陌生人與戒指

by Tim Butcher烏蕪譯

陌生人與戒指

The Stranger and the Ring

by Tim Butcher烏蕪譯

Gold drew many to South Africa and it was gold that has just reaffirmed my faith in this1)muddled, mosaic nation.

As a Briton living in2)Cape Town, I recently received the call that nobody wants. My father had passed away. After the funeral in England, my mother showed me dad’s will. It mostly went to her with one named item for me—a gold ring, worn for decades by dad and before him, by his own father.

I’ve never really been into jewellery, yet when I slipped the ring on my left3)pinky it felt somehow right. Consoled in my grief by dad’s beloved bling, I few home to South Africa.

All was well until a wintry Saturday when I walked on our local beach. As so often in the Cape, it was fercely windy, a blur of sand and4)spindrift. When I got home and lit the fire, I looked at my left hand. The ring wasn’t there.

金子吸引了很多人到南非，也是金子讓我在這個紛亂而多樣化的國家再次堅定我的信仰。

我是一個住在開普敦的英國人，我最近接到了一個任何人都不想接到的電話。我的父親去世了。在英國參加完葬禮后，母親給我看了父親的遺囑。大部分遺產都歸母親所有，我得到了一樣指定物品——一個金戒指，這個戒指父親已經戴了幾十年了，在他之前，他的父親也戴了幾十年。

我從未佩戴過真正意義上的珠寶，然而當我把這個戒指穿入左手尾指時，不知為何，我覺得很合適。父親這件心愛的珠寶撫慰了我內心的痛苦，我戴著這個戒指飛回了南非的家。

一切都安好無事，直到一個寒冷的星期六，當時我在當地一個沙灘上散步。那時的開普敦和平時沒什么兩樣，風很大，沙子與飛濺的浪花讓人視線模糊。我回到家，點燃壁爐，看向我的左手。戒指不見了。

1) muddled ['m?dld] adj. 混亂的，亂七八糟的

2) Cape Town 開普敦，南非第二大城市，南非的立法首都（南非一共有三個首都：行政首都茨瓦內（Tshwane），司法首都布隆方丹（Bloemfontein）和立法首都開普敦）

3) pinky ['p??k?] n. 尾指

4) spindrift ['sp?ndr?ft] n. 海浪的飛沫

An emotional tsunami washed over me—shock, horror,5)remorse, anger, powerlessness. And when it pulled back, all that was really left was guilt—a potential life sentence of guilt.6)Hoping against hope that it had not been dropped on the beach, I looked everywhere else. Maybe the car? I stripped it7)to no avail. Maybe the8)veranda where I dried off the dog? No luck. Maybe the house? Nothing.

It must have been the beach, an area stretching 200m from the car park—the ring, a very small needle in a very large and tidally wet haystack.

I was out at frst light the next day but with no luck, spirits dimming. My only hope was this—the wind had been so strong the ring could have been buried. It might just still be there, somewhere.

I contacted local metal detector users. Two came to help, one even lending me his gear. “Take as long as you need,” he said. Days of searching passed9)forlornly. I found an old mobile phone, a 50 cent coin and a lot of bottle tops.

I rang mum that long week but was not brave enough to confess. If I had to tell her I had lost dad’s ring, I had to be able to say I had done everything humanly possible to fnd it.

霎時，我心里翻江倒海，震驚、恐懼、懊惱、憤怒、無力等情緒在內心翻騰。各種情緒平復后，我只感到深深的愧疚——也許將背負一生的愧疚。抱著一線希望，但愿戒指沒有掉到沙灘上，我找遍了其他地方。也許是掉在了車上？我把車子翻遍了也沒找到。也許是掉在了走廊？我曾在那里吹干狗狗身上的毛。沒找到。也許在房子里？……