Chapter 4 The Ace of Spades...A German soldier appears on a country road on a bicycle...

This great journey will take us into the hometown of many philosophers.The journey begins in Arendal, an old town on Norway's southern coast with a thriving shipping industry.We took the ferry "Bbolero".Starting from Kexinsang Kristiansand in Norway.Came to the town of Hirtshals in Denmark.I don't want to say much about the journey through Denmark and Germany, because apart from Legoland and the docks in Hamburg, all the way south, we see nothing but highways and farms.It wasn't until we reached the Alps that something really started to happen. Dad and I had a pact: I had to ride in the car on the way, and sometimes we had to spend the whole day in the car in order to get on the road, and we weren't allowed to complain.He promised not to smoke in the car and would stop by the side of the road to smoke a cigarette when the craving came on.Before arriving in Switzerland, the most memorable moments on the way were the moments when I stopped to let my father take two puffs of cigarettes.

Before "taking two puffs", Dad always likes to sigh and express all his thoughts and thoughts while driving (Dad drives all the way, and I stay in the back seat, reading comic books or playing cards to relieve boredom).His sighs are often related to his mother.Or else it was confusing and fascinating him - something else in his life. Dad has always been interested in robots since he returned to land after his career as a sailor.That in itself might be justifiable, but Dad's interest seemed a bit over the top.He insisted that one day scientists will create a batch of "artificial humans".The artificial people he was talking about were not metal robots with red and green eyes, hollow throats, and very stupid expressions.Oh no, that's not what Dad said.Dad believes that sooner or later, scientists will create humans who can think like us.His ideas were even more outlandish.He believed that we humans are also essentially artificial, artificial objects.

"We're just living dolls," he always said. As long as two cups of yellow soup are eaten every day, this sentence will come out. When we were at the Lego playground, Dad stood quietly, staring at the Lego toys.I asked him if he was thinking about his mother.He just shook his head. "Hans Thomas," Dad called my name, "think about it, if these dolls suddenly stood up and bounced around these plastic houses, what would we do?" "Dad, you are talking nonsense I can only answer him in this way. I always feel that a father who takes his children to the Lego playground should not say such things to his children.

I was about to ask my father for money to buy a piece of ice cream.You see, I've learned a trick: Before I ask my father for something, let him post some quirks.I know that occasionally a father feels guilty for speaking out in front of his son, and when one feels guilty, one becomes more generous.I was about to ask my dad for ice cream when he said, "Essentially, we're just living Lego figures." I knew the ice cream was going to get away because Dad started talking about the philosophy of life. We went all the way south and drove straight to Athens, but we weren't on vacation.In Athens—or at least somewhere in Greece—we, father and son, were going to find our mother.We weren't sure we'd find her, and even if we found her, we weren't sure she'd come home with us to Norway.But, Dad said, we have to try anyway, because we both feel that without her at home, we don't know how our father and son will live in the future.

When I was four years old.My mother ran away from home and abandoned me and my father.Maybe that's why I still call her "Mama" to this day.Our father and son depend on each other for life and understand each other more and more.Like" a pair of friends. One day I finally decided not to call him "Daddy". Mom ran to the outside world to find "self".At the time, my father and I felt that as a mother of a four-year-old, she should indeed find her self.I just don't get it. Do you have to get away from home to find yourself? Why not stay at home - here in Arendall - and sort things out? If you're still not satisfied, take a walk to neighboring Kexinsang for a walk ah.My advice to all my dear friends and sisters who want to find themselves: It is better to be quiet than to move, stay at home obediently, otherwise, not only will you not find yourself, but you will lose yourself from now on.

My mother has been away from us for so many years, and now I can't even remember what my mother looks like.All I remember is that she is prettier than other women.At least, that's what Dad always said.Dad also believes that the more beautiful a woman is, the harder it is to find herself. After my mother left, I was looking for her all the time.Every time I walk through the market square in Arendal, I always feel that my mother will suddenly appear in front of me.Whenever I visit my grandmother in Oslo, I go to Karl Johan Street to look for her.However, I never met my mother until one day my father brought back a Greek fashion magazine from outside.Isn't the girl on the cover my mother? There is also a photo of her on the inside page.

Judging from the photos, it is obvious that my mother has not yet found her self; the poses and expressions she poses in front of the camera can be seen as deliberate imitations of others.My father and I felt very sorry for her. My dad's aunt brought this magazine back from a trip to the Greek island of Crete.In Crete, magazines with my mother's picture on the cover hang from newsstands and fill the streets. You just throw a few pennies on the counter and the magazine is yours.When I think about it, I find it hilarious.We, father and son, have been looking for her all these years, and she turns up on the streets of Crete, posing and smiling at passers-by.

"Where did she go? What the hell is she fooling around with?" Dad scratched his scalp angrily.But in spite of himself, he still cut out the photos from the magazine and pasted them on the bedroom wall.He said that although the woman in the photo cannot be sure to be the mother, she always looks somewhat like her mother. It was at this time that my father decided to take me to Greece to find my mother. "Hans Thomas, father and son, we will go to Greece and drag her home," my father said to me. "Otherwise, I worry that she will drown in the mythical world of the fashion industry." I didn't understand what he meant at the time.I only know that when you wear clothes that are too big, your appearance will be drowned by the clothes, but I have never heard of a person drowning in a mythical world.now I understand.It turns out that myths can really drown people, and everyone should be extra careful.

Driving all the way south, when we stopped the car on the highway outside Hamburg for a couple of puffs, Dad started talking about his father.In fact, I have heard these things many times, but now standing by the road, watching the cars whizzing past, listening to the stories of my grandfather, the feeling is completely different. Did you know? My father was the bastard son of a German soldier.I will no longer be embarrassed to mention it, because now I know that illegitimate children are just as good as any other.That's easy to say, after all, I didn't have the kind of traumatic upbringing my dad had, being forced to grow up in a small conservative southern Norwegian town.

Perhaps because we set foot on the land of Germany, my father was touched by the scene and began to tell about the love between his grandfather and grandmother. Everyone knows that during World War II, food was very scarce.One day my grandmother Lini got on her bicycle and went to a place called Froland to pick some cranberries.She was seventeen years old when something happened to her on the road: her bicycle had a flat tire. My grandmother's trip to pick lingonberries is one of the most memorable events in my life.At first glance, this sounds a bit strange-how could the most important event in my life have happened more than 30 years before I was born? But think about it, if my grandmother's tire hadn't flattened that day, she My father would not be conceived in my stomach.Without my father in this world, of course there would be no me.

It happened like this: Grandmother had picked a basket full of huckleberries in Florin and was on her way home when the tire suddenly went flat.Of course, she didn't have any repair tools with her, but even if she had a thousand and one sets of repair tools, she couldn't fix that bicycle. At this time, a German soldier on a bicycle appeared on the country road.Although he is a German soldier, he is not as bold and high-spirited as ordinary German soldiers.The German soldier was gentle, courteous, and courteous to a young girl who was in trouble on her way home.Coincidentally, he had a set of car repair tools with him. At that time, if the German soldiers in Norway were really bad guys, as people think, things would not happen, because my grandfather would not pay attention to the girl who died on the road.Of course, the point is not here.At that time my grandmother should have kept a reserved attitude and sternly refused any help from a German soldier. The problem is, the German soldier grows fond of the suffering girl.This will be miserable.However, that was a few years later... Every time it comes to this point, Dad will light a cigarette to smoke. To make matters worse, Grandmother also took a liking to the German soldier.This was the biggest mistake she made.The German soldiers helped her repair her bicycle, and she not only said thank you, but actually accompanied him all the way to the town of Arendal.This big girl is too ignorant.The worst thing is that she agreed to meet this German soldier named Unterfeldwebel Ludwig Messner again. In this way, the grandmother became the lover of the German soldiers.Love is a blind thing, and the choice is not in our hands, but before falling in love with the German soldier, grandma could always choose not to see him again.Of course, she didn't do this, and she would suffer in the end. Grandmother and grandfather have been meeting secretly.Her dealings with the Germans—once the townspeople found out, she couldn't stay in Arendal any longer.The Norwegian common people had only one way of fighting the German occupying forces, and that was not to deal with them. In 1944, Ludwig Meissner was hastily transferred back to Germany to participate in the defense of the Eastern Frontier of the Third Reich.He never got a chance to say goodbye to my grandmother.He boarded a train at Allendale Railway Station, and since then he has never been heard from, and the whole person disappeared.After the war, my grandmother inquired everywhere about his whereabouts, but after a while, she also had to believe that her lover was killed by Russian soldiers on the eastern battlefield. If Grandma hadn't been pregnant, Florin's bike trip and what followed would have been forgotten.My grandfather traveled with the troops to the Eastern Front and had a good time with my grandmother, but it was not until several weeks later that my grandmother knew that she was pregnant. According to Dad, every time Er Er talked about what happened next, he would light another cigarette. Shortly before the liberation of the Norwegian people in May 1945, my father left his mother's womb and fell to the ground.As soon as the Germans surrendered, my grandmother was arrested by the Norwegian people. The Norwegian people hated the Norwegian girl who was with the German soldiers the most.Unfortunately, there were quite a few such girls, but it was those who had children with German soldiers who ended up miserable.In fact, my grandmother dated my grandfather because she loved him, not because she believed in Nazism.Grandfather himself was not a Nazi.Before he was caught on the train and forcibly deported to Germany, he negotiated with his grandmother to find an opportunity for the two of them to cross the border together and escape to Sweden.Unfortunately, there were rumors at the time that the Swedish border guards were ordered to shoot any German deserters who crossed the border, so my grandfather and grandmother were afraid to go ahead. The townspeople of Allendale treated my grandmother harshly.They shaved her head, beat and kicked her, and didn't care that she had just given birth.To be honest, the German soldier Ludwig Meissner is much more civilized than these Norwegian people. With a bare head, the grandmother fled to Oslo to join her uncle Trygve and aunt Ingrid.If she continued to stay in Arendall, she might lose her life.It happened to be spring at that time, but my grandmother had to wear a felt hat because her head was as bald as a man in his seventies or eighties.Her mother stayed in Arendall, and her grandmother did not return to her hometown with her son, my father, until five years later. Neither my grandmother nor my father wanted to justify what happened in Florin.They just want to know how much punishment their mother and child will suffer? How many generations of people will be affected by a crime? Of course, pregnancy out of wedlock is unforgivable, and on this point, the grandmother never shirks responsibility.She just doesn't understand why people don't let innocent children go. I've thought about this for a long time.Dad came into this world because of the fall of man, but aren't we all descendants of Adam and Eve? I know the comparison is a bit of a stretch.Whereas the story of Adam and Eve revolves around apples, the story of my grandfather and grandmother involved lingonberries.However, the bicycle tire that pulls grandfather and grandmother together like an old man under the moon looks a bit like the snake that tempted Adam and Eve. Anyway, as a woman who is a mother knows, you can't be sorry for a child who has already been born;More importantly, you can't take your anger out on your child. I also believe that the illegitimate children of German soldiers also have the right to a happy life.On this point, my father and I don't quite agree. The father in his childhood was not only an illegitimate child, but also an evil seed left by the enemy.In the town of Allendale, although the adults stopped punching and kicking the "collaborators", the children refused to let the poor bastards go.There is a kind of imitation, children imitate the evil deeds of adults, and they are often better than blue.This time.My father suffered a lot when he was a child.He swallowed his anger until he was seventeen years old when he decided to leave his beloved town of Arendall and seek a living at sea.Seven years later he returned to his hometown.At that time, he had already met my mother in Kexinsang. They moved into an old house on Hisoy Island, where I was born on February 29, 1972.Of course, from a certain point of view, I am also to blame for what happened in Floran.This is what everyone calls "original sin". As the illegitimate son of a German soldier, my father had a very unhappy childhood. After he grew up, he lived at sea for several years. He inevitably got into the habit of drinking, and he liked to have a drink or two when he was free.But I found that Dad was not just trying to forget the past.In fact, as soon as he had two glasses of yellow soup, he began to talk about his grandfather and grandmother, and began to tell his tragic experience as the illegitimate child of German soldiers.As he talked, sometimes he couldn't help feeling sad and wept loudly. I found that under the stimulation of alcohol, his memories became clearer, like a spring. On the highway outside Hamburg, after telling me about the events of his life again, my father said: "Then your mother disappeared. You went to nursery school and she got her first job as a dance teacher. Then she switched to modeling, She went to Oslo every three days, and sometimes went to Stockholm. One day, she suddenly didn’t come home. She only left us a letter. The letter said that she found a job abroad. I don’t know when to come back. When people say this, they usually mean that they will only be away for a week or two and will come back, but your mother has been away for more than eight years..." I have heard this sentence many times, but this is especially for Dad. A few words: "In our family, there are always people missing, and some people disappearing.Hans Thomas, I think it's a family curse I shudder to hear Papa say "curse".I sat in the car thinking about this question, and felt that what my father said made sense. Our father and son, one lost his father and wife, and the other lost his grandfather and mother. Dad must have other lost relatives in his heart, but he didn't tell them.When my grandmother was a child, her father was crushed to death by a fallen tree.Therefore, in the process of growing up, she did not have a father who cared for her and disciplined her.No wonder, she would hang out with a German soldier who was about to go to the battlefield to die and gave birth to a son. No wonder, when the son grew up, he married a woman who ran away from home after marriage and went to Athens to find her "self".