第十二章: 一个年轻人的漫长的、尴尬的、偶尔悲剧，又时常蒙羞的心灵教育——第二部分：暗恋 A Young Man’s Long, Awkward, Occasionally Tragic, and Frequently Humiliating Education in Affairs of the Heart, Part Ii: the Crush
In high school, the attention of girls was not an affliction I suffered from. I wasn’t the hot guy in class. I wasn’t even the cute guy in class. I was ugly. Puberty was not kind to me. My acne was so bad that people used to ask what was wrong with me, like I’d had an allergic reaction to something. It was the kind of acne that qualifies as a medical condition. Acne vulgaris, the doctor called it. We’re not talking about pimples, kids. We’re talking pustules — big, pus-filled blackheads and whiteheads. They started on my forehead, spread down the sides of my face, and covered my cheeks and neck and ravaged me everywhere.
在高中，我的烦恼里面并不包括女孩们关注的眼神。我在班上算不上帅。我甚至都不算可爱。我丑。青春期对我很不友好。我长了很严重的粉刺，严重到人们会问我是不是得了什么病，以为我是对什么东西过敏。我长的是那种严重到了要去看医生的粉刺。寻常痤疮，医生这么叫它。我们不是在说青春痘，我们说的是脓疱——巨大肿胀的黑头白头粉刺。它们先是从我的额头上开始冒出来，然后蔓延到我的侧脸，最终覆盖了我的整个脸颊、脖子，到处都是。
Being poor didn’t help. Not only could I not afford a decent haircut, leaving me with a huge, unruly Afro, but my mother also used to get angry at the fact that I grew out of my school uniforms too fast, so to save money she started buying my clothes three sizes too big. My blazer was too long and my pants were too baggy and my shoes flopped around. I was a clown. And of course, Murphy’s Law, the year my mom started buying my clothes too big was the year that I stopped growing. So now I was never going to grow into my clown clothes and I was stuck being a clown. The only thing I had going for me was the fact that I was tall, but even there I was gangly and awkward-looking. Duck feet. High ass. Nothing worked.
我还穷。我剪不起头发，就任其自生自灭地长了一头完全不规则的巨大黑人爆炸头。不仅如此，我妈还总是嫌我个子长得太快，刚买的校服没穿几天就小了，为了省钱，她开始给我买是我身材三倍大的衣服。我的夹克特别长，裤子垮垮的，鞋子也大得不合脚。我就是个小丑。当然了，由于墨菲定律，自从我妈开始给我买大衣服的那年开始，我的个子就不长了，后来就再没穿过合身的衣服，一直保持在小丑的状态里。唯一看得过去的是我还算高，但即使如此，我的身材也显得过分瘦长，看起来不太协调，鸭子脚，撅屁股。没哪儿是能看的。
For me to try to get a girl would have upset the natural order of things. Part of my success as the tuck-shop guy was that I was welcome everywhere, and I was welcome everywhere because I was nobody. I was the acne-ridden clown with duck feet in floppy shoes. I wasn’t a threat to the guys. I wasn’t a threat to the girls. The minute I became somebody, I risked no longer being welcomed as nobody. The pretty girls were already spoken for. The popular guys had staked their claim. They would say, “I like Zuleika,” and you knew that meant if you tried anything with Zuleika there’d be a fight. In the interest of survival, the smart move was to stay on the fringe, stay out of trouble.
对我来说，如果我试图去约女生，那就是违反了自然定律。作为小卖部男孩，我成功的一个指标就是到哪儿都很受欢迎，但是到哪儿都很受欢迎也是因为我是无名小卒。我是个脸上长满粉刺、穿着不合脚的鞋子、长着鸭子脚的小丑。我对男生没威胁，我对女生也没威胁。一旦我成了什么人，可能就不会像无名小卒这样受欢迎了。漂亮姑娘们都已经名花有主，帅哥们已经宣告了他们的主权。他们会说：“我喜欢祖蕾卡。”你就明白了，如果你敢对祖蕾卡动什么念头，就会有人找你打架。为了生存，最明智的选择就是待在边缘地带，不惹是非。
After suffering my Valentine’s Day heartbreak at the hands of Maylene and the handsome, charming Lorenzo, I learned a valuable lesson about dating. What I learned was that cool guys get girls, and funny guys get to hang out with the cool guys with their girls. I was not a cool guy; therefore I did not have girls. I understood that formula very quickly and I knew my place. I didn’t ask girls out. I didn’t have a girlfriend. I didn’t even try.
自从那日情人节我被梅林和英俊迷人的洛伦佐伤过心之后，关于约会，我得到了一个非常有价值的教训。那就是，帅哥才能交女朋友，但是搞笑的家伙可以和帅哥以及他们的女朋友一起玩。我不是帅哥，所以我没有女朋友。我很快理解了这个公式，找到了自己的位置。我从不约女孩子出去。我没有女朋友。我试都没试过。
Johanna and Zaheera were always together. They were one grade below me, but in terms of popularity they were three grades above me. Still I got to hang out with them because I knew Johanna and we had this thing from being in different schools together. Dating girls may have been out of the question for me, but talking to them was not, because I could make them laugh. Human beings like to laugh, and lucky for me pretty girls are human beings. So I could relate to them in that way, but never in the other way. I knew this because whenever they stopped laughing at my jokes and stories they’d say, “So how do you think I can get Daniel to ask me out?” I always had a clear idea of where I stood.
约翰娜和萨赫拉总是形影不离。她们比我低一个年级，但如果要按受欢迎程度来划分的话，她们要比我高出三个年级。我可以和他们出去玩，是因为我认识约翰娜，我们之间有一直上相同学校的经历可以聊。我不可能和女生约会，但是我能和她们聊天，因为我总能逗她们笑。人总是喜欢笑的，幸运的是，漂亮女生也毕竟是人。所以我可以和她们这样相处，但是其他方面我就不用想了。我很清楚这一点，因为每当她们听过我的笑话和故事，笑笑也就完了，然后她们会开始聊：“所以你觉得我该怎么让丹尼尔约我出去呢？”我对自己的位置很清楚。
Johanna was one of the popular girls. Her best friend was Zaheera. Johanna was beautiful. Zaheera was stunning. Zaheera was colored, Cape Malay. She looked like Salma Hayek. Johanna was out and about and kissing boys, so the guys were all into her. Zaheera, as beautiful as she was, was extremely shy, so there weren’t as many guys after her.
约翰娜是那种很受欢迎的女生。她最好的朋友叫萨赫拉。约翰娜很漂亮，但萨赫拉简直惊艳。萨赫拉是个有色人种姑娘，开普马来人。她长得很像萨尔玛·海耶克。约翰娜是那种活泼外向，会主动亲吻男生的那种姑娘，男生们都很喜欢她。可尽管长得那么美，萨赫拉却极其害羞内向，所以并没有太多男生追她。
At Sandringham, the only time girls in class looked at me was when they wanted me to pass a letter to the hot guy in class. But there was one girl I knew named Johanna. Johanna and I had been at the same school intermittently our whole lives. We were in preschool at Maryvale together. Then she left and went to another school. Then we were in primary school at H. A. Jack together. Then she left and went to another school. Then finally we were at Sandringham together. Because of that we became friends.
在桑德林汉姆，班上的女孩子唯一会拿正眼瞧我的时刻，就是她们想让我帮忙给班上的帅哥送情书的时候。但是我认识的一个女孩是个例外，她叫约翰娜。约翰娜和我一直断断续续地就读相同的学校。我们一起在玛丽威尔上的学前班，然后她转学去了其他学校。之后我们又一起上了H.A。杰克小学，然后她又转学去了其他学校。最后我们又在桑德林汉姆碰面了，就因为这样，我们成了朋友。
Outwardly, I had carefully cultivated my status as the funny, nonthreatening guy, but secretly I had the hugest crush on Zaheera. She was so pretty and so funny. We’d hang out and have great conversations. I thought about her constantly, but for the life of me I never considered myself worthy of dating her. I told myself, I’m going to have a crush on her forever, and that’s all that’s ever going to happen.
表面上，我给自己营造了一个搞笑、不具威胁性的男孩形象，但是背地里，我深深地迷恋着萨赫拉。她太美、太有趣了。我们会一起出去玩，轻松惬意地交谈。我常常想她，但是我也一直觉得自己不配和她约会。我对自己说，我将永远暗恋她，而这件事将止步于此。
At a certain point I decided to map out a strategy. I decided I’d be best friends with Zaheera and stay friends with her long enough to ask her to the matric dance, what we call our senior prom. Mind you, we were in grade nine at this point. The matric dance was three years away. But I decided to play the long game. I was like, Yep, just gonna take my time. Because that’s what happens in the movies, right? I’d seen my American high school movies. You hang around long enough as the friendly good guy and the girl dates a bunch of handsome jerks, and then one day she turns around and goes, “Oh, it’s you. It was always you. You’re the guy I was supposed to be with all along.”
后来，我决定要下一盘大棋。我决定做萨赫拉最好的朋友，并一直和她保持朋友关系，直到最后，邀请她参加录取舞会——这是我们对高中毕业舞会的叫法。提醒你一下，那时候我们才九年级，毕业舞会在三年后，但我决心要放长线，打持久仗。我想的是，对，我就是要不慌不忙。因为电影里都是这么演的，不是吗？我看过讲美国高中生活的电影。你作为一个善良的男主一直陪在女主身边，女主中间会和几个英俊的蠢货约会，然后有天她会回头对你说：“哦，原来是你。一直都是你。你才是我一直以来应该在一起的那个人。”
That was my plan. It was foolproof.
这就是我的计划。绝对没毛病。
I hung out with Zaheera every chance I got. We’d talk about boys, which ones she liked and which ones liked her. I’d give her advice. At one point she got set up with this guy Gary. They started dating. Gary was in the popular group but kind of shy and Zaheera was in the popular group but kind of shy, so his friends and her friends set them up together, like an arranged marriage. But Zaheera didn’t like Gary at all. She told me. We talked about everything.
我一有机会就和萨赫拉待在一起。我们在一起讨论男生，她喜欢谁，谁喜欢她，我会给她提建议。有一阵子她被人撮合着和一个叫盖瑞的家伙在一起了。他们开始约会。盖瑞人很受欢迎，但是性格内向，萨赫拉人也受欢迎，但是性格内向，他的朋友和她的朋友两伙人一起把他俩凑成了一对，就好像包办婚姻。但是萨赫拉一点也不喜欢盖瑞。她是这么告诉我的。我们什么都聊。
One day, I don’t know how, but I plucked up the courage to ask Zaheera for her phone number, which was a big deal back then because it wasn’t like cellphone numbers where everybody has everyone’s number for texting and everything. This was the landline. To her house. Where her parents might answer. We were talking one afternoon at school and I asked, “Can I get your phone number? Maybe I can call you and we can talk at home sometime.” She said yes, and my mind exploded. What???!!!! A girl is giving me her phone number???!!! This is insane!!! What do I do??!! I was so nervous. I’ll never forget her telling me the digits one by one as I wrote them down, trying to keep my hand from shaking. We said goodbye and went our separate ways to class, and I was like, Okay, Trevor. Play it cool. Don’t call her right away. I called her that night. At seven. She’d given me her number at two. That was me being cool. Dude, don’t call her at five. That’s too obvious. Call her at seven.
有一天，不知怎么的，我鼓起勇气向萨赫拉要了她的电话，在当时，这是件大事。因为那会儿不像现在人人都有手机，可以发短信打电话。那会儿只有座机。她家的座机。她父母可能会接起电话。有天下午我们在学校聊天，我问她：“我可以要你的电话号码吗？也许我可以给你打电话，然后我们有时在家里也可以聊天了。”她说好的，我的脑袋轰地炸了。什么？？？！！！一个女生要给我她的电话号码？？？！！！这太疯狂了！！！我该怎么做？？！！！！我太紧张了。我永远不会忘记，她是怎么一个一个地报出那串数字，我是怎么把它们一个一个用笔写下来，极力控制自己的手不要抖。好的，特雷弗，沉着，冷静，不要立刻给她打电话。我在那天傍晚拨通了号码，7点整的时候，而她是2点给的我电话号码。这就是我扮酷的手段。伙计，不要5点就打电话，太明显了，等到7点再打。
Zaheera and Gary broke up. Then they got back together. Then they broke up. Then they got back together. They kissed once, but she didn’t like it, so they never kissed again. Then they broke up for real. I bided my time through it all. I watched Popular Gary go down in flames, and I was still the good friend. Yep, the plan is working. Matric dance, here we come. Only two and a half years to go…
萨赫拉和盖瑞分手了。然后又复合了。然后又分手了。然后又复合了。他们接过一次吻，但是她不喜欢，之后就再没亲过。然后他们真的分手了。在这段过程中，我一直在忍耐。我看着帅气的盖瑞灰飞烟灭，而我依然是她的好朋友。是的，计划顺利。毕业舞会，我们来了。只差两年半了…
I phoned her house that night. Her mom answered. I said, “May I speak to Zaheera, please?” Her mom called her, and she came to the phone and we talked. For like an hour. After that we started talking more, at school, on the phone. I never told her how I felt. Never made a move. Nothing. I was always too scared.
那晚我拨通了她家的电话，她的母亲接了起来。我说：“我能找下萨赫拉吗？”她妈妈叫来了她，她接起电话，我们开始聊天。聊了大概有一个小时。从那以后，我们聊得更多了，在学校聊，在电话上聊。我从没有向她袒露过我的心事，从未采取过任何行动。什么都没有。我太害怕了。
Then we had the mid-year school holidays. The day we came back, Zaheera wasn’t at school. Then she wasn’t at school the next day. Then she wasn’t at school the day after that. Eventually I went and tracked down Johanna on the quad.
然后我们放了个期中假，返校那天，萨赫拉没有出现，第二天也没来，第三天也没来。最后，我跑到院子里堵到了约翰娜。
“Hey, where’s Zaheera?” I said. “She hasn’t been around for a while. Is she sick?”
“嘿，萨赫拉去哪儿了？”我问道，“几天没看到她了。她病了吗？”
She ran off and left me standing there, stunned. She’d hit me with so much information at once, first that Zaheera was gone, then that she had left for America, and then that she’d liked me all along. It was like I’d been hit by three successive waves of heartbreak, each one bigger than the last. My mind raced through all the hours we’d spent talking on the quad, on the phone, all the times I could have said, “Hey, Zaheera, I like you. Will you be my girlfriend?” Ten words that might have changed my life if I’d had the courage to say them. But I hadn’t, and now she was gone.
她跑远了，留我站在原地，目瞪口呆。她一次性给了我太多信息，先是萨赫拉走了，再是她移民去美国了，最后是她原来一直喜欢我。就好像我连续经历了三次心碎的波涛，而且每一次都比前一次更加汹涌。我的思绪开始回到那些聊天的现场，在院子里，在电话里，每一次我都应该把那句话说出口：“嘿，萨赫拉，我喜欢你。你愿意做我的女朋友吗？”就这十八个字，如果我能有勇气把它们说出来，也许我的一生会就此不同。但是我没说，现在她已经离开了。
“Yeah, she left.”
“是的，她离开了。”
“Uh… yeah,” I said, still trying to process everything. “I liked Zaheera. She was really cool.”
“呃…是啊，”我一边答应着，脑子里一边还在消化这些信息。“我挺喜欢萨赫拉的。她真的很酷。”
“What?”
“什么？”
My first thought was, Wow, okay. That’s news. I should give her a call to catch up.
我的第一个反应是，哇哦，好吧，我都不知道，我得给她打个电话问问怎么回事。
“What?”
“什么？”
“Yeah. She’s gone. She was such a good friend, too. I’m really sad. Are you as sad as I am?”
“是啊，她走了。她是我那么好的朋友，我好难过。你是不是也挺难过的？”
“She didn’t. Her dad got a job in America. During the break they moved there. They’ve emigrated.”
“她没转学。她爸爸在美国找了份工作。放假期间他们全家搬去美国了。他们移民了。”
“What school did she move to?” I asked.
“她转学去哪个学校了啊？”我问。
“Yeah, she was super sad, too, because she had such a huge crush on you. She was always waiting for you to ask her out. Okay, I gotta go to class! Bye!”
“是啊，她也超级难过，因为她一直很喜欢你，一直在等你约她出去呢。好了，我要去上课了！拜拜！”
“No,” she said. “Didn’t anyone tell you? She left the school. She doesn’t go here anymore.”
“没有，”她答道，“没人告诉你吗？她离开学校了。她不在这儿读了。”
In every nice neighborhood there’s one white family that Does Not Give a Fuck. You know the family I’m talking about. They don’t do their lawn, don’t paint the fence, don’t fix the roof. Their house is shit. My mom found that house and bought it, which is how she snuck a black family into a place as white as Highlands North.
每一个社区里，肯定都会有一户那种对什么都不管不顾的白人家庭。你知道我说的是哪种。他们从来不除草，不粉刷栅栏，不修屋顶。他们的房子就是一坨屎。我妈妈找到那个房子，然后买下来，把一个黑人家庭塞进了高地北这样的纯种白人社区。
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Most black people integrating into white suburbs were moving to places like Bramley and Lombardy East. But for some reason my mom chose Highlands North. It was a suburban area, lots of shopping. Working people, mostly. Not wealthy but stable and middle-class. Older houses, but still a nice place to live. In Soweto I was the only white kid in the black township. In Eden Park I was the only mixed kid in the colored area. In Highlands North I was the only black kid in the white suburb — and by “only” I mean only. In Highlands North the white never took flight. It was a largely Jewish neighborhood, and Jewish people don’t flee. They’re done fleeing. They’ve already fled. They get to a place, build their shul, and hold it down. Since the white people around us weren’t leaving, there weren’t a lot of families like ours moving in behind us.
大多数搬到郊区的黑人，都会选择布拉姆利和伦巴第这样的地方，但是出于一些原因，我妈妈选择了高地北。这片郊区有很多的商铺，住的多是上班族。虽然不是非常富有，却是一个很稳定的中产阶级社区。房子虽然旧，但依然是个很好的安身之所。在索韦托，我是黑人小镇上唯一的白人小孩。在伊登公园，我是这个有色人种聚居区里唯一的混血小孩。在高地北，我是这个白人郊区里唯一的黑人小孩——“唯一”在这里的意思就是唯一一个。高地北的白人从来不会离开。这里是一片犹太人聚居区，而犹太人从来不搬家，他们已经厌倦了颠沛流离，他们已经流浪太多年了。他们到了一个地方，建起他们的教堂，就扎了根。既然我们身边的白人家庭都不搬家，也就没有其他像我们这样的家庭能够搬进来了。
I didn’t make any friends in Highlands North for the longest time. I had an easier time making friends in Eden Park, to be honest. In the suburbs, everyone lived behind walls. The white neighborhoods of Johannesburg were built on white fear — fear of black crime, fear of black uprisings and reprisals — and as a result virtually every house sits behind a six-foot wall, and on top of that wall is electric wire. Everyone lives in a plush, fancy maximum-security prison. There is no sitting on the front porch, no saying hi to the neighbors, no kids running back and forth between houses. I’d ride my bike around the neighborhood for hours without seeing a single kid. I’d hear them, though. They were all meeting up behind brick walls for playdates I wasn’t invited to. I’d hear people laughing and playing and I’d get off my bike and creep up and peek over the wall and see a bunch of white kids splashing around in someone’s swimming pool. I was like a Peeping Tom, but for friendship.
在高地北的很长一段时间内，我一个朋友都没有。实话说，相比之下，我在伊登公园都比这里要容易交到朋友。在这片郊区，所有人都住在高墙里。约翰内斯堡的白人社区是建立在白人恐惧之上的——恐惧黑人犯罪，恐惧黑人暴动，恐惧黑人复仇——结果就是，所有的家庭都修葺了两米高的墙，顶上还安了电网。每个人都住在极度安全的豪华监狱里，没有小孩会在房子之间跑来跑去。我可以骑着自行车在附近转悠几个小时，然后看不见一个小孩，虽然我可能听到他们的声音。他们都在高墙后面，请了朋友们来家里玩耍，但没有人邀请过我。我可以听到他们嬉笑打闹的声音，然后我会下车，爬上墙，往他们的院子里望去，我会看到几个白人小孩在游泳池里相互泼水。我就像个变态偷窥狂，只是我偷窥的是朋友之间的友谊。
It was only after a year or so that I figured out the key to making black friends in the suburbs: the children of domestics. Many domestic workers in South Africa, when they get pregnant they get fired. Or, if they’re lucky, the family they work for lets them stay on and they can have the baby, but then the baby goes to live with relatives in the homelands. Then the black mother raises the white children, seeing her own child only once a year at the holidays. But a handful of families would let their domestics keep their children with them, living in little maids’ quarters or flatlets in the backyard.
过了一年左右，我才找到在这种郊区交到朋友的诀窍：用人的孩子。在南非，很多用人一旦怀孕就被解雇了。如果够幸运的话，雇主家庭会把她留下，但生完孩子后，就要把小孩送回黑人家园让亲戚来照顾，然后这位黑人母亲要回来照顾雇主家的白人小孩，自己只能在一年一次的假期里看到自己的孩子。但是也有一批家庭，同意让用人把自己的小孩带在身边，她们可以带着小孩住在后院的用人房中。
For a long time, those kids were my only friends.
在很长一段时间内，那些用人的孩子是我唯一的朋友。
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