My Grandparents’ Standard Room

By Ben Erxin

Translation by Zhu Yaguang

My Grandparents’ Standard Room

By Ben Erxin

Translation by Zhu Yaguang

W hen I visited my grandparents as a little girl, I always thought that their bedroom had a strange look. The moment I stepped inside, I felt like I was entering a hotel room. There were two single beds and two bed lamps, with one bedside table in the middle. As I grew up, I gradually understood why they slept in different beds.

My grandma was born in a wealthy and influential family, and she had a childhood sweetheart, a man who left her behind to study abroad and never returned. She kept waiting until she became a “leftover lady” as the locals called it.When she reached 20, her father couldn’t bear to wait any longer, so he immediately married her off to a poor boy who proposed to her.

My grandpa was the poor boy whose family was utterly destitute. He was just 17 at that time. When they first met, Grandma disliked him. Perhaps out of malnutrition, Grandpa was shorter than her, and he walked barefoot even though it was winter. Regardless of how unwilling Grandma was, she accepted the arranged marriage. Later,Grandpa was enlisted in the army, and for several years, Grandma didn’t hear any news from him,and she raised their four children all by herself.After demobilization, Grandpa got a job in the city, and Grandma and the children went with him. However, their life in the city wasn’t entirely satisfactory at that time. According to my dad, he spent his childhood living in a house with some leaks in the wall, and Grandma would always pick wild flowers to insert in the cracks.

小时候去奶奶家，一直觉得爷爷奶奶的房间很奇特，乍一进去就像酒店的房间，有两张单人床、两盏床头灯，中间还有一个床头柜。后来大了一点，明白了爷爷奶奶这叫“同房不同床”。

奶奶家当年是大户，奶奶曾是老家那一带知名的“剩女”，曾有一个青梅竹马的恋人，但是恋人留洋以后一去不复返。到了奶奶20岁的时候，曾祖父终于忍不住，随便找个穷小子把奶奶嫁了。

那个穷小子就是我爷爷。爷爷那年17岁。奶奶看到爷爷的时候，内心是很嫌弃的。爷爷当时可能是没饭吃的缘故，没有奶奶高，冬天了还打着一双赤脚。但再不情愿，奶奶还是嫁给了家徒四壁的爷爷。爷爷后来参了军，曾经生死未卜，音讯全无，奶奶独自抚养四个子女。后来爷爷退伍有了工作，奶奶带着四个孩子来到城里投奔爷爷，没想到城里并不像传说的那么好。爸爸说小时候他的家就是一间四面漏风的屋子，奶奶有时候会不知道从哪里采来一束花，插在墙壁漏风的窟窿里。

上世纪90年代初期，已在外工作的爸爸突然收到一封电报，是奶奶发来的，上面只有两个字：速回。

爸爸当时心里“咯噔”一下，连夜买了一张火车坐票赶回家。看到爷爷奶奶好好的，刚放下心时，奶奶却一把抱住他哭。

原来奶奶要儿子速回，只因爷爷要与她分床睡，还要求一人一个房间。爸爸和姑姑做工作后，二老才同意住同一个房间，方便照应，于是家里便改造得如同酒店的标准间。

很长一段时间，奶奶都不能适应。一直以来，都是她“嫌弃”爷爷，没想到在晚年反而遭爷爷“嫌弃”，甚至差点被“遗弃”。

但是对于要和奶奶分床的理由，爷爷并没有解释。随着岁月的流逝，奶奶慢慢接受了这种方式，睡眠质量还高了很多。有时候二老晚上睡不着，还会打开床头灯聊天到深夜，聊到其中一人睡着为止。

爷爷69岁的时候，因为心肌梗塞，突然去世了。处理完后事，爸爸他们清理爷爷的遗物，意外发现了一封遗书。遗书的纸张已经泛黄，看起来写了一些年月，内容很简单，就是交代一些身后事和跟孩子们的相处方式。但是，在信的最后，我们看得都流了泪。

原来，爷爷很早就得知自己有心脑血管疾病，最不放心的就是奶奶，他写道：“我知道你对分床睡心存芥蒂，但是，我早晚要先走，不如趁我还在的时候早点让你适应一个人睡……”♦

（摘自《莫愁》2017年第7期）

In the beginning of the 1990s, my dad was working in another place. One day, he got a telegram from Grandma, which said only, “COME BACK ASAP.”

After reading the telegram, Dad’s chest clenched,and he bought the earliest train ticket and rushed back home on that very night. He was relieved when he saw that Grandpa and Grandma were both safe and sound, waiting for him. But Grandma suddenly embraced him and started sobbing.

It turned out that Grandma asked Dad to come back because Grandpa wanted to sleep in another room. After Dad and his sister pleaded with Grandpa for a long while, he finally agreed to sleep in the same room with Grandma, as it would be convenient for them to look after each other, but they must sleep in different beds. So their room was changed to be like a hotel standard room.

For a long time after that, Grandma couldn’t adapt herself to the new lifestyle. Since their marriage, Grandma had always been the one who“disliked” Grandpa, and she hadn’t expected to be“disliked” or practically “deserted” by him in her old age.

Grandpa didn’t explain why he insisted on sleeping in another bed. As time went by, Grandma gradually became used to sleeping alone, and her quality of sleep also improved. Sometimes, when they couldn’t sleep at night, they would turn on the bed lamp and chat late into the night until one of them fell asleep.

Grandpa died of myocardial infarction when he was 69. After the funeral, Dad was clearing up all the things Grandpa left behind, when he stumbled upon a letter. Grandpa must have written it long ago as the paper had become yellowed. It was a simple letter, with only Grandpa’s last words on it and his suggestions for dealing with their children.However, the last paragraph of the letter left us all in tears.

It turned out that Grandpa knew about his cardiovascular disease early on, and Grandma was the one he was most unwilling to part with. In the letter, he said, “I know you are upset about us sleeping in different beds, but I know I’ll die before you, so I’d rather let you get used to sleeping alone in advance.”♦

(From Mochou, July 2017)

爷爷奶奶的标准间

文/本儿心 译/朱亚光