中英双语小说连载 全球销量超1200万册的现象级小说 蝲蛄吟唱的地方

Ma

妈妈

1952

The morning burned so August-hot, the marshs moist breath hung the oaks and pines with fog. The palmetto patches stood unusually quiet except for the low, slow flap of the herons wings lifting from the lagoon. And then, Kya, only six at the time, heard the screen door slap. Standing on the stool, she stopped scrubbing grits from the pot and lowered it into the basin of worn-out suds. No sounds now but her own breathing. Who had left the shack? Not Ma. She never let the door slam.

八月的早晨空气灼热，湿地的水汽悬在橡树和松树间，凝成了雾气。蒲葵丛异常安静——除了潟湖中的苍鹭起飞时翅膀低沉缓慢的扑棱声。基娅当时只有六岁，听到了摔纱门的声音。她正站在凳子上清洗锅里的粗玉米粉，于是停下手，把锅放入水池里混浊的肥皂水中。四下静悄悄的，她只能听到自己的呼吸声。是谁离开了小屋？不是妈妈。她从来不摔门。

But when Kya ran to the porch, she saw her mother in a long brown skirt, kick pleats nipping at her ankles, as she walked down the sandy lane in high heels. The stubby-nosed shoes were fake alligator skin. Her only going-out pair. Kya wanted to holler out but knew not to rouse Pa, so opened the door and stood on the brick-n-board steps. From there she saw the blue train case Ma carried. Usually, with the confidence of a pup, Kya knew her mother would return with meat wrapped in greasy brown paper or with a chicken, head dangling down. But she never wore the gator heels, never took a case.

但当基娅跑到门廊上，她看到妈妈穿着长长的棕色裙子，踩着高跟鞋走下沙路，裙褶不断打在脚踝上。那双鞋鞋头粗短，仿鳄鱼皮的，是她唯一一双外出鞋。基娅想要大声喊妈妈，但她知道不能吵醒爸爸，所以她打开门，站到砖木堆砌的台阶上。她看到妈妈提着一个蓝色行李箱。通常，基娅凭着小动物般的笃定，确信妈妈会回来，带着用油腻的棕纸包裹的肉或一只耷拉着脑袋的鸡。但那时她从不穿鳄鱼皮高跟鞋，也从不带箱子。

Ma always looked back where the foot lane met the road, one arm held high, white palm waving, as she turned onto the track, which wove through bog forests, cattail lagoons, and maybe—if the tide obliged—eventually into town. But today she walked on, unsteady in the ruts. Her tall figure emerged now and then through the holes of the forest until only swatches of white scarf flashed between the leaves. Kya sprinted to the spot she knew would bare the road; surely Ma would wave from there, but she arrived only in time to glimpse the blue case—the color so wrong for the woods—as it disappeared. A heaviness, thick as black-cotton mud, pushed her chest as she returned to the steps to wait.

妈妈总会在小径与大路交会的地方回头，一只手高高举起，挥舞着白色的手掌，然后转身踏上大路。这条路蜿蜒穿过泥沼树林、香蒲潟湖，最后到达镇上——如果幸得潮水退去。但是今天，她一直往前走，在车辙上跌跌撞撞。透过树木间的缝隙，可以时不时看到她高高的身影，渐渐只余下白色的围巾在树叶间若隐若现。基娅飞奔到一个能看到大路的地方。妈妈肯定会在那儿挥手，但她只赶上蓝色行李箱消失的瞬间。那抹蓝色在森林中是如此格格不入。基娅回到台阶上等，胸口仿佛压着密实的黑色烂泥。

Kya was the youngest of five, the others much older, though later she couldnt recall their ages. They lived with Ma and Pa, squeezed together like penned rabbits, in the rough-cut shack, its screened porch staring big-eyed from under the oaks.

基娅是五个孩子中最小的一个，其余四个都比她大许多，虽然后来基娅忘了他们的年纪。他们和爸爸妈妈住，如同被关起来的兔子，挤在简陋的小屋里。小屋有一个装了纱门的门廊，在橡树底下，像是瞪大的眼睛。

Jodie, the brother closest to Kya, but still seven years older, stepped from the house and stood behind her. He had her same dark eyes and black hair; had taught her birdsongs, star names, how to steer the boat through saw grass.

乔迪从屋里走出来，站在基娅身后。他是基娅最小的哥哥，但也比她大七岁。乔迪和基娅一样长着深色眼睛、黑色头发。他教基娅学鸟叫，告诉她星星的名字，以及如何驾驶小船穿过锯齿草。

“Mall be back,” he said.

“妈妈会回来的。”他说。

“I dunno. Shes wearin her gator shoes.”

“我不知道。她穿着那双鳄鱼皮鞋。”

“A ma dont leave her kids. It aint in em.”

“妈妈不会离开孩子。这不符合她们的天性。”

“You told me that fox left her babies.”

“你告诉过我狐狸会离开它的孩子。”

“Yeah, but that vixen got er leg all tore up. Shedve starved to death if shed tried to feed herself n her kits. She was better off to leave em, heal herself up, then whelp more when she could raise em good. Ma aint starvin, shell be back.” Jodie wasnt nearly as sure as he sounded, but said it for Kya.

“对，但那只狐狸的腿受伤撕裂了。如果它坚持喂养孩子，自己也会饿死。离开是最好的选择。它可以等待伤口愈合，然后再生一窝小狐狸。妈妈没有挨饿，她会回来的。”乔迪说，虽然心里并没有多么确定，他还是这样告诉基娅。

Her throat tight, she whispered, “But Mas carryin that blue case like shes goin somewheres big.”

基娅喉咙发紧，轻声说：“但是妈妈提着行李箱，看起来要去一个大地方。”

THE SHACK SAT BACK from the palmettos, which sprawled across sand flats to a necklace of green lagoons and, in the distance, all the marsh beyond. Miles of blade-grass so tough it grew in salt water, interrupted only by trees so bent they wore the shape of the wind. Oak forests bunched around the other sides of the shack and sheltered the closest lagoon, its surface so rich in life it churned. Salt air and gull-song drifted through the trees from the sea.

小屋坐落在蒲葵丛后面。这些蒲葵在沙地上四处蔓延，直至一串碧绿的潟湖边，更远处是广阔的湿地。生长在咸水中的草坚韧无比，如同刀刃，绵延数英里，间或被一些扭曲的树截断，这些树像是在模拟风的形状。橡树林挤在小屋的另一边，遮住了最近的一处潟湖。湖面上翻滚不休，生意盎然。海上咸咸的空气和海鸥的鸣叫声穿过树丛飘了过来。

Claiming territory hadnt changed much since the 1500s. The scattered marsh holdings werent legally described, just staked out natural—a creek boundary here, a dead oak there—by renegades. A man doesnt set up a palmetto lean-to in a bog unless hes on the run from somebody or at the end of his own road.

宣称的土地归属自十六世纪以来就没怎么变过。散落在湿地中的被占据的地块在法律上并无清晰的界定，只是由叛逃者们以自然之物作为分界——这边是一条小溪，那边是一棵死了的橡树。人们不会在沼泽中搭一顶单坡的蒲葵棚屋，除非他被人追捕或走到了穷途末路。

The marsh was guarded by a torn shoreline, labeled by early explorers as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” because riptides, furious winds, and shallow shoals wrecked ships like paper hats along what would become the North Carolina coast. One seamans journal read, “rangd along the Shoar . . . but could discern no Entrance . . . A violent Storm overtook us . . . we were forced to get off to Sea, to secure Ourselves and Ship, and were driven by the Rapidity of a strong Current . . .

一段伤痕累累的海岸线守护着这片湿地。早期探险家们称这段海岸线为“大西洋墓地”，因为沿岸的激流、狂风和浅滩摧毁船只如同撕碎纸帽子般简单。后来，这里成了北卡罗来纳海岸。一个水手在日记中写道：“我们沿着海岸徘徊……但找不到入口……一场猛烈的暴风雨袭击了我们……我们被迫回到海上以保护自己和船只。我们被一股强劲的洋流驱赶着……”

“The Land . . . being marshy and Swamps, we returnd towards our Ship . . . Discouragement of all such as should hereafter come into those Parts to settle.”

“这片土地上到处是湿地和沼泽，我们回到了船上……今后那些在此地定居的人一定会为此感到沮丧。”

Those looking for serious land moved on, and this infamous marsh became a net, scooping up a mishmash of mutinous sailors, castaways, debtors, and fugitives dodging wars, taxes, or laws that they didnt take to. The ones malaria didnt kill or the swamp didnt swallow bred into a woodsmen tribe of several races and multiple cultures, each of whom could fell a small forest with a hatchet and pack a buck for miles. Like river rats, each had his own territory, yet had to fit into the fringe or simply disappear some day in the swamp. Two hundred years later, they were joined by runaway slaves, who escaped into the marsh and were called maroons, and freed slaves, penniless and beleaguered, who dispersed into the water-land because of scant options.

那些寻找真正土地的人离开了。渐渐地，这片臭名昭著的湿地成了一张网，网罗了叛变的水手、流浪者、负债者，以及逃避难以承受的战争、税收或法律的难民。未曾死于疟疾也没有被沼泽吞噬的人们逐渐形成了一个多种族、多文化的丛林部落。他们中的每个人都可以用一柄斧子砍倒一小片树林，或者背着一头雄鹿走上数英里。如同河鼠一般，大家都有自己的领土。但这领土必须适应自然边界，否则不知哪天就会消失于沼泽。两百年后，逃跑的和被释放的奴隶们加入了这个部落，前者逃入湿地，被称为逃亡黑奴，而后者由于身无分文又遭遇围攻，别无选择，只能躲入湿地。

Maybe it was mean country, but not an inch was lean. Layers of life—squiggly sand crabs, mud-waddling crayfish, waterfowl, fish, shrimp, oysters, fatted deer, and plump geese—were piled on the land or in the water. A man who didnt mind scrabbling for supper would never starve.

这或许是一片卑贱的土地，但每一寸都很富饶。层次丰富的生物——弯弯曲曲爬行的沙蟹、在泥里溜达的小龙虾、水鸟、鱼、虾、牡蛎、肥硕的鹿、丰满的鹅——堆叠在地上和水里。一个不介意为了晚餐四处搜寻的人永远不会挨饿。

It was now 1952, so some of the claims had been held by a string of disconnected, unrecorded persons for four centuries. Most before the Civil War. Others squatted on the land more recently, especially after the World Wars, when men came back broke and broke-up. The marsh did not confine them but defined them and, like any sacred ground, kept their secrets deep. No one cared that they held the land because nobody else wanted it. After all, it was wasteland bog.

现在是一九五二年，有些土地已被那些失联的、无记录的人占据了四个世纪。大部分是在内战之前。其他人来这里的时间更晚一些。尤其是在世界大战之后，当时，身心破碎的人们回到祖国，这片湿地没有约束他们，而是重新定义了他们，如同任何一片神圣的土地，它深深埋藏了他们的秘密。没有人介意他们占有这片土地，因为没有其他人想要。毕竟，这里是荒地沼泽。

Just like their whiskey, the marsh dwellers bootlegged their own laws—not like those burned onto stone tablets or inscribed on documents, but deeper ones, stamped in their genes. Ancient and natural, like those hatched from hawks and doves. When cornered, desperate, or isolated, man reverts to those instincts that aim straight at survival. Quick and just. They will always be the trump cards because they are passed on more frequently from one generation to the next than the gentler genes. It is not a morality, but simple math. Among themselves, doves fight as often as hawks.

就像酿造威士忌一样，湿地居民非法炮制了自己的法律——不同于那些灼刻在石板上或记录于文件中的条文，这里的法律更为深入，烙印在人们的基因里。它古老而自然，类似于鹰和鸽子演化出的法则。在走投无路、绝望、孤独之时，人们会找回直指生存的本能。快且公正。这些本能将永远是王牌，因为它们传给下一代的概率远大于那些更温和的基因。这无关道德，只是简单的数学问题。在种群内部，鸽子和鹰的争斗一样频繁。

MA DIDNT COME BACK that day. No one spoke of it. Least of all Pa. Stinking of fish and drum likker, he clanked pot lids. “Whars supper?”

那天，妈妈没有回来。没人谈论这件事，特别是爸爸。他浑身散发着鱼和酒的臭味，用力敲着锅盖，喊道：“晚饭呢！”

Eyes downcast, the brothers and sisters shrugged. Pa dog-cussed, then limp-stepped out, back into the woods. There had been fights before; Ma had even left a time or two, but she always came back, scooping up whoever would be cuddled.

兄弟姐妹们垂下眼，耸耸肩。爸爸像狗一样咒骂着，然后跛着脚走出去，回到树林里。此前爸爸妈妈也打过吵过；妈妈甚至离开过一两次，但她总会回来，抱起那些想要被拥抱的孩子。

The two older sisters cooked a supper of red beans and cornbread, but no one sat to eat at the table, as they would have with Ma. Each dipped beans from the pot, flopped cornbread on top, and wandered off to eat on their floor mattresses or the faded sofa.

两个年长的姐姐准备了红豆和玉米面包作晚餐，但没有人像妈妈在时那样坐在桌旁用餐。大家都从罐子里舀红豆，铺在面包上，然后坐到地板上的床垫或破旧的沙发上吃完。

Kya couldnt eat. She sat on the porch steps, looking down the lane. Tall for her age, bone skinny, she had deep-tanned skin and straight hair, black and thick as crow wings.

基娅吃不下。她坐在门廊的台阶上，看着小径。基娅在她这个年纪算是长得高的，骨瘦如柴，深褐色皮肤，和乌鸦翅膀一样又黑又厚的直发。

Darkness put a stop to her lookout. Croaking frogs would drown the sounds of footsteps; even so, she lay on her porch bed, listening. Just that morning shed awakened to fatback crackling in the iron skillet and whiffs of biscuits browning in the wood oven. Pulling up her bib overalls, shed rushed into the kitchen to put the plates and forks out. Pick the weevils from the grits. Most dawns, smiling wide, Ma hugged her—“Good morning, my special girl”—and the two of them moved about the chores, dancelike. Sometimes Ma sang folk songs or quoted nursery rhymes: “This little piggy went to market.” Or shed swing Kya into a jitterbug, their feet banging the plywood floor until the music of the battery-operated radio died, sounding as if it were singing to itself at the bottom of a barrel. Other mornings Ma spoke about adult things Kya didnt understand, but she figured Mas words needed somewhere to go, so she absorbed them through her skin, as she poked more wood in the cookstove. Nodding like she knew.

黑暗让她没法继续监视，蛙鸣可能盖过脚步声，尽管如此，她还是躺在自己的门廊小床上，倾听着。就在那天早晨，她睡醒后听到肉在铁煎锅中噼里啪啦，闻到了木柴加热的烤箱中渐渐变成棕色的饼干的香味。基娅套上工装裤，冲进厨房摆放盘子和叉子，从粗玉米粉中拣出象鼻虫。多数清晨，妈妈会带着大大的笑容拥抱她——“早上好，我独一无二的女孩。”——然后她们就一起跳舞般忙活家务。有时候妈妈会唱起民歌，或背诵童谣：“这只小猪去市场。”有时候妈妈会带着基娅摇摆，跳起吉格舞，胶合板地板被踩得咚咚作响，直到电池收音机里流出的音乐渐渐消失，听上去像是它在木桶底自吟自唱。有些早晨，妈妈会对基娅说一些成年人的事，她听不懂，不过，想到妈妈的话需要一个去处，她通过皮肤吸收它们，一边往灶膛里放更多木头，一边听懂了似的点头。

Then, the hustle of getting everybody up and fed. Pa not there. He had two settings: silence and shouting. So it was just fine when he slept through, or didnt come home at all.

然后是一阵忙乱，叫所有人起床、吃饭。爸爸不在。他有两种模式：沉默和喊叫。所以他睡过头或者没回家都很好。

But this morning, Ma had been quiet; her smile lost, her eyes red. Shed tied a white scarf pirate style, low across her forehead, but the purple and yellow edges of a bruise spilled out. Right after breakfast, even before the dishes were washed, Ma had put a few personals in the train case and walked down the road.

但今天早上，妈妈很安静；没有笑，眼睛红红的。她像海盗那样系着一条白围巾，拉低盖住额头，但紫褐色的瘀伤边缘还是露了出来。早餐后，碗都没洗，妈妈收拾了一些个人物品，提着行李箱走上了大路。

THE NEXT MORNING, Kya took up her post again on the steps, her dark eyes boring down the lane like a tunnel waiting for a train. The marsh beyond was veiled in fog so low its cushy bottom sat right on the mud. Barefoot, Kya drummed her toes, twirled grass stems at doodlebugs, but a six-year-old cant sit long and soon she moseyed onto the tidal flats, sucking sounds pulling at her toes. Squatting at the edge of the clear water, she watched minnows dart between sunspots and shadows.

第二天一早，基娅又回到台阶上。她深色的眼睛紧盯着小径，像是在等待火车的隧道。远方的湿地被雾气笼罩。雾气低沉，仿佛它松软的底部就坐在泥地上。基娅光着脚，晃动脚趾，捻动草茎逗弄狮蚁幼虫。但六岁的孩子坐不长久，不一会儿，她溜达到了潮坪，脚趾被泥沙拉扯，发出吸吮的声音。她蹲在清水边，看着小鱼在光斑和阴影间来回游动。

Jodie hollered to her from the palmettos. She stared; maybe he was coming with news. But as he wove through the spiky fronds, she knew by the way he moved, casual, that Ma wasnt home.

乔迪在蒲葵丛那边喊她。基娅盯着他。可能他有新消息。但当他穿过钉子般的蕨叶走过来，基娅看到他走得既轻松又随意，知道妈妈没有回家。

“Ya wanta play explorers?” he asked.

“你想不想玩冒险家？”他问。

“Ya said yare too old to play splorers.”

“你说过，你年纪太大了，不能玩了。”

“Nah, I just said that. Never too old. Race ya!”

“是吗？这个游戏可没有年龄限制。比一个！”

They tore across the flats, then through the woods toward the beach. She squealed as he overtook her and laughed until they reached the large oak that jutted enormous arms over the sand. Jodie and their older brother, Murph, had hammered a few boards across the branches as a lookout tower and tree fort. Now, much of it was falling in, dangling from rusty nails.

他们跑过潮坪，穿过树林跑向沙滩。乔迪追上来的时候，基娅放声尖叫、大笑，直到跑到那棵巨大的、枝丫粗壮的橡树底下。乔迪和他们的哥哥默夫曾在树枝间钉了一些木板，作为瞭望塔和树堡。如今，大部分都垮塌了，吊在生锈的钉子上晃荡。

Usually if she was allowed to crew at all it was as slave girl, bringing her brothers warm biscuits swiped from Mas pan.

通常，每次她被允许加入游戏，都是作为奴隶女孩，给哥哥们送来妈妈新烤的热乎乎的饼干。

But today Jodie said, “You can be captain.”

但是今天乔迪说：“你可以做船长。”

Kya raised her right arm in a charge. “Run off the Spaniards!” They broke off stick-swords and crashed through brambles, shouting and stabbing at the enemy.

基娅举起右手指挥。“西班牙人滚开！”他们挥舞木剑，冲过荆棘丛，大喊着刺向敌人。

Then—make-believe coming and going easily—she walked to a mossy log and sat. Silently, he joined her. He wanted to say something to get her mind off Ma, but no words came, so they watched the swimming shadows of water striders.

然后——幻想来得快去得也快——基娅走向一截生了苔藓的木头，坐下。乔迪沉默地加入。他想说点什么，让基娅忘了妈妈的事，但一个字也没说出口。他们一起看着水黾在水中游弋的影子。

Kya returned to the porch steps later and waited for a long time, but, as she looked to the end of the lane, she never cried. Her face was still, her lips a simple thin line under searching eyes. But Ma didnt come back that day either.

晚些时候，基娅回到门廊台阶上，等了很长时间，不过，看着小径尽头，她再也没哭过。她表情平静，嘴唇抿成一条线，眼睛搜寻着。但妈妈那天也没有回来。