I’d come to BYU to study music, so that one day I could direct a church choir. But that semester — the fall of my junior year — I didn’t enroll in a single music course. I couldn’t have explained why I dropped advanced music theory in favor of geography and comparative politics, or gave up sight-singing to take History of the Jews. But when I’d seen those courses in the catalog, and read their titles aloud, I had felt something infinite, and I wanted a taste of that infinity.
我来杨百翰大学本意是学习音乐，以便将来有一天能指挥教堂唱诗班。但是那个学期——大三的秋季学期——我没有选任何音乐课程。我无法解释，为何我放弃了高等音乐理论，转而选择地理和比较政治学；为何放弃了视唱，转而选择犹太历史。但当我在目录中看到这些课程，大声读出它们的名称时，我感受到一种永恒，我想尝尝那种永恒的味道。
This caused a kind of crisis in me. My love of music, and my desire to study it, had been compatible with my idea of what a woman is. My love of history and politics and world affairs was not. And yet they called to me.
这引起了我的一种危机意识。我对音乐的热爱和对学习音乐的渴望与我对女人的理解可以兼容并蓄。我对历史、政治和国际事务的热爱并非如此。然而它们在召唤着我。
For four months I attended lectures on geography and history and politics. I learned about Margaret Thatcher and the Thirty-Eighth Parallel and the Cultural Revolution; I learned about parliamentary politics and electoral systems around the world. I learned about the Jewish diaspora and the strange history of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. By the end of the semester the world felt big, and it was hard to imagine returning to the mountain, to a kitchen, or even to a piano in the room next to the kitchen.
我听了四个月的地理、历史和政治讲座，了解了玛格丽特·撒切尔和三八线；学习了世界各地的议会政治和选举制度；知道了犹太人流散以及《锡安长老会纪要》[16]的奇怪历史。学期结束时，我感觉到世界的广大，很难想象再回到山上、回到厨房，甚至回到厨房隔壁房间的钢琴旁，是什么样子。【注：[16]The Protocols of the Elders of Zion，1903年在沙俄首度出版的一本反犹太主题的书。】
“If you were a woman,” I asked, “would you still study law?”
“假如你是女人，”我问，“你还会学法律吗？”
A few days before finals, I sat for an hour with my friend Josh in an empty classroom. He was reviewing his applications for law school. I was choosing my courses for the next semester.
期末考试前的几天，我和朋友乔希在一间空教室坐了一个小时。他在检查就读法学院的申请，我在考虑下学期选什么课程。
Josh didn’t look up. “If I were a woman,” he said, “I wouldn’t want to study it.”
乔希头也没抬，说道：“如果我是女人，我不会想学法律的。”
“But you’ve talked about nothing except law school for as long as I’ve known you,” I said. “It’s your dream, isn’t it?”
“但从我认识你以来，你口口声声只谈论法学院，”我说，“学法律是你的梦想，难道不是吗？”
Josh’s eyes fixed on the wall for a moment. He was really thinking about it. Then he said, “I’d know something was wrong with me.”
乔希出神地盯着墙壁看了一会儿，认真思考这个问题。过了片刻，他说：“那我就知道是我自己出了问题。”
“It is,” he admitted. “But it wouldn’t be if I were a woman. Women are made differently. They don’t have this ambition. Their ambition is for children.” He smiled at me as if I knew what he was talking about. And I did. I smiled, and for a few seconds we were in agreement.
“没错，”他承认道，“但假如我是女人，情况就不一样了。女人天生不同。她们没有这个野心。她们的野心在孩子身上。”他朝我笑了笑，好像我知道他在说什么似的。我的确知道。我笑了，有几秒钟我们达成了一致。
Then: “But what if you were a woman, and somehow you felt exactly as you do now?”
接着我又问：“但假如你是女人，你的感觉和现在一模一样呢？”
I’d been wondering whether something was wrong with me since the beginning of the semester, when I’d attended my first lecture on world affairs. I’d been wondering how I could be a woman and yet be drawn to unwomanly things.
自从学期开始我第一次去上国际事务课起，我就一直在想，我是不是出了什么问题。我一直在想，为什么身为女人，我却对女性化的东西不感兴趣。
“You learned of the Holocaust when?” he said.
“你什么时候听说大屠杀的？”他问。
I knew someone must have the answer so I decided to ask one of my professors. I chose the professor of my Jewish history class, because he was quiet and soft-spoken. Dr. Kerry was a short man with dark eyes and a serious expression. He lectured in a thick wool jacket even in hot weather. I knocked on his office door quietly, as if I hoped he wouldn’t answer, and soon was sitting silently across from him. I didn’t know what my question was, and Dr. Kerry didn’t ask. Instead he posed general questions — about my grades, what courses I was taking. He asked why I’d chosen Jewish history, and without thinking I blurted that I’d learned of the Holocaust only a few semesters before and wanted to learn the rest of the story.
我知道一定有人知道答案，所以决定去咨询一位教授。我选择去问犹太历史课教授克里博士，因为他人很安静，说话柔声细语。克里博士个子不高，有一双黑眼睛，表情严肃。即使在大热天，他讲课时也穿着厚厚的羊毛外套。我轻轻地敲了敲他办公室的门，好像暗自希望他不要回应似的，但很快我就默默地坐到了他的对面。我不知道我的问题是什么，克里博士也没有问。他只提出了一些一般的问题——我的成绩怎么样，在修什么课程。他问我为什么选犹太历史课，我不假思索地脱口而出，说几个学期前我才听说了大屠杀，我想知道更多。
“At BYU.”
“来杨百翰大学后。”
“They didn’t teach about it in your school?”
“你们学校没教过这个吗？”
“Where were you?”
“那你去哪儿了？”
I explained as best I could, that my parents didn’t believe in public education, that they’d kept us home. When I’d finished, he laced his fingers as if he were contemplating a difficult problem. “I think you should stretch yourself. See what happens.”
我尽可能地解释，说我的父母不相信公共教育，让我们待在家里。我说完时，他两手十指交叉，好像在思考一道难题：“我觉得你该自我拓展一下。看看会发生什么。”
“They probably did,” I said. “Only I wasn’t there.”
“他们可能会教吧，”我说，“只不过我没上学。”
He leaned forward suddenly, as if he’d just had an idea. “Have you heard of Cambridge?” I hadn’t. “It’s a university in England,” he said. “One of the best in the world. I organize a study abroad program there for students. It’s highly competitive and extremely demanding. You might not be accepted, but if you are, it may give you some idea of your abilities.”
他突然身体前倾，仿佛刚刚有了一个主意。“你听说过剑桥吗？”我没有听说过。“那是一所英国大学，”他说，“世界上最好的大学之一。我在那里为学生组织了一个留学项目。竞争激烈，要求也非常高。你可能不会被录取，但如果被录取了，这个项目会让你对自己的能力有所了解。”
I applied to the program.
我申请了这个项目。
“Stretch myself how?”
“怎样拓展自我？”
I walked to my apartment wondering what to make of the conversation. I’d wanted moral advice, someone to reconcile my calling as a wife and mother with the call I heard of something else. But he’d put that aside. He’d seemed to say, “First find out what you are capable of, then decide who you are.”
走回公寓的路上，我思考着该如何理解这次谈话。我本想得到道德上的建议，能让我作为妻子与母亲的使命与个人兴趣并行不悖。但他对此不加理睬。他似乎在说：“先找出你的能力所在，然后再决定你是谁。”
Emily was pregnant. The pregnancy was not going well. She’d nearly miscarried in the first trimester, and now that she was approaching twenty weeks, she was beginning to have contractions. Mother, who was the midwife, had given her Saint-John’s-wort and other remedies. The contractions lessened but continued.
埃米莉怀孕了。过程不太顺利。怀孕的前三个月她差点儿流产，现在孕期快二十周了，她开始出现宫缩。身为助产士的母亲给她服用了圣约翰麦芽汁和其他药剂。宫缩有所减轻，但仍未停止。
It had been six months since the explosion, and while Dad was back on his feet, it was clear he would never be the man he was. He could scarcely walk across a room without gasping for air, so damaged were his lungs. The skin on his lower face had regrown, but it was thin and waxy, as if someone had taken sandpaper and rubbed it to the point of transparency. His ears were thick with scars. He had thin lips and his mouth drooped, giving him the haggard appearance of a much older man. But it was his right hand, more than his face, that drew stares: each finger was frozen in its own pose, some curled, some bowed, twisting together into a gnarled claw. He could hold a spoon by wedging it between his index finger, which bowed upward, and his ring finger, which curved downward, but he ate with difficulty. Still, I wondered whether skin grafts could have achieved what Mother had with her comfrey and lobelia salve. It was a miracle, everyone said, so that was the new name they gave Mother’s recipe: after Dad’s burn it was known as Miracle Salve.
爆炸已经过去了六个月，爸爸重新站了起来，显然他再也比不上从前了。他的肺部严重受损，在家稍一走动便气喘吁吁。他下半部分的脸重新长出薄薄一层蜡一般的皮肤，好像被人用砂纸打磨到透明。他的耳朵布满了伤疤。他的嘴唇变薄，嘴巴耷拉着，让他看上去像一个更加苍老的人一样憔悴。但比他的脸更引人侧目的是他的右手：每一根手指都很僵硬，有的蜷曲着，有的弯折着，凑在一起就是一个粗糙的爪子。他能自己拿勺子，把勺子挤进向上弯的食指和向下扭的无名指之间，吃起东西来非常费力。尽管如此，我想知道植皮手术能否取得母亲的紫草和半边莲药膏的效果。人人都赞叹这是个奇迹，所以爸爸烧伤后，他们给母亲的药膏取了个新名字：奇迹药膏。
When I arrived at Buck’s Peak for Christmas, I expected to find Emily on bed rest. She wasn’t. She was standing at the kitchen counter straining herbs, along with half a dozen other women. She rarely spoke and smiled even more rarely, just moved about the house carrying vats of cramp bark and motherwort. She was quiet to the point of invisibility, and after a few minutes, I forgot she was there.
回巴克峰过圣诞节时，我原以为埃米莉会躺在床上休息，但她并没有这么做。她正站在厨房，和其他六个女人一起过滤药草。她很少说话和微笑，只是提着一桶桶痉挛树皮和益母草走来走去。她安静得几乎让人感觉不到她的存在，几分钟后，我便忘了她在那里。
At dinner my first night on the peak, Dad described the explosion as a tender mercy from the Lord. “It was a blessing,” he said. “A miracle. God spared my life and extended to me a great calling. To testify of His power. To show people there’s another way besides the Medical Establishment.”
我回家后第一天吃晚饭时，爸爸将爆炸描述为一种来自上帝的仁慈。“这是一种祝福，”他说，“一个奇迹。上帝饶恕了我的命，赐予我一个伟大的使命，让我为他的力量作证，让世人知道，除了医疗机构还有另一种方式。”
I watched the women throughout the morning and became aware of the change my father’s miracle had wrought in them. Before, the women who worked for my mother had always approached her casually, with matter-of-fact questions about their work. Now their speech was soft, admiring. Dramas broke out between them as they vied for my mother’s esteem, and for my father’s. The change could be summed up simply: before, they had been employees; now they were followers.
整个上午我都看着这些女人，意识到父亲的奇迹给她们带来的变化。以前，为母亲工作的女人们总是随意地走近她，向她咨询工作上的实际问题。现在她们言语轻柔，充满钦佩。她们争相想得到我父母的重视，场面颇为戏剧性。这种变化可以简单地概括为：以前，他们是雇员；现在，他们变成了追随者。
The next morning when I came out for breakfast, there was a crowd of women gathered around my father. They listened with hushed voices and glistening eyes as Dad told of the heavenly visitations he’d received while hovering between life and death. He had been ministered to by angels, he said, like the prophets of old. There was something in the way the women looked at him. Something like adoration.
第二天早上，我出来吃早餐时，一群妇女聚在爸爸周围。她们安静地听他讲述自己生死徘徊时所受的上天的眷顾，眼睛闪闪发光。他说自己曾受天使侍奉，就像古代的先知一样。女人们看着他的眼神中有某种东西，像是崇拜。
I watched as he tried and failed to wedge his knife tightly enough to cut his roast. “I was never in any danger,” he said. “I’ll prove it to you. As soon as I can walk across the yard without near passing out, I’ll get a torch and cut off another tank.”
我看着他努力夹紧刀子去切烤肉，但没有成功。“我从没遇到过任何危险，”他说，“我会证明给你们看。只要我能穿过院子而不至于昏过去，我就会拿起割炬，再去卸个油箱看看。”
For the first time, my parents seemed to be of one mind. Mother no longer moderated Dad’s statements after he left the room, no longer quietly gave her own opinion. She had been transformed by the miracle — transformed into him. I remembered her as a young midwife, so cautious, so meek about the lives over which she had such power. There was little of that meekness in her now. The Lord Himself guided her hands, and no misfortune would occur except by the will of God.
父母的看法似乎首次达成了一致。父亲离开房间后，母亲不再纠正他的陈述，不再轻声发表自己的意见。她已被奇迹改变——变成了他的样子。我记得她还是个年轻的助产士时，即便自己有那样的能力，对待手中的生命还是那么谨慎、那么温柔。现在她身上的那种温柔消失了。耶和华亲自引导她的手，不会有不幸发生，除非那是上帝的旨意。
The story of Dad’s burn had become something of a founding myth: it was told over and over, to newcomers but also to the old. In fact, it was rare to spend an afternoon in the house without hearing some kind of recitation of the miracle, and occasionally these recitations were less than accurate. I heard Mother tell a room of devoted faces that sixty-five percent of Dad’s upper body had been burned to the third degree. That was not what I remembered. In my memory the bulk of the damage had been skin-deep — his arms, back and shoulders had hardly been burned at all. It was only his lower face and hands that had been third-degree. But I kept this to myself.
父亲被烧伤的故事已经变成一个神话：它被一遍又一遍地讲给新员工听，也讲给老员工听。事实上，只要在房子里待一下午，肯定会听见对这个奇迹的某种讲述，而这些讲述有时并不准确。一次我听母亲对着一屋子虔诚的面孔说，爸爸上半身有百分之六十五的面积是严重的三度烧伤。我记得不是这样。在我记忆中，大部分只是表面伤，他的胳膊、后背和肩膀几乎没有受伤，只有手和脸的下半部分是三度烧伤。但我没有告诉别人。
I thanked him and stood to go.
我谢过他，起身要走。
“One moment,” he said. “Cambridge instructed me to write if I felt there were any gross injustices.”
“等一下，”他说，“剑桥大学指示过我，如果觉得存在严重的不公，可以写信。”
A few weeks after Christmas, the University of Cambridge wrote to Dr. Kerry, rejecting my application. “The competition was very steep,” Dr. Kerry told me when I visited his office.
圣诞节的几周后，剑桥大学写信给克里博士，拒绝了我的申请。“竞争非常激烈。”我去克里博士的办公室时，他这样告诉我。
I didn’t understand, so he repeated himself. “I could only help one student,” he said. “They have offered you a place, if you want it.”
我不明白他的话，于是他又重复了一遍。“我只能帮助一个学生，”他说，“如果你想的话，他们可以为你提供一个名额。”
“Yes,” I said. “But they have different birth dates. Also, one has a different name.”
“有，”我说，“但上面的出生日期都不同。而且，上面的名字也不一样。”
It seemed impossible that I would really be allowed to go. Then I realized that I would need a passport, and that without a real birth certificate, I was unlikely to get one. Someone like me did not belong at Cambridge. It was as if the universe understood this and was trying to prevent the blasphemy of my going.
我似乎不太可能真的被批准去那里。接着我意识到，我需要一本护照，但是没有正式的出生证明就没法办护照。像我这样的人不属于剑桥。仿佛整个宇宙都明白这一点，都在试图阻止我这种亵渎上帝的去意行为。
I applied in person. The clerk laughed out loud at my Delayed Certificate of Birth. “Nine years!” she said. “Nine years is not a delay. Do you have any other documentation?”
我亲自去申请护照。看到我那份延迟出生证明，办事员大笑起来。“九年！”她说，“九年可不是延迟。你还有其他证明文件吗？”
She was still smiling. “Different date and different name? No, that’s not gonna work. There’s no way you’re gonna get a passport.”
她还在笑。“不同的日期，不一样的名字？不，这可不行。你没法拿到护照。”
I visited the clerk several more times, becoming more and more desperate, until, finally, a solution was found. My aunt Debbie visited the courthouse and swore an affidavit that I was who I said I was. I was issued a passport.
我又去找过这个办事员很多次，一次比一次让人绝望，最后终于找到了一个解决办法。黛比姨妈来到法院，宣誓了一份书面陈述，证明我就是我声称的那个人。我的护照终于办下来了。
In February, Emily gave birth. The baby weighed one pound, four ounces.
二月，埃米莉的孩子出生了。婴儿重一磅四盎司。
When Emily had started having contractions at Christmas, Mother had said the pregnancy would unfold according to God’s will. His will, it turned out, was that Emily give birth at home at twenty-six weeks’ gestation.
埃米莉在圣诞节开始宫缩，母亲说怀孕结果如何全凭上帝的旨意。结果表明，上帝让妊娠二十六周的埃米莉在家生产。
There was a blizzard that night, one of those mighty mountain storms that clears the roads and closes the towns. Emily was in the advanced stages of labor when Mother realized she needed a hospital. The baby, which they named Peter, appeared a few minutes later, slipping from Emily so easily that Mother said she “caught” him more than delivered him. He was still, and the color of ash. Shawn thought he was dead. Then Mother felt a tiny heartbeat — actually she saw his heart beating through a thin film of skin. My father rushed to the van and began scraping at the snow and ice. Shawn carried Emily and laid her on the back seat, then Mother placed the baby against Emily’s chest and covered him, creating a makeshift incubator. Kangaroo care, she called it later.
那天晚上有暴风雪，是一场山间特大暴风雪，道路封闭，镇上空无一人。埃米莉已经到了分娩的最后阶段，母亲才意识到需要送她去医院。几分钟后，取名为彼得的婴儿出生了，他从埃米莉的身体里轻而易举地滑了出来。母亲说她不是为他接生，而是“接住”了他。婴儿呈灰白色，一动不动，肖恩还以为他死了。接下来母亲摸到了微弱的心跳——实际上她看见了婴儿的心脏透过薄薄的皮肤在跳动。父亲冲到面包车前，将冰雪刮掉。肖恩抱起埃米莉，把她放在后排座上，接着母亲包好婴儿，放在埃米莉的胸前，算是造了一个临时保温箱。后来她把这叫作“袋鼠式护理”。
Dad said God had orchestrated the birth just as He had orchestrated the explosion. Mother echoed him, adding that God had placed a veil over her eyes so she wouldn’t stop the contractions. “Peter was supposed to come into the world this way,” she said. “He is a gift from God, and God gives His gifts in whatever way He chooses.”
爸爸说孩子的出生是上帝的精心安排，就像他被安排了爆炸烧伤一样。母亲附和他，说上帝用面纱遮住了她的眼睛，所以她才无法制止宫缩。“彼得就应该是这个样子来到这个世界的，”她说，“他是来自上帝的礼物。上帝按自己选择的方式赐予礼物。”
Many months would pass, and countless surgeries on his heart and lungs would be performed, before Shawn and Emily would bring home the little twig of flesh that I was told was my nephew. By then he was out of danger, but the doctors said his lungs might never develop fully. He might always be frail.
几个月过去了，经过多次心脏和肺部的手术，肖恩和埃米莉终于将这个我称为侄子的小家伙抱回了家。那时他已经脱离了危险，但医生说他的肺可能永远不会发育完整，他的身体可能一直很虚弱。
My father drove; the storm raged. In Idaho we call it a whiteout: when the wind whips the snowfall so violently it bleaches the road, covers it as if with a veil, and you can’t see the asphalt, or the fields or rivers; you can’t see anything except billows of white. Somehow, skidding through snow and sleet, they made it to town, but the hospital there was rural, unequipped to care for such a faint whimper of life. The doctors said they had to get him to McKay-Dee in Ogden as soon as possible, there was no time. He could not go by chopper because of the blizzard, so the doctors sent him in an ambulance. In fact they sent two ambulances, a second in case the first succumbed to the storm.
我父亲开车。暴风雪肆虐。在爱达荷州，我们称之为“乳白天空”：狂风猛烈地拍打着雪花，将道路覆盖成全白，就像蒙上一层面纱，让人看不见柏油路，看不见田野，也看不见河流；除了皑皑白雪，什么也看不见。他们在风雪中打滑前行，无论如何总算到达了城里，但那里的医院和乡下的一样落后，没有设备能照料这样一个发出微弱呜咽的小生命。医生说情况紧急，必须尽快送他去奥格登的麦凯迪医院。因为暴风雪的缘故，不能乘坐直升机，所以医生派了一辆救护车。事实上，他们派出了两辆救护车，第二辆为了防止第一辆在暴风雪中出事。
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