Chapter 31 thirty-one

We don't have a calendar -- nobody on this team has a calendar.It is said that there was a copy in the team office, but it was stolen before we came.Later, I couldn’t buy it even though I wanted to, because the calendar card was lost in June-in June, which store still sells calendars?Captain Xie told us: "That donkey is good at stealing, and he stole 180 days of time. There is no more powerful thief than him!" Everyone guessed that the thief didn't just want to watch the day. Instead, he stole the cigarettes and smoked them.Captain Xie handles errands, accounting and bookkeeping, relying on field correspondents who come to the team every three or two days to "carry the day".Sometimes, when someone wants to go to the field department to do errands, go shopping in Zhennan Fort, or visit relatives in other teams, Captain Xie will yell at him when he meets him: "Hey, bring me the days!" The obligation of every farm worker who goes out: check what is the month in the Gregorian calendar today, what is the month in the lunar calendar, what are the "solar terms", and how many days are there before major festivals.The day of the week is irrelevant, we have never had a Sunday off;Because there is no concept of week, people who go to Zhennanpu to do business often run for nothing-they rest on a weekly basis.

There was no calendar board last year, and there is still no calendar board after New Year's Day.Probably he is used to not living according to the calendar. The lame custodian went to the city to purchase tools and office supplies a year ago, but forgot to buy such things.Captain Xie scolded him: "You don't want to see the old man, don't you always think about the imperial calendar from the past year? If you buy this imperial calendar, you can also pick a good day for you to marry your wife!" He blushed when he scolded One white.His wife has been dead for several years and has not been rewound so far, but he is almost forty years old.

That's okay, the days passed without knowing it.It wasn't until someone "brought up the day" that we were pleasantly surprised: "Yo! It's the Spring Festival again." In fact, the Spring Festival is the same as the New Year's Day. In this difficult time, the farm does not have any special supplies.But the biological clock in people's body always makes people excited involuntarily at this time, and the faces of farmers and workers are full of festive joy.Moreover, rural people value the Spring Festival, and each team expresses it in private.How much can be given to the peasants and workers depends on what the team has to offer and the character of the team leader.When working these days, the male and female peasant workers talked about how many sheep should be slaughtered in the sheep pen, how much meat a family can share, and whose turn it is to go into the water.Because there is no way to divide the sheep offal by catty, it has to be used as an extra supply. The three families give a pair of sheep offal—including intestines, tripe, heart, liver, lungs, head, and hooves, and they take it home and divide it among themselves.But the interval between slaughtering sheep is too long, no one can remember exactly whose turn it is this time, and there is no account for extra supply.As a result, a debate that was more intense, complex, and lengthy than the debate in the United Nations General Assembly was carried out on horses, sheepfolds, and fields.Still, the atmosphere was lively and cheerful.Whether it's mutton or lamb, it doesn't matter to us single workers.If there is any, the cook in the kitchen will cook it for us, and there will be three or two pieces of meat the size of a finger at most.So we are indifferent to it.Besides, most of the people in the team have their household registration, jobs, and food relations settled: the lieutenant has bid farewell to us, and he is probably preparing for the festival at his home at this time; His relocation permit was issued a few days ago, and he was only waiting for the farm's approval. He had already declared that he would go home for the Spring Festival.

There are three days until the Spring Festival.In the afternoon, light snow fell in the cloudy sky.The cold snow drifts into our necks and falls on the handles of our shovels.After a while, the spade was wet and the cotton gloves holding it were soaked.Captain Xie habitually looked up at the sky, and helplessly scolded "Donkey Day", and shouted: "Call the work!" Today we are shoveling soil and manure in the field, and the construction site is far away from the village. Captain Xie gave an order, They all pulled up their legs and ran home. The snow fell harder and harder.I walked slowly.In a blink of an eye, the dirt road was evenly covered with a layer of dry snowflakes; the birds flapped their wet wings with great effort, hurriedly threw them into the leafless grove, and then combed their feathers slowly with their beaks. While combing, like Captain Xie, he raised his little head and looked helplessly at the gloomy sky.The snow in the northwest does not melt when it falls on the ground. Even if it falls on the back of the hand, you can still see the pattern that only heavenly craftsmen can embroider it brought from the clouds.

It melted into water on the back of the hand, and also tenaciously maintained the patterned pattern. The clouds froze, but the sky grew brighter.Between the sky and the earth is the echo of dusk.The horizon widens greatly.Under the distant sky, the blue smoke of the train was dazzlingly black amidst the swirling snowflakes.It meanders across the sky, like a magical paintbrush adding a parallel line on the horizon, which will lead people's emotions to the illusory distance.When I returned to the village, there was no one in front of the horse, and of course Lana had already gone home.The whole village is silent in the deep and severe winter.It was very warm in our mud room, and the editors of the newspaper office who were not working made the stove red and the flames were flying wildly.There is another happy thing: the single employees who eat in the kitchen are treated exceptionally preferentially, and each of them was given half a catty of real wheat noodles a year ago.The cook chopped some yellow radishes, adjusted the green onions and salt, and made dumplings for us!

We're about to part, and we're about to go our separate ways, and I'm afraid it will be rare to see each other again in this life.So in the past few days, the people in the group have been very kind, and the old accountant took special care of me. He brought back a portion of my dumplings and put them next to the stove to heat them up. Everyone ate dumplings and happily talked about what to do first when they got home. The biggest wish of the "sales department director" is "to have a delicious meal of mutton noodles"; the old accountant calculates that when he returns to Shanghai, it will be about the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. At that time; the home of the editor of the newspaper was in Lanzhou, and his relatives had already contacted him with a job in a street factory, and now he was happily introducing us to the flavors of Lanzhou snacks... "I miss my relatives every festive season." I can't go home ——In fact, I am also homeless, and it is impossible to visit my mother.From the provincial capital to Beijing, the hard seat ticket for the slow train costs more than 20 yuan.But here, I have not returned the money for the velvet blanket to make velvet trousers; now, she is making shoes for me again.Although I know that even if I have the money to pay her back, she will not want it, but because of this, I am faced with a choice: In what direction should our relationship develop?

The idea of ​​marrying lantana and starting a small family in the countryside once tempted me so strongly that it once seemed to me an unattainable goal.But now, before the gap I was soberly aware of, I recoiled.Of course, I still went to her house every day, and almost regarded it as my own home.Erscher already knew me very well. I also stopped telling those fairy tales that only adults can understand, and when I was tired from reading "Das Kapital", I also teased her for a while.She played in the cold wind, yellow sand, ice and snow during the day, and her nutrition was better than that of ordinary children, so she looked like a boy, without the reckless mischievousness of a boy, and she still maintained the gentle and quiet nature of a girl.She likes it when I pull down the "borscht hat" to frighten her by revealing only a pair of eyes.In this way, she can't stop giggling.

However, Lantana is still the same as before, and has never clearly expressed her desire to marry me or anyone else.Later, Ersher laughed and called me "rag doll" again, and she scolded Ersher as before, telling her to call me "Daddy".I took a closer look, and there was no meaningful expression on her face, but she still had her characteristic, cheerful, feigned anger smile.Was she consciously flirting in subtle ways?Or follow some kind of vulgar country customs?Or is she just a free bird by nature?I can't figure it out.Sometimes, her feelings for me confuse me.In the middle of the night, when I wake up from my sleep, the relationship between her and me is often what I think about.When I realized that I had become normal, that I had begun to "beyond myself," I could no longer continue to live as a beneficiary, a benefactor.I can live in this shabby earthen hut, I can sleep on this pile of hay, I can patiently listen to the old accountant grinding his teeth... I think I can bear all these.Because once I "connect with human wisdom" and get an "epiphany" from Marx's book, it seems that a new life has been born in my life.This being is tenaciously pursuing a wish.The desire is not very clear, because no one, including Marx, has painted a communist society in detail.This desire is only the desire to pursue glory, the desire to pursue a fulfilling life and even suffer greater suffering.

But I could not bear it any longer that I lived under her grace, and I began to feel that it was a disgrace to me, and I even had a vague feeling that her charity belittled the austerities I had suffered for a glorious purpose.So, the matter came to this step: Either cut off my relationship with her, or combine to become husband and wife. But can I marry her as a wife?Do I love her or not?In the stillness of the night, I analyzed my emotions in a calm place. Under the tenderness that was as soft as water and erratic as a dream, it turned out to be nothing but a kind of gratitude, a feeling of gratitude.My love for her is really just a reflection of love stories I have read in the past, or descriptions of love in works of art.I felt that she was totally unaccustomed to my way of expressing love, so I also thought it impossible for her to understand my love, impossible to understand me.The cultural gap between me and her is impossible to bridge... In short, although I also secretly feel uneasy in my heart, I still feel: she and I are not suitable for each other!However, after eating the dumplings, I went to Lana's house.

It was getting dark.Snowflakes are denser than in the afternoon.On the gray sky, the gray fields, and the gray villages, white, shining snowflakes are flying everywhere.Snowflakes are not like raindrops. They don't fall straight down, but fly up and down, left and right like small bugs, which makes me even more upset. Her door was wide open.She was standing at the door wearing a headscarf, as if she was about to go out; Ershe was also dressed thickly, holding a piece of pancake in her hand, and stood beside her blankly waiting for her.She saw me, smiled and gave way to the door, beckoning me to go in.When I entered the door, I saw a large plate of raw dumplings on the earthen platform at a glance. It was definitely not enough for the three of us to finish!I know that plate, it is often on the chopping board in our kitchen.

I was already full of thoughts in my heart, but now I added a trace of resentment that I don't know who it is directed at.I asked sullenly, "Where did this dumpling come from?" "Where did Daer come from? Someone gave it to me." She hurriedly put on her headscarf and answered casually. "Who? Who gave it to you?" I sat down on the adobe stool and pushed the plate of dumplings away with one hand. "Who? Whoever wants to give it to me will give it to me." She squinted at me under the scarf, her nose fluttered, and she smiled nonchalantly. "Okay." I smiled coldly, "I don't want to eat it!" As soon as I said that, I felt that my anger was ridiculous.How can I interfere with her way of life?Who am I to her?Nothing!At the same time, I secretly said in my heart: "It's over! We can only stop here!" "Okay, okay! Don't eat it, let's feed it to the dogs!" She laughed in a coaxing tone.In her mind, it never seemed as if there was anything serious, a big deal.Many times, my thoughts, scruples, and hesitation were all frozen in front of her laughing and joking demeanor.I have nothing to do with her. "Hey, a good thing is coming!" She winked at me again, and said with a smile, "The team wants to slaughter sheep, ten of them! During the day, if the slaughter is afraid of people picking up the blood of the sheep, the sheep pen will be overcrowded; If the Ministry finds out, it’s time to find Xie Huzi. Xie Huzi called Lianye Zai, and the sheep’s blood was given to the kitchen—it’s cheaper for you! The cripple asked me to help. Do you think this is a good thing? Just wait, I’ll come back I'll cook sheep's head and haggis for you to eat...the rice is in the pot, you should eat some rice first. Ten old sheep need to be slaughtered, peeled, and chopped, and they will be divided into shares by family. I'm afraid You have to work until dawn and come back, Ershe and I will take you to the sheepfold to sleep, and there is also a hot kang in Daer." I sat blankly.That plate of dumplings must have been given to her by the lame custodian who scraped it off our mouths! "American Hotel! American Hotel! . . . " I kept repeating this angrily.Although I know that Lana is a fast hand at peeling sheep and cooking, and always send her to the team for such things, I still suspect that she has some kind of "deal" with the custodian, otherwise why would it be Give her this "good thing"? "What an incorrigible prostitute!" I muttered again in my heart. "Then you go to work," I stood up and said displeasedly, "I'm going back to the group." "What are you doing?" She opened her beautiful big eyes and asked puzzledly, "Eat something first, and study for a while. If you can't wait for me, go back to sleep. Lock the door when you leave... I What a silly dog!" She pursed her lower lip, twisted my face with a loving and teasing expression, then immediately rubbed me onto the kang, carried Ershe in her arms and walked out of the room, Gone like a gust of wind.