November 14, 2020 20:00

Moscow Region, Russia

When my father went to Xinjiang to work, I brought back a small tape recorder for my mother, in the countryside of China's northwest in the 90s, this thing is very rare and scarce, so my mother put it on the side of the kang head against the wall like a baby, and every time I listened to it, I would carefully deduct the battery inside and wrap it with cloth layer after layer. Later, my father went to Xinjiang to stay for about seven or eight years, so in a house where no one looked down on his mother, this little thing that could hear the outside world spent a long time with his mother's youth.

One day my mother went out to work and came back to clean the house, she climbed on the kang to get the tape recorder as usual, and wanted to clean the house while listening, but when the mother opened the cloth that wrapped the tape recorder, she found that the tape recorder seemed to have been moved, and the battery inside and the tape tape board in front of it were missing (the tape recorder is not brand new, and the cover of the tape in front can be removed), so the mother looked everywhere, and even the ash in the kang was dug out by the mother one by one, but no matter how the mother looked for it, This thing is as if the world has evaporated, and the mother's heart is also lost, just like a partner who has been with the mother for a long time suddenly left the mother without saying hello one day, leaving the mother with a long time of longing.

As time went by, the mother who worked hard every day gradually forgot about the tape recorder board. One day, my grandparents went to the county town to follow the market, and before leaving, I asked my mother to clean up the big house, saying that the family would come to relatives at night. After the mother hurriedly cleaned up the pot head that had just finished eating, she went to clean the grandparents' big room, and in the process of sweeping the floor, she inadvertently saw a key lying quietly next to the cabinet foot on the side of the big room, so the mother picked up the key and looked around, just where there was a lock hanging on the cabinet, and the curious mother tried to insert the key in.

The "click" lock was opened, the mother carefully lifted the cabinet door, and saw a pair of embroidered red women's cloth shoes inside, this is the first time the mother has seen such a beautiful shoe, she stretched out her hand and stroked gently, for fear that her rough hands would scratch the flowers on the surface of the shoes, but the love finally prompted her to pick up the shoes. Mother looked at the shoes full of eyes, suddenly a thing fell out of the shoes, the mother carefully put down the cabinet door and then bent down to pick up the fallen thing, picked up and saw that it was a thing wrapped in a strip of cloth, after opening it found that the bread was a piece of battery, the mother didn't think about it, and was ready to wrap the battery and put it in the shoes and put it back in the cabinet with the shoes. But when the mother's eyes looked inside the shoes, she seemed to have discovered a new continent of excitement, it turned out that her tape recorder board had been in this shoe, that is to say, the battery just now was also the battery of the tape recorder, but what the mother couldn't figure out was how her yin was wrapped in cloth strips and put on her kang head How could it be here? She was in vain, but she was helpless and could only try to make a mistake.

So the mother is very entangled, she knows that this is the grandparents deliberately secretly took it and hid it here and did not give it to her, if she took it like this, once she was discovered, she would inevitably be beaten by a ton, but if she didn't take it back, her grandparents would not give it to her even if they put this thing in garbage, so her favorite tape recorder would become a useless thing. After fighting with each other for a long time, my mother still decided to take this tape recorder board back, after all, that tape recorder is her favorite object at present. So the mother found a stone as heavy as a battery and a wooden stick the same size as a tape recorder board and put it in, then locked the cabinet and deliberately put the key in the place where she picked it up, and continued to clean the big house.

After cleaning the big house, the mother couldn't wait to return to her nest, and the mother who got the battery and the tape recorder board seemed to be as happy as a treasure, she wiped the tape recorder with a wet rag over and over again, as if to wipe off the paint on it. In this way, whenever there is no one at home, my mother will take out the battery and the tape recorder board, press herself, and listen quietly for a while, after listening, she will hide the battery and the tape recorder board, and still put the tape recorder on the side of her kang head. I don't know how long it took, the battery of the tape recorder seemed to run out of power, so my mother had to reluctantly throw the battery into the ash that was dug out of the kang hole, and then she took the pot of ash to the horse circle, in that era, people lived relatively poor, so anything was reluctant to throw away. For example, the ash dug out of the kang hole, when people go to the toilet in the dry toilet, they can pour it up to cover it, when the foal poops and pees in the circle, it can be poured up to cover it, of course, the feet of the foal will be drier, so as not to attract flies in the summer, of course, most of the toilets are generally paddled with soil gaskets.

In the blink of an eye, spring came, and the ground was so frozen that the earth was warmed by the sun and slowly began to melt. On this day, the grandfather got up very early, he went to the pen to pull the foal out, pressed the cart on the back of the foal, and then beckoned the uncles to get up and work, ready to pick up the manure in the toilet and the foal and then pull it to the field with the car, so that the grain planted this year will grow very well, so this is a typical farm fertilizer.

Just when grandpa threw the dung on the cart with a shovel and a shovel, he inadvertently saw a red thing rolling down from the dung pile, at that time this rural area in the wall of the Loess Plateau This kind of colored things seem to be particularly scarce, so it successfully attracted the attention of grandpa, he picked it up and shaved the dung on it to see that it was a battery, he seemed to remember something, and immediately threw down the shovel and walked into the big house.

Although it entered the spring, but the northwest of early spring is still relatively dry and cold, the mother also got up early in the morning to fill some firewood in the kang holes of several houses one by one, and then ran to the back of the big yard to pick up some dry firewood to live and cook in the room, just when the mother was lying on the stove to blow the fire to the exuberant when suddenly an arm thick rod hit her head hard, for a moment the mother fainted next to the stove, vaguely about the mother heard someone scolding: "I put you a thief, I asked you to spit out the two hundred dollars in my cabinet, and I will spit it out for me, and I will vomit it out if you have lost your life, you can't spit it out, you see I want your life."

I don't know how long it took, my mother slowly woke up, and my grandparents pointed at my mother's nose and scolded: "My life is over, spit out the two hundred yuan that stole from me." The mother cried and said, "Uncle, I didn't take the money, I didn't know the money, so I opened the cabinet with the key I picked up and took out the things on my tape recorder, and I didn't touch anything else." Grandpa replied viciously: "You said you didn't take it, you didn't take it?" You see I'm going to kill you today." At this time, the uncle and grandfather who came to the house walked in, the uncle and grandfather were the father of the aunt (aunt), and the mother's father was a cousin, and the mother was the grandfather's niece, the uncle and grandfather saw the mother lying on the ground crying, looked at the grandparents, and then said: "Suo Yan, you come out with me." My mother slowly got up and walked out with my uncle and grandfather, who took my mother to a small hill not far from home, and then asked my mother: "Suo Yan, you can tell Uncle (uncle) well, have you taken any money, if you take it out, I will go to your uncle, I will tell him, let her not beat you again." "Uncle, I really didn't take it, I found my tape recorder board in that cabinet, I brought it, and I didn't see anything else for the money," the mother replied. My uncle didn't say anything, turned around and walked home, and my mother followed my uncle and grandfather closely, for fear that if I was alone, my family would come and beat me up.

When my uncle and grandfather arrived home, they found the fourth grandfather and four grandmothers, took them and their mother to the grandfather's big room, and then opened an open Quran and spread it on the kang, pointed to the Quran and said to my grandfather and mother: "Suo Yan, do you dare to swear to the Quran that you didn't take it?" Brother-in-law (grandfather): Do you dare to swear to the Koran that you do have two hundred dollars in your cupboard? The mother complained bitterly and immediately replied: "Uncle I dare, I swear I really didn't see two hundred yuan, I only took my tape recorder board." When the mother finished speaking, everyone looked at grandpa, waiting for grandpa to speak, but grandpa lowered his head and didn't say a word the whole time. At this time, the fourth master who was sitting on the threshold stood up and pointed at his grandfather and scolded: "That's your niece, how can you wronged her so much, what do you make Shi Nu (grandma) sister think of us?" How chilling she would have been if she knew that her own brother had treated her daughter like this."

After that, the fourth master pulled his mother to turn around and walked out of the door, life has to go on, this is the suffering of the mother's life, although the inherent thoughts of poor people are very tired, but her mind is to do everything to cater to everyone, and also cater to this inherent bitter thoughts, what can be done at this moment is to wipe away the tears and return to the room to continue to light a fire to cook for the family.