This evening, I come home from the clinic and find a message from Thalia on the landline phone in my bedroom. I play it as I slip off my shoes and sit at my desk. She tells me she has a cold, one she is sure she picked up from Mamá, then she asks after me, asks how work is going in Kabul. At the end, just before she hangs up, she says, Odie goes on and on about how you don’t call. Of course she won’t tell you. So I will. Markos. For the love of Christ. Call your mother. You ass.
这天晚上，我从医院回到家，在卧室的固定电话上发现了萨丽娅的一条留言。我一边听着回放，一边脱掉鞋子，坐到桌边。她告诉我她得了感冒，肯定是妈妈传染给她的，接着她问了我的近况，问我在喀布尔的工作如何。最后，眼看要挂断了，她又说：奥蒂不停地问你怎么不来电话。当然了，她不会跟你讲这个的。所以我讲。马科斯，你发发慈悲，给你妈打个电话。你这蠢货。
I smile.
我笑了。
I keep a picture of her on my desk, the one I took all those years ago at the beach on Tinos — Thalia sitting on a rock with her back to the camera. I have framed the photo, though if you look closely you can still see a patch of dark brown at the left lower corner courtesy of a crazed Italian girl who tried to set fire to it many years ago.
我桌上摆了一张她的照片，很多年以前我在蒂诺斯的海滩上拍的——萨丽娅坐在一块礁石上，背对着照相机。我给这张照片配了相框，不过，如果你凑近了看，还是能发现左下角有一片深褐色，这是个疯狂的意大利姑娘干的好事，多年以前，她想把它烧掉。
Thalia.
萨丽娅。
I turn on my laptop and start typing up the previous day’s op notes. My room is upstairs — one of three bedrooms on the second floor of this house where I have lived since my arrival in Kabul back in 2002– and my desk sits at the window overlooking the garden below. I have a view of the loquat trees my old landlord, Nabi, and I planted a few years ago. I can see Nabi’s onetime quarters along the back wall too, now repainted. After he passed away, I offered them to a young Dutch fellow who helps local high schools with their IT. And, off to the right, there is Suleiman Wahdati’s 1940s Chevrolet, unmoved for decades, shrouded in rust like a rock by moss, currently covered by a light film of yesterday’s surprisingly early snowfall, the first of the year thus far. After Nabi died, I thought briefly of having the car hauled to one of Kabul’s junkyards, but I didn’t have the heart. It seemed to me too essential a part of the house’s past, its history.
我打开笔记本电脑，开始录入前一天的手术记录。我的房间在楼上，是二楼三个房间当中的一间。自从2002年来到喀布尔，我就一直住在这幢房子里。我的书桌靠着窗子，从这儿可以俯瞰楼下的花园。我可以看到枇杷树，那是我的老房东纳比几年前种下的。我还能看到纳比从前住的小屋，贴着后墙，现在重新粉刷过了。他去世以后，我把小屋给了一个荷兰小伙子，他在帮本地的高中做计算机方面的事。再往右看，是苏莱曼·瓦赫达提的雪佛兰，四十年代的款式，几十年没有挪过窝了，全身是锈，像一块长满苔藓的大石头，此时盖上了一层薄薄的雪，雪是昨天下的，早得出人意料，是今年的第一场雪。纳比死后，我曾动过念头，把这辆车拖到喀布尔的废车场去，可我没这个勇气。对我来说，它就像房子万万不可剥离的一部分，代表着这幢老宅的过去和历史。
I finish the notes and check my watch. It’s already 9:30 P. M. Seven o’clock in the evening back in Greece.
我完成了手术记录，看了看手表。已经九点半了。正是希腊的晚上七点。
Call your mother. You ass.
给你妈打个电话。你这蠢货。
I met Thalia in the summer of 1967, when I was twelve years old. She and her mother, Madaline, came to Tinos to visit Mamá and me. Mamá, whose name is Odelia, said it had been years — fifteen, to be exact — since she and her friend Madaline had last seen each other. Madaline had left the island at seventeen and gone off to Athens to become, for a brief time at least, an actress of some modest renown.
我是1967年的夏天见到萨丽娅的，当时我十二岁。她和她母亲玛达丽娜来蒂诺斯看妈妈和我。妈妈名叫奥德丽娅，她说，自从她和她朋友玛达丽娜上次见面，已经过去了很多个年头，确切地说，有十五年了。玛达丽娜十七岁离岛而去，前往雅典，至少在短期之内，成了个小有名气的女演员。
If I am going to call Mamá tonight, I can’t delay it any longer. I remember Thalia wrote in one of her e-mails that Mamá was going to bed earlier and earlier. I take a breath and steel myself. I pick up the receiver and dial.
如果今晚要给妈妈打电话，我就不能再耽搁了。我记得萨丽娅在电子邮件里写过，妈妈睡得越来越早。我深吸了一口气，横下一条心，拿起话筒，拨了号码。
“I wasn’t surprised,” Mamá said, “when I heard of her acting. Because of her looks. Everyone was always taken with Madaline. You’ll see for yourself when you meet her.”
“听说她投身演艺，”妈妈说，“我并不觉得意外。因为她长得好看。人人都会迷上玛达丽娜。等你见到她就明白了。”
I asked Mamá why she’d never mentioned her.
我问妈妈，为什么她从没说起过她。
“Haven’t I? Are you sure?”
“我没有吗？你肯定？”
“I’m sure.”
“肯定。”
“I could have sworn.” Then she said, “The daughter. Thalia. You must be considerate with her because she had an accident. A dog bit her. She has a scar.”
“我可以发誓。”她接着又说，“她女儿。萨丽娅。你一定得对她周到点儿，因为她出过意外。狗把她咬了。她留了疤。”
“Madaline and I met at mass, when we were little,” Mamá said. Right off, she said, they had become inseparable friends. They had held hands under their desks in class, or at recess, at church, or strolling past the barley fields. They had sworn to remain sisters for life. They promised they would live close to each other, even after they’d married. They would live as neighbors, and if one or the other’s husband insisted on moving away, then they would demand a divorce. I remember that Mamá grinned a little when she told me all this self-mockingly, as if to distance herself from this youthful exuberance and foolishness, all those headlong, breathless vows. But I saw on her face a tinge of unspoken hurt as well, a shade of disappointment that Mamá was far too proud to admit to.
“玛达丽娜和我是在做弥撒的时候认识的。”妈妈说，“那时我们还小。”她说她们一下子就成了形影不离的好朋友。上课时，她们在课桌底下手拉着手，课间休息时，上教堂时，漫步走过大麦地的时候，也总是牵着手。她们曾经立下誓言，一辈子以姐妹相认。她们保证要彼此亲近，哪怕将来嫁了人。她们要比邻而居，如果一个或另一个的丈夫非要搬走，那么她们便提出离婚。我记得妈妈告诉我这些事的时候，是撇着嘴，笑着说的，一副自嘲的神情，好像要让自己远离这种少女时代的多愁善感和愚蠢的言行，与所有那些轻率的、寻死觅活的山盟海誓拉开距离。可我也从她脸上看到了少许不言而喻的痛楚，一道失望的阴影，只是妈妈的自尊心过于强烈，让她无法承认这样的失望。
Mamá wouldn’t say more, and I knew better than to lean on her about it. But this revelation intrigued me far more than Madaline’s past in film and stage had, my curiosity fueled by the suspicion that the scar must be both significant and visible for the girl to deserve special consideration. With morbid eagerness, I looked forward to seeing this scar for myself.
妈妈没有再多说什么，但是我明白，还是别缠着她问来问去为妙。可她这么一说，反倒勾起了我的胃口，连玛达丽娜在电影和舞台上的过去也不那么关心了。我之所以好奇，是因为我猜，那个疤对一个女孩子来说，肯定既不同寻常又引人注目，所以才值得特别对待。我带着一种病态的渴望，盼着亲眼见识一下那个疤。
Madaline was married now to a wealthy and much older man, a Mr. Andreas Gianakos, who years before had produced her second and, as it turned out, last film. He was in the construction business now and owned a big firm in Athens. They had had a falling-out recently, a row, Madaline and Mr. Gianakos. Mamá didn’t tell me any of this information; I knew it from a clandestine, hasty, partial read of the letter Madaline had sent Mamá informing her of her intent to visit.
玛达丽娜此时嫁给了一个富有而年长她许多的男人，某个安德烈亚斯·贾纳科斯先生，他多年以前监制了她的第二部——实际上也是她的最后一部电影。此时他已投身建筑业，在雅典有一家大公司。最近他们，玛达丽娜和贾纳科斯先生，在闹别扭，吵了架。这件事妈妈一个字也没和我说过，我之所以知道，是因为我偷偷摸摸，匆忙又不完整地看了玛达丽娜寄给妈妈的信，信中说她有意登门拜访。
It grows so tiresome, I tell you, to be around Andreas and his right-wing friends and their martial music. I keep tight-lipped all the time. I say nothing when they exalt these military thugs who have made a mockery of our democracy. Should I utter so much as a word of dissent, I am confident they would label me a communist anarchist, and then even Andreas’s influence would not save me from the dungeons. Perhaps he would not bother exerting it, meaning his influence. Sometimes I believe it is precisely his intent to provoke me into impugning myself. Ah, how I miss you, my dear Odie. How I miss your company…
这实在太让人厌倦了，我和你说，待在安德烈亚斯和他那帮右翼朋友身边，听着他们的战歌，从头到尾我都紧闭着嘴巴。我一个字都不说，由着他们吹捧这些把我们的民主当成笑料的恶棍军人。如果我开口，哪怕只有一个字表示出异议，我敢保证，他们就会给我贴上共产党无政府主义分子的标签，即使是安德烈亚斯的权势也无法把我救出地牢。他没准儿都懒得动用这个，动用他的权势。有时我相信这恰恰是他的意图，好让我自己责备自己。噢，我多么想念你啊，我亲爱的奥蒂。我多么想念你的陪伴…
The day our guests were due to arrive, Mamá awoke early to tidy up. We lived in a small house built into a hillside. Like many houses on Tinos, it was made of whitewashed stone, and the roof was flat, with diamond-shaped red tiles. The small upstairs bedroom Mamá and I shared didn’t have a door — the narrow stairwell led right into it — but it did have a fanlight window and a narrow terrace with a waist-high wrought-iron balustrade from which you could look out on the roofs of other houses, on the olive trees and the goats and winding stone alleys and arches below, and, of course, the Aegean, blue and calm in the summer morning, white-capped in the afternoon when the meltemi winds blew in from the north.
按照预定的日期，我们的客人将要抵达的那天，妈妈早早就起了床，收拾家里。我们住的是一幢建在山坡上的小房子。和蒂诺斯的许多房子一样，它是用刷成白色的石头盖成的，房顶是平的，铺着菱形的红瓦。小卧室在楼上，妈妈与我合住，没有门，狭窄的楼梯井直接通到屋里，可是它有个扇形气窗，一个很窄的阳台，围着齐腰高的熟铁护栏，由此外望，你可以看到别人家的屋顶，下面是橄榄树，羊群，蜿蜒的石巷和拱门，当然还有爱琴海，在夏日的早晨蔚蓝而平静，到了下午，美尔忒弥[1]风从北方吹来，海上就会泛起白浪。【注：[1]美尔忒弥（Meltemi）是地中海季风在希腊和土耳其的名字。】
When she was done cleaning up, Mamá put on what passed for her one fancy outfit, the one she wore every August fifteenth, the Feast of the Dormition at the Panagia Evangelistria Church, when pilgrims descended on Tinos from everywhere in the Mediterranean to pray before the church’s famed icon. There is a photo of my mother in that outfit — the long, drab rusty gold dress with a rounded neckline, the shrunken white sweater, the stockings, the clunky black shoes. Mamá looking every bit the forbidding widow, with her severe face, her tufted eyebrows, and her snub nose, standing stiffly, looking sullenly pious, like she’s a pilgrim herself. I’m in the picture too, standing rigidly at my mother’s hip. I am wearing a white shirt, white shorts, and white kneesocks rolled up. You can tell by my scowl that I’ve been ordered to stand straight, to not smile, that my face has been scrubbed and my hair combed down with water, against my will and with a great deal of fuss. You can sense a current of dissatisfaction between us. You see it in how rigidly we stand, how our bodies barely make contact.
做完清洁，妈妈换上了她心目中的花哨行头，每年的八月十五日她都会穿上这身衣服，去帕纳伊亚[2]福音教堂，那一天是圣母升天节，朝圣者们从地中海各地蜂拥到蒂诺斯，到教堂著名的圣像前祷告。有一张照片是我母亲穿着这身衣服拍的，长长的、死气沉沉的锈金色圆领裙，皱缩的白毛衣，长袜，笨重的黑鞋子。从头到脚，妈妈都像是个令人生畏的寡妇，严肃的脸，浓密的眉毛，扁而上翘的鼻子，僵硬的站姿，一副苦闷而虔诚的模样，好像她自己也是个朝圣者。我也在照片上，直挺挺地站在我母亲屁股旁边。我穿着白衬衫，白短裤，卷起来的白色及膝短袜。你能看出我愁眉紧锁，因为她勒令我站直，不许笑，我的脸搓洗过了，头发也蘸着水梳过，我不乐意，还折腾了好一阵子。你可以感觉到我俩之间的那种不悦。你能看得出来，因为我们僵硬地站着，身体几乎没有接触。【注：[2]帕纳伊亚（Panagia）是东正教对圣母马利亚的敬称之一。】
Or maybe you can’t. But I do every time I see that picture, the last time being two years ago. I can’t help but see the wariness, the effort, the impatience. I can’t help but see two people together out of a sense of genetic duty, doomed already to bewilder and disappoint each other, each honor-bound to defy the other.
也许你看不出来。可我能，每次看到那张照片时都能，最后一次看是两年前的事了。我不由自主地看出了拘谨，费力，不耐烦。我不由自主地看出，只是因为遗传上的义务，这两个人才待在一起，他们已经注定了要让对方感到困惑与失望，不管哪一个，都要为了自己的面子，去反抗另一个人。
From the bedroom window upstairs, I watched Mamá leave for the ferry port in the town of Tinos. A scarf tied under the chin, Mamá rammed into the sunny blue day headfirst. She was a slight, small-boned woman with the body of a child, but when you saw her coming you did well to let her pass. I remember her walking me to school every morning — my mother is retired now, but she was a schoolteacher. As we walked, Mamá never held my hand. The other mothers did with their own kids, but not Mamá. She said she had to treat me like any other student. She marched ahead, a fist closed at the neck of her sweater, and I tried to keep up, lunch box in hand, tottering along behind in her footsteps. In the classroom, I always sat at the back. I remember my mother at the blackboard and how she could nail a misbehaving pupil with a single, scalding glance, like a rock from a slingshot, the aim surgically true. And she could cleave you in half with nothing but a dark look or a sudden beat of silence.
透过楼上卧室的窗户，我看到妈妈出了门，走向蒂诺斯城的渡口。她下巴底下系着围巾，一头扎进了阳光灿烂的蓝天。她是个纤细的女人，一副小骨头架子，儿童般的身体，可你要是看到她迎面过来，那你最好给她让个道。我记得她每天早晨送我上学时的情形——我母亲现在退休了，她原来是个老师。我们走在路上，妈妈从来不牵我的手。别的母亲都和自己的孩子手拉着手，可妈妈不。她说她怎样对待别的学生，也就必须怎样对待我。她迈着大步走在前头，一只手紧攥着，贴在毛衣领子的位置上，我拼命跟在后面，手里提着午餐盒，追着她的脚步，一路踉跄。在教室里，我总是坐在后排。我记得我母亲站在黑板前的样子，记得她怎样只需刀子般的一瞥，便可牢牢钉死某个淘气的学生，那眼神就像弹弓里射出的石子，带着外科手术般的精确，一下子击中目标。她还能把你活活劈成两半，不靠别的，只要一黑脸，或是一阵突如其来的沉默。
I fell asleep upstairs a short while after Mamá left. I jolted awake later to a woman’s high, ringing voice. I sat up and there she was, all lipstick, powder, perfume, and slender curves, an airline ad smiling down at me through the thin veil of a pillbox hat. She stood in the middle of the room in a neon green minidress, leather valise at her feet, with her auburn hair and long limbs, grinning down at me, a shine on her face, and talking, the seams of her voice bursting with aplomb and cheer.
妈妈走后，我在楼上又睡了一小会儿。后来一个女人响亮而悦耳的声音惊醒了我。我坐起来，是她，口红，粉底，香水，苗条的曲线，航空公司广告上的微笑，透过圆桶女帽薄薄的面纱俯看着我。她站在房间中央，穿一条荧光绿的连身迷你裙，脚边放着小皮箱，赤褐色的头发，四肢修长，对我绽开着笑容，神采飞扬，一开口，声声入耳，透着自信和欢愉。
Mamá believed in loyalty above all, even at the cost of self-denial. Especially at the cost of self-denial. She also believed it was always best to tell the truth, to tell it plainly, without fanfare, and the more disagreeable the truth, the sooner you had to tell it. She had no patience for soft spines. She was — is — a woman of enormous will, a woman without apology, and not a woman with whom you want to have a dispute — though I have never really understood, even now, whether her temperament was God-given or one she adopted out of necessity, what with her husband dying barely a year into their marriage and leaving her to raise me all on her own.
妈妈信奉忠诚甚于一切，哪怕要自我牺牲也在所不辞。尤其是在所不辞的自我牺牲。她还相信讲出真相总是胜过一切，老老实实地讲，一句客套话都不说，而且真相越令人不快，就越要早早地讲出来。她受不了软骨头。她过去是，现在也是个有着钢铁意志的女人，一个从不退缩的女人，也是一个你绝不想和她争执的女人，但我从没有真正地理解，甚至现在也没弄懂，她这种性格到底是天生的，还是出于必要而后天习得的，因为她结婚才一年，丈夫就死了，撇下她一个人把我拉扯大。
She took off a cream-colored, elbow-length satin glove, the kind I’d seen worn only in magazines by elegant ladies out at a soiree, smoking on the wide steps of the opera house or being helped out of a shiny black car, their faces lit up by popping flashbulbs. She had to yank on each fingertip a bunch of times before the glove came off, and then she stooped slightly at the waist and offered me her hand.
她脱掉了长及手肘的奶油色缎子手套，我只在杂志上见过这种手套，都是些淑女贵妇戴上它去晚会，在歌剧院宽阔的台阶上抽烟，要不就是被人扶着，爬出亮闪闪的黑色汽车，镁光灯噼里啪啦，照亮她们的脸。她每个指头都得揪扯半天，才把手套弄掉，然后她腰肢轻轻一弯，把手递给了我。
“So you’re Odie’s little Markos! She didn’t tell me you were this handsome! Oh, and I see her in you, around the eyes — yes, you have the same eyes, I think, I’m sure you’ve been told. I’ve been so eager to meet you. Your mother and I — we — oh, no doubt Odie has told you, so you can imagine, you can picture, what a thrill this is for me, to see the two of you, to meet you, Markos. Markos Varvaris! Well, I am Madaline Gianakos, and, may I say, I am delighted.”
“你就是小马科斯喽！她可没告诉我你有这么帅！哎哟，你和她真像，瞧这眼睛，就是，你们俩眼睛一模一样，我看肯定老有人对你这么说。我太想见到你了。你妈和我…我们…噢，不用说奥蒂已经告诉过你了，所以你可以想像啊，你可以料得到啊，我是多么激动呀，见到你们俩，认识你，马科斯。马科斯·瓦尔瓦里斯！对了，我是玛达丽娜·贾纳科斯，请允许我告诉你，我真开心死了。”
“Charmed,” she said. Her hand was soft and cool, despite the glove. “And this is my daughter, Thalia. Darling, say hello to Markos Varvaris.”
“你真迷人。”她说。她的手好柔软，虽然一直戴着手套，却是凉凉的。“这是我女儿，萨丽娅。亲爱的，跟马科斯·瓦尔瓦里斯问个好。”
She stood at the entrance of the room beside my mother, looking at me blankly, a lanky, pale-skinned girl with limp curls. Other than that, I can’t tell you a single thing. I can’t tell you the color of the dress she wore that day — that is, if she wore a dress — or the style of her shoes, or whether she had socks on, or whether she wore a watch, or a necklace, or a ring, or a pair of earrings. I can’t tell you because if you were at a restaurant and someone suddenly stripped, hopped atop a table, and started juggling dessert spoons, you would not only look, it would be the only thing you could look at. The mask draped over the lower half of the girl’s face was like that. It obliterated the possibility of any other observation.
她和我母亲一起站在房间的入口，茫然地看着我，一个瘦瘦的女孩，皮肤苍白，留着软塌塌的卷发，除了这些，别的东西我一件都没法告诉你。我没法告诉你她那天穿了什么颜色的裙子——如果她穿的确实是裙子——我也不知道她鞋子的款式，她有没有穿袜子，戴没戴手表、项链、戒指，或是耳环。我没法告诉你，因为如果你去饭馆，突然有人脱了衣服，跳上桌子，开始用甜品勺变戏法，那你就不只是看看而已，这会成为你眼里惟一的东西。盖住那女孩下半张脸的面罩就是这样。它摧毁了其他的、任何可能的注意力。
“Hello,” I replied with a sandpaper tongue. There was a ripple in the air. A current. I felt charged with something that was half thrill, half dread, something that burst upward inside of me and coiled itself up. I was staring and I knew it and I couldn’t stop, couldn’t peel my gaze away from the sky blue cloth of the mask, the two sets of bands tying it to the back of her head, the narrow horizontal slit over the mouth. I knew right then that I couldn’t bear to see it, whatever the mask was hiding. And that I couldn’t wait to see it. Nothing in my life could resume its natural course and rhythm and order until I saw for myself what was so terrible, so dreadful, that I and others had to be protected from it.
“你好。”我粗声粗气地答道。空气在波动。一股电流。我觉得自己被什么东西电到了，一半是激动，一半是恐惧，在我体内猛然迸发，升腾，盘绕。我瞪大了眼睛，我意识到了，却没办法控制，怎么也不能将目光从那块天蓝色的面罩布上剥离，它有两副系带，拴在脑后，嘴的位置上横着开了条窄窄的口子。我一下子就知道了，不管那面罩底下隐藏着什么，我都不忍去看。可我又忍不住去看。我生活中的一切都不可能再恢复正常的方向、节奏和秩序了，除非我亲眼看到究竟是什么东西如此可怕，如此惊悚，而这又是我和其他人都不允许看到的。
Madaline and Thalia stayed upstairs to unpack while Mamá battered up cuts of sole for supper in the kitchen. She asked me to make Madaline a cup of ellinikós kafés, which I did, and she asked me to take it up to her, which I did as well, on a tray, with a little plate of pastelli.
玛达丽娜和萨丽娅待在楼上整理行李，妈妈进了厨房准备晚餐，给鳎目鱼挂糊。她要我给玛达丽娜煮一杯埃利尼科斯咖啡[3]，我煮了，她又要我给她端上去，我也端了，还有一小盘帕斯特利[4]，放在托盘上。【注：[3]埃利尼科斯咖啡（ellinikós kafés），就是“希腊咖啡”。[4]帕斯特利（pastelli），蜂蜜芝麻糕。】
“Thalia, say hello, darling. Don’t be rude.”
“萨丽娅，问个好，亲爱的。不要这么没礼貌。”
I thought I saw a faint nod of the head.
我猜我看见了，那个脑袋微微地点了一下。
The alternate possibility, that the mask was perhaps designed to shield Thalia from us, eluded me. At least it did in the dizzying throes of that first meeting.
还有另一种可能，这面罩的用途也许是为了将萨丽娅与我们隔离，让我们回避。最起码，在初次相见的时候，带着令人头晕目眩的刺痛，这个目的达成了。
The tray slipped from my hands. Porcelain shattered. Hot liquid spilled and the tray went clanking down the steps. It was sudden mayhem, me on all fours, retching all over shards of broken porcelain, Madaline saying, “Oh dear. Oh dear,” and Mamá running upstairs, yelling, “What happened? What did you do, Markos?”
托盘滑离了我的手。瓷杯子碎了，热咖啡洒了，托盘咣当当从楼梯上滚落。这是突如其来的重重一击，我匍匐着，在碎裂的瓷片上呕吐，玛达丽娜说着“哎哟哟，哎哟哟”，妈妈跑上楼，叫喊着：“出什么事了？你干了什么，马科斯？”
All these decades later and shame still washes over me like some warm, sticky liquid at the memory of what happened next. To this day I can picture the scene like a photograph, frozen. Madaline smoking, standing at the bedroom window, looking at the sea through a set of teashade glasses with yellow lenses, one hand on her hip, ankles crossed. Her pillbox hat sits on the dresser. Above the dresser is a mirror and in the mirror is Thalia, sitting on the edge of the bed, her back to me. She is stooped down, doing something, maybe undoing her shoelaces, and I can see that she has removed her mask. It’s sitting next to her on the bed. A thread of cold marches down my spine and I try to stop it, but my hands tremble, which makes the porcelain cup clink on the saucer, which makes Madaline turn her head from the window to me, which makes Thalia look up. I catch her reflection in the mirror.
一想起接下来发生的事，虽然几十年过去了，羞耻仍然淘洗着我，就像某种热辣辣、黏糊糊的液体。直到今天，那个场景依然历历在目，像照片一样凝固着。玛达丽娜站在卧室的窗前，吸着烟，看着海。她戴着一副圆框眼镜，黄色的镜片，一只手扶着屁股，双脚交叠。圆桶女帽放在梳妆台上。梳妆台的上方有面镜子，镜子里是萨丽娅，坐在床边，背对着我。她弯着腰，正在做着什么，也许是在解鞋带，我看得出她已经摘下了面罩。面罩就挨着她放在床上。一丝寒意顺着我的脊梁骨一路向下，我想让这一切停下，可我的手在抖，抖得碟子上的瓷杯叮当乱响，抖得玛达丽娜朝我扭过脸，抖得萨丽娅抬起了头。我一下子在镜中看到了她的脸。
A dog bit her, Mamá had told me by way of a warning. She has a scar. The dog hadn’t bitten Thalia’s face; it had eaten it. And perhaps there were words to describe what I saw in the mirror that day, but scar wasn’t one of them.
狗把她咬了。妈妈告诉过我，警告过我。她留了疤。狗不是咬萨丽娅的脸；狗把她的脸吃掉了。也许我可以找到合适的字眼，来描述那天我在镜子里看到的，但那个字绝对不是疤。
I remember Mamá’s hands grabbing my shoulders, her pulling me up and whirling me around, saying, “What is with you? What is wrong with you?” And I remember her gaze lifting over my head. It froze there. The words died in her mouth. She went blank in the face. Her hands dropped from my shoulders. And then I witnessed the most extraordinary thing, something I thought I’d no sooner see than King Constantine himself turning up at our door dressed in a clown suit: a single tear, swelling at the edge of my mother’s right eye.
我记得妈妈双手抓住我的肩膀，拽我起来，把我转了半圈，问我：“你怎么了？你哪儿不舒服？”我也记得她抬起眼睛，目光越过我的头顶，然后就僵在那儿了。要说的话死死卡在她嘴里。她脸上一片空白，双手从我肩头滑落。接着，我目睹了最不寻常的事，我觉得这件事就像我当场看见康斯坦丁国王穿着小丑的衣服出现在我家门口一样：那是一滴泪，涌出了我母亲右眼的眼角。
“Who? The French woman. Your landlord’s niece, the professor from Paris.”
“谁？那法国女人。你房东的外甥女，巴黎来的教授。”
“Who?”
“谁？”
I switch the receiver to my other ear. It surprises me that she remembers. All my life, I have had the feeling that the words I say to Mamá vanish unheard in space, as if there is static between us, a bad connection. Sometimes when I call her from Kabul, as I have now, I feel as though she has quietly lowered the receiver and stepped away, that I am speaking into a void across the continents — though I can feel my mother’s presence on the line and hear her breathing in my ear. Other times, I am telling her about something I saw at the clinic — some bloodied boy carried by his father, for instance, shrapnel embedded deep in his cheeks, ear torn clean off, another victim of playing on the wrong street at the wrong time of the wrong day — and then, without warning, a loud clunk, and Mamá’s voice suddenly distant and muffled, rising and falling, the echo of footsteps, of something being dragged across the floor, and I clam up, wait until she comes back on, which she does eventually, always a bit out of breath, explaining, I told her I was fine standing up. I said it clearly. I said, “Thalia, I would like to stand at the window and look down on the water as I’m talking to Markos.” But she says, “You’ll tire yourself out, Odie, you need to sit.” Next thing I know, she’s dragging the armchair — this big leather thing she bought me last year — she’s dragging it to the window. My God, she’s strong. You haven’t seen the armchair, of course. Well, of course. She then sighs with mock exasperation and asks that I go on with my story, but by then I am too unbalanced to. The net effect is that she has made me feel vaguely reprimanded and, what’s more, deserving of it, guilty of wrongs unspoken, offenses I’ve never been formally charged with. Even if I do go on with my story, it sounds diminished to my own ears. It does not measure up to Mamá’s armchair drama with Thalia.
我把听筒换到另一边的耳朵上。我很吃惊，她还记得。我一辈子都有种感觉，我对妈妈说的话她是听不见的，统统消失在太空里了，好像我们之间有静电干扰，线路很差。有时我从喀布尔打电话给她，就像现在这次，我感觉她好像悄悄把听筒放下，人走掉了，剩下我对着另一块大陆上的空气说话，就算我能感到我母亲在电话线另一头的存在，就算我听得到她在我耳边喘息，也还是这种感觉。其他时间，我会给她讲一些我在医院的见闻——比如说，有个父亲抱来个血肉模糊的男孩，弹片深深嵌在他脸上，一只耳朵完全撕掉了，这是又一个受害者，他在错误的日子和错误的时段，在错误的街道上玩——毫无预兆地突然出现一记巨大的敲击声，然后妈妈的声音突然远了，听不清了，忽高忽低，脚步回响，有什么东西在地板上拖过来，我默不作声，一直等到她回来，她早晚会回来的，有点儿上气不接下气，解释着：我跟她说过了，我站着挺好的。我说得很清楚。我说：“萨丽娅，我愿意站在窗户前，看着下面的海，和马科斯说话。”可是她说：“你会累着自己的，奥蒂，你得坐下。”接下来的事我知道，她要拖扶手椅了——那个大大的皮家伙，去年她给我买的——她要把它拖到窗户跟前。我的天，她可真壮实。你没见过这椅子，当然没有。就是，当然没有。然后她带着佯怒，叹一口气，要我继续讲我的故事，可是到了这会儿，我已经心乱如麻，哪里还讲得下去。最终的效果是，她让我感觉自己受到了不言而喻的谴责，不仅如此，她还让我感觉自己活该受到这种谴责，让我感到内疚，因为心照不宣的过错，因为那些从未受到正式控告的罪行。即使我真的把故事讲下去，在我自己听来，它也没什么劲了。它根本比不上妈妈和萨丽娅的扶手椅大戏。
“So what was she like?” Mamá asks.
“她什么样子？”妈妈问。
I have told Mamá about Nabi, who was a dear friend to me. She knows the general outline of his life only. She knows that in his will he left the Kabul house to his niece, Pari, who was raised in France. But I have not told Mamá about Nila Wahdati, her escape to Paris after her husband’s stroke, the decades Nabi spent caring for Suleiman. That history. Too many boomeranging parallels. Like reading aloud your own indictment.
我和妈妈说过纳比的事，他是我亲密的朋友。对他的生平，她只知道大概的情况。她知道他在遗嘱中把喀布尔的房产留给了外甥女，在法国长大的帕丽。可我没和妈妈讲过妮拉·瓦赫达提，没讲过她丈夫中风后，她离家出走，去了巴黎，也没说过纳比对苏莱曼几十年的照料。那段历史。太多去而复返重合。一如在朗读你自己的起诉书。
“What was her name again?” Mamá says now. “Pari something, no?”
“她叫什么来着？”妈妈现在问道，“帕丽什么的，对吗？”
“Pari. Yes. She was nice,” I say. “And warm. Especially for an academic.”
“帕丽。对。她人很好。”我说，“很热情。特别是对一个学者来说。”
“What is she again, a chemist?”
“她干什么的来着，化学家？”
“Mathematician,” I say, closing the lid of the laptop. It has started snowing again, lightly, tiny flakes twisting in the dark, flinging themselves at my window.
“数学家。”我说着，合上了笔记本电脑。雪又下起来了，下得不大，小小的雪花在黑暗中旋舞，轻轻撞着我的窗。
I tell Mamá about Pari Wahdati’s visit late this past summer. She really was quite lovely. Gentle, slim, gray hair, long neck with a full blue vein crawling up each side, warm gap-toothed smile. She seemed a bit brittle, older than her age. Bad rheumatoid arthritis. The knobby hands, especially, still functional, but the day is coming and she knew it. It made me think of Mamá and the coming of her day.
我对妈妈讲起了帕丽·瓦赫达提最近的来访，就是刚刚过去的这个夏天来的。她实在很可爱。文静，苗条，白头发，长脖子，脖子两边各有一条蓝色的静脉，亲切的微笑，露出大大的齿缝。她好像有点儿脆弱，比实际年龄显老。严重的风湿性关节炎。尤其是两只手的骨性突起。功能还在，但那一天终将到来，她自己也知道。这让我想到了妈妈，她将来也会有那一天。
Pari Wahdati stayed a week with me at the house in Kabul. I gave her a tour of it when she arrived from Paris. She had last seen the house back in 1955 and seemed quite surprised at the vividness of her own memory of the place, its general layout, the two steps between the living room and dining room, for instance, where she said she would sit in a band of sunlight midmornings and read her books. She was struck by how much smaller the house really was compared to the version of it in her memory. When I took her upstairs, she knew which had been her bedroom, though it’s currently taken up by a German colleague of mine who works for the World Food Program. I remember her breath catching when she spotted the short little armoire in the corner of the bedroom — one of the few surviving relics of her childhood. I remembered it from the note that Nabi had left me prior to his death. She squatted next to it and ran her fingertips over the chipped yellow paint and over the fading giraffes and long-tailed monkeys on its doors. When she looked up at me, I saw that her eyes had teared a little, and she asked, very shyly and apologetically, if it would be possible to have it shipped to Paris. She offered to pay for a replacement. It was the only thing she wanted from the house. I told her it would be my pleasure to do it.
帕丽·瓦赫达提和我在喀布尔的房子里待了一个礼拜。她从巴黎一过来，我就领着她，在屋里屋外转了一圈。她上一次看见这房子，还要回溯到1955年，可是相当意外的是，她对这地方，对它的整体布局有着鲜活的记忆，比如说，客厅和餐厅之间有两个台阶，她说她曾坐在这儿，在一束上午九十点钟的阳光下读书。她很吃惊，因为和记忆中相比，这房子实际上如此之小。我带她上楼时，她知道哪一间曾经是她的卧室，不过现在是我的一位德国同事住在里面，他为世界粮食计划署工作。我记得，她看到卧室角落那个矮矮的小衣橱时，一下子屏住了呼吸，这是她童年时代所余不多的纪念。我记得它，纳比死前留给我的便条里写过。她蹲到它旁边，手指抚过龟裂的黄色漆皮，抚过橱门上褪色的长颈鹿和长尾巴猴子。她朝我仰起脸的时候，我看到她眼里含着少许的泪，然后她问我，非常腼腆和过意不去，问她可不可以把它运回巴黎。她提出来由她出钱，再买个新衣橱。这是她想从房子里带走的惟一一件东西。我对她说，我很高兴为她效劳。
“I had to give it a rest. It tired me out.”
“我得歇歇了。这事把我累得够呛。”
In the end, other than the armoire, which I had shipped a few days after her departure, Pari Wahdati returned to France with nothing but Suleiman Wahdati’s sketch pads, Nabi’s letter, and a few of her mother Nila’s poems, which Nabi had saved. The only other thing she asked of me during her stay was to arrange a ride to take her to Shadbagh so she could see the village where she had been born and where she hoped to find her half brother, Iqbal.
最后，帕丽·瓦赫达提动身没过几天，我便运走了衣橱，除此之外，她回法国时什么也没拿，只有苏莱曼·瓦赫达提的速写本，纳比的信，还有她母亲妮拉的几首诗，这是纳比保留下来的。另外，她此行期间对我的惟一请求，就是安排她乘车，去一趟沙德巴格，好看一看她出生的村子，她也希望能找到她的异母弟弟伊克巴尔。
“I assume she’ll sell the house,” Mamá says, “now that it’s hers.”
“我估摸，她一定会把这房子卖掉。”妈妈说，“现在房子是她的了。”
I can all but see Mamá’s lips tighten skeptically. She’s an islander. She suspects the motives of all mainlanders, looks askance at their apparent acts of goodwill. This was one of the reasons I knew, when I was a boy, that I would leave Tinos one day when I had the chance. A kind of despair used to get hold of me whenever I heard people talking this way.
我几乎能看到妈妈不相信地紧紧抿起了嘴唇。她是岛上人。她怀疑所有大陆人的动机，对他们明显的善意之举总是斜眼相看。我知道，我很小的时候就知道，为什么总有一天，只要得到机会，我非离开蒂诺斯不可。这就是其中的一个原因。不管什么时候，只要听到别人这样讲话，我常常会陷入失望。
“How is the dovecote coming along?” I ask to change the subject.
“鸽房弄得怎么样了？”我换了个话题问道。
“She said I could stay on as long as I liked, actually,” I say. “Rent-free.”
“她说只要我愿意，我可以一直住下去，真的。”我说，“不收房租。”
Mamá was diagnosed in Athens six months ago by a neurologist I had insisted she see after Thalia told me Mamá was twitching and dropping things all the time. It was Thalia who took her. Since the trip to the neurologist, Mamá has been on a tear. I know this through the e-mails Thalia sends me. Repainting the house, fixing water leaks, coaxing Thalia into helping her build a whole new closet upstairs, even replacing cracked shingles on the roof, though thankfully Thalia put an end to that. Now the dovecote. I picture Mamá with her sleeves rolled high, hammer in hand, sweat staining her back, pounding nails and sanding planks of wood. Racing against her own failing neurons. Wringing every last drop of use from them while there is still time.
六个月以前在雅典，一位神经专家给妈妈做出了诊断。是我坚持要她去看医生的，因为萨丽娅告诉我，妈妈总是颤搐，抓不住东西。萨丽娅带她去的。自从看过了那位神经专家，妈妈一直手脚不停。我从萨丽娅发给我的电子邮件里得知了这些事。重新粉刷房子，修补漏水的地方，哄着萨丽娅帮她，在楼上打了个全新的壁橱，连房顶上破损的木瓦也想换掉，幸亏萨丽娅让她住了手。现在是鸽舍。我仿佛可以看见，妈妈把袖子高高挽起，手拿锤子，汗流浃背，敲着钉子，用砂纸打磨木板，和她日益退化的神经系统赛跑，趁着还有时间，让每一条神经都物尽其用。
“When are you coming home?” Mamá says.
“你什么时候回家？”妈妈问。
“Soon,” I say. Soon was what I said the year before too when she asked the same question. It has been two years since my last visit to Tinos.
“快了。”我说。去年她问过我同样的问题，我说的也是快了。自从上一次回蒂诺斯，已经过去了两年时间。
A brief pause. “Don’t wait too long. I want to see you before they strap me in the iron lung.” She laughs. This is an old habit, this joke making and clowning in the face of bad luck, this disdain of hers for the slightest show of self-pity. It has the paradoxical — and I know calculated — effect of both shrinking and augmenting the misfortune.
短暂的停顿。“别等太久。我想看看你，趁他们还没给我绑上铁肺。”她大笑起来。这是她的老习惯了，面对霉运开个玩笑，插科打诨，哪怕流露出最轻微的自伤自怜，也要对自己加以鄙视。它还有一种自相矛盾的效果，按照我的测算，它既缩小了不幸，又放大了不幸。
It was like waking up one morning and finding that a wild animal has wandered into your house. No place felt safe to me. She was there at every corner and turn, prowling, stalking, forever dabbing at her cheek with a handkerchief to dry the dribble that constantly flowed from her mouth. The small dimensions of our house rendered escape from her impossible. I especially dreaded mealtime when I had to endure the spectacle of Thalia lifting the bottom of the mask to deliver spoonfuls of food to her mouth. My stomach turned at the sight and at the sound. She ate noisily, bits of half-chewed food always falling with a wet splat onto her plate, or the table, or even the floor. She was forced to take all liquids, even soup, through a straw, of which her mother kept a stash in her purse. She slurped and gurgled when she sucked broth up the straw, and it always stained the mask and dripped down the side of her jaw onto her neck. The first time, I asked to be excused from the table, and Mamá shot me a hard look. And so I trained myself to avert my gaze and not hear, but it wasn’t easy. I would walk into the kitchen and there she would be, sitting still while Madaline rubbed ointment onto her cheek to prevent chafing. I began keeping a calendar, a mental countdown, of the four weeks Mamá had said Madaline and Thalia were staying.
这就像有天早晨醒来，发现一头野兽在家里徘徊。我觉得哪儿都不安全。她在这儿，在每一个角落，每一个拐角，无声地踱着步，悄悄地逼近，永远用一块手帕擦拭着脸颊，抹去嘴里不断流出的口涎。我们的房子空间狭小，逃开她是不可能的。我尤其害怕吃饭的时间，到时候就不得不忍受这样的奇景：萨丽娅撩起面罩的底边，将一匙又一匙的食物送入口中。看到这一幕，听到这声音，我肚子里真是翻江倒海。她吃起东西来声音很响，嚼到一半的食物老是湿答答的，啪的一声，掉到盘子里，桌子上，甚至地板上。任何液体，哪怕是汤，她都必须用吸管来喝。吸管平时就放在她母亲的手提袋里。她用吸管嘬肉汤，嘬得吱吱唧唧，咕咕噜噜，而且总要把面罩弄脏，肉汤顺着下巴往下流，流到她脖子上。第一次，我要求离席，妈妈严厉地瞪了我一眼。所以我就训练自己挪开目光，听而不闻，可这并不容易。有时我走进厨房，她也在那儿，坐得笔直，玛达丽娜正在往她脸上抹药膏，预防皮肤发炎。我开始在心里默默地倒数，算着日子，妈妈说过，玛达丽娜和萨丽娅只待四个星期。
“I’ll try, Mamá,” I say.
“我尽量，妈妈。”我说。
“Come for Christmas if you can,” she says. “Before the fourth of January, at any rate. Thalia says there is going to be a solar eclipse over Greece that day. She read it on the Internet. We could watch it together.”
“如果可以的话，回来过圣诞节吧。”她说，“一月四号之前回来，哪一天都行。萨丽娅说那一天希腊有日食。她从互联网上读来的。咱们一起看日食。”
Madaline’s stories stirred up an old restlessness in me, an urge I’d always had to strike out headlong into the world, to be dauntless. By comparison, my own life on Tinos seemed crushingly ordinary. I foresaw my life unfolding as an interminable stretch of nothingness and so I spent most of my childhood years on Tinos floundering, feeling like a stand-in for myself, a proxy, as though my real self resided elsewhere, waiting to unite someday with this dimmer, more hollow self. I felt marooned. An exile in my own home.
玛达丽娜的故事唤醒了我心里长久以来的躁动。我总有一种强烈的欲望，想冲出家门，闯荡世界，勇往直前。相形之下，我在蒂诺斯的生活就显得过于平凡。我预见到自己的人生慢慢展开，不过是一片虚无，没完没了地向外延展，所以我干脆把自己在蒂诺斯度过的大部分童年岁月付诸蹉跎，我感到我是自己的一个替身，一个代理，仿佛那个真正的自我在别处栖息，等待着有朝一日，能与这个晦暗、空洞的自我复合。我觉得我是孤岛上的逃奴，自己家里的流亡者。
I wished Madaline had come by herself. I liked Madaline just fine. We sat, the four of us, in the small square-shaped courtyard outside our front door, and she sipped coffee and smoked cigarettes one after the other, the angles of her face shaded by our olive tree and a gold straw cloche that should have looked absurd on her, would have on anyone else — like Mamá, for instance. But Madaline was one of those people to whom elegance came effortlessly as though it were a genetic skill, like the ability to curl your tongue into the shape of a tube. With Madaline, there was never a lull in the conversation; stories just trilled out of her. One morning she told us about her travels — to Ankara, for instance, where she had strolled the banks of the Enguri Su and sipped green tea laced with raki, or the time she and Mr. Gianakos had gone to Kenya and ridden the backs of elephants among thorny acacias and even sat down to eat cornmeal mush and coconut rice with the local villagers.
我希望玛达丽娜是一个人来的。我喜欢玛达丽娜。我们，我们四个，坐在我家大门外四四方方的小院子里，她喝着咖啡，一支接一支地吸着香烟，脸上的棱角掩映在我家橄榄树的树阴下，金色的草帽戴在她头上，本该显得滑稽可笑——谁戴都会可笑的，比如妈妈，可是玛达丽娜不一样，对她这样的人来说，优雅来得不费吹灰之力，仿佛这是一门与生俱来的技艺，就像你有本事把舌头卷起来。和玛达丽娜在一起，从来不会无话可说，故事一个接一个，从她嘴里流淌而出。有天上午她和我们谈起了她的旅行，比如说去安卡拉那一次，她在恩古里苏河边闲逛，喝掺了拉克酒的绿茶，还有一次，她和贾纳科斯先生去肯尼亚，骑在大象背上，在多刺的金合欢树之间穿行，甚至坐下来，和当地的村民一起，喝玉米粥，吃椰浆饭。
“I’m rhapsodizing,” she said, laughing.
“我开始狂想了。”她大笑着说。
Madaline said that in Ankara she had gone to a place called Kuğulu Park and watched swans gliding in the water. She said the water was dazzling.
玛达丽娜说，在安卡拉的时候，她去过一个叫库乌卢公园的地方，看天鹅在水中游来游去。她说那水光让她目眩神迷。
“They’re interesting, your stories. You have an interesting life.”
“很有趣，你的故事。你的生活很有趣。”
“You’re not,” Mamá said.
“你没有。”妈妈说。
“It’s an old habit. I talk too much. I always did. You remember how much grief I’d bring us, chattering in class? You were never at fault, Odie. You were so responsible and studious.”
“老毛病了。我说得太多了。我原来总是这样。你还记得我给咱俩惹了多大的祸吗？我在课堂上说起来没完。你从来都不犯错误，奥蒂，你那么认真，那么好学。”
“Did you like Africa?” Mamá asked Thalia.
“你喜欢非洲吗？”妈妈问萨丽娅。
Madaline rolled her eyes. “Well, you know the Chinese curse.”
玛达丽娜眼皮一翻。“得了，你知道中国人的诅咒[5]。”【注：[5]所谓“中国人的诅咒”来自一句没有出处的中国谚语：“愿你生活在有趣的时代。” 】
Thalia pressed the handkerchief to her cheek and didn’t answer. I was glad. She had the oddest speech. There was a wet quality to it, a strange mix of lisp and gargle.
萨丽娅拿手帕捂住脸，没有回答。我很高兴。她说起话来会发出最古怪的声响，带着一种湿漉漉的音色，一种奇特的混合，既像大舌头般口齿不清，又好像着嗓子里含着漱口水。
“Well, neither do I,” Mamá said, again to Thalia. “I like being home. I guess I’ve just never found a compelling reason to leave Tinos.”
“嗯，我也没有。”妈妈还是对萨丽娅说，“我喜欢待在家里。我猜我只是从来没找到什么理由，让我非离开蒂诺斯不可。”
“Oh, Thalia doesn’t like to travel,” Madaline said, crushing her cigarette. She said this like it was the unassailable truth. There was no looking to Thalia for confirmation or protest. “She hasn’t got a taste for it.”
“哦，萨丽娅不喜欢旅行。”玛达丽娜说着，掐掉了香烟。这句话从她嘴里说出来，就像一个不容置疑的真相。她看都没看萨丽娅，完全不需要她的同意或反对。“她还没有这方面的爱好。”
Thalia upturned her face. She was squinting. A jet, up in the blue, silently marking its trajectory with a long, single vapor trail.
萨丽娅仰起脸，眼睛眯着。那是一架喷气式飞机，在天上，在一片碧蓝中，无声地划出航迹，留下一条长长的、雾化的尾巴。
“You don’t understand,” Madaline said, and I realized I was the one who didn’t understand because she was looking directly at me. “I wouldn’t have kept it together without your mother. She saved me.”
“你不明白。”玛达丽娜说，我意识到我就是那个不明白的人，因为她正直勾勾地看着我。“要是没有你妈，我根本撑不到今天。她救了我的命。”
“And I one to stay,” Madaline said. “Other than you, naturally.” She touched Mamá’s wrist. “You know my worst fear when I left? My biggest worry? How am I going to get on without Odie? I swear, I was petrified at the thought.”
“不只是你，”玛达丽娜说，“我也想留下，真的。”她摸了摸妈妈的手腕。“你们知道我走的时候最怕什么吗？我最大的担心？没有奥蒂我可怎么活下去？我发誓，一想到这个我就六神无主。”
“You’ve managed fine, it seems,” Mamá said slowly, dragging her gaze from Thalia.
“你干得挺好的，看上去…挺好的。”妈妈慢吞吞地说着，从萨丽娅身上挪开了目光。
“Now you’re rhapsodizing,” Mamá said.
“你又开始狂想了。”妈妈说。
“It was my father,” Madaline said, “that Odie saved me from.” I wasn’t sure if she was still addressing me. “He was one of those people who are born mean. He had bulging eyes, and this thick, short neck with a dark mole on the back of it. And fists. Fists like bricks. He’d come home and he didn’t even have to do a thing, just the sound of his boots in the hallway, the jingle of his keys, his humming, that was enough for me. When he was mad, he always sighed through the nose and pinched his eyes shut, like he was deep in thought, and then he’d rub his face and say, All right, girlie, all right, and you knew it was coming — the storm, it was coming — and it could not be stopped. No one could help you. Sometimes, just him rubbing his face, or the sigh whooshing through his mustache, and I’d see gray.
“是我父亲。”玛达丽娜说，“奥蒂从他手里救了我。”我不知道她是不是还在对我讲话。“那是那种天生的恶人。他鼓眼泡子，脖子短粗，脖梗子上长了颗黑痣。还有拳头。砖一样的拳头。他回到家，哪怕一件事都没做，只要听见门厅里他的靴子声，他钥匙的叮当声，他嘴里的小曲，对我就已经足够了。他发火的时候，总是从鼻子里往外喷气，死死地闭着眼睛，好像正在沉思，然后他抹一把脸，对我说：好啊，丫头，好啊，你就知道什么要来了——风暴，风暴就要来了——来了就停不下。没人帮得了你。有时候，他刚开始抹脸，或是朝胡子上喷气，我眼前就黑了。
“I’ve crossed paths since with men like him. I wish I could say differently. But I have. And what I’ve learned is that you dig a little and you find they’re all the same, give or take. Some are more polished, granted. They may come with a bit of charm — or a lot — and that can fool you. But really they’re all unhappy little boys sloshing around in their own rage. They feel wronged. They haven’t been given their due. No one loved them enough. Of course they expect you to love them. They want to be held, rocked, reassured. But it’s a mistake to give it to them. They can’t accept it. They can’t accept the very thing they’re needing. They end up hating you for it. And it never ends because they can’t hate you enough. It never ends — the misery, the apologies, the promises, the reneging, the wretchedness of it all. My first husband was like that.”
“我后来也遇见过他那样的男人。真希望我没碰上过这些人。可我碰上了。我算是明白了，你只要稍微看仔细一点，就会发现他们全都一样，最多有点儿小差别，只不过有人更圆滑些。他们可能有那么一点儿魅力，或者很有魅力，可以让你上当受骗。可其实呢，他们都是不快乐的小男生，陷在自己的愤怒里不能自拔。他们觉得委屈。他们没得到应该得到的东西。所有人爱他们爱得都不够。他们当然盼着你能爱他。他们想要你搂着他们，摇着他们，抚慰他们。可是把这些东西给他们是错误的。他们接受不了。他们无法接受和自己的需要一模一样的东西。到头来他们会因此恨你。这一切永远没个头，因为他们恨你总是恨得不够。没完没了——那些痛苦，那些道歉，许诺，食言，由此而来的一切不幸。我第一个丈夫就是这样的。”
I was stunned. No one had ever spoken this plainly in my presence before, certainly not Mamá. No one I knew laid bare their hard luck this way. I felt both embarrassed for Madaline and admiring of her candor.
我目瞪口呆。以前从来没人当着我的面讲过这么坦率的话，妈妈肯定没有。我认识的人当中也没有一个用这种方式道出自己的厄运。我既为玛达丽娜感到难堪，又钦佩她的直率。
Later, when I was older, it wasn’t as clear to me. Thinking back on it, there was something affected about the way she paused when she mentioned the first husband, the casting down of the gaze, the catch in the throat, the slight quiver of lips, just as there was about the walloping energy and the joking, the lively, heavy-footed charm, the way even her slights landed softly, parachuted by a reassuring wink and laugh. Perhaps they were both trumped-up affectations or perhaps neither was. It became a blur for me what was performance and what real — which at least made me think of her as an infinitely more interesting actress.
后来，我长大了，对当年的印象也变得不是那么肯定了。回想起来，她提到第一个丈夫时，那种停顿的方式是有些做作的，目光垂落，嗓子发紧，嘴唇微微颤抖，这样的做作也出现在她那巨大的活力和轻松的笑语里，在她充满生机、势如破竹的魅力里，甚至她轻视别人的方式也来得那么温柔，翩翩而至，却眨一眨眼，哈哈一笑，让人疑虑全消。也许或悲，或喜，都是虚假的做作，也许哪一个也不是。对我来说，什么是表演，什么是真实，已经变得模糊了，可这一点至少让我认为，她是个有趣至极的女演员。
When she mentioned the first husband, I noticed that, for the first time since I had met her, a shadow had settled on her face, a momentary intimation of something dark and chastening, wounding, at odds with the energetic laughs and the teasing and the loose pumpkin floral dress she was wearing. I remember thinking at the time what a good actress she must be to camouflage disappointment and hurt with a veneer of cheerfulness. Like a mask, I thought, and was privately pleased with myself for the clever connection.
她提到第一个丈夫时，我注意到一片阴影落在她脸上，自从见到她以来，这还是头一次，就像一个短暂的暗示，指向某种黑暗的、惩罚性的、创伤性的东西，迥异于她朗朗的欢笑和万般的风情，也配不上她身上那条宽松的、南瓜花的裙子。我记得我当时在想，她一定是个好演员，所以才能用快活的外表，给失望和痛苦披上伪装。就像一个面罩，我想，然后暗地里为自己这个绝妙的联想得意非常。
“How many times did I come running to this house, Odie?” Madaline said. Now the smiling again, the swell of laughter. “Your poor parents. But this house was my haven. My sanctuary. It was. A little island within the greater one.”
“那时候我有多少次跑到你家里来，奥蒂？”玛达丽娜问。现在笑容又出现了，笑声渐趋响亮。“你爸妈好可怜。可这房子就是我的安全港，我的避难所。真的是。一个小岛，岛中岛。”
“Hardly surprises me. That’s Odelia Varvaris for you.”
“我一点也不吃惊。这就是奥德丽娅·瓦尔瓦里斯。”
Mamá said, “You were always welcomed here.”
妈妈说：“我们总是欢迎你的。”
“It was your mother who put an end to the beatings, Markos. Did she ever tell you?”
“是你妈结束了那些毒打，马科斯。她有没有告诉过你？”
Mamá was unfurling the edge of the apron in her lap and flattening it again with a daydreamy look on her face.
妈妈扯开腿上的围裙边儿，又把它压平，脸上挂着一种梦游般的表情。
I said she hadn’t.
我说她没有。
“I came here one night, bleeding from the tongue, a patch of hair ripped from the temple, my ear still ringing from a blow. He’d really gotten his hooks into me that time. What a state I was in. What a state!” The way Madaline was telling it, you might have thought she was describing a lavish meal or a good novel. “Your mother doesn’t ask because she knows. Of course she knows. She just looks at me for a long time — at me standing there, trembling — and she says, I still remember it, Odie, she said, Well, that’s about enough of this business. She says, We’re going to pay your father a visit, Maddie. And I start begging. I worried he was going to kill us both. But you know how she can be, your mother.”
“有天夜里我跑到这儿来了，舌头上流着血，鬓角有一片头发给扯掉了，一只耳朵挨了打，还在嗡嗡作响。那一次他真把我给抓住了。我真受不了啊。真受不了啊！”光听玛达丽娜说这句话时的语气，你也许会以为她谈的是一顿盛宴，或是一部好小说。“你妈问都没问，因为她知道。她当然知道。她只是看着我，看了很久，看我站在那儿，哆嗦着，然后她说话了，我还记着呢，奥蒂她说：好了，这种事该到头了。她说：我们要去拜访一下你爸。玛蒂。我开始求她。我担心他会杀了我们俩。可你知道你妈是什么样的人。”
“My father blinks, and for a moment he’s tongue-tied. He can’t say a word. And you want to know the best part, Markos? I look down and see a little circle, a circle of — well, I think you can guess — a little circle quietly expanding on the floor between his bare feet.”
“我爸呆了，他吭哧了半天，一个字也说不上来。你想不想听最棒的部分，马科斯？我低头一看，就看见地上有一小摊，一小摊…哦，我想你猜得出来，那一小摊在地板上，在他两只光脚丫子中间，无声无息，越扩越大。”
“She wouldn’t listen. She had this look. I’m sure you know the look. She heads out, but not before she picks up her father’s hunting rifle. The whole time we’re walking to my house, I’m trying to stop her, telling her he hadn’t hurt me that bad. But she won’t hear it. We walk right up to the door and there’s my father, in the doorway, and Odie raises the barrel and shoves it against his chin and says, Do it again and I will come back and shoot you in the face with this rifle.
“她不会听的。她就是这样子。我肯定你知道她那副样子。她冲出去了，可是在此之前，她拿了她爸的猎枪。我俩朝我家走，一路上我都想让她停下，我跟她说，他打我打得也没那么厉害。可她不听。我们直接朝大门走过去，我爸就在那儿，在门口，奥蒂举起枪，把枪管子捅到他下巴上，然后她说：再有下一次，我一定回来，用这枪轰烂你的脸。
Madaline brushed back her hair and said, to another flick of the lighter, “And that, my dear, is a true story.”
玛达丽娜朝后拢了拢头发，打火机又咔嗒了一声，然后她说：“这故事，我亲爱的，这故事是真的。”
I said I did, and Mamá tossed me a sidelong glance.
我说我知道，妈妈横了我一眼。
She didn’t have to say it, I knew it was true. I recognized in it Mamá’s uncomplicated, fierce loyalty, her mountainous resolve. Her impulse, her need, to be the corrector of injustices, warden of the downtrodden flock. And I could tell it was true from the closemouthed groan Mamá gave at the mention of that last detail. She disapproved. She probably found it distasteful, and not only for the obvious reason. In her view, people, even if they had behaved deplorably in life, deserved a modicum of dignity in death. Especially family.
她用不着这么说，我知道那是真的。我从中认出了妈妈那种简单而粗暴的忠诚，山一样的决心。她的冲动，她的需要，她要做不公不义之事的纠正者，做被践踏的草民的守望者。我看得出来这是真的，因为提到最后那个细节时，妈妈嗤之以鼻。她不赞成。也许她认为这个细节让人不快，不仅仅由于那个显而易见的原因，也因为在她看来，人即使生前品行不端，死后也应该享有最起码的尊严。尤其是家人。
Mamá shifted in her seat and said, “So if you don’t like to travel, Thalia, what do you like to do?”
妈妈在座位上换了个姿势，问道：“如果你不喜欢旅行的话，萨丽娅，那你喜欢做什么？”
Thalia mumbled something.
萨丽娅含含糊糊地说了两个字。
Thalia cleared her throat, a rumbling, phlegmy sound. “Science.”
萨丽娅清了清嗓子，咕噜咕噜，好像含着痰。“科学。”
All our eyes turned to Thalia. Madaline had been speaking for a while, and I recall thinking, as we sat in the courtyard with the sunlight falling in patches all around us, that it was a measure of her capacity to absorb attention, to pull everything into her vortex so thoroughly that Thalia had gone forgotten. I also left room for the possibility that they had adapted to this dynamic out of necessity, the quiet daughter eclipsed by the attention-diverting self-absorbed mother routine, that Madaline’s narcissism was perhaps an act of kindness, of maternal protectiveness.
我们的目光一齐转向了萨丽娅。玛达丽娜已经讲了好半天，我现在回想，当我们坐在院子里，斑驳的阳光洒在我们身上，那一幕恰好说明了她引人注目的能力有多强，她把一切都吸进她的旋涡，如此彻底，以至于萨丽娅完全被遗忘了。我也给另一种可能性留下了空间，那便是她们出于必要，已经适应了这样的状态，这样的惯例：能让注意力发生转移的母亲，以自我为中心的母亲，遮蔽了安静的女儿，玛达丽娜的这种自恋也许是一种善意之举，是母亲保护孩子的行为。
“A little louder, darling,” came the suggestion from Madaline.
“声音大一点，亲爱的。”玛达丽娜提醒她。
I noticed for the first time the color of her eyes, green like ungrazed pasture, the deep, coarse dark of her hair, and that she had unblemished skin like her mother. I wondered if she’d been pretty once, maybe even beautiful like Madaline.
我第一次注意到了她眼睛的颜色，绿得像不曾被践踏过的牧场，她头发漆黑，皮肤毫无瑕疵，像她母亲一样。我很想知道她是否也漂亮过，说不定像玛达丽娜一样美丽。
“Tell them about the sundial, darling,” Madaline said.
“跟他们讲讲日晷的事，亲爱的。”玛达丽娜说。
“What did you use for a gnomon?”
“你用什么做晷针？”
“Equatorial or horizontal?” Mamá asked.
“赤道式的还是地平式的？”妈妈问。
“She built a sundial,” Madaline said. “Right in our backyard. Last summer. She had no help. Not from Andreas. And certainly not from me.” She chortled.
“她做了个日晷。”玛达丽娜说，“就在我们后院。去年夏天。谁也没帮她。安德烈亚斯没帮过。我肯定是插不上手的。”她咯咯地笑了。
Thalia shrugged.
萨丽娅耸了耸肩。
Thalia’s eyes rested on Mamá. “I cut a postcard.”
萨丽娅定睛看着妈妈。“我剪了一张明信片。”
There was a flash of surprise in Thalia’s eyes. A kind of double take. Like a person walking down a crowded street in a foreign city catching within earshot a snippet of her native tongue. “Horizontal,” she said in that strange wet voice of hers.
萨丽娅眼中惊讶地一闪。她先一愣神，然后才明白过来。就像一个人置身于外国的城市，走在拥挤的街道上，耳畔忽然传来零星的乡音。“地平式的。”她用那种奇特的、湿漉漉的声音说。
That was the first time I saw how it could be between those two.
这是我第一次看到她们俩之间怎样交流。
“She used to take apart her toys when she was little,” Madaline said. “She liked mechanical toys, things with inner contraptions. Not that she played with them, did you, darling? No, she’d break them up, all those expensive toys, open them up as soon as we gave them to her. I used to get into such a state over it. But Andreas — I have to give him credit here — Andreas said to let her, that it was a sign of a curious mind.”
“她小时候老把玩具拆掉。”玛达丽娜说，“她喜欢机械玩具，里头有精巧装置的东西。她不是拿来玩的，对吗，亲爱的？不是，她把它们大卸八块，那么多很贵的玩具，我们刚一给她，就让她拆开了。我那会儿挺担心的，可是安德烈亚斯——说到这儿我得夸夸他——安德烈亚斯说，让她拆吧，这是好奇心的表现。”
“Maybe something else, then,” Mamá said. “We could build some other thing.”
“要不，别的东西也行。”妈妈说，“咱们可以做别的东西。”
“Mind your manners, darling,” Madaline said, extending, then bending, one leg, as though she were stretching for a dance routine. “Aunt Odie is trying to be helpful.”
“注意你的礼貌，亲爱的。”玛达丽娜说，一条腿伸直了，又弯回去，好像在做舞蹈动作里的拉伸练习。“奥蒂阿姨想帮帮你。”
I said I didn’t know what she was talking about.
我说我不明白她在说什么。
“I’m going back to acting! In films! I’ve been offered a role, the lead, in a major production. Can you believe it?”
“我要回演艺圈了！演电影！人家给了我一个角色，主角，大片。你能相信吗？”
Mamá shrugged.
妈妈耸了耸肩。
“I already know how.”
“我已经知道怎么做了。”
“Congratulations,” Mamá said flaccidly.
“恭喜了。”妈妈懒洋洋地说。
“If you like, we can build one together,” Mamá said. “A sundial, I mean.”
“如果你想的话，咱们可以再做一个。”妈妈说，“我的意思是再做个日晷。”
The next morning, after breakfast, Mamá pulled me aside. “All right, what is it? What’s wrong with you?”
第二天早晨，吃过早餐，妈妈把我拉到一边。“行了，怎么回事？你哪根筋不对？”
“You best drop it. The stupid act. It doesn’t suit you,” she said. She had a way of narrowing her eyes and tilting her head just a shade. To this day it has a grip on me.
“你最好给我打住，别再干蠢事。那样干不合适。”她说。她习惯性地眯起了眼睛，微微扬着头。“都今天了，我心里还堵得慌。”
“I have the script with me. I’d let you read it, Odie, but I worry you won’t like it. Is that bad? I’d be crushed, I don’t mind telling you. I wouldn’t get over it. We start shooting in the fall.”
“我带着剧本呢。我应该让你读读，奥蒂，可我就怕你不喜欢。那很糟糕吗？我不介意告诉你，我会郁闷死的。我挺不过去的。我们秋天开拍。”
“Oh! Oh!” Madaline said, hurriedly blowing smoke, wheezing. “I can’t believe I haven’t told you yet, Odie. I have news. Take a guess.”
“哎哟！哎哟！”玛达丽娜着急忙慌地把烟吐出来，喘着气说道，“真不敢相信我还没有告诉你，奥蒂。我有大新闻。猜猜看。”
A little bit later there we were, Thalia and I, walking down a cobblestone path flanked by stone walls on each side. I made sure to walk a few steps ahead so passersby — or, God forbid, one of the boys from school — wouldn’t think we were together, which, of course, they would anyway. Anyone could see. At the least, I hoped the distance between us would signal my displeasure and reluctance. To my relief, she didn’t make an effort to keep up. We passed sunburned, weary-looking farmers coming home from the market. Their donkeys labored under wicker baskets containing unsold produce, their hooves clip-clopping on the footpath. I knew most of the farmers, but I kept my head down and averted my eyes.
没过多长时间，我们就走上了鹅卵石铺的小路，萨丽娅和我，路两边都是石墙。我提心吊胆，走在她前面，一定要隔着几步，好让路人或某个同校的男生——上帝啊，可千万别——不会把我俩想成是一起的，可是不管怎样，人家肯定都会那么想。谁都看得出来。最起码，我希望我俩之间的这点儿距离，能够表明我的不满意和不情愿。让我宽心的是，她没有要赶上来的意思。我们从一些农民身边经过，他们晒得黑黑的，满面倦容，刚从集市上下来，正要回家。他们的驴驮着柳条筐，里面装着没卖掉的农产品，驴蹄子踩在小路上，嘚儿嘚儿地响。这些农民我大部分都认得，可我一直埋着头，眼睛看着别的地方。
Mamá’s mouth became small. She regarded me not with anger but with a disheartened look, as though I’d drawn all the sap out of her. There was a finality to this look. Resignation. Like a sculptor finally dropping mallet and chisel, giving up on a recalcitrant block that will never take the shape he’d pictured.
妈妈紧紧抿起了嘴。她盯着我，脸上没有恼怒，而是一种灰心丧气的表情，好像我耗尽了她的精力。她放弃了。就像一个雕刻家终于丢下木槌和凿子，绝望地面对着一块坚硬的石头，因为他永远敲打不出预想的形状。
“I can’t do it, Mamá. Don’t make me.”
“我没办法，妈妈。别逼我。”
“She’s a person who has had a terrible thing happen to her. Call her that name again, I’d like to see you. Say it and see what happens.”
“她是人，摊上了可怕的事情。再那样叫她，你再叫给我看看。再叫，再叫就有你好瞧的。”
“And why not, exactly?”
“为什么没办法？你给我说清楚。”
It came out before I could do a thing about it. “She’s a monster.”
没等我反应过来，话已脱口而出：“她是个丑八怪。”
We sat for a long while without talking and watched the ocean rumbling against the rocks. A nippy gust whipped around my ears, spraying the scent of salt on my face. A pelican hovered over the blue-green water, its wings spread. Two ladies stood side by side, knee-deep in the water, their skirts held up high. To the west, I had a view of the island, the dominant white of the homes and windmills, the green of the barley fields, the dull brown of the jagged mountains from which springs flowed every year. My father died on one of those mountains. He worked for a green-marble quarry and one day, when Mamá was six months pregnant with me, he slipped off a cliff and fell a hundred feet. Mamá said he’d forgotten to secure his safety harness.
我们坐了很久，没有说话，望着海洋，潮水低哮，扑撞着礁石。烈风骤起，抽击着我的耳朵，迎面泼溅着咸腥的味道。一只鹈鹕两翼张开，在蓝绿色的水上盘旋。两个女人肩并肩，站在齐膝的水中，高高地拉起着裙子。向西望去，我可以看到这岛的景色，看到房屋和磨坊那明晃晃的白，大麦地的绿，群山参差，满目深褐，年复一年，泉水在山中奔流不息。我父亲就死在那山里。他为一家开采绿色大理石的矿场工作，妈妈怀我已经六个月的时候，有一天他从悬崖上滑落，摔到了三十米之下的地方。妈妈说，他忘了挂安全钩。
I led Thalia to the beach. I chose a rocky one I sometimes went to, knowing it would not be as crowded as some of the other beaches, like Agios Romanos. I rolled up my pants and hopped from one craggy rock to the next, choosing one close to where the waves crashed and retracted. I took off my shoes and lowered my feet into a shallow little pool that had formed between a cluster of stones. A hermit crab scurried away from my toes. I saw Thalia to my right, settling atop a rock close by.
我领萨丽娅去了海滩。我选了一处礁石很多的地方，有时候我也来这儿，知道这儿人少，不像别的海滩那么拥挤，比如说阿伊诺斯·罗曼诺斯。我卷起裤腿，站上陡峭的礁石，跳到下一块上，我挑了一块紧靠海的，海浪扑到这儿，又退回去。我脱掉鞋子，把两只脚伸进一堆石头围成的小浅塘。有只寄居蟹匆匆逃离了我的脚趾。我看见萨丽娅在我右边，坐在近处的礁石上。
“I mean, flattering yourself. I don’t want this any more than you do.”
“我的意思是，别那么自以为是。我和你一样不想这样。”
“You should stop,” Thalia said.
“别那样了。”萨丽娅说。
The wind was making her hair flap, and she was holding down the mask against her face. I wondered if she lived with this fear daily, that a gust of wind would rip it from her face and she would have to chase after it, exposed. I didn’t say anything. I tossed another pebble and missed again.
风把她头发吹得乱舞，她正用手按住脸上的面罩。我不知道她能否忍受这日复一日的恐惧，怕不怕忽然吹来一阵劲风，卷走她脸上这块布，那样她就必须去追它，暴露着去追。我什么都没说，又丢了一颗石子，还是偏了。
I was tossing pebbles into an old galvanized-tin pail nearby and she startled me. I missed. “What’s it to you?”
我正在往附近一个旧铁皮桶里扔石子，她吓了我一跳。我丢歪了。“关你什么事？”
“You’re an ass,” she said.
“你是个蠢货。”她说。
When we returned, Mamá was mincing okra in the kitchen, and Madaline was sitting nearby, doing her nails and smoking, tapping the ash into a saucer. I cringed with some horror when I saw that the saucer belonged to the china set Mamá had inherited from her grandmother. It was the only thing of any real value that Mamá owned, the china set, and she hardly ever took it down from the shelf up near the ceiling where she kept it.
我们到家时，妈妈正在厨房切羊角豆，玛达丽娜坐在不远的地方，涂着指甲，抽着烟，往茶碟里弹着烟灰。一看见那茶碟，我就吓得手脚发麻，那是一套瓷器当中的一个，是妈妈从她外婆那儿继承下来的。要说妈妈的家产中真有什么东西值钱，那就只有这套瓷器了，她几乎从来不肯把它拿出来，始终搁在靠近天花板的那层架子上。
After a while she got up, and I pretended to stay. Then I looked over my shoulder and saw her heading up the beach, back toward the road, and so I put my shoes back on and followed her home.
过了一会儿，她站起身，我假装不动。可我一扭头，看见她上了海滩，往回朝着小路的方向去了，于是我穿上鞋，跟着她回了家。
“Which is absurd, of course! Just absurd. You know what they do to people, the ESA, to make them talk?” She was saying this in a low voice as if the military police were hiding somewhere in the house. “They put a hose in your behind and turn on the water full blast. It’s true, Odie. I swear to you. They soak rags in the filthiest things — human filth, you understand — and shove them in people’s mouths.”
“这太荒谬了！毫无疑问。完全是荒谬的。你知道宪兵队是怎么让人开口的吗？”她说这话的时候压低了嗓门，好像宪兵就藏在这房子的某个角落。“他们把胶皮管捅进你屁股，然后把水开到最大。这是真的，奥蒂。我对你发誓。他们拿抹布蘸上最肮脏的东西，人类的脏东西，你懂的，然后把抹布塞进那些人嘴里。”
Madaline was blowing on her nails in between drags and talking about Pattakos, Papadopoulos, and Makarezos, the three colonels who had staged a military coup — the Generals’ Coup, as it was known then — earlier that year in Athens. She was saying she knew a playwright — a “dear, dear man,” as she described him — who had been imprisoned under the charge of being a communist subversive.
玛达丽娜抽一口烟，就吹一吹指甲，谈论着帕塔科斯、帕帕多普洛斯和马卡雷佐斯，就是这三个上校，那一年早些时候在雅典发动了军事政变，人称“将军政变”。她说她认得一个剧作家，如她所言，是个“好亲爱、好亲爱的男人”，被加上了共产党颠覆分子的罪名，关进了监狱。
“That’s awful,” Mamá said flatly.
“很可怕。”妈妈平静地说。
I wondered if she was already tiring of Madaline. The stream of puffed-up political opinions, the tales of parties Madaline had attended with her husband, the poets and intellectuals and musicians she’d clinked champagne flutes with, the list of needless, senseless trips she had taken to foreign cities. Trotting out her views on nuclear disaster and overpopulation and pollution. Mamá indulged Madaline, smiling through her stories with a look of wry bemusement, but I knew she thought unkindly of her. She probably thought Madaline was flaunting. She probably felt embarrassed for her.
我不知道她是不是已经厌倦了玛达丽娜。这些滔滔不绝、自以为是的政治评论，玛达丽娜和她丈夫的种种派对见闻，她与之叮叮当当、碰过香槟酒杯的诗人、知识分子和音乐家，她罗列的一次又一次既没有必要、也没有意义的外国城市游历。她还轻率地对核灾难、人口过剩和污染问题发表见解。妈妈迁就玛达丽娜，她面带微笑，眉头微皱，稀里糊涂地听着她的故事，可我知道她心里对她并不客气。她也许认为玛达丽娜在炫耀。她也许觉得玛达丽娜让她难堪。
It saddens me because of what it reveals to me about Mamá’s own neediness, her own anxiety, her fear of loneliness, her dread of being stranded, abandoned. And what does it say about me that I know this about my mother, that I know precisely what she needs and yet how deliberately and unswervingly I have denied her, taking care to keep an ocean, a continent — or, preferably, both — between us for the better part of three decades?
我为此难过，因为我从中看到了妈妈自身的穷困，她自己的焦虑，她对孤独的恐惧，对无依无靠，对遭人遗弃的惧怕。那说到我，又是怎样的呢？我了解我母亲，我清楚地知道她需要什么，可还是故意而坚定地拒绝了她，在将近三十年的时间里，一心让我们之间隔着一块大陆，一座大洋——更确切地说，既有大陆，也有大洋。
This is what rankles, what pollutes Mamá’s kindness, her rescues and her acts of courage. The indebtedness that shadows them. The demands, the obligations she saddles you with. The way she uses these acts as currency, with which she barters for loyalty and allegiance. I understand now why Madaline left all those years ago. The rope that pulls you from the flood can become a noose around your neck. People always disappoint Mamá in the end, me included. They can’t make good on what they owe, not the way Mamá expects them to. Mamá’s consolation prize is the grim satisfaction of holding the upper hand, free to pass verdicts from the perch of strategic advantage, since she is always the one who has been wronged.
是什么引起了怨恨，败坏了妈妈的善良、她的救助，以及她英勇的行为？是它们身上那一层知恩图报的阴影。这是她的需求，这是她让你背负的债务。她把这些行为当成了现款，拿来换取忠诚和顺从。现在我明白了，为什么那么多年前玛达丽娜要离开。那条把你拉出洪水的绳子，也会变成捆住你脖子的套索。人们到头来总是让妈妈感到失望，我也如此。他们无法偿还自己欠下的债，无法以妈妈希望的方式偿还。妈妈得到的安慰奖就是居高临下的无情的满足，将自己置于具有战略优势的高位，随意地对别人做出判断，因为只有她，才是那个人人负我，我不负人的人。
Mamá’s eyes jumped skeptically from me to Thalia and back, but Madaline beamed and applauded silently. “Good! Now that I don’t have to worry about you two getting along, Odie and I can spend some time of our own together. What do you say, Odie? We have so much catching up to do still!”
妈妈用怀疑的眼光打量了我一眼，再看看萨丽娅，目光又挪回到我身上，可是玛达丽娜已经眉开眼笑，不出声地拍起了巴掌。“真好！现在我不用担心了，你们两个好好玩，奥蒂和我就有时间做我们自己的事了。你说是吗。奥蒂？咱们还有好多好多的事没做呢！”
“We played at the beach,” Thalia said.
“我们在海滩上玩来着。”萨丽娅说。
“They have no sense of irony, the junta,” Madaline was saying, “crushing people as they do. In Greece! The birthplace of democracy… Ah, there you are! Well, how was it? What did you two get up to?”
“他们对讽刺全无感觉，军政府…”玛达丽娜正在说着，“…这个样子镇压人民。在希腊！民主的诞生地…噢，你们回来了！怎么样啊？你们俩干什么去了？”
“Was it fun? Did you have fun?”
“好玩吗？玩得开心吗？”
“We had a grand time,” Thalia said.
“开心极了。”萨丽娅说。
Mamá smiled gamely and reached for a head of cabbage.
妈妈愣愣地笑了一下，接着伸手去拿卷心菜了。
From then on, Thalia and I were left to our own devices. We were to explore the island, play games at the beach, amuse ourselves the way children are expected to. Mamá would pack us a sandwich each, and we would set off together after breakfast.
从那时起，萨丽娅和我便可以自由行动了。我们可以到岛上探险，在海滩上玩游戏，小孩该怎么玩，我们就能怎么玩。妈妈会给我们包好三明治，一人一个，我们可以在早餐之后一起出发。
Once out of sight, we often drifted apart. At the beach, I took a swim or lay on a rock with my shirt off while Thalia went off to collect shells or skip rocks on the water, which was no good because the waves were too big. We went walking along the footpaths that snaked through vineyards and barley fields, looking down at our own shadows, each preoccupied with our own thoughts. Mostly we wandered. There wasn’t much in the way of a tourist industry on Tinos in those days. It was a farming island, really, people living off their cows and goats and olive trees and wheat. We would end up bored, eating lunch somewhere, quietly, in the shade of a tree or a windmill, looking between bites at the ravines, the fields of thorny bushes, the mountains, the sea.
一旦出了大人的视线，我们便常常分开。在海滩上，我要么游泳，要么脱掉上衣，躺在大石头上，萨丽娅会走掉，不是去捡贝壳，便是在水里的礁石上跳来跳去，这样很不好，因为浪太大了。我们走的是小道，绕来绕去，穿过葡萄园和大麦地，低头看着自己的影子，每个人都在想着自己的事。我们大部分时间用来闲荡。那个年月，蒂诺斯还没什么旅游业，实际上是个农业岛，人们要靠自己的奶牛、山羊、橄榄树和小麦来过日子。最后我们觉得无聊，就找个地方吃午饭，安安静静地，在树阴下，或是磨坊边乘凉，咬一口，就看看峡谷，望着长满多刺灌木的野地，群山，大海。
About a month back, I had spotted a camera in his display window, sitting on its worn rust-colored leather case. Every few days, I strolled over to the shop, stared at this camera, and imagined myself in India, the leather case hanging by the strap over my shoulder, taking photos of the paddies and tea estates I had seen in National Geographic. I would shoot the Inca Trail. On camelback, in some dust-choked old truck, or on foot, I would brave the heat until I stood gazing up at the Sphinx and the Pyramids, and I would shoot them too and see my photos published in magazines with glossy pages. This was what drew me to Mr. Roussos’s window that morning — though the shop was closed for the day — to stand outside, my forehead pressed to the glass, and daydream.
大约一个月之前，我在他的橱窗里瞧见了一架照相机，放在破旧的铁锈色皮匣子上。每隔几天，我都要去一趟小店，盯着这架相机，想像自己到了印度，皮匣子的系带吊在我肩膀上，我在拍照片，拍我在《国家地理》上看到的稻田和茶园。我还要拍印加古道。我要骑在骆驼背上，坐在尘土呛人的旧卡车里，或是徒步，勇敢地面对炎热，直到站在斯芬克斯和金字塔下，举目凝望，我要把它们也拍下来，然后看着自己的照片发表在光面纸印刷的杂志上。正是这个原因，在那天上午把我吸引到了鲁索斯先生的窗前，虽然商店当天关门，可我还是站在外面，脑门顶着玻璃，做起了白日梦。
One day, I wandered off toward town. We lived on the southwestern shore of the island, and Tinos town was only a few miles’ walk south. There was a little knickknack shop there run by a heavy-faced widower named Mr. Roussos. On any given day, you were apt to find in the window of his shop anything from a 1940s typewriter to a pair of leather work boots, or a weathervane, an old plant stand, giant wax candles, a cross, or, of course, copies of the Panagia Evangelistria icon. Or maybe even a brass gorilla. He was also an amateur photographer and had a makeshift darkroom in the back of the shop. When the pilgrims came to Tinos every August to visit the icon, Mr. Roussos sold rolls of film to them and developed their photos in his darkroom for a fee.
有一天，我溜溜达达往城里的方向去了。我们住在岛的西南岸，往南走上几公里，就是蒂诺斯城。城里有个卖小玩意儿的小商店，开店的是个愁眉苦脸的鳏夫，名叫鲁索斯先生。随便哪一天，你都能很容易地在他商店的橱窗里发现各种各样的东西，从四十年代的打字机，到皮子做的劳动鞋，要不就是一个风向标，老花架子，巨型蜡烛，当然还有帕纳伊亚福音教堂圣母像的复制品。没准儿还能见到一只黄铜大猩猩。鲁索斯先生也是个业余摄影师，他在店后面弄了个暗房。每年八月，当朝圣者来到蒂诺斯参观圣像的时候，鲁索斯先生就卖给他们胶卷，还在暗房里替他们冲洗照片，以此收费。
I shrugged.
我耸耸肩。
“So?”
“怎么了？”
“How would you know?”
“你怎么知道？”
“Looks like a C3 Argus,” she said.
“好像是阿耳戈斯C3。”她说。
“It’s only the best-selling thirty-five millimeter in the world for the last thirty years,” she said a little chidingly. “Not much to look at, though. It’s ugly. It looks like a brick. So you want to be a photographer? You know, when you’re all grown up? Your mother says you do.”
“这是过去三十年里最畅销的35毫米相机。”她用略带责备的语气说道，“不过外观上不怎么好看。太丑了。看上去像块砖头。这么说你想当摄影师？我是说等你长大了。你妈说你想。”
I pulled back a bit, caught Thalia’s reflection in the window. She dabbed at her left cheek with the handkerchief.
我往后退了退，在窗户上看见了萨丽娅的倒影。她用手帕擦了擦左脸。
I turned around. “Mamá told you that?”
我转过身。“妈妈告诉你的？”
“What kind is it?”
“什么型号？”
“The camera.”
“那台相机。”
I shrugged. I was embarrassed that Mamá had discussed this with Thalia. I wondered how she’d said it. She could unsheathe from her arsenal a mockingly grave way of talking about things she found either portentous or frivolous. She could shrink your aspirations before your very eyes. Markos wants to walk the earth and capture it with his lens.
我耸耸肩。妈妈和萨丽娅连这种事都谈，真让我难堪。我不清楚她是怎么说的。她会打开自己的武器库，挥起唇枪，舞动舌剑，一本正经，却语带嘲笑，就像她谈起那些怪事、糗事时一样。她会你在眼皮底下剁碎你的雄心壮志。马科斯想走天下，用镜头拍遍地球。
Thalia sat on the sidewalk and pulled her skirt over her knees. It was a hot day, the sun biting the skin like it had teeth. Hardly anyone was out and about except for an elderly couple trudging stiffly up the street. The husband — Demis something — wore a gray flat cap and a brown tweed jacket that looked too heavy for the season. He had a frozen, wide-eyed look to his face, I remember, the way some old people do, like they are perpetually startled by the monstrous surprise that is old age — it wasn’t until years later, in medical school, that I suspected he had Parkinson’s. They waved as they passed and I waved back. I saw them take notice of Thalia, a momentary pause in their stride, and then they moved on.
萨丽娅坐在人行道上，拉起裙子，盖住膝盖。这是个大热天，阳光好像长了尖牙，啃噬着皮肤。几乎没人出门走动，街上只有一对老两口儿，迈着僵硬的步子蹒跚而过。老头儿大概叫德米斯什么的，戴着灰色前进帽，穿棕色的花呢夹克，对这个季节来说，显然太过厚重。我记得他脸上带着一副目瞪口呆的表情，有些老年人就是这个样子，好像一成不变地受着怪异发现的惊吓，殊不知这就是衰老，直到多年以后进了医学院，我才怀疑他得了帕金森氏症。他们经过的时候招手致意，我也摆手还礼。我看见他们注意到了萨丽娅，步子突然停了一下，旋即继续前行。
Thalia rose to her feet and beat the dust from her behind. “Let me ask you, do you have a box at home?”
萨丽娅站起身，拍拍屁股上的土。“我问你，你家里有没有盒子？”
“Have you ever taken a picture?”
“你拍过照片吗？”
I sighed. It was true. Mamá would not allow such easy amends, and most certainly not if it involved money.
我叹了口气。她说得没错。妈妈不会接受这样简单的补偿，如果牵涉到钱，那就更不可能了。
“And you want to be a photographer?”
“那你还想当摄影师？”
“She’d probably make you give it back.”
“她可能会让你把它还回去。”
“No.”
“没有。”
“So if I said I wanted to be a policeman, you’d think that was strange too? Because I’ve never slapped handcuffs on anyone?”
“那我要是说我想当警察，你也觉得奇怪吗？就因为我从来没给人家戴过手铐？”
“Do you have a camera?” Thalia said.
“你有照相机吗？”萨丽娅问。
“No.”
“没有。”
I could tell from the softening in her eyes that, if she could, she would be smiling. “So you’re a clever ass,” she said. “Word of advice: Don’t mention the camera in my mother’s presence or she’ll buy it for you. She’s very eager to please.” The handkerchief went to the cheek and back. “But I doubt that Odelia would approve. I guess you already know that.”
她的目光变得柔和了，我看得出，如果她能，她一定在笑。“所以你是个聪明的蠢货。”她说，“给你个建议：别当着我妈的面提这相机，要不然她一定会给你买下来。她正急着讨你的好呢。”手帕上了脸，又下来了。“可我觉得奥德丽娅不会同意。我猜你也知道。”
I was both impressed and a little unsettled by how much she seemed to have grasped in so little time. Maybe it was the mask, I thought, the advantage of cover, the freedom to be watchful, to observe and scrutinize.
我既感到惊奇，同时又有点儿不安，这么短的时间，她怎么能看出这么多东西。我想，也许是因为有那个面罩，因为有掩盖的优势，也就有了警醒、观察和细看的自由。
“You find that strange?”
“你觉得奇怪？”
“A little.”
“有点儿。”
“Where was she planning on wearing those?” I asked.
“她打算穿这种鞋去哪儿？”我问。
We finished the second coat, and Thalia said we should put on a third, to make sure we hadn’t missed any spots. The black had to be uniform and flawless.
我们涂完了第二道，萨丽娅说还得再涂第三道，确保任何小地方都不会漏掉。黑色必须均匀，做到天衣无缝。
Madaline was sipping wine with Mamá in the kitchen, and Thalia and I were upstairs, using black markers on a shoe box. The shoe box belonged to Madaline and contained a new pair of lime green leather pumps with high heels, still wrapped in tissue paper.
玛达丽娜和妈妈在厨房喝着葡萄酒，我和萨丽娅上了楼，用黑色记号笔涂鞋盒。鞋盒是玛达丽娜的，装着一双酸橙绿色的高跟鞋，鞋是新的，仍然包着棉纸。
I could hear Madaline downstairs, talking about an acting class she had once taken where the instructor had asked her, as an exercise, to pretend she was a lizard sitting motionless on a rock. A swell of laughter — hers — followed.
我能听到玛达丽娜在楼下，谈着她上过的表演课，老师要求她做练习，让她假装自己是蜥蜴，一动不动地趴在石头上。接着便是一串笑声——她的笑声。
I passed her a sewing needle of Mamá’s. I was skeptical, to say the least, about the prospects of this homemade camera, of it doing anything at all — a shoe box and a needle? But Thalia had attacked the project with such faith and self-assured confidence that I had to leave room for the unlikely possibility that it just might work. She made me think she knew things I did not.
我把妈妈的一根缝衣针递给她。至少可以说，我对这架自制相机的前景，对它到底能拍出什么，是心存怀疑的，就凭一个鞋盒子，加一根针？可是萨丽娅一头扎进了这个项目，带着如此之强的信念和自我肯定的信心，那我也不得不留出点儿余地，万一这玩意儿能用呢？她弄得我在心里想，她知道我不知道的东西。
“That’s all a camera is,” she said, “a black box with a hole to let in the light and something to absorb the light. Give me the needle.”
“照相机就是这样的，”她说，“一个黑盒子，上面有个眼儿，让光线进来，再拿东西来吸收光线。把针给我。”
“I’ve made some calculations,” she said, carefully piercing the box with the needle. “Without a lens, we can’t set the pinhole on the small face, the box is too long. But the width is just about right. The key is to make the correct-sized pinhole. I figure point-six millimeter, roughly. There. Now we need a shutter.”
“我已经计算过了。”她说，小心翼翼地拿针扎着鞋盒，“没有透镜，咱们就不能在小的这一面上扎眼儿，这盒子太长了。不过宽度刚刚好。关键是扎出来的针孔要尺寸正确。我算的是0.6毫米，大概吧。行了。现在咱们要做个快门。”
Downstairs, Madaline’s voice had dropped to a low, urgent murmur. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but I could tell that she was speaking more slowly than before, enunciating well, and I pictured her leaning forward, elbows on knees, making eye contact, not blinking. Over the years, I have come to know this tone of voice intimately. When people speak this way, they’re likely disclosing, revealing, confessing some catastrophe, beseeching the listener. It’s a staple of the military’s casualty notification teams knocking on doors, lawyers touting the merits of plea deals to clients, policemen stopping cars at 3 A. M., cheating husbands. How many times have I used it myself at hospitals here in Kabul? How many times have I guided entire families into a quiet room, asked them to sit, pulled a chair up for myself, gathering the will to give them news, dreading the coming conversation?
在楼下，玛达丽娜一度压低了声音，变成了急切的低语。现在我听不清她在说什么，可我听得出来，她讲话的速度慢下来了，吐字也清楚了，我能想像她现在身体前倾，胳膊肘放在腿上，目光直视，眼睛眨都不眨。经过了这么多年，我已经熟悉了这种腔调。人们这样讲话时，很可能是在透露、揭发、坦白着某种灾难性的事情，恳求着倾听者。军队伤亡通知小组敲门时，律师向客户兜售辩诉交易的好处时，警察在凌晨三点截停汽车时，还有偷情的丈夫，常常采用这种腔调。而我自己在喀布尔的医院里又用过多少次呢？有多少次我把家属领进安静的房间，请他们落座，给自己拉过一把椅子，强打起向家属通报的精神，畏惧着即将开始的谈话？
“Who, Andreas? He’s all right. He travels a lot. When he’s home, he always has people over. Important people — ministers, generals, that kind. They have drinks by the fireplace and they talk all night, mostly business and politics. I can hear them from my room. I’m supposed to stay upstairs when Andreas has company. I’m not supposed to come down. But he buys me things. He pays for a tutor to come to the house. And he speaks to me nicely enough.”
“谁，安德烈亚斯吗？他挺好的。他经常出差。在家的时候就总有人过来。很重要的人——部长啊，将军啊什么的。他们在壁炉边上喝酒，一谈就是一个晚上，谈的主要是生意和政治。我在自己的房间里都能听到。安德烈亚斯有客人的时候，我是应该待在楼上的。我不该下去。可他给我买东西。他花钱请了家庭教师，到家里上课。他和我说起话来也蛮和善的。”
“What is he like? Besides being rich, I mean?”
“他是什么样的人？我是说除了很有钱以外？”
Things were quiet downstairs. I choreographed the scene in my head. Madaline weeping without a sound, absently fiddling with a handkerchief like it was a clump of Play-Doh, Mamá not much help, looking on stiffly with a pinch-faced little smile like she’s got something sour melting under her tongue. Mamá can’t stand it when people cry in her presence. She can barely look at their puffy eyes, their open, pleading faces. She sees crying as a sign of weakness, a garish appeal for attention, and she won’t indulge it. She can’t bring herself to console. Growing up, I learned that it was not one of her strong suits. Sorrow ought to be private, she thinks, not flaunted. Once, when I was little, I asked her if she’d cried when my father had fallen to his death.
楼下没什么动静了。我在心里编排起了剧情。玛达丽娜无声地哭着，心不在焉地把玩着手绢，好像那是一块培乐多彩泥，妈妈没怎么管她，干看着，脸上带着一丝苦笑，好像舌头底下有什么酸酸的东西正在化开。妈妈受不了别人在她面前哭哭啼啼。她看不得人家的肿眼泡，也看不得那不加掩饰、恳求的脸。她把哭看成软弱的标志，一种对他人关切的炫目恳求，而她是不会让你得到满足的。她不可能去安慰你。渐渐长大之后，我才领悟到这并不是她最主要的目的。她认为悲哀应该是私密的，不该拿出来炫耀。我小的时候，有一次问她，我父亲坠崖身亡时，她有没有哭过。
“She’s talking about Andreas,” Thalia said evenly. “I bet she is. They had a big fight. Pass me the tape and those scissors.”
“她在谈安德烈亚斯。”萨丽娅不动声色地说，“我敢保证她在谈他。他们大吵了一架。把胶带和剪刀递给我。”
She taped a rectangular piece of cardboard, which we’d also colored black, over the pinhole.
她把一片四四方方、已经涂成黑色的纸板盖到针孔上，拿胶带粘好。
At the funeral? I mean, the burial?
在葬礼上。我是说下葬的时候？
No, I did not.
没有。我没有。
Would you cry if I died, Mamá?
要是我死了，你会哭吗，妈妈？
Because you weren’t sad?
因为你不伤心？
Because it was nobody’s business if I was.
因为我伤不伤心不关别人的事。
Thalia picked up the box of photographic paper and said, “Get the flashlight.”
萨丽娅拿起那包相纸，对我说：“带上手电筒。”
Let’s hope we never have to find out, she said.
但愿我们永远也不必知道答案。她说。
We moved into Mamá’s closet, taking care to shut the door and snuff out daylight with towels we stuffed under it. Once we were in pitch-darkness, Thalia asked me to turn on the flashlight, which we had covered with several layers of red cellophane. All I could see of Thalia in the dim glow was her slender fingers as she cut a sheet of photographic paper and taped it to the inside of the shoe box opposite the pinhole. We had bought the paper from Mr. Roussos’s shop the day before. When we walked up to the counter, Mr. Roussos peered at Thalia over his spectacles and said, Is this a robbery? Thalia pointed an index finger at him and cocked her thumb like pulling back the hammer.
我们钻进了妈妈的壁橱，轻手轻脚地把门关好，门下面用毛巾塞住，挡住所有的光。等到周围一片漆黑，萨丽娅便叫我打开手电筒，我们事先已经用好几层红色的玻璃纸把它包好了。微光之下，我看不见萨丽娅，只能看到她用细长的手指剪下一张相纸，把它铺到鞋盒里面，正对着针孔的方向。相纸是前一天我们从鲁索斯先生的店里买的。我们走到柜台边上，鲁索斯先生从眼镜上方打量了一番萨丽娅，然后问：这是要打劫吗？萨丽娅用食指对着他，然后竖起大拇指，好像在扳动手枪的击锤。
Thalia closed the lid on the shoe box, covered the pinhole with the shutter. In the dark she said, “Tomorrow, you shoot the first photo of your career.” I couldn’t tell if she was making fun or not.
萨丽娅把鞋盒的盖子盖好，用快门挡住针孔。她在黑暗中说道：“明天，你来拍你职业生涯中的第一张照片。”我真听不出她是不是在开玩笑。
We chose the beach. We set the shoe box on a flat rock and secured it firmly with rope — Thalia said we couldn’t have any movement at all when we opened the shutter. She moved in next to me and took a peek over the box as if through a viewfinder.
我们决定去海滩。我们把鞋盒子放到一块平整的石头上，拿绳子捆牢，因为萨丽娅说，只要一打开快门，我们就一动也不能动了。她凑到我身边，从盒子上方朝远处看了看，好像那儿真有个取景器似的。
“It’s a perfect shot,” she said.
“完美的画面。”她说。
She turned back to face the sea.
她转过身，面向大海。
She looked at me, saw what I meant, and said, “No. I won’t do it.”
她看了看我，明白了我的意思，然后说：“不。我不行。”
We argued back and forth and she finally agreed, but on the condition that her face didn’t show. She took off her shoes, walked atop a row of rocks a few feet in front of the camera, using her arms like a tightrope walker on a cable. She lowered herself on one of the rocks facing west in the direction of Syros and Kythnos. She flipped her hair so it covered the bands at the back of her head that held the mask in place. She looked at me over her shoulder.
我们来来回回地争论了一番，最后她同意了，但是有一个条件，她不露脸。她脱掉鞋子，双臂张开，好像走钢丝一样，走到离相机几米远的一排礁石上。她在石头上坐下，面朝西，望着锡罗斯岛和基斯诺斯岛的方向，扯一扯头发，盖住脑后固定面罩的系带。她回过头，看着我。
“Remember,” she shouted, “count to one twenty.”
“记住，”她大声说，“数到一百二。”
“Almost. We need a subject.”
“没那么完美。没对象。”
I stooped and peered over the box, looking at Thalia’s back, the constellation of rocks around her, the whips of seaweed entangled between them like dead snakes, a little tugboat bobbing in the distance, the tide rising, mashing the craggy shore and withdrawing. I lifted the shutter from the pinhole and began to count.
我弯下腰，伏在鞋盒上方，看着萨丽娅的背影，她身边的礁石宛如星群，石与石之间，海草纠缠，摇曳，仿佛死蛇，一条小小的拖船在远处摆荡，潮水高涨，将嶙峋的岸蹂躏一番，便返身退落。我抬起针孔上的快门，开始数数。
We’re lying in bed. On the TV screen a pair of accordion players are dueling, but Gianna has turned off the sound. Midday sunlight scissors through the blinds, falling in stripes on the remains of the Margherita pizza we’d ordered for lunch from room service. It was delivered to us by a tall, slim man with impeccable slicked-back hair and a white coat with black tie. On the table he rolled into the room was a flute vase with a red rose in it. He lifted the domed plate cover off the pizza with great flourish, making a sweeping motion with his hand like a magician to his audience after the rabbit has materialized from the top hat.
我们躺在床上。电视屏幕上，一对手风琴手正在斗技，可是声音已经让詹娜关掉了。正午的阳光剪穿了百叶窗，投下道道光影，落在吃剩下的玛格丽塔比萨上，那是我们通过送餐服务订的午饭。送饭的是个又高又瘦的男人，梳着油光水滑的大背头，白上衣，黑领带。他把送餐车推进房间，小桌上放着个长颈花瓶，一枝红玫瑰插在里面。他提起半球形的盘子盖，露出比萨，手上做了个挥舞的动作，极尽炫耀之能事，好像一个魔术师面对着观众，而兔子刚刚从大礼帽中现了形。
One… two… three… four… five…
一…二…三…四…五…
Scattered around us, among the mussed sheets, are the pictures I have shown Gianna, photos of my trips over the past year and a half. Belfast, Montevideo, Tangier, Marseille, Lima, Tehran. I show her photos of the commune I had joined briefly in Copenhagen, living alongside ripped-T-shirt-and-beanie-hat-wearing Danish beatniks who had built a self-governing community on a former military base.
在我们周围，在乱七八糟的床单上，散乱地摆放着我给詹娜看过的图片，这是过去一年半我在旅行途中拍下的照片。贝尔法斯特，蒙得维的亚，丹吉尔，马赛，利马，德黑兰。我给她看公社的照片，我在哥本哈根曾经短暂地加入过这个公社，和一群丹麦垮掉的一代分子共同生活，他们穿破背心，戴无檐小便帽，在一个从前的军事基地内建起了一个自治社区。
Where are you? Gianna asks. You are not in the photographs.
你在哪儿？詹娜问，这些照片上都没你。
I like being behind the lens better, I say. It’s true. I have taken hundreds of pictures, and you won’t find me in any. I always order two sets of prints when I drop off the film. I keep one set, mail the other to Thalia back home.
我喜欢待在镜头后面。我说。这是实话。我已经拍了几百张照片，哪一张里你都找不到我。取出胶卷时，我总是洗印两套照片，我留一套，另一套给萨丽娅寄回家。
Eight… nine… ten…
八…九…十…
Gianna asks how I finance my trips and I explain I pay for them with inheritance money. This is partially true, because the inheritance is Thalia’s, not mine. Unlike Madaline, who for obvious reasons was never mentioned in Andreas’s will, Thalia was. She gave me half her money. I am supposed to be putting myself through university with it.
詹娜问我旅行的钱从哪儿来的，我说我用了遗产的钱。这不全是事实，因为遗产是萨丽娅的，不是我的。与玛达丽娜不一样，出于显而易见的原因，安德烈亚斯的遗嘱里根本没有提到她，只有萨丽娅。她把一半钱给了我。我本该用这钱把大学念完。
Gianna props herself up on her elbows and leans across the bed, over me, her small breasts brushing my skin. She fetches her pack, lights a cigarette. I’d met her the day before at Piazza di Spagna. I was sitting on the stone steps that connect the square below to the church on the hill. She walked up and said something to me in Italian. She looked like so many of the pretty, seemingly aimless girls I’d seen slinking around Rome’s churches and piazzas. They smoked and talked loudly and laughed a lot. I shook my head and said, Sorry? She smiled, went Ah, and then, in heavily accented English, said, Lighter? Cigarette. I shook my head and told her in my own heavily accented English that I didn’t smoke. She grinned. Her eyes were bright and jumping. The late-morning sun made a nimbus around her diamond-shaped face.
詹娜用胳膊肘撑起身体，越过我，横到床的另一头，小乳房擦着我的皮肤。她拿了烟盒，点了支香烟。我是前一天在西班牙广场遇见她的。当时我坐在通往广场的石头台阶上，再往上便是山上的教堂[6]。她走上来，用意大利语对我说了句什么。我见过太多像她这样的漂亮姑娘，在罗马的教堂和广场附近，似乎漫无目的地游荡。她们抽烟，大声说话，动不动就放声大笑。我摇了摇头，说：什么？她笑了笑，蹦出个噢，接着用口音很重的英语说：打火机？烟。我摇摇头，也用口音很重的英语告诉她，我不吸烟。她咧嘴一笑。她眼睛亮亮的，眼神飘忽不定。午前的阳光照着她钻石形的脸，映出了一圈神像般的光环。【注：[6]西班牙广场（Piazza di Spagna），经西班牙阶梯，通往山上的圣三一教堂。】
La tua ragazza? she says. She has found the picture of Thalia on the beach, the one I had taken years before with our homemade pinhole camera. Your girlfriend?
La tua ragazza？她问。她发现了那张萨丽娅在海滩上的照片，多年前我用自制的针孔相机拍的那一张。你女朋友？
Your sister?
你妹妹？
I doze off briefly and wake up to her poking my ribs.
我打了个盹儿，后来她戳我肋骨，把我弄醒了。
I shake my head.
我摇了摇头。
No, I say.
不是。我说。
No.
不是。
She studies the photo some more, taking quick drags off her cigarette. No, she says sharply, to my surprise, even angrily. Questa è la tua ragazza! Your girlfriend. I think yes, you are liar! And then, to my disbelief, she flicks her lighter and sets the picture on fire.
她又端详了一会儿照片，紧嘬了几口，把烟抽完。不是。她说得咬牙切齿，而且让我惊讶的是，甚至怒气横生。Questa è la tua ragazza！[8]你女朋友。我认为是，你是大骗子！接着，我简直不能相信，她按下打火机，点着了照片。【注：[8]意大利语：这就是你女朋友！】
About midway through our trek back to the bus stop, I realize I’ve lost the photo. I tell them I need to go back. There is no choice, I have to go back. Alfonso, a wiry, tight-lipped huaso who is tagging along as our informal Chilean guide, looks questioningly at Gary. Gary is an American. He is the alpha male in our trio. He has dirty-blond hair and acne pits on his cheeks. It’s a face that hints at habitual hard living. Gary is in a foul mood, made worse by hunger, the absence of alcohol, and the nasty rash on his right calf, which he contracted brushing up against a litre shrub the day before. I’d met them both at a crowded bar in Santiago, where, after half a dozen rounds of piscolas, Alfonso had suggested a hike to the waterfall at Salto del Apoquindo, where his father used to take him when he was a boy. We’d made the hike the next day and had camped out at the waterfall for the night. We’d smoked dope, the water roaring in our ears, a wide-open sky crammed with stars above us. We were trudging back now toward San Carlos de Apoquindo to catch the bus.
我们一路跋涉，返回公共汽车站，走到大约一半，我才意识到照片丢了。我告诉他们我得回去。没有选择，我非回去不可。阿方索疑惑地看了看加里。阿方索是个瘦削、结实、寡言少语的瓦索[9]，跟着我们，做我们非正式的智利向导。加里是个美国人，我们仨当中的头狼，一头黄毛，看上去脏兮兮，满脸的粉刺坑。这张脸似乎在诉说着习以为常的艰辛生活。加里心情很坏，现在坏上加坏，因为他饿着肚子，没有酒喝，右小腿又起了讨厌的皮疹，此前一天，他碰到了一丛利特雷[10]灌木，感染了。我是在圣地亚哥一家拥挤的酒吧遇到他们俩的，在那儿，喝过五六轮皮斯科拉[11]后，阿方索建议来一次远足，去阿波金多瀑布，小时候他父亲常带他去那儿。第二天我们便徒步出发，夜里在瀑布边露营。我们吸了大麻，耳中水声轰鸣，头顶上是繁星拥塞的辽阔夜空。此时我们正艰难回返，去阿波金多圣卡洛斯搭公共汽车。【注：[9]瓦索（huaso），相当于智利牛仔。[10]利特雷（Litre），全称Lithraea caustica，智利矮树，有刺，致人过敏。[11]皮斯科拉（piscola），智利流行的鸡尾酒，以皮斯科白兰地混入可乐或姜汁汽水调成。】
Fourteen… fifteen… sixteen… seventeen…
十四…十五…十六…十七…
La tua cugina? Your cousin, si?
La tua cugina？你表妹，si？[7]【注：[7]意大利语：是吗？】
I know.
我知道。
I nod. I keep quiet because they would not understand. I am not sure I understand it myself.
我点点头。我不想多说，因为他们不理解。我自己理解吗？我不清楚。
Es un griego loco, Alfonso says.
疯狂的希腊人。阿方索说。
Then good luck, amigo, Gary says, offering his hand.
那就祝你好运了，朋友。加里说着，伸出了手。
Yes.
对。
Gary pushes back the wide rim of his Cordoban hat and wipes his brow with a handkerchief. It’s a three-hour walk back, Markos, he says.
加里戴着一顶科尔多万帽，他把大帽檐向上一推，拿手绢擦了擦脑门。回去得走三小时，马科斯。他说。
Probably.
很有可能。
You know you’re going to get lost, Gary says.
你知道你会迷路的。加里说。
¿Para una foto? Alfonso says.
就为一张相片？阿方索问。
I laugh. It is not the first time I have been called a crazy Greek. We shake hands. Gary adjusts the straps of his knapsack, and the two of them head back up the trail along the folds of the mountain, Gary waving once without looking as they take a hairpin turn. I walk back the way we had come. It takes me four hours, actually, because I do get lost as Gary had predicted. I am exhausted by the time I reach the campsite. I search all over, kicking bushes, looking between rocks, dread building as I rummage in vain. Then, just as I try to resign myself to the worst, I spot a flash of white in a batch of shrubs up a shallow slope. I find the photo wedged between a tangle of brambles. I pluck it free, beat dust from it, my eyes brimming with tears of relief.
我哈哈大笑。这不是我第一次被人叫作疯狂的希腊人了。我们握了手。加里调整好背包的肩带，他俩便转身上了山间小道，走到转弯处，加里挥了挥手，但没回头。我沿着我们刚刚来的路往回走。实际上我花了四个小时，因为正像加里预测的那样，我迷了路。到露营地的时候，我已经筋疲力尽。我到处找，在灌木丛里蹚，往石头缝里瞧，一无所获，越来越慌。后来，就在一筹莫展，准备放弃之际，我瞥见矮坡上的灌木丛中白花花地一闪。我找到了照片，它卡在一堆乱蓬蓬的刺藤中间。我摘出它，弹落尘土，眼中满溢着如释重负的泪水。
¿Tres horas, hágale comprende? Alfonso echoes.
三小时，懂不？阿方索附和道。
And you’re still going?
可你还是要去？
In Caracas I sleep under a bridge. A youth hostel in Brussels. Sometimes I splurge and rent a room in a nice hotel, take long hot showers, shave, eat meals in a bathrobe. I watch color TV. The cities, the roads, the countryside, the people I meet — they all begin to blur. I tell myself I am searching for something. But more and more, it feels like I am wandering, waiting for something to happen to me, something that will change everything, something that my whole life has been leading up to.
在加拉加斯，我睡在桥下。在布鲁塞尔睡青年旅社。有时我挥霍一番，找家好酒店，要个房间，洗个热水澡，刮刮胡子，穿着浴衣吃饭。我看彩色电视。那些城市，道路，乡村，我遇见的人们，统统变得模糊起来。我对自己说，我在寻找某种东西。可是一种越来越来强烈的感觉告诉我，我在流浪，在等待着临于我身的大事件，它将改变一切，它在让我用过往的全部人生，为它的到来做着铺垫。
Twenty-three… twenty-four… twenty-five…
二十三…二十四…二十五…
Thirty-four… thirty-five… thirty-six…
三十四…三十五…三十六…
My fourth day in India. I totter down a dirt road among stray cattle, the world tilting under my feet. I have been vomiting all day. My skin is the yellow of a sari, and it feels like invisible hands are peeling it raw. When I can’t walk anymore, I lie down on the side of the road. An old man across the road stirs something in a big steel pot. Beside him is a cage, inside the cage a blue-and-red parrot. A dark-skinned vendor pushing a cartful of empty green bottles passes me by. That’s the last thing I remember.
在印度的第四天。我跟着闲荡的牛群，踉踉跄跄走上了一条土路，世界在我脚下歪斜着。一整天我都在不停地呕吐。我的皮肤黄得好像纱丽，感觉有无形的手，在活活剥着我的皮。我再也走不动了，我躺倒在路边。路对面有个老头，正在一口大铁锅里搅着东西。他旁边是个鸟笼，鸟笼里是一只蓝绿相杂的鹦鹉。一个皮肤黝黑的小贩推着满满一车空酒瓶，从我身边经过。这就是我记住的最后一件事。
Forty-one… forty-two…
四十一…四十二…
I ask for my backpack. What backpack? Gul says with indifference. All my things are gone — my clothes, my cash, my books, my camera. That’s all the thief left you, Gul says in his rolling English, pointing to the windowsill beside me. It’s the picture. I pick it up. Thalia, her hair flapping in the breeze, the water bubbling with froth around her, her bare feet on the rocks, the leaping Aegean flung out before her. A lump rises to my throat. I don’t want to die here, among these strangers, so far away from her. I tuck the photo in the wedge between the glass and the window frame.
我要我的背包。什么背包？古尔冷冰冰地问。我所有的东西都没了——我的衣服，钞票，书，照相机。小偷只给你留了这个。古尔用叽里嘟噜的英语说着，朝我旁边的窗台一指。是那张照片。我拿起它。萨丽娅，她风中飞舞的长发，她周围翻卷的白浪，她礁石上的赤足，爱琴海在她前方骤然升腾。我喉头哽咽。我不想死在这儿，死在这些陌生人中间，死得离她如此遥远。我把照片插到了玻璃和窗框之间。
I wake up in a big room. The air is thick with heat and something like rotting cantaloupe. I am lying on a twin-sized steel-frame bed, cushioned from the hard, springless platform by a mattress no thicker than a paperback book. The room is filled with beds like mine. I see emaciated arms dangling over the sides, dark matchstick legs protruding from stained sheets, scant-toothed mouths open. Idle ceiling fans. Walls marked by patches of mold. The window beside me lets in hot, sticky air and sunlight that stabs the eyeballs. The nurse — a burly, glowering Muslim man named Gul — tells me I may die of hepatitis.
我在一间大屋子里醒来。空气中热浪迫人，弥漫着类似哈密瓜腐烂后的味道。我躺在一张钢架单人床上，为了不硌人，床上铺了床垫，没弹簧，不及一本平装书的厚度。房间里塞满了同样的床。我看见一条条枯瘦的胳膊垂在床边，一条条火柴棍一样的黑腿，支棱在污迹斑斑的床单之外，一张张牙齿残缺的嘴张开着。天花板上毫无用处的吊扇。墙上大块的霉斑。窗户挨着我，灌入灼热而黏稠的空气和刺目的阳光。护士是个膀大腰圆、面带怒容的穆斯林汉子，名叫古尔[12]，他告诉我，我将死于肝炎。【注：[12]古尔的意思是花。】
Fifty-five… fifty-six… fifty-seven…
五十五…五十六…五十七…
The suffering, the despair in this place, is like a wave. It rolls out from every bed, smashes against the moldy walls, and swoops back toward you. You can drown in it. I sleep a lot. When I don’t, I itch. I take the pills they give me and the pills make me sleep again. Otherwise, I look down at the bustling street outside the dormitory, at the sunlight skidding over tent bazaars and back-alley tea shops. I watch the kids shooting marbles on sidewalks that melt into muddy gutters, the old women sitting in doorways, the street vendors in dhotis squatting on their mats, scraping coconuts, hawking marigold garlands. Someone lets out an earsplitting shriek from across the room. I doze off.
苦难，绝望，在这个地方，就像海浪。它从每一张床上翻卷而出，撞击着发霉的墙，再朝你扑回来。你会淹死在里面。我睡得很多。不睡的时候，我也想睡。我吃他们给我的药，药让我再次睡着。要不然，我就看着病房外面熙熙攘攘的街道，看阳光滑过帐篷巴扎和陋巷里的茶馆。我望着小孩们在那儿打弹子，他们脚下的人行道已经烂成了臭泥沟，老婆婆们坐在门口，缠腰布的街头小贩蹲在席子上，或掏椰子，或叫卖金盏花的花环。房间另一头，有人发出一声撕心裂肺的尖叫。我打起了瞌睡。
Seventy-five… seventy-six… seventy-seven…
七十五…七十六…七十七…
The boy in the bed next to mine has an old man’s face, haggard, sunken, carved. His lower belly is swollen with a tumor the size of a bowling ball. Whenever a nurse touches him there, his eyes squeeze shut and his mouth springs open in a silent, agonized wail. This morning, one of the nurses, not Gul, is trying to feed him pills, but the boy turns his head side to side, his throat making a sound like a scraping against wood. Finally, the nurse pries his mouth open, forces the pills inside. When he leaves, the boy rolls his head slowly toward me. We eye each other across the space between our beds. A small tear squeezes out and rolls down his cheek.
邻床的男孩长了张老头子的脸，憔悴，凹陷，形销骨立。他小肚子鼓起着，里面长了个保龄球大小的瘤。只要护士一碰到那儿，他就死死地闭起眼睛，嘴巴猛地张开，发出无声而痛苦的哀号。这天早晨，有个护士，不是古尔，想喂他吃药，可这孩子把脑袋扭过来，扭过去，嗓子里发出刨木头的声音。最后，那护士硬生生掰开他的嘴，把药塞了进去。等他一走，男孩朝我慢慢扭过头。我们隔着床空儿，四目相交。一颗小小的泪珠滑出，滚落到他脸上。
Sixty-six… sixty-seven… sixty-eight…
六十六…六十七…六十八…
I learn that the boy’s name is Manaar. It means “guiding light.” His mother was a prostitute, his father a thief. He lived with his aunt and uncle, who beat him. No one knows exactly what is killing him, only that it is. No one visits him, and when he dies, a week from now — a month, two at the outside — no one will come to claim him. No one will grieve. No one will remember. He will die where he lived, in the cracks. When he sleeps, I find myself looking at him, at his cratered temples, the head that’s too big for his shoulders, the pigmented scar on his lower lip where, Gul informed me, his mother’s pimp had the habit of putting out his cigarette. I try speaking to him in English, then in the few Urdu words I know, but he only blinks tiredly. Sometimes I put my hands together and make shadow animals on the wall to win a smile from him.
我得知那男孩名叫马纳尔，意思是“指明灯”。他母亲是妓女，父亲是小偷。他和姑姑、叔叔住在一起，他们揍他。没人知道他到底会怎么死，只知道他横竖都是死。没人来看他，等他死了——从现在算，再过一个礼拜，或一个月，最多两个月——也肯定不会有人来认尸。不会有人伤心，不会有人记起。他将死在他生活过的地方，死在犄角旮旯里。他睡觉时，我发现我在看他，看他下凹的太阳穴，看他的大脑袋，大得与肩膀不成比例，看他下嘴唇上那块颜色明显的疤，古尔跟我说过，给他母亲拉皮条的家伙有个习惯，总在这孩子嘴上捻烟头。我试探着跟他讲英语，又用我知道的几句乌尔都语搭话，可他只是疲倦地眨眨眼。有时我把两手搭在一起，在墙上做几个动物模样的影子，只想博他一笑。
Eighty-three… eighty-four… eighty-five…
八十三…八十四…八十五…
One day Manaar points to something outside my window. I follow his finger, raise my head, but I see nothing but the blue wisp of sky through the clouds, children below playing with water gushing from a street pump, a bus spewing exhaust. Then I realize he is pointing at the photo of Thalia. I pluck it from the window and hand it to him. He holds it close to his face, by the burnt corner, and stares at it for a long time. I wonder if it is the ocean that draws him. I wonder if he’s ever tasted salt water or got dizzy watching the tide pull away from his feet. Or perhaps, though he can’t see her face, he senses a kin in Thalia, someone who knows what pain feels like. He goes to hand the photo back to me. I shake my head. Hold on to it, I say. A shadow of mistrust crosses his face. I smile. And, I cannot be sure, but I think he smiles back.
有一天，马纳尔指了指窗外。我顺着他手指的方向抬起头，却只看到云后的一小块蓝天，往下看，街边水桩喷涌，孩子们以水嬉戏，一辆公共汽车喷吐着废气。然后我意识到，他指的是萨丽娅的照片。我把它从窗子上取下，递给马纳尔。他拿着照片，贴近自己的脸，对着那烧过的一角，凝视了很长时间。我不知道是不是海洋吸引了他。我不知道他是否尝过海水的咸，是否曾经注视着海潮从脚下退去，并为此感到头晕目眩。也许，虽然他看不到萨丽娅的脸，却能从她身上感受到一种亲缘，因为她知道痛是什么感觉。他把照片递还给我，可我摇了摇头。你留着吧。我说。他脸上闪过少许怀疑。我笑了笑。然后，尽管不能确定，可我感觉，他还了我一个微笑。
Eighty-seven… eighty-eight… eighty-nine…
八十七…八十八…八十九…
I beat the hepatitis. Strange how I can’t tell if Gul is pleased or disappointed at my having proved him wrong. But I know I’ve caught him by surprise when I ask if I can stay on as a volunteer. He cocks his head, frowns. I end up having to talk to one of the head nurses.
我战胜了肝炎。我证明了古尔是错的，奇怪的是，我看不出他是高兴还是失望。可我知道我让他吃了一惊，因为我问他，我能不能留下来做义工。他昂起头，皱着眉。到头来我不得不去找护士长。
Ninety-seven… ninety-eight… ninety-nine…
九十七…九十八…九十九…
Ninety-two… ninety-three… ninety-four…
九十二…九十三…九十四…
The shower room smells like urine and sulfur. Every morning I carry Manaar into it, holding his naked body in my arms, careful not to bounce him — I’d watched one of the volunteers carry him before over the shoulder as if he were a bag of rice. I gently lower him onto the bench and wait for him to catch his breath. I rinse his small, frail body with warm water. Manaar always sits quietly, patiently, palms on his knees, head hung low. He is like a fearful, bony old man. I run the soapy sponge over his rib cage, the knobs of his spine, over shoulder blades that jut out like shark fins. I carry him back to his bed, feed him his pills. It soothes him to have his feet and calves massaged, so I do that for him, taking my time. When he sleeps, it is always with the picture of Thalia half tucked under his pillow.
浴室里满是尿味和硫磺味。每天上午我都把马纳尔抱进浴室，用两条胳膊托着他赤裸的身子，留心着不要颠到他。我以前见过一个义工把他扛在肩膀上，好像他是一口袋大米。我轻轻把他放到条凳上，等他喘口气，再用温水冲洗他瘦小、脆弱的身体。马纳尔总是安静、顽强地坐着，两只手放在膝头，耷拉着脑袋。他就像一个受了惊吓、骨瘦如柴的老头子。我拿打过肥皂的海绵，擦过他的两肋，脊椎的节突，两片鲨鱼鳍一样的肩胛骨。我把他抱回床上，喂他服药。按摩脚和小腿可以起到安慰的作用，所以我给他按了，按得不紧不慢。他睡着的时候，萨丽娅的照片总是半塞在他枕头下。
I go for long, aimless walks around the city, if only to get away from the hospital, the collective breaths of the sick and dying. I walk in dusty sunsets through streets lined with graffiti-stained walls, past tin-shed stalls packed tightly against one another, crossing paths with little girls carrying basketfuls of raw dung on their head, women covered in black soot boiling rags in huge aluminum vats. I think a lot about Manaar as I meander down a cat’s cradle of narrow alleyways, Manaar waiting to die in that room full of broken figures like him. I think a lot about Thalia, sitting on the rock, looking out at the sea. I sense something deep inside me drawing me in, tugging at me like an undertow. I want to give in to it, be seized by it. I want to give up my bearings, slip out of who I am, shed everything, the way a snake discards old skin.
我出了门，久久地、漫无目的地走在城中，一心要逃离这医院，逃离病患和将死之人的集体喘息。我在多尘的晚霞中走过街道，路边是涂鸦污损的墙，卖货的铁皮棚子一个挨一个，紧紧挤在一起。我穿过小路，路边有些小女孩，头上顶着满筐的生粪，一些浑身炭灰的女人，在巨大的铝桶里煮着破衣烂衫。我在翻猪槽[13]一样的小巷里左拐右转，老是想到马纳尔，在病房里等死的马纳尔，那屋里塞满了像他一样不成人形的人。我也老想到萨丽娅，坐在礁石上远眺大海的萨丽娅。我感觉到，在我心底深处有某种东西牵扯着我，像海里的回头浪一样拉拽着我。我想屈服，就让它把我掳去好了。我想放弃自己的安身立命之道，从现在的这个我脱身而出，抛开一切，就像蛇丢弃旧皮。【注：[13]二人翻绳游戏，原文是ca‘ s cradle，猫的摇篮。】
One hundred one… one hundred two…
一百零一…一百零二…
I am not saying Manaar changed everything. He didn’t. I stumble around the world for still another year before I finally find myself at a corner desk in an Athens library, looking down at a medical school application. In between Manaar and the application are the two weeks I spent in Damascus, of which I have virtually no memory other than the grinning faces of two women with heavily lined eyes and a gold tooth each. Or the three months in Cairo in the basement of a ramshackle tenement run by a hashish-addicted landlord. I spend Thalia’s money riding buses in Iceland, tagging along with a punk band in Munich. In 1977, I break an elbow at an antinuclear protest in Bilbao.
我并不是说马纳尔改变了一切。他没有。我继续迷乱地游走于世界，又过了一年，最后终于进了雅典的一家图书馆，坐在角落里的桌前，低头看着一份医学院的入学申请。在马纳尔和这份申请之间，有我在大马士革度过的两个星期，在那儿，除了两个女人的笑脸，我几乎再无其他的记忆，她们画着浓浓的眼线，每人镶了一颗金牙。也有在开罗地下室里度过的三个月，那是一幢摇摇欲坠的分租式公寓，房东抽哈希什抽上了瘾。我花萨丽娅的钱在冰岛搭公共汽车，跟随着慕尼黑的一支朋克乐队。1977年，我在毕尔巴鄂的反核示威中，断了一只手肘。
One hundred nineteen… one hundred twenty.
一百一十九…一百二十…
I drop the shutter.
我放下了快门。
But in my quiet moments, in those long rides in the back of a bus or the bed of a truck, my mind always circles back to Manaar. Thinking of him, of the anguish of his final days, and my own helplessness in the face of it, makes everything I have done, everything I want to do, seem as unsubstantial as the little vows you make yourself as you’re going to sleep, the ones you’ve already forgotten by the time you wake up.
然而，在安静的时候，在那些漫长的旅程中，当我坐在公共汽车的后部，或是卡车的车斗里，我的思绪总会兜回到马纳尔身上。想着他，想着他临死前极度的痛苦，以及我面对痛苦时的束手无策，这让我做过的一切，我想做的一切，都变得不那么牢靠了，就像临睡前的小小保证，醒来时便已忘得一干二净。
“Just for a few weeks,” she said.
“就几个星期。”她说。
We were having dinner, the four of us, a dish of white bean soup that Mamá and Madaline had prepared together. I glanced across the table at Thalia to see if I was the only one on whom Madaline had sprung the news. It appeared I was. Thalia was calmly feeding spoonfuls into her mouth, lifting her mask just a bit with each trip of the spoon. By then, her speech and eating didn’t bother me anymore, or at least no more than watching an old person eat through ill-fitting dentures, like Mamá would years later.
我们在吃晚餐，我们四个，有一道白豆汤是妈妈和玛达丽娜一起做的。我瞥了一眼桌子对面的萨丽娅，想看看是不是只有我才对玛达丽娜的消息感到突然。显然是的。萨丽娅平静地向自己嘴里喂送着食物，每当勺子送到，她便将面罩轻轻撩起，就那么一点儿。此时她讲起话来，吃起东西来，已经不再让我心烦，起码不像看到一个老年人，戴着不合嘴的假牙吃东西那样心烦，妈妈多年以后就是那个样子。
One night at the end of that summer, I learned that Madaline was leaving for Athens and leaving Thalia with us, at least for a short while.
那年夏末的一个夜晚，我得知玛达丽娜要去雅典了，留下萨丽娅和我们待在一起，起码要待一小段时间。
“Actually, I will bring you all to Athens,” she said, her face rinsed with the customary cheer. “And we will go to the opening together! Wouldn’t that be marvelous, Markos? The four of us, dressed up, waltzing into the theater in style?”
“说实话，我要把你们全接到雅典。”她说，脸上洋溢着惯常的愉悦。“咱们一起参加首映礼！那该多棒啊，对不对，马科斯？咱们四个，盛装打扮起来，漂漂亮亮，仪态万方地走进戏院。”
Madaline said she would send for Thalia after she had shot her film, which she said should wrap well before Christmas.
玛达丽娜说她拍完电影之后，就来接萨丽娅，她说电影应该圣诞节前就能完成。
I said it would be, though I had trouble picturing Mamá in a fancy gown or waltzing into anything.
我说对，不过我不太敢想像妈妈穿起花哨行头，仪态万方地走进任何东西的模样。
Madaline explained how it would work out just fine, how Thalia could resume her studies when school opened in a couple of weeks — at home, of course — with Mamá. She said she would send us postcards and letters, and pictures of the film set. She said more, but I didn’t hear much of it. What I was feeling was enormous relief and outright giddiness. My dread of the coming end of summer was like a knot in my belly, winding tighter with each passing day as I steeled myself against the approaching farewell. I woke every morning now eager to see Thalia at the breakfast table, to hear the bizarre sound of her voice. We barely ate before we were out climbing trees, chasing each other through the barley fields, plowing through the stalks and letting out war cries, lizards scattering away from our feet. We stashed make-believe treasures in caves, found spots on the island with the best and loudest echoes. We shot photos of windmills and dovecotes with our pinhole camera and took them to Mr. Roussos, who developed them for us. He even let us into his darkroom and taught us about different developers, fixers, and stop baths.
玛达丽娜唠叨了一通这样的安排如何如何好，又说过两个星期，等学校开学，萨丽娅就能够跟着妈妈恢复学习——当然是在家里。她说她会给我们寄明信片，给我们写信，寄电影剧照。她还说了好多别的，可我听不进那么多。此时我的感觉就是心里的巨石落了地，从头到脚一阵晕眩。我对夏季行将结束的恐惧，如同我肚子里的一个绳结，每过去一天，便缠得紧一些，而我要备好一副铁石心肠，去迎接日益迫近的告别。如今我每天早晨醒来，都渴望着在早餐桌上见到萨丽娅，聆听她声音里那些怪异的动静。我们勉强吃点儿东西，便出门爬树，在大麦地里互相追逐，分开庄稼，发起冲锋，呼喊着战斗的口号，蜥蜴在我们脚下四散奔逃。我们在山洞里藏起了假想的财宝，还在岛上找到了几处地点，可以传出最棒、最响的回声。我们用自己的针孔相机，拍下磨坊和鸽舍的照片，拿给鲁索斯先生，让他帮我们洗印。他还让我们进他的暗房，教我们摆弄不同的显影剂、定影剂和停显液。
I jumped. “Who?”
我吓了一跳。“谁？”
“She has a lover,” Thalia said, rolling the dice.
“她有情人了。”萨丽娅摇着骰子说。
The night of Madaline’s announcement, she and Mamá shared a bottle of wine in the kitchen, Madaline doing most of the drinking, while Thalia and I were upstairs, playing a game of tavli. Thalia had the mana position and had already moved half her checkers onto her home board.
玛达丽娜宣布要走的那个夜晚，她和妈妈在厨房一起喝了瓶葡萄酒。玛达丽娜喝掉了大部分。此时萨丽娅和我待在楼上，正在玩塔弗利棋[14]。萨丽娅占据了玛纳位[15]，而且已经将她的一半棋子移到了自己的主盘。【注：[14]塔弗利（tavli），希腊的双陆棋。[15]即主位。】
I had learned, over the course of the summer, to read Thalia’s expressions through her eyes, and she was looking at me now like I was standing on the beach asking where the water was. I tried to recover quickly. “I know who,” I said, my cheeks burning. “I mean, who’s the… you know…” I was a twelve-year-old boy. My vocabulary didn’t include words like lover.
这个夏天，我已经学会了从萨丽娅的眼神中读出她的表情，她这会儿看着我，一如我站在海滩上，问水在哪儿。我想赶快补救一下。“我知道是谁。”我红着脸说，“我的意思是，谁是那个…你知道…”我只是个十二岁的男童。我的词汇表里还没有“情人”这样的词。
“I was going to say that.”
“我正想说来着。”
“‘Who?’ he says. Who do you think?”
“‘他问是谁’。你认为是谁？”
“Can’t you guess? The director.”
“你猜不到吗？导演。”
“Elias. He’s something. He plasters his hair down like it’s the 1920s. He has a thin little mustache too. I guess he thinks it makes him look rakish. He’s ridiculous. He thinks he’s a great artist, of course. Mother does too. You should see her with him, all timid and submissive, like she needs to bow to him and pamper him because of his genius. I can’t understand how she doesn’t see it.”
“埃利亚斯。他是个人物。他把头发往下梳，就像二十年代那样。他还留了点儿小胡子。我猜他认为这样很潇洒。他很可笑。他认为他是大艺术家，毫无疑问。我妈也这样认为。你真该看看她跟他在一起是什么德行，她很腼腆，很听话，好像因为他是个天才，她就得低眉顺眼，事事都由着他。我真不明白她怎么就看不出来。”
Thalia shrugged. “She has the worst taste in men. The worst.” She shook the dice in her hands, seemed to reconsider. “Except for Andreas, I suppose. He’s nice. Nice enough. But, of course, she’s leaving him. It’s always the bastards she falls for.”
萨丽娅耸了耸肩。“她对男人的品位是最差劲的。最最差劲的。”她摇了摇手里的骰子，似乎在重新斟酌。“安德烈亚斯除外吧，我认为。他挺好的。相当好了。不过呢，板上钉钉，她要离开他了。她总是上那些王八蛋的当。”
“You mean, like your father?”
“你是说你父亲也是？”
“Well, that would be Dorian,” Thalia said. “He was something too.” She moved another checker onto her home board. “He used to beat her. He could go from nice and pleasant to furious in a blink. Like the weather, how it can change suddenly? He was like that. He drank most of the day, didn’t do much but lie around the house. He got real forgetful when he drank. He’d leave the water running, for instance, and flood the house. I remember he forgot to turn off the stove once and almost burned everything down.”
“呃，是多利安吧。”萨丽娅说。“他也是个人物。”她又把一枚棋子走到了自己的主盘上。“他老揍她。本来和和气气，笑眯眯的，可一眨眼的工夫，他就能变得暴跳如雷。跟天气一样，怎么能变得这么快？他就是那个样子。他一天到晚，大部分时间都在喝酒，基本上啥也不干，就是在家里躺着。喝起酒来他真没记性。比方说，他就让水龙头那么开着，把家给淹了。我还记得他忘了关炉子，差一点儿烧光了所有东西。”
“Is Aunt Madaline going to marry him?”
“玛达丽娜阿姨会嫁给他吗？”
She frowned a little. “My father was a stranger she met on her way to Amsterdam. At a train station during a rainstorm. They spent one afternoon together. I have no idea who he is. And neither does she.”
她眉头稍微一皱。“我父亲是个陌生人，她去阿姆斯特丹的路上遇到的。下着大暴雨，在一个火车站。他们一起过了一个下午。我不知道他是谁。她也不知道。”
“Oh. I remember she said something about her first husband. She said he drank. I just assumed…”
“哦。我记得她说起过她第一个丈夫。她说他喝酒。我还以为…”
She made a little tower with a stack of chips. Worked quietly for a while straightening it.
她拿棋子摞出一座小塔，又默默地花了点时间，把它弄结实。
“The only thing Dorian really loved was Apollo. All the neighborhood kids were scared of him — of Apollo, I mean. And hardly any of them had even seen him; they’d only heard his bark. That was enough for them. Dorian kept him chained in the back of the yard. Fed him big slabs of lamb.”
“多利安真正爱的只有阿波罗一个。所有邻居小孩都怕他怕得要死——我是说阿波罗。几乎没人见过他，只是听到他在叫。这就够让人害怕的了。多利安把他拴在院子后头，用大块的羊肉喂他。”
Thalia didn’t tell me any more. I pictured it easily enough, though. Dorian passed out, the dog forgotten, roaming the yard unchained. An open screen door.
萨丽娅说不下去了，可我不用费劲也能想得出来。多利安喝高了，狗没人管，没人拴，在院子里溜达。纱门是开着的。
“How old were you?” I asked in a low voice.
“你那会儿多大？”我低声问她。
Then I asked the question that had been on my mind since the beginning of summer. “Isn’t there something that… I mean, can’t they do –“
然后我问了那个从暑假开始、一直挂念至今的问题。“难道就没有什么东西…我是说…他们就不能…”
“Five.”
“五岁。”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“对不起。”我说。
Thalia snagged her gaze away. “Please don’t ask,” she said heavily with what I sensed to be a deep ache. “It tires me out.”
萨丽娅移开了目光。“请别问了。”她一字一顿地说，我感觉在这几个字后面，一定是深深的痛。“我累得要死。”
“I’ll tell you someday.”
“改天我一定告诉你。”
And she did tell me, later. The botched surgery, the catastrophic post-op wound infection that turned septic, shut down her kidneys, threw her into liver failure, ate through the new surgical flap and forced the surgeons to slice off not only the flap but yet more of what remained of her left cheek and part of her jawbone as well. The complications had kept her in the hospital for nearly three months. She’d almost died, should have died. After that, she wouldn’t let them touch her again.
她后来确实告诉了我。糟糕的手术，灾难性的术后伤口感染导致了败血症，引起了肾功能和肝功能衰竭，也吞噬了新移植的皮瓣，迫使医生不仅将皮瓣割除，还从她残留的左脸上切去了更多的组织，同时锯掉了部分下颌骨。由于并发症，她在医院住了将近三个月。她差一点就死了，应该死了。从那以后，她就不许医生再碰她。
“Knew what?”
“知道什么？”
“Thalia,” I said, “I’m sorry too for what happened when we met.”
“萨丽娅，”我说，“我还要再说对不起，为我们刚见面那天发生的事。”
She tipped her eyes up at me. The old playful shine was back. “You should be sorry. But I knew even before you hurled all over the floor.”
她翻起眼睛看着我。早先那种顽皮的光又回来了。“你早该说对不起。可是没等你吐得满地都是，我就知道了。”
“That you were an ass.”
“知道你是个蠢货。”
When the ferry groaned and lurched away, leaving behind a trail of churned-up water, I thought Madaline would stand at the stern and wave and blow us kisses. But she quickly moved toward the bow and took a seat. She didn’t look our way.
渡轮呻吟着，晃晃悠悠地驶离，身后留下一条翻卷的水浪，我以为玛达丽娜会站到船尾，挥手作别，抛来飞吻，她却快步走到船头坐下，看也没看我们。
Rigidly, Thalia obliged.
萨丽娅回抱了她，动作僵硬。
“Hug me back,” I heard her whisper.
“你也抱抱我。”我听见她小声说道。
Madaline left two days before school started. She wore a tight butter yellow sleeveless dress that clung to her slim frame, horn-rimmed sunglasses, and a firmly knotted white silk scarf to hold down her hair. She was dressed as though she worried parts of her might come loose — like she was, literally, holding herself together. At the ferry port in Tinos town, she embraced us all. She held Thalia the tightest, and the longest, her lips on the crown of Thalia’s head in an extended, unbroken kiss. She didn’t take off her sunglasses.
玛达丽娜走的时候，还有两天就要开学。她穿着紧身的奶油色无袖长裙，绷出苗条的身段，戴一副牛角框太阳镜，头发用白丝巾紧紧扎住。她这身打扮，就好像担心自己身上哪个地方会垮掉，好像她就是要让自己这样紧绷着。在蒂诺斯城的渡口，她拥抱了我们大家。她抱萨丽娅抱得最紧，时间也最长，嘴唇抵住萨丽娅的头顶，给了她一个久久的、死死的吻。她始终没摘下自己的墨镜。
It was then that, with sudden clarity, I understood what Mamá already had seen. That the mask had been for Madaline’s benefit. To save her embarrassment and shame.
就在此时，我一下子恍然大悟，明白了妈妈早已看出的事。那面罩是为玛达丽娜戴的，为了不让她难堪，不让她丢脸。
For a long time Thalia didn’t make a move or say a word. Then, slowly, her hands rose, and she untied the bands at the back of her head. She lowered the mask. I looked at her directly in the face. I felt an involuntary urge to recoil, the way you would at a sudden loud noise. But I didn’t. I held my gaze. And I made it a point to not blink.
好半天，萨丽娅一动也不动，一个字也不说。然后，慢慢地，她抬起了手，解开了脑后的系带。她摘下了面罩。我直视着她的脸。我感到一种不自觉的冲动，想要退缩，就像你突然听到一声巨响。可我没有。我一直盯着她，逼着自己不眨眼。
When we got home, Mamá told us to sit down. She stood before us and said, “Thalia, I want you to know that you don’t have to wear that thing in this house anymore. Not on my account. Nor his. Do it only if it suits you. I have no more to say about this business.”
回到家，妈妈吩咐我们坐下。她站在我们面前说：“萨丽娅，我想让你知道，在这个家里，你不必再戴那个东西了。不是为我，也不是为他，只要你自己觉得合适，你就摘了它。这事儿我不会再说第二遍。”
Mamá said she would homeschool me until Madaline came back so Thalia wouldn’t have to stay home by herself. She gave us our lessons in the evening, after dinner, and assigned us homework to do in the morning while she went off to school. It sounded workable, at least in theory.
妈妈说，她要让我在家学习，直到玛达丽娜回来，这样萨丽娅就不必一个人呆在家。晚上吃完晚饭，她给我们上课，早晨她去学校之前，给我们留好作业。这样安排听上去不错，至少理论上如此。
The kids were worse and far bolder. Every day I caught one prowling outside, climbing our wall. We would be working, and Thalia would tap my shoulder with her pencil, tip her chin, and I would turn to find a face, sometimes more than one, pressed to the window. It got so bad, we had to go upstairs and pull all the curtains. One day I opened the door to a boy I knew from school, Petros, and three of his friends. He offered me a handful of coins for a peek. I said no, where did he think he was, a circus?
小孩们更讨厌，简直无法无天。我每天都能抓住一个在外面晃晃悠悠、逮着机会就爬我们家墙的孩子。正学习的时候，萨丽娅会拿铅笔轻轻敲一下我的肩膀，歪一歪自己的下巴，我一扭头，准能看见一张紧贴在窗户上的脸，有时候还不止一张呢。情况太糟了，我们不得不上楼，把窗帘全拉上。有一天我打开门，发现我在学校认识的一个男孩，名叫彼得罗斯的，和他三个朋友站在外面。他拿出一把硬币，要求瞧一眼。我说不，他把我家当什么地方了，马戏团吗？
But doing our studies, especially with Mamá away, proved nearly impossible. News of Thalia’s disfigurement had spread all over the island, and people kept knocking on the door, fueled by curiosity. You would have thought the island was suddenly running out of flour, garlic, even salt, and our house was the only place you could find it. They barely made an effort to disguise their intent. At the door, their eyes always flew over my shoulder. They craned their necks, stood on tiptoes. Most of them weren’t even neighbors. They’d walked miles for a cup of sugar. Of course I never let them in. It gave me some satisfaction to close the door on their faces. But I also felt gloomy, dispirited, aware that if I stayed my life would be too deeply touched by these people. I would, in the end, become one of them.
可是实际上，在家学习几乎是不可能的，尤其是在妈妈走了以后。萨丽娅毁容的消息已经传遍了全岛，不停地有人来敲门，带着满心的好奇。你想想，岛上突然耗尽了面粉、大蒜，甚至盐，只有在我们家才能找到这些东西。这些人无心掩饰自己的目的。在门口，他们的目光总是飞向我身后。他们伸长脖子，踮起脚尖。大部分人连邻居都不是。他们走上好几里地，就是为了饱饱眼福。当然了，我从来没让他们进过家门。当着他们的面把门一关，让我很有几分满足。可我也感到郁闷和沮丧，心里明白，如果我留下来，我的生活将受到这些人过深的影响，最后我势必变成他们中的一员。
We set out, the three of us — Mamá, with her lips pursed, pushing forth like she was plowing against a fierce wind, her feet working quick, mincing little steps. I imagined Mamá walking in this same determined manner to Madaline’s father’s house all those years ago, rifle in hand.
我们出发了，我们仨。妈妈的嘴唇紧紧抿在一起，奋力向前，好像在迎着狂风艰难跋涉，步子很小，两只脚紧着倒腾。我可以想像，多年以前，妈妈就是迈着同样的脚步，手拿大枪，一往无前地走向玛达丽娜父亲的房子。
“Give me your hand.”
“把手给我。”
In the end, I had to tell Mamá. A deep red flush marched up her face when she heard. She clenched her teeth.
最后，我不得不告诉了妈妈。她听了以后，脸都气紫了，死死地咬着牙。
Mamá pulled Thalia up from the seat by the hands, leaned in, and fixed her with a gaze I knew well. Not a thing on this earth could deter her now. “Thalia,” she said, managing to sound both soft and firm, “I am not ashamed of you.”
妈妈伸出两只手，把萨丽娅从椅子上拉起来，弯下腰，死死地盯着她，那眼神我再熟悉不过了。此时此刻，这世界上没有一件东西能让她罢休。“萨丽娅，”她尽量用一种既温和又坚定的口气说道，“我不因为你而觉得羞耻。”
“Go on. Give it to me.”
“快。把手给我。”
“No. Please.”
“不要。求你了。”
People gawked and gasped as we blew past them along the winding footpaths. They stopped to stare. Some of them pointed. I tried not to look. They were a blur of pale faces and open mouths in the corners of my vision.
人们张口结舌，呆呆地望着，我们沿着曲曲弯弯的小路，从他们身边呼啸而过。他们停下来死盯着，有些人指指戳戳。我尽量不去看。视线的余光所及，他们只是一团团模糊的暗影，苍白的面孔，张开的嘴巴。
“We’re going to be late.”
“我们要迟到了。”
“Don’t make me, Aunt Odie.”
“别逼我，奥蒂阿姨。”
The next morning she had our books and two sandwiches ready on the table. Thalia understood before I did and she curled up like a leaf. Her protests started when it came time to leave.
第二天一早，她收拾了我们的课本，还有两份三明治，摆在桌子上。我还没反应过来，萨丽娅已经明白了，于是她就像一片树叶那样蜷缩起来了。到了出门的时间，她开始说不。
“I don’t want to go.”
“我不想去。”
“Aunt Odie, no.”
“奥蒂阿姨，不要。”
“This is Thalia Gianakos,” Mamá cried. “As of today…” She paused. “Whoever is crying, shut your mouth before I give you reason to. Now, as of today, Thalia is a student at this school. I expect all of you to treat her with decency and good manners. If I hear rumors of taunting, I will find you and I will make you sorry. You know I will. I have no more to say about this business.”
“她叫萨丽娅·贾纳科斯。”妈妈高叫着，“从今天开始…”她停了一下，“不管是谁在叫唤，把嘴给我闭上，我让你叫你才能叫。现在，从今天开始，萨丽娅就是本校的学生了。我希望你们大家用斯文和礼貌来对待她。如果我听说有人讲了不三不四的话，那我一定把你找出来，我一定要让你后悔。你们知道我一定会这么干。这件事我不会再说第二遍。”
She climbed down from the bench and, holding Thalia’s hand, headed toward the classroom.
她爬下长凳，拉起萨丽娅的手，径直往教室里去了。
In the school yard, children parted to let us pass. I heard some girl scream. Mamá rolled through them like a bowling ball through pins, all but dragging Thalia behind her. She shoved and pushed her way to the corner of the yard, where there was a bench. She climbed the bench, helped Thalia up, and then blew her whistle three times. A hush fell over the yard.
进了校园，孩子们向两边分开，给我们让道。我听到有些女生发出尖叫。妈妈横冲直撞，穿过人群，就像一个保龄球，从一堆木瓶中间滚滚而过，只是她身后还拖着个萨丽娅。她连推带搡地挤到校园一角，那儿有一条长凳，她爬到凳子上，把萨丽娅也拽上去，然后连吹了三声口哨。校园很快肃静下来了。
A couple of weeks before Christmas that year, we received a letter from Madaline. The shoot had run into unexpected delays. First, the director of photography — Madaline wrote DOP and Thalia had to explain it to me and Mamá– had fallen off a scaffold on the set and broken his arm in three places. Then the weather had complicated all the location shoots.
那一年，离圣诞节还有两个星期的时候，我们收到了玛达丽娜的来信。拍摄工作出现了意想不到的延误。首先，摄影指导——玛达丽娜写的是“摄指”，萨丽娅不得不给我和妈妈做了个讲解——从片场的高台摔下来，一条胳膊断成了三截。其次，天气问题也让整个外景拍摄遇到了麻烦。
From that day forth, Thalia never again wore the mask, either in public or at home.
从那一天起，萨丽娅再也没有戴过面罩，无论是在外面，还是在家。
“Of course she is!” I said, dumbfounded. I turned to Mamá, waiting for her to say something, at least pipe a word of encouragement. But Mamá folded the letter, put it on the table, and quietly went to boil water for coffee. And I remember thinking how thoughtless it was of her to not comfort Thalia even if she agreed that Madaline wasn’t coming back. But I didn’t know — not yet — that they already understood each other, perhaps better than I did either of them. Mamá respected Thalia too much to coddle her. She would not insult Thalia with false assurances.
“她肯定会的！”我说。我傻了眼，扭头看着妈妈，等着她说点什么，最起码一句打气的话。可是妈妈把信叠好，放到桌上，然后便默默地去煮咖啡了。记得我当时在想，就算她同样认为玛达丽娜不会回来，也应该安慰一下萨丽娅，可她没有，真是不近人情。然而我不知道——那时还不知道——她们两个已经心有灵犀，也许强过我对她们任何一个人的了解。妈妈太尊重萨丽娅了，所以不可能哄她。她不会用虚假的保证来冒犯她。
So we are in a bit of a “holding pattern,” as they say. It would not be an entirely bad thing, since it gives us time to work out some wrinkles in the script, if it did not also mean that we won’t be reunited as I had hoped. I am crushed, my darlings. I miss you all so dearly, especially you, Thalia, my love. I can only count the days until later this spring when this shoot has wrapped and we can be together again. I carry all three of you in my heart every minute of every day.
所以就像大伙常说的，我们现在有点“停摆”了。这也不完全是坏事，因为我们有了时间，可以把剧本里一些疙疙瘩瘩的地方解决掉，问题是我们可能无法像原来希望的那样团聚了。我心情很不好，我亲爱的你们，我想你们想得要死，特别是你，萨丽娅，我的爱。我只能数着日子，等到明年春末拍摄结束的时候，我们再聚首吧。我每一天每一分钟都把你们三个放在心里。
“She’s not coming back,” Thalia said flatly, handing the letter back to Mamá.
“她不会回来了。”萨丽娅语气平淡地说着，把信还给了妈妈。
Spring came, in all of its flush green glory, and went. We received from Madaline one postcard and what felt like a hastily written letter, in which she informed us of more troubles on the set, this time having to do with financiers who were threatening to balk because of all the delays. In this letter, unlike the last, she did not set a time line as to when she would come back.
春天来了，披着万千绿色的荣光，然后又去了。我们收到了玛达丽娜的一张明信片，感觉它像一封匆忙写就的信，她告诉我们，片场麻烦不断，这一次跟投资方有关，由于一再拖延，他们威胁要撤资。和上一封信不同，这次她没说自己什么时候能回来。
One warm afternoon early in the summer — that would be 1968– Thalia and I went to the beach with a girl named Dori. By then, Thalia had lived with us on Tinos for a year and her disfigurement no longer drew whispers and lingering stares. She was still, and always would be, girded by an orb of curiosity, but even that was waning. She had friends of her own now — Dori among them — who were no longer spooked by her appearance, friends with whom she ate lunch, gossiped, played after school, did her studies. She had become, improbably enough, almost ordinary, and I had to admit to a degree of admiration for the way the islanders had accepted her as one of their own.
初夏一个暖洋洋的下午——那是1968年了吧——萨丽娅和我，还有一个名叫多丽的女孩，一起去了海滩。当时，萨丽娅已经在蒂诺斯跟我们住了一年，人们已经不再对她毁损的脸窃窃私语，死盯着不放了。虽然她仍然，而且始终都被好奇所包围，但这种好奇也在慢慢减退。现在她有了自己的朋友，多丽就是其中的一个，他们看到她的时候，不再像见鬼一样受到惊吓，她和朋友们一起吃午餐，说闲话，放学后一起玩，做功课。尽管感觉不太可能，可她已经变得和正常人差不多了，我不得不承认，我对岛上的人们产生了一定程度的钦敬，他们接受了她，把她当成了自己人。
“He wants me to come home.”
“他想让我回家。”
“I see,” Mamá said. I thought I heard the faintest flutter in her voice.
“我知道了。”妈妈说。我觉得我从她的声音里听出了最微弱的一丝慌乱。
“Not home, exactly. He says he has contacted a private school in England. I could enroll in the fall. He’d pay for it, he said.”
“准确地说，不是回家。他说他联系了英国一个私立学校。今年秋天我就可以入学。他来出钱，他说的。”
Thalia picked up the letter and went upstairs. It was a long time before she came down. She dropped the sheet of paper on the table, sat down, picked up a knife and a carrot.
萨丽娅拿起信，上了楼，过了很久才下来。她把信纸放到桌上，坐下来，拿起了刀和一根胡萝卜。
“It’s from your stepfather,” Mamá said.
“你继父来的。”妈妈说。
“What about Aunt Madaline?” I asked.
“那玛达丽娜阿姨呢？”
Mamá and Thalia exchanged a glance and simultaneously tipped their gaze up toward me, and I saw what they knew all along.
妈妈和萨丽娅交换了一下眼神，又同时朝我翻了下眼睛，于是我明白了，她俩一直都心知肚明。
That afternoon, the three of us had planned to swim, but the water was still too cold and we had ended up lying on the rocks, dozing off. When Thalia and I came home, we found Mamá in the kitchen, peeling carrots. Another letter sat unopened on the table.
那天下午，我们仨本来打算去游泳，可是水仍然很凉，所以我们最后躺在石头上睡着了。萨丽娅和我回到家，发现妈妈在厨房里削着胡萝卜皮，一封没拆开的信放在桌上。
“What about the film?”
“那电影怎么办？”
“She’s gone. With Elias. They’ve eloped.”
“她跑了，跟埃利亚斯。他们私奔了。”
One morning in 2002, more than thirty years later, around the time I am preparing to move from Athens to Kabul, I stumble upon Madaline’s obituary in the newspaper. Her last name is listed now as Kouris, but I recognize in the old woman’s face a familiar bright-eyed grin, and more than detritus of her youthful beauty. The small paragraph below says that she had briefly been an actress in her youth prior to founding her own theater company in the early 1980s. Her company had received critical praise for several productions, most notably for extended runs of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night in the mid-1990s, Chekhov’s The Seagull, and Dimitrios Mpogris’s Engagements. The obituary says she was well known among Athens’s artistic community for her charity work, her wit, her sense of style, her lavish parties, and her willingness to take chances on unheralded playwrights. The piece says she died after a lengthy battle with emphysema but makes no mention of a surviving spouse or children. I am further stunned to learn that she lived in Athens for more than two decades, at a house barely six blocks from my own place on Kolonaki.
2002年一个早晨，也就是三十多年之后，我正准备从雅典前往喀布尔的时候，偶然在报纸上看到了玛达丽娜的讣闻。她现在挂着“库里斯”的姓，可我从那老妇人脸上认出的，不仅是她青春美貌的余烬，还有那熟悉的、明眸皓齿的笑容。下面有一小段文字，说她年轻时曾经短暂地做过演员，后来在八十年代初创办了自己的剧团，排演过几部深受评论界赞扬的作品，特别是尤金·奥尼尔的《进入黑夜的漫长旅程》，该剧在九十年代中期连演不衰，还有契诃夫的《海鸥》和迪米特里奥斯·姆波格里斯的《婚约》[16]。讣闻说，因为她的慈善工作，她的多智，她对时尚的敏锐认知，她举办的奢华派对，以及她对众多无名剧作家欣然给予的机会，使她成了雅典文艺圈里众所周知的人物。文章说她死前与肺气肿进行了漫长的苦斗，但没有提及她身后是否还有配偶或子女。我更为震惊的是，她在雅典住了二十多年的房子，离我在科洛纳基的住处只隔了六个路口。【注：[16]迪米特里奥斯·姆波格里斯（Dimitrios Mpogris，1890—1964），又名迪米特里奥斯·博尔格里斯（Dimitrios Bogris），希腊剧作家，1936年首演的《婚约》（Engagements）是现代希腊戏剧史上的悲剧名作。】
I put down the paper. To my surprise, I feel a tinge of impatience with this dead woman I have not seen for over thirty years. A surge of resistance to this story of how she had turned out. I had always pictured her living a tumultuous, wayward life, hard years of bad luck — fits and starts, collapse, regret — and ill-advised, desperate love affairs. I had always imagined that she’d self-destructed, likely drank herself to the kind of early death that people always call tragic. Part of me had even credited her with the possibility that she had known this, that she had brought Thalia to Tinos to spare her, rescue her from the disasters Madaline knew she was helpless from visiting upon her daughter. But now I picture Madaline the way Mamá always must have: Madaline, the cartographer, sitting down, calmly drawing the map of her future and neatly excluding her burdensome daughter from its borders. And she’d succeeded spectacularly, at least according to this obituary and its clipped account of a mannered life, a life rich with achievement, grace, respect.
我放下了报纸。出乎我的意料，三十多年没见过她了，如今我却感觉这死去的女人有几分不堪。这篇关于她结局的报道一下子让我产生了抵触。我过去一直在想像，她过的是一种动荡而无常的生活，岁月维艰，厄运连连，动不动就崩溃，感到懊悔，还有一连串昏头昏脑、不顾一切的桃色事件。我一直以为她会自毁，很可能因为酗酒而过早死去，人们总是把这样的死称作悲剧。我心里有一部分甚至曾经相信，很有可能她是知道的，知道她把萨丽娅领到蒂诺斯，是为了让她免受伤害，是要救她脱离苦海，因为玛达丽娜知道自己对女儿受的罪已经无能为力。可是现在，我开始用妈妈的眼光来看玛达丽娜了，妈妈肯定是这样看的，一直都这样看：玛达丽娜是个绘图员，坐在那儿，心平气和地画着她未来的地图，干净利落地把重如大山的女儿排除在边境线之外。她的成功堪称辉煌，起码按照讣闻所说，正是如此，文中简略地记录了一个精心打理过的人生，一个富含着成就、优雅，受人敬重的人生。
And yet, as I fold the newspaper, a nagging doubt begins to set in. A faint intimation that I have judged Madaline harshly, that we weren’t even that different, she and I. Hadn’t we both yearned for escape, reinvention, new identities? Hadn’t we each, in the end, unmoored ourselves by cutting loose the anchors that weighed us down? I scoff at this, tell myself we are nothing alike, even as I sense that the anger I feel toward her may really be a mask for my envy over her succeeding at it all better than I had.
可是，当我合上报纸，一种让人不得安生的疑惑又开始出现了。一个微弱的暗示提醒着我，我对玛达丽娜做出了过于苛刻的判断，她和我其实没有什么不同。难道我们不是都曾经渴望着逃离，改头换面，重塑新生吗？到了最后，难道我们不是都砍断了拴住我们的锚链，让自己得到解脱吗？可我又嘲笑着这样的疑惑，告诉自己我们毫无相似之处，而我之所以对她感到恼怒，也许只是把它当成一件面罩，用来掩饰我的嫉妒，因为她在这件事上比我成功得多。
I find I cannot accept it. The success, the getting away with it. It is preposterous. Where was the toll, the exacting comeuppance?
我发现我无法接受这种成功，这种未受惩罚的逍遥。这是反常的。为什么不必付出代价？苛求众生的因果报应又去了哪里？
Mamá pushed the carrot shavings off the table with a knife and collected them in a bowl. She loathed it when people wasted food. She would make a jar of marmalade with the shavings.
妈妈拿着刀，把胡萝卜皮拨到碗里。她憎恶别人浪费食物。她要用这些皮腌一罐子果酱。
I toss the newspaper. If Thalia is going to find out, it won’t be from me.
我扔掉了这份报纸。如果萨丽娅必将知晓，那也不可能从我这儿知道。
Thalia surprised me by turning to me and saying, “What would you do, Markos?”
让我意外的是，萨丽娅扭过头来问我：“你会怎么做，马科斯？”
“Well, you have a big decision to make, Thalia,” she said.
“哦，你有个重大决定要做了，萨丽娅。”她说。
“I already have,” Thalia said hesitantly. Then, even more hesitant, as she raised her eyes to meet Mamá’s, “But I don’t want to assume.”
“我考虑过了。”萨丽娅迟疑了一下，说道。接着，她用更加迟疑的动作，抬起了眼睛，望着妈妈。“但是我不想接受。”
“Oh, I know what he would do,” Mamá said quickly.
“哦，我知道他会怎么做。”妈妈张嘴就说。
Mamá put down the knife. I heard a faint expulsion of breath. Had she been holding it? If so, her stoic face betrayed no sign of relief. “The answer is yes. Of course it’s yes.”
妈妈放下了刀。我隐约听见她舒了口气。这口气她是一直憋着的吗？就算是，她那张喜怒不形于色的脸也没有流露出任何宽慰的迹象。“回答正确。当然是正确的。”
“I’ll only say this once,” I said. “I think this is a mistake. You’re both making a mistake.”
“我只讲这一次。”我说。“我认为这是错的。你们俩都在犯错误。”
“You should think about it,” Mamá said.
“你应该考虑一下。”妈妈说。
They turned to look at me.
她们扭过头看着我。
“I would go,” I said, answering Thalia, looking at Mamá, taking satisfaction in playing the insurrectionist that Mamá thought I was. Of course I meant it too. I couldn’t believe Thalia would even hesitate. I would have leapt at the chance. A private education. In London.
“我要去。”我说，一边回答着萨丽娅，一边看着妈妈，满心得意，因为我没像她想的那样说，而是扮演了起义者的角色。当然我的回答也是认真的。我相信萨丽娅甚至都不该犹豫。我会马上把这个机会抓在手里。那可是私校啊，而且在伦敦。
“Yes,” I said. “I’d miss you, a lot, and you know that. But you can’t pass up a private school education. You’d go to university afterward. You could become a researcher, a scientist, a professor, an inventor. Isn’t that what you want? You’re the smartest person I know. You could be anything you want.”
“是。”我说，“我会想你的，非常想，你知道的。但你不能拒绝私校的教育。你以后还要念大学。你可以搞研究，当科学家、教授、发明家。你不想吗？你是我认识的最聪明的人。你可以想当什么就当什么。”
“Do you want me to go, Markos?” Thalia said.
“你是想让我去吗，马科斯？”萨丽娅问。
Thalia reached across the table and touched Mamá’s wrist. “Thank you, Aunt Odie.”
萨丽娅把手伸过桌子，摸了摸妈妈的手腕。“谢谢你，奥蒂阿姨。”
Many years later, when I began training as a plastic surgeon, I understood something that I had not that day in the kitchen arguing for Thalia to leave Tinos for the boarding school. I learned that the world didn’t see the inside of you, that it didn’t care a whit about the hopes and dreams, and sorrows, that lay masked by skin and bone. It was as simple, as absurd, and as cruel as that. My patients knew this. They saw that much of what they were, would be, or could be hinged on the symmetry of their bone structure, the space between their eyes, their chin length, the tip projection of their nose, whether they had an ideal nasofrontal angle or not.
许多年以后，当我开始接受整形外科的培训时，我理解了某种东西，而那天在厨房，在我力主萨丽娅应该离开蒂诺斯，去上寄宿学校的时候，我还不能理解。后来我懂了，这个世界看不见你的内在，它一点儿也不关心你的希望、梦想，以及忧伤，它们都被皮肤和骨骼遮蔽着。这是如此简单，如此荒谬，又如此残忍。我的病人们知道这些。他们看到了，关于他们是怎样的人，将要，或者可能在很大程度上取决于他们骨架的对称程度，两眼之间的距离，下巴的长短，鼻尖投射角的大小，以及是否拥有一个理想的鼻额骨。
And so I chose my specialty to even out the odds for people like Thalia, to rectify, with each slice of my scalpel, an arbitrary injustice, to make a small stand against a world order I found disgraceful, one in which a dog bite could rob a little girl of her future, make her an outcast, an object of scorn.
所以我选择这个专业，就是想把优势平均分给萨丽娅这样的人，用我的手术刀，一刀一刀地去纠正这任意造就的不公，对一种我发现可耻的世界秩序做出微小的反抗，活在这样的秩序下，一次狗咬，便可夺走一个小女孩的未来，让她遭到遗弃，成为歧视的对象。
I broke off.
我一下子说不下去了。
“No, Markos,” Thalia said heavily. “No I couldn’t.”
“不，马科斯。”萨丽娅一字一顿地说道，“不，我不可以。”
She said this with a thudding finality that sealed off all channels of rebuttal.
她最后这句话砰然落了地，就此封死了一切辩驳的可能。
Beauty is an enormous, unmerited gift given randomly, stupidly.
美貌是个巨大而不当的礼物，来得既任意，又愚蠢。
At least this is what I tell myself. I suppose there were other reasons I chose plastic surgery. Money, for instance, prestige, social standing. To say I chose it solely because of Thalia is too simple — lovely as the idea may be — a bit too orderly and balanced. If I’ve learned anything in Kabul, it is that human behavior is messy and unpredictable and unconcerned with convenient symmetries. But I find comfort in it, in the idea of a pattern, of a narrative of my life taking shape, like a photograph in a darkroom, a story that slowly emerges and affirms the good I have always wanted to see in myself. It sustains me, this story.
至少我是这样告诉自己的。我想，还有别的理由让我选择了整形外科。比如说钱，声望，社会地位。若说我仅仅因为萨丽娅才做出这样的选择，那就过于简单——这想法也许可爱——也有点儿过于按部就班和四平八稳了。如果说我在喀布尔学到了什么，那就是人类的行为是混乱的，不可预测的，与方便的对称性毫不相关。可是，我也在选择怎样的生活模式、我的人生故事如何成形的信念中发现了安慰，就像暗房中的一张照片，故事将慢慢显现，来确证我一直想在自己身上看到的善。这个故事支撑着我。
I spent half of my practice in Athens, erasing wrinkles, lifting eyebrows, stretching jowls, reshaping misbegotten noses. I spent the other half doing what I really wanted to, which was to fly around the world — to Central America, to sub-Saharan Africa, to South Asia, and to the Far East — and work on children, repairing cleft lips and palates, removing facial tumors, repairing injuries to their faces. The work in Athens was not nearly as gratifying, but the pay was good, and it afforded me the luxury of taking weeks and months off at a time for my volunteer work.
我有一半时间在雅典行医，去皱纹，提眉毛，拉下巴，重做蹩脚的鼻子。另一半时间我做自己真正想做的事，飞到世界各地，去中美洲、撒哈拉以南的非洲、南亚和远东，为孩子们工作，修复唇腭裂，去除面部肿瘤，修补面部损伤。在雅典的工作远远谈不上满足，但报酬高，可以让我在做志愿工作的时候，负担得起几个星期、几个月的花销。
Thalia picks me up from the ferry port. She has on a green wool scarf and a thick dull-rose-colored coat over a cardigan sweater and jeans. She wears her hair long these days, loose over the shoulders and parted in the center. Her hair is white, and it is this feature — not the mutilated lower face — that jars me and takes me aback when I see her. Not that it surprises me; Thalia started going gray in her mid-thirties and had cotton-white hair by the end of the following decade. I know I have changed too, the stubbornly growing paunch, the just-as-determined retreat of the hairline, but the decline of one’s own body is incremental, as nearly imperceptible as it is insidious. Seeing Thalia white-haired presents jolting evidence of her steady, inevitable march toward old age — and, by association, my own.
萨丽娅在渡口接我。她扎了绿色的羊毛围巾，穿着暗玫瑰色的厚外套，里面是开襟羊毛衫和牛仔裤。这段日子她把头发留长了，从中间分开，披落到肩膀上。她头发全白了，正是这一特征——而不是那残缺的下半张脸——触动了我，让我见到她的时候吓了一跳。我并非对此感到惊诧；萨丽娅三十五六岁的时候就开始长白头发，只过了十年，便已满头棉花般的白发了。我知道我也变了，顽强隆起的大肚皮，毅然后退的发际线，但是一个人自己的身体衰退是逐渐进行的，阴险而难以察觉。看到萨丽娅满头白发，就像见了惊心动魄的证据，知道她怎样不可逆转、无法规避地迈向老年，而联想起来，我自己又何尝不是如此。
Then, early in 2002, I took a phone call in my office from a woman I knew. Her name was Amra Ademovic. She was a nurse from Bosnia. She and I had met at a conference in London a few years back and had had a pleasant, weekend-long thing that we’d mutually kept inconsequential, though we had remained in touch and seen each other socially on occasion. She said she was working for a nonprofit in Kabul now and that they were searching for a plastic surgeon to work on children — cleft lips, facial injuries inflicted by shrapnel and bullets, that sort of thing. I agreed on the spot. I intended to stay for three months. I went late in the spring of 2002. I never came back.
后来，2002年初，我在办公室接到了一个电话，是个我认识的女人打来的。她叫阿姆·阿德莫维奇，是个波斯尼亚护士。几年前，我和她在伦敦开会时相识，共度了一个周末，有了乐事，我们都认为此事不足挂齿，但仍然保持着联系，偶尔也在社交场合见面。她说她现在为喀布尔的一家非营利组织工作，他们正在寻找一位整形医师，为儿童做手术，处理唇裂、弹片和子弹造成的面部损伤，以及诸如此类的事情。我当场就答应了。我打算待上三个月。我是2002年春末去的。我再也没回来。
“You’re going to be cold,” she says, tightening the scarf around her neck. It’s January, late morning, the sky overcast and gray. A cool breeze makes the shriveled-up leaves clatter in the trees.
“你会冻着的。”她说着，紧了紧脖子上的围巾。这是一月，临近晌午，阴着天，灰蒙蒙的。一阵冷风吹过，枯叶在树上哗哗作响。
“Suit yourself, Doctor. Bus or walk? Your choice.”
“随便你，大夫。公共汽车还是步行？你来选。”
“You want cold, come to Kabul,” I say. I pick up my suitcase.
“想挨冻，得去喀布尔。”我说，提起了行李箱。
Thalia launches energetically into a story about a new set of whitewashed bungalows that developers are building south of Tinos town, with views of Mykonos and the Aegean. Primarily, they will be filled by either tourists or the wealthy summer residents who have been coming to Tinos since the 1990s. She says the bungalows will have an outdoor pool and a fitness center.
萨丽娅兴致勃勃地讲起了故事，开发商要在蒂诺斯城南部新建一片白色的别墅，可以远眺米科诺斯岛和爱琴海。这些房子主要是给旅游者和有钱的暑期房客住的，他们从九十年代便开始络绎不绝。她说这片别墅会带一个室外游泳池，还有一个健身中心。
“Let’s walk,” I say.
“咱们散散步吧。”我说。
We head north. We pass through Tinos town. The sailboats and yachts moored in the inner harbor. The kiosks selling postcards and T-shirts. People sipping coffee at little round tables outside cafés, reading newspapers, playing chess. Waiters setting out silverware for lunch. Another hour or two and the smell of cooking fish will waft from kitchens.
我们向北走，穿过蒂诺斯城。内港里停泊着帆船和游艇。小亭子里卖着明信片和圆领衫。咖啡馆外，人们坐在小圆桌边，喝咖啡，读报纸，下象棋。服务员们摆放着午饭用的银色餐具。再过一两个钟头，烧鱼的味道就该从厨房里飘荡而出了。
“Odie is none too pleased,” Thalia says, meaning with the transformation. She has written me about this too — the older islanders’ suspicion of the newcomers and the changes they are importing.
“奥蒂一点儿也不高兴。”萨丽娅说，她指的是这种变革。她也给我写过这些，写老岛民们的怀疑，他们对新来者，对随之涌入的改变满腹疑惑。
“You don’t seem to mind the change,” I say.
“你好像不介意变化。”我说。
She has been e-mailing me for years, chronicling for me these changes that are reshaping Tinos. The beachside hotels with the satellite dishes and dial-up access, the nightclubs and bars and taverns, the restaurants and shops that cater to tourists, the cabs, the buses, the crowds, the foreign women who lie topless at the beaches. The farmers ride pickup trucks now instead of donkeys — at least the farmers who stayed. Most of them left long ago, though some are coming back now to live out their retirement on the island.
多年以来，她一直给我写电子邮件，为我记录下重塑蒂诺斯的这些变化。带有卫星天线、可以拨号上网的海滨酒店，夜总会、酒吧、小酒馆，为游客服务的餐馆和商店，出租车，公共汽车，人潮，躺在海滩上的半裸的外国女人。如今的农民已经不骑驴了，他们开上了小卡车——最起码那些留下来的人是这样。大部分农民很久以前就离开了，不过，现在有些人也在回迁，回到岛上安度晚年。
“No point in griping about the inevitable,” she says. Then adds, “Odie says, ‘Well, it figures you’d say that, Thalia. You weren’t born here.'” She lets out a loud, hearty laugh. “You’d think after forty-four years on Tinos I would have earned the right. But there you have it.”
“抱怨不可避免的东西无济于事。”她说。接着又道：“奥蒂会说：‘行了，早知道你会这样讲，萨丽娅，你又不是在这儿生的。’”她哈哈大笑，响亮而开怀。“本以为在蒂诺斯住了四十年，怎么着也有这资格了。没想到现在我才搞明白。”
Thalia has changed too. Even with the winter coat on, I can tell she has thickened in the hips, become plumper — not soft plump, sturdy plump. There is a cordial defiance to her now, a slyly teasing way she has of commenting on things I do that I suspect she finds slightly foolish. The brightness in her eyes, this new hearty laugh, the perpetual flush of the cheeks — the overall impression is, a farmer’s wife. A salt-of-the-earth kind of woman whose robust friendliness hints at a bracing authority and hardness you might be unwise to question.
萨丽娅也变了。尽管她穿着冬衣，我还是能看出她屁股厚了，长胖了——不是肥胖，是干胖。如今她带着一种开心的自嘲，一种顽皮的揶揄，就像她评价我的时候那样，搞得我每次都怀疑，她发现了我做的事有点儿蠢。她眼中明亮的目光，这种开怀的大笑，两颊上不落的红晕——总体的印象是，一个农民的媳妇。一个顶梁柱般的女人，外表上大大咧咧，嘻嘻哈哈，却透着一股子朝气蓬勃的威信和强悍，由不得你傻乎乎地加以质疑。
Thalia doesn’t run a business in the real sense. Before the digital age, she was essentially a handywoman. She went to people’s homes and soldered power transistors in their TVs, replaced signal capacitors in old tube-model radios. She was called in to fix faulty refrigerator thermostats, seal leaky plumbing. People paid her what they could. And if they couldn’t afford to pay, she did the work anyway. I don’t really need the money, she told me. I do it for the game of it. There’s still a thrill for me in opening things up and seeing how they work inside. These days, she is like a freelance one-woman IT department. Everything she knows is self-taught. She charges nominal fees to troubleshoot people’s PCs, change IP settings, fix their application-file freeze-ups, their slowdowns, their upgrade and boot-up failures. More than once I have called her from Kabul, desperate for help with my frozen IBM.
萨丽娅做的算不上真正意义上的生意。数字时代到来之前，她基本上是个女师傅。她去别人家里，给电视机焊功率晶体管，给旧的真空管收音机换信号电容器。人家把她叫去，修理出毛病的冰箱恒温控制器，封好渗漏的水管。老百姓凭自己的能力给她付钱。如果人家付不起，那她无论如何也会把活干了。我不是真需要这钱。她说，我把干活当成玩游戏。拆东西，看看里面怎么运转，仍然让我觉得兴奋。这段日子，她如同一个自开自支的独女计算机服务部。她知道的所有东西都是自学来的。她只收些名义上的费用，帮人家排除电脑故障，修改IP设置，解决程序瘫痪和运行缓慢的问题，替人升级，处理启动失败。我曾不止一次从喀布尔打电话给她，焦急地求她帮忙，因为我的IBM死了机。
“How is business?” I ask. “Are you still working?”
“生意怎么样？”我问，“你还在工作吗？”
“Here and there,” Thalia says. “You know the times.” We both shake our heads. In Kabul, I had followed news about the rounds of austerity measures. I had watched on CNN masked young Greeks stoning police outside the parliament, cops in riot gear firing tear gas, swinging their batons.
“偶尔有。”萨丽娅说，“你知道这世道。”我们一起摇了摇头。在喀布尔，我一直在看新闻，知道这一轮又一轮的紧缩措施。我在CNN上看到，希腊青年朝议会外的警察扔石头，而警察们穿着防暴衣，发射催泪瓦斯，挥舞着警棍。
“Oh, thorny as ever. That’s why I had that thing installed.” She points to a satellite dish perched on the roof. “We watch foreign soaps. The Arabic ones are the best, or the worst, which comes down to the same thing. We try to figure out the plots. It keeps her claws off me.” She charges through the front door. “Welcome home. I’ll fix you something to eat.”
“哦，和以前一样难伺候。所以我装了那个玩意儿。”她指了指屋顶上的卫星天线。“我们看外国肥皂剧。阿拉伯的最棒，也可以说最烂，演来演去都是一回事。我俩猜剧情，弄得她都不爱搭理我了。”她一步迈进大门。“欢迎回家。我给你弄点东西吃。”
“How is she?” I ask.
“她怎么样？”我问。
When we arrive at my mother’s house, we stand outside for a moment in the courtyard beside the old olive tree. I see evidence of Mamá’s recent frenzy of work — the repainted walls, the half-finished dovecote, a hammer and an open box of nails resting on a slab of wood.
走到我母亲的房子，我们在外面待了一会儿，站在院子里那棵老橄榄树下。我看到了妈妈最近那些狂乱工作的成果——重新粉刷过的墙，只搭了一半的鸽子房，一块木板上放着把锤子，还有一个敞开的钉子盒。
It’s strange being back in this house. I see a few unfamiliar things, like the gray leather armchair in the living room and a white wicker end table beside the TV. But everything else is more or less where it used to be. The kitchen table, now covered by a vinyl top with an alternating pattern of eggplants and pears; the straight-backed bamboo chairs; the old oil lamp with the wicker holder, the scalloped chimney stained black with smoke; the picture of me and Mamá– me in the white shirt, Mamá in her good dress — still hanging above the mantel in the living room; Mamá’s set of china still on the high shelf.
回到家很奇怪。我看见了几件不熟悉的家什，比如客厅里的皮椅子，电视前白色的柳编茶几。可是其他东西大体上都还在老位置。厨房的桌子现在蒙上了塑料桌面，图案是交错排列的茄子和梨；直背的竹椅子；藤篮里的老油灯，油烟熏黑了扇贝形的灯罩；我和妈妈的照片——我穿白衬衫，妈妈穿着她的好裙子——仍然挂在客厅壁炉架的上方；妈妈的那套瓷器也还是放在高架子上。
And yet, as I drop my suitcase, it feels as though there is a gaping hole in the middle of everything. The decades of my mother’s life here with Thalia, they are dark, vast spaces to me. I have been absent. Absent for all the meals Thalia and Mamá have shared at this table, the laughs, the quarrels, the stretches of boredom, the illnesses, the long string of simple rituals that make up a lifetime. Entering my childhood home is a little disorienting, like reading the end of a novel that I’d started, then abandoned, long ago.
可是，等我放下行李箱，却感到每样东西中间都有个空空的洞。我母亲和萨丽娅在这儿相依为命，一过就是几十年，对我而言，这段岁月却是黑暗而辽阔的空白。我一直在缺席。缺席于萨丽娅和妈妈在这张桌子上一起吃的每一顿饭，缺席于那些欢笑，争吵，持久的烦闷，疾病，正是这一长串简单的仪式构成了人的一生。进入我童年的家有点迷惑，就像一部小说，很久以前我读了开头，后来又把它丢开，现在却在读它的结尾。
“Sure. Where is Mamá?”
“好啊。妈妈在哪儿？”
“How about some eggs?” Thalia says, already donning a print bib apron, pouring oil in a skillet. She moves about the kitchen with command, in a proprietary way.
“来点蛋好吗？”萨丽娅问。她已经套上了长长的印花围裙，正在往平底锅里倒油。她在厨房里来回移动，操控自如，一副当家做主的模样。
“Asleep. She had a rough night.”
“睡着呢。她折腾了一宿。”
I tiptoe up the steps to the bedroom. The room is dark. A single long narrow slab of light shoots through the pulled curtains, slashes across Mamá’s bed. The air is heavy with sickness. It’s not quite a smell; rather, it’s like a physical presence. Every doctor knows this. Sickness permeates a room like steam. I stand at the entrance for a moment and allow my eyes to adjust. The darkness is broken by a rectangle of shifting colored light on the dresser on what I take to be Thalia’s side of the bed, my old side. It’s one of those digital picture frames. A field of rice paddies and wooden houses with gray-tiled roofs fade to a crowded bazaar with skinned goats hanging from hooks, then to a dark-skinned man squatting by a muddy river, finger-brushing his teeth.
我踮着脚尖上了通往卧室的楼梯。房间黑暗。窗帘拉着，接缝处透进一片窄窄的阳光，横打在妈妈的床上。空气中充满了疾病。它不仅仅是一种气味，而更像一种有形的存在。每个医生都感觉得出来。疾病像蒸汽一样弥漫于房间。我在入口处站立片刻，让眼睛适应一下。忽然一片方形的彩光变幻，打破了黑暗，这一片光来自床边的梳妆台，我想那是萨丽娅睡的一边，原先我睡的那一边。有几个数字相框，亮起的是其中一个。稻田，木屋，灰瓦铺就的房顶，渐变为拥挤的巴扎，铁钩子吊着剥了皮的羊，再变为一个皮肤黝黑的汉子，蹲在浑浊的河边，用手指头刷着牙。
“I’ll take a quick look.”
“我去看一眼。”
Thalia fishes a whisk from the drawer. “You wake her up, you’ll answer to me, Doctor.”
萨丽娅从抽屉里捞了把打蛋器。“你要把她弄醒，我惟你是问，大夫。”
I pull up a chair and sit at Mamá’s bedside. Looking at her now that my eyes have adjusted, I feel something in me drop. I am startled by how much my mother has shrunk. Already. The floral-print pajamas appear loose around her small shoulders, over the flattened chest. I don’t care for the way she is sleeping, with her mouth open and turned down, as though she is having a sour dream. I don’t like seeing that her dentures have slid out of place in her sleep. Her eyelids flutter slightly. I sit there awhile. I ask myself, What did you expect? and I listen to the clock ticking on the wall, the clanging of Thalia’s spatula against the frying pan from downstairs. I take inventory of the banal details of Mamá’s life in this room. The flat-screen TV fastened to the wall; the PC in the corner; the unfinished game of Sudoku on the nightstand, the page marked by a pair of reading glasses; the TV remote; the vial of artificial tears; a tube of steroid cream; a tube of denture glue; a small bottle of pills; and, on the floor, an oyster-colored pair of fuzzy slippers. She would have never worn those before. Beside the slippers, an open bag of pull-on diapers. I cannot reconcile these things with my mother. I resist them. They look to me like the belongings of a stranger. Someone indolent, harmless. Someone with whom you could never be angry.
我拉过一把椅子，坐到妈妈床边。我的眼睛适应过来了，我看着她，感到心里有什么东西碎了。我吓了一跳，妈妈缩得竟然如此之小。已经如此之小。印花睡衣松松垮垮地兜着她的小肩膀，盖着她已然扁平的胸。我不喜欢她睡觉的样子，嘴巴张开，耷拉着，好像在做一个苦梦。我也不喜欢看到她睡觉时，假牙在嘴里滑得歪七竖八。她眼皮微微颤动了几下。我坐了一会儿。我问自己，你本来指望什么？我听到钟在墙上滴滴答答，楼下萨丽娅的铲子在煎锅里乒乒乓乓。我打量着妈妈房间里平庸生活的细节。固定在墙上的平板电视；屋角的电脑；床头柜上没做完的数独游戏，那一页上放着一副老花镜；电视遥控器；装人工泪液的小药水瓶；一管类固醇药膏；一管假牙胶；一小瓶药片；地板上还有一双牡蛎色的毛茸茸的拖鞋。她以前绝对不会穿这种东西。拖鞋旁边有个敞开的袋子，里面装着纸尿裤。我无法把这些东西和我母亲联系在一起。我抗拒它们。在我看来，它们属于一个陌生人。某个四体不勤、与世无争的人。某个绝对不会让你动怒的人。
I get up quietly. As I leave the room, something catches my eye. Something framed, mounted on the wall beneath the clock. I can’t quite make it out in the dark. I open my cell phone and take a look in its silver glow. It’s an AP story about the nonprofit I work with in Kabul. I remember the interview. The journalist was a pleasant Korean-American fellow with a mild stutter. We had shared a plate of qabuli — Afghan pilaf, with brown rice, raisins, lamb. There is in the center of the story a group photo. Me, some of the children, Nabi in the back, standing rigidly, hands behind his back, looking simultaneously foreboding, shy, and dignified, as Afghans often manage to in pictures. Amra is there too with her adopted daughter, Roshi. All the children are smiling.
我悄悄起身。就在走出房间的当口，我一下子看到了某个东西。某个装在镜框里的东西，钉在钟下面的墙上。黑暗里，我看不出那是什么。我开了手机，借着微光一瞧。原来是美联社的一篇报道，写的是我在喀布尔效力的那家非营利组织。我记得这篇采访。记者是个讨人喜欢的韩裔美国人，有点儿结巴。我们合吃了一盘卡布利——阿富汗的抓饭，里面是糙米、葡萄干和羊肉。文章正中配了张合影。我，几个孩子，纳比在后排，直挺挺地站着，手背在身后，兼具多种表情：愁苦，害羞，以及庄重，一如阿富汗人在照片上经常刻意摆出的姿态。阿姆拉也在，还有她的养女罗诗。所有孩子都面带笑容。
Across the bed, the image on the digital picture frame shifts again. I track a few. Then it comes to me. I know these photos. I shot them. Back when I was… What? Walking the earth, I suppose. I’d always made sure to get double prints and mail one set to Thalia. And she’d kept them. All these years. Thalia. Affection seeps through me sweet as honey. She has been my true sister, my true Manaar, all along.
在床对面，数字相框里的照片又一次发生了变化。我连着看了几张，然后想起来了。我认得这些照片，是我拍的。是我当年…干什么来着？对了，走天下。洗照片的时候，我总是一式两份，寄一套给萨丽娅。她都留着呢。这么多年啊。萨丽娅。一股甜甜的情感涌遍我全身，好像吃了蜂蜜。她就是我的亲妹妹，我活生生的“马纳尔”，一直都是。
She calls my name from downstairs.
她在楼下叫我名字。
“Markos.”
“马科斯。”
Thalia puts before me a glass of milk and a steaming plate of eggs on a bed of tomatoes. “Don’t worry, I already sugared the milk.”
萨丽娅把一杯奶放到我面前，还有一盘热气腾腾的蛋，底下铺了一层番茄。“放心吧，奶我已经加过糖了。”
She takes a seat, not bothering to remove the apron. She rests her elbows on the table and watches me eat, dabbing now and then at her left cheek with a handkerchief.
她坐下了，连围裙也懒得摘，胳膊肘放到桌上，看着我吃东西，不时拿手帕擦一下自己的左脸。
I flip the mobile closed and make my way downstairs.
我关上手机，下了楼。
“You remember.”
“你还记得。”
My offer to Thalia still stands to this day. I know she won’t take it. But I understand now. Because she was right — this is who she is. I cannot pretend to know what it must have been like to gaze at that face in the mirror each day, to take stock of its ghastly ruin, and to summon the will to accept it. The mountainous strain of it, the effort, the patience. Her acceptance taking shape slowly, over years, like rocks of a beachside cliff sculpted by the pounding tides. It took the dog minutes to give Thalia her face, and a lifetime for her to mold it into an identity. She would not let me undo it all with my scalpel. It would be like inflicting a fresh wound over the old one.
我对萨丽娅的劝说一直持续到了今天。我知道她不会接受。可现在我理解了。因为她是对的——她就是这个样子。我无法假装知道那种日子是怎么过来的，每天在镜子里盯着那张脸，打量着那令人毛骨悚然的毁伤，继而鼓足勇气来接受它。它山一样的重负，努力，坚忍。她的接受是慢慢形成的，累月经年，如潮水冲击，雕刻出海岸上的礁石。狗只需几分钟，就能给萨丽娅一张脸，她却需要花费终生，来把这张脸塑造成新的身份。她不会允许我用手术刀让这一切前功尽弃。那就像在旧伤之上，又割开了新伤。
I remember all the times I tried to convince her to let me work on her face. I told her that surgical techniques had come a long way since the 1960s, and that I was certain I could, if not fix, then at least significantly improve her disfigurement. Thalia refused, to enormous bewilderment on my part. This is who I am, she said to me. An insipid, unsatisfactory answer, I thought at the time. What did that even mean? I didn’t understand it. I had uncharitable thoughts of prison inmates, lifers, afraid to get out, terrified of being paroled, terrified of change, terrified of facing a new life outside barbed wire and guard towers.
我一直试图说服她，同意让我在她脸上做做手术，每一次尝试我都记得。我告诉她，自从六十年代以来，外科技术已经有了很大的进步，而我相信我能行，就算无法修复，最起码也能显著改善她面部的残损。萨丽娅拒绝了，实在让我大惑不解。我就是这个样子。她对我说。一个平淡无趣、不能令人满意的回答，我当时想，这到底是什么意思？我不理解。我无情地想到了监狱里的囚犯，他们被判了终身监禁，不敢出狱，害怕获得假释，害怕改变，害怕面对没有铁丝网和岗楼的新生活。
I dig into the eggs, knowing it will please her, even though I am not really hungry. “This is good, Thalia.”
为了取悦她，我奋力吃蛋，哪怕并不真饿。“太好吃了，萨丽娅。”
“What do you mean?”
“你什么意思？”
“So, are you excited?”
“对了，你兴奋吗？”
She reaches behind her and pulls open a kitchen-counter drawer. She retrieves a pair of sunglasses with rectangular lenses. It takes me a moment. Then I remember. The eclipse.
她把手伸到身后，拉开厨台的抽屉，取出一副方形镜片的太阳镜。我一下子没反应过来。接着我想起来了。日食。
“Ah, of course.”
“哦，当然。”
“I saw the pictures,” I say. “Upstairs. The article too.”
“我看见那些照片了。”我说，“在楼上。还有那篇文章。”
We talk a bit about the eclipse that is supposed to happen the next day. Thalia says it will start in the morning and be complete by noon or so. She has been checking the weather updates and is relieved that the island is not due for a cloudy day. She asks if I want more eggs and I say yes, and she tells me about a new Internet café that has gone up where Mr. Roussos’s old pawnshop used to sit.
我们聊了一会儿日食，它应该在明天出现。萨丽娅说，日食将在早晨开始，大概中午结束。她已经看过了天气预报，放了心，岛上不会是阴天。她问我想不想再来点蛋，我说想，然后她告诉我，鲁索斯先生老当铺的旧址已经建起了网吧。
“At first,” she says, “I thought we’d just watch it through a pinhole. But then Odie said you were coming. And I said, ‘Well, then, let’s do it in style.'”
“一开始，”她说，“我以为我们从针孔里看看就行了。可是后来奥蒂说你要回来。那我就说：‘成，这么着好了，咱们也时髦一下。’”
She wipes my bread crumbs off the table with her palm, tosses them over her shoulder into the kitchen sink without looking. “Ah, that was easy. Well, scanning and uploading them was. The hard part was organizing them into countries. I had to sit and figure it out because you never sent notes, just the pictures. She was very specific about that, the having it organized into countries. She had to have it that way. She insisted on it.”
她把我掉在桌上的面包屑扑落到手里，看也不看就丢进身后的洗碗池。“哦，那很简单。再说扫描和上传也不难。难就难在按照国别给它们分类。我得坐下来好好琢磨，因为你从来都不写个说明，只寄照片。她在这方面非常较真，要按国别理顺了。她就是要弄成这个样子。她非这么干不可。”
“I should have never taught her. Now she won’t stop.” She gives a chuckle. “She checks on you every day. It’s true. You have yourself a cyberspace stalker, Markos Varvaris.”
“我就不该教她。现在她收不住了。”她咯咯一笑，“她每天搜你。真的。你遇上网络跟踪狂了，马科斯·瓦尔瓦里斯。”
“Out to get some treats. For tomorrow. Is that yours, Mamá?” I point to a cane leaning against the wall behind the new armchair. I hadn’t noticed it when I had first come in.
“出去弄吃的了，明天吃的。那是你的吗，妈妈？”我指了指新扶手椅旁边、靠墙放着的一根手杖。刚进家我都没注意到它。
“Mamá looked me up?” I say.
“妈妈搜过我？”我问。
We sit at the table for coffee.
我们坐在桌边喝咖啡。
“Who?”
“谁？”
Mamá comes downstairs early in the afternoon. She is wearing a dark blue bathrobe and the fuzzy slippers that I have already come to loathe. It looks like she has brushed her hair. I am relieved to see that she appears to be moving normally as she walks down the steps, as she opens her arms to me, smiling sleepily.
妈妈在午后下了楼。她穿着深蓝色的浴袍，还有那双已经让我暗自憎恶的绒毛拖鞋，看上去梳了头。我见她走下楼时动作正常，总算放了心，她对我张开双臂，睡眼惺忪地笑着。
“That was her idea?”
“是她的主意？”
“The article too. She was the one who found it on the web.”
“那文章也是。是她在网上找到的。”
She issues a sigh. ” ‘Who?’ he says. Odie. Who else?”
她发出一声叹息。“‘谁？’他问。奥蒂呗。还有谁？”
“Where is Thalia?” she asks, blowing into her cup.
“萨丽娅呢？”她吹着杯子问道。
“Oh, I hardly use it. Just on bad days. And for long walks. Even then, mostly for peace of mind,” she says too dismissively, which is how I know she relies on it far more than she lets on. “It’s you I worry for. The news from that awful country. Thalia doesn’t want me listening to it. She says it will agitate me.”
“哦，我很少用它。坏天气才用，还有散步时间长的时候。即使那样，也主要图个心里舒坦。”她说起来也太轻描淡写了，我可知道，她对手杖的依赖程度远远大过她嘴上说的。“我担心的是你。那个可怕的国家，那些新闻。萨丽娅不想让我听到。她说那会让我寝食难安。”
Mamá takes a sip of coffee, winces a bit. She doesn’t push me. I am not sure whether this is a good thing. Not sure whether she has drifted off, descended into herself as old people do, or whether it is a tactic to not corner me into lying or disclosing things that would only upset her.
妈妈喝了口咖啡，暂时鸣金。她没逼我。我弄不清这是不是好事，也不清楚她是不是走神，像老年人那样想自己的心事去了，或者这只是一种战术，不想把我逼入绝境，逼得我撒谎，或是说出只会让她揪心的事情。
“We do have our incidents,” I say, “but mostly it’s just people going about their lives. And I’m always careful, Mamá.” Of course I neglect to tell her about the shooting at the guesthouse across the street or the recent surge in attacks on foreign-aid workers, or that by careful I mean I have taken to carrying a 9mm when I am out driving around the city, which I probably shouldn’t be doing in the first place.
“我们确实有暴力事件，”我说，“但总的来说，老百姓的日子该怎么过就怎么过。而且我总是很小心的，妈妈。”我肯定不会告诉她，马路对面的酒店发生过枪击，对外国救援人员的袭击近来也大幅增加，而且我所谓的“小心”，指的是我在城里开车出去时，一直带着一把9毫米的手枪，也许一开始我就不该提这茬。
“We missed you at Christmas,” she says.
“圣诞节我们想你来着。”她说。
She nods. “You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
她点点头。“你现在回来了。这才是最重要的。”
“I couldn’t get away, Mamá.”
“当时我走不开，妈妈。”
I take a sip of my coffee. I remember when I was little Mamá and me eating breakfast at this table every morning, quietly, almost solemnly, before we walked to school together. We said so little to each other.
我喝了口咖啡。我记得小时候，每天早晨我们一起去学校之前，妈妈都和我在这张桌子上吃早点，安安静静，简直可以说一片肃穆。我们谈得太少了。
“No need to. I take care of myself all right.” A flash of the old defiant pride, like a dim glint in the fog.
“用不着。我自己照顾自己，挺好的。”昔日那种目空一切的自负忽然闪现，如同雾中的一道微光。
“As long as I can.”
“我能多久就多久。”
“You know, Mamá, I worry for you too.”
“你知道的，妈妈，我也担心你。”
“But for how long?”
“可是能多久？”
“Well, take you, for instance. Leaving here. The life you’ve made for yourself. You were afraid of being confined here. With me. You were afraid I would hold you back. Or, take Thalia. She stayed because she didn’t want to be stared at anymore.”
“哦，就拿你来说吧，举个例子。你离开这儿了。你过上了自己的生活。你害怕被困在这儿。和我一起。你害怕我拖你后腿。再拿萨丽娅来说。她留下了，那是因为她不想再让人盯着看。”
She levels her gaze at me evenly. Then she adds a teaspoon of sugar to her cup, slowly stirs it in. “It’s a funny thing, Markos, but people mostly have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really what guides them is what they’re afraid of. What they don’t want.”
她抬起眼睛，和我四目相对。然后，她往杯子里加了一勺糖，慢慢地搅着。“这是个很有趣的事情，马科斯，但是人们通常回避这个问题。他们认为自己活着，全凭他们想要的东西，可实际上呢，支配他们的是他们害怕的东西，是他们不想要的东西。”
“And when you can’t, then what?” I am not challenging her. I ask because I don’t know. I don’t know what my own role will be or whether I will even play one.
“那等你不能的时候呢，那又怎么办？”我不是在和她抬杠。我这么问是因为我不知道。我不知道自己将来的角色是什么，也不知道我会不会扮演一个角色。
I watch her taste her coffee, pour in another spoonful of sugar. I remember how out of my depth I’d always felt as a boy trying to argue with her. She spoke in a way that left no room for retort, steamrolling over me with the truth, told right at the outset, plainly, directly. I was always defeated before I’d so much as said a word. It always seemed unfair.
我看着她尝了尝咖啡，又往里面倒了满满一勺子糖。我记得我小时候每次想和她争辩，总是感觉力不能及。她说起话来根本不给我还嘴的余地，一张口就用大实话把我拍扁，有什么说什么，直截了当。我总是一个字都说不上来，就被她彻底击溃。我老觉得这不公平。
“I don’t follow, Mamá.”
“我听不懂，妈妈。”
“What about you, Mamá?” I ask. “What are you scared of? What don’t you want?”
“你呢，妈妈？”我问，“你怕什么？你不想要的是什么？”
“You won’t be.”
“你不会的。”
“To be a burden.”
“成为负担。”
“Oh, you’re right about that, Markos.”
“噢，这可让你说对了，马科斯。”
Disquiet spreads through me at this cryptic remark. My mind flashes to the letter Nabi had given me in Kabul, his posthumous confession. The pact Suleiman Wahdati had made with him. I can’t help but wonder if Mamá has forged a similar pact with Thalia, if she has chosen Thalia to rescue her when the time comes. I know Thalia could do it. She is strong now. She would save Mamá.
这句谜一般的话让我坐立不安。我一下子想起了纳比在喀布尔给我的信，他那份死后的告白。苏莱曼·瓦赫达提和他立下的那份契约。我禁不住地想，妈妈是否也和萨丽娅有了相似的约定，她是否已经选好了萨丽娅，在大限将至的时候救她脱离苦海。我知道萨丽娅会这么干。她现在是个强人了。她救得了妈妈。
Mamá is studying my face. “You have your life and your work, Markos,” she says, more softly now, redirecting the course of the conversation, as if she has peeked into my mind, spotted my worry. The dentures, the diapers, the fuzzy slippers — they have made me underestimate her. She still has the upper hand. She always will. “I don’t want to weigh you down.”
妈妈打量着我的脸。“你有自己的生活，自己的工作，马科斯。”她说。她的语气现在变得和缓了，重新引导着谈话的进程，仿佛已经看出了我的心思，发现了我的焦虑。假牙，尿裤，绒毛拖鞋，这些东西刚才让我低估了她。她仍然占着先手。她总能如此。“我不想把你压垮。”
At last, a lie — this last thing she says — but it’s a kind lie. It isn’t me she would weigh down. She knows this as well as I do. I am absent, thousands of miles away. The unpleasantness, the work, the drudgery, it would fall on Thalia. But Mamá is including me, granting me something I have not earned, nor tried to.
终于有了句假话——她最后说的这一句——可这是一个善意的谎言。她知道她压不垮我。这一点她知道，我也知道。我不在，我在几千公里之外。那些不快，劳作，苦差，都将落到萨丽娅身上。可是妈妈把我也算进去了，给了我不配得到，也没想得到的赏赐。
“It wouldn’t be like that,” I say weakly.
“不会那样的。”我毫无底气地说道。
“I didn’t understand why you would go. Why would you give everything up — the practice, the money, the house in Athens — all you’d worked for — and hole up in that violent place?”
“当时我不明白你为什么要去。你为什么要放弃一切——医生的事业，钱，雅典的房子——干得好好的——非要窝在那个暴力的地方。”
“I had my reasons.”
“我有我的理由。”
“Thank you, Mamá,” I manage to mutter.
“谢谢你，妈妈。”我小声挤出这几个字。
“I know.” She raises the cup to her lips, lowers it without sipping. “I’m no damn good at this,” she says slowly, almost shyly, “but what I’m getting around to telling you is, you’ve turned out good. You’ve made me proud, Markos.”
“我知道。”她把杯子端到嘴边，没喝，又放下了。“该死的，有些话我讲不好，”她慢吞吞、害羞似的说道，“可我还是打算告诉你，你做的是好事。你挺让我骄傲的，马科斯。”
I look down at my hands. I feel her words landing deep within me. She has startled me. Caught me unprepared. For what she said. Or for the soft light in her eyes when she said it. I am at a loss as to what I am expected to say in response.
我低头瞅着自己的手。我感到她的话落到了我心坎上。她吓着我了。弄了我一个措手不及。因为她这句话。要不然就是因为她说话时眼睛里柔软的光。我手足无措，不知道她希望我做出怎样的回答。
I can’t say any more, and we sit quietly for a while, the air between us thick with awkwardness and our awareness of all the time lost, the opportunities frittered away.
我再也说不下去了，于是我们安静地坐了片刻，我和她之间的空气充满了窘迫，也充满了我们共同的体认，关于所有失落的光阴，那些蹉跎的机遇。
“I had my suspicions, yes.”
“是的，多少知道一点。”
Mamá smiles. “Speaking of your work, I guess you know that I didn’t exactly approve when you decided to go to that country.”
妈妈笑了。“说到你的工作，我猜你知道的，你决定去那个国家的时候，我并不完全赞成。”
“What is it?”
“什么事？”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Mamá says.
“我一直想问你个事。”妈妈说。
“James Parkinson. George Huntington. Robert Graves. John Down. Now this Lou Gehrig fellow of mine. How did men come to monopolize disease names too?”
“詹姆斯·帕金森，乔治·亨廷顿，罗伯特·格雷弗斯，约翰·唐，还有我这位卢·格里克。[17]病的名字怎么也有人来垄断？”【注：[17]分别对应着帕金森氏症、亨廷顿氏舞蹈症、格雷弗斯病（毒性弥漫性甲状腺肿）、唐氏综合征，以及瓦尔瓦里斯太太罹患的格里克氏症，即肌肉萎缩性脊髓侧索硬化症，俗称渐冻人症。】
I blink and my mother blinks back, and then she is laughing and so am I. Even as I crumple inside.
我瞪大了眼睛，我母亲也回瞪给我，然后她放声大笑，我也哈哈地笑起来了。此时我心已粉碎。
The next morning, we lie outside on lounge chairs. Mamá wears a thick scarf and a gray parka, her legs warmed against the sharp chill by a fleece blanket. We sip coffee and nibble on bits of the cinnamon-flavored baked quince Thalia has bought for the occasion. We are wearing our eclipse glasses, looking up at the sky. The sun has a small bite taken from its northern rim, looking somewhat like the logo on the Apple laptop Thalia periodically opens to post remarks on an online forum. Up and down the street, people have settled on the sidewalks and rooftops to watch the spectacle. Some have taken their families to the other end of the island, where the Hellenic Astronomical Society has set up telescopes.
第二天一早，我们躺在外面的躺椅上。妈妈系了条厚围巾，穿着大衣，腿上盖着保暖的羊毛毯，对付刺骨的寒意。我们喝着咖啡，咬着肉桂味儿的烤榅桲片，这是萨丽娅特地为今天买的。我们戴着日食眼镜，举目望天。太阳朝北那一边已经被咬了一小口，看上去有点像萨丽娅那台苹果笔记本电脑上的商标，她隔一会儿就把电脑打开，在一个网络论坛上写几句评论。街头巷尾，到处有人待在便道和屋顶上，观看这一奇景。有些人已经带上全家老小，去了岛的另一头，希腊天文学会在那儿架起了望远镜。
“What time is it supposed to peak?” I ask.
“什么时间食甚？”我问。
“Close to ten-thirty,” Thalia says. She lifts her glasses, checks her watch. “Another hour or so.” She rubs her hands with excitement, taps something on the keyboard.
“将近十点半。”萨丽娅说。她推起眼镜，看了看手表。“大概再过一个小时。”她兴奋地搓搓手，在键盘上敲了句什么。
You’ve turned out good.
你做的是好事。
I watch the two of them, Mamá with her dark glasses, blue-veined hands laced on her chest, Thalia furiously pounding the keys, white hair spilling from under her beanie cap.
我看着她俩，妈妈戴着黑眼镜，青筋暴凸的双手交叠着放在胸前，萨丽娅急风暴雨般地敲打着键盘，白发从无檐便帽下散乱而出。
I lay on the couch the night before, thinking about what Mamá had said, and my thoughts had wandered to Madaline. I remembered how, as a boy, I would stew over all the things Mamá wouldn’t do, things other mothers did. Hold my hand when we walked. Sit me up on her lap, read bedtime stories, kiss my face good night. Those things were true enough. But, all those years, I’d been blind to a greater truth, which lay unacknowledged and unappreciated, buried deep beneath my grievances. It was this: that my mother would never leave me. This was her gift to me, the ironclad knowledge that she would never do to me what Madaline had done to Thalia. She was my mother and she would not leave me. This I had simply accepted and expected. I had no more thanked her for it than I did the sun for shining on me.
前一天夜里，我躺在沙发上，琢磨着妈妈说过的话，思绪飘飘荡荡，想起了玛达丽娜。我记得我在少年时代，常为妈妈不做、而别的母亲都会做的那些事耿耿于怀：牵着我的手走路，让我坐在她腿上，睡前给我读童话书，亲我脸蛋道晚安。这一切历历在目。但是这么多年来，还有一个更大的真相，我却一直视而不见，任由它处在不被承认和未受赏识的状态，在我的满腹委屈之下深埋。那就是：我的母亲绝不会离开我。这是她给我的礼物，这是个铁打的事实，她绝不会对我做出玛达丽娜对萨丽娅做的事。她是我的妈妈，她不会离我而去。对这一点，过去我只是简单地接受，觉得理所当然。我不曾为此感谢过她，就像我不曾感谢过洒在我身上的阳光。
Suddenly, all around us — on the ground, on the walls, on our clothing — little shining sickles of light have materialized, the crescent-shaped sun beaming through the leaves of our olive tree. I find a crescent shimmering on the coffee inside my mug, another dancing on my shoelaces.
突然，我们周围的一切——地上，墙上，我们的衣服上——无数小小的，闪亮的光镰出现了，新月形的太阳发出的光，从我们家橄榄树的树叶之间穿过。我发现一片月牙儿在我的杯子里，在咖啡上闪烁着，还有一片在我的鞋带上起舞。
“Show me your hands, Odie,” Thalia says. “Quick!”
“把你的手给我，奥蒂。”萨丽娅说，“快点！”
“Look!” Thalia exclaims.
“看！”萨丽娅大叫了一声。
Mamá opens her hands, palms up. Thalia fetches from her pocket a square of cut glass. She holds it over Mamá’s hands. Suddenly, little crescent rainbows quiver on the wrinkled skin of my mother’s hands. She gasps.
妈妈张开双手，掌心向上。萨丽娅从衣袋里拿出一片方形的雕花玻璃。她拿着它，放到妈妈手掌的上方。忽然，好多月牙儿形的小彩虹出现了，在我母亲手上，在满是皱纹的皮肤上颤抖着。她也喘息起来。
You’ve turned out good.
你做的是好事。
“Look at that, Markos!” Mamá says, grinning unabashedly with delight like a schoolgirl. I have never before seen her smile this purely, this guilelessly.
“快看，马科斯！”妈妈说。她龇着牙乐啊，高高兴兴地，一点也不觉得难为情，活像个小女生。我以前从没见过她笑得这么纯洁，这么没有心计。
We sit, the three of us, watching the trembling little rainbows on my mother’s hands, and I feel sadness and an old ache, each like a claw at my throat.
我们坐着，我们仨，看着颤抖在我母亲手上的小彩虹，我既觉得悲伤，又苦于旧创，每种感觉都像一只爪子，扼住了我的咽喉。
You’ve made me proud, Markos.
你挺让我骄傲的，马科斯。
And yet when my mother says, “Isn’t it beautiful, Markos?” I say to her, “It is, Mamá. It is beautiful,” and as something begins to break wide open inside me I reach over and take my mother’s hand in mine.
可是我的母亲开了口。“多美啊，对吗，马科斯？”我对她说：“是的，妈妈。很美。”我心里好像决了口。我伸手过去，把我母亲的手拿在了掌中。
I am fifty-five years old. I have waited all my life to hear those words. Is it too late now for this? For us? Have we squandered too much for too long, Mamá and I? Part of me thinks it is better to go on as we have, to act as though we don’t know how ill suited we have been for each other. Less painful that way. Perhaps better than this belated offering. This fragile, trembling little glimpse of how it could have been between us. All it will beget is regret, I tell myself, and what good is regret? It brings back nothing. What we have lost is irretrievable.
我已经五十五岁了。这些话我已经等了多半辈子。现在太迟了吗？我们，妈妈和我，已经虚掷得太多，蹉跎得又太久吗？我心里有一部分在想，最好让一切照旧，仿佛我们谁也不知道，一直以来我们有多么难以相合。那样就会少些痛苦。也许好过这份迟来的礼物。这脆弱的、战栗的小小微光，映射出我们之间原本可以怎样相处。它招致的只会是悔恨，我问自己，悔恨有什么好处？它什么也不能挽回。我们失去的东西再也无法弥补。
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