Chapter 15 Chapter Thirteen

In the first exhibition hall of the Asian Art Museum, Ruth saw Mr. Tang kissing her mother on the cheek, and Ru Ling giggled like a shy middle school student, and then the two walked into the next exhibition hall holding hands. Art touched Ruth, and bent his arm for Ruth to take him. "Come on, we can't teach them to compete." They caught up with Ru Ling and found that they were sitting in front of two rows of bronze chimes. long. "It's like a xylophone offered to the gods," Ruth whispered, and sat down on the bench next to Mr. Tang. "Each clock has two different tones," Mr. Tang said in a soft but authoritative voice. "The tones of the hammer hitting the bottom and the right are completely different. Many musicians strike at the same time, and there will be a rich sound. Recently, I had the honor to hear a chime played by a Chinese musician at an event." Thinking of that Beautiful music, a smile appeared on his face. "I felt as if I had traveled back in time and space to go back three thousand years. I heard the sound that people heard back then, and I felt the same awe. I imagined the person who was listening to the music back then, and I think it was a woman, A very beautiful woman." He squeezed Lu Ling's hand. "I thought to myself, maybe in another three thousand years, another woman will hear this music. In her imagination, I may be a handsome man. Although we never meet each other, we are connected because of this music. You Do you mean it?" He looked at Ru Ling.

"Amitabha," she replied. "I think very much like your mother," Mr. Tang said to Ruth.Ruth smiled in response.She found that Mr. Tang was translating what Ru Ling hadn't said, just like she used to.However, unlike Ruth back then, he was not obsessed with the literal meaning, and only spoke out Ru Ling's inner voice: her good wishes and hopes. In the past month, Ru Ling has been living in Miramar Manor, and Mr. Tang visits him several times a week.Take her out on Saturday afternoons, either to a matinee, to a free symphony rehearsal, or just for a walk in the Arboretum.Today he took Ru Ling to see the Chinese cultural relics exhibition, and specially invited Art and Ruth to come with him. "I'm going to show you something interesting," he said mysteriously on the phone. "It's definitely worth the trip."

Just seeing her mother living so happily is enough to make Ruth feel that the trip is worthwhile.Happy, Ruth considered the word in her mind.Until recently, she had no idea what made her mother happy.Of course, my mother kept complaining.The food at Miramar was, as expected, "too salty" and the restaurant-style service "too slow and cold when it came out." And she hated the easy chair Ruth had bought on purpose. , Ruth had to exchange the original plastic recliner for her.But most of Ru Ling's worries and annoyances were gone: she didn't have to manage the tenants downstairs, she didn't have to worry about someone stealing her money, and she no longer had to be vigilant all the time, worrying about bad luck and disasters happening at any time.Maybe it's just because she's forgotten all about it?Maybe love made her leave her troubles and worries behind.Or the environment has changed, and the surroundings no longer always remind her of the unpleasant memories of the past.But she still remembers the past, even more than before, but now she often remembers some good memories of the past, for example, she turned Mr. Tang into an old friend in her memory.Ru Ling acted as if she and Mr. Tang didn't just met a month ago, but as if they had known each other for several lifetimes. "We both saw it a long time ago, and it's exactly the same as this one." When everyone looked at the chime together, Ru Ling said loudly, "The only difference is that we are old now."

Mr. Tang supported Lu Ling to stand up, and the two of them followed Ruth Yat to another exhibit in the middle of the exhibition hall. "This is a cultural relic that is very dear to Chinese scholars," Mr Tang said. "Most tourists just want to see the gorgeous wine vessels used for sacrificial offerings, or the funeral clothes studded with jade, but for a true scholar, this is the real reward of the trip." Ruth glanced into the display case glanced.At first glance, this reward looks like a big frying pan with writing on it. "This is a masterpiece among bronze wares," Mr. Tang continued, "what's more, the words engraved on it are even more meaningful. This is an epic poem written by ancient scholars to praise the great emperors of that time. The emperors praised here One of them is King Zhou①, that’s right, Zhou in Zhoukoudian—the place where Lingtang lived and where the Pekingese were discovered.”

"Zhoukoudian?" Ruth said in English. "That's right. In fact, King Zhou didn't live there, but many places are named after him, just like there are Washington Streets in many towns in the United States. It's the same... Come, let's go this way. I What I want you to see is in the next exhibition hall." Soon everyone came to another display case.Mr. Tang said, "Don't look at the English explanatory text, just don't read it. Tell me what you think it is?" Ruth saw an ivory shovel-like object with holes in it and blackened cracks. .Is this the board used by the ancients to play Go?Or a piece of kitchenware?Next to it was a smaller object, oval in shape, beige, bordered, with writing on it instead of holes.She immediately understood what it was, but before she could open her mouth, she heard her mother say in Chinese: "Oracle bones."

Ruth was glad to see her mother remember so many things.She knew that Lu Ling could not be expected to remember the appointed time, or what happened recently.She may not remember all the time, place, characters and events.But whenever her mother talked about her youth, Ruth was always amazed at her clarity, and her emotions were not so different from those revealed in her manuscripts.In Ruth's view, this meant that the mother's floodgates to the past had not been closed, but that there was a slight divergence and confusion.Sometimes, the time in Lu Ling's memory will be mixed with some later things, but the memories of that time are still like a huge reservoir, from which she can find many things and share them with others.It's okay to be a little confused about the details, that history, even altered by memory, is still rich in meaning.

Several times in recent weeks, Lu Ling recalled how she got the emerald ring, which Ruth had found out of her mother's plastic recliner a while ago.She told Ruth in Chinese: "Let's go to the dance hall, you and me. We walked down the stairs, and you introduced me to Edwin. His eyes fell on me and he didn't move away for a long time. I I saw you smile, and then you disappeared. You are so naughty. I know what you thought at the time! When he proposed to me, he gave me the ring." Ruth guessed that the person who introduced the parents should be It's Gao Ling. At this time, Ruth heard Ru Ling say to Art in Chinese: "My mother found such an oracle bone. There are words of praise carved on it. When I grow up, she can be sure that I am sensible and know what When it was time to never forget, I gave that oracle bone to me. I lost that oracle bone because of no reason." Art nodded and listened, as if he understood what Ru Ling said, and then Ru Ling translated it to Mr. Tang in English Said: "I told him, my mother once gave me a piece of this bone."

"It's very meaningful," he replied, "especially since Lingtang is the daughter of a bone setter." "The statement is far-reaching," Ru Ling said. Mr. Tang nodded in agreement, as if he also remembered the name of Dr. Bone Setter. "People from far and near villages all went to see him. Your father came to the doctor's door because of a foot injury. He was injured by a horse. That's how your father got acquainted with Lingtang. It was all because of the horse. " Ru Ling was in a daze.Ruth was worried that her mother would cry, but Lu Ling's face brightened again, and she said, "Meteor. He called her Shooting Star. My mother said he wrote about it in his love poems."

Art looked at Ruth as if asking if it was true.He had read some translations of Ru Ling's memoirs, but he couldn't connect the Chinese names in them with real people.Ruth explained to him in a low voice, "Meteors are comets. I'll explain to you later." Then she turned to her mother, "What was my grandmother's last name?" Ruth knew it would be risky to talk about it now. , but now that Mama has one name in mind, maybe others are already on her mind, just waiting for her to say it. Mother just hesitated for a moment, and then replied: "The surname is Gu." She looked at Ruth sternly, "How many times have I told you, why can't you remember? Her father is Doctor Gu. She is Doctor Gu." daughter."

Ruth was so excited that she wanted to yell, but when she thought about it again, she realized that what her mother said was the Chinese pronunciation of the word "bone".Doctor Gu, Doctor Bone, Doctor Bone Setter.Art raised his eyebrows and looked at Ruth questioningly, wondering if the family name that had been lost for many years could finally be found.But Ruth just said, "I'll explain to you later," in a very downcast voice. "Oh." Mr. Tang drew a Chinese character in the air and asked, "Is it this valley or this one?" The mother looked worried and said, "I don't remember."

"I don't remember either," Mr. Tang replied immediately. "Oh, it's okay." Art immediately changed the subject and asked, "What do the words written on it mean?" "It's some questions asked by the emperor to ask God's will," Mr. Tang replied. "For example, what will the weather be like tomorrow, which side will win the battle, when should the crops be planted, etc., a bit like our six o'clock news, except that instead of reporting what happened in the past, it is forecasting what will happen. " "Then is the answer correct?" "Then who knows? The answer is in these cracks you see, these next to the black dots. The diviners hit the bone with hot nails, and with a crackling sound, the cracks that burst open are the apocalypse, and they explain the answer Listen to the emperor. I'm sure that the more successful fortune-teller must be good at giving the answer that the emperor likes to hear." "It's a great crossword puzzle," Art replied. Ruth thought of the sandbox she and her mother had used for years.She also tried to guess what kind of words would make her mother feel at ease, so as to comfort her without making her realize that she was playing tricks.Occasionally she made up some answers for her own convenience, but most of the time she tried her best to write what her mother wanted to hear, to write some comforting words, saying that her husband missed her and that Aunt Bao would not be angry with her. "Speaking of mysteries," said Ruth, "I remember you saying that the bones of the Peking Man were never found again." Ru Ling cheered up again, and said, "Both men and women have bones." "You're right, Mom, it's a woman from Beijing. I really want to know what happened to her? Did the bones really get crushed on the railway tracks on the way to Tianjin? Or did they sink to the bottom of the sea with the ship?" Mr. Tang took up the question: "Even if the bones are still there, no one comes out to say. Every few years, you can see some reports in the newspapers. Someone is always dead, or the wife of an American soldier, or It was a former Japanese military officer, an archaeologist from Taiwan or Hong Kong. Rumors continued that some bones were found in a certain wooden box, which was exactly the same as the box containing the bones of Pekingese in 1941. Then there were rumors that those bones were People from Beijing. Soon everything was arranged and the ransom was paid, but it turned out that those were actually oxtail bones, or they were replicas of the original bones, or the bones disappeared before they could be tested. Yes. There's a rumor that the bone thief flew to an island with the bones to trade with, and crashed his plane and died at sea." Ruth thought of those so-called poisonous curses, because the ghosts hated that their own remains could not be preserved, so the person who separated them would not die well. "What do you think is the matter?" "I don't know. History has left many mysteries. We don't know which ones will disappear forever, and which ones will have clues to surface after a few years. Everything only exists in a certain moment in time. This A moment may be preserved, it may be lost, and it may be rediscovered through various mysterious events. Mystery is also a very wonderful part of life," Mr. Tang smiled at Ru Ling. "Fantastic," she replied. He glanced at his watch. "How about we have a nice lunch?" "Excellent," said all in unison. That night, when Ruth and Art were lying in bed, Ruth talked to herself about Mr. Tang, and she was surprised how he could fall in love with her mother. "What I can understand is that he translated her memoirs, so he will be very curious about her. But he is a man of culture, knows poetry and music. Mom can't keep up with him, and her situation will only get worse, and it may be too late. For a while, she didn't even know who Mr. Tang was." Art took her words and said: "He fell in love with her when she was a little girl. Mr. Tang didn't just want her company for a while, he loved her everything, including her past, present and future. She understands more than many couples who have been married for many years." Art put Ruth in his arms and said, "Actually, I hope that both of us can be like this, with a commitment that spans time, spans the past, and now And the future... like a marriage." Ruth held her breath.For so long, she had driven this thought out of her mind, and she felt that this topic was taboo and dangerous. "In the past, I thought about using part of the property rights of the house to hold you and let us establish certain legal constraints, but you have never agreed." It turns out that he proposed to give me part of the property rights for this?Ruth's self-defense blinded her to Art's good intentions. "It's just my opinion," Art said a little at a loss for words. "Not to pressure you. I just want to know what you think." Ruth leaned close to him, kissed him on the shoulder, and replied, "That's great." "I found out that surname. I know your mother's maiden name." Aunt Gao Ling's excited voice came from the phone. "My God, what's her last name?" "First, I have to tell you how much effort I had to look up this surname. After you asked me, I wrote a letter to your uncle in Beijing to ask him. He couldn't tell, but he wrote back , he will ask a woman, that woman is married to a relative of our family, and their family has lived with her in the same village as your grandma since she was born, and they still live there now. It sounds like a lot of time to make such a call, because many people who know Everyone died long ago. But in the end they finally found an old lady. The old lady’s grandpa was a street photographer who took photos. The old lady still kept the old plates of her grandpa. Too much damage. The old man made very detailed records back then. The date of the photo, who paid how much, and the name of the person on the photo are all recorded. Their family has thousands of plates and photos. Anyway, the old man Madam remembers that Grandpa once showed her a photograph of a very pretty girl in a beautiful hat with a high collar." "It's the photo of Aunt Bao in my mother's hand, right?" "It must be that one. The old lady said that not long after the photo was taken, the girl's face was disfigured, her father died, and her family was ruined. It's really tragic. Everyone in the village said that the girl's life was bad, and she was destined to be unlucky all her life—" Ruth couldn't listen anymore. "What's her last name?" "The surname is Gu." "Gu?" Ruth felt very disappointed. After checking for a long time, she found that she made the same mistake as her mother.She said: "Isn't GU the bone of the 'bone'? The old lady must have mistook the bonesetter's 'bone' for their family name." "No, no," Gao Ling said. "This GU is the valley of the valley. It is pronounced the same as the bone of the bone, but it is not the same word. The third sound of GU has many meanings: 'ancient', 'gu', and 'share', '瞽', 'Jia' ’, so many. The word ‘bone’ in the bone can also represent ‘character’, so we say ‘what is in your bones’, which means ‘how is your nature’.” Ruth used to think that Chinese syllables are limited and ambiguous, but now she feels that this kind of homonym makes the language very rich.Try to connect so many homonyms: "The blind doctor from the valley helped Old Gu Jia connect the femur." "Are you sure her surname is Gu?" "It's written on the plate of that photo, yes." "Is it just the last name or the full name written on it?" "The full name is Gu Liuxin." "meteor?" "Meteor is' LIU XING's pronunciation is almost the same, but 'XING' is a star, and 'XIN' means truth. 'Liu Xin' means 'sincerity'. But because of the similar pronunciation, people who don't like him just ignore him. Her name is Meteor. The meaning of the name is not very good." "why?" "It's more complicated to say. Folks believe that seeing a broom star is a bad omen. The broom star is actually not a shooting star. It should be the kind that flies across the sky with a long tail and will come back." "comet?" "That's right, a comet. A comet portends a rare catastrophe. But some people confuse a comet with a shooting star. Although a shooting star is not a bad omen, people think it is bad. Besides, the meaning of a shooting star can't be said well—" It was burnt out in no time, it was still there today, and it would be gone tomorrow, not unlike Aunt Bao's fate." Mom did write about that, Ruth remembered, Mom wrote about this.It was a story that Aunt Bao told Ru Ling when she was young—she looked up at the sky and saw a shooting star, and opened her mouth wide in surprise. The shooting star fell into her mouth and burned her face. Ruth couldn't help crying.Grandma's name was found.Her name is Gu Liuxin.She did live, and Aunt Precious had her family, Ruling belonged to it, and so did Ruth.This surname is always by my side, like a small bone fragment hidden in the crevice of the valley.When visiting the museum, Ru Ling had already mentioned this surname unintentionally, and Aunt Bao’s name flashed across her mind in an instant, like a meteor passing through the earth’s atmosphere, burning, and engraving an indelible mark on Ruth’s heart. imprint.