It was the beginning of 1979, I was still working in the hospital of Inner Mongolia Corps 15 regiment when I received a letter from my family to return to Beijing. On it was written my name and my daughter’s name. Looking at the letter with the red seal that I had longed for, a faint melancholy came to my mind.
A few months ago, in order to this letter back to Beijing, my family and I went around and tried all sorts of ways to no avail. Because the return to the city provisions early married youth excluded. Divorce may be the only viable way to return to Beijing.
I didn’t think about a real divorce, only a fake one.
So I asked someone to find a blank divorce certificate with a good official seal, which is a slightly thicker 16-page folded certificate with the word divorce printed on it, with the official seal on the folded line, torn from the folded line, the man and the woman each take half, even if the divorce is processed, no photo is required. I remember when I got this fake divorce certificate, I and another married Beijing female intellectuals, from the middle line cut, each with half, a fake divorce certificate to complete our two Beijing female intellectuals, is also considered to be the best use of it.
The company has been able to do the sick retirement as expected. The letter of return to Beijing in my hand, but I do not have the initial determination. Leave? Or stay? This is really a difficult question. Go, it means that my husband will have to stay here alone, when we can reunite, is an unknown, the family with my daughter and I may be scattered. Stay, not to mention whether I can have the strong will to continue to live in the border. It is the face of the two old parents at home, I have no face to face. In order to return to Beijing to prove that the family in Beijing is also doing their best to run, thinking of my father’s head of white hair, thinking of my mother’s tears every time I visit my family and return to Mongolia, my heart hurts vaguely.
Over the years, I have broken their hearts more than once.
When I went to the Corps in March 1969, my father was still locked up in the cowshed and could not go home. My mother was physically ill, and she did not expect me to stay in Beijing, but only hoped that I could leave two months later for the next batch, but I just wanted to leave this depressing environment and leave Beijing quickly. I did not agree to my mother’s request.
I remember going to my father’s unit with my classmates to see him, but the guards wouldn’t let me see him, and my classmates who went with me argued according to the documents at that time, but they simply ignored me. I had to write a note to tell my father that I was going to the Inner Mongolia Corps. The note was sent in by the guards, and a little later they took out the note written by my father and handed it to me, with only one sentence: Do well there and listen to the leadership.
I could not see my father, looking at this short sentence, my tears almost came out, but I gritted my teeth and swallowed the tears, I was just a girl of 16 years old. From then on, even if I had great grievances, I almost never shed tears in front of people.
When I think about it now, my mother, who had no one to turn to and was sick, wanted me to stay with her, but I decided to leave home and Beijing. I was a rebellious daughter.
When I returned to Beijing for my first visit, I was stunned to see my father, who had white hair all over his head. How could my father, who had not yet turned 50, not have a single black hair? I knew that this was the brand that the cowshed years had left on him. My father came out of the cowshed and went to the Five Seven Cadre School in Henan Province. He wanted me to go with him to the Five Seven Cadre School and not to go back to the Corps. I didn’t take this advice.
When the holiday came, I organized my clothes, and my father didn’t say anything, but silently put me on the train, took my hand and said: “Do a good job! When my father turned his head, I could see the tears in his eyes, and I didn’t know what to say, but I urged him to get off the train. Looking at my father’s old and lonely back fading away, my tears came out, and I asked myself whether I should go to the dry school, stay with my father, and do my daughter’s filial duty? I was an unfilial daughter.
The most disappointing time for my father was in 1975, when my father returned to Beijing from the cadre school, and someone from my father’s unit came to the regiment with a list of three unit children (I was one of them) and recruited us to go to Changsha Arsenal. I had established a relationship with GW, a former farm boy, without my parents’ knowledge, and I couldn’t bear to leave him behind.
My father, who didn’t know what was going on, wrote to me anxiously asking why I didn’t go. I couldn’t tell him why, and I was afraid that my parents wouldn’t accept it, so I wrote back and told them not to worry about me, that I would go my own way.
When my father knew I was giving up this opportunity to leave the Corps for GW, although he didn’t say anything, his heart must have been very sad. I am a daughter who does what I want and does not listen.
After all these years, it’s really hard to go back to the capital because I got married in the Corps! This time may be the only chance. On one side is my parents who raised me, on the other side is my husband, how to choose? Whether I choose to go or not, it will hurt my loved ones. I think not to clean up the mess, left and right dilemma ah.
Under the dilemma, I decided to go back to Beijing first to see the situation before making a decision. My father and mother saw me enter the house with simple clothes and asked suspiciously, “Did you bring back all the procedures? I didn’t dare to look at their eager eyes, so I lowered my head and said softly, “No, I haven’t yet.
In the next few days, I consulted some friends and also learned from my father about the situation of working in Beijing and living apart from each other.
My father read my mind, and did not say anything more, only said to me, “I can not guarantee that I can transfer him back later, but first back one, the other there is hope, you do not come back, the two are in the field, want to transfer back to Beijing together that can be too difficult, you a girl living so far away in Inner Mongolia, how can we rest assured.”
At this point in the side of the sister said, “Dad and Mom, you do not worry about it, the second sister back to Beijing, not for you.” My sister’s words made me feel ashamed in front of my parents, and I had no words to refute them. Yes, it was all for GW, for the promise to GW.
GW is the son of a former farm worker, and his parents are solid, honest people. He drove an ambulance in the hospital of the regiment, and was able to bear hardships and was willing to help people, and everyone was willing to seek his help. I was transferred to the regimental hospital as a clerk in place of my best friend. The transfer of a good friend and his more or less related. The good friend’s mother heard rumors of a close relationship between the two of them, to prevent the development of the situation, immediately came to the mission with a paper transfer order, personally put the good friend on the train leaving Inner Mongolia. I don’t know how deep their feelings are, but from the best friend before leaving, and I said the most topics are GW, you can imagine ……
After my best friend left, to avoid suspicion, the letter written to him was also forwarded to him by me. GW and I naturally became friends who could talk about anything. There are some things in the world that are really predetermined. I not only took over my best friend’s paperwork, but also took over GW as a person.
I was touched by the tragic stories of those who love each other with all their hearts but cannot be married in the end. Don’t the children of the original farm have the right to pursue the Beijing intellectuals? I feel sorry for what happened to GW from my heart! I also encouraged him to boldly pursue his own happiness.
A year later, GW expressed his love to me, and I was a bit confused. I was a little confused. I had the feeling that I had lifted a stone and smashed my own feet. Frankly, the object of my imaginary relationship did not intersect with him. I couldn’t give a satisfactory answer, so I had to keep quiet.
For the next few days, GW locked himself up in his dorm room for the rest of the day, except when he needed to go out to the car. I didn’t know what to do when I saw his painful appearance. What made me decide was a sentence he wrote by chance: “Beijing youths are all liars”. Obviously this sentence was directed at me, maybe to prove that Beijing youths are not liars, maybe because I didn’t want him to suffer a second blow, I decided to accept this feeling and give him justice.
This may not be love, but I felt that I should choose this way, and it was good that GW, a simple, hard-working and well-educated man, was also an excellent young man at that time. And so, in the Loop, far from Beijing, I married myself.
My choice was unanimously opposed by my friends and relatives, who even wanted to cut me off for this reason, and my parents disapproved of it a thousand times. I decided to cut the deal first and then get the license. This is the first time I fell in love in my life, no sweet, no “just under the brow and on the heart” of the heartfelt, and my heart longing for romantic love has nothing to do with.
April 23, 1976, from the He Sheng commune to get a marriage certificate (no certificate, no photos, just a piece of paper for each person) back to the mission, I ran into my good friend is also my school sister, I handed her the marriage certificate that determines the trajectory of my life, tears also flowed down, not half the joy of marriage, the heart is full of indescribable bewilderment and aggravation. Although no one forced me to get this certificate, but it seems to be an invisible force kidnapped must be led.
The more my sister persuaded me, the sadder I cried. I didn’t know what would happen in the future, but what was clear was that I didn’t belong to Beijing anymore. GW looked at me like this and couldn’t say anything, but just murmured, “I can’t give you Beijing, but I can give you all I have.
It’s been 10 years since I got off the train at Liuzhao Station, and I told myself that I was born and raised in Beijing, and I am a Beijinger. But the truth is that I chose a road that I cannot return to Beijing. Sometimes I ask myself in doubt, what made me change my mind? Is it love? When I think about it, it’s more about compassion, commitment, righteousness, and the urge to earn justice for GW. There was even a bit of self-sacrifice and sadness.
When I decided to marry GW I told him to reassure him and his parents, “I won’t go back to Beijing alone, even if I am the only Beijing youth left in the whole regiment.”
When I returned to the Corps from Beijing, I put the letter of return to Beijing in the Selected Works of Lenin on the bookshelf and went to work in silence.
In those days, although the peak of the youth returning to the city has passed, but send the youth of the car every day in a continuous stream. During the day, I said goodbye to my friends and classmates, and watched them sitting in the truck as they drifted away, and my heart felt empty. I didn’t want GW to see that I could only let the silent tears flow freely in the dead of night, whether it was regret or hate or sadness, I couldn’t tell, and there was nowhere to tell, everything was of my own choosing.
GW those days looking at the mood is not high, I have also advised me to consider returning to Beijing, I pretended to be indifferent and said: “You can not return to Beijing, I go back to do, I will not leave you.” This is also considered my commitment to him.
But the differences in society is recognized, the original and their own trench of comrades, classmates, back to the city and their invisible differences, is the most people can not face. Not to mention the difference between urban and rural areas, just one reality: they all became Beijingers, while I have to stay here forever as a Wuyuan person. I couldn’t accept it calmly.
I was not afraid to suffer, but I did not want to face this environment that touched my nerves. Since I could not go back to Beijing, let’s find a place where we can both transfer together.
From September 1979 to the Spring Festival of 1980, he and I were transferred to the 850 factory of the Ministry of Electronics in Jincheng, Shanxi Province, through our connections. Although our relationship was in crisis before he was transferred back to Beijing, the promise I made to him remained in my heart, I would do my best to bring him back to Beijing and would not leave him behind.
We combined in Inner Mongolia and broke up in Beijing, only the dislocation of the times no personal right or wrong. The years we spent together are part of our lives and cannot be forgotten. Once my mother-in-law wanted to see me when she was seriously ill, and although I was no longer her daughter-in-law, I was relieved that the old man was ill. I took the weekend to go from Beijing to Linhe to visit the old man, and I was glad to see how happy he was, after all, we were once a family.
Familiar friends say that this marriage has completely changed my life, and that the sickness withdrawal certificate that I gave up and the scars that can never be healed have stayed in my heart forever. But who can be blamed? We were too young, too naive, too idealistic in those monstrous times.
When society returns to its original state, everyone is destined to return to their original position. And I broke up with him to find the happiness that really belongs to him.
Bless him forever.
Memory 289
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