Ye Wa: "Meeting Father Again"

The Ye Duzhuang Family

I know very well that I am not qualified to write about my father. How could I write about my father’s troubled life? My father is a big tree, tall and sad in the wind; my father is a beautiful grass, beautiful but easy to destroy. Last year at this time, my sister and I were taking care of our critically ill father at Union Hospital. Every day we walked through Cinder Alley to deliver meals to my father at the hospital. We could see a big locust tree at the entrance of the alley. It had no leaves and only branches. It was dry, but it was still swaying in the howling cold wind, without any hint of cowardice or retreat. That's my dad! How can I write about my father! As a daughter, even if I have great energy, I cannot write about my father’s bravery and unyieldingness in facing life, his meticulousness and tenacious pursuit in his academic career, his sincerity and persistence in patriotism and loving the people, and his love for the country and people. His integrity and conscience showed that he still had a childlike innocence even in his octogenarian years, and that he hated evil as much as he hated evil. Only a few hours before he died, he could still write such words as "What is the crime in life?" After thinking about it, I decided to write about the days when we were reunited after my father was in prison for 18 years. My childhood memories of my father are all incoherent fragments. It is these fragments that only gain meaning after being interpreted by others as adults. Because when my father was arrested and imprisoned in 1958, the three of us sisters were still young. I really got to know my father 17 years later, in 1975, when my father left the labor camp carrying a sign saying "Kuomintang County Regiment Level". We are both over 20 years old, and my mother, who my father had been pursuing since high school, passed away a year ago. Although we finally have a father again, our little family has been shattered, and even if we have the power to recover, we will never be able to reunite. In the early summer of 1976, I finally took leave from the factory, and on the pretext of returning to Beijing to visit relatives, I secretly went to the Jingshan Lake fishery in Huaiyuan, Anhui Province to visit my father, whom I had not seen for more than ten years, and made an appointment to meet my sister in Beijing at my father's place. In order to save money, I took a "taxi" ride almost all the way from Xi'an. I was kicked out of the car several times. By the time I arrived in Bengbu, it was already late at night and two days later than scheduled. That night at the Bengbu bus station, I almost waited for dawn, and finally got on the first bus to Huaiyuan County. I was in a state of confusion. To this day, I still remember that what I was thinking over and over again was the sentence "I feel more timid when I'm close to my hometown." Unrelated ancient poems. When we arrived at Huaiyuan, it was already getting brighter. There is still seven or eight miles to go from the station to the fishing ground. My father once wrote a letter asking me to call a three-wheeler. First, it was too early and there were no tricycles. Even if there were, there was no need to spend money on a car for the seven or eight miles away. We haven’t corresponded or seen each other for so many years, and my father doesn’t know how we grew up. After leaving the station, I climbed onto the Huaihe River Embankment. Following the detailed map my father drew for me, I found the fishing ground without any difficulty. A middle-aged woman came over from a distance and started laughing before she even opened her mouth: "You must be Lao Ye's second daughter! Oh my! Why did you just get here! Your old father is waiting here for you every morning! Oh my! You and I Your eldest sister looks great. Your eldest sister has been here for a few days." When she said this, I burst into tears. Since my father was arrested, this is the first time I have heard strangers talk about him without adding "historical counter-revolutionary", "rightist", "ultra-rightist", "re-education through labor prisoner", etc. in front of his name. An attributive word that makes one's heart palpitate. There is no room for the layers of anticipation, preparation and unspeakable fear that have been building up in my heart since I hit the road! With an "Old Ye" and an "Old Dad", everything becomes so simple and straightforward, so humane and reasonable. The labels that have been flying all over the place since childhood, such as "counter-revolutionary family members", "black five categories", and "educationable children", also disappear without a trace like the morning mist that disappears instantly after the sun rises. After waiting for so many years, I knew my father was right in front of me. The woman saw me crying and seemed a little overwhelmed, so she bent down to help me get my travel bag, saying that she wanted to take me to my father's residence. It turned out that my father did not live in the staff dormitory of the fishery, but lived next to the pig pen next to the fishery. Before we even started, she noticed something and shouted loudly into the wilderness with a long voice: "Old Ye - Old Ye - your second daughter is here..." Following her voice, I saw something in the distance. A small figure was walking towards us along the rice field ridge with his head lowered. Hearing the shout, the figure first stopped for a moment, then suddenly accelerated, stretching out his hands and shaking them in the air. The field ridge was probably too narrow and slippery, so he stumbled and fell down several times.

In my tearful eyes, the shadow was sometimes clear and sometimes blurry. That was the father I had not seen for more than ten years! I can't remember how my father and I got together, nor can I recall my father's face and expression at the moment we met. On the contrary, what I remember most clearly is my father’s coat that was so old that I couldn’t tell the color and the pair of Jiefang shoes that were stained with mud and water. The trouser legs are empty, there are no socks, and the exposed calf is just two bones. The red face and broad shoulders of my father in my childhood memory have completely disappeared. His originally tall body now shrank in the gray cloth, looking very thin. But what shocked me the most was not the image of my father. Because long before visiting relatives in Huaiyuan, I had rehearsed countless imaginary reunions in my mind. The father in the reunion was already very thin and his face was full of vicissitudes of life. Later it was discovered that these previewed reunions were all silent movies. It wasn't until I really heard my father's voice that I felt with my own skin the high wall of time and space built into my memory. My father's voice was extremely unfamiliar. But my father's big hands are still so familiar. After hearing that strange voice, I subconsciously lowered my head to find my father's hand. My father’s fingers were long and thin. The American writer Hersey once described his father’s big hands, saying that when he wanted to teach someone, he always pointed at them with his middle finger. When we were young, we often used our father’s time after dinner to let him use his big hands to create the shadows of various animals on the white wall under the lamp. What he did best was the "Big Bad Wolf", where the long middle finger and ring finger opened and closed to make the wolf's long mouth vivid. My father's big hand rested on my shoulder. "A-Jiang and I had a fortune-telling. You must have had diarrhea on the way, so you're late." This is the first thing I remember my father saying to me. Because I was crying so much that I didn’t hear what my father said to me before. My father probably wanted to tell a joke, but he ended up saying this. We started walking towards my father's house. My father must help me carry my bag. After the sun came out, it became very hot, and the gray jacket he was wearing could no longer be worn. We stopped and waited for him to unbutton his clothes. I saw that my father was only wearing a knitted sweatshirt that was riddled with holes under his jacket. His skinny body was exposed. I couldn't help but shed tears again. While sobbing, I heard my father say to me: "Son, look at this dress, it's still old Peke's dress. I found someone to show off to me outside, so no one can see..." I saw that He was wearing a dark green herringbone suit with a slightly distinguishable lining, and he could see a sly smile on his father's face.

Ye Duzhuang in his later years

Whenever I recall this scene, I always try to find words that can accurately describe my mood at that time, but it is always in vain. Was it shocking his father's magnanimity? Do you admire your father's fearlessness? Is it a little bit of fear, or a sense of joy? There should be both. Many years later, when I truly began to understand my father and the indescribable inhuman mental and physical torture that nearly twenty years of prison and labor camps had brought to him, as well as the various human tragedies my father witnessed in the changing world, turning his back on relatives and friends, and abandoning his flesh and blood, Then I realized that my father was eager to express his innocence to his biological daughter in this way. Pecker is an American writer whom his father met in the 1940s. From January to September 1946, he and his father shared a courtyard house in Jingshan East Street, Beiping. He once wrote two books exposing the shady secrets of the Kuomintang's rule during World War II. One of them, "An American Looks at Old China" (Two Kinds of Time), was written while living with his father. My father had explained this relationship as early as the "Elimination Movement" and concluded it as a "general historical issue." However, in 1958, after the "anti-rightist movement", some leaders of my father's unit took the opportunity of the movement to vent their personal anger. They not only overturned the earlier conclusions, but also framed charges and initiated unjust imprisonment, falsely accusing my father of being an "American spy" in an attempt to put him at risk. Death comes quickly. In September 1958, after the leader of his work unit sued his father in the name of the government agency, he deceived his father into being secretly arrested at Fengtai Railway Station on the pretense that Nanjing needed manpower to sort out ancient agricultural books. His intentions are despicable and his methods are dirty and shameless. If he writes any more, he will stain this pen! And once my father left, it would be 18 years! These 18 years were when we grew up. During this period, except for 1962, when my father was "paroled for medical treatment" and came back to live with us for a month, we had not seen him once in more than ten years. At the mention of this, my father felt infinite regret. Why doesn't he miss us? But my father never once asked my mother for us to visit him in prison.

He later told me that he once saw a child visiting the prison, holding a number plate in his little hand, standing eagerly outside the iron fence waiting for his number to be called. His heart was broken, and he felt that even if he wanted to kill his daughter, he could not let the future Adult children suffer from this shame. Once, from the small window of his prison cell, he saw a cow and a calf grazing in the field outside. He was so moved by the scene that he wrote a seven-character quatrain. I only remember the last two sentences: "Looking at the calf through the iron window, my heart is full of joy." I stayed at my father's house for ten days that time. The place where my father lived with others was a small adobe house next to the pig farm, with three rooms and earth walls. Before my sister and I came, my father borrowed a large plank to put up in his room. The originally small room was so packed that it was difficult to find a place to turn around. Moreover, that room is next to a row of pig pens. When the wind direction is wrong, the stench from the pig pens will be poured into the house. Despite this, we are very content! In my father's words, it was beyond my wildest dreams to be able to see us again and enjoy family happiness again. The day I arrived was the Dragon Boat Festival, and there was a dinner party at the fishery. My father had already paid for our meals and was preparing to have our first reunion dinner together. There is no formal dining room in the fishery. The so-called dinner party is to place a few piles of enamel basins in the open space outside the kitchen, with various dishes in them. Everyone gathers in circles and squats on the ground to eat. I hadn’t had a decent meal since I started on the road, so that day I squatted on the ground and devoured it without any scruples. Every time I mentioned this matter from now on, my father would shake his head and say that it made his heart hurt to see me chewing the pig head meat. My father didn't eat well at all during that meal. He said that he could not connect the "beauty of the Tang Dynasty" that he and my mother often joked about when I was a child with the daughter in front of me. Later, my sister told me that my father told her privately: "Why does my child look so different from when she was a child? Even when she smiles, she is still the same as before." That time we went to see my father, there was something very difficult for us. Called "Dad". Although we exchanged many letters with my father before going there, I often addressed him in English as "father" or "Dad" in the letters, while my sister simply called our father "Old K". Why it is called so, it is difficult to say clearly now. I just remember that I was a little lucky that my sister arrived before me and I could call after her. But after I arrived, I realized that it was not easy to call me "Dad". Because like all children, when we were young, we had our own special way of calling our father, which was not in the lower tone but in the upper tone and lower tone. The "Dad" at the end was not only long in sound but also raised in an upward tone. But if I keep calling like this, not only can I not feel it, but I can't say it either. My father must have felt it. After dinner on the Dragon Boat Festival, while my sister was away, my father said to me: "Did you know that Ah Jing came here in a tricycle? I was feeding pigs here when I saw a tricycle coming, and the person on it was carrying The big picture clip shouted at me from a distance: Hey! As soon as I saw that yellow hair, I knew it was Ah Liang!" My father made me laugh. He was also hinting to me that my sister, like me, couldn't scream at first. "No one knows more than his father," this old saying is absolutely true. That afternoon, while my father was squatting on the ground to pack his things, I yelled at his back: Dad! Although my father had so-called personal freedom at that time, he still wore the label of a "controller" (the people he lived with not only controlled the pig farm, but also controlled my father). Even if we were there, we were not allowed to take a day off. please. One day it rained heavily, and we were waiting for the rain to stop and we would go out with my father to cut enough pigweed for the day. The man who lived opposite came and asked my father to go cut grass right away. Although injustices have been commonplace for many years, it is too much to force a sixty-year-old man to fight in the rain. I immediately became angry, but thinking that my father would have to be treated by this person, I had no choice but to endure it. My father disagreed with this and said to us with a smile, "This is called staying in one's position and pursuing political affairs. If you can treat me as a matter of fact, it can be regarded as being loyal to your duty." Not long after my father arrived at the fishing ground, a nearby producer People from the team came to the door. Because they heard that an agricultural person came to the fishery, and wanted him to show how the flower seedlings in the cotton field began to die soon after they were planted. After my father saw it, he quickly saved the cotton field. In order to thank their father, the people in the team often secretly left something on the windowsill outside his hut. I only found out about this when I found a piece of tofu left on the windowsill one morning and asked my father about it. Later, we continued to receive radishes and green vegetables. These are worthless things that even a thousand pieces of gold can't buy! Because a person with my father's status couldn't hide at that time! During those ten days, my father asked us endless questions, but he always tried his best to avoid asking about my mother.

I remember it was the weekend, and my father took us to the local scenic spot "Bai Ruquan". When we were sitting in the woods on the mountain and looking at the surrounding scenery, our father suddenly asked us: "Did your mother feel very painful in her last moments? I have asked people who know medicine, and they all said that patients with advanced liver cancer are very painful." Father's voice Extremely low, much like talking to oneself. He later asked us this question repeatedly after returning to Beijing. I know that my father really wanted to know all the details of my mother’s life and death, but every time he saw our unspeakable suffering, he would never ask any more questions. Not being able to see his mother again brought great pain and constant memories to his father for the rest of his life. I remember one day my father came back from work and excitedly said to us: "Eat quickly, eat quickly! "Blessing" will be shown on TV tonight. It is your mother's costume design!" After dinner, we went to the meeting room of the fishery to watch TV. . It was still early to leave the show, and there were not many viewers in front of the 11-inch black and white TV. The father knew his identity and sat far away. When the TV show finally started, I found that the effect was extremely poor, and all I could see were shadowy figures. But I could still see the words at the beginning of the film clearly. When my mother's name slowly rolled up the subtitles, I looked back at my father. He stretched out his neck, gathered his energy, and stared at the palm-sized screen, as if he wanted to conjure his mother out of it. Halfway through "Blessing", the person in charge of the TV turned off the machine because I couldn't see clearly. My father is still very satisfied. On the way back, he recalled with us the premiere of "Blessing" 20 years ago, saying that he watched it with his mother. Of course, there are times when I don’t understand my father. The "Lin Biao Incident" was probably the beginning of why I and many young people of the same age felt deceived. This feeling became even stronger around the time of my mother's death. I forgot what the reason was, but my father recited a poem, saying that for this country, he was still "a heart of ice in a jade pot." I don't understand this very much. Remember I told my father, do you know what I saw on my way to see you this time? I told my father that the train I was taking was besieged for more than two hours at Xianyang Station by refugees from Sichuan who came to Shaanxi to beg for food. Refugees who were returning to Sichuan were crowded on the platform carrying large and small sacks stuffed with food. As soon as the train arrives, they will crowd at the doors or along the windows, begging passengers to open the windows and let them in through the windows. The station was crowded and the noise was deafening. Aren't these the refugees written in history books? How can we love the Dharma when the country is like this? My father's answer to me was very simple. He said that you have never been slaves to the subjugation of the country. The ten days spent at the Jingshan Lake Fishing Ground in Huaiyuan will be unforgettable. From there, we had a father again, someone we could always rely on and trust. In the next twenty years, my father and I were separated more and less together, but my father was always by my side, and my father and I had endless things to say.

Introduction to Ye Duzhuang:

Ye Duzhuang (1914-January 30, 2000), agricultural economist, translator, science and technology information expert. In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, he presided over the editing and publishing of publications such as "Agricultural Science Newsletter", "Agricultural Science of China", and "Soviet Agricultural Science", and organized the translation and publication of important works such as "The Complete Works of Michurin"; later, he accepted the position of the State Press and Publication General Administration Commissioned by the Department of Translation, he re-translated "The Complete Works of Darwin". Since the late 1950s, he has been wronged and suffered hardships. It was not until the age of 84 that he completed the translation, revision and proofreading of the nearly 5 million-word masterpiece "The Complete Works of Darwin's Theory of Evolution", and completed the summary of the 300,000-word essence of the "Darwin Reader". The compilation work has enabled the classic works on evolution to be published completely and systematically in China.