We have been apart for over fifty years now, but all through
the long days that have steadily slipped by, I have constantly
thought of you.
And I am convinced you have also been thinking about me.
In the innocent years of our youth, we used to believe that even
if we were to be separated, we would be sure to see each other
again, just as one knows for certain that the sun will rise once
more at the end of a long night.
In the late autumn of 1952, at a time when Taiwan was facing
a whole host of difficulties, I was working in the newspaper
industry. One evening, as I was crossing the dark and deserted
Hengyang Street, I suddenly caught sight of you from behind,
your two long braids falling down the back of the dark-blue traditional
dress that tightly hugged your still-slim body. I called out joyfully: “Li Jing, Li Jing.”
But the girl turned round and looked at me in bewilderment.
Of course it was not you, it was just someone who looked
exactly like you from behind. Then I felt utterly devastated, and that bitter sense of loss has constantly haunted me ever since. It was indeed stupid of me, and it was all because I missed you so much. Of course, if you had come to Taiwan, you would certainly have looked for me.
We cannot choose our brothers and sisters, so deep feelings
between them are natural, but among all the masses of ordinary
people it is so special to be able to find a real soul-mate, a person who understands and cherishes you and has a truly matching temperament, someone you can love as much as yourself.
I studied journalism and you studied accountancy. While I
was cheerful and bubbly like the shimmering light on the surface
of a lake, you were subtle and refined, steady as the water under the vast ocean. I was a pampered only-child, but you were the eldest of five children, and you cared for me like you had always looked after your younger siblings. I had a bright, carefree adolescence, but you maintained an unruffled demeanor, constantly reserved and graceful, always mindful of the challenges of the future. Although it may have seemed that we were so different, our characters were actually rather similar, and that is why among all the thousands of fellow students we became close friends.
In the middle of April 1949, the flames of war approached
Shanghai, and with regular demonstrations and strikes occurring
throughout the city, everything sank into chaos. After the Eating Out Movement, at school there was nothing to do but rest.
Slogans in red and green characters were posted all over the
large notice-boards around the campus, and the sight of them scared us. Some classmates who lived locally went home but
then hurried back to the school, convinced that, as students, they belonged to the classroom. However, we could not decide
whether we should feel happy or sad now that there were no
more classes. With nobody to turn to for advice, we all congregated at the school gates on Jiangwan Road or here and there on the campus, feeling a mixture of curiosity, anxiety, fear, and confusion - we were like the froth on the surface of a huge wave.Nothing was under our control, and nobody knew what the next day would bring.
In the evening after the lights were out, we used to go out
on to the balcony of our third-floor dormitory and gaze out at the stars. It was near the end of spring, so some of the flowers were still blooming, and through the hazy night sky a faint lingering
scent wafted up from the last of the winter jasmine in the flowerbeds below. We both had long hair, yours braided in two long plaits and mine falling loosely down my back, and after washing it, we used to go out to let it dry in the evening breeze, and then we would discuss our youthful aspirations for the future. We both loved children, and you planned to have lots. We would live near to each another, and you would come and clean my floor, polishing it till it was sparkling. In those innocent dreams that we weaved, we always imagined we would be together, but in reality we knew that we were about to be separated by the momentous changes soon to engulf us.
One day, in the middle of the night, long after the lights had
gone out throughout the campus, a big truck could suddenly be
heard roaring through the darkness. It sounded like it was moving along Jiangwan Road outside the main gate, but then it
stopped abruptly on Tianai Road by the wall of our women’s dormitory, a fairly remote spot nestling behind an extensive flower-bed of dahlias in full bloom. In our helpless uncertainty, we were gripped by panic and terror. After a moment came the irregular sound of hurried footsteps on the stairs, and then from the darkness six or seven men burst in, like ghosts wrapped in a mantle of terrifying ghastliness. . . .
*This was Yu Kwang-chung’s 余光中keynote speech delivered at the 2007 International PEN Asia and Pacific Regional Conference held in Hong Kong from February 2 to 5, 2007.
From Yao Yni Ying’s 姚宜瑛 Shih-liu ke mei-kui《十六棵玫瑰》
[ Sixteen roses ]. Taipei: Elite Publishing, 2003. |
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