爺爺奶奶 – Page 3

For some reason 貓貓 was a bit fuzzy this morning, so after breakfast Dad and I took him downstairs for some fresh air. The small garden was pleasantly cool at 8:30am, even though they hadn’t turn on that sorry excuse for a fountain yet. I brought “Professor Borges” with me, and sat under the tree reading the chapter on Coleridge. Borges sees Coleridge as a living (well, lived) manifestation of Frank Saltram, a life filled with frustration and vacillation, but mainly unfulfilled promises. I read the first few lines of his summary of the “Rime of Ancient Mariner”, and was about to skip to the next page when I heard Dad laughing at the other end of the lawn. I looked up, 貓貓 was pointing at the sky with his tiny index finger, and both of them were looking up at maybe some birds that had already vanished. Then 貓貓 said “O”! A crisp, perfect vowel. The only vowel he can manage so far but he got it down. I watched Dad laughing and remembered asking him at breakfast where he wants to have his birthday dinner tomorrow, he thought for a while and said “Something not too spicy.” I still remembered him loving spicy food, I guess the few times I sat down at dinner table with him in the last couple of years I just wasn’t paying attention. And I couldn’t remember seeing him so much at ease, in how many year? Ever since I came back to China, and before that it was over a decade of absence. But at least now I can go by this hearty laughter in the morning and that is not subject to change. I must have smiled unperceivably. Then as I watched his back when he helped 貓貓 tottering across the lawn, I came to realize I was watching him moving on into a realm that’s yet foreign to me, a realm free of weight of conscience, just pure joy and understanding, on the day before he turns 70. And of course 貓貓 will not be remembering any of this, he who hasn’t yet come into the world of men with a coherent stream of memories. So there I was, suddenly alone, left to bear a name in the sun, the keeper of the memory of a morning.