諾貝爾文學經典:《寵兒》第3章Part 6

"What for?"
"I didn't understand it then. Not till I had a mark of my own."
"What happened to her?"
"Hung. By the time they cut her down nobody could tell whether she had a circle and a cross ornot, least of all me and I did look."Sethe gathered hair from the comb and leaning back tossed it into the fire. It exploded into starsand the smell infuriated them. "Oh, my Jesus," she said and stood up so suddenly the comb she hadparked in Denver's hair fell to the floor.
"Ma'am? What's the matter with you, Ma'am?"
Sethe walked over to a chair, lifted a sheet and stretched it as wide as her arms would go. Then shefolded, refolded and double folded it. She took another. Neither was completely dry but the foldingfelt too fine to stop. She had to do something with her hands because she was rememberingsomething she had forgotten she knew. Something privately shameful that had seeped into a slit inher mind right behind the slap on her face and the circled cross.
"Why they hang your ma'am?" Denver asked. This was the first time she had heard anything abouther mother's mother. Baby Suggs was the only grandmother she knew.

"I never found out. It was a lot of them," she said, but what was getting clear and clearer as shefolded and refolded damp laundry was the woman called Nan who took her hand and yanked heraway from the pile before she could make out the mark. Nan was the one she knew best, who wasaround all day, who nursed babies, cooked, had one good arm and half of another. And who useddifferent words. Words Sethe understood then but could neither recall nor repeat now. Shebelieved that must be why she remembered so little before Sweet Home except singing anddancing and how crowded it was. What Nan told her she had forgotten, along with the language she told it in. The same language her ma'am spoke, and which would never come back. But themessage — that was and had been there all along. Holding the damp white sheets against her chest,she was picking meaning out of a code she no longer understood. Nighttime. Nan holding her withher good arm, waving the stump of the other in the air. "Telling you. I am telling you, small girlSethe," and she did that. She told Sethe that her mother and Nan were together from the sea. Bothwere taken up many times by the crew. "She threw them all away but you. The one from the crewshe threw away on the island. The others from more whites she also threw away. Without names,she threw them. You she gave the name of the black man. She put her arms around him. The othersshe did not put her arms around. Never. Never. Telling you. I am telling you, small girl Sethe."

"那爲什麼？"
"當時我也不明白。直到後來我有了自己的記號。"
"她怎麼樣了？"
"吊死了。等到他們把她放下來的時候，誰也看不清楚她身上是不是有圓圈和十字，我尤其不能，可我的確看了。"塞絲從梳子上抓出頭髮，往後扔進爐火。頭髮炸成火星，那氣味激怒了她們。"噢，我的耶穌。"她說着一下子站起來，插在丹芙頭髮裏的梳子掉在地上。
"太太？你怎麼啦，太太？"
塞絲走到一把椅子旁，拾起一張牀單，盡她胳膊的長度抻開來。然後對疊，再疊，再對疊。她拿起另一張。都還沒完全晾乾，可是對疊的感覺非常舒服，她不想停下來。她手裏必須乾點什麼，因爲她又記起了某些她以爲已經忘記的事情。事關恥辱的隱私，就在臉上挨的耳光和圓圈、十字之後，早已滲入她頭腦的裂縫。
"他們幹嗎吊死你的太太？"丹芙問。這是她頭一回聽到有關她媽媽的媽媽的事。貝比·薩格斯是她知道的唯一的祖母。
"我一直沒搞明白。一共有好多人。"她說道，但當她把潮溼的衣物疊了又疊時，越來越清晰的，是那個拉着她的手、在她認出那個記號之前把她從屍首堆裏拽出來的名叫楠的女人。楠是她最熟悉的人，整天都在附近，給嬰兒餵奶，做飯，一隻胳膊是好的，另一隻只剩了半截。楠說的是另一種不同的話，塞絲當時懂得，而現在卻想不起來、不能重複的話。她相信，肯定是因爲這個，她對"甜蜜之家"以前的記憶才這麼少，只剩了唱歌、跳舞和擁擠的人羣。楠對她講的話，連同講話時使用的語音，她都已忘記了。那也是她的太太使用的語言，一去不返了。但是其中的含義——卻始終存在。她把潮溼的白牀單抱在胸前，從她不再懂得的密碼中分辨着那些含義。夜間，楠用完好的那條胳膊抓住她，在空中揮動着另一截殘肢。"告訴你，我來告訴你，小姑娘塞絲。"然後她這麼做了。楠告訴塞絲，她媽媽和楠是一起從海上來的。兩個人都有好多次被水手帶走。"她把他們全扔了，只留下你。有個跟水手生的她丟在了島上。其他許多跟白人生的她也都扔了。沒起名字就給扔了。只有你，她給起了那個黑人的名字。她用胳膊抱了他。別的人她都沒用胳膊去抱。從來沒有。從來沒有。告訴你，我在告訴你，小姑娘塞絲。"