Chapter 14 Four

Who is Weimaraner?I asked. Johannes turned his head sharply to look at me, surprised, but there was something else in his expression, a twist of tension, something like anger or suspicion.I immediately regretted asking that sentence. We stood in front of Meghan's painting, each holding a glass of sparkling juice.In the painting is a thin old woman, curled up like a fetus, lying on her side on a hospital bed, her arms and legs tightly contracted.The name of this painting is contracture.The old woman was only wearing a green trouser-shaped diaper, and the rest of her body was naked. A group of sperm swirled in the air with their long tails above them.

What do you know about Weimaraner?asked Johannes. do not know anything.I woke you up on the grass that day, and you said: What's the matter, Weymar? oh!Johannes' expression softened, his eyes returned to calm, less wary. Weimar is my niece.He said. I see.I said.I also want to ask other questions, like: How old is she?Do you meet often?How are you getting along?Will you take care of her?These questions stuck in my throat and I couldn't speak them.I wondered what it was like to be close to a child, to be part of that child's network, to be woken up by a niece or niece who wanted to play or help.

I haven't met my nephew or daughter-in-law a few times, let alone take care of them.Siblings call, write, e-mail and visit each other less and less frequently after a parent passes away.My father passed away first, and within a year, my mother also passed away.I learned that it is our parents that connect us, and when they are gone, there is nothing to connect or bring us together.Ole, Ida, Chance and their families have lived in Brussels, London and Helsinki for a long time, and are busy with their careers, with vague titles such as management consultant or marketing specialist on their business cards.I never visited them, and I can't imagine their little one shaking me by the shoulder to wake me up, saying: Dolly?Aunt Dolly?This thought is like a child pulling me to call me mommy!Just as unreal.

All in all, I just couldn't press Johannes for anything else about Weymar. After a while, we walked to a painting.There was also a woman in the painting, but much younger, wearing a long white dress and veil, swimming underwater with a net in her hand, chasing another group of sperm, but this time the sperm tried to avoid her.The sperm dragged their long tails and swam away from the woman and the net.The painting is called Prolific. The next painting is very small, about twelve inches square, and shows a blue fetus lying in a fetal sac against a warm blood-red background with blue veins running across it.The picture is the side view of the fetus, but the body is distorted into an unnatural posture: still transparent, the small arms and legs are bent into a curled posture, the upper body and head are turned to face the viewer, and the head is also slightly tilted back. The oval eyes are very deep, and they squinted absently, making me feel that the sight of those eyes is scattered in all directions.The nose was unformed, without nostrils, just a bump in the center of a pale blue face with thin, soft skin.The most conspicuous part is the mouth, the lips are bright red, wide open unnaturally, frozen in a distorted grin posture, revealing a wry smile that may be tortured, or a contemptuous smile, it is difficult to judge.It is also difficult to tell whether the fetus is dead or dying, or whether it is still alive but severely deformed.I leaned forward and read the title: the question of life or death lies here.

I couldn't help laughing.Johannes looked at me and laughed too, a low, hesitant rumble.Maybe he laughs because I laughed and laughed out of politeness, or to keep from looking stupid, or maybe he has mixed feelings like me, or maybe that's why he can't help laughing Way. Meghan, who was standing at the other end of the room, talking to Alice, Van Ya, and the other visitors, came over with a half-full drink in her hand. Do you find it interesting?Megan asked, pointing to the fetus painting. Yes, I said: or, no, or both.The painting is unpleasant, but interesting. Well, Megan said: I also felt this way when I painted this painting, but it was the other way around.My first feeling was a bit of angry humor, but as I drew, the fetus became more and more distorted and scary, and I started to become really a little afraid of it, and probably still am.

I looked at Megan as she spoke, and her green eyes radiated peace and harmony, but there was a small nerve twitching under the skin in the corner of one eye, hard to see unless you looked carefully.The jitter and the slight tension around the mouth are the only things that reveal that the harmony in her eyes is not perfect, that something is not at peace inside of her.I felt an irresistible urge to put my arms around her, try to comfort her, protect her, save her.But just like we walked in Monet's garden at night a week ago, I was afraid that if I showed my emotions and impulses, it would spoil the atmosphere.

The gallery is much like any other, bright and airy, with polished wooden floors, white walls, high ceilings, and even though it's night outside, there's still daylight inside.Meghan mainly focuses on visual art. Most of the exhibits are paintings, with rich colors and metaphors.But at the other end of the bright hall is a wall painted black. There is an entrance on the wall, hung with heavy black curtains, and above it is a sign written in large blue neon lights: HERE. I made my way towards the entrance and the drapes, and there was the faintest murmuring of voices inside.The whisper was charming, meditatively alluring.Fascinated, I went to the front of the entrance, lifted the curtain a little, looked into the darkness, and walked in, the curtain lowered behind me.I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, and it took me a while to see a faint blue light in the depths.

I walked cautiously towards the light and the whisper, and immediately recognized that it was not the whisper of one person, but two, or three, or even more, it was difficult to tell how many people it was.They speak in the dark, but in different locations.They came and went at various distances from me, sometimes talking continuously to one person, sometimes to each other, with urgency, but positive urgency, not anger or persecution.It's hard to hear what they're saying, but I feel like they're calling me.Uh, of course not just calling me, but calling me as a visitor.The ground beneath my feet is soft and quiet, like a custom-made rug, so I can't hear my own footsteps.I couldn't see anything either, just a faint blue light in the distance.It was pitch black all around me, like walking into a tunnel.After a while, I felt like there were a few people around me, although I couldn't see them, but sometimes I thought I heard the breathing of others, or the slight movement of air as someone passed me, but I'm not sure.

The further you go in, the more whispers there are, but the volume has not increased.It was me who approached those whispering voices.I passed one whisper after another, and the whispers receded, and then I met more whispers.Suddenly I was surrounded by soft, charming whispers, at first men's and women's voices, and after a while I heard strange children's voices, shriller and higher among the multitude of voices. The blue light in front of me is getting brighter and bigger, and I am gradually approaching it.The air became colder, not cold, but icy cold, and the smell of wet mud came to the nostrils, as if walking into a cave.As I walked further in, I heard some sort of dripping water in the distance, mixed with whispers, and then the echo of slow footsteps.The whole situation, including the sound, the darkness, the smell of the earth and the coolness, is calming.I clearly felt my heartbeat slow down and enter a steady rhythm.My arms, shoulders and nape feel relaxed and pleasant.My steps are getting slower and lighter, almost like walking in slow motion.I sank into complete peace, my brain lay heavy in my skull, and for the first time in my life I felt the weight of my brain.My mind lay heavy and silent, controlling only my bodily functions and senses.My senses have never been so sharp.In this highly receptive, yet profoundly relaxing state of lucidity, I enter an oval-shaped room with soaring small panes of painted glass on the black walls, my footsteps echoing on the marble floor.There were obviously other people in the room, and I heard their footsteps, as well as the dripping of rain and water.

People are just black shadows moving in a trance-like way.The sound of dripping water became louder and closer, while the whispers remained the same as before, some near and some far away, there were voices of children and adults, men's voices and women's voices, and what the voices said was still inaudible clear.The room was also pitch black, but blue and turquoise glass stained with abstract patterns gave off a faint light, through which I could see figures moving slowly around the room.In the center of the room was a large natural boulder, about the height of the shoulder blade of a pony or a large dog.Water dripped regularly from somewhere above, perhaps every five or six seconds, directly into the hollow above the boulder.The hollow was full of water, and the water overflowed and flowed along the curved surface into the black cylinder, where the boulder stood.

I stood there and watched the dripping water, the overflowing water covering the stone surface like a transparent veil, until I felt the warmth of someone else's body next to me.I looked up and saw that it was Megan. She nodded slightly to me, and I nodded to her too.The whites of her eyes were illuminated by the blue light painted on the glass, and her hair shone with a gray-gold luster in the dark, looking as smooth as satin, like angora wool.Without thinking about it, I raised my hand and gently stroked her hair with my fingertips. Her hair was indeed very silky.My hand slid down the nape of her neck, down the spine to the tailbone, then stopped and slowly retracted. At this time, I felt that someone was doing the exact same thing to me, and that person was not Megan, because that person was standing right behind me, gently stroking with his fingertips from the top of my head, through the hair, the back of the neck, the spine, and finally Stop at the tailbone and go away.I turned around, but too slowly to see who it was, only to hear the steady echo of footsteps fading away, melting into the darkness.