I asked Myrna if I could put a card up on the board. She asked what the card was for. I said I hoped I could find jobs babysitting.
我问默娜，能不能在布告板上放一张卡片。她问卡片是干什么用的。我说我想找份保姆的工作。
I wanted to get away from the junkyard and there was only one way to do that, which was the way Audrey had done it: by getting a job so I wouldn’t be at the house when Dad rounded up his crew. The trouble was, I was eleven.
要想离开废料场，办法只有一个，那就是像奥黛丽一样找份工作，这样爸爸召集全员干活时我就不在家了。问题是，我才十一岁。
I biked a mile into the dusty center of our little village. There wasn’t much there, just a church, a post office and a gas station called Papa Jay’s. I went into the post office. Behind the counter was an older lady whose name I knew was Myrna Moyle, because Myrna and her husband Jay (Papa Jay) owned the gas station. Dad said they’d been behind the city ordinance limiting dog ownership to two dogs per family. They’d proposed other ordinances, too, and now every Sunday Dad came home from church shouting about Myrna and Jay Moyle, and how they were from Monterey or Seattle or wherever and thought they could impose West Coast socialism on the good people of Idaho.
我骑了一英里车来到尘土飞扬的镇中心。这里只有一个教堂、一个邮局和一个叫“杰伊老爹”的加油站。我走进邮局。柜台后面是一位年长的女士，我知道她叫默娜·莫伊尔，因为加油站就是她和丈夫杰伊（杰伊老爹）开的。爸爸说他们就是规定每家最多养两条狗的城市法令的幕后推手。他们还提了别的法令。现在每个星期天爸爸从教堂回来，都大声谈论默娜和杰伊·莫伊尔，说他们从蒙特利或西雅图或别的地方而来，说他们如何用西海岸的理论蒙骗爱达荷州的好人。
“I mean all the time.”
“任何时间都可以。”
“Anytime, all the time.”
“什么时候都行。”
“What times are you available?” she said.
“你什么时候有空？”她说。
Mary taught nursing at the school, which Dad said was just about as brainwashed as a person could get, to be working for the Medical Establishment and the Government both. I thought maybe he wouldn’t let me work for her, but he did, and pretty soon I was babysitting Mary’s daughter every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning. Then Mary had a friend, Eve, who needed a babysitter for her three children on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
玛丽在学校教护理。爸爸说过，同时为医疗机构和政府工作，这是被洗脑最严重的了。我原以为他不会允许我给她打工，没想到他却同意了。很快我便在每周一三五上午去照顾玛丽的女儿。玛丽有个朋友叫伊芙，也正好需要一个保姆在周二和周四照顾她的三个孩子。
“You mean after school?”
“你是说放学后？”
Myrna looked at me and tilted her head. “My daughter Mary needs someone to tend her youngest. I’ll ask her.”
默娜看着我，歪着头说：“我女儿玛丽想找个人照顾她的小宝宝。我去问问她。”
A mile down the road, a man named Randy ran a business out of his home, selling cashews, almonds and macadamias. He stopped by the post office one afternoon and chatted with Myrna about how tired he was of packing the boxes himself, how he wished he could hire some kids but they were all tied up with football and band.
这条路往前一英里，有个叫兰迪的人在家门口开了家商店，卖腰果、杏仁和夏威夷果。一天下午，他路过邮局，进来和默娜聊天，说他一个人打包装箱太累了，希望能雇几个孩子帮忙，但孩子们都忙着去踢足球和搞乐队了。
“There’s at least one kid in this town who isn’t,” Myrna said. “And I think she’d be real eager.” She pointed to my card, and soon I was babysitting from eight until noon Monday to Friday, then going to Randy’s to pack cashews until supper. I wasn’t paid much, but as I’d never been paid anything before, it felt like a lot.
“至少有一个孩子没去。”默娜说，“我想她也很愿意帮忙。”她指着我的卡片说。很快我就在周一到周五上午八点至中午之间照看小孩，然后去兰迪的店里打包腰果，一直干到晚饭时间。薪水不算多，但以前我从未挣过钱，所以感觉钱也不少。
“Do you meet other kids?” she asked. “Do you have friends?”
“你和别的小孩交往吗？”她问道，“你有朋友吗？”
The next day, when Mary returned from the school, I asked her if instead of money she would give me lessons. We perched on the piano bench and she showed me a few finger exercises. Then she asked what else I was learning besides the piano. Dad had told me what to say when people asked about my schooling. “I do school every day,” I said.
第二天，玛丽从学校回来，我问她是否愿意用教我上课代替付我薪水。我们在钢琴凳上坐好，她给我演示了几个指法。接着她问我除了钢琴，我还在学什么。爸爸嘱咐过我，假如别人问起我的学业，我该如何作答。“我每天都学习。”我说。
“Sure,” I said. Mary returned to the lesson. When we’d finished and I was ready to go, she said, “My sister Caroline teaches dance every Wednesday in the back of Papa Jay’s. There are lots of girls your age. You could join.”
“当然了。”我说。玛丽继续教我。上完课，我刚准备离开，她说：“我妹妹卡洛琳每周三在杰伊老爹加油站后面教跳舞。有很多和你同龄的女孩。你也可以去。”
People at church said Mary could play the piano beautifully. They used the word “professional.” I didn’t know what that meant until one Sunday when Mary played a piano solo for the congregation. The music stopped my breath. I’d heard the piano played countless times before, to accompany hymns, but when Mary played it, the sound was nothing like that formless clunking. It was liquid, it was air. It was rock one moment and wind the next.
教堂里的人说玛丽弹得一手好钢琴。他们用了“专业”一词。我不知道这是什么意思，直到一个星期天，玛丽为教堂会众演奏钢琴。音乐让我忘记了呼吸。我以前听过无数次为赞美诗伴奏的钢琴演奏，但玛丽弹奏的音乐与之前杂乱的叮咚声截然不同。那是液体，也是空气；一会儿是岩石，一会儿又变成了风。
She arranged us in rows, then showed us a short routine. A song played from a boom box in the corner. I’d never heard it before but the other girls knew it. I looked in the mirror at our reflection, at the twelve girls, sleek and shiny, pirouetting blurs of black, white and pink. Then at myself, large and gray.
她让我们排成一排，给我们演示了一段简短的舞步。角落里有个音箱在播放一首歌。这首歌我以前从没听过，但其他女孩都知道。我望着镜中的我们，盯着那十二个女孩，她们踮起脚尖旋转着，黑色、白色、粉色，那样干净利落，光彩照人。然后我看看自己，灰不溜秋的大块头。
When the lesson finished, Caroline told me to buy a leotard and dance shoes.
下课后，卡洛琳让我去买一套紧身连衣裤，一双舞鞋。
“Oh.” She looked uncomfortable. “Maybe one of the girls can lend you one.”
“哦。”她看上去很不自在，“也许哪个女孩能借给你一套。”
“I can’t,” I said.
“我买不了。”我说。
“Well, you can’t dance in boots,” she said. “I’ll talk to your mother.”
“可你总不能穿靴子跳舞吧。”她说，“我去跟你母亲谈谈。”
That Wednesday, I left Randy’s early and pedaled to the gas station. I wore jeans, a large gray T-shirt, and steel-toed boots; the other girls wore black leotards and sheer, shimmering skirts, white tights and tiny ballet shoes the color of taffy. Caroline was younger than Mary. Her makeup was flawless and gold hoops flashed through chestnut curls.
那个星期三，我早早离开兰迪的商店，骑车去了加油站。我穿着牛仔裤、大大的灰T恤、钢头靴；别的女孩穿黑色紧身衣、闪光的裙子、白色紧身裤袜和太妃糖色的小巧芭蕾舞鞋。卡洛琳比玛丽年轻，她的妆容完美无瑕，一头栗色的卷发，金色的发箍闪闪发光。
She’d misunderstood. She thought I didn’t have money. “It isn’t modest,” I said. Her lips parted in surprise. These Californian Moyles, I thought.
她误解我了，以为我没钱。“这个不端庄。”我说。她惊讶地张大了嘴。这些来自加利福尼亚的莫伊尔家的人啊，我想。
“Keep those in your room,” Mother said as we left the store. She didn’t need to say anything else. I already understood that I should not show the leotard to Dad.
“把这些留在你房间里。”我们离开商店时，母亲说。她不再说什么。我早就清楚，绝对不能让爸爸看见紧身连衣裤。
That Wednesday, I wore the leotard and tights with my gray T-shirt over the top. The T-shirt reached almost to my knees, but even so I was ashamed to see so much of my legs. Dad said a righteous woman never shows anything above her ankle.
那个周三，我穿着紧身连衣裤、紧身裤袜，外面套着那件灰色T恤。T恤几乎遮住了我的膝盖，即便如此，我也为露出腿而感到羞愧。爸爸说过，正派的女人永远都不能露出脚踝以上的任何部位。
A few days later, Mother drove me forty miles to a small shop whose shelves were lined with exotic shoes and strange acrylic costumes. Not one was modest. Mother went straight to the counter and told the attendant we needed a black leotard, white tights and jazz shoes.
几天后，母亲拉着我驱车四十英里去了一家小店，店里的货架上摆满了异国情调的鞋子和怪异的腈纶服装。没有一件端庄的。母亲径直走到柜台前，对售货员说，我们要一套黑色紧身连衣裤、一双白色紧身裤袜和一双爵士舞鞋。
The other girls rarely spoke to me, but I loved being there with them. I loved the sensation of conformity. Learning to dance felt like learning to belong. I could memorize the movements and, in doing so, step into their minds, lunging when they lunged, reaching my arms upward in time with theirs. Sometimes, when I glanced at the mirror and saw the tangle of our twirling forms, I couldn’t immediately discern myself in the crowd. It didn’t matter that I was wearing a gray T-shirt — a goose among swans. We moved together, a single flock.
其他女孩很少和我说话，但我喜欢和她们在一起。我喜欢保持一致的感觉。学跳舞就像在学习有所归属。我能记住动作，做这些动作时，我能进入她们的大脑，与她们一同呼吸，一齐伸出双臂。有时我瞥一眼镜子，看见我们聚成团快速旋转的身体，无法立刻在人群中认出自己。身穿灰色T恤的我虽然像天鹅群中的一只家鹅，但这不重要。重要的是我们是一个群体，共同行动。
On the Wednesday after Caroline called Mother, I arrived at Papa Jay’s a few minutes early. The younger class had just finished, and the store was flooded with six-year-olds, prancing for their mothers in red velvet hats and skirts sparkling with sequins of deep scarlet. I watched them wiggle and leap through the aisles, their thin legs covered only by sheer tights. I thought they looked like tiny harlots.
在卡洛琳打电话给母亲后的星期三，我提前几分钟到了杰伊老爹加油站。小班刚下课，到处是六岁左右的小女孩，头戴红色天鹅绒帽，裙子上闪烁着深红色亮片，欢蹦乱跳地找她们的母亲。我看着她们扭动着腰肢，蹦蹦跳跳地穿过走廊，纤细的腿上只穿着透明紧身连裤袜。我觉得她们看上去像小妓女。
The rest of my class arrived. When they saw the outfits, they rushed into the studio to see what Caroline had for them. Caroline was standing next to a cardboard box full of large gray sweatshirts. She began handing them out. “Here are your costumes!” she said. The girls held up their sweatshirts, eyebrows raised in disbelief. They had expected chiffon or ribbon, not Fruit of the Loom. Caroline had tried to make the sweatshirts more appealing by sewing large Santas, bordered with glitter, on the fronts, but this only made the dingy cotton seem dingier.
班里的其他同学陆续来了。她们看到这些服装，立刻冲进工作室，想看看卡洛琳为她们准备了什么样的服装。卡洛琳站在一个纸箱旁，箱子里装满了宽大的灰色运动衫。她开始分发。“这就是你们的服装！”她说。女孩们举起运动衫，扬起眉毛，难以置信。她们期待的是雪纺或缎带，而不是鲜果布衣[10]。为了让运动衫漂亮一些，卡洛琳在胸前缝上了镶有亮边的硕大的圣诞老人，但这只是让脏兮兮的棉布显得更脏。【注：[10]Fruit of the Loom，美国内衣品牌，也生产T恤。】
We began rehearsals for the Christmas recital, and Caroline called Mother to discuss the costume. “The skirt will be how long?” Mother said. “And sheer? No, that’s not going to work.” I heard Caroline say something about what the other girls in the class would want to wear. “Tara can’t wear that,” Mother said. “If that’s what the other girls are wearing, she will stay home.”
我们开始为圣诞演奏会进行排练，卡洛琳打电话给母亲讨论服装的事。“裙子有多长？”母亲说，“透明吗？不，这可不行。”我听见卡洛琳谈起舞蹈班里的其他女孩想穿什么。“塔拉不能穿那个。”母亲说，“如果别的女孩就要穿成那样，她就待在家里不去了。”
The recital was held at the church. Everyone was there, with flashing cameras and bulky camcorders. I changed into my costume in the same room where I attended Sunday school. The other girls chatted cheerfully; I pulled on my sweatshirt, trying to stretch the material a few more inches. I was still tugging it downward when we lined up on the stage.
演奏会在教堂举行。所有人都来了，照相机不停闪烁，大大的摄像机红灯亮起。我在一间房里换上表演服（我也在那里上主日学校的课程）。别的女孩在开心地聊天；我套上运动衫，使劲把布料往下拉了几英寸。我们在舞台上排好队时，我还在往下拽衣服。
Mother hadn’t told Dad about the recital, and neither had I. I didn’t ask him to come. There was an instinct at work in me, a learned intuition. The day of the recital, Mother told Dad I had a “thing” that night. Dad asked a lot of questions, which surprised Mother, and after a few minutes she admitted it was a dance recital. Dad grimaced when Mother told him I’d been taking lessons from Caroline Moyle, and I thought he was going to start talking about California socialism again, but he didn’t. Instead he got his coat and the three of us walked to the car.
母亲没有告诉爸爸演奏会的事，我也没有。我也没请他到场观看。我的某种本能在起作用，一种习得的直觉。演奏会那天，母亲告诉爸爸说我晚上“有点事儿”。爸爸问了很多问题，让母亲吃惊，几分钟后她承认，我是去参加一场演奏会。母亲向爸爸坦白我一直在跟着卡洛琳·莫伊尔上课，爸爸听了做了个鬼脸。我以为他又要开始大谈加州左派，结果他没有，而是拿起了外套。我们三个人朝汽车走去。
Music played from a stereo on the piano and we began to dance, our feet tapping in sequence. Next we were supposed to leap, reach upward and spin. My feet remained planted. Instead of flinging my arms above my head, I lifted them only to my shoulders. When the other girls crouched to slap the stage, I tilted; when we were to cartwheel, I swayed, refusing to allow gravity to do its work, to draw the sweatshirt any higher up my legs.
音乐从钢琴上的一个立体声音响中传出来。我们的脚跟随音乐，纷纷起舞。接下来我们该跳跃，向上伸展，旋转，我的脚却像生了根一样。我没有把手臂举过头顶，而是举到与肩膀齐平。其他女孩蹲下来拍打舞台时，我歪着身子；我们该侧手翻的时候，我摇摇摆摆，拒绝让运动衫在重力作用下褪到腿部以上。
I leaned forward to see Mother’s face, wanting her to look at me, to see the question I was mentally asking her, because I didn’t understand, not at all. I knew Mother wasn’t furious with Caroline, because I knew Mother had seen the sweatshirt days before. She had even called Caroline and thanked her for choosing a costume I could wear. Mother turned her head toward the window.
我俯身向前望着母亲的脸，想让她看看我，回答我心里的疑问，因为我一点儿也不明白。我知道母亲并不生卡洛琳的气，因为她几天前见过这件运动衫。她甚至打电话给卡洛琳，感谢她挑选了一套我可以穿的衣服。母亲把头转向窗户。
The music ended. The girls glared at me as we left the stage — I had ruined the performance — but I could barely see them. Only one person in that room felt real to me, and that was Dad. I searched the audience and recognized him easily. He was standing in the back, the lights from the stage flickering off his square glasses. His expression was stiff, impassive, but I could see anger in it.
音乐结束。离开舞台时，女孩们都对我怒目而视——我毁了整个节目——但我几乎没去看她们。房间里只有一个人对我而言是真实的，那就是爸爸。我朝观众席望去，一眼就看到了他。他站在后面，舞台灯光反射在他的方框眼镜上。他表情僵硬而冷漠，但我能看出其中的愤怒。
The drive home was only a mile; it felt like a hundred. I sat in the backseat and listened to my father shout. How could Mother have let me sin so openly? Was this why she’d kept the recital from him? Mother listened for a moment, chewing her lip, then threw her hands in the air and said that she’d had no idea the costume would be so immodest. “I’m furious with Caroline Moyle!” she said.
开车回家路程只有一英里，可是感觉有一百英里。我坐在后座上，听父亲大喊大叫。母亲怎么能允许我如此公开地犯罪呢？这就是她一直向他隐瞒演奏会的原因吗？母亲听了一会儿，咬着嘴唇，双手往空中一摊，说她不知道演出服会如此不端庄。“我真生卡洛琳·莫伊尔的气！”她说。
I stared at the gray hairs on the back of Dad’s head. He was sitting quietly, listening to Mother, who continued to insult Caroline, to say how shocking the costumes were, how obscene. Dad nodded as we bumped up the icy driveway, becoming less angry with every word from Mother.
我盯着爸爸后脑勺上的白发。他静静地坐着，听母亲继续骂卡洛琳，说这些服装多么令人震惊，多么下流。当我们在结冰的车道上颠簸前行时，爸爸点点头，对于母亲说的每个字不那么生气了。
The rest of the night was taken up by my father’s lecture. He said Caroline’s class was one of Satan’s deceptions, like the public school, because it claimed to be one thing when really it was another. It claimed to teach dance, but instead it taught immodesty, promiscuity. Satan was shrewd, Dad said. By calling it “dance,” he had convinced good Mormons to accept the sight of their daughters jumping about like whores in the Lord’s house. That fact offended Dad more than anything else: that such a lewd display had taken place in a church.
那天晚上父亲都在滔滔不绝。他说卡洛琳的舞蹈班和公立学校一样，都是恶魔撒旦的诡计，因为它表里不一。它表面上教舞蹈，实际上却教人放荡不羁。撒旦很狡猾，爸爸说。他所谓的“跳舞”，不过是说服善良的摩门教徒，让他们眼睁睁看着自己的女儿像妓女一样在耶和华的圣殿中跳来跳去。最让爸爸生气的是：如此淫荡的表演竟然发生在教堂里。
After he had worn himself out and gone to bed, I crawled under my covers and stared into the black. There was a knock at my door. It was Mother. “I should have known better,” she said. “I should have seen that class for what it was.”
把自己讲到精疲力竭之后，他上床睡觉了。我爬进被窝，在黑暗中睁着眼睛。有人敲我的房门。是母亲。“我早该知道的，”她说，“我早该看清楚那个舞蹈班的真面目。”
Mother must have felt guilty after the recital, because in the weeks that followed she searched for something else I could do, something Dad wouldn’t forbid. She’d noticed the hours I spent in my room with Tyler’s old boom box, listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, so she began looking for a voice teacher. It took a few weeks to find one, and another few weeks to persuade the teacher to take me. The lessons were much more expensive than the dance class had been, but Mother paid for them with the money she made selling oils.
在演奏会后，母亲一定是颇感内疚，因为接下来的几个星期，她努力寻找其他我能做的而父亲也不会禁止的事。她注意到我经常用泰勒的旧音箱听摩门教礼拜合唱团的音乐，于是开始给我找声乐老师。几周后老师找到了，她又花了几周时间说服那位老师教我。这些课程比舞蹈课贵多了，但是母亲用卖精油赚来的钱付了学费。
After a few lessons, she announced that I was ready to sing in church. It was arranged, she said. I would sing a hymn in front of the congregation that Sunday.
几次课后，她宣布我可以在教堂唱歌了。已经安排好了，她说。那个星期天我要在教堂会众面前唱赞美诗。
The teacher was tall and thin, with long fingernails that clicked as they flew across the piano keys. She straightened my posture by pulling the hair at the base of my neck until I’d tucked in my chin, then she stretched me out on the floor and stepped on my stomach to strengthen my diaphragm. She was obsessed with balance and often slapped my knees to remind me to stand powerfully, to take up my own space.
老师又高又瘦，修长的指甲掠过钢琴琴键时叮当作响。她先纠正我的仪态，拉着我脖后根的头发，让我收紧下巴，然后在地板上给我拉伸，踩我的肚子以加强横膈膜的力量。她非常重视平衡，经常拍打我的膝盖，提醒我站立时要挺拔有力。
The days slipped away quickly, as days do when you’re dreading something. On Sunday morning, I stood at the pulpit and stared into the faces of the people below. There was Myrna and Papa Jay, and behind them Mary and Caroline. They looked sorry for me, like they thought I might humiliate myself.
日子过得很快，你越害怕某事，时间流逝得越快。周日早上，我站在布道台前，盯着下面人们的脸。有默娜和杰伊老爹，他们后面是玛丽和卡洛琳。他们看上去为我难过，似乎觉得我会出洋相。
Mother played the introduction. The music paused; it was time to sing. I might have had any number of thoughts at that moment. I might have thought of my teacher and her techniques — square stance, straight back, dropped jaw. Instead I thought of Tyler, and of lying on the carpet next to his desk, staring at his woolen-socked feet while the Mormon Tabernacle Choir chanted and trilled. He’d filled my head with their voices, which to me were more beautiful than anything except Buck’s Peak.
母亲弹了序曲部分，音乐暂停，轮到我唱了。那一刻我本该思绪万千。也许我本该记起我的老师和她教授的技巧——挺胸抬头，腰背挺直，下巴收紧。可是我却想起了泰勒，想起我躺在他书桌旁的地毯上，盯着他穿着羊毛袜子的脚，聆听摩门教礼拜合唱团用颤音高歌的情景。他让我的脑海充满了合唱的声音，对我来说，这声音美妙至极，世上除了巴克峰，再没有什么能与之相媲美。
Mother’s fingers hovered over the keys. The pause had become awkward; the congregation shifted uncomfortably. I thought of the voices, of their strange contradictions — of the way they made sound float on air, of how that sound was soft like a warm wind, but so sharp it pierced. I reached for those voices, reached into my mind — and there they were. Nothing had ever felt so natural; it was as if I thought the sound, and by thinking it brought it into being. But reality had never yielded to my thoughts before.
母亲的手指悬停在琴键上。这个停顿变得尴尬；教堂会众不自在地动了动。我想起那些声音，想起它们充满奇异的矛盾——想起它们使音符那样飘浮在空气之上，像暖风一样柔软，但又如此尖锐有力。我去内心深处寻求那些声音——它们就在那里。一切感觉那么自然，就好像我想出了那些声音，我用想的方式唱出了它们。但之前现实从未曾屈服于我的想法。
Dad smiled at everyone. There was scarcely a person in the church that Dad hadn’t called a gentile — for visiting a doctor or for sending their kids to the public school — but that day he seemed to forget about California socialism and the Illuminati. He stood next to me, a hand on my shoulder, graciously collecting compliments. “We’re very blessed,” he kept saying. “Very blessed.” Papa Jay crossed the chapel and paused in front of our pew. He said I sang like one of God’s own angels. Dad looked at him for a moment, then his eyes began to shine and he shook Papa Jay’s hand like they were old friends.
爸爸朝每个人微笑。因为看医生或者送孩子上学的问题，教堂里几乎所有人之前都被爸爸称为“异教徒”，但那天他似乎把加州左派和光明会抛诸脑后。他站在我旁边，一只手搭在我肩膀上，亲切地回应人们的赞美之词。“我们受神眷顾，”他不停地说，“非常有福。”杰伊老爹穿过教堂，在我们的座位前停下。他说我唱起歌来就像上帝的天使。爸爸看了他一会儿，然后眼睛发亮，紧握杰伊老爹的手，就像两人是多年的老朋友。
The song finished and I returned to our pew. A prayer was offered to close the service, then the crowd rushed me. Women in floral prints smiled and clasped my hand, men in square black suits clapped my shoulder. The choir director invited me to join the choir, Brother Davis asked me to sing for the Rotary Club, and the bishop — the Mormon equivalent of a pastor — said he’d like me to sing my song at a funeral. I said yes to all of them.
歌唱完了，我回到座位上。最后是祈祷仪式，之后人们朝我涌来。穿碎花裙子的女人微笑着和我握手，穿方格黑西装的男人过来拍拍我的肩膀。合唱团主管邀请我加入唱诗班，戴维斯兄弟请我为扶轮社[11]唱歌，主教——在摩门教中相当于牧师——说，他想请我在一场葬礼上唱歌。我答应了所有人的请求。【注：[11]Rotary Club，职业人士的国际性组织，提供慈善服务，鼓励崇高的职业道德，并致力于世界亲善及和平。】
I’d never seen this side of my father, but I would see it many times after — every time I sang. However long he’d worked in the junkyard, he was never too tired to drive across the valley to hear me. However bitter his feelings toward socialists like Papa Jay, they were never so bitter that, should those people praise my voice, Dad wouldn’t put aside the great battle he was fighting against the Illuminati long enough to say, “Yes, God has blessed us, we’re very blessed.” It was as if, when I sang, Dad forgot for a moment that the world was a frightening place, that it would corrupt me, that I should be kept safe, sheltered, at home. He wanted my voice to be heard.
我从未见过父亲的这一面，但之后又见了许多次——每次都是在我唱歌后。不管他在废料场工作了多久，不管他有多累，他都会开车翻山越岭去听我唱歌。不管他多么痛恨像杰伊老爹那样的人，只要那些人赞扬我的声音，爸爸就会把他与光明会的战斗搁置一边，不再充满仇恨，他说：“是的，上帝保佑我们，我们非常有福。”就好像我唱歌时，爸爸一时忘记了世界是一个可怕的地方，它会使我堕落，忘记了我应该待在家里受到庇护。他想让人听见我的声音。
The theater in town was putting on a play, Annie, and my teacher said that if the director heard me sing, he would give me the lead. Mother warned me not to get my hopes up. She said we couldn’t afford to drive the twelve miles to town four nights a week for rehearsals, and that even if we could, Dad would never allow me to spend time in town, alone, with who knows what kind of people.
镇上的剧院正在上演一出戏剧，《安妮》，老师说，如果导演听了我唱歌，会让我当领唱。母亲提醒我不要抱太大希望，说我们负担不起每周四晚上开车十二英里进城去排练的费用，即使负担得起，爸爸也绝不会允许我一个人在城里，天知道我会和什么样的人在一起。
“I’ll find the money,” he told Mother when they went to bed that night. “You get her to that audition.”
“我会弄到钱的，”那天晚上上床睡觉时，他对母亲说，“你带她去参加试唱吧。”
I practiced the songs anyway because I liked them. One evening, I was in my room singing, “The sun’ll come out tomorrow,” when Dad came in for supper. He chewed his meatloaf quietly, and listened.
不管怎样，我还是练习这些歌，因为我喜欢。一天晚上，我正在房间里唱“明天太阳会出来”，爸爸回到家吃晚饭。他嚼着肉饼，静静地听着。
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