Yet there had always been more difficult neighbours: bears and wolves, which she scared away with bangers, and a few thugs, fans of hard-right politicians, who rode motorbikes among the goats or set their dogs on them. In 2018 a man came into the barn as she cleaned the milking machine, seized her by the shoulder and told her to go back home. Another sliced the udder from one of her loveliest pure-white goats. She had blamed wolves at first. It felt safer now to move down from her secluded mountain shelter to Plankerhof, a hamlet near Frassilongo, to a flat beside the church.
然而,她免不了應付一些不友善的鄰居:熊和狼,她用鞭炮嚇跑了這些畜生;還有暴徒,極端右翼狂熱分子,他們騎著摩托在羊群里穿梭叫囂,或是讓自家的狗攻擊羊群。2018年的一天,阿吉圖在清理擠奶機,一名男子徑直闖進畜棚,抓住她的肩膀,讓她滾回自己的老家。另一個暴徒甚至砍掉了她最心愛的白山羊的乳房,起初她還以為是狼干的。從僻靜的山間小屋搬到弗拉西隆戈附近的村莊普勒克霍夫,住進教堂旁的公寓后,她才感覺松了一口氣。
The intruders said her goats had damaged their property. They also objected to the African refugees and migrants she took on to help when she was busiest. That was her latest project, to use a fine resource that was being wasted, just like the land. She would find young men with permission to stay, but no work, and teach them to look after goats. Naturally they could handle it; they were refugees. Local jobless lads might want to join in too, and they could even form co-operatives—her teeming mind running ahead of itself, as usual. She began by taking on one young man at a time, from Ghana or Mali, hoping to transform them into goat-lovers as fervent as herself. From the start, as they climbed up to pasture, she would ask them: “Are you happy?” They had to be, she felt. But it was not so for Suleiman from Ghana, who just after Christmas argued with her about unpaid wages, and ended by killing her.
闖入者控訴她的山羊破壞了他們的財產。也不滿她在繁忙季節招募非洲難民和移民幫忙一事。而這是她的新項目。這些難民是被浪費的寶貴資源,就像之前的那片荒地一樣。她要找那些合法居留但沒有工作的年輕人,教他們放羊。他們是難民,自然能應付得來。當地失業的小伙子可能也想加入,他們甚至可以合作——她的想法總是層出不窮。一開始,她每次只雇一名加納或馬里的小伙,希望他們也能成為她這樣愛羊如命的人。一開始,當他們爬上牧場,她會問他們:"你們幸福嗎?”在她看來,他們肯定幸福。但對來自加納的蘇萊曼來說,情況并非如此。蘇萊曼在圣誕節剛過就向阿吉圖討要拖欠的薪水,兩人發生爭執,一怒之下,蘇萊曼殺了她。
Evading the police, he fled up to the barn and tried to lose himself among the goats. But they were hungry and agitated by the absence of their mistress, and did not welcome him. Once he was taken away, the good neighbours of Frassilongo trudged through the snow to feed them.
為了避開警察的追捕,蘇萊曼逃到羊圈,想藏匿于羊圈里。但沒有阿吉圖的悉心照料,山羊們饑腸轆轆,對他很是排斥。兇手被抓走后,善良的弗拉西隆戈居民們冒著大雪前來給羊群喂食。
譯文由可可原創,僅供學習交流使用,未經許可請勿轉載。