The Enigmatic Gift from My Mother母亲的神秘礼物

Few years ago， I built a writing studio in my backyard. One hundred square feet， four windows and a door. I painted it gray to match the main， bigger house， dragged in a couch and a desk， put up some shelves that I filled with books， a lamp， and a small birdhouse my mother had given me that had been too long in the elements. When I picked up the birdhouse， a nail slipped out and a roof slat fell off. Exposure had left it fragile as an egg shell and I worried that if it fell to pieces， I could never put it back together. The delicate structure would never withstand the tapping of a hammer， so I pushed the nail back into place with my thumb and it seemed to hold.

几年前，我在后院修了一个写作工作室。一百平方英尺，开四扇窗、一扇门。为了搭配主屋的色调，我把工作室的墙漆成灰色，随后拖进一张沙发、一张桌子，再放置几个书架，上边满满地摆放书籍、一盏台灯，还有母亲送的一个小小鸟舍。鸟舍搁在室外太久，当我把它拿起来时，一颗钉子滑了出来，又掉下一根屋顶的板条。经历风吹日晒，鸟舍变得像蛋壳一般脆弱。我担心它一旦散架，我就再也无法把它组装回去。快要散架的结构完全无法承受锤子的敲击，于是我用拇指将钉子按回原位，它似乎还算稳固。

It meant nothing to me when my mother gave it to me. Just another trinket， a too-late expression of what？ An apology， a token of love？ We’d been so long estranged that at times it annoyed me to see the thing sitting out there next to a potted plant on the deck. I kept it all these years even though birds never used it.

当母亲将它送给我时，它对我来说毫无意义。又是一件小玩意，一个迟来的什么表示吗？是道歉，还是爱的象征？我们早已形同陌路，所以有时看到这玩意挨着屋后露台上的盆栽，我就感觉恼火。这些年来我一直保留着它，尽管鸟儿们从未入住。

She was so excited when I told her I had finished my first novel. She said she had always wanted to be the mother of someone famous. Immediately， I was annoyed. That wasn’t why I was writing. I wanted to be heard， to process the world around me and get it on the page. Once again， I felt the gulf between us grow. We were so unfamiliar with each other. We had never been close even when I was a child， but especially as a teenaged queer. Coming out at the age of eighteen completed the rift and as an adult I would go years without seeing her. But as the years passed， we each made efforts to bridge the differences between us; me the queer， her the devout Baptist.

当我告诉母亲自己完成了第一部小说时，她激动不已，表示自己一直想当知名人物的妈妈。顿时，我心生不悦。这并非我创作的初衷。我希望自己的声音被人听见，希望体认自己周遭的世界，并将之付诸纸端。我又一次感到我们之间的鸿沟越拉越大。我们对彼此是如此陌生。即便在我的童年，我们也从未亲近过，更别提青春期时我还是一名酷儿。十八岁时的出柜使我们之间形成了一道鸿沟，成年之后，我也多年不与她相见。但随着岁月流逝，我们彼此都在努力弥合分歧；我，古怪的同性恋者；她，虔诚的浸礼会教徒。

Days before she died， she asked me to move her into a barn. She wanted a bed of hay and to smell the earthy things of this world， the ground beneath her， and fresh air on her skin. She settled for wheelchair rides beneath the shadow of the pines on the hospice grounds.

在母亲去世的前几天，她让我将她移进一间谷仓。她想要一张铺满干草的床，想要闻闻人世间的凡尘之物，闻闻脚底下的土地气息和皮肤上的清新空气。她不得不将就坐着轮椅，在临终关怀医院的松荫下稍转一转。

In her eulogy I chose to tell her favorite story from her childhood. She was thirteen， a hurricane was churning in the Gulf， headed inland， and there was a leak in the roof of her family’s house. She was home alone with her little brother so she found some spare shingles， climbed to the top， and patched the roof. This is my best memory of her， even though I wasn’t born for another seventeen years. Memory is what we claim as our own when there’s not much else to grab. For a writer， memory is where story begins.

在给她的悼词中，我决定讲述她最喜爱的童年故事。当时她十三岁，一场飓风肆虐着墨西哥湾，并向着内陆席卷而来，而她家的屋顶漏水了，家中只有他们姐弟二人。于是，她找了一些闲置的木瓦，爬上屋顶，把它补好。这是我对她最美好的记忆，尽管我十七年后才出生。记忆是我们在一无可得之时，唯一能够声称专属之物。对作家而言，记忆便是故事的开端。

It can’t be a surprise that I write from an outsider’s point of view， instinctively gravitating toward characters that exist on the perimeters of society—loners， with limited resources， who have to be creative to get by and stay alive. From the beginning I’ve been drawn to explore the impact on familial relationships of societal influences such as poverty， religion， constricted gender norms. Images and dreams return me to this point of view every time.

我从一个局外人的视角来进行写作，本能地倾向于描写社会的边缘人物——孤苦之人，资源匮乏，必须发挥创造力才能维持生计——这确在情理之中。从提笔创作伊始，我便被吸引着去探索诸如贫穷、宗教、狭隘的性别规范等社会因素对家庭关系的影响。脑中的画面与梦境每次都会将我拉回到这个视角。

My mother was born poor and she died poor. As a society， we like to imagine hardworking people rising above poverty. We want stories where the mother works two jobs but somehow keeps her kids’ clothes clean and ironed. The mother in my story， Racine， works two jobs while raising a young son， oblivious to what he’s experiencing at school and the event that brings them irreconcilable trouble.

我母亲一贫如洗地来，又一贫如洗地走。我们这个社会总喜欢想象勤劳的人摆脱贫困。我们总希望听到这样的故事：母亲做着两份工作，却总能设法让孩子们的衣服干干净净、平平整整。在我笔下的故事中，母亲拉辛一边做着两份工作，一边抚养年幼的儿子，而她对儿子的在校经历或是给二人招来天大麻烦的事件全不知情。

A dream of my father emerging from death to hand me the reins of a reddish-brown horse appears in Long Time Coming. A baby turtle crawling down a blacktop resulted in a mother-daughter exchange in Low Tide. A single image of seahorses swimming in the Gulf of Mexico produced the story， Lucky Girl. All of these stories began with pieces of dreams and memories that became short stories， which I explored on the page until they revealed elements of universal truth.

我梦见父亲死而复生，把一匹红棕色马的缰绳交给我，这个梦境出现在《期盼已久》中。在《退潮》中，一只爬下柏油路的小海龟引发了一对母女之间的对话。一幅海马在墨西哥湾游动的画面孕育出《幸运女孩》的故事。所有这些故事都始于梦境与记忆的片段，这些片段化成了短篇小说，我在纸端不断探索，直到它们揭示出普遍真理的元素。

This birdhouse is gray and weathered. Its boards are so dried and split from years of sun and rain that its nails are rusted and loose. A five-dollar item from Big Lots was actually a big purchase for my mother to afford. What all had she seen in that birdhouse？ What was she trying to say with that gift？ The birdhouse sits safely on a shelf now， out of the wind and rain. It might fall apart the next time I pick it up， but if it does， I will fix it. It holds nothing. But somehow， it’s holding together.

鸟舍现已褪色发灰。由于多年的日晒雨淋，木板已经干裂，钉子也已生锈松动。对我母亲来说，购买必乐透商场里一件五美元的商品其实是一笔大开销。她透过这个鸟舍看到了什么？她想要用这个礼物表达什么？如今鸟舍安全地放置在书架上，免受风雨侵袭。下次我再拿起它时，它可能就会散架，但即便它散架了，我也会把它修好。鸟舍中一无所有，但不知为何，它仍然保持完整。

（译者单位：广东外语外贸大学高级翻译学院）

1美国女作家。著有小说《来自盲河镇的女孩》（The Girl from Blind River）等作品。文内提到的几个故事出自她的短篇小说集《〈升起〉及其他故事》（Rising and Other Stories）。