After being named by the party newspaper, I received three letters from He Jie one after another, which comforted me. My heart lamp was connected to the power supply and shone brightly. I bent over the horse stool to write poems all night. Thirteen years later, they were arranged into lead type and became "Six Love Poems" for He Jie. In the last of the three letters, she said that she was very worried when she saw me being named. She would come to see me before August 2 and asked me to pick her up in Qingbaijiang. The last time she came to see me, she made a geographical joke. She thought Chengxiang Town was the county seat of Jintang, so she bought a ticket to Jintang and went straight to Zhaozhen, where the county seat was. When she arrived in Zhaozhen, she asked around and found out that Chengxiang Town was not there. A kind person who asked her for directions directed her to the Zhaozhen Wooden Boat Society to find my second sister Yu Xunping. My second sister received her and asked her to take a bus to Chengxiang Town. After going back and forth like this, she finally found my home. This time she was smart and only bought a bus ticket to the suburbs of Chengdu and got off at Qingbaijiang. I went there to pick her up, which was a seven-kilometer walk, not far.
After I got off work on August 1 and put down the big saw, I asked for leave from President Yue and said that I would go to Qingbaijiang to pick up a girlfriend tomorrow. President Yue hesitated for a while, seeming to be studying what the word "girlfriend" meant and whether it was the so-called "object". He wanted to ask me, but was afraid of being disqualified, so he gave me a vague yes, which was regarded as permission. Then I discussed with Master Luo that we would take two days off from tomorrow. Master Luo didn't say anything, because he had just received his wages and was going back to his home in the countryside. He was a homebody who left as soon as he said he wanted, without cooking dinner. Carrying a basket of firewood and leaning on a stick, he said goodbye to me with a smile and hurriedly went home. Looking at his back as he went out, I suddenly felt the desolation of autumn and whispered: "Home, Sweet home!" ("Home, sweet home!")
I couldn't sleep that night, and I was always worried that she might not come for some reason. I was too excited, and I had all kinds of ominous premonitions, such as car accidents. The more I thought about it, the more scared I became. The last time she came to see me was only twenty-one days ago, but I felt that it had been a long time, as long as decades. I even doubted whether she was still there, whether she was still living in the small building at No. 56, Annex 2, North Third Street, Gulou, Chengdu. Wouldn't she be like a white cloud, which would be blown away by the wind? Is she a real person, or an illusion? Am I awake in vain, or am I dreaming? I couldn't believe it, so I lit the lamp, took out the letter from under the pillow and read it again from the beginning. I laughed and sighed, as if I was intoxicated. The cheap "flying geese", one after another, formed a formation of geese, circling around the bottle lamp, and then flew away. Near midnight, I blew out the bottle lamp and convinced myself to have a good sleep. I slept really well, and when I woke up, I saw a glimpse of white light coming through the crack in the door, and knew that it was already dawn. I got up quickly and got dressed. I opened the wooden door with a creaky sound, and when I looked up, I saw the waning moon in the west. I looked at the watch. How come it was only after 3 o'clock? I laughed to myself, closed the door and went to bed. After all this trouble, I couldn't fall asleep again. I heard the neighbor's chicken crowing once, twice. I saw the moonlight shining through the crack in the door like a silver ingot, slowly moving from the ground to the wall, and then gradually disappearing. Not only was the sky not bright, but it was getting dark. At nearly 6 o'clock, I got up, swept the corridors, aisles, meeting rooms, and toilets in the community, just like usual, and then went home. My mother knew that I was going to pick up He Jie, and had already prepared breakfast. My mother met He Jie last time and liked her very much.
After breakfast, I set off in a hurry. My mother saw me off and told me to take an umbrella because it was going to rain. I was too eager to get going, so I waved my hand. As expected, the autumn rain fell on the way and soaked my clothes. I went to a teahouse to dry my clothes. When the rain stopped, I hurried on my way. When I arrived at Qingbaijiang Station, it was still early, so I went to the main street post office to find a corner to sit down and concentrate on reading Chekhov's "The House with Attic" - He Jie is most fascinated by this novel. I was also fascinated by it ten years ago. I remember the last sentence: "Michaux, where are you?" It is so beautiful and sentimental that I want to cry when I read it. Now I reread it, and the interest is still the same as before, but the sentimentality has doubled.
After reading it, I remembered to look at my watch. Oops! It's 5 minutes past 10 o'clock, and Michus has probably gotten off the car and is waiting for me at the station!
When I ran to the station, I saw that all the passengers getting off the bus had dispersed. I was wandering around, looking around, and suddenly I heard a familiar "Hi". Looking back, I saw a little girl in a raincoat waving under the low eaves over there. I tried to walk towards her and saw her taking off her raincoat and smiling at me. It turns out to be He Jie! At first, she was wearing a raincoat that was too long, and the rain hat covered her forehead. She looked too small, so she couldn't be recognized. We held hands, as if we were meeting old friends again, and we didn't know what to say. Only then did I notice that it was still raining lightly, so I led her to the post office to take shelter from the rain. She originally said in the letter that today we were going to visit Baoguang Temple in Xindu. It's still raining, so of course we can't go. We sat in the corner of the post office, talking to each other about the pain of missing each other, turning a blind eye to the crowds of people coming and going in front of us, and not hearing the reverberating noise in the room. We actually have so much to say, and we blurt it out without thinking. Rather than telling each other something, we are obsessed with showing each other our interests and temperaments, ideas and dreams, and showing itself is a kind of happiness. . We are all honest and vulnerable people. We have never thought about what kind of impression this sentence will leave on the other party, good or bad, favorable or unfavorable. We don’t hide our shortcomings, including our ridiculous ones. "Let me show you something." She reached into her handbag and said with a mysterious smile.
I was stunned when I took it. It was a light blue cellophane packet. Without opening it, I could see three cigarette B*tts inside. They were Feiyan brand. "Forgot?" she asked with a smile, grabbed them and put them back in her bag.
I remembered. Three months ago, Milo Qiu took me to her home and talked to her by the window. I smoked three cigarettes. I am poor and smoke cheap cigarettes. I felt a little embarrassed that she actually collected it.
"I hid it under my pillow, and my mother found it and asked me what it meant. I said I smoked it. She looked at me strangely and threw it away. I quietly went downstairs to pick it up again." She said with a smile, as naughty as a little girl. Then she took out a paper bag and handed it to me, saying: "This is for you."
She was as poor as I was and couldn't afford anything that could be called a gift, so she gave me a bath sponge. I used this sponge for at least three years, and my son Kunkun often chewed it when he was a baby.
The rain stopped. The eaves outside the post office door are closed. We walked back to Chengxiang Town, laughing and talking all the way. The roadside was so muddy that her plastic sandals were dirty. Whenever she encountered a stream, she would stop and wash her feet. She held me with her arms, took turns to put her feet into the water, and paddled back and forth, finding it fun. I laughed at her. She asked me why I was laughing. I said: "No wonder your name is He Jie - how clean!" She became happy and sang Soviet songs. I also sang along with her. Fortunately, there were many cars and few pedestrians on the road, so no one heard her. We continued the habit of singing Soviet songs together for several years after we got married. One night in the early 1970s, I eavesdropped on a Chinese-language radio broadcast in Moscow and heard a commentator there yelling at how the so-called rightists in China were anti-party in 1957. That’s why we stopped singing the songs there, and we no longer had I'm interested in listening to the leftist music over there.
This was He Jie's second visit to me. This time she stayed at my house for two days without leaving the house. We knew very well that the world outside was hostile to us. From time to time, someone would pretend to pass by or check the house to spy on us. When my mother went to the street to buy vegetables, someone asked her, "I heard that a movie actress came to your house?" In fact, as early as the first time He Jie went to the county to find me, because she asked someone for directions and accidentally said "Looking for Liusha River", some people had already noticed her and suspected that she was a female spy. After all, aren't female spies in movies very beautiful?
The content of our conversation was nothing more than three aspects, although it was as broad as the sea and as boundless as the sky, and although we laughed and cried at times.
One is that we recall the brightness of the early 1950s, which resonates with our emotions.
The second is that we had the same evaluation of the "open conspiracy" in 1957, which led to our consensus in thought.
The third is to tell each other about each other's ups and downs in the past nine years, which promotes the interdependence of our destiny.
"There is no love without reason in the world", this is true!
For two nights, we sat side by side on the stone steps of the courtyard and talked hand in hand until midnight. I don't hear the sound of people, but I can hear the rustling of bamboos and the chirping of insects; I can't see the lights, but I can see the stars shining brightly and the Milky Way moving forward. The world is extremely quiet, as if you can hear the rotation of the earth with your spiritual ears, so harmonious and beautiful. After she sang "Evening in the Suburbs of Moscow", I recited Su Shi's "Song of the Cave Immortal" to her:
Ice muscles and jade bones, naturally cool and sweat-free. The water palace is full of fragrance when the wind blows. The embroidered curtain is open, and a bright moon peeks out. Before going to bed, he was leaning on his pillow and hairpin, his temples messy. Standing up and holding bare hands, there is no sound in the courtyard, and sometimes I see sparse stars crossing the river. How was the night? It's the third watch of the night, the golden waves are light, and the jade rope is turning low. But when does the autumn wind come, don't tell me that the passing years have secretly changed!
Although the world is good, when she thinks of the big-character posters on the streets of Chengdu, and when I think of the first time we were criticized a few days ago, we feel that "the future is boundless and sorrowful." There is something more sinister, we don't know--the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party is being held at this moment. When the fire comes, the "ice muscles and jade bones" tonight will be the battered ones tomorrow. We don’t know, but we have a premonition. Don't let the left wind blow us away. We have decided to get married. When it comes to getting married, we K!ss each other frequently and burst into tears.
At 4:30 a.m. on August 4, I got up and woke up He Jie, who was sleeping with her mother. After washing up, it was still dark. I held her cold little hand and sent her out. After walking three kilometers, the sky gradually brightened. Looking back, I saw the morning glow like a big fire, lighting up half of the sky, and it seemed very close to us. I walked to Qingbaijiang Station and caught the first bus. Sadness makes people confused, and I even forgot to ask her when she would come next time. I watched her go away and returned with a sad heart. When I returned to the wooden furniture company, Master Luo had already sharpened the saw teeth and was standing outside the horse pole waiting for me.
A few days later, the "Sixteen Articles of the Cultural Revolution" were announced. The fire has started a prairie fire and has become an inextinguishable force. A few days later, He Jie wrote a letter saying that the Red Guard "Heavenly Soldiers" from Beijing were ordered to come to Chengdu to stir up trouble and engage in verbal warfare with the citizens on the streets. It is also said that Milo Qiu heard the news: the city's right-wingers will be gathered together and taken to remote areas. Milo Qiu said that once the news gets tighter, he will flee to other places, and he advised me to make preparations as well. He Jie also said in the letter that she would definitely come to see me in a few days.
I had to make preparations, but of course I didn't want to flee to other places. I asked my mother to go to South Street to buy bamboo fences to divide the house into two small rooms. My mother lived in the inner room, and I would move back from the community to live in the outer room. My mother understood my intention and she was very happy. In addition, I had to prepare something else, but I couldn't think of anything else.
From then on, every evening when I came home from work for dinner, I would always imagine that He Jie was already here. When you get home, always look inside the house first. My mother always said softly and apologetically, "She's not here yet." So another dish was added to the table. It was cold and cold, but tasted bitter. After eating, I didn’t want to sit down for a while, so I went back to the club. At night I always sit on the horse stool in a daze, watching the flame of the bottle lamp flickering, listening to the mice chasing and fighting in the corner, and unable to read a page of the book.
On August 22, I went home for lunch. I saw my mother smiling strangely. I quickly glanced inside the house, but she still hadn't come. I went inside to look again. Suddenly, a pair of small hands reached out from behind me and grabbed my shoulders. She screamed and scared me. Ah, it was He Jie who jumped out from behind the door, smiling! My mother peeked in from outside the door and saw us being intimate. She smiled and then went to the kitchen to prepare lunch.
"Yesterday I rushed back to Chengdu from my sister's place in Shawan, Leshan. It was already dark before I saw your letter. Oh, you've lost weight!" she said.
I looked at the calendar on the wall and thought for a moment. I said, "I'm going out for something and will be back soon." She asked me what I was doing. I smiled but didn't answer, just waved and left.
I thought it was necessary to tell President Yue about this, so I went to find him in the company. He was very surprised and nodded for a long time, then told me to go to the police station. I went to the police station and told Officer Huang about it. Officer Huang said, "Okay." I really didn't expect it to be so easy. I walked home briskly, stood outside the door and waved, asking my mother to come out. I whispered to her, "Mom, He Jie and I are getting married today. What else do you think we need to prepare?" My mother said, "A pillow." She took off her waistband with fingers trembling with joy and went to the department store to buy a pillow.
Then I burst into the room and looked at He Jiexiao. While combing her hair, she asked, "What are you doing?" I held her hand and said, "I'm going to attack you suddenly."
She put her index finger on her lower lip and stared at me intently, waiting to hear what interesting things I was going to say.
"We're getting married today." I said seriously.
"Oh my god, you are so! I was unprepared!" she said.
"Today is July 7th. Chinese Valentine's Day is here," I said.
She uttered an "oh" as if she had understood something. Then she smiled and said, "Now you've made me passive."
In my diary, there is a passage she wrote on August 22, 1966: "My beloved Tan decided my fate with just his inspiration, but I can still forgive him. All this means that we love each other so sincerely." This is what I asked her to write that night. I said: "Let's write it for the future."
It was a dark moonlit night and the wind was high, and there were no twin stars of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. The world begged for luck, but God refused to give it. Instead, he gave me a bad luck. Unfortunately, my mother fell ill at night. I went to Dongjie Hospital to ask the doctor. He said she had food poisoning and was given a barbiturate to swallow. He Jie and I served our mother, the only witness tonight. Near midnight, my mother's condition improved and a smile appeared on her face. She said: "I think I ate too much vine greens and there are pig worms in the leaves." By the way, our wedding dinner only had two dishes: one was braised pork and the other was stir-fried vine greens.
I only slept for two or three hours that night. How can I sleep when I have so much to say? We heard the neighbor's chicken crow behind the house and saw the paper windows turn white. Listening to the rooster crow, I cried, because I thought that a new day has come again, and the uncertain future is getting closer.
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