A Drink with the Spouse

By Hua Mingyue

When Brother Liu decides to decline the dinner parties outside and retain a bit of capacity to drink with his wife, he’s trying to express his attachment secretly,“If I do not tell my heart to you, to whom I will confide.” The openhearted conversations between the couple while having some pleasant drinks are the reason why they can go hand in hand for the rest of their lives.

Quitting drinking

Brother Liu, nicknamed “Corn Juice,” is 48-year-old deputy general manager of a 4A-level interior decoration company.

Three years ago he disclosed that his alcoholic liver was damaged and that the doctor ordered him to quit drinking.Since then, he has drank corn juice when at the bar or with friends.

None but Mrs. Liu and a few friends know that Brother Liu still can drink. After half a year’s recuperation, his mild alcoholic liver improved. However, his drinking capacity is getting smaller day by day. In order to keep the capacity to drink with his wife, he cannot do anything but announce his abstinence. His reason is that now drinking is not to fight for high ranks and riches,but to seek for a tipsy feeling. Can outsiders allow you to have such a feeling?

Like most families in China,Brother Liu earned money and his wife stayed at home for more than 20 years. When Brother Liu said that “I only have you as my drinking partner,” Mrs. Liu was a bit surprised, stunned, and at a loss.

There are too many reasons for Brother Liu to send a wechat message to urge his wife to prepare him the wine: In the morning my leader just praised me, but in the afternoon criticized me instead, so I want to “seek for comfort”; I read a juicy article,let’s drink together for it; I bought Wang Zengqi’s collection of calligraphy and painting,equipped with his well-known prose; passing by a popular network shop, I bought a delicious goose paw; today I weighed myself, one kilogram lighter; I got the lotus-colored bloomers you have been longing most, so when practicing Taijiquan, you would be more like Nie Yinniang, a female knight-errant, flowing and graceful out of this world...

男人推掉外面的应酬，留点酒量与老婆对酌，其中藏着“我的心事不与你说，更与谁谈”的潜台词，这就是能甘心牵手走下半辈子的理由。

戒　酒

“玉米汁”刘哥是一家4A级室内装潢公司的副总，48岁。

三年前，他就放出风，说酒精肝严重了，医生要求戒酒。从此一众酒客中，他堂而皇之端着玉米汁跟人干杯。

只有刘嫂和少数好友知道，刘哥能喝酒。经过半年调理，他的轻度酒精肝已逆转。只不过，这酒量的确一日小似一日。为了留着那点酒量去跟老婆喝，只好声称戒酒。

刘哥的理由是：现在喝酒，不为拼功名利禄，就为找个微醺好感觉。这种感觉，外面的人能允许你有？

与中国大多数家庭一样，这个家男主外、女主内二十多年。当刘哥说“我以后的酒友只有你”时，刘嫂有点惊喜，有点惊愕，还有点不知所措。

刘哥发微信催妻子备酒的理由太多了：上午领导刚表扬我，下午就变脸批评我，我要“求安慰”；看到一篇酣畅淋漓的文章，正好用来佐酒；买到了汪曾祺的书画精选集，配有他的散文名篇哦；路过网红店，买到好吃的鹅掌；今天称体重，轻了一公斤啊；买到你最想要的藕色灯笼裤，打太极的时候，就更像女侠客聂隐娘一样出尘飘逸……

理由这么多？馋酒就馋酒了。刘嫂嗔怪他。刘哥如今脸皮也厚：我就馋跟你单独说说话的机会。

当然行，求之不得。

备　酒

为着刘哥的新习惯，刘嫂每年多了不少工作。比如，备酒。秋天，新米下来的时候，刘嫂都要回乡下娘家去，向种糯稻的邻居定三十斤土烧。这都是自家发酵，用土灶蒸馏出来的酒，像上品原浆一样，呈浓浓的米黄色。

酒装在六只土烧坛子里，取回来不能直接饮用，还要增加果味。刘嫂把一部分做成杨梅酒，另一部分做成红参酒、青梅酒。

做青梅酒最复杂，因为原料需要从没打过农药、施过化肥的青梅。每到6月初，刘嫂都会拜托闺密们在自家小区里寻寻觅觅，找自然掉落的青梅。

梅子用粗盐揉搓，去除酸涩，沥干，在半阴半阳处晾晒。梅子表面用牙签戳出很多小洞，加速水分挥发，也方便酒味与梅子味互相渗透，还需要土法制的红糖。立刻就有闺密出差时，从遥远的云南，背回陶土碗蒸馏的、几近失传的“碗碗糖”。

还得备菜。除了刘哥自行带回的鹅掌、莲蓬头，刘嫂会自己发豆芽、卤花生、糟鸭舌、油煎小黄鱼。为了尽兴对酌，刘嫂甚至在父母家种了一垄花生、一垄秋葵、一垄毛豆。

9月初，最后一茬毛豆收回，烘青豆就快上桌了。在一个大炭盆里生火，把铁丝网架上，将毛豆在网上薄铺一层，微火慢慢烤。这才是神仙级下酒菜，鲜糯中有一股咬嚼韧性。

母女俩熏得头发里都是炭味。母亲嗔怪女儿刘嫂：“看你把女婿惯的。这么勤快地备酒备菜，图什么？”

刘嫂心里说：就图知己一般的交流啊。实践证明，一个男人到了中年，推掉在外面与官员大佬、上司下属喝的那些言不由衷的酒，留点酒量与老婆对酌，真的能使人生上一个新境界。

对　酌

夫妻对酌，喝的就是把风霜雨雪都关在门外的逍遥自在。

So many reasons? Alcoholism is alcoholism. Mrs. Liu blamed him. Brother Liu is now thickskinned: I am only greedy to be alone with you for a chance to chat, he tells her.

It is, of course, most welcome.

Preparing the spirits

Every year Mrs. Liu has a lot more work for her husband’s new habit.Take preparing the spirits for example. When the new rice is ripe in autumn, Mrs. Liu returns to her mother’s home in the countryside to buy thirty jin (15 kilograms) of local spirits from a neighbor who plants glutinous rice. This is the self-fermented spirits distilled from the clay stove, like the top-grade virgin pulp, taking on a thick beige color.

The spirits are stored in six jars. However, it cannot be drunk directly when taken back home—surely it will need fruit flavoring.She would make part of it red bayberry wine, and the rest red ginseng wine and green plum wine.

Making plum wine is the most sophisticated because the plums used have never been sprayed with insecticide and chemical fertilizers. So at the beginning of June, Mrs. Liu would ask her best friends to search their communities for naturally falling plums.

Firstly, the plums are rubbed with coarse salt to remove the sourness, drained off and dried in a semi-shaded and semisunny place. Next, the surface of the plums are pricked with a toothpick, allowing the small holes to accelerate the evaporation of moisture and to facilitate the mixing of the spirits and plum flavors. Finally the brown sugar is made by traditional methods. Her friends bring back “bowl bowl sugar”from Yunnan Province on their business trips. This sugar is distilled with the local clay bowl and the method is less and less known these days.

She also has to prepare some dishes. Brother Liu often brings goose paws and lotus seeds back home. Mrs. Liu herself sprouts soybeans, brines peanuts,marinates duck tongue in rice wine, and sautés little yellow croaker. In order to enjoy themselves to the fullest, Mrs. Liu even plants a ridge of peanuts,okra, and soybeans on her parents’ farmland.

At the beginning of each September, the last batch of soybeans is harvested and the green soybeans are ready to be baked. She makes a fire in a large carbon basin, framed with barbed wire over top of it, spread the soybeans evenly out and slowly bakes them over a fire. After it is done, it is a fine delicacy prepared for drinking. Its consistency is similar to fresh glutinous rice,with a chewy resilience.

Mrs. Liu and her mom often smell of charcoal while preparing these dishes. The mother teases her, “How you spoil your man!Why are you preparing the wine and dishes so obligingly?”

She keeps silent, thinking to herself, “Isn’t a fun conversation a sufficient reason?” It is not easy for a middle aged man to decline those lip-born spirits swayed by officials, bosses, superiors, and subordinates and leave a little bit of wine to drink with his wife. In so doing, they really make their life count.

Drinking together

Drinking between husband and wife is the most carefree enjoyment, seldom considering the wind, frost, snow, and rain outside.

While drinking, such a couple has more to gossip about. They gossip about Cloudgate Theater’s new dance, Jia Zhangke’s films, Yu Hua’s latest novel, the archaeological breakthrough of Haihun’s Marquis, Wang Shu’s township reconstruction project,Miyake’s cross-border design,Shuhei Aoyama’s transformation of narrow vernacular dwellings and so on.

何况，这一对儿，喝起酒来话题可多了。云门舞集新排的舞蹈，贾樟柯的电影，余华的最新小说，海昏侯的考古新发现，王澍的乡居改建工程，三宅一生的跨界设计，青山周平对狭窄民居的改造……

两个人的脸上，都不时涌现柳暗花明的惊喜，刘哥也是过了这许多年，才发现刘嫂如此有见识。她在带娃生涯中，没放弃对世界新潮流、新变化的广泛涉猎，她的艺术触觉、阅读灵性并没消失。而刘嫂也发现，被她戏称为“酒肉班头”的丈夫，依旧保持了知识分子的清净觉悟、独立见解。名利就像沼泽地，他以轻功一般的身姿飞渡跨越，没有中途沦陷。

总而言之，棋逢对手的快适，提升了相互的认知。这可是他们恋爱三年、结婚二十三年都没认识到的一面。

放下尘世焦虑的对酌，是两个灵魂的交手。像对攻，又像补位；像考问，又像赞许。◆

（摘自《莫愁》2018年第1期）

Now and then, their faces are full of pleasant yet surprising expressions. Brother Liu is astonished to find his wife so knowledgeable. Actually, while rearing their child, she never gave up her interests in the new trends and changes in the world, so her artistic and reading abilities have never diminished.At the same time, she also found that her husband, whom she has dubbed the “Head of Spirits and Meat,” still maintains the intellectual’s free consciousness and independent insight. Luckily her husband passed through the marshland of fame and fortune without falling halfway.

Like two players in a chess match, the couple enhances their mutual understanding. They discover different dispositions of each other which they seldom recognized in their twenty-three years of marriage.

Their drinking is the match of two souls, laying down their earthly worries. They, like a pair of rivals,attack, supplement, examine and approve each other.◆