Chapter 9 Poor motherly heart

Poor motherly heart ——Wu Jingmei's story one Mom believes that in America, any dream can become a reality.You can do whatever you want: open a restaurant, or work in government for a great retirement package.You can buy a house without paying a dime in cash.You may make a fortune, or you may stand out, anyway, opportunities are everywhere. When I was nine, my mother said to me, "You can be a genius too. You'll be great at everything. What is Aunt Linda?Her daughter is just a little more thoughtful. " Mom pinned all her unfulfilled wishes and hopes on the land of the United States.She came to America in 1949.In China, she lost everything: her parents, her home, her ex-husband and her twin daughters.But she never looks back at the past with mournful eyes. Right now, she has too many plans in order to arrange her life better.

two As for what kind of genius I will become, Mom is not in a hurry to make a final decision right away.At first, she thought I could be a Chinese Shirley Temple.We never let go of Shirley Temple's old movies on TV. Whenever this happened, my mother would raise my arm and wave it to the screen frequently: "You—look," this is in Chinese.And I did see Xiulan put on a light dance, or sing a sailor song, and sometimes, she pursed her lips into a round "0" and said "Oh, my God". When Xiulan's eyes on the screen were filled with crystal clear tears, my mother said again: "Look, you will cry a long time ago.

It doesn't take a genius to cry! " Immediately, Mom has a training goal.She took me to a barber shop run by a beauty training course near us, and handed me over to a trainee.This student couldn't even handle scissors. After some tossing by her, my hair turned into a pile of uneven curly grass.Mom said sadly: "Look, you look like a black Chinese." The instructor of the beauty training class had to go out and use the scissors to repair the wet ball on my head. "Peter Pan style is very fashionable these days," the instructor boasted to Ma. My hair has been cut boyishly, with thick bangs in front that reach my eyebrows.I liked the haircut a lot and it convinced me that I had a bright future ahead of me.

Indeed, at the beginning, I was as excited as my mother, maybe even more excited.I dreamed of my various genius images, like a ballet dancer who has already posed beautifully on the side of the sky, just waiting for the music to rise, that is, dancing on tiptoe.I'm like a baby in a manger, a Cinderella from a pumpkin carriage... Anyway, I think that I will become perfect immediately: my parents will praise me, I will not be scolded anymore, I will have everything I want, and I don’t need to be angry because I don’t get something I want. However, it seems that the genius itself is quite impatient with me: "If you don't become a talent, I will leave, and I will never patronize you again," it warned, "In this way, you will have nothing. "

Every day after dinner, my mother and I sat at the kitchen table, and she gave me some intelligence tests every day. These test questions were collected from magazines such as "Believe It or Not", "Good Housekeeping", and "Reader's Digest" of.In the bathroom at home we had a bunch of these old magazines that Mom got from the houses where she worked as a cleaner.Every week, she works as a cleaner for several households.So here are all kinds of old magazines, from which she searches for all kinds of intellectual development of gifted children and their process of becoming talents.

The night the test began, she told me the story of a three-year-old prodigy who could recite the capitals of the states and even the names of most European countries by heart.Another teacher testified that the little boy could spell the names of foreign cities without error. "Where is the capital of Finland?" So, my mother started testing me on the spot. God, I only know the capital of California!Because the name of the street we live in Chinatown is called Sacramento. "Nirobi!" I uttered an inexplicable, strangest foreign word imaginable. The tests got more complicated: mental multiplication, drawing the Queen of Hearts from a deck of cards, doing a handstand, and predicting the temperature in Los Angeles, New York, and London.

Another time, Mom asked me to read the Bible for three minutes and then tell me what I had read. "Now, the Lord has riches and honor...Mom, I only remember this sentence." After seeing my mother's disappointed eyes again, the excitement and longing for success in my heart disappeared.I've come to hate tests like these, each one starting with hope and ending with disappointment.Before going to bed that night, I stood in front of the bathroom washbasin mirror and saw a plain, unremarkable mourning face—and I cried.I screamed and stomped like an angry little animal trying to grab the face of the ugly girl in the mirror.

Then, suddenly, I seemed to have discovered the true genius of myself. The girl in the mirror blinked at me with smart and tough eyes, and a new thought rose from my heart: I am me, and I don’t want her Come and change me at will.I swore to myself that I would always be the same me. So later, whenever my mother asked me to do some tests again, I put on a listless look, put my elbows on the table, leaned my head lazily on it, and pretended to be absent-minded.In fact, I really can't concentrate.When Mom started her test class again, I began to listen intently to the sound of the waves in the misty bay, the muffled sound of a cow panting and running.After a few downs, Mom gave up on my test.

Two or three months passed without incident, during which time the word "genius" was never mentioned.One day Ma was watching TV, and it was an Ed Solivan feature, and a little girl was playing a solo piano.This is a very old TV, and the sound is intermittent and sometimes even stops.Whenever it was dumb, Mom would get up and adjust it. Before she could get to the TV, the TV started talking again, as if she was trying to tease her. Anyway, as soon as she got off the sofa, the TV would stop There was a noise, and as soon as she sat down, Ed went dumb.In the end, Mom simply stayed by the TV and pressed her hand on the keyboard.

The sound of the piano on TV seemed to fascinate her. She saw the player beating the keys vigorously and softly. Seeing her raise her wrist, the excited and rapid melody disappeared immediately, and the poetic and gentle notes flowed out from under her fingertips. "You—look!" My mother said, calling me to the TV in a hurry. I immediately understood why Mom was so fascinated by the sound of the piano.It turned out that the performer who was curtseying to the audience was only about eight or nine years old.And it's also a Chinese girl with a Peter Pan hair style.She wore a fluffy white skirt, like a carnation in bud.When she saluted gracefully, she had Shirley Temple's liveliness and typical Chinese humility.

Our family doesn't have a piano anyway, and we don't have the money to buy one, so when my mother repeatedly brought up this little pianist as a topic, I lost my vigilance and started talking big. "She plays pretty well, but why doesn't she sing along." My mother criticized the girl to me. "You are too demanding," I slipped out accidentally! "She plays pretty well. Although it can't be said to be the best, at least she has worked hard." As soon as I said that, I regretted it. Sure enough, Mom grabbed my pigtail. "So," she said, "but you don't even want to do any hard work." With a slightly sullen face, she went back to the sofa. The Chinese girl on TV also sat down again and played "Anitola's Dance", which was composed by Glinka.The reason why I was so impressed is because later, I spent a lot of time learning to play it. Three days later, my mother made me a schedule for piano lessons and piano practice.It turned out that she had already negotiated with a retired piano teacher on the first floor of our apartment. Mom would work as a cleaner for him for free. The violin for my practice. When Mom told me her plan, my scalp tingled and I felt like I was being sent to purgatory. "Isn't it great that I am like this now! I am not a child prodigy, and I will never become a genius! I can't play the piano, and I can't learn it. Even if you give me a million yuan, I will never be on TV! ’ I cried and stomped my feet. Mom gave me a slap immediately. "Who wants you to be a genius," she scolded me sharply, "as long as you try your best. Isn't it all for your own good! Could it be that I want you to be a genius? What good does it do me if you become a genius? Hmph, what the hell am I worrying about!" "Has no conscience!" I heard her grumble in Chinese, "If only her talent was as strong as her temper, she would have made a name for herself!" That Mr. Zhong, I privately call him Old Zhong, is a very weird old man.He seemed very old, bald on the top of his head, wearing glasses as thick as the bottom of a pair of beer bottles, in layers of circles, his eyes looked sleepy all day long.He would often leisurely direct unheard music to an unseen orchestra.But I think he must not be as old as I imagined, because he still has a mother.Moreover, he is not married yet. That Mrs. Zhong really made me suffer.She smelled weird, that... urine smell.Her fingers looked like rotten peaches.Once I touched a rotten peach like this in the back of the refrigerator. When I picked it up, the skin slipped off. I soon understood why Lao Zhong had to retire.It turned out that he was deaf. "Like Beethoven," he often likes to speak in a loud voice, "we both listen with our hearts!" Drunkenly waving his arms. This is how our courses work.He opened the score first, pointed to the various marks, and explained to me what they represent: "This is the treble clef! The bass clef! The one without sharps and flats is in the key of C. Here, follow me. " Then he played a few C scales, a set of simple chords, and then, agitated by an unquenchable longing, his fingers struck more chords on the keys, as if in an outpouring of emotion, and he A vibrating tremolo popped out, and then a bass was added. The whole atmosphere had a heroic and thunderous spirit. I just followed him, simple scales and chords at first, and then it was a little messy, just random noises, like a cat running around on the top of a garbage hole.But Lao Zhong applauded loudly: "Good! Very good, but you have to learn to master the speed of playing." What he said made me realize that his eyesight was failing, and he didn't have time to compare it with the score to verify whether I had pressed the correct notes.His gaze was half a beat slower than mine.When he taught me how to play the arpeggios, he put a few coins on my wrist to train my wrist to maintain balance.When playing chords, I am required to hold my hand in a hollow arc, as if holding an apple in my palm.Then, he demonstrated to me how to make each finger obey the command of the brain like an independent soldier. As he taught me this whole set of techniques, I also learned how to be lazy and cover up my mistakes.If I hit a wrong key, I never correct it, I just keep playing.And Lao Zhong, on the other hand, directs his own silent music. Maybe, I really haven't worked hard, otherwise, I think I'm very likely to make a difference in this area; maybe I will really become a young pianist.I learned the piano like this, and I quickly mastered the basic essentials and skills.But I was so obstinate, so obstinate in my refusal to be different, that I only learned to play the deafening preludes and the most dissonant hymns. I just went my own way and studied for a year.After one day's service, I heard Mom and Aunt Linda boasting to each other about their daughters in a showy tone. "Hey, Waverley has brought back too many prizes," Aunt Linda said in a tone that seemed to be complaining, but was really boastful. "She just plays chess all day, and I'm so busy. Every day , Just wiping the prizes she took home is enough for me to be busy." Waverly was my age.We grew up playing together, like sisters, fighting and fighting over crayons and dolls.In other words, we're not too friendly.I think she is too arrogant.Waverly has a great reputation and is known as "the smallest chess master in Chinatown". After complaining proudly, Aunt Linda took a long breath and said to her mother, "You are so lucky, you don't have such troubles." "Who said," mother shrugged her shoulders high, and said with a kind of triumphant helplessness, "I'm more worried than you. Our beauty is full of music, tell her to wash the basin, you are dumb She can't hear her voice either. What can I do, she's born with such a distraught look about music!" It was at this time that I had the idea of ​​revenge to stop her ridiculous comparison. A few weeks later, Zhong and my mom tried to get me on stage at a fellowship that was going to be held in a church hall.At that time, my parents had saved enough money to buy me an old piano. It was a black Ulitz brand with a scarred piano bench.It's also a fixture in our living room. At that fellowship, I will be playing Schumann's "The Petitioning Children."It's a melancholic piece with simple playing techniques, but it still sounds like it's a bit difficult.I had to recite it and play it twice on the repeat to make it sound longer.But when I was playing, I often cut corners and skipped several sections.I never listen carefully to the notes I play, and I'm always a little absent-minded when I play. What I like to practice most is the curtsy, which I can already do very beautifully. My parents enthusiastically invited all my friends from the Joy Luck Club to cheer me on, even Waverly and her two older brothers came.Performers perform on stage in order of age, from youngest to oldest.There were poetry reciters, ballet dancers, and duck-quacking sounds on children's violins.At the end of each performance, there was warm applause. When it was my turn to play, I was very excited.It was pure childish confidence, and I didn't know how to be afraid and nervous.I remember at that time, I kept thinking like this in my heart: that's the way it is, that's the way it is!I glanced into the audience and saw Mom's blank face, Dad's yawning, Aunt Linda's engraved smile, Waverly's elongated face.I was wearing a white skirt with layers of lace and a big pink bow in my Peter Pan hair.When I sat down at the piano, I imagined that Ed Solivan was introducing me to everyone in front of the TV screen, and the audience in the audience were all excited and stomping their feet. My hands touched the keys.How nice, I look so cute!I have no worries about what the scales I'm pressing will be like.So I was a little surprised myself when I got the first scale wrong, thinking I was going to play it really well.No, it's another mistake, what happened?I started to feel cold air on the top of my head, and then slowly dissipated.But I can't stop playing.My fingers seem to be possessed, talking to themselves a bit, and despite my best efforts to readjust them, like putting the train back on the right track, the fingers just won't listen.Anyway, from beginning to end, it is such a messy and jarring pile! When I finally stood up from the stool, I found my legs were shaking, probably because I was too nervous.There was silence all around, only Lao Zhong laughed and applauded loudly.In the crowd, I saw Mom's livid face.The audience clapped their hands sparsely a few times.Back in my seat, my whole face twitched, and I tried my best not to cry.At this time, a little boy whispered to his mother, "She plays terrible!" His mother stopped him softly: "Shh! But she tried her best." All of a sudden, it seemed to me that the whole world was sitting in the audience.I just feel that thousands of eyes are staring at me from behind, hot.I even felt the embarrassment and embarrassment of the parents who were standing upright and supporting the show. In fact, we could slip away during the intermission, but out of vanity and self-esteem, my parents insisted on sitting until the end of the show. After the performance, members of the Xu family, the Gong family and the St. Clair family from the Joy Luck Club all came to their parents: "That's right, what a capable kid!" Aunt Linda just muttered vaguely, showing an engraved smile. "Of course. The article is good for me, and the child is good for others." The father said with a wry smile. Waverly looked at me, shrugged her shoulders, and said bluntly: "You can't do it, you're not as good as me!" If I didn't have self-knowledge and really felt that I really didn't perform very well, I would definitely go up and pull her braids . But what surprised me the most was my mother.Her face was full of indifference and despair, that is to say, she was discouraged. I also feel discouraged.Now everyone is crowding around us, like spectators in a car accident, wanting to see what the unfortunate guy under the wheel is like!Mom didn't say a word until we got on the bus home.I thought to myself that as soon as Mom stepped into the house, she would explode at me.However, when Dad opened the door, Mom walked into the bedroom alone, still without a scolding or a complaint.I am disappointed.Otherwise, I can just take the opportunity to cry a lot to vent the pent-up fuss. I thought that this fiasco would free me from the piano and I wouldn't have to practice the piano anymore. Unexpectedly, two days later, when my mother came out of the kitchen and saw that I was already watching TV leisurely, she urged me to practice the piano again: "It's four o'clock." She reminded me as usual.I was shocked, as if she was telling me to go back to that fraternity embarrassment again.I hold the back of the chair firmly. "Turn off the TV!" Five minutes later, she poked her head out of the kitchen to warn me. I don't say anything.But I made up my mind that I would never be at her mercy again.I am not her slave, this is not China.I used to be at her mercy, but what happened?How stupid of her to do that! Choking, she came out of the kitchen and stood in the hallway by the living room door. "Four o'clock!" she repeated, raising her voice a few notches. "I don't play the piano anymore," I said quietly. "Why do I have to play the piano? I don't have the talent." She moved to stand in front of the TV, her chest heaving with anger like a pump. "No." I felt more determined, and finally dared to express my true will. "No!" I screamed. Mom took my arms, turned off the TV with a snap, and lifted me up to the piano. Her strength was terrifying. I desperately kicked the carpet under my feet, struggling, sobbing, and looking at her in pain.Her breasts rose and fell more violently, and she grinned wildly, as if my howling pleased her. "I can't be the daughter you want me to be," I whimpered. "I can't be the daughter you want me to be." "There have always been only two kinds of daughters in the world," she said loudly in Chinese, "the obedient ones and the disobedient ones. In my house, only the obedient daughters are allowed to live in!" "Then, I hope I'm not your daughter, and you're not my mother!" I cried, and when the words came out of my mouth, I just felt that such hideous things as toads, lizards, and scorpions , also spit out from my chest.That's okay, it made me see the terrible side of myself. "But, it's too late for you to change the facts!" Mom shouted angrily. I sensed that her anger was reaching its limit, and I wanted to watch it explode.I immediately thought of her twins who were lost in China.About them, we never mentioned them in our conversations.This time, I yelled loudly at her: "Then, I hope I am not born, I hope I am dead, just like the pair of twins in Guilin!" As if I had chanted some spell, she froze for a moment, let go of her hand, and staggered back to her room without saying a word, like a fallen leaf in autumn, thin and fragile, lifeless vitality. three This wasn't the only time my mother disappointed me.I have let her down many times over the years.Because of my stubbornness, my protection of my rights, my grades can't reach the A level, I can't be the monitor, I can't get into Stanford University, I dropped out of school... Contrary to my mother, I never believed that I could be anyone I wanted to be.I can only be myself. In the years that followed, we never talked about that ill-fated fraternity disaster or my terrible struggle at the piano afterward.All this we never mention again, like a concluded treason case.Therefore, I can't find a topic to ask her why she has such high hopes for me. What's more, I never asked her, what puzzled me the most, why did she finally give up that hope? After that dispute over piano practice, she never asked me to practice piano again.No more piano lessons.The lid is locked and shut tight, alas, my disaster, her dream! A few years ago, she did another thing that surprised me.She gave me this piano for my thirtieth birthday.For years, I never touched that piano.Now, she's giving it to me for my birthday.I think this is an expression of forgiveness, and the guilt that has weighed on me for many years is finally relieved. "Oh, you really gave it to me?" I said sheepishly, "Are you and Dad willing?" "No, this was your piano," she said unequivocally. "It was always yours. Only you can play it." "Oh, I'm afraid I probably won't play anymore," I said, "for so many years!" "You'll remember it again soon enough," said Ma, quite sure, "that you've got a talent for it, and you could really do something about it if you just put in the work." "No, it's impossible." "You just don't want to try it," Ma continued, neither angry nor frustrated, as if she was just telling a fact that could never be approved. "Take it!" she said. However, at first I didn't take the violin away right away.It is still quietly placed in the living room of my mother's house, in front of the back window frame.Every time I look at it after typing this, it always gives me a sense of pride, as if it were a prize of honor I once won. Last week, I had a tuner come over to my parents' apartment, purely out of sentimentality.Mom passed away a few months ago.Dad gave me some of her relics, and every time I went there, I brought back some.I kept my jewelry in a brocade pouch, and the sweaters she knitted herself: yellow, pink, orange—all my least favorite colors.I put them one by one in a mothproof box.I also found a few old silk cheongsams, the kind with rolling strips on the side and slits on the sides.I touched them to my cheeks and rubbed them lightly, feeling a warm touch in my heart, then wrapped them carefully in soft paper and took them home. The piano is well tuned, and the sound is more mellow and clear than I remember. This is really a high-quality piano. In the piano bench, my exercise notebook and handwritten scales are still there.An old piano score with its cover peeled off, carefully tied with a yellow ribbon. I turned the score to Schumann's "Petitioning Children", which was the one that made me lose my face at the fraternity party.It seemed more difficult than I remembered.I fumbled with the keys and played a few bars, surprised that I could memorize the score so quickly and cope with it with ease. For the first time, I just discovered that the right side of this song is "Zhen Mei". Its melody is more lively and brisk, but its style is very similar to "Petitioning Children". A more expansive display, full of comfort and confidence, smooth and harmonious, easy to play. "Petitioning Children" is a little shorter than that, but a little slower. "Zhenmei" should be longer, and the rhythm should be lighter.After I played these two pieces of music several times, I suddenly realized that these two pieces of music are actually two variations on the same theme. Notes from the United States When the mother saw a large cabinet with a mirror embedded opposite the bed in her daughter's new house, she exclaimed: "How can you put the mirror facing the bed? It will wash away your newlywed joy dropped." "Ugh, it's the most suitable place to put it here, and it doesn't look good in other places." The daughter said, a little annoyed. She had heard enough of Ma's clichés, had had enough! The mother frowned, and took out a gold-rimmed mirror from her brand-new handbag that had only been used twice. It was specially bought from the Paris Club last week, and it was a gift for her daughter's housewarming. "Fortunately, I still have this, let me help you design where to hang it." She said, she put it above the head of the bed, and gestured in the middle of the pillows on both sides: "It's here to hang." The mother knocked on the wall and said, "Use this If you use a mirror to reflect on it, then the mirror will be removed, and the luck will remain, and a little luck will be added.” "What is peach blossom luck?" The mother smiled slyly, and pointed to the mirror, "Here, look, am I wrong? Here, I have seen my little grandson in the mirror, and next spring, he can hug him It's in my hands." The daughter also looked into the mirror, only to see her own blank face.