双语名著·追风筝的人 The Kite Runner(89)

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(89)的精彩内容吧！

He nodded. Looked from me to Baba and back again. “They’ll call you within two weeks.”
I wanted to ask him how I was supposed to live with that word, “suspicious,” for two whole weeks. How was I supposed eat, work, study? How could he send me home with that word?
I took the form and turned it in. That night, I waited until Baba fell asleep, and then folded a blanket. I used it as a prayer rug. Bowing my head to the ground, I recited half-forgotten verses from the Koran--verses the mullah had made us commit to memory in Kabul--and asked for kindness from a God I wasn’t sure existed. I envied the mullah now, envied his faith and certainty.
Two weeks passed and no one called. And when I called them, they told me they’d lost the referral. Was I sure I had turned it in? They said they would call in another three weeks. I raised hell and bargained the three weeks down to one for the CAT scan, two to see the doctor.
The visit with the pulmonologist, Dr. Schneider, was going well until Baba asked him where he was from. Dr. Schneider said Russia. Baba lost it.
“Excuse us, Doctor,” I said, pulling Baba aside. Dr. Schneider smiled and stood back, stethoscope still in hand.
“Baba, I read Dr. Schneider’s biography in the waiting room. He was born in Michigan. Michigan! He’s American, a lot more American than you and I will ever be.”
“I don’t care where he was born, he’s Roussi,” Baba said, grimacing like it was a dirty word. “His parents were Roussi, his grandparents were Roussi. I swear on your mother’s face I’ll break his arm if he tries to touch me.”
“Dr. Schneider’s parents fled from Shorawi, don’t you see? They escaped!”
But Baba would hear none of it. Sometimes I think the only thing he loved as much as his late wife was Afghanistan, his late country. I almost screamed with frustration. Instead, I sighed and turned to Dr. Schneider. “I’m sorry, Doctor. This isn’t going to work out.”
The next pulmonologist, Dr. Amani, was Iranian and Baba approved. Dr. Amani, a soft-spoken man with a crooked mustache and a mane of gray hair, told us he had reviewed the CAT scan results and that he would have to perform a procedure called a bronchoscopy to get a piece of the lung mass for pathology. He scheduled it for the following week. I thanked him as I helped Baba out of the office, thinking that now I had to live a whole week with this new word, “mass,” an even more ominous word than “suspicious.” I wished Soraya were there with me.
It turned out that, like Satan, cancer had many names. Baba’s was called “Oat Cell Carcinoma.” Advanced. Inoperable. Baba asked Dr. Amani for a prognosis. Dr. Amani bit his lip, used the word “grave.” “There is chemotherapy, of course,” he said. “But it would only be palliative.”
“What does that mean?” Baba asked.
Dr. Amani sighed. “It means it wouldn’t change the outcome, just prolong it.”
“That’s a clear answer, Dr. Amani. Thank you for that,” Baba said. “But no chemo-medication for me.” He had the same resolved look on his face as the day he’d dropped the stack of food stamps on Mrs. Dobbins’s desk.
“But Baba--”

他点点头，眼光又看看我，看看爸爸，又收回来。“两个星期之内，他们会给你打电话。”
我想质问他，带着“可疑”这个词，我怎么撑过这两个星期?我怎么能够吃饭、工作、学习?他怎么可以用这个词打发我回家?
我接过那张表格，交了上去。那晚，我等到爸爸入睡，然后叠起一条毛毯，把它当成祷告用的褥子。我把头磕在地面，暗暗念诵那些记不太清楚的《可兰经》——在喀布尔的时候毛拉要求我们背诵的经文——求求真主大发善心，虽则我不知道他是否存在。那时我很羡慕那个毛拉，羡慕他的信仰和坚定。
两个星期过去了，我们没有接到电话。我打电话过去，他们告诉我说找不到那张转诊单，问我究竟有没有把它交上去。他们说再过三个星期，会打电话来。我勃然作色，经过一番交涉，把三个星期改为一个星期内做CAT，两个星期内看医生。
接诊的肺科医师叫施内德，开头一切都好，直到爸爸问他从哪里来，他说俄国。爸爸当场翻脸。
“对不起，大夫。”我说，将爸爸拉到一旁。施内德大夫微笑着站起来，手里还拿着听诊器。
“爸爸，我在候诊室看过施内德大夫的简历。他的出生地是密歇根，密歇根!他是美国人，远比你和我更美国。”
“我不在乎他在哪儿出生，他是俄国佬。”爸爸说，做出扭曲的表情，仿佛那是个肮脏的字眼。“他的父母是俄国佬，他的祖父母是俄国佬。我当着你妈妈的面发誓，要是他胆敢再碰我一下，我就扭断他的手。”
“施内德大夫的父母从俄国逃亡出来，你懂吗?他们逃亡!”
但爸爸一点都没听进去。有时我认为，爸爸惟一像爱他妻子那样深爱着的，是阿富汗，他的故国。我差点儿抓狂大叫，但我只是叹口气，转向施内德医师。“对不起，大夫，没有办法。”
第二个肺科医师叫阿曼尼，是伊朗人，爸爸同意了。阿曼尼大夫声音轻柔，留着弯曲的小胡子，一头银发。他告诉我们，他已经看过CAT扫描的结果，接下来他要做的，是进行一项叫支气管镜检查的程序，取下一片肺块做病理学分析。他安排下个星期进行。我搀扶爸爸走出诊室，向大夫道谢，心里想着如今我得带着“肺块”这个词过一整个星期了，这个字眼甚至比“可疑”更不吉利。我希望索拉雅能在这儿陪着我。
就像魔鬼一样，癌症有各种不同的名字。爸爸患的叫“燕麦细胞恶性肿瘤”。已经扩散。没法开刀。爸爸问起病况，阿曼尼大夫咬咬嘴唇，用了“严重”这个词。“当然，可以做化疗。”他说，“但那只是治标不治本。”
“那是什么意思?”爸爸问。
阿曼尼叹气说:“那就是说，它无法改变结果，只能延迟它的到来。”
“这个答案清楚多了，阿曼尼大夫，谢谢你。”爸爸说，“但请不要在我身上做化疗。”他露出如释重负的神情，一如那天在杜宾斯太太的柜台上放下那叠食物券。
“可是，爸爸……”