那些無法抗拒的名篇34:The Memory Keeper's Daughter 不存在的女兒(節(jié)選)

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Daughter

34 不存在的女兒

The snow started to fall several hours before her labor began. A few flakes first, in the dull gray late-afternoon sky, and then wind-driven swirls and eddies around the edges of their wide front porch. He stood by her side at the window, watching sharp gusts of snow billow, then swirl and drift to the ground. All around the neighborhood, lights came on, and the naked branches of the trees turned white.

她臨盆前幾小時下起了雪。起先只是午后陰沉的天上飄下幾朵雪花，而后大風(fēng)吹得雪花滾滾飛揚，盤旋在他們家寬敞前廊的邊際。他站在她身旁，倚在窗邊，看著雪花在強風(fēng)中翻騰、回旋，緩緩飄落到地面。附近家家戶戶點亮了燈火，光禿禿的樹枝變得雪白。

After dinner he built a fire, venturing out into the weather for wood he had piled against the garage the previous autumn. The air was bright and cold against his face, and the snow in the driveway was already halfway to his knees. He gathered logs, shaking off their soft white caps and carrying them inside. The kindling in the iron grate caught fire immediately, and he sat for a time on the hearth, cross-legged, adding logs and watching the flames leap, blue-edged and hypnotic. Outside, snow continued to fall quietly through the darkness, as bright and thick as static in the cones of light cast by the streetlights. By the time he rose and looked out the window, their car had become a soft white hill on the edge of the street. Already his footprints in the driveway had filled and disappeared.

晚餐后，他生了一爐火。他鼓起勇氣走入風(fēng)雪中，去拿秋季堆積在車庫旁邊的柴火。冷冽的寒風(fēng)打著他的臉頰，車道上的積雪已經(jīng)深及腿肚。他撿起木頭，抖去上面松軟的白雪，抱著木頭走回屋內(nèi)。壁爐里的火花馬上引燃熊熊火光，他在壁爐前盤腿坐了一會，一面添加木頭，一面看著火花躍動，火焰周圍帶著一圈藍光，令人昏昏欲睡。屋外，白雪在黑暗中靜靜地持續(xù)飄落，在街燈的照耀下，既靜謐，又明亮、厚實。等到他起身往窗外一看，他們的車已經(jīng)變成街角的一座白色小山丘，先前印在車道上的腳印已被填滿，不見蹤跡。

He brushed ashes from his hands and sat on the sofa beside his wife, her feet propped on pillows, her swollen ankles crossed, a copy of Dr. Spock balanced on her belly. Absorbed, she licked her index finger absently each time she turned a page. Her hands were slender, her fingers short and sturdy, and she bit her bottom lip lightly, intently, as she read. Watching her, he felt a surge of love and wonder: that she was his wife, that their baby, due in just three weeks, would soon be born. Their first child, this would be. They had been married just a year.

他拍去雙手上的灰燼，坐到沙發(fā)上的妻子身旁。她雙腳墊在靠枕上，腫脹的腳踝交疊放著，一本斯波克醫(yī)生的育兒寶典四平八穩(wěn)地擺在她肚子上。她讀得出神，每次翻頁就不自覺地舔一下食指。她雙手纖細，五指短而強壯，閱讀時心無旁鶩地輕咬著下唇。他看著她，心中頓時充滿了摯愛與驚嘆:她是他的妻子，他們的寶寶即將誕生，預(yù)產(chǎn)期只剩3個星期。這是他們第一個寶寶，而他倆結(jié)婚才一年。

She looked up, smiling, when he tucked the blanket around her legs. "You know, I’ve been wondering what it's like,"she said. "Before we're bom, I mean. It's too bad we can't remember." She opened her robe and pulled up the sweater she wore underneath, revealing a belly as round and hard as a melon. She ran her hand across its smooth surface, firelight playing across her skin, casting reddish gold onto her hair. "Do you suppose it's like being inside a great lantern? The book says light-permeates my skin, that the baby can already see."

他拿了條毯子蓋住她的雙腿，她微笑地抬起頭。“你知道嗎?我始終想不通那是什么感覺。”她說，“我是說出生之前。真可惜我們不記得。”她拉開袍子，脫下穿在里面的毛衣，露出像西瓜般圓硬的腹部。她伸手撫過它圓滑的表面，火光映在她的臉上，在她的發(fā)際灑下金紅色的光影。“你猜那種感覺像不像置身一個大燈籠里?書上說燈光能透過我的皮膚，小寶寶能看得見。”

"I don't know,"he said.

“我不知道。”他說。

She laughed. "Why not?" she asked. "You’re the doctor."

她笑了笑說，“怎么不知道?”她問道，“你是個醫(yī)生。”

"I'm just an orthopedic surgeon," he reminded her. "I could tell you the ossification pattern for fetal bones, but that's about it."He lifted her foot, both delicate and swollen inside the light blue sock, and began to massage it gently: the powerful tarsal bone of her heel, the metatarsals and the phalanges，hidden beneath skin and densely layered muscles like a fan about to open. Her breathing filled the quiet room, her foot warmed his hands, and he imagined the perfect, secret, symmetry of bones. In pregnancy she seemed to him beautiful but fragile, fine blue veins faintly visible through her pale white skin.

“我只是個骨科醫(yī)生。”他提醒她，“我可以告訴你小寶寶在胚胎時期的骨化歷程，但僅此而已。”他抬高她一只腳，裹在淺藍色襪子里的雙腳細膩而腫脹，他輕輕地按摩:她腳后跟的跗骨強勁有力，腳掌骨和趾骨隱藏在肌膚之下，密密相迭的肌肉仿佛是把即將展開的扇子。房間里靜得能聽到她的呼吸聲，她的腳溫暖了他的雙手，他腦海中浮現(xiàn)出骨頭的完美、隱秘與勻稱。在他眼里，懷孕的她顯得美麗而脆弱，蒼白的肌膚上隱約可見細微的藍色血管。

It had been an excellent pregnancy，without medical restrictions. Even so, he had not been able to make love to her for several months. He found himself wanting to protect her instead, to carry her up flights of stairs, to wrap her in blankets, to bring her cups of custard. "I’m not an invalid," she protested each time, laughing. "I’m not some fledgling you discovered on the lawn." Still, she was pleased by his attentions. Sometimes he woke and watched her as she slept: the flutter of her eyelids, the slow even movement of her chest, her outflung hand, small enough that he could enclose it completely with his own.

懷孕過程非常順利，醫(yī)生也沒有給出什么限制。盡管如此，他己好幾個月沒有跟她燕好。他發(fā)現(xiàn)自己只想保護她，抱她上樓、替她蓋被子、幫她端布丁等等。“我不是病人，”她每次都笑著抗議，“也不是你在草坪上發(fā)現(xiàn)的雛鳥。”雖說如此，他的關(guān)愛其實令她相當(dāng)開心。有時他醒來看著沉睡中的她，她的眼睫毛輕輕眨動，胸脯緩慢而平穩(wěn)地起伏，一只手伸到一旁，小巧得能讓他完全握住。

She was eleven years younger than he was. He had first seen her not much more than a year ago, as she rode up an escalator in a department store downtown, one gray November Saturday while he was buying ties. He was thirty-three years old and new to Lexington, Kentucky, and she had risen out of the crowd like some kind of vision, her blond hair swept back in an elegant chignon, pearls glimmering at her throat and on her ears. She was wearing a coat of dark green wool, and her skin was clear and pale. He stepped onto the escalator, pushing his way upward through the crowd, struggling to keep her in sight. She went to the fourth floor, lingerie and hosiery. When he tried to follow her through aisles dense with racks of slips and brassieres and panties, all glimmering softly, a sales clerk in a navy blue dress with a white collar stopped him, smiling, to ask if she could help. A robe, he said, scanning the aisles until he caught sight of her hair, a dark green shoulder, her Gent head revealing the elegant pale curve of her neck. A robe for my sister who lives in New Orleans. He had no sister, of course, or any living family that he acknowledged.

她比他小11歲。一年前，他們初次相逢。當(dāng)時是11月的一個星期六，天氣陰沉，他到市區(qū)的一家百貨商店買領(lǐng)帶，剛好看到她乘電扶梯上樓。33歲的他剛搬到肯塔基州的萊克星頓。她從人群中脫穎而出，仿佛美景般，一頭金發(fā)在腦后盤成優(yōu)雅的髻，珍珠在她頸部與耳際閃閃發(fā)光。她穿著一件深綠色的毛外套，肌膚澄凈而潔白。他踏上電扶梯，推開人群往上走，力圖讓她不要離開自己的視線。她走到四樓的內(nèi)衣與絲襪柜臺，他試圖跟隨著她，穿過一排排掛滿內(nèi)衣、胸罩、內(nèi)褲的貨架，件件衣物散發(fā)出柔軟的光澤。有位穿白領(lǐng)和天藍色外套的售貨小姐攔下了他，微笑著詢問有何需要服務(wù)之處，他說想找件睡袍，同時雙眼不停地在貨架間搜尋，直至看到她的金發(fā)及深綠色的身影為止。她微微低頭，露出潔白優(yōu)美的頸線。我想幫住在新奧爾良的妹妹買件睡袍，他當(dāng)然沒有妹妹，或是任何他所認(rèn)識的、尚在人間的親人。

The clerk disappeared and came back a moment later with three robes in sturdy terry cloth. He chose blindly, hardly glancing down, taking the one on top. Three sizes, the clerk was saying, and a better selection of colors next month, but he was already in the aisle, a coral-colored robe draped over his arm, his shoes squeaking on the tiles as he moved impatiently between the other shoppers to where she stood.

售貨小姐離開沒多久，拿來了三件質(zhì)料結(jié)實的絨布睡袍，他漫不經(jīng)心地挑揀，幾乎連看都沒看就拿起最上面那件。售貨小姐說有三種尺寸，下個月還有更多顏色可供挑選，但他已經(jīng)走向貨架之間，手臂上搭著那件珊瑚色的睡袍，皮鞋在地磚上發(fā)出刺耳的聲響，焦急地邁過其他顧客朝她走去。

She was shuffling through the stacks of expensive stockings, sheer colors shining through slick cellophane windows: taupe, navy, a maroon as dark as pig’s blood. The sleeve of her green coat brushed his and he smelled her perfume, something delicate and yet pervasive, something like the dense pale petals of lilacs outside the window of the student rooms he' d once occupied in Pittsburgh. The squat windows of his basement apartment were always grimy, opaque with steel-factory soot and ash, but in the spring there were lilacs blooming, sprays of white and lavender pressing against the glass, their scent drifting in like light.

她正在看一疊昂貴的絲襪，絲襪細致的色彩映著光滑的玻璃柜臺閃閃發(fā)亮:灰褐、天藍，還有像豬血般暗沉的紅栗。她綠色外套的衣袖掃過他的袖口，他聞到她的香水，氣味淡雅卻彌漫各處，好像他以前在匹茲堡學(xué)生宿舍窗外濃密、潔白的紫丁香花瓣。當(dāng)年他住在地下室，低矮的窗戶外面一片灰暗，總是蒙著鋼鐵工廠的煤灰。但到了春天紫丁香盛開時，潔白與淡紫色的花瓣緊貼著窗面，香氣如同光線般飄進室內(nèi)。

作者介紹:

金·愛德華茲:生于德州，長于紐約，現(xiàn)為肯塔基大學(xué)英文系助理教授，常在各地舉辦寫作工作坊，著有短篇小說集《火王的秘密》。《不存在的女兒》是她出版的第一部長篇小說。她是美國各大文學(xué)獎項的常客。2002年她獲得懷丁基金會的懷丁作家獎，1998年則入選海明威文學(xué)獎。她還得過芝加哥論壇報舉辦的倪爾森愛格林獎、全國雜志獎等。

醫(yī)生戴維親自為妻子接生，發(fā)現(xiàn)雙胞胎中的女嬰患有唐氏癥。不忍面對女兒為智障的現(xiàn)實，他讓護士將女兒送走，并對妻子諾拉謊稱她已經(jīng)夭折。善意的欺騙竟成了一家人的惡夢……25年間，諾拉不能承受喪女之痛，開始出走、酗酒，而戴維終日被滿心愧疚糾纏卻無法言說，只能帶著一架“記憶守護者”牌相機去尋找女嬰、女孩、少女的影子，仿佛要為他那不存在的女兒留下成長的記錄。暗戀戴維的護士卡羅琳并沒有送走女孩，她搬到另一個城市隱姓埋名。以一己之力對抗社會的不公，盡力給女兒一個溫暖的家……多年后，戴維和卡羅琳再次相遇，她對他說:“你逃過了很多心痛，但你也錯過了無數(shù)的喜悅。”