My Grandparents’ Standard Room

By Ben Erxin

Translation by Zhu Yaguang

My Grandparents’ Standard Room

By Ben Erxin

Translation by Zhu Yaguang

W hen I visited my grandparents as a little girl, I always thought that their bedroom had a strange look. The moment I stepped inside, I felt like I was entering a hotel room. There were two single beds and two bed lamps, with one bedside table in the middle. As I grew up, I gradually understood why they slept in different beds.

My grandma was born in a wealthy and influential family, and she had a childhood sweetheart, a man who left her behind to study abroad and never returned. She kept waiting until she became a “leftover lady” as the locals called it.When she reached 20, her father couldn’t bear to wait any longer, so he immediately married her off to a poor boy who proposed to her.

My grandpa was the poor boy whose family was utterly destitute. He was just 17 at that time. When they first met, Grandma disliked him. Perhaps out of malnutrition, Grandpa was shorter than her, and he walked barefoot even though it was winter. Regardless of how unwilling Grandma was, she accepted the arranged marriage. Later,Grandpa was enlisted in the army, and for several years, Grandma didn’t hear any news from him,and she raised their four children all by herself.After demobilization, Grandpa got a job in the city, and Grandma and the children went with him. However, their life in the city wasn’t entirely satisfactory at that time. According to my dad, he spent his childhood living in a house with some leaks in the wall, and Grandma would always pick wild flowers to insert in the cracks.

小時候去奶奶家，一直覺得爺爺奶奶的房間很奇特，乍一進去就像酒店的房間，有兩張單人床、兩盞床頭燈，中間還有一個床頭柜。后來大了一點，明白了爺爺奶奶這叫“同房不同床”。

奶奶家當年是大戶，奶奶曾是老家那一帶知名的“剩女”，曾有一個青梅竹馬的戀人，但是戀人留洋以后一去不復返。到了奶奶20歲的時候，曾祖父終于忍不住，隨便找個窮小子把奶奶嫁了。

那個窮小子就是我爺爺。爺爺那年17歲。奶奶看到爺爺的時候，內心是很嫌棄的。爺爺當時可能是沒飯吃的緣故，沒有奶奶高，冬天了還打著一雙赤腳。但再不情愿，奶奶還是嫁給了家徒四壁的爺爺。爺爺后來參了軍，曾經生死未卜，音訊全無，奶奶獨自撫養四個子女。后來爺爺退伍有了工作，奶奶帶著四個孩子來到城里投奔爺爺，沒想到城里并不像傳說的那么好。爸爸說小時候他的家就是一間四面漏風的屋子，奶奶有時候會不知道從哪里采來一束花，插在墻壁漏風的窟窿里。

上世紀90年代初期，已在外工作的爸爸突然收到一封電報，是奶奶發來的，上面只有兩個字：速回。

爸爸當時心里“咯噔”一下，連夜買了一張火車坐票趕回家。看到爺爺奶奶好好的，剛放下心時，奶奶卻一把抱住他哭。

原來奶奶要兒子速回，只因爺爺要與她分床睡，還要求一人一個房間。爸爸和姑姑做工作后，二老才同意住同一個房間，方便照應，于是家里便改造得如同酒店的標準間。

很長一段時間，奶奶都不能適應。一直以來，都是她“嫌棄”爺爺，沒想到在晚年反而遭爺爺“嫌棄”，甚至差點被“遺棄”。

但是對于要和奶奶分床的理由，爺爺并沒有解釋。隨著歲月的流逝，奶奶慢慢接受了這種方式，睡眠質量還高了很多。有時候二老晚上睡不著，還會打開床頭燈聊天到深夜，聊到其中一人睡著為止。

爺爺69歲的時候，因為心肌梗塞，突然去世了。處理完后事，爸爸他們清理爺爺的遺物，意外發現了一封遺書。遺書的紙張已經泛黃，看起來寫了一些年月，內容很簡單，就是交代一些身后事和跟孩子們的相處方式。但是，在信的最后，我們看得都流了淚。

原來，爺爺很早就得知自己有心腦血管疾病，最不放心的就是奶奶，他寫道：“我知道你對分床睡心存芥蒂，但是，我早晚要先走，不如趁我還在的時候早點讓你適應一個人睡……”?

（摘自《莫愁》2017年第7期）

In the beginning of the 1990s, my dad was working in another place. One day, he got a telegram from Grandma, which said only, “COME BACK ASAP.”

After reading the telegram, Dad’s chest clenched,and he bought the earliest train ticket and rushed back home on that very night. He was relieved when he saw that Grandpa and Grandma were both safe and sound, waiting for him. But Grandma suddenly embraced him and started sobbing.

It turned out that Grandma asked Dad to come back because Grandpa wanted to sleep in another room. After Dad and his sister pleaded with Grandpa for a long while, he finally agreed to sleep in the same room with Grandma, as it would be convenient for them to look after each other, but they must sleep in different beds. So their room was changed to be like a hotel standard room.

For a long time after that, Grandma couldn’t adapt herself to the new lifestyle. Since their marriage, Grandma had always been the one who“disliked” Grandpa, and she hadn’t expected to be“disliked” or practically “deserted” by him in her old age.

Grandpa didn’t explain why he insisted on sleeping in another bed. As time went by, Grandma gradually became used to sleeping alone, and her quality of sleep also improved. Sometimes, when they couldn’t sleep at night, they would turn on the bed lamp and chat late into the night until one of them fell asleep.

Grandpa died of myocardial infarction when he was 69. After the funeral, Dad was clearing up all the things Grandpa left behind, when he stumbled upon a letter. Grandpa must have written it long ago as the paper had become yellowed. It was a simple letter, with only Grandpa’s last words on it and his suggestions for dealing with their children.However, the last paragraph of the letter left us all in tears.

It turned out that Grandpa knew about his cardiovascular disease early on, and Grandma was the one he was most unwilling to part with. In the letter, he said, “I know you are upset about us sleeping in different beds, but I know I’ll die before you, so I’d rather let you get used to sleeping alone in advance.”?

(From Mochou, July 2017)

爺爺奶奶的標準間

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