Excerpts from the text |
Teacher Guo set off from the stars close at hand, studied, got married, divorced in middle age, like all people, suffered more than joy, and now lies on the terrace of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and drinks the strong tea in the thermos cup, which makes me unable to complain about anything to her. In the breeze, her white hair fluttered like a privilege that life could be willful, although she seemed to enjoy this privilege when she was full of black hair. From the side, her cheeks were still tight, her skin was not visibly loose, it was probably a goji berry in her mouth, she was chewing slowly, and the contours of her muscles still looked a little firm.
Waterfall gatekeeper
□ Yi Boat
At an inn in the ancient city of Lijiang that was slightly deserted— in fact, it was Hanbei — I met Teacher Guo. The inn is tucked away in a narrow alley, and the three-storey attic has a simple but spacious terrace on the roof, which can be climbed to overlook the Cangshan Mountains and Snow Peaks. Teacher Guo said that the man of the inn was from the Yumen Oilfield, which was considered to have a hometown friendship with her.
"He gave me a 20% discount." She said.
I said that in the low season of tourism, I guess all sales will be 20% off.
"Don't always doubt the kindness of others, you can't afford to have such a mentality."
"Okay, but you're still in arrears, and someone called me."
"It's another thing, it has nothing to do with 20% off, even if it's 50% off, you can't owe it."
I said yes, that's right.
Teacher Guo was lying in a rocking chair on the terrace, holding a huge thermos cup in both hands. She kept unscrewing the lid of the cup, taking a small sip, the water was very hot, and she was very cautious. I tried not to stare at her, otherwise I would have to be anxious. Unscrew the lid of the cup, screw the lid of the cup, and sandwich a drink that is at most wet with the skin of the mouth, if repeated, makes the water seem particularly fussy, and also makes the screwing of the lid of the cup seem particularly futile - like the relationship between people and the world, reflecting each other, it seems exaggerated.
Everything must not be too far behind, otherwise it will only make everything lose its sense of reality.
Teacher Guo was at ease, occasionally spitting the tea leaves that had been poured into his mouth back into the cup.
"In any case, people have saved me a lot," she said, "and these days, it's a lot of money." ”
I didn't want to argue with her that the money she saved wasn't enough for me to fly a one-way ticket to Lijiang. She now looked rarely satisfied and relaxed.
Yesterday's dusk was a different story. When I appeared at the door of the inn, she was rushing down the third floor. She was looking out over the railing, waiting for my arrival. Just before we hugged, she restrained herself, but as if reluctantly, she hugged me. She said, "Did you bring me a new phone?" ”
I think it's remarkable. The day I finished my divorce, she called me and asked me to give her an online shopping call "Zhong Xuegao". I was standing outside the office hall of the Civil Affairs Bureau, wondering if I was going to go in the opposite direction with my ex-husband—it would give me half a detour. Teacher Guo's phone rang in, and he said in that kind of solipsistic style: "Luo Yin, do you know that there is a very red ice cream?" ”
She gained new knowledge from her circle of friends and was not willing to fall behind. Of course, later she also made up for it, saying: "It's so hot, I think a popular ice cream is the best comfort for you." ”
I quickly figured out the situation. In fact, the owner has basically explained things to me on the phone. This is a middle-aged man, long hair tied behind the head, chest wide shoulders, like the next second will be torn through the tight shirt, well, there is a literary style, more Yumen oil field people's momentum. Standing under the cloister of the inn, he repeated what he had said on the phone to the effect that your mother's mobile phone was lost and now it is difficult.
I asked him if he couldn't buy a mobile phone in the ancient city?
"Of course you can." He said angrily.
"Actually, you can buy one for her first, right?" That way, she'll be able to transfer money to you from her phone. "By the same token, I've already communicated with him on the phone, and I've proposed that I transfer a sum of money to him first for emergency response."
"I think so too." He said.
"Then why not?"
"I can't beat Teacher Guo." His expression was innocent. A majestic man, with this expression, makes people quite feel good.
I went to face Teacher Guo. She went up to the terrace and wisely left me with a step to verify.
"Are you reluctant to run such a trip?" Teacher Guo said, "Did he tell you how unlucky I was?" ”
"It's normal to lose your phone," I said, "just like when I was a kid people around me always lost their bikes, the more necessities there are, the easier it is to lose them." ”
"Are you belittling my predicament?" Teacher Guo said expressionlessly.
I'm in a bad mood. I was on the move, flying from Xi'an to Lijiang, not an easy task; and the news I received while waiting for the plane was also unpleasant—an undercover colleague told me that I had failed in an important examination of the company, and the reason for the superior department was that I had won the same honor three times. I don't know which one is worse than this news or Teacher Guo's loss of his mobile phone, but I know how Teacher Guo will express his position. She would utter aphorisms, such as: Victory never gives victory points. Isn't it? It sounds like some truth, like "failure is the mother of success," and it is in line with a mother's teaching of goodness. But I still want her to scold the street for me and scream for me.
The current situation does not surprise me. I know what happened to my own mother, and I'm amazed at how I'm now at ease with what I'm doing—it's a real ability, maybe it's not an exaggeration to say. Think of it this way, the unfairness of the assessment is nothing. For more than thirty years, under the continuous education of Teacher Guo, I have grown.
I also replied to her in a tone that uttered aphorisms: "Of course not, for the weak individual, no dilemma can be belittled." ”
Speaking in the form of aphorisms, it proves that Teacher Guo has calmed her panic, or that she has once again found her psychological advantage over me, although this time I came to her aid.
Teacher Guo asked me if I saw it, and the jade door man was quite happy about my arrival, and this man was very happy to receive guests like me. "He knows you're single." She said quietly. She said that she had been here for almost half a month, and she had to talk to someone about her daughter, and she didn't think it was a disgraceful thing to do. "There's nothing to be ashamed of a divorced woman now." She added.
I don't feel ashamed, but I'm still a little dissatisfied.
"He's divorced too, well, I probably said something about your situation to comfort him." He came from the Yumen oil field, more or less, I will feel a little kind. Teacher Guo said.
Similarly, it is more or less, all along, I have a little sympathy for Teacher Guo's "Yumen Oilfield Complex". In the hinterland of the Gobi, under the Qilian Mountains, that was the beginning of Teacher Guo's life- when I thought of this, I would have an unprovoked understanding of her. I think of her girlhood, looking forward to the future in the vast wilderness, looking at the snowy mountains, facing the wind, and often tears must be in her eyes. Teacher Guo didn't often mention her experiences to me, but more out of my imagination. I accompanied her back twice, and once she took me to the Gobi Desert to see the stars at night, and clearly pointed out to me the location of the seven stars of the Big Dipper. Under the firmament, the seven stars were brilliant, so close that people had the delusion of picking off two of them with their hands.
Teacher Guo set off from the stars close at hand, studied, got married, divorced in middle age, like all people, suffered more than joy, and now lies on the terrace of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and drinks the strong tea in the thermos cup, which makes me unable to complain about anything to her. In the breeze, her white hair fluttered like a privilege that life could be willful, although she seemed to enjoy this privilege when she was full of black hair. From the side, her cheeks were still tight, her skin was not visibly loose, it was probably a goji berry in her mouth, she was chewing slowly, and the contours of her muscles still looked a little firm.
"You wouldn't be unhappy, would you?" Teacher Guo looked at me sideways, "I think Xiao Gu is not bad, and it is not bad to know me." Lijiang is so beautiful, you can give you a 20% discount when you come to play in the future. Lugu Lake I haven't gone yet, I heard it's also very good, do you want to stay with me for a few days? ”
"In Lugu Lake, can you also introduce me to a person who can get 20% off in the future?" I asked her, and there was no anger.
"How come, you think too much, well, don't think that everywhere people will give you a 20% discount, we are not so lucky." 」
"Yes, too."
"But isn't it?"
"Lugu Lake I can't accompany you, you bring your own mobile phone, I also bought you a lanyard, you hang the mobile phone around your neck." I say.
All along, I am still very convinced of Teacher Guo. She never overestimated herself, and only exercised her wayward privilege between mother and daughter. When I mention my grandmother to my son, I can't help but emphasize Teacher Guo's maverick and maverick behavior, and even self-knowledge and bravery. She taught Chinese in middle school, but she was very interested in astronomy, and she looked up at the stars all her life and accumulated a lot of life experience; very early on, except for me, she had no relatives; if she had enough money, after retirement, she would definitely travel the world alone; she was unwilling to overestimate the goodwill of the world, nor was she willing to overestimate her ability to tolerate malice. These virtues are enough to teach the descendants of the family.
Before I went out, my son was going to be sent to my ex-husband, and I was going to teach him this in the car. The family where the ex-husband has remarried and the son is going to live for a few days is naturally like a miniature world, and he needs to learn how to get along with it, so don't overestimate the world, don't overestimate yourself.
"Can you get along with Amber?" I asked my son, while imagining the disaster that two children could cause together.
Amber is a girl born after her ex-husband remarried, seven years old, and I am not sure of her temper and personality, because I know that I cannot be objective. I've seen this girl many times, and if I see her in a moment, I might deliberately tease her, ask her if she has any great plans for winter vacation, and if she wants to learn a new musical instrument? She would spread her hands and ask me, with a kind of adult certainty, "What about you?" That's what I knew about this little girl.
"I know you're worried about this." Son said.
"Yes, I'm worried, after all, you haven't lived together."
"It will be all right," said the son, who is also an adult with a determined tone, "and it is estimated that her mother will ask her the same question now." ”
"Will it?"
"Of course it will, if you don't ask me, her mother will ask her." She's five years younger than me. ”
"It doesn't have anything to do with age, does it?"
My son said that my concern should be directed at children, implying that the younger one took more risks in good neighborliness. Well, then, I can only remind him that the older party will assume a greater obligation of humility. This dialogue is not so easy, as if a game and a battle of compromise have been presupposed.
The son looked indifferent, and he said to me, "It's okay, it's Amber's mother who should be worried." ”
This sentence made me a little stunned, perhaps I thought too much, thinking that my son had a unique insight into the situation of the two families today - the most delicate role, perhaps really to let Ambe's mother play. Half-siblings, the two children get along well, often see each other on weekends, and perhaps they have had a heart-to-heart discussion about the situation of the three parents: who is more difficult and who is more detached. Of course, I naturally thought that the most detached person should be me, and the ex-husband, I should have made it more difficult, but now my son reminds me that there may be another script.
The same was true when I was younger, when I was younger than my son now, I would analyze each other's parents with close girls. There is a girl named Ruolin who is the best with me, because we are in a similar situation, we are both single parents, the difference is that I follow my mother, she follows my father. We lamented human nature together, but with an exaggerated and humorous attitude, thinking that the adult world was far more mentally retarded than they thought, and even, I shared with Ruolin the clues of Guo Teacher Huaichun - she bought a new dress, recently always looked in the mirror, I also peeked at her physical examination report, Yunyun; and Ruolin, I also openly and honestly told the widower's many secrets. It's really exciting, it's an important enlightenment. We often let our breathing tightness and scream and laugh.
Ex-husband waited outside the neighborhood to greet us. He is now the pivot of this story of mediocrity on earth, but despite this, he still can't seem unremarkable because of it. I sat in the car and watched my son walk toward him, thinking about how he would be jokingly talked about in the mouths of one of his sons and daughters. I think he's old, not the father of a seven-year-old daughter and a twelve-year-old son, but seven plus twelve, a man with nineteen-year-olds.
Shortly after the divorce, Teacher Guo once said to me, "Don't let your son hinder your happiness." ”
I couldn't help but snicker, thinking that Teacher Guo was taking the opportunity to denounce me for hindering her happiness. Yes, at least three men were driven away from her by me, and a girl's determination to kill the men who surrounded her mother would be demonically destructive. I will always remember my own little evils, the unspeakable pleasures and pains. But my son didn't pose a similar threat to me at the time, maybe because he was a boy, he was naturally blunt about this kind of thing? Thinking like this makes my heart hurt faintly. Especially when my son and my new boyfriend get along very well, it can only fill me with unexplained guilt. I can't see my son foolishly laughing with a strange adult man, I can't see my son being coaxed around by a trivial trick, so the men's kindness has suddenly become a trick, and I myself am only the ultimate goal of all kinds of despicable tricks. Then how can they be allowed to succeed?
In this way, in the bumpy love road of life, I hindered Teacher Guo, and my son also hindered me. However, I also believe that Teacher Guo will ask myself as much as I do: Even if there is no obstacle, can we really run to happiness in one fell swoop?
"He may have to stay for a week, maybe longer!" I stuck my head out of the car window and shouted to my ex-husband, this time is not a rational estimate, I just subconsciously want to create some psychological difficulties for my ex-husband.
"No problem." Ex-husband said.
He greeted his son and reached out to remove the bag on his shoulder. This is very natural, but in my eyes, it is very sad. These two men, or two boys—it's a bit of a slap in the face, but I can't help but feel that way—they really made me feel old in an instant. I find their clumsiness, their diligence, their efforts, and their mediocrity so pitiful and embarrassing. Well, in Teacher Guo's eyes, will I be like this?
Seeing them walk into the community, I had the idea of canceling my trip to Lijiang. But I also don't want to go back to the old rhythm, the company's leave is already done, I think I should let myself fly. I used the Voice function of WeChat to dial a recently acquainted man, rang it a few times, and then hung up on myself. The man dialed back five minutes later, and the voice sounded like a despicable trick to try to please the little boy in the hope of capturing his mother. I responded with a few words and then interrupted the conversation. At noon, when the sun was shining, I turned on my stereo and drove straight to the airport.
Before boarding, I called my ex-husband.
"Rest assured, I'm fine," the son answered, adding, "We're fine." ”
"What are you doing?"
"Playing."
My son was obviously impatient, but I deliberately wanted to talk to him more, to tease him in general, and to make up for me with a comforting nature.
"What's the play?"
"Games, games, what else can you play?"
"I know it's a game, I want to know what kind of game it is."
"Waterfall Gatekeeper!"
"What? What gatekeeper? ”
"Waterfalls, the waterfalls of the Great Falls!"
I wanted to go further and verify that my son had hung up the phone beyond belief, so the word "waterfall" hung in my ear, lingering, leaving me in some kind of magnificent and majestic natural imagination.
I sent a WeChat message to my ex-husband, but it was said to my son: "Next summer I will take you to a place with a waterfall to play." ”
"Okay." When the plane began to glide, WeChat had a reply, and I think it should be the ex-husband's handwriting.
"You may sometimes think of their father and son as the same man, as if your father would think of me as the same woman as you." Teacher Guo said. At this time, the twilight is four, looking at the ancient city on the roof of the building, it is really a feeling of excitement, and even with it, her voice sounds slightly sad. "You don't even know which of them is because of your emotions."
I don't know what she's trying to say, but I think it's nonsense, and I don't think I have any emotions about my ex-husband.
"My dad thinks I'm you?" I asked.
"Yes."
"My dad thinks you're me?"
"Yes, sometimes."
I said I'd go to the bathroom. At the door of my room on the third floor, I met the shopkeeper named Xiao Gu, who was carrying a large bucket of mineral water to each room.
"I was notified that I might have to stop the water for half a day." He explained to me.
"Does the ancient city often stop water?" I asked him.
"No, I'm also the first time I've encountered this kind of thing, maybe the water supply system is regularly maintained."
"Oh, that's going to be troublesome."
"It won't take long, but if you can wash it, you should hurry up and wash it."
Maybe it was conjecture, I think his face blushed slightly.
When I returned to the terrace, Teacher Guo said to me in a solemn tone, "You will regret it." ”
"What?" I asked her, the brain circuit is still stuck on the topic of Fangcai, I don't understand how I regret it. But I also know that when you talk to Teacher Guo, you have to adapt to her jumping thinking. Once, while discussing the benefits of vegetarianism with me, she suddenly asked me, "Do you still need men?" ”
I told my friends that my mother was very open-minded, but only to illustrate her attitude towards me to choose a mate, in fact, it is impossible to say that she never shyed away from her desires. She barely cut off a heterosexual partner and looked at physical needs separately from spiritual needs early on. Almost ten years ago, she exclaimed to me, "I was scared to death, I thought I was pregnant, it turned out to be menopause." The tone was frank self-deprecating, but also somewhat proud of herself—there was still a passionate opposite-sex relationship during menopause, which was her message to me.
"You'll regret it," she added, "that in a few days there will be a Gemini meteor shower, and the shores of Lugu Lake are perfect for visual inspection, and this is the last meteor shower of the year, and it will be as spectacular as a waterfall in the sky— do you really not visit me?" ”
"Waterfall?" I shuddered, and my heart was inexplicably touched.
"Yes, the size of hundreds of them per hour is like a waterfall in the night sky. When I came to Lijiang this time, I actually had this plan. Must let you rush over, but also want you to go to see together, the phone lost but just a reason for it, you see, this is like the day is destined, I have to lose the phone, you have to run this trip, this is all mysterious astronomical induction. ”
"Then you can tell me directly, and ask me when you leave, if you would like to follow you to see the waterfall in the sky." I say.
"I wasn't going to call you when I left, oh, I don't need to hide from you, I originally made an appointment with someone, I met in Lijiang, and as a result, the guy broke the appointment."
"Dating a man?"
"Yes, but don't think how disappointed I will be, nothing, it's always more important to break the contract than to fulfill the contract, and you have to understand this principle earlier." Fortunately, the starry sky always runs punctually and will never release your pigeons. ”
"Haven't there ever been uncertain astronomical phenomena?" I asked, "For example, the meteor shower that was said was good didn't show up." ”
"Yes, but the uncertainty of astronomical phenomena is only because there are many laws that human beings have not mastered, and they must not be fooled in their own laws."
"What about human uncertainty? Are there also laws that humans have not mastered? ”
"Oh, maybe it is. But the great law of man is the same as that of the universe, life, old age, illness and death, decay day by day, the universe will collapse, and people will die. ”
"Fun, I've traveled thousands of miles to sit on the roof with you and talk about these things."
"It's not so ridiculous," Teacher Guo said, "it's time for us to talk about these things." Then, to my shock, she said, "One day I'm gone, and there are a few things behind me that you need to figure out." Then she told me her bank card password.
"I don't want your money." I say this entirely because I'm confused. I can't imagine that this was the woman who was still stumbling between pregnancy and menopause ten years ago— my mother. I didn't want her money, I was just rejecting her sudden cries.
Teacher Guo shook his head and smiled, and asked me: "Have you been in contact with your father recently?" ”
"Yes, he was hooked on fishing and asked me to help him buy a fishing rod online the other day."
"Did you buy it for him?"
"Bought it."
"It's a matter of getting hooked on a woman that burns money more than looking for a woman." Teacher Guo teased.
For her ex-husband, she has always talked about it in a ridiculous manner, and even when she talks about the old things of hatred between the two, it is summarized in sentences such as "trick-or-treating" and "bad guys", as if she is just talking about the fault of a naughty child.
I have also been constantly pondering the possibility of these two people reuniting, and of course, I have repeatedly denied it until I finally stopped thinking about it. After the divorce, my father also changed women in a big way, and the youngest girlfriend was probably younger than me. My father and mother, both of whom had relentless passion, challenged the established order of life for the irrepressible impulse to save themselves.
Unfortunately, for them, I am precisely a label of the "order of life"—I am their daughter, a human fact or iron law that declares responsibility and obligation, or even humanity and morality. So, in the long process of growing up, their passion was the enemy I had to fight fiercely. But I don't resent, at least not now, because I have also faced my own passion, and I know that this passion is indeed a fierce battle between myself and my own haggardness.
Teacher Guo suddenly cared about me and asked me if I wanted to call my son.
"He can't play with me." I asked Guo teacher "Waterfall Gatekeeper" if she had ever heard of this game. I think she has been a teacher all her life and should know the tricks of children very well.
"I don't know, but it's definitely a wet game."
"Lost?"
"It's just throwing water on each other, making it like a chicken in soup, it's not bad, I hope that Wen Shengyi can guess eight or nine without leaving ten."
"This big winter's..."
"Don't worry, children generally play not bad."
I said no, I wasn't worried about my son getting cold, I couldn't figure out how a "wet body" game could be played under such seasonal conditions.
I said, "How do you play on the beach in a swimsuit and wrap it up like a rice dumpling?" ”
"I think they might go into the bathroom and play."
"But he won't let me into the bathroom when he's in the shower now, and he feels like he's already a man."
"Well, but he won't refuse to be naked in front of his own woman." Teacher Guo burst out laughing happily.
"It's really troublesome..." I also thought it was funny, but there was also a certain hidden sadness.
"Don't worry."
"What?"
"Life is distressing, but that's what makes it fascinating."
I felt uneasy, I was used to Teacher Guo's aphorisms, but at the moment I felt that she was not in an ordinary mood. The sky has completely darkened, and the lights of the ancient city are brilliant, but looking up at the sky on the roof, the stars in the night sky of the plateau are no less than crushing the fireworks of the world.
"I got cancer." Teacher Guo said suddenly and calmly.
A long time ago, Teacher Guo once collapsed on the podium because of a stomach perforation, and that time it was a trip from the ghost door. I was taken to the hospital by her colleagues and clearly realized that I could not live without her in my life. I was fourteen years old and thought to myself: If she dies, I will die with her.
I looked back at her, and she looked downstairs at the night of the ancient city. I wanted to start this topic with her, but I just followed her gaze into the distance and couldn't say anything. The night is not pure darkness, and the lights have nothing to do with the stars, it is almost a transparent blue in itself, a light source. The shadow of the mountain in the distance is pitch black, but it is not only a color, but also a sense of distance. Far away is black.
Teacher Guo said quietly: "This kind of night is very similar to the night color of Yumen, and the oil field is also brightly lit at night, but it will not weaken the original nature of the night at all." ”
I nodded yes, then proposed to go downstairs, and in the night wind, the terrace was already feeling a little cold. We went back to our rooms, and I was going to take a shower and go to her again, but when I turned on the shower, I realized that the water had stopped. It made me feel even worse when I knocked on her door, like a lifetime of dirt.
Uterine.
Early the next morning I was wandering around the ancient city. I didn't alarm Teacher Guo and wanted her to sleep more. And now I'm a little afraid to face her. At dawn, the ancient city is silent, the morning breeze on the plateau is somewhat harsh, and the red breccia paved paths are generally clean. In a small shop that opened its doors, I stayed for a long time. The owner is a disheveled middle-aged woman, she may not have expected to have customers so early, one of my own in the back of the store hung with Dongba za-dyed yard, Gu Zi to busy morning housework. I was suddenly fascinated by the plain coarse cloth, which hung on bamboo poles and danced gently in the wind, as if caught in a soft labyrinth. White flowers on a blue background, like a piece of the sky hanging. I realized that the reason why I felt intoxicated was because it was only then that I was able to get rid of my confusion for a short time. I picked up tens of meters of cloth and held them in my arms, feeling a kind of weak heaviness. I'm not keen on this kind of national style thing, and I don't know what to use when I buy it back. Coming out with two large bags, I continued to wander aimlessly through the crisscrossing alleys.
I think of another experience. When my son was two years old, he had an emergency, a high fever that was so severe that he was accompanied by symptoms of convulsions, and the doctor told me that there was a risk of leading to encephalopathy, hepatitis, hemophilic syndrome and other terrible consequences. I know this is the usual practice of all doctors – always throwing the worst possible at you, in addition to the need for impunity, and perhaps satisfying the secret enjoyment of malice in human nature. I asked my son and his father to stay in the hospital and go shopping on their own. That time, I overdrafted my credit card for the first time. At a sex toy store, I also bought myself an expensive toy. I also remember picking up my son from the hospital, sitting with me in the back seat of the car, staring at me in a pearlescent state of confusion. He couldn't understand how his mom could act like a different person, and when I tried to touch him, I felt him have a nervous dodge—his little shoulders tightened a little. Yet I pressed his shoulder almost cruelly, feeling my child tremble in the confusion of life, and in an instant, tears rushed out uncontrollably. It frightened him even more, and I could almost feel him trying to make himself smaller, smaller, smaller, all the way down to the point where he didn't have to carry any more weight. (Excerpt)
(For the full text, please refer to "Yangtze River Literature and Art And Good Novel", No. 5, 2022)
—END—
Excerpted from Harvest, Issue 1, 2022
The original journal is responsible for editing | Wang Jijun
The journal is responsible for editing | Zhu Yonghui
"Yangtze River Literature and Art : Good Novel", No. 5, 2022
▲Yizhou |
Yi Zhou, a contemporary novelist, a member of the Plenary Committee of the Chinese Writers Association, a member of the Novel Professional Committee, was selected as a national cultural master of the Propaganda Department and a "four batches" of talents. He is currently the deputy editor-in-chief of Yanhe Magazine. He has won many important awards such as the Lu Xun Literature Award.