Chapter 10 Chapter 8 Liming Childhood

In the summer of 1934, suddenly I fell ill. My trachea and lungs have been bad since I was a child. I got pneumonia twice during the summer vacation that year, and my life was dying. My parents were very worried. A doctor told them: "Her lungs should go to a dry place in the north, and it will be better." Grandma was still living in Beiping at that time, and when she learned of my illness, she wrote a letter and said: Send her to Peiping." My grandmother was also in poor health, and because of my father, she often went to "German hospitals" run by Germans. I remember taking the Jinpu Railway to Peiping with my father. I didn't know the real purpose of the trip, but because my father took me personally, I felt very happy.

The train seemed to go for two days and two nights. When I crossed the Yellow River Iron Bridge the next day, I sat in the dining car for the first time to eat.My father gave me the steak in small pieces and showed me how to cut it and how to hold a knife.I sat face to face with my father for the first time amidst the mighty rumble of the train passing by the long iron bridge. I remember the feeling of happiness clearly. After the diagnosis, the doctor at the Peking German Hospital said to my father: "If this child continues like this, I'm afraid it will be impossible to keep her. You'd better send her to a nursing home."

My father took me by the hand again and sent me to the "Xishan Nursing Home", a joint venture between Germans and Chinese, twenty miles away from the city, at the foot of Xishan. The sanatorium adopts Western-style management, and patients live in a room alone.Although I am the only child in the yard, I have to live alone. Every night, I was terrified when I slept alone in the room, and I was terrified even after living in it for a whole year. At that time, lung disease was a severe disease, some people could be cured, and some people could not be cured.Therefore, people often die in the hospital. After the death, the hospital will sprinkle lime in the room where the patient lived.I didn't understand at first, but later I learned that when lime is sprinkled, someone dies.What death is, I don't know, but I start crying at the sight of lime.

In the courtyard there was an old man who delivered meals, a white and strong man, probably in his thirties or forties at that time.He has a daughter who is about the same age as me, and he always calls me "girl".Every time I cry, Lao Wang says: "Girl, don't cry! I'll cook potatoes for you!" Potatoes are yams, which were my childhood favorite.I go out to eat with good friends until today, and whoever has a cooked, round potato will give it to me.I still feel sad every time I think about it. My grandmother, who is over 60 years old, takes a sedan chair twenty miles away to visit me in the nursing home every Saturday.Every time she was about to leave, I cried and wanted to get out of bed to chase after her, but I couldn't get out of bed, so I yelled on the bed:

"I'll go home with you! I'll go home with you!" Grandma's sedan chair had gone a long way, and she heard me crying, but she couldn't take me away.Once, when she was leaving, she also cried, and the tears flowed horizontally in the wrinkles. Until now, I don't understand why the ancients said "tears flow horizontally".... There was a female patient in the nursing home. I remember her name was Zhang Caiping. She was about twenty-five or six years old. I called her Sister Zhang. Lao Wang said that she was sick because of a broken relationship.She felt that my child was full of spirit and was very interested in me. I understood everything she said, and often secretly called me to her ward (the hospital forbids us to go to other people's wards).She has many books on new literature, most of which are Chinese translations around 1935.I have read all her books, and I still remember one translated by Lin Qinnan, and I liked his style very much at the time.

One afternoon, I remember very clearly that someone was throwing lime in her room, so I asked Lao Wang: "Why is there lime in Sister Zhang's room?" Old Wang said, "Girl, I'll cook potatoes for you." Although I don't know much about death, I know that she died too.That was the first time in my life that I saw death in relation to me, because lime had been thrown in my friend's room. I think I probably made too much trouble at that time, crying and crying all day, which made my grandmother suffer enough.I have always missed my grandmother throughout my life. From the beginning of her birth to her sickly old age, she had to worry about her granddaughter. I often feel that I owe her too much.A few years later, we were exiled from Hankou to Chongqing for a long time, and when we got the news of her death, I still found it hard to believe that the warm body that hugged me in winter would turn cold.

When my parents were seventy years old, they moved to Neihu to live in peace until their death. That was the period when we had the most reunions and the happiest period, and it was also the period when my father and I talked the most and the most closely.One day after dinner, he sent me to the lake to wait for the bus. I told him about my mood in the Xishan Nursing Home and how it affected me to be timid and afraid of the dark all my life. "You are so cruel, you sent me to the hospital on that barren mountain alone." He sighed and said: "In our time, very few people understood child psychology. I devoted myself to the revolution for many years, and I was born and died. I didn't know that children have such a complicated psychology. At that time, I sent you to a nursing home with one-third of my monthly salary. , I only hope that you can survive, relatives and friends say that I am a very good father!"

We sat on the bench waiting for the bus, silent for a long time, only to be surprised when the bus arrived. He must be thinking: "If I knew this at the time, what would I do?" But I know that I am lucky. My parents gave birth to me, raised me, and worked so hard to keep me. In the helpless year of living in the nursing home, reading was regarded as the only pastime, which gradually became a lifelong interest.Books are like magnets that attract me.Sometimes when I think back to the book relationship that is deeply rooted in my life, it can be called a lifelong blessing through misfortune.

I remember when I was discharged from the hospital, I saw the Chinese version of Adam at the home of a cousin who had returned from studying abroad.Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations), of course I can't understand it, but I am happy to read it.I seem to read whatever I catch. At the same time, I also read "Children's Magazine". There are cartoons about cats and dogs in it. I look down on them, but I also read them.I still remember drawing a dog in series with numbers, which I do too.

A year later, the doctor said I was cured, and my father took me back to Nanjing.My eldest sister is almost two years old. At first I went back to Gulou Primary School, but my classmates didn’t play with me. I realized later because their parents knew that I had tuberculosis and went to a nursing home.I still remember a classmate named Wan Fang, who was the closest to me at first, she was a pretty little beauty, one day she suddenly said to me: "My mother told me not to play with you." I don't know what I did Wrong thing?People who don't understand are afraid of infection.

Later, my family moved to Ninghai Road in the new community, which happened to transfer me to Shanxi Road Elementary School.Because he is a transfer student, the people who come and go are all transfer students and marginalized people who have been demoted, and they get along well.My composition is very good, the teacher took good care of me, my health gradually improved, and I graduated from elementary school without any worries. I have many lovely memories in that year.