The Enigmatic Gift from My Mother母親的神秘禮物

Few years ago， I built a writing studio in my backyard. One hundred square feet， four windows and a door. I painted it gray to match the main， bigger house， dragged in a couch and a desk， put up some shelves that I filled with books， a lamp， and a small birdhouse my mother had given me that had been too long in the elements. When I picked up the birdhouse， a nail slipped out and a roof slat fell off. Exposure had left it fragile as an egg shell and I worried that if it fell to pieces， I could never put it back together. The delicate structure would never withstand the tapping of a hammer， so I pushed the nail back into place with my thumb and it seemed to hold.

幾年前，我在后院修了一個(gè)寫(xiě)作工作室。一百平方英尺，開(kāi)四扇窗、一扇門(mén)。為了搭配主屋的色調(diào)，我把工作室的墻漆成灰色，隨后拖進(jìn)一張沙發(fā)、一張桌子，再放置幾個(gè)書(shū)架，上邊滿滿地?cái)[放書(shū)籍、一盞臺(tái)燈，還有母親送的一個(gè)小小鳥(niǎo)舍。鳥(niǎo)舍擱在室外太久，當(dāng)我把它拿起來(lái)時(shí)，一顆釘子滑了出來(lái)，又掉下一根屋頂?shù)陌鍡l。經(jīng)歷風(fēng)吹日曬，鳥(niǎo)舍變得像蛋殼一般脆弱。我擔(dān)心它一旦散架，我就再也無(wú)法把它組裝回去。快要散架的結(jié)構(gòu)完全無(wú)法承受錘子的敲擊，于是我用拇指將釘子按回原位，它似乎還算穩(wěn)固。

It meant nothing to me when my mother gave it to me. Just another trinket， a too-late expression of what？ An apology， a token of love？ We’d been so long estranged that at times it annoyed me to see the thing sitting out there next to a potted plant on the deck. I kept it all these years even though birds never used it.

當(dāng)母親將它送給我時(shí)，它對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)毫無(wú)意義。又是一件小玩意，一個(gè)遲來(lái)的什么表示嗎？是道歉，還是愛(ài)的象征？我們?cè)缫研瓮奥罚杂袝r(shí)看到這玩意挨著屋后露臺(tái)上的盆栽，我就感覺(jué)惱火。這些年來(lái)我一直保留著它，盡管鳥(niǎo)兒們從未入住。

She was so excited when I told her I had finished my first novel. She said she had always wanted to be the mother of someone famous. Immediately， I was annoyed. That wasn’t why I was writing. I wanted to be heard， to process the world around me and get it on the page. Once again， I felt the gulf between us grow. We were so unfamiliar with each other. We had never been close even when I was a child， but especially as a teenaged queer. Coming out at the age of eighteen completed the rift and as an adult I would go years without seeing her. But as the years passed， we each made efforts to bridge the differences between us; me the queer， her the devout Baptist.

當(dāng)我告訴母親自己完成了第一部小說(shuō)時(shí)，她激動(dòng)不已，表示自己一直想當(dāng)知名人物的媽媽。頓時(shí)，我心生不悅。這并非我創(chuàng)作的初衷。我希望自己的聲音被人聽(tīng)見(jiàn)，希望體認(rèn)自己周遭的世界，并將之付諸紙端。我又一次感到我們之間的鴻溝越拉越大。我們對(duì)彼此是如此陌生。即便在我的童年，我們也從未親近過(guò)，更別提青春期時(shí)我還是一名酷兒。十八歲時(shí)的出柜使我們之間形成了一道鴻溝，成年之后，我也多年不與她相見(jiàn)。但隨著歲月流逝，我們彼此都在努力彌合分歧；我，古怪的同性戀者；她，虔誠(chéng)的浸禮會(huì)教徒。

Days before she died， she asked me to move her into a barn. She wanted a bed of hay and to smell the earthy things of this world， the ground beneath her， and fresh air on her skin. She settled for wheelchair rides beneath the shadow of the pines on the hospice grounds.

在母親去世的前幾天，她讓我將她移進(jìn)一間谷倉(cāng)。她想要一張鋪滿干草的床，想要聞聞人世間的凡塵之物，聞聞腳底下的土地氣息和皮膚上的清新空氣。她不得不將就坐著輪椅，在臨終關(guān)懷醫(yī)院的松蔭下稍轉(zhuǎn)一轉(zhuǎn)。

In her eulogy I chose to tell her favorite story from her childhood. She was thirteen， a hurricane was churning in the Gulf， headed inland， and there was a leak in the roof of her family’s house. She was home alone with her little brother so she found some spare shingles， climbed to the top， and patched the roof. This is my best memory of her， even though I wasn’t born for another seventeen years. Memory is what we claim as our own when there’s not much else to grab. For a writer， memory is where story begins.

在給她的悼詞中，我決定講述她最喜愛(ài)的童年故事。當(dāng)時(shí)她十三歲，一場(chǎng)颶風(fēng)肆虐著墨西哥灣，并向著內(nèi)陸席卷而來(lái)，而她家的屋頂漏水了，家中只有他們姐弟二人。于是，她找了一些閑置的木瓦，爬上屋頂，把它補(bǔ)好。這是我對(duì)她最美好的記憶，盡管我十七年后才出生。記憶是我們?cè)谝粺o(wú)可得之時(shí)，唯一能夠聲稱專(zhuān)屬之物。對(duì)作家而言，記憶便是故事的開(kāi)端。

It can’t be a surprise that I write from an outsider’s point of view， instinctively gravitating toward characters that exist on the perimeters of society—loners， with limited resources， who have to be creative to get by and stay alive. From the beginning I’ve been drawn to explore the impact on familial relationships of societal influences such as poverty， religion， constricted gender norms. Images and dreams return me to this point of view every time.

我從一個(gè)局外人的視角來(lái)進(jìn)行寫(xiě)作，本能地傾向于描寫(xiě)社會(huì)的邊緣人物——孤苦之人，資源匱乏，必須發(fā)揮創(chuàng)造力才能維持生計(jì)——這確在情理之中。從提筆創(chuàng)作伊始，我便被吸引著去探索諸如貧窮、宗教、狹隘的性別規(guī)范等社會(huì)因素對(duì)家庭關(guān)系的影響。腦中的畫(huà)面與夢(mèng)境每次都會(huì)將我拉回到這個(gè)視角。

My mother was born poor and she died poor. As a society， we like to imagine hardworking people rising above poverty. We want stories where the mother works two jobs but somehow keeps her kids’ clothes clean and ironed. The mother in my story， Racine， works two jobs while raising a young son， oblivious to what he’s experiencing at school and the event that brings them irreconcilable trouble.

我母親一貧如洗地來(lái)，又一貧如洗地走。我們這個(gè)社會(huì)總喜歡想象勤勞的人擺脫貧困。我們總希望聽(tīng)到這樣的故事：母親做著兩份工作，卻總能設(shè)法讓孩子們的衣服干干凈凈、平平整整。在我筆下的故事中，母親拉辛一邊做著兩份工作，一邊撫養(yǎng)年幼的兒子，而她對(duì)兒子的在校經(jīng)歷或是給二人招來(lái)天大麻煩的事件全不知情。

A dream of my father emerging from death to hand me the reins of a reddish-brown horse appears in Long Time Coming. A baby turtle crawling down a blacktop resulted in a mother-daughter exchange in Low Tide. A single image of seahorses swimming in the Gulf of Mexico produced the story， Lucky Girl. All of these stories began with pieces of dreams and memories that became short stories， which I explored on the page until they revealed elements of universal truth.

我夢(mèng)見(jiàn)父親死而復(fù)生，把一匹紅棕色馬的韁繩交給我，這個(gè)夢(mèng)境出現(xiàn)在《期盼已久》中。在《退潮》中，一只爬下柏油路的小海龜引發(fā)了一對(duì)母女之間的對(duì)話。一幅海馬在墨西哥灣游動(dòng)的畫(huà)面孕育出《幸運(yùn)女孩》的故事。所有這些故事都始于夢(mèng)境與記憶的片段，這些片段化成了短篇小說(shuō)，我在紙端不斷探索，直到它們揭示出普遍真理的元素。

This birdhouse is gray and weathered. Its boards are so dried and split from years of sun and rain that its nails are rusted and loose. A five-dollar item from Big Lots was actually a big purchase for my mother to afford. What all had she seen in that birdhouse？ What was she trying to say with that gift？ The birdhouse sits safely on a shelf now， out of the wind and rain. It might fall apart the next time I pick it up， but if it does， I will fix it. It holds nothing. But somehow， it’s holding together.

鳥(niǎo)舍現(xiàn)已褪色發(fā)灰。由于多年的日曬雨淋，木板已經(jīng)干裂，釘子也已生銹松動(dòng)。對(duì)我母親來(lái)說(shuō)，購(gòu)買(mǎi)必樂(lè)透商場(chǎng)里一件五美元的商品其實(shí)是一筆大開(kāi)銷(xiāo)。她透過(guò)這個(gè)鳥(niǎo)舍看到了什么？她想要用這個(gè)禮物表達(dá)什么？如今鳥(niǎo)舍安全地放置在書(shū)架上，免受風(fēng)雨侵襲。下次我再拿起它時(shí)，它可能就會(huì)散架，但即便它散架了，我也會(huì)把它修好。鳥(niǎo)舍中一無(wú)所有，但不知為何，它仍然保持完整。

（譯者單位：廣東外語(yǔ)外貿(mào)大學(xué)高級(jí)翻譯學(xué)院）

1美國(guó)女作家。著有小說(shuō)《來(lái)自盲河鎮(zhèn)的女孩》（The Girl from Blind River）等作品。文內(nèi)提到的幾個(gè)故事出自她的短篇小說(shuō)集《〈升起〉及其他故事》（Rising and Other Stories）。