Chapter 13 Chapter Twelve

Just after noon, the train arrived at Hiroshima Station.Stepping out of the car, they found themselves in a bustling, buzzing area of ​​black-market vendors—people jokingly haggling, illegally trading items, and tired children occasionally throwing fits of tantrum—but in After the monotonous rumbling and constant vibrations of train travel, this popular noise was a relief to them.Mr Maech said they were walking into a city reborn on a democratic basis, because that month, in the first election since the war, a mayor was elected by popular suffrage. When Holmes was still sitting on the train overlooking the countryside of Hiroshima, he did not see any signs of a prosperous city nearby; instead, he saw only temporary wooden huts here and there, like impoverished small villages , separated only by open heaths of tall grass.When the train slowed down and entered the dilapidated and decaying station, he realized that the places where the weeds grew wildly had actually been lined with tall buildings, lively communities and bustling shops, and now they have long been reduced to scorched earth. Only the uneven black soil and the broken concrete fragments remained.

Mr. Mei Qi told Sherlock Holmes that after the war, the fluffy grass, which was hated by people in the past, became an unexpected blessing from heaven.In Hiroshima, the sudden appearance of this plant and its sprouting brought hope and belief in rebirth, and dispelled rumors that the city would be deserted for at least seventy years.Whether it is in Hiroshima or other cities, the lush grass has saved many lives during the famine. "Its leaves and flowers are the main fillings for dumplings," Mr. Mei Qi said. "It doesn't sound very delicious - trust me, I know it too - but people who are hungry can always rely on them to fill their hunger .”

Holmes continued to look out of the window, hoping to find more definite signs of the existence of the city, but until the train pulled into the station, he still saw only wooden huts-the number of huts was increasing, and the open space around the houses had been reclaimed as Small patch of vegetable garden.Parallel to the railway is the Coggie River. "I'm just a little hungry right now, but I really want to try this kind of dumpling. It sounds very special." Mei Qi nodded: "It's really special, but it's not particularly delicious." "It still sounds tempting."

While Holmes was hoping for a meal of puffy grass-filled dumplings, it was another local delicacy that ended up filling him up: Japanese pancakes stuffed with sweet sauce and served from the menu. You can choose a variety of fillings, and many street stalls and temporary noodle shops around Hiroshima Railway Station sell them. "It's called Okonomiyaki." Later, when Mr. Mei Qi and Holmes sat at the dining table of the noodle shop, watching the chef skillfully cook their lunch in the big iron pot, Mei Qi explained (sizzling voice With the aroma blowing in their faces, their appetites were lifted).He said he tried okonomiyaki when he was a kid on vacation in Hiroshima with his father.Since that trip in his childhood, he has visited the city several times, often only in time to change trains, but at that time, there were often vendors selling Okonomiyaki directly on the platform. "I can't resist the temptation of it, the smell alone is enough to bring back all the good memories of my father and I spent the weekend. You know, he also took us to see the miniature garden, but only after smelling When it’s time for Okonomiyaki, I will think of all the situations he and I have here.”

In the middle of eating, Holmes stopped, poked the inside of the pie with his chopsticks (he carefully observed the stuffing made of meat, noodles and cabbage), and said: It's exquisite, don't you think?" Mei Qi raised her eyes from the pie held by her chopsticks.He chewed and swallowed the food in his mouth before finally replying, "Yes, yes—" After the meal, the busy cook told them the general route to the Miniature Garden, and they walked towards this seventeenth-century paradise, which Maggie thought Holmes would definitely like.Mei Qi dragged the suitcase and walked in front.There are many pedestrians on the sidewalk, and everyone's footsteps are leisurely due to the twisted telephone poles and bent pine branches that appear from time to time.Mei Qi recalled the miniature garden in her childhood memory, and vividly described it to Holmes: This miniature park is a miniature version of the West Lake in China, with small rivers, islands and small bridges in it, which look larger than their actual size atmosphere.Holmes tried to picture the garden in his mind, but found it difficult to imagine a place that had been razed and was now struggling to be reborn (all around were all kinds of noise—the hammering of hammers, the hum of heavy machinery, What kind of an oasis exists in a city where the footsteps of people walking down the street with timber on their shoulders, and the sound of horses and vehicles marching.

In any case, Mei Qi also had to admit that the Hiroshima of his childhood no longer existed, and he worried that Jingyuan might also have been severely damaged by bombs.But he still believes that some of its original charm should still remain—maybe it is the small stone bridge across the clear pond, or the stone lamppost carved in the image of Concubine Yang. "We shall soon be able to see it for ourselves, I think." Holmes was impatient to leave the sun-baked streets for a peaceful and relaxing environment, so that he could rest for a while in the shade of a tree and wipe the bruise from his brow. beads of sweat.

In the deserted city center, next to a small bridge across the Yuan'an River, Mr. Mei Qi felt that he must have made a wrong turn somewhere on the road, or he had misheard the route given by the chef in a hurry.But neither of them stopped, but walked involuntarily towards a building that appeared faintly in front of them. "That's the atomic bomb dome." Mei Qi pointed to the hard cement dome that was blown to nothing but the outer shell.Then, his index finger crossed the building, pointed to the blue sky, and said, that's where the big bang happened. That indescribable bang engulfed the entire city in a boundless sea of ​​flames, and then brought black rain for days on end — Ashes of houses, trees, and bodies that were destroyed in the big bang were blown into the sky, mixed with radioactive materials and quickly fell.

Approaching the garden, the breeze from the river began to strengthen, and the hot weather suddenly became cooler.The sounds of the city are muffled by the wind and are no longer so disturbing.They stopped to smoke - Meggie put the suitcase at her feet and helped Holmes light a cigar, and they sat on a collapsed concrete pillar (a very convenient place to take a rest, surrounded by all kinds of weeds) .Except for a row of young trees newly planted, the almost completely open space offered little shade; nor was there anyone else except an old woman in the company of two young women.It's like a deserted beach after a hurricane.A few meters away, in the railing around the atomic bomb dome, they saw the women kneeling on the ground, devoutly placing the necklace made of thousand paper cranes among the thousands of existing necklaces.Meggie and Holmes puffed out the smoke, as if they were hypnotized, and sat in front of the hard concrete building.It is the closest iconic existence to ground zero, a daunting monument to the undead; after the Big Bang, it was also one of the few buildings that was not completely destroyed - the steel structure in the dome was left behind by the ruins. Arched high above it, it stood out against the sky—and everything below it was crumbled, burnt, and lost.There was no longer any floors in the dome, and the shock wave from the bombs completely collapsed the internal structure, leaving only the erected walls still in place.

To Holmes, however, the building evokes a sense of hope, though he cannot say exactly why.Perhaps, he thought, it was the swallows nesting on the rusted beams, or the clear blue sky in the hollow dome, that conveyed this sense of hope; The tenacity and unyielding presence of the building itself represents hope.Just a few minutes ago, when he saw it for the first time, when he approached it for the first time, his heart was full of deep regret, because behind it meant countless people who died tragically.It is the evil result that modern science finally brings to people, and it represents the turbulent era after the appearance of atomic alchemy.He suddenly thought of a London doctor who had been interrogated. The doctor was a very clever and thoughtful person, but for some unknown reason, he killed his wife and three children with nicotine, and set himself on fire. s home.The police repeatedly asked him the motive of the crime, but he always refused to speak. Finally, he wrote three sentences on a piece of paper: A huge force is beginning to oppress every side of this world.Because of it, we have to give ourselves pause.We must stop, or the whole world will collapse from the pressure we put on it.It was not until today, many years later, that Holmes found some grudging explanation for the obscure and cryptic words.

"We don't have time." Mei Qi threw away the cigarette butt and stamped it out with her foot.He glanced at his watch: "Oh, I'm afraid I really don't have time, we still have to see the landscape garden and catch the ship to Miyajima, so we have to leave quickly, and we have to stay at the hot spring next to Fangfu at night. .” "Of course, of course." Holmes picked up his crutches, and when he stood up from the stone pillar, Meggie said that she would go to some women to inquire about the correct way to the Miniature Garden (his kind greetings and humble inquiries followed the breeze. came).Holmes was still smoking his cigar, watching Meggie and the three women standing under the gloomy building, basking in the afternoon sun together, smiling.He clearly saw an unusually happy smile on the wrinkled face of the old lady, showing a childlike innocence that reappeared with age.Then, as if the three women had received some signal at the same time, they bowed at the same time, and Mr. Mei Qi also bowed back, and quickly left them with a serious expression—his smile immediately disappeared into a plain and even a little Behind the gloomy face.