EIGHTEEN I wAlked into a smoky little samovar house and ordered a cup of tea. I tilted back on the folding chair’s rear legs and rubbed my face. That feeling of sliding toward a fall was fading. But in its stead, I felt like a man who awakens in his own house and finds all the furniture rearranged, so that every familiar nook and cranny looks foreign now. Disoriented, he has to reevaluate his surroundings, reorient himself. How could I have been so blind? The signs had been there for me to see all along; they came flying back at me now: Baba hiring Dr. Kumar to fix Hassan’s harelip. Baba never missing Hassan’s birthday. I remembered the day we were planting tulips, when I had asked Baba if he’d ever consider getting new servants. Hassan’s not going anywhere, he’d barked. He’s staying right here with us, where he belongs. This is his home and we’re his family. He had wept, wept, when Ali announced he and Hassan were leaving us. The waiter placed a teacup on the table before me. Where the table’s legs crossed like an X, there was a ring of brass balls, each walnut-sized. One of the balls had come unscrewed. I stooped and tightened it. I wished I could fix my own life as easily. I took a gulp of the blackest tea I’d had in years and tried to think of Soraya, of the general and Khala Jamila, of the novel that needed finishing. I tried to watch the traffic bolting by on the street, the people milling in and out of the little sweetshops. Tried to listen to the Qawali music playing on the transistor radio at the next table. Anything. But I kept seeing Baba on the night of my graduation, sitting in the Ford he’d just given me, smelling of beer and saying, I wish Hassan had been with us today. How could he have lied to me all those years? To Hassan? He had sat me on his lap when I was little, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, There is only one sin. And that is theft... When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. Hadn’t he said those words to me? And now, fifteen years after I’d buried him, I was learning that Baba had been a thief. And a thief of the worst kind, because the things he’d stolen had been sacred: from me the right to know I had a brother, from Hassan his identity, and from Ali his honor. His nang. His namoos. The questions kept coming at me: How had Baba brought himself to look Ali in the eye? How had Ali lived in that house, clay in and day out, knowing he had been dishonored by his master in the single worst way an Afghan man can be dishonored? 第十八章 我走進一間煙霧瀰漫的茶室，要了一杯茶。我朝後仰，讓摺疊椅的前腳離地，雙手抹着臉。如墜深淵的感覺漸漸消失，但取而代之的是，我好像睡在自己的家中，一覺醒來，發現所有的傢俱都被重新擺設過，原先習以爲常的每一個角落、每一處裂縫，現在全然陌生了。我茫然失措，只好重新審時度勢，重新找到自己的方向。 我怎會如此熟視無睹呢？自始至終，跡象一直都在我眼前，它們現在飛回來了：爸爸請庫瑪大夫修補哈桑的兔脣。爸爸從來不會忘記哈桑的生日。我想起我們種鬱金香那天，我問爸爸他能否考慮請新的僕人。哈桑哪裏都不去！他勃然作色，他就在這兒陪着我們，他屬於這裏。這裏是他的家，我們是他的家人。當阿里宣佈他和哈桑要離開我們時，他流淚了，流淚了！ 服務生把一個茶杯擺在我面前的桌子上。桌腳交叉成 X狀的地方有一圈胡桃大小的銅球，有個銅球鬆了，我彎下腰，把它擰緊。我希望我也能這般輕而易舉地擰緊自己的生活。我喝了一口數年來喝過的最濃的茶，試圖想着索拉雅，想着將軍和親愛的雅米拉阿姨，想着我未完成的小說。我試圖看着街上過往的車輛，看着行人在那些小小的糖鋪進進出出。試圖聽着臨桌客人收音機播放的伊斯蘭教音樂。任何東西都可以。但我總是想起我畢業那天晚上，爸爸坐在那輛他剛買給我的福特車上，身上散發着啤酒的氣味，他說，要是哈桑今天跟我們在一起就好了！ 這麼多年來，他怎麼可以一直欺騙我？欺騙哈桑？我很小的時候，有一次他抱我坐在他的膝蓋上，眼睛直勾勾看着我，並說，世間只有一種罪行，那就是盜竊……當你說謊，你剝奪了某人得知真相的權利。難道他沒有親口對我說那些話嗎？而現在，在我葬了他十五年之後，我得知爸爸曾經是一個賊！還是最壞那種，因爲他偷走的東西非常神聖：於我而言，是得知我有兄弟的權利；對哈桑來說，是他的身份。他還偷走了阿里的榮譽。他的榮譽。他的尊嚴。 我不禁想起這些問題：爸爸如何能夠面對阿里的眼睛？阿里倘若得知他的妻子被他的主人以阿富汗人最不齒的方式侮辱，他如何能夠每天在屋子裏進進出出？爸爸穿着那身棕色舊西裝、踏上塔赫裏家的車道、向索拉雅提親的形象在我腦海記憶猶深，我如何才能將它和這個新形象結合起來？
