Chapter 48 farewell to wife

In Petra, our team will have a staff rotation. Photographer Gao Jinguang, information transmission technician Zhou Bing, "Beijing Youth Daily" reporter Yu Dagong, and drivers Yang Yuhui and Sun Jiangang will go directly to Amman Airport to return home from here. A replacement arrived yesterday.My wife is leaving today too. Another news came that Iraq would probably be able to enter.This matter has been in contact with the Iraqi embassy in China for several months. Since we can't hide our trip to Israel, we can't go through the formalities.Fortunately, I met an old gentleman from a travel company here, who used his personal relationship to pass through the Iraqi embassy in Jordan, but we had to tear off the Hebrew marks on all luggage items, and only said to go when the visa was issued. through Egypt and Jordan.

If we can go through the formalities through the old man, we are facing an extremely difficult journey. The driving distance on the first day is 1,200 kilometers, and it will take about 20 hours of continuous driving without any rest. ; There is a serious shortage of food in Baghdad. Apart from barely providing meals in hotels, don't expect to buy food on the street.After Iraq, Iran and Pakistan have longer journeys. The situation after the coup in Pakistan is still unclear. In recent years, the area has been in danger and it is difficult to guarantee the safety of the road. Infectious diseases are prevalent after the flood in India. There is a long distance from Nepal to Tibet. There is no decent road. In short, the most troublesome journey will come later.

We were discussing the itinerary at the rugged mountain pass in Petra, when suddenly a jeep drove up and said that due to various reasons, the time of farewell was earlier, and those who were leaving should go to the airport now. Saying goodbye is a fragile thing.It turned out that it was covered up with a smile, but suddenly it was a few hours earlier, and the place of farewell was not at the airport or hotel gate, but at the site of the visit, and I immediately felt a pain of being pulled apart alive.His wife burst into tears all of a sudden, and even the Mongolian Han Gao Jinguang couldn't help crying, which made everyone unable to bear it.

I understand my wife's feelings. She is really worried that I will go to Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, India, and Nepal, which are full of unknown and difficult long distances. In the past few days, I have been packing my luggage over and over again, giving detailed instructions time and time again.She really wanted to continue to be with me, but found that she encountered difficulties and dangers on such a road, and the care of her wife could not solve the problem, not to mention that there were still many things waiting for her in the country. In fact, there are deeper reasons for her tears.This time she came all the way from Cairo, Luxor, the Sinai Desert, Jerusalem, and Palestine, and has been discussing with me the mystery of the rise and fall of various civilizations. contrast.Like me, she originally just wanted to do something that she and others like without competing with the world, but the preference of the audience and readers caused countless troubles among colleagues.We all want to hide or leave when the new century comes, but in front of the ruins of foreign civilizations, our mood becomes particularly complicated.The civilization of the motherland is more vividly presented in front of us than ever before. We are willing to contribute to it, but we don't know how to get rid of the hustle and bustle.

Two days ago in Jerusalem, I received a call from two friends in Beijing, saying that pirate groups in Hunan and Guangdong were eyeing my diary again.The words that came back and forth were the same as before: some well-funded private publishing channels sought to cooperate with me. If I agreed to open my eyes to them, the critical articles in the newspapers and magazines would disappear; if I disagreed, the critical essays were ready. My wife is always silent for a long time when she hears such rumors. She doesn't believe that the pirate group can really control the country, but looking around, many people in the cultural circle just stand by and gloat, and a few people even help the evildoers and add insult to injury.They may not all be bought by pirate groups, but when vicious robberies happened, they only took advantage of the situation to laugh at the robbed, and never sent a stern look at the robbers.She asked me again and again, was the disaster of the Cultural Revolution magnified in this way?I said yes.There are always a small number of wicked people, but the disaster is so great, in addition to the special political background, it is also because this kind of group psychology encourages and expands evil.What's even more absurd is that when cultural people promote and expand evil, they always search for chapters and excerpts and talk about morality, so that even the wicked people mistakenly think that they have gained more help from the cause.

But she knew that I would go on and go on without agreeing to any of their requests, ignoring any of their clamor, and not being afraid of any threats from them.She knows best that I would rather stop writing than submit to them, die than cooperate with them.So she wept at me, put on her sunglasses for fear of making me sad, rolled up the window, and lowered her head. Their car went away.We have to use the wheel to measure the sadness of the vast civilization step by step, and then we can return to our country.No matter what we encounter when we return home, it is our motherland after all.

I was in a trance when a new driver in our team saw a Chinese woman at the pass.It is very rare to see Chinese people in this area, and they will always pay more attention.The Chinese woman was with her Norwegian husband. As soon as she saw the jeeps with Chinese characters printed on them, she immediately walked over. She was very excited to see so many Chinese.Our driver told her that we would travel across several ancient civilizations, all the way back to China.When she heard this, her eyes turned red, she turned around and whispered to her husband for a while, and then said to our driver: We want to drive with you and walk the rest of the journey together, is it possible?Answering that it was impossible, she left angrily.

At this time, I suddenly wanted to say to my wife who had gone away, we should not pay too much attention to it.Harassment from a narrow space should not only be settled in a narrow space.What we encounter belongs to a unique ecology in the transition period, which needs to be released and stretched in a larger time and space. We have long agreed that there must be a new way of living in the 21st century.However, no matter where our names end up missing, the grand feelings about Chinese civilization in our hearts will never be lost. I stood at the Petra Pass for a long time, looking at the smoke and clouds in the distance, and silently recited a sentence in my heart that I dared not say when I said goodbye: Wife, I hope we can meet again.

November 7, 1999, Petra, Jordan, stayed overnight at the Silk Road Hotel