SEVENTEEN Rahim Khan slowly uncrossed his legs and leaned against the bare wall in the wary, deliberate way of a man whose every movement triggers spikes of pain. Outside, a donkey was braying and some one was shouting something in Urdu. The sun was beginning to set, glittering red through the cracks between the ramshackle hit me again, the enormity of what I had done that winter and that following summer. The names rang in my head: Hassan, Sohrab, Ali, Farzana, and Sanaubar. Hearing Rahim Khan speak Ali’s name was like finding an old dusty music box that hadn’t been opened in years; the melody began to play immediately: Who did you eat today, Babalu? Who did you eat, you slant-eyed Babalu? I tried to conjure Ali’s frozen face, to really see his tranquil eyes, but time can be a greedy thing--sometimes it steals all the details for itself. “Is Hassan still in that house now?” I m Khan raised the teacup to his parched lips and took a sip. He then fished an envelope from the breast pocket of his vest and handed it to me. “For you.”I tore the sealed envelope. Inside, I found a Polaroid photograph and a folded letter. I stared at the photograph for a full minute. A tall man dressed in a white turban and a green-striped chapan stood with a little boy in front of a set of wrought-iron gates. Sunlight slanted in from the left, casting a shadow on half of his rotund face. He was squinting and smiling at the camera, showing a pair of missing front teeth. Even in this blurry Polaroid, the man in the chapan exuded a sense of self-assuredness, of ease. It was in the way he stood, his feet slightly apart, his arms comfortably crossed on his chest, his head titled a little toward the sun. Mostly, it was in the way he smiled. Looking at the photo, one might have concluded that this was a man who thought the world had been good to him. Rahim Khan was right: I would have recognized him if I had bumped into him on the street. The little boy stood bare foot, one arm wrapped around the man’s thigh, his shaved head resting against his father’s hip. He too was grinning and squinting. 第十七章 拉辛汗慢慢地伸開雙腿，斜倚在光禿禿的牆上，他的舉止是那樣小心翼翼，彷彿每個動作都會帶來劇痛。外面有頭驢子叫起來，有人用烏爾都語不知道喊了些什麼。太陽開始下山，那些搖搖欲墜的房子的裂縫中，滲出閃閃的紅色斜暉。我在那年冬天、以及隨後那個夏天所犯下的罪惡，再次向我襲來。那些名字在我腦海迴盪：哈桑、索拉博、阿里、法莎娜，還有莎娜芭。聽着拉辛汗提起阿里的名字，恍如找到一個塵封多年的老舊唱機，那些旋律立即開始演奏：你今天吃了誰啊，巴巴魯。你吃了誰啊，你這個斜眼的巴巴魯？我努力想起阿里那張冰冷的臉，想真的見到他那雙安詳的眼睛，但時間很貪婪——有時候，它會獨自吞噬所有的細節。 “哈桑現在仍住那間屋子嗎？”拉辛汗把茶杯舉到他乾裂的脣邊，啜了一口，接着從他背心的上袋掏出一封信，遞給我。“給你的。”我撕開貼好的信封，裏面有張寶麗萊相片，和一封摺疊着的信。我盯着那張照片，足足看了一分鐘。 一個高高的男子，頭戴白色頭巾，身穿綠色條紋長袍，和一個小男孩站在一扇鍛鐵大門前面。陽光從左邊射下，在他那張圓臉投下半邊陰影。他眯眼，對着鏡頭微笑，顯示出缺了兩個門牙。即使在這張模糊的寶麗萊照片上，這個帶着頭巾的男人也給人自信、安適的感覺。這可以從他站立的樣子看出來：他雙腳微微分開，手臂舒適地在胸前交叉，他的頭稍微有些傾向太陽。但更多的是體現在他的微笑上。看着這張照片，人們一定會想，這個男人認爲世界對他來說很美好。拉辛汗說得對：如果我碰巧在街頭見到他，一定能認出他來。那個小男孩赤足站着，一隻手抱着那男人的大腿，剃着短髮的頭靠在他爸爸的臀部上。他也是眯眼微笑着。
