殘忍而美麗的情誼:The Kite Runner 追風箏的人(211)

A STARLESS, BLACK NIGHT falls over Islamabad. It’s a few hours later and I am sitting now on the floor of a tiny lounge off the corridor that leads to the emergency ward. Before me is a dull brown coffee table cluttered with newspapers and dog-eared magazines--an April 1996 issue of Time; a Pakistani newspaper showing the face of a young boy who was hit and killed by a train the week before; an entertainment magazine with smiling Hollywood actors on its glossy cover. There is an old woman wearing a jade green shalwar-kameez and a crocheted shawl nodding off in a wheelchair across from me. Every once in a while, she stirs awake and mutters a prayer in Arabic. I wonder tiredly whose prayers will be heard tonight, hers or mine. I picture Sohrab’s face, the pointed meaty chin, his small seashell ears, his slanting bambooleaf eyes so much like his father’s. A sorrow as black as the night outside invades me, and I feel my throat clamping.
I need air. I get up and open the windows. The air coming through the screen is musty and hot--it smells of overripe dates and dung. I force it into my lungs in big heaps, but it doesn’t clear the clamping feeling in my chest. I drop back on the floor. I pick up the Time magazine and flip through the pages. But I can’t read, can’t focus on anything. So I toss it on the table and go back to staring at the zigzagging pattern of the cracks on the cement floor, at the cobwebs on the ceiling where the walls meet, at the dead flies littering the windowsill. Mostly, I stare at the clock on the wall. It’s just past 4 A.M. and I have been shut out of the room with the swinging double doors for over five hours now. I still haven’t heard any news.
The floor beneath me begins to feel like part of my body, and my breathing is growing heavier, slower. I want to sleep, shut my eyes and lie my head down on this cold, dusty floor. Drift off. When I wake up, maybe I will discover that everything I saw in the hotel bathroom was part of a dream: the water drops dripping from the faucet and landing with a plink into the bloody bathwater; the left arm dangling over the side of the tub, the blood-soaked razor sitting on the toilet tank--the same razor I had shaved with the day before--and his eyes, still half open but light less. That more than anything. I want to forget the eyes.
Soon, sleep comes and I let it take me. I dream of things I can’t remember later. SOMEONE IS TAPPING ME on the shoulder. I open my eyes. There is a man kneeling beside me. He is wearing a cap like the men behind the swinging double doors and a paper surgical mask over his mouth--my heart sinks when I see a drop of blood on the mask. He has taped a picture of a doe-eyed little girl to his beeper. He unsnaps his mask and I’m glad I don’t have to look at Sohrab’s blood anymore. His skin is dark like the imported Swiss chocolate Hassan and I used to buy from the bazaar in Shar-e-Nau; he has thinning hair and hazel eyes topped with curved eyelashes. In a British accent, he tells me his name is Dr. Nawaz, and suddenly I want to be away from this man, because I don’t think I can bear to hear what he has come to tell me. He says the boy had cut himself deeply and had lost a great deal of blood and my mouth begins to mutter that prayer again: La illaha il Allah, Muhammad u rasul had to transfuse several units of red cells-- How will I tell Soraya?Twice, they had to revive him--I willdo _namaz_, I will do _zakat_ would have lost him if his heart hadn’t been young and strong--I will is alive.
Dr. Nawaz smiles. It takes me a moment to register what he has just said. Then he says more but I don’t hear him. Because I have taken his hands and I have brought them up to my face. I weep my relief into this stranger’s small, meaty hands and he says nothing now. He waits.
THE INTENSIVE CARE UNIT is L-shaped and dim, a jumble of bleeping monitors and whirring machines. Dr. Nawaz leads me between two rows of beds separated by white plastic curtains. Sohrab’s bed is the last one around the corner, the one nearest the nurses’ station where two nurses in green surgical scrubs are jotting notes on clipboards, chatting in low voices. On the silent ride up the elevator with Dr. Nawaz, I had thought I’d weep again when I saw Sohrab. But when I sit on the chair at the foot of his bed, looking at his white face through the tangle of gleaming plastic tubes and IV lines, I am dry-eyed. Watching his chest rise and fall to the rhythm of the hissing ventilator, a curious numbness washes over me, the same numbness a man might feel seconds after he has swerved his car and barely avoided a head-on collision.
I doze off, and, when I wake up, I see the sun rising in a buttermilk sky through the window next to the nurses’ station. The light slants into the room, aims my shadow toward Sohrab. He hasn’t moved.
“You’d do well to get some sleep,” a nurse says to me. I don’t recognize her--there must have been a shift change while I’d napped. She takes me to another lounge, this one just outside the ICU. It’s empty. She hands me a pillow and a hospital-issue blanket. I thank her and lie on the vinyl sofa in the corner of the lounge. I fall asleep almost immediately.
I dream I am back in the lounge downstairs. Dr. Nawaz walks in and I rise to meet him. He takes off his paper mask, his hands suddenly whiter than I remembered, his nails manicured, he has neatly parted hair, and I see he is not Dr. Nawaz at all but Raymond Andrews, the little embassy man with the potted tomatoes. Andrews cocks his head. Narrows his eyes.

星光黯淡的黑夜降臨在伊斯蘭堡。過了數個鐘頭，我坐在走廊外面一間通往急診室的小房間的地板上。在我身前是一張暗棕色的咖啡桌，上面擺着報紙和卷邊的雜誌——有本 1996年 4月的《時代》，一份巴基斯坦報紙，上面印着某個上星期被火車撞死的男孩的臉孔；一份娛樂雜誌，平滑的封面印着微笑的羅麗塢男星。在我對面，有位老太太身穿碧綠的棉袍，戴着針織頭巾，坐在輪椅上打瞌睡。每隔一會她就會驚醒，用阿拉伯語低聲禱告。我疲憊地想，不知道今晚真主會聽到誰的祈禱，她的還是我的？我想起索拉博的面容，那肉乎乎的尖下巴，海貝似的小耳朵，像極了他父親的竹葉般眯斜的眼睛。一陣悲哀如同窗外的黑夜，漫過我全身，我覺得喉嚨被掐住。
我需要空氣。我站起來，打開窗門。溼熱的風帶着發黴的味道從窗紗吹進來——聞起來像腐爛的椰棗和動物糞便。我大口將它吸進肺裏，可是它沒有消除胸口的窒悶。我頹然坐倒在地面，撿起那本《時代》雜誌，隨手翻閱。可是我看不進去，無法將注意力集中在任何東西上。所以我把它扔回桌子，怔怔望着水泥地面上彎彎曲曲的裂縫，還有窗臺上散落的死蒼蠅。更多的時候，我盯着牆上的時鐘。剛過四點，我被關在雙層門之外已經超過五個小時，仍沒得到任何消息。
我開始覺得身下的地板變成身體的一部分，呼吸越來越沉重，越來越緩慢。我想睡覺，闔上雙眼，把頭放低在這滿是塵灰的冰冷地面，昏然欲睡。也許當我醒來，會發現我在旅館浴室看到的一切無非是一場夢：水從水龍頭滴答落進血紅的洗澡水裏，他的左臂懸掛在浴缸外面，沾滿鮮血的剃刀——就是那把我前一天用來刮鬍子的剃刀——落在馬桶的沖水槽上，而他的眼雖仍睜開一半，但眼神黯淡。
很快，睡意襲來，我任它將我佔據。我夢到一些後來想不起來的事情。有人在拍我的肩膀。我睜開眼，看到有個男人跪在我身邊。他頭上戴着帽子，很像雙層門後面那個男人，臉上戴着手術口罩——看見口罩上有一滴血，我的心一沉。他的傳呼機上貼着一張小姑娘的照片，眼神純潔無瑕。他解下口罩，我很高興自己再也不用看着索拉博的血了。他皮膚黝黑，像哈桑和我經常去沙裏諾區市場買的那種從瑞士進口的巧克力；他頭髮稀疏，淺褐色的眼睛上面是彎彎的睫毛。他用帶英國口音的英語告訴我，他叫納瓦茲大夫。剎那間，我想遠離這個男人，因爲我認爲我無法忍受他所要告訴我的事情。他說那男孩將自己割得很深，失血很多，我的嘴巴又開始念出禱詞來：惟安拉是真主，穆罕默德是他的使者。他們不得不輸入幾個單位的紅細胞……我該怎麼告訴索拉雅？兩次，他們不得不讓他復甦過來……我會做禱告，我會做天課。如果他的心臟不是那麼年輕而強壯，他們就救不活他了……我會茹素……他活着。
納瓦茲大夫微笑。我花了好一會才弄明白剛纔他所說的。然後他又說了幾句，我沒聽到，因爲我抓起他的雙手，放在自己臉上。我用這個陌生人汗津津的手去抹自己的眼淚，而他沒有說什麼。他等着。
重症病區呈 L形，很陰暗，充塞着很多嗶嗶叫的監視儀和呼呼響的器械。納瓦茲大夫領着我走過兩排用白色塑料簾幕隔開的病牀。索拉博的病牀是屋角最後那張，最接近護士站。兩名身穿綠色手術袍的護士在夾紙板上記東西，低聲交談。我默默和納瓦茲大夫從電梯上來，我以爲我再次看到索拉博會哭。可是當我坐在他牀腳的椅子上，透過懸掛着的泛着微光的塑料試管和輸液管，我沒流淚水。看着他的胸膛隨着呼吸機的嘶嘶聲有節奏地一起一伏，身上漫過一陣奇怪的麻木感覺，好像自己剛突然掉轉車頭，在幹鈞一發之際避過一場慘烈的車禍。
我打起瞌睡，醒來後發現陽光正從乳白色的天空照射進緊鄰護士站的窗戶。光線傾瀉進來，將我的影子投射在索拉博身上。他一動不動。
“你最好睡一會。”有個護士對我說。我不認識她——我打盹時她們一定換班了。她把我帶到另一間房，就在急救中心外面。裏面沒有人。她給我一個枕頭，還有一牀印有醫院標記的毛毯。我謝過她，在屋角的塑膠皮沙發上躺下，幾乎立刻就睡着了。
我夢見自己回到樓下的休息室，納瓦茲大夫走進來，我起身迎向他。他脫掉紙口罩，雙手突然比我記得的要白，指甲修剪整潔，頭髮一絲不苟，而我發現他原來不是納瓦茲大夫，而是雷蒙德?安德魯，大使館那個撫摸着番茄藤的小個子。安德魯擡起頭，眯着眼睛。