It was a rainless summer. The sun blazed across the sky each afternoon, scorching the mountain with its arid, desiccating heat, so that each morning when I crossed the field to the barn, I felt stalks of wild wheat crackle and break beneath my feet.
那是个干旱少雨的夏天。每天下午，火辣辣的太阳灼烤着大山，空气炙热而干燥。每天早上穿过田野去谷仓时，我都能感到野麦茎在脚下噼啪折断。
I spent an amber morning making the Rescue Remedy homeopathic for Mother. I would take fifteen drops from the base formula — which was kept in Mother’s sewing cupboard, where it would not be used or polluted — and add them to a small bottle of distilled water. Then I would make a circle with my index finger and my thumb, and push the bottle through the circle. The strength of the homeopathic, Mother said, depended on how many passes the bottle made through my fingers, how many times it drew on my energy. Usually I stopped at fifty.
一个琥珀色的早晨，我在为母亲的急救顺势疗法制作药剂。我从基本配方[9]里取了十五滴——它被放在母亲的缝纫橱里，以免被误用或污染——将它们加到一小瓶蒸馏水中。然后我把食指和拇指环绕成一个圆圈，让小瓶穿过。母亲说过，顺势疗法药剂的药效取决于小瓶穿过手指圈的次数，取决于能从中吸取多少能量。我通常套五十次才停下来。【注：[9]制作顺势疗法药剂的原始物质，即“母酊剂”。】
Dad and Luke were on the mountain, in the junkyard above the upper pasture, a quarter mile from the house. They were preparing cars for the crusher, which Dad had hired for later that week. Luke was seventeen. He had a lean, muscular build and, when outdoors, an easy smile. Luke and Dad were draining gasoline from the tanks. The crusher won’t take a car with the fuel tank attached, because there’s a risk of explosion, so every tank had to be drained and removed. It was slow work, puncturing the tank with a hammer and stake, then waiting for the fuel to drip out so the tank could be safely removed with a cutting torch. Dad had devised a shortcut: an enormous skewer, eight feet tall, of thick iron. Dad would lift a car with the forklift, and Luke would guide him until the car’s tank was suspended directly over the spike. Then Dad would drop the forks. If all went well, the car would be impaled on the spike and gasoline would gush from the tank, streaming down the spike and into the flat-bottom container Dad had welded in place to collect it.
爸爸和卢克在离家四分之一英里远的牧场上方的废料场里。爸爸雇了一台汽车破碎机，准备过几天使用，他们俩正在为此做准备。卢克十七岁了。他身材瘦健，肌肉发达，喜欢户外。他和爸爸正在从油箱里抽汽油。因为有爆炸危险，汽车在被压碎之前必须先卸掉油箱，每个油箱都得抽干拆除。这是一项费时的工作，先用锤子和木桩刺穿油箱，然后等着燃油漏完，最后用割炬将油箱安全移除。爸爸发明了一个省事的办法：一根高八英尺的粗大铁钎。爸爸会用叉车吊起一辆车，卢克指挥他开车，直到油箱位于铁钎正上方，接着爸爸放下货叉。如果一切顺利，油箱会被长钉刺穿，汽油会从中喷涌而出，正好流进爸爸焊接好的平底容器中。
By noon, they had drained somewhere between thirty and forty cars. Luke had collected the fuel in five-gallon buckets, which he began to haul across the yard to Dad’s flatbed. On one pass he stumbled, drenching his jeans in a gallon of gas. The summer sun dried the denim in a matter of minutes. He finished hauling the buckets, then went home for lunch.
到中午时，他们抽干了大约三四十辆车的油箱。卢克把汽油装在五加仑容量的桶里，然后一趟一趟穿过院子提到爸爸的平板卡车上。有一趟，他绊了一跤，他的牛仔裤被一加仑汽油浸透了。夏天烈日当空，几分钟就把牛仔布晒干了。将汽油都装到卡车上后，他回到家吃午饭。
I remember that lunch with unsettling clarity. I remember the clammy smell of beef-and-potato casserole, and the jingle of ice cubes tumbling into tall glasses, which sweated in the summer heat. I remember Mother telling me I was on dish duty, because she was leaving for Utah after lunch to consult for another midwife on a complicated pregnancy. She said she might not make it home for dinner but there was hamburger in the freezer.
我记得那顿午餐，那么明晰，令人不安。我记得砂锅牛肉土豆湿黏的味道，记得冰块倒入高脚杯叮当作响，杯身在夏日的高温下沾满水珠。我记得母亲让我洗盘子，因为她饭后要去犹他州，咨询另一位助产士有关一例妊娠并发症的问题。她说她可能不回来吃晚饭了，冰箱里还有汉堡。
I remember laughing the whole hour. Dad lay on the kitchen floor cracking jokes about an ordinance that had recently passed in our little farming village. A stray dog had bitten a boy and everyone was up in arms. The mayor had decided to limit dog ownership to two dogs per family, even though the attacking dog hadn’t belonged to anybody at all.
我记得笑了整整一个小时。爸爸躺在厨房地板上讲笑话，关于我们这个小村镇最近通过的一项法令。一个男孩被一条流浪狗咬了，所有人都气愤至极。市长于是决定限制每家养狗的数量，不能超过两条，问题是，咬人的狗根本就不是家养的。
Luke had forgotten all about the gasoline by the time he and Dad walked back up the mountain and readied the cutting torch, but when he jammed the torch into his hip and struck flint to steel, flames burst from the tiny spark and engulfed his leg.
卢克和爸爸回到山上，把割炬准备好。此时卢克已经把汽油湿透裤子的事忘了个一干二净。当他两腿夹住割炬，火石与钢相撞，小火星立刻蹿成火苗，吞没了他的腿。
The part we would remember, would tell and retell so many times it became family folklore, was that Luke was unable to get out of his gasoline-soaked jeans. That morning, like every morning, he had hitched up his trousers with a yard of baling twine, which is smooth and slippery, and needs a horseman’s knot to stay in place. His footwear didn’t help, either: bulbous steel-toed boots so tattered that for weeks he’d been duct-taping them on each morning, then cutting them off each night with his pocketknife. Luke might have severed the twine and hacked through the boots in a matter of seconds, but he went mad with panic and took off, dashing like a marked buck, spreading fire through the sagebrush and wheat grass, which were baked and brittle from the parched summer.
以下这个片段我们会一直铭记，一再讲述，终使其成为我们家的传说：卢克怎么也摆脱不了被汽油浸透的牛仔裤。那天早上他和往常一样用一圈麻绳扎着裤子。麻绳很滑，需要系一个死结才不会松开。他穿的鞋子也没帮上忙：破破破烂的钢头靴子，几个星期以来，他一直是每天早上用胶带把鞋粘住，到晚上再用随身小刀割开。卢克本来几秒钟就能切断麻绳，砍开靴子，但惊慌失措中他拔腿就跑，像一头被枪瞄准的雄鹿一路奔逃，把火播撒进被炎炎夏日炙烤得又干又脆的山艾和麦草中。
“These genius socialists,” Dad said. “They’d drown staring up at the rain if you didn’t build a roof over them.” I laughed so hard at that my stomach ached.
“这些政府官员真是天才，”爸爸说，“如果你不给他们盖个屋顶，他们会呆呆地看着天下雨，直到淹死。”我笑得肚子都疼了。
I ran outside and saw Luke hobbling across the grass. He screamed for Mother, then collapsed. That’s when I saw that the jeans on his left leg were gone, melted away. Parts of the leg were livid, red and bloody; others were bleached and dead. Papery ropes of skin wrapped delicately around his thigh and down his calf, like wax dripping from a cheap candle.
我跑到外面，看见卢克一瘸一拐地穿过草地。他尖叫着找母亲，然后瘫倒在地。这时我看到他左腿上的牛仔裤不见了，烧成了灰烬。腿上有的地方又青又紫，血淋淋的；其他地方惨白，成了死肉。薄如纸片的一条条皮肤精巧地包裹着他的大腿和小腿，就像从廉价蜡烛上滴下的蜡油。
His eyes rolled back in his head.
他的眼睛翻白了。
I’d stacked the dirty dishes and was filling the kitchen sink when I heard it — a shrill, strangled cry that began in one key and ended in another. There was no question it was human. I’d never heard an animal bellow like that, with such fluctuations in tone and pitch.
我正把脏盘子堆进厨房水槽，突然听见了一声颤抖、窒息、首尾不同调的尖叫。毫无疑问，是人发出的声音。我从没听过哪种动物用如此起伏的音调嚎叫。
I bolted back into the house. I’d packed the new bottles of Rescue Remedy, but the base formula still sat on the counter. I snatched it and ran outside, then dumped half the bottle between Luke’s twitching lips. There was no change. His eyes were marble white.
我冲回屋里，拿来几瓶新的急救药，但基本配方仍然放在台面上。我抓起瓶子跑了出去，把半瓶药倒在卢克抽搐着的嘴唇间。没有用。他的眼睛像大理石一样白。
One brown iris slipped into view, then the other. He began to mumble, then to scream. “It’s on fire! It’s on fire!” he roared. A chill passed through him and his teeth clattered; he was shivering.
一个棕色的虹膜出现了，接着是另一个。他开始说胡话，接着尖叫起来。“着火了！着火了！”他吼道。一阵寒意掠过他全身，他牙齿打战，浑身哆嗦。
The burn was the injury, I reasoned. It made sense to treat it first. I fetched a pack of ice from the chest freezer on the patio, but when the pack touched his leg he screamed — a back-arching, eye-popping scream that made my brain claw at my skull. I needed another way to cool the leg. I considered unloading the chest freezer and putting Luke inside it, but the freezer would work only if the lid was shut, and then he’d suffocate.
我推断他被烧伤，先治疗烧伤才合理。我从露台上的冷冻柜里拿来一盒冰，但是冰盒一碰到他的腿，他就尖叫起来——弓着背，鼓着眼睛拼命尖叫，直叫得我脑仁疼。得另找办法给他的腿降温。我想把冷冻柜里的东西拿出来，让卢克进去，但是冰柜只有盖上盖子才运作，可那样卢克就无法呼吸了。
I was only ten, and in that moment I felt very much a child. Luke was my big brother; I thought he would know what to do, so I grabbed his shoulders and shook him, hard. “Should I make you cold or make you hot?” I shouted. He answered with a gasp.
我只有十岁，那一刻我强烈地觉得自己还是个孩子。卢克是我的大哥哥；我以为他会知道该怎么做，所以我抓住他的肩膀，用力摇晃他。“你是想凉快点儿还是暖和点儿？”我喊道。他用一声喘息回答。
I mentally searched the house. We had a large garbage can, a blue whale of a bin. It was splattered with bits of rotted food, so rank we kept it shut away in a closet. I sprinted into the house and emptied it onto the linoleum, noting the dead mouse Richard had tossed in the day before, then I carried the bin outside and sprayed it out with the garden hose. I knew I should clean it more thoroughly, maybe with dish soap, but looking at Luke, the way he was writhing on the grass, I didn’t feel I had time. With the last bit of slop blasted away, I righted the bin and filled it with water.
我在脑海中搜寻家中的物品。我们家有个超大的蓝色垃圾箱，溅满了腐烂的食物残渣，恶臭扑鼻，所以我们把它关在壁橱里。我冲进屋子，把垃圾箱里的东西倒在油毡上，注意到理查德前一天扔进去的一只死老鼠。接着我把垃圾箱搬到外面，用花园的水管冲洗。我知道应该对它进行更彻底的清洁，也许该用洗碗皂，但是看着卢克在草地上痛得打滚的样子，我觉得来不及了。等最后一点儿食物残渣一冲走，我便扶起垃圾箱，往里灌满了水。
“Luke!” I shouted. “Don’t! Don’t put your leg in!”
“卢克！”我喊道，“不要！不要把腿伸进去！”
Luke was scrambling toward me to put his leg in when I heard an echo of my mother’s voice. She was telling someone that the real worry with a burn isn’t the damaged tissue, but infection.
卢克挣扎着向我爬过来，想把腿放进去，突然我脑海中回响起母亲的话。她对某个人说过：烧伤后最麻烦的不是受损组织，而是感染。
It didn’t take long — twenty minutes, maybe thirty — before Luke seemed in his right mind, calm and able to prop himself up. Then Richard wandered up from the basement. The garbage can was smack in the middle of the lawn, ten feet from any shade, and the afternoon sun was strong. Full of water, the can was too heavy for us to move, and Luke refused to take out his leg, even for a minute. I fetched a straw sombrero Grandma had given us in Arizona. Luke’s teeth were still chattering so I also brought a wool blanket. And there he stood, a sombrero on his head, a wool blanket around his shoulders, and his leg in a garbage can. He looked something between homeless and on vacation.
没过多久，二三十分钟后，卢克似乎恢复了神智和平静，能支撑住自己了。这时理查德从地下室走了出来。下午阳光强烈，垃圾箱放在草坪正中央，离阴凉处有十英尺远。装满水的垃圾箱太重了，我们搬不动，而卢克拒绝把腿从里面拿出来，哪怕一分钟也不肯。我拿来一顶奶奶在亚利桑那州送给我们的宽边草帽。卢克的牙齿还在打战，所以我又拿来一条毛毯。卢克就待在那儿，头戴宽边草帽，肩裹羊毛毯子，一条腿伸进垃圾箱，看上去既像在度假，又像无家可归的流浪汉。
He ignored me and continued crawling toward the bin. He had a cold look in his eye that said nothing mattered except the fire burning from his leg into his brain. I moved quickly. I shoved the bin, and a great wave of water heaved over the grass. Luke made a gargled noise, as if he were choking.
他不理我，继续朝垃圾箱爬去。他目光冰冷，好像在说除了从腿烧进他脑子里的火，其他都不重要。我快速行动，推倒垃圾箱，一大股水浪涌过草地。卢克发出咕噜咕噜的声音，像要窒息一般。
I ran back into the kitchen and found the bags that fit the can, then held one open for Luke and told him to put his leg in. He didn’t move, but he allowed me to pull the bag over the raw flesh. I righted the can and stuffed the garden hose inside. While the bin filled, I helped Luke balance on one foot and lower his burned leg, now wrapped in black plastic, into the garbage can. The afternoon air was sweltering; the water would warm quickly; I tossed in the pack of ice.
我跑回厨房，找到匹配的垃圾袋，打开，让卢克把腿伸进去。他不动弹，任凭我把袋子套在他腿上。我把垃圾箱扶起来，将水管塞进去。箱子注满水后，我扶着卢克，让他一只脚保持平衡，把他那条现在包裹在黑塑料袋里的烧焦的腿放了进去。午后的空气闷热无比，水很快会变热，我把那盒冰块扔了进去。
Dad wandered home sometime after this, I couldn’t say how long, a gaunt, defeated look on his face. Quiet now, Luke was resting, or as near to resting as he could be standing up. Dad wheeled the bin into the shade because, despite the hat, Luke’s hands and arms had turned red with sunburn. Dad said the best thing to do was leave the leg where it was until Mother came home.
之后不知过了多久，爸爸回到家，一脸憔悴和沮丧。卢克现在安稳下来，在休息，或者说正勉力站在那里尽可能地休息。爸爸把垃圾箱推到了阴凉处。尽管戴着帽子，卢克的手和胳膊都被晒红了。爸爸说最好让那条腿保持不动，等母亲回家。
Mother’s car appeared on the highway around six. I met her halfway up the hill and told her what had happened. She rushed to Luke and said she needed to see the leg, so he lifted it out, dripping. The plastic bag clung to the wound. Mother didn’t want to tear the fragile tissue, so she cut the bag away slowly, carefully, until the leg was visible. There was very little blood and even fewer blisters, as both require skin and Luke didn’t have much. Mother’s face turned a grayish yellow, but she was calm. She closed her eyes and crossed her fingers, then asked aloud whether the wound was infected. Click click click.
六点左右，母亲的车出现在高速公路上。我到半山腰接她，把发生的事告诉了她。她冲到卢克跟前，要查看那条腿，于是他把腿拿了出来，湿淋淋的，滴着水。塑料袋粘在了伤口上。母亲不想扯烂脆弱的组织，她慢慢地、小心翼翼地把袋子割掉，直到那条腿露出来。不怎么流血了，水泡也少了，因为这些都需要皮肤，而卢克腿上的皮肤所剩无几。母亲脸色蜡黄，但很是镇静。她闭上眼睛，交叉手指，大声问伤口是否感染了。啪嗒啪嗒啪嗒。
The sun warmed the water; Luke began to shift uncomfortably. I returned to the chest freezer but there was no more ice, just a dozen bags of frozen vegetables, so I dumped them in. The result was a muddy soup with bits of peas and carrots.
太阳把水晒热，卢克开始不舒服地挪动身子。我又去冷冻柜里找，但没有冰了，只有十几袋冷冻蔬菜，我把它们全部扔了进去，结果有了一桶豌豆胡萝卜浑汤。
“You were lucky this time, Tara,” she said. “But what were you thinking, putting a burn into a garbage can?”
“这次算你走运，塔拉，”她说，“但是竟然把烧伤的腿放进垃圾箱，你是怎么想的？”
Mother and I stayed by luke’s bed that first night. He barely slept, he was so delirious with fever and pain. For the fever we put ice on his face and chest; for the pain we gave him lobelia, blue vervain and skullcap. This was another of Mother’s recipes. I’d taken it after I’d fallen from the scrap bin, to dull the throbbing in my leg while I waited for the gash to close, but as near as I could tell it had no effect.
第一晚，我和母亲守在卢克床边。他几乎一夜没睡，疼痛和发烧让他神志不清。我们把冰块放在他脸上和胸口退烧，给他服用莲雾、蓝马鞭草和并头草止痛。这又是母亲的一个偏方。那次我从废品桶里掉出来，就服用了这个药。当时我等着伤口愈合，腿上的跳痛减缓，但我感觉不出有什么效果。
Dad carried Luke inside and Mother fetched her scalpel. It took her and Dad most of the evening to cut away the dead flesh. Luke tried not to scream, but when they pried up and stretched bits of his skin, trying to see where the dead flesh ended and the living began, he exhaled in great gusts and tears slid from his eyes.
爸爸把卢克抱进屋，母亲拿来手术刀，两人大半个晚上都在切除腿上的死肉。卢克强忍着不叫出声，但当他们撬起并牵拉他破碎的皮肤，想看看死肉的终点、活肉的起点在哪里时，他疼得大口吸气，眼泪夺眶而出。
Mother dressed the leg in mullein and comfrey salve, her own recipe. She was good with burns — they were a specialty of hers — but I could tell she was worried. She said she’d never seen one as bad as Luke’s. She didn’t know what would happen.
母亲在他腿上敷上自制的毛蕊花和紫草药膏，包扎好。她对处理烧伤很在行——那些都是她的特制药——但我看得出来，她很担心。她说她从没见过像卢克这样严重的烧伤。她不知道情况会怎样。
I tended him alone the second night so Mother could rest. I slept lightly, waking at the first sounds of fussing, at the slightest shifting of weight, so I could fetch the ice and tinctures before Luke became fully conscious and the pain gripped him. On the third night, Mother tended him and I stood in the doorway, listening to his gasps, watching Mother watch him, her face hollow, her eyes swollen with worry and exhaustion.
第二晚我独自照料他，好让母亲休息。我睡眠很轻，一有动静就会醒来，哪怕是轻微的翻身声，所以我能在卢克完全清醒过来、饱受疼痛之前拿来冰块和酊剂。第三晚母亲照料他，我站在门口，听着他的喘息，望着母亲注视着他。母亲脸颊凹陷，担心和疲惫让她双眼肿胀。
I believed hospital drugs were an abomination to God, but if I’d had morphine that night, I’d have given it to Luke. The pain robbed him of breath. He lay propped up in his bed, beads of sweat falling from his forehead onto his chest, holding his breath until he turned red, then purple, as if depriving his brain of oxygen was the only way he could make it through the next minute. When the pain in his lungs overtook the pain of the burn, he would release the air in a great, gasping cry — a cry of relief for his lungs, of agony for his leg.
我相信医院里的药物为上帝所憎恶，但如果那天晚上我手头有吗啡，肯定会给卢克服用。疼痛令他喘不过气来。他躺在床上，豆大的汗珠从额头滑落至胸前，他屏住呼吸直到脸变红，继而变紫，仿佛让大脑缺氧才能撑到下一分钟。当肺部疼痛超过烧伤带来的痛苦时，他哭着大口大口地呼气——肺部解脱了，腿却痛到极点。
When I slept, I dreamed. I dreamed about the fire I hadn’t seen. I dreamed it was me lying in that bed, my body wrapped in loose bandages, mummified. Mother knelt on the floor beside me, pressing my plastered hand the way she pressed Luke’s, dabbing my forehead, praying.
睡着时，我做了一个梦。我梦见那场我未曾目睹的大火。梦中我成了那个躺在床上的人，身体像木乃伊一样裹着松松垮垮的绷带。母亲跪在我身旁的地板上，按着我打了石膏的手，就像按卢克的手一样，轻拍着我的额头，祈祷着。
Luke didn’t go to church that Sunday, or the Sunday after that, or the one after that. Dad told us to tell people Luke was sick. He said there’d be trouble if the Government found out about Luke’s leg, that the Feds would take us kids away. That they would put Luke in a hospital, where his leg would get infected and he would die.
那个星期天卢克没有去教堂，下一个星期天也没去，再下一个星期天也没去。爸爸叮嘱我们，要是别人问起来，就说卢克病了。他说如果卢克腿烧伤的事被政府知道，我们就麻烦了。联邦政府会把我们这些孩子全部带走。他们会把卢克送进医院，在那里，他的腿会感染，最后他会死去。
“Not Luke,” Richard said. “He prefers twine, you know how fashionable he is.”
“卢克可不需要。”理查德说，“他更喜欢麻绳，你知道他有多时髦。”
“A man ought to have a real belt,” Dad said at breakfast on the day Luke was well enough to return to the junkyard, handing him a leather strap with a steel buckle.
“男人应该有一条真正的皮带。”早餐时父亲递给卢克一根带钢扣的皮带。卢克已经基本痊愈，可以重返废料场了。
About three weeks after the fire, Mother announced that the skin around the edges of the burn had begun to grow back, and that she had hope for even the worst patches. By then Luke was sitting up, and a week later, when the first cold spell hit, he could stand for a minute or two on crutches. Before long, he was thumping around the house, thin as a string bean, swallowing buckets of food to regain the weight he’d lost. By then, the twine was a family fable.
大火之后约莫三周，母亲宣布，烧伤边缘的皮肤开始长出来了，就连最严重的地方也有希望长出新皮肤。这时卢克能坐起来了，一个星期后，当第一次寒流来袭时，他能拄着拐杖站一两分钟了。没过多久，他就在屋子里踮着脚转悠了。他瘦得像根豆芽菜，为了恢复体重，狼吞虎咽地吃了一桶又一桶食物。到那时，麻绳已成为全家人的谈资。
A long-dormant voice says, Dad did.
一个休眠已久的声音说，是爸爸扑灭的。
For eighteen years I never thought of that day, not in any probing way. The few times my reminiscing carried me back to that torrid afternoon, what I remembered first was the belt. Luke, I would think. You wild dog. I wonder, do you still wear twine?
十八年来，我从未想过那一天，从未投以审视的眼光。很少几次忆起那个炎热的午后，我首先想到的就是那条腰带。我会想：卢克，你这个野东西，我想问你，你还扎麻绳腰带吗？
Luke grinned. “Beauty’s everything,” he said.
卢克咧嘴一笑。“只要好看就行。”他说。
Now, at age twenty-nine, I sit down to write, to reconstruct the incident from the echoes and shouts of a tired memory. I scratch it out. When I get to the end, I pause. There’s an inconsistency, a ghost in this story.
现在，二十九岁的我坐下来写下这些，试图在疲惫记忆的呐喊与回声中重建此事。写到末尾，我停顿了。这个故事中有个漏洞，有鬼出没。
But Luke was alone when I found him. If Dad had been with Luke on the mountain, he would have brought him to the house, would have treated the burn. Dad was away on a job somewhere, that’s why Luke had had to get himself down the mountain. Why his leg had been treated by a ten-year-old. Why it had ended up in a garbage can.
但当时我见到卢克时，他独自一人。如果爸爸和卢克都在山上，他会把卢克带回家，为他治疗烧伤。爸爸外出干活了，这就是为什么卢克只得靠自己从山上下来。为什么让一个十岁的孩子给他治腿。为什么那条腿最后进了垃圾箱。
Who put out the fire?
那场火是谁扑灭的呢？
I decide to ask Richard. He’s older than I, and has a sharper memory. Besides, last I heard, Luke no longer has a telephone.
我决定问问理查德。他比我大，记性也比我好。再说，我上次听说卢克已经不用电话了。
I read it. I read it again. And there it is.
我读了一遍。又读了一遍。找到了。
Right.
没错。
I call. The first thing Richard remembers is the twine, which, true to his nature, he refers to as a “baling implement.” Next he remembers the spilled gasoline. I ask how Luke managed to put out the fire and get himself down the mountain, given that he was in shock when I found him. Dad was with him, Richard says flatly.
我打了个电话。理查德首先记起了麻绳，依他的天性，他把麻绳称为“捆扎工具”。接着他想起了洒掉的汽油。我问他卢克是怎么把火扑灭，然后从山上下来的，因为我发现他的时候他已经休克了。理查德直截了当地说：爸爸和他在一起。
Richard says, Because Luke had run through the weeds and set the mountain afire. You remember that summer. Dry, scorching. You can’t go starting forest fires in farm country during a dry summer. So Dad put Luke in the truck and told him to drive to the house, to Mother. Only Mother was gone.
理查德说，因为卢克一路穿过杂草，把山都点着了。你还记得那个夏天吧，干燥又炎热。干旱的夏天，乡下农场的森林要是着了火可不行。于是爸爸把卢克放进卡车，让他自己开车回家找母亲。不过母亲不在家。
Right.
没错。
Then why wasn’t Dad at the house?
那为什么爸爸没有回家呢？
On the mountain something is happening. I can only imagine it but I see it clearly, more clearly than if it were a memory. The cars are stacked and waiting, their fuel tanks ruptured and drained. Dad waves at a tower of cars and says, “Luke, cut off those tanks, yeah?” And Luke says, “Sure thing, Dad.” He lays the torch against his hip and strikes flint. Flames erupt from nowhere and take him. He screams, fumbles with the twine, screams again, and takes off through the weeds.
山上发生了什么，我只能去想象，但我看得很清楚，若是出自记忆都不会如此清晰。汽车被堆放在一起预备好了，油箱都已扎破抽干。爸爸朝高高的一堆汽车挥手说：“卢克，把那些油箱都拆掉，好吧？”卢克说：“当然了，爸爸。”他把割炬夹在大腿中间，然后打火。火苗不知从哪里窜出来，烧着了他。他高声尖叫，笨拙地想解开麻绳，又尖叫着跑过杂草。
I think it over for a few days, then sit back down to write. Dad is there in the beginning — Dad with his funny jokes about socialists and dogs and the roof that keeps liberals from drowning. Then Dad and Luke go back up the mountain, Mother drives away and I turn the tap to fill the kitchen sink. Again. For the third time it feels like.
我仔细回想了许多天，然后重新坐下来写。爸爸一开始是在场的——爸爸讲了关于政府官员、流浪狗和屋顶让自由派不至于淹死的笑话，然后和卢克一起回山上干活。母亲开车走了，我打开水龙头，给厨房的水槽注满水。再来一次。想到第三次感觉也是这样。
I can’t picture what happens next, because nobody ever told me how Dad put out the fire on Luke’s leg. Then a memory surfaces — of Dad, that night in the kitchen, wincing as Mother slathers salve on his hands, which are red and blistering — and I know what he must have done.
接下来发生了什么我无法想象，因为没人告诉过我，爸爸是如何把卢克腿上的火扑灭的。然后一个回忆浮现出来——那天晚上在厨房，母亲在他红肿起泡的手上涂上厚厚一层药膏，爸爸疼得龇牙咧嘴——我知道他肯定干了什么。
Luke is no longer on fire.
卢克身上不再着火了。
Dad chases him, orders him to stand still. It’s probably the first time in his whole life that Luke doesn’t do something when Dad is telling him to. Luke is fast but Dad is smart. He takes a shortcut through a pyramid of cars and tackles Luke, slamming him to the ground.
爸爸在后面追，命令他站住。这可能是卢克这辈子第一次没听爸爸的话。卢克跑得很快，但爸爸很聪明。他穿过一堆堆汽车，抄近路，把卢克放倒在地。
I try to imagine the moment of decision. Dad looks at the weeds, which are burning fast, thirsty for flame in that quivering heat. He looks at his son. He thinks if he can choke the flames while they’re young, he can prevent a wildfire, maybe save the house.
我试着想象做出决定的那一刻。爸爸看着那些杂草，它们在颤抖的热浪中渴望火焰，迅速燃烧。他看着儿子，心想如果趁火势不大时将其扑灭，就能阻止一场燎原之火，也许还能拯救房子。
I imagine Dad praying aloud, his eyes drawn heavenward, as he carries his son to the truck and sets him in the driver’s seat. Dad shifts the engine into first, the truck starts its roll. It’s going at a good speed now, Luke is gripping the wheel. Dad jumps from the moving truck, hits the ground hard and rolls, then runs back toward the brushfire, which has spread wider and grown taller. The Lord will provide, he chants, then he takes off his shirt and begins to beat back the flames.
我想象爸爸仰望苍穹，高声祈祷，然后把儿子抱上卡车，让他坐在驾驶座上。爸爸挂上挡，卡车开动。车子开得够快了，卢克紧握方向盘。爸爸从行驶的卡车上跳了下来，重重摔在地上，滚了一圈，然后跑回火边。火势越烧越旺，火苗越蹿越高。他高呼着“耶和华必预备”，脱下衬衫，开始与火焰战斗。
Luke seems lucid. His brain hasn’t processed what’s happened; the pain hasn’t set in. The Lord will provide, I imagine Dad thinking. God left him conscious.
卢克似乎还算清醒。他的大脑还没反应过来，疼痛尚未开始。我想象爸爸在想：耶和华必预备。上帝让他保持清醒。
0 条评论