剛果的車輪
Pierre Mambele, taxi-driver, died on June 8th, aged 74
出租車司機皮埃爾·曼貝爾于6月8日去世，享年74歲
Since the best place to pick up a fare in Kinshasa, Congo's capital, was outside the Grand hotel (for a time, the Intercontinental), that was where Pierre Mambele usually parked his car. There he would wait, with a bottle of Sprite, under the trees for shade. His car was nothing fancy. It was a dark blue 1976 Fiat which had seen service on plenty of bad roads. The side mirrors and wind-screen-wipers had long gone, good riddance to them. The front doors could fly open at speed, so sometimes had to be tied to the chassis with plastic bags. The exhaust trailed. This car limped from one criminal mechanic to another, but as long as it ran, and people were willing to pay him for a ride, he wasn't bothered. His clothes were nothing fancy either. On most days in fashion-proud Kinshasa he wore a greasy t-shirt and dirty jeans.
因為剛果首都金沙薩最好的搭載乘客的地方是大飯店外面（有一段時間是洲際飯店），所以那里是皮埃爾·曼貝爾經常停車的地方。在那里，他會拿著一瓶雪碧，在樹下陰涼處等待。他的車并不豪華。他開的是一輛深藍色1976年的菲亞特，這輛車已經行駛過很多糟糕的道路。車上的側鏡和風擋雨刷早就不見了，謝天謝地。車的前門在速度快的時候會飛快地打開，所以有時必須用塑料袋綁在底盤上。車的排氣很落后。這輛車拉著一個又一個刑事技工緩慢行進，但只要它能跑，而且人們愿意付錢讓他搭一程，他就不會感到煩惱。他的衣服也不精致。在以時尚為豪的金沙薩，大多數日子里他都穿著油膩的T恤和臟臟的牛仔褲。
His thick glasses, mended with Sellotape, had never been much use. Yet he drove crazy-fast, pedal to the floor, roaring round the city. He was not a Kinois himself, one of that snooty so-sophisticated lot, and the other drivers outside the Grand called him "Kisangani" after the city where he was born, in the east. He spoke Swahili as well as Lingala. But he had been a taxi-driver in the capital for decades, and knew the ramshackle place like the back of his hand. Kin-la-belle, now Kin-la-poubelle, as everyone said. Driving fast also showed his contempt for any sort of authority. Soldiers toting guns in the road were a joke: pas sérieux, quel cinéma! As for the roulages, the yellow-helmet traffic cops who would leap out to bang on his windscreen and demand money for some offence he hadn't committed, he would shout and argue with them until it came to fists, and they gave up. A cop got in his way once when he was doing a three-point turn outside a grocery store. He just kept going, with the idiot spreadeagled on the bonnet.
他那副粘著透明膠帶的厚眼鏡從來沒有多大用處。然而，他卻瘋狂地開車，踩著踏板，在城市里呼嘯而過。他本人并不是金沙薩人，也不是那種傲慢而又世故的人，格蘭德外的其他司機都叫他“基桑加尼”，這個名字來自他出生的東部城市。他講斯瓦希里語和林加拉語。但他在首都開了幾十年出租車，對這個搖搖欲墜的地方了如指掌。金-拉-貝爾，現在是金-拉-波貝爾，就像大家說的。開快車也顯示出他對任何權威的蔑視。在路上攜帶槍支的士兵是個笑話：別擔心，我是奎爾電影院的！至于戴著黃色頭盔的交警，他們會會跳出來砸他的擋風玻璃，為了一些他沒有犯過的過錯向他要錢，他會大喊大叫，和他們爭吵，直到大打出手，他們才罷休。有一次，他在雜貨店外做三分轉彎時，一個警察擋住了他的去路。他繼續往前開，那個白癡像個大字型攤在引擎蓋上。
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