Chapter 10 Chapter nine

By the end of that week, I buried her in a Catholic cemetery twenty-five miles north of Dreamland, next to her parents.Emma never mentioned that she had any other relatives in the world, and since no one named Grand or Morrison came forward to claim her body, I was responsible for all funeral expenses.It is brutal for me to make these decisions; I make my own choices: comparing the advantages and disadvantages of various embalming methods and cremation methods, considering the durability of different woods, the price of various coffins, and so on.Then, once the burial is decided, more questions will follow: the style of the shroud when encoffining, which lipstick and nail polish color to use when dressing up, hairstyle, etc.I don't know how I managed to go through all the procedures at that time, probably like everyone else: the physical body is inseparable, and the mind seems to be absent.I just remember categorically rejecting the cremation offer.I said: I don't want to see any more flames, I don't want any more ashes.In order to check the cause of death, they have already conducted an autopsy on her, and I will never allow them to burn her again.

The night Emma committed suicide, I called the police from my home in Vermont.At that time they sent a police officer Vito Gozman to the manor to investigate, although he arrived at the scene before six o'clock in the morning, Ajuan and Conchita were gone; My letter is still lying in the fax machine, but the two dwarves have long since disappeared.As I prepared to leave New Mexico five days later, Gerzman and other officers continued to search for them. According to her will, Faida's body was handed over to her lawyers to dispose of it.The location of the farewell ceremony was the outdoor gazebo in Qingshizhuang, which is located behind the main house. I made it clear that I would not attend in the willow grove in Haight.I still hated Feta quite a bit then, let alone the farewell ceremonies, and just thinking about her made me sick to my stomach.I never met with her lawyer, but Police Officer Gozmann mentioned me to him. When he called the hotel where I was staying to invite me to Faida’s farewell ceremony, I replied directly: I’m not available; Then he began to gossip: how unfortunate Miss Spelling is, how poor Emma is, how startling and dreadful the whole thing is; The value of the land is no less than nine million yuan.He said: Once the notarization of the will is completed, the manor will be auctioned publicly, and all the proceeds from the auction, plus all proceeds from the sale of the stocks and bonds under Ms. Spelling's name, will be donated to a non-profit organization in New York City .I asked him: which institution?He said: MoMA.The 9 million yuan will set up an anonymous fund account, which is specially used to preserve old movies.He said: Don't you think this is too strange?I said: It's not surprising at all; call it grim or sick if you want, but it's not surprising; if you like telling bad jokes, this will keep you laughing for a long time.

At one point, I wanted to go back to the manor and take a last look at it, but when I drove up to the gate entrance, I didn't want to drive in.I was going to go in and look for Emma's photos, and see if there was anything in the cabin that I could take back to Vermont as a souvenir, but the police put a blockade around the scene of the crime, and I was deterred for a while.Even though there was no police standing guard there, I could easily cross the fence and enter the house without any effort, but I couldn't do it, I couldn't do anything, so I turned around and drove away.I spent the last few hours in Albuquerque ordering Emma's tombstone.Originally, I thought I would only engrave a short line: Emma Grande, born in 1950 and died in 1988.However, as soon as I signed the order and paid the project fee, I went back to the office and told the contractor that I had changed my mind.I said: Add a few words to the top, and the inscription should be engraved like this: Emma Grande, born in 1950 and died in 1988, was a writer during her lifetime.Except for the twenty-page farewell book she faxed to me on the last night of her life, I never had the chance to read a single word she wrote; a justice.

I set off for home.Nothing happened on the flight back to Boston.A turbulent turbulence over the Midwest, I had a chicken meal, a glass of red wine, I looked out the window and nothing happened; white clouds, silver wings, blue sky.Nothing happened. After entering the house, the wine cupboard was empty, it was getting late, and it was too late to go out to buy wine.I don't know if I got away with it because of this, but I forgot that I drank the whole bottle of tequila the night before I went out. At this time, all the shops within a 30-mile radius of West T town were closed. , there was no way to find a place to buy alcohol, so I had to go to bed without drinking.The next morning, after downing two cups of coffee, I resumed my translation work.Originally, I planned to sink here and go back to the old path of gloom and mist, drunkenness and dreams, but under the sunshine of that summer morning, something that resisted self-destruction faintly grew in my heart.Chateaubriand's meditation on Napoleon's life is coming to an end, and I entered the twenty-fourth volume of his memoirs with him, and visited the deposed emperor on the Isle of St. Helen: six years have passed since his exile; It doesn't have to take that long either.He hardly stays at home, burying his head and reading the Italian version of Osian's poems translated by Casalotti. It is to hide oneself in the thick clouds and mists that cover the land.In the current world, everything dies in a day; people who live for a long time are like walking corpses.We have gone through life, leaving three or four frames of our own appearance along the way, and the frames are deviant and different; now through the hazy past, it is like seeing portraits of ourselves at different ages.

I'm not sure if I'm deluding myself and telling myself I'm really strong enough to keep working or if I'm just completely numb.This late summer, I seem to be in a different space: I can clearly perceive the surrounding things, but at the same time isolate everything, like a transparent tulle wrapped around my body.I devoted myself to the translation of Chateaubriand's memoirs for a long time, got up early and went to bed late, and made a steady progress every week. The amount of translations from the Seven Stars edition gradually increased from three pages to four pages every day.It seems to be back to normal, it seems to be getting better, God knows during that period, as long as I leave the desk, I will feel distracted and dazed at every turn.I forgot to pay the phone bill for three consecutive months, and I didn’t realize that there were several reminders piled up in the mailbox. I didn’t rush to pay the arrears until a person appeared in the yard one day and was about to cut the wire.Two weeks later, I went to Brattleboro to restock, and I went to the post office and bank to do some errands. I thought my wallet was a stack of letters, and dropped it in the mailbox without thinking.Frequently these surprises troubled me, but I never stopped to wonder why.Once I asked why, it was like bending down to open a secret door hidden under the carpet, but I didn't dare to look at the dark behind the door.Several nights, when I had finished my day's work and had dinner, I would stay in the kitchen and decipher the notes I had written while watching Martin Frost's Turned Lives until late at night.

Emma and I have only known each other for only eight days. We were separated from each other for five days. I counted how much time we spent together in the remaining three days. All of them added up to a total of fifty-four hours.Eighteen of these hours were consumed by sleeping; another seven were wasted by brief separations of addition and subtraction: six hours in the cabin by myself, five or ten minutes upstairs to see Hayter, Forty-one minutes.There are only twenty-nine hours left when I can really see her, touch her, and actually be by her side.During this time we had sex five times, ate six meals together, and I gave her a bath once.Emma came in and out of my life so quickly and so briefly that I couldn't help but wonder if she was just my imagination.So I couldn't face her death anyway; because I didn't have enough memories, I had to keep revisiting the same process over and over again, and calculated the numbers that couldn't change in any way: the two were together. Two rides; one plane ride; six glasses of tequila; three nights in three beds in three different rooms; four phone calls.I'm so lost, I don't know what else to do to mourn her besides letting myself live.It was months later, after I finished my translation job and moved out of Vermont, that I realized it was all Emma's fault.In just eight days, she pulled me back from the gate of hell.

It doesn't matter what happens to my life after that.This is an incomplete book, which only records pain and vague residual dreams. In order to explain the ins and outs, forgive me for ignoring the details other than the incident itself.Just a little tidbit here: I'm currently living in a large city between Boston and Washington, D.C.; this is the only thing I've written since Heitmann's The Silent World; I've since taught After studying for a while, I found other more interesting jobs and then left the education field.Besides, (if anyone cares) I no longer live alone. It's been eleven years since I left New Mexico, and I haven't told anyone about what I've been there.No mention of Emma, ​​no mention of Heite and Feda, no mention of Qingshizhuang.Even if I try my best to say it everywhere, who will believe it?I don't have any evidence to back up my statement.Haydt's film has been destroyed, Emma's book has been destroyed, and the only thing I can show others is the notebook that is full of leaks, my Desert Short Notes Trilogy: Shorthand for Watching Horse Movies, From Scattered fragments transcribed from Hayter's diary, and a long list of extraterrestrial plants that have nothing to do with it.I made up my mind at the time: I'd better shut up and let the mystery of Heitmann disappear forever.Later, articles were written about the films Hayter made during his lifetime; in 1992 those silent comedy films were even released on video (three volumes in a box set), and the man in the white suit gradually attracted a following.Of course, in today's huge entertainment circle and the field that spends hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing and publicity, this is simply insignificant, but it is gratifying; occasionally reading newspapers and magazines, if you read someone calling him this type of movie in the article I am also often delighted by the middleweight master of the 1990s, or the last great practitioner of the art of funny silent film (to quote Stanley Philber in his "Shadow and Sound" essay).And that's not all; in 1994 the Haight Fan Club was formed and I was invited to be an honorary member.As the first and only person who has studied all of Hight's works, I am regarded as a spiritual indicator, and members hope that I will bring them good luck.According to the latest statistics, the International Hite Fan Club has more than 300 paying members, some of whom even live in faraway places such as Sweden and Japan.The president invited me to participate in their annual meeting in Chicago every year. I finally agreed to attend in 1997. At that time, I gave a few words on the stage and received warm praise.During the question time that followed, someone asked me if I had found any information related to Height's disappearance in the process of collecting and studying materials for writing a book.I replied: Unfortunately, no; I searched for months, but there is not even a clue.

In March 1998 I turned fifty-one years old.Six months later, on the first day of fall, just a week after I left for the American Film Institute's silent film symposium in Washington, I had my first heart attack.The second episode was November 26th, when I was having Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's house in Baltimore.The first time was just a trifle, a so-called mild myocardial infarction, equivalent to a short a cappella.The second time my whole body seemed to be torn apart, like a 200-member choir with all the brass instruments singing in unison, I almost died on the spot.Before that, I always thought that fifty years old was not considered old at all; although it was not considered young, it was not an age at which I needed to arrange my own funeral and calm down in everything.I stayed in the hospital for several weeks, and the doctor's diagnosis results were not optimistic every time, so I had to adjust my mentality.It dawned on me (to paraphrase what I've always loved): I'm borrowing time from God.

I don't think there's anything wrong with keeping my secrets all those years past, and I don't think there's anything wrong with telling the whole story now.Things have changed, and now that things have changed, so have my thoughts.I was discharged home in mid-December, and I have written the first few pages of this book in early January this year.It's the end of October, and the whole project is coming to an end, and I watched with a bit of glee as we approached the end of the century in a few weeks, the century that Hite was in, eighteen days before his birth The century unfolding is also a century that no normal person would regret because it ended.Following the example of Chateaubriand, I do not want to publish these words I have written at this time.I have given to my lawyer a letter of instruction that, after my death, he will know where this manuscript is kept, and what to do with it.Of course, I really hope that I can live a long life, but in case I don't live that long, I have already dealt with all the arrangements that should be made.If you do see this book published, dear reader, you can be sure that the man who wrote it has long since died.

There are thoughts in the heart that can destroy the mind; those thoughts are so powerful and unbearable, once the thoughts are moved, they can instantly teach people to doom.I was once afraid that I knew these things, that I would never be able to extricate myself from the insecurities, so I had to be absolutely sure that they could not do me any good before I could confess everything.I can't tell the truth, and I don't have any legally defensible evidence in my hands, but revisiting the events of that night over the past eleven years, I'm almost certain that Hyatt did not die of natural causes.It is true that when I met him he was very weak and dying, but he was thinking clearly, and at the end of the conversation he grabbed me, and his fingers squeezed my arm; the scene of living.It can be seen that he still wants to live a little longer and settle this matter between me and him; when Feida asked me to leave, I went downstairs full of confidence that I could see him again the next morning.Please think about that moment, please think about the sudden turnaround and every disaster that happened after that.Emma and I went to bed, and as soon as we were asleep, Faida crept down the corridor into Height's room, and suffocated him with a pillow.I firmly believe that Feda did it out of love; she did it without any resentment in her heart, without any element of betrayal or revenge, it was purely a fanatic out of the pursuit of truth and lofty beliefs.Hite presumably didn't have much resistance, her strength was much stronger than his.Ending Hayter's remaining life early would give her a chance to redeem his muddled decision to invite me to the manor.After years of unshakable belief, Hayter finally hesitated to start questioning what he was doing in New Mexico; as soon as I arrived in Dreamland, the wonderful things he and Faida had built together were bound to unravel.When I really entered the manor, I finally ignited her madness step by step.It was there that I flipped the switch for the whole tragedy that led to the final big bang.Feda had to get rid of me, and the only way she could get rid of me was by getting rid of Height.

I repeatedly thought about the details of the next day.Carefully scrutinizing those subtle gaps, short silences, and Emma's intriguing negative actions at certain critical moments, which seemed to vaguely reveal the mystery, many inside stories that were hidden at the time have now surfaced one after another.When I woke up that morning, she was sitting on the edge of the bed, stroking my face.It was ten o'clock and we were supposed to get up early in the morning and rush into the screening room to watch Hayter's film, but she didn't rush me at all.I drank the coffee she had on the bedside table and talked for a while, taking a moment to cuddle and make out.Later, when she returned to the cabin after destroying the film, she didn't seem particularly distraught by what she had just witnessed.I've seen her break down and cry bitterly, but her reaction at that time was surprisingly calm, far beyond my expectations.She didn't lose her temper, she didn't lose her temper, she didn't curse Phaeda for violating Hayter's will and deciding to burn the film ahead of time.We've talked a lot over the past two days, and I know Emma has always been against destroying the film.She may have admired Height's determination in her heart, but she also firmly believed that it was a big mistake. She even told me herself that she and Height had argued about it many times over the years.If it was true as she said, why did she act so calmly when she saw the film being burned?Her mother was in those videos, and those videos were shot by her father, and she didn't say a word after they were burned.I've pondered her reticence over the years, and I can only come up with one logical inference, the only reason that fully explains her indifference that night, and the only reason that she knew the film wasn't really destroyed.Emma is a very smart and thoughtful person; since she was able to make brand new copies of Hite's early films and send them all over the world, could she also do the same for later films?She was constantly on the go to write that book, and if every time she left the estate she snuck a negative or two to have a new copy developed outside, who would have known?There was no one guarding the library, and she had the keys to every lock in the manor, and she could take things out and put them back in at any time without anyone noticing, without any effort at all.If I'm right, then she must have hidden those copies somewhere first, planning to get them after Phaeda's death.Of course, this will inevitably take several more years of work, but Emma waits patiently, but, how does she know that she will die on the same day as Feida?Some people may disagree with my reasoning, because logically, she should share this secret with me and never keep me in the dark; but then, maybe she plans to tell me to my face when she gets to Vermont.Emma didn't mention the film in her long, barely-sentenced farewell letter, but at the time she was in a state of utter terror, bordering on madness, completely in the throes of self-blame, when she sat down to When I wrote that letter, I must have left everything behind.She completely forgot to tell me; she was going to tell me, but she forgot.If this is the case, then Haight's films have not disappeared; those films have just not been unearthed; one day, there will be someone in the dark who will open a door unexpectedly and find Emma's hidden films. Then, the whole story It has to be rewritten. For the rest of my life, there is only one hope. (End of the book)