After class, I chose Li Shangyin's "Jinse" for the children.
"I want to know why my Jinse has 50 strings, and each string represents youth like a flower ..." I seem to see her again in the children's reading.
She leaned over, turned around, smiled at me and said, "Remember this poem, and you will remember your aunt. Wei Wei, will you always remember your aunt? "
"Yes, my aunt." When I was young, I answered simply and without thinking.
"... a moment that should last forever has come and gone before I know it. "In Lang Lang's reading, I settled down to recall her face carefully, but I was surprised to find that she had gone far after all. In my heart of hearts, her figure lingers, but her outline is vague. Time has been adding to the increasingly blurred face of the deceased, and I finally forgot her exact face.
Her name is Jinse.
Mother always just calls her "Aunt Liu". I call her "Aunt Liu".
two
After my grandfather died, my parents who were still in the country tried their best to get me back to my hometown in the city when I was five years old. The house is very big, just me and her.
I have just returned to my old house and I am not used to sleeping alone. When the lights were turned off at night, the darkness of despair suddenly flooded into the bedroom. Layers of black, even my breath seems to be in the dark. I am in the dark, as if I will be melted by the darkness. I clung to the quilt and resisted the darkness with the only thing I could catch.
Besides darkness, the silence of the old house at night also scares me. Sometimes I am suddenly awakened by the tinnitus coming from the inner ear in my dream. Loud and sharp tinnitus is like a sharp blade, which divides my consciousness into small pieces. Finally, the voice from my ear to my heart, like a thunderbolt, blew me in half, and I woke up in pain.
"Mother-in-law ..."
I walked barefoot through the corridor and sobbed and ran to my aunt's bedroom. I climbed into my aunt's big bed, and a pair of warm hands immediately stretched out from the darkness, wrapped around my waist and dragged me into the quilt with a strong warm fragrance. My aunt likes to smoke clothes with fragrant wood beads, which has a faint smell of wood. I was resting on menstruation's arm, listening to her long and persistent hum, and the dark fear disappeared in her fresh hum. The layers of darkness suddenly changed their faces and gently and sincerely urged me to sleep.
In the morning, I like watching my aunt comb her hair best. My aunt's hair is very long, hanging to her waist, sparse and gray. The ox bone comb slowly glided through her long hair and dragged down the gray silk. She always carefully pulls out the roots of falling hair wrapped around her comb teeth and wraps it in her hands. She put it in a tight black wooden jewelry box: "In the future, when your hair is almost out, you can put it in a bun."
While combing her hair, she taught me to recite ancient poems. The most common one is the Jinse.
"I want to know why there are 50 strings on my Jinse ..." My aunt's voice is very gentle.
"Every flower has a youthful interval." I fiddled with her hair while processing her poems. "... Mermaids shed pearl-like tears in the moonlight green sea, and the blue fields breathed their emeralds in the sun ..."
I have recited all the poems, and menstruation's hair has been combed.
"Wei Wei, this is the name of the old woman-Jinse, remember?"
"Remember, does my name have a poem?"
"yes," picking the eu ":'I have been there, willow yiyi. Today I think of it, it's raining. " "
"Woman, you read, you read it again. Grandma, you should also remember my name and my poem. " I looked up and became serious.
"Women remember, silly woman. I left yesterday, Willo Yiyi. I think about it today, it's raining. " In the future, if you grow up and leave your grandmother, will you come back to see her as soon as she reads this poem? "
"good! You should read it aloud. If it's too far, I'm afraid I can't hear it. " I frowned.
Aunt smiled and put her arms around me with a sad face.
When the weather is fine, my aunt will open several big boxes in the attic to show the sky. Most of the boxes are full of ancient books. One of them is small, full of clothes: a phoenix peony brocade embroidered with gold thread, a water-green raw silk cheongsam, a silver satin shawl ... beautiful silk objects, stained with the strong smell of camphor wood in the box, vaguely smelling the cold soap hidden by time. I unfolded the clothes one by one and put them on happily.
"Silly girl, sweaty, don't get dirty!" My aunt scolded, but there was a smile in her eyes. "Well, this green cheongsam was my favorite when I was a child."
I watched her unfold the green silk cheongsam, gestured at her body and hurriedly put it away. I giggled: When will menstruation come out of the green silk cheongsam and never go back?
"Aunt, I want it." I picked up the cheongsam and put it on my body, dragging my long silk robe to the ground.
"ouch!" My aunt threatened to fight, so she picked up the hem of the cheongsam and stripped it off for me.
A few years later, my parents also returned to the city and moved back to their hometown. I looked at my parents who suddenly reappeared in front of me, but I was separated. I held my aunt's hand tightly, and my palms sweated until I died.
Mom came back, tidied up the old house and decorated it. Except for my aunt's camphor box, all the sundries in the attic were moved to the storage room.
"Aunt Liu, it's useless to throw some things in the box for decades, taking up space, and finally we have to get rid of them ..." My mother mentioned it to my aunt several times, intentionally or unintentionally.
Finally, the camphor box was moved from the attic to the guest room, and finally to the storage room where the sundries were placed.
"Be careful, that wooden box …" My aunt hesitated. "Throw it away."
Mother asked the workers to clean up and move the boxes out. My aunt suddenly got up, opened one of the wooden cases and fumbled for the water-green silk cheongsam.
Mom said that when I grow up, I shouldn't disturb my aunt at night. "Later, don't always go to menstruation's house to sleep at night. Sleep by yourself! " My mother's face is very cold, and I can't see the stars in her black eye pupil, which separates me from me reflected in her eye pupil.
At night, I bury my head in the quilt. Under the quilt, the darkness is boundless. My breathing is heavy and oppressing my heart. I firmly grasped the corner of the quilt, opened my eyes wide, and completely isolated myself from the darkness outside the quilt, but my fear of the darkness was like water, seamless.
"Mother-in-law ..." I lifted the quilt, jumped out of bed and tried to run barefoot to my aunt's bedroom, but I was afraid. A group of us sat on the bed, crying in the dark. I don't know what to do except cry.
"Why are you crying?" Mother came out of the bedroom angrily and asked.
"I'm afraid."
My aunt woke up in shock.
"Come, come, sleep with my aunt."
I looked at her and just cried. In the darkness, a vague shadow slowly approached me. I can smell the fresh smell of wood on her. The smell reassured me. I held out my hand to her.
"Sleep by yourself! Such a big man! Aunt Liu, don't spoil her. "
With a sigh, the warm shadow left. In the dark, the cold woody plants lingered for a long time.
three
Aunt Liu, my mother always calls her that.
I know, my grandmother has flattened into a thin photo, which is in my mother's bedroom drawer. I stared at the woman wearing a floral cheongsam in the photo countless times, watching her smile solidify outside time, and looking at her eyes is somewhat similar to my aunt's. I wonder if she has wood as heavy as my aunt.
Mother and aunt respect each other as guests. I can feel the gap between them. The indifference between them is that my mother wiped the bookshelf arranged by my aunt without saying a word; It is my mother who cooks rice porridge alone and doesn't eat the pasta cooked by my aunt. It was my aunt who pointed out my mother's Nanyang accent with a smile, while my mother wearily interrupted the ancient poems my aunt taught me to recite. ...
I walked between my mother and aunt in confusion, and gradually got used to thinking alone. I lay by the well in the yard for a long time and looked down at the well. The well was quiet, and I could vaguely see my eyes, looking out from the dark well. The sun shines directly on the well only at some time in the summer afternoon, casting a green beam at the bottom of the well. Under the green light, I can see the uneven shaft wall and the uneven bottom hidden under the calm water. The light beam is fleeting, the world under the well surface suddenly disappears, and the water surface is as calm as a mirror. For me, the adult world is as mysterious as the world at the bottom of the well.
four
After learning a few words at school, I often hide in my aunt's room to read. Mothers don't like their children's old-fashioned reading attitude. She frowned when she saw that I was silent all day, holding a book. I'm also afraid of provoking her. Only when I walked into my aunt's room and smelled a faint book fragrance did I feel at ease. My aunt never blames me. There are countless books in her room, which are neatly placed on the shelves. My aunt keeps all the illustrated books on the ground floor where I can get them.
"This silly girl will probably be a nerd in the future." The family said so.
"Go out and run more, don't stay in the mother-in-law's room and play with other children." After listening, my mother frowned and took the book in my hand. "Go out, go out to play." She waved her hand like a disobedient fly. I stood still, staring at the book in her hand.
"Go out and play, do you hear?" She scolded me loudly.
I looked at her tearfully, at a loss.
"Vivian loves reading, so it's not a bad thing. Let her see ... "My aunt urged with a smile.
"no! Go out to play! " Mother suddenly became angry.
My aunt suddenly fell silent. I rushed to menstruation and held her tightly. "This child, go ... go and listen to your mother." She stroked my back and said softly.
I didn't move. I just held her.
"Well, if the child is quiet and loves reading, it is good for her to read." My aunt said softly.
My mother looked at me. My mother was pestering my aunt and gave her a cold look: "Why do you always do things with your temper?"
There must be something I don't understand. They are hidden in time, in the eyes of their mother, and in the camphor box of their abandoned aunt.
At the age of ten, I haven't heard from her for more than ten years, and the menstruation in Nanyang came back with my cousin. I saw his mother again after dozens of burdens, pulling her mother with tears in her menstruation, and kept walking, but for menstruation, she just exchanged pleasantries lightly, with ice in her words.
After staying for a few days, my cousin was surprised at my attachment to my aunt. "She is a fake grandma. Our grandmother died a long time ago ... silly woman, do you know that she is a fake grandmother and still kiss her? "
I looked into my cousin's eyes and froze.
In the evening, my cousin shared my bed with me and said to me in a Nanyang accent as soft as my mother, "Grandpa is fascinated by her, otherwise our White House wouldn't be so miserable." Grandma was married for her grandfather by Azu of Nanyang. Grandpa didn't like it and married her as his second wife. After Joe died, my grandfather simply didn't come back, leaving my grandmother and my grandmother and aunt alone in Nanyang. She hasn't given birth for several years, and grandpa wants to take two daughters back to the mainland. My grandmother couldn't bear to leave, so she left one in Nanyang. If it weren't for her, grandma wouldn't have been separated from her aunt and sister for decades. My grandmother wouldn't hide from people and wipe her tears all day, and she died of lung disease early. If grandpa stays in Nanyang to run his ancestral business, where will he suffer so much in the future and bring trouble to your mother ... "
"Grandpa doesn't go back to Nanyang, so you really don't care about your grandmother and grandmother?"
"Well, at the beginning, I wrote to Nanyang ... then things changed here and there was no news. We don't know whether we are dead or alive. ...
"On the other hand, she is really brave. A female student dared to go against her parents and marry a businessman to be a mistress. " Cousin suddenly added.
"So ... is she a bad person?" My mind is a mess.
I held my breath and waited for my cousin to go on, but she yawned and stopped. After a while, her heavy breathing came from my pillow. I looked up at the window, and the heat of the day had dissipated, and the night wind blew into the room, lifting the window screens. Then, when the screen window danced lightly, the blue sky suddenly appeared outside the window. I lay in bed, holding my heart and waiting again and again, waiting for the window screen to rise.
After cousin menstruation left, I asked menstruation, "Grandma, are you a good person or a bad person?"
"What do you say?" She closed her eyes and did not look at me.
I kept asking questions and insisted on knowing the answer.
……
five
I slowly moved away from my aunt. The story of my aunt, after the appearance of my aunt and cousin, once again spread among parents, relatives and neighbors. The hero of the story is an abstract syllable, parasitic between their lips and teeth. I was horrified to find that she had changed the outline of my heart, but there was nothing I could do.
I was silent and quietly hid in my aunt's book. I rummaged through all the illustrated books in my aunt's room, and even without illustrations, I read a lot alive. In my aunt's book, I am no longer afraid. There are familiar ink smells, stories that make me hold my breath, and poems that I know by heart.
The Dragon Boat Festival is here. Aunt and mother put zongzi leaves, glutinous rice, meat stuffing and shrimp together. After wrapping zongzi, my mother warned me: "Don't eat too much, son!" " You can only eat one. If you eat too much, you won't digest it! "
I ate a zongzi and looked up at my aunt: "Mother-in-law …" I stared at the attractive zongzi in front of me in frustration, tears pattering down. She softened her heart and gave me a quick wink. As soon as my mother came out of the restaurant, she secretly stuffed some big zongzi into my hand. I ate happily, one after another.
"Stop eating, enough, enough!" My aunt stopped me in a hurry.
I shook off her hand and covered my head. I really hurt my stomach and can't get up in bed. Under my mother's questioning, I suddenly confessed my aunt: "My mother-in-law ... let me eat ..."
Mother's face sank.
"Know Vivian gastrointestinal weakness, aunt, you ..."
Menstruation embarrassedly rubbed his hands, looked at me and asked for help.
"I don't want to eat, you give it to me. You gave me a few. " I said timidly, glancing at her secretly, and I saw her eyes suddenly dim.
She got up and left.
"You silly girl, did she ... did she make you eat shit?" Seeing her leave, mother scolded her softly.
I nodded and said, "She's a fake grandmother with a bad heart ..." My voice did not fall, and I found my mother's face suddenly changed when she looked behind me.
My aunt came into the room quietly, holding the digestion herbs picked from the yard. She gave me a silent look and slowly withdrew from the room. If her eyes are cold, they will slide from my heart to my fingertips, and my fingers will suddenly get cold.
In the evening, I was lying on the bed in my bedroom, with a terrible stomachache. Painful teeth are everywhere, gnawing at my stomach and nerves. Vaguely, I heard my aunt's sobbing, which was like cocoon silk in the night, layered on top of each other, wrapping her sadness in the darkness. Finally, everything was quiet, and all the sobs and sighs disappeared without a trace. My consciousness also gradually fell into the silence of the rambling night.
I woke up the next day and saw menstruation and his parents sitting at the dinner table. Sorrow is frozen ice, hidden in her eyes. My stomach still hurts.
six
My aunt is getting farther and farther away from me. Occasionally, the heavy woody plants in her body will float into my dreams, but they are as unreal as watching the moon through the curtains. She keeps a cat. At sunset, holding the cat, she sat alone in the lounge chair on the terrace for a long time, looking at the direction of the sunset without saying a word, watching the sun lose heat a little.
Occasionally I went to her room to look for books, so I took them and left.
One day, I saw the painted bodiless jewelry box in the trash can, and the lid was lifted to reveal slightly gray hair.
"Aunt, your hair."
"No," she said flatly, "I'm old, my hands are shaking badly and my hair can't be combed well." My aunt had her hair cut.
"Then, give me the box." I want to put my plastic bead chain in a box. I picked up the jewelry box, wiped off the stains on it, hesitated, picked out the gray hair, kneaded it into a ball and threw it into the trash can.
The last time I enjoyed the cool air with my aunt on the terrace was midsummer. Lying in the rocking chair, she fiddled with the cattail leaf fan for me and recited a poem: "The white clouds are drifting away, and the green maple is full of sorrow." Who will go boating tonight? Where do you miss Mingyue Building? Poor people wander upstairs for the moon, so they should leave someone to fill the mirror. I couldn't roll in the curtain of Yuhu Lake, so I had to smash it on the anvil and give it back. "
I was lying on a long bamboo chair, listening to her poems and watching the moon in the sky, which changed from pure and gentle yellow at birth to lonely and cold silver quietly.
"Aunt, you cut your hair, I don't know you. Are you an old aunt? " I suddenly said.
The moonlight shone on her face, and she sighed, "No". Wei Wei, you are not the Wei you used to be. Weiwei has grown up. "
Her eyes took back from me and looked up at the moon overhead again. For a long time, she suddenly asked me in a weak voice, "Wei Wei, when you grow up, will you still remember when your mother-in-law taught you to read poetry?"
I nodded at once.
"Wei Wei, I want to go home."
"home? Isn't this your home? "
"My aunt's home is in Jiangning, which is far away."
"Well, then why did you come here?" I suddenly hardened my heart and looked at her defiantly.
She froze and looked down at my eyes. I stared at her eyes in the moonlight in the dark, and I couldn't see clearly in the fog. For a long time, she turned her head, looked up at the moon and whispered, "Wei Wei, people still have to listen to their own wishes-it doesn't matter if they are wronged physically, don't wronged their own hearts." In her pupil, Leng Yue is reflected, and she is dancing.
"Do you regret it?" I suddenly asked this sentence, and even I was surprised. From the conversation of adults, I vaguely know that my aunt's family is also a wealthy family in Jiangning, and my ancestors worked as an academician. After being the second wife of the White House, she was ashamed to go back to her mother's family. Knowing that she had no children, her old mother adopted several adopted sons in Jiangning and arranged her future home early. Before she died, her old mother was still waiting for her to go back.
"No, my heart is what I want, and I don't regret it." She smiled. "Wei Wei, will you miss your aunt when I leave?" She looked at me with waiting eyes.
"I don't want to." I looked at her with a smile.
"Really?" She frowned and touched my head with her hand.
I also frowned. Half of what I said is true. My aunt is no longer the old aunt. She has come out of the warm shadow in my memory that makes me extremely attached. Just like she once walked out of the green silk cheongsam and never went back. I suddenly felt sad and lowered my head: "Yes, I will think about it a little."
The moonlight slid over her rocking chair like water, spread on my bamboo chair, and left a white mark on my barefoot, and suddenly disappeared, I don't know where it is. I looked at the moon overhead, and my eyelids became heavier and heavier.
"Oblique moon hides sea fog, and Jieshi Xiaoxiang is infinite. I don't know how many people go home every month, and the moon shakes the river tree. " Her voice is getting lighter and farther away, leaving my heart gradually. ...
seven
My aunt insisted on going back to her hometown. She talked with her mother all night. Their words, wandering in the dark, wisps, sometimes floated into my ears, and sometimes disappeared.
"I'll go back ... and bury your parents. Your mother has waited long enough. I know, the last time your sister came, she brought back your mother's ashes ... I will accompany my old mother later ... "
In the next few days, my aunt began to pack things.
"This, Vivian, you wanted it when you were a child. Wei Wei, do you want it now? " She took out a water-green silk cheongsam.
"hmm." I took the cheongsam and hung it on my body. The hem of the cheongsam is draped over my ankle, which makes me itch.
"Wei Wei, you are old ..." She looked at me, deep in her eyes, and the twinkling stars were shaking. "Vivian in a few years, will be a beautiful girl? Mother-in-law is afraid that she can't see it ... "She smiled gently, but the laughter was still between her lips and teeth, and it came to an abrupt end.
My aunt left.
My aunt's cat Xiaobai cried for a few days, squatted in the chair where my aunt used to sit, and stared at me with beautiful eyes. "Silly cat, my mother-in-law is not coming back." I tried to hug him, but he turned around and jumped out of his chair. It called forward, not far away, squatted down again and looked at me with wide eyes.
eight
My grandmother's photo has been taken from my mother's bedroom drawer and hung in a conspicuous place in her study. The woman in the image is dressed in a simple and elegant small floral cheongsam, with a graceful posture and a pair of beautiful eyes staring at the front under slender eyebrows.
I took out menstruation's black bodiless wooden jewelry box, and my eyes faintly reflected on the dark box surface. I regret throwing away menstruation's hair.
My aunt fell ill soon after she went back. Her adopted son takes care of her. Mother sends her money regularly every month. My mother and I send money to my aunt together. I saw a few thin bills brush through the fingers of the bank lady, and the image of my aunt in my memory gradually thinned into bills.
"I wrote again, saying that my blood pressure is high again this month ... and I have to send money. How to take care of over there ... "
"So ... let my mother-in-law come back ..." I said timidly.
Mother was silent for a long time.
I swallowed a mouthful of saliva. bow/lower/hang one's head
The new year is coming. Mom bought a bunch of greeting cards. I stood by excitedly, picked out the most beautiful ones, handed them to my mother in turn, and wrote congratulations. The last one left, a gaudy crimson background, lively red flowers and red eyes. Mother frowned and couldn't remember who to send it to.
"This ... sent to my mother-in-law." I asked my mother softly.
"Well, you write it." Mother sighed.
I neatly wrote "Happy Holidays!" On the greeting card. I can't think of anything to write. My palms are all sweaty with the lining paper of the greeting card.
"Weiwei", I wrote my name at the signature.
nine
My aunt wrote back with a few crooked words and lay awkwardly on the paper: "I'll go there, Yangliuyi." Today I think of it, it's raining. "
It's like I received a hot soldering iron and stuffed the letter into the drawer. Before long, the letter disappeared.
My aunt's cat Xiaobai gave birth to a kitten. After the full moon, my father threw the cat away.
Xiao Bai, the cat, opens her eyes every day and cries to me for a kitten. Later, it stopped crying and slipped away from me. Soon I found its belly bulging again, and I panicked inexplicably. Then his stomach was flat, but I didn't see the cat. Within a week, it was dead. It is said that he ate something from a drug rat by mistake and died in a ditch. At night, I vaguely heard a cat barking in the deserted yard next door.
"The cat is in the neighbor's house." I told my father, but I didn't look him in the eye. Because I know it's no use, adults can't open the courtyard door next door that has been locked for many days to save the cat.
At night, I hold my heart in my hand and look for the crying of the cat. After they cried for several nights, there was no sound.
Shortly after receiving menstruation's reply, my mother received a phone call about her death. Mother hung up the phone, stupefied and didn't speak for a long time. It was particularly cold during the Spring Festival that year. I hid at home and read under a quilt. My feet are so cold that I can't keep warm for a long time. The sound of firecrackers outside the window is constant. I got up and put my nose on the cold glass window, and the exhaled heat blurred the window and blocked my view. I used my forefinger to write on the window glass: Golden Golden Golden. ...
The book spread out on the table reads the poem "Jinse" that I am already familiar with:
I want to know why my Jinse has fifty strings, and each string has a youthful interval.
Daydreaming, a saint, was bewitched by butterflies, and cuckoo crowed by emperors.
Mermaids shed pearl-like tears on the moon-green sea, and the blue fields breathed their jade to the sun.
A moment that should last forever has come and gone before I know it.
Colorful pictures, poor brushwork and gaudy colors on the poem page hurt my eyes.
Then I began to dream: I went into the abandoned yard next door to look for cats. I opened the backyard door of my neighbor's vine and broke into the dusty and dark building. The kitten's cry is faint and looming. But I still can't find the cat. I heard my heartbeat and the cat's cry, and I was scared and helpless.
I have broken into this dream countless times.
The long dream ended six years later, when I was eighteen: the door of my neighbor's house opened and a strange woman came out. She told me that the cat was dead, so keep the change.
I breathed a sigh of relief as if I already knew the answer. I understand that some things cannot be changed. Time goes by, past lives, behind us, at our feet, inch by inch solidified.
Forget it.
ten
When I volunteered for the college entrance examination, my elders insisted that I study business, but I still insisted on applying for my favorite Chinese major. After graduation, I became a middle school Chinese teacher.
"You study Chinese, deal with words all your life, be poor all your life, and you will regret it later." The elder said to me.
"I want what I want and I won't regret it." I heard her voice in an empty place.
On Qingming Day that year, I went to my aunt's hometown. I brought a big bouquet of her favorite white camellia.
"Well, that's mother's grave. Mom always said that you were the closest thing to her. Mom is gone, still chanting your name. " Her adopted son accompanied me and made excuses one by one.
"Mom said you would definitely come to see her." He squatted down and pulled out the weeds by the grave. The uprooted grass holds up the soil and is filled with a faint earthy smell. I looked at his mouth stupefied, and the sound came from his mouth, but it just slipped through my eardrum and could not reach my heart.
I stroked the cold words on the tombstone: Liu Jinse. In a trance, I saw the woman wearing a water-green silk cheongsam many years ago, and her eyes were deep: "I was gone, Yangliuyiyi." Today I thought, it's raining ... "
A broken halberd stabbed me in the heart. The woman in time suddenly disappeared. A bunch of white camellia slipped from my hand. Falling flowers fly, and the fragments of memory disappear like smoke. ...