I love bill: the way young women in Shanghai pursue love

Have you ever experienced an unforgettable love in your life?

Some love, the process is short, but it is unforgettable for a long time.

Because it is short, it is as gorgeous as fireworks, so it is always extraordinarily beautiful to recall.

The writer Wang Anyi's short story "I Love Bill" tells such a story.

1

A San is a student in the art department of Normal University. In her sophomore year, at an art exhibition, she met an important man in her life-Bill.

Bill is an American and works as a cultural librarian in the American Consulate in Shanghai.

They had a pleasant conversation and left an excellent impression at the first meeting. Bill likes China, and he also likes young girls with artistic flavor. That's when Sam appeared.

So there was a trip to Zhouzhuang, where they watched the scenery and talked about life, and the distance between them gradually narrowed.

Spending the night in Zhouzhuang, Bill and Sam live in two adjacent rooms. They knocked on the partition in the middle of the room three times to say good night, which was both ambiguous and romantic.

After returning to Shanghai, the relationship between the two was one step closer. When we were together for the first time, Sam deliberately showed great experience and an open image in front of Bill.

Bill frequented A San's dormitory and finally caught the attention of the dean, who talked to A San on the grounds of violating the school spirit and discipline.

Ah San was silent on the surface, quietly renting a house outside the school behind him, and gradually broke contact with the school until he was expelled from the school.

But she doesn't seem to care She just makes a living by painting in the house outside the school, and the rest of the time is waiting for Bill's arrival.

As Bill told Sam frankly, he is not allowed to fall in love with girls from socialist countries.

Their love is doomed to sink to the bottom, and will end at any time without seeing the light.

Bill searched for a long time but couldn't find Sam. Then, Sam heard from others that Bill had returned to China.

Sam broke up unilaterally.

2

When she was lovelorn, Sam used painting to heal her wounds. She was very talented and persistent, but she gradually became famous in small circles.

With this wave of influence, she began to find ways to promote her works. It was also at this time that she met Martin, a French art dealer.

The business failed, but she got in touch with Martin.

This relationship came and went too fast, like a tornado. Sam stayed in Martin's hotel for three days in a row. Bill's lost love seems to find solace in Martin.

When Martin left, Sam's stubbornness appeared, and he insisted that Martin take himself away.

Martin refused her request directly, leaving Ah San alone in the wind.

Ah San finally understands that for her, love is a luxury, and what she wants is eternity. For Bill and Martin, she is just a fleeting meteor at some point in their lives.

Knowing this, A San began to treat love casually, or it can be understood that she regarded love as a pastime and a step.

With this positioning, A San began a new exploration. She often lingers in the lobby of a famous hotel, orders a cup of coffee and sits there waiting for her prey to appear.

She "met" all kinds of Americans and kept a brief physical relationship with them. She forced herself to be "open" and keep herself busy. She stays with different men and spends more time in hotels than at home.

She enjoys the safety and sureness of staying in the hotel, shuttling between changing faces and bodies. In this way, she gradually forgot the existence of Bill.

Finally, a fire broke out, and Sam was sent to the farm because of the problem of male and female weathering.

three

When he first arrived at the farm, he experienced initial maladjustment, and his mental depression was quickly squeezed by the busy labor reform life.

The reform-through-labour camp is also a small society, with gangs flying everywhere and rumors flying everywhere. Sam works neatly and is highly valued by the monitor, but his unsociable personality and few words have troubled his innocence.

There was a girl named Yangchun Mian who didn't like Ah San's manner early in the morning, so she secretly made small moves and often got Ah San into some trouble.

Later, Sam accidentally broke Yang Chun's face, and violated the discipline of the agricultural reform team, secretly trimming her eyebrows. She took the opportunity to hit Yang Chun in the face and didn't expose her in public.

Yang Chun quilt was moved, and wanted to make friends with Sam, and offered to be cheap, but to no avail, she was turned away many times.

Yangchun's feelings for Ah San are both like and angry. In the dispute and noise between them, Yangchun finally realized that he and Ah San are not the same kind of people, and it is impossible to help each other in this labor camp.

So she encouraged Sam to escape, recommended an escape route to Sam, and made a detailed escape plan.

Ah San's face was expressionless, but in fact his heart began to stir.

Once upon a time, when she was outside, her soul was restless and she escaped from her heart by having sex with others. When she came to the reform-through-labour camp, she was silent, fighting with people and hunger strike. After some tossing, she finally saw what she really thought.

She is sad for her depravity, but she can't quench her thirst with poison.

four

Sam finally managed to escape from the labor camp.

It seems to be different from the clues provided by Yangchun noodles. She didn't knock on the door of the farmer's house at the foot of the mountain as scheduled, because the farmer was alert and alert, and Sam was tired and hungry, hiding behind the farmer's eaves to rest.

She fell asleep in the drizzle because she was so sleepy that she seemed to have had a long dream.

When I wake up, I feel that everything is new.

Her hand touched a fragile and delicate egg, a newborn egg.

She shed tears when she remembered her tender first love for Bill and tried to hide it.

Or maybe, at that moment, she has found her own way of life.