評(píng)論
打印
One day weeks afterward, I was standing by the door of the shoe store while my mother tried on shoes, and I heard a woman running past the store call, "Mike!" I was suddenly convinced that this woman must be Mike's mother. I was now running out of the store—thinking only that in another minute I would see him.
幾周后的某一天，我陪母親去鞋店試鞋。當(dāng)我站在鞋店門口時(shí)，聽見一個(gè)女人跑過商店，喊著“邁克”，突然間我認(rèn)為她就是邁克的母親。我跑出了鞋店，希望馬上就可以見到他。
The woman had caught up with a boy about five years old. A common name. A stupid flat-faced child with dirty blond hair. My heart was beating in big thumps, like howls happening in my chest.
那個(gè)女人攆上了一個(gè)大約5歲的小男孩兒。一個(gè)太普通的名字。那是一個(gè)傻傻的男孩兒，有一張扁平的臉，臟臟的金發(fā)。我的心咚咚地跳個(gè)不停，就像是胸腔在咆哮。
Sunny had met my bus in Uxbridge that summer of 1979. She was a bright-faced woman, with silvery brown curly hair caught back by unmatched combs on either side of her face. Even when she put on weight—which she had done—she looked not matronly but majestically girlish.
1979年的夏天，賽妮在歐克斯橋的客車站接我。她是一個(gè)精氣神十足的女子，銀棕色的卷發(fā)用不對(duì)稱的梳子別在頭的兩側(cè)。即便當(dāng)她發(fā)胖時(shí)——現(xiàn)在她確實(shí)是胖了——她看上去也不像是結(jié)了婚的女人，而像是帶有幾分莊重的女孩子。
She swept me into her life as she had always done, telling me that she had thought she was going to be late, because Claire had got a bug in her ear that morning and had had to be taken to the hospital to have it flushed out. Then the dog threw up on the kitchen step. Johnston was making the boys clean it up because they had wanted a dog.
她還是像往常一樣，把我卷入她的生活，告訴我她還以為自己會(huì)遲到，因?yàn)榕畠嚎巳R爾早上把臭蟲放進(jìn)自己的耳朵，她不得不帶她到醫(yī)院把蟲子沖洗出來。后來，狗又在她家廚房的臺(tái)階上嘔吐，約翰斯頓便讓孩子們把它沖洗干凈，因?yàn)槭撬麄兿胍B(yǎng)的狗。
"So suppose we go someplace nice and quiet and get drunk and never go back there?" she said. "We have to, though. Johnston invited a friend whose wife and kids are away in Ireland, and they want to go and play golf."
“本想我們找一個(gè)安靜漂亮的地方，喝上幾杯，不醉不歸？”她說道，“可是，我們不得不回去，約翰斯頓邀請(qǐng)了一個(gè)朋友，恰好那個(gè)朋友的妻子和孩子都回愛爾蘭了，所以他倆要去打高爾夫球。”
Sunny and I had been friends in Vancouver years before. Our pregnancies had dovetailed, so that we had managed with one set of maternity clothes. In my kitchen or in hers, once a week or so, distracted by our children and sometimes reeling for lack of sleep, we stoked ourselves up on strong coffee and cigarettes and launched out on a rampage of talk—about our marriages, our fights, our personal deficiencies, our interesting and discreditable motives, our forgone ambitions. We read Jung at the same time and tried to keep track of our dreams. During that time of life that is supposed to be a reproductive daze, with the woman's mind all swamped by maternal juices, we were still compelled to discuss Simone de Beauvofr and Arthur Koestler and "The Cocktail Party".
幾年前在溫哥華，賽妮和我就是朋友。我們倆的懷孕期正好前后相接，所以我們能夠共用一套孕婦服。我們大約每周都要在我的廚房或她的廚房聚會(huì)一次。孩子總是不斷地打擾我們，有時(shí)我們還會(huì)因?yàn)槿庇X而感到頭暈?zāi)垦?，于是我們就用大量的濃咖啡和香煙給自己提神，開始天南海北地聊天，所談的話題無所不包：我們的婚姻、奮斗、個(gè)人的不足、既有趣又有些丟臉的動(dòng)機(jī)，以及我們?cè)?jīng)有過的理想抱負(fù)。我們同時(shí)讀榮格的書，試圖記錄分析我們?cè)鲞^的夢(mèng)。生命中的那段時(shí)光本應(yīng)是忙于照看孩子，大腦處在一種產(chǎn)后帶來的恍惚忙碌中，可我們卻討論著西蒙娜·德·波伏娃、亞瑟·庫斯勒以及《雞尾酒會(huì)》。
