Antonya Nelson: “Literally”

“She’s always late!” the sixteen-year-old sobbed.

“她总是迟到！”十六岁的孩子抽泣着。

She’d set up the ironing board and its accessories like a shrine to housewifery.

她把熨衣板及其配件设置得像一个家庭主妇的圣地。

Heat shimmered in the air, had already slightly compromised the plastic of the spray bottle.

空气中闪烁着热气，喷雾瓶的塑料已经受到了轻微的损害。

Only Bonita could master the pleats of Suzanne’s ghastly uniform skirt.

只有博尼塔才能驾驭苏珊娜可怕的制服裙上的褶皱。

Other girls did not care.

其他女孩并不在意。

Still others had punctual housekeepers.

还有一些人有准时的管家。

Or parents who ironed.

或者熨烫衣服的父母。

“Suse is so anal,” her brother, Danny, noted from the table, where he and his father were studying their computer screens over breakfast, sharing news items and a bowl of pineapple.

“苏丝太肛门了，”她的哥哥丹尼在餐桌上说道，他和父亲正在餐桌上吃早餐，一边研究电脑屏幕，一边分享新闻报道和一碗菠萝。

“She takes three showers a day, which is more than some people take in a year.

“她一天洗三次澡，这比有些人一年洗的次数还多。

In the future, that will be illegal.

将来，这将是非法的。

Seriously, I skip showers so that our carbon footprint won’t be so terrible.”

说真的，我不洗澡，这样我们的碳足迹就不会那么严重。”

“Do you know there’s a second part to that expression?

“你知道这个表达还有第二部分吗？

The ‘retentive’ part?” his father asked.

‘保留’部分？”他父亲问道。

“It’s amazing how comfortable people are tossing that around—‘anal retentive.’ People are very casual with the psychology.

“令人惊讶的是，人们对‘肛门保留’这个词的使用是多么自如。人们对这种心理非常随意。

So blasé about the butt.”

对屁股太厌倦了。”

“Literally,” his father said.

“确实如此，”他的父亲说。

Richard liked to make his son smile by using his favorite word incorrectly.

理查德喜欢通过错误地使用他最喜欢的词来让儿子微笑。

Suzanne had done everything she could: curled her hair, made up her face, donned her shirt and shorts and shoes and socks, packed her backpack, checked her assignments, opened the back door, cleared a path to the ironing board.

苏珊娜已经做了她能做的一切：卷曲头发，化妆，穿上衬衫、短裤、鞋子和袜子，收拾好背包，检查作业，打开后门，清理出一条通往熨衣板的路。

She had spread the khaki skirt on the narrow end, where it sagged practically to the floor.

她把卡其色裙子的窄端展开，裙子几乎垂到地板上。

Others at her school—the school she’d begged to attend, and which she worked at Dairy Queen to help pay for, a private élite place run by nuns, where boys were not allowed—had altered their uniforms, raising the skirt’s hemline far above the knee.

她所在的学校——她恳求就读的那所学校，她在冰雪皇后工作，以帮助支付费用，这是一个由修女经营的私人精英场所，不允许男孩进入——已经改变了他们的制服，将裙子的下摆提高到膝盖以上。

Still others arrived at the gate wearing sweatpants or jeans, and then pulled on the required garment like a burlap bag, something they’d kick to the floorboards of their cars minutes after the last bell rang.

还有一些人穿着运动裤或牛仔裤到达门口，然后穿上所需的衣服，就像粗麻袋一样，在最后铃声响起几分钟后，他们会把东西踢到汽车的地板上。

“ Lo siento!

“瞧瞧！

” Richard heard, along with the clatter of Bonita’s heels.

“理查德听到了，伴随着博尼塔脚后跟的嘎嘎声。

“ Lo siento, Susana, mija!

“再见，苏珊娜，米娅！

” And the hiss of steam as the iron met the cloth, and further Spanish as Bonita apologized and soothed, his daughter’s name a shushing on her lips, Soos , Soos , Soos .

熨斗碰到布料时发出蒸汽的嘶嘶声，博尼塔道歉并安抚时，又传来西班牙语，她的嘴唇上嘘着女儿的名字，苏斯，苏斯，苏斯……

He finally let out his breath.

他终于松了口气。

“Thank God,” he murmured.

“感谢上帝，”他低声说道。

“I have choir and then work,” Suzanne called to her father as she rushed out the back door.

“我有唱诗班，然后工作，”苏珊冲出后门时对她的父亲喊道。

These days, she spent more time apart from her family than with them.

这些天来，她与家人分开的时间比和家人在一起的时间还要多。

That would be the story from now on, Richard thought, the incremental move away.

理查德想，这就是从现在开始的故事，逐步离开。

Bonita had brought her son, Isaac, with her, as she always did, but she let Richard know that the boy wouldn’t be going to school today, because he was suffering a bout of what she had only ever been able to describe as “ nervioso ,” rubbing her stomach to illustrate her son’s mysterious and chronic affliction.

博尼塔一如既往地带着她的儿子艾萨克，但她让理查德知道这个男孩今天不会去上学，因为他正在遭受一种她只能形容为“紧张”的症状，她揉着肚子来说明她儿子神秘而长期的痛苦。

His mother pronounced his name “Ee-sock,” although the boy preferred “I-zack.” Unlike his mother, he spoke fluent English.

他的母亲把他的名字发音为“Ee-sock”，尽管男孩更喜欢“I-zack”。与他的母亲不同，他能说一口流利的英语。

He and Danny were the same age—eleven.

他和丹尼同岁——十一岁。

Bonita used the family’s street address as her own so that Isaac could attend the nearby public school.

博尼塔使用了家里的街道地址作为自己的地址，以便艾萨克可以在附近的公立学校上学。

Most days, the boys would walk the three blocks together, the very fair Danny alongside the fairly dark Isaac.

大多数时候，男孩们会一起走过三个街区，非常白皙的丹尼和相当黑的艾萨克在一起。

When they were younger, they’d held hands.

当他们年轻的时候，他们曾牵过手。

For the past three years, since Richard’s wife had died, the boys had been permitted to be in the same class, even though they distracted each other, communicating almost telepathically.

在过去的三年里，自从理查德的妻子去世后，男孩们就被允许在同一个班级，尽管他们几乎通过心灵感应来交流，分散了彼此的注意力。

No one challenged them when they requested a joint trip to the nurse’s office; no one admonished them when they were absent on the same day.

当他们要求一起去护士办公室时，没有人质疑他们；当他们当天缺席时，没有人警告他们。

There seemed to be an endless bounty of understanding at that modest brick school, situated at the heart of a neighborhood populated by university professors and medical personnel, with equitable two-income, two-car, two-children homes, staffed by nannies and gardeners and housekeepers, an insulated hub of bleeding-heart liberalism.

在那所朴素的砖砌学校里，似乎有无穷无尽的理解，它坐落在一个由大学教授和医务人员组成的社区中心，有公平的两收入、两辆车、两个孩子的家庭，配备了保姆、园丁和管家，是一个与流血的自由主义隔绝的中心。

Still, no matter how well-meaning a school it was, no matter how conscientious about maintaining Spanish signage and notifications, Bonita was intimidated by its administration.

尽管如此，无论这所学校是多么善意，无论多么认真地维护西班牙标牌和通知，博尼塔都被其管理机构吓倒了。

Before, it had been Richard’s wife who played intermediary; now it was Richard who phoned in the excuses for the boys; Richard who attended the parent-teacher conferences, too, Bonita sitting beside him nodding, listening but only half-understanding what was being carefully noted about her son.

此前，是理查德的妻子充当中间人；现在是理查德打电话给孩子们找借口。理查德也参加了家长会，博尼塔坐在他旁边，点着头，听着，但不太明白人们在仔细记录她儿子的情况。

She had five other children, older than Isaac, a few on their own already, all of them independent enough.

她还有另外五个孩子，比艾萨克大，其中几个已经是自己的孩子了，他们都足够独立。

Where Isaac’s siblings had gone to school, in Gulfton, there had been no counselling services or narrative reports.

艾萨克的兄弟姐妹在古夫顿上学，那里没有咨询服务或叙述报告。

There had been grades and failures, expulsions and swats.

有成绩、不及格、开除和殴打。

Isaac’s brothers and sisters had put Bonita through many trials—arrests, pregnancies, car accidents—but Isaac’s trouble, its invisibility, was new to her.

艾萨克的兄弟姐妹让博尼塔经历了许多考验——被捕、怀孕、车祸——但艾萨克的麻烦，它的隐形，对她来说是新的。

He was tentative, alert to any little sound or look of disapproval; if you moved too quickly, he flinched, as delicate and lithe as a water bug.

他很犹豫，对任何轻微的声音或不赞成的眼神都很警惕。如果你动作太快，他就会退缩，像水虫一样娇嫩而柔软。

He often cried; his stomach seized whenever he was confronted with something he was afraid of, and he was afraid of many things—loud noises and crowds and dogs and busy streets and elevators and balconies and the dark and his nightmares and chaos in general and change of even the smallest sort and, most of all, his father, who, during his rare appearances at home, was a drunken and brutal man.

他经常哭泣；每当他遇到害怕的事情时，他的胃就会痉挛，他害怕很多东西——吵闹的声音、人群、狗、繁忙的街道、电梯、阳台、黑暗、他的噩梦和混乱，甚至是最小的变化，最重要的是，他的父亲，在他很少出现在家里​​的时候，是一个醉酒和残暴的人。

Bonita’s other children had been toughened by their bad dad and their rough neighborhood and their over-all hard luck, rendered sturdy by duress, but Isaac had been made too tender.

博尼塔的其他孩子因为他们的坏爸爸、粗暴的邻居和整体的运气而变得坚强，在胁迫下变得坚强，但艾萨克却变得太温柔了。