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

 


Pan Jen-mu 潘人木

ONE HECK OF A PASSAGE
「一」關難渡*

Translated by YU Yu-san 余幼珊

   I have been very sensitive to footsteps since little. Even when I was half awake and half asleep, I could tell, merely from listening to footsteps, who came, who went away, who got mad, and who had put on new shoes. Yet had I never heard my own footsteps.
   There was once, though, when I did hear my own footsteps. It was when I was eleven, in grade five. In the math final exam, I gave the wrong answer to one of the questions, so the teacher told me to do it again on the blackboard. It was a disgraceful thing, so one ought to have walked with humiliation and walked quietly. And yet I rose up from my seat and rushed to the podium in big steps. There was not a sound in the classroom except my footsteps, ta ta ta ta, rushing and hurrying.
   Having solved the question correctly, I stood on the podium waiting for the teacher to praise me. And yet all that the teacher said was: “Just now I thought you were going to fly over. Walk more softly from now on.”
   How could he know that youth and health could not be concealed.
   “Time travels like a flying arrow; days and months go by like a flying shuttle.” Year following year, from youth to old age, all in the twinkling of an eye. My partner had passed away, and the children had left home. Ever since, all the footsteps I heard were my own. Click click click they went to this empty room; click click click they went to that empty room. Lonely footsteps fell on the hair, the walls; they fell on the sun rays that came in through the window and danced with them. Even if I wore shoes with soft soles, or slippers, the clanging sound of my feet was still often heard.
   One day, the only clicking footsteps that remained in the house were suddenly heard no more. What was heard instead were dragging and shuffling sounds. I had thought that this poor hollow clicking sound of what’s left would keep me company throughout my remaining days. How could it abandon me just overnight! I was utterly distressed, utterly frightened! What heinous crime did I commit that led to the sudden arrival of senility? My legs no longer obey my orders. When I went up or down the stairs, it felt as if the bones in my knees were disjoined, and lifting these feeble legs was like lifting weights. I had to make such an effort going up and down, with my hands holding on to the handrail, my body doubled over. If we zoomed out the lens, wouldn’t I look like an old bear that, upon waking up from hibernation, was weak and feeble with starvation? Sleeping at night, whenever I wanted to roll over to my side, I had to use both hands to lift up a leg and move it gently, or else the pain would be excruciating. In this kind of situation, although I could still walk, the footsteps were all disordered, and the empty clicking sounds were no longer to be heard. Westerners say: “One can tell what bird it is by the way it flies.” By the same token, “One can tell how old someone is by the way he walks,” which is not far from the truth.
   So it is that loneliness and old age cannot be concealed, either.
   Not even in my dreams did it ever occur to me that in old age, all that I asked for was such a humble thing as the empty clicking sound of my own footsteps. But I was not disappointed. Disappointment makes one frail. I could not but accept natural aging, but I would not accept mental frailty. I went to the doctor, regularly, conscientiously. But medication did not work.
   I contemplated on it over and over again. What, besides old age, was the cause that pushed me into this kind of situation? The answer came very quickly—it was separation!
   Countless separations from people close to me led to my loneliness; and loneliness accelerated my aging.
   In his immortal book One Hundred Years of Solitude, the great Colombian author Marquez writes: “Old age is the forming of alliance with loneliness.”1 I liked his book, but I did not buy this idea. I would not form this alliance. I would fight against loneliness to save myself from decrepitude; I made up my mind to defeat loneliness with both soft and hard measures.
   To begin with, I threw away the cluster amaryllis, pot and soil, by the doorway, because, over the past twenty years, listening to all the footsteps of the family members and witnessing their departing one by one, it lavishly nurtured separation.
   I promised myself that, if the hollow clicking sound successfully returned, I would definitely cherish it in the future, and that in my book of “Days for Celebration” made from a diary book, I would enter “Clicking Returning Day,” following the last entry for the day of “Catching the Mouse Single-handedly.”
   I had gone to the 7 p.m. movie by myself amongst pairs of teenagers, wearing low-heel shoes, ....

   1 This is translated from the author’s Chinese quotation.


This is the last piece of essay by Pan Jen-mu 潘人木, published in her memorial pamphlet Kang-yi chung te wen-jo 《 剛毅中的溫柔 》[ The tenderness covered by the resolution ],Chou Hui-chu 周慧珠ed., Taipei: The Society of Children’s Literature, ROC, 2005.


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