《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 88 (209):她叫亞美尼亞

Armenia, too, is a friend of Wayan's, who comes to the shop frequently for lunch and for various traditional medical and beauty treatments. She sat down and talked with us for about an hour, joining our gossiping, girlish little circle. She's in Bali for only another week before she has to fly off to Africa, or maybe it's back to Thailand, to take care of her business. This Armenia woman, it turns out, has had just the teensiest bit of glamorous life. She used to work for the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees. Back in the 1980s she had been sent into the El Salvadoran and Nicaraguan jungles during the height of war as a negotiator of peace, using her beauty and charm and wits to get all the generals and rebels to calm down and listen to reason. (Hello, pretty power!) Now she runs a multinational marketing business called Novica, which supports indigenous artists all over the world by selling their products on the Internet. She speaks about seven or eight languages. She's got the most fabulous pair of shoes I've seen since Rome.

亞美尼亞也是大姐的朋友，時常來店裏吃午飯，接受各種傳統醫療與美容服務。她坐下來，和我們聊了將近一小時，加入我們三姑六婆的小圈子。她在巴厘島的時間只剩下一個禮拜，之後得飛往非洲，或者回泰國去照管她的生意。這名叫亞美尼亞的女人過的生活原來一點也不華麗。她從前服務於聯合國難民事務高級專員辦事處。在20世紀80年代，被派去戰爭打得如火如荼的薩爾瓦多和尼加拉瓜叢林擔任和平調解員，運用她的美麗、魅力與機智，讓每個將軍和叛軍都冷靜下來聽從道理。（你好，"漂亮的力量"！）現在她經營一間名叫"Novica"的國際行銷公司，贊助全球各地的原住民藝術家在網絡上販售其產品。她大約能說七八國語言。她還穿了一雙打從羅馬之行以來我見過最亮眼的鞋子。

Looking at us both, Wayan said, "Liz—why do you never try to look sexy, like Armenia? You such a pretty girl, you have good capital of nice face, nice body, nice smile. But always you wear this same broken T-shirt, same broken jeans. Don't you want to be sexy, like her?"

大姐看着我們倆，說："小莉——你怎麼從不試試讓自己看起來性感些，像亞美尼亞一樣。你是這麼漂亮的姑娘，有好臉蛋、好身材、好看的微笑。但你一天到晚就穿同一件破T恤，同一條破牛仔褲。你不想跟她一樣性感嗎？"

"Wayan," I said, "Armenia is Brazilian. It's a completely different situation."

"大姐，"我說，"亞美尼亞是巴西人，情況完全不同。"

"How is it different?"

"哪裏不同？"