I cupped my ear and slouched in the passenger seat, then took off my jacket and put it over my head to block the light. Charles asked what medicine I’d taken.
我捂着耳朵，没精打采地坐在副驾驶座上，然后脱下夹克盖住头，挡住光线。查尔斯问我吃了什么药。
“Lobelia,” I said. “And skullcap.”
“半边莲，”我说，“还有美黄芩。”
He raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
他扬起眉毛，什么也没说。
Dad paid me the day before I returned to BYU. He didn’t have the money to give what he’d promised, but it was enough to cover the half tuition I owed. I spent my last day in Idaho with Charles. It was a Sunday, but I didn’t go to church. I’d had an earache for two days, and during the night it had changed from a dull twinge to a constant sharp stab. I had a fever. My vision was distorted, sensitive to light. That’s when Charles called. Did I want to come to his house? I said I couldn’t see well enough to drive. He picked me up fifteen minutes later.
回杨百翰大学的前一天，爸爸付了我工钱。他没有足够的钱兑现之前承诺的薪水，那些钱仅够支付我欠的一半学费。我和查尔斯在爱达荷州度过了最后一天。那是一个星期日，但我没有去教堂。我的耳朵已经疼了两天，到了晚上，从隐隐作痛变成持续的刺痛。我发烧了。我的视力也扭曲了，对光很敏感。这时查尔斯打来电话，问我想不想去他家。我说我视力不太好，不能开车。十五分钟后他来接我。
“I don’t think they’re working,” he said.
“我觉得吃这些没用。”他说。
“They will. They take a few days.”
“它们会起作用的，需要几天时间才生效。”
Charles’s house was neat and spacious, with large, bright windows and shiny floors. It reminded me of Grandma-over-in-town’s house. I sat on a stool, my head pressed against the cold counter. I heard the creak of a cabinet opening and the pop of a plastic lid. When I opened my eyes, two red pills were on the counter in front of me.
查尔斯的家整洁宽敞，窗户高大明亮，地板一尘不染，让我想起城里外婆家。我坐在凳子上，将头靠在冰冷的台面上。我听到橱柜吱呀一声打开了，接着是开塑料盖的砰的一声。当我睁开眼睛，面前的台子上多了两粒红色的药片。
“Who is this us?” Charles said. “You’re leaving tomorrow. You’re not one of them anymore.”
“我们指的是谁？”查尔斯说，“你明天就要走了。你不再是他们中的一员了。”
“Not us.”
“我们不吃。”
“This is what people take for pain,” Charles said.
“大家疼痛都吃这个。”查尔斯说。
“What do you think will happen if you take the pills?” he said.
“吃了这些药，你认为会发生什么呢？”他说。
“People take drugs for pain,” he said. “It’s normal.”
“人们服药止痛，”他说，“这很正常。”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what would happen. Mother always said that medical drugs are a special kind of poison, one that never leaves your body but rots you slowly from the inside for the rest of your life. She told me if I took a drug now, even if I didn’t have children for a decade, they would be deformed.
我没有回答。我不知道会发生什么。母亲总是说，药是一种特殊的毒药，永远不会被排出身体，而且会在余生慢慢地腐蚀你。她告诉我，哪怕我现在吃药，十年后生的孩子也会是畸形。
For as long as I could remember, whenever I was in pain, whether from a cut or a toothache, Mother would make a tincture of lobelia and skullcap. It had never lessened the pain, not one degree. Because of this, I had come to respect pain, even revere it, as necessary and untouchable.
从记事起，只要身体不舒服，无论是有伤口还是牙痛，母亲都会给我服用半边莲和美黄芩制作的酊剂。那从未使疼痛减轻，甚至一点儿作用都没有。正因为如此，我开始尊重疼痛，甚至敬畏它，觉得它必不可少、不可捉摸。
I closed my eyes, hoping he would drop it.
我闭上眼睛，希望他不要再提起这件事。
I swallowed it, then the other.
我吞下它，然后又吃了一粒。
I must have winced at the word “normal,” because he went quiet. He filled a glass of water and set it in front of me, then gently pushed the pills forward until they touched my arm. I picked one up. I’d never seen a pill up close before. It was smaller than I’d expected.
我一定是被“正常”这个词吓了一跳，因为他沉默了。他给我倒了一杯水，放在我面前，然后轻轻把药片推过来，直到它们碰到我的胳膊。我拿起一粒。我以前从未这么近距离地见过药片，它比我想象的要小。
Twenty minutes after I swallowed the red pills, the earache was gone. I couldn’t comprehend its absence. I spent the afternoon swinging my head from left to right, trying to jog the pain loose again. I thought if I could shout loudly enough, or move quickly enough, perhaps the earache would return and I would know the medicine had been a sham after all.
吞下红色药片二十分钟后，我的耳朵不疼了。我无法理解疼痛的消失。整个下午我左右摆头，试图让疼痛再次出现。我想，如果我喊的声音够大，或者动得够快，也许耳朵还会再痛，我就会知道药其实是一场骗局。
Mother was supposed to drive me to BYU the next morning, but during the night, she was called to deliver a baby. There was a car sitting in the driveway — a Kia Sephia Dad had bought from Tony a few weeks before. The keys were in the ignition. I loaded my stuff into it and drove it to Utah, figuring the car would just about make up for the money Dad owed me. I guess he figured that, too, because he never said a word about it.
母亲本该第二天早上开车送我去杨百翰大学，但晚上她被叫去接生了。车道上停着一辆起亚赛菲亚，是爸爸几周前从托尼那儿买的。钥匙插在点火开关上。我把东西放进车里，开着它去了犹他州，心想这辆车正好能抵掉爸爸欠我的钱。我猜他也想到了这一点，因为他对此并没有说什么。
Charles watched in silence but he must have found my behavior absurd, especially when I began to pull on my ear, which still ached dully, so I could test the limits of this strange witchcraft.
查尔斯默不作声地看着我，但他肯定觉得我行为荒诞，特别是当我开始拽耳朵的时候。要是它们还隐隐作痛，我就能考验这种神奇巫术的局限了。
I moved into an apartment half a mile from the university. I had new roommates. Robin was tall and athletic, and the first time I saw her she was wearing running shorts that were much too short, but I didn’t gape at her. When I met Jenni she was drinking a Diet Coke. I didn’t stare at that, either, because I’d seen Charles drink dozens of them.
我搬到了离大学半英里远的公寓，有了新室友。罗宾又高又壮，我第一次见她时，她穿着跑步短裤，但我没有对她目瞪口呆。我见到詹妮时，她正在喝健怡可乐。我也没有盯着可乐看，因为我见查尔斯喝过很多次。
That night, after I left the bathroom, I stopped at the sink in the hall and washed my hands. With soap.
那天晚上，从卫生间出来，我在走廊的洗手池边停下洗了手，用了香皂。
“I’d like to remind everyone to wash their hands after they use the bathroom,” she said. “And not just with water, but with soap.”
“我想提醒大家上完厕所后要洗手。”她说，“不只是用水洗，还要用香皂。”
Robin was the oldest, and for some reason she was sympathetic to me. Somehow she understood that my missteps came from ignorance, not intention, and she corrected me gently but frankly. She told me exactly what I would need to do, or not do, to get along with the other girls in the apartment. No keeping rotten food in the cupboards or leaving rancid dishes in the sink.
罗宾年龄最大，出于某种原因，她很同情我。不知怎的，她明白我的过失并非故意为之，而是出于无知，于是她温和而坦率地纠正我。她告诉我该做什么，不该做什么，要和公寓里的其他女孩好好相处。不要把腐烂的食物放进橱柜，也不要把脏盘子留在水槽里不管。
Robin rolled her eyes. “I’m sure everyone here washes their hands.”
罗宾翻了翻眼珠。“我肯定每个人都洗手。”
The next day was the first day of class. Charles had designed my course schedule. He’d signed me up for two music classes and a course on religion, all of which he said would be easy for me. Then he’d enrolled me in two more challenging courses — college algebra, which terrified me, and biology, which didn’t but only because I didn’t know what it was.
次日是新学期第一天上课。查尔斯帮我设计了课程表。他让我报了两门音乐课、一门宗教课，说这些课对我来说很容易。他还给我报了两门颇具挑战性的课程——大学代数，这门课让我害怕；生物学，这我倒不害怕，只是因为我完全不知道要学什么。
Robin explained this at an apartment meeting. When she’d finished another roommate, Megan, cleared her throat.
罗宾在一次公寓会议上解释了这一点。她说完后，另一个室友梅根清了清嗓子。
I stopped sleeping. I stayed up late, twisting my hair into knots as I tried to wrest meaning from the textbook, then lying in bed and brooding over my notes. I developed stomach ulcers. Once, Jenni found me curled up on a stranger’s lawn, halfway between campus and our apartment. My stomach was on fire; I was shaking with the pain, but I wouldn’t let her take me to a hospital. She sat with me for half an hour, then walked me home.
我不再睡觉，每天都熬到很晚，揪着头发对着课本苦思冥想，之后躺在床上钻研笔记。我得了胃溃疡。一次，詹妮发现我蜷着身子躺在学校和公寓之间一户陌生人家的草坪上。我的胃着火一般，疼得浑身发抖，但我拒绝让她送我去医院。她陪我坐了半个小时，然后送我回到公寓。
Algebra threatened to put an end to my scholarship. The professor spent every lecture muttering inaudibly as he paced in front of the chalkboard. I wasn’t the only one who was lost, but I was more lost than anyone else. Charles tried to help, but he was starting his senior year of high school and had his own schoolwork. In October I took the midterm and failed it.
代数课是终止我的奖学金的一大威胁。教授每次上课都在黑板前踱来踱去，咕咕哝哝让人听不清。我不是唯一感到迷茫的人，但我比任何人都更迷茫。查尔斯试图帮忙，他刚开始高中最后一年的学习，有自己的学业。十月，我参加了期中考试，但没有及格。
The pain in my stomach intensified, burning through the night, making it impossible to sleep. I needed money for rent, so I got a job as a janitor for the engineering building. My shift began every morning at four. Between the ulcers and the janitorial work, I barely slept. Jenni and Robin kept saying I should see a doctor but I didn’t. I told them I was going home for Thanksgiving and that my mother would cure me. They exchanged nervous glances but didn’t say anything.
胃痛加剧，整整一夜灼烧般的疼痛让我不能合眼。我需要钱付房租，所以找了一份工程大楼的保洁工作，每天早上四点开始上班。溃疡和清洁工作让我几乎没法睡觉。詹妮和罗宾一直劝我去看医生，但我不听。我告诉她们马上就要回家过感恩节了，母亲会治好我的病。她们紧张地交换了一下眼色，但什么也没说。
I told him he was crazy.
我对他说他疯了。
It had never occurred to me to talk to a professor — I didn’t realize we were allowed to talk to them — so I decided to try, if only to prove to Charles I could do it.
去跟教授谈谈，我连想都没有想过——我没有意识到我们是被允许和他们谈谈的——所以我决定试试，即便只是为了向查尔斯证明，我可以做到。
Charles said my behavior was self-destructive, that I had an almost pathological inability to ask for help. He told me this on the phone, and he said it so quietly it was almost a whisper.
查尔斯说我的行为无异于自取灭亡，有事不去寻求帮助，简直到了病态的地步。这些话他是在电话里对我说的，声音很轻，近乎耳语。
“Then go talk to your algebra professor,” he said. “You’re failing. Ask for help.”
“那么去和你的代数教授谈谈，”他说，“说你跟不上了，让他帮帮你。”
I knocked on his office door a few days before Thanksgiving. He looked smaller in his office than he did in the lecture hall, and more shiny: the light above his desk reflected off his head and glasses. He was shuffling through the papers on his desk, and he didn’t look up when I sat down. “If I fail this class,” I said, “I’ll lose my scholarship.” I didn’t explain that without a scholarship, I couldn’t come back.
感恩节的前几天，我敲响了教授办公室的门。办公室里的他看上去比在大教室里更显矮小，桌子上方的光线反射在他的头上和眼镜上，让他看上去更闪亮。他翻着桌上的试卷，我坐下时他没有抬头。“如果这门课不及格，”我说，“我就会失去奖学金。”我没有解释，没有了奖学金，我就不能再回来上学了。
“I’m sorry,” he said, barely looking at me. “But this is a tough school. It might be better if you come back when you’re older. Or transfer.”
“对不起，”他说，几乎看都没看我一眼，“但这所学校很难念。等你大点儿再回来也许会更好。或者转学。”
I said it did. It was a long shot, but I was the queen of long shots. I called Charles. I told him I was coming to Idaho for Thanksgiving and I needed an algebra tutor. He said he would meet me at Buck’s Peak.
我说好。机会渺茫，但我是擅长抓住机会的女王。我打电话给查尔斯，告诉他我要回爱达荷州过感恩节，我需要一位代数家教。他说他会在巴克峰跟我碰头。
I didn’t know what he meant by “transfer,” so I said nothing. I stood to go, and for some reason this softened him. “Truthfully,” he said, “a lot of people are failing.” He sat back in his chair. “How about this: the final covers all the material from the semester. I’ll announce in class that anyone who gets a perfect score on the final — not a ninety-eight but an actual one hundred — will get an A, no matter how they performed on the midterm. Sound good?”
我不知道他说的“转学”是什么意思，所以我什么也没说。我起身要走，然后不知为何他心软了。“说实话，”他说，“很多同学都跟不上了。”他向后靠在椅子上，“你看这样如何：期末考试会涵盖本学期的全部内容。我会在课堂上宣布：只要最后考试得满分——不是九十八分，而是一百分——不管期中考试成绩如何，最终成绩都是A。听上去不错吧？”
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