Chapter 34 Section 34

After leaving Shanhaiguan, it was cold early outside the Great Wall, and then caught up with the cold current from the northwest!Let alone riding the daytime bike he rented in the county, it was very difficult to push it in the headwind.After four o'clock in the afternoon, the sky was already dark, and he arrived at the commune site, which was still twenty miles away from the village he was going to.He simply spent the night in a cart shop where farmers driving mules and carts rested. With two bitterly salty dried radishes, he finished chewing a bowl of sorghum rice that was too hard to swallow, and lay down on the soil covered by a reed mat. On the kang, he slept alone in the Datong bunk, which took up most of the room and could accommodate seven or eight people. No one in the village would drive a long distance in this weather.Perhaps because of the introduction letter from the capital, the kang was extremely hot.It was getting hotter and hotter at night, and the fleas should burn out oil. He took off only a pair of trousers and was still sweating. He got up and sat on the edge of the kang to smoke blindly, thinking that this troubled countryside might still be a place to go.

When he got up early, the north wind was still strong, so he left the bicycle that was heavy enough to carry goods at the big bike shop, walked against the wind for nearly three hours, and finally found the village.Go door to door and ask if there is an old woman named X who teaches in a small school?Everyone shook their heads, but there was one in the elementary school village. There was only one teacher, and he was still a man. His wife gave birth to a baby and went home to take care of it. "Is there anyone else in the school?" he asked. "I haven't had a class for more than two years. What kind of school is there? The production team has made a warehouse—heaps of potato eggs!" said the villagers.

So he asked the secretary of the production brigade to find someone in charge. "The old secretary still lacks a secretary?" He said that it is better to find someone in charge of the village, of course, it is better to be an old man, and he must know the situation better.They took him to an old man's house.The old man was biting a cigarette pot with a bamboo pole and a copper tip, and was braiding a rattan basket with both hands. Before he could finish explaining why he came, he muttered: "I don't care, I don't care—" He had to explain that he came from Beijing to investigate, which aroused the respect of the old man. He stopped what he was doing, held the pipe and pot, squinted his eyes, exposed his brown and black teeth, and listened to his explanation.

"Oh, yes, there is this person, old man Liang's wife! She used to be a teacher in a primary school, she got sick early, and someone came to investigate. Her husband is a shadow puppet performer, and he is a poor peasant. There is no problem!" He explained that the woman who was looking for the old man was investigating other people's affairs and had nothing to do with them.The old man then took him to a house on the edge of the village, and before entering the door, he shouted: "Old man Liang is in your room!" No one in the room answered.The old man pushed open the door, but there was no one inside. He turned around and said to the children in the village behind them:

"Hurry up and call her, there is a comrade from Beijing waiting in the room!" The children shouted and ran away like flying, and the old man also left. The wall of the main room is gray and black, except for a square table and two benches that are as black as the wall, it is empty.The proud houses are connected, and there is no fire.He sat down, it was extremely cold, and the wind had weakened in the gloomy sky outside the door.He stomped his feet to keep warm, but no one came for a long time. He thought, in such a poor village, waiting for the ex-wife of a downed high official, why did this woman end up in this village?How did she become the wife of a poor farmer doing shadow puppetry?But what did it matter to him?It is nothing more than delaying the time to return to Beijing.

After nearly two hours, an old woman finally came. Seeing him in the room before entering the door, she hesitated, stopped, but came in anyway. The old woman wrapped a gray cloth kerchief and wore a blue-gray cotton jacket. Crotch-free old cotton trousers, bloated and puffy trousers, wearing a pair of dirty and shiny black cotton shoes, an out-and-out old peasant woman, could it be that revolutionary heroine who went to a university to deliver information? Get up and ask this woman, is she comrade so-and-so? "No such person!" The old woman waved her hand immediately and said. He froze for a moment, and asked again:

"Are you also called..." He said the name again. "My husband and I are surnamed Liang!" "Is your man a shadow play?" He asked again. "I'm old, I won't sing anymore." "Is he there?" He asked cautiously. Of course he can also get angry. At that time, the relationship between the investigator and the person under investigation is like an interrogation, like a judge and a prisoner, or even a jailer and a prisoner, but he tried his best to calmly tell the woman that he didn't come to find out how she got out of prison. , I just asked her to provide some general information about the prison at that time, for example, is there any procedure for the release of political prisoners?

"I'm not a political prisoner—" The woman bit her to death. He said that he was willing to believe that she was not a party member and was implicated as a family member!He believed in all of this, he didn't want to, and there was no need to have trouble with her.However, since you are here to investigate, please ask her to write a certificate. "If you don't understand, then write if you don't understand. I'm sorry to bother you, and this is the end." He explained the words first. "I can't write it," said the woman. "Didn't you still teach? You seem to have gone to college, right?"

"Nothing to write about." She declined. That is to say, she didn't want to leave any words about her life experience, and she didn't want people to know her history, so she hid in this countryside, and lived with a rural artist who sang shadow puppetry, he thought. "Have you looked for him?" He asked her ex-husband, the senior official. Women are also noncommittal. "Does he know you're alive?" The woman remained silent, just saying nothing.He had no choice but to put the pen on and put it in his coat pocket. "When did your child die?" He seemed to ask casually, and got up at the same time.

"In prison, it's just been a full moon..." The old woman also got up from the stool, and then stopped. He didn't ask any more questions and put on cotton gloves.The old woman accompanied him out silently.He nodded to her and took his leave. When he reached the two deeply rutted dirt roads outside the village, he turned his head. The old woman was still standing at the door of the house, without a headscarf on. Seeing him turn her head, she went into the house. The wind changed direction on the road, this time it was from the northeast, and then the snowflakes drifted down, getting bigger and bigger.On the barren plain, the crops in the field have been harvested, and the snow flakes are falling all over the sky, making him unable to open his eyes.Before dark, he went to the big bike shop in the commune and picked up the rented bicycle stored there. He didn't have to rush back to the county that night, but he didn't know why he rode it in a hurry.The dirt road and the field were covered with heavy snow, and the traces of the road could barely be distinguished. Q The wind came from behind, and the rolled up snowflakes flew. In the snow, climbing up and riding, stumbled, the wind and snow swirled in front of me, and it was gray...