殘忍而美麗的情誼:The Kite Runner 追風箏的人(94)

“Anyway, I came home and--” She was crying. “Excuse me.” I heard her put the phone down. Blow her nose. “Sorry,” she came back on, sounding hoarse. “When I came home, I saw my mother had had a stroke, the right side of her face was parAlyzed and... I felt so guilty. She didn’t deserve that.
“Padar moved us to California shortly after.” A silence followed.
“How are you and your father now?” I said.
“We’ve always had our differences, we still do, but I’m grateful he came for me that day. I really believe he saved me.” She paused. “So, does what I told you bother you?”
“A little,” I said. I owed her the truth on this one. I couldn’t lie to her and say that my pride, my iftikhar, wasn’t stung at all that she had been with a man, whereas I had never taken a woman to bed. It did bother me a bit, but I had pondered this quite a lot in the weeks before I asked Baba to go khastegari. And in the end the question that always came back to me was this: How could I, of all people, chastise someone for their past?
“Does it bother you enough to change your mind?”
“No, Soraya. Not even close,” I said. “Nothing you said changes anything. I want us to marry.”
She broke into fresh tears.
I envied her. Her secret was out. Spoken. Dealt with. I opened my mouth and almost told her how I’d betrayed Hassan, lied, driven him out, and destroyed a forty-year relationship between Baba and Ali. But I didn’t. I suspected there were many ways in which Soraya Taheri was a better person than me. Courage was just one of them.

“不管怎樣，我回家了，並且……”她在哭，“對不起。”我聽見她放低話筒，擦着鼻子。“對不起，”她又開始了，聲音有點嘶啞，“我回到家裏，發現媽媽中風了，她右半邊臉麻痹……我覺得很內疚。她本來不會這樣的。”
“過後不久，爸爸就舉家搬到加利福尼亞來了。”跟着一陣沉默。
“你和你爸爸現在怎麼樣?”我說。
“我們一直有分歧，現在還有，但我很感激他那天去找我。我真的相信他救了我。”她停頓，“那麼，我所說的讓你爲難嗎?”
“有一點。”我說。這次我對她說了真話。我不能欺騙她，在聽到她跟男人上牀之後，說我的尊嚴毫髮無傷是假的，畢竟我從來沒把女人帶上牀。這讓我非常爲難，但在讓爸爸替我求婚之前，我已經想了好幾個星期。而每次到最後，總是回到同一個問題：我憑什麼去指責別人的過去?
“你很爲難，要改變主意嗎?”
“不，索拉雅。沒那麼嚴重。”我說，“你無論說什麼，都不會改變任何事情。我想娶你。”
她又哭起來。
我妒忌她。她的祕密公開了，說出來了，得到解決了。我張開嘴巴，差點告訴她，我如何背叛了哈桑，對他說謊，把他趕出家門，還毀壞了爸爸和阿里四十年的情誼。但我沒有。我懷疑，在很多方面，索拉雅?塔赫裏都比我好得多。勇氣只是其中之一。