In another space, pick up your own pieces.

-About the creation of "Winter for Two"

Wen | Bai Lin

Winter for Two was written three years ago, when I just arrived in Europe and was busy walking around. 20 19 19 10 One day in late October, I came to Budapest and lived in an attic apartment on astoria Avenue. When there is a snowstorm, the apartment has a whole large glass window, and you can clearly see large snowflakes floating outside. Putting away my luggage, I didn't rush out, but sat down at the window, turned on the computer and began to write.

A story about winter was born. Of course, I didn't finish it in an instant, but I wrote it slowly for a long time, during which I experienced three seasons: spring, summer and autumn. The last draft was revised at 65438+2020 10 month. I still live alone in Cuneo, a small town under the coastal Alps. There is a narrow glass door in that small room. On the right side of the desk, I often look up and see pigeons pinching their shoulders and necks in the corner, and the goose feathers are densely covered with snow.

I may like winter very much, especially when it snows.

Winter in Europe is certainly not the most beautiful season, but it is the season when I travel most frequently. So also accumulated a lot of material. Almost every place in the novel is where I have been, and I can feel the time going back until now. In writing, I seem to be more interested in shaping space than telling a bizarre story, but it often requires a lot of details, so gradually, recording what I see every day has become an important job in my life. Sometimes I feel that people are not profound, full of * * *, simple and boring, so the greatest role of novelists may not be to dig out any grand interior, but to take readers to another space to see it. The virtuality of words is not equal to the virtuality of space. Fiction and life are both concrete and vague worlds, where virtuality and reality meet.

For various reasons, I moved from Rome to Budapest in the winter of 20021and lived in a building in Watts Street18th century, only one stop away from Astori. The temporary residence is a friend's vacant old house, which is very high and empty, and there is an echo when walking. Every time I stand by the window, I feel unreal, as if I were completely fictional at the moment.

I haven't read my novel for a long time. In order to write a creative conversation, this morning, I sat in the study, put on thick socks, wrapped myself in a carpet, and looked at it from the beginning in front of the double-glazed window. It was so strange, as if it were a story I had never read or created, that I couldn't help crying later. This is not a true story, but perhaps, no matter how I make up a fictional plot, there is always a part of me in those characters-a part that I didn't realize before I started writing. Finding me like this scared me, but it also comforted me. I picked up another piece of my own in the vast space.

This morning, the snow area in Budapest has melted, and it is a fine snow like rain. I read it quietly for a long time and melted into a part of the novel.

Winter for Two (Excerpt)

Wen | Bai Lin

1

Deciding to travel with her is a great determination. At first, I only planned to stay in Prague for three days, and then I went to Rome for a meeting. Plus the round-trip time, ten days is relatively easy.

I called home and she said it was snowing and the heating was not good. This building is an old building in the late 1980s. Although the pipes were changed once, the whole heating was not much better. The decoration was simplified again when I first brought my boyfriend home. Boyfriend's family conditions are better, and she is satisfied. I heard that I would take him back to have a look. Before the summer vacation, she spent 50,000 yuan redecorating the bathroom and kitchen, changing a sofa and tearing down four windows. Later, my boyfriend and I broke up, and she kept talking about 50 thousand yuan. The other sentence is like a mole on her mouth-if it weren't for you.

I was about five or six years old when I first heard this. At that time, we all lived in a tube-shaped building, and only one room could hold a double bed made up of a table, a chair and two single beds. The bed board is very hard, and since then I have developed the habit of sleeping on my back, because my arm hurts when I am sideways. I have a good impression of the desk, such as the old things changed from school, which have the word "early" engraved by children. It is also painted in pure blue ink, and it is covered with wrinkles. I remember it clearly, because I studied calligraphy on it, and then I did my homework there in primary school. We also eat on it, and there is a row of cooking condiments in the corner. She likes to buy solid soy sauce and bagged vinegar, both of which are cheaper than bottled ones. But be careful, or it will be dark on Wang Yang's desk. Of course. More than once. Every time I knock her down, I will scold and shout, with tears, telling my various difficulties and countless hardships in raising me. And that sentence: if it weren't for you.

When eating, she usually sits on the bed and I sit on the stool. On my right is a stove with a smoke pipe. The chimney is close to the wall and the throat is very long. We use it to keep warm, and more often we cook for the sake of cooking. Once, her bowl was not flat, and she buckled me with seaweed and egg soup, which made two big blisters on my legs. She cried and dragged me to the water room to pour cold water on me: it's all your fault, not just because of you. She cried so loudly that the water room buzzed. We are like little people trapped in glassware. We have no way out and often suffocate. A small action can stimulate the whole body to tremble. I have no friends, and no one wants to get close to me. When we lived in that dormitory building, no one interfered with anything. We died a long time ago.

The two rooms and one living room she now lives in is hard-won, and she will be relieved after having that house. There used to be a pair of dual employees in their hospital. This man is a logistics worker, surnamed An. The woman is a pediatrician, surnamed Wen. I have two daughters, the younger is the same age as me, and the older is two years older than me. 1994, the hospital built a family building in the south area, and a number of old houses can be vacated. She dragged me to Uncle An's house and knelt in the living room with a runny nose and tears to tell her story. For example, her father's car accident, grandparents' indifference, and her widowed mother's difficulty in taking care of lonely old people. I think her story is basically known in the hospital. The couple tried their best to wake her up, and she was so angry that she cried: if I hadn't had a child, I would have wanted to live long ago, all because I had a child ... She dragged me down, touched my face with her hands, looked at my eyes with tears, and was full of infinite tenderness, telling how our family ignored me and forced her into a corner.

The two girls above me are very anxious and want us to stand up as much as their parents. Urgency is real, so is sympathy. That was the first time I envied others. Their eyes sparkled with kindness. Those two girls later became my friends. Unlike me, they live a radical and unwilling life. They are calm, happy and have no fear. Xie An is also in the hospital now. He is an obstetrician and gynecologist. Enron worked as an administrator in a university in Tianjin. Work step by step, get married, have children and live a happy life. Do you say they all have a lot of money? No, maybe not as much as I do now, but I'm always hungry and they're always full.

I have long known that crying is effective. Her house is crying. With her qualifications, it is basically impossible for a hospital's supernumerary staff to get a house in a hospital with hundreds of people. If she could get a house, it would be a one-bedroom apartment at most, but she got the key to that house and finally paid only 25,000 yuan, and 5,000 yuan was borrowed from Uncle An and Aunt Wen. Later, they kept taking more photos of me and got along well with her. How many years have passed, and the mutual affection of crying has deepened a lot. So in a word, no matter what the initial starting point is, there seems to be no conclusion before reaching the end. The real charm of people is to express themselves frankly. Sometimes, some rudeness, shyness or gaffes are attractive because they are sincere, frank and unadorned, and let us see a person's unique side.

It's just that I don't have that crying side. Although I know crying is effective, I have never tried it. I broke up, lost my job, and was excluded from the competition. I never cried. Is it inner strength? Not exactly. I feel sad, too. I want to cry. But I usually only feel a dry pain, but I don't get wet.

I majored in chemical engineering in college, and later went directly to master's degree. After graduation, I went to Beijing first, then to Hangzhou, changed three jobs, and finally worked in a well-known daily chemical company. This year, I have the opportunity to be sent to Italy to study for a doctorate. The company has a cooperative project with a university over there, and the terms offered are very favorable. We can get a salary of 2500 euros every month. Our job in Rome is to help the tutor do research and discuss the development of new products with the company's product department. Meet the requirements of paper publishing and new product research and development at the end of the topic. After returning home, my salary doubled, plus product dividends, and of course, my doctorate. There are three people who have to compete with me for killing two birds with one stone, two of whom are worse than others and have no advantage from the beginning. Finally, I came with a female doctor named Wu Lili. She already has a doctorate and wants a better one. Her work experience in Europe will be her new springboard. Our business abilities are similar. In the stalemate, someone gave me advice: go cry, it must be yours.

Of course I can't.

The tears that didn't flow out of my eyes were finally vividly interpreted by Wu Lili. When people vividly described her sobbing with a piece of paper, Wu Lili was already drinking coffee in a bar in Rome. The company also rented her a small apartment there with good facilities, almost 1000 yuan a month.

I haven't verified whether the relationship between people is difficult to change after it is established. But obviously, I don't even know how to build it. In fact, I think she is much more sophisticated and clever than me in this respect. Many times, we can only take chances and build human feelings. My luck is really better. In the past, the senior of the school was assigned by the head office and happened to be in charge of the Hangzhou branch. I happened to meet him at the dinner party. When we chatted casually, he gave me a message, asking me to investigate first, contact the school over there, meet my tutor, contact Wu Lili about my friendship with my colleagues, and then prepare to send me there next year.

There is a voice coming from the company, which is all speculation about me and my seniors. Some people also say, seize the opportunity quickly, your present career is secondary, mainly to find a good man to marry. The senior is eight years older than me, divorced once and childless. To tell the truth, these words occasionally pass through my mind, but fundamentally speaking, the superfluous things in the world, no matter what form they appear, have nothing to do with me. When these things conflict with my inner balance and rational judgment, I would rather turn a blind eye and pretend that they don't exist easily. If an obstacle appears in front of me and blocks my way, I will bypass the obstacle and continue to move forward without changing my pace, and I will soon forget the obstacle.

Like her.

I seldom call her. Because she always puts out obstacles at inappropriate times. It seems that she has never been happy and is worried every day. People in their sixties still shed a lot of tears. I go to Uncle Ann's house to pay New Year's greetings, and they always say, be considerate of your mother. It's really not easy for her to bring you up alone. Occasionally, such information will be revealed to me. For example, Qian An would say, Jiahui, have you never bought jewelry for your aunt? Your mother cried when she saw my mother's gold necklace. Enron son said, why don't you take your aunt out for a trip? She seems to envy my parents going out once a year.

I admit, I treated her badly.

I didn't buy her jewelry, didn't take her on a trip, and didn't give her much money. I won't give her 10 thousand yuan until I go home for the New Year.

I said, eat.

And then I don't even want to go home. I didn't go back two or three times. I won't pay for those meals until I come back. Ten thousand dollars for five days. I can eat whatever I want.

I can always hear her complaints. As soon as I listen to it, I always think of being sixteen. I was admitted to the university that year, and I was relieved. When people around me come to congratulate me, she always cries and says that I have no money to study. Everyone has extended a helping hand to me, and many people are reluctant to return. At that time, subsidizing a poor but studious student was still considered worthy of loving donation. But during that holiday, she kept urging me to ask Uncle menstruation for money. I haven't seen you for ten years, and when I come back from dinner at home, I can't talk about money at all. She was hysterical in that small room again, from six to sixteen, repeating what she had said countless times. Of course, the most is that sentence: if it weren't for you.

She helped me pay tuition and fees for the first year and gave me five thousand yuan for living expenses. From then on, I began to stand on my own feet. Part-time, undergraduate, graduate, a person has completed his studies. In the third year of looking for a stable job, I finally saved enough money and settled it with interest to my uncle and aunt who helped me study in that year. I know it's unreasonable of me to do so. When I gave 35,350 yuan to others, all they felt was embarrassment. From then on, I knew that I was a very rigid person and had no good ideas.

I'll sign you up for a tour group so that you can travel. I told her one winter.

I'm not going. She didn't look me in the eye and continued to watch a TV series of CCTV 8.

I never spoke again. I don't want to buy her jewelry at all. We have a few rare shopping trips, and she has been to two or three jewelry stores intentionally or unintentionally. I am always deliberately cold, either sitting on the phone or pretending to answer the phone. I stood outside the store, leaning against the wall, watching the vendors selling sugar, fruits, couplets, underwear, hats and gloves, and daily necessities that could not be sold worse. I am tired of this town. I wish I had never been born, so I wouldn't have to struggle and be dissatisfied.

I often feel that she and I are like a pair of intrigue lovers. Once she tried on a platinum necklace, and the shopping guide praised her for her bright skin. She seldom turns to me and says, What do you think of this one? There's no shame in wearing it when you get married. I looked at her and said categorically that I would not get married. She was embarrassed. The shopping guide quickly said, hey, aunt, now we don't want to rush the marriage. Just let nature take its course. Your daughter is young and beautiful, and she doesn't worry about getting married. She smiled too. She is old, so she can't help worrying.

Out of the door, her face darkened immediately and she wanted to go home at once. It was New Year's Eve, and we agreed to have dinner outside. The restaurant has been booked. If she doesn't go, the meal can't be refunded, but she insists on going back. You don't even treat me like a mother. You are filial! She left that sentence and never looked back. I stood in the middle of the road for a few minutes, feeling that I didn't want to see her tears again. I called the ticket office. I heard that there was just a temporary passenger plane returning to Hangzhou, so I changed my ticket and stopped a taxi to go to the airport.

Since then, we haven't spoken by phone for half a year. It was also from then on that our relationship became much colder.

2

I'm going to Rome on business. I'll look around. I won't go back for the New Year.

How long does it take to walk?

About ten days.

I see.

I feel sick for a while. I couldn't help but close my eyes and take a few deep breaths. I don't know when it started, even making phone calls has become a puzzling torture. Usually, there are many gaps between our conversations. I really want to find something to fill in, but like a chimney lying in a small cylindrical building for many years, my throat is blocked. Once she failed to seal the coal stove, and we almost died in that small room. I slept in a daze in the hospital for more than a week. When I woke up, I heard her crying and said that the hospitalization fee was too expensive. A female dean comforted her and said that the child was poor. Don't worry, we only charge for infusion. That's more than 500 yuan, she said later. If I don't feel right, get up and open the window, you'll be dead already. I have heard this sentence many times since then, and every time I will respond to her in my heart: It would be great to die, why did you save me?

I don't know how to get along with her, perhaps to ease the embarrassment, I said smoothly:

Do you want to go with me?

I regret it. I was afraid that she would agree, but on second thought, she wouldn't. What's the point of doing things that embarrass each other?

But there was silence for a long time. The more silent she is, the more nervous I am.

Let me see, she suddenly said.

Okay, then. I'll call you tomorrow. I must make a quick decision. I want to buy a ticket in advance.

I didn't sleep well that night. Even came up with several reasons to persuade her to give up. For example, we have to walk a lot, and the streets of Rome are full of potholes. For example, in winter, it is very troublesome to carry luggage, and it is difficult for me to handle a big box for two people. Such as passports and visas, and so on.

The next day, she took the initiative to call me: I will go.

Have you thought about it?

I talked to your aunt Wen, and they all agreed to let me go. They will help me with my passport and visa as long as I book the air ticket.

All right.

I was depressed when I hung up the phone. In the afternoon, I felt that I was about to collapse. I think I should give up going to Rome. I won't go to Rome, so I don't need to travel with her. It doesn't matter if I can't go to Rome to do the project next year because of this. In a word, I don't want to travel with her, it would be a disaster.

At seven or eight o'clock in the evening, I sent a WeChat: Senior, I'm really sorry. On second thought, I felt I was in a hurry to go to Rome. I can put it aside.

I didn't receive a reply until after ten o'clock: there was a game just now, and I think it is a good thing to go out for further study. I hope you don't waste your chance, and of course I respect your decision.

I have been suffering for the next few days.

A message came from Qian 'an: Help me bring back Dior Si Nuo and two Armani 405 and 406. You can take some photos of Gucci's bag for me. There have been a few recently, and they are all good. Another colleague wants a LV handbag, and I'll send you pictures then.

I'm not going to buy it.

It's by the way anyway. There will be an operation later. Talk to you later.

I really want to tell her that I'm giving up this trip, but I'm afraid it will spread to that person's ears. In that case, how will she collapse? In fact, because of her, I almost lost contact with all my relatives and quit the family group. Because every time there is an argument, she will call her brothers and sisters and accuse me of my crimes.

How did you become like this? You were cute when you were young. One of my elders said.

It is not easy for your mother to take care of you, so you don't understand her at all. Another elder said.

I don't remember whether I was cute when I was a child, because the photo recording my childhood was lost by her when I moved. Later, we seldom took photos, only graduation photo in primary school and graduation photo in middle school were in the photo album. I am always frowning and worried in the photos.

Why did this happen? I'll ask myself the same question. When did it become like this?

You are always like this, never thinking of others, cold and selfish. This is what I heard when soso and I broke up.

I've always been like this since we started dating. If you can't accept it, you shouldn't start at that time, so please don't criticize me so rudely when you break up. It is also good for everyone to get together before leaving. I responded coldly.

Soso was silent, but I choked up. In that process, I unpacked an express parcel, which contained some baking materials, such as cake powder, tartar powder, cheese, butter, cranberries, oven thermometer, muffin cake mold, blotting paper and some colorful packages. I put them in the cupboard in the same way. When they couldn't fit, I took out the cup set on the second floor, put it in a cardboard box and moved it to the balcony.

I do these things step by step, and occasionally stop to think about how to arrange them more appropriately. In this process, I can always feel the gas knot on soso. Those angry reunions in him are a great energy. But he didn't speak again. After a while, I heard the sound of closing the door, either loud or normal. I didn't stop or cry.

I'm not a good cook. I have no time to do that. But I want to give it a try and make a cake myself or something. Xu Kai's birthday is Christmas Eve, the day before Christmas. He is just a foreign festival, although he studied in England for three years. I stuffed the eggbeater into the corner of the cupboard, knowing that it might not be needed at all. I can't remember the specific date of the breakup, but it must be after the "Double Eleven", before the "Double Twelve" and about a month before Christmas.

Over the years, I have learned a way to protect myself, that is, to pretend to be careless and heartless when others are angry. I know that such behavior will make angry people angrier, and sometimes I just want to see them angrier. Only in this way can we feel balanced and relieved.

I can't cry. Weak tears. The more you are stung, the more you can't cry. Actually, I often cry. Seeing a seed germinate successfully will make you cry, and seeing a fish die after laying eggs will also make you cry. I often watch some popular science films without emotion. Sometimes I go to a website and look at the field lithologic photos of many places uploaded by a group of geologists. They are discussing something I can't understand: if you want to create the effect of sunny golden hills, try to choose dark rocks. The mountains of basalt, limestone and dolomite reflect less light, except that the top of the mountain (especially white snow) is illuminated by golden twilight, the rest are basically dark, and the three-dimensional sense will be particularly strong. Italy's famous Donomitti Mountain is dolomite, which is a good place for skiing in winter and another good scenery in summer. This is a mountain extending north and south. If the plane is located on the east side of the mountain, finding the right sunrise time can get an extremely three-dimensional effect. Why is there no such photo of Kunlun Mountain on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau? Because it is granite, it is originally golden yellow, so it is impossible to create such an atmosphere of contrast between light and shade.

Material, angle. Can't change but can work hard. If I stand on the mountain and want to shoot the sunrise in the sea of clouds, the granite mountain will be much better. The sunrise is warm and the natural color of the mountain is warm, so it looks warm as a whole. If it is Mount Everest, the close-up view will be solemn gray.

I live on the 22nd floor, and the building opposite is gray, solemn gray. I tried to shoot from the front, it was gray, and it was dark gray at night. Then one night, I came home and photographed the feeling of "Rizhao Golden Building" by the building with my mobile phone. One winter morning, I drove away from the community and passed the east side of the building. There is a waning moon in the sky, and the gray buildings are golden red in the morning sun. I stopped my car and cried under a huge buttonwood tree.

Actually, I will cry.

I often cry for no reason. Especially watching popular science knowledge or popular science documentaries. Looking at it, I suddenly burst into tears.

I hate it when people recommend movies and say things like "very touching", "hurry to see it" and "I cried". So I seldom watch movies that make people cry. I went to the movies with my friends several times. They all cried after watching the movie about finding children, about natural disasters and about breaking up in Where Are You Going? I can't understand my attitude in those movies at all. I occasionally give birth to the action of finding my own tears. Every year around 10 is the season of salmon migration on the west coast of North America, and waves of salmon swim back to their hometown from the sea to lay eggs. A few years ago, I went to watch a river artificially excavated by the Salmon Protection Association, which provided a comfortable and harmless spawning environment for salmon. I kind of expected my tears to flow naturally, but when I saw a middle-aged woman with a red nose, I felt bored.

It's so touching. She said to her husband. Then she got a deep comforting hug.

I think they will eat salmon later. I said viciously to soso.

Why do you think that?

Because I'm going to eat salmon later

Do you really want to do this?

Well, I want to eat salmon. I said, or caviar.

Maybe I ate too much that day and vomited badly in the middle of the night. When I woke up after taking stomach medicine, I opened my eyes and saw soso still sitting beside me. Suddenly, a liquid flowed from my eyes.

Soso hugged me, as unacceptable as the hug that the middle-aged woman got. I turned over and pretended not to feel well, pushing him away without a trace.

……

Please see Contemporary 2022 1 for the full text.