Zhengdong Street is in the east of the county seat, near the former water terminal, is a small street. On both sides of the street are brick houses and wooden buildings of different heights. In the middle of the street is a bluestone road with smooth slabs that have been honed by many years and generations of people.
In the mid-1980s, and somewhere along the way, the residents of the streets developed a habit.
At two or three o ‘clock in the morning, the doors of many families on both sides of the street opened quietly. People emerged from the doors and began to be busy in a tacit agreement.
Still at night, a small street flickers like ghosts at night. Only south of the street behind the house, the black liuhe river quietly flowing.
Presently the door began to creep in. Look at both sides of the road, sundries put a ground, multifddly, have their own old door board, the old bed board, the sun dried vegetables round fork, mop, broom, some people even will be on the table bamboo strips rice cover have taken out, took a seat.
An hour later the wheels rang out at the end of the street, and the carts, the bearers, and the vegetable peddlers with baskets by their shoulders entered the street by twos and threes, each choosing its place, removing the things from the ground, and setting up their stalls. The butcher lifts the linoleum and sets up the hooks. The cart becomes a shelf. The oil lamp is hung on the shelves. The vegetable seller put down his pick, spread out a plastic sheet, and carefully arranged the seasonal vegetables in the pick neatly.
A noodle shop by the side of the road opened soon after, under which the steam from a cooking pot floated a yellow light. The fragrance of the code and the thick fragrance of the oil goods together to the outside, can always attract a few gluttons of men stopped the stall, went in to eat a bowl.
Surface family store the surname feng, doing business really, noodles under solid, size also tunnel, a paper one hair two, a quarter sparerib noodles, beef noodles, two hair, ready at the end of a row of wide bowls have cloth stores big spoon scoop a spoonful of soup, bone going, in turn, pour into the bowl of soup of caramel advanced flat, filled with steaming, boiling pan jie the lid, boil noodle soup, such as springs, thin noodles of fish, and parents pick up the surface of chopstick, long handle open bamboo basket dip a scoop, is a small basket and glittering and translucent white noodles, white mouth slightly, falling into soup bowl noodles, long into the bowl chopstick flatly out fast, place into a folding noodles in a bowl, Small iron ladle at least, shake three shake, the remaining half, poured on the surface. The guest came to the table by himself, then turned to the table, added some dried pepper, poured some vinegar, dug the bottom of the chopsticks and turned up the noodles, mixed the seasoning well, and inhaled noisily. If you don’t have enough to eat, add a three-cent deep-fried dough stick and dip it into the soup in the bowl to get more full.
The sun was half over the side of Tianma Hill, opposite the river, and the little street became lively. People from all over the town gathered together and poured into the little street, walking slowly and looking carefully.
Soon, the door of each street opened, the host came out, looking for stall owners to take back the occupied items, by the way.
Booth fee looked at the size of the business, selling small vegetables 20 to 30 fen, butcher stall 50 to 80 fen, if the fixed booth acquaintance, the price has already said, meet the road sound early, received the items, the stall rental money quietly handed over, the home quietly picked up, he said: “business is good, make a fortune.
“Borrow your good dock and eat your bread.” The stall owner replied politely.
When the sun rose aslant, the officials of the finance and taxation office came to collect the slaughterhouse tax. Holding his tax payment certificate in his hand, he would fill it out now and then. When he met a butcher who had not opened his shop, he would first wait, or even buy some food at his own house, or even turned in at the noodle shop to have a bowl of noodles, and then came back again. He would always wait until the butcher opened his shop. The old taxes teach the new.
There are also late master home, lazily opened the door, mouth hanging not wipe clean toothpaste foam, stretched lazy, wiping the eye excreta, look down at the door booth, has been empty, sell vegetables hair market, early call it a day. He was not in a hurry, so he went to the noodle shop. He would leave his things and the rent there, and then he would eat the noodles and thank Lao Feng’s family for their safekeeping.
So began a busy day on Zhengdong Street.
1
There is an old man on Zhengdong Street who is an expert in land occupation.
You don’t need an alarm clock to get up at 2 am. You should take up three or five places each time with your old bed boards, brooms and shau kei. He rose at daybreak and came out to collect the money. Whether the vegetable vendor opens or not. Some grumble that the money is too much for their will. “Sooner or later, sooner or later.” The old man squeezed a word out of his mouth and stretched out his hand. He would not take back the money until he had put it in.
The old man was tall and thin, thin and thin, with sharp eyes, as if he wanted to see people’s hearts.
The old man occupied the street to see the mood, sometimes more, sometimes less, two or three to three or five seats, in front of his own house, left and right neighbors also occupied, occasionally also placed across the street.
In the beginning some of his neighbors were angry and sought him out.
“I’ll do it today, and you’ll do it tomorrow.” The old man said, “Work hard and earn money. If you want to learn from me, you can put me up at ten o ‘clock and I won’t have anything to say, as long as it doesn’t hinder people’s walking.”
The neighbor choked on the speech.
There will be neighborhood quarrel, “do not argue, the door is also the public road, tomorrow is early up.”
And they that were quarrelling went down from the ass, and shivered, and turned hesitantly.
The old man collected the rent and walked around the street to buy some vegetables. He occasionally weighed a piece of meat for his grandson and a piece of vegetables in his hand with one hand behind his back. Like a general inspecting his army, he walked majestically step by step and slowly walked home.
He never eats noodles in a noodle shop. Even when old Feng’s family calls him, he just nods lightly and says politely, “Business is good.
The wooden door creaked open and the old man returned home. It was dark, with only the kitchen by the river lit up. His wife got up, and the breakfast of the whole family, fat and fat, staggered about in the narrow space, awkwardly and cleverly avoiding the POTS and pans on the ground. The coal stove had been opened, a new coal cake had been put in, and the water in the soup pot was beginning to boil.
The old man strolls past, buys the fresh vegetables to throw in the kitchen counter, then looks up at the kitchen counter high small window to shine into the faint sky light, reaches out to the wall, pulls out the lamp, angry way, “the dawn light, you picked up the money!”
Then he walked slowly up the wooden ladder with his hands behind his back.
There was a stilted balcony at the top of the building, and wooden posts were thrust into the river.
The old man stood on the balcony movement, chest enlargement, exhaled turbid spit clear, slightly moved several times. After a break, I took out a red box of lovesick birds from my pocket (an old cigarette, which has been discontinued now), lit it, and watched the ripples of a river.
The river was the same as it had been fifty years before. He always liked to tell his daughters and grandchildren on this balcony how he had followed the caravan to Shanghai in his first month in the county town when he was young.
Li Man, an old resident of Zhengdong Street, was not from Liuyang.
2
When Li Manchu arrived in Liuyang, he was in a mess.
He is guizhou zunyi, warlords was caught in the struggle, the force when the child soldiers, and join the 35 army staff between (and tang sheng-chih spread), after adaptation, merges into 10 division, based in changsha, in 1929, “LuDiPing incident”, the cast, the face become deserters, “shot to peas ring, just know changsha YaZi Yi Baozhong stray bullets, clutching his neck ran a few steps, lying on the ground. I dropped the gun and ran away to save my life.” Li Man said later.
(Lu Disiping event: Lu Disiping, then chairman of Hunan Province. In February 1929, He Jian, commander of the 19th division of the Changsha Garrison, allied with the 15th division and the 52nd Division of the former Guangxi army, launched a surprise attack on the Lu Teriping Division. Lu Teriping was defeated and led the 18th division to retreat to Jiangxi.
Li Man fled to Liuyang, took off the uniform outside the city, the seventeen-year-old children with the flow of people into the city.
Liuyang is a mountain city, surrounded by a bay of clear water, the other side of the mountains tianma mountains towering, under the mountains are green fields, the river is the center of the town, the mountains between the large flat, a few old streets, old houses, crowded, bustling, with the noise and quiet between the streets. Li Man walked between the streets, the beginning of the panic, began to think about making a living.
Think oneself are young, a strength, always can find a thing to do, who knows the first pile was defeated in the communication.
Before, Ben had been stationed in Changsha for a period of time, but he could not speak and understand a little Changsha dialect. However, when he entered Liuyang, he could not understand the local language at all and could not read. Instead, he was like a deaf man entering the city and could only talk and talk (Liuyang dialect is partial to Gan dialect).
On the fourth day, after toddling into a porter’s house, and seeing the company gathered round for dinner, he too went to the table, made an empty bowl, filled a large bowl of brown rice and sweet potatoes in a steamer, and, having finished three or two sips, was restrained from eating again. When they had eaten their meal and had strength, the three pickers pressed him down, and the coolies rushed up. He had a flash of inspiration and shouted in his broken Changsha, “I’ve done it. I’m begging for food!”
All one leng, pour loose a hand, the head of a bald middle-aged man, with the same lame Changsha words asked: “looking for something to do? Where did mozi come from?”
When Li Man looked around, he saw two bundles of wood at a corner of the wall, making a solid pile of wood. He was afraid that there were two hundred jin in it. When he came near, he picked it up with his hands full, and walked up and down the street without blushing or breathing.
In the bald approving eyes, Li Man grinned, he should have thought, here people speak he does not understand, people can always understand the provincial capital ah.
With two bundles of firewood, Li Man passed the interview of picking his feet, and he took the bowl at peace and joined the crowd around the table for a meal. There were two dishes on the table that day, a bowl of fried Cabbage and a bowl of chili mixed with dried radish strips. Li Man restrained himself to eat and made solid rice.
3
A team of about ten people, 200 kilograms of summer cloth each, carrying a pole to Shanghai, the wind and the street, the cloth is expensive, “it doesn’t matter if you trip, to protect the goods comprehensive.” Lao Chen repeated the words repeatedly, and Li Man heard them faithfully. No matter where he rested, he put down the burden and covered it with an oilcloth to protect it from rain and dust. Lao Chen saw it in his eyes until Li Was young and experienced.
(Note: The fermentation pond of ramie, a special liuyang specialty, is made of raw materials. It is naturally fermented and processed. In summer, it is especially cool to wear.
do three years of foot picking, Li Man deep foot old Chen appreciation, the next spring, Old Chen Dan please Li Man home for dinner.
It was the beginning of Spring that day. Lao Chen lived in jiaolong Lane, a big blue brick house to the north of his house, which covered his small wooden building with darkness all day long. They were sitting in the hall drinking and eating food. during the dinner Chen by wine strength frankly his mind, tell their own son interest is thin, only a daughter, want to recruit Li Man do a live-in son-in-law. Li Man leng, wine head, Lao Chen’s daughter, he only vaguely see a profile, thin body, thin face, a thin yellow plait in the back of the head.
After a long silence, Li Man still refused. “I have found my master’s daughter,” he said. But my cub, it’s going to be my last name.” He bowed earnestly to his benete, drank a glass of wine, gently put down his chopsticks, and went away.
Lao Chen finally married his daughter to Li Man, it was four years later, the daughter was 20 years old, in the old days, age is not small, the poor family did not have to pick, Lao Chen’s redundant thought is to let his originally not heavy Libra side less weight, he is still stubbornly waiting until he heard the news.
The Japanese are coming in.
Originally small town people only laugh, the qing fell, the people are still living, the Japanese into the door, what does it matter.
Until one day, the foot line’s most profitable transportation business also stopped, “The Japanese occupied Shanghai, the cloth stopped.” The owner of the foot line announced the news regretfully, “in the future, transport the tempeh, follow the ship to the water, pay monthly statement.”
The porters were sad, and the tempeh was no more than the chaffy cloth, more short, or with the boat, and the wages were much less.
Big news ahead more than a fierce, the small town, for mourning also gradually many, some families in a poor family in this army has ushered in the bereavement, near and far off firecrackers ring crack, just the winter solstice, but like the Chinese New Year, cold rolled powder is voluminous, street xiao suo in the noisy sound, people get into great panic, LiuHe a bay of cold water, holding a small town in winter.
Rumors abound.
“Kill anyone, whether you take a gun or not. Civilians kill hundreds of thousands of people.” Someone has brought news from Nanjing.
“A Japanese devil can recite a mantra, rattle and chatter, and people won’t be able to move. Women are ruined and men killed.” Some say it’s very vivid.
“The calamity of the country’s refugees is a comparison with That of Zhang Xianzhong.” (According to the Annals of Liuyang County, “In September of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong captured Liuyang, where the deceased were buried and the village and city were the ruins.” )
Lao Chen is in the rumor of the sky, the urgency of the daughter married Li Man, Li Man out of the ten oceans as a contract. The day before he got married, Mr. Chen told his daughter solemnly, “We are innocent people. If the devil really wants to invade us, and there is no place to hide, go jump into the river.”
The wedding wine was held in Lao Chen’s main room, and two tables were filled to the full with the foot brothers and relatives of the Chen family. During the war, the price was too high. Four silver dollars were barely enough to hold the wedding banquet. When the couple toasting, Li Man first pulled the wife (Liuyang wife means) with the wine walked to the house, toward the west knelt down, knee under this piece of black soil, connected to the hometown across the landscape, he kowtowed to, with the local accent shouted, “Brother married, such as peace, will go back to see you.”
4
After his marriage, Li Man went to live in his father-in-law’s house and spent ten months in the house that could not see the light of the sky. The distant news came to the mountain city, just like the tired eagle after trekking thousands of mountains and rivers, which was less fierce and fierce. Picker line has been off the class, Li Man introduced by people, went to the yellow house when the work.
The Huangs were a big family in the city. They had been dealing in fireworks, summer cloth, property and farmland for generations. However, the man in charge of the Huangs was only a few years older than Li Man. Li Man was given preferential treatment as a handyman in his home.
Here, Li Man’s wife morning sickness, belly quietly swollen up.
Although the war, but not displaced, although away from home, but into a family business. Li Man thought that life’s fate is like a dry spring, everything is better, life is like a flower blossoming under a remote rock cliff in a stormy wind and rain, although barren, fortunately stable.
Just after that day the beginning of winter, under the yellow house hutch to grind tofu, Li Man from basement to carry out a bag of beans, walk in the corridor, from buzz in the air, a tight a nasty, Li Manzheng suspected the large house was feeding is good, the cold days and fly, a series of noise, frighten he throw himself on the floor, somehow when soldiers in a few years, immediately understood the explosion.
huang big boss in the backyard Shouting all the people, are hiding in the cellar, Li Man but stood up and ran to the front yard, he was in a hurry to go home to see the situation, ran to the front yard, but saw the yellow master fell sitting on the ground crying. When Master Huang, then 5 years old, heard an explosion, Mr. Li picked him up and carried him to the backyard vault.
There was chaos on the street again, houses had collapsed in several places, and through the thick smoke planes were buzzing low, the rattle of machine guns in the air and the sound of explosions far and near on the ground, and there were dead and moaning people on the road.
Li Man forgot how he had come home, only to see the small wooden building shrunk behind the big blue brick house in the distance is still intact, his heart relieved, but did not know that the wife was blown down in the vegetable soil on the river by the explosion, has miscarried.
One or two days later, the funeral was held in the city, and the local people (the professionals who presided over the funeral) began to go through the stages. The gong and drum team was not enough, and the people from the four villages also entered the city.
Li Man told the huang family leave, a large family to help the bereaved family, get some of the usual bad meat, to the miscarriage of the wife.
(Note: In November 1938, the Japanese Army launched its first air raid on Liuyang city, sending 27 fighter jets to stragle and bomb liuyang city for over an hour, killing and injuring more than 800 people.)
5
Not long after the air raid, the Huangs sent people to call Li Man back to work, because of the rescue of the young master, the master gave him a higher wage, everything high look at, secretly also revealed the meaning of hiring him to do long work.
Even Li Man’s wife, the Huang family also find something to do for her, for just born young master when a wet nurse, the Yellow family grandmother weak not to send milk. Small postpartum Li Man wife but every day front wet, milk like water, just to feed the little yellow master.
heat and cold, is a year, the Japanese devil to go back and forth, quiet for a year, during the li Man wife miscarriage again, pregnant, did not keep.
in the first month of the 30th year, the big head of the yellow home with the first time in the accounting room Mr. Sun to li Man, after the bosom of the cold cry out a house deed sent to Li Man, the right is to report that day to save the son of the grace.
Li Man fear refused, big headed determined to give.
In the end, Mr. Sun came up with a compromise. The house was sold to Li Man at a low price. Li Man found eighteen silver-colored flowers hidden under the jar in the kitchen. He thought about them for a while and took five.
Mr. Sun redrew the deed of the house and signed it as a person.
In the first lunar month, Li Man and his wife went to live in the wooden building near the water in Zhengdong Street.
In February, the huang family added another new, Li Man sealed twelve silver gift, big headed to return, Li Man refused to live, until the house they have earned a great deal of money, add twice the amount of money, also can not be changed, now it is only congratulations, the husband should not refuse, said big headed is also no words.
After a few days, Li Man stopped work at night, big headed to invite him to drink, push a cup to change a cup to drink half, big headed asked Li Man, what difficulties, you can mention.
Li Man hesitated for a long time, the period was put forward a request, want to make a close relationship with the Yellow family, the yellow family son interest, his wife belly but not strive for spirit, a close relationship, borrowed the yellow family luck, to see if you can plant the seed of the Li family.
Big headed hear laugh, big headed is also a young man, have no scruffy. The young master was called on the spot and saluted in the wing.
Delicate Li Man sits at the palace chair for the first time, powder carved jade build by laying bricks or stones of the gentleman, off then knelt before him, stick to the ke three head, called CuiShengSheng to dry dad, give new brew a cup of tea, Li Man smile, happy to hand in the air to draw a circle, no incision should be, her hot, chuai one mouthful tea, placed the cup, will master a hugged, her out for years to accumulate the last pieces of silver, made of dry region.
In September, the Japanese aircraft came again, the air defense siren blare sounded, Li Man with a pregnant wife hiding into the shelter, and then out of the Central town (now Liuyang urban area) in a piece of smoke, people wooden to clean up the wreckage, Li Man carefully helped the wife, “not uncomfortable? “He asked nervously. When he got a positive reply, he breathed a sigh of relief, stretched out his hand and unconsciously drew empty pictures in the air, loudly praising,” The Fortune of the Huang family is still high.”
In November, late one night, the air raid siren again tore the night sky, Li Man jumped up from the bed, a quilt wrapped up the wife, horizontally held to run out, all the way into the air raid shelter to put down, “Bellybitter me. The woman moaned and moaned. “I can’t hold my urine. I’ve got a stomachache.” Li Man saw the blood stain under the crotch of the wife in the dim light, and the child was gone. (Note: The Japanese army bombed Liuyang city twice between the end of September and the middle of November 1941.)
From then on, Li man’s wife’s belly was like a frail vine, its fruit breaking. Not only that, but every time the air-raid siren wailed, she peed her pants.
Li Man’s only child was born in 1949, after the Japanese surrender, the yellow family sent to Changsha to invite a famous doctor, turned more than 20 fu prescription conditioning, Chinese medicine boiled water to drink a thousand jin, finally built the belly of Li Man’s wife, pregnant for ten months, gave birth to a girl. As if the full effort in a battle, Li Man wife’s belly since then silent.
“A trip to your uncle and grandfather’s family, or I will end up, where there are you Oh. Many years later, Li Man and grandson about this matter, the heart has feelings. At this time, the sun zishan value of the total Angle, to understand.
6
Zhengdong Street had a steel-skinned childhood.
Gangpi was born in Zhengdong Street. The most impressive memory for this street is a funeral at his cousin’s home. It was in the late 1980s when Gangpi was in his teens, his grandfather took him to kowtow to his cousin’s home.
My cousin huang, before the liberation of the family generations of fireworks, summer cloth, is one of the largest liuyang city, after the liberation of all their wealth, the family to save. In the eighties, when the spring breeze of reform came, my cousin set his mind on doing business. At first, he poured out food stamps. Later, he entrusted a relationship to do a letter of introduction.
When the business was doing well, my uncle and grandfather died, long dry rain in the family, filled out the yellow family blood with the ritual and tradition, so my uncle and grandfather’s funeral became the most solemn, the most exquisite funeral in the mountain city in the 1980s.
At that time, the two Cousins into the courtyard, is the implementation of the policy after the return. An elegiac couplet hangs quietly at the gate: “Three generations share the same sorrow when they die at 70.” The gate of the courtyard was left ajar, and the gongs and drums inside could not be concealed. There is a visitor, the door opened, the company gun a short whip lit into the bamboo basket, playing the percussion team sounded, inside the beam hung with a white curtain, the elegiac into a pull, the assembly odd, filial son filial son maitaixiao kneeling in incense table, guests before incense, there are about the ceremony, ceremony please go into the room for tea.
After the beach opened more than a dozen tables of noodles, I do not know how many meat tickets, food stamps, use the number of size relationship, just held up the big feast, dinner eight meat and two vegetable, flat meal six meat and two vegetable, weekdays in the New Year’s eve dinner to see the dishes all on the table.
It is the winter, uncle and grandfather first rest for seven days, and then lift the funeral, according to the old tradition, into clothing, zhai, mountain.
Steel-skin’s grandfather with steel-skin quickly went to cousin’s home to help, just in time to go out, on the road, cousin fell on his knees, knock on the ground with his head, steel-skin scared, only to see grandpa quickly came up to help cousin, hurriedly comfort. Two people moved to the roadside, cousin thin said his father’s sudden death, “I went to Changsha, he was still well, did not think of two days to take the letter said not to go home, did not go home, on the body. The rim of the eye turned red as he said it.
Grandpa also cried, “Decades of close, said it was over.” Weeping bitterly, he asked his cousin to comfort him.
Grandpa cried for a long time to stop, touching the back of his cousin just sighed, “I will go to help, my grandson will also go, do you want my son-in-law?”
“Need not bother, you help, your family I put heart.” Cousin said.
Gangpi and grandpa went to help every day. Gangpi was young and had to do chores to carry tea and water. His cousin, seeing that his grandfather was old, gave him a broom and only did the cleaning of the inner courtyard. Occasionally rest, grandpa moved a bench, sitting after the spiritual case, holding the coffin to talk with uncle and grandfather, he said fast and urgent, steel skin inaudible.
‘Why does uncle kneel? Uncle and grandfather’s funeral long after, steel skin asked grandpa.
“In their family, they know the old rites,” said grandpa. “The number of couplets and the number of words on the mourning plate should all be taken from a single list, the size of the zodiac, the incense table and the drums and gongs should all be taken from the old group. When his father and mother die, his son is a sinner, and when he kneels, is atonement.”
The wooden house earned by foot picking is not only his capital, it has become the grandfather’s feet virtually. The wooden house earned by foot picking is not only his capital, it has become the grandfather’s feet virtually.
“They are good people,” said the grandfather, after a pause. “If they are not good enough to help, how can we get this property?” Grandpa hand a pendulum, steel strap, finding, see a faint yellow sky, high and wide woodwork, Yin is extremely extremely silent in the corner of furniture and a skylight already dark outside, with occasional passers-by, chat sound along the gone with the wind was come in, this is a small MuLou, on the second floor, opening the front door, back door linhe, located in the town of old street is the center of the east.
7
When He was seven years old, his grandfather was already in his seventies. The old man was talkative and steel-Skin was curious. He always told him many stories.
“The Japanese are evil. They kill pigs and sheep and kill people again. There are thousands of pits at the foot of Mount Tianma.”
“Your grandmother is a leaky calabash, pregnant with many, only live your mother one.”
“Huang2 Ji2 hao, heel we this kind of servant tie up close close, helped line our home many.”
“Your father is to invite lang to invite my house, he is frank, their six sons, also have the courage to cough up.
Gangpi has known for a long time that his grandfather is actually his grandfather, his mother named Li, he also named Li, his father named Peng. And very close cousin, but grandpa’s former employer, because of the close, mother just had a dry brother, grandpa is not pleasant to the ear, just let him call people cousin, and in fact, the two families are not related.
In his grandfather’s later years, He tells more about the roots of his family in a small mountain village in Zunyi, Guizhou province, surrounded by mountains green with stilted buildings and banana trees.
“Have you ever been back, Grandpa?” “Asked The steel skin.
Grandpa looked gloomy, and then slowly murmured sigh, “Can’t go back.”
In his spare time, grandpa likes to talk about the time when he went to Shanghai with the summer cloth.
“Carrying the Chablis to Shanghai, selling coolies to make money. Master took care of me, and fortunately, he picked out a house.” In his grandfather’s repeated narration, Gangpi began to yearn for the place called Shanghai, and everything there fascinated him. When he spoke of his pride, he stretched out his hand into the air and drew imaginary circles. “There are a lot of soldiers on the road, as well as devils, foreign devils and Japanese devils. Some women are not serious, wear clothes to expose flesh, see is good-looking.”
Often said to these, the old man’s thoughts began to clutter, said also, unstructured fragmentary memories scrambled into his mouth, “dock outside the road, and are sold in the middle of the wonton, delicious, and a fragrant meat pot pot (dog), the boss is a beard, a fat, sometimes, sometimes not, even a dozen dogs, wild dogs less than Ms. Heaton-renshaw. We had little rest (one night) in Shanghai, so we took it to the dock, took it to the warehouse and went back. Sometimes bring back goods, sometimes empty turn around. The boss pays in cash.”
Steel-skin could not imagine his grandfather lifting more than two hundred pounds of chabu fast flying scene, since he can remember, the old man has been hobbled, that is, years of heavy weight caused irreversible damage to the knee. Grandpa said it was a foot in the door fate, “who escaped oh.”
“Picking one’s feet means making money,” said grandpa with blurred eyes. “Go to Shanghai with the summer cloth and pick out a house.”
So in the understanding of the steel sheet, grandpa daily site roof terrace, is not to exercise, but a ritual, the cash by blinding to log cabin, not only is he living in the capital, it had virtually gone to grandpa’s feet, up a day, the beautiful scenery in sight, across the green fields, the towering in the distance tianma mountain and in the sight of the bay, green water, and beneath the surviving in fighting s curtilage, opens a branch to come loose to be his home. This was what he had dreamed of many years ago when he went to the county town to make a living.
8
And in the grandmother’s narration, grandpa has moved the idea of returning home many times.
The first trip was in the first spring after the Japanese surrendered. In April, my grandfather got acquainted with a fellow villager and started back to Zunyi.
They walk a road west, spent more than half a month through the hunan, from which the border crossing into the wuling mountains of guizhou province, tongren to the river’s mouth, left half way, listen to the message and the war, the situation suddenly tense, can always see a carrying guns across the city, county, into the city to check demanding a lot of, countrymen client to newly established a national id card before travel, met when interrogating LiangZheng, saved a lot of trouble. Grandpa suspected to print fingerprints, did not do, but at the moment there are many obstacles, and even by the garrison of the soldiers with guns, scared not light. (In June 1946, an all-out civil war broke out.)
Finally, grandpa reluctantly turned back, fellow villagers alone to find relatives, parting grandfather repeatedly begged, to Zunyi, to go to his home. When the winter came, the villagers returned with some bad news for grandpa. “There is no one at home and the whole village is deserted.”
Ten years later, grandpa went back to his hometown for the second time, with a letter of recommendation from the tempeh factory next door and his grandmother and young mother. As they approached Zunyi, however, with an attractive letter of introduction missing, “he returned with us as easily as if he had taken off a burden.” “Said Grandma, slurping at the steel skin.
For many years after that, Steel-leather did not understand what grandma said.
9
When I was young, my grandfather loved him by eating meat every week. The old man gets up early every day to occupy a booth, just to cut a kilo of meat for grandma to cook.
On one of the mornings of the week, while he was still fast asleep, the smell of the meat had risen up and crept doggedly up his nostrils, down the slits of the boards.
And so many mornings as a child, he was awakened in this beautiful way. Hop downstairs and have a nice breakfast.
Most of the time, the center of the table is a bowl of fragrant steamed meat with fermented black beans.
In the county, steamed meat with black bean sauce is a very common dish, fresh pork belly cut heap bowl bottom, sprinkle on dried pepper and black bean sauce, ladle a spoon of fine salt, add a star white sugar grains, in rice steamer and cook together, rice cooked, cooked meat.
The fat boiled so soft that the grease oozed and crumbled. Rich in black bean sauce and spicy, salty and slightly sweet, the soup pouring out of the bowl is dark red. With a layer of oil on the surface, we peel off the oil layer with a spoon and dig deep into the soup. The oil surface ripples, with the large black beans at the bottom of the bowl wrapped in chili flakes, writhing in the soup, like big fish and small fish jumping after breaking the ice on the lake.
Steel skin mixed with rice soup, you can eat three or four bowls of rice.
When he was full, he wiped his mouth with steel skin, picked up his yellow schoolbag, and ran out of the house.
Go home at noon, still can eat, the morning to eat the rest of the people did not move, a hot hot to eat.
In the years of foot inconvenience, grandpa still engaged in a sideline. Every morning, he would pull up a few small ropes in front of his house, bring up a box in the house, open a pile of children’s books inside, a local hang them on the line, like a rich family to dry clothes, hang out a few full tufts, simple books hang on the front of a few stools, business opened. At the beginning, I read two books for a penny. Later, I read one book for a penny. Journey to the West, Xue Gang Against Tang Dynasty and A Dream of Red Mansion were all complete sets.
Grandpa set out his stall in the morning, so he spent the whole morning sitting idly by the stall, a pot of tea by his feet. The stalls on the side street had been scattered and few passers-by passed by. Had it not been for the wind blowing from the street, which lifted his coat, he would have looked like a statue.
After liberation, grandpa joined a literacy class. He could read just enough pictures to read.
It was always noon, and only sporadic business, next to the collective tempeh factory lunch break, workers out to rest, there are always a few dusk-to-stall to read.
10
Steel-pi spent the carefree years on Zhengdong Street. Every morning, the busy people in the street were silent and busy. In the morning and afternoon, the long Street was lonely. And young, fat, wearing thick glasses, like twitter’s mother, dark, thick, all day long indulge in fishing father, clumsy, grandma in the kitchen busy all day, but still reeling Lin however since wei’s grandfather together, they and the street are interdependent, mutual motivation, that day, everyone quiet and lively, able to shrug off the slightly poor life.
Steel skin still remember, father that time to catch a big fish, spring, father in the liuhe hook to catch a big carp, back with back, the whole street people have come out to see the fun, on the scale of the fermented black beans factory weigh, fully 48 catty!
The father proudly broke and divided the fish at home. The neighbors got a piece of the fish, but the family kept only a large basin of fish roe.
For nearly a month, grandpa forgot to buy meat and ate fish roe at home. He really hurt the skin and never ate fish roe in this life.
This incident, however, became the last important memory of Gangpi on Zhengdong Street, and the residents of zhengdong Street were informed of the demolition in the spring of the following year.
Grandpa’s way home
There are two things in my grandfather’s life that I can’t forgive. One is that his mother quietly got the only child certificate. The other is that she moved away from Zhengdong Street.
In the mid-1990s, in order to build binhe Road, zhengdong Street was demolished as a whole, and one family moved to the new village in the east of the city. The morning market spontaneously formed disappeared with it, and the vegetable traders moved to the market built by the government.
When Gangpi lived on Zhengdong Street, feng Jia noodle shop, who drool when passing by but never eat once, found another shop, opened another one, and started the noodle shop, which became the earliest noodle shop in the town, still full of people.
Because the whole building was demolished, the government gave a plot of land east of Gangpi Jiacheng, subsidized the money and allowed the construction of four-story buildings.
However, when he moved into the building, grandpa began to age at a rate that could be seen by eye. His hair became white and his waist became stooped. Suddenly, he could not walk any more.
Grandpa lived on the ground floor, and he was still the first one to wake up every morning and make some noise so the family could lift him into his wheelchair and push him out the door.
He could sit in the little street outside the gate for half the day and see the busy street going on, with people coming and going.
When her grandmother died at the turn of the century, the old lady, who liked to work in the dark kitchen, ended up in the well-lit kitchen on the second floor of her steel-leather home.
Half a year later, my uncle, who had moved to Changsha, called home to report the death of his uncle and grandmother. The weak woman, who could not nurse her child, actually survived her younger steel-skinned grandmother.
“Don’t come,” said uncle in the phone lightly, “yesterday went, today cremated, that is to say.”
It was Gangpi who answered the phone. At this time, Gangpi had joined the work and replaced his father to become a worker in a nitrogen fertilizer factory. Gangpi ran downstairs and told his cousin’s words to his grandfather who was basking in the sun on the street.
A few days later, grandpa said to Steel skin: “I have gone, to stop a little longer, I know that will be cremated, I am afraid of pain, until I die.”
The steel skin listened, heart under awe.
11
Grandpa lived to a very old age, even if the elderly people confused, still like to call steel leather pushed him to go out, walk along the riverside road, a night reflecting the red river, grandpa sat on the river in a daze.
“It was the same then, the sky blue and the water red.”
“The river is covered with vegetable soil, the toon trees are budding, and the fried eggs are delicious.”
“Take the ferry to the other side, climb up Tianma Mountain, the first sight is zhengdong Street, my building, in the middle.” Grandpa said, squinting, endless aftertaste. The spirit of man came back again, just like the young man many years ago, who pushed open the back door of his house facing the river and walked leisurely to the side of the setting sun and the flowing water.
Grandpa died in 2009 at the age of 97.
When grandpa was dying, he shouted loudly, saying something that he could not understand.
The mother understood and wept.
His mother told Gangpi that his grandfather was speaking guizhou dialect and that he was calling his parents.
In 2009, at the age of 34, Gangpi was given responsibility and the funeral was his. After the second day, mourners came in an endless stream, some familiar, many new. In the ledger, some strangers gave more than usual gifts.
Steel skin rice, accommodation, ask them and grandpa relationship.
“Your grandfather helped our family.” In the past six years, grandpa had received hundreds of refugees from the Japanese occupation of She Port (a town in Liuyang) since the 39th century.
Sometimes, when the building was full, the refugees would make straw MATS, cover their bodies with straw, and have porridge to eat and rice to eat. After the war, some people got close to their grandfather and moved around all the year round. The older generation was getting older, and their children and grandchildren went on to visit. Although more people do not talk with each other, father eventually son, always remember zhengdong Street on the kindness of the Old Man Li, received the letter, will always come to see old man Li a final ride.
Grandpa never mentioned these things.
Pour also solved the puzzle that steel skin since all the time, grandfather is a person from outside originally, how in the county relative so many.
So the family made a real sense of the funeral, the rest of the seven days, a hundred people saw off, although the cremation, after all the success.
Afterword.
It was several years before my friend Steel-pi gave me a full account of his grandfather, and in his account the life of this legendary old man was one of endurance and splendor.
“After I moved away from Zhengdong Street, I went to the Feng Family’s noodle shop for a bowl of noodles. It was really delicious.” “Said the steel sheet period. At that time, feng’s noodle shop had opened several branches, no one knew if it was an old taste.
And some things do not understand at the beginning, through the precipitation of time, the heart of steel skin gradually have an answer.
After the death of grandma, grandpa is from time to time always want to go to the kitchen, that is the place where grandma has been working for a long time, people become confused, grandpa began to like a child, occasionally get up early, will call grandma’s name, eyes closed, salivating, almost sajiao to shout, “Plum sister, do breakfast to eat. Gangpi began to understand that grandpa did not go out to eat, and not only to save money, perhaps in his heart, grandma’s cooking again ordinary, is also the taste of home.
So he finally understood that grandpa returned to Zunyi for the second time, after losing the letter of introduction, why he was eager to go back home, not because he was timid, but because he did not want to verify the cruel truth brought to him by his fellow villagers. Homeland, this is because of the existence of relatives, and this world is already more is already, less is a fluke.
On the night of grandpa’s first day, Gangpi was on guard before the funeral. As his parents were getting old, he urged them to go to bed. Grandpa died in the first floor of the main room, behind the incense table hung a white curtain, coffin at the back of the curtain, on the table flickering red candle (country ritual, eighty after the death for the funeral, light red candle), a large portrait hanging on the wall of the main room, in the photo, grandpa thin face hanging smile, look pale.
That night the leather burned yellow paper outside the house, the cigarettes soared, an east wind blew from the ground, and the smoke made a turn in the air and turned west.
Until now, Steel-pi firmly believes that it is grandpa who has come back, stopping here for a while and heading west. That is the direction of the hometown. Grandpa has finally got rid of his doubts in life and returned to his hometown with the blessing of his descendants. The circle made by the cigarette, just as grandpa had stretched out his hand to draw empty pictures in the air when he was happy, might be to tell the living that in fact, all the ways of coming eventually lead to the way home.
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