It was a sunny September afternoon when I heaved my suitcase through Harvard Yard. The colonial architecture felt foreign but also crisp and unimposing compared to the Gothic pinnacles of Cambridge. The central library, called the Widener, was the largest I had ever seen, and for a few minutes I forgot the past year and stared up at it, wonderstruck.
那是九月一个阳光明媚的下午，我提着手提箱穿过哈佛大学的校园。殖民时期风格的建筑给人一种异国情调之感，但与剑桥的哥特式尖顶建筑相比，它们显得清新而朴实。学校的中央图书馆叫怀德纳图书馆，是我见过的最大的图书馆。有几分钟我暂时忘却了过去的一年，抬头看着它，惊叹不已。
My room was in the graduate dorms near the law school. It was small and cavelike — dark, moist, frigid, with ashen walls and cold tiles the color of lead. I spent as little time in it as possible. The university seemed to offer a new beginning, and I intended to take it. I enrolled in every course I could squeeze into my schedule, from German idealism to the history of secularism to ethics and law. I joined a weekly study group to practice French, and another to learn knitting. The graduate school offered a free course on charcoal sketching. I had never drawn in my life but I signed up for that, too.
我的房间在法学院附近的研究生宿舍里。房间很小，像个洞穴——黑暗、潮湿又阴冷，有着灰色的墙壁和冰冷的铅色瓷砖。我尽量不在里面待着。这所大学似乎提供了一个新的开始，我打算接受它。我将能选的课程排得满满的，从德国理想主义到世俗主义的历史，再到伦理和法律。我参加了一个每周一次的学习小组练习法语，还参加了一个社团学习编织。研究生院开设了一门免费的炭笔素描课，虽然我这辈子从没画过画，但也报名参加了。
I began to read — Hume, Rousseau, Smith, Godwin, Wollstonecraft and Mill. I lost myself in the world they had lived in, the problems they had tried to solve. I became obsessed with their ideas about the family — with how a person ought to weigh their special obligations to kin against their obligations to society as a whole. Then I began to write, weaving the strands I’d found in Hume’s Principles of Morals with filaments from Mill’s The Subjection of Women. It was good work, I knew it even as I wrote it, and when I’d finished I set it aside. It was the first chapter of my PhD.
我开始大量阅读休谟、卢梭、史密斯、戈德温、沃斯通克拉夫特和穆勒的作品。我迷失在他们生活过的世界里，迷失在他们试图解决的问题中。我着迷于他们对家庭的看法——个人应该如何权衡自己对亲人的特殊义务以及对整个社会的义务。我开始写作，把从休谟的《道德原则研究》中发现的线索与穆勒《论妇女的从属地位》中的细节编织在一起。写的时候我就知道这是一部不错的作品，写完后我将它放在一边。这就是我博士学位论文的第一章。
A few days later, I signed in to an old chat program I hadn’t used in years. There was a cheerful jingle and a name turned from gray to green. Charles is online, it said. I’m not sure who started the chat, or who suggested moving the conversation to the phone. We talked for an hour, and it was as if no time had passed.
几天后，我登录一个多年未用的旧聊天程序。随着一声欢快的“叮——”，一个名字从灰色变成绿色，提示道，查尔斯上线了。我不知道是谁先开始聊天的，也忘了是谁建议从线上聊天改成打电话的。我们聊了一个小时，仿佛时光从未流逝。
I returned from my sketching class one Saturday morning to find an email from my mother. We’re coming to Harvard, she said. I read that line at least three times, certain she was joking. My father did not travel — I’d never known him to go anywhere except Arizona to visit his mother — so the idea that he would fly across the country to see a daughter he believed taken by the devil seemed ludicrous. Then I understood: he was coming to save me. Mother said they had already booked their flights and would be staying in my dorm room.
一个星期六的早上，从素描课下课回来，我发现母亲给我发了一封电子邮件。我们要去哈佛，她说。这句话我至少读了三遍，肯定她在开玩笑。我父亲从不旅行——除了到亚利桑那州看望他母亲，我知道他从不去任何地方——所以他要飞越大半个美国看望一个被魔鬼附身的女儿的念头似乎太荒诞了。接着我明白了：他是来拯救我的。母亲说他们已经订好了机票，到时会住在我的宿舍里。
“Do you want a hotel?” I asked. They didn’t.
“你们要不要住旅馆？”我问。他们不住。
“Who woulda thought?” I said.
“谁会想到啊，是吧？”我说。
He asked where I was studying; when I answered, he said, “Harvard! Holy hell!”
他问我在哪里念书。我回答完，他说：“哈佛！天啊！”
“I did,” he said, and it was true. He had always seen me like that, long before there was any reason to.
“我想到了。”他说。的确，他总是那样看我，早在有任何迹象之前。
I asked what he’d done after graduating from college and there was a strained silence. “Things didn’t go the way I planned,” he said. He’d never graduated. He’d dropped out his sophomore year after his son was born, because his wife was sick and there was a mound of medical bills. He’d signed on to work the oil rigs in Wyoming. “It was only supposed to be for a few months,” he said. “That was a year ago.”
我问他大学毕业后在做什么，换来一阵尴尬的沉默。“计划不如变化快。”他说。他没能大学毕业。大二时他的儿子出生了，他便辍学了，因为他的妻子病了，有一大堆医药费要付。他去了怀俄明州的石油钻井平台工作。“本来只干几个月，”他说，“那是一年前的事了。”
I told him about Shawn, how I’d lost him, how I was losing the rest of my family. He listened quietly, then let out a long sigh and said, “Have you ever thought maybe you should just let them go?”
我告诉他肖恩的事，我如何失去他，如何失去了其他家人。他静静地听着，然后长叹一声，说：“你有没有想过，也许你应该放手让他们离开？”
My parents arrived as the leaves began to turn, when campus was at its most beautiful, the reds and yellows of autumn mingling with the burgundy of colonial brick. With his hayseed grammar, denim shirt and lifetime-member NRA cap, Dad would have always been out of place at Harvard, but his scarring intensified the effect. I had seen him many times in the years since the explosion, but it wasn’t until he came to Harvard, and I saw him set against my life there, that I realized how severely he’d disfigured himself. That awareness reached me through the eyes of others — strangers whose faces changed when he passed them in the street, who turned to get a second look. Then I would look at him, too, and notice how the skin on his chin was taut and plastic; how his lips lacked natural roundness; how his cheeks sucked inward at an angle that was almost skeletal. His right hand, which he often raised to point at some feature or other, was knotted and twisted, and when I gazed at it, set against Harvard’s antediluvian steeples and columns, it seemed to me the claw of some mythical creature.
树叶开始变色时，我的父母来到了校园。那正值校园最美丽的时候，秋日红色和黄色的树叶与殖民时期建筑风格的酒红色砖墙交相辉映。爸爸说着语法混乱的乡巴佬英语，身着牛仔衬衫，戴着美国步枪协会终身会员的帽子，与哈佛的环境是那样格格不入，他的疤痕更强化了这个效果。那次爆炸后的几年里，我已见过他多次，但直到他来到哈佛，在我生活的衬托下，我才意识到他的毁容有多么严重。我通过路人的眼睛意识到了这一点——他在街上从陌生人身边走过时，那些人脸色大变，还会回头再看他一眼。然后我也会看着他，注意到他下巴上的皮肤像塑料一样紧绷，他的嘴唇缺少自然的弧度，他的双颊像骷髅一样向内凹陷。他经常举起变形扭曲的右手，指着某个东西，而当我盯着它，看着它正指向哈佛大学古老的尖塔和圆柱，它在我眼中似乎便成了某种神秘生物的爪子。
I hadn’t, not once. “It’s not permanent,” I said. “I can fix it.”
我没有，一次也没有。“并不会永远这样下去，”我说，“我能解决它。”
“Funny how you can change so much,” Charles said, “but still sound the same as when we were seventeen.”
“真有意思，你竟然变化这么大，”查尔斯说，“但听上去还和我们十七岁时一样。”
Dad had little interest in the university, so I took him into the city. I taught him how to take the T — how to feed his card through the slot and push through the rotating gate. He laughed out loud, as if it were a fabulous technology. A homeless man passed through our subway car and asked for a dollar. Dad gave him a crisp fifty.
爸爸对大学不感兴趣，所以我带他去了城里。我教他乘坐地铁——如何把卡插进卡槽，通过旋转门。他大笑，仿佛那是了不起的技术。一个流浪汉穿过我们乘坐的地铁车厢，讨要一美元。爸爸给了他一张崭新的五十美元票子。
“The Lord has commanded me to testify,” Dad said. “She may yet be brought to the Lord.”
“上帝吩咐我作见证。”爸爸说，“她还可以被带到上帝面前。”
“You keep that up in Boston, you won’t have any money left,” I said.
“在波士顿你要是一直这样下去，会破产的。”我说。
Because his health was fragile, my father took the bed. I had purchased an air mattress, which I gave to Mother. I slept on the tile floor. Both my parents snored loudly, and I lay awake all night. When the sun finally rose I stayed on the floor, eyes closed, breathing slow, deep breaths, while my parents ransacked my mini fridge and discussed me in hushed tones.
因为爸爸身体虚弱，所以他睡床。我提前买了一张充气床垫给母亲用，我则睡在瓷砖地板上。父母鼾声如雷，我彻夜未眠。太阳终于升起的时候，我躺在地板上，闭着眼睛，慢慢地呼吸，深呼吸，而我的父母在翻看我的迷你冰箱，低声谈论我。
“Doubt it,” Dad said with a wink. “The business is rolling. We got more than we can spend!”
“我不信，”爸爸眨眨眼说，“我们的生意兴隆，赚的钱花不完！”
While they plotted how to reconvert me, I plotted how to let them. I was ready to yield, even if it meant an exorcism. A miracle would be useful: if I could stage a convincing rebirth, I could dissociate from everything I’d said and done in the last year. I could take it all back — blame Lucifer and be given a clean slate. I imagined how esteemed I would be, as a newly cleansed vessel. How loved. All I had to do was swap my memories for theirs, and I could have my family.
他们谋划如何让我重新皈依，我则考虑如何顺从他们。我准备屈服，即使这意味着驱魔。一个奇迹会有用：如果我能够上演一场令人信服的重生，我就能从去年说过和做过的一切中解脱出来。我可以收回一切——把一切都归咎到路西法身上，洗心革面。我想象自己将多么受人尊敬，就像一只刚刚被洗净的器皿。我将多么惹人喜爱。我只需将我的记忆换成他们的记忆，就可以拥有家人。
When I reflect on that moment now, the image blurs, reconstituting itself into that of a zealous knight astride a steed, charging into an imaginary battle, striking at shadows, hacking into thin air. His jaw is set, his back straight. His eyes blaze with conviction, throwing sparks that burn where they lay. My mother gives me a pale, disbelieving look, but when he turns his gaze on her they become of one mind, then they are both tilting at windmills.
现在当我回想起那一刻，画面模糊起来，自我重构成一名身骑骏马的狂热骑士，冲入一场想象中的战役，攻击阴影，砍向稀薄的空气。他下巴紧闭，背部挺直。他眼中闪烁着坚定的光芒，眼底燃烧的火花迸射而出。母亲向我投来苍白而怀疑的目光，但当他把目光转向她时，他们的想法又一致了，然后他们俩朝风车冲去。
I studied his face. His expression was stretched — earnest, desperate. With all that was in him, he was willing me to touch the temple and be saved.
我打量着他的脸。他的表情很夸张，既认真又绝望。他倾尽全力想让我触摸神殿，期望我得到救赎。
My father wanted to visit the Sacred Grove in Palmyra, New York — the forest where, according to Joseph Smith, God had appeared and commanded him to found the true church. We rented a car and six hours later entered Palmyra. Near the grove, off the highway, there was a shimmering temple topped by a golden statue of the angel Moroni. Dad pulled over and asked me to cross the temple grounds. “Touch the temple,” he said. “Its power will cleanse you.”
我父亲想去纽约州的抛迈拉看神圣树林——据约瑟夫·史密斯记载，上帝曾现身在这片树林，命令他建立真正的教会。我们租了一辆车，六小时后进入抛迈拉。在高速公路旁的树林附近，一座神殿闪闪发光，神殿顶端有一座天使莫罗尼的金色雕像。爸爸将车停在路边，让我穿过神殿。“摸一下神殿，”他说，“它的力量会净化你。”
My father and I looked at the temple. He saw God; I saw granite. We looked at each other. He saw a woman damned; I saw an unhinged old man, literally disfigured by his beliefs. And yet, triumphant. I remembered the words of Sancho Panza: An adventuring knight is someone who’s beaten and then finds himself emperor.
我和父亲看着神殿。他看见的是上帝；我看见的是花岗岩。我们面面相觑。他看到一个被诅咒的女人；我看到一个精神错乱的老人，确实因为他的信仰而面容尽毁，却仍得意扬扬。我想起桑丘·潘沙[5]的话：游侠骑士就是一会儿挨揍，一会儿做皇帝。【注：[5]Sancho Panza，西班牙作家塞万提斯的小说《堂吉诃德》中的人物，是堂吉诃德的忠实侍从。】
I crossed the grounds and held my palm to the temple stone. I closed my eyes and tried to believe that this simple act could bring the miracle my parents prayed for. That all I had to do was touch this relic and, by the power of the Almighty, all would be put right. But I felt nothing. Just cold rock.
我走过去，将手掌放在神殿石头上。我闭上眼睛，试图让自己相信这个简单的举动可以带来父母所祈祷的奇迹。我只需触摸这个圣物，借助全能的上帝的力量，一切便会恢复正常。但我什么也没感觉到。只不过是冰冷的石头。
In the days that followed, I wrote that passage everywhere — unconsciously, compulsively. I find it now in books I was reading, in my lecture notes, in the margins of my journal. Its recitation was a mantra. I willed myself to believe it — to believe there was no real difference between what I knew to be true and what I knew to be false. To convince myself that there was some dignity in what I planned to do, in surrendering my own perceptions of right and wrong, of reality, of sanity itself, to earn the love of my parents. For them I believed I could don armor and charge at giants, even if I saw only windmills.
在随后的日子里，我把这句话写在各处——无意识地、强迫般地写。现在，从我当时读的书、我的课堂笔记和日记的页边空白处，都能找到这句话。它的吟诵是一种咒语。我强迫自己相信——相信我所认为的真实与虚假之间没有真正的差别。我说服自己相信，我计划要做的事是值得敬佩的，为了赢得父母的爱，我愿意放弃自己对是非、现实和理智的看法。为了他们，我相信即使我看到的只是风车，我也愿意披上盔甲，向巨人冲锋。
When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies?
当生活本身已经如此荒唐，谁知道什么才能算作疯狂？[6]【注：[6]引自《堂吉诃德》。】
I returned to the car. “Let’s go,” I said.
我回到车上。“我们走吧。”我说。
My father spoke for two hours. He testified that he had beheld angels and demons. He had seen physical manifestations of evil, and had been visited by the Lord Jesus Christ, like the prophets of old, like Joseph Smith had been in this very grove. His faith was no longer a faith, he said, but a perfect knowledge.
父亲讲了两个小时。他作证，说他曾见过天使和魔鬼。他见过邪恶现身，也曾受到主耶稣基督的眷顾，就像古时的先知一样，像约瑟夫·史密斯在这片树林里经历的一样。他说，他的信仰不再是一种信仰，而是一种完美的知识。
I thought of my dorm room — of the murky walls and frigid tiles, but also of the sunflowers Drew had sent, and of the textile wall hanging a friend from Zimbabwe had brought from his village.
我想起我的宿舍，想起阴暗的墙壁和冰冷的瓷砖，想起德鲁送给我的向日葵，还有来自津巴布韦的一个朋友从他的村庄带来的纺织壁挂。
We entered the Sacred Grove. I walked ahead and found a bench beneath a canopy of trees. It was a lovely wood, heavy with history. It was the reason my ancestors had come to America. A twig snapped, my parents appeared. They sat, one on either side of me.
我们进入神圣树林。我走在前面，发现树冠下有一条长凳。这是一片可爱的树林，历史悠久。这就是我的祖先来到美国的原因。一根树枝咔嚓一声折断了，我的父母跟了上来。他们坐在我的两侧。
“You have been taken by Lucifer,” he whispered, his hand on my shoulder. “I could feel it the moment I entered your room.”
“你已被路西法带走了，”他低声说，手搭在我的肩膀上，“我一进你的房间就能感觉到。”
Mother said nothing. She stared at the dirt, her eyes glossy, her lips pursed. Dad prodded me for a response. I searched myself, reaching deep, groping for the words he needed to hear. But they were not in me, not yet.
母亲什么也没说。她盯着泥土，眼睛发亮，嘴唇噘起。爸爸催促我做出回答。我在内心深处搜寻他想听的话，但一无所获。它们不在我心里。
When we returned to harvard, I offered to pay for a hotel. They refused to go. For a week we stumbled over one another in my dorm room. Every morning my father trudged up a flight of stairs to the communal shower in nothing but a small white towel. This would have humiliated me at BYU, but at Harvard I shrugged. I had transcended embarrassment. What did it matter who saw him, or what he said to them, or how shocked they were? It was his opinion I cared about; he was the one I was losing.
返回哈佛，我主动提出请他们住旅馆。他们拒绝了。整整一个星期，我们三个挤在我的宿舍里磕磕绊绊。每天早上，父亲只围着一条白色小毛巾，拖着沉重的步子爬上一段楼梯，去公共浴室。在杨百翰大学，这可能会让我无地自容；但在哈佛，我只是耸耸肩。我已经克服了尴尬。谁看见了他，他对他们说了什么，他们有多震惊，这些又有什么关系呢？我在乎的是他的想法；他才是我要失去的人。
Before we returned to Harvard, I convinced my parents to take a detour to Niagara Falls. The mood in the car was heavy, and at first I regretted having suggested the diversion, but the moment Dad saw the falls he was transformed, elated. I had a camera. Dad had always hated cameras but when he saw mine his eyes shone with excitement. “Tara! Tara!” he shouted, running ahead of me and Mother. “Get yourself a picture of this angle. Ain’t that pretty!” It was as if he realized we were making a memory, something beautiful we might need later. Or perhaps I’m projecting, because that was how I felt. There are some photos from today that might help me forget the grove, I wrote in my journal. There’s a picture of me and Dad happy, together. Proof that’s possible.
回哈佛前，我说服父母绕道去看尼亚加拉瀑布。车里气氛凝重，起初我后悔提出这个转移注意力的建议，但爸爸一看到瀑布就变得兴高采烈。我带了一台相机。爸爸一直讨厌相机，但看到我拿着相机，他的眼里闪烁着兴奋的光芒。“塔拉！塔拉！”他跑到我和母亲前面喊道，“在这个角度给你自己拍张照片。多美啊！”他仿佛意识到我们正在创造回忆，一种我们日后可能需要的美好。或者那是我情绪的投射，因为那正是我的感受。我在日记中写道：今天有些照片可能会帮助我忘记神圣树林。有一张我和爸爸在一起的很开心的照片。证明还有可能。
Then it was their last night, and still I had not been reborn.
到了他们在这里的最后一夜，我仍未重获新生。
When we’d finished, Dad said he had a gift for me. “It’s why I came,” he said. “To offer you a priesthood blessing.”
吃完饭后，爸爸说有个礼物要送给我。“这也是我来这里的原因，”他说，“为你献上教士的赐福。”
Dad gaped at me in disbelief, then he began to testify — not about God, but about Mother. The herbs, he said, were a divine calling from the Lord. Everything that happened to our family, every injury, every near death, was because we had been chosen, we were special. God had orchestrated all of it so we could denounce the Medical Establishment and testify of His power.
爸爸目瞪口呆，难以置信地看着我，然后开始作见证——不是关于上帝，而是关于母亲。他说，药草是来自上帝的神圣召唤。我们家发生的每一件事，每一次受伤，每一次死里逃生，都是因为我们被选中，我们是特别的。上帝精心策划了一切，于是我们得以谴责医疗机构，证明他的神力。
Mother and I shuffled around the shared kitchen making a beef and potato casserole, which we brought into the room on trays. My father studied his plate quietly, as if he were alone. Mother made a few observations about the food, then she laughed nervously and was silent.
我和母亲在公共厨房不紧不慢地做牛肉土豆砂锅菜，之后用托盘将砂锅菜端进房间。爸爸默默地端详着他的盘子，旁若无人。母亲观察了一下食物，紧张地笑了笑，沉默不语。
In Mormonism, the priesthood is God’s power to act on earth — to advise, to counsel, to heal the sick, and to cast out demons. It is given to men. This was the moment: if I accepted the blessing, he would cleanse me. He would lay his hands on my head and cast out the evil thing that had made me say what I had said, that had made me unwelcome in my own family. All I had to do was yield, and in five minutes it would be over.
在摩门教中，教士是上帝的力量在人间行事——提出建议、给予忠告、治疗疾病、驱逐恶魔，是对人类的赐福。这一刻来临了：如果我接受赐福，他将净化我。他会把手放到我的头上，将逼我说出那番话、使我在自己家里不受欢迎的邪魔驱赶出去。我只需屈服，整个过程不过五分钟。
I heard myself say no.
我听见自己说不。
My head snapped up. “You have cancer?” I said. “You’re sure? You had it tested?”
我猛地抬起头。“你得了癌症？”我说，“你确定吗？你去检查过吗？”
The explosion, the burn. It was the highest of spiritual honors, he said, to be made a living testament of God’s power. Dad held my hands in his mangled fingers and told me that his disfiguration had been foreordained. That it was a tender mercy, that it had brought souls to God.
爆炸，烧伤。他说，那是最高的精神荣誉，是上帝之力活生生的证明。爸爸用残疾的手指握着我的手，告诉我他的毁容也是命中注定的。那是一种温柔的仁慈，为了让更多灵魂信奉上帝。
Mother added her testimony in low, reverent whispers. She said she could stop a stroke by adjusting a chakra; that she could halt heart attacks using only energy; that she could cure cancer if people had faith. She herself had had breast cancer, she said, and she had cured it.
母亲低声虔诚地补充了她的证词。她说自己通过调整脉轮能结束中风；只用能量就能使心脏病停止发作；只要有信念，她就能治愈癌症。她说自己曾患过乳腺癌，而她已经治好了。
“I didn’t need to have it tested,” she said. “I muscle-tested it. It was cancer. I cured it.”
“我不需要去检查，”她说，“我通过肌肉测试得知的。是癌症。我把它治好了。”
“Remember when Luke burned his leg?” Dad said, as if I could forget. “That was the Lord’s plan. It was a curriculum. For your mother. So she would be ready for what would happen to me.”
“记得卢克烧伤了腿的时候吗？”爸爸说，好像我能忘记这件事似的，“那是上帝的计划，是安排给你母亲的课程，好让她为我日后的遭遇做准备。”
“We could have cured Grandma, too,” Dad said. “But she turned away from Christ. She lacked faith and that’s why she’s dead. God won’t heal the faithless.”
“我们本来也能治好奶奶的病，”爸爸说，“但她背离了基督。她缺乏信仰，所以死了。上帝不会医治那些背信弃义的人。”
I met his gaze. He was burning with conviction; I could almost feel the heat rolling off him. He leaned forward so that his face was nearly touching mine and said, “But I will.”
我与他目光相接。他正燃烧着信念，我几乎能感觉到热浪从他身上滚落。他俯身向前，脸几乎碰到我的脸，说：“但我会听见。”
Mother nodded but never looked up.
母亲点了点头，但没有抬头。
“Grandma’s sin was serious,” Dad said. “But your sins are more serious still, because you were given the truth and have turned from it.”
“奶奶的罪过很重，”爸爸说，“但你的罪孽更深重，因为你既得真理，却弃之而去。”
“I am called of God to testify that disaster lies ahead of you,” Dad said. “It is coming soon, very soon, and it will break you, break you utterly. It will knock you down into the depths of humility. And when you are there, when you are lying broken, you will call on the Divine Father for mercy.” Dad’s voice, which had risen to fever pitch, now fell to a murmur. “And He will not hear you.”
“我奉上帝之名，为你作见证，灾祸就在你面前。”父亲说，“它就要来临了，很快，它会打垮你，将你彻底摧毁。它会把你打倒在谦卑的深渊。你将支离破碎地躺在那里，向神圣的天父求饶。”爸爸本来音调狂热高亢，现在变成了低语，“而他将听不见你的求饶。”
The room was quiet except for the dull hum of traffic on Oxford Street.
房间里悄无声息，只听见牛津街上的车辆发出沉闷的嘈杂声。
Dad’s eyes were fixed on me. It was the gaze of a seer, of a holy oracle whose power and authority were drawn from the very universe. I wanted to meet it head-on, to prove I could withstand its weight, but after a few seconds something in me buckled, some inner force gave way, and my eyes dropped to the floor.
爸爸的眼睛紧盯着我。这是一位先知的凝视，一个神圣的神谕，其力量和权威来自宇宙。我想与之对视，证明我可以承受它的重量，但几秒钟后，我体内有什么东西屈服了，某种内在的力量消失了，我目光下移，看着地板。
The silence settled, undisturbed, oppressive.
寂静再次沉淀，不被打扰。令人压抑。
“I will offer, one final time, to give you a blessing,” he said.
“我最后一次提议，让你接受赐福。”他说。
The blessing was a mercy. He was offering me the same terms of surrender he had offered my sister. I imagined what a relief it must have been for her, to realize she could trade her reality — the one she shared with me — for his. How grateful she must have felt to pay such a modest price. I could not judge her for her choice, but in that moment I knew I could not choose it for myself. Everything I had worked for, all my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege: to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind. I had come to believe that the ability to evaluate many ideas, many histories, many points of view, was at the heart of what it means to self-create. If I yielded now, I would lose more than an argument. I would lose custody of my own mind. This was the price I was being asked to pay, I understood that now. What my father wanted to cast from me wasn’t a demon: it was me.
赐福是一种仁慈。他对我提出的条件与对我姐姐提过的一样。我能想象出，当她意识到能用她与我分享的现实和他的交换，那一定是一种解脱。只付出这么少的代价，她一定很感激。我不能指责她的选择，但在那一刻，我知道自己不会做出那样的选择。我所有的奋斗，我多年来的学习，一直为了让自己得到这样一种特权：见证和体验超越父亲所给予我的更多的真理，并用这些真理构建我自己的思想。我开始相信，评价多种思想、多种历史和多种观点的能力是自我创造力的核心。如果现在让步，我失去的将不仅仅是一次争论。我会失去对自己思想的掌控权。这就是要求我付出的代价，我现在明白了这一点。父亲想从我身上驱逐的不是恶魔，而是我自己。
My father stood abruptly.
父亲猛地站起身来。
He said again there was an evil presence in my room, that he couldn’t stay another night. Their flight was not until morning, but Dad said it was better to sleep on a bench than with the devil.
他再次说我的房间有恶灵存在，他一个晚上也待不下去了。他们的航班要等到第二天一早才起飞，但爸爸说，与其和恶魔在一起，不如去睡长凳。
“I love you,” I said. “But I can’t. I’m sorry, Dad.”
“我爱你，”我说，“但我不能。对不起，爸爸。”
But when my mouth opened they vanished.
但当我开口时，它们消失了。
Dad reached into his pocket and withdrew a vial of consecrated oil, which he placed in my palm. I studied it. This oil was the only thing needed to perform the ritual, that and the holy authority resting in my father’s misshapen hands. I imagined my surrender, imagined closing my eyes and recanting my blasphemies. I imagined how I would describe my change, my divine transformation, what words of gratitude I would shout. The words were ready, fully formed and waiting to leave my lips.
爸爸把手伸进口袋，取出一小瓶圣油，放在我掌中。我细细端详它。这种油是施行仪式所需的唯一物品，除此之外，就是父亲畸形的手中所掌握的神圣权威。我想象自己缴械投降，想象自己闭上眼睛，收回亵渎的话。我想象该如何描述我的转变，我神圣的转变，我会用什么言语表达我的感激之情。这些话准备好了，完全成形，正等着脱口而出。
My mother bustled about the room, shoveling shirts and socks into their suitcase. Five minutes later, they were gone.
母亲在房间里忙活，把衬衫和袜子塞进他们的行李箱。五分钟后，他们走了。
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