Chapter 95 About Men (Part 6)
eight my three younger brothers
My brothers and I have always been called brothers.They called me "Yi Ge" (Yi means "A" in Fuzhou dialect).
This nickname was given to me by my parents, so my eldest brother Wei Han’s nickname is Xi Ge (“Xi” means “small” in Fuzhou dialect), and my second brother Wei Jie’s nickname is Xi Ge. Little brother, when the third brother is born as Ji, his nickname will have to be "Little"!
It's a long story!As soon as I was born, my aunt used my birthday horoscope to ask someone to tell a fortune, and the fortune teller said: "This must be a man's fate, because the child has a 'Wenquxing' in his life, so he will be a civil servant." It reads, "Wealth is overwhelming and people have nowhere to go, and horses fly like flying on Chang'an Road."This piece of fortune-telling paper was originally kept by me, but after several disturbances, I couldn't find it long ago.The fortune teller also said that the "five elements" in my life lack "fire", so my second uncle gave me the name "Wan ", "Wan"
It is the ranking of our sisters. There are two "fire" characters on the "" character to make up for the lack of my fate.But my grandfather always called me "guan", just like my cousins Linguan, Yiguan, etc., as a boy.Moreover, I have been wearing men's clothes since I was a child. It was not until 1911, when I returned to Fuzhou from Yantai, that I changed into women's clothes.Uncles and parents called me "Fourth Sister", but the titles of "Guan" and "Brother Yi" have not been changed in my grandfather and our small family.
My three younger brothers were all born in Yantai. The word "guan" was omitted, and only the Fuzhou dialect was retained, such as "xige", "xidi" and so on.
Among my three younger brothers, the eldest brother Weihan is the smartest one. He was admitted to the preparatory course of "Tangshan Road and Mine School" at the age of twelve (this is what I said in the novel "A Year Away from Home") thing).Later, the school moved to Beijing and was renamed "Beijing Jiaotong University".He made some music-loving friends at school, and he took violin lessons from an Italian musician after school.I remember that when he came back from his teacher's house in Dongjiaominxiang, he practiced the piano in the house, and he could continue to play for six or seven hours on Sundays.When his friends came, our west wing room was full of stringed songs.Not only did they play the violin, they also played the yueqin, which attracted the second and third younger brothers to learn some Chinese musical instruments. The third younger brother has a very good voice, so he took the lead in singing (he was selected into the school singing team in Yuying Primary School). When resting on the pillow and listening to the radio, I still like to listen to the high-pitched or forceful male singing voice!
Handi's music hobby did not interfere with his study, and he especially liked foreign languages.In the autumn of 1923, when I was in the Sanatorium in the United States, I often received long letters written in English from him.The patients all wondered: "Why do you Chinese write letters in English?" I laughed and said: "It's because he wants to practice foreign languages and ask me to correct them."
In fact, his written English is much more fluent than mine.
I returned to China in 1926, and in the second year he went to the University of Pennsylvania in the United States to study "highway" and has been working in the transportation department since returning to China.His lover, Yang Jianhua, is the daughter of my uncle, Mr. Yang Zijing.My uncle personally mentioned their marriage to my mother, saying: "My aunt is a mother-in-law, and she is a living Buddha." According to the current saying, if close relatives get married, the children born must be demented, but they gave birth to five daughters, but it is true. One race seems to be clever one by one. (Han is the eldest son, so he has been living with my father since we both left home.) I still have a photo of the five sisters circling their father.Their names are all flower names, because when Huamei was pregnant with her first child, my father had a dream, dreaming that an old man handed him a note that read, "Wen Lang looks down on Chrysanthemum Tao Xian ", so my eldest niece is called Zongju. "Zong"
The character was originally the ranking of boys in our big family, but my father said that men and women should be the same.Later, one of my cousins got a son, so he took away the word "Tao", and my second niece had to be called Zongxian.Later, Zong Lian and Zong Ling came, both named by their father.When Huamei was pregnant with her fifth child, the four sisters prayed together, hoping that their mother would not give birth to a boy, for fear that having a younger brother would stop loving them.After Zong Mei was born, Hua Mei was a little disappointed, but her father specially organized a full moon banquet for Zong Mei, which was something her older sisters did not have, and expressed his special pleasure.So they always said happily: "Grandpa likes girls very much, we have to be very hardworking!"
In 1937, Wen Zao and I had just returned from Europe when the July 7th Incident happened.We stayed at Yenching University for another year, and then went to Yunnan in the rear.On the day we left, my father burned a stick of incense in front of my mother's portrait, wishing us a safe journey.At that time, Jiedi was in Nanjing and Jidi was in Hong Kong. Only Handi saw us off at the station. He was still tearful and silent, just like when I went to study in the United States. He did not arrive with Jie and Ji. He sent me off at the station, and watched me go tearfully from the window at home.I will never forget that pair of sad eyes that hurt parting!
When we left Beijing, we brought Wenzao's mother to Shanghai and let her live with Wenzao's younger sister's family.At that time, we didn’t know much about life in Yunnan; we didn’t dare and couldn’t drag our father and Brother Han’s family to the rear. At that time, we didn’t expect that the War of Resistance would last so long. !
In 1940, on Chenggong Mountain in Yunnan, I got a letter from Brother Han reporting the death of my father. Before I opened the letter and finished reading it, blood came out in my mouth!
I dare not say it... No one would have thought that he walked so fast... The adult said: "Brother Yi's address is Santai Mountain in Chenggong, can you remember?" I nodded with tears... At ten o'clock in the morning, the German doctor Chen Yi Another injection, the adult is still panting, and after a while, he will tell me:
"Send my illness to Shanghai by express mail and then transfer to Hong Kong and Chenggong. None of the three of them know that I am seriously ill..." At this time, the adult was pale and sweating like rain, and said, "I want to find you." Mom, go!"... The adult said he wanted to go to bed, I knew it was the power of the two injections of morphine, the room was quiet for a while, and the sound of rain outside the window seemed to be urging the old father who was struggling with his life, but unexpectedly at eight o'clock in the morning Forty-five minutes, I stopped breathing... My blood also became cold, maybe it was a dream?Is it an illusion?In the end, the sense of responsibility overwhelmed everything, the dead died, and the living had to live and work... In his second letter, he attached a photo of his father's mourning hall, as well as the essay he asked someone to draw to hang my father The elegiac couplet:
It was life and death, but it was a farewell to death. Why did the boudoir comfort and mourn? The letter also said, "I heard that you are not in good health, and you often vomit blood. I am very disturbed...My brother also often has fever and sweating recently, and is very weak, but I dare not ask for more leave. , due to taking too much leave, the company will cancel food rations... Huamei must order milk for me and persuade me to eat eggs, but the cost is too high, so I have to sell my violin to someone, because there is nothing to sell at home ...Everything is due to Huamei's concern. This family is really thanks to her for maintaining it...The children are all good, they all know how to endure hardships, and they are willing to study hard, which is consolation. I hope that one day the bitterness will come to an end..."
This is the last letter that Brother Han wrote to me.Father died at 8:45 on August 4, 1940.Brother Han worked for another four years in a company in the enemy's rear, and I couldn't find a job that would allow him to come to the rear.He was poor and sick, and died in 1944!His favorite and smartest daughter, Zong Lian, changed her name and fled to the liberated area with her classmates. The others still stayed with their mother and lived a very difficult life... My smartest, most responsible, most silent-tempered , the younger brother with the most vulnerable feelings, just spent his life in the enemy's rear with toil and depression!
About being able to write the three younger brothers together: they like to play in the room since they were young.In the house in Zhongjianzixiang, Beijing, there was a jujube tree next to the east wing. They climbed from the tree to the house, and went to a corner behind the ridge of the north house, where they hid many homemade gadgets, such as small lead boats. such as.The old man Qi, the landlord, came, and when he saw them going into the house, he smiled and shouted: "You are going into the house again, and I will ask you for the money for repairing the house in the future!"
In addition, they learned martial arts from a boxing teacher with some classmates, bought some knives, guns, swords and halberds, fought a lot, and took a puppy to ride a bicycle to swim and row in the North Sea. Of course, I didn't participate in these things.
In fact, in that book, although I was talking about my three sisters-in-law, I had already described my three younger brothers' dispositions, hobbies, etc.But it was written in 1943. For the eldest brother, it only wrote about his love and marriage, but for the second and third brothers, it wrote more.
My second brother, Wei Jie, slept with me in the same bed since he was a child.At that time, the father took the elder brother, the mother took the younger brother, and I took him.The younger brothers went to bed earlier than us, each with a quilt and bucket in the inner bed, and soon after dinner, they got into sleep.Wei Jie, like any other second child, is always very "good".Among the three brothers, he was more "stupid".I remember when he was in elementary school, I combed my hair every morning while listening to him recite "Mencius", what "Xie Xie Judada", I don't know which chapter of "Mencius" this is?Which section?Maybe it's still a "note", but the sentence he recited repeatedly while whimpering is still ringing in my ears.
His homework was always not very good, and on the day of the junior high school graduation ceremony, he had to wear a new blue cloth coat as usual, but his mother didn't dare to make it for him first, so he still graduated.But in high school, he jumped up immediately and became a top student.In the autumn of 1926, he was admitted to Yenching University, and I happened to return to China to teach there, because he participated in many extracurricular activities, and we had many opportunities to get in touch.
Once the boys performed in the drama "One Night in the Coffee Shop". At that time, the boys and girls had not co-starred together, and Wei Jie played the role of the waitress.He was wearing my black silk dress, with a pleated white scarf tied on his head and a white apron. The students in the audience laughed and said he looked like me.That winter, male and female students pretended to be skating on Weiming Lake, and he was still wearing the same clothes, holding a paper cup and plate in his hand, and dancing on the ice.
After Wen Zao and I got married in 1929, we had a family, and he often came to eat at home. He could eat very well and was not picky about food.In the autumn of 1930, I was pregnant with Wu Ping, and my mouth was so bad that I couldn't eat for almost seven months.He ate almost all the fresh vegetables and fruits his father sent from the city.Even on the day I gave birth to Wu Ping in February 1931, I came out of the delivery room and saw him waiting for me in the ward. There was a cup of ice cream on the table in the room. As soon as he pouted, he picked up the cup, turned his face to the wall, and ate it all in one go!
He studied chemistry at Yanda University, and he wrote his bachelor's and master's thesis with Dr. Hou Debang, the chief engineer of Tianjin Soda Plant.Mr. Hou appreciated him very much, and introduced him to the University of Wisconsin in the United States to study for a Ph.D. in chemistry. He also won the Golden Key Award when he graduated.After returning to China, he worked in Yongli Soda Manufacturing Company.After liberation, I followed Mr. Hou to the Ministry of Chemical Industry.When we returned to Beijing from Japan in 1951, we met often.
I was born on the 10th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, and his birthday is the tenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, so every year on the eleventh day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, they buy a big cake, and our two families celebrate together, and I still have Looking at the photo of the two of us cutting the cake together.
After Wen Zao's death in September 1985, when he got the news, he fell on the desk and cried loudly as soon as he entered the door before he could speak. I tried to persuade him with tears in my eyes.In his later years, he was in poor health and often suffered from asthma. When the heating at home was not hot enough, he often lit a stove in the main room.At the beginning of 1986, he was seriously ill and admitted to the hospital. His lover Li Wenling still kept it from me. I didn't get the sad news until a few days after his death on January 12.His colleagues in the Ministry of Chemical Industry prepared a commemorative book for him and asked me to write an inscription. I wrote:
He is such a younger brother who has made due contributions to the chemical industry of the motherland, and I feel infinite comfort and pride.
His lover, Li Wenling, graduated from the Music Department of Jinling Women's University, specializing in piano.His son Xie Zongying and daughter-in-law Zhang Wei have both inherited his career, and they are now working in the affiliated engineering department of the Ministry of Chemical Industry.
Everything about my third brother Xie Weiji, I have already described him in the section about my third sister-in-law:
Irritable and restless, because he is the youngest, he is very capricious and pampered.Even so, he always listened to what his parents and brothers and sisters said, and even said everything to me... He is very fond of literature and art, and he also likes to make some young friends in the literary and art circles.Ding Ling, Hu Yepin, Shen Congwen, etc. were all introduced to me by him. I remember that was when my father was working in Shanghai in 1927.He also published a collection of short stories, the name of which I forgot, and he was only seventeen or eighteen years old at the time.
He went to the sea school in Liverpool, England, and became a sailing student without going to university. He wandered on the seas of five continents for five years, and even came back with an honorary certificate.Since then he has been working on the customs anti-smuggling ship.During the Anti-Japanese War, after Shanghai fell, he went to Hong Kong, and Hong Kong fell again, so he went to Chongqing. Soon after, he was sent to the United States by the Department of Port Affairs to study for a year. After returning, he worked in the Shanghai Port Authority.
His lover, Liu Jihua, is the daughter of my cousin, Mr. Liu Fangyuan, an excellent master's student in the Sociology Department of Yanda University, who was also working in the "General Administration of Rehabilitation and Relief" in Shanghai at that time.They are childhood sweethearts and loving couples, working and living happily.They have five children.Wei Ji said, to commemorate me, their children's names must have the word "heart".The eldest daughter, Zong Ci, went to school in Northeast China when she was eleven or twelve years old. I remember it was Changchun University, where she studied agricultural machinery.Their second daughter, Zong Ai, and their third daughter, Zong En, studied music, and they were two of the fifty who applied for the middle school attached to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.I was very happy to hear that, and sent them 800 yuan to buy a piano as a reward.Their two sons, Zonghui and Zongxi, were still young at that time.
In 1957, Wei Ji responded to the call to "speak to the party" and wrote a few big-character posters. He was classified as a rightist and sent to Wuwei, Gansu for labor reform. Like fish, the whole family moved to the Northwest.
At that time, my wife Wu Wenzao and my son Wu Ping were also rightists. There was a thunderbolt above my head, and the world in my heart suddenly spun!
But I still calmly wrote a long letter to Wei Ji, encouraging him to reform himself, to be a new man, and to get another chance to serve the motherland. In fact, I don’t know how I lived those few years!I only remember that Wei Ji and his wife were both teaching in a middle school in Wuwei, and had a very difficult time.The children redoubled their efforts in the face of adversity. Both Zong En and Zong Ai graduated from Xi'an Conservatory of Music.The two boys are both studying science and engineering, and they work in the Institute of Mining Science and Engineering Automation. This is a story!
The overworked Ji Hua got cancer and died in 1976. He went to Yaojie to live with his youngest son for a while, and in 1978 he went to Beibei, Sichuan, to live with his eldest daughter for a while. In 1979, he was hired by Lanzhou University to teach English in Lanzhou University; on January 12, 1984, he died of illness in Lanzhou!None of his sons and daughters told us.Weijie and I just wonder why Brother Ji is so lazy to write. Every September 19th in the lunar calendar, we still send some money to him (he is one year older than Ji Hua, and the two have the same birthday. Usually we always wish them " Double Lives”) and asked his children to buy him a cake.The children always wrote back and said:
"Daddy ate the cake and liked it very much. He said thank you!" Jiedi didn't know that "Xiaoxiao" had already left before him until he died!
While writing this article, I shed my last tears!Wang Xizhi said in "Lanting Collection Preface" that "death and life are too great, so it's not painful." I think "death" is really a "liberation", and the "pain" is for those who die later!
My three younger brothers: Since childhood, I have tried my best to love you.In the end, I still use tears to bid you farewell, I am finally worthy of you! On the evening of July 8, 1987, when the storm is coming, everything is top grade...——An associate professor's monologue Xiao Lu and Xiao Fei are both good boys. Listen to me, they both took the college entrance examination, and the scores have not yet come out.But what they told me about their employment plans today was beyond my expectation and made me very sad!Can I consider it?What will my colleagues think when they know about it?What should my co-workers' college-age kids think?
Xiao Lu said: "Father, the matter is obvious. My mother has taught elementary school for more than 20 years, and now she is very sick. The school she teaches can't afford the medical expenses. She lies in bed all day long. We can rely on you and us to wait on her after class.
The little aunt from Sichuan got impatient and muttered all day that she was going to leave.As for you, you have been teaching in a university for 30 years, and finally got an associate professor with a salary of 116 yuan a month!Opening the door to seven things requires money to buy everything. Is it okay not to look at money?Don't be "Qing Gao" anymore, "Qing Gao" can't be used as food, "Qing Gao" can't be used as clothes, and "Qing Gao" can't cure mother's illness!I listened to your words and took the college entrance examination. My grades will never be bad, because when I compared the answers with my classmates, they were not as accurate as me.But I thought, what good is it for me to go to university? It will cost you fifty or sixty yuan a month for meals and pocket expenses. That’s not counting. Even if I graduate and even stay in school to teach, the result is not the same as yours. !
"I have already learned to drive with my old classmates who drive taxis, and I have obtained a license. I drive a taxi, and the salary, bonus and tips for a month are much better than your associate professor. I don't go to university Yes, for our family to live a better life, I decided to drive a taxi..."
Xiaofei put it mildly (she and Xiaolu are twins, but they have different tempers), she said, "Dad, listen, my classmates who work as waiters in a restaurant all persuade me, saying that I have a good figure and age Light, not to mention civilized manners.
When I went to work as a waiter in a restaurant, I didn’t even have to worry about clothes. I wore a high-necked cheongsam and high-heeled leather shoes. I would do a good job cleaning up a room and serving dishes.My monthly income will not be less than that of my brother, and I may even have foreign exchange certificates.Our family has five to six hundred yuan a month, and my mother's illness is cured, and my aunt is also easy to hire, and you still teach your books, even if it's just killing time, let's live your professor addiction! "
How practical they think about our family, and how thoroughly they solve it!I can't think of a better way.
"It's true that everything is top-notch, but reading is low?" Facing the two children, I felt a strange feeling in my heart. Urgent on July 13, 1987