殘忍而美麗的情誼:The Kite Runner 追風箏的人(117)

SIXTEEN
There were a lot of reasons why I went to Hazarajat to find Hassan in 1986. The biggest one, Allah forgive me, was that I was lonely. By then, most of my friends and relatives had either been killed or had escaped the country to Pakistan or Iran. I barely knew anyone in Kabul anymore, the city where I had lived my entire life. Everybody had fled. I would take a walk in the Karteh Parwan section--where the melon vendors used to hang out in the old days, you remember that spot?--and I wouldn’t recognize anyone there. No one to greet, no one to sit down with for chai, no one to share stories with, just Roussi soldiers patrolling the streets. So eventually, I stopped going out to the city. I would spend my days in your father’s house, up in the study, reading your mother’s old books, listening to the news, watching the communist propaganda on television. Then I would pray natnaz, cook something, eat, read some more, pray again, and go to bed. I would rise in the morning, pray, do it all over again.
And with my arthritis, it was getting harder for me to maintain the house. My knees and back were always aching--I would get up in the morning and it would take me at least an hour to shake the stiffness from my joints, especially in the wintertime. I did not want to let your father’s house go to rot; we had all had many good times in that house, so many memories, Amir jan. It was not right--your father had designed that house himself; it had meant so much to him, and besides, I had promised him I would care for it when he and you left for Pakistan. Now it was just me and the house and... I did my best. I tried to water the trees every few days, cut the lawn, tend to the flowers, fix things that needed fixing, but, even then, I was not a young man anymore.
But even so, I might have been able to manage. At least for a while longer. But when news of your father’s death reached me... for the first time, I felt a terrible loneliness in that house. An unbearable emptiness.
So one day, I fueled up the Buick and drove up to Hazarajat. I remembered that, after Ali dismissed himself from the house, your father told me he and Hassan had moved to a small village just outside Bamiyan. Ali had a cousin there as I recalled. I had no idea if Hassan would still be there, if anyone would even know of him or his whereabouts. After all, it had been ten years since Ali and Hassan had left your father’s house. Hassan would have been a grown man in 1986, twenty-two, twenty-three years old. If he was even alive, that is--the Shorawi, may they rot in hell for what they did to our watan, killed so many of our young men. I don’t have to tell you that.
But, with the grace of God, I found him there. It took very little searching--all I had to do was ask a few questions in Bamiyan and people pointed me to his village. I do not even recall its name, or whether it even had one. But I remember it was a scorching summer day and I was driving up a rutted dirt road, nothing on either side but sunbaked bushes, gnarled, spiny tree trunks, and dried grass like pale straw. I passed a dead donkey rotting on the side of the road. And then I turned a corner and, right in the middle of that barren land, I saw a cluster of mud houses, beyond them nothing but broad sky and mountains like jagged teeth.

第十六章
1986年，有很多原因促使我到哈扎拉賈特尋找哈桑。最大的一個，安拉原諒我，是我很寂寞。當時，我多數朋友和親人若不是死於非命，便是離鄉背井，逃往巴基斯坦或者伊朗。在喀布爾，那個我生活了一輩子的城市，我再也沒幾個熟人了。大家都逃走了。我會到卡德帕灣區散步——你記得嗎，過去那兒經常有叫賣甜瓜的小販出沒，看到的都是不認識的人。沒有人可以打招呼，沒有人可以坐下來喝杯茶，沒有人可以說說話，只有俄國士兵在街頭巡邏。所以到了最後，我不再在城裏散步。我會整天在你父親的房間裏面，上樓到書房去，看看你媽媽那些舊書，聽聽新聞，看看電視上那些宣傳。然後我會做午禱，煮點東西吃，再看看書，又是禱告，上牀睡覺。早上我會醒來，禱告，再重複前一天的生活。
因爲患了關節炎，照料房子對我來說越來越難。我的膝蓋和後背總是發痛——早晨我起牀之後，至少得花上個小時，才能讓麻木的關節活絡起來，特別是在冬天。我不希望你父親的房子荒廢，我們在這座房子有過很多美好的時光，有很多記憶，親愛的阿米爾。你爸爸親自設計了那座房子，它對他來說意義重大，除此之外，他和你前往巴基斯坦的時候，我親口應承他，會把房子照料好。如今只有我和這座房子……我盡力了，我盡力每隔幾天給樹澆水，修剪草坪，照料花兒，釘牢那些需要固定的東西，但，就算在那個時候，我也已經不再是個年輕人了。

可是即使這樣，我仍能勉力維持。至少可以再過一段時間吧。但當我聽到你爸爸的死訊……在這座屋子裏面，我第一次感到讓人害怕的寂寞。還有無法忍受的空虛。

於是有一天，我給別克車加油，駛向哈扎拉賈特。我記得阿里從你家離開之後，你爸爸告訴我，說他和哈桑搬到一座小村落，就在巴米揚城外。我想起阿里在那兒有個表親。我不知道哈桑是否還在那兒，不知道是否有人認識，或者知道他在哪裏。畢竟，阿里和哈桑離開你爸爸的家門已經十年了。1986年，哈桑已經是個成年人了，應該是22歲，或者23歲，如果他還活着的話，就是這樣的——俄國佬，但願他們因爲在我們祖國所做的一切，在地獄裏爛掉，他們殺害了我們很多年輕人。這些我不說你也知道。
但是，感謝真主，我在那兒找到他。沒費多大勁就找到了——我所做的，不過是在巴米揚問了幾個問題，人們就指引我到他的村子去。我甚至記不起那個村子的名字了，也不知道它究竟有沒有名字。但我記得那是個灼熱的夏天，我開車駛在坑坑窪窪的泥土路上，路邊除了被曬蔫的灌木、枝節盤錯而且長着刺的樹幹、稻稈般的乾草之外，什麼也沒有。我看見路旁有頭死驢，身體開始發爛。然後我拐了個彎，看到幾間破落的泥屋，在右邊那片空地中間，它們後面什麼也沒有，只有廣袤的天空和鋸齒似的山脈。