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His feijoada was amazing, anyway. Decadent, spicy and rich—everything you can't nor-mally get in Balinese food. I ate plate after plate of the pork and decided that it was official: I can never be a vegetarian, not with food like this in the world. And then we went out dancing at this local nightclub, if you can call it a nightclub. It was more like a groovy beach shack, only without the beach. There was a live band of Balinese kids playing good reggae music, and the place was mixed up with revelers of all ages and nationalities, expats and tourists and locals and gorgeous Balinese boys and girls, all dancing freely, unself-consciously. Armenia hadn't come along, claiming she had to work the next day, but the handsome older Brazilian man was my host. He wasn't such a bad dancer as he claimed. Probably he can play soccer, too. I liked having him nearby, opening doors for me, complimenting me, calling me "darling." Then again, I noticed that he called everyone "darling"—even the hairy male bartender. Still, the attention was nice . . .
無論如何，他的黑豆烤肉棒極了。頹廢、辛辣、醇厚——巴厘島食物當中通常吃不到的一切。我一盤接一盤地吃烤肉，決定承認：只要這世界上有這種食物存在，我就永遠吃不成素。而后我們去當地一家舞廳跳舞，如果能稱之為舞廳的話。它更像是時髦的海灘棚屋，只是少了海灘。有個巴厘島年輕人組成的現場樂團，演奏很不錯的雷鬼音樂，舞廳里的人形形色色，各種年紀與國籍，海外人士、游客、當地人、炫麗的巴厘島少男少女，人人跳得渾然忘我。亞美尼亞沒來，她說隔天得干活兒，但年長的巴西美男子招待我。他不像自己宣稱的那樣舞跳得不好。或許他也會踢足球。我喜歡他在身邊，為我開門，恭維我，叫我"甜心"。而后，我發現他對每個人都叫"甜心"——連毛茸茸的男酒保也是。盡管如此，有人獻殷勤還真是不錯……
It had been so long since I'd been in a bar. Even in Italy I didn't go to bars, and I hadn't been out much during the David years, either. I think the last time I'd gone dancing was back when I was married . . . back when I was happily married, come to think of it. Dear God, it had been ages. Out on the dance floor I ran into my friend Stefania, a lively young Italian girl I'd met recently in a meditation class in Ubud, and we danced together, hair flying everywhere, blond and dark, spinning merrily around. Sometime after midnight, the band stopped playing and people mingled.
我很久沒去酒吧了。即使在意大利，我也不上酒吧；和大衛的那幾年間，我也很少出門。我想上回去跳舞是已婚的時候……這么說來，是在我婚姻愉快的時候。老天爺，那是幾百年前的事了。我在舞池碰上我的朋友史黛芬妮亞，她是最近我在烏布上禪修課時所認識的一位活潑的意大利姑娘；我們一起跳舞，頭發飛揚，金發與黑發，歡樂地旋轉。午夜過后，樂團停止演奏，大家互相交談。
That's when I met the guy named Ian. Oh, I really liked this guy. Right away I really liked him. He was very good-looking, in a kind of Sting-meets-Ralph-Fiennes's-younger-brother sort of way. He was Welsh, so he had that lovely voice. He was articulate, smart, asked questions, spoke to my friend Stefania in the same baby Italian that I speak. It turned out that he was the drummer in this reggae band, that he played bongos. So I made a joke that he was a "bonga-leer," like those guys in Venice, but with percussion instead of boats, and somehow we hit it off, started laughing and talking.
我就在此時認識了名叫伊恩的家伙。喔，我真喜歡這家伙。我真的一見面就喜歡他。他非常好看，結合史汀（Sting）與雷夫·范恩斯（Ralph Fiennes）的弟弟那一類。他是威爾士人，因此嗓音好聽。他善于表達，很聰明，很會問問題，跟我一樣用牙牙學語的意大利語和我的朋友史黛芬妮亞談話。結果他竟然是雷鬼樂團的鼓手，敲手鼓。于是我開玩笑說他是"鼓夫"，像威尼斯船夫，只不過不劃船而玩鼓，不知怎么回事，我們一拍即合，開始談笑。
