Forty years ago, a poem written by Du Xuan to Ba Jin on a business card bears witness to the friendship between two literary legends.
"The article says Barkin everywhere"
In May 1984, I was sent to the airport to meet the Chinese PEN delegation attending the Tokyo PEN Association. A fellow writer saw that I was a new comrade who had just entered the work of the Literary Association, and he talked to me about the experience and interesting stories of pen writers. Speaking of Mr. Du Xuan, he introduced: Du Xuan joined the revolution as early as the early 1930s and was a senior on the secret front of our Party. On the eve of liberation, he carried out a rebellion against the Kuomintang warship "Chongqing" in his capacity as an underground party of the Communist Party. In the 1950s, he wrote this real history into the script "The Long Rainbow Uprising", which was adapted to the screen. When I listened, my heart suddenly felt hot. I didn't expect to meet Mr. Behind the Scenes, who watched his movies as a teenager and helped me grow. Therefore, when I first met Mr. Du Xuan, in addition to surprises, there was also admiration.
Mr. Du Xuan really approached the writers association from the independence of the literary association, and he was elected as the vice chairman of the writers association. Every time he came to the Association to participate in activities or attend meetings, he did not say much, saying one sentence after another. From my photographic lens, Du Xuan was wearing light brown glasses and holding a cigarette in his mouth. I think he has both the elegance of a literati and the style of an artist. On mr. Barkin's 90th birthday, Du Xuan came to the door to congratulate him. When they met, he bowed his hand to Ba Lao and said, "Big Brother Ba." "At first, I wasn't used to calling him that. Over time, I gradually saw that they were friends who had known each other for many years, and their friendship was very strong...
On November 25, 1993, Du Xuan talked with Ba Jin
November 25, 2020, marks the 117th anniversary of The Birth of Ba Lao. I came to Barkin House. Seeing that the time is still early, I browsed in front of the display case. A business card printed with the words "Du Xuan of the Chinese PEN Center" came into my eyes, and the square inches were densely written: "The article says Ba Jin everywhere, and this time Paris is full of fame." A glass of red wine is a thousand miles away, and the autumn breeze is like silver. "I think this poem is very familiar. Later, I remembered that in September 1995, Mr. Du Xuan went to Hangzhou to visit Ba Lao. When they sat together and were talking about Du Xuan's mourning poem Mei Lanfang, Ba Lao told him that I donated the banner of the poem you wrote in France to the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature. Du Xuan listened to the continuous voice and said yes, and recited the poem aloud on the spot. The back is this poem on the business card.
In September 1981, Ba Lao led a delegation from the China PEN Center to France to attend the 45th International PEN Conference. During the meeting, Du Xuan witnessed the friendship between Ba Lao and Yiwen, spread friendship, and was respected and praised by foreign counterparts. Once, at the Chinatown Hotel in Paris, during a dinner party with the members of the delegation who had returned to China first, Ba Lao got this impromptu poem that Du Xuan waved on his business card. Back in China, Du Xuan copied the poems on rice paper with a brush and gave them to Ba Lao. But in my eyes, the forty-year-old business card in the display case has a special meaning.
"How many frost years"
Coincidentally, shortly before I saw this business card, the WeChat "first group of Shanghai friends" uploaded a yellowed still of Du Xuan's daughter Gui Weiming recounting her father's literary and dramatic activities in his student days. I looked closely and recognized a few lines of blurry pen writing: "Stills from 'Thunderstorm' staged in Tokyo in 1935." To Comrade Du Xuan, Ba Jin. It turned out that this still, which has been more than 80 years old, is a relic left by her father. There is also a story that moved me...
In 1933, Du Xuan studied in Japan and became acquainted with several progressive young people in Japan through Guo Moruo. One day, they brought Du Xuan a copy of the latest issue of the Literary Quarterly, which contained Cao Yu's play "Thunderstorm", edited by Ba Jin's hand. Du read it and decided to put it on stage. He directed with Liu Ruli and Wu Tian, and also received the help of Akita Yuque, the predecessor of Japanese left-wing drama. After months of intense rehearsals, it was officially performed at the Hitotsubashi Lecture Hall in Tokyo in April 1935. At this time, Barkin happened to be in Tokyo. After hearing the news, he not only watched the rehearsal of the play, but also observed the first performance. Halfway through the play, the Japanese Metropolitan Police Department sent someone to intervene, saying that it violated the relevant regulations and prohibited the performance. Du Xuan did not know at the time that Ba Jin was also present to watch. Twenty years later, Ba Jin gave du Xuan the treasured stills of "Thunderstorm" after the inscription on the back, and in the end, this cultural relic-level still became the "heirloom" of Mr. Du Xuan's family.
In the 1990s, when I read a book to Ba Lao, I selectively picked out some articles written by his old friends to read, and once I read to him Mr. Du Xuan's "A Top Secret Mission in World War II" published in the "Literature Newspaper". Within a few days, Du Xuan came to Hangzhou. After the meeting, Ba Lao told Du Xuan that he had heard the article in the Literary Journal. Although I have heard you talk about this before, it is not so complete and systematic. He praised it as "well written and tastefully written." ”
Through reading the newspaper, I also have a better understanding of Mr. Du Xuan's wonderful life. After the victory of the War of Resistance, he was the only Chinese in the Allied delegation to Hong Kong to receive Japanese prisoners of war. During his four years in Hong Kong, he participated in important activities such as the League for the Defense of Hong Kong, ran a publishing house, served as the chairman of a hotel, and escorted cultural celebrities to retreat to the Northeast Liberated Area. Then, Ba Lao asked Du Xuan what he was writing lately? Du Xuan said that he was conceiving a script to write for Hong Kong. The following year, Zhang Ruifang, Qin Yi and other old artists gathered with Du Xuan, and everyone was overjoyed that Hong Kong was about to return to the motherland. "You write a play, and we'll perform it together." Zhang Ruifang and Qin Yi's initiative to ask for help coincided with Du Xuan's idea. After creation, a 4-act 15-scene script "Returning the Pearls to the Sea" was completed.
"Hong Kong's return to the motherland is not simple"
In May 1997, Du Xuan, who was also admitted to Huadong Hospital, learned that Ba Lao had left for Hangzhou to recuperate, and he wore a hospital gown to "visit the door". After entering the door, he told Ba Lao: "Brother Ba, I wrote a Hong Kong drama, which was performed on June 25, and the actors you are familiar with are participating." As he spoke, he pulled his hand and the index fell: "There are Zhang Ruifang, Qin Yi, Sun Daolin, Qiao Qi, and Jiang Jun..." Ba Lao listened and said: "The return of Hong Kong is not simple. ”
Du Xuan added: "When we were young, we shouted to reclaim the concession and reclaim Hong Kong, and we shouted for decades. "Yeah," said Ba Lao, who was in a wheelchair, with a smile. I looked at the two old men with joyful expressions. I thought to myself: People who have been bullied by foreign powers, hope that the motherland is more urgent, Du Xuan has worked and lived in Hong Kong for a long time. After the founding of New China, he passed through or visited Hong Kong no less than dozens of times, and he was familiar with local customs and customs and knew the historical changes of Hong Kong very well, which enabled him to create this magnificent epic drama in less than a month.
After stopping for a while, Du Xuan asked Ba Lao, this time to Hangzhou still live in Wang Zhuang? After speaking, he recalled the scene of his visit to Xin'anjiang from Hangzhou with Ba Lao, Xiao Shan, and Lu Mang in the early sixties. After hearing this, Ba Lao said, "There is also Ren Gan." When Du Xuan mentioned Xiao Shan's fish throat, Ba Lao smiled and said, "That's in Tonglu." "On the same topic, I have childishly asked Ba Lao: Have you been to the Xin'anjiang Hydropower Station? Ba Lao immediately said that he had been there before he was well built, and there were Xin Di, Luo Hong, and Xiao Shan. After making it, I went again, including Luo Sun, Du Xuan, Ren Gan, Lu Mang, and wrote an article. At this time, Mr. Du Xuan recalled the old matter, and Ba Lao naturally remembered it very clearly.
Then, Du Xuan turned the topic around and said, "Now Bingxin is the oldest." Elder Ba said: "Su Xuelin is the oldest in the literary world, and now taiwan." Du Xuan smiled and said to Ba Lao, "I am exactly 10 years younger than you." Ba Lao replied, "In the past, 80 years old was counted as longevity." Du Xuan said in the words of a poet: "It is not unusual to be 80 today. ”
On July 2, 1997, Ba Jin read "Returning pearls to the sea" in Hangzhou.
Early the morning after Hong Kong's handover, I saw Ba Lao in a wheelchair holding a large blue cover album and looking through it. Looking closer, it turned out to be the plot introduction of "Returning pearls in the sea" brought by Xiao Tang, the son of Mr. Du Xuan's old Toba, from Shanghai, and the cover was printed with "Welcoming the Return of Hong Kong to Commemorate the 90th Anniversary of Chinese Drama". Ba Lao faced the stills and looked at them very carefully. Seeing this, I quickly raised the camera and froze the moment he shared Du Xuan's creative achievements on film.
"Seventy Years of Intersecting Fingers"
In March 2001, Liu Baiyu traveled from Beijing to the hospital to visit a seriously ill Ba Lao. Coming out of the ward, I accompanied him to Du Xuan's ward. He took Du Xuan's "Guiye Caotang Manga" and "Selected Plays of Du Xuan" and read it while talking with Du Xuan about the good times when he accompanied Ba Lao to Japan in 1984 to participate in the 47th Tokyo PEN Conference. When Liu Baiyu said that ba lao, who had just seen a serious illness, could not communicate with his voice and was frustrated, the atmosphere in the room suddenly became dull. After a pause, Du Xuan continued Liu Baiyu's words, I like to chat with Ba Lao and listen to him. People say he can't speak, I don't see it that way. Tongba Lao has participated in major international conferences many times, and each time, he has spoken very emotionally, without clichés and official words.
When Du Xuan lived in the South Building, although the ward of Ba Lao was on the same floor, the partition was like a mountain. Usually, Du Xuan could only learn some information about Ba Lao from Xiao Lin's mouth. Once, I followed Kobayashi to his hospital room. Lying on the hospital bed, Du Xuan asked Ba Lao's condition very carefully. I stood and watched as the poet, who had written the proud verse "A glass of red wine for thousands of miles," is now tormented by illness and unable to move. An inexplicable sourness welled up in my heart.
On November 25, 2003, Shanghai Library held the "Documenta Exhibition of Pictures of Ba Jin's Centenary Anniversary". At the opening ceremony, I saw du Xuan, a special guest, sitting in a wheelchair, holding crutches and wearing a corsage, and let his family push him straight to the calligraphy and painting exhibition area. He pointed to a calligraphic work and said to me that these were four small poems written for the hundred years of Heba Lao, and said and chanted:
Seventy years of life is rare, and the age of 100 years is even more strange;
Today's mr. is over 100 years old, and the name of the literary life is suitable for both.
Tolerance and openness at the same time, indifferent career for a hundred years;
The truth is full of blood and tears, and Dan's heart is held before the world.
A teacher and friend in his life, he has been friends for seventy years;
How many frost years, every encounter is silent.
Autumn clouds are faint and blue sky high, and the sea rushes to wish for the birthday tide;
It is adding people to the world, and the joy and joy are in the clouds.
Since ancient times, poetry chanting has been a ritual for the literati and guests to communicate with each other, and is a symbol of friendship. Therefore, whether it is the poems that Du Xuan achieved in one fell swoop on his business card in the early years, or the group poems that were carefully carved on the sickbed, they are all full of his true feelings for Ba Lao. At this time, seeing his drunken look of poetry, I subconsciously pressed the shutter and retained this unforgettable moment...
In November 2003, Du Xuan recited poems at the Documentary Exhibition of Ba Jin's Centennial Photo Exhibition
(Originally published in Xinmin Evening News)