Chapter 30 land - mother

"Mom, what are you worried about... Tell me." He sat next to his mother and spoke in a sincere voice.My mother was lying on the kang, her gray hair fell on the pillow in a mess, her bright and gentle eyes were covered by loose eyelids, her eyebrows flicked slightly, and she occasionally shook her head on the pillow, proving that the pain was unbearable. The pain was tormenting the old man crazily, and it seemed that the faint breath might be interrupted at any time.He has been by his mother's side for three days and three nights. His temples are frosty and white, and even though he was promoted to deputy secretary of the county party committee with a population of 400,000 a few years ago, he still feels unable to leave his mother... Whenever he comes home from get off work in the county on Saturdays, or returns from a provincial meeting, he kicks Stepping into the house, without getting a firm foothold, I always take a look at the door panel of the shabby house where my mother lives. If it is not locked, I must blurt out: "Mom!" A long response: "Hey——" Hearing such a gentle voice will make all one's hard work disappear in an instant, turn restlessness into peace, and make emptiness become solid...

He clutched his mother's back placket tightly, and fixed his eyes on the yellow dog leaping forward and backward.The mother is holding a bamboo basket in her left hand, and holding a slippery jujube stick in her right hand, scaring the wild yellow dog.Walking to the door of a strange crop yard, he took a bowl of leftovers from the door, poured it tremblingly into his own yellow bowl, withdrew, sat in front of the firewood pile in front of the door, and stuffed the bowl and chopsticks into the in his hand... At night, my mother unbuttoned the big-breasted cotton-padded jacket and wrapped him around her chest. The warmth and frankincense resisted the howling northwest wind like ghosts crying on the eaves of the ruined temple...

The passing years can make all strife fade into indifference.The mother's selfless caress for her son came to mind very clearly at the moment of parting, and he wept silently.Unstoppable pain oppressed his heart: in the days when his mother was in good health, if he failed to fulfill his son's filial piety, it would become an eternal regret. He built three tile-roofed houses envied by the villagers on the ancestral empty courtyard, and let his mother move in.But she didn't move, she still lived in these two dilapidated mud buildings, saying she was used to living in her old nest.He bought her delicious food, and after she tasted a little, she gave all of it to her grandson and children in the neighborhood.He bought her quite good fabrics and asked his wife to make them into clothes. She happily tried the size and put it in the box, never to wear it again...

"Mom, I'll take you to the city!" "Do what?" "Go shopping!" "No……" "You have suffered all your life, go out and have a look!" "No……" "You can't live without your kang?" "Hey Hey……" "Go for a walk, Mom, while you can!" "You have just arrived in the county, so you have to worry about public affairs." Mother said, "I don't want to go anywhere." In his huge change from a farmer to a deputy secretary of the county party committee, and the obvious changes in spirit, material, and even reputation brought about by this change, his mother enjoyed the blessings brought by this change the least. a family member.And she is precisely the elder of the family who is most qualified to enjoy this kind of blessing.His eldest son has become a worker and is in love with a pretty girl.The second son went to the army.The daughter has made an exception and has been converted to a formal public teacher ahead of schedule.This farming family has basically completed the "industrialization" transformation.His woman was bored living in the countryside, and went to live in the county town for a month and a half, her dress and living habits no longer conformed to the outdated patterns of rural women.Only the mother, still dressed in the same clothes, lives in these two dilapidated buildings all year round, "not happy with things, not sad with herself", and never misses the opportunity for the old ladies to work and earn work points.He is a filial son, but he can't help him.

He sighed heavily, and looked at his mother's already rigid face with blurred eyes, the cheekbones became more prominent, the forehead became wider, and the cheeks were sunken.He called softly: "Mom, what are you worried about... Tell me!" The mother still closed her eyes, and there were two shallow wrinkles between her brows. Could it be the torture of illness?Or do you have any unspoken thoughts?She turned her head hard on the pillow, faced her son, and opened her eyes.There was a faint look of shame in the eyes that had lost their brilliance, and a faint voice came out after his lips smacked twice: "Mom... all my life... I have done... a lot of wrong things, I have done a lot of things. It's over...it's over..."

"No! Mom! You are the best mother in the world!" He comforted his mother, "Who can live without doing one wrong thing!" "There is one thing...until my mother died...I felt...uneasy." The mother said, the look of shame in her eyes became more obvious, "At that time...why... I became crazy...sigh!" A deep sigh came out of the mother's withered lips.His heart contracted tightly, it was an embarrassing thing, so embarrassing!Mother can never forget the inner remorse brought about by that incident.There is also the most disgraceful memory buried in his heart...

"Mom!" Yang Shengjin, Party Secretary of Baiyangzhai Brigade, who is over forty years old, called his mother in a childlike voice, "Can you take the lead in our Baiyangzhai?" "What head?" "play basketball!" The mother laughed, and she couldn't breathe: "Playing basketball and taking the lead? The boys packed the court..." "We want to organize a wives basketball team!" he said, "wives over 55 years old, play basketball! Young ones don't..." Only then did the mother believe that her son was not joking, so she stopped laughing and asked in confusion, "Why are you torturing the old women?"

He told his mother that when he came back from visiting a team in Tianjin, the farmers there sang and competed in poetry.The daughter-in-laws all went to the stadium, and people from all over the country went to visit and study!Advanced teams like Baiyangzhai are about to fall behind. "Mom, you're not trying to win glory for me, you're fighting for our Baiyang Village..." "Mom is in her sixties, playing basketball..." the corner of the mother's lips curled up, "Don't mess with Mom!" "New things... are difficult at the beginning!" He told his mother about politics. "The leader who took us to visit said that the old advanced can make new achievements under the new situation, which is more meaningful! There are many old advanced and old models who can't keep up. The situation is now falling behind..."

The mother drooped her eyelids and said nothing. "Mom, you've always supported me. In this matter..." he said, "You have to take the lead..." My mother led the nine old women onto the basketball court, grabbing, touching, and falling... Those who came from Yangzhai were laughing and leaning forward.An upset broke out... "Mom, you have to take the lead!" He said. "What's the point?" "Put on a show." "Running and bumping around on the basketball court is okay. How can I do a show on stage? I have old arms and legs..."

"People just want to see old people with strong arms and legs!" He said, "Young people's performances are not new!" He told his mother that the TV station was coming to Baiyangzhai to shoot movies, newspaper reporters were coming to write articles and take photos, and the most prosperous sun and moon in the history of Baiyangzhai had arrived... Mother came on stage, and four old women in their 60s, after continuous rehearsals day and night, finally appeared on the stage. Amidst the buzzing of TV cameras, they performed the program "Four Wives Strike Back Against Right Deviation and Overturning the Case" on the same stage...

He sat next to his mother, puff after puff of smoke wafting in front of his face.He didn't dare to look back at his mother's face, to face those eyes full of shame.Yes, what was considered an honorable achievement at the time has become an embarrassing scandal today.How it squeezes a heart that is about to stop beating! The mother said to herself: "If there is... a chance, let Mom... review a few words... at the club meeting... Mom can count... clear her heart..." "Forget about the past!" He turned around and comforted his mother, unable to find any more suitable words, "It's your son's fault..." "Mom's acting on a show...calling good people in vain..." Mom said, "I always...have trouble..." "You have done countless good things in your life." He explained generously, "Don't just think about the wrong things..." "Alas—" Another heavy sigh, "Your father... still has... his own opinions..." In a word, the stubborn father was called to him. The old man who had passed away seemed to be squatting at the foot of the kang, biting a cigarette bag, and looking at his son with contempt... "Playing basketball! Acting on a show! Have you forgotten your age? Huh! Old Chaihe in his sixties..." My father squatted at the foot of the building and shouted, "You follow him around You are not afraid of folks scolding your ancestors!" He stood in the yard and listened to a conflict between two old people in the mansion. It was sharp enough, but his mother was still very kind and said, "You're an old brain, you don't like anything!" "How can people see things that are not pleasing to the eye?" "Don't forget, you didn't like your baby's agricultural cooperatives back then. What happened? Old stubborn..." Father fell silent.Mother's voice was not high, but she fought back very forcefully.When starting an agricultural cooperative, his father opposed it, his daughter-in-law opposed it, and only his mother supported him in the whole family... When he established the first agricultural cooperative in Xiaohechuan Road, he entered Beijing as a young activist for socialist construction, and he immediately put Father's position of authority in the house was shaken.The father admitted that he was old-headed and stubborn, and he just kept his head down on his work and never interfered with his son's actions... "But the 100,000 catties of grain he reported, have you bought it?" My father found a strong fact and refuted my mother, "I didn't harvest the 100,000 catties of grain, and what I got was 'melons and vegetables'..." Mother laughed hehehe: "Just stick to this matter..." This is something my father has always been proud of.That year, he reported the yield of 100,000 jin per mu to the county, put the largest satellite, returned to Baiyang Village, mobilized male and female labor, dug one meter of ground, and spread three feet of manure, fighting hard all night.His father asked him quietly in the house: "One hundred thousand catties, fill your pockets with wheat, and spread it on one acre of land..." He laughed: "How bold people are, and how productive the land is! Don't worry about it!" "Dig the ground three feet deep, and turn all the raw soil to the top. How can we grow crops?" My father said with deep worry, "Don't waste the land..." Whenever the family drank green vegetable paste, the father would knock on the bowl with chopsticks: "Waste the land...there will be retribution!" This is my father's happiest victory.The mother is just giggling now: "You just hold on to this matter... The baby had a fever at the time, but it was people who urged him to report..." "Isn't there a size in his heart?" The father didn't relax. "Now, I think it's time to take the initiative again! Let the old people in their tens of years go on stage to perform shows and play basketball... What a mess! It's a waste of people!" "Your father has a stubborn temper all his life, but he never did anything false or reckless." Mother said, "I'm dead... seeing him..." "Mom!" Yang Shengjin was so suffocated that he couldn't breathe, "I... these two years... I often think about those things... I will never..." His mother stared at him closely, with her arms on the kang, trying to sit up, but he held his mother's shoulders and slowly helped her up. Mother brushed her messy hair, gasping for breath, as if gathering strength, a strange look suddenly flashed in her eyes. "Mom said one thing..." "Tell me, Mom!" "Can you promise?" "can!" "You..." My mother gathered all her strength and finally said, "Come back to work on the crops!" "This..." He was stunned, he never thought of it, he didn't know how to answer, and felt uneasy, "Um..." "Think about it... think about it..." Mom said, "Just before... Mom dies... give Mom a reply..." She was struggling. After he finished speaking, he looked at his son expectantly, his loose eyelids covered his eyeballs again, and he lay down.With his head resting on the pillow and his lips tightly closed, he was strangely calm and serene.She finally said the words choked in her heart, and she seemed relieved. He looked at his mother's face silently, feeling uncomfortable in his chest.The mother has never been able to forgive her own mistakes. She was pushed by her son in front of many acquaintances and strangers, and she made a disgraceful performance. Now it is an unspeakable regret.What was his motivation for causing such psychological harm to his dear mother?He hardly dared to look at that calm and serene face anymore. Yang Shengjin gently descended from the kang to the ground, walked slowly on tiptoe, and walked out of the small door of the building. The night was very quiet... The moonlight is dim, and the mountains and rivers are sprinkled.The open and open fields are calm and serene, like the face of a sleeping mother.The night mist rises, like the air exhaled from the light breath of the land, and like the long silver hair on the mother's head... Under the small ridge over there is my father's grave, which has been eaten away by the plowshares plowed in spring and autumn, leaving only a symbolic small earthen pagoda.In another two years, it will be flattened and disappear from the land.The old man who spent his whole life scratching and touching the loess has already belonged to the loess.Those new or old, large or small mounds near and far are buried with generations of men and women in Baiyangzhai.Like their father, they were born and grew up on the yellow land.Digging, pushing, plowing, and sweating into the loess, dozens of summers and autumns, harvesting the crystallization of sweat from the loess: grains, and finally returned to the loess. Mother, it seems that I will return to the loess! The passing years can dilute everything.The past is all in the past, but what can't be passed can't be passed. "Stop trashing the land!" Is the father calling? Is the mother calling? O land, mother! Yang Shengjin sat on the sill, lit a cigarette, and meditated...