"camellia" liu yunxia｜teacher, i'm sorry
2024-09-11
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one day in may, i received a call from my middle school teacher, ms. chai. she asked me what i was doing. knowing that she was hard of hearing, i turned on the speakerphone and yelled, "nothing, just getting ready for lunch break."
but after i yelled at her, i felt so guilty because she heard the word "lunch break" and kept saying "i'm sorry for delaying you."
then she said that she met my classmate xiaofeng's mother on the street the day before and told her a lot of things in the past. xiaofeng was her student, but not my classmate. he was a whole grade younger than me.
i sat up quickly from lying down to rest, and listened to her very carefully. when necessary, i would shout back, and the words were as concise as possible. for example, she asked me if i knew xiaofeng was now the principal, and i said "yes", and then asked me where i was the principal, and i shouted "double blessing". she asked me if the house was renovated, and i shouted "installed".
the teacher spoke slowly, word by word. at the end, she said, "i'm sorry to bother you."
the phone was hung up, and after a burst of electric beeps, the other end fell silent. i held the phone in my hand for a long time, unable to calm down.
i met the teacher last year during the spring festival. at that time, she lived on the ninth floor of the elevator building at the south end of jijiang bridge, above yuantong property. at the end of the year, she called me to tell me that she had sold the house and moved to santong street.
i kept thinking about going to see her, but santong street is so big that she couldn't hear me on the phone. even if i shouted at her, she couldn't hear long sentences clearly.
once i asked her where she lived on santong street, and she said happily, "are you here? i'll come downstairs to pick you up right away." then she hung up the phone.
that time, i knew she must have gone downstairs to wait for me. she heard "santong street" clearly and thought i was at santong street. but i was really busy at that time, busy with housework, work and writing tasks. in terms of time, there was no distinction between work and rest except for sleeping and eating.
later, when we had a small gathering of classmates, i asked huang mei to find a way to bring her over, but the attempt was abandoned because the teacher had hearing impairment and couldn't find her residence.
the teacher's "i'm sorry" stung me. when has she ever said sorry? many of her students have become successful. she has devoted herself to the cause of education for decades and made great contributions to the training of successors. after hanging up the phone that day, i made up my mind to go see her after get off work and do everything i could to see her.
after school, i called teacher chai, and i called her ten times in a row, but no one answered. this was not the first time, and it was no wonder that i wanted to visit her but could never put it into action.
i was very frustrated. i am an old man with limited mobility and rarely go out at night. even if i go to the santong street intersection to wait and block the line, it will be in vain. well, everything depends on human efforts, but we must also obey god's will. unexpectedly, on the way home after lunch in the cafeteria, the teacher called me. i shouted in surprise, "i'll be there. ten minutes. downstairs." in order for her to hear clearly, i tried to speak as concisely as possible and at the highest volume. she said, "are you coming? i'll wait for you at the door of 'li qimei' stewed food store."
i called a taxi. three traffic lights, actually it took more than ten minutes, but not much more, but teacher chai already felt that the wait was too long. from a distance, i saw her looking around anxiously at the intersection, with white hair and a kind face. when i scanned the code to pay, she called to urge me.
we hadn't seen each other for a long time, and we were very affectionate. seeing me holding a small gift, the teacher was afraid that i would run away soon after seeing her, so she quickly took my hand and said, "come to my house and sit down, get to know the door, otherwise you won't be able to find it again." after walking a few dozen meters straight, she pointed to a building passage, turned her head and spoke to me like a child, "i live in here. you can go and see teacher tang." the community is very old, and the elevator was installed in the walk-up house. she said before that when she got old, she moved there for the lively atmosphere.
after entering the house, the teacher took me to sit at the table. she asked me about my family, my work, and my newly renovated house in a leisurely manner, and said she would take her to see the house when it was ready.
she pointed to the paper-cut on the wall and told me that it was given to her by her senior sister bingrong during the spring festival. the frame was black, the paper-cut was red, and the teacher in the red peach heart had short hair and glasses, smiling, and two children were holding flowers and surrounding her. there was also an affectionate greeting "hello, teacher" in the lower corner of the peach heart, like the birdsong at dawn in spring, setting off the pure and beautiful scene.
teacher chai must have pointed at this paper-cut and told other guests this. her lifelong pride was transformed into a unique new year picture, fixed on the plain old wall of her home.
"it's the bingrong who became the principal. of course i know her. she has a heart as pure as ice and jade." i pointed at the paper-cut and shouted while answering her questions and talking to her in a shout.
she looked at me so lovingly, and suddenly she cried out in shock: "oh, yunxia has changed. such a cheerful person has changed." i had just washed my hair. she had never seen me with disheveled hair, and she had never looked closely at the white hair on top of my head that was hidden by the usual curls.
i quickly tied my hair up with a leather band and asked her with a smile, "how about this? is it better?"
she looked at it carefully again, still shaking her head in disbelief: "it has changed, it has changed anyway."
at this time, teacher chai's wife, teacher tang, came out from the inner room with trembling steps. she first greeted me, then staggered forward a few steps, put her face in front of me, adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose, and calmed herself down before she said "ouch", pointed to her ears and then her eyes and said, "my ears can't hear, and my eyes don't work well either. i didn't even know you were here, and i couldn't see clearly until you came in front of me."
my heart suddenly sank, and i felt a sense of sadness. since entering middle school thirty years ago, they have been the backbone teachers of the school. teacher chai was our class teacher and taught us mathematics. teacher tang was the physics teacher of the senior grades.
what good teachers they were. they were so high-spirited back then. students could go in and out of their teachers' homes as freely as they could go in and out of their own homes. they were still chatting and laughing when they met them a year ago. with the passing of time, they have become older and older. every time we meet, we think that life is the same as before, but in fact, our unforgettable mirror image of each other has been broken. the people we see are no longer the same as before. the faces that were once as familiar as the beautiful and light patterns on our own curtains have become blurred. we are all losing.
during the conversation, teacher chai suggested taking a photo together. i said "ok" and immediately sat next to her obediently. but who would take the photo? the teacher put one arm around me, bent the other arm across her chest, and said, "take a photo like this."
▲photo of teacher tang and the author (right).
her childish actions and words made me laugh. she was talking about taking a selfie. so i raised my phone and adjusted my posture, and she adjusted her expression - she said she wanted to laugh, but not too loudly because she had missing teeth.
before leaving, teacher tang also stood up to see me off. i suggested taking a photo of the couple. "take care of yourself." i raised my phone and said loudly. teacher tang said, "how can you take care of yourself? you are already in your eighties. i don't know when we will see each other again after this meeting." my nose felt sore and i quickly turned my head away.
from young to old, a person experiences a myriad of emotions throughout his life. perhaps the most painful is the heart-wrenching loss, the loss of time, the loss of life.
i tried to calm the ups and downs in my heart, the confusion, sadness and the cruel loneliness that suddenly rose up. i held back my tears. looking back, they were all wiping their eyes.
teacher chai sent me downstairs. in the elevator, she reached out and touched my face, and i patted her face a few times. she said, "i touch you once, and you have to hit me a few times." this touch and pat, just like the kindness and playfulness of those years.
yes, no matter how unrecognizable the years are, we are still in the bond and connection of the teacher-student relationship. the world is changing, the appearance is changing, the body is changing, but the feelings and spirit that rely on the body still exist. we care about each other, without any desires or worries, but pure thoughts, full of concentration, illuminating the long time.
at the intersection where i was getting off the bus, the teacher insisted on watching me get on the bus. i couldn't bear it, so i took a few quick steps and turned to wave at her: "teacher, i'm sorry. i asked all my classmates to come and see you."
(the author is a teacher at shangrong primary school in sipaifang, jiangjin district)
