On those frosty nights, when the lights came on, I walked through the concrete playground, around the manicured osmanthus trees in the corners, and walked to the stone path up the hill. Street lamps are sparse, pitch-black lampposts are shorter than elsewhere, and rusty bulbs at the base are almost within reach of the top. The dim light fell on the stone pavement, as desolate as the night. The road bent left and right, and I climbed the stairs, occasionally stepping on a loose stone slab, making a clicking sound, and my body shook with it. Wild wheat grows on the side of the road, bearing blue seeds, like turquoise falling from a Tibetan woman's clothes. There are shrubs, vines, and thorns on it, as well as artificially planted orchid bamboo and heather.
Twist two bends of less than 90 degrees and enter the deep forest. The tall camphor trees are covered with moss and green vines, and the persimmon trees, which are larger than the basin, stretch out their bare branches and shine with strings of lantern-like persimmons. From time to time, birds can be heard, mountain rats and four-legged snakes crawl over the dead leaves, and the cool wind shakes the branches.
Friend's house is just behind a few persimmon trees. The low floor, made of red bricks, has been painted with a layer of lime, and the snow-white walls of the past, after the ups and downs, have been marked with star-like mold. Dead branches and leaves fall on the tiled roof, accumulating year after year, decaying into dust year after year, as if accumulating many seasons, there is a kind of silence and coldness that ends in the song. The ancients who hid in the city probably chose such a corner of the city, retreated to life, and returned to their hearts.
Before the moon came out, I stood on the steps, panting, and looked up at the red persimmons on the trees by the light of the window, ready to go inside. The door was open, and a friend came out from inside, with a flat head, a clear face, blue pants, and a gray jacket. He would not extend his hand warmly, nor would he say a word of welcome again and again, but he would call out my name in a small voice, and then add two words, come, and then, whether I said yes or not, turn and go inside. I hummed and followed him, walking happily. I'm Xi to meeting like this, and I can guess that the next meeting will be the same.
The study was clean, the concrete floor glowed blue under the incandescent lamp, and the shelves were lined with brand-new books, mostly Western literature, which he had read by heart. He was a foreigner, more than ten years older than me, and he was a teacher of foreign literature at the further education school at Yamashita, and he was quite famous in the industry. Hot tea was placed on the wooden coffee table, a lighter rested on the cigarette case, cups and wine jugs were placed, a plate of peanuts, a plate of fried pumpkin seeds, these were prepared after receiving my call. He sat on the wicker chair next to the coffee table, and I sat down on the wicker chair opposite. He smiled at me across the coffee table, like a flower about to bloom and fail, and it withered in an instant. This is very likely, the first laugh of the night, and the last.
Still without words, he handed me a cigarette, picked up the flask and poured it, and in the rustle the little white glass was full, with a few hops on it. He was not Xi to using a tea cup, saying that it was too sloppy and lacked the taste of drinking. He drank a glass himself, put down the cup in one breath, and repeatedly stated that this was pure grain wine brought from his hometown Ningxiang. He bites the pure words heavier than the other words, and the implication is that the wine is not on the head, and the mouth is not dry, so he can drink it with confidence. We drank glass after glass, and the sound of wine glasses falling on the wooden coffee table sounded intermittently. After about five or six cups, the rhythm slowed down, his face flushed, and he began to talk more, and he liked to borrow a movie line at the beginning: Brother is a good person, but he is not sociable. He said the name of the movie, and I can't remember it.
After the opening remarks, the atmosphere slowly became lively, and we talked about reading, writing, and life until there was nothing to talk about, and we fell silent with each other. He held the cigarette and adjusted the center of gravity of his body to the back of the rattan chair, the light fell on his face full of relief, and the smoke was wrapped around the top of his right hand, like a sketch at hand, such a frame of life scenery, suitable for the old wall in the shade of his study, what he wanted to tell the world and what the world wanted to tell him were all in this soft line. The night wind shook the branches of the trees outside the window, whirring, the grass-green curtains were blown and fluttered, and sometimes the ripe persimmons could be heard falling with a loud sound.
When he was in a good mood, he told me about Proust as if he were in a classroom. The process was a bit long, and there was no pause in the middle, and the cigarette in his hand was hanging with a piece of cigarette ash, and he forgot to knock it off. When he stopped the conversation, he couldn't help but sigh, alas—Gombray, Swan's side. I didn't understand what he was sighing for a moment, only the fleeting melancholy on his face. I actually forgot about those things after hearing them. It wasn't until I read Proust's "Reminiscences of the Past" that I suddenly remembered a few words. Instead, I remember him describing how the birds outside the window peck at persimmons, and he spoke very vividly about it, calling it nature's feast, which I saw once.
Those persimmon trees are frighteningly tall, and the strings of persimmons bend their branches every year, and no one dares to pick them, which is a happy thing for birds. When the persimmons are ripe, embroidery-eyed birds, magpies, red-billed blue magpies, and yellow-rumped bulbuls fly together, and the trees are full of bird sounds and bird shadows. The most eye-catching is the red-billed blue magpie, gray-blue feathers, long tail, and a small piece of white as snow at the tip of the tail, this combination is noble and beautiful. They peck at the persimmons, starting from the bottom, little by little, never wasting them, and finally eat the whole persimmon. During this period, my feet hung in the air, and my wings kept flapping, and my heart was also hanging in the air, for fear that I would accidentally fall down and break my bones. When the persimmons were finished, they flew away, and the next year, when the persimmons were ripe, they flew back again. He spoke eloquently and comprehensively synthesized the details of each year, which was more vivid than what I had seen.
It was late at night, and I left a little drunk. He turned off the light in the study and walked out of the room. The moonlight covered the steps, and the autumn wind crept over the arms. We stood silently in the moonlight on the steps for a moment, and he looked up at the sky, and said in an exclamatory tone that he was afraid that there would be frost again tonight. I didn't reply, but walked down the hill, and he called my name behind my back, saying that he would come back next time. I didn't look back, I agreed, and dragged my shadow on.
Later, the friend went to his daughter in Shenzhen, and I don't know when he moved out of that house. Shortly afterwards he called me and told me that he didn't want to alarm anyone, and had disposed of the contents of the house and only took the books with him. On the day I left, I hung a long firecracker in the empty house, walked back and forth several times on the ground, and squatted on it to smoke a cigarette. He spoke slowly, and his voice was a little dry. Hang up, I'm stunned. I've moved many times, faced with many dilemmas of going and staying, and understand this silent and lonely goodbye. My friend is different from me because the house was demolished and he was forced to move out of here. He completed the major events of his life in this humble house, married, had children, retired, and here, is the long chapter of his life.
At that time, I was young, I trusted eternity too much, and I thought that everything would continue like this, and I didn't think that the vicissitudes of life were just words that stayed in a book. Until my friend went to the south, the house was torn down, the hillside was bulldozed, the trees on the mountain were gone, and there were no brilliant persimmons, and my friend, like those birds, left and never returned. Only then did I remember that I didn't take a few photos, but I used pictures and colors, light and shadow to retain a warm and warm time.
After years of not seeing friends and rarely talking on the phone, he has settled into life in the South. We still did not escape the catastrophe of time, and gradually became the vast sea of people of the other party.
After the house was built, I bought it, and the land became a high-rise building opposite my house. On autumn nights, the wind comes and goes, the windows shake with unfamiliar lights, and birds like persimmons flap their wings.