英文小说：A Shadow in Surfers Paradise(50)天堂之影

洋八路

Chapter 50       1/2




The job in Chinatown as a kitchen hand had been proving to be a good choice, fitting his circumstances well. Compared to other students who would frequently change jobs, he held on to it for more than six months. After all he was more mature, or perhaps more lazily complacent, once he was accustomed to a new environment. And he had been trying not to fret as much about the slighting words or scornful looks occasionally thrown at him by the people of superior position in the restaurant. Every soul in this world needs a bit of understanding, a bit of sympathy and empathy from their human fellows. In Chinese it is ‘Jiang Xin Bi Xin’, that is ‘to compare one heart to another’.

So Bing often compared his own heart to other peoples’ hearts. When he compared his heart to the heart of the cook, he would say to him, at a chance moment, and with enormous admiration in his eyes, ‘Mr. Yang, where did you learn your cooking skills?’ Mr. Yang, smiling like a male flower, would reply with a happy and proud heart that Bing fully understood by how his own heart felt, ‘I took a course in Hong Kong, and have been working as a master chef in many restaurants ever since.’ Then, Bing would add, ‘Really? I wonder if Melbourne has any cooking schools where I could also go to learn such skills.’

So, Mr. Yang began to treat him as a friend, and it was not difficult to imagine what value a cook’s friendship was to a kitchen hand.  

He did a similar heart-to-heart comparison, and sought to ingratiate himself with other workmates in the place. When a waiter or waitress was piqued by some nasty customers and complained bitterly inside the kitchen, he would understand their hearts by chiming in something like, ‘I couldn’t agree more, some customers are excessively spoiled, why are they behaving as if they were a king? Because they happen to grab some extra dirty coins?’

Even the Cantonese lady, the boss, whose husband only came to visit the restaurant less than twice a week, was an object of his hearty experiments. But she was exceedingly difficult, alert and cunning enough to detect any hint of such deliberation. Her face, invariably grave and unhappy, was precisely the universal model of bad bosses in the world. She never smiled. Her mouth was most of the time closed, and when it chanced to open, it was only to give orders, to issue commands, to utter reprimands, to eat.  

It was indeed a hard case, but Bing decided to try his best. One evening when he had finished his shift and was about to leave, he noticed that, in the dining hall, she was anxiously looking for something. She was very upset, her face livid with fury. At this moment, she seemed only angry with herself, but he knew her anger could soon be vented at others in any second. Bing couldn’t forget she had once severely scolded him when he accidentally dropped a bowl of cut-onion onto the ground.  

So, for a moment, Bing hesitated and remained where he stood, undecided on his next motion. Should he just go past her? Or stay a bit longer in the kitchen until the looming storm passed? Then her voice broke out, beginning to shout at a waitress, ‘Mary, where did you put the calculator? How many times have I told you to put it back after use?’ ‘Boss, I have already put back onto the bench...’ ‘But where is it? Nobody else used it.’ ‘Well, I don’t know…’ ‘Ah, you don’t know!’ Two voices were rattling on; one loud and furious and frustrating, the other timid, humble and mumbling.

Then, he thought he had just caught a glimpse of the calculator. Yes, it was half covered by a paper on a desk heaped with menus, cups, and bowls. Quickly jumping to his feet, he strode out and uncovered the calculator. Then he gave it to her, who was still bending her eyes into a chest.

‘Mrs. Lin, here,’ he assumed the same serious composure as hers. He knew if he smiled, he might give an impression he was ridiculing her frustration, which was not good form in heart-to-heart understanding.  

‘What, did you use it?’ she stared at him.

‘No, no, I just noticed it on the desk.’ He explained hastily, pointing to the desk.

‘That one? But I had already searched that one.’ Her voice was still loud, but the fever in it was subdued.

‘It was covered by too many things, very hard to see it from the top,’ he remarked meekly. He knew he should not infer that the discovery was easy, lest she surmise he was thinking she was stupid.

‘Oh,’ she acknowledged shortly, and without more words, began to work her monetary fingers on the calculator.
With her bossy and unpleasant temperament, it was only natural that Mrs. Lin was the most unloved if not so much hated by the workers in the restaurant. Even her husband could not get along with her, evident by their frequent squabbling whenever he was in.  

However, as time went on, patiently, using a tactical and careful approach, Bing began to gain her confidence and a level of trust unshared by the other workers, not even the master chef. More often she would ask him to do things for her. At certain busy hours, he was called to help deliver the dishes to the customers; and when she received some lengthy English letters, she wouldn’t be as hesitant as before in asking for his assistance; and when she was disgruntled by customers or by her husband or by the sometimes arrogant self-important cook, she would complain more freely in his presence, while Bing was willing to offer his most agreeable words to her, as if he were her only friend able to share her hardship.

Then, he was promoted, or more precisely given an option to work as a waiter, which, in terms of labour intensity and work conditions, was understandably better than a kitchen hand, even if the hourly rate was two or three dollars lower. But Mr. Lin promised him the same rate. And considering he  would also find a better chance of using his English in serving the customers, he accepted her offer, after a hearty expression of gratitude.

Now in cleaner and better clothes, he was a step closer to the sort of ideal role which his relatively thinner body, and his personality, and his experience as a former teacher, combined to represent.

Nevertheless there was still a challenge in taking up the new job. The first difficulty was to remember the menu items in three languages – English, Cantonese and Mandarin. And although more than half the customers were of Chinese origin, to his utmost annoyance, they mostly spoke Cantonese, rendering his Sichuan-accented Mandarin absolutely useless. But it was not just Cantonese that proved to be a hindrance to his satisfactory job performance. The English speakers, coming from anywhere in the world to the famous Chinatown, varied considerably in their accents, which, plus their whimsical demands that could pop up any time during one or two or three dining hours, might confuse even the most attentive and clever servant.

Once, Bing was serving two young men whose origin he couldn’t tell. In the middle of the course, he was beckoned over, and one man said to him only one word ‘bastard’. Instantly stiffening at the word with which Bing was familiar, he asked the man to repeat.

‘Bastard, bastard!’ While Bing’s eyebrows were screwing up, the man continued, ‘Bastard! You know? Come on, man, you don’t even know bastard?! …’ At every utterance of the word, the man seemed to lose a scale of patience, the word sounding more like abuse, drawing many curious glances from other diners, who might have interpreted the word the same way as Bing himself, and thought an argument was going on between the two.   

Remarkably puzzled and offended, he stood there speechless until a waitress, Lili, came over to relieve his plight. ‘Oh, mustard,’ Lili said, ‘no problem, Sir. We will bring it to you in a moment.’ Turning their backs to the customer, on their way back to the kitchen, they both had to curb a surge of loud amusement. But Bing took his time later to severely blame himself for his unfamiliarity with the word ‘mustard’. Of course, he could recognize it without any problem in its written form, but when it was spoken with a strong accent, by a man who looked rather haughty and crude, with a nose even exceeding the size of a Roman’s, his brain cells stubbornly clung to ‘bastard’, instead of the name of a pungent sauce.      

Nonetheless, his learning curve was short and steep. In about two weeks, he was as competent as any other servant, of which number could total to twenty-one at peak hours. And benefiting from his good relationship with Mrs. Lin, he was promoted again in two months to be a supervisor, increasing his hour rate from $8 to $12. It was such a sensational victory; had she given him a smile when she revealed her decision to him, he would have embraced her and kissed her.

But he knew her decision was not merely a result of favouritism. For, in his opinion, he was relatively taller, therefore able to oversee the happenings around the table more easily, to detect the slightest facial expressions and gestures of customers; he was also more mature, with nicer smiles to win the respect and confidence of the younger workers. After all, he had once been a teacher, possessing a mouth that could be very eloquent and authoritative under the circumstances.

But the biggest contributing factor, he knew best, was that he had a heart that could communicate at a fair level with the heart of Mrs. Lin, and many other hearts in the workplace. He was ready to discount, to sacrifice his egoism and self-importance, whenever such a virtue was deemed necessary to benefit him as well as the overall welfare of the restaurant. One’s self-esteem was indeed a strange concept, very delicate and fragile, prone to damage from slightest scorn and disregard. It would be defended instinctively whenever it was under threat, and overly exalted whenever it was respected. A life was indeed so small and insignificant in the realm of the universe that an individual had an innate and compelling desire to stand out, striving by all means to be distinguished among the human flock.

But, what is a life? Isn’t it just a random occurrence like a breath of wind, a one-in-a-billion survival rate in the sperm phenomenon? Isn’t it like a wild mushroom that has grown declaring its fine, umbrella-shaped existence after a casual and careless touch of sun and rain? However one wishes to define it, it is destined to be brief and short, never able to match the immortality of a stone. True, it is moving, but all animals and viruses are moving, so does the wind and the water; true that, with its bigger amount of brain, and with its self-consciousness it can think a lot; but, thinking of what, thinking that it is important? Important when it can be wiped out within seconds by a car accident, when it can perish after a few days with no food, or by some minutes of suffocation in the water, or by a type of cancer, or by an earthquake? Why does a life have to feel so good, so important, so conceited?

Yet while he thought of himself as such an unimportant existence, he was then, ironically, able to stand out, and be perceived as someone respectable in the restaurant. And doing it well, and believing the income would cover his expenses and his tuition fees, he stayed there for a long time.

Later in the year, he was asked to work an extra hour Monday to Friday from 10pm to 11pm, but his Saturday shift was changed to one hour shorter between 10am and 3pm, which didn’t concern him at all, for the extra five hours for the week were more than enough to make up for the shortage. However, to his surprise, the money he received for the first week in his new schedule was $12 more, probably counting six hours for Saturday instead of five. He went to Mrs. Lin to indicate the mistake, but she, for the first time during his employment with her, produced a smile as she spoke, though very shallow like a little breeze across her lips, ‘It is okay, it is a bonus.’

A quick delight, of what seemed to be happiness went through him, and for a moment he even forgot his good manners of saying ‘thank you’ to her. On the train from Melbourne Central back to Box Hill, he was pensive, musing and trying to find a meaning in her little smile. Was it possible she had certain feelings for him? As far as he knew, she had never smiled at any other people, let alone giving away a bonus.  But he quickly ridiculed his analysis, and thought he must have exaggerated his gratitude, unnecessarily inflating his charm, and next day when he saw her again, she was no different than before.

However, since this little incident, for whatever reason, he began to feel a little sad and despondent and uninspired. The struggle for the Australian dollar to get his mouth fed and his body sheltered, had subsided into a routine, a monotonous and pathetic waiting, a chronic depletion of his life.



-- To Next Post ---

洋八路

Chapter 50      2/2



One Saturday afternoon, in Little Bourke Street, he saw a Chinese elder playing the Erhu - the two-string Chinese fiddle. He had noticed him a number of times, and never had time or interest to attend his performance. But what he was then playing was the popular ‘Er Quan Ying Yue – The Moon Reflecting the Second Spring’, a very sad and soulful piece he had heard many times in China. He had already passed by, but the flow of sorrowful music insinuated itself into his being; its sobbing notes and intervals slowing and dragging his steps.

He stopped and turned to the player who, with his drooping head and eyes, was fully absorbed in his performance. With one hand shaking upon the neck of the instrument and the other pulling the bow against the strings, he produced a cadence very deep, heavy and touching. Bing moved aside to the wall and decided to dedicate a little time to the piece of music that, in his rare moments of such indulgence in Australia, sounded so remote, so ancient, so oppressively Chinese that his reflections on the harsh and cruel Great Wall, on the purple and grim Forbidden City, on the miserable Cuckoo’s cries, on the melancholic crows of ravens, and on the tears of Meng Jiang Nu, all teemed up in his little entertainment.

‘Does this music convey all the grief and sorrow of humanity? Does this music have a magic of bridging one soul to another?’ He wondered, feeling a pang of sadness chilling his depths.

Approaching the end, he took out his wallet, and fetching a note of twenty dollars, walked over to make a donation. Still playing, the man didn’t alter his buried composure to take notice of him.

That was his first donation in his life to the street people.

Later on the train, and actually during the following week, the piece of music seemed still active within his ears.

Next Saturday, when he passed the same session of the road, the man was not there. He was a little disappointed, in somewhat the same way as he had missed the cat on the moony night he had spent on the street. Yet a couple weeks later, the old man appeared again, sipping the tea from a big mug.

‘Ni Hao,’ Bing ventured a Chinese talk.

‘Ni Hao,’ he mimicked his curtsy, throwing at him a curious look. His black and white hair was as old as last time he saw him, but his face, now lifting up to him, was younger than his first impression.  

‘I haven’t seen you for last few weeks, where have you been?’

‘Once or twice I was in other streets,’ he was indicating a direction, ‘up there at Swanston St.’ He paused to sip his tea again. ‘I don’t always come. I have to look after my grandson when my old-partner is not at her best health.’

‘Is that so?’ Bing now moved closer to his side and lowered himself to a crouching position, like those Chinese peasants often seen in a city squatting on the edge of road waiting for odd jobs. ‘You are very good at Erhu.’

‘I am a music teacher in Nanjing,’ he introduced himself, voluntarily, ‘teaching traditional instruments such as Erhu, Flute and Guzheng,’ then taking another sip, ‘for many years.’ Putting down his mug, he looked straight back at the traffic, his eyes remote and thoughtful, as if he were by himself and silent in a nostalgic mood.

But Bing didn’t expect him to end the conversation so soon. ‘I very much like Er Quan Ying Yue.’

The man sipped his tea, not showing his interest in the new topic until a long moment later, when he repeated the title, drawlingly, ‘Er Quan Ying Yue?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know about this piece?’

‘Of course, I have often heard it in China.’

‘But do you know the story of it? The reason for its name?’

‘No, I don’t,’ answered Bing, ‘what is it?’

The man put aside his Erhu, then in a manner of a teacher ready to pour out all the knowledge in his breast to his attentive students, told the story. ‘Its composer was nicknamed as Ar Bing. His mother died when he was four; his father was a Taoist, who was an expert in a range of musical instruments. Therefore, from his early childhood, he learned music from his father and practiced diligently to become a highly accomplished musician. However, growing up, he found no proper occupation for a living, so he became a Taoist and lived with his father in the monastery, where he had spent most of his youthful, better times. After his father died, that was when he was twenty-two, he stayed in the monastery for some years, until he was expelled by the supreme Taoist master who blamed him for his undisciplined, ongoing involvement with the vagabond musicians in the streets, and punished him by expulsion for violating the rule of orthodox Taoist music.

‘Homeless, he began to roam the streets of Wuxi, Jiangsu province, earn a living by playing music in public or for social gatherings organised either by a family or by the community. At thirty, he caught an eye disease and was completely blind by thirty-five. Since then, more desperate than ever he was relying on his Erhu to live on.

‘He was often seen walking with a stick in the streets, playing a piece of music, alone, or sometimes guided by a little girl at his side. But he was not a beggar. He never begged; he was only trading his music for what could make him survive. In his blood, he had the typical gallant and courageous spirit of a Chinese artist, the sort of pride that had caused him a lot of trouble. For every time he dared refuse to perform for the snobs, the rich or the powerful, he would be beaten and tortured by those he had offended. Once or twice he was forbidden by the local police to perform anywhere in the city.

‘The Erhu was his life, not only for his need for food, but also for his soulful expression in his lone and blind world. In Wuxi, there was a famous spring pool, honoured by an emperor as the Second Spring of the world – Er Quan, after the first spring in Yu Quan Mountain in Beijing. For many years, when he suffered most from hunger, from mistreatment by society, from his own loneliness, he would fumble and grope his way to the Second Spring, playing a piece he had composed himself. The music was only given its name many years later, after the tune had attracted the attention of a professor in the Central Conservatory of Music and was recorded. Two years afterwards, Ar Bing died of blood-vomiting at fifty-four.’

During the discourse, Bing listened to him in silent awe, though the man was as if telling the story to himself. Then without a word, the man picked up his Erhu and prepared to play.

The beginning two strokes felt like two heavy sighs, or two dull thunderous rumbles, agonizingly issued from the heart of a sufferer, who, having exhausted its reserve of energy, still pained to drain his last drop of life.

Then, there comes the figure of a blind man, with a bamboo stick in his hand tapping about the earth, probing a world devoid of light, warmth, and tears of sympathy. He trudges along, his stomach rattling; the cold wind and rain penetrating his tattered clothes. He is shivering; his mouth closes tightly to save a breath of energy. He twitches his eyes, seeing a complete emptiness of grey; he strains his ears, hearing some distant voices of birds.

Then he trips over a stone, tumbling to the ground. With his arms and his sharp instinct he protects his instrument, his face crashing against the earth. He scrambles to his feet, fumbling at the instrument with his fingers. Lucky, the Erhu is still in good shape. He adjusts the pegs, pulling the bow once or twice; as the low whimper-like sound comes out of the case, he is smiling.

Now a number of naughty kids come to play tricks; they pull and tug his instrument from him. He holds it tight with one hand, burying it into his ribs, while thrusting out the other, hitting nothing but a slight puff of wind. He shouts and curses everybody including himself, with an anger as dark as the darkest blood. His useless eyes are staring, as big as the ones of the lion statue in front of Chinese mansions and temples. The kids, now scared, run away, leaving him alone. The blind man, deserted and forsaken, is standing lost; wishing for their company, he fervently calls them back.

But they never come back. He sighs, droops, staggers, pulling the bow for a tune to which he is the sole listener.

Then, suddenly, a flock of animals, in human shape and form, are rushing to him. They bark, hiss, and growl; with their claws, they grab his precious instrument, and tear it from his breast, and smash it, and stamp on it, and shred it to splinters.

He whirls, crawls, his fingers searching for the parts; he digs the earth, grips the soil to throw at where the malicious noise comes from. He is fighting against the air, against a sky he can’t see, against the fangs of animals he can’t describe. His fight continues long after they have gone. Then in insufferable pain, he writhes and convulses, until lumps of blood vomit forth, until his feebleness and his thin gasps soothe him, until a remote, dripping whisper, like the remembered sweet milk of his mother, hushes him.

Dying as he is, he makes a journey to the spring, where he kneels down, crouching over the pool’s rim. His lips touch the water; he sucks and kisses and becomes a baby.

Shimmering is the moonlight; he is finally able to see.
…

With a long, slender and pensive draw, the man was hushing the music to its ultimate slumber.

There were tears in Bing’s eyes, but the elder man, the Chinese music teacher who had come here to show off the piece of Chinese art, was expressionless, his eyes dry and grave as if blind.   

Bing rose to his feet, relaxing his veins and sentiments. After making a donation of fifty dollars as if to Ar Bing, he ran away for his own life.




-- End of Chapter 50 ---

Gone

喜读这一章。斌很懂心理学啊。。忘我才能得世界。。瞎子阿炳的故事让人感动。。二泉映月是最优美动人的乐曲，直入人心。。。

stmimi

很想读下去..哎.....生词太多了.

洋八路

Gone 发表于 2014-7-10 18:34
喜读这一章。斌很懂心理学啊。。忘我才能得世界。。瞎子阿炳的故事让人感动。。二泉映月是最优美动人的乐曲 ...

编辑看了这一章，去YouTube 听二泉映月，说很，haunting...