傳教士和他的女兒---- 靈與肉（上）

 

故事敘述富有的喜歡生物硏究的英國青年亨利，32年走進神奇的貴州山區，他宣揚真愛，製止血腥與殘殺…傳播主的福音，受到眾多山裏基督徒的裸拜和崇敬！

本故亊用基督的仁愛精神與共產黨人血腥的“階級鬥爭”相對比，彰顯仁愛的力量：當共產黨人要驅逐亨利牧師時，桀驁的雙溪坪教徒爆發了反抗……許多撲朔迷離的山村故事，皆在此書中！

 

Zongming Zhang

張宗銘 著

Translated by Tangjin Xiao

肖唐金 譯

 

 

Chapter 9

 

Human beings were strange. If you had rice and meat every day, you would not feel hungry at all. Yet, if you ran out of them, and there was no oil or salt left for you, you would feel like eating anything you saw. You would have a strong desire for food. If you saw cooking smoke, vegetable gardens, mills, weddings and burials, you would think about food. Even if you saw the rice wrapped in a piece of cloth in a kid’s hands, your mouth would water. You would have to control your sense of hunger with a great will.

When they ate wild plants for the first time, Zhang Zhong and Zhang Yong were particular about them. However, as the days went on, they had no choice but to eat them. As there was no oil in the food, the two boys felt hungry soon after each meal. After they went to the toilet, they would feel even hungrier. Rice and meat were their dream. Sometimes they could hardly get to sleep for lack of nutrition.

They wondered when their hardships would be over, and when they could enjoy their lives.

One night, a storm swept through the village. The family went to sleep with wet dresses. Then, Zhang Yong felt an animal licking him with its warm tongue. He screamed, and the scream pierced the air. Dai Min and Zhang Zhong woke up fearfully from the straws.

Through the dim light of the moon cast into the hut, the family found it was Lai Fu the happy dog. It touched its wet fur against each of them intimately, with its head put into the arms of the two boys, and one of its paws held by Dai Min. The dog wagged its tail as if it met its relatives for the first time in the past decades.

Zhang Yong said, “Lai Fu, I miss you.”

Dai Min said, “What a bold dog you are! The Farmers’ Association put up posters everywhere, demanding to kill or catch you. Why did you get back? Aren’t you frightened?”

Zhang Zhong touched its wet thick fur, and found a cloth bag on its belly. He asked, “What’s this, Lai Fu? Did you bring it to us?”

The family pushed the dog to a place with some dim light. They did find an oilskin bag. They unfastened it and found the contents: a dead rabbit, a kilo of rice, and a piece of rock salt wrapped up in a smaller bag.

The two boys licked the salt happily and felt happy and satisfied. Dai Min was not as happy as her two sons. She stared at the square cloth wrapping up the rice, took it to the fireplace and took great efforts to make the fire burn. Her acts drew the boys’ attention.

As she approached the fire, she recognized that it was a piece of square cloth with a pattern of the flowers of Cili. A smile hung on her face all of a sudden. And in her eyes there was a strange gaze. She cried, “Ah!”

Dai Min looked at the dog. At this time, Zhang Yong sat on the back of the dog, saying, “Good guy, Lai Fu!”

Dai Min almost knelt down before the dog, and pressed her beautiful face against the dog, murmuring, “What a manly dog you are!”

The dog moved its ears in a strange way, as if it had heard a call to it. It stopped playing with the little boys, but dragged Dai Min’s sleeves outside.

Dai Min said, “Lai Fu, don’t care about me! Enjoy yourself!” But the dog kept dragging her outside. She seemed to know something. Then she said to her sons, “Cook the rice. I’ll come back soon after I have driven the dog away.”

Zhang Zhong asked, “Do we cook rice or porridge?”

Dai Min thought for a while, saying, “It’s up to you, but don’t make the cooking fire seen by the militia.”

The two boys did not know when their mom came back. But as they woke up the next morning, they found their mom sleep on the outward straws, the cloth with a pattern of the flowers of Cili covering her legs. The cloth was embroidered mainly in red, green and yellow. It was eye-catching in the morning sunshine.

This was a headdress for a Buyi girl before wedding. On its edges was a pattern of the pink flowers of Cili against its green leaves; in its middle was a pattern of a big golden yellow Cili.

Ever since that night, their living had been improved a lot. To avoid the militia’s suspicions, Dai Min took her sons to dig wild plants for food as a disguise in the daytime. In the evening, they cooked food secretly and enjoyed the delicious foods such as smoked pork and dried tofu with pig blood, which the other people even had no luck to eat at that time.

Days passed. One day Dai Min took her sons to the open air, and they took turns to catch lice in their hair and clothes. The two boys could never forget their mom’s warmth and care.

Then, Dai Min told the two boys her plan. She told the boys that their father had mentioned that education was the best way for people to climb the social ladder. Dai Min liked to mention her husband and her sons’ daddy, though she knew he had not left a good impression on them. Zhang Yong would not like his mom to mention Daddy, for he had only brought miseries and fears to the family.

Dai Min mentioned their daddy as a custom of the Buyi people. To them, man spoke more loudly than woman. She told the boys to study on, and asked them to remember their daddy’s request for them to continue their education. Dai Min seemed to know what to do next. Why not go somewhere for begging if they could not survive in this place? Maybe in another place where people did not know them, they could live a better life.

Zhang Zhong wanted to go to school. But he said to Mom, “Didn’t you once tell us that we should be decent and do not go begging even though we are starved?”

“Yes, I used to say so. But now the situation is different. I’ll take you away to a far place and send you to school.”

Zhang Yong shook Mom’s sleeves, arguing, “Why go to a place far away from here? It’s only about ten kilometers from here to Guiyang. Why not go there?”

Zhang Zhong added, “Right. Why should we go to study in a place far away from here? How could Mom get the money for that?”

Dai Min spoke without discussion to the boys for the first time, “This is my decision. Remember not to say anything on the way. Or you might suffer like your daddy.”

Zhang Yong cried, “No, Mom! I’d rather not go to school than staying with you. I won’t go anywhere else.”

Dai Min scolded him loudly, “Shut up! What an indecent being! Do as I have said. Remember not to make trouble on the way. Just go with me and say little.”

Yet, the next midnight, Dai Min changed her mind. That night, as they were fast asleep, the dogs in the village suddenly barked. Then, the dogs in the neighboring villages barked as well. There came the sounds of drums. And gun shots were heard. Some militiamen shouted, “The bandits have come to the village. Catch them and get rewards from the government!”