枯萎的花朵 Wilted Flowers

女儿在写过那个Sweet Lemon之后，我们鼓励她写一篇更深层的文章参加竞赛。于是她就查阅了一些文革的历史和那时候一些知识分子的遭遇，以剧本的形式写了下面的故事。这篇故事获得 2014 Scholastic Art & Writing Southwest Region Gold Key Award。最后一段有意思，听到她姨姥去世的消息时恰好我们前院一直开的很好的一颗栀子花树刚刚死掉了，我们当时印象深刻。

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Wilted Flowers

Preface

    This is based on the true story of my great-aunt Jiang Jianchao. She lived through many critical movements in China, beginning with the Hundred Flowers Campaign, a brief period in which citizens were encouraged to voice their opinions about the government. The Anti-Rightist Movement abruptly ended this freedom of speech and resulted in the arrests of outspoken intellectuals in order to preserve the power of the government. Finally, the Cultural Revolution, similar to the Anti-Rightist movement, wrought even more violence throughout China. Despite these political challenges and her own personal difficulties, my great-aunt lived a life full of kindness, strength, and determination. I write this in her memory and honor. 

March 2, 1958 6:31 am   

    The baby was crying. She rolled over, staring up at the gray ceiling. Her two brothers were still snoring beside her, but her older sister and parents were nowhere to be seen. Across the house, her mother was settling the newborn down. 

    A faint, delicate smell hit her, and she saw flowers beside her bedside table. They were plain, slightly wilted, with fat, white petals tinged with yellow and bright yellow centers. They looked strangely beautiful in the dark room. In her short life of seven years, she’d rarely seen something so natural, so alive.  

    Smiling to herself, she closed her eyes as she went back to sleep.

March 2, 1958 8:42 am

    She was violently shaken awake. It was her mother. “Hmm?” she yawned sleepily, rubbing her eyes. “Get up, honey. Right now.” Her mother’s voice was calm, but there was a sliver of fear in her dark eyes. 

    Abruptly, she sat up. “What’s wrong?” But her mother had already turned away, waking up her younger brothers. 

     “Here.” Her mother shoved the baby into her arms. He was still crying, as if he too knew something was wrong. “Hold him carefully now. Don’t-don’t let anything happen to him.” A tear slid down her mother’s cheek. 

     “What’s going on?” she asked again, her voice rising. There was confusion all around her. Her brothers were already getting dressed, still brushing the sleep from their eyes. She still couldn’t find her father or sister, but she heard their voices somewhere in the hall. 

    “Honey, there are going to be changes in your life now,” her mother said gently. “But we’ll get through them, okay? Our whole family will.” For a moment, she almost believed it.

    But then they knocked on the door.  

March 2, 1958 9:00 am

     “They’re here,” her mother whispered. Her father appeared from the other room with her sister close behind him, and strode towards the door. She didn’t understand what was happening, only that whoever was behind the door would change her life forever. 

     Her father’s frame blocked the figures outside from view, but she heard parts of their muffled voices, “government … the law … under arrest … yes, a long time.”

     She started as she felt the arms of her mother around her shoulder. The house was dead silent. Even the baby had stopped crying. Her brothers were huddled wide-eyed together, her sister staring at the ground. 

    “Let me say goodbye to my family,” her father said. As he turned away, she caught a clear view of the two people by the doorway. They were dressed in dark green, their caps branded with stars. Bright red bands were on their arms. She knew immediately they were soldiers of the government, Red Guards, but why were they here? Her family had never done anything wrong. 

     Her father turned to hug each of her siblings, coming to her last. He kissed the baby in her arms, then pulled both of them into a tight hug. She stared in surprise. Rarely had he shown such obvious affection. 

    “I love you,” he said, his gaze meeting hers. “Don’t ever forget that. Even if I’m not here, I love you, and I always will.”

    “Where are you going?” she whispered. “I don’t understand.” 

     Her father smiled at her, his eyes twinkling. “You will understand some day.” He got to his feet, and she immediately felt the cold of his absence.

     “Your time is up!” a soldier called from the door. They were going to take her father away. She stumbled back as they barged through the door into the small room. Horror rose up her throat as they pinned her father’s hands behind him and roughly pulled him away. But what shocked her most was that he didn’t even try to fight them. Her brave father who never gave up through their financial crisis, who never gave up on her sick brother, who never gave up on anything, gave up on their family. 

    Her eyes welled up with tears as she watched them leave. Her mother ran forward, pulling away a flower resting by the window. She tucked it into her father’s shirt pocket when the soldier’s backs were turned. She heard her mother’s whisper, but she didn’t know what it meant until years afterwards: “It’s for all the right reasons.”

     The flash of white sticking from her father’s shirt was the last thing she saw of him for twenty years. 

April 5, 1960 5:13am 

    She sat in the empty classroom, reading. The sky outside was turning lighter, dawn’s fingers slowly peeling back the darkness. She hadn’t been in school for over a month. After her family’s water was shut off, she worked full time babysitting. 

        She concentrated on her textbook as students began filing into the room. To her surprise, many reached out to hug her, saying how much they missed her. When the class settled down, even her strict teacher gave her a smile. 

       Class that day went by in a blur. She soaked up the facts they were learning, worked faster than anyone else with her times table, and won praise for memorizing the most characters. Soon, it was time the leave. She blinked; it had only felt like a few hours. The teacher started handing back papers, stopping at her desk. 

      “Very good,” she said. The essay had a large A+ written on it. “This was a pleasure to read. Here’s something for your efforts. ” The teacher handed her a large, white flower. She smiled; it was good to be back. 

 September 19, 1966 2:37 pm

    The streets of Xi’an were rainy and dusty. She hurried along the dirty road, filled with trash and plastic bags, struggling under the weight of her groceries. It was her mother’s birthday, and she was planning a delicious meal. The small shacks open were covered with pictures of Chairman Mao urging the arrest of more intellectuals, others supporting collective farming. Seeing them filled her with anger. She had been forced to quit learning last year as the government shut down all schools. Her teacher had been arrested.

    A florist selling a basket of white flowers caught her eye. These would be perfect for her mother’s present. She winced at the cost, but pulled out money anyways. Buying them would mean extra hours at the butcher’s, chopping meat until her hands grew raw. 

    She was about to pay when a commotion started. Looking up at a tall school building, she saw an old man surrounded by a group of students on the roof. He was clearly a professor, wearing a long lab coat with large glasses perched on his nose. 

     “Go home, old man!” a student jeered, giving his teacher a shove. “We don’t need your kind stinking up this school anymore.”

     She stared in horror as the students began pelting the professor with rocks, books, and clubs, leaving him dangerously close to the edge of the building. The old man took it silently, his head lifted high. 

    “You may get me fired, but I will never abandon teaching.” Boos and crude language erupted at his words, from not only the students but also the gathering crowd below.

    “We don’t want you here! Get out! Or we’ll kill you!”

    “I know you all want me to die.” The professor turned to face the crowd, leaning into empty air. “I know the rest of China does, and especially Chairman Mao. But I do not agree. I am doing this because I love my students, and so I may die with my passion with me.”

    For a moment, she wanted to stand forward. She wanted to push the students away, to yell that what the old man said was true. But her sense of duty pulled back those thoughts; she had a hungry family to worry about. So instead, she stood powerless, only able to stare as the students starting pulling out knives. 

    “This is for the right reasons.” 

    Her mother’s words from eleven years ago rang through her mind as he jumped. She didn’t hear the sickening sound of his broken body crash to the ground, or see the cheers from the crowd. She only saw her father, the look of defeat in his eyes. He had not stood up for himself then, but was he leaving for the right reasons? The same reasons that kept her lips shut? For their family? 

    She wondered as the crowd surged forward and her basket of flowers fell to the ground.

February 15, 1975 3:56 pm 

    The flowers placed by the same windowsill were wilting. They, too, seemed to be tired of their constant arguments. 

    “I don’t understand what you see in him, honey,” her mother pressed. 

    “I see everything that you don’t, Mom!” she snapped. “I can make my own decisions.”

    “I don’t trust him,” said her mother. “You’re still young; you can meet someone else.”

    “I don’t want to meet anyone else!” she insisted. “I love him, and he loves me.”

    “That’s what you think. Please trust me on this, dear. This marriage isn’t right. 

    “Are you just disagreeing with me because you think I won’t help support the family anymore?” Frustrated, she strode towards the window and looked outside. The streets were busy, but calm. The screams of arrest had faded from the neighborhood. “Because I will, Mom. I’ll still help out as much as I can.”

    “Of course not!” Her mother stepped forward, her eyes flashing with anger. “I let your sister get married. It was because I approved of it. This is a bad idea.” 

    “I know what I’m doing.”

    “Please.” Her mother’s eyes softened again, and they watered with familiar tears. “Think about your father. Would he wish for you to marry this man?” 

    The mention of her father snapped her. He had been gone seventeen years, taken forcefully for the same reason the professor would have been; for having a college degree and doing office work. For being an intellectual that spoke out against the government. The word meant nothing to her; she had only known her father as someone fascinated by learning. But through time, it became a curse. While her father was laboring on a farm hundreds of miles away, her family had struggled. She worked various jobs after school, from selling cloth to housekeeping, just to stay alive. 

    “Don’t talk about my father again! All I know is he left us. We’ve struggled for so long because of him, Mom. I don’t care about him, and I don’t care what he thinks.” 

    White petals fell off of the flowers, and as she left she slammed the door behind her. 

January 2, 1978 9:07 pm

    “It’s beautiful,” she said to her husband. They were standing on a bridge in the city of Qingdao, overlooking a magnificent river. Yellow lights of the city blinked across the water, and mountains stood farther back shrouded by a pale mist. Snowflakes fell around them, burying into her thick, dark hair.

    “Like you.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and she smiled, reaching up to kiss him. Life was finally on the right track. Married three months ago, they had been touring China. The money for the expensive trip was hard to save up, but every penny was worth it. Her mother couldn’t have been more wrong.

     With the help of the new leader Deng Xiaoping, the chaos of the Cultural Revolution had finally ended. Her father came back as intellectuals were embraced again under new and enlightened policy. She had visited him a month before, but they exchanged few words. He lost his sense of humor, along with the gleam of curiosity in his eyes. Most of his hair had fallen out, and his slender, defined fingers were rough with calluses. She knew his broken figure was from years of planting, but it represented a reminder of his severed ties from the family. She didn’t know who her father was, and through such a long time, she knew she never would. 

    “I’m glad things are settling down,” her husband murmured thoughtfully, pulling her back into the present.

    “Me too,” she agreed. “But…what’s next for us?”

    He pressed his cheek against hers. “Anything you want.” Smiling, he pulled out a handful of white flowers. She took them and pressed her nose into their yellow centers, breathing in the sweet and familiar scent.

July 26, 1983 2:14 am

     She was shoving clothes inside her suitcase. She knew that time was running out, and her husband would be home soon, drunk and violent. “But Mommy, where are we going?” her five year old son was yawning beside her. 

     “We’re going to see grandma and grandpa.” Her voice was falsely light. 

     “Where do they live?”      

     “Far away from here.”

      “What about daddy?” She winced as he asked the dreaded question. “Aren’t we going to wait for him?”

      “No.” She ruffled her son’s messy hair. “Not this time. It’s going to be the two of us for a while now, okay?” She planned to go back to her mother’s house, until they could legally settle the divorce. She would find a job back in her hometown and raise her son alone. 

      She closed her eyes and prayed with all her heart that he wouldn’t notice the bruises blossoming on her arms and cheeks, or the scars on her back, that he would never understand how she had gotten them. It was an impossible wish.

     “Come on, we have a train to catch.” She hoisted her son onto her hip. Before she left, she stuffed a white flower from her dresser into her purse.

     Once her son had fallen asleep on the train, she pulled it out and allowed herself to cry.

May 1, 1999 8:01 pm

    She sat in her small apartment and stared at the clock. She looked at a moth that fluttered too close to the naked light bulb, then at the flowers resting by her bed. They were wilting again.  Her son should’ve been here hours ago. The full, rich meal she made was growing cold on the tiny table. Cooking it had taken half of her weekly income. 

    He took off as soon as he turned eighteen, blaming her for the absence of his father. He didn’t seem to care about why her husband wasn’t there, or what he had done to her. She was pained to see how selfish and cruel her son had become, but it was her own fault. He had spent too many months in the dark neighborhoods, too many summers with strangers while she worked double shifts. 

    But he was still her son, still the sweet, smiling baby she raised. He promised to visit tonight, one last time before he left Xi’an for his job and for good. She waited until the clock struck midnight, but he never came. 

May 18, 2003 10:34 am

     She struggled with the snacks and toys she carried. It was her great niece’s third birthday. Her hair, once a long, luscious black, was now short and snowy white. The clothes she scavenged from a nearby trashcan hung loosely to her bony frame. There was no substance on her body, no spark of life in her eyes. The poverty, her bitter divorce, and her son’s abandonment had beaten her repeatedly until she finally fell down. 

  People stared as she crossed the street to a florist. “How much?” She asked the saleslady, pointing to a large bunch of white flowers.

     “Ten dollars for the dozen.”

      She dug through her wallets and pockets and purses and found a dollar coin. She spent the last of her money on a single, white flower.

March 3, 2010, 11:00 am

    She was lying on her bed, isolated and alone. The room she lived in for ten years was dark and dusty. The gifts her family left her were scattered on the ground. Knowing it was her last day, they tried to talk with her, tried to tell her that everything would be fine. But none of them understood what she had experienced in her life. They had left hours ago, going back to their own lives as hers was ending.

    She knew she would be gone too. The breast cancer had spread to other parts of her body, the tumors steadily eating her away. She wasn’t afraid of death; she welcomed it. Her life had been full of regrets and tragedies, and she was ready to leave it. The words of her mother came back to her again: “Do it for the right reasons.” She hoped she had lived for the right reasons. 

    She continued to stare at the flowers as her vision grew dark. It was funny how they were with every step of her life, good or bad. But the flowers weren’t wilted anymore; they had finally died. 

March 3, 2010 4:00 pm 

    On the other side of the world, I was walking back from school. I had been told of my great-aunt’s death; I had known it was only a matter of time. As I reached my front yard, I saw on the lawn a white flower with a yellow center. It was starting to bloom. A beautiful new life had begun.