原标题:
五、《三节草》 60’ 1997年
泸沽湖畔70岁的老妇肖淑明,身世曲折传奇。
本世纪初,肖淑明出生于四川成都一个国民党中校军官家庭。1941年,随父迁往雅安,入雅安县立中学女子班学习。两年后,一个32岁的男人来到雅安,从此改变了她的命运。
这个男人叫喇宝成,是摩梭人土司,拥有泸沽湖一带36个火头,48村百姓。为镇抚山民,当时的西康省主席刘文辉召喇宝成到雅安,授枪加勋。春风得意的喇宝成在办完公务之后,欲娶一位才貌双全的汉族女子为他打理山寨。经人介绍,喇宝成见到了初二学生肖淑明。一见之下,喇宝成大为倾心,而肖淑明对身着黄呢军服的喇宝成也爱慕有加。于是张灯结彩,喜结良缘,在当时的西康省上流社会传为佳话。肖淑明时年16岁。
婚后三天,肖淑明随喇宝成离开雅安,翻山越岭两个月来到泸沽湖。这一去就是54年。
三节草剧照
喇宝成是土司,是必须结婚的。本来他已有一名摩梭人夫人,肖淑明去了以后,也只能算是二房。二房就二房吧,肖淑明也不以为意。然而,已有两房夫人的喇宝成却依然要出去“走”,出去“翻木骡子”,惹得肖淑明很是生气,好在日子长了也就看惯了。只要不带回家来,睁一只眼,闭一只眼,罢了。泸沽湖是一个美丽的高原湖泊,位于中国西部横断山脉南麓的崇山峻岭之中。湖的两岸,居住着约5万名摩梭人。他们世世代代实行男不婚、女不嫁的走婚制,是硕果仅存的母系社会。
泸沽湖是美丽的,而青春更美丽。年轻的肖淑明爱上了骑马打枪。那时候她经常白衣红裙,黑马双枪,纵情驰骋于泸沽湖畔的山水之间。每逢夜晚,肖淑明一边弹着风琴,一边轻声吟唱。月白风轻,湖水漾漾。
然而总是想家。摩梭话肖淑明听不懂,吃的东西也不习惯。尽管喇宝成温言有加,但总是抚不去那越来越浓的乡愁。直到今天,肖淑明最爱唱的歌还是《松花江上》:哪年哪月才能回到我那可爱的故乡……
在学校学到的东西,也撩拨得她寝食难安。经与喇宝成商量,肖淑明打算办一所学校,教当地摩梭人的小孩子念书。然而,现实是严峻的,学校还没办起来,自己却生下了两双儿女。
日子过得很快,解放军说来就来。审时度势之后,喇宝成投靠了解放军,和肖淑明一起帮着解放军平叛。后来,喇宝成当上了当地的区长,进而盐源县政协副主席、四川省民委参事。1976年,死在盐源县医院。
随着喇宝成政治命运的沉浮,肖淑明也经历了由贵族到干部夫人再到泸沽湖镇多啥村阿奴社的普通农民的角色转换。好在这时候两儿两女都已长大,在当地成家立业。几十年的风风雨雨,肖淑明也完全融入了泸沽湖摩梭人的生活,平静地生活在泸沽湖,生活在摩梭人中间,一直到1996年。
这一年初夏,玉米地刚锄二遍草,肖淑明家来了一个名叫李安庆的中年人,表示愿意资助肖淑明回一趟老家成都。
李安庆是成都一家企业的老总,在得知肖淑明的身世后,基于商业宣传的需要,专程来泸沽湖接肖淑明回成都。
肖淑明热泪长流。屈指算来,她已阔别故土54年……
“肖淑明回成都”这件事,在1996年的成都引起了巨大轰动。今非昔比的成都,肖淑明已完全生疏了。家里的亲人早已相继去世,只剩下了几个远亲。变了,一切都变了,修葺一新的望江楼,缓缓流淌的府南河,鳞次栉比的高楼大厦和春潮般奔涌的人流……在肖淑明眼里,一切都变了,54年前灰暗的旧城如今变成了一个繁华的大都市。
喧嚣过后又是落寞。回到泸沽湖,肖淑明萌发了一个强烈的念头:一定要把孙女拉珠送回成都……
Synopsis of SAN JIE CAO
A famous city on the fertile western Sichuan plain, Chengdu is populated by the ethnic majority of China --- the Han nationality --- and has evolved through the vicissitude of history into a highly civilized metropolis, a political, economic and cultural center in Southwest China, and a society dominated by men like most of the civilizations on this planet. In the remote high mountains to the south of Chengdu, however, lies the virgin land of Lugu Lake, the home of the mysterious Moso, an ethic minority in China who seem to have been untouched by the progress of civilization that their Han brothers have achieved. Even today, Moso people stick to their matrilineal institution and to a peculiar custom known as "visitor husband" marriage, a tradition by which a woman is the head of a household and has the free choice of her man whom she invites to visit her at her home for marital intimacy only at night while otherwise the man should live in the home of one of his own female family members. In 1943 Xiao Shuming, a then high school girl in Chengdu, was taken against her will by a Moso headman all the way to the Lugu Lake to be his concubine, only to be able to come back to her hometown after fifty four long years since then, her journey being sponsored by an enterprise in Chengdu. It was during that home-coming of her lifetime when it occurred to her that she should send her granddaughter Lachu back to Chengdu, a more civilized world where she herself was born and grew up as a child.
"Life, it's something that defies any description."
---- Xiao Shuming