“This is the north cloister,” the porter said. “It is here that Newton stomped his foot to measure the echo, calculating the speed of sound for the first time.”
“这里是北回廊，”搬运工说，“牛顿就是在这里跺脚测量回声，首次计算了声速。”
A stone gate barred the entrance to Trinity College. Cut into the gate was a small wooden door. I stepped through it. A porter in a black overcoat and bowler hat showed me around the college, leading me through Great Court, the largest of the courtyards. We walked through a stone passageway and into a covered corridor whose stone was the color of ripe wheat.
一扇石门挡住了三一学院的入口，石门上还有一扇小木门。我穿过门走进去。一位身穿黑色大衣、头戴圆顶礼帽的行李搬运工带我参观了学院，领我穿过最大的庭院——中庭。我们穿过石头过道，走进一条铺满成熟小麦色石头的长廊。
I dressed in dark colors for my first lecture, hoping I wouldn’t stand out, but even so I didn’t think I looked like the other students. I certainly didn’t sound like them, and not just because they were British. Their speech had a lilting cadence that made me think of singing more than speaking. To my ears they sounded refined, educated; I had a tendency to mumble, and when nervous, to stutter.
第一堂课我穿了深色衣服，希望自己不会太显眼，但即便如此，我还是觉得自己与其他同学不一样。我说起话来当然不像他们，不仅仅因为他们是英国人。他们的言语节奏轻快、抑扬顿挫，让我觉得像是在唱歌，而不是说话。在我听来，他们说话时文质彬彬，显得受过良好教育；而我说话则倾向于含糊不清，一紧张就结巴。
We returned to the Great Gate. My room was directly opposite it, up three flights of stairs. After the porter left I stood, bookended by my suitcases, and stared out my little window at the mythic stone gate and its otherworldly battlements. Cambridge was just as I remembered: ancient, beautiful. I was different. I was not a visitor, not a guest. I was a member of the university. My name was painted on the door. According to the paperwork, I belonged here.
我们回到大门。我的房间在正对着它的三层。搬运工走后，我站在两个行李箱中间，从小窗口向外望去，凝视着神秘的石门和它超凡脱俗的城垛。剑桥还是我记忆中的样子，古老而美丽。只是我变了。我不再是一名游客，不再是一个客人。我成了大学的一员。门上写着我的名字。根据上面的文字，我属于这里。
“So what are Isaiah Berlin’s two concepts?” the lecturer asked. Nearly everyone raised a hand. The lecturer called on the student who had studied at Oxford. “Negative liberty,” he said, “is the freedom from external obstacles or constraints. An individual is free in this sense if they are not physically prevented from taking action.” I was reminded for a moment of Richard, who had always seemed able to recite with exactness anything he’d ever read.
“那么以赛亚·伯林的两种概念是什么？”老师问。几乎所有同学都举起了手。老师叫了那名来自牛津的学生。“消极自由，”他说，“是不受外部限制或阻碍的自由。此种意义下的自由指一个人的身体不受他人阻碍地行动。”一时之间我想起了理查德，他似乎总能准确无误地把读过的东西背诵出来。
I chose a seat around the large square table and listened as the two students nearest me discussed the lecture topic, which was Isaiah Berlin’s two concepts of liberty. The student next to me said he’d studied Isaiah Berlin at Oxford; the other said he’d already heard this lecturer’s remarks on Berlin when he was an undergraduate at Cambridge. I had never heard of Isaiah Berlin.
我在一张大方桌周围选了一个座位，听邻座的两个学生讨论讲座主题——以赛亚·伯林[1]的两个自由概念。坐在我旁边的学生说他以前在牛津大学学过以赛亚·伯林；另一个说他在剑桥读本科时就已经听过这位老师讲的关于伯林的课。我从未听说过以赛亚·伯林这个名字。【注：[1]Isaiah Berlin（1909－1997），英国哲学家、观念史学家和政治理论家，二十世纪最杰出的自由思想家之一，主要以其对政治和道德理论的贡献而闻名。】
The lecturer began his presentation. He spoke calmly but moved through the material quickly, as if he assumed we were already familiar with it. This was confirmed by the other students, most of whom were not taking notes. I scribbled down every word.
老师开始讲课。他语气平静，但将材料过得很快，仿佛认定我们对此都已很熟悉。其他学生证实了这一点，他们中大多数人都没记笔记。我将每个字都草草地记了下来。
I wrote this definition in my notes, but I didn’t understand it.
我在笔记里记下这个定义，但我并不理解它。
“Positive liberty,” another student said, “is freedom from internal constraints.”
“积极自由，”另一个学生答道，“是摆脱内部约束的自由。”
After the lecture, I returned to my room, where I stared out my window at the stone gate with its medieval battlements. I thought of positive liberty, and of what it might mean to self-coerce, until my head thrummed with a dull ache.
下课后，我回到自己的房间，凝视着窗外的石门和中世纪时期的城垛。我想到了积极自由，想到了自我强迫可能的意义，直到我的头隐隐作痛。
“Very good,” the lecturer said. “And the second?”
“很好，”老师说，“第二个呢？”
The lecturer tried to clarify. He said positive liberty is self-mastery — the rule of the self, by the self. To have positive liberty, he explained, is to take control of one’s own mind; to be liberated from irrational fears and beliefs, from addictions, superstitions and all other forms of self-coercion.
老师试图澄清这个概念。他说积极自由是自制，由自我掌控的自我统治。他解释说，拥有积极自由就是控制自己的思想，从非理性的恐惧和信仰中解放出来，从上瘾、迷信和所有其他形式的自我强迫中解脱出来。
I had no idea what it meant to self-coerce. I looked around the room. No one else seemed confused. I was one of the few students taking notes. I wanted to ask for further explanation, but something stopped me — the certainty that to do so would be to shout to the room that I didn’t belong there.
我不知道何为自我强迫。我环顾房间，除了我似乎没有人对此感到困惑。我是少数记笔记的学生之一。我想让老师做进一步解释，但是有什么东西让我放弃了这个想法——我确信这样做无异于对着一教室的人大喊：我不属于这里。
“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’ll adjust the chakra on Audrey and wing it to you.”
“没关系，”她说，“我会调整奥黛丽身上的脉轮，让它飞向你。”
I called home. Mother answered. Her voice rose with excitement when she recognized my weepy “Hello, Mom.” I told her I shouldn’t have come to Cambridge, that I didn’t understand anything. She said she’d been muscle-testing and had discovered that one of my chakras was out of balance. She could adjust it, she said. I reminded her that I was five thousand miles away.
我给家里打电话，是母亲接的。听见我用哭声说“你好，母亲”，她很激动。我告诉她，我不该来剑桥，我什么都不懂。她说她一直在进行肌肉测试，发现我有一个脉轮失去了平衡。她说她能调整。我提醒她我可是在五千英里之外。
“Wing it,” she said. “Distance is nothing to living energy. I can send the corrected energy to you from here.”
“飞，”她说，“对生命能量来说，距离不是问题。我可以从这里将修正过的能量传送给你。”
Mother laughed and hung up.
母亲笑着挂断了电话。
“You’ll what it to me?”
“让它怎么着我？”
I studied most mornings in the college library, near a small window. I was there on a particular morning when Drew, a friend from BYU, sent me a song via email. He said it was a classic but I had never heard of it, nor of the singer. I played the song through my headphones. It gripped me immediately. I listened to it over and over while staring out at the north cloister.
大部分早晨我在学校图书馆的一个靠窗的位置上学习。还是这样的一天早晨，杨百翰大学的好友德鲁通过电子邮件给我发了一首歌。他说那是一首很经典的歌，但歌名和歌手我都从未听说过。我用耳机播放了这首歌，立刻就被它牢牢吸引。我望着北回廊，一遍又一遍地听：
“How fast does energy travel?” I asked. “At the speed of sound, or is it more like a jetliner? Does it fly direct, or will it have to lay over in Minneapolis?”
“能量的传播速度有多快？”我问，“和声速一样，还是更像一架喷气式客机？它是直接飞过来，还是会在明尼阿波里斯市停留一下？”
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. Marley had written that line a year before his death, while an operable melanoma was, at that moment, metastasizing to his lungs, liver, stomach and brain. I imagined a greedy surgeon with sharp teeth and long, skeletal fingers urging Marley to have the amputation. I shrank from this frightening image of the doctor and his corrupt medicine, and only then did I understand, as I had not before, that although I had renounced my father’s world, I had never quite found the courage to live in this one.
将自己从精神奴役中解放出来。这句歌词是马利在去世前一年写下的，当时本可以动手术去除的黑色素瘤正转移到他的肺、肝、胃和大脑。我想象一个贪婪的外科医生，长着锋利的牙齿和细长的手指，力劝马利进行截肢手术。想到医生的可怕形象和他腐败的药物，我便胆怯退缩了。这时我才明白之前未明白过来的一点，尽管我已弃绝了父亲的世界，却从未寻找到生活在这个世界上的勇气。
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
将自己从精神奴役中解放出来
None but ourselves can free our minds
只有我们自己才能解放我们的思想
I scratched those lines into notebooks, into the margins of the essays I was writing. I wondered about them when I should have been reading. From the Internet I learned about the cancer that had been discovered on Bob Marley’s foot. I also learned that Marley had been a Rastafarian, and that Rastafari believe in a “whole body,” which is why he had refused surgery to amputate the toe. Four years later, at age thirty-six, he died.
我把这两行歌词记在笔记本上，写在正在撰写的论文的空白处。阅读时我的思绪又不由自主地飘到歌词上面。我从网上了解到鲍勃·马利[2]脚上的肿瘤。我还了解到马利曾是拉斯特法里教教徒，该教派信仰“全身完整”，因此他拒绝做截肢手术。他在四年后去世，年仅三十六岁。【注：[2]Bob Marley（1945－1981），牙买加唱作歌手，雷鬼乐鼻祖。】
They used complex phrases with ease. Some of them, like “the second wave,” I’d heard before even if I didn’t know what they meant; others, like “the hegemonic masculinity,” I couldn’t get my tongue around let alone my mind. I’d taken several sips of the grainy, acrid fluid before I understood that they were talking about feminism. I stared at them as if they were behind glass. I’d never heard anyone use the word “feminism” as anything but a reprimand. At BYU, “You sound like a feminist” signaled the end of the argument. It also signaled that I had lost.
她们轻松自如地使用高深复杂的术语。其中一些术语，如“第二次浪潮”，我以前听过，但不知道它们是什么意思；还有一些，比如“霸权式男性气概”，我读着就拗口，更不用说理解了。我喝了几口苦味的浓缩液体，过了一会儿才明白过来，她们谈论的是女权主义。我盯着她们，好像她们在玻璃后面。我从来没有听人将“女权主义”这个词用作谴责以外的含义。在杨百翰大学，“你听上去像个女权主义者”标志着争论的结束。它也表明你输了。
“I need to get my vaccinations,” I told the nurse.
“我需要接种疫苗。”我告诉护士。
I flipped through my notebook to the lecture on negative and positive liberty. In a blank corner I scratched the line, None but ourselves can free our minds. Then I picked up my phone and dialed.
我将笔记本翻到关于消极自由和积极自由的那堂课。在一个空白处，我画线写下：只有我们自己才能解放我们的思想。然后我拿起电话拨通号码。
I attended a seminar on Wednesday afternoons, where I noticed two women, Katrina and Sophie, who nearly always sat together. I never spoke to them until one afternoon a few weeks before Christmas, when they asked if I’d like to get a coffee. I’d never “gotten a coffee” before — I’d never even tasted coffee, because it is forbidden by the church — but I followed them across the street and into a café. The cashier was impatient so I chose at random. She passed me a doll-sized cup with a tablespoon of mud-colored liquid in it, and I looked longingly at the foamy mugs Katrina and Sophie carried to our table. They debated concepts from the lecture; I debated whether to drink my coffee.
每个星期三下午我参加一个研讨会，在那里注意到两个女生——卡特里娜和苏菲——几乎总是坐在一起。圣诞节几星期前的一个下午，她们问我想不想去喝一杯咖啡，我才第一次开口跟她们说话。我以前从未喝过“一杯咖啡”——我从未尝过咖啡的味道，因为这是教会严令禁止的——但我跟着她们来到街对面的一家咖啡馆。收银员很不耐烦，于是我随便选了一杯。她递给我一个过家家大小的杯子，里面盛着一大汤匙泥浆颜色的液体。我眼巴巴地望着卡特里娜和苏菲端回我们桌旁的杯子里的泡沫。她们讨论起课堂上的概念；我则纠结要不要喝掉我的咖啡。
From the moment I had first understood that my brother Richard was a boy and I was a girl, I had wanted to exchange his future for mine. My future was motherhood; his, fatherhood. They sounded similar but they were not. To be one was to be a decider. To preside. To call the family to order. To be the other was to be among those called.
从最初知道哥哥理查德是男孩而我是女孩的那一刻，我就曾渴望将自己的未来与他的交换。未来我要当母亲；他要做父亲。两者听上去差不多，实则不然。成为其中的一个就是成为一个决策者、主持者、家庭秩序的维护者；成为另一个则是成为被使唤的人之一。
I left the café and went to the library. After five minutes online and a few trips to the stacks, I was sitting in my usual place with a large pile of books written by what I now understood to be second-wave writers — Betty Friedan, Germaine Greer, Simone de Beauvoir. I read only a few pages of each book before slamming it shut. I’d never seen the word “vagina” printed out, never said it aloud.
从咖啡馆出来后我去了图书馆。在上网查询了五分钟、去了几趟书架后，我回到老位置上，面前摆了一大堆书，都是我如今已经知道的“第二次浪潮”作家——贝蒂·弗里丹、杰梅茵·格里尔、西蒙娜·德·波伏娃——的作品。每本书我只翻了几页便合上了。我从未在书本上见过“阴道”这个词，也从未将它说出口。
I returned to the Internet and then to the shelves, where I exchanged the books of the second wave for those that preceded the first — Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill. I read through the afternoon and into the evening, developing for the first time a vocabulary for the uneasiness I’d felt since childhood.
我回去上网，然后又来到书架前，将“第二次浪潮”作家换成第一次浪潮作家——玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特和约翰·斯图亚特·穆勒。我从下午一直读到晚上，第一次为自己从童年起就感到的不安建立了一个词汇表。
I knew my yearning was unnatural. This knowledge, like so much of my self-knowledge, had come to me in the voice of people I knew, people I loved. All through the years that voice had been with me, whispering, wondering, worrying. That I was not right. That my dreams were perversions. That voice had many timbres, many tones. Sometimes it was my father’s voice; more often it was my own.
我知道我的渴望是不正常的。与我其他的自我认知一样，这种认知源自那些我认识和我爱的人的声音。这么多年来，那种声音像耳语般一直伴随着我，刨根问底，担忧焦虑。那个声音说，是我不对。我的梦想堕落扭曲。那个声音有许多音色、许多音调。有时它是父亲的声音，更多的是我自己的声音。
I carried the books to my room and read through the night. I loved the fiery pages of Mary Wollstonecraft, but there was a single line written by John Stuart Mill that, when I read it, moved the world: “It is a subject on which nothing final can be known.” The subject Mill had in mind was the nature of women. Mill claimed that women have been coaxed, cajoled, shoved and squashed into a series of feminine contortions for so many centuries, that it is now quite impossible to define their natural abilities or aspirations.
我把书带回房间，读了整整一夜。我喜欢玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特充满激情的篇章，但当我读到约翰·斯图亚特·穆勒写的一句话，我为之感动：“这是一个没有终极答案的主题。”穆勒思考的主题是女性的本质。他声称，许多个世纪以来，女性一直被哄骗、劝诱、推搡和挤压在一系列扭曲的概念中，以至于现在不可能再去界定女性的天赋和抱负。
Blood rushed to my brain; I felt an animating surge of adrenaline, of possibility, of a frontier being pushed outward. Of the nature of women, nothing final can be known. Never had I found such comfort in a void, in the black absence of knowledge. It seemed to say: whatever you are, you are woman.
血液冲进大脑，我感到一股肾上腺素的激增，感到一种可能性，一种边界向外扩展之感。就女性的本质而言，没有什么终极答案。在虚空中，在未知的黑暗中，我从未感到如此安慰。它似乎在说：无论你是什么人，你都是女人。
When I entered the kitchen I noticed a gaping hole in the wall, which led to a new extension Dad was building. Mother walked with me through the hole and switched on the light.
当我走进厨房，发现墙上开了一个大洞，通往爸爸正在建造的新的一个扩建部分。我和母亲一起穿过洞，打开了灯。
In December, after I had submitted my last essay, I took a train to London and boarded a plane. Mother, Audrey and Emily picked me up at the airport in Salt Lake City, and together we skidded onto the interstate. It was nearly midnight when the mountain came into view. I could only just make out her grand form against the inky sky.
十二月，我提交了最后一篇论文后，乘火车去往伦敦，登上了回家的飞机。母亲、奥黛丽和埃米莉在盐湖城机场接我，我们一起驶上州际公路。那座山出现在眼前时，已近午夜。漆黑的夜空下，我只能依稀辨认出她伟岸的身影。
It was a single massive room the size of the chapel at church, with a vaulted ceiling that rose some sixteen feet into the air. The size of the room was so ridiculous, it took me a moment to notice the decor. The walls were exposed Sheetrock, which contrasted spectacularly with the wood paneling on the vaulted ceiling. Crimson suede sofas sat cordially next to the stained upholstery love seat my father had dragged in from the dump many years before. Thick rugs with intricate patterns covered half the floor, while the other half was raw cement. There were several pianos, only one of which looked playable, and a television the size of a dining table. The room suited my father perfectly: it was larger than life and wonderfully incongruous.
那是一座堪比教堂的礼拜堂的超大房间，有着高达十六英尺的拱形天花板。房间大到荒诞的地步，过了好一会儿我才注意到里面的装饰。墙壁是裸露的石棉水泥板，与拱形天花板上的木镶板形成鲜明对比。深红色绒面革沙发亲切地坐在父亲多年前从垃圾堆里拖出来的那张脏兮兮的座椅旁。图案复杂的厚地毯覆盖了一半的地板，另一半是水泥。屋里摆着几架钢琴，其中只有一架看上去还能弹奏，还有一台餐桌大小的电视机。这个房间非常适合我父亲：它大得无与伦比，而且极不协调。
“Amazing, isn’t it?” she said. “Amazing” was the word.
“太令人惊叹了，不是吗？”她说，用了“令人惊叹”这个词。
Richard appeared on the stairwell. He was finishing his undergraduate degree in chemistry at Idaho State. He’d come home for Christmas, and he’d brought his wife, Kami, and their one-month-old son, Donavan. When I’d met Kami a year before, just before the wedding, I’d been struck by how normal she was. Like Tyler’s wife, Stefanie, Kami was an outsider: she was a Mormon, but she was what Dad would have called “mainstream.” She thanked Mother for her herbal advice but seemed oblivious to the expectation that she renounce doctors. Donavan had been born in a hospital.
理查德出现在楼梯间。他在爱达荷州州立大学学化学，马上本科毕业。他和妻子卡米以及一个月大的儿子多纳文回家过圣诞节。一年前在他们的婚礼上我见过卡米，我当时为她是那么正常而震惊。和泰勒的妻子斯蒂芬妮一样，卡米也是个局外人：她是一个摩门教徒，但属于父亲所说的“主流”。她谢过母亲给她的草药建议，对母亲让她放弃医生的期望置若罔闻。多纳文是在一家医院出生的。
Dad had always said he wanted to build a room the size of a cruise ship but I’d never thought he’d have the money. I looked to Mother for an explanation but it was Dad who answered. The business was a roaring success, he explained. Essential oils were popular, and Mother had the best on the market. “Our oils are so good,” he said, “we’ve started eating into the profits of the large corporate producers. They know all about them Westovers in Idaho.” Dad told me that one company had been so alarmed by the success of Mother’s oils, they had offered to buy her out for an astonishing three million dollars. My parents hadn’t even considered it. Healing was their calling. No amount of money could tempt them. Dad explained that they were taking the bulk of their profits and reconsecrating them to God in the form of supplies — food, fuel, maybe even a real bomb shelter. I suppressed a grin. From what I could tell, Dad was on track to become the best-funded lunatic in the Mountain West.
爸爸以前总是说他想建一间游轮那么大的房间，但我从没料到他会那么有钱。我看看母亲，希望得到一个解释，但爸爸自己给出了答案。他解释说，生意非常成功。精油很受欢迎，母亲制作的精油是市面上最好的。“我们的精油太好了，”他说，“大型企业生产商的利润都被我们瓜分了。现在爱达荷州韦斯特弗家的精油声名远扬。”爸爸告诉我，一家公司看到母亲的精油如此成功，十分警惕，他们开出惊人的三百万美元的价格，想买下她的全部产品。我父母甚至不予考虑。治愈是他们的使命。再多的钱也诱惑不了他们。爸爸解释说，他们现在将大部分的利润以物资的形式重新献给上帝——购买食物、汽油，也许还会建一个真正的防空洞。我强忍住笑。在我看来，爸爸有望成为西部山区财力最雄厚的疯子。
I wondered how Richard was navigating the turbulent waters between his normal wife and his abnormal parents. I watched him closely that night, and to me it seemed he was trying to live in both worlds, to be a loyal adherent to all creeds. When my father condemned doctors as minions of Satan, Richard turned to Kami and gave a small laugh, as if Dad were joking. But when my father’s eyebrows rose, Richard’s expression changed to one of serious contemplation and accord. He seemed in a state of constant transition, phasing in and out of dimensions, unsure whether to be my father’s son or his wife’s husband.
我想知道理查德是如何在他正常的妻子和不正常的父母之间那汹涌波涛中航行的。那天晚上，我仔细地观察他，发现他似乎努力同时生活在两个世界之中，成为一切信条的忠实追随者。当爸爸谴责医生是撒旦的仆从时，理查德转向卡米轻轻地笑了笑，好像爸爸在开玩笑。但当爸爸扬起眉毛时，理查德的表情变为严肃的沉思和赞同。他似乎一直处于频繁切换的状态，在不同的维度进进出出，不确定是要做父亲的儿子，还是妻子的丈夫。
Mother was overwhelmed with holiday orders, so I passed my days on Buck’s Peak just as I had as a child: in the kitchen, making homeopathics. I poured the distilled water and added the drops from the base formula, then passed the tiny glass bottle through the ring made by my thumb and index fingers, counting to fifty or a hundred, then moving on to the next. Dad came in for a drink of water. He smiled when he saw me.
母亲被节日订单压得喘不过气来，所以我又像小时候一样度过了在巴克峰的时光：在厨房里制作顺势疗法药剂。我倒了些蒸馏水，加入几滴基本配方，然后将小玻璃瓶穿过我的拇指和食指围成的圈，数到五十或一百下，然后接着做下一个。爸爸进来喝水，看见我时，他脸上露出了微笑。
In the afternoons, Shawn and I saddled the horses and fought our way up the mountain, the horses half-jumping to clamber through snowdrifts that reached their bellies. The mountain was beautiful and crisp; the air smelled of leather and pine. Shawn talked about the horses, about their training, and about the colts he expected in the spring, and I remembered that he was always at his best when he was with his horses.
下午，我常常和肖恩套上马鞍，一路冲到山上。马连跳带爬地走过没到它们肚子的雪堆。山上美丽而清爽，空气中弥漫着皮革和松木的味道。肖恩聊起了马，聊起它们的驯化，聊起他期待在春天见到的小马驹，而我忆起他和他的马在一起时总是展露出最好的一面。
“Who knew we’d have to send you to Cambridge to get you in the kitchen where you belong?” he said.
“谁会知道，我们不得不把你送到剑桥，才让你重回厨房？这才是你待的地方。”他说。
That night everyone stayed indoors. Mother was blending oils in the kitchen. Dad was in the extension, which I had begun to jokingly call the Chapel. He was lying on the crimson sofa, a Bible resting on his stomach, while Kami and Richard played hymns on the piano. I sat with my laptop on the love seat, near Dad, and listened to the music. I had just begun a message to Drew when something struck the back door. The door burst open, and Emily flew into the room.
那天晚上大家都待在屋里。母亲在厨房里调制精油。爸爸在扩建区，我开始开玩笑地将这里叫作“小教堂”。他躺在深红色沙发上，肚子上放一本《圣经》，而卡米和理查德正在用钢琴弹奏赞美诗。我拿着笔记本电脑，坐在爸爸旁边的双人椅上，听着音乐。我正要给德鲁写电子邮件，这时后门被什么东西撞击了一下。门砰的一声开了，埃米莉飞跑进房间来。
I had been home about a week when the mountain was gripped by an intense cold spell. The temperature plunged, dropping to zero, then dropping further still. We put the horses away, knowing that if they worked up a sweat, it would turn to ice on their backs. The trough froze solid. We broke the ice but it refroze quickly, so we carried buckets of water to each horse.
到家大约一周后，山上迎来一股强冷空气。气温骤降到零度，还在持续下降。我们把马关起来，因为我们知道，如果它们流汗，背上就会结冰。水槽冻结了。我们把冰敲碎，但它很快又结了冰，于是我们只能提一桶桶的水给马喝。
Her thin arms were wrapped around her body and she was shaking, gasping for breath. She wore no coat, no shoes, nothing but jeans, an old pair I’d left behind, and one of my worn T-shirts. Mother helped her to the sofa, wrapping her in the nearest blanket. Emily bawled, and for several minutes not even Mother could get her to say what had happened. Was everyone all right? Where was Peter? He was fragile, half the size he should have been, and he wore oxygen tubes because his lungs had never fully developed. Had his tiny lungs collapsed, his breathing stopped?
她用瘦弱的手臂紧紧环抱自己的身体，大口喘气，浑身哆嗦。她没有穿大衣和鞋子，只穿了一条我留下的牛仔裤和一件我穿过的T恤。母亲把她扶到沙发上，从近处拿过一条毯子将她裹住。埃米莉号啕大哭，甚至过了好几分钟母亲也没能让她说出发生了什么。每个人都还好吗？彼得在哪里？他身体虚弱，个头只有同龄孩子的一半，因为肺部发育不完整，他还戴着氧气管。难道是他小小的肺衰竭了，停止了呼吸？
The story came out haltingly, between erratic sobs and the clattering of teeth. From what I could tell, when Emily had gone to Stokes that afternoon to buy groceries, she had returned home with the wrong crackers for Peter. Shawn had exploded. “How can he grow if you can’t buy the right food!” he had screamed, then he’d gathered her up and flung her from their trailer, into a snowbank. She’d pounded on the door, begging to be let in, then she’d run up the hillside to the house. I stared at her bare feet as she said this. They were so red, they looked as if they’d been burned.
在不时的啜泣和牙齿的颤抖中，埃米莉断断续续地讲出了事情原委。据我所知，那天下午埃米莉去斯托克斯商店购物，给彼得买错了饼干。肖恩大发雷霆。“你连吃的都买不对，他怎么能长大呢？”他尖叫着，说完抱起她，将她从他们的拖车里扔到了门外的雪堆上。她敲门求他放她进去，之后才跑上山坡来到我家。她说这话的时候，我盯着她赤裸的双脚。它们冻得通红，看上去像被火烧伤了一样。
Kami was still seated at the piano. She was staring at the group huddled on the couch, confused. She had not understood Emily. She did not understand why Richard was pacing, or why he paused every few seconds to glance at Dad, waiting for a word or gesture — any signal of what should be done.
卡米仍坐在钢琴旁。她一脸困惑地盯着坐在沙发上的三个人。她没有听懂埃米莉的话，不明白为什么理查德在踱步，也不明白为什么他每隔几秒就停下来看一眼爸爸，等待一个词语或一个手势——任何该做什么的信号。
My parents sat with Emily on the sofa, one on each side of her, patting her shoulders and squeezing her hands. Richard paced a few feet behind them. He seemed frustrated, anxious, as if he wanted to explode into action and was only just being held in check.
我的父母一边一个陪埃米莉坐在沙发上，拍着她的肩膀，紧握着她的手。理查德在他们身后几英尺的地方踱着步子。他看上去沮丧、焦虑，好像想马上采取行动，只是被控制住了。
I looked at Kami and felt a tightening in my chest. I resented her for witnessing this. I imagined myself in Emily’s place, which was easy to do — I couldn’t stop myself from doing it — and in a moment I was in a parking lot, laughing my high-pitched cackle, trying to convince the world that my wrist wasn’t breaking. Before I knew what I was doing I had crossed the room. I grasped my brother’s arm and pulled him with me to the piano. Emily was still sobbing, and I used her sobs to muffle my whispers. I told Kami that what we were witnessing was private, and that Emily would be embarrassed by it tomorrow. For Emily’s sake, I said, we should all go to our rooms and leave it in Dad’s hands.
我看着卡米，感到胸口一阵发紧。我恨她目睹了这一切。我想象自己身处埃米莉的位置，这很容易做到——我忍不住这样想——一时之间我又回到那个停车场，高声尖笑，试图让周围的人相信我的手腕没有断。没等我反应过来自己在干什么，我已经穿过了房间。我一把抓起哥哥的胳膊，将他拉到钢琴前。埃米莉还在抽泣，我用她的抽泣压住我的低语。我告诉卡米，我们看到的是他们两口子的私事，埃米莉明天会为此感到难为情。看在埃米莉的分上，我说，我们应该都回到各自的房间，把这件事交给爸爸处理。
Kami stood. She had decided to trust me. Richard hesitated, giving Dad a long look, then he followed her from the room.
卡米信了我的话，站起身来。理查德犹豫了片刻，最后深长地看了爸爸一眼，然后跟着她走出了房间。
It would be many years before I would understand what had happened that night, and what my role in it had been. How I had opened my mouth when I should have stayed silent, and shut it when I should have spoken out. What was needed was a revolution, a reversal of the ancient, brittle roles we’d been playing out since my childhood. What was needed — what Emily needed — was a woman emancipated from pretense, a woman who could show herself to be a man. Voice an opinion. Take action in scorn of deference. A father.
多年以后我才明白那天晚上发生了什么，我在其中又扮演了什么角色。我是如何在本该保持沉默时开口，却在本该说话时闭上了嘴巴。我们需要的是一场革命，一场自我们童年起就一直扮演的那种古老、脆弱的角色的颠覆。女性需要——埃米莉需要——从托词中解放出来，证明自己是一个人。表达意见，采取行动，蔑视顺从。就像一个父亲一样。
I’d convinced myself that if Shawn appeared in the next few minutes, it would be to make sure Emily had made it to the house — that she hadn’t slipped on the ice and broken a leg, wasn’t freezing to death in a field. But he didn’t come.
我说服自己，如果肖恩在接下来几分钟里露面，那将是为了确保埃米莉来到了这里——确保她没有在冰上滑了一跤摔断腿，也没有在雪地里冻死。但他没有来。
I walked with them down the hallway then I doubled back. I sat at the kitchen table and watched the clock. Five minutes passed, then ten. Come on, Shawn, I chanted under my breath. Come now.
我和他们一起穿过走廊，然后又折返回来。我坐在餐桌旁看着钟表。五分钟过去了，接着十分钟过去了。来吧，肖恩，我在心里默念，现在就过来。
Twenty minutes later, when Emily finally stopped shaking, Dad picked up the phone. “Come get your wife!” he shouted into it. Mother was cradling Emily’s head against her shoulder. Dad returned to the sofa and patted Emily’s arm. As I stared at the three of them huddling together, I had the impression that all of this had happened before, and that everyone’s part was well rehearsed. Even mine.
二十分钟后，当埃米莉终于不再哆嗦，爸爸拿起了电话。“过来把你老婆接走！”他冲话筒吼道。母亲搂着埃米莉的头，让它靠在自己的肩上。爸爸回到沙发上，拍了拍埃米莉的手臂。我盯着他们三人挤在一起，有一种感觉，这一切以前发生过，每个人的角色都经过精心排练。甚至包括我的。
“It was very stern,” Mother assured me twenty minutes later, when she appeared at my door asking if I could lend Emily a pair of shoes and a coat. I fetched them and watched from the kitchen as she disappeared, tucked under my brother’s arm.
二十分钟后，母亲来到我的房间，向我保证爸爸的话“非常严厉”，问我能否借给埃米莉一双鞋和一件外套。我将它们拿过去，然后从厨房看着埃米莉被哥哥揽在怀里，慢慢走远。
The French doors my father had installed squawked as they opened. Shawn shuffled in wearing heavy boots and a thick winter coat. Peter emerged from the folds of thick wool, where Shawn had been shielding him from the cold, and reached out for Emily. She clung to him. Dad stood. He motioned for Shawn to take the seat next to Emily. I stood and went to my room, pausing to take a last look at my father, who was inhaling deeply, readying himself to deliver a lengthy lecture.
父亲安装的法式门一打开便吱嘎作响。肖恩穿着一双重重的靴子和一件厚冬衣慢吞吞地走了进来。彼得从肖恩为他阻挡寒冷的厚厚的羊毛包裹中钻了出来，伸出小手去找埃米莉。她将他紧紧搂在怀里。爸爸站起身，示意肖恩坐到埃米莉旁边。我起身走回自己的房间，中途停下来看了父亲最后一眼，他正深吸气，准备发表长篇大论。
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