Chapter 5 3

[lineage] I walked out of the law office and walked south towards Holborn Street, holding a file folder with the words Downing & Hooper in my hand, which contained the documents they gave me, proving that what I heard and saw just now was true. The law firm does exist, the legacy does exist. Holborn Street is not a beautiful street. The buildings are a combination of glass and stone, and the pedestrians are businessmen with white faces and black suits, with fancy ties and thick Windsor knots.They know nothing about this legacy.A woman stared at her phone and bumped me on the shoulder. I said: sorry.

She didn't seem to hear it at all, and turned into Holborn Station without looking back.I was a little dizzy and had to hold on to the wall to keep my feet steady. When I first heard that Pitcher asked me to come to London, I definitely wanted to come, but I didn't say it on the spot.After the phone call that day, I sat in Dolores Park all afternoon, looking at the towering skyscrapers in the city, thinking about London, Rome and Paris, cities that I only read about in books. Words are still just blocks on the map.That inheritance is so far away when I think about it, and I can't connect with my grandma at all in my mind.It was windy in the park, and I walked back to my residence, passing the payphone at the corner of 24th Street and Cape Street, I stopped, stared at it for a long time, then picked up the receiver and called Kahn.

I want to go to London, but I need to find a document first. Very good.Kahn said: Can we be there by Monday? An hour later, he sent the schedule.I went back to my dad's house and looked through the garage, trying to find something related to grandma.All my mother's things were piled high in cardboard boxes, and I didn't look at them after the funeral.I climbed up the ladder and took down all the cartons, and it didn't take long for the paper to be spread all over the floor.I sat on the concrete floor with oil stains and rummaged carefully.In one of the boxes, I found my mother's middle school yearbook, which was dated 1968. After reading the signed messages on the back, I felt so sad.After closing the album, I continued to open box after box of old sheets, table runners, and chemical fiber clothes. Everything smelled of camphor, and none of them belonged to grandma.

On the top shelf in the garage, I found my mother's jewelry box, upholstered in silk and with ivory clasps carved like ivory.There were some antique brooches and faux pearl necklaces in the box that might have belonged to Grandma, but only possible, not documented. My dad walked into the garage, saw the mess on the ground, and whistled. What are you looking for in your fucking stuff? I closed the jewelry box, and there was no answer. He said: I collected these, I know where they are, what are you looking for? Grandma's stuff, everything is fine.Do we have her birth certificate?

birth certificate?Wow, no way, why do you want that thing? The institute I am applying to requires proof of British origin. My dad shook his head and said: I've never seen anything from Charlotte here, at least not documents or anything like that, she doesn't have much to do with us. There was a pile of letters on the ground, and my dad picked up one, with his handwriting on the envelope.He frowned, let go of the letter and let it fall back. I asked: Why do you seldom communicate? My dad shrugged.You have to ask your mother.When I met your grandma, she had been divorced for many years. She was a very independent woman, and she wanted her daughter to call her Charlotte. From this, it can be seen that she is not a person who cares about family obligations very much.Oh, she doesn't care about any obligations.Maybe it's not that she doesn't love your mom, she just loves her in her own way, but the two of them just can't stand being together for hours.

Did she attend your wedding? have.She flew here alone for the wedding, and she didn't live in England at the time, she lived somewhere else, like Holland?We had nice champagne and she drank a lot and made her relax a lot.I remember her laughing at the fact that the collar of my dress was too wide. It was the 1970s, and her vision was different from that of her generation. Do you remember anything else? My dad knelt down by the jewelry box, opened the lid, looked at the string of pearls, and turned to me. I danced with your mother first at the wedding reception, and then with her, and I guess she didn't expect me to be a good dancer.She said to me: You are the second-best dancer I have ever danced with.I naturally asked her who was the number one, but she didn't give an answer, she just said that I dance very well and we will have a long and happy marriage.She said: Americans are not sentimental, so charming.

What do you mean by that? He shrugged.I have no idea.I think her life was very rough, always drifting around, and the person she really wanted to marry died fighting in North Africa or something.Later she married an American, which of course didn't last long.Have you found all these boxes?I bet there's absolutely no Charlotte in it. Together we put our things away and closed the box. He said: You never mentioned the Institute, why are you going to Europe all of a sudden?what happened? I looked over to my father, who was standing on the ladder, helping me stack the boxes back where they belonged.It's afternoon and he's still in pajama pants.

I said: nothing. At least this time I didn't mention my mother.It has been almost three years now, and every time he notices something is wrong, he says it is because of her, without exception.And the last thing I want anyone to mention is her.It took me a long time to separate my mother's life from her death, to stop thinking about the pain of losing her every time I thought about her life.I finally managed to develop a kung fu that allows simple and small memories to surface without pressing them down. So at the moment I let myself think: Mom sent me to summer school early in the morning, Mom gave me a hardcover book wrapped in gold paper for Christmas and I had to pretend I hadn't read it, Mom was upset before meeting my high school girlfriend What to wear, and when they met, they were too polite, sitting awkwardly across the table, having nothing to say.

Other memories are useless.Mom was in the hospital, and the dinner tray was sitting there for hours, and both mother and son were looking out the window.Before she got sick, we had everything to talk about, but we didn't know what to talk about in the hospital.I sat by the window overlooking Divisadero Street, talking as much as I could, and I shut up when the nurse came in to clean the bag attached to my mom. After the nurse left, my mother would say: You can follow the instructions when she comes in, don't stop. say what? Talk about anything, I like to hear you talk. I'll tell you about my new apartment at the time, and my winter vacation trip across the Mojave Desert.Listen to my mother gradually close her eyes, but if I shut up, those bright green eyes will open immediately.So I kept talking and talking, so that my mother could close her eyes with peace of mind.

During the hospital stay, she only smiled in one situation, and that was when she said this sentence. She would say: You are my only one. Because I am her only child, and maybe she is the only bond in this world after her death.Don't know what dreams she has for me, she didn't say.When I was a child, she thought I was a doctor material, but in the last days she hated doctors, so she probably changed her mind. Our mother and child are as different as day and night.My mother, who had absolutely no interest in art or history, was convinced that happiness was easier to do professionally, which was probably true.Mom lived in California all her life and loved it as much as Grandma hated it.My mother has no interest in cold places, stone castles, distant battlefields, and cracked oil paintings hanging in old houses.She found it inconceivable that I could love things that I had never seen before.

My mother never mentioned anything about my grandmother, and only had one impression of it.One spring break, we drove to Mandocino to see her friends. The road was too tortuous, and my mother suddenly felt sick. We didn’t know what kind of disease she was suffering from until two months later. We didn’t know it at the time.Just after sunset, my mom stopped at the gas station to go to the bathroom, and I got out of the car while I waited for her to take a photo of the lit Texas Oil sign.She looked so tired when she came back. Tristan, can you drive the car? I started the engine and hit the road. Mom turned to me and said: "Is the school okay?"Your dad said you took an architecture class? Yeah, Medieval Architecture, great class.We just went to Grace Cathedral on Monday. There is a painted maze on the church floor, just like the one in Chartres Cathedral. The way to the holy city. My mother turned to look at me. Chartres, haven't heard that name in years.Charlotte used to love talking about this church, and could talk for hours just about the dirty glass.What are those round windows called? rose window. My mother nodded.We rounded a peninsula and saw many headlights drawing yellow trails towards the coast.She looked down at the black water outside the window. You know, it was her idea to name you Tristan, I wanted to call you Michel, but Charlotte always liked that name, and she didn't have a son Is she like me? My mother fastened her seat belt and closed her eyes. Not like, not at all. I took an early morning flight to London and Dad insisted on driving me to the airport.I got up before dawn and repacked my luggage so as not to miss anything.I was carrying an old backpack from camping, and although the nylon straps were a bit frayed and faded after the Sierra Nevada trip, I wanted to keep the gear as light as possible as I might be traveling somewhere other than London this time. In the main space of the backpack, I put a sleeping bag and pressed it to the size of a loaf of bread.With a sleeping bag, you can keep warm even in the cold and snow.I rolled up all my clothes to save space, and I carried a black hardshell notebook, which I kept in a ziplock bag along with my passport to keep it out of moisture.In the outer pocket of the large backpack is a three-battery LED headlight, as well as the London Atlas. My dad knocked on the door, walked in, looked at my backpack and said: This is all you carry?Why don't you bring a coat? Seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit all week and lows of fifty OK, you understand the situation well.Let's go. We got in the car and the sun came out before we even crossed the Bay Area Bridge.On the highway, Dad turned on the radio. Did you see Adam yesterday? I hesitated before saying: I didn't know he was back. He was back on Friday, just staying at Lissie's.I said you were going on a long trip, and he said he wanted to contact you.You have to talk to me sometime, how do young people maintain a social life without a mobile phone It's the same as you used to be. Dad grinned at me. Right.But times are different now.Do you know how old I was when I first went to Europe?Twenty-nine, much bigger than you.But you seem to have always wanted to go to Europe since you were born, and now you finally have the trip, how do you feel? It doesn't feel real. My dad nodded. Don't just look at the flowers when you go.You have always been serious, so you should relax. Don’t worry too much about the research institute. It’s a rare trip to Europe, so you should feel it well. When the airport arrived, Dad drove the car to the sidewalk of the international terminal, with a strange expression on his face, looked in the rearview mirror, and opened the trunk lid. Don't go yet, go check the luggage compartment. my luggage is in the back seat I know.Just go and see. We got out of the car, and my dad opened the trunk lid, laughing to himself.In the luggage compartment was a very old brown side backpack that I recognized but hadn't seen in years. Your Nikon camera hasn't had time to fix it yet, has it? right. I knew it.Then if you go to Europe, don’t you have no camera? right. There is now. Dad opened his backpack and took out his camera.The black paint on the top and bottom sides has worn a bit to show the brass, and the logo color has worn off, but the engraved letters are clearly visible: ERNST LEITZ GMBH WETZLAR GERMANY.My dad took it to his eyes and looked at the viewing window, whistled, and handed the camera to me.It's heavy in the hand. He said: I thought, this thing is useless in the cabinet, it should be given to you as a graduation gift.It’s just that I wanted to take the 90mm lens and repair it for you, but I kept procrastinating. I might as well give you this 50mm lens. The pictures it shoots are sharp and the shutter is fast enough, so you won’t miss good pictures. .Do you change negatives? meeting. When loading the film, pull out the reel, otherwise the film counter will not return to zero, you know? I know. I feel a dent on the bottom of the camera. What's wrong here? fell. You fell? I didn't say that. I laughed.That's where someone fell. Yes, it was someone who fell on the asphalt road in Dangang, Vietnam in 1969.At that time, I was younger than you are now, that is to say, this camera is much older than you, so don't lose it. Dad holstered the camera and went through the contents of the rucksack with me, removing lenses I didn't need, showing me the light meter, spare negatives, and lens cloths. I'll give you five rolls of Tri︱X and Velvia negatives each, I don't know if you're going to shoot positive films Dad stopped in the middle of his sentence and squinted at me in the sun. You know, Tristan, this camera is a lucky charm, you will definitely get good photos in Europe, you have always had a good eye for framing. I will work hard. Also, you left in such a hurry that you didn't say when you'd be back. I'm not sure, it depends Dad smiled and shook his head. I'm dragging you down.Come back when it's time to come back. We shake hands.I walked into the terminal and couldn't remember if my father and son had ever held hands before this.The camera was in my lap for the entire flight to London, but it didn't have any negatives in it. Before I came to London, I made a list of everything I wanted to see in the city.There are thirty-two items in the timetable for flying to London, all of which I have read in books for many years: museums, royal palaces, centuries-old pubs, alleys with weird names, so narrow that you can touch them with your hands. On the walls on both sides, there are blue plaques hanging, and there are row houses where spies, poets or prime ministers lived.On my first night in London, I was too tired to do all the sightseeing; and leaving the law firm a bit late this afternoon, I decided to start investigating tomorrow. Now I sit in Trafalgar Square, among the statues, lions, pigeons and tourists.I opened the lens cap of the camera and pointed the lens at Nelson's Column, but unfortunately the column was too high to fit in the frame.I watched the tourists around to see if they would do something interesting, but they just took pictures of each other.Why not just go to the National Portrait Gallery, where there is a room full of oil paintings, all of which are dead British people, which suits my current mood very well. Start with the Tudor period.I have only seen Holban's work in history books, and now the original is here, in a gold frame, hanging in a high-ceilinged exhibition hall.Thomas.Moore wears a gold collar that symbolizes power and holds a heavy document in his hand; Catherine of Aragon has a miniature portrait in a small silver round frame, so small that it can be hidden in my palm;Cromwell sits against a blue damask background with menacing eyes. Going forward, is the era of Queen Elizabeth.The ladies all have snow-white skin and round foreheads, and the noble men all have large crepe collars like wheels.I imagined a mass of strangers like this lined up in front of me, all parents and children, and I was their only descendant, the last survivor.And that legacy, how big, I tried to concretize it: a string of zeros on foreign bank statements; an old mansion with a gate, with many rooms, and each room is dusty treasure, all of which are mine. Yes, but none of them are mine.It was a life completely new to me, and it felt extremely unlikely. The next room is the Stuart Dynasty exhibition area, with figure paintings during the English Civil War.Men in armor with flying hair.I wanted to focus on the painting, but my heart skipped to Pitcherd and Kahn, to Worthingham and Soames︱Anderson. The whole story can only be complete if it finds a piece that connects with me, otherwise it will fall apart. There is a map of the museum on the wall next to the stairs. My current location is the Georgian area, followed by the Regency period, the Victorian period, and finally the Edwardian period. The road is still long. The point is to find evidence, to find evidence that Yin Mozhen.Soames|Anderson is a piece of paper from my great-grandmother, and everything else is just distraction.I kept walking, telling myself this over and over again, but all the pictures on the wall pointed to the same thing, a mystery that wasn't even clear. I think of my mother's words: You are my only one.