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
我走进一间烟雾弥漫的茶室，要了一杯茶。我朝后仰，让折叠椅的前脚离地，双手抹着脸。如坠深渊的感觉渐渐消失，但取而代之的是，我好像睡在自己的家中，一觉醒来，发现所有的家具都被重新摆设过，原先习以为常的每一个角落、每一处裂缝，现在全然陌生了。我茫然失措，只好重新审时度势，重新找到自己的方向。
我怎会如此熟视无睹呢？自始至终，迹象一直都在我眼前，它们现在飞回来了：爸爸请库玛大夫修补哈桑的兔唇。爸爸从来不会忘记哈桑的生日。我想起我们种郁金香那天，我问爸爸他能否考虑请新的仆人。哈桑哪里都不去！他勃然作色，他就在这儿陪着我们，他属于这里。这里是他的家，我们是他的家人。当阿里宣布他和哈桑要离开我们时，他流泪了，流泪了！
服务生把一个茶杯摆在我面前的桌子上。桌脚交叉成 X状的地方有一圈胡桃大小的铜球，有个铜球松了，我弯下腰，把它拧紧。我希望我也能这般轻而易举地拧紧自己的生活。我喝了一口数年来喝过的最浓的茶，试图想着索拉雅，想着将军和亲爱的雅米拉阿姨，想着我未完成的小说。我试图看着街上过往的车辆，看着行人在那些小小的糖铺进进出出。试图听着临桌客人收音机播放的伊斯兰教音乐。任何东西都可以。但我总是想起我毕业那天晚上，爸爸坐在那辆他刚买给我的福特车上，身上散发着啤酒的气味，他说，要是哈桑今天跟我们在一起就好了！
这么多年来，他怎么可以一直欺骗我？欺骗哈桑？我很小的时候，有一次他抱我坐在他的膝盖上，眼睛直勾勾看着我，并说，世间只有一种罪行，那就是盗窃……当你说谎，你剥夺了某人得知真相的权利。难道他没有亲口对我说那些话吗？而现在，在我葬了他十五年之后，我得知爸爸曾经是一个贼！还是最坏那种，因为他偷走的东西非常神圣：于我而言，是得知我有兄弟的权利；对哈桑来说，是他的身份。他还偷走了阿里的荣誉。他的荣誉。他的尊严。
我不禁想起这些问题：爸爸如何能够面对阿里的眼睛？阿里倘若得知他的妻子被他的主人以阿富汗人最不齿的方式侮辱，他如何能够每天在屋子里进进出出？爸爸穿着那身棕色旧西装、踏上塔赫里家的车道、向索拉雅提亲的形象在我脑海记忆犹深，我如何才能将它和这个新形象结合起来？