双语名著·追风筝的人 The Kite Runner(87)

12岁的阿富汗富家少爷阿米尔与仆人哈桑情同手足。然而，在一场风筝比赛后，发生了一件悲惨不堪的事，阿米尔为自己的懦弱感到自责和痛苦，逼走了哈桑，不久，自己也跟随父亲逃往美国。

成年后的阿米尔始终无法原谅自己当年对哈桑的背叛。为了赎罪，阿米尔再度踏上暌违二十多年的故乡，希望能为不幸的好友尽最后一点心力，却发现一个惊天谎言，儿时的噩梦再度重演，阿米尔该如何抉择?

故事如此残忍而又美丽，作者以温暖细腻的笔法勾勒人性的本质与救赎，读来令人荡气回肠。

下面就跟小编一起来欣赏双语名著·追风筝的人 The Kite Runner(87)的精彩内容吧！

IT WENT ON LIKE THAT for a few weeks. I’d wait until the general went for a stroll, then I’d walk past the Taheris’ stand. If Khanum Taheri was there, she’d offer me tea and a kolcha and we’d chat about Kabul in the old days, the people we knew, her arthritis. Undoubtedly, she had noticed that my appearances always coincided with her husband’s absences, but she never let on. “Oh you just missed your Kaka,” she’d say. I actually liked it when Khanum Taheri was there, and not just because of her amiable ways; Soraya was more relaxed, more talkative with her mother around. As if her presence legitimized whatever was happening between us--though certainly not to the same degree that the general’s would have. Khanum Taheri’s chaperoning made our meetings, if not gossip-proof, then less gossip-worthy, even if her borderline fawning on me clearly embarrassed Soraya.
One day, Soraya and I were alone at their booth, talking. She was telling me about school, how she too was working on her general education classes, at Ohlone Junior College in Fremont.
“What will you major in?”
“I want to be a teacher,” she said.
“Really? Why?”
“I’ve always wanted to. When we lived in Virginia, I became ESL certified and now I teach at the public library one night a week. My mother was a teacher too, she taught Farsi and history at Zarghoona High School for girls in Kabul.”
A potbellied man in a deerstalker hat offered three dollars for a five-dollar set of candlesticks and Soraya let him have it. She dropped the money in a little candy box by her feet. She looked at me shyly. “I want to tell you a story,” she said, “but I’m a little embarrassed about it.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s kind of silly.”
“Please tell me.”
She laughed. “Well, when I was in fourth grade in Kabul, my father hired a woman named Ziba to help around the house. She had a sister in Iran, in Mashad, and, since Ziba was illiterate, she’d ask me to write her sister letters once in a while. And when the sister replied, I’d read her letter to Ziba. One day, I asked her if she’d like to learn to read and write. She gave me this big smile, crinkling her eyes, and said she’d like that very much. So we’d sit at the kitchen table after I was done with my own schoolwork and I’d teach her Alef-beh. I remember looking up sometimes in the middle of homework and seeing Ziba in the kitchen, stirring meat in the pressure cooker, then sitting down with a pencil to do the alphabet homework I’d assigned to her the night before.
“Anyway, within a year, Ziba could read children’s books. We sat in the yard and she read me the tales of Dara and Sara--slowly but correctly. She started calling me Moalem Soraya, Teacher Soraya.” She laughed again. “I know it sounds childish, but the first time Ziba wrote her own letter, I knew there was nothing else I’d ever want to be but a teacher. I was so proud of her and I felt I’d done something really worthwhile, you know?”
“Yes,” I lied. I thought of how I had used my literacy to ridicule Hassan. How I had teased him about big words he didn’t know.
“My father wants me to go to law school, my mother’s always throwing hints about medical school, but I’m going to be a teacher. Doesn’t pay much here, but it’s what I want.”
“My mother was a teacher too,” I said.

好几个星期都是如此这般。我等到将军散步离开，然后走过塔赫里的货摊。如果塔赫里太太在，她会请我喝茶、吃饼干，我们会谈起旧时在喀布尔的光景，那些我们认识的人，还有她的关节炎。她显然注意到我总是在她丈夫离开的时候出现，但她从不揭穿。“哦，你家叔叔刚刚才走开。”她会说。我真的喜欢塔赫里太太在那儿，并且不仅是由于她和善的态度，还因为有她母亲在场，索拉雅会变得更放松、更健谈。何况她在也让我们之间的交往显得正常——虽然不能跟塔赫里将军在场相提并论。有了塔赫里太太的监护，我们的约会就算不能杜绝风言风语，至少也可以少招惹一些。不过她对我套近乎的态度明显让索拉雅觉得尴尬。
某天，索拉雅跟我单独在他们的货摊上交谈。她正告诉我学校里的事情，她如何努力学习她的通选课程，她在弗里蒙特的“奥龙专科学校”就读。
“你打算主修什么呢?”
“我想当老师。”她说。
“真的吗?为什么?”
“这是我一直梦想的。我们在弗吉尼亚生活的时候，我获得了英语培训证书，现在我每周有一个晚上到公共图书馆教书。我妈妈过去也是教师，她在喀布尔的高级中学教女生法尔西语和历史。”
一个大腹便便的男人头戴猎帽，出价3块钱，想买一组5块钱的烛架，索拉雅卖给他。她把钱丢进脚下那个小小的糖果罐，羞涩地望着我。“我想给您讲个故事，”她说，“可是我有点难为情。”
“讲来听听。”
“它有点傻。”
“告诉我吧。”
她笑起来,“好吧，在喀布尔，我四年级的时候，我爸爸请了个打理家务的佣人，叫兹芭。她有个姐妹在伊朗的马夏德。因为兹芭不识字，每隔不久，她就会求我给她姐妹写信。每当她姐妹回信，我会念给兹芭听。有一天，我问她想不想读书识字。她给我一个大大的微笑，双眼放光，说她很想很想。所以，我完成自己的作业之后，我们就坐在厨房的桌子上，我教她认字母。我记得有时候，我作业做到一半，抬起头，发现兹芭在厨房里，搅搅高压锅里面的牛肉，然后坐下，用铅笔做我前一天夜里给她布置的字母表作业。”
“不管怎样，不到一年，兹芭能读儿童书了。我们坐在院子里，她给我念达拉和沙拉的故事——念得很慢，不过全对。她开始管我叫‘索拉雅老师’。”她又笑起来，“我知道这听起来很孩子气，但当兹芭第一次自己写信，我就知道自己除了教书，别的什么都不想做。我为她骄傲，觉得自己做了些真正有价值的事情。您说呢?”
“是的。”我说谎。我想起自己如何愚弄不识字的哈桑，如何用他不懂的晦涩字眼取笑他。
“我爸爸希望我去念法学院，我妈妈总是暗示我选择医学院。但我想要成为教师。虽然在这里收入不高，但那是我想要的。”
“我妈妈也是教师。”我说。