Coffee melted in the years

"Don't be busy, pour yourself a cup of coffee and sit down and listen to me talk to you slowly." Almost every conversation begins like this. So I strolled slowly to the side table in the corner, poured out some brown, thick and bitter liquid from the big silver-plated coffee pot, and sat opposite him with the cup, although I didn't think there was anything to "talk about slowly". Moreover, I really have some shadow about coffee.

"now, tell me. Why don't you like coffee? "

"Why don't you tell me why you like it first." I'm a little shy.

"well. That's a story from a long time ago. Are you really interested or what? "

"I'm really curious, I think. People of your time, I mean Chinese, there should be very few people who like coffee. " I didn't lie to him about that.

"I see, you want to ask: why do you like to drink coffee as a bad old man like you in the old society?"

Smiling awkwardly, I said to myself: that's right.

Pull the camera back, this is in an old-fashioned afternoon living room with three bedrooms and one living room, the sun is right outside, while the curtains are drawn, and there is only a ray of light leaking into the slightly dim room. At this time, you can find that in that light, there seems to be nothing in the air, there are countless tiny dusts flying in the air. In front of the coffee table, a pair of young and old people with an age difference of more than half a century sat, the old one with a coffee cup in his hand, the little coffee mixed with too much milk and sugar, and the whole cup remained untouched on the coffee table. Yes, this is my routine visit to the old man under the order of my parents.

"in 1935 or 36, when I was young, I lived in Xisi Hutong, not far from my home. There was a Christian church. I heard adults call it Wagan City Hall, but our children heard many stories about the Romance of the Sui and Tang dynasties. They all called it 'Wagang Village'." He stopped to sip the coffee, narrowed his eyes and smiled for a while. He explained: "when people get old, memories become more and more important, and there is no hurry to speak." In Wagang village, there lived an old priest with white hair and beard who could speak Chinese. Others called him Father Tang. There is a courtyard around the church, unlike other people's courtyard doors are always closed, the door is open all the year round, but when we children gather in Wagangzhai, we are still used to climbing the wall. we all say that we have 'light merit'. When Father Tang bumped into him, he was not annoyed, and sometimes beckoned us to come down and hand out a piece of cellophane wrapped in fructose, which tasted sour and sweet. At that time, we thought it was more delicious than Crispy Sugar-Coated Fruit. I couldn't bear to eat it all at once, and then I wrapped it in cellophane for a while and saved it for next time. I put it in my trouser pocket but forgot it. After a day of crawling and beating, the sugar melted in my pants, and I had a good meal when I got home. "

"once, when the children in the hutong went to the theatre outside Zhengyang Gate to watch the play, I was pulled by my parents to clean up the yard. It was almost too busy, and it was dark. I was angry, pouting and kicking stones. I unconsciously walked to the gate of Wagang Village again, thinking that I might as well go in and have a look, and maybe I could get a piece of candy. Sneaking in, I saw Father Tang "pour wine" from a large silver pot in the side room. I thought at that time that my parents said that the priest was a foreign monk, but this foreign monk could drink. Later, he found that the color was not quite right, and he was "braving the heat." when Father Tang saw me, he beckoned me over as cheerfully as usual. when he saw me staring at the silver pot, he poured me a small cup. I don't know what it was like when you smelled coffee for the first time. I couldn't get used to it for the first time. I looked at the color, like the traditional Chinese medicine soup I drank when I was sick. That hard work. It's like! After taking a sip, he stopped drinking, frowned and vomited fiercely, which made Father Tang laugh. "

"at that time, I thought the priest must have been ill. He was drinking medicine, but he laughed when he asked him, saying that the people there just 'love' this, just like our bowl-covered tea. I think that's enough. It's like tea, strong and bitter, and there's nothing good to drink. Later, when I saw the priest drinking coffee, I didn't want to taste it any more. I also vividly learned from the children around me how bitter and bad the foreign tea was. But what I didn't expect was that I thought coffee was medicine, but it was really medicine, not only medicine, but also saved my life later. "

"that was when I was 10 years old. At the turn of winter and spring, I had a bitter cold, and then somehow I started swinging. I still remember that feeling. I still remember that it was as hot as boiling all over the body in a pot, and then it was as cold as wearing a short coat and being thrown into an ice cellar. After two days, people lost their strength to move in bed, and the doctor in the hutong could not take care of the disease, and the city doctor hired by the neighborhood said there was no cure. Watching me sweating in the heat and shivering in the cold, I was so thin that I almost broke my skin. The neighborhood said that the child was going to be gone, and my mother had begun to secretly wipe away her tears. "

"at this time, Father Tang came with his big silver pot, poured most of the sea bowl of coffee from the pot, and signaled me to drink it in one breath. I was a little afraid of bitterness, but at this time, my mother took the dead horse as a live horse doctor and sent it to her mouth full of medicine. He helped me up and forced me to drink. The taste is really bitter, from the tip of the tongue to the back of the back, drink, the stomach turned over like a fire, before long began to spit, spit out very weak, but fell asleep peacefully. After that, the priest would bring coffee every day, and I drank it for a few days in a row, and the symptoms of cold and fever slowly subsided. The man was so thin that he took off his face, but his life was saved. At that time, my mother was so happy that she only knelt down to Father Tang. From then on, she decided that coffee was a magic medicine for me and did everything possible to ask someone to buy it for me to drink. Come and go, drink smoothly, and then form a habit. "

"Coffee can cure malaria?" Sounds fresh to me.

"when I think about it, Father Tang's pot of coffee must have been filled with medicine, and the foreigners' pills were a little scared at that time. In order to reassure us, he dissolved the medicine in the coffee and gave it to me to drink."

"well, I guess I also added quinine. I heard that willow bark is also a folk prescription, but the effect is much worse."

"tell me why you don't like coffee."

", coincidentally, I am just the opposite of you. Coffee saved your life, but it almost killed me. It was also when I was a child, but it was already in the early 1990s. Once my father took me to a colleague's house to visit. What did his colleague say? it was very foreign. That summer was very hot, so he brought out a large bottle of iced coffee for me to drink. It was the first time I drank iced coffee, and the milk sugar was just right. That was comfortable, ah, as a result, the two adults were chatting there, and they didn't pay attention to me. I killed the whole bottle alone, more than half a liter. At that time, I just scolded me and took me home. Except for being very excited, I didn't feel anything different. That night, my parents went out to see a romantic movie with two people. by more than eight o'clock in the evening, I began to have a situation. It was a feeling of extreme mental excitement, a great stimulation to my nerves, a rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms, and very nervous and excited emotions. I was scared at the slightest move, and even began to hallucinate, and the whole feeling was that the end of the world was coming.

At that time, there was no such thing as a pager or a cell phone, but fortunately, I lived in a large corridor. The neighbor I knew most was usually the opposite door. I knocked on the door and said to my aunt who opened the door, "help me." Haha, it's silly to think about it now, not so exaggerated, but I did feel sick to death at that time. The aunt sent me to the school hospital, the hospital left work early, and the doctor on duty must not be from internal medicine or neurology, but rather like a Qigong enthusiast who directly massaged my head with a heavy hand. It was originally half-dead. I felt a little 3/4 dead after he tossed me around. He asked if it was better, dare I say it was not good? I don't think I'll make it through another round.

Out of the hospital, the pain is even more unbearable, coincidentally, I also began to vomit, vomiting, footsteps are empty, but the brain is much more comfortable, but the temple has been pressed on the place swollen pain. When I got home, I fell asleep, and the next day I climbed a tree and went to the house again. Only since then, can no longer drink Nestle coffee, smell the smell and want to vomit, other brands are fine, but always a little psychological shadow, do not dare to drink too much …... Tell me about it. What happened next? How are you? how is the priest? "

"after that illness, I suddenly seemed to understand a little bit. Instead of running, jumping and making trouble, I often helped my parents, took care of my brothers and sisters, took the time to go to Wagang Village, and learned a few words from Father Tang. Then, when the Japanese came, I went to join the army. First the Kuomintang, then GCD, beat the Japanese away, and in turn fought the Kuomintang for more than a decade, probably because the lives of those who survived were very large. After fighting for so many years, the bullets simply did not touch my body. I never saw Father Tang again after I became a soldier. Later, I heard from the neighborhood that Father Tang had always stayed in Wagang Village and had always been in China. "