The woman's name is licorice
Wang Huailing
In the barren and arid land, one plant still grows unyieldingly, licorice.
The woman packed her luggage in tears. The luggage was just a few old clothes and dry food for the road. The boy squatted on the threshold
Tie the shoelaces slowly, his dirty thumbnails exposed outside the rubber shoes.
As soon as the sun came out, there was a bit of vitality. The woman glared out the door dissatisfied. She was staring at the damn weather.
"Let's go, put your schoolbag on your back." The woman said decisively to the child.
The boy quickly picked up his schoolbag and ran out of the gate. The woman locked the door, walked a few steps, then turned back and looked back
Looking at the yard, two strings of crystal tears couldn't help but pour out of her eyes. When they fell to the ground, the dust kicked up was like two streaks of gray. of
flowers.
The boy had already run down a slope, followed closely by a puff of yellow dust. The boy did not feel sad about leaving home at all.
On the contrary, he felt that there was something good waiting for him ahead. Follow them and jump happily.
The village is quiet. At eight or nine o'clock in the morning, the village was so quiet that there was not even a crowing of a cock or a barking of a dog, not even a wisp of faint smoke. It was as if there were only two living creatures in the whole village, a woman and a boy.
Walking out of the village, the woman saw a black shadow shaking on the road. A woman’s eyes are a bit blurry during this period, and everything she looks at is blurry. She knows that it’s the sun’s rays that sting her. The sun’s rays are like poisonous needles that sting your eyes first< /p>
The hair is dry and painful, then blurry, then blind. The woman puts it down to the darkness of the sun.
"Baby, do you want to go to your mother's house?" As we got closer, the black shadow shaking on the road became a talking old woman.
"My donkey is dead." the woman said.
"The whole family has left. I'm here to see them off."
"My donkey is dead. He died last night." The woman said.
"The family left for Yinchuan."
"My donkey died. It was a good donkey." The woman said.
"God doesn't want anyone to live anymore."
"He died of thirst." the woman said.
The boy shouted loudly not far away: "Mom, hurry up and get out of the way."
A woman has to look back after walking a long way. She only turns around for a moment. You can accurately focus on the location of her home
. Among the dozens of houses scattered on a sunny slope, her house has no markings that distinguish it from its neighbors. The entire village is made up of cave dwellings dug into the mountains, with one or two yellow mud huts without tiles in front of the cave dwellings. The woman stopped on a mountain ridge. She knew that after passing this mountain ridge, she would no longer be able to see the village or her home. Last night, the woman buried the donkey in the garden behind the house, sat on the soft dry soil and thought: If there are clouds in the sky tomorrow morning, I will not leave, I will wait until it rains. When it rains, plant some buckwheat and small sun and moon millet seeds. The woman raised her head to look at the sky. There was not a trace of cloud in the sky, and it was as clean as if it had been wiped with a rag. God will not spare us! The woman
screamed sadly in her heart.
Pedestrians are lonely on the road. When climbing over a beam or a ditch, you rarely meet a person in a hurry. The occasional person you meet is someone who is not digging licorice with a sad face. Women are just old sheepherders with blank eyes. God gave this land to women and old people to manage. All the men have gone out to work. Men only go out when they are desperate. If it doesn't rain, it's impossible for men to sow the seeds of hope into the hot wind, and the land they depend on for survival will be abandoned.
Some sparse licorice seedlings sprouted from the abandoned land, and the women used them as life-saving straw to uproot them.
Pull them out and exchange them for some firewood, oil and salt. In some places, the color of the soil is brown, like patches on the wasteland.
The wormwood refused to grow, and only the peppercorns poked out their little heads. The sheep dug into the ground and gnawed two of its ears
before slipping into the ditch. Drink alkaline water at the end. The lives of licorice, ground pepper, and sheep are tenaciously fluttering in the wind, followed by the sparse caragana green flag of life. The loess dry plateau with crisscrossed ravines is very lonely, lacking red flowers and green grass
The soil is like the mood of a woman without a man at home, so lonely that she has no owner.
At first, the boy kept chasing the rats. There were so many rats that you could meet one every 100 steps. They were all skinny.
They were all rugged, wrinkled and frightened. Like crawling into a hole. Gradually, the boy lost his enthusiasm for chasing the squirrel, and his steps were a bit slow. A ditch lay across them. The woman remembers that the road used to be straight, but now it has to make a huge circle to get to the other side. The ditch collapses every year, and only once during a heavy rainstorm, almost halfway up the mountain.
The woman lost confidence in taking this road, and sat on the edge of the ditch with a sigh. The boy also sat down, staring blankly at the opposite side.
Opposite there was a girl digging licorice. More than a dozen patches had been dug out in an open space. The woman sighed heavily again.
The woman shouted across a ditch: "Hey, woman, have you found your husband's house?"
The girl digging licorice raised her head and looked across.
"Don't marry in the mountains. The sky is on fire. There is no way to survive. You will die for your sins." The woman continued to shout.
The girl digging licorice walked toward the village with the licorice in her arms without answering a word.
The eldest girl took the female donkey to graze around the village, and the colt circled around her, as if she was its biological mother.
The eldest girl was dressing up the child. Dress up the little donkey like a donkey, tie colorful flowers and strips of cloth on the head of the little donkey, and wear twelve small bells around its neck. When the little donkey has fun, there will be a tinkling sound. Beautiful music is swaying in the wind
. While herding donkeys, the eldest girl dug up the few licorice in the mountains. After saving about ten kilograms, she took it to the market and sold it for eight yuan for ten heads. The eldest girl bought it for herself. A piece of floral cloth, a bottle of cheap facial oil, and some bells or a flowered bridle for the little donkey.
When the colt was two years old, its black fur was so shiny that it couldn't crawl flies. It’s time for the eldest girl to get married. The girl’s family is in a small villa in Huan County, Gansu Province, and her husband’s family is in a small villa in Guyuan, Ningxia. The two provinces, two counties and two townships are adjacent to each other,
The same bitterness, the same barrenness. When the girl got married, she asked her family to take away the little black donkey without any dowry.
The mother-in-law's family did not agree, so the husband's family finally exchanged it for a donkey, and of course a box of colorful cloth strips. Cloth flowers
as well as bells and bridles.
The woman has been with her husband's family for nine years. She gave birth to a boy in the second year of marriage. Now the child is eight years old. Think about it, that
donkey is already eleven years old. Woman What she regrets the most is that she didn’t remember the donkey’s birth date. She only remembered the day in May in the old calendar. Otherwise, she would celebrate the donkey’s birthday just like a child. No matter how hard it is, I still have to cut a bundle of grass for the donkey and fill it with a basin of water.
Now, the donkey is on the road, and it has gone to another world to enjoy its blessings. That world has vast pastures, sweet spring water, and fragrant sesame seeds. A pea has an owner who loves it as much as a woman. Wherever it goes, the worst it can be is to die of thirst or starvation like this.
"Mom, I can't walk anymore. Slow down for a while before walking."
"Slow down for a while."
"Mom, I'm hungry."< /p>
The woman took out the dry food from the bag and handed the yellow cornmeal pancake to the boy. The boy took a bite and chewed it with difficulty
.
"Mom, I'm thirsty."
"Hold on, there is water ahead."
"How far is it?"
< p> "I don't know.”
The boy put the dry food back into the bag very sensibly, and raised his eyes to look into the distance. He wanted to see a river or a spring.
The woman took a small bag with her. Pull out a stick from the bundle of licorice, break it, and hand it to the boy. The mother and son chew slowly. The bitter-sweet taste makes a little saliva come out in the mouth. There was smoke in my eyes.
A three-wheeled cart came towards me, carrying half a load of licorice. The cart was swaying in the thick dust.
The hills were hazy in the mist.
The car stopped in front of the mother and son. The driver looked like a bandit, as if he had just stepped out of a mouse hole. Climbing out of the house,
shouted at the top of his lungs: “Are you selling licorice? ”
“Not for sale. "The woman replied quietly, like a fly.
The boy's eyes were fixed on a plastic can hanging on the handlebar, which contained more than half a can of tea. The boy looked at it
Cha Shui looked at her mother. The moment the tram started, the woman shouted: "Change the water?" "
The driver said disdainfully: "Just kidding. "There is no need to say the following words. Do you think your licorice is worth the price of a cow?
It is the price of a horse. Is gold expensive?
The woman said: "My child is thirsty. "
The disdain on the driver's face disappeared in a gust of wind. When the woman saw the dust-covered face, she showed sympathy and
tolerance.
"Take it. Bar. "The driver generously handed the plastic can to the child.
A rolling yellow dragon soared in front of the mother and son.
"Licorice, licorice", the woman hurriedly stood up and shouted loudly, jumping The tram turned a corner and disappeared.
The falling dust was like a warm blessing. The woman was immediately moved by the kindness.
The sun was really like a furnace, burning. The woman and the child were covered in sweat. The sweat from the woman's head dripped down to her face, and there was a heartbreaking pain. The woman's once beautiful face was now rotten and bloodshot, which was caused by the sun. The woman
was herding donkeys and digging licorice at home. The wind and sun ruined the woman's beautiful face. The face
first turned red and black, and then peeled off. , and then a small blood-red gash appeared. What was even more pitiful was that the old donkey had its mouth pressed against the ground in order to nibble on some grass sprouts, and as a result, its lips were peeled and stained by the hot soil. It was burned and his mouth was as swollen as a hippopotamus.
The boy had finished drinking the catechu water. The woman carefully put the empty plastic jar into her luggage bag. /p>
That was my thoughts about a kind-hearted person.
A yellow mouse ran from one side of the road to the other, blinking at the two dirt heads on the road, one big and one small. The rustic pedestrian immediately got into a bunch of caraganas, which glowed with a dark green auspicious light. In this dry sea, green is important to any life
They were all full of temptation and protection.
They walked through villages and naked wastelands.
At dusk, they saw the hillside not far away. There is a black dragon, winding its head and tail without knowing it.
Many small beetles are crawling back and forth on the dragon's back.
"Mom, what is that?" "
"The road, the road paved with asphalt. "
"Look how fast that beetle runs. "
"That's not a beetle, it's a car. ”
“Can it run faster than our donkey?” ”
“Faster than our donkey.” ”
The boy has never traveled far. To be precise, he has never left home. The widest road the boy has walked is the dirt road he walked today.
This road is still She can walk by car, but the road in her hometown cannot even pass a walking tractor.
The woman felt tired now and slumped down on a small mound on the side of the road. The boy sat down next to his mother and looked at the mountains.
Roads and cars
“Mom, did my dad just go by car? "
"Yeah.
"
"Did you go south or north? "
"I don't know. ”
The woman didn’t know whether Gulaben was in the north or the south. The furthest trip in her memory was when her fiancé took her to Guyuan County to take wedding photos. At that time, She still hasn’t figured out whether Guyuan is in the south or the north.
“Can we find my dad? ”
“Yes. "
"When I find it, I will go to school. ”
“If you find it, go and study.” ”
The woman’s husband went out to work four years ago. That year was 1995, and the boy was only three and a half years old.
That year was also a severe drought that had never happened in a century. The same as this year, it doesn’t rain and the water in the springs dries up. City people use their cars to carry water to the mountains. People in the mountains carry buckets and cans along the dirt road to grab water. Drink, the cattle and sheep are dying of thirst.
The men have gone to work outside to earn money, leaving only the women at home to take care of the children and dig licorice. The difference is that
< p>There was a rain in the spring of last year, and some seeds were sown in the fields. Although the crops were not growing well, there was still a little bit of green, and this year, every drop of it means hope. It didn't rain, and not a single seed was sown in the ground. May Day was over, and the land was in a state of poverty, with only a few dots of caragana moistening the woman's eyes.The woman’s husband left home that year. He wrote that he was working at a construction site in Yinchuan and would go home when the weather got cold. When the weather got cold, the husband didn’t go home. He went out to work in the same village. The man came back and said that his father had been working for a year.
The contractor ran away and did not receive the money. He came back shamelessly. The woman knew that the man was very ambitious, and she believed that the man had made money
He will come back. He loves his woman and his son. When it was cold the next year, the man had not come back.
Some people said that the man was in Gulabeng’s private coal cellar. While working, the woman asked where Gulaben was, and the man said that Gulaben was in Mongolia. From then on, the woman kept thinking about Gulaben. The woman often talked to herself.
Later, when the woman heard several times that a private coal cellar collapsed and killed someone, she would cry alone: ??"You
give us your life." You're just talking nonsense. If you die, give me a dream. Why don't you hear any news at all? ”
The heavy night was like a huge sieve, filtering out the heat of the day. The woman and the boy came to the roadside paved with asphalt
Vehicles on the road shuttled back and forth. There are buildings with tiles on both sides of the road, and light bulbs hanging at the door.
Most of them are canteens, restaurants and gas stations.
The boy said: "I'm hungry. ”
“I’ll buy you steamed buns to eat.” "
"We have steamed buns. ”
“I’ll buy you some noodles.” ”
The woman and the boy walked into a restaurant with the smallest appearance and ordered a bowl of braised noodles. The woman ordered a bowl of free noodle soup and soaked the dry food in the noodle soup bowl. Eat inside.
"Master, did you take Gulaben's car?" "The woman asked.
"There will be people passing by tomorrow morning, but not tonight. "The restaurant owner replied.
"How much does it cost to go to Gulabeng? "
"It's about thirty yuan, you can negotiate the price with them after you get in the car. "The boss taught the woman very shrewdly.
The woman was secretly happy. There was fifty-one dollars in her pocket, which she had saved by digging licorice.
She replaced it with a beautiful face.
"Who are you? "The boss asked.
"I'm from Ganbaozi. "
"What are you doing in Gulabeng? ”
“Langing with relatives. "
"I can't leave tonight. You are staying in the restaurant. I am also from Ganbaozi. Why haven't I seen you? What's your name?
"
"It's a shame, my parents don't have names. "The woman replied.
When a woman first got married, people in the village called her new daughter-in-law when they met
After giving birth to a child, they no longer called her new daughter-in-law. They called her the child's name. Only men would be happy with her name.
After muttering a few times, after the man left, even the woman herself almost forgot that she had a nice name.
After dinner, the woman took the child to a corner where it was not easy to be discovered. The woman took out the dry food and plastic cans
and let the child rest on the luggage wrapped in clothes. Lying down, he rested his head on the small bundle of licorice. The cement steps were as smooth as a kang, and the concrete steps that had been exposed to the harsh sun during the day were as warm as a kang. Soon, both mother and son fell asleep. .
The woman dreamed that she and her child were riding on the back of her own donkey. The donkey was like the white dragon horse in "Journey to the West", flying in the sky. She saw Gula There are green trees everywhere on Ben's mountain, and black holes are dug in the woods.
At the foot of the mountain, there is a clear river entwined under Gulaben's knees. The husband got out of a black hole, full of joy. Face coal
Dark and surprised, he waved his hands and shouted: "Licorice, licorice."
The woman's name is Licorice.