Chapter 3 Chapter 2 The one-eyed grandma

We say yes to our fathers, we say yes to life, and there is no deeper no than that answer. When I heard my father's roar, the rain in the sky suddenly stopped. The rain is like the cry of a baby. Not only does it not have such a gradual prelude or omen from choking, sobbing, and tears to the eyes when it falls; it also ends abruptly, with no raindrops gradually thinning out The small, dark clouds slowly dispersed, as if the raindrops were still hanging in the air, and suddenly decided not to fall again.Probably the deterrent force of his father's cry frightened him. I positioned my feet in horror, and tugged at my mother's sleeve, "Mom?"

My mother raised her head, looked at the heavy rain that suddenly stopped in the sky, and tried her best to keep the moisture from her eyes, and continued walking home with her arms around my shoulders. The expression on my mother's face that she didn't intend to say anything to me made me understand that my father was having a fight with my mother again. I said, "Mom," I swallowed my saliva, trying to suppress the flustered heartbeat, so that the sound that came out of my throat could be like a straight cotton thread, without knots or unsmooth breaks.I said, "Mom, Chairman Mao has already said that we must promote unity and not division..." I finally spoke out the quotations of Mao that I learned from "reading every day" in primary school, without interruption. live.

Then, I was speechless. At that time, I didn't understand the subtlety of the word "engagement" in "to engage in unity". It is true that men and women need to "engage" to "unite" together. Their gender roles, positions, psychology, behaviors, etc. are so different that it is impossible to communicate without "engaging". of.Therefore, men and women are natural "war" friends, not natural "friends".When a man and a woman have "engaged", they "unite" under one roof, forming a small group to deal with the chaotic patches of men and women outside.Under the interests of the family as a group, he (she) restrains the differences of individual gender, dilutes the contradictions and confrontations between individuals, and maintains the harmony and stability of the family, so as to be consistent with the outside world.

Of course, there are also cases of "split" after "building" "unity". When one day the antagonism between these two individuals of different genders is so strong that the interests of the family can be ignored, then this combination of opposites and unity will collapse and collapse. These truths, of course, I slowly comprehended later. At this time, I lowered my head and tried to observe the wet mud on the ground flowing over my sandals, shuttling between my toes, and as my steps moved, the gray mud came in and out. Fade in and out. I tried my best to draw my attention to my feet, appreciating how fun this unfun situation was, and quickly diverted away the inexplicable choking feeling that I just couldn't speak .

I have had a special instinct since childhood to dissolve, divert or ignore the tragic element of things.This is true in any situation. I am always used to inflating my emotions on the confrontational nature of things. There is a kind of energy to move forward bravely in a dead end, and the sense of destruction that does not hesitate to die together is very similar to a proper martyr. Hobbyist.But when I encounter sadness, I automatically try to find a way to turn my emotional footsteps.This moment, for example, is illustrated by my preoccupation with the mud between my toes. Mom said, "Your dad doesn't want grandma to stay home anymore."

Grandma is my nanny and has been taking care of our family's daily life for many years.She has only one eye, and the other eye was never opened after being blinded by her man in the early years.Since my grandma came to my house, she has cried countless times in the past few years.When she was crying, in order not to share her grief, I focused my attention on her blind eye, which I found never shed tears. I asked her why she was crying? Grandma said, because sad. I said, why isn't that eye sad? Grandma said it was sad because it was gone. I said, why isn't that eye sad? Grandma said that because it was dead, it was beaten to death by her man many, many years ago.That's why she left him and came to work at my house to be angry with my father.

I said, when I grow up, I will find your man, and I will ask him to pay for your one eye. Grandma said, stupid and obedient, if you grow up and marry a good man, you won't suffer. I said, when I grow up, I will make him suffer, like a man like Teacher T. I remember very clearly that my grandma wanted me to marry a good man in the future. At that time, I had a problem of always dropping my chopsticks on the ground when eating (this problem has continued to this day and has not been eradicated). After a meal, I always had to change two or three pairs of chopsticks, because my hobby Not on the food.I always look around while eating, put my chopsticks on the bowl after a while, pick up a book or something interesting by my side, look at it for a while, and then continue to eat.After eating for a while, he stopped again, put the chopsticks on the bowl, and picked up something in his hand.Repeatedly, absent-mindedly, the chopsticks hanging on the bowl will inevitably be knocked to the ground.Grandma always brings me another pair of clean ones.Grandma said to me, "If you hold the chopsticks close, you will marry closer; if you hold the chopsticks far away, you will marry far away. What about you, why don't you just drop the chopsticks to the ground? How can you be so careless!"

I didn't know the scientific basis for these old principles of grandma, so I pretended not to hear and continued to drop the chopsticks to the ground.However, I really didn't mean it. The value of grandma to my family is something I only realized when I was growing up.She silently worked for the family's "wasteland", weeding and shrubbing, and she insisted on turning this desolate abandoned land into a farm with sweat. Tiredly repeating daily trivial work.She kept feasting for the family, fed it generously, and tried to make the light of life of the family survive under her labor.She lost herself here, she could read all the silent code words and symbols of this home, and she devoted all her energy to it.

However, she finally failed to revive it. Her final departure made this family slowly stop and disappear like a living person gradually stopping breathing... My father's cry rolled over like a thunder, and I closed my eyes instinctively, afraid that the sound would hit my eyes, and I would become a one-eyed person like grandma. I hesitated, tugged on my mother's sleeve, and whispered timidly, "Mom?" "Grandma is waiting to say goodbye to you." My mother continued to walk home with her arms around me. I dawdled, "Why? I don't want grandma to go."

"Absurd, obedient!" I said, "Why did Dad ask her to go?" Mother doesn't speak. I silently analyzed the reason why my father asked grandma to leave my house in my heart.This reminds me of another thing.Before I tried to feed sparrows, I had a puppy at home, because it had a big mouth, eyes with double eyelids were extraordinarily gentle and charming, and its milky white fur was clean and noble.My mother and I named it Sophia Loren.Sophia Loren has been very smart and humorous since she was a child, showing a firm stand and decisive judgment.However, its sense of participation is too strong, and it has to express its position in everything, which determines its ominous fate.

Often on Sunday mornings, I wake up and can't find my shoes.Because the night before, when my mother and I were discussing going to the park the next day, Sophia Loren was not considered.So early the next morning, it would hide my shoes and lie on my bedside, waiting for me to wake up and find the shoes missing, to show its importance and not to be ignored. I remember that in the mid-1970s, Chinese households did not have extensive use of television.At that time.There is a relatively high-end Russian-style radio in my house. Every morning at seven o'clock, my father would turn on the radio on time to listen to the news broadcast angrily, and at the same time announced the order for the whole family to get up.At this time, Sophia Loren would sit quietly in front of the radio, listening to every message without moving, expressing her joy or anger unabashedly.He was the second "person" in the family besides my father who cared about politics.After listening to the news program, there is often a fixed piece of music. This is Sophia Loren's favorite program. When the radio sings "The East is red, the sun is rising, and Mao Zedong is born in China..." it will excitedly follow the tune "Oh... ...Oh..." He sang loudly. Once, around the end of 1975 or the beginning of 1976, Sophia Loren became inexplicably upset when the news read "Countering Against the Rightist Overturning Style" and criticizing the "Wrong Line of Rightist Opportunism". The editorial in it was withdrawn.This kind of uncivilized behavior has never happened in its short history of growth. It has never defecated anywhere in my family since childhood.So its behavior that time surprised our whole family.However, my whole family, including my father, seemed to understand his displeasure. My father also said, "Dogs don't like to hear it." As a result, Sophia Loren was not punished in any way. However, a few months later, it repeated its tricks.It was around the Qingming Festival in 1976, and the radio was broadcasting a very serious article about the "April 5 Counter-Revolutionary Incident" by a commentator from the People's Daily. Big pee. Sophia Loren doesn't like my parents being awkward. If he (she) ignores each other for a long time, it will pull his (her) sleeves separately and pull them together. Before going to bed at night, it will pull my parents' sleeves The pajamas are in one piece.If he (she) quarrels, it will whine and cry, so as to interrupt their battle. On the surface, Sophia Loren is doing impartial mediation and united front work, but in fact, she knows very well and has very clear tendencies. She is a loyal ally of my mother and me. Father, of course, had sensed this long ago, but had endured it, biding his time. The battle between my father and Sophia Loren had already been brewing in secret, and this silent and invisible contest had already existed tacitly. Sophia Loren knows how to hide her strength and bide her time, hiding her secrets, ready to go, and never making any moves to fight against her father.The battle surged and unfolded fiercely under the still water.I don't know why my father would choose a dog in the family to be his opponent in this advanced form of fighting.To my mother, grandma, and me, he has always been the same on the outside and inside, with the same light and shade, and there is no distinction between the simple movements on the table and the difficult ones below the table.To us, his anger was written all over his face.Of course, the father is undoubtedly the absolute authority in the family no matter in terms of status and power, biological advantages of gender (the father is very tall and powerful), or in terms of economic strength.However, through my father's reserved or restrained attitude towards Sophia Loren, I also reflected on another reason when I grew up: my father's brutality, autocracy and absolute power are exactly the mother, grandma and childhood. I, what was automatically given to him, we gave him the power to suppress us with our weakness and obedience. The more we tolerated and obeyed him, the more rude and domineering he was to us. And Sophia Loren no, it seems to be obedient, that's because it can't speak, its calm expression is definitely not a retreat, it expresses its active participation consciousness with a silent negative attitude.Father and Sophia Loren knew this kind of internal conflict and competition that was not easy to be noticed by outsiders.It's just that the time is not enough. They all stood still. Another thing that stuck with me growing up was that they were both the same gender, the father was a masculine man and Sophia Loren was a male dog.From the political arena, the business world, the battlefield and even the love field, it is not difficult to find such a fact: wherever they (or a majority of them) gather, the fighting methods are the most advanced, sharp and cruel. However, the conflict between Sophia Loren and my father finally broke out uncontrollably. At one point, my parents got into an argument about something, probably involving another man.My father was worried and suspicious all day long, and his nerves were too tense.That time his anger was particularly large, menacing and arrogant.My mother also stopped showing weakness and insisted on her own attitude, thinking that all my father's speculations were much ado about nothing, and they were the result of his improperly inflated imagination.My father was so angry that he knocked off my mother's glasses with a wave of his hand. At this moment, after watching the battle for a long time and enduring it, Sophia Loren finally couldn't control her anger any longer, she yelled at my father's face, jumped up to meet him, and raised it left front paw, and gave my father an incomparable slap in the face. My father was stunned at first. This kind of situation was unexpected for his position of authority.Then, he bent down and touched his glasses all over the place. When he put on his shattered glasses and straightened up, Sophia Loren's unfortunate fate was sealed—it was banished from my house for good, a wild dog. At this time, I think of Sophia Loren, because now it is Grandma's turn to leave my house.I think grandma must have made a mistake similar to Sophia Loren. When I walked into the house, I saw grandma was weeping with her one eye. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her gray hair curled up baldly, as proud and smooth as a feather, the round bun was covered with a black net and tied behind her head. The cyan Chinese-style cotton-padded jacket was so clean that there was no trace of wrinkle, and the placket was flowing down diagonally. Beside her is a small package, loosely wrapped in earth blue cotton cloth, which is also placed on the edge of the bed, much like a still life painting. My father was sitting in the huge rattan chair in the inner study, his broad back was like a mountain peak, his back was facing us, I couldn't see his expression.In fact, I didn't intend to look at him at all, because I instinctively dreaded his wrath and avoided it.I caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye as I passed by the corridor. I walked towards my grandma and stood in front of her.She hugged me and cried for a while, then said, "Aoao, change your clothes quickly, you're already wet." She got up, took out a set of clean clothes from the closet, and planned to help me wipe off the rain on my face and body, and then put on dry clothes.When I washed my face, my tears finally flowed out, so I repeatedly refused grandma's wish to help me wash.I dawdled and washed and washed for a long time, feeling that grandma was busy in front of me and behind me, as if she was waiting for me to go home and change my clothes for me. When I finally stopped my tears, washed my face, and put on clean clothes, my grandma's hands, which had been busy for a while, suddenly dropped down, like two broken branches that were broken by the strong wind, and they were not broken, but they were connected again and again. If you can't go up, you have to hang it empty. Then, she sighed and only said: "Then, I'll go now." After finishing speaking, she didn't move, she still stood there not knowing what to do. I am terrified of the breakup scene, and the collective sad scene is like the plague, which always makes me want to escape immediately. Suddenly, I turned around, picked up grandma's package and walked out the door. It was a while after I walked out of the house that I heard my mother and grandma following behind.They were talking as they walked, and I couldn't hear them.In fact, I'm afraid to hear it, and I don't want to look back at them, because then my tears will flow again, and I have a feeling that once they flow, they will not be able to stop.And this is what I don't want, how useless and embarrassing it would be! I tried to distract and divert my attention, I looked here and there, trying to find something that attracted me.But this time, I didn't succeed, and I still couldn't break free from the sad mood of the imminent separation. When I reached the gate, I stopped and waited for my mother and grandma to come.As their footsteps approached, I suddenly felt that it was an unbearable sound.I have a trembling feeling in my heart, very sour.I really didn't want myself to blow up and inflate this sour sentiment when we finally broke up, so I was angry with myself. At this time, I suddenly found a turning point and outlet for my emotions - that is anger!Yes, you should be angry!I am very angry! Grandma has come over, she and mother are standing side by side at the gate of the yard. The road was drenched with water after the rain, and the drain of the sewer on the side of the road was rattling, and there were fallen leaves and flower petals everywhere under the wall. Grandma handed the key to mother, then turned around and put her arms around my shoulders, trying to say something. The trees were motionless, as if they were quietly waiting for her last words. At this time, a sobbing sound was slowly brewing and rising from my throat. The sound was about to reach my throat.So, without waiting for her to speak, as if I was in a hurry to go home to do something, I said in a hurry and with an inexplicable hatred, "Grandma, when I grow up and earn money." , I'll pick you up. I let him go.I want revenge! " After speaking, I ran away without looking back. "He", of course, refers to my father.