《青春斷代史，1986：老C的紫外套、H口袋裡的照片與那一聲「友誼地久天長」》

【這是發生在與J認識之前的事】

大約是1986年初，那位把去黃山名額讓給了我的孩子媽，給老C介紹了一位在金山工作的外籍專家H。他是德國西門子公司的高級工程師。

過了個把月，那位孩子媽過來問我：「芬儂想勿想出國？」當時我在學校的名聲因為小W的事搞得很狼狽。曾經有些想與我發展關係的男生，也基本上淡出了視野。「吾幫儂也介紹一個外籍專家好𠲎？」（我幫你也介紹一個外籍專家好嗎？）她說她有一個朋友是在金山工作外籍專家的翻譯，認識許多外國人。「好的。」我回答。「儂撥吾一張照片。」（你給我一張照片）於是，我給了她一張照片。

這照片是1984年老C幫我拍的。我穿在身上的這件紫外套，還是老C自己親手做的。老C的手很靈巧，做衣服、織毛衣，甚至能做一手好菜。那天我們在長風公園裡拍照，還是老習慣，發小、閨蜜們去拍照，都會互相換「行頭」，也就是互相換衣服穿著拍照。那時生活簡樸，一般人沒有幾件拿得出手的像樣衣服。那天老C還說我這個人比較老實呆板，便順手摘了一朵花，「插上、插上！」說著她就把花別在了我的頭髮上。「這就對了！」她說，「這樣就平添幾分吉普賽女郎風情。」

就這樣，我破天荒地有了這兩張頭上戴花的照片。但依我看，再怎麼捯飭都不行，我根本不具備吉普賽女郎那種獨特、發自內在的風韻。

幾天後的星期五下午，孩子媽找到我說：「明朝禮拜六夜到6點半，約好了辣辣國際飯店門口見面。」
「他叫什麼？」我問。
「H。」她回答。
「什麼？什麼？H？怎麼跟老C的那位叫一個名字？」
「是額，就是伊。吾額翻譯朋友把儂額照片拨了H，想讓伊幫忙尋個外國同事。結果H收了照片講，伊自家想要見儂。」
「怎麼可能？！我是絕對不會去的。你去跟翻譯朋友講一下，我絕對不去。」
「今朝已經晚了尋不到人額。儂曉得𠲎，週末了外國人才不會守在宿舍裡額，老早就呒沒影子了，尋不到額。儂只有自家去講，總伐可以叫人家白等啊。」

怎麼辦？當時我管的語言實驗室裡有個小老師正在給同學們上外語課，我跟他比較熟。課後我問他怎麼辦？他說：「你明天去跟H說清楚不就行了嗎。」我的英文很差，便跟他現學了幾句將要對H表達清楚的話。

其實我本該去找老C的，但是那樣一來，那位孩子媽就會遇到麻煩。當時就是這麼想的，自己去把事情解決了，這樣既瞞過了老C，又救了孩子媽。

如果不去，那就等於將H給晾在那兒了。那時的人們對外籍專家還是很尊敬的，不敢這樣做。該發生的總會發生，躲也躲不過。古希臘哲人曾說：「任何事情的發生都是有原因的，根本沒有什麼發生的事是意外，或不該發生的。」

星期六晚上6點半，我硬著頭皮如約來到國際飯店門口。高個子的H已經在入口轉門外的右側等著。那時候一般人進不了國際飯店的，老C以前帶我混進去過一次。

國際飯店 網圖

H很紳士地跟我握了手，帶我走進了轉門。在一樓大廳裡找了個地方坐下，問我要點什麼飲料。我說：「可樂，謝謝！」當坐定後，我便用簡單的英文對他說：「老C是我的朋友，我是不應該來見您的。但是誰都無法聯繫到您，怕您在這裡白等，所以我就來了。目的就是要跟您說清楚這些。請您將我的照片還給我吧。」

H的英語帶有濃重的德國口音，聽起來「甕聲甕氣」的。我的英文也爛，我們之間幾乎沒有溝通的可能。但是我要表達的意思都說清楚了，因為來之前我反覆練習過這幾句話。

說完，我站起來要走，H做了個手勢說：“No hurry, no hurry.”（不用急）。
我只好又坐下。我不能使他難堪，尤其是在大庭廣眾面前。我怕引起周圍的人和服務生的注意，自己也會丟面子，而且這種地方一定會有「條領（便衣）」。

不一會兒，H站起來帶我走出大門。我心裡一陣高興，心想終於可以回家了。大門外柔和的街燈裡，有些人站著說話，還有一兩個穿制服的門童。走到馬路邊，我跟H說：“Goodbye!”
他回答依然是：“No hurry, no hurry.”

我不可能像上次在大光明電影院看完電影那樣，一轉身就跑掉。那是1984年的某一天，我夜大同班同學「老阿爸」說要給我介紹個對象，約了在大光明電影院——也就在國際飯店隔壁見面。但我到了電影院，卻沒見到相親對象，只有「老阿爸」自己。他陪著看了電影，對相親的事隻字不提。電影看到一半，他還將手伸過來搭在我的椅子背上，令人感到無比的「搓氣、撒氣、膩心（討厭、惱火、噁心）」。我很氣憤，出了電影院，看見一輛16路電車過來，正好是我回家要乘坐的車，我撒丫子就跑去追車了，車站就在附近。沒說聲謝謝，也沒說聲再見，就這樣我把「老阿爸」孤零零地晾在了繁華的南京路上、國際飯店門口。

但H畢竟是個舉止有度的外籍專家，而且他沒有惹我生氣。在眾目睽睽之下，我還真不能把他也給晾在那兒。

H伸出了手，一輛計程車隨即開了過來，我們上了車，去了在外灘的國際海員俱樂部。

大廳裡燈光柔和，環境優雅。H喝啤酒，我還是可樂。坐了一會兒，音樂響起，H提出要跳個舞。是那種節奏緩慢的四步舞，基本上就在原地不怎麼挪動的舞。邊上有兩三對洋人互相摟著、臉貼著臉，慢悠悠地晃動，一副很陶醉的樣子。我沒跳過這種舞，跳舞的時候也沒跟H貼著。由於我們話語很少，幾乎呆坐著，顯得比較尷尬，我又提出該回去了。

H終於點了頭。在門外H攔了一輛計程車，我們都上了車，先送他去了一個什麼地方，好像不是回金山。然後他付給了司機足夠的車費，好像是40元外匯兌換券，讓司機將我送回學校。

事情是說清楚了，但是照片終究沒能要回來。

後來的故事是這樣的：1986年5月初的某一天，老C在H的口袋裡發現了我的那張照片。結果是，我再也沒能見到過老C。至於她是什麼時候與H結的婚，又何時去的德國，我一概不清楚。直到我到了日本之後，才輾轉從我們的好友老Y那裡得到了老C在德國的電話。

大約是在1989年的農曆新年，我從日本的家給老C打了過去。電話裡，她的聲音還是那麼爽朗，互相問候，似乎我們之間根本沒有存在過什麼隔閡。我們間斷了兩年半的友誼，又這樣續了上。

後來老C告訴我，當時她母親得知我的照片在H的口袋裡這件事後，憤憤地說：「芬就是一顆定時炸彈，勿要看伊平時勿聲勿響。」

這是我在國內老C幫我拍的最後一張照片，那是在1985年秋天，那天是她二哥結婚的日子，我去吃喜酒。新房就在老C家的二樓，照片裡是他們新房的一隅。那個年代，新婚燕爾必備的新潮家具是玻璃櫥，裡面要放一些藝術品等名貴小擺件。這個玻璃櫥裡放著一尊站立著的送子觀音像、一尊坐在蓮花上的觀音、一個小銅質香爐、一個畫著徐悲鴻的馬的瓷盤，還有幾瓶洋酒、漂亮的咖啡用具、茶具以及車料花瓶等。我手裡拿著的一瓶雀巢咖啡，在當時也算得上是奢侈品了。我的背後，是她嫂子陪嫁的縫紉機和電視機。

那時我留著一頭「爆發式」的蓬鬆短髮，頂部蓬鬆、後腦勺和脖子處都剪得蠻短。不過拍照時這頭髮已經長出了不少，褪去了剛做出來時那股蓬鬆飽滿的張揚，反而多了一種妥帖、柔軟與不張揚的層次，看起來還挺拽。如今看來，穿著牛仔褲去吃喜酒未免顯得有點太隨便了，可那時我對什麼場合穿什麼衣服完全不懂，再則生活裡也沒有那麼多「場合」能去，更沒幾件行頭可翻。不過牛仔褲在當時正在流行，穿著它自己心裡覺得挺神氣的。

記得是在1985年深秋的一個下午，我和老C坐在電教所大樓背後、背風有陽光的拐角處，邊曬太陽邊唱歌。當唱到《友誼地久天長》時，我們都流了淚。

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Chronicles of Youth, 1986: Old C's Purple Jacket, the Photograph in H's Pocket, and the Echoes of Auld Lang Syne

[This incident took place prior to my acquaintance with J.]

It was roughly early 1986. The publisher’s mother—the very children's mother who had gifted her Mount Huang travel slot to me—had introduced Old C to an foreign expert named H who worked in Jinshan. He was a senior engineer for the German corporation Siemens.

About a month later, that children's mother approached me and asked, "Fen, do you want to go abroad?" At that time, my reputation on campus had become incredibly tangled and awkward due to the fallout surrounding Little W. The young men who had previously shown interest in pursuing a relationship with me had largely faded from the horizon. "How about I introduce an foreign engineer to you as well?" she offered. She explained that she had a close friend working as a translator for the foreign experts in Jinshan and knew many foreigners. "Alright," I responded. "Give me a photograph of yourself." So, I handed her a print.

That photograph had been captured by Old C back in 1984. The purple jacket I wore in the frame was something Old C had painstakingly sewn with her own hands. Old C possessed exceptionally nimble fingers; she could craft clothing, knit sweaters, and even whip up a magnificent spread of dishes. On that day, we were taking snapshots in Changfeng Park. Following our usual custom when childhood friends and close girlfriends went out to take photos, we would constantly swap "outfits"—meaning we exchanged clothing to take turns posing. Life was intensely simple in those days, and the average person possessed barely a handful of decent garments that were fit for public display. On that afternoon, Old C remarked that I was far too honest and rigid a person, so she reached out, plucked a flower, and said, "Put it in, put it in!" As she spoke, she tucked the blossom directly into my hair. "There, that's it!" she declared. "Now you have a touch of Gypsy flair."

And so, for the first and only time in my life, these two photographs of me wearing a flower in my hair came to exist. Yet in my own estimation, no matter how much one tries to doll me up, it simply doesn't work; I completely lack that unique, intrinsic aura possessed by a true Gypsy woman.

A few days later, on a Friday afternoon, the children's mother tracked me down and said, "Tomorrow, Saturday night at six-thirty, an appointment has been made to meet right outside the entrance of the Park Hotel."
"What is his name?" I asked.
"H," she replied.
"What? What did you say? H? How can he share the exact same name as Old C's man?"
"Yes, it's him. My translator friend handed your photograph to H, hoping he could help find a foreign colleague for you. But upon receiving the print, H declared that he wanted to meet you himself."
"How is that even possible?! I am absolutely not going. Go tell your translator friend that I refuse to go under any circumstances."
"It's already too late today to catch anyone. You know how it is—once the weekend hits, foreigners never stay cooped up in their dorms; they vanish without a trace long before you can blink. You can't find them. You have to go explain it to him yourself; you can't just leave the man waiting in vain."

What was I to do? At that time, inside the language laboratory under my management, a young local instructor happened to be conducting a foreign language class for the students, and I was relatively well-acquainted with him. Once the class dispersed, I asked him for advice. He said, "Why don't you just go tomorrow and explain everything clearly to H?" My English was abysmal, so I frantically learned a few set phrases from him right then and there to express myself clearly to H.

In truth, I ought to have gone straight to Old C, but had I done so, that children's mother would have landed in immense trouble. That was precisely my calculation at the moment: I would go resolve the matter myself, thereby keeping Old C in the dark while saving the children's mother from consequences.

If I failed to show up, it would mean leaving H entirely stranded. In those days, the general public harbored an immense reverence toward foreign experts and simply didn't dare commit such an offense. What is destined to happen will happen, and there is no dodging it. As the ancient Greek philosopher once declared: "Everything happens for a reason, and absolutely nothing that occurs is an accident or something that shouldn't have been."

At six-thirty on Saturday evening, I nerved myself and arrived at the entrance of the Park Hotel as agreed. The towering H stood waiting right to the right side of the revolving entrance doors. In that era, ordinary citizens were strictly barred from entering the Park Hotel; Old C had snuck me inside exactly once before.

H shook my hand with complete gentlemanly poise and guided me through the revolving doors. Finding a spot to sit inside the first-floor lobby, he asked what beverage I cared to order. "A Coke, thank you," I replied. Once we settled into our seats, I utilized my primitive English to speak to him: "Old C is my close friend. I should not have come to meet you under any circumstances. However, as absolutely nobody could establish contact with you, and terrifyingly aware that you might be waiting here in vain, I came. My singular purpose is to clarify this matter to you. Please return my photograph to me."

H’s English carried a heavily dense German accent, sounding profoundly "muffled and guttural." My English was equally broken, leaving us with near-zero possibility of fluid communication. Nevertheless, I managed to voice exactly what I intended to express, as I had rehearsed those exact phrases repeatedly before arriving.

Having delivered my piece, I stood up to take my leave. H executed a gesture and said, "No hurry, no hurry."
I had no recourse but to sit back down. I could not bear to cause him public embarrassment, especially in front of a grand crowd. I was terrified of drawing the focus of the surrounding patrons and servers, which would cause me to lose face; furthermore, an establishment of this caliber was bound to be watched by Tiao-ling (plainclothes officers).

Shortly afterward, H rose and led me out the main doors. A wave of relief washed through my heart, thinking I could finally head home. Beneath the soft glow of the streetlamps outside, several groups stood conversing, flanked by one or two uniformed doormen. Walking over to the curbside, I said to H, "Goodbye!"
His response remained identical: "No hurry, no hurry."

I couldn't simply spin on my heel and sprint away as I had done previously at the Grand Theatre. That had occurred on a certain day in 1984. An old school classmate of mine, "Old A-Ba," had insisted on introducing me to a matchmaking prospect, arranging for us to meet at the Grand Theatre—which sat directly adjacent to the Park Hotel. Yet when I arrived at the theater, the prospect was nowhere to be seen; only Old A-Ba stood there alone. He accompanied me through the screening, uttering not a single syllable regarding the match. Halfway through the broadcast, he actually reached his arm out and rested his hand across the back of my seat, an action that felt thoroughly Cuo-qi, Sa-qi, Ni-xin (obnoxious, frustrating, and sickening in Shanghai dialect). Filled with hot indignation, I exited the theater and spotted a No. 16 trolley bus rolling down the street—the exact line I required to commute home. I scooped up my heels and ran like wild to chase the bus, as the station sat close by. Without offering a single word of thanks or bid farewell, I left Old A-Ba stranded entirely alone on the bustling Nanjing Road, right at the entrance of the Park Hotel.

Yet H was, after all, a highly well-mannered foreign expert, and he had done nothing to provoke my anger. Under the scrutinizing gaze of the crowd, I genuinely couldn't bring myself to leave him stranded in that manner.

H extended his hand, a taxicab pulled up instantly, and we boarded the vehicle, heading straight toward the International Seamen’s Club on the Bund.

The lights inside the grand hall were soft, enveloping the space in an elegant atmosphere. H drank beer while I stuck to my Coke. After we sat for a brief spell, the music swelled, and H invited me to dance. It was a slowly paced four-step dance, a style where bodies essentially remained anchored in place without moving much across the floor. Nearby, two or three foreign couples clung to one another, their faces pressed cheek-to-cheek, swaying languidly in absolute intoxication. I had never executed such a dance before, and throughout the movement, I kept my body firmly separated from H. Burdened by our near-total lack of conversation, sitting in dead silence grew increasingly awkward, so I once again asserted that it was time for me to return.

H finally nodded in consent. Stepping outside, he flagged down a taxicab, and we both boarded. The cab dropped him off first at a certain location—which didn't appear to be his quarters in Jinshan. Then, he handed the driver an ample sum of fare—roughly 40 yuan in Foreign Exchange Certificates—instructing him to deliver me safely back to campus.

The matter had been explained with absolute clarity, yet the photograph, in the end, was never recovered.

The rest of the saga unfolded as follows: on a certain day in early May 1986, Old C discovered my photograph buried deep inside H's pocket. As a catastrophic consequence, I never set eyes upon Old C ever again. As to when she ultimately wedded H, or the exact date she departed for Germany, I remained entirely oblivious. It wasn't until after I migrated to Japan that I managed to obtain Old C’s German telephone number, channeled through our mutual close friend, Old Y.

Around the Lunar New Year of 1989, I placed a long-distance call to Old C from my home in Japan. Her voice through the receiver carried that exact same bright, ringing clarity of old. We exchanged warm greetings, as though no rift had ever existed between us across the years; our friendship, which had suffered a two-and-a-half-year silence, snapped right back into place.

Later, Old C shared with me what her mother had bitterly remarked upon discovering my photograph inside H's pocket: "Fen is nothing short of a time bomb—never mind how quiet and hushed she behaves ordinarily."

This was the very last photograph Old C ever took of me in China. It was the autumn of 1985, on the day of her second older brother’s wedding, and I went to attend the banquet. The bridal chamber was located on the second floor of Old C’s family home, and the print captured a small corner of their newlywed nest. In that era, the ultimate piece of trendy furniture mandatory for newlyweds was a glass display cabinet, inside of which one had to showcase an assortment of art pieces and precious knick-knacks. This particular glass cabinet housed a standing statue of the Guanyin Bodhisattva Who Brings Children, another Guanyin seated upon a lotus, a small bronze incense burner, a decorative porcelain plate painted with Xu Beihong’s horses, several bottles of imported liquor, elegant coffee sets, tea sets, and hand-cut glassware vases. Even the jar of Nescafé instant coffee I clutched in my hand was considered quite a luxury item at the time. Positioned right behind my back were the sewing machine and television set that her sister-in-law had brought as part of her dowry.

Back then, I sported a short, voluminously blown-out "explosion" haircut—puffed up at the crown but tapered quite short around the back and at the nape of the neck. By the time the photo was taken, however, my hair had already grown out quite a bit; it had lost that aggressively puffed, rigid fullness of a fresh perm, settling instead into a softened, supple, and unpretentious texture, though it still looked quite proud and spirited. Looking at it today, wearing jeans to a wedding banquet seems terribly casual, but back then I possessed zero understanding of which clothes suited which occasions; furthermore, life simply didn't afford many "occasions" to attend, and I had barely any proper garments in my wardrobe to pick from anyway. Jeans happened to be the raging trend of the moment, and wearing them made me feel thoroughly dashing and smart.

I remember an afternoon in the deep autumn of 1985. Old C and I sat huddled against the back of the institute building, tucked within a sunny, windless corner, singing songs while basking in the warmth. When our voices rose to the strains of Auld Lang Syne, tears welled up and spilled from both our eyes.

特別感謝 Gemini AI 提供充滿活力的翻譯和文本潤色。

Special thanks to Gemini AI for providing the spirited translation and text refinement.

第三百八十一篇