Puppy bag

More than a month ago, when I was still in Beijing, I heard people tell about an artist, and I remember one of the stories was about the artist and the dog. It is said that the artist lives in a small city, and the family next door has a puppy, and he gets along well with the artist, and the artist often treats him with food. During the "Cultural Revolution", there was a fight in the city that had never been seen before, and the artist became frightened and fled to hide elsewhere for a period of time. Later, when he came back, he was probably pulled back, saying that he was "foreign to the outside world" and a counter-revolutionary. He criticized him and fought him. If he didn't admit it, he beat him, punched and kicked him, and hit him with sticks. Not only did his head bleed, but one leg was also broken. When the fight was over, he couldn't walk, and let the dictatorship team drag him through the streets to show the public, his clothes were torn, his body was covered in blood and dirt, and his mouth groaned. Anyone who knew him saw him half dead, he turned his head away. Suddenly a puppy ran out of the crowd and ran towards him very happily. It screamed affectionately, jumped in front of him, sniffed everywhere, licked its tongue, and stroked his body with its paws. It was useless for others to drive it away, kick it, hit it with a stick, it had to stay with its friends. In the end, the dictatorship broke the puppy's hind legs with a big stick, and it let out a few whines and dragged its crippled body away in pain. There was blood on the ground, and the artist left several dog paw prints on his rags. The artist was locked up for a few years before he was released, and the first thing he did was to buy a few catties of meat to visit the puppy. Neighbors told him that after the dog was broken that day, he returned home without eating anything and died after wailing for three days.

After listening to this story, I remembered the puppy I once had. Yes, I also had a dog. It was 1959. At that time, a real-world friend was transferred to Beijing for work. He wanted to move the whole family to Beijing. He wanted to give me his puppy because I had a grassland at home, which was suitable for raising dogs. I said yes, and my son was very happy. The dog came. It was a Japanese yellow-haired little *** clean and clean, and he had a skill: he stood up when he asked for anything, put his front feet together and kept bowing. This skill was not trained by my friend. It also has an old Swedish owner, about whom I know nothing. He returned from Shanghai and gave the puppy to the recipient of the rental right, and the puppy belonged to my friend. The puppy came with a foreign name, and its transliteration was "Spurdy". We simplified the name and called it "Baodi".

Baodi stayed in our house for seven years and got along very well with our family. He didn't bite, saw strangers, barked at the gate for a while, we called and he ran away. At night, people often passed by on the sidewalk outside the fence, and he would run and bark towards the fence when he heard some kind of sound. The bark was indeed a little harsh, but he was quiet after just a few barks. He spent more time in the yard and on the grass. Sometimes we received guests in the living room or chatted with old friends. He would come in and make a few bows, beg for candy, and cause the guests to laugh. Japanese friends were more interested in it. Once, probably in the summer of 1963 or later, a Japanese news agency came to my house to shoot a TV movie, and they filmed Bao Di. Another time, the Japanese writer Ms. Yuki visited Shanghai and came to my house as a guest. She liked Bao Di very much. She said that she also had a dog at home in Tokyo. Two years later, when she went to Beijing to attend an emergency meeting of Asian and African writers, she asked me, "How is your puppy?" She smiled when she heard me say that Bao Di was very nice.

My wife Xiao Shan also likes Baodi. During the three-year difficult period, every time we went to the Cultural Club to eat, she always asked the waiter for a little bone to go back to feed Baodi. In 1962, our couple and children spent the Spring Festival in Guangzhou and returned to Shanghai. I heard from my sisters that when we were in Guangzhou, the door of the bedroom was closed, and Baodi stood at the door every morning waiting for us to come out. It is like this every day and never gets tired. When it saw us coming back, especially when it saw Xiao Shan, it kept shaking its head and tail. That happy and affectionate look, I am still very moved when I think about it now, and I seem to hear Ms. Yuqi's question again: "How is your puppy?"

"How is your puppy?" If I could see the Japanese woman writer again, she would ask me the same thing. Her concern will not diminish. But I have no puppy anymore.

In late August 1966, when the Red Guards began to take to the streets to copy the Fourth Old, Bao Di became a big burden in our family. At night, the children nearby often knocked on the door and shouted that they wanted to kill the puppy. I was terrified when I heard Bao Di screaming and barking, fearing that such a cry would lead the Red Guards who copied the Fourth Old to my house. At that time, I was already halfway to the side, and we were enjoying the cool in the yard in the evening. The children advised me to send Bao Di away, and I asked my eldest sister to try. But who would accept such a gift at this time of year? It is said that we had to give it to the hospital for scientific researchers to use for experiments, but we didn't want to. I wanted to laugh when I saw Brother Bao bowing before. These days, when I went home after studying in the institution, Brother Bao bowed to me and begged for something to eat, but I cried secretly.

The situation is getting tighter and tighter. Next door to us lives an old industrialist who used to be the owner of a factory. He built the house himself, and there is only a bamboo fence across from my yard. Someone went to his house to copy the four old ones. We could hear the movement and silence of the house next door clearly, and we could see some things from the gap in the fence. This evening, the children nearby knocked on the door several times to catch the puppy. Fortunately, Brother Bao never came out to bark or was caught. This is the first time I have seen a house raiding in more than 60 years. People are coming in and out with things, some people are scolding loudly, and some people are breaking the altars and jars. This scene is really scary. For more than ten days, I couldn't sleep well. I thought more about it this night. I talked to Xiao Shan about Baodi. We finally decided to send Baodi to the hospital and hand it over to my eldest sister.

After my brother sent me away, I came home from get off work. I couldn't hear the barking of the dog, I couldn't see my brother bowing to me and following me into the house. Instead, I felt relaxed and really felt like I was getting rid of the burden. But when I swallowed two slices of Meitong and went to bed for a long time and couldn't sleep, I couldn't help but think of Brother Bao, and after thinking about it, I felt that instead of getting rid of anything, I had a heavier burden on my back. What appeared in front of me was not a puppy wagging his head and tail, but a puppy lying on the dissection table and having his belly cut open. I thought further, not only was the puppy Bao, but I was also being dissected. I was ashamed of not being able to protect a puppy; in order to save myself, I sent Baodi to the dissection table, I despised myself, and I could not forgive myself! In this way, I shamefully began the suffering life of ten years of catastrophe. On the one hand, I blamed myself, and on the other hand, I wanted to save myself, not to let my family go to hell with me. I myself finally became Baodi, and I was lucky not to die at the dissection table.

Thirteen years and five months have passed. I still live in this building, and every morning I walk in the yard with a piece of decaying grass under my feet, and the bamboo fence has been replaced by a seamless brick wall. Several new owners have been added to the house next door, two more windows have been opened in the high walls, and sometimes a little rubbish has fallen. The grape trellis that had just been erected had already collapsed and swept away, and even the vines had been dug up. In the right corner, a large septic tank was added, which was moved from the adjacent five-story apartment. Several flowers were missing, and a few more trees that did not bloom. I miss the person I used to walk with, who used to bend over or sit on the ground to pull up weeds when the grass was green, and sometimes teased my bundy before and after lunch.... I seem to have had a big dream. The trauma of the garden made my heart seem to be tormented in a frying pan again. There will be no end to this torment unless I sum up my miserable life of the past ten years and pay off my spiritual debt. This is by no means easy. Then my life will not be better in the future. But I also survived those ten years.

Even in the era of "lying", people will not tell lies to themselves, and today, I am not afraid of everyone's ridicule. I want to say: I miss Baodi, and I want to apologize to him.