Summer Fever Is Fading Away暑热将尽

Image: courtesy of Niu Ge.

从机场出发口出来，两台笔记本电脑在背包里。其中一台在失物招领的储物间休息了三个月。我刚才在领物单上写下住址时，蓝色油性笔重复这几天刚刚印在脑海里的邮编，"没有犹豫地书写生活"，我想到这句话，不知道算感慨还是向往。

电脑是七月飞去德国时落在安检的，从伦敦的St Pancras车站坐上了慢车，慌张着差点误机，登机了发现电脑不见了。在明斯特和卡塞尔，我发邮件打电话，让朋友帮忙，最后机场来电，说在安检口发现了我的电脑。三个月之后我来到Luton取走了它。

回伦敦的火车上，秋天了，西斜的阳光照耀着大片青草，肥硕的白羊零星出现，也有棕黑色的犁过的土地，树孤零零，瘦长的影子让他们显得很高。这一路向南进城，离城市并不遥远。我想起这个时节，从张店往北开车，会有一滩滩金黄的玉米铺在路中央，车碾过它们时比经过减速带要震颤得更带劲。这时候坐车自然不太舒服，不过在农人炫耀粮食时要是连震震屁股都不舍得，就太小家气了。

这个夏天很长，在不同的时刻我都觉得高温要行将结束了，却被疲惫拖曳着，继续支着眼皮。我瘫在St Pancras的长椅上，被背包坠倒，周围人来人往，短袖、毛衣、外套没有任何冲突的，混在一起，高跟鞋哒哒哒，箱轮子啾啾啾，像武汉江畔蝉的嗡鸣，尖锐久了就成了一滩让人昏昏欲睡的温热。我在北京机场出了安检口时，松鼠等在那里，我们拥抱，他身上有凉了的汗，身体试图隐藏紧张，我想我也是，但我们都放松下来，空气没有预想中锐利。

然后开始上班，进入一种临时状态。有点像要成为一个好学生，对每一个时刻鼓起兴趣，像即将没电时发热的充电宝，灯光一闪一闪。松鼠很可怜我，我却不知道从何处开始松动时间表，早晨挤在地铁里像皱巴巴的打印纸，在夜里贴墙睡，像背包里的那只黑色的三菱水笔。

有些事情做不到的。

如果早点认输，跟自己承认了，可能会大家都好过一点。恋爱，做事，写稿，甚至跳舞，好像都要高烧着，等到蜡烛的火苗微弱到被蜡海淹没，才死心，就这样吧，不努力了。那天回到松鼠家，我稀里哗啦地哭着，像被偷扔了一颗炸弹，一进门口开始爆破。发生了什么呢，好像就是那天下午和W吃着咖喱，她说每天都很担心地球，担心塑料袋和水污染，她躺在客厅的床垫上，望着天花板，三个小时。

我也困惑，经常，但没办法太久一动不动，像瘪掉的气球，还要撑起来，但打的也不是氢气，是喘息，只能离地一尺。我那天就很想瘪下去了，变成薄薄的一片，覆在地上。没有缝隙地让身体落在地上。松鼠何辜，我边哭边在想，请他原谅。他坐在离床半米的椅子上，呆愣着，仿佛在迅速漏着气，下一刻就要落到地上。我很害怕，我怕别人漏气甚于害怕自己。他问，“你为什么要这样想呢？”

眼下我回到伦敦，即便开着暖气，冰冷也捉着脚趾不放。我回忆已经开始模糊的夏天，以及过去的几年，我好像一直在害怕，在伤害还远未发生之前，恐慌。Abramovich不是有个表演吗，口红、玫瑰、枪、刀都在桌子上，她裸身站着，让人为所欲为。我即便看录像，都觉得像看到了悬疑片，要第一个逃离案发现场。当观众都毫无勇气，何况是当参与者呢。

九月初在上海那几天，灼热的气流到夜里已经偏凉，能散步到深夜的日子要开始倒数了。在国内夏天的夜里，我还会点热茶。穿着一身白衣服的D拿着一甁椰汁，我们此前从未见面，我偶尔读他的东西。我在路灯下找了个路牙石坐下，地面真得凉了，他站着，我想起松鼠讲，他们在画廊开幕碰见，默默无语，举杯致意。

还是先做个好人比较重要。

夏天时总会想起小阳写过的，他后悔用“熬”字来说刚开始工作的那一年，觉得是当时轻浮。身处其中时，我总想，呀，千万别说漏了嘴，让他教训我。但为了让生活在轨上，真的让人精疲力尽。回伦敦前我先回了趟家，有天早晨我和爸爸吃了妈妈留在桌上的早饭，忘了是怎么样，聊到了孩子。爸爸在烧热水时说起自己等着当姥爷，我洗碗，犹豫着问他，知不知道夏天发生的事。他说知道，我又犹豫着，问他真的知道吗。

他坐在背窗的红木沙发上，点了烟，慢慢讲，人生的愉悦有很多，艺术啊宗教啊，你不要太小心眼。我坐在他对面的沙发上，地毯突然很扎脚，我去提起自动煮水器上的水壶，倒进墨绿、青蓝色的茶杯。太烫了，我去拿纸巾。夏天，夏天结束了吧？那天下午爸爸开车，从张店往南开，新城的楼，新挖出来的湖，新涨的房价。还没到黄昏，下午明晃晃的光，湖对岸的载货列车是眼前景色里唯一在动的部分。

今天是爸爸生日，我已经在伦敦了。上周从Luton拿了电脑回来之后，每天都睡十个小时，中午时醒来看着北窗外的天色，不知该想什么，看到妈妈在群里发了爸爸在过生日的照片。昨天，飓风天还没落下雨来的夜里，搬了新家之后我第一次买花回来。今天视频时爸爸在喝酒，我凑到花旁边，说，献给你。

Machine translation (AI) of the Chinese original, not yet reviewed by the author. Please cite the original.

Image: courtesy of Niu Ge.

I come out through the airport departures exit with two laptops in my backpack. One of them has spent three months resting in the lost-property store. Just now, as I wrote my address on the claim form, the blue ballpoint wrote out the postcode that had only just lodged itself in my head these past few days. “Writing your life without hesitation” – the phrase came to me, and I couldn’t tell whether it was a sigh or a wish.

I left the laptop at security when I flew to Germany in July. I’d taken the slow train from St Pancras, nearly missed the flight in my panic, and only found the laptop gone once I’d boarded. In Münster and Kassel I sent emails, made phone calls and got friends to help, until finally the airport rang to say they had found my computer at the security gate. Three months later I came to Luton to collect it.

On the train back to London it was autumn. Low western sunlight lit up great stretches of green grass; plump white sheep appeared here and there, and brown-black ploughed fields too, and trees standing alone, their long thin shadows making them look very tall. All the way south into town, the city is never far off. I remembered that at this time of year, driving north out of Zhangdian, there would be golden pools of maize spread across the middle of the road, and running over them jolted the car more heartily than any speed bump. It wasn’t exactly a comfortable ride, but if you begrudged the farmers a shaken bottom while they were showing off their harvest, that would be terribly petty.

This summer was long. At different moments I kept thinking the heat was about to end, yet I was dragged along by exhaustion, still propping my eyelids open. I sprawled on a bench at St Pancras, pulled down by my backpack, people coming and going around me – T-shirts, jumpers and coats all mixed together without any clash, heels going clack-clack-clack, suitcase wheels squeaking – like the drone of cicadas on the riverbank in Wuhan, which, shrill for long enough, turns into a warm puddle of sound that makes you drowsy. When I came out past security at Beijing airport, Squirrel was waiting. We hugged; he was damp with cooled sweat, his body trying to hide its nerves. I think mine was too, but we both relaxed, and the air was less sharp than I’d expected.

Then I started work and entered a kind of temporary state. It was a bit like trying to be a good student, mustering interest in every moment, like a power bank heating up just before it runs out, its light blinking on and off. Squirrel felt sorry for me, but I didn’t know where to start loosening my schedule. In the mornings I was squashed on the metro like a crumpled sheet of printer paper; at night I slept pressed against the wall, like the black Mitsubishi gel pen in my backpack.

There are things you just can’t do.

If you give in early and admit it to yourself, things might be easier for everyone. Love, work, writing, even dancing – it seems they all have to be done at a high fever, and only when the candle flame is so weak it drowns in its own sea of wax do you finally give up: fine, that’s it, no more trying. That day, back at Squirrel’s place, I cried my eyes out, as if someone had secretly thrown a bomb at me and it went off the moment I came through the door. What had happened? Nothing much, it seemed – just that in the afternoon I’d had curry with W, and she said she worried about the planet every day, about plastic bags and water pollution; she had lain on the mattress in her living room staring at the ceiling for three hours.

I’m often bewildered too, but I can’t stay motionless for long. I’m like a deflated balloon that still has to puff itself up, except what’s pumped in isn’t hydrogen but breath, gasps, so I only rise a foot off the ground. That day I really wanted to go flat, to become a thin sheet lying on the floor, my body resting on the ground with no gap in between. What had Squirrel done to deserve this? I thought as I cried, and asked him to forgive me. He sat on a chair half a metre from the bed, stunned, as if he were rapidly losing air himself and would sink to the floor any moment. I was very frightened. I’m more afraid of other people going flat than of going flat myself. He asked, “Why do you have to think like that?”

Now I’m back in London, and even with the heating on, the cold grips my toes and won’t let go. I think back to the summer, which is already getting blurry, and to the past few years, and it seems I’ve been afraid all along – panicking long before any harm has come anywhere near. Doesn’t Abramović have that performance where lipstick, a rose, a gun and a knife are laid out on a table and she stands there, letting people do whatever they like to her? Even watching the video, I felt as if I were watching a thriller and wanted to be the first to flee the scene. I haven’t the courage even to be in the audience, let alone a participant.

In early September, those few days in Shanghai, the scorching air had turned cool by night; the days when you could stroll until late were starting to count down. On summer nights in China I still order hot tea. D, dressed all in white, was holding a bottle of coconut milk. We had never met before; I read his writing now and then. I found a kerbstone under a streetlight and sat down – the ground really had gone cold – while he stood. I remembered Squirrel telling me that when the two of them ran into each other at a gallery opening, they said nothing, just raised their glasses to each other.

Being a good person comes first, after all.

In summer I always think of something Xiaoyang once wrote: he regretted using the word ao – to endure, to grind through – about his first year at work, and felt it had been flippant of him. When I’m in the middle of things, I always think, oh, mustn’t let that slip out or he’ll lecture me. But keeping life on track really does wear you out. Before coming back to London I went home first. One morning my dad and I ate the breakfast my mum had left on the table, and somehow – I forget how – we got onto children. While boiling water, Dad said he was waiting to become a grandpa. I was washing the dishes, and hesitantly asked whether he knew what had happened in the summer. He said he did. I hesitated again and asked whether he really knew.

He sat on the mahogany sofa with his back to the window, lit a cigarette, and said slowly that life has many pleasures – art, religion – and that I shouldn’t be so narrow-minded. I sat on the sofa opposite him. The carpet suddenly felt prickly under my feet. I went and lifted the kettle off the automatic water boiler and poured into the dark-green and blue-green teacups. Too hot; I went to get a tissue. Summer – summer’s over, isn’t it? That afternoon Dad drove south out of Zhangdian: the new town’s buildings, the newly dug lake, the newly risen house prices. It wasn’t dusk yet; the afternoon light was glaring, and a freight train on the far side of the lake was the only moving thing in the whole view.

Today is Dad’s birthday, and I’m already in London. Since I brought the laptop back from Luton last week, I’ve been sleeping ten hours a day, waking at noon to look at the sky outside my north-facing window, not knowing what to think. I saw that Mum had posted photos of Dad’s birthday in the family group chat. Last night, a night of hurricane weather when the rain hadn’t yet started, I bought flowers for the first time since moving to my new place. On our video call today Dad was drinking. I leaned in next to the flowers and said, these are for you.