My eyes lingered on the first group photo. The photo shows him glowing and me slightly shy. What kind of an autumn afternoon was that? I had just finished watching the movie “A Walk in the Clouds” and my friends were gathered on the verdant lawn in front of the Aowen Building, talking about it. He was surrounded in the center, looking like a jade tree. His profound thoughts, outstanding insight and elegant demeanor flowed out from his unconscious hand and foot. The moment our eyes met, we understood each other’s mood. The students followed, shouting “golden girl”, pushed us together, and used a camera that appeared out of nowhere to freeze us together. That year, we were both in our senior year of college. The first time I saw it, I had to go to the airport.
The second picture of us together came to light as the album turned page by page. The second photo was taken in the hutong at sunset, with the willows still intact. The first one is a bicycle, and I am sitting on the back of the car, holding his waist. Both sides of the face, covered with unspeakable happiness. After graduating from college, he got into a graduate school in Beijing with the first overall score. I gave up my job and came to Beijing with him. After nearly two months of displacement, I finally found a job, and rented a 10-square-meter room in the East Guanfang Hutong. During the day, we went our separate ways – he went to school and I went to work. At night, he came to my hut to help me choose vegetables and watch me cook. After dinner, we either read together or have a heart-to-heart talk. He loved photography, and on weekends, he would carry his camera and bike around the hutongs with me. When he saw a good scene, he would stop and urge me to pose for a picture. So in the back garden of Gong Wang Fu, Shichahai antique street …… have left my shadow. And what makes me happiest is sitting on the back of the bike, holding his waist, looking all the way through the narrow hutongs: blue sky, gray walls. In the sunset, the tall date palm trees swayed with a light golden light, the fiery red pomegranates grinned and poked out of the wall, the old man sitting on the stone steps, the children playing soccer carefully in the hutong …… I was happy at this time, so happy that I sighed a long and short sigh. He said with concern, “What’s wrong?” I said, “If only you could carry me like this all the time.” He laughed and imitated my tone, “It would be nice if you could carry me around like this all the time, just in case you fly one day.” His fears may indeed be justified. The company I work for has many foreign girls, who are looking for an extremely demanding object to put down roots in Beijing, what Beijing household registration ah, housing ah, savings ah all have to be taken into account. But I’m different from them, before I make a choice, maybe I will hesitate, but once I make a choice, I will go on without any hesitation. Looking at his somber face, I jumped off the car, took the camera on his shoulder, handed it to a fruit stall owner on the street, and asked him to take an “engagement photo” for us. “Engagement photos on a bicycle”, the small boss and he exclaimed at the same time. I thought, for the sake of his future, we can’t talk about marriage now, but one day we will walk into the church and receive God’s blessing. So, there is this picture of the dragon’s head well.
The third photo is perhaps the most poetic. The third photo is perhaps the most poetic. The endless fields are green and rippling. The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to the public. The distance is far, can only see each other once a week, I would like to go to the city to see him, each time he politely advised to stop, the road is far, work and tired, go will affect him, think about it. At that time, whenever he saw me, he always brought something: a poem, a flower, a delicate straw hat or wooden carving. He knew I didn’t like sweets, but I loved these little things. Every weekend when I dropped off the last student, I dressed up, wore a straw hat, carried a bamboo basket, and went out to the fields to pick wild vegetables. Ever since he first tasted my cold wild greens, he fell in love. In the spring and summer, when the wild vegetables are tender, dandelions, gray strips of cabbage and shepherd’s purse are greening the fields. An hour had passed and the basket was filled with green and delicate wild vegetables. When I saw the time, he was coming, so I ran like hell to the 345 road station and waited quietly. He always looks at me with surprise and naturally takes my basket and puts his arm around my shoulder. He sang “In that faraway place ……” as he strolled across the fields. We were stretched out by the setting sun, and our song carried far away. “Click”, we were treated as a scenery, into a young man’s framing. Later, the young man gave me the photo, which I put into an album and carefully treasured.
The fourth and final group photo was our last. The first one is the one with the most important thing in the world. He taught in Changping for three years. During this time, he successfully defended his master’s thesis and entered a magazine with the help of a friend. I thought he would propose to me, but he did not. He became busier and busier, not even visiting me once every half month. Once in a while, he would come, always haggard, slip me a gift, smile apologetically, and hurry to leave. I would love to ask him when he is free to go with me to see the wedding dress, but a touch of his tired eyes, can not bear to speak, slow it down, wait for him to relax a little, he will take the initiative to mention. Until one day …… that was a week-end after the snow in 1997, he gave me a call, said he wanted to send me a root carving, and very important things to tell me. At that time, I was ecstatic, thinking he would propose to me. I waited for a day, but there was no sign of him, and he didn’t respond to my calls. It was almost dark, my heart kept sinking, he would never miss an appointment without a reason, is he sick? I thought of this, I no longer care about what he had told me not to look for him, put on my coat and went directly to his unit. He was not there, his colleagues told me that he had gone to the hospital, his girlfriend Hui suffered from “acute appendicitis”. Hui is a Beijinger, his classmate in graduate school, and it was precisely with the help of Hui’s father that he joined the magazine and became a Beijinger; while I was just a good-looking hometown girl in his mouth, a good relative …… I don’t know how I got back to Changping, only an image haunted me, tormented me: he gazed at me with eyes that had gazed at me with affection a thousand times I don’t know how I got back to Changping, only one image haunted me, tormented me: he gazed at her in the hospital bed with eyes that had gazed at me a thousand times with affection! How could this happen? Was it just because of a Beijing account? How could this happen? He came early the next morning, black-eyed and shivering, wanting to say something, but I stopped him: “Let’s take a picture together.” And so, the photo that recorded the solidification of our feelings was left on the last page of the album.
Closing the album, my memory is still stranded in 1997. I should forget him and go my own way, while my fragile heart lingers in the warmth of what once was, stubbornly believing that what took him away was just her education, her account. If I’m like her, maybe I can still win back the relationship? Even if you can’t, maybe you can get yourself out of the shadow of your feelings, I’m going to study, and I’m going to study at the same university where they used to stay. Perhaps it was God’s mercy, or his own sincerity, a year of silence, 365 days of hard study, I finally succeeded. I will never forget the scene when I called and told him with a smile. He was surprised and then said, “I’m so glad to hear your good news, congratulations, can we treat you to a casual dinner?” I could hear the sincerity of the voice, without a trace of pretense, but it was the sincerity without pretense that immediately broke down my psychological defenses. I silently put down the microphone, wanting to cry. What if I get into graduate school? The first thing I did was to get to know the people I was with.
Valentine’s Day is here again, and so is my birthday. I habitually sit by the phone, quietly waiting for that long-awaited wish. The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to its customers. He often bought my favorite trinkets, roses, and a card filled with sweet words, and gave it to me. However, noon passed, afternoon passed, the alarm clock on the bed was pointing to late night, and the phone was lying there quietly like an abandoned child, like me. Did he forget me? Forgotten all about me? I don’t believe it’s true. Maybe he’ll visit me in my dreams. Hanging on to my tears, I fell asleep. In my dream, I felt like I was in the fields of Beijing Changping again. It was dark and I was alone in the fields, walking alone. I shouted, but there was no echo ……
“I don’t look back, the past is weighing on my heart again, the strings of the qin and the thar have been broken, the sound of the drums has been disordered ……”, this song sung by Zhang Xinzhe years ago. The first song seems to be a footnote for me today. I slowly put the album back into its envelope. The heavy memories in the album are like a displaced boat, carrying me through the sea of people as I search for a shore, an oasis for my heart.