孤独之旅 （三） 3

(三)　３

晚上吃过饭，融晴开始想念父母亲，想听听他们的声音。和他们讲讲在外乡的经历。于是，她批上羽绒服到学校一个电话亭给父母打电话。校园里的宁静给了她很多安慰，无论白天发生了什么，晚上的家总是温暖的。星星在头顶上忽明忽暗地看着她，像知道她的心事似的。深吸一口气，融晴开始拨电话，电话响了若干声，可是没有人接。她挂了电话，等了一会儿，又拨了一次，还是没人接。嗨，算了，她想着，他们也许出去串门了。告诉那个守电话的大妈说是电话没通，融晴没精打彩地正准备离开。突然那个坐那儿毫无表情的大妈眉毛一扬说：“付了钱再走！”
她非常吃惊，反问：“电话并没有通啊？” 大妈把嘴里的瓜子壳往地上一扔，从凳子上站起来说：“响六声以上就算通了，要收费。” 融晴不敢相信自己的耳朵，辩驳说：“我连句话都未讲，怎叫通？”大妈于是开始唾沫满天飞。融晴突然觉得鼻子一酸，白天受的委屈一股脑儿涌了上来。又见那张上下煽动的嘴角上方很刺目的盯了一颗绿豆大的青痣。她想起了白毛女里那个寺强凌弱的黄世仁。她突然心生厌恶，冷不丁从嘴里甩出来两句狠话，把那个大妈惊得往后仰了仰肥胖的身体，眼睛瞪得更大了。融晴想着和这种无赖理论是掉自己架子，于是闭了嘴，两手抓住羽绒服帽子的两个角用劲儿把帽子往头上一盖，拿起钱包，头也不回地走出电话亭。那个黄世仁居然骂骂咧咧一直跟到亭子外面，却最终也没能派了狗腿子来救急。

TＨＲＥＥ　ＰａｒｔＩＩＩ

Translated by:　北美大牛

After diner, Qing found herself longing for her parents, she wanted to hear
their voices, she wanted to tell her experiences living away from home. So she
put on her down coat and went to a phone booth on campus to telephone her
parents. The silence of the campus soothed her, regardless what happened during
the day, in the evening, there is always warmth at home. The stars blinked to
her from the sky and seemed to understand her thoughts. Qing took a deep breath
and started dialing. There were dial tones and rang for a few times but no one
picked it up. She hung up, waited for a moment, and dialed again, and there was
still no one picking it up. “Let it be so”, she thought, “maybe they went to
visit their neighbors”. Qing told the woman who tended the phone booth that she
wasn’t able to connect. She was lackadaisical. Just as she was about to leave,
the woman who had been sitting there quietly all of a sudden raised her eye
brows and cried: “you have to pay!” Qing was surprised and retorted: “there
wasn’t a connection?” The woman spitted out the shells of the sunflower seeds
to the floor and stood up: “if it rings for more than six times, it counts as a
connection and must be paid.” Qing couldn’t believe her ears. She rebuffed: “I
didn’t even utter a word, how can that be a connection?” The woman babbled with
the saliva spewing. Qing felt about to cry, all the humiliations she suffered
during the day came to her mind. She saw the big mouth with the flapping lips
featured a pea sized black mole, which reminded her the bully Huang Shi-Ren in
the play . A genuine disgust arose from her heart
and suddenly she cursed with the utmost vehemence. The old woman was stunned
and her fat body fell backward and her eyes bulged even bigger. Qing thought
it’s not decent to argue with such a brute, so she stopped, grabbed the strings
of the hat attached to the coat, covered her head, grabbed her purse and walked
out of the phone both without looking back. That Huang Shi-Ren scolded and
cursed with all sorts of foul languages, but she didn’t dare to ask a lackey to
help her.