Chapter 111 one one zero

The Long March of Lisa and Maria (3) She raised the lantern in her hand to Maria and looked at her. Maria felt that the eyes of the old woman were like eagle eyes, so she shrank back in fear.Although the cat in her arms was injured, it was trying to break free.In a hurry, Maria gave the cat a slap, and the cat stopped moving. "Just give up," Karen said with her mouth shut. "Who can find whom in a night like this?" The old woman walked away with her back hunched.Maria saw seven or eight women surrounding her curiously, probably because of the conversation she had just had with Karen that attracted them.

"Is this Joe's wife? My God!" "Poor Joe, gone forever." "He's not stupid. He's good at thinking about himself, usurer." "He's a real pangolin!" The women whispered to each other for a while, then dispersed in a swarm. Maria had a presentiment in her heart that she felt that something had happened to Joe.What is it?Maybe he's coming home soon?Does he have a tomb here too?At this moment, Lisa came back.Lisa held a yellow lantern in her hand.They were shouting happily from afar: "Maria! Maria, dear! Joe is back, listen, listen!"

Lisa's head joined Maria's and they listened attentively.Sure enough, everyone around said: "Joe, Joe, Joe..." Looking around, Maria saw those people squatting on the graveyard one by one, and their lanterns were placed on the tombstones. Boundless.Lisa said that each of them squatted on the grave of their "dear". "I'm going home, something is wrong with my cat," Maria said. Maria walked among the graves with the cat in her arms, and she heard people still saying: "Joe, Joe, Joe..." A warmth rose from the bottom of her desolate heart, and she faintly smelled the smell of tobacco. , and the rusty smell of the chains on the Chain Bridge.

"The Long March takes many forms." Lisa said while sitting in Maria's rose garden. Seeing Lisa's energetic appearance, Maria was in a trance when she remembered what happened at night. "Daniel! Daniel! Don't trample on Daddy's book!" she shouted, standing up. Daniel's voice came from the balcony, muffled, and he seemed to be choked by something.The study windows trembled. Maria sat down on a chair and talked to Lisa about Daniel's middle school life.As she spoke, the three-legged African cat jumped onto her lap. "Is that happiness or pain? Is that happiness or pain..." She repeated this sentence over and over again, and the cat trembled nervously between her knees.

"It was a yellow butterfly." She finally remembered, "Daniel came back from school at noon, and the surroundings were quiet. But why did Joe come home at that time? I stared at the yellow butterfly, thinking Feeling lucky. Joe opened his mouth and called me, but he couldn't make a sound. He pointed to Daniel, who was bleeding from his forehead, and his expression was crazy. The yellow butterfly spun and stopped on the stove. You see, Lisa, what a trouble it is to have a son." While she was talking, another yellow and white cat also came over.Lisa felt her calf numb from it, like an electric shock.

"Then, can the Long March be carried out here?" Maria asked hesitantly. "Of course. Daniel has already started." That night, Maria went to the study because she couldn't sleep.Although she didn't turn on the light, she saw that Joe's study had become a forest of dark books.Those books grew up, one by one stood upright from the ground, and the pages were closed one by one.She couldn't feel the walls of the room, so she didn't know where the light was.Her voice became a little grim, and she called out, "Joe?! Where are you?!" Then she stopped.She felt that Jo was near, sitting behind a book, and beside him was a stream, and he was taking off his shoes and dipping his bare feet into the black water.How good it would be, Maria thought, that Joe would never leave her again.What a wonderful thing it would be for her, Daniel, and Joe, as a family, to embark on their own long march to revive old stories right on her ancestral homestead!But the husband's body may have disappeared from the house forever. Daniel was a little bit self-destructive because he couldn't find his father. It was he who knocked down all the bookshelves.Now is he also sitting behind a book?

"Mom, I'm here." "Daniel, what do you think about this kind of thing?" "I'm so happy, mother. We're almost at the bridge. Do you hear the roar of the river?" Maria couldn't see Daniel, she knew he was nearby.The searching and chasing each other in the dark made Maria feel a warm current in her heart.For the first time in many years, she realized that relatives are indeed connected by blood.Maria touched the huge pages with her trembling fingers, and she touched letters that protruded from the paper, and those letters were still jumping slightly, sending out electric currents.Suddenly, she comprehended the content of this book.It tells of an old deserted beach, where a man comes ashore from the sea, and seabirds sing ominously in the air. "That man is Joe." Maria said softly.Then her finger found the word "Joe." "Joe, is that you?" she asked.

"Of course it's Daddy. Why don't you believe it?" Daniel said in the dark, "If you touch it again, there's everything in that book." Then Maria found a description about her African cats. The book was not about her two cats now, but about their time in Africa a long time ago.They were just born at that time, two kittens, and the sun on the African continent blinded them.But why does the light brown one have only three legs?It only lost a leg in the cemetery. "There are only three legs, you didn't notice that's all." Daniel's voice sounded again.

"Daniel, can't you come over?" "No, Mom." Maria touched another book, which contained small snakes. When her hand touched it, the snakes began to squirm.Terrified of the desire in her body, Maria walked around to the back of the book, with her back to the spine.Her Joe, she thought, had carved out this forest through decades of uninterrupted reading, and he hadn't excluded her, so she was part of the place as soon as she came in.In the rustling sound of those pages, the world of words appeared in Maria's mind.She felt that these words were what she had woven over the years.How familiar, how pleasant, is this happiness?She started to walk, she went from one book to another, the dead leaves creaked under her feet, and her feet touched some small stones, and she even heard the cry of the nightingale, in the largest book. Inside the pages of the book, there was a cry and a pause.