Fan Jinghua: The Clearer Side of the Road

　　　The Clearer Side of the Road
The day my eyes met with yours, we were almost blinded by each other.
You appeared to me an embossed figure from a still-life,
and could barely speak my tongue,
the first in my remembered life
who had to use so many gestures and facial expressions
to get across something otherwise too simple and routine.
You might as well take my hand and lead me to a site or a sight,
but I guess that would make you feel we went too intimate.

By and by, you said so many memorable sentences
that I might have teased you, repeating once or twice,
and now I have entirely forgotten and regret for not having copied them down
in my exercise books on which I scratched my hair off
for startling collocations and juxtapositions
to make poems.
Poetry, then, was elsewhere, beyond the horizon,
but as time went by, it came closer and closer,

and you realized that you had found it earlier than me
and you kept quiet.
You continued to marvel at me, and into a black spiral bound notebook,
rarely seen at that time, you copied every line I wrote,
from magazines, newsletters and bulletins, and my handwritten carbon copies.
In those years I always thought I would have numerous new starts,
like every New Year’s Resolution,
while the extraordinariness of your words sounded gradually naturalized.

I have nothing left of what you collected, except for your memory
which comes back, on and off, beyond my grasp.
And my memory is, sorry to admit,
leaky. It’s always my mismemory that performs automatic repairs and comforts,
but it can never patch up the loss of your speech.
That is a hole in the air, contracting and extruding like a womb, but no baby comes.
People really die
when they are no longer heard,

and what I quote from you can barely be called truly yours.
Therefore, when I claim that you said these before,
it is me who superimposes and usurps,
not because my words transcend time and space or life and death,
but merely because I still try to be heard after you stopped.
These are your last words, and they become last
only because my current memory and wisdom deems them the most clearly heard
before your silence, and obviously this has significantly shortened your life.

“Many spokes grow at the cross-road under the lamppost’s Quixotic eye,
and very likely you will fall if you go in there.
You will stumble on your own shadows, and when you fall
you will trip up all your shadows too.
So I decide from now on I will walk on the dimmer side of the road,
and my shadows may be thrown onto the roadside bush;
but, you must walk beside me, on the clearer side.
When I lean on you, you have to bear my full weight, unbendingly, unflinchingly,
but only your shadow may fall upon me, gentlemanly.”
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　April 29, 2008

　　影子较少的那一边

那日我们初见，四目相对，眼前一黑，你
如静物中的浮雕凸现，几乎不会说我的语言。
我迄今的记忆中，惟有你动用过那么多手势与表情，
仅仅为了传达一个尤其简单而寻常的概念；
当然，那是在我明白了之后。
其实你只要牵着我的手，走到一个现场，
一切就自会了然，
如今想来，那也许令你觉得我们过分亲近。

渐渐地，你说出了很多值得记忆的句子，
而我当时不过是重复一两次、取笑一番，
而今那些话我都已忘了，只留下遗憾；
怎么没有将它们抄入我的练习本，
穿插在我为了做诗而绞尽脑汁的
惊人的搭配与玄乎的并置之中。
那时，诗，只在他处，在地平线之外，
而随着时间流逝，它才越来越近；

你显然已先于我发现这个秘密，
但你秘而不宣，
继续钦佩着我，将我的每一行文字
从杂志、学生报纸与社团通讯、以及我复写的手稿上
转抄到当时难得一见的螺旋式黑封笔记本中。
那几年，我一直以为将有无数个崭新的开始等着我，
犹如每一项新年愿望都必然易如反掌地实现，
而你生涩有趣的语言却在日渐日常。

而今你收集过的一切我都已不剩，惟有关于你的记忆
时断时续地浮现，超出我的把握。
而我不得不遗憾地承认，我的记忆
有些残障，总是我的错误记忆来安慰我，进行着自动修补，
而从未补缀得了你言语的丧失；
它是空气中的一个洞，收缩、推挤，犹如阵痛的子宫，可是并没有婴儿。
人若不被他人听到，
确实会死。

那么即便我引述了你的话，也很难说那是真正来自于你。
当我声称你说过什么，
那便是我的僭越篡改；
这不是因为我的话能够超越时空或者生死，
而仅仅是因为当你不再努力让别人听见之后我还有如此企图。
我说，以下是你最后的话，而它们之所以是最后
只是我按照此刻的记忆与智慧认定它们是你沉默前最清晰的声音，
而这非常显然地缩短了你的生命。

“堂吉诃德的灯柱下，十字路口，许多黑辐条在转动，
如果你走到那儿，你就会摔倒。
你会被自己的影子绊倒，而你倒下时
也会将你的影子绊倒。
所以我决定从今天起我只沿着阴暗的一边，
将影子甩在路旁的树丛上；
但是，你，必须在影子较少的那边陪着我。
如果我靠着你，你必须承受我的全部重量，我不许你柔软，也不许你躲让，
而你只能用影子伏在我身上，你必须做一个君子。”
　　　　　　　　　　　　　2008年5月6日