Chapter 15 The second part of the old crabapple tree

If possible, if there is an open space, no matter in front of the window or behind the house, if I can plant something according to my wish, I will plant two trees.An acacia, commemorating my mother.A crabapple in memory of my grandma. Grandma and an old crabapple tree cannot be separated in my memory; it seems that they have always been together, and grandma has been watching in the shadow of the old crabapple tree all her life. Near the height of the house, there are two thick branches of the old crabapple tree, which are bent like a deck chair. When I was a child, I often climbed up and played there day by day.Grandma shouted under the tree: "Come down, come down, you just stay on top all day and can't come down?" Yes, I read comic books there, shot around with a slingshot, and even did my homework there, schoolbag hanging on the eaves. "Do you eat on top too?" Yes, eat on top.Grandma lifted the good food over her head, and I climbed up the tree with my legs, and I fished for the moon to pick up the bowls and chopsticks. "Sleep, sleep on it too?" That's right.Surrounded by the fragrance of flowers, the buzzing of bees, the spring breeze blowing on the face, and the rain of flowers that stain the clothes but not the begonias.Grandma was standing on the ground, standing in front of the house, under the old crabapple tree, looking at me; she must be envious, guess how I feel up there, what can I see?

But is she just looking at me?She was often alone in a daze, her eyes gradually lost and empty, through the thick branches and leaves of the old crabapple tree, she didn't know where to look. In spring, the old crabapple tree is full of flowers and shakes off the petals like snow.I remember my grandma sitting under the tree pasting paper bags, nagging at me from time to time: "Don't tell me, come down and help me? How fast your little hands are glued!" I sang to and fro on the tree.Grandma said again: "Have I ever begged you? The work is tight this time!" I said, "My parents don't want you to mess with that shit at all. You are the one who insists on being so tired!" Say no more, straighten your waist, take a breath, and then stare blankly again—from the pink and white flowers to the infinite sky.

Or in summer, when the old crabapple tree is full of branches and leaves, grandma is sitting in the shade under the tree, and she finds a job of applique from nowhere, wearing reading glasses, buried in the bed sheet or quilt cover, sewing stitch by stitch.When it was getting dark, she yelled at me: "Can't you please go and wash the vegetables? Don't you see that I am too busy?" I jumped off the tree, washed the vegetables, and washed things indiscriminately.Grandma got angry: "You go to work and go to school, are you just messing around like this?" Grandma pushed away the work in hand, and while washing the vegetables again, she said, "I will have to cook for you all my life? Can't I have my own job?" This time I didn't say anything.Grandma washed the dishes, picked up the needle and thread again, raised her eyes from the upper edge of the reading glasses, and looked around in a daze for a while.

One autumn, the old crabapple tree was still full of fruits and fallen leaves.In the morning, when it was still dark, grandma got up to sweep the yard, "Shua-shua-", everyone in the yard was still dreaming.At that time, I was older, and I was jumping in the queue, returning from northern Shaanxi to see her.At that time, my grandma was in Beijing alone, and my father and mother both went to the cadre school.At that time, grandma was already hunched over. The sound of "shuashuashua" woke me up, and I ran out quickly: "You rest and I will come, I promise it will not take three minutes." But this time grandma doesn't want my help. "Hey, you! Don't you understand? I have to work." I said: "But who can see?" Grandma said: "It can't be like that. Whether people can see or not is their business. I have to consciously .” After sweeping the yard, she went to sweep the street. "Shall I scan the line with you?" "No."

Only then did I understand why she insisted on pasting paper bags and patching flowers so that she would not let herself be idle.She has her father and mother to support her, she is not doing it for money, she is working for it.Her status follows her grandfather as a landlord.Although my grandfather, a landlord, died in his thirties, and it was my grandmother who brought her three sons through decades of hard work, but what did they say?People said: "But you still have been exploited for so many years!" This made her feel ashamed.This made her sigh alone.These words made her decades of suffering suddenly turn into humiliation.She will pay for the sin.She wants to prove it with actions.Prove what?She thought that she might not be able to support herself one day.I have a little understanding of grandma's thoughts: When will she be able to have a legitimate job like her father and mother?Probably this is her looking around, the confusion and emptiness under the old crabapple tree.However, this hope may be even bigger - she said: keep up with the times.

So in winter, all the winters, in my memory, almost every winter night, my grandma studied under the lamp.Outside the window, in the wind, the dry branches of the old crabapple tree knocked on the eaves and rubbed against the window lattice.Grandma once read a "Literacy Textbook", and then read the news on the front page of the newspaper word by word.In "Grandma's Star", I wrote: When she was learning the lesson of "National Anthem", she pronounced "roar" as "hole".I have written one of the things I can’t forgive myself: my grandma held a newspaper and approached me carefully: “Tell me about this paragraph, what does it mean?” I replied without even reading it. "Is it useful for you to learn that stuff? Do you think that if you understand those things, you can really take off your hat?" Grandma was silent immediately, but stared at the newspaper without moving her eyes for a long time.My heart tightened all of a sudden, but I couldn't make up for it. "Grandma." "Grandma!" "Grandma——" I remember that when she finally raised her head, her eyes were full of shame, and she didn't blame me at all.

But in my impression, grandma’s gaze slowly left the newspaper, the light, and me, stopped for a while at the shadow of the old crabapple tree on the window, and continued to leave, leaving all sounds and even all shapes, drifting into the night, Floating across the starlight, drifting to the inconsolable confusion and emptiness... And in my dream, in my prayer, the old crabapple tree also floated away, following grandma, accompanying her, and surrounding her ;Grandma sits in the trees full of flowers, in the shade of the ground, looking around, or constantly asking me to tell her: "What does this paragraph mean?"——This image has been fixed in my mind year by year. my longing, and my eternal regret.