I am often asked when I started to like literature, and what was the incentive? I have to say partly because of the movie "The Girl in Red," based on the novel The Red Shirt Without Buttons.
When the movie hit, I was in junior high school in a small town. One day, a few of us girls met to prepare to escape the evening self-study to see this movie, and a few girls had a fawn in their hearts all day, seven up and eight down. My father was a middle school Chinese teacher, and perhaps because I wanted to manage strictly, or perhaps out of confidence in my own rural intellectual identity, I was directly assigned to my father's class as a class teacher, shaking under his eyes every day.
What excuse to take leave at night not to participate in the evening self-study, everyone is talking nonsense, do not get the point, there is a girl who is two years older than me thought of an idea, said that her mother called her to call a few classmates to help sew the quilt. In the past, sewing quilts was a big thing at home, the weather was good to quickly remove and wash, after washing some of the exquisite rice soup syrup once, and then to lay flat with roving thread sewn up. The excuse is obviously crude, and although sewing quilts requires hands, usually housewives do these things on Sundays. But the film was staged in such a hurry in the town, what excuse can we teenagers have?
After the Chinese class, I quickly lowered my head. I saw the older girl walk past me, and she was responsible for taking time off. Unexpectedly she came down quickly and told me that my dad agreed and didn't ask carefully. This made me suspicious, but the emotion of happiness overwhelmed suspicion.
The difficult thing to do is the ticket money, I don't have any change on me, don't misunderstand, there will be no whole. At that time, they all ate in the hall, paid together for a semester, did not need to spend money on each meal, did not have the idea of giving money to their children at home, and the most fundamental thing was that everyone had no extra money at home.
Her family lives on the street and does some small business, she knows where the money is placed, and decides to steal ticket money for a few of us. In the afternoon class, she came triumphantly, saying that she had taken it with a big swing, because her mother had not read any books, and her arithmetic was very poor, and she usually relied on her to help settle the account. And our generation was indoctrinated from an early age to be industrious and thrifty, and where would my mother beware of thieves.
After school, the four of us rushed to the cinema to buy tickets, who knows if we have not yet started selling tickets, we will not sell them until an hour before the start of the show. We hurried to separate for dinner, and one of my classmates and I went back to the school canteen, and the other two went back to our homes on the street.
After arbitrarily pulling down a bowl of rice, they gathered at the door of the movie theater again. At this time, we are afraid to run into a teacher or a parent at the school when selling tickets. So I went into hiding with two classmates who lived on the street and asked the girl who lived on campus to buy tickets, and fewer people knew her. Although the girl was afraid, she still plucked up the courage to agree. I don't know who took out a handkerchief and said to tie her to her head so that even the teacher would not recognize it. She really used this crumpled handkerchief as a headscarf, which was a simplification. The three of us nervously hid in the shadows and watched.
The queue to buy tickets is getting longer and longer, the time passes minute by minute, it is my classmate's turn, it is very smooth. She got four tickets, and while rushing toward us, she quickly ripped off her turban and returned it, saying that she wanted to tie a handkerchief to cover up, and everyone looked at her, which was embarrassing.
Classmates "took" a little more money from home, so when they entered the movie theater, they bought a dime of melon seeds, and the old man who sold melon seeds rolled into the shape of ice cream with old newspapers and filled a tube of fried sunflower seeds and handed them to us. My heart is still uncertain, I am always afraid of wearing a gang, one moment I am worried that my father will visit the home of that classmate, and the next moment I am worried that the movie theater will be found by other teachers, and there are twenty or thirty teachers in the school who do not know me. The classmate who stole the money always took the melon seeds to me, asked me to bow my head and sniff the melon seeds, and I had the courage to look around to see if there were any other teachers. After about three laps, she suddenly lowered her head and whispered: We all bow our heads, don't look around. I asked her which teacher she had seen, and she said, don't make a sound. I asked if it was the headmaster, and she nodded softly. I didn't dare to sniff melon seeds anymore, my heart was beating.
Fortunately, it didn't take long for the movie to start, and we were quickly attracted to the red clothes of the "Girl in Red". The dress material has a somewhat ethereal feeling, and there is a small zipper at the back with a snow-white skirt. When will we be able to wear such beautiful clothes? I liked the way Enron argued in front of my mother, alas, if I were her, I would dare to reach out to my father for money for movie tickets. Later, enron's evaluation of the "three good students" deeply touched me. Mu Xiu yu lin, the wind will destroy it, I even want to help her vote. If I were her, I would probably agree to this "three good", but she went to the teacher, clearly expressed her heart, and publicly announced that she would re-evaluate next year. Do I dare? The film is going on in this constant association and substitution, and my heart is churning: excitement, sourness, courage, sadness, hesitation... Miscellaneous tastes, unconsciously, the movie is over. When the lights in the theater came on, everyone actually clapped together, as if they heard the command of the heart.
The incandescent lamp suddenly let us return to reality, and quickly asked the classmates next to us who they saw. She whispered into my ear, "See your dad! "I'm confused — Daddy would come to see a movie like that too?!"
Adjusting his mood a little, hundreds of thoughts quickly swirled through his head.
At this time, my classmate said: You went back with a big wave and said that you would help my family sew the quilt. Because your dad may not see us anymore. I didn't say a word, and they walked out of the movie theater holding hands, and the girl in red was suddenly so far away from me. Her courage to rebel against her parents and teachers, which had stirred me, was now so easily dissipated. My palms were sweaty and my head was a ball of wool.
I ended up alone to face My Dad and the class teacher.
I thought well, as long as Dad asked, I will tell the truth, he didn't watch it, there is nothing wrong with the movie itself, Enron is to bump into the elders, wear a red pullover shirt, nothing.
I went back to Dad's dorm room, and Dad was pouring boiling water. He didn't ask anything. I took a few taps and took a shower with the kettle.
Before going to bed, Dad seemed to want to say something to me but stopped talking.
The matter passed inexplicably, and my father and I never talked about the movie or debunked the lie of asking for leave. The girls who watch movies together often talk mysteriously about safety, quietness, poetry, love, and the distant future and distant places unfolding in front of them.
The days of the township go forward at their own pace, sometimes the sun moves fast, sometimes it is as long as if it stands still. Spring to autumn, cold and summer are easy to festival.
The following summer, Enron shirts were blown by the wind into our town. The girls who have watched the movie are all chattering around the red shirt, I don't think it is as good as the original version, the material is not flowing enough, but they all love it. However, buying clothes is a lot of money, no one dares to ask the family to ask, at that time to buy new clothes is a family event, to set up a project in the Spring Festival, special funds for special purposes. Several sisters who grow fast and who earn the most. Most of us are sensible and understand the difficulties of our parents, after all, eating enough is the most important thing.
One day, my mother suddenly brought out a "Enron shirt" for me, saying that my father advocated buying it. I wore this shirt for several years, until it grew too tall to wear it before I gave it to my cousin, who wore it for a few more years. There is no other piece of clothing with such a high rate of use, my mother saw that I liked it so much, and then she often bought me red clothes, and I was once called a girl in red by my classmates.
In this way, I fell in love with red clothes and fell in love with literature and art.
The girl who stole money to buy tickets did not enter high school, but directly became a movie projectionist, riding a men's 28-inch bicycle to the villages at night with a heavy machine to play movies. She turned her back on a lot of movies, and every time I met, she told me about movies. I was very envious of her life, and I followed her to several villages during the winter vacation, but unfortunately, television sets soon became popular in the countryside. She should have been the last wave to show movies in the countryside, and if she had run into today's new media era, she must have been a good film critic.
Author: Shen XiayanEditor: Shu Ming