one
Around 1949, the Times held a charade game with prizes, and it was said that the winner was judged by the time of the postmark. I have nothing to do in my free time, and I also participated in it. Andmond sat by the fireplace drinking coffee, watched me cut out the newspaper, filled it with type, put it in an envelope, and asked, "Honey, do you want me to hand it out for you tomorrow?"
"Good idea." I handed him the envelope.
"I'll be back early tomorrow so we can watch a movie together." He stood up and kissed me.
The movie theater that night was showing an Italian-language suspense film, "Bond" by Raffalo Matarazzo. On the way home, Andermeng said suddenly, "Catene translated it from Italian, and besides "Bondage", there is another translated name."
I'm not interested in literature, so I answered him absent-mindedly: "What is it, dear?"
He drove the car in silence for a while, and answered me: "Shackles."
"I like the former one better," I said.
Andmond smiled. He let go of his right hand holding the steering wheel and kissed it on his lips. He turned slightly to look at me: "Me too."
It has been four years since the end of the World War. London has recovered from the war. Some streets still remain dilapidated during the war. There are old traces of bricks on the walls and houses, standing there like monuments. Street lights in some streets are still not working. Andmond's car drove through the long street in silence. I lit a cigarette in the dark, and he suddenly stopped me: "Allen, turn it off, it's dangerous."
"Why?" I asked puzzled, "Aren't you working for the government, what dangers will you encounter?"
I said this just as a bullet passed through the windshield of the car and past my ear.
I heard the sound of glass breaking.
two
"We're being followed."
"when?"
"When you come out of the movie theater." Andermond's voice was calm, "Honey, lie on the back seat and don't look up."
I don't know what the hell Andermond was doing for the government at the time that would invite assassination.
Our car was rampaging crazily in the streets late at night, and from time to time we could hear the shattering sound of bullets hitting the glass of the car. Andemon couldn't stop the car, because if he stopped, he would face only death. This is London's West End, where I used to hang out when I was out of work, but Andermond seldom passed by. I don't know where he planned to drive the car in the dark night, but the car stopped suddenly.
It was an abandoned warehouse-like building, and an orange street lamp was finally lit beside it. He quickly got out of the car, took out the key to open the door very skillfully, and motioned for me to go in: "We are waiting for rescue here."
The room smelled old and dusty. There was nothing on the first floor. Walking up the stairs to the second floor, only the faint starlight seeped in through the skylight above. Andmond turned on the electric light, and the light illuminated a wooden table with peeling paint, a wire bed and a pile of old wooden boxes stacked on top of each other. As I fumbled through it in the dark, I knocked over one of the boxes, and the clutter poured out, old shirts, books, and out-of-date newspapers. Spread Newton's "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", scattered calculus scratch paper, pens and an old-fashioned telephone on the wooden table.
This desk was facing a closed iron window, so I walked over to check whether the window was closed tightly.
"Don't go, Alan." Andermeng stopped me, his voice sounded a little strange: "The windows are painted."
I suddenly discovered that the entire building has no windows.
Andemon picked up the phone and dialed a number. He briefly explained our situation to someone: "The situation is very urgent. Don't alert the police. I need to send agents from the Sixth Division."
I moved the box against the wooden door.
Andmond has been answering the phone in silence.
There was a screeching sound of brakes on the street, cars were parked outside the warehouse door one after another, and people began to smash the door with objects.
It's not a car that's following us, it's not a person.
Andemon put down the phone and came over, hugging me from behind: "It's okay, Alan. Rescue will arrive soon."
I feel that Andermeng's emotions are a little out of control, because the moment he entered the warehouse, his face was very pale, and I felt his voice trembling for the first time. I think Andermeng is afraid, and I don't know how to comfort him during the long wait, so I try to make myself sound brisk: "Honey, whose things are here?"
"A friend's," Andermund said.
The banging on the door grew louder.
I walked over and picked up the calculation draft paper on the table to look at it, trying to distract him: "Look, my dear, your friend made a mistake here. I think the whole mathematical model is built with deviations."
Andmond kept looking at me without speaking.
"Tell me about your friends?" I said.
"He deciphered the 'mystery'." Andermeng thought for a while, "This is what he left behind, and I have stored it here."
I heard the crack of the door lock downstairs.
"Does your friend have a habit of taking notes?"
The calculus paper seems to have been caught in a notebook, and the ink was printed on the calculus paper through the inferior paper of the notebook. I read it: "I just want to tell the person who sees this notebook... he misses Cambridge blue Sky... ... "
Most of the writing is illegible.
"Alan, put down the calculation paper." Andermund said, he looked at me, remained motionless, and repeated the sentence, "My dear, put it down."
"Where's his notebook now?" I asked.
"I never found it."
At that moment, I suddenly felt that this long table with faded paint, these scattered papers, and the iron windows painted on the wall were very familiar. It's like an instinct, a very natural direction to something. I opened the drawer and reached into the upper drawer, the back of the table top, where there was a loose, taped board.
It's as if someone had carefully carved this table with a pencil sharpener, cut out a small hollow space under the table top, put something in it, covered it back with a wooden board of the same size, and sealed it with tape.
I tore off the tape, took out the contents, and winked at him: "Honey, is that what you're looking for? You see, good luck will follow me, the miracle has happened once, and it will happen again Twice. We'll wait until rescue and we'll get out alive."
If there is one word that can describe what is shown in Andermeng's deep blue eyes, I think it should be despair.
three
It's a very old notebook, with a hardcover, black cover that used to be fashionable.
The paper has been yellowed with time, with the smell of sawdust.
I heard the lock drop to the ground and the warehouse being pushed open. Slow footsteps sounded on the stairs, echoing in the empty warehouse.
Andermond always carried a gun with him, and I think he was going to draw it and shoot back at the intruders.
However, very slowly, he raised the pistol and aimed it at his temple.
Instead of looking back at the entrance to the stairs, he looked at me and said very softly, "Honey, if you open that notebook, I'll shoot you."
Andmond's lips were bloodless white, his eyes were gentle, and his tone was soft, as if he was facing an end that he would face one day, and he had been prepared to accept this end a long time ago.
"Alan, you have the right to open it." He looked at me.
For a moment, I even felt that Andermeng's eyes were encouraging me to open this notebook.
It seems that the pursuers behind him, the government agents, are meaningless. He was just quietly waiting for an ending that he had set for himself.
At that moment I panicked.
I immediately tossed the notebook aside.
Gunshots rang out suddenly.
A bullet went through Andermund's hair and went into the window painted on the wall, where it was embedded.
Low-pressure hat brim, windbreaker, collar turned up all the way to the nose. There were three chasers, driving three cars. Smoke was coming from the muzzle of the black hole, pointing at Andmond, standing straight back.
Andermund put the gun down, but instead of returning fire, he seemed to go to the notebook on the floor and pick it up.
Three shots were fired.
One hit him in the shoulder, one missed, and another hit him in the back from behind in the waist.
He didn't hesitate.
The third time, Andermeng staggered and fell to the ground.
I rushed over, hugged him, and picked up the notebook for him: "Honey, your people will come right away, hold on."
I didn't believe a word I said, and Andermund didn't seem to believe it either. He raised his hand, held my hand, turned his head, put it on his lips and kissed it, without saying a word, then he put my hand on the pistol he was holding, and gently closed his eyes, with long eyelashes Covers the eyelids like falling asleep.
I suddenly understood what Andermun meant.
He was asking me to shoot and kill him.
I took the gun in his hand, pointed at the mafia, and tried to make my tone firm: "My marksmanship is not good, but at least one of you can be killed."
Four
There was the sound of chaotic footsteps downstairs.
If the government agents had been one more minute late, it would have been over.
Andemon was sent to the hospital immediately, and I didn't see him again until a month later. I went to the government agency he left me to look for him. The lady secretary was very beautiful. After reading the address, she said in surprise: "Garcia shows ? No, Mr. Andy Garcia does not work here."
"I'm his friend." I handed over the business card, "He asked me to come here to meet him for business. I know the driver who drives him. His name is Peter. He has blue eyes and doesn't like to talk."
The secretary frowned and corrected me: "Peter is not the driver, but the captain."
Peter told me to go home and wait.
One day, I came back from the research facility and found the living room light was on. Andermund came back and drank black tea in front of the fireplace. He was wearing a military uniform, and he was much thinner than before, with high cheekbones and deep eyebrows. Andermund's wound was not fully healed, so a cane was leaned against the fireplace to help him walk.
That notebook sits on the dining table next to the cold coffee I left on my way out in the morning.
"Alan."
He looked at me and kept silent.
I also looked back at him very seriously: "Honey, how you look at me so weakly makes me want to fall in love with you involuntarily."
For a moment he looked strange.
It's like many years ago, when a child received a Christmas gift in his dream, he couldn't believe that he didn't dare to open the gift wrapping paper. He didn't recover physically, but he insisted on not using the crutches. He walked towards me with great difficulty, moved in front of me, and hugged me.
Andemon has always been strong in my memory, but at that time, he seemed more fragile than ever. Like a piece of thin paper standing upright, it can fall down with a slight push.
But he still pushed me onto the sofa and said firmly, "This won't work."
"I don't understand, honey, you're crazy!" I told him, "for getting yourself shot twice for a blank notebook."
"Blank notebook?" He was at a loss for a quarter of an hour.
"Nothing is written on it."
I think Andermond must have been crazy then. The black hardcover notebook was new, with nothing but Andermund's own blood on it. I don't know why its previous owner hid it there, maybe there was another notebook there that was taken for some reason and it was left there as a substitute. His friend seemed to be doing everything possible to hide the notebook.
For a moment I was even curious about the content of the notes.
I asked Andermond: "My dear, do you regret it?"
"No, I don't regret it."
He leaned down and kissed my hair, "Honey, you know I'm a lunatic. I told you when we first met."
The next day's Times newspaper announced the winners of the guessing activity.
I was quite dissatisfied, and chased after Andmond with the newspaper: "My answer is obviously the same as the standard answer. If I post it the next morning, the postmark will be one day earlier than the winner. Why didn't the newspaper publish my answer?" name?"
Andemon raised his eyebrows: "The newspaper must have made a mistake."
"I found the envelope I gave you in your coat pocket this morning."
He didn't change his face: "I actually forgot."
Andermond told me a story that during the Second World War, British intelligence agencies recruited a group of code-breaking geniuses by publishing charades and decryption games in newspapers. Later, the war ended, and a lot of things were left to be done. Many former intelligence officers returned to their original lives and disappeared. A few years later, the country has come out of the trough and gradually needs this kind of talent again.
"Who knows what's behind this crossword contest?" He said, "Alan, I hope you concentrate on mathematics and don't go into the dark easily."
"How do you know there is something dark?"
Andmond lowered his head and took a sip of his coffee, smiling enigmatically.
At that time, a mathematician named John Nash was studying the game theory proposed by von Neumann. I was reading his paper. Andmund handed me two movie tickets and asked: "Alan, what are you doing tonight?" Is it time?"
"Catene." I frowned. "We've already seen it once."
He bent down and kissed my cheek very softly: "Honey, I want to see you again."