殘忍而美麗的情誼:The Kite Runner 追風箏的人(6)

12歲的阿富汗富家少爺阿米爾與僕人哈桑情同手足。然而，在一場風箏比賽後，發生了一件悲慘不堪的事，阿米爾爲自己的懦弱感到自責和痛苦，逼走了哈桑，不久，自己也跟隨父親逃往美國。

成年後的阿米爾始終無法原諒自己當年對哈桑的背叛。爲了贖罪，阿米爾再度踏上暌違二十多年的故鄉，希望能爲不幸的好友盡最後一點心力，卻發現一個驚天謊言，兒時的噩夢再度重演，阿米爾該如何抉擇？小說如此殘忍而又美麗，作者以溫暖細膩的筆法勾勒人性的本質與救贖，讀來令人蕩氣迴腸。

As confided to a neighbor's servant by the garrulous midwife, who had then in turn told anyone who would listen, Sanaubar had taken one glance at the baby in Ali's arms, seen the cleft lip, and barked a bitter laughter.
"There," she had said. "Now you have your own idiot child to do all your smiling for you!" She had refused to even hold Hassan, and just five days later, she was gone.
Baba hired the same nursing woman who had fed me to nurse Hassan. Ali told us she was a blue-eyed Hazara woman from Bamiyan, the city of the giant Buddha statues. "What a sweet singing voice she had,"he used to say to us.
What did she sing, Hassan and I always asked, though we already knew--Ali had told us countless times. We just wanted to hear Ali sing.
He'd clear his throat and begin:
"On a high mountain I stood,
And cried the name of Ali, Lion of God.
O Ali, Lion of God, King of Men,
Bring joy to our sorrowful hearts."
Then he would remind us that there was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break.
Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words.
Mine was "Baba".
His was "Amir". My name.
Looking back on it now, I think the foundation for what happened in the winter of 1975—and all that followed—was already laid in those first words.

重點精講：

confide v. 吐露
She confided to me the secret.
她向我吐露了那個祕密。
Nowadays girls seldom confide in their mothers.
現在的女孩很少對母親吐露心事。

garrulous adj. 多嘴的，饒舌的（尤指對瑣事）
My garrulous neighbour had given away the secret.
我那愛嘮叨的鄰居已把祕密泄露了.
A garrulous woman is surely not a social figure with good grace and cultivation.
饒舌的女人肯定不是有風度教養的社交人物。

nurse v. 照顧
We'll have to put the baby to nurse.
我們只能請人照看嬰孩。
He insisted on staying up to nurse the child.
他堅持不懈來護理這個小孩。

remind v. 提醒
I feel it is absolutely necessary for me to remind him of the meeting today.
我覺得絕對有必要提醒他今天要開會。

feed v. 靠……爲生，以……爲食
They feed on plankton, the sea's drifting life.
它們吃以浮游生物爲生。
Dor locate flying insects on which they feed.
或者找到它們賴以爲生的昆蟲。

先是愛搬弄是非的接生婆告訴鄰居的僕人，那人又到處宣揚，說莎娜芭看了一眼阿里懷中的嬰兒，瞥見那兔脣，發出一陣淒厲的笑聲。

“看吧，”她說，“現在你有了這個白癡兒子，他可以替你笑了！”她不願抱着哈桑，僅僅五天之後，她離開了。

爸爸僱傭了那個餵過我的奶媽給哈桑哺乳。阿里跟我們說她是個藍眼睛的哈扎拉女人，來自巴米揚Bamiyan，阿富汗城市，在喀布爾西北150公里處。，那座城市有巨大的佛陀塑像。“她唱歌的嗓子可甜了！”他常常這麼說。

她唱什麼歌呢？哈桑跟我總是問，雖然我們已經知道--阿里已經告訴過我們無數次了，我們只是想聽阿里唱。

他清了清喉嚨，放聲唱起來：

我站在高高的山上

呼喚阿里的名字，神靈的獅子

啊～阿里，神靈的獅子，凡人的國王

給我悲傷的心靈帶來喜悅

然後他會提醒我們，喝過同樣的乳汁長大的人就是兄弟，這種親情連時間也無法拆散。

哈桑跟我喝過同樣的乳汁。我們在同一個院子裏的同一片草坪上邁出第一步。還有，在同一個屋頂下，我們說出第一個詞。

我說的是“爸爸”。

他說的是“阿米爾”。我的名字。

如今回頭看來，我認爲1975年冬天發生的事情——以及隨後所有的事情--早已在這兩個字裏埋下根源。