A Qing tells fortune.

Lin

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Open the screen window, the sky is a hazy brown. According to the Morning News, this is Huangsha.

It is said that this kind of dust came from mainland Chinese mainland, crossed the Yellow Sea, crossed the Korean Peninsula and blew from Kyushu to Kanto and Hokuriku in a westerly wind. Yellow sand blows from west to east at a speed of 40 kilometers per hour, and it takes a day or two to blow it to Japan. During the two-day long journey, the heavier particles sank into the mountains of the Korean Peninsula and the Yellow Sea, while the lighter and tiny grains of sand floated in the sky of Japan.

It is said that even so, almost all the sky in Japan is covered with this kind of loess dust as thick as a cotton cap. However, on the day when Huangsha came, a strange light appeared in the sky. The open space in front of the house and the trees on the surrounding hills seem to be shrouded by the light of ground glass, forming a vague shadow.

China is the place where I spent my girlhood. At that time, when China was called "zhina" by Japan, Shanghai, the land connected with Shanghai, seemed to fly in the boundless sky, and then descended to the sky in mainland Japan ... I wanted my skin to be in direct contact with the air, so I went to the open space, took a deep breath with open arms, then turned my back to the sky, shook my neck, and shook my whole body violently like a dog who had just taken a shower, letting the wind with moisture blow my cheeks. Maybe I'm too sensitive. I smell Chinese mainland's clothes being dried and loess.

Yellow sand often blows in Shanghai in March, just like the metaphor of "yellow dust". Yellow dust rolled up from Taiyuan, near the Gobi Desert, turned into soil over Shanghai. When we arrived at Huangpu River, the water seemed to be deeper than usual. Muddy water makes the river turbid, and the river is raised and flows down. On the outskirts of Yuan Ye, cauliflower is in full bloom, and the sky, river and land are golden. Shanghai has entered the spring season from the sky to the ground.

Even if there is a dusty wind, it is comfortable to touch the skin because the air contains moisture.

On the open space, as I expected, there was a particularly warm and humid wind blowing on the day when the yellow sand was blown. In the misty wind, it seems to contain my dream, just like my fantasy when I was young and ignorant. I tried to go to that place filled with yellow sand, surrounded by mountains on three sides disappeared behind me, and I walked down the gentle slope.

At the end of the ramp, the houses are getting smaller and smaller, the streets are basin-shaped, and the yellow sand is darker than the open space or hills, piled under the eaves of every household and gray. I stopped in the middle of the road and a gust of wind blew from the slope. I closed my eyes and listened to the wind. The faint wind in my ear reminds me of the time when I entered the cauliflower field with A Qing when I was a child.

Qing and I met in the spring of the twelfth year of Showa. I was in primary school in Shanghai that year, and A Qing was only twenty-three or four years old.

Speaking of the twelfth year of Showa, on July 7th, the Japanese army clashed with the Japanese army near Lugou Bridge, which became the fuse of the Sino-Japanese War.

A Qing's home and mine are close to Waibaidu Bridge, just at the entrance of Hongkou. Hongkou was then in the area of Shanghai Street under Japanese rule. Bounded by the Waibaidu Bridge across the Huangpu River, the bridge is a public concession under the rule of Britain, the United States and other countries, and the bridge is Hongkou where the Japanese live. A Qing's home is only two or three minutes away from mine. This area is mostly red tile houses, which are consistent with the houses in the public concession at the other end of the bridge. The street structure is greatly influenced by the public concession. The building is a three-story building in English style, with a brown roof, a fireplace in the reception room and a rectangular chimney protruding upward. The whole roof is like a saddle. In addition, although it is a little narrow, there is also a yard, which can be freely accessed from the sidewalk. There are no fences and grass in the yard.

A Qing and five or six prostitutes live in such a house. Several other prostitutes are Belarusian, and only A Qing is Japanese. Before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in Shanghai, with the increase of Japanese soldiers, the streets were full of houses where prostitutes lived, but few Japanese prostitutes lived. Japanese women who accept Japanese soldiers work in Japanese restaurants and are managed by the well-defined army and navy. Of course, she is not a prostitute in name, but I don't know if she betrayed herself after she got the money. In any case, it is rare for Japanese women like A Qing to openly engage in prostitution on the street and take prostitution as their profession.

In front of the yard is a tree-lined boulevard with buttonwood trees. Cross the asphalt road and continue to the Huangpu River. Huangpu River draws a big bend around Waibaidu Bridge and flows into the distance. There are wooden benches for rest by the river. As it happens, there is also a bench in front of A Qing's house. I like sitting on a bench and watching steamboats coming and going on the river.

That day, I had lunch and sat on a bench watching the boat. The A Qing family, which is usually quiet during the day, gathered a lot of people today. Hearing the sound, I looked back and saw several coolies. They may have lost the loading and unloading work at the dock. About four or five minutes later, two dozen people built a human wall in front of A Qing's house and shouted at A Qing's yard.

In the corner far from the wall in the yard, there is a pagoda tree, which is the only tree in A Qing yard. A man is standing against a tree trunk, and a dark-skinned man can sometimes be seen nearby at night. He is about the same age as A Qing, in his mid-twenties, wearing a double-breasted silk cheongsam. The coolies held out one or two fingers at the man and shouted a hundred times. The man smiled with his arms around him and shook his head ostentatiously. He disagreed with those coolies. Knowing that he disagreed, the voices of the coolies grew louder and louder, and the number increased little by little.

Men seem to be betting. This is not uncommon in Shanghai. Crowds gather in a circle, and things that are bound to become gambling objects are in the circle. Gambling covers everything, from ants crawling on the road to cricket fighting, and everything they pass by becomes the object of their gambling.

A Qing seems to be betting at his door. I was very interested, so I crossed the buttonwood avenue to see what was gambling in the wall. There is a long bamboo chair in the middle of the lawn, which seems to be a bet centered on the bench. But nothing was found on or near the chair, except the spring sunshine covered with yellow sand on the light yellow bamboo chair. A coolie shouted "three hundred". With this cry, two or three coolies shook their outstretched three fingers and shouted at the third floor window. They shouted A Qing's name.

There is only one window on the third floor of my house facing the Huangpu River. The third floor is where children play. In the attic, you can touch the beams with a jump, and the ceiling is very low. Although the room is more than a dozen tatami, there is only one window. Even during the day, the light is dim. However, when the sun is shining, the waves of the river are reflected on the beams of the walls and roofs, which looks like a goldfish bowl, and I spent a happy time there.

A Qing seems to live in the attic on the third floor. The window is closed with light blue curtains. The coolies continued to use words that could attract A Qing's attention. The man in the silk robe raised his hands to stop the coolie. The door handle turns slowly from the inside. The door inlaid with stained glass opened slightly, and A Qing came out gently like a small crucian carp passing through seaweed. A Qing came out. The coolies suddenly quieted down.

A Qing is dressed in China. Usually, she always wears a kimono with a red bodo ribbon. This is the first time I saw Qing wearing China's clothes. Hair tied like an eaves, cheongsam split to the thigh, revealing clean and fair skin. She also wore a pair of satin embroidered China shoes barefoot. Compared with the hair combed with hair oil, A Qing's naked skin is completely unadorned. A Qing naturally stood by the door, with long soft arms hanging down. The man in the silk robe walked slowly towards the long chair. A Qing looked at the man's movements and walked to the bench. Then, sitting on one side of the chair with his legs together, the man sat down, and they sat down almost at the same time. The man suddenly pulled up A Qing and pulled himself up. He took A Qing by the left hand and put her on the bench. Lying on the ground, A Qing opened his hands and fingers and slapped the man's waist with an expression that was neither joking nor serious. The man grabbed A Qing's wrist with his other hand and held it together with his right hand. A Qing's hands were deprived of his freedom, and then he put A Qing's legs between his own.

O quiet down, the man also quiet down. Hey! Hey! The coolies cheered in unison. One of the coolies hit the man on the back with all his strength, and the man jumped up from the chair. Then, A Qing followed his example and jumped up gently.

A Qing neatly smoothed the wrinkled skirt on her dress and smiled at the man with lipstick on his lips. The man crossed his arms on his chest and gave A Qing a present.

The coolies clapped wildly. One hundred, two hundred, throw the money collected at them and clap your hands repeatedly. Looking at the coins and banknotes scattered at his feet, the man burst out laughing. A Qing also beat his stomach with his fist and burst out laughing.

This bet seems to be two people having sex. Men attack and women defend. It ended in A Qing's failure.

This is the first time I have ever seen a man and a woman make peace. Yes, I did, but I don't understand why they did it, and I didn't leave a deep impression in my mind. However, making love in the sun is like watching a dragonfly with two tails flying on the ear of rice, which gives people a refreshing feeling.

The coolies are gone. The man in the silk robe also left. I stood on the empty sidewalk and looked at A Qing. Although A Qing stood with her back to me, she felt my eyes fall on her back. She turned and saw me. A Qing panicked and asked, "Is the body a Japanese child?" My answer is yes. "Did you see it?" A Qing asked again. "yes." I answered unequivocally. A Qing didn't make any noise for a long time, and then took a deep breath.

A Qing and I walked to the Huangpu River. A Qing sat down on the bench. I also sit a little far away from her. A steamboat is sailing in the direction of the estuary. Due to the high tide, the river surface rose obviously, and the river surface was covered with white waves, beating the banks slowly and rhythmically. A Qing squinted at the steamboat sailing against the current, and casually asked, "Do you think that boards as hard as oak trees around the boat can block the waves of the sea and return to Japan?" You can go back, but it's dangerous Regardless of the danger, there is a 5000-6000-ton ship between Shanghai and Nagasaki. If you take this boat, maybe A Qing will be able to return to her yearning Japan tomorrow. Why did she deliberately choose that boat from the steamboats sailing on the Huangpu River, and wanted to take it to block the waves and secretly come back? And this idea is almost impossible to realize.

I guess A Qing wanted to cut off his yearning for the motherland by imagining the impossible. The reason why she had to cut it off was that she was hiding something in Japan. The family of a 23-year-old girl came to Shanghai alone, left Japan and had to live with foreigners who lost their motherland. After such an experience, it will not be accepted to live in Japan. This is a cruel fact.

With the passage of time, A Qing's affair with men gradually disappeared from my memory. But is it possible for her to go back to Japan? I don't know when it started. The question of A Qing made me think about whether the end of Huangpu River is connected with the motherland. But I know nothing about what my motherland is like, what it has to do with me, and what life in Japan is like.

I wonder who told my mother. My mother found out that I saw Qing having sex with that man. My mother asked me, "See?" "yes." I replied. My mother stared at my eyes again: "Did you see it from beginning to end?" "yes." I answered again. Mother is angry. I'm not ashamed to do such a thing in broad daylight and embarrass the Japanese. "This kind of woman should be forcibly sent back to China."

This is the attitude of Japanese adults living in that area towards A Qing. Living abroad, everyone is prone to the consciousness of representing the motherland. Especially in the era when the country is strong, the consciousness of being a Japanese is even stronger. Women are not allowed to go out barefoot. Because foreigners can't see the naked skin of Japanese women, mothers always wear summer kimonos and white socks when they go out. Beggars, thieves and poor people are all national humiliation and have been forcibly sent back to China. This harshness is not only aimed at foreigners' foreign languages, but also used to treat their compatriots equally or even harshly. Words such as traitors and forced repatriation will frequently appear in Japanese conversations. Even if children fight, they will say things like forced repatriation. But for children, of course, there is no clear sense of doing their duty for the country.

Aggressive words have become the daily life of adults, which also strengthens the relationship between Japanese. However, with the strengthening of this relationship, the public security in Shanghai is becoming more and more unstable. For self-defense, an autonomous association and a self-defense group were established in the neighborhood. Living in a foreign country, in order to protect your own safety, forming a group with your own people may be the safest way.

Although A Qing is Japanese, he is excluded from Japanese circles. A Qing doesn't seem to care much about it.

Half a month after sexual intercourse, in April, I went to primary school. One day, on my way to school, I saw A Qing on the bridge across the river. This bridge is built on the Hongkou River between my home and my primary school. There is a small house painted green in the middle of the bridge. Marine sentries often stand guard in front of small houses built face to face with guns. An example of a bridge, starting from a small house, has a long list of China people.

Cholera is prevalent in Shanghai in summer. Anyone living in Shanghai, regardless of nationality, must be vaccinated. Designate the Japanese to vaccinate in hospitals with only Japanese people, or ask doctors to vaccinate people in autonomous associations. Mothers also called the doctor to the autonomous meeting the day before and took a vaccination.

Only people in China vaccinate on bridges and streets. A Qing ranks in the ranks of the people of China, dressed in fine clothes worn on the day of coitus. As the team moved forward, A Qing followed suit. A Qing, who wears cheongsam, can't see any difference from the people waiting in line. The people in China before and after her didn't seem to care and greeted A Qing. However, the skin color and skeleton structure are different after all, and A Qing is still different from them. Because I know that A Qing is Japanese, I think only Ah Qing is different from others. I feel sorry for A Qing, being excluded from this country and standing in the queue of foreigners. I went to A Qing and called her from behind in a low voice. A Qing turned around and knew it was me, so he patted my backpack and said, "Go home early!"

"I am waiting for you!" I said.

After waiting for nearly thirty minutes, it was finally A Qing's turn. The military doctor with his legs crossed grabbed A Qing's left arm, stuck the needle down without disinfection, instantly injected the liquid medicine, and quickly pulled out the needle. When the needle is worn out and pulled out, black blood cells emerge from the eye of the needle. "Does it hurt?" I asked. The military doctor snorted, turned to A Qing and asked, "Are you Japanese?" A Qing didn't answer. Like China people, she covered her arm with her palm and walked in the opposite direction from home.

After crossing the bridge, you can see another bridge on the same river before you walk through the primary school. Crossing the bridge is the end of the street where the Japanese live in Hongkou. There are scattered houses and pedestrians in that area, and wasteland has appeared. Further on, people can't see, only the fields meet the horizon. An asphalt road runs through the middle of the wilderness. This road was built by the Japanese army to transport military supplies to the interior of China.

A Qing is walking in the middle of the wide road. Cauliflower is in full bloom on one side of the field, and a small white-walled house can be faintly seen. This is not an ordinary home, but a small house less than the height of children. The area is only the size of a tatami, and the roof is a dark black tile with a figure of eight. Just under the roof, there is a window the size of a postcard. It is said that the small white-walled house is the tomb of China people. I don't know what kind of graves they belong to, and I don't know if the graves built behind the house are unique to Shanghai. There is no name and date of death on the grave, and there is no tombstone or anything like that, only a white-walled grave. Not concentrated in a certain place like the Japanese cemetery. They are scattered in the wilderness one by one, and I wonder if anyone will come to sacrifice.

"Look." A Qing's voice comes from cauliflower field. I walked into Yuan Ye where cauliflower was in full bloom. From the small window of the grave, as I heard, there were no rotten coffin boards, bones and clothes, and there were no funerary objects of the dead. The weeds are so high that they grow to the roof. It craned its neck as if it were competing with the dead for a ray of sunshine through the skylight. Those weeds are greener than broccoli bathed in the sun all day.

"I can't see anything but grass." I said. "That's a person." A Qing replied.

A Qing pressed cauliflower with his hand, sat on it with his legs crossed, and then lay casually among the flowers with his head in his hands. The sky is yellow. A Qing said. I stood among the flowers and looked at the endless cauliflower fields. Ye Sheng's lush buttered cauliflower seems to connect my body with the horizon and the sky.

In this golden wilderness, the window of the grave is like a black hole. A Qing was lying among the flowers, and the flowers she overwhelmed formed a small flat land, just like hitting a bigger black hole on the earth.

At the end of the yellow sand season, Shanghai entered July and ushered in summer. I haven't seen A Qing since we parted in the cauliflower field. Later, my mother found out that we met when we were vaccinated, and then went to the cauliflower field.

I met the Japanese neighbors by chance, and they also reminded my mother to pay attention. Although I didn't do anything wrong, because A Qing is a prostitute, my mother said, "Maybe I don't know if I don't study well." Then he asked us what we said in the cauliflower field. I didn't answer. If A Qing pointed to the weeds in the grave and said they were people or something, I don't think my mother would understand. The sky and the earth are integrated, and such a scene can only be realized when you listen in the wilderness in spring.

The activities of anti-Japanese elements are increasingly active. In the busy street of Hongkou, an army lieutenant was shot dead by a pistol in broad daylight. Because the attack across the road was just around the corner, the Japanese wavered.

The M real estate company where my father worked was still open at the end of the Pacific War. Before the war disaster in that land, the families of the staff were ordered to retreat. According to secret information, the local war began after all the family members retreated.

Before the Lugouqiao Incident on July 7, all the staff members' families were ordered to retreat. After getting the tickets, our family began to prepare for returning to China. My mother said to me who didn't know what the motherland was, "You will be safe when you get to China, so don't run away."

I was forbidden to go out of the yard because of the bad security. That day, when I pressed the faucet of the sprinkler in the corner of the hospital with my finger and sprayed the water on the road to play, A Qing just walked across from the sprayed water. I stopped playing with water and walked to A Qing. A Qing, wearing a summer kimono and a red belt, looked at my window and whispered to me, "Will you come and play later?" ? Cookies with sugar for you. ""Going back to China? " She asked again. I nodded my head. "Yes," A Qing also nodded two or three times.

It took about two hours, about four o'clock in the evening. A Qing hanged himself. I carried my mother to A Qing's house on the other side of Wutongshu Street. A wall thicker than that on the day of coitus was built in front of A Qing's house.

The car of the Ministry of Industry painted black was parked on the sidewalk. This kind of car is a cleaning car, which specializes in picking up dead babies thrown on the road, people lying on the ground starving, dead cats and dogs and so on. In order not to be seen by the Japanese nearby, I was sandwiched between coolies and looked at the window of A Qing.

"It seems to be hanging from the beam." I heard a Japanese woman say. "It seems that I hung my neck with a kimono belt." I heard the voice of another Japanese woman. "It's terrible. The kimono belt is so strong. " I overheard my mother's voice by the wall. I quickly squatted down in the crowd.

I heard that A Qing hanged himself on the beam in the attic. The skylight in the attic is low. A Qing is not a tall man. If she hangs her belt on the beam and around her neck, her toes can touch the floor. How did she hang such a low beam? Listening to their mother's words, I remembered what A Qing said to me. He would give me cookies. It was Qing who asked me out just now. How did she kill herself at once? It's really puzzling. At least when I was asked out, it happened to be two hours ago that Qing was still alive. If I go to A Qing's room, I will see the candied cakes specially prepared for me by A Qing.

I really want to see cookies wrapped in waste paper on the table or tea tray.

The doorknob decorated with stained glass was slowly unscrewed, and the fat red-haired prostitute opened the front door.

You can see the stairs leading to the second floor from the door. The man in white pushed the stretcher down the stairs. The pace of people in front of and behind the stretcher seems to be inconsistent. Every few steps, he swayed from side to side.

A Qing is asleep, her head is facing us, and her hair can be seen from behind the white man. A Qing was put on a stretcher and carried into the crowded yard. A Qing was neither covered with a white cloth nor a blanket. His hands rested feebly on the stretcher and his neck stretched out. The body looks longer than when he was alive. This long body is wearing the summer kimono worn by A Qingping and the red belt she often wears.

The man in white put A Qing, who was lying on a stretcher, into the car and then closed the left and right double doors. A Qing's cars with small iron lattice windows sped away on the bright summer road. The car slowly turned into a small black spot and finally disappeared without a trace.

Two days after A Qing hanged himself, our family returned to Japan. We heard the news of the outbreak of the Japanese-Chinese war in Japan.

The yellow sand that hit Japan filled the sky. I'm always restless. I went outside to see it several times. When I walked down the slope, the wind blew and I felt a little calm. I stood on the slope for a long time, looking at the sky and the street. At dusk, there are five or six girls playing under the slope.

As time goes on, the yellow sand becomes thicker and thicker. Soon, the sky, streets and girls disappeared into the yellow sand and became countless black spots. The scenery under the slope is similar to what A Qing and I saw in the wild cauliflower field, but not as bright as that day.

Lin (1930-) is a novelist. Born in Dongshankou, Nagasaki City, his real name is Miyazaki. Winner of the 73rd Akutagawa Prize. 193 1 year, he moved to Shanghai, China with his father who worked in a trading company. He returned to China once in 1937, and then returned to Shanghai. 1945 returned to China again, went to school in Nagasaki girls' high school and experienced the atomic bomb explosion. Most of his works are about the victims of atomic bombs, such as Sacrifice Field. "Yellow Sand" was published in the July issue of 1977, which is a fragment of the author's recollection of his childhood life in Shanghai.