One
"Get out of the car!" As several soldiers shouted loudly, the door of the stuffy tanker was slowly opened, and a group of ragged men jumped down from the door one by one. They were brave men who had just been captured from all over the country, and they would be sent to the front line of the war against the Communists after a brief training somewhere in Nanjing.
It was already dusk, and the platform was bustling with people carrying large bags and small bags, adults and children rushing to get on the train, and groups of wounded soldiers who got off another train, some of them were on crutches, some were wrapped in bandages, and some were carried on stretchers and walked outside......
Grandpa followed the group of strong men slowly, and while the soldiers were not paying attention, he stumbled to the bottom of the train box, and despite the pain after hitting the tracks, he crawled under the car for some distance, and then quickly picked up a coal truck that stopped not far away. Four or five others escaped with him.
I don't know how long it took, the train started slowly, and the next day when they arrived in Jiangxi, they discussed it and felt that it would be discovered sooner or later, so they got off the train halfway, and everyone found their way home after they broke up. My grandfather walked west along the railway line and returned to his hometown in Hunan a few days later.
This is the story that my grandfather told us when he was a deserter, and when he told it, it was light and light, and even had a hint of self-deprecation, but we cannot imagine what kind of displacement and hardships my grandfather experienced when he fled from Nanjing, thousands of miles away, to his hometown in Hunan in that era of frequent wars and starvation.
Two
My grandfather's surname is Yang, his name is Guozuo, his name is magnificent, but his fate is humble.
His mother died when he was eight years old, and his father was shot dead by bandits when he was about 13 years old — around 1935-1936.
In this way, his grandfather, who was about 13 years old, took over the place of his father as the head of the family, and he had a younger brother who was eight or nine years younger than him. When I was 18 years old, my grandfather married my grandmother, gave birth to an uncle the next year, and an aunt in the third year. In order to make a living, my grandfather had to learn to start a business. He learned to make koji (commonly known as "wine medicine" in our place), and also fished and shrimp everywhere, dried them and carried them everywhere to catch the market; later, when he had a little capital, he simply became a second-course dealer, picking the things in the market in place A to sell in place B, and earning a little difference in the middle. In this way, my grandfather supported the family, repaired the old house, and bought a few acres of land.
By 1946, the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party was raging, and the Kuomintang was arresting strong men everywhere. My grandfather happened to be out at that time, and there was only my grandfather's younger brother in the family, who was only sixteen years old at the time, but the soldier arrested my grandfather's younger brother in order to make an errand.
On his way to the troop station, he saw his grandfather in the crowd, and he instinctively called out "brother". At this time, the soldier left his grandfather and brother and arrested his grandfather, and when he left, he still had unsold mountain goods on his shoulders. That year, my grandfather was 25 years old, he was already the father of two children, and he had a younger brother who had not yet started a family.
Fortunately, the war was in chaos, the Kuomintang was facing collapse, and no one pursued him as a deserter, so he began to farm his land and start his small business.
From the time he fled back to his hometown to the sixties after liberation, my grandfather and grandmother gave birth to seven more children, and in this way, together with the two that had been born before, they had a total of nine children, including three girls and six boys (one for others), and my mother was the first child he gave birth to after fleeing back to his hometown.
My grandfather's composition was not good, on the one hand, because his grandfather was a small local landlord, and on the other hand, because he himself bought a few acres of land before liberation, so the composition problem became a big mountain for him and the whole family. When my mother and my father were talking about marriage, the secretary of the brigade went to my father's house to dissuade them, but my father was resolutely opposed. Later, some people even made a big fuss about his grandfather's production of wine koji, and from time to time he pulled his grandfather up at the Bittersweet Remembrance Conference, shouting slogans such as "Down with Yang Guozuo, waste food to make wine and medicine", and for a time my grandfather was criticized to the point of "infamy".
But the strong grandfather seemed unmoved, he should eat, drink, work, and joke with his family like no one else when he got home. Whenever he rushed to the market, he also quietly carried the burden and shuttled back and forth to the market...... Because he knew that he couldn't fall, otherwise the dozen or so members of this family would be wiped out.
Three
The fact that the nine children born to my grandfather and grandmother survived and started a family was a somewhat surprising and incredible thing in that era of material scarcity, thanks to a large extent to my grandfather's "shrewdness" and dedication.
They have to be busy with farm work during the day, and at night they have to participate in various activities of the production team, such as summary meetings, study meetings, criticism meetings, rehearsal programs, etc., and also feed chickens, ducks, pigs and sheep and other domestic animals at home.
Of course, they usually habitually count the number of children before going to bed at night, but one night they were so tired that they slept when they came back, and did not count the number of people on time, and when they counted the next morning, they found that there was one missing, and the third uncle was gone. This made them anxious, and they mobilized the family to search everywhere, and finally found the third uncle sleeping in the public bullpen - this incident became a joke in the family and the village many years later.
The most familiar memory that my grandfather left me is the back of fried glutinous rice cakes at home during the Spring Festival every year. My grandfather, bent over, wearing a velvet hat and an apron, stood in front of the stove, and under the dim kerosene lamp, the clear oil in the iron pot was already boiling and steaming. My grandfather picked up the rice cake with one hand, patted it lightly with the other, and then carefully placed it in the oil pot. A thin wave immediately rose around the glutinous rice cakes, and each one of them was like a naughty child, wandering around happily in it, and in a blink of an eye, it turned golden yellow. While blowing the hot air, my grandfather carefully took out the fried glutinous rice dumplings and placed them on a plate beside them, sprinkled them with a dipping sauce made of cooked rice flour and white sugar, and the fragrance immediately filled the room. Grandma brought the plate to the table in the hall, and it was immediately divided by the adults and children who had been waiting for a long time. Grandpa came out, looked at the scene, shook his head, and went into the kitchen again, but I could clearly see a smile on his lips.
Four
When my grandfather was in his 60s, he suffered a stroke that left him with half of his body, his mouth tilted to one side, he could not speak well, and he could only walk with a limp on crutches.
I remember that it was during the spring ploughing, the production team arranged for him to pick up dung, and when it was almost noon, he carried a load of dung to a paddy field, and splashed the dung in the bucket into the ground with a dung spoon, and suddenly he fell into the mud, causing a burst of exclamations from everyone.
Everyone carried him to the ridge with all hands and feet, at this time he was speechless, just pointed to his mouth, his hands kept shaking, someone helped him pinch the middle and press his chest, and his grandfather calmed down a little. In the afternoon of the same day, the aunt who worked in the county hospital came back with an ambulance and sent him to the hospital, and my grandfather saved his life, but since then his life has been closely linked with crutches and wheelchairs. He can no longer work in the collective to earn a share of his work, he can no longer carry his burden to go around the market to earn money, and he can no longer fry glutinous rice for his family during the Chinese New Year...... We can see his loss and frustration, but fortunately, at this time, except for the youngest uncle who is in high school, the children have already started a family, and the younger uncle lived in the aunt's house when he was studying, so the grandfather can basically live for the rest of his life.
Under the careful care of his grandmother, my grandfather lived to be over 80 years old. In the winter of my grandfather's death, it snowed heavily in my hometown, and my grandfather, who had been bedridden for a long time, finally finished his humble and hard life with his family by his side.
At the time of the burial, the snow fell heavier and heavier, and the disturbing snowflakes shrouded the whole village in a vague snow shadow, and the coffin moved slowly in bursts of mourning music and the cries of relatives. Looking at the portrait of the grandfather held by the uncle, the villagers couldn't help but shake their heads and sigh: Hard-working people.
I also wrote a little poem that began like this: "That winter my grandfather was gone / Lying on that brown wooden bed / Closed his eyes serenely / He turned his face away / He didn't want to see the sadness and fear on my face......"
That was in early 1992, and I still think about him from time to time.