Chapter 18 18. The Two Sides of Love

We are lovers.We can't stop not loving. —— Duras I remember that two years ago I was sent by the magazine to Hong Kong to do a group of special interviews on "Return". Every night when I finished my work day, I would sit on the stone steps of Victoria Harbor and stare at the stars, looking up at the stars. Almost broke.Every once in a while, I will be in such a state of ecstasy, forgetting the existence of everything around me for a moment, even forgetting myself.There are probably only a few thin protein cells breathing quietly in the head, just like the scene where a trace of blue smoke quietly rises.

Writing puts me in that state from time to time, except that I'm looking down at some stars that twinkle in some impromptu words.I felt like I had nirvana at that moment, that is to say, I was no longer afraid of illness, accidents, loneliness or even death, I was immune to all of them. And real life is always the opposite.I look through a window, and I see human figures intertwined like dark branches, and I see longing, distant, suffering faces of those who love me and those I love. On the edge of the playground of Pudong American School, I met the Mark family.Mark looks very handsome today, which may be related to the bright sunshine and the natural and pleasant environment around him.This aristocratic school that is only open to foreign children seems to be built on the clouds, isolated from the dust of ordinary life. The whole campus has a kind of freshness that has been washed, and even the air seems to have been sterilized.This damn upper-class sentiment.

Mark chews his gum and greets us with poise.Introduce his wife to Zhu Sha and me. "This is Eva," Eva's hand took him, more beautiful and plump than I saw in the photo, with a head of pale yellow hair tied in a simple bunch behind her head, and a row of silver studs on her ears, The black sweater brought out her white skin even more, that white has the fragrance of honey juice in the sun, making people feel like a dream. The beauty of a white woman can sink a thousand sails (such as Helen of Troy), but relatively speaking, the beauty of a yellow woman is tight-lipped, always as if she had stepped down from the moon cards of the previous glamorous era (such as Sandy Lam or Gong Li).

"This is Judy, my colleague in the company, and this is Judy's cousin CoCo, a great writer." Mark said.Eva squinted in the sun, smiled, and shook our hands, "This is my son BB." He picked up the baby from the stroller, kissed him, teased him for a while, and then put the baby in his arms. Handed it to Eva, "It's time for me to play." He kicked his legs, gave me a sideways glance with a smile, picked up a bag of clothes and walked to the locker room. Zhu Sha was chatting with Eva all the time. I sat idly on the grass beside me. After thinking about it for a while, I felt that from the first time I saw Mark’s wife, I was not as jealous as I expected. On the contrary, I also liked Eva. Who told her so beautiful, people always like beautiful things.Or am I really a nice girl, and I am also relieved to see people with happy families?oh god.

The game will start soon.I kept my eyes on Mark, his healthy and vivid figure running back and forth on the football field, his blond hair fluttering in the wind, which was also an exotic dream of mine.His speed, muscle and strength have been publicly exhibited in front of more than a hundred spectators. I believe that many sports are essentially a large-scale sexual carnival with collective participation. Adrenaline, that's the smell that wafts through the air. Some campus students were drinking coke and yelling, Eva continued to chat with Zhu Sha (as if this was more interesting than watching her husband compete), and my underwear was already wet.I've never been more hungry for Mark than I am right now.Let me fall into his arms like an apple shaken by the wind.

"CoCo, you published a collection of novels a few years ago." Cinnabar suddenly interrupted my attention. "Oh yes," I said, and I saw Eva smiling at me. "I'm very interested. I wonder if I can still buy it now?" she said in English. "I'm afraid I can't buy it anymore, but I still have a copy I can give you, but it's all written in Chinese." I said. "Oh, thank you. I'm planning to learn Chinese. Chinese culture is very interesting. Shanghai is the most desirable city I've ever seen." Her face was rosy, and she was a juicy young Caucasian woman. "If you are free, how about coming to my house for dinner next weekend?" She sent out an invitation.

I hid my nervousness and looked at Zhu Sha, could it be a Hongmen Banquet? "Judy will come too, and some of our German friends," Eva said. "I'm going back to Germany next week. You know, I work in the government's environmental protection department and can't take long vacations. Germans love environmental protection to the point of being paranoid." point.” She smiled, “In my country, there are no smoking three-wheelers, and no one hangs clothes to dry on the sidewalk.” "Oh." I nodded, thinking that Germany might be the closest place to heaven, "Well then, I'll come."

I think she may not be the very smart kind of woman, but maybe generous and lovely. The little BB in the stroller yelled loudly, "PAPA, PAPA." I turned around and saw Mark jumping with his fist, he had just scored a ball.He blew us a kiss from a distance, and Eva looked at me, and we both laughed. When I was looking for the bathroom in the teaching building, Zhu Sha asked me if I thought Eva was cute? "Maybe, it makes people feel more pessimistic about marriage." "Really?—it seems Mark loves her very much." "Marriage experts say just because a person really loves his partner doesn't mean he will remain faithful to his partner for life."

In the restroom I found a funny poster cartoon of a green jungle with a giant question mark: "What is the scariest animal in the world?" Coming out of the bathroom, Zhu Sha and I said the answer in unison: "Human." At halftime, everyone drank soda and joked.I had a chance to say a few words with Mark: "Your family is lovely." "Yeah." The expression on his face was objective. "Do you love your wife?" I asked softly.I don't want to go around in circles with him, the straight-forward approach sometimes gives people pleasure, so I looked at him with bad intentions.

"Are you jealous?" he asked back. "Joke, I'm not a fool." "Of course." He shrugged, looked aside, greeted an acquaintance, then turned to smile at me. "You are the banshee who sings at night. According to the legend of our country, this banshee haunts the Rhine. She will climb the rocks and lure the boatmen to die on the rocks with her singing." "It's really unfair. You were the one who seduced me from the beginning." Eva came over, hugged her husband's shoulders, stretched out her face and kissed her. "What are you talking about?" She smiled suspiciously.

"Oh, CoCo is telling a new story," Mark said casually. Dick came to look for Zhu Sha before the end of the game. He was dressed in simple but fashionable clothes, his hair was done with hairspray, and the front of his forehead was slightly raised.But there is a strange scar on the left cheek, which seems to be a recent injury, and it was scraped with a sharp object.He exchanged a few pleasantries with me, but luckily he didn't ask me about the progress of my novel writing.Recently, I can't stand people asking about novels as soon as they see me. It makes me nervous. "What happened to your face?" I asked, pointing to the scar on his face. "Being beaten." He simply said.I opened my mouth, thinking it was really strange, who could he mess with?I looked at Zhu Sha, and she made a gesture, as if to indicate that the matter was over and there was no need to mention it. Suddenly a flash of light flashed in my mind, could it be that crazy woman, Madonna?She kept saying that she was not reconciled, would she find someone to teach her ex-boyfriend a lesson in this way?If so, it's a really violent complex. These days, Madonna is not in Shanghai. She took her credit card to Hong Kong for a shopping spree and will live there for a while.A few nights ago, she called me and told me a bunch of nagging dreams. She said that she had been to the most famous mage in Hong Kong, Wang Banxian, and she was told that she had bad luck recently. Going to Hong Kong is the right way to go. Zhu Sha and Ah Dick are going to buy wall paint together at the show shop, and Ah Dick helped design Zhu Sha's house in Ruixin Garden.It is said that it is planned to paint a retro paint on the wall, elegant ochre, smooth and thick texture, which can make people feel like they are on the banks of the Seine River, because it is only produced in France, with the taste of the salon in the 1930s. There are not many shops selling this kind of paint, they heard that there is one in Pudong, a costume and performance complex. Before the game was over, they left together, and I stayed on the sidelines by myself until the game was over.The result was that Mark's team won. Mark came out of the locker room with wet hair. He changed his jersey and walked over here.Eva and I have been exchanging our views on the similarities and differences of Chinese and Western female consciousness and culture.She believes that in the West, a woman with a little sense of feminism will be admired by men.I said, "Really?" Then our conversation was over, and Eva turned to kiss her husband. "How about going shopping together for a while?" She asked me. In the Yaohan department store in Pudong, Eva took the elevator to the gift counter on the third floor alone to see ceramics and silk products. Mark and I sat in a corner of the cafe downstairs, drinking coffee and teasing BB from time to time. "Do you love her?... I'm sorry, I'm not polite to ask, it's just a matter between the two of you." I played with a piece of sugar cube, and looked at the opposite pillar, which was painted creamy yellow with some paintings on it. Decorative patterns, just enough to block the view of people entering and leaving the store. "She's a kind woman." Mark answered irrelevantly, holding his son's little hand with one hand. "Yeah, almost everyone is kind. Including you, including me." I said sarcastically.Although this slightly jealous emotion does not fit the rules of this erotic game between us.The most important of these rules is to maintain a normal mind at all times and without any tendency to sentimentality or jealousy. There is a good saying, "If you make a decision, do it, and if you do it, you have to bear everything." "What were you thinking?" he asked. "Wondering what the hell is going on with my life. And wondering... are you going to make me miserable?" I stared at him, "Will there be such a day?" He didn't speak, and I was suddenly overtaken by a feeling like melancholy. "Kiss me," I whispered, leaning back against the table.He hesitated for a moment, then moved closer to the table, and brought his face over, leaving a wet and warm kiss on my lips. Almost as soon as we moved away at the same time, I saw the figure of Eva flashing from behind the pillar, smiling and carrying a full shopping bag.Mark's expression was also adjusted in almost a second. He took the things from his wife and joked with her lightly in German, which I couldn't understand, (I guess it was a joke, because she quickly Laughing), I watched their couple's loving behavior like an outsider, and I said goodbye to them. "See you at the dinner table next weekend," Eva said. When I boarded the cruise ship crossing the river at the pier, the weather became very bad, and lead gray clouds piled up above my head like a big mess.The river water was a turbid yellow, with scattered plastic bottles, rotten fruits, cigarette butts and other garbage floating around.The surface of the water is slightly wrinkled, like a soiled chocolate milkshake.The shimmer makes the eyes slightly uncomfortable.Behind is the Lujiazui financial district with many high-rise buildings, and in front is the majestic Bund buildings.A black and old cargo ship came from the right, with red cloth floating on the stern of the cargo ship, which looked weird. I breathed the cool, fermented air, and saw the Puxi pier getting closer, I had a sudden feeling, as if I had experienced this kind of scene in a dream a long time ago, with yellowed water, sad air, and rusty spots The bow of the boat is slightly tilted, slowly tilting towards the pier a few feet away.It's like being close to a man, like touching a heart from another world. A little closer, a little closer, but it may not be possible in a lifetime.Or, close just for the ultimate separation. Wearing sunglasses, I stepped off the iron pedal and walked into the crowd along Zhongshan East Road.I have a sudden urge to cry, yeah, everyone has a sudden urge to cry, and God is no exception. It started to rain suddenly, but the sun was still shining on the buildings. Gradually, the sun lost its light and the wind picked up. I ducked into a post office by the side of the road, packed with people like me sheltering from the rain, a damp, depressive smell emanating from my hair, clothes, and boots.I comforted myself that although the smell was not good, it was better than the refugee tents on the border of Kosovo and Albania. War is terrible. I just need to think about the countless disasters on the earth.How lucky and happy is a young, good-looking girl like me who has written a book. I sighed, and flipped through the newspapers in front of the newspaper cabinet for a while, and saw a piece of news from Hainan that the police had smashed the largest foreign car smuggling case since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, involving the main leaders of the Leizhou Peninsula. I quickly took out the address book from my bag, and I had to call Tian Tian.I remembered that I hadn't spoken to him for a week, how time flies, he should be back. Pay the deposit at the counter and get the license to go to the DDD telephone booth at No. 4.I called and no one answered for a long time.Just when I was about to hang up the microphone, Tiantian's voice came over very vaguely, "Hi, I'm CoCo...how are you?" I said to him. He didn't seem to wake up, and it took a long time before he answered, "Hi, CoCo." "Are you sick?" I became alert, his voice was really wrong, as if it came from the distant Jurassic era, without heat or even a conscious connection.He hummed vaguely and lowly. "Can you hear me? . . . I want to know what's the matter with you?" I became anxious and raised my voice.He didn't speak, but breathed slowly and softly. "Tiantian, please talk, don't make me anxious." The long silence seemed to last half a century, suppressing the restless restlessness. "I love you." Tian Tian's voice was like a nightmare. "I love you too," I said. "Are you really sick?" "I'm fine." I bit my lip and stared at the plexiglass in puzzlement. There was a lot of gray dirt on the glass. The crowd outside the glass gradually dispersed. It seemed that the rain had stopped. "Then, when will you come back?" My voice was very loud, lest I could not attract his attention otherwise, he would fall asleep at any time and disappear at the other end of the microphone. "Can you do me a favor? . . . send some money," he whispered. "What, you've used up all the money on your credit card?" I was taken aback.There are more than 30,000 yuan on the credit card. No matter how high the price in Hainan is, he doesn't like to go shopping, and he doesn't use money to seduce women. It may cost money like water, and something must have happened.My intuition was clouded by a shadow. "There's a passbook in the drawer on the right side of the closet, it's easy to find." He reminded me, and I suddenly became very angry, "What's wrong with you? You have to tell me where the money was spent? Don't hide it, trust me Just tell me the truth." silence…… "If you don't tell me, you won't send the money." I threatened him with an arrogant tone. "CoCo, I miss you so much." He muttered.The general black tenderness pinches me. "Me too." I whispered. "You won't leave me, will you?" "Won't." "Even if you have another man, don't leave." He begged. At this moment, he seemed weak-willed, and an ominous breath flowed out from the phone line at hand every minute. "What's wrong, Tiantian?" I gasped in a low voice. His voice was weak, but he said something horrible, and I'm sure I heard right, he was on heroin. What happened should be like this. One afternoon, he was sitting in a fast food restaurant on the street and suddenly ran into an acquaintance, a person named Li Le whom he knew at the Shanghai Reproductive Health Medical Center.He also came to Hainan and lived in a relative's house here, and usually worked as a small worker in a private dental clinic opened by the relative's house. They chatted quite congenially, and maybe held back for a while every day, happy that they suddenly had a conversation partner.Li Le took him to many places, places that he didn't know before and dared not go alone.Underground casinos, dark hair salons, and abandoned warehouses where gang fights often occur, Tian Tian is not fascinated by these places, but is attracted by such a knowledgeable, humorous and witty friend. He looks very friendly, with invisible indifference floating under the surface of enthusiasm, and this is exactly the type of personality that Tian Tian can accept.They all have a pair of black eyes that fluctuate from hot to cold, and they do everything quietly, whether they talk, listen, or laugh, their eyes are always melancholy. In the refreshing southern wind, they walked side by side, talking about Henry Miller and the Beat Generation, sitting on the small terrace watching the sunset, holding fresh coconuts and sucking the white juice.On the road not far away, some pale-skinned girls with heavy make-up began to appear. They searched with a romantic bitch heart, and there were fake smiles on their faces. The noses twitched pitifully, their breasts looked hard, like heavy and hopeless prehistoric fossils, and there was unspeakable commotion, splendor, phantom in the southern air. In the clinic of Li Le's relatives, Tian Tian tried morphine injection for the first time. It was Li Le who first demonstrated and then asked Tian Tian if he wanted to try it too.There was no one else in the house, and it was late at night. From time to time, people on the street spoke incomprehensible words in the local dialect, there was the roar of large trucks rolling over the ground heavily, and the siren of a ship in the distance. All this is like being in another region of the world. Unknown ravines and hills are rolling and rolling, forming a huge three-dimensional shadow. The sweet wind blows through the large arrow-like branches and leaves, and nameless pink flowers bloom in the valley at the bottom of the ravine. , one after another, spread continuously into a sea of ​​pink, light and warm like a mother's womb, the poisonous intoxication affects every inch of space on the land, directly seeping into the red film of the heart. The moon waxes and wanes, and consciousness comes and goes. Things get out of hand.Falling asleep with pink dreams every day and night.The pink sap stuck to his skin naturally, and the venom drove him forward like some kind of savage flood.His body was limp and his nerves seemed to snap. I still don't want to face this scene, which happened at the turning point of the whole story.Perhaps, this was doomed from the very beginning, unavoidable, from the day when Tian Tian greeted his father’s ashes at the airport when he was young, from when he suffered from aphasia and dropped out of school, from when he met me in Lotte , from the first night when he leaned over me sweating and weak, from the time I slept with another man, from those moments, he was haunted by constant despair and dreams.Yes, he was inseparable from these things, could not distinguish boundaries, but lived and died all his life in the shadow of nameless soft organs.that is it. Just thinking about it makes me want to scream, the terror, the madness, is beyond my comprehension, beyond my power.In the following days, every day with an angelic face flashing lightly, I will fall behind the door, and when my heart hurts, it can hurt to death. All the errands are done by Li Le, and the daily money is exchanged for pinches of white powder.The two stayed in the hotel room, and the cat slept next to the TV, which was on all day long, and there were daily reports of robberies and municipal works on it.He hardly eats, his body's metabolism has almost dropped to zero, the door is open for the waiter to deliver food, and he is too lazy to even take a step. The room emits a strange and unreal smell, like the kind of jelly put in the belly of a corpse A mix of fresh and decadent. Gradually, in order to save money, or sometimes they can’t find acquaintances who do business, they go to the pharmacy to buy a lot of cough syrup and store it in the room for emergencies.Li Le would boil the syrup in a small coffee cup in a crude way to make some kind of narcotic substitute, but the taste was really bad, but it was still better than nothing. One day, the kitten ball of string ran out of this room.It had no food to eat for several days, and it no longer got the care of its owner, so one day it decided to run away. When it left, it had a flat stomach, a dull coat, and a bony skeleton. It seemed that it didn't live long. After it left, it never came back. It either died, or it became a wild cat called Chun somewhere on the corner of the street who specialized in looking for food in the garbage dump in the middle of the night. When the situation became like this, I was stunned for a moment, and my mind was confused.And insomnia makes people feel hot and dry all over the body. All the shadows are drifting around, recording thousands of shapes and desperate situations. On a dry and hopeless night, I lay on the bed and thought about it over and over all night. The day I met Tian Tian was replayed in an orderly manner, my brain was like a dusty screen, and my baby and I were the worst hero and heroine in the world. But we love each other so deeply, and no one can do without the other, especially now, the fear that every day will drift away at a weightless speed like floating dust in the sky at any time makes my heart ache, and I feel that I love him even more.I'm looking forward to the light of day, or I'm going crazy.