Ghosts by Daylight: A Memoir of War and Love.《白日梦魇：追忆战争和爱情》

Janine dI Giovanni and Bruno Girodon were war reporters who met and fell in love in Sarajevo in 1993, just as the city was settling into the siege that would last nearly four years. It would be the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. Emotional battles and how to survive them are the principal themes of Ms di Giovanni's beautifully written memoir about the pain of adjusting to normal life after being exposed to the intensity of battle.

Janine dI Giovanni和Bruno Girodon都是战地记者，1993年他们在萨拉热窝相识相恋，此时这座城市刚刚陷入长达近四年的围攻之中。在现代战争史上，对首都城市发起的围攻此为最长。在回忆录中，di Giovanni女士以出色的笔触描述了其经历过激烈战争之后，为适应正常生活所经历的种种痛苦。而情感交困，以及如何战胜这种交困成为了本书的主题。

As journalists, the war part was easy. When they met both were involved with other people whom they swore they loved, but kept leaving out of fear of being confined. American-born Ms di Giovanni, who rose to become senior foreign correspondent for the Times, and the slender, flirtatious Mr Girodon, a French television cameraman, would meet up for trysts in foreign cities, never quite certain where, when or even if they would see each other again. From Sarajevo to Stuttgart, where they booked into a small wooden hotel and slept squished together in a twin bed, the encounters were as intense as they were brief.

作为记者，di Giovanni女士对战争部分的描写信手拈来。他们相遇时，彼此身边都有相爱的人，然而害怕自己会受情所困，却又因此不断逃离。di Giovanni女士出生在美国，当时已荣升为《泰晤士报》的高级驻外记者，而瘦削轻浮的男主角Girodon先生是法国电视台的一名摄影记者。两人在异国城市里相遇幽会，永远不清楚下一次见面将在何时何地，甚至能不能再见面都不得而知。从萨拉热窝到斯图加特，每一次相聚都短暂而激烈。在斯图加特，他们定了一间小木屋旅馆，共眠于一张咯吱作响的单人床。

There were endless phone calls and much of what the French call malentendu. Mr Girodon would go off saying he wanted to be alone, and then track her down in Mogadishu or Grozny. There were frenzied meetings in Dakar and Tora Bora and a night in Jalalabad when they split up and she cried into the small hours. After that they did not speak for a while. Ms di Giovanni went to Africa to forget him. But one night in Mogadishu, amid the gunfire, her satellite telephone rang. It was Mr Girodon at Kigali airport, recently returned from the death spots of Rwanda. "Let's have a baby," he said. "Let's get married"

彼此间电话持续不断，然而大多数通话是法语所说的“malentendu（误解）”。Girodon抽身离开时说自己想独处，却又追寻着di Giovanni的脚步来到摩加迪沙（Mogadishu，非洲索马里首都)）或是格罗兹尼（Grozny，车臣首府）。他们在达喀尔（Dakar，塞内加尔首都）和托拉博拉（Tora Bora，巴基斯坦边境小镇）的会面堪称疯狂，之后有一天夜里在贾拉拉巴德（Jalalabad，阿富汗城市），面对分手，她痛哭至深夜。在那之后的一段时间，他们不再联系。di Giovanni为了忘却他去了非洲，但是有一天晚上在摩加迪沙，炮火中，她的卫星电话响了。Girodon在基加利机场（Kigali，卢旺达的首都），他刚从卢旺达的死亡线上回来。他说，“我们生个孩子吧！我们结婚吧！”

Three miscarriages later the couple settled in Paris where they awaited the birth of their son. But having met in another life, in another world, they discovered that domesticity can be the toughest battle of all. Their new, married life in Paris was meant to be smaller, and so they shed much of their past. More difficult to let go of was the killing and violence they had witnessed, which had found a way of creeping inside them. Childbirth for Ms di Giovanni reanimated many of the fears she thought she had safely put away. She fretted that she would not be able to protect her child. She had nightmares. But in spring the nightmares ended and she saw that the baby was thriving. Adjustment was harder for Mr Girodon. He drank to blot out his nightmares. Alcohol made him depressed, though, and to drown the pain he drank more. He grew thin and stopped sleeping. Unable to continue alone, he checked into a clinic. Eventually the couple parted.dI Giovanni

三次流产之后，这对夫妻在巴黎定居，等待儿子的降生。然而已经遭遇过另一个世界里的不一样的生活，他们发现居家生活根本就是最严酷的战争。在巴黎，刚刚开启的婚姻生活注定无法长久，而且他们放弃了太多过去种种。更难以释怀的是他们曾亲眼所见的杀戮与暴力，这些东西悄悄在他们心中蔓延。对于di Giovanni来说，生孩子这件事重新唤起了太多恐惧感，而她原以为自己已经彻底摆脱。她对自己没能力保护孩子而感到焦虑，噩梦不断。但是到了春天，梦魇结束，她看到孩子在茁壮成长。调整自身这件事对Girodon来说更难做到。他酗酒好让自己忘却噩梦，然而酒精让他陷入抑郁，变本加厉借酒消愁。他变得愈发瘦弱，失眠，无法继续独自生活下去，继而住进了医院。最终这对夫妇劳燕分飞。

The very private Mr Girodon dreaded being exposed in a book, but he courageously defends his wife’s right to write her own story. “Ghosts by Daylight” is no misery memoir, but a powerful lesson. Two people can love each other deeply, have a child, but still, in the end, not make it together.

性情孤僻的Girodon害怕自己的事情被写到书里，但是他勇敢的捍卫了其妻写作自己人生故事的权利。《白日梦魇》并非是一本凄切的回忆录，而是强有力的一课。两个人可以彼此深爱，生儿育女，然而最终，仍然不能相互羁绊。