Mother and child
Text/Feng Jiqi
The recliner was carried to the street by the mother. The mother clutched the wooden frame on either side of the recliner with both hands, and the color of the hand was almost the same calm and dull as the color of the wood, and the hand seemed to be rougher than the wood. The mother's hand was already green, but it was also the result of her strength, and the mother's whole body strength was concentrated in her hand--the recliner was not very heavy in the mother's hand. The mother spread the recliner in the shade of the trees on the street. The weather was hot. The narrow streets were filled with grain pockets. Although the shade of the tree is extremely limited, a person lies under the tree, and his heart has a little coolness, which is brought about by the occasional swing of the leaves of the tree, although it is only a faint swing. Putting the recliner on hold, the mother straightened her waist, and she brushed her hair, which contained more white silk than the wrinkles on her face. The mother raised her clear and determined gaze: at the southern end of the street, there was a man pulling a rack car and walking hard in the sun, and the wheels were very sluggish. At that time, the mother wanted to buy a wheelchair for her son, and the money was almost up. However, the son insisted on not asking his mother to buy it. The son was right, the wheelchair could not cope with the country dirt roads, the roads were uneven, and the son could not stand the turbulence. Both she and her son still have a faint hope that the nerves in her spine will be healed. Wheelchairs were not bought after all. The wheel escaped from her mother's sight. The cart puller reached his mother. Cart pullers are vendors who exchange dishes for food. The mother moved the recliner and let the cart puller squeeze into the shade with the rack car.
The mother walked out of the courtyard with her son on her back. The son's hands went over his mother's shoulders and lay on his mother's back. The mother's waist was bent down, and her steps were very steady. The son's gaze drooped down, never crossed the mother's hair, he just looked at the back of the mother's neck and shoulder blades, the bones on the mother's shoulder blades were clearly recognizable, these bones that had gone through sixty spring and autumn, these bones that had begun to become lighter, these were just tightly connected, used to structure the bones of the human body, how to support the mother, how to carry the son, only the son knew, deep into the bone marrow is the mother's spirit, is the mother's emotions, lose these, the mother's bones will have no power, It will fall apart. The son lying on his mother's back just frowned and just gritted his teeth, which was the simplest, simplest and most loyal way for him to vent his emotions--he could no longer shed tears, he could not cry. The mother's bones accurately convey the son's mood at this time, and the son's most subtle emotional changes are also in the mother's feelings. The mother cried out, "Come." The son's drooping gaze lifted up, and he saw the scorching sun, and he saw the recliner.
After giving birth to four girls in a row, the mother had the idea of raising a son, and she wanted to have a son too much. The son was adopted from the confinement of the month. On the day of his son's full moon, his mother gave him a name—Come. The mother closely associates her son's name with her four daughters (Lai Xia, Lai Fang, Lai Juan, Lai Hui) to show that the son is her own. The son grew up in his mother's eyes. After graduating from junior high school, his son insisted on learning the craft, and his mother followed his wishes, asking him to learn the craft with a person in the village who was both proficient in carpentry and bricklayer. The son was a little thorough, and he was discharged from school at the age of eighteen. The son's presence comforted the mother, who planned to demolish several old mansion houses, build a large tile house, and then marry the son. Just when the mother was excitedly sketching out the blueprint for the future. Something unfortunate happened: the son fell off the scaffolding, and that year, the son was twenty years old. He spent all his family's savings, sold pigs and sheep, sold cattle, and ran to more than a dozen hospitals in and around the province, but he was unable to get his son to stand up. He was paralyzed. The mother's back carries her son's wishes—not only to enable her son to see the world outside the house.
The mother placed her son on the recliner.
The mother's back was wet with sweat. She lifted the corner of her coat and wiped the sweat from her face. The eyes of the mother and son met. The mother gave her son a large love and care look, and she did not say a word and went back to the courtyard.
"Why is this happening?" The vendor glanced at the recliner. "Broken." He said.
"It's been years, right?"
"Ten years."
"That's your mother?"
"Of course it's my mom.
The vendor sighed.
"What's the sigh?" Do you have to worry about not being able to change the dishes? "My mother came out with a fan." Drink water or not? ”
"No." The vendor shook his head in embarrassment: "What is the name of the village in front of you?" ”
"Du Village." Mother said. "If you have dishes, you can get food."
"I'm going to Du Village to find someone."
The peddler probably did not dare to face the mother and son, and he pulled the rack cart into the sunfield.
"Mom, I think..."
The son shook the fan in his hand.
"Gotta want to twist the rope?" Mother said, "It's such a hot day, forget it." ”
The son fanned the wind toward the mother's back.
The son's hands with axes and saws and tile knives changed, became very dexterous and meticulous, and he learned to twist the rope, learned to hold the sole, learned to put on the upper. What else can these hands do? The son knew that he would never be able to stand up. He thought that he could relieve his mother of some of the burden with a pair of hands. But he couldn't do those jobs every day, he was desperate. His first response to himself was a hunger strike. Let his mother persuade and enlighten, let his mother sob and cry, he did not move his chopsticks, not even drink a sip of water. It was as if a black rock had been blocked in his son's heart, and no amount of powerful language could blow into it. So the mother accompanied her son on hunger strike. The son would rather die than hurt his mother. The son took the rice bowl, and he took a bite and fed it to his mother. When his mother carried him out of the courtyard door and out of the room, the son cried: When will he be carried by his mother? Hearing his mother's footsteps still in the courtyard, his son threw himself off the kang, he fell and his face was swollen, and he did not want his mother to carry him again. He didn't want to bother his mother anymore, and for him, her white hair bent over the course of a few years. He had suicidal thoughts again. While his mother was cooking in the stove room, he untied his trouser belt, tied it to the window frame, and slipped his neck in, trying to strangle himself. When his mother came in, he was suffocating. His mother rescued him. Mother and son hugged their heads and cried. On that very day, he swore to his mother that he would live well and be a good man. It was the mother who proposed that he learn to draw, and the mother did not expect her son to be able to draw anything, but only hoped that he would not be idle. From that day on, he began to learn to paint.
The mother waited for her son like a baby, the son urinated uncontrollably, and every day he asked the mother to pick up the and urine, and the mother was often tired and sweaty. The aunt watched her mother being fried, so she called her to her and said, "You still have the tiger " ( in the third year of raising him , the mother gave birth to a son ) , the tiger can stand up to the door, you call to come and go, he is also living and suffering. When the mother heard this, she glared at her aunt, and she picked up the cutting knife on the board and said, "Go and chop off one of your son's fingers and show it to me." The aunt was so frightened that she didn't dare to say anything anymore.
Now, the mother sits next to her son's recliner. The mother is to cool the son, and the son is to cool the mother. Later, the fan still reached his son,and he fanned it for his mother.
"Mom's not hot." Mother said.
"It's not hot yet?"
"Calm and naturally cool." The mother said, "Fall into the cold mile, and as soon as the sky is full, the sky will cool down." ”
"The sky is almost full."
"Yes," said the mother, "it is getting cold, and the mother is ready to marry your brother." ”
The fan in his son's hand fell to the ground. The mother looked up into the distance. The son picked up the fan and said, "Laihu should also get married." ”
Here comes a wisp of wind. The wind is sifted down from among the branches and leaves of the tree.
"It's so cool." Son said.
"There are clouds in the sky." Mother said.
In the blink of an eye, several dark clouds came from all directions and gathered around the sun. The sun moves slowly through the clouds. "Mom, I want to paint."
"Now?"
"Now." The son said, "Draw another portrait of you." ”
"That's good!"
The mother brought her son a drawing board and pencil.
The mother pulled her hair back together. She sat a little farther away from her son's recliner.
The son began to paint portraits of his mother.
The mother's thin hands were on her knees, her waist was as straight as possible, and her eyes were looking at the southern end of the street: the street was very uneven, like a seesaw swaying in the sun. There was another cool breeze, and the wind rolled up the mother's white cloth shirt, and the mother's white hair fluttered in the wind. The son looked at his mother's face, and his mother's expression touched him. The son did not know how many portraits he had drawn to his mother, and every time he drew one, his mother would be happy for half a day. Although he didn't paint well, his mother stared at the portrait and always said, "Is my mother so young?" "Is Mom so strong?" "Is Mom so good-looking?" The son said, "Yes, yes." ”
The mother pulled on the hem of her robe and said, "You have to paint your mother as sixty years old, and your mother is sixty this year." ”
The son said, "Mom, you can rest assured." The son stared at his mother, his gaze seldom on the drawing board, and only the extremely small sound of the pencil rubbing on the drawing board.
The streets had the shadow of the sun. The shadow of the sun was behind the mother and son.
Early in the morning, the mother brought her son a razor. The son shaved his face clean in front of the mirror. The mother is going to hold a wedding for her second son today. Mother was busy. As soon as the table was opened, the mother brought noodles to her son and took care of her son for breakfast. The son asked his mother if there was any work he had done. Mother said no. The mother knows what her son thinks in his heart, and if the son is not paralyzed, the son is also the one who has a son. However, in this life, he has no chance of getting married.
Mother said: "Today there are many guests in the house, messy, mother lock the door for you from the outside, so that someone will not have to harass you." ”
The son said, "Mom will lock if she wants to." ”
My mother said, "Before the afternoon meal, my mother will bring you the meal." If you can't lie down, just paint your paintings. ”
The son said, "Mom, you go and take care of the guests, don't worry about me." "When the mother came out of the room, she locked the door for her son. Later, the mother felt that she should blame herself for not locking the door for her son. At that time, why did the mother lock up, she probably had her own ideas, and the son probably sensed it, so he happily agreed to the mother.
The son was lying on the pit, looking at the mat with a good eye, the mat on the roof was yellow, the snow-white mat had changed color in ten years, and the "human" glyph flower on the mat was flying like a swallow, flying all over the house. In fact, the house was quiet, and the son himself could hear the sound of his own breathing and heartbeat. He stopped looking at the canopy. He picked up the portrait of his mother from the pillow, and the son looked at the mother in the picture, and he covered the portrait of the mother on his chest, pondered for a while, and began to revise it with a pencil. As he revised, he recalled his mother's expression at that time. For the first time, he felt as if the pencil in his hand did not listen to the call, and the more he modified, the more he could not follow his wishes.
The sound of firecrackers spilled in from outside the courtyard door and spilled into the courtyard. The atmosphere in the courtyard seemed to have nothing to do with his son, and he made up the last stroke of his mother's portrait. The pencil sweated in his hand. His fingers clamped the pencil tightly like iron tongs, and his left hand pulled hard to pull the fingers of his right hand. The pencil fell. The son moved his nervous hand. He looked back, and through the small glass in the window, he could see the autumn wind happily on the poplar trees in the backyard, and a green leaf was falling downwind. The son stuck a piece of paper to the small piece of glass, closed his eyes, and rested for a while.
The bride entered the door to the sound of firecrackers. What kind of girl is she? The son opened his eyes, and the word "ren" on the shed was flying around again. His hand touched the kang and touched the generous mirror he used to shave in the morning. What kind of girl is she? Tall, his face was white and red, his neck was particularly clean, and his eyes were particularly black, as bright as the black waterhole in Yongshan Mountain. The moment he fell from the scaffolding, he seemed to see such a girl, and she ran toward him with a loud cry, and she probably stretched out her arms to catch him who had fallen from a high place, not letting him pounce on the ground, and she just spun in his sight and disappeared. What he saw was not the girl's face, but his own face, in the mirror. His gaze gradually calmed. He picked up the drawing board and began to paint himself, and he drew very hard, looking in the mirror for a while, and smearing a few brushes on the drawing board.
The wedding went on in an orderly manner.
The room was as quiet as iron. The sound of the son's pencil drawing on the drawing board was like a plough plough ploughing the land, and the son's forehead was sweating. He didn't seem to believe it even to himself, and it was he who drew it on the drawing paper! He gave his hand another hard squeeze, "clicked", the pencil broke into two pieces, and the "people" on the shed really flew away...
Lunch is about to begin. The mother, holding more than half a bowl of meat and vegetables in her left hand and two white-faced steamed buns in her right hand, walked to the door of her son's room, and the mother placed the steamed buns on the bowl and used the key to open the door with her right hand. Mother's hand that opened the door was shaking. She hit it three times before she opened the lock. She had never been like this, and could open that lock even with her eyes closed. The mother's arm shook and her heart beat faster. Pushing open the door of the house, the mother placed the bowl on the cupboard. She thought her son was asleep and cried twice, but the son did not say a word. The voice in the mother's heart became clear: the son was not asleep. She lifted the quilt to see that the son had cut the vein in his wrist with a razor, and the blood seemed to be still hot, and the hot blood crawled on the kang, crawling hard, through the son's body, and crawled to the mother. The mother looked at her son's calm face and said in her heart, Mom is old and confused, you won't complain about Mom, right? She seemed to hear her son say, no. Mother closed the door of the room. She wiped the blood from her son's body, took a new dress from the cupboard, and put it on her already stiff son. The mother looked at her son and covered him with a quilt. It was then that she discovered her son's self-portrait. She looked closely at her son's self-portrait, which did not look like her son at all. The mother put the portrait on the cupboard, and the vegetable bowl was sacrificed in front of the portrait.
Mother had done all this and calmly walked out of the room and locked the door again.
Lunch was served to the sound of a string of firecrackers.
The lively atmosphere shines in the courtyard like the midday sun.
The mother went to the backyard. Standing under the poplar tree, with her back to the bustle of the yard, she burst into tears, and a green leaf grazed her mother's shoulder and fell to the ground, and she thought who had pushed her, and she hastily dried her tears. Looking down, there was a green leaf under her feet.
In the courtyard, someone was shouting, What the is coming? ”
The mother replied happily, "Here it comes." I'm coming. ”
Originally published in Northern Literature, No. 10, 1998