Liberate yourself Chapter 46

1

 

Chunxue covered up all the filth on the earth, the world appeared chaste and pure, it was only a temporary superficial appearance. The father was driven away by his mother. His desire to reunite with the child was shattered. The lingering spring snow is still falling.

Enticed by the snow, the children of the neighbors also made snowmen together and played in the frolic. I was lost.

When the neighbor girl Wan Wan came to me, she asked me: "Who was that man just now? He asked me about you and he said your name. I told him that you are here."

"He is my father." I lowered my head and said.

The girl Wan Wan widened her eyes: "He is your father, why is he leaving again?"

God is not beautiful, the snow is getting bigger and bigger, but I can't feel the gentleness of snowflakes in the snow. The deeper the love for my father, the more he misses. Today, in the rain and snow beating, my father's sudden appearance surprised me. When he walked in front of me, the moment of the world was frozen at this moment.

But because of his mother's rejection, his father left. I believe that my thoughts about my father are not lonely, because my emotional trust will remain in my father's heart.

Missing in the rain and snow is a kind of happy loneliness. What I have is happy sorrow, sweet melancholy, because I know my father is still alive.

 A man who knows to remember in his heart forever, and relies on one another in his dreams, the thoughts in his heart are in tears, and the feeling of father and son will never change.

My father is like a traveler, bringing a hope to my life journey.

What delighted me was the gentle encouragement of the girl. She said to me quietly, "Your father will definitely be back."

 

2

 

The neighbor girl Wan Wan told her mother about my father. Her mother sighed: Life will always torture people, let go of it, learn to liberate yourself so that you can at least live for yourself.

There will always be some touches in life, and there will always be secret fragrances to fill the atrium. It should be said that Wan Wan is very kind to me and also very kind. We have never spoken. She admires me very much. Not only am I the kid king in that alley, but I can also paint, cut paper, and sculpt, and also make dolls, shuttlecocks, and even spin and hook scarves. I am older than them, and my academic performance is not bad, so I often become their family counselor.

The one thing that impressed me most was the summer when my elementary school was about to graduate.

I remember that I was lying on the square table at home, drawing Bao Gong behind a piece of waxed paper. I put the painted wax paper on the learning board made of iron sheet, and used a small knife made of saw blade to cut the paper.

Wanwan pushed the door of my house open. I looked up and she murmured to me: "I want to ask you to help cut a pair of shoes."

I am very proud: "This is also a thing? OK, what kind of cut?"

She promised to say: "You have cut the magpie plums for Yanling, and cut a pair for me."

Yanling is the neighbor girl who lives in the former guest hall. She is four years younger than me. Yanling often sits on the stairs and does her homework. When I see it, she always smiles sweetly. She has two very beautiful dimples.

Yanling's brother is the same age as my little sister, but not studying in a school. The little girl has a good academic record and has never been abused. And Yanling's brother is a naughty ghost, his homework is always pulled down, or a string of red lanterns is hung.

Yanling's brothers and sisters also grew up in the same Shikumen with my brothers and sisters.

Wan Wan said, let me cut a pair of magpie plums for her, and I want to cut the same pair as Yan Ling, I readily agreed. However, I said to her: "Okay, I will cut the shoes for you. But I don't like to do repeated things."

I found a piece of red paper, folded it in half, thought about it, and cut it. Wanwan stared wide at the side, looked at the scissors in my hand, and kept turning smartly.

After a while, I unfolded the paper-cut, and a pair of beautiful Mandarin ducks appeared in front of her vividly. I put the paper-cut on the table to smooth out the creases by hand. Unexpectedly, a breeze floated in from the window, blowing one of the paper-cuts to the ground. I and Wanwan bent over to pick it up at the same time. My hand just touched the one. When drifting to the paper-cutting floor, she did not pay attention when she bent over. The clothing corner brought the scissors on the table to the ground. When the scissors fell to the ground, the scissors accidentally touched my left index finger. She wowed. Cried.

Wanwan quickly grabbed my hand, and blood spewed from my finger. A drop of blood happened to fall on the paper-cutting on the table. The blood dripped on the wings of the mandarin duck, leaving a drop of blood.

She panicked. And for me, sucking the injured finger with my mouth: "It's okay. The skin is scratched."

Since then, Wan Wan has treated me particularly well. She told me that she and her brother were born in Hong Kong. Her aunt sometimes sends some candy brought from Hong Kong, and she will secretly stuff it into my mouth when I am not paying attention.

Sometimes, she would fight with me and even snatch my photos. I chased it a few times, and she just didn't give it back to me, but still got angry with me.

One morning, I was carrying the dustpan to prepare the garbage, and she also took the dustpan to empty the garbage. I said to her: "The rubbish is heavy and dirty. I'll pour it out for you."

I pressed her rubbish dustpan over my rubbish dustpan. She was anxious: "No, it's too heavy."

I smiled: "It's okay." When I went to take out the garbage, she followed me all the way.

In the future, when she saw me go to the trash, she would often go to the trash with me.

But I don’t remember what we all said at that time.

 

 

3

 

There was a small space under the stairs leading to the three-story loft, where the mother put the dustpan and broom. Unexpectedly, for this small space, Mommy Wanwan had a conflict with her mother and even quarreled.

My little sister stood on the side of her mother and opened a loud voice to Mom Wanwan. But I stayed far away, I did not join the battle for "land use rights". Wanwan did not join. As usual, she still went with me to the trash, and always talked and laughed along the way.

    Once, Wan Wan called me to her house and took out a thick magazine from under the bed to show me. She opened the magazine, and each page was sandwiched with a shoe pattern cut in red paper. The patterns include phoenix dance peony, magpie plum blossom, mandarin duck playing in water, and lion hydrangea. It's really dazzling. I was stunned. These shoes were almost all cut by me for her. I didn't expect that I had cut so much, nor did she expect that she had saved so well.

She picked up a piece of paper-cutting and asked me: "Look, this pair of Mandarin ducks are playing in water. How good is the cut? This is what I left behind. Do you know who cut it?"

I picked up the pair of paper cuts and mysteriously said to her, "Is this pair of slippers designed by me?"

She widened her eyes: "Not you, who else? Look, there is blood here.

Well, this is a memorial you left him. "

I picked up the paper-cutting. Sure enough, beside the wings of a mandarin duck, I saw light blood stains on it.

Wanwan picked up the paper with blood stains and looked at me and said, "Every time I see this blood-splattered mandarin duck, I think of it. Or do you keep it? Memories."

I clipped the pair of mandarin duck paper-cuts in the magazine and gave it back to her: "I'm going to middle school right now, maybe, you are right, our boyhood is over."

When she turned the magazine, she dropped a two-inch photo of her from the magazine. She picked it up, looked at it for a while, and said to me: "This photo is for you. I may be going to Hong Kong. Keep it as a memorial."

A few days later, I received a middle school admission notice.

 

4

 

In fact, at that time, it was impossible for the neighbor girl Wan Wan to go to Hong Kong, it was only her dream.

The day I received the middle school admission notice, the girl Wan Wan told me one thing, it was about my father and mother.

The girl Wan Wan said to me, "Why did your mother reject her when your father came to you?"

"I don't know. I still don't understand. My brother and I didn't dare to ask her. Because my mother hates my father." I said.

"No," the girl Wan Wan said to me: "Actually, your mother wants you to have a father, and she doesn't want to lose her husband forever."

"How do you know?" I asked.

Wanwan said to me, "My mother said to me. You have an uncle, that is, your father's brother, and your aunt wrote to tell your mother that your father had been to Taiyuan from Hefei, and he was visiting you Uncle and aunt. At that time your father was penniless. Not even decent clothes. Your aunt took off her cotton pants and gave them to your dad."

Wanwan told me again: "Your uncle failed to take your dad because of your dad's influence, your uncle was subject to organizational censorship. Maybe a political campaign is about to start again, I don't know what a political campaign is, but my mom treats me Say, the political movement is to criticize the struggle and catch the bad guys. Your father and my parents are both said to be bad guys. If your father returns to Shanghai and lives in your home, your mother will be criticized. Your father crossed the line and had to give your father to the police station."

I was dumbfounded. In the age of fighting with the sky, fighting with the earth, and fighting with people, I have to learn to fight with my parents. This is the characteristic of Chinese society.

Later, I understood my mother's wish from my elder brother: she hoped my father would be a new man, return to the team, and be a useful person to the society. The mother's younger brother and younger daughter-in-law, younger sister and brother-in-law are all soldiers and members of the Communist Party. The mother cannot recognize and accept that her husband is a person who has been identified as a bad element by the Communist Party and the government.

 

5

 

It took me nearly 5 years to finally complete my first autobiographical novel, which was officially published by Henan Haiyan Publishing House in December 1989.

Over time, nearly 30 years have passed. I have written many books, but I cannot continue to write the second autobiographical novel. It's not that there is no time, or that you don't want to write it down, but as time goes by, society is changing and people's thinking is also changing. There are too many injustices in life, especially too many things that you don't understand. Everything in the past is actually a nightmare.

I am a peer of the Republic, and I am walking step by step in the Republic.

I thought that the misfortunes of myself and my family were only personal things. Later, I really learned that the misfortune of any person and any family is actually the misfortune of society.

From a social point of view, I re-examined life and society, but found how absurd the road I once traveled.

I have shouted too many slogans in my life:

 

The East Red Sun rises...

Anti-American assistance to North Korea, defending the family and defending the country...

Three years of preparation, ten years of construction...

Repel the bourgeois insane attack.

Building socialism...

Speak loudly and speak freely...

Anti-right movement, four harmful elimination movement...

Three red flags, catching up with the United Kingdom and overtaking the United States...

Communism is heaven...

 

This is the slogan of my childhood and childhood.

Xingyue moves, time flows.

I shouted slogans all the way and walked through more than half a century of ups and downs.

The power of the slogan is indeed huge, so big that I don’t know what the truth is, so big that I don’t know how big the world is.

Childhood and youth spent in the slogan; the next cultural revolution has drowned my youth in the slogan... Even if I get older, I still live in the slogan.

Year after year, besides the slogan, what else do I have?

Today is July 4, 2020, which is also my 70th birthday. I rearranged and completed my first autobiographical novel, which is my childhood and childhood story. I am telling the truth, and my goal in life is to liberate myself.

I will write a second autobiography, the years of the Cultural Revolution I spent in slogans, rethink myself, reflect on our country, and reflect on the slogan life of the Chinese.

We have no reason to refuse rational reflection. Liberate yourself, liberate yourself, this is my goal.

 

 

Saturday, July 4, 2020

Written in Shanghai Hengyizhai Bookstore