殘忍而美麗的情誼:The Kite Runner 追風箏的人(20)

That same night, I wrote my first short story. It took me thirty minutes. It was a dark little tale about a man who found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. But even though he had always been poor, he was a happy man and rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make himself sad so that his tears could make him rich. As the pearls piled up, so did his greed grow. The story ended with the man sitting on a Mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wife's slain body in his arms.

當天夜裏，我寫了自己第一篇短篇小說，花了我半個小時。那是個悲傷的小故事，講的是有個男人發現了一個魔法杯，得知如果他對着杯子哭泣，掉進杯裏的眼淚會變成珍珠。可儘管一貧如洗，他卻是個快樂的傢伙，罕得流淚。於是他想方設法，讓自己悲傷，以便那些眼淚會變成他的財富。珍珠越積越多，他越來越貪婪。小說的結尾是，那男人坐在一座珠寶山上，手裏提着刀，懷中抱着他深愛着的妻子死於非命的屍體，無助地將眼淚滴進魔法杯。

That evening, I climbed the stairs and walked into Baba's smoking room, in my hands the two sheets of paper on which I had scribbled the story. Baba and Rahim Khan were smoking pipes and sipping brandy when I came in.

入夜之後，我爬上樓，走進爸爸的吸菸室，手裏拿着兩張稿紙，上面寫着我的故事。我進去的時候，爸爸和拉辛汗邊抽大煙邊喝白蘭地。

"What is it, Amir?"Baba said, reclining on the sofa and lacing his hands behind his head. Blue smoke swirled around his face. His glare made my throat feel dry. I cleared it and told him I'd written a story.

"那是什麼，阿米爾?"爸爸說，他斜靠在沙發上，雙手放在腦後。藍色的煙霧環繞着他的臉龐，他的眼光讓我脣乾舌燥。我清清喉嚨，告訴他我創作了一篇小說。

Baba nodded and gave a thin smile that conveyed little more than feigned interest. "Well, that's very good, isn't it?" he said. Then nothing more. He just looked at me through the cloud of smoke.

爸爸點點頭，那絲微笑表明他對此並無多大興趣。"挺好的，你寫得很好吧，是嗎?"他說，然後就沒有話了，只是穿過繚繞的煙霧望着我。

I probably stood there for under a minute, but, to this day, it was one of the longest minutes of my life. Seconds plodded by, each separated from the next by an eternity. Air grew heavy damp, almost solid. I was breathing bricks. Baba went on staring me down, and didn't offer to read.

也許我在那兒站了不到一分鐘，但時至今日，那依舊是我生命中最漫長的一分鐘。時間一秒一秒過去，而一秒與一秒之間，似乎隔着永恆。空氣變得沉悶，潮溼，甚至凝固，我呼吸艱難。爸爸繼續盯着我，絲毫沒有要看一看的意思。

As always, it was Rahim Khan who rescued me. He held out his hand and favored me with a smile that had nothing feigned about it. "May I have it, Amir jan? I would very much like to read it."Baba hardly ever used the term of endearment "jan" when he addressed shrugged and stood up. He looked relieved, as if he too had been rescued by Rahim Khan. "Yes, give it to Kaka Rahim. I'm going upstairs to get ready.?And with that, he left the room. Most days I worshiped Baba with an intensity approaching the religious. But right then, I wished I could open my veins and drain his cursed blood from my body.

一如既往，仍是拉辛汗救了我。他伸出手，給我一個毫不造作的微笑:"可以讓我看看嗎，親愛的阿米爾?我會很高興能讀你寫的故事。"爸爸稱呼我的時候，幾乎從來不用這個表示親暱的"親愛的"。爸爸聳聳肩，站起來。他看上去渾身輕鬆，彷彿拉辛汗也解放了他。"這就對了，把它給拉辛汗。我要上樓去準備了。"他扔下這句話，轉身離開。在我生命的大部分時光，我對爸爸敬若神明。可是那一刻，我恨不得能扯開自己的血管，讓他那些該死的血統統流出我的身體。