Chapter I. ALWAYS and FOREVER
Judith Tien 田之雲
On Sept 13, 1938, the well dressed honeymooners, my
slender father Tien Pao-tai towering over my petite mother Liu Shi-lun
(pen name 葉曼
adopted in 1953) nervously navigated their way through a desperate crowd who
were squeezing themselves into the 3rd class compartments at the Beiping South
Train Station. The crowds faded behind Father and mother as they found their
carriage.
Normally, the 106 miles (170 km) train trip from
Beiping to Tientsin took no more than 2 1/2 hours. But after July 7, 1937 when
the Japanese provoked a deadly incident at the Marco Polo Bridge and over
80,000 Japanese troops swept through east China and occupied Beiping, this same
route now took over 12 hours.
At random junctures along the route, the Japanese
security forces would board the train to carefully scrutinize each passenger in
their search for any suspicious traveler. Oftentimes, passengers were roughly
removed to an unknown fate. Students of NanKai University in Tientsin, one the
most vocal anti-Japanese elements, were the special focus of the Japanese.
NanKai had been flattened by bombs in the previous year, driving surviving
students and faculty often disguised as peasants, out of the war zones around
Tientsin to scattered parts of unoccupied south China.
Fortunately, the young gentleman in a crisp shirt,
tie, and well cut western style suit with his bride dressed stylishly but
modestly, possessed all the correct papers, passes, passports, as well as first
class tickets for their honeymoon trip from Beiping by rail to Tientsin and
then by steam ship to the cosmopolitan Hong Kong colony ruled by the British
since 1841 after Imperial China lost the First Opium War.
My father soon to be 22 years old, Tien Pao-tai and my
mother Liu Shi-lun, 24, had married the previous day on Sept. 12. Early the
next morning, the couple left their red festooned bridal chambers in the west
courtyard of the elegant 6 courtyard
Tien home at Shui Mo Hutong for a hurried morning meal, and respectfully bade a
somber farewell to PT’s father, Tien Shu-fan.
Then the newly weds made their obeisance, 3 ketou 磕頭 and lit sticks of
incense at Father’s mother’s memorial tablet installed nine months previously
on January 8th when she passed away after a long illness.
As their automobile pulled away from the main black
iron gate flanked by 2 stalwart stone lion dogs, young master Father was sent
off by his two pretty younger sisters and rows of house staff, many whom he
knew from his earliest memory.
Father felt his heart crack to leave the only home he
had known since birth. He remembered the day when as a curious five year old,
Father peeked out from the drawn curtains of his carriage at the sad, long,
boring procession of the Tien clan escort for his grandfather’s (Tien Ren-fu)
casket back to the six century old ancestral cemetery in the Tien Village, established when the Zibo* branch of the Tien
clan escaped from the persecution by the usurper Ming Emperor Yong Le in 1406.
Years before Father was born in 1916, his father a
Ching Dynasty imperial jinshi
scholar-bureaucrat, would journey from the Imperial Capital, Beijing to
the Tien village in Laoling, Shandong (田村, 樂陵, 山東). Riding erect on his handsome horse, led
by a line of banner men clearing the 200 km way, my Grandfather Tien would
seasonally inspect the family holdings during the spring planting and fall
harvest. Upon arrival at the courtyard home, a flag of my grandfather’s hard
earned status would be planted at the gate as the insignia of imperial favor.
That funereal trip to Shandong when Father was five years old, took many days
and was the farthest Father had ever travelled from his home town until Sept
13, 1938.
The previous evening at the lavish western style
wedding followed by a Chinese style ceremony and banquet for the Tien and Liu
extended families, my mother’s 4 brothers, reluctant to part from their
cherished older sister, promised they would see her off at the train station
the next day.
Three of Mother’s four brothers were already waiting
for them at their platform, hiding their misgivings and melancholy behind
encouraging smiles as my mother’s sharp eyes anxiously scanned the seething
crowd for her one missing brother.
On that clear Sept 13 day, as the steam from the
engine began to build up and the last boarding calls for “Tientsin” by the
stationmaster echoed down the train platform, over the din of the crowds my
mother heard a familiar voice, “- older sister, older sister, I am here!”
Out of the pushy crowds finding their train cars,
mother finally saw her missing brother panting through the throng to thrust his
sweaty hand clutching a small package toward her, with a big grin on his grimy
face. It was a warm paper bag of his sister’s choice treat from her late
father’s favorite stall in west Beiping. In the early dawn, her 3rd brother had
shuffled his feet impatiently in front of a popular stand to uncover its
steaming cauldron and he then frantically pedaled his bicycle to the station,
half way across Beiping, weaving through the maze of hutong,alleys to avoid the
delaying Japanese checkpoints at the major intersections.
The fragrance from the familiar warm bag brought tears
to mother’s eyes. It was a bag of shiny, unshelled chestnuts, slow roasted in
sand blackened by sugar over an open charcoal fire. Mother’s father Liu Jun-man used to tease her poor appetite as a child
with the warm autumn delicacy. Since her father’s death in 1934, Mother and her
mother savored the succulent nuggets chewed together with nostalgia whenever
the chestnut season came around. Mother and her brothers had protectively
dissuaded their mother from the early morning crush to the train station in a
man pulled rickshaw but it pained Mother that the warm paper bag of early
season chestnuts in her hand was the parting remnant of her familiar and
cherished past.
I remember my mother’s delight in 1952 in Manila,
Philippines when she discovered a street vendor scooping chestnuts in the sugar
blackened sand and told me the story of her younger third brother and his
parting gift to her which she memorialized in one of her first newspaper
submissions in Manila “永遠,永遠我的三弟 - Always and
Forever, My Younger Third Brother” when she heard of his untimely death in the
PRC capital, Beijing, in 1953.
On my first trip to New York in 1960, I could not
resist the push carts hawking roasted chestnuts on the bustling corners of
Fifth Avenue facing the famed FAO Schwartz toy store where a steady traffic of
families, restraining their eager children, would all halt their clipped pace
to buy a bag of chestnuts. The dull brown hard shell peeled open, would reveal
a golden smooth textured flesh. But the oven baked New York nuts could not
compare to the glistening, glazed shell, easily cracked open to offer the
mellow pulp, infused with a smoky caramel flavor of patiently hand stirred
chestnuts in sugar blackened sand of my mother’s Beiping hometown.
Among many bitter sweet family memories, my mother
passed on to me a wistful craving for the sticky, shiny chestnuts slow roasted
over an open charcoal fire in sugared black sand - 糖炒栗子.
時代的血淚
一、永遠的香味
周素鳳 譯
1938年9月13日，一對前一天才完婚的夫妻出現在北平永定門的南站。高挑修長的男士就是我的父親田寶岱，他護擁著嬌小的母親劉世綸(1953年起以葉曼為筆名)。車站擠滿了人，萬頭鑽動。大家爭先恐後地湧向三等車廂，父母緊張地穿過洶湧的人潮，掙脫摩肩擦踵的混亂場面，朝著他們的車廂走去。
上圖：田寶岱(1916-2015）與劉世綸(1914-2017)於1938年8月在北平結婚
從北平乘坐火車到天津約170公里，平常花費的時間不超過兩個半小時。但是1937年7月7日盧溝橋事變之後，八萬日軍席捲華北，北平被占領後，同樣的車程得花費12個小時。
1937年7月29日 日軍佔領北平，通過前門大街
一路上，日本特務不定點隨機上車，仔細盤查乘客，尋找可疑的對象。把他們認為可疑的份子被帶下火車，帶向不可知的未來。天津南開大學的學生被日軍視為最反日，因此成了日本鎖定的焦點。南開大學校園在七七事變後，被日軍的炸彈夷為平地，倖存的師生大多喬裝成農民，先逃出戰火中的天津，再想辦法前往未被佔領的南方。
這一對出現在北平南站的新人就幸運多了，男士穿著直挺的襯衫，繫著領帶，西裝剪裁合身挺拔，身旁的妻子裝扮時尚而低調。他們身上有證明文件、通行證、護照，還有頭等座的火車票和船票，計畫從北京搭火車到天津，然後換船到香港度蜜月。當時的香港仍舊是英國的殖民地，是1841年鴉片戰爭後，清朝割讓給英國的屬地。
父親即將滿22歲，而母親24歲，兩人在9月12日結婚，新房就是田家在水墨胡同的大宅院中。第二天清早，兩人匆匆吃過早餐，先向祖父田樹藩行禮拜別，然後點了香，在祖母的牌位前跪下來，向九個月前過世的祖母磕了三個頭。
田寶岱1916-1938年的水墨胡同家宅，正對天文台，離考場不遠。
圖片來源：周素鳯教授於寫作尋找水磨胡同時之資料https://ying.forex.ntu.edu.tw/detail/35/321
載送他們的車子緩緩駛離，田家黑色的大門前面兩頭石獅堅定地守在兩旁，許多人站在門口向他們道別，除了父親兩個漂亮的妹妹外，還有成排的佣人，他們在父親很小的時候就在田家工作了。
父親1916年出生之後就在這裡成長，看著自己生活了二十二年的家漸漸在眼前消失，心痛如割。他想起自己五歲時，曾祖父田仁甫去世，家族護送他的靈柩返回山東田村的祖墳。父親坐在馬車中，偷偷地拉開簾子，看到綿長的送葬隊伍緩緩前行。田村是田氏祖先埋骨之地，遠在1406年明朝永樂年間，原本在淄博的田氏族人受到迫害，遷徙到樂陵，田村就是當時興建的祖墳。
曾祖父田仁甫先生，國子監九品舉人
祖父田樹藩是清末進士，年輕時總會騎著駿馬從北平跋涉200公里到田村，一路上有旗隊在前面引導開路。沿途中，他通常會順便檢視一下家族的春耕和秋收的狀況。那時候，一大隊人馬到田家大門前，廣場上豎立著皇帝御賜的旗杆，上面飄揚著進士的旗幟，十分風光。曾祖父過世後，落葉歸根回返老家，送葬隊伍走這一段路花了好幾天的時間。在此之前，當時五歲的父親不曾遠行，那回送曾祖父歸葬田村是他到過的最遠地方，直到1938年9月13日這一天。
祖父田樹藩（右）與父親田寶岱於1921年在北平合影；田樹藩先生是位京師大學堂品進士，被任命為倫敦總領事。
父母親在前一天的婚禮非常慎重，下午先有一個西方的儀式，接著舉行中式典禮，然後是田劉兩家親人及朋友出席的餐宴。母親的四個弟弟捨不得她隔日即將遠行，說好要去火車站為姊姊送行。
隔天早上，三個舅舅在月台上等著父母親，他們隱藏著離別的哀傷和心中的擔憂，勉強擠出笑容說一些鼓勵安慰的話。母親有點心不在焉，兩眼來回梭巡，急著在人群中找尋她那個還沒出現的三弟。
那天天氣晴朗，火車引擎開始冒出蒸氣時，月台上傳來站務人員的呼叫，催促前往天津的乘客趕快上車。此時母親突然聽到人群中傳來熟悉的聲音︰「姊姊，姊姊，我來了!」
月台上的群眾你推我擠搶著上車，母親看到三舅在人潮中奮力擠了過來。他汗流浹背，喘著氣，咧著嘴笑，滿臉大汗淋漓，汗濕的手上緊握著一個溫熱的小紙袋。原來是母親愛吃的東西，尤其偏愛外公生前在北平西邊的那個小攤子炒出來的。當天大清早，三舅急忙跑到這個熱門的攤子，等著他們把東西炒熱炒熟，然後騎著腳踏車拼命趕往南站。為了躲避日軍在主要通道的盤查，他只能捨近求遠，在胡同和小巷子中穿梭，總共騎了大約半個北平城的路程，終於在最後一刻趕到。
田寶岱先生攝於1939年
母親聞到那個袋子裡面傳出來的香味，眼眶泛淚。那是一袋油亮亮的帶殼糖炒栗子，在燒著炭火的一個大鍋子中加上黑砂和沙糖慢慢翻炒，剛剛出鍋的新鮮栗子。母親從小胃口不大，外公劉君曼生前常常拿這個秋季才有的糖炒栗子吸引她。外公1934年過世後，栗子的產季一到，母親和外婆總是不忘母女一起品嘗這個飽滿甘甜的果實，一起懷念外公在世的美好時光。其實原本外婆雇好人力車載她來送行，母親和舅舅們好不容易以車站擁擠雜沓說服外婆不要來。此時母親看著那袋早秋的糖炒栗子，溫溫熱熱的握在手中，感覺那就像一個臨別的贈品，承載著劉家熟悉的往事。
1952年我們全家在菲律賓的馬尼拉，母親看到街邊一個小攤販，從鋪滿黑砂加糖的鐵鍋裡鏟出一粒粒深褐色的栗子，喜出望外。她告訴我當年她離開北平時，三舅為她送行，特地先去買了糖炒栗子帶給她。想不到就在1953年，母親接獲三舅在北平過世的消息，她在傷心之餘寫了一篇文章紀念弟弟，名為〈永遠，永遠我的三弟〉，發表在馬尼拉的華文報紙上，那是她第一篇散文作品。
1960年代，我第一次到紐約，在第五大道面對史瓦茲 (FAO Schwartz) 玩具店的角落，看到推車在兜售烤美洲栗子。一家家帶著孩子急著去採買玩具的父母，總會忍不住停下腳步來買一袋。灰褐色的栗子剝開硬殼之後，金黃色的果肉爽滑可口。但是烤爐烤出來的美洲栗子就是比不上母親在北平吃的糖炒栗子。北平的小販用黑砂加糖反覆翻炒，耐性十足，炒出來的栗子就是不一樣，油光閃閃的殼很容易剝開，裡面的果肉香軟綿細，透著很特別的煙燻焦糖味。
我們家族傳承的記憶有甜有苦，母親留給我的是對糖炒栗子特別的渴望。她家鄉的小販慢工細活翻炒出來的栗子，閃著油光帶著香氣，那是懷念的滋味。
1935年北大經濟系教授與畢業班同學合影，田寶岱先生於當年考取北大。