Chapter 5 The first part of a figure blank

I haven't met the guy I'm supposed to call "Grandpa".He died in a "suppression" before I was born. When I was a child, I heard him occasionally, and heard the word "grandpa", and felt that there should be a person behind this word. "Where is he?" "He's dead." The word then correspondingly has a human-shaped blank.To this day, no specific voice, appearance and behavior can be filled in this blank.Therefore, when I hear him, it is like hearing about Africa, like hearing about the seabed or a black hole in the universe, or even about death; he is just a concept, an inaccessible mass of ethereal floating.

But this emptiness is not nothing.Like the wind, what does the wind look like?It's the shaking of the tree, the change of the cloud, the hat being blown away, or the eyes being fascinated by the dust... Therefore, grandpa is always there.Everything exists because of speech, but speech can also be silence.The blankness of the human figure is often the mother's silence, her dodging eyes and the vigilance in her speech, the grandmother's interruption like rescue, or the helpless father's lies.There must be danger hidden in the blank space of the human figure, otherwise why did everyone become hesitant, dull, and even panic when it appeared?The danger is inexplicable but undeniable, and my childhood has already felt its threat, so I never ask more questions, and let my childhood grow up into the maturity of a Chinese in such a wind.

But one day, my mother solemnly told me about my grandfather, the wind still seemed sudden and violent. That was when I was just turning fifteen. One afternoon in early spring, my mother said: "The sun is so beautiful, why don't we go out for a walk? There is something I want to tell you." When my mother said that I had guessed that the danger was finally about to show itself.The willow flowers all over the sky hang down and sway with the wind. Sure enough, the gunshot sounded in the bright sunshine.The sound of the gun was extremely dull.During the entire conversation, the word "grandfather" never came up, and my mother only said "he" without explaining who I could understand.I don't ask, just listen.Or in fact, I didn't even hear it. The gunshots that had been hidden for many years finally came into this afternoon. I knew that my childhood was irretrievable.Childhood, drifting into something called "history" at this moment, never to return.

Mother spoke with difficulty, but I walked silently.The mother must have been surprised: how could the child be so calm?I know she must be thinking this way, her eyes fumbled carefully on my face.We walked several kilometers of suburban roads, with few cars and horses, distant voices, poplar flowers all over the sky, and the corpses of poplar flowers all over the ground.At that time, other flowers hadn't bloomed yet, and the fields were deserted. In the ensuing years, this person occasionally jumped out of the cautious sighs of relatives, and flashed like a ghost in the blank space, hesitating for a while, making it even more difficult to see clearly——

"He was less than fifty years old when he died, right? Don't say he didn't think of it, no one in my hometown thought of it..." "That year he was arrested by the Japanese and beaten to death. Only now did everyone know that he was an anti-Japanese..." "Later, I heard that someone rescued him. No one knew where he went. In the year Japan surrendered, some people said they saw him again, and said he led the team into the city. We ran to the street to see, didn't we? He rode a tall horse and walked in front of the team with several officers..." "The old people have said long ago that he has been regarded as a talent since he was a child. When he was in school, he was the first in all subjects... It's a pity that he joined the Kuomintang, and the Kuomintang has hurt him..."

"This man, that's really a foresight! Have you ever heard of him running a kindergarten in the village? He raised money to get a few rooms, run a kindergarten, run an evening school, go door to door to invite people to come to class, The children all went to learn to sing, the adults all had to learn to read, and I even asked him to give lectures to the night school..." "A fortune teller said that this person is really capable. He is self-willed and has offended many people. He is afraid that he will be tricked by villains in the future..." "When he was about to be liberated, his eldest son came back from the outside and advised him to leave quickly and hide in other places first. After hiding for a while, he didn't listen... He said that I didn't corrupt the people by perverting the law and oppressing the people. The Communist Party got it People’s hearts, well, I’ll step aside, but remember, I won’t run away when anyone comes. Why should I run?”

"Later, there was nothing else going on with him. He went to Beijing, thinking that he would abandon politics and go into business to start a business. However, it is said that one of his subordinates back then made up a lot of things about him. Well, as a human being, you can never offend people too much..." "Actually, as long as he escapes those few days, nothing serious will happen to him. No matter what, he can't be punished with a death penalty... He never thought that he would have a capital punishment until the catastrophe came... When he was arrested, he said, "Okay." , I will serve whatever punishment I have committed.”

... There must be a story lurking in it, tragic, or even comical.But I'm not interested in checking it out.I don't want to investigate and collect his whereabouts.I was afraid to ask the story as a child, and still dare not—to make it a story.Stories are sometimes necessary and sometimes suspect.A story is inevitably forced by the demands of a story: touching, tearful, ups and downs, in short, it needs to be fascinating.In the end, it's just a story.The real hardships of some people have become the happiness woven by others. The despair and prayers of one era have become the chic words of another era. It cannot be said that this is improper, but there always seems to be a huge gap between them. In the empty space, more important things were leaked from it.

It is not the more important plot, nor the more important truth, but the more important mood. So, not daring to ask, is the gist of this hidden story. The word "grandpa" is not a story, but a hidden story, which is all my fears from childhood to adolescence to youth.I remember that since I was a child, I squatted under the blank, floating human figure, not daring to look up.There is its shadow in all childhood games, and its clamor in all sleeping dreams.I remember that as soon as I was sensible, I walked in its terror, and it flickered in all the expectations of teenagers, and its black wings flapped in all the longings.There always seems to be sadness lurking in the sun, and its melancholy always seems to float in the evening wind, the fear of grandma, the silence of mother, the caress of grandma and father talking about him, the trembling of second grandma who doesn't know where to go, and even the kindergarten The fluster of the two old ladies in the movie... Therefore, I dare not make it a story.I'm afraid that once it becomes a story it will remain just a story forever.And that ethereal fluttering is not necessarily asking for a specific image, not necessarily asking for a plot, no matter how tragic and absurd the plot is, there is nothing new, it is asking for prayer.The confusion and searching, hatred and misguidedness of many generations, youth and old age, all they can finally ask for is: prayer.

One year I saw on TV that a person who knew how to repent went to the tomb of the Jews killed by the Nazis and knelt down on his knees, so I knew that repentance should not be just the mood of a generation.One year, I saw on TV that a man who knew how to pray walked to the grave of a German soldier who died in World War II and mourned silently, so I saw all the directions of prayer. My grandma left me with very few memories.Grandma is illiterate and her feet are smaller than grandma's. She has always lived in the countryside, in her hometown in Zhuozhou.When I was young, my mother occasionally picked her up, and when she came, she would sit cross-legged on the bed, put on shoe soles, put on shoe uppers, sew cotton-padded clothes and quilts all day long, and tell me stories about ghosts and ghosts while repeating mechanical movements. story.When my mother heard her telling those stories, she came to stop her: "Oh, can you stop telling those superstitious things?" Grandma smiled ashamedly, and then said to me solemnly: "Your mother is right, you must study hard. , study well and become a high-ranking official in the future.” Mother couldn’t laugh or cry: “Oh my, did I say that?” Grandma smiled apologetically again, looked up at the surroundings, at the sunset on the glass, at the crabapple trees in full bloom in the yard, Then I lowered my head to look at the needle and thread in my hand, and swallowed the laughter and the confusion in it...

Now I often think, does grandma know the existence of the second grandma?Logically speaking, she should know, but in my memory, she doesn't seem to have any attitude towards it, neither laughing nor scolding, nor resentment.Perhaps this is her virtue, or her helplessness.Grandma's marriage was completely arranged by her parents, and her grandfather was really a blank human figure to her; before she saw her grandpa, her grandfather was an uncertain human figure, but after she saw her grandfather, that human figure could no longer be changed.The blank human figure, with the second grandmother, can make it full of laughter, curses and sounds.Where is grandma, where is her happiness and hope?She grew from a little girl to a woman by needlework and thread. Chuicuidada figure came, and they worshiped and got married. The figure married her and made her bear several children. That human form is not common, and it is still passing the time.She didn't know what that figure was doing outside, but suddenly a gunshot rang out, and terror and humiliation jumped out of her always blank world, and she couldn't escape until death... As for my mother, she didn't go to university because of this.After the gunshot, my mother gave birth to me. At that time, my father had not yet graduated from college, and my mother went to an accounting fast-track school to make ends meet.Mother's wishes are actually many.After my legs were paralyzed, I quietly learned to write. When my mother found out, she told me that her dream when she was young was also to write.When I said this, I saw that the smile on her face was exactly the same as that of my grandma back then, and she also looked around with shame, watching the sunset on the window and the old crabapple tree in the courtyard.But the old crabapple tree is dead, its branches are covered with bean vines, and thin bean flowers bloom. My mother said that her composition in middle school was always read by the teacher as a model essay to the whole class.My mother said that there was another male classmate who wrote a good composition in the class. "The screenwriter of the movie we watched a few days ago may be him." "Maybe? Why?" "Anyway, the screenwriter's name is exactly the same as his." One day a guest came to the house, and he happened to know the screenwriter. Then I asked carefully: the gender, age, and ethnicity are all correct; the figure and appearance are not contrary to the possible development of the boy back then.The mother asked anxiously again: "Where is his hometown, is it Zhuozhou?" This time the guest smiled and shook his head.My mother said: "Then you have a chance to ask..." I shouted: "What are you asking!" What my mother meant was to find me a teacher, what I meant was to fuck with the teacher! ——At that time, I was just sitting in a wheelchair, with the morbid psychology of an oppressed person. There was a meeting of the Writers Association one year, and I learned the origin of that person from the "List of Writers Attending the Meeting": Zhuozhou, Hebei.At that time, the mother had passed away.Suddenly a thought popped into my heart: Is mother just trying to find me a teacher? My mother was beautiful and romantic by nature, and many of her dreams died after that gunshot.However, the gunshots never disappeared.When the Cultural Revolution was in full swing, I went to see her one day, and she was the only one in the office who was busy making calculations. "Why are you the only one?" "They're all going to rebel." "You're not allowed to go?" "Don't talk nonsense, I did it myself. If someone grasps the revolution, someone must promote production?" I didn't understand until a long time later. , This is the wisdom honed by the gunshot - based on my mother's background, it is safe to not get involved in politics.That day I told my mother that I was leaving and going in series. "Where are you going?" "The world, whatever it is." I was full of pride and poetry.My mother gave me fifteen dollars—ten dollars for each stitch to sew on my underwear, and five dollars for change (one two, two ones, and ten dimes) in several pockets of my coat. . "Then I'm leaving," I said.My mother grabbed me and looked me in the eyes: "Some things, I'm talking about our own family, understand? You don't have to tell others." I nodded, and most of the pride and poetry dissipated.Mother still didn't let go: "Remember, don't tell anyone, even your best classmate. It's not to hide anything, it's just...it's just not necessary..." Many years later, someone brought a county chronicle from my hometown, and there were several praises to my grandfather on it, which gave the blank human figure a certain image.The article mentions his contributions to the resistance against Japan and his educational achievements, and the rest are not mentioned.At that time, my grandmother and mother were long gone, and my grandmother and father had also passed away.At that time, my uncle suddenly came back from decades of no news, with white hair and a pale face.The uncle held the county chronicle and didn't speak for a long time, but his hands and face were shaking.