"与泰瑞尔先生一起拜访旧领馆使得我更了解他父亲任期内的事情，以及他在此前后的生活。我觉得这可以被写成一本传记，或者小说。我希望了解更多民国末期以及共和国建国初期，在中国，特别是在广州发生的英国外交轶事。事实上，这些内容早有所记录，其中也包括杰拉德•泰瑞尔的活动。"

——————————————————————————————

       一月下旬，我收到一位陌生美国男人的信。杰米•泰瑞尔（Jamie Tyrrell）来自肯塔基，是一名退休的长老会牧师。他表示，他和妻子将在白云机场转机，希望能利用这次短暂停留访问一下儿时在广州的家。他告诉我，他的父亲杰拉德•F•泰瑞尔（Gerald F. Tyrrell）曾在1948到1949年间任英国驻广州总领事，而原来的总领事官邸则是他的家。

       两周后，也就是在二月，我们在沙面岛上的英国领事馆旧址见面了。在19世纪60年代，英国政府先在沙面建了一个领事馆。1915年的一场洪水严重地破坏了原先的建筑，于是上世纪20年代又进行了重建。杰米•泰瑞尔当年和他家人便居住在这些20年代的建筑里，现在它们属于广东省外事办公室。外办热情地招待了杰米和他的妻子。由于杰拉德•泰瑞尔卸任后搬到了美国，并加入了美国国籍，我们此行也邀请了美国总领事郭瑾（Jennifer Galt）。

       在参观的途中，有几处让我感到尴尬的地方，因为对于楼里当年如何划分办公区和住宅区，杰米的记忆和外办的纪录并不相符。这样的不确定让我想起了纳撒尼尔•霍桑（Nathaniel Hawthorne）的回忆录，回忆录写的是在19世纪中期他任美国驻利物浦领事期间的事情。当时一些来领事馆拜访他的美国人，基于薄弱的甚至毋须有的证据，自认为是英格兰古老头衔以及产业的拥有者，并试图说服他。当个子高高略微驼背的杰米•泰瑞尔直视着我，语气坚定地说：“这个房间是我妹妹埃尔斯（Elsie）出生的地方，”我更是想起了亨利•詹姆斯（Henry James）的短篇小说《出生地》。故事中的出生地并未具名，是一个朴实的农舍，坐落于一个小镇，类似于埃文河畔斯特拉特福——普遍认为，那里是一位伟大作家的出生地。房子与那位伟大作者的精神或作品之间并没有具体的联系，然而随着故事的展开，房屋看守人莫里斯•格奇（Morris Gedge）成为了一名富有影响力的创意艺术家，他以自己的表演将许多游客吸引到“出生的房间”，并向他们指出“他”（那位伟大的作家）出生的“确切位置”。

       事实上，没有任何理由怀疑杰米•泰瑞尔不是杰拉德的儿子，而杰拉德确实是当时的总领事。的确有历史上的原因导致他的回忆和外办的纪录不相符。在动荡年间，这些建筑数度重建，其用途和功能也几经变化。然而我觉得，泰瑞尔先生的阐述中包含的除了65年前一个孩子的记忆，不免也包括父母告诉他的话。他会记得来访的客人们在抽烟，在打麻将，但我相信他的父亲后来或也提到过，国共政权在广州交替之际，就外交中立立场进行的谈判的收尾。如要解析哪些是这位老人的记忆，哪些是别人告诉他的，想必很难，也没有必要。

       与泰瑞尔先生一起拜访旧领馆使得我更了解他父亲任期内的事情，以及他在此前后的生活。我觉得这可以被写成一本传记，或者小说。我希望了解更多民国末期以及共和国建国初期，在中国，特别是在广州发生的英国外交轶事。事实上，这些内容早有所记录，其中也包括杰拉德•泰瑞尔的活动。我尤其想了解，领事馆的命运如何随着中国历史和社会生活的浪潮起伏，甚至有时被其淹没。1948年，暴徒抢掠并放火烧了领事馆，杰米•泰瑞尔还记得重建时的情形，后来的办公楼当时还是供他玩耍的一片沙堆。

    对于它们前度的主人，楼群们今天都静默不语，然而从其规模和风格我们也能略知一二。从建筑的角度来说，它们十分精美，尤其是杰拉德•泰瑞尔记忆中他住过的那座房子，也是今天外办用作礼宾府的地方。在这个更为和平而繁盛的时代，广东省政府精心地保留了这处旧址。外办向泰瑞尔夫妇赠送了两套蓝白骨瓷，作为此行的见证和友谊的纪念。骨瓷的表面镶有这座房子的轮廓。

In late January I received an e-mail from an American man I had never heard of before then. Jamie Tyrrell is a retired Presbyterian pastor from Kentucky. He explained that he and his wife had a brief stop-over at Baiyun airport and hoped to use it to visit his early childhood home in the city. He told me that his father Gerald F. Tyrrell had been the British Consul-General in Guangzhou from 1948 to 1949, and the Consul-General's former residence was his old home.

We met a fortnight later in February at the former British diplomatic compound on Shamian island. The British first built a Consulate on Shamian island in the 1860s. The original buildings were severely damaged by floods in 1915 and the compound was rebuilt in the 1920s. These 1920s buildings are the ones where Jamie Tyrell lived with his family and which now belong to the Guangdong government's Foreign Affairs Office. The FAO received Jamie and his wife with great courtesy. As Gerald Tyrrell had moved to America and taken American citizenship after serving in Guangzhou, we were also joined by the current US Consul-General Jennifer Galt.

The tour of the buildings had some awkward moments for me because Jamie's recollection of which building he had lived in did not accord with the FAO's record of which of the buildings had been for office and which for residential use. This uncertainty reminded me of Nathaniel Hawthorne's recollections, from his time as American Consul in Liverpool in the mid-nineteenth century, of Americans who visited him in hisConsulate who had persuaded themselves and wanted to persuade him, on flimsy evidence or none, that they were claimants to ancient titles and estates in England. When the tall and stooping Jamie Tyrrell fixed me with his bright eyes and said, emphatically, "this is the room where my sister Elsie was born",I was even more strongly reminded of Henry James's great short story 'the Birthplace'. The Birthplace in the tale is not named, but it is a modest cottage in a town resembling Stratford-upon-Avon where a great writer is thought to have been born. There is nothing physically to connect the house with the spirit or works of the great writer but as the tale unfolds, the curator, Morris Gedge, himself develops into a powerful creative artist who enthrals visitors to the Birthroom with his performance, pointing to "the very spot" where "He", the great writer, was born.

There is in fact no reason to doubt that Jamie Tyrrell is indeed the son of Gerald, who was indeed Consul-General. There are, too, good historical reasons why his recollections and The FAO's records might vary. The buildings were redeveloped and their usage and occupation varied over troubled times. The stories Mr Tyrrell told, however, were I am sure a mixture of his memories of his time as a young child sixty-five years ago and things that his parents had told him. He may well have remembered visitors to the house smoking and playing mahjong, but I think his father may also have spoken to him later about the wrapping up of negotiations, on diplomatic neutral ground, for the transfer of the city of Guangzhou from Kuomintang to Communist control. It would be hard, and is unnecessary, to unravel now what is an elderly man's memory of things he saw as a small boy and what he may have been told then or later.

Visiting the former compound with Mr Tyrrell I wanted to learn more about his father's time here and his father's life both before that and afterwards. This seemed to me a good subject for a biography or perhaps a novel. I wanted to know more about British diplomacy in China, particularly in Guangzhou, at the end of the civil war and around the founding of the People's Republic. This has in fact been documented, including some elements of Gerald Tyrrell's part in it. Above all, I wanted to learn more about the great tides of Chinese history and life that had eddied around the Consulate and indeed had sometimes swept over it. Rioters looted and burned the compound in 1948, and Jamie Tyrrell remembered the site of the office buildings, then under reconstruction, as a sand pit to play in.

As for the buildings today, they are silent about their former occupants, though there are things we can surmise from their scale and their style. Architecturally they are rather fine, especially the building which Jamie Tyrrell believed to be the house in which he lived and which is now used as a guest house by the FAO. It has, in this more peaceful and prosperous era, been beautifully restored by the Guangdong government. As a memento of their visit and as a mark of friendship, the FAO gave Mr and Mrs Tyrrell two small pieces of blue and white bone china. These are marked with a small gilt image of this building.

http://s16/mw690/001Mobkrgy6H5KOsugTcf&690

英国总领事摩根(左)和美国总领事郭瑾(右)陪同杰米·泰瑞尔夫妇参观了位于沙面的英国领事馆旧址,亦即现在广东外事办所在的建筑。