemed to be included in this action. Kimura trotted over and told Sehei that Miss Yamaguchi only wanted to see Mr. Chuang. Shiping originally wanted to introduce the colleagues of the firm first, and then explain the reason why Runsheng could not come, but now he had to say directly:
"Miss Yamaguchi, I am really sorry, yesterday afternoon, Mr. Zhuang's wife had a car accident, Mr. Zhuang's two children unfortunately died, and his wife is still in a coma..."
Miss Yamaguchi looked shocked, but she quickly controlled the "shock" spreading on her face, trying to restore her usual calm face, but she could still see the ripples in her heart at the moment. She has always given the impression of being a woman who is not alarmed, emotionally introverted, and does not easily show it. She pondered for a moment and said to Shiping:
"Mr. Gan, can I visit Mr. Zhuang?"
To everyone's surprise, Runsheng came in at this time. He must have come straight from the hospital, too late to clean up, his hair still neat, his face extremely pale and thin, his beard not shaved off, which made him look even more haggard; his eyes were covered with blood, and the look in his eyes was weak, revealing a certain sensitivity that was both dazed and pitiful. Colleagues all looked at him. Runsheng realized that they were all aware of the situation.
"Miss Yamaguchi, I'm sorry, I'm late." Runsheng said.
Miss Yamaguchi stood up, her gaze containing a misty, wet light. Are it tears? Sehei wasn't sure that Runsheng and Miss Yamaguchi had only been in a business relationship so far, and she wouldn't shed tears so easily for an individual who could be called a stranger. Or does Runsheng's misfortune evoke some kind of memories of Yoko Yamaguchi?
Miss Yamaguchi stood up and said to the crowd, "You all go out, I want to talk to Mr. Zhuang alone." ”
The house was very quiet. Everyone seems to understand that comforting Runsheng at this time is superfluous, only quiet is appropriate, and quiet can contain restrained sadness. Colleagues walked up to Runsheng and touched his arm, the only language that could be spoken at the moment. After a while, everyone, including Kimura and Shihei, came out of the conference room. Only Miss Yamaguchi and Runsheng remained in the conference room. Miss Yamaguchi closed the curtains facing the patio. The room suddenly darkened, and the shimmer of light penetrated through the gap in the curtains, making things in the darkness faintly recognizable.
"Mr. Zhuang, I have heard of your misfortune, and I am very sad..."
Miss Yamaguchi changed her previous reticence, as if something had softened her at the moment. Runsheng couldn't really see the expression on Yoko Yamaguchi's face, and he could recognize the emotion in her voice.
"I decided that my dojo must be designed by Mr. Zhuang. I can imagine that you will not be in the mood to think about this for a while, I can wait for you, wait for you for a few years, in short, this design must be completed by Mr. Zhuang. I should still be alive for a few more years. ”
Runsheng and Miss Yamaguchi sat face to face, and the darkness reduced their barriers to communication, although in simple English, they fully understood. After a while, Runsheng finally understood that her sympathy for Runsheng contained a remembrance of the past.
Miss Yamaguchi tells a story about why she built a dojo before leaving this world. At the age of fourteen, Yoko Yamaguchi studied in the United States, and the Pacific War broke out that year. The Japanese sneaked up on Pearl Harbor, and three years later, the Americans threw two monsters at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was the first time that mankind had seen the power of the atomic bomb, the image of the end of the world written in the scriptures: the earth would be shaken greatly, and there would be famine and plague in many places, and terrible visions and great miracles would appear from heaven. Even more seriously than written in the scriptures, after the atomic bomb, the big trees turned into dead wood, the buildings were broken, full of holes, the poles were either lying upright on the ground, or folded into several sections, the wires had long since melted, people had become a cloud of charcoal ash or dust, even the metal was twisted and deformed, and the whole of Nagasaki was desolate and ruined. Yoko Yamaguchi hears about the misfortunes in her hometown, but the war keeps her from going back. As the United States and Japan went to war, the United States appeared to exclude the Japanese diaspora, and Yoko Yamaguchi stayed in the house all day, learning about the tragic situation in Nagasaki through the newspaper, and thinking of her father and two brothers. At that time, her father was a convener of the Kyushu Chinese (i.e., nobles) in Japan.
Runsheng listened to Yoko Yamaguchi's story. For a moment he was a little distracted. Miss Yamaguchi tells a distant story. According to this story, Miss Yamaguchi is eighty-six years old this year, and Miss Yamaguchi looks like she is in her sixties and is quite well maintained.
It has been three months since Miss Yamaguchi returned home. By that time, the Emperor had issued the Edict of the End of the War, announced his acceptance of the Potsdam Proclamation, and the United States occupied Japan. When Yoko Yamaguchi returned to Nagasaki, she learned that her brother and brother had died in the atomic bombing. She meets her father for the last time, who is blown up into an alien shape similar to that in a science fiction movie, destroying his entire body and dying of complications caused by visceral failure. The last picture of his father's death is hung in the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Memorial Hall as an image of the victims of the atomic bomb. But it was cruel to see my father die.
The instant destruction of the family was unacceptable to Yoko Yamaguchi. She became the only living person in the family. She felt it was a sin to be alive. In the long years that followed, she lived almost a life of seclusion. After the war, the Japanese Diet abolished the Chinese system, and the former Chinese set up a Chinese guild hall in Kasumiguan in order to continue the glory of the family, and Yoko Yamaguchi did not participate. She inherited the Yamaguchi family business, but never married or had children in this life. Through the charity association founded by her family, she rescued survivors after the atomic bomb, paying special attention to the field of child rescue and treatment, and invested a lot of energy and money in this work behind the scenes. However, to her sadness, she still witnessed the rapid aging and death of these people again and again.
Hearing this, Runsheng's distracted attention due to the confusion of his mind became concentrated. He pondered Yoko Yamaguchi's story, and felt that the distant story had appeared to him yesterday in another form, and he felt reincarnation. Yoko Yamaguchi's family tragedy is like a mirror of Runsheng. This revelation startled him.
"Now, the heavens have left me little time, I want to do my best to build a dojo before I go, a work of art that lives up to the land of Nagasaki, I want to have a delicate design to comfort the innocent victims, but also to comfort future worshippers, I hope that this dojo can make sentient beings have a deep understanding of enlightenment." Today I think this design is none other than Mr. Zhuang. Miss Yamaguchi said the main topic.
"Do you see what I mean?" Yoko Yamaguchi asked.
Runsheng looked blankly at Miss Yamaguchi.
"The world is impermanent, and only after experiencing the impermanence of life will one understand the design I want. Mr. Zhuang, when I say this, you may not feel that it is rude enough. I don't mean that, I don't want anyone to go through such a painful thing, I hope no one in this world needs to go through pain. But on the other hand, there is no way, there is nowhere to escape, and we must regard trauma as a gift from Heaven. That's what I've thought for so many years. Yoko Yamaguchi said.
The house was very quiet, the park was backed by a hill, and runsheng's architectural office was located on the hill, and there were birds chirping, which sounded particularly alarming, as if they had seen the human tragedy staged in the past, present or future.
...... For the full text, see Contemporary, No. 2, 2022
Ai Wei is the author of the long stories "Wind and Sun Beauty", "Lover Comrade", "Lover Guilty", "Cross Country Race", "Midsummer", "South", novel collection "Country Movie", "A Brief History of Women", "The Whole Universe Is Talking to Me", "Past", etc., and "Ai Wei's Works Collection" in five volumes. Many works have been translated into English, Italian, German, Japanese, Russian and other languages. He is currently the chairman of Zhejiang Writers Association.
Special Editor: Liu Zhi
Editor-in-charge of the original journal: Shi Yifeng
WeChat Editor of this issue: Meng Xiaoshu
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