一、他的聲音很有磁性
1974年那時，农场各連隊的電話都要經過上海市屬五七幹校的總機轉的。接線员小S，總會打電話過來，有話沒話的聊天。我不善言辭，都是他問我答。比如：「吃了嗎？」「還沒呢。」「你在做什麼？」「算帳呢。」
他那頭一忙就會讓我等著，還囑咐一句「別掛了啊。」我有事走開一會兒，他都不讓我掛掉電話。都說我電話裡的聲音比較老氣，不像年輕人，我也納悶兒，他為啥老跟我這兒聊。他的聲音倒是很有磁性，象上海譯製片配音演員的聲音。
至於他以前是否見過我，不得而知，機會是有的。我們捕了魚都是在河邊現場銷售的。有時候我也會在現場收款開發票，買魚的人還真不少。在拥挤推搡着的男女老少人群中，有拿着大箩筐其他连队的司务长，还有不少拎着菜篮子的职工家属。我不是每回都跟了去的，队里还另有一个姑娘跟去捕鱼做销售。
二、想像不可靠
一天D會計說小S要來隊買魚了，真要見面了心裡就好像有個小兔子砰砰亂跳。那天小S跟D會計在宿舍前，沒到會計室來。我也只在辦公室窗子裡，遠遠地看了一眼。想像這玩意兒真的很害人，匆匆的一瞥，想像就被現實擊潰了。當然不是他長得醜，而是我對他的想像太完美了，以至於現實與想像對不上號兒。為此心裡好難過，從此有好一陣子小S不再打電話來了。也許他也對我失望了，其實我那一瞥有誤。首先我是俯視，再則D會計身高至少一米八。
一天在紙袋廠食堂工作的一個男生，突然打電話來，說請我回去一次有人要見我。去了才知道是小S。時過境遷這次就沒有什麼隔閡與顧慮了。我們三個像老朋友一樣打了一會兒乒乓。閒聊中提到了我將要回上海一次，小S說能安排我搭個車。
三、下車時似乎有一絲惆悵
能搭到車回上海是一舉兩得的，不用花錢，又省了時間。本來四小時的路途，縮短了一半兒。但搭車也不容易，只有那種與市區有貨物運輸往來的單位才有這個便利。要搭車就要託那些單位認識開車的幫忙，或者自己去碰運氣，等在車边上。我跟隊裡同事還搭過一两次車。一般司機都比較有同情心，除非沒地兒坐了。有的男生會遞給師傅一支煙就算是賄賂了。搭車的都坐在堆滿貨物的車鬥裡，擠在夾縫中或坐在貨物上面。一路上風特別大，渾身受凍，車兜的擋板不到兩尺高，不拉住捆綁貨物的繩索還很危險。每次搭車的人起碼有十來個，到上海後都是蓬頭垢面的。但奇怪的是到了市區要下車了，我心裡反到泛起一絲惆悵，希望就一直這樣坐下去。一到市區，司機就馬上讓搭車的下去，赶紧走人，怕遇到警察。
四、第一次和男孩靠得這麼近
去搭車那天我摸黑走了六七里路，天才濛濛亮就到了幹校。機房在二樓，屋子不大，燈光幽暗，打蠟木地板。屋子中間有幾個插满了线的大立柜。我靜靜地站在北窗邊，前方三、四十米處，一盞昏黃的路燈下，停著一輛我將要搭乘的大卡車，有人正在裝卸貨物。
實木窗框的窗台兒才到膝蓋高。小S工作台只一步之遙。他在交換台前忙過一陣後，放下耳機話筒，輕輕地走過來，站到了我的身後。有生以來第一次那麼有感覺地與異性站得這麼近。我被他的剛陽氣息包圍著，雖然沒有任何的身體接觸，卻令人感到思緒飄飄然抓收不住。身子軟綿綿搖搖欲墜，內心便生出了些許朦朧的期盼。我用僅存的一點理智，把持著沒有倒下去。
短短幾秒鐘似乎過了好幾年，因為什麼也沒發生，朦朧的期盼轉成一絲絲的幽怨，還好天还没亮，這瞬間的尷尬被昏暗掩飾了。
五、搭車坐進車頭的經歷
這次搭車我坐進了車頭裡，比過去兩次搭車坐在車鬥裡要舒服多了。我坐在司機後邊，車頭裡還有三位裝卸工，他們四個都是男性青壯年。一路上大家都沒說話，那天車還不是直接去上海市區。他們先去了金山和其它什麼地方裝卸貨物，都是荒郊野外人煙稀少的去處。
我一直有著莫名的緊張和擔心，不由得產生過後悔搭車和其它恐怖想像。本來四個小時的路程幾經周折到市區已經是天黑了。告別了他們後再輾轉坐公共汽車回家。
後來想想，那年月的人還都很淳樸的，我坐在裡面，大家都不說話是我冒昧打攪了他們，少了一路上的說說笑笑。他們那天也一定會覺得很不自在。
我此後再也沒搭過車。
六、又見小S但沒敢相認
那次搭車後，小S還是沒來過電話。終於強忍著心慌拿起電話，聽到的不是他的聲音。後來我婉轉地裝作若無其事地跟D會計打聽了一下。他說小S早就被調走了。去了哪裡我也不便打聽，終究連手也沒碰過的。但又一想畢竟電話裡是熟人了，走了也該打個招呼吧。
1974年10月21日那天，我與隊裡的幾個姑娘，摸黑走了18里路，去了一趟奉城。快進城了天剛麻麻亮，電線桿上的電線也開始四通八達了，再走幾步一個拐彎兒，城鎮外圍的房舍出現了。此時突然看見不遠處有個人，正在一根電線桿子上接電話線。走近了抬頭一看，呀！正是小S心！裡一咯噔，臉上陡然發燙。他也看到了我，但我們都沒打招呼，畢竟以前沒有見過幾次，再加上很久沒有他消息了。我略有遲疑，但沒停下腳步。
緊接著又懷疑我是不是看錯人了。
七、那場不告而別的真相
這兩天我才真正想通，當年他為何走得那樣倉促，甚至沒能給我打個電話告別。想必那次調離事發突然，他或許再也没有機會私自動用機房的電話，也無法親自來漁業隊道別。
畢竟在那個年代，所有的通話都要經過總機，面對其他熟識的接線員，那些藏在電話線裡的心事終究難以啟齒。
我們在奉城郊外的電線杆下，曾有過瞬間的對視，那時天剛蒙蒙亮，誰都沒有開口。也許是地點實在太出人意料——誰能想到在如此荒僻的地方(遠離農場、遠離市屬幹校)，我們竟會這樣猝不及防地相遇？那一刻，一向矜持的我遲疑了，沒能停下腳步。而他，或許也正懷疑自己的眼睛。
走過，路過，錯過，人生總是如此半點不由人。
回想起來，連我自己都覺得有些不可思議，我如此投入的一場情感，到頭來，竟連他的全名都不知道，不知道那個姓氏究竟是「斯」還是「司」。
更不可思議的是，這一切竟都發生在短短兩個月內。我於1974年8月調往漁業隊，而10月21日便是最後的一瞥。在那短短的兩個月裡，為何能發生這麼多故事？難道在那樣的歲月裡，時間真的過得特別漫長嗎？
但在那個喜歡幻想的年紀，也許我迷戀的本就是那份求而不得的朦朧。隨著歲月的流逝，他在黎明微光中，電線杆上的模糊身影，又添了一層朦朧。
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An Era When Hearts Were Harder to Reach Than Phone Lines
Part I: A Voice with Magnetism
In 1974, telephone calls between the various sectors of the farm had to be routed through the central switchboard of the Shanghai Municipal May Seventh Cadre School. The operator, a young man named Xiao S, would always call me to chat, spinning a conversation out of nothing at all. Being someone of few words, I would simply reply to his questions: "Have you eaten?" "Not yet." "What are you doing?" "Accounting."
Whenever things got busy on his end, he would make me wait, leaving me with a firm instruction: "Don't hang up." Even if I had to step away for a moment, he wouldn't let me end the call. Everyone used to tell me that my voice over the phone sounded rather mature, unlike a typical young person's, so I always wondered why he spent so much time chatting with me. His voice, however, possessed a true magnetism—deep and resonant, much like the voice actors who dubbed foreign films at the Shanghai Dubbing Studio.
As to whether he had ever seen me before, I had no way of knowing, though the opportunity was certainly there. Whenever we caught fish, we sold them directly by the riverbank. Sometimes I would be there on-site to collect payments and write invoices, and the crowd of buyers was always immense. Squeezing and jostling through that bustling throng of young and old were production managers from other sectors holding large wicker baskets, alongside numerous workers' family members carrying shopping baskets. I didn't go every single time, as there was another girl in our team who also handled the fish sales.
Part II: The Unreliability of Imagination
One day, Accountant D mentioned that Xiao S was coming to our sector to buy fish. Knowing we were finally about to meet made my heart flutter like a trapped rabbit. That day, Xiao S and Accountant D stood out in front of the dormitory; they never actually stepped into the accounting office. I only caught a fleeting glimpse of him from afar, peering through the office window. Imagination can be a terribly cruel thing—with that single, hurried glance, my fantasy was instantly shattered by reality. It wasn’t that he was unattractive, but rather that the image I had built in my mind was so utterly flawless that the real person simply couldn't measure up. I felt a wave of deep disappointment over it, and for quite a while afterward, Xiao S stopped calling me. Perhaps he, too, felt disappointed in me. In truth, that glimpse of mine had been flawed from the start: for one, I was looking down at him from above, and furthermore, Accountant D stood at least one point eight meters tall.
One day, a young man who worked in the cafeteria of the paper bag factory called me out of the blue, asking me to come back because someone wanted to see me. It was only when I arrived that I realized it was Xiao S. Time had washed away the old awkwardness, and the barriers and anxieties were gone. The three of us played a game of ping-pong together, just like old friends. During our casual conversation, I mentioned that I would be traveling back to Shanghai soon. Xiao S immediately offered, saying he could arrange a ride for me.
Part III: A Hint of Melancholy upon Arrival
Being able to hitch a ride back to Shanghai was a double blessing—it cost nothing and saved time, cutting the usual four-hour journey clean in half. But getting a ride wasn't easy; only units with regular cargo transport routes to the city center enjoyed such a luxury. To catch a ride, you either had to ask someone who knew the drivers for a favor, or rely on sheer luck by waiting right beside the vehicles. I had hitched rides once or twice with colleagues from my team. Generally, the drivers were quite sympathetic, unless there was absolutely no space left. Some of the young men would hand the driver a cigarette as a small "bribe." Those hitching a ride would sit in the open cargo bed, packed tight with goods, squeezing into the narrow gaps or sitting right on top of the freight. The wind along the road was punishingly cold, freezing us to the bone, and with the truck bed's sideboards barely two feet high, it was incredibly dangerous if you didn’t hold onto the ropes binding the cargo. Every time we hitched a ride, there would be at least a dozen of us, and by the time we reached Shanghai, we were all disheveled and covered in dust. Yet, strangely enough, as we entered the city center and it came time to get down, a faint sliver of melancholy would wash over my heart, making me wish the ride would just go on forever. The moment we hit the urban streets, the driver would hurriedly tell us to get off and disperse immediately, terrified of running into the police.
Part IV: Standing Close to a Boy for the Very First Time
On the day I was to hitch a ride, I walked six or seven li through the pitch-black darkness, arriving at the cadre school just as the first faint glimmers of dawn began to break. The equipment room was up on the second floor—a small, dimly lit room with polished, waxed hardwood floors. In the center of the room stood several large, towering cabinets crammed with crisscrossing patch cords. I stood quietly by the north window. Looking out, some thirty or forty meters ahead under the dim amber glow of a streetlamp, sat the large cargo truck I was meant to board. A few silhouettes were busy loading and unloading freight.
The solid wooden window frame was low, barely reaching knee height. Xiao S’s workstation was just a single step away from where I stood. After being busy at the switchboard for a while, he set down his headset and microphone and quietly walked over, standing directly behind me. For the first time in my life, I felt the electrifying awareness of standing so incredibly close to the opposite sex. I was completely enveloped by his masculine presence. Though there was absolutely no physical contact, it left my thoughts drifting, airy and impossible to tether. My body felt soft, almost swaying, and a few hazy, delicate expectations began to bloom in my heart. Using the last shred of my remaining reason, I held my ground and kept myself from collapsing backward.
Those few fleeting seconds felt like they spanned several lifetimes. Because nothing actually happened, that hazy expectation slowly curdled into a faint, lingering ache of resentment. Fortunately, the sky was not yet bright, and the darkness gracefully shielded that momentary awkwardness.
Part V: My Experience Riding in the Truck Cab
This time, I got to sit inside the truck cab, which was infinitely more comfortable than my previous two experiences riding in the open cargo bed. I sat directly behind the driver. Inside the cab were three cargo handlers—all four of them young, robust men. Nobody uttered a single word the entire way. That day, the truck didn’t even drive straight toward the Shanghai city center. Instead, they went first to Jinshan and several other places to load and unload goods—all of which were desolate, sparsely populated areas out in the wild countryside.
An inexplicable tension and anxiety gripped me the whole time, and I couldn't help but regret hitching the ride, my mind spiraling into terrifying imaginings. What should have been a four-hour trip wound its way through so many twists and turns that by the time we finally reached the city center, darkness had already fallen. After bidding them goodbye, I had to navigate several public buses just to get home.
Thinking back on it later, the people of that era were actually very pure and simple. As I sat packed inside, everyone remained dead silent simply because my sudden presence had awkwardly intruded upon them, robbing them of the laughter and chatter they usually shared on the road. They must have felt terribly self-conscious that day too.
I never hitched a ride ever again.
Part VI: Seeing Xiao S Again, but Lacking the Courage to Speak
After that truck ride, Xiao S never called again. Finally, forcing down the frantic fluttering in my chest, I picked up the receiver myself, only to hear a completely unfamiliar voice on the other end. Later, I casually brought it up with Accountant D, trying my best to sound nonchalant. He told me that Xiao S had been transferred away long ago. It wasn't appropriate for me to pry into where he had gone—after all, we had never so much as held hands. Yet, a part of me couldn't help but think that since we had become such familiar fixtures over the phone line, he should have at least said goodbye before leaving.
On October 21, 1974, several girls from our team and I walked eighteen li through the pitch-black morning to visit Fengcheng. Just as we approached the town, the first faint light of dawn began to color the sky, and the telephone wires atop the poles began to branch out in every direction. A few more steps and a turn around the bend brought the houses on the town's outskirts into view. At that exact moment, I suddenly spotted a figure not far away, perched on a telegraph pole connecting phone lines. As I drew closer and looked up—ah! It was Xiao S! My heart instantly dropped, and a sudden, burning heat flushed across my face. He saw me too, but neither of us said a word. After all, we had only ever met a handful of times in person, and it had been so long since I last had any news of him. I hesitated for a brief, fleeting second, but I did not stop my feet.
Immediately afterward, I began to doubt myself, wondering if my eyes had simply played a trick on me.
Part VII: The Truth Behind That Sudden Departure
It is only in these past couple of days that I have truly come to understand why he left so abruptly back then, without even being able to call me to say goodbye. That transfer must have been sudden and unexpected. He likely never had another opportunity to use the equipment room's telephones for personal calls, nor could he come to the fishery team in person to say farewell.
After all, in that era, every single conversation had to pass through the main switchboard. Facing the listening ears of all the other familiar operators, those secrets hidden deep within the telephone lines were simply too difficult to put into words.
Beneath that telegraph pole on the outskirts of Fengcheng, we shared a split-second locking of eyes. The sky was just beginning to pale with dawn, and neither of us spoke. Perhaps the location was just too unexpected—who could have imagined that in such a remote, wild place (so far from the farm, so far from the municipal cadre school), we would collide so entirely unprepared? In that exact moment, reserved and guarded as I always was, I faltered and failed to stop my steps. And he, perhaps, was doubting his very own eyes.
To walk past, to cross paths, to miss each other entirely—life is always like this, completely out of our hands.
Looking back, even I find it somewhat unbelievable. An emotion I poured myself so completely into turned out, in the end, to be something where I never even learned his full name. To this day, I do not know if his surname was spelled "Si" (斯) or "Si" (司).
Even more unbelievable is that all of this unfolded in the span of just two short months. I was transferred to the fishery team in August of 1974, and October 21 marked our very last glimpse of one another. How could so many stories pack themselves into just two brief months? Did time truly move at a painfully slower pace during those years?
But at that age, when one is so deeply in love with illusion, perhaps what I was truly infatuated with was the beautiful, unattainable haze of it all. As the years bleed away, his blurred silhouette perched upon that telegraph pole in the first light of dawn has simply gathered one more soft layer of mist.
Special thanks to Gemini AI for providing the spirited translation and text refinement.
第三百四十二篇
