仰光九文台的钟楼，在记忆里是衰败残破的。
它屹立在碎砖砾石中，那秃秃的圆形楼顶，暗淡无光。秃顶下，有一个黑黝黝的空洞（那曾是悬钟的地方吧？），仿佛述说战火劫掠的沧桑。
钟楼的本来面目是怎么样的，我没见过。战前我还只是个刚启蒙的孩子。
战后复校，我来这里上中学，每次从钟楼下穿过，心里就有一股酸酸的味道。
我们在破钟楼下，浴着晨光，唱起激奋昂扬的代校歌。
“重建旧华中，扬我新校风，整肃而能动，致实更持公。”
蓝天里乌鸦飞翔，教室里书声朗朗。破旧的钟楼，在大金塔光辉照耀下，正在缓缓伸展着胳膊。
我在没有钟的钟楼下，度过了一年时光。
后来，钟楼修复，恢复了它的本来面貌。绿树掩映，玉兰飘香，可惜我已身在万里之外。
几天前，她寄给我在钟楼前拍摄的照片。后面写着：“游子重温儿时梦！”
好一座巍伟瑰丽的钟楼！安慰舒解了我看不见，摸不着的淡淡愁思，她却说：
“仿佛失去了什么”！
In my memory, the bell tower at Rangoon’s Kemmendine was dilapidated and broken.
It stood amid shattered bricks and rubble, its bare round roof dull and lifeless. Beneath the bald dome was a dark opening—the place where the bell had once hung, perhaps—as though telling of the ravages of war.
I never saw what the bell tower originally looked like. Before the war, I had been only a child just beginning school.
After the war, when school reopened and I came here for middle school, every time I passed beneath the bell tower I felt a faint sour ache in my heart.
Under the broken bell tower, bathed in the morning light, we sang our stirring temporary school song:
“Rebuild the old Overseas Chinese Middle School, Raise high our new school spirit, Disciplined yet vigorous, Practical and impartial.”
Crows flew across the blue sky. From the classrooms came the sound of students reading aloud.
Under the radiance of the Shwedagon Pagoda, the old broken bell tower seemed slowly to stretch out its arms.
I spent one year beneath a bell tower without a bell.
Later, the tower was repaired and restored to its original appearance. Green trees surrounded it and magnolia blossoms filled the air with fragrance. But by then, I was already thousands of miles away.
A few days ago, she sent me a photograph taken in front of the bell tower. On the back she had written:
“The wanderer revisits the dreams of childhood!”
What a magnificent, beautiful bell tower!
It comforted and eased that faint sadness of mine—the sadness of something I could neither see nor touch.
Yet she said:
“It feels as though something is missing!”