作品原文

赵恺 《遗物》

民族烈士墓地是一个民族的精神家园。置身“航空烈士公墓”我获得一个印象：鹰巢。沿紫金山北坡拾级而上，产生飞机升空的庄严感。二百六十座坟墓，托举二百六十方石板。是墓碑，但象征停机坪，一方停机坪等待一只鹰。
36号墓前那块石板上刻有如下文字：
曹芳震烈士（亦名芳镇），湖南省湘乡县人，生于1913年5月10日。中央航空学校第六期毕业，任空军第五大队第二十四队少尉本级飞行员。1937年10月12日南京空战中阵亡。追赠中尉。遗妻李氏。
陵园很静，我听得出自己抚摸碑文的沙沙声。触及最后四个字，似有雷电涌动。过分冗长使人厌倦，过分简洁使人震惊。“遗妻李氏”，仅仅四个字。不乏四个字的欢乐，不乏四个字的痛苦，可四个字如何描写一只鹰呢？
这位烈士的遗妻李兑承和曹芳震同乡。在长沙举行的婚礼上新郎说：“我此生只有三个纪念日—一一是航校毕业，一是今天结婚，第三当是抗击日寇、血洒长空那一天了。”一语既出，满座骇异。新娘颤颤举杯，连酒带泪一口喝了下去。假满归队，新郎在自己的名片上写下“亲爱的，珍重，你的芳震”，再把名片悄悄放进新娘的梳妆盒。谁知一言竞成凿语，夫妻一场，仅共五天。
1937年10月12日下午，日寇以九架三菱重轰炸机、六架同式驱逐机配以水上侦察机自北而南奔袭石城。四大队大队长高志航、廿四队队长刘粹刚率驱逐机八架迎敌于龙潭一万五千英尺高空。是役，我军三比一胜。而“三比一”的这个“一”，恰是年仅二十四岁的曹芳震。兀鹰身中十七弹，折翅笆斗山麓。
身置军营，面对国疡，李兑承缄口垂泪守灵七日。临行，她一把抱住血衣，颤颤巍巍从军装口袋里掏出一支浸血的枪。殷红，炽热，枪身的血仿佛是从枪膛里喷涌出来的。双手捧枪，失声励哭。良久，她向队长刘粹刚硬咽求告:“作为遗属我什么都不要，请把这支手枪给我吧。”一听这话东北大汉刘粹刚声泪俱下，他说:“嫂子，你要什么都可以，独独这支枪我不能给你呀……”说完，他向李兑承，也向那支枪庄严敬礼。手触帽沿他想:世间什么力量能够战胜一个敢以复仇作为遗物的民族呢？
五日新婚，七日守灵，阴间阳界，聚首十二天。
两月后南京沦陷—魂归故里，遗骸何置？就在李兑承面向北方伸出双臂的瞬间，她的一头黑发猛地全白了。
为纪念抗战爆发五十周年，也是中国空军首战告捷五十周年，1987年11月21日，李兑承来到航空烈士公墓。脊背俯伏，目光迟滞，步履瞒姗。哒，哒，哒，哒，竹杖敲击墓道像苍天滴泪。行至36号墓，天地禁声。漫漫半个世纪，对于鹰的寻觅终于走到鹰巢近边。老人的手掌本应抚摸孩子面颊，她却抚摸石头。陵园很静，听得出她抚摸碑文的沙沙声。触及最后四个字，老人晕倒了。倒下还摩掌石板—石板下面，埋着那支枪吗？
寂静中飞起一只鹰，鹰以双翅抚摸天空。

作品译文

The Legacy

A cemetery for national martyrs is a spiritual home for the nation. When I visit the Aviator Martyrs' Cemetery, I have the impression that it resembles a hawk nest. Climbing up the steps along the north slope of the Zijinshan Mountain, I am overwhelmed by a solemn feeling of soaring up in an airplane. There are 260 tombs, each with a stone slab on top. These slabs are tombstones, but they also symbolize parking aprons, each waiting for a hawk to land.
On the stone slab of Tomb 36, there is an inscription:
Martyr Cao Fangzhen (曹芳震, alias芳镇), born May 10, 1913, in Xiangxiang County, Hunan Province. 6th-Term graduate of Central Aviation School. Sub-Lieutenant pilot in 24th Squadron, 5th Air Group, Chinese Air Force. Died October 12, 1937 in a Nanjing air battle. Posthumously promoted to Lieutenant. Survived by wife nee Li.
In the quietude of the Cemetery, I can even hear the rustling sound of my hand stroking the inscription. When I touch the last five words, I feel a shock as if by thunder and lightning. While wordiness bores people, brevity does have a shocking effect. "Survived by wife nee Li," the five plain words convey so much bereavement as well as past wedded bliss, but are they sufficient to describe a hawk?
The martyr's widow, Li Duicheng by name, is also a native of Xiangxiang County. She and Cao got married in Changsha, Hunan Province. At their wedding ceremony, the bridegroom declared, "In my life there are only three memorial days: the first is my graduation day from the Aviation School; the second is today, our wedding day; and the third should be the day when I drain my blood in an air battle against the Japs." All the people present were stunned.
The bride, tears trickling down her cheeks, held up her glass with a trembling hand, and in one draught drank up the wine mixed with tear-drops. When the time was due for the bridegroom to return to his unit, he wrote "Darling, take care. Love, Fangzhen" on his calling card, and slipped it into his bride' s cosmetic box. However, against all expectations, Cao' s remark at the wedding turned out to be an ominous prophecy, and the couple' married life lasted only five days.
On the afternoon of October 12, 1937, Japanese invaders launched a surprise air attack on Nanjing, the Stone City. They charged from north to south in nine Mitsubishi heavy bombers and six Mitsubishi pursuit, planes, escorted by a reconnaissance hydro-plane. The Chinese Air Force flew up to intercept the attack in eight pursuit planes, under the command of Gao Zhihang, Captain of the 4th Air Group, and Liu Cuigang, Leader of the 24th Squadron. The battle was fought at an altitude of fifteen thousand feet above the Longtan area. Eventually the Chinese Air Force scored a triple kill at the cost of one casualty. And the casualty was none other than the 24-year-old Cao Fangzhen. His Hawk, hit by seventeen shells, crashed at the foot of the Badoushan Mountain, with both wings broken.
In the Base of the Chinese Air Force, Li Duicheng had to face the crude fact that her husband had died for the country. In sad silence she kept vigil in tears beside her husband's coffin for seven days and nights. Before leaving for home, she clasped her husband's blood-smeared uniform, and drew a pistol from its pocket with trembling hands. The blood stains all over the pistol, still red and warm, seemed fresh from the barrel. Holding the weapon in both hands, Li cried like anything. After a good while Li Duicheng, still sobbing, pleaded to Squadron Leader Liu Cuigang: "As Cao Fangzhen's widow, I would claim nothing, but could you please leave this pistol with me?" At this, Liu Cuigang, the tall, stout and tough man from Northeast China burst into tears. He replied, "Sister, you can have anything you want, but I am afraid I can't give you this pistol...." As he finished, he gave a stately salute to Li Duicheng, as well as to the pistol. With his hand raised to the edge of his cap he wondered: Is there any power in the world that can defeat a nation brave enough to take the weapon of revenge as a legacy?
Counting the five days of marriage and seven days of deathwatch, Li Duicheng and her husband had been together for merely twelve days.
Two months later, Nanjing fell into Japanese hands. The martyr's soul must have returned to his native place, but what would happen to his remains? As Li Duicheng stretched out her arms toward the north, her black hair turned white.
Fifty years later, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, and the 50th anniversary of the first victory of the Chinese Air Force, Li Duicheng came to visit the Aviator Martyrs' Cemetery on November 21, 1987. Back bent and eyes blank, she staggered along the tomb passages. Her bamboo walking stick knocked at the path, giving off a sound of rat-a-tat-tat, which struck one as the sound of Heaven dropping tears. When she came up to Tomb 36, both Heaven and Earth fell silent. After half a century's hawk seeking, she at last arrived at the hawk's nest. She caressed the tombstone with hands that should have been used to caress the faces of children. All around, it was so quiet that one could even hear the sound of her hands stroking the inscription. Touching the last five words, she fainted to the ground. Yet even then she did not relax her touch of the tombstone—Was that pistol boded underneath it?
In all this quietude, a hawk soared up, caressing the sky with both wings.