The Father in the Past: An Appreciation of Wang Xia's Essays

That year, I returned to my hometown in the north, via Beidaihe, and arrived at the Shanhaiguan Pass, the first pass under the sky.

Ascending the city tower, gazing inside and outside the city walls, silent heartache. I know, the foot of the city engraved with the deep and shallow memory of countless people.

One foot in, one foot out.

A foot of ancestors, a foot of children and grandchildren.

I vaguely saw my father in his teens, pursed his lips, and followed the strangers, hurriedly walking through the city of Guan, without turning back, without lingering.

Years later, my father's eyes are full of nostalgia, longing, old age and illness, several times hobbling ignorantly want to go out of the house ...... stubbornly want to go back to the home that earth wall thatched house, this is how to accumulate for a long time into the grief of the pain ah.

Father such, there is an exclusive term: break into the East. He had countless times in chatting with his disciples, mentioning this word. I'm not familiar with the world at that time. Father died, this word also disappeared. As my mother grew old, my father became a constant topic of conversation between us, mother and daughter. The father's past, only combined with my memory that was awakened, a little clear up.

When I came to this world, my father was already 53 years old. After the years, my father only accompanied me for a short period of 12 years. According to my mother: my father was a grumpy man. However, my impression is that my emaciated father was always smiling slightly, so much so that I clearly remember the two lines of decree.

My father suffered from high blood pressure, and few men in this family lived past 70. When I was young, my father had a stroke. When I came home from school that day, my father was already at home. His mouth was a little askew, his speech was slurred, and he was hobbling. From that day on, every day after dinner, I saw my mother boiling Chinese medicine in a big pot. A large pot, poured in the bath with a large iron basin, inside a small stool, and then help the father in shorts to sit in, outside with a large plastic wrap up, only the head exposed outside. My father's expression was first pained and then relaxed in the hot fumigation. When the water cooled slightly, my mother scrubbed my father with medicinal broth and dregs. In this way, the father in the mother's own treatment, gradually recovered, everything as before.

Such luck was not always with us. The first time I saw this was when I was a little girl, and it was the first time I'd ever seen a girl like that again. This time it coincided with the Tangshan earthquake. Although we are far away in Zibo, but also feel the aftermath of the earthquake. The simple earthquake shed can not fumigation wash, mother had to rely on the hospital to extend the medical drugs, but unfortunately, the hospital is also overcrowded, the pressure is not live in.

My father was finally admitted to the hospital on his deathbed, and my mother took care of him in the hospital. A cold night in late fall, a long time did not come home to the mother came back, took my sister and I, went to the hospital. I saw my father on the bed in the resuscitation room. He had gone ......

On the Qingming of 1982, I set foot on my hometown for the first time to pay tribute to my father.

I remember clearly: the countryside in Jizhong big road is yellow dirt road, a gust of wind, is a burst of smoke. In my impression, two rows of tall poplars on the roadside, the new leaves have grown, the tender new green highlights the irresistible power of spring. This new green embedded in my eyes, heart, become a symbol of the hometown ......

A lot of understanding of the father and the old home came from the mother's intermittent memories -

Father lost his mother at the age of eight, since childhood to learn the art of the ten years old to break into the Guandong Province alone. He was a good carpenter, generous and bold, and earned a lot of money quickly, and never had a family. Later, when working in Fushun, he met my uncle. This has a superb craftsmanship of the atmosphere of the craftsman got my grandmother's appreciation, my mother was betrothed to him, that year my father was already thirty-one years old. My mother said that when she returned from her mother's house three days after the wedding, many things had disappeared from the house. She thought it had been stolen, and her father told her that all those things, even the wedding quilt, had been borrowed. The mother burst into tears, dried her eyes and cleaned up the mess. The family is now a little bit fuller than it was when she was a mother.

The traditional type of father believes that the man is the master of the house, and he gave all the money he earned to his mother to organize his life, and the family gradually had savings. The family gradually built up savings. The days were better and the news of the anti-Japanese victory was encouraging. Father began to plan to return home, he defied his mother's objections, sold the family belongings, bought a camera. According to his father's plan, along the way to help people take pictures to earn money, coupled with the family's savings, enough to go back to their hometown to buy a piece of land, and from then on in the native land to live in the sunrise and sunset of the peaceful days. However, the father, who was haunted by the idea of going back to his hometown, ignored an extremely important fact: he was still in the middle of a war.

Mother recalled the risks along the way. First, the camera was confiscated, the father was almost arrested as a spy; then the body of the money was robbed empty, only the mother stuffed in the sock tube a little survived; and in the crossing of the Daliang (sound) River, encountered an airplane bombing, the mother holding his brother hanging in the remnants of the bridge railing, under the feet of the roaring river ......

Through all the risks and penniless returned to his hometown, a village on the plains of Jizhong. The people at home treated the mother with a look of contempt, because she grew up in the city to do farm work clumsily. My father didn't know how to do farm work either.

My father's grave is not large, surrounded by dry jujube trees, and there are already a few people there to cut. These people are male, there are young and strong, there are also old. Dressed mainly in green and black, the older ones wrapped their heads in white towels, just like the townspeople in the tunnel war. Auntie introduced us one by one, this is my brother, that is my uncle, they all smiled honestly. A short old man named Uncle Egger pulled me down and wiped his tears. Auntie also wiped tears from the corners of her eyes and said: "Your Uncle Egger is the best with your father, if not for his father's only son, he would have run away with your father. ......

After the memorial service, Auntie took us to visit the neighbors. Listening to the rusty, but kindly accent, recounting the memories of my father's generation ......

Grandmother died when my father was 8 years old. The first time I saw this, I was able to see my father's face, and I was able to see his face.

The second uncle has been in the old family, married and had children. He was the village's anti-Japanese village cadre, and was the chairman of the maintenance committee. Open the door is the chairman of the maintenance association, support should fool the ghosts, closed the door is the village secretary, organizing the villagers to support the Eighth Route Army. After the liberation, the family moved to Shijiazhuang, soon died of cerebral hemorrhage.

Third uncle was a small eight-way at a very young age. From the time he joined the army, to the fight against the U.S., until he was transferred back to Shijiazhuang after liberation, he was under the command of General Lu Zhengcao.

Our family's relationship with Uncle San's family was close before Uncle's retirement. Uncle's two commendation orders, one signed by Lin Biao and one in Lu Zhengcao's own handwriting, are all framed. Lin Biao fell into the Mongolian Vindaloo Khan, the commendation order disappeared, the frame was replaced by a colorful photo of our brothers and sisters.

When my father was alive, my favorite thing to talk about was my uncle's award-winning performance, and the troops took my father to attend the celebration banquet, and General Lu Zhengcao personally toasted him.

That is still the war of resistance against Japan, the Jizhong Plain war is in full swing, there are Eight Route Army soldiers were captured. These captured soldiers were transported by the Japanese to the Northeast to work as laborers digging coal. In order to rescue these people, Uncle Sam was ordered to make my father the police chief. Although my father was not very educated, he was a bold man and had worked in Fushun City since he was a child, so he was familiar with the people there. Through my father's efforts, many people were saved. I remember that my mother most often said that one surnamed Zhang, in order to save him, my father sold all the valuable things in the house, even my mother's only piece of jewelry - a gold-plated silver ring - also sold. The people who were rescued, and then none of them came back to see.

My father's stubbornness is a typical symbol of the Hebei people, and he has offended a lot of people. During the Cultural Revolution, some people took advantage of this incident to fix my father, saying that he was a pseudo-police chief and a traitor. When my father was arrested, he was unable to defend himself. Fortunately, the army, the hometown of the local *** have come forward to confirm, so as to avoid the risk of destroying the family.

Here we should mention a slightly legendary story, which is also the opportunity to move our family to the south. 1974 fall, my father went to Henan brother's home to visit relatives. The family lived on the third floor, the first floor lived in the brother's colleagues. Once, my father went downstairs to cool off, and my colleague greeted me in front of the window. Chatting, the colleague's father in the room to greet his son, the father heard, stood up and went into his home, brother and coworkers feel puzzled, along with going in. Only to see the two old men standing face to face, each other end to end, half a day, each other a finger: you, it's you!

It turned out that the colleague's father was his father rescued out of the Resistance fighters, after the rescue, he hid all the way to hide, fled back to his hometown. Until after the liberation to participate in the work again. As a result of the history of that indefinable, the Cultural Revolution was also detained for a number of years, after being released with his son settled to this centralized enterprises.

The two old men were in tears, and the history was finally clear. A few days later, the father returned to Fushun with a paper testimony. The first year, also with the whole family moved to Luoyang. The uncle also surnamed Wang, the family's youngest daughter a year older than me, I and her in a school, became a good friend, until now.

In detail, my father's rich experience should be a person without great ambition. My mother said that after the liberation, my father had two excellent opportunities to enter the body of the officialdom, he was disdainful to give up. Once, is the army to send his father for further study, because he is too low culture, but also equipped with a special tutor. But according to my father's words, it is a living hell, get a little girl to watch all day. He was determined not to do it and came back. The second time, due to inventions in the production process, the unit sent his father to technical training. This is his willingness to go. As a result, his father's stubbornness was offended by his cultural studies, and he returned home, still ungrateful. He stubbornly believed that workers eat with their hands, so what is the use of culture. The mother's active participation in the street literacy classes, the father is extremely disdainful.

So, until his retirement, until he passed away, his father was just a big word illiterate ordinary workers. His identity is the eighth grade carpenter, is the father of our brother and sister five people. And in my heart, there is no mother, aunt, brother and sister, as well as back to the hometown when the townspeople said stubborn, cranky, harsh, unruly, he left me is pampered, smile, always sharp dress, and exquisite craftsmanship ......

(Author's unit: Experimental Primary School, YaoHuaMen District, Qixia District, Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province)