At the beginning of 1965, after six months of intense and enjoyable university study, it was finally Time for winter vacation.
Looking back half a year ago, like a carp jumping from the dragon gate, I was the first ever to enter Tsinghua University from a poor and backward mountainous county. After entering the school, I was admitted to the school’s literary club band. After that, I lived a rich and colorful Life with daily classes, exercise in the west playground, and rehearsals in the Grey House (where the Music room of Tsinghua University is located) on weekends.
A few months ago, on October 16, 1964, China’s first atomic bomb was successfully exploded, and I was filmed by a news reporter in front of the auditorium, and I, a child from a poor mountain valley, was actually filmed in the documentary “Great Victory” for nearly 10 seconds. I did well in the final exam, and scored 100 in advanced mathematics, which was worthy of the grant.
The days flew by! It’s almost New Year’s Eve, and I’m thinking about my little brother who is left at Home alone.
Home in the Taihang Mountains, not far from Beijing, but then the traffic is inconvenient, you need to first take the train, and then take the car, and finally walk across the mountains and rivers, overnight a day to reach home. During the day, I had already deducted the travel expenses from the Food expenses. In order to save money, I had to take a slow train, a one-way train ticket of 3 yuan and 90 cents, and a bus ticket of 1 yuan and 90 cents, a total of 5 yuan and 80 cents.
The train departed from Yongdingmen Railway Station at midnight and arrived in Dingxian early in the morning. There are 200 miles to take the Jiefang truck, and there is only one trip per day, so if you can’t buy a ticket, you have to wait for another day.
Standing in line in the cold wind for more than an hour, frozen hands and feet cold and numb, finally bought tickets to climb on board. More than forty people stood in the big Jiefang truck carriage, bumpy and shaky on the dirt road, turning to the left when the whole car fell to the right, turning to the right when the whole car fell to the left, the pressure of the car gang bent into an arc. Heart always mentioned in the throat, in case the gang breaks how to do?
After more than four hours, the truck finally arrived at Wanglinkou village. Familiar landscape, familiar country voice, after half a year’s absence and back to this barren land, the heart stirring tumbling, sweet and sour, bitter and spicy, a mixture of flavors, can not say what is a taste. After a 10-mile trek, across a river and over a mountain, I arrived home.
Little brother saw brother, happy and smiling, and saw that he had obviously lost weight. He was taken care of by his grandmother, who was too old, weak and sick, and blind in both eyes, so she could no longer take care of him, and was taken back by his uncle. Since then, little brother had to live alone, a 12 or 13-year-old child struggling to get by, and I do not know how he survived these six months?
People are very strong in life, we are such orphans in the famine has not been starved to death, is already a great blessing life great creation. In the past few years, the policy from above has been more relaxed, and by implementing the eight-word policy of “adjust, consolidate, enrich and improve”, the countryside has become a little more dynamic, and the farmers have a little more way to live, so they will definitely not die of hunger. The production team killed pigs and slaughtered sheep for the New Year, and the captain said: to let the villagers eat meat and have a “fat year”.
But my Family has no labor and no work, so I have no right to share the meat. In order for my family to taste meat for the New Year, I was given a thin and hairy goat’s head.
The goat’s head is very different from the pig’s head, one is very little meat, two is because of the difference in slaughter, the goat’s head is not skinned and not de-haired, looks like a long hair “monster”.
The home without Parents is also a home, also have to celebrate the New Year, to the first day of the year, should taste the meat. I and my little brother around the “monster”, diving to figure out how to deal with? First of all, to remove the hair, the simplest way is to burn with fire. The hair is burned away, leaving a black layer of dirt, the root of the hair still remains in the skin. Do not care so much, clean it and start to cook in the pot.
Boil ah boil ah boil, the Soup surface now out of the oil, the fragrance of the meat also floated out, saliva secretion flourished. Little brother rejoiced, impatient, cut off a little with skin meat to taste, but still can not chew, forcibly swallowed, is to eat the meat. Cut again, there is blood, know that the fire is not enough, continue to cook.
Meat soup is very fragrant, used to cook dried radish, still very fragrant. This sheep’s head, cooked every day, and finally smashed the bones and boiled soup and vegetables, eaten for more than ten days. My brother and I spent the year with this head of sheep, which did not have much meat.
The day of reunion always passes quickly, and it was time to leave home for school. There was only one bus from my hometown to Ding County every day, and it left the county at 6:00 a.m. I had to travel 10 miles to Wanglinkou to wait for the bus. At about 4:00 a.m., I woke up my sleeping little brother and told him that my brother was leaving.
When my little brother heard I was leaving, he bawled and hugged me and wouldn’t let go. My heart broke at once, so I had to soothe him to lie down, stroking his head and saying: “No more, no more ……” tears fell into my stomach. When the brother really has not been arranged, I can not go yet.
How can my little brother live alone? He also can not cook, only like a stray dog, catch what to eat, often hungry. Must find a way for little brother to live.
After dawn, I traveled dozens of miles over the mountains to find several relatives and elders of the same clan to see who could give my little brother a bite to eat. In those days, the shadow of the famine had not completely lifted, and every family was so poor that no one wanted to add another mouth. Difficult! Difficult!
The first thing I thought of when I got home tired was that I had to make up my mind to teach my little brother to cook for himself. It took me a few days to grind more flour for him, prepare more firewood, teach him how to stir cornmeal lumps, how to paste vegetable cakes, how to cook paste, how to pickle, how to stain leaves …… while teaching, while cheering him on: “I was only twelve years old when my mother died, and we have survived all these years. The first thing you need to do is to get over it. You are already thirteen years old, no matter how hard it is, you must insist on living, and then survive a few years, you will grow up.” Little brother said, “Brother, don’t worry, I will definitely cook my own food.
This stayed for a few more days, and the date of returning to school had long passed. It was hard to appease my little brother, and once again, I left early in the morning. It is estimated that the 10-mile trek to the mouth of Wang Lin may not be able to catch the bus, so I had to risk the ice across the Wang fast reservoir, only five miles to the village of Wuzhangwan to wait for the bus.
My little brother was reluctant to give up and insisted on seeing me off. The ice was about two miles wide, he wanted to send me across the ice, I did not feel comfortable with his return, let him stand at the reservoir and wait for me to cross the ice, he was worried that I was in danger. It was still dark, and we couldn’t see each other after a short walk. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to call out to each other, but every once in a while he’ll call out “brother” and I’ll call out back “brother, I’m fine.”
After shouting at each other several times, is walking to the center of the ice, hurried forward in the run, suddenly heard a loud crack in the sky, I just stepped on the ice, cracked a big crack that could not be seen, estimated to be several miles long. Thank God, the ice did not collapse, sprinting away from this place of life. Little brother heard a loud noise and cried out in fear on the shore “Brother! Brother!” I rushed back and shouted: “Brother! Brother! I’m fine!”
Almost to the opposite shore, the ice surface is no longer so solid, becoming soft and floating, and like ice and like snow, stepping on it creaking, footprints sink. Not far from the shore, it is estimated that even if you fall into the water, you can not drown, feel free to walk quickly, and soon on the shore. Turn around and look at the other side of the shore, darkness and darkness can not see the little brother figure, but certainly still standing on the shore. I shouted loudly one word at a time: “Brother! Brother! I’m going ashore! You go home now!” I vaguely heard the echo of my brother’s voice from the other side of the river, echoing across the vast expanse of ice.
My shouts turned into sobs, sobs turned into howls, howls turned into whimpers, and teardrops spilled all the way down.
The long road to school, several hardships, several trials and tribulations, several times back from the dead. The number of that time to run away from home to school, the most difficult, the most hurt feelings, a step back, dropping tears like drops of blood. Since then, my tear ducts seem to have dried up, no matter what sadness I encountered, or to be rectified, beaten, no more tears.
After Marriage, my wife once asked me suspiciously: is not a strange person who can not cry? It was not until old age that feelings became fragile again and tear gland function was restored.
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