Winter 2006
 
 

CONTENTS

 
  BOTTLE 瓶
   By Yin Dih 隱地
   Translated by John J. S. BALCOM 陶忘機
 
  CHAIR 椅子
   By CHANG Shiang Hua 張香華
   Translated by John J. S. BALCOM 陶忘機
 
  THE COMING INTO BEING OF THIS EXISTENCE
這一生的發生

   By CHEN I-chih 陳義芝
   Translated by Chris Wen-Chao LI 李文肇
 
  A THOUSAND LAYERS OF WHITE 白千層
   By CHU An-ming 初安民
   Translated by John J. S. BALCOM 陶忘機
 
  LATE-BLOOMING OSMANTHUS 遲開的桂花
   By WU Chin-fa 吳錦發
   Translated by David and Ellen DETERDING
   戴德巍與陳艷玲
 
  BUTTERFLIES SCREAM, CUT OFF THE EAR
蝴蝶尖叫,割下耳朵

   By CHENG Ying-shu 成英姝
   Translated by Patrick CARR 柯英華
 
  ONE HECK OF A PASSAGE 「一」關難渡
   By Pan Jen-mu 潘人木
   Translated by YU Yu-san 余幼珊
 
  SISTER SUNNY 晴姊
   By D. J. LIU 劉大任
   Translated by Danny H. LIN 林心嶽
 
  LI CHIAPAO 李家寶
   By CHU Tien-hsin 朱天心
   Translated by Shou-Fang HU-MOORE 胡守芳
 
  FACE, BODY AND MIND—
THE SCULPTURES OF CHEN CHENGHSIUNG
面相、身相與心相的刻鏤—陳正雄的雕刻藝術

   By SHIH Jui-jen 石瑞仁
   Translated by David van der Peet 范德培
 
  NEWS & EVENTS 文化活動
   Compiled by Sarah Jen-hui HSIANG 項人慧
 
  NEW BOOKS BY OUR MEMBERS 會員新書
 
  NOTES ON AUTHORS AND TRANSLATORS 作者與譯者簡介 APPENDIX: CHINESE ORIGINALS 附錄:中文原著
 
  JOYOUS ARHAT 開喜羅漢, stout camphor wood,
68 × 85 × 50 cm, 2002...............COVER
 
  LOOKING HOMEWARD 望鄉, stout camphor wood,
68 × 42 × 38 cm, 2004...........................BACK COVER
   By CHEN Cheng-hsiung 陳正雄

 


WU Chin-fa 吳錦發

LATE-BLOOMING OSMANTHUS
遲開的桂花*

Translated by David and Ellen DETERDING 戴德巍與陳艷玲

1

   I gently pushed open the door of Great-Grandmother’s bedroom, afraid to disturb her. As I was walking past the dining room, my grandfather had warned me that Great-Grandmother had just taken her medicine and was probably asleep so I should be careful not to wake her when I went in.
   It was a smallish side-room, maybe about thirty square meters, and it was the central room in the right wing of the house that occupied three sides of a courtyard. Behind it was a huge osmanthus tree which provided shade from the late-afternoon sun for all the windows that faced west, making them especially dark inside.
   When I stepped into the room, I was greeted by a nauseating stench, the combined odor of assorted drugs, excrement, urine and the cloying smell of various things that were going moldy, and I was jolted by an involuntary shudder as I was greeted by that dank atmosphere.
   Great-Grandmother was lying on the huge wooden bed, her dried-out white hair falling untidily over the crimson wooden head-rest, and under the flowery blue coverlet her shrunken body was curled up from long illness. Her position in the middle of such a large bed made her appear as tiny as a baby.
   “Is that . . . is that Fa-tsai?” The abrupt rasping of her voice, like the hoarse croaking of a sick goose, frightened me. I had thought that she was asleep, and had intended to sneak in and tiptoe up to her bed to have a look at her, so the sudden sound left me momentarily frozen to the spot.
   “Is that Fa-tsai?” she asked again.
   “Yes, it is, Great-Grandma,” I said as I hurried over to her. “I’ve come back to see you!”
   She did not say anything more. Her eyes were covered by a white film, but with an effort she raised her hand as if intending to stroke my head. Unable to reach me, she let her hand fall back down again, but a smile crept over her lips.
   “You little monkey. I just . . . asked you to go and pick some flowers for your Great-Grandma, so where did you run off to?”
   Just? It was already a week since I had last seen her. I was studying in high school in Kaohsiung and living in a dormitory there, so I was only able to come back and see her once a week. It was on the previous Sunday that she had asked me to go and pick some flowers!
   “Great-Grandma, I just went and had a look, and the osmanthus flowers aren’t out yet.” I reached over to smooth her disheveled hair, and she smiled as she stretched out to grasp my hand and then trailed her other hand down my chest.
   This had been Great-Grandmother’s custom for some time. When I was still in the second grade of primary school, she had gone blind and, concerned that she should not be left alone, my grandfather had told me to go and sleep next to her. Under the coverlet, Great-Grandma liked to stroke my body from the head downwards, and then she would happily say, “Ah, Fa-tsai, you’re growing up!”
   Yes, I was indeed growing up, and now I was a student in my third year at high school. Did Great-Grandma think I was still a child in the second grade of primary school? Was she really so ill that her perception of time was completely distorted?
   When I thought about it, my smile evaporated and sad tears welled up in my eyes.

2

   Great-Grandmother had not been sick for just a day or two. She had been living with chronic diabetes for a long time and towards the end of the previous year it reached the stage where she was unable to walk. However, even though she was both crippled and blind, she stubbornly clung to life like a persistent weed with its roots firmly entrenched in the ground.
   On the first and fifteenth of every month, she insisted that one of the family support her for the two-kilometer walk down the hill to offer incense at a temple. Sometimes everyone was too busy with work in the fields and had no time to accompany her, and then she would sit in her room and throw a tantrum. “How can you be so cavalier about a promise to the gods!”
   She would go on nagging incessantly till one of us finally gave in and went with her. Once everyone got so fed up with her that they asked me to take her even though I was just in the third grade of primary school at the time. It was a summer’s afternoon just after it had stopped raining, and the muddy surface of the road was coated with water and had become quite slippery, so I had to help her walk along carefully. Several times we slipped and nearly fell over, ....


From Wu Chin-fa’s 吳錦發collection of short stories Chun chiu cha-shih《春秋茶室 》(Spring and Autumn Tea House),Taipei: Unitas Publishing, 1988.


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