327: By Proxy - This American Life
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00:00 00:00 Transcript Share This American Life Life Partners How to Listen Episodes Recommended About Overview Staff Announcements Fellowships Jobs Music Make Radio On The Road FAQ Submissions Merch Contact Us Our Other Shows Merch Follow Us Life Partners Subscribe to our newsletter Full episode Toggle Audio and Transcript Sync Transcript | Episode #327 | July 4, 2008 327: By Proxy Note: This American Life is produced for the ear and designed to be heard.
00:00 00:00 文字记录 分享此 美国生活 生活伙伴 如何收听 剧集 推荐 关于 概述 员工公告 奖学金 工作 音乐 在路上制作电台 常见问题解答 提交 商品 联系我们 我们的其他节目 商品 关注我们 生活伙伴 订阅我们的时事通讯 整集 切换音频和文字记录同步 文字记录 | 内容第 327 集 | 2008 年 7 月 4 日 327：由代理人注意：《美国生活》是为耳朵而制作的，旨在让人们听到。
If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page.
如果可以的话，我们强烈建议您收听音频，其中包括页面上没有的情感和重点。
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
文字记录是使用语音识别软件和人工转录员结合生成的，可能包含错误。
Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
请在印刷版引用前检查相应的音频。
Prologue Ira Glass There's really no way around some arguments.
序言 Ira Glass 有些争论确实无法回避。
Maybe arguments just want to happen.
也许争论只是想发生。
One of the producers of our radio show, This American Life , was at this conference recently, and this guy named Eric Molinsky told her about this strangely and unexpectedly fierce argument that he had gotten into with a good friend of his.
我们广播节目《美国生活》的一位制作人最近参加了这次会议，这个名叫埃里克·莫林斯基的人向她讲述了他与一位好朋友发生的这场奇怪且出乎意料的激烈争吵。
It was his cousin in fact.
事实上，这是他的表弟。
And the whole thing started with no warning at all.
整个事情开始时没有任何警告。
Like he told Nancy, they were happily chatting away in a nice warm cafe.
就像他告诉南希的那样，他们在一家温馨的咖啡馆里愉快地聊天。
Everything was like comfort food, comfort seats and we were so comfortable--.
一切都像是舒适的食物、舒适的座椅，我们是如此的舒适——。
I'm getting tense already just hearing about it.
我刚听到这件事就已经紧张了。
We were so comfortable.
我们很舒服。
It was one of those things where you actually could hardly touch the table.
这是你实际上几乎无法触摸桌子的东西之一。
You actually had to sit up in your giant lounge chair to get the soup on the little table.
实际上，你必须坐在巨大的躺椅上才能把汤放在小桌子上。
The comfy soup.
舒服的汤。
Eric Molinsky The comfy soup, yeah.
埃里克·莫林斯基 舒服的汤，是的。
So we were talking along, and I remember I-- somehow I brought this up, about corporate tax loopholes.
所以我们一起讨论，我记得我——不知怎么的，我提出了这个问题，关于公司税收漏洞。
And then she was like, first she said, well, let me play the devil's advocate here.
然后她就说，首先她说，好吧，让我在这里唱反调。
Not that I'm defending corporations, but don't you think that if you're going to make them pay taxes, they're just going to pick up and leave and go to another state?
我并不是在捍卫企业，但你不认为如果你要让他们纳税，他们只会收拾东西离开并前往另一个州吗？
And she kept saying, not that I'm defending corporations.
她一直说，我并不是在捍卫企业。
And we kind of got deeper and deeper into this, and she sort of eventually stopped apologizing for defending corporations and really was going after this idea that it was just irresponsible.
我们对此越来越深入，她最终不再为捍卫公司而道歉，而是真正追求这种不负责任的想法。
It was typical kind of liberal--.
这是典型的自由主义者——。
Anti-business.
反商业。
Eric Molinsky Exactly And this is the way the world works.
埃里克·莫林斯基 没错，这就是世界运转的方式。
This is the way the world goes around.
这就是世界运转的方式。
Money, money, money.
钱，钱，钱。
I ended up being grandstanding.
我最终成了哗众取宠的人。
This goes into the highways, this goes into health care for everybody.
这涉及高速公路，这涉及每个人的医疗保健。
And in the middle of this tirade, in the back of his mind, Eric was thinking, why are we getting so heated up over this, both of us?
在这场长篇大论中，埃里克在他的内心深处思考着，为什么我们俩都为此如此激动？
And then, something occurred to Eric.
然后，埃里克突然想到一件事。
I think the way that I said it was, you know, I have to admit, I really don't know a lot about this issue.
我认为我所说的方式是，你知道，我必须承认，我对这个问题真的了解不多。
Or I didn't really know a lot about it until my ex-girlfriend explained it to me.
或者说，在我的前女友向我解释之前，我对此并不太了解。
When you said that, what did your cousin say?
当你这么说的时候，你表弟怎么说？
Well, she paused.
好吧，她停了下来。
And she said, well, to be honest, I didn't really know a lot about this issue either.
她说，好吧，说实话，我对这个问题也不太了解。
But I had an ex-boyfriend who educated me on it.
但我有一个前男友，他在这方面教育了我。
Eric's ex-girlfriend was a political activist with a special focus on corporate tax loopholes.
埃里克的前女友是一位政治活动家，特别关注公司税收漏洞。
His cousin Mara's ex-boyfriend worked in hedge funds.
他表弟玛拉的前男友在对冲基金工作。
And so we just stopped for a second.
所以我们停了下来。
And it was interesting, because that was the end of the argument and that's when I said to her, I think that my ex-girlfriend just got into a huge, 20-minute argument with your ex-boyfriend.
这很有趣，因为争论就这样结束了，就在那时我对她说，我认为我的前女友刚刚和你的前男友发生了一场长达 20 分钟的激烈争吵。
You know when you fall in love with somebody, it's like they have an open path straight to your heart.
你知道，当你爱上某人时，就好像他们有一条直通你心的道路。
And without you even realizing it, other things can just ride in on that path-- political ideas, favorite bands, favorite writers, pet peeves.
在你甚至没有意识到的情况下，其他的东西可能会沿着这条路走下去——政治思想、最喜欢的乐队、最喜欢的作家、讨厌的事情。
And where those things are concerned, you basically just become the person you love.
就这些事情而言，你基本上只是成为你所爱的人。
You're like their proxy.
你就像他们的代理人。
In my own life, my own opinions about television are so thoroughly shaped by my wife's opinions that a coworker recently told me that sometimes she wished that she could just skip the middleman and talk straight to my wife.
在我自己的生活中，我对电视的看法完全受到我妻子的意见的影响，以至于一位同事最近告诉我，有时她希望能够跳过中间人直接与我的妻子交谈。
But I think that we don't just become proxies for the people that we love.
但我认为我们不仅仅成为我们所爱之人的代理人。
It happens with friends.
它发生在朋友身上。
It happens in business settings.
它发生在商业环境中。
It happens in politics.
它发生在政治中。
And when it happens, things can get very confusing.
当这种情况发生时，事情会变得非常混乱。
When you really step in for somebody else, substitute yourself for somebody else, it can be hard to tell if you're doing the right thing at all.
当你真正介入别人、代替别人时，你可能很难判断你是否在做正确的事情。
If you're doing what they would want or what you want.
如果你正在做他们想要的或者你想要的。
Well, from Chicago Public Radio, it's This American Life , distributed by Public Radio International.
好吧，这是芝加哥公共广播电台的《This American Life》，由国际公共广播电台发行。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Today's show, By Proxy, stories of people turning into proxies for other people, sometimes by choice, sometimes they just find that it's happened to them without them even noticing.
今天的节目《通过代理人》讲述了人们变成其他人的代理人的故事，有时是出于选择，有时他们只是发现这件事发生在他们身上而他们甚至没有注意到。
Act one of our show today, I'm The Decider.
今天我们的节目第一幕是《我是决策者》。
What do you do when a friend asks you to make a decision that she probably should be making for herself?
当朋友要求你做出她可能应该为自己做的决定时，你会怎么做？
Well, Davy Rothbart found himself in that very position.
戴维·罗斯巴特发现自己正处于这样的境地。
Act two, Killing The Messengers, what it's like to be the proxy for the least popular guys in town, when the town is Mosul and the guys are the US Army.
第二幕，杀死信使，当城镇是摩苏尔而这些人是美国陆军时，成为镇上最不受欢迎的人的代理人是什么感觉。
Act three, Redemption By Proxy, a teenage girl and a message from beyond the grave.
第三幕，代理人的救赎，一个十几岁的女孩和来自坟墓之外的信息。
Stay with us.
留在我们身边。
Act one, I'm The Decider.
第一幕，我是决策者。
There are all kinds of situations where we step in as reluctant proxies.
在各种情况下，我们都会不情愿地作为代理人介入。
As a favor for friends or family, taking over some chore they don't want to do, taking their kids or their pets off their hands for a while.
作为对朋友或家人的恩惠，接管一些他们不想做的家务，暂时让他们的孩子或宠物脱离他们的手。
Doing something because it's the right thing to do and nobody else is stepping in.
做某事是因为这是正确的事情，没有其他人介入。
That's what happened to Davy Rothbart, more or less.
这或多或少就是戴维·罗斯巴特的遭遇。
So Cassandra is this childhood friend of mine who moved away when she was maybe 13 to Chicago, then to California, then Pensacola, Florida.
卡桑德拉是我儿时的朋友，她大概在 13 岁的时候就搬到了芝加哥，然后又搬到了加利福尼亚州，然后又搬到了佛罗里达州的彭萨科拉。
I think she had kind of a tough go of things growing up.
我认为她的成长经历有点艰难。
She never really knew her dad, and her and her mom and brother kept moving around a ton.
她从来没有真正了解过她的父亲，她和她的母亲和兄弟经常搬家。
A couple times she called me crying when she had to pull up stakes again.
有几次，当她不得不再次下注时，她哭着打电话给我。
We wrote a lot of letters back and forth, and when we were 20, we traveled around Eastern Europe together, just as friends.
我们来回写了很多信，20岁时，我们像朋友一样一起环游东欧。
Every couple of years since, she'll surface in my life by way of a middle of the night phone call.
此后每隔几年，她就会通过半夜的电话出现在我的生活中。
She'll be in the midst of a crisis and desperate for my advice.
她会陷入危机并迫切需要我的建议。
Maybe about problems at her work, or with school, or with a boyfriend, her little brother in trouble with the law.
也许是关于她的工作、学校、男朋友、她的弟弟触犯法律的问题。
She'll say things to me like, you're so sensible.
她会对我说，你真懂事。
You understand how things work.
你了解事情是如何运作的。
You're so smart about things.
你对事情很聪明。
Not just smart, but wise.
不仅聪明，而且有智慧。
It's kind of hard to resist.
有点难以抗拒。
So after she calls me with a problem, for a week or so we talk every day, just going through it all.
因此，在她打电话给我提出问题后，大约一周的时间里，我们每天都会交谈，只是经历这一切。
And by then, we've figured out a good approach.
到那时，我们已经找到了一个好方法。
Say she's got a manager at work who's overly flirtatious, making her uncomfortable.
假设她的工作经理过于轻浮，让她感到不舒服。
I kind of ask her a bunch of questions.
我问她一堆问题。
What's he doing exactly?
他到底在做什么？
How often?
多常？
Have other people witnessed his behavior?
其他人目睹过他的行为吗？
Who's his supervisor?
他的上司是谁？
After talking a bunch, we make a plan for some kind of decisive action.
经过一番交谈后，我们制定了采取某种果断行动的计划。
She feels a whole lot better, and I, in turn, feel sensible, knowledgeable and smart.
她感觉好多了，而我也感觉自己明智、知识渊博、聪明。
Not just smart, but wise.
不仅聪明，而且有智慧。
Then a few years ago she called me, freaking out.
几年前，她打电话给我，吓坏了。
She had a new kind of crisis, not like anything I had ever dealt with before.
她遇到了一种新的危机，与我以前处理过的任何危机都不一样。
She was pregnant, almost three months pregnant.
她怀孕了，怀孕快三个月了。
The dad was her sometimes boyfriend, a hippie wanderer type named Rainbow Bear.
父亲是她有时的男朋友，一个嬉皮流浪者，名叫彩虹熊。
She was living in Santa Barbara, she said, without any close friends around, no one to really turn to, and she was really upset and confused, torn up about whether she should have this baby or not.
她说，她住在圣巴巴拉，周围没有任何亲密的朋友，没有人可以真正求助，她真的很沮丧和困惑，不知道自己是否应该生这个孩子。
Rainbow Bear wasn't involved.
彩虹熊没有参与其中。
She said to me, tell me what to do and I'll do it.
她对我说，告诉我该怎么做，我就会做。
So I did pretty much what any sensible and smart person would do in that situation.
所以我做了任何明智和聪明的人在这种情况下都会做的事情。
I told her I couldn't make the decision for her, but that I would do everything I could to equip her with as much information as possible, so that she'd be able to decide what to do on her own.
我告诉她我不能替她做决定，但我会尽我所能为她提供尽可能多的信息，以便她能够自己决定该怎么做。
Then I got to work.
然后我就开始工作了。
I knew one friend who'd had an abortion and had always been haunted by it, and another friend who'd had an abortion and, while sad about it of course, really believed it had been the right thing to do.
我认识一个朋友，他曾经堕过胎，并且一直被堕胎所困扰，而另一位朋友也曾经堕过胎，虽然对此感到悲伤，但他真的相信这是正确的做法。
I also found a woman who'd given her baby up for adoption, and another who'd kept her baby and was a single mom.
我还找到了一位女士，她把自己的孩子送给别人收养，还有一位女士留下了她的孩子，她是一位单亲妈妈。
I got them all to agree to talk to Cassandra, but she was really shy, and too upset to reach out to strangers.
我让他们都同意与卡桑德拉交谈，但她真的很害羞，而且太沮丧，无法与陌生人接触。
Those are your friends, not mine, she said, I'll feel weird calling them.
那些是你的朋友，不是我的，她说，我给他们打电话会感觉很奇怪。
So OK, I changed my plan, and talked at great length to each of these women myself, then relayed their stories to Cassandra, careful to present them in a balanced way, so it wouldn't seem like I was favoring one option over another.
好吧，我改变了计划，亲自与这些女性中的每一位进行了详细的交谈，然后将她们的故事转述给了卡桑德拉，小心翼翼地以平衡的方式呈现它们，这样我就不会显得我更倾向于一种选择而不是另一种选择。
I'd even gone so far as so talk to a couple of friends in med school to gauge the medical risks of a later first term abortion.
我什至与医学院的几个朋友交谈，以评估第一学期堕胎的医疗风险。
Relatively safe, it turns out.
事实证明，相对安全。
At the end of all this, Cassandra was only more confused and overwhelmed.
这一切结束后，卡桑德拉只是更加困惑和不知所措。
Please, she begged me, tell me what you think I should do.
她恳求我，请告诉我你认为我应该做什么。
And that's where I should have said, look, nobody can tell you what to do in this situation.
这就是我应该说的，听着，没有人能告诉你在这种情况下该怎么做。
Of course this is agonizing, but only you can know what path to take.
当然，这很痛苦，但只有你自己知道该走哪条路。
Whatever you choose, that will be the right decision.
无论您选择什么，这都将是正确的决定。
But that's not what I said.
但我不是这么说的。
Cassandra was barely getting by on her own as a cashier at a health food store.
卡桑德拉在一家健康食品店当收银员，勉强度日。
No medical insurance, shady roommates, a shaky lease, a boyfriend named Rainbow Bear.
没有医疗保险、阴暗的室友、不稳定的租约、一个名叫彩虹熊的男朋友。
Cassandra, I said, I know being a mother appeals to you but you're still so young.
卡桑德拉，我说，我知道做母亲对你很有吸引力，但你还那么年轻。
Maybe this isn't the right time.
也许现在还不是时候。
Down the road you'll have the chance to have a baby with a guy who's going to be there to raise the child with you.
将来，你将有机会和一个会和你一起抚养孩子的男人生孩子。
It's just going to be so hard on your own.
靠你自己会很难的。
I think you should wait.
我认为你应该等待。
I think you should wait.
我认为你应该等待。
Sort of a pleasant euphemism for kill the fetus.
这是杀死胎儿的一种令人愉快的委婉说法。
Cassandra sounded sad but she said I was right, and that now she knew what to do.
卡桑德拉听起来很伤心，但她说我是对的，现在她知道该怎么做了。
She kept thanking me for being such a kind and generous friend.
她一直感谢我是一个如此善良和慷慨的朋友。
We talked maybe once more the next day, and then she disappeared again.
第二天我们可能又聊了一次，然后她又消失了。
For months afterwards, I felt weird about what I'd done.
几个月后，我对自己的所作所为感到很奇怪。
I did think it was probably for the best, but what if something went wrong and she was never able to have children again?
我确实认为这可能是最好的，但如果出现问题并且她再也不能生孩子怎么办？
Or what if she never found the right guy and this had been her one chance to be a mother?
或者，如果她从未找到合适的人，而这是她成为母亲的唯一机会怎么办？
I think it would have felt equally weird if I'd told her to have the baby too.
我想如果我告诉她也生孩子的话也会感觉同样奇怪。
I just felt like I shouldn't have been the one to decide.
我只是觉得我不应该成为决定的人。
Three years later, I'm living in Chicago and I get a call.
三年后，我住在芝加哥，接到一个电话。
It's Cassandra.
这是卡桑德拉。
She's in the Chicago suburbs staying with her grandfather.
她在芝加哥郊区和她的祖父住在一起。
She invites me out to visitor her and we agree to meet the next day at the playground across from her grandfather's house.
她邀请我出去拜访她，我们同意第二天在她祖父家对面的操场见面。
I pull up, hop out of my car, and there's Cassandra, waving to me from beside the swing set.
我把车停下来，跳下车，卡桑德拉就在秋千旁边向我招手。
Then I see, tearing through the grass toward me, a little blond, two year old boy.
然后我看到，一个两岁的金发小男孩正穿过草地向我走来。
It's Cassandra's son of course.
当然是卡桑德拉的儿子。
She had the baby after all, and he's got the same name as my favorite basketball player in the world, Isaiah, like Isaiah Thomas.
毕竟她生了孩子，而且他的名字和我最喜欢的篮球运动员以赛亚同名，就像以赛亚·托马斯一样。
Davy, meet Isaiah Bear.
戴维，认识以赛亚熊。
My eyes got all watery.
我的眼睛都湿润了。
And Isaiah, he's like the most incredible, joyous, dazzlingly intelligent two year old boy I've ever met in my life.
以赛亚，他就像我一生中见过的最令人难以置信、最快乐、最聪明的两岁男孩。
I swear this is true.
我发誓这是真的。
That night, we brought him to my friend Nicole's house.
那天晚上，我们带他去了我朋友妮可家。
I was couch surfing at her place at the time.
当时我正在她家沙发冲浪。
And when we introduced him to 12 people in a circle, he went right back around and knew every single person's name.
当我们把他介绍给围成一圈的 12 个人时，他马上又转过来，知道每个人的名字。
Incredible.
极好的。
At the same time, as amazing as Isaiah was, Cassandra was struggling.
与此同时，尽管以赛亚令人惊叹，卡桑德拉却在挣扎。
Rainbow bear had rumbled off and she'd been bouncing from town to town, first staying with his parents, then an old boyfriend or two, and now her grandfather.
彩虹熊轰隆隆地走了，她从一个城镇跳到另一个城镇，先是和他的父母住在一起，然后是一两个旧男友，现在是她的祖父。
But that was a bad situation too.
但这也是一个糟糕的情况。
She had to get out of there.
她必须离开那里。
And here I was.
我就在这里。
I felt pretty guilty for having pressed Cassandra to have an abortion.
我对强迫卡桑德拉堕胎感到非常内疚。
Somehow I thought, if I could help his path toward a good life, I could make up for that little part where I'd suggested he be exterminated.
不知怎的，我想，如果我能帮助他走向美好的生活，我就可以弥补我建议消灭他的那一小部分。
So I jumped back in again.
于是我又跳了回去。
I took over.
我接手了。
And I came up with a plan.
我想出了一个计划。
I'd move back home to my folks' house in Michigan for a little while.
我会搬回密歇根州父母家住一段时间。
I'd bring Cassandra and Isaiah to live with us for a couple of months in Ann Arbor.
我会带卡桑德拉和以赛亚到安娜堡和我们一起住几个月。
And Cassandra said that's what she wanted.
卡桑德拉说这就是她想要的。
Stay with my folks, get a job, work and save money, then move into her own place and raise her son.
和我的父母住在一起，找到一份工作，工作并存钱，然后搬到她自己的地方并抚养她的儿子。
I was really excited about the whole thing.
我对整件事感到非常兴奋。
I truly wanted to help Cassandra, you know?
我真的很想帮助卡桑德拉，你知道吗？
She'd been a lifelong friend.
她是我一生的朋友。
And I also liked the idea of being altruistic.
我也喜欢无私的想法。
And the idea that this other girl I was chasing after at the time might see me as altruistic.
我当时追求的另一个女孩可能会认为我是无私的。
And it occurred to me that living with Cassandra and Isaiah would be kind of like having my own kid.
我突然想到，与卡桑德拉和以赛亚一起生活就像拥有自己的孩子一样。
At the basketball court where I'd played ball in Chicago, there was this one guy who always brought his two kids with him, like two and four years old.
在我在芝加哥打球的篮球场上，有一个人总是带着他的两个孩子，一个两岁一个四岁。
Between games, he'd mess around with them for a couple of minutes, or shout at them from wandering too far away.
在比赛间隙，他会和他们一起玩几分钟，或者因为他们走得太远而对他们大喊大叫。
I liked the idea of showing up at the court in Ann Arbor with Isaiah, and being able to cuff him, roughhouse with him and teach him how to shoot.
我喜欢和以赛亚一起出现在安娜堡的球场上，能够给他戴上手铐，和他打架，教他如何投篮。
Being a dad, or acting as a dad, makes you feel more like a man.
作为一个父亲，或者扮演一个父亲的角色，会让你感觉更像一个男人。
Makes you seem a little more tough and rugged.
让你看起来更加坚韧和粗犷。
Having Cassandra and Isaiah in Ann Arbor was great.
卡桑德拉和以赛亚在安娜堡真是太好了。
My mom got a little kiddy pool for the backyard, and Sandra and Isaiah spent all afternoon and evening back there.
我妈妈在后院建了一个小儿童游泳池，桑德拉和以赛亚整个下午和晚上都在那里度过。
Cassandra made soup and all kinds of complicated vegan foods in the kitchen and washed her clothes with a hose and hung them up to dry on the old, rusty playground equipment out back.
卡桑德拉在厨房里煮汤和各种复杂的纯素食品，用软管洗衣服，然后把它们挂在后面生锈的旧游乐场设备上晾干。
We had a basketball hoop in our driveway, and me and my friends started showing young Isaiah how to shoot.
我们的车道上有一个篮球筐，我和我的朋友开始向年轻的以赛亚展示如何投篮。
We called him Zeke, after Isaiah Thomas' nickname.
我们称他为泽克（Zeke），以赛亚·托马斯（Isaiah Thomas）的昵称。
And the kid, Zeke, had the sunniest disposition, and he was a natural athlete.
泽克这个孩子性格最阳光，是天生的运动员。
I started in pretty quickly trying to find Sandra a job.
我很快就开始尝试给桑德拉找一份工作。
Between me, my friends, and my parents, we found a few solid leads, solid enough that all she had to do was show up for an interview and the job would be hers.
在我、我的朋友和我的父母之间，我们找到了一些可靠的线索，足够可靠，以至于她所要做的就是参加面试，这份工作就是她的了。
These weren't dream jobs, but they were decent paying jobs, like working the register at a Birkenstock store or taking phone orders at Bell's Pizza.
这些不是理想的工作，但它们是报酬不错的工作，比如在 Birkenstock 商店收银或在 Bell's Pizza 接受电话订单。
But every time we had an interview set up for Sandra, she managed to miss it.
但每次我们为桑德拉安排采访时，她都设法错过了。
She got lost on her way there or Isaiah was nursing and she couldn't leave him right then, those kinds of things.
她在去那里的路上迷路了，或者以赛亚正在哺乳，她当时不能离开他，诸如此类的事情。
Finally, one day I drove her to an interview.
终于有一天，我开车送她去面试。
Though she had her own car, I just wanted to make sure she actually went to it.
虽然她有自己的车，但我只是想确保她真的去了。
She got the job, a receptionist at a new agey type salon.
她找到了一份工作，在一家新时代沙龙担任接待员。
They asked her to start work the next morning.
他们要求她第二天早上开始工作。
I drew a careful map with clear directions so she'd have no trouble finding the place and even set her alarm clock to wake her in plenty of time to get to work.
我仔细地画了一张地图，上面有清晰的方向，这样她就可以毫不费力地找到这个地方，甚至还设置了闹钟，以便在充足的时间里叫醒她去上班。
My plan was for me and my dad to split the day looking after Zeke, and then on days we weren't around, Zeke could go to daycare.
我的计划是让我和我爸爸分时间照顾泽克，然后在我们不在的日子里，泽克可以去日托所。
But the next morning, I wake up and Cassandra's just laying in bed, playing with Zeke.
但第二天早上，我醒来时发现卡桑德拉正躺在床上和泽克玩耍。
I charged into the room.
我冲进房间。
Oh my God, you're two hours late for work, and it's your first day.
天哪，你上班迟到了两个小时，而且这是你第一天上班。
And she's just like, oh, I decided not to go.
她就像，哦，我决定不去。
If you knew Cassandra, you'd be shocked when I told you that she never smoked pot because she just had that total, glassy, dreamlike air to her, completely unperturbed by real world situations.
如果你认识卡桑德拉，当我告诉你她从不吸大麻时，你一定会感到震惊，因为她身上有一种完全、玻璃般、梦幻般的气质，完全不受现实世界情况的干扰。
In a lot of ways, she was like a child, which became so frustrating.
在很多方面，她就像一个孩子，这变得如此令人沮丧。
Cassandra kept putting all of her decisions in my hands, but then she wasn't actually doing any of the things I was telling her to do.
卡桑德拉一直把她所有的决定都交给我，但她实际上并没有做我告诉她做的任何事情。
And I finally realized, things that were easy for me, like showing up for work on time, showing up at all, were not easy for her.
我终于意识到，对我来说很容易的事情，比如准时上班、根本不上班，对她来说并不容易。
It was clear, she wasn't going to get a job.
很明显，她不会找到工作。
And I don't want to be too critical.
我不想太挑剔。
Taking care of her two year old, she was exhausted all the time.
照顾两岁的孩子，她一直疲惫不堪。
And really, I began to understand just how difficult it would be to raise a kid on your own.
真的，我开始明白独自抚养一个孩子是多么困难。
I mean, that stuff is relentless when you have two parents.
我的意思是，当你有两个父母时，这种事情是无情的。
But all alone, it's brutal.
但独自一人，这很残酷。
Even for me, the allure of playing dad began to wane.
即使对我来说，扮演爸爸的吸引力也开始减弱。
I was stuck babysitting a lot.
我经常被困在保姆身上。
When I tried to take Zeke with me to the schoolyard where I always played basketball, he didn't understand that he couldn't come out on the court when the grownups were playing, and I had to leave the game and take him home.
当我试图带泽克去我经常打篮球的校园时，他不明白大人打球时他不能出来打球，我不得不离开比赛并带他回家。
And most days, I'd be at home, trying to get some kind of important work done on the computer, and play Hungry Hungry Hippo at the same time.
大多数时候，我会待在家里，一边尝试在电脑上完成一些重要的工作，一边玩《饥饿的河马》。
Suddenly, I felt desperately like I needed an out.
突然，我觉得自己非常需要一个出口。
My parents recognized that Cassandra had no intention of finding her own housing and they were ready to have their house back and I was ready to have my life back.
我的父母认识到卡桑德拉无意寻找自己的住房，他们已经准备好拿回自己的房子，我也准备好恢复我的生活。
My stab at playing dad revealed itself for what it was all along-- a theme park ride, a novelty, a selfish gift.
我扮演爸爸的尝试暴露了它的本质——一次主题公园之旅、一次新奇、一份自私的礼物。
So naturally, I hatched a new, even more ill-conceived plan, and tried to hook Cassandra up with my friend Brandy, so he could take her off my hands.
所以很自然地，我想出了一个新的、甚至更糟糕的计划，并试图把卡桑德拉和我的朋友布兰迪联系起来，这样他就可以把她从我手中夺走。
I knew Brandy was into Cassandra, and he was great with Isaiah, so I kept making plans for all of us to hang out together, then ducking out at the last minute.
我知道布兰迪喜欢卡桑德拉，而且他和以赛亚相处得很好，所以我不断地计划让我们所有人一起出去玩，然后在最后一刻回避。
Randy took over all the dad responsibilities I'd felt saddled with, and Cassandra enjoyed Brandy's kindness and attention.
兰迪承担了我所承担的所有父亲责任，而卡桑德拉则享受布兰迪的友善和关注。
There was actually a momentary romantic spark, and I saw everything unspooling beautifully.
实际上有一瞬间的浪漫火花，我看到一切都在美丽地展开。
But Randy was living at home with his own mom, and they were barely making ends meet as it was.
但兰迪和他自己的妈妈住在家里，他们勉强维持收支平衡。
Randy's mom quashed everything really quick.
兰迪的妈妈很快就推翻了一切。
There's no way they're moving in here with us.
他们不可能搬到我们这里来。
One of the lowest moments of this whole strange saga was when Cassandra said to me one day-- not angrily, just plainly-- if you want me to leave, I'll leave.
整个奇怪的传奇故事中最低谷的时刻之一是有一天卡桑德拉对我说——不是愤怒，只是坦白——如果你想让我离开，我就离开。
You don't have to try and peddle me off on your friends.
你不必试图向你的朋友兜售我。
There's a TV show from the '80s that I saw only a handful of times, but always really loved, called Quantum Leap .
有一个 80 年代的电视节目，我只看过几次，但一直非常喜欢，叫做《量子跳跃》。
Remember that?
还记得吗？
Each week's episode would revolve around a different person caught up in a complicated and difficult situation that they couldn't fix.
每周的剧集都会围绕一个不同的人展开，他们陷入了无法解决的复杂而困难的局面。
And the star of the show, Scott Bakula, would actually be zapped into that person's body, become that person, and he would make things right.
而这部剧的明星斯科特·巴库拉实际上会被击入那个人的身体，成为那个人，他会让事情变得正确。
It's one thing to get involved in other people's problems and do your best to help them.
参与别人的问题并尽力帮助他们是一回事。
But man, it'd be a whole other thing if you could actually inhabit their body and fix everything up yourself.
但是伙计，如果你真的能住在他们的身体里并自己修复一切，那就完全是另一回事了。
Then you could really help some people.
那么你就可以真正帮助一些人。
I'm sure in the end, it's not the best way to do it.
我确信最终这不是最好的方法。
At the very least, it's kind of a bullying way to look at other people's problems.
至少，这是一种以欺凌的方式看待别人的问题。
But I guess that's me, wanting the ball in my hands, wanting to run the show.
但我想那就是我，想要球在我手中，想要掌控一切。
Not long after Cassandra told me I didn't need to peddle her onto my friends, she decided that she and Zeke would pack up and leave town.
卡桑德拉告诉我不需要把她推销给我的朋友后不久，她决定和泽克收拾行李离开小镇。
She had been talking to Zeke's dad, Rainbow Bear, on the phone, and they were going to try to get back together.
她一直在和泽克的爸爸彩虹熊通电话，他们打算尝试复合。
Rainbow had moved to Hawaii, and Sandra and Isaiah were headed there to meet up with him.
云宝搬到了夏威夷，桑德拉和以赛亚正前往那里与他会面。
It was one of those things where it seemed clearly kind of sad and hopeless, and at the same time, I didn't want to talk her out of it, because it meant they'd be gone and I could resume my own directionless life.
这是其中一件看起来显然有点悲伤和绝望的事情，同时，我不想说服她放弃它，因为这意味着他们会消失，我可以继续我自己没有方向的生活。
Cassandra was nothing but sweet and totally appreciative of what me and my family had done for her.
卡桑德拉非常可爱，并且非常感激我和我的家人为她所做的一切。
But I felt miserable.
但我感觉很痛苦。
I worked with little Zeke one last afternoon on his perimeter shooting, then watched him and Cassandra drive away.
最后一个下午，我和小泽克一起进行外围投篮，然后看着他和卡桑德拉开车离开。
And then I cried.
然后我哭了。
Davy Rothbart in Ann Arbor.
戴维·罗斯巴特在安娜堡。
His book of stories is The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas.
他的故事书是堪萨斯州蒙大拿州的孤独冲浪者。
He's also the creator of Found Magazine , which is at foundmagazine.com.
他还是《Found》杂志的创始人，该杂志位于foundmagazine.com。
[MUSIC - "I DON'T KNOW WHAT I CAN SAVE YOU FROM" BY KINGS OF CONVENIENCE]
[音乐 - 便利之王的“我不知道我能拯救你”]
Coming up, so your country's been occupied by a foreign army, and you work for that army.
接下来，你的国家被外国军队占领了，你为那支军队工作。
Who should you really be loyal to?
你真正应该忠于谁？
A guy caught in the middle of that problem in a minute, from Chicago Public Radio and Public Radio International, when our program continues.
当我们的节目继续进行时，来自芝加哥公共广播电台和国际公共广播电台的一个人立刻就陷入了这个问题。
It's This American Life , I'm Ira Glass.
这就是美国生活，我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Each week on our program, we choose a theme and bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme.
在我们的节目中，我们每周都会选择一个主题，并为您带来有关该主题的各种不同类型的故事。
Today's show, By Proxy, stories of people substituting themselves for other people, and the difficulties that can create.
今天的节目《By Proxy》讲述了人们代替他人的故事，以及由此产生的困难。
We've arrived at act two of our show.
我们已经到了演出的第二幕了。
Act two, Killing The Messengers.
第二幕，杀死信使。
Being a proxy can get you murdered.
成为代理人可能会让你被谋杀。
Basim grew up in Iraq, trainined to be an English interpreter.
巴西姆在伊拉克长大，接受过英语翻译培训。
And when the US Army arrived, he got a chance to try out his language skills on actual native English speakers for the first time in his life.
当美国陆军抵达时，他有生以来第一次有机会在真正以英语为母语的人身上测试自己的语言技能。
Iraq had been cut off from the world for so long, he says, that generations of English teachers were not able to travel outside the country and speak English.
他说，伊拉克与世界隔绝太久了，几代英语教师都无法出国旅行并讲英语。
So his English had all kinds of mistakes in it as a result.
结果他的英语出现了各种各样的错误。
But he spoke well enough that the Americans offered him a job as an interpreter, and it was a job that he really loved.
但他说得很好，美国人给了他一份翻译的工作，而且这是他真正喜欢的工作。
He made decent money, and he felt like he was helping rebuild his country and bring it into the modern world.
他赚了可观的钱，他觉得自己正在帮助重建他的国家并将其带入现代世界。
But translating for the US Army meant being a proxy for the Americans when he was talking to Iraqis, and being a proxy for the Iraqis when he was talking to American soldiers, which put him in a lot of tough situations.
但为美国陆军做翻译就意味着他在与伊拉克人交谈时成为美国人的代理人，在与美国士兵交谈时成为伊拉克人的代理人，这让他陷入了很多困境。
A quick example: sometimes Iraqi policemen and police trainees would be standing right next to the Americans and then bad mouth them in Arabic.
举个简单的例子：有时伊拉克警察和见习警察会站在美国人旁边，然后用阿拉伯语说他们的坏话。
Basim wouldn't translate what they said.
巴西姆不会翻译他们所说的话。
That would just make trouble.
那样只会惹出麻烦。
Instead, he would warn the police in Arabic that they should watch their mouths.
相反，他会用阿拉伯语警告警察，要他们管住自己的嘴。
That some translators would, in fact, tell the Americans what they were saying word for word, and there was no predicting how the Americans would react.
事实上，一些翻译会逐字告诉美国人他们在说什么，并且无法预测美国人会如何反应。
Sometimes the Iraqi police would reply that Basim was taking the Americans' side.
有时伊拉克警方会回答说巴西姆站在美国人一边。
It was their country.
那是他们的国家。
And we are talking about Iraqi policemen.
我们正在谈论伊拉克警察。
They were an authority in Iraq.
他们是伊拉克的权威。
And it's hard to be in the middle between American soldiers-- I don't want to say that American soldiers are arrogant or something like that, but it is an army kind of life.
夹在美国大兵之间是很困难的——我不想说美国大兵傲慢之类的，但这就是军队的生活。
And those policemen are being very sensitive, because, well, their country is occupied, their army is being defeated.
那些警察非常敏感，因为，他们的国家被占领了，他们的军队正在被击败。
And now, they have to receive orders and instructions from their former enemy.
而现在，他们却要接受昔日敌人的命令和指示。
So you have to be very sensitive in order to create a kind of, let's say, a friendship, a kind of common understanding between the two parties.
因此，你必须非常敏感，才能在双方之间建立一种友谊，一种共识。
And so give me an example of an order the way the Americans would say it, and what you would have to do to it in order to get it across.
请给我举一个美国人所说的命令的例子，以及你必须对它做什么才能让别人理解它。
Yeah, like for example, I used to have a boss who is a lieutenant colonel in the American Army, who was very keen on the hygiene of Iraqi policemen, or on the cleanness of their police station.
是的，比如说，我以前有一个老板，是美国陆军的中校，他非常关心伊拉克警察的卫生，或者说他们警察局的清洁。
And we are in Iraq, we have the tradition to smoke everywhere.
我们在伊拉克，有到处吸烟的传统。
We can smoke in any place we want.
我们可以在任何我们想要的地方吸烟。
And that Army commander was very keen on seeing Iraqi policemen, for example, throwing the butts of their cigarettes on the ground.
例如，那位陆军指挥官非常希望看到伊拉克警察把烟蒂扔在地上。
And he used to follow them one by one, telling them to pick the cigarettes butts up from the ground and put it in an ashtray, or in a trash basket where it belongs.
他常常一一跟着他们，让他们把地上的烟头捡起来，放进烟灰缸，或者扔到该放的垃圾桶里。
And sometimes, a form of military order like that would be interpreted in a bad way, like the Iraqi policemen would think, OK, this is my police station, this is my country.
有时，像这样的军事命令形式会被以不好的方式解释，就像伊拉克警察会想，好吧，这是我的警察局，这是我的国家。
I can do whatever I want.
我可以做任何我想做的事。
I can throw my cigarette butt whenever I want, or wherever I want.
我可以随时随地扔烟头。
So when you interpret a situation like that, where you have an American commander telling an Iraqi policeman, hey, don't just throw the butt of your cigarette on the ground, it would have to be interpreted in another way, like, well, do you think that somebody is going to come and clean that after you?
因此，当你解释这样的情况时，一名美国指挥官告诉一名伊拉克警察，嘿，不要只是把烟蒂扔在地上，它必须以另一种方式解释，比如，好吧，你认为有人会来清理你之后的烟头吗？
So please be very kind, and when you smoke, please be aware that you have to throw your cigarette butt in a place where it reflects a good image of your police station.
所以请大家一定要善良，抽烟的时候请注意，烟头一定要扔到能体现派出所良好形象的地方。
You don't want the Americans to think that you are dirty or something.
你不想让美国人认为你很脏或者什么的。
And this is how we interpret situations.
这就是我们解释情况的方式。
Basim, why not just turn to the Americans and say, well let these men be.
巴西姆，为什么不直接对美国人说，那就让这些人去吧。
This is our culture here, we throw the cigarettes.
这是我们这里的文化，我们扔香烟。
What difference does it make?
这有什么区别呢？
Well, because I have this kind of belief that if we listen to those people, to the Americans, things would be better for us.
嗯，因为我有这样的信念，如果我们听取那些人、美国人的意见，事情对我们来说会更好。
We need this kind of education.
我们需要这样的教育。
And it starts from small things, and it grows up to the big things.
而且从小事做起，逐渐发展成大事。
If the American soldier or commander have the time to teach you where to throw your cigarette, then he would be teaching you how to treat your prisoners.
如果美国士兵或指挥官有时间教你把香烟扔到哪里，那么他就会教你如何对待战俘。
He would be teaching you how to have like a professional ethics.
他会教你如何拥有职业道德。
He would be teaching you how to do much more important things.
他会教你如何做更重要的事情。
And also you're working for him.
而且你也在为他工作。
It's your job to say what he wants you to say.
你的工作就是说出他想让你说的话。
And this is one part of the story, yeah.
是的，这是故事的一部分。
The more you tell these stories, the more it's clear that your job is so much more than translating the words.
这些故事讲得越多，就越清楚你的工作不仅仅是翻译文字。
There is a situation where I was with a new boss.
有一种情况是我和一个新老板在一起。
We have received somebody who is a Major in the army who was in charge of our unit, and I had to lie to him in one incident.
我们接待了一位陆军少校，他是我们部队的负责人，有一次我不得不对他撒谎。
Because we went to the City Hall in the city of Mosul, trying to do some security assessment of the building itself.
因为我们去了摩苏尔市的市政厅，试图对这座建筑本身进行一些安全评估。
And there were about 150 or more Iraqi protesters who are protesting against the Americans at that point.
当时大约有 150 名或更多伊拉克抗议者正在抗议美国人。
And our new commander has said, well, we have to do it no matter what.
我们的新指挥官说，无论如何我们都必须这样做。
We have to do that assessment today.
我们今天必须进行评估。
And I told him, but there are protesters who can be provoked by our existence, like we with our Humvees and with our weapons and stuff like that.
我告诉他，但是有些抗议者可能会因为我们的存在而被激怒，就像我们拥有悍马车和武器之类的东西一样。
And he said, no, it doesn't matter.
他说，不，没关系。
And I was talking to an Iraqi policeman who said, well, you can do the assessment now-- he's a high ranking officer in the police-- and we can manage with the protester if they got any kind of action, or if they start to throw stones or something like that.
我正在与一名伊拉克警察交谈，他说，好吧，你现在可以进行评估 - 他是警察中的高级官员 - 如果抗议者采取任何行动，或者如果他们开始投掷石块或类似的东西，我们可以处理他们。
And the way I translated it to the American officer, I told him that the Iraqi officer was saying that we should leave right now, because we don't want to provoke the protesters, we don't want to use their weapons against them today.
我向美国军官翻译时，我告诉他，伊拉克军官说我们应该立即离开，因为我们不想激怒抗议者，我们今天不想使用他们的武器对付他们。
And the American officer thought about it and said, yeah, let's do the assessment another day.
美国军官想了想，说，好吧，改天再评估吧。
In a situation like that, the Iraqi officer did not have the right judgment about the situation, because those protesters were very angry.
在这样的情况下，伊拉克军官对局势没有正确的判断，因为那些抗议者非常愤怒。
And the American officer has his schedule, has his plan, he wants to do the building security assessment.
美国官员有他的日程安排，有他的计划，他想做建筑安全评估。
But I was the only one who can see a group of Iraqi people who were angry, and who can start throwing stones, and somebody can get in the middle of them with a weapon or with a rifle and start shooting, and the Americans and the Iraqi police will shoot back, and there will be casualties, which is something that can be avoided.
但我是唯一一个看到一群愤怒的伊拉克人，他们可以开始扔石头，有人拿着武器或步枪到他们中间开始射击，美国人和伊拉克警察会开枪还击，会有人员伤亡，这是可以避免的。
In a situation like that, I thought this is the only lie that I felt very comfortable about.
在这种情况下，我想这是唯一让我感到舒服的谎言了。
When you study to be an interpreter, did they tell you to be completely neutral?
当你学习口译员时，他们是否告诉你要完全中立？
Yes.
是的。
I know that.
我知道。
But we have not received any kind of study, any kind of academic study on how to be translators in a war situation, in a battlefield, if you know what I mean.
但我们还没有收到任何关于如何在战争局势、战场上成为翻译的研究、任何学术研究，如果你明白我的意思的话。
I know.
我知道。
What's interesting about these examples is that it's not just that you're just interpreting what's going on, but in a sense, you're taking over for whoever's in charge.
这些例子的有趣之处在于，你不仅仅是在解释正在发生的事情，而且从某种意义上说，你正在接管负责人的工作。
Do you know what I mean?
你知道我的意思吗？
With the protesters, you're saying that you know better what's going to get everyone through the situation, and you're actually taking over.
对于抗议者，你说你更知道如何让每个人度过难关，而且你实际上正在接管。
Yeah, because if something wrong happened, where the Americans whom I work with have to shoot some people who are demonstrating and people got killed, or other people got wounded, or an American friend of mine got killed or got wounded, I would never forgive myself because I didn't take an action, because I didn't took a stand.
是的，因为如果发生了错误，与我一起工作的美国人必须射杀一些正在示威的人，然后有人被杀，或者其他人受伤，或者我的一个美国朋友被杀或受伤，我永远不会原谅自己，因为我没有采取行动，因为我没有表明立场。
Because I have to do something.
因为我必须做点什么。
We have to avoid tension, if you know what I mean.
如果你明白我的意思的话，我们必须避免紧张。
The Army unit that Basim was working with trained Iraqi police.
巴西姆正在与训练有素的伊拉克警察合作的陆军部队。
This meant that Basim spent a lot of time translating American police manuals into Arabic, and transiting lectures about police procedure.
这意味着巴西姆花费了大量时间将美国警察手册翻译成阿拉伯语，并转交有关警察程序的讲座。
And as an Iraqi who had always been afraid of the police under Saddam, when police seemed able to do whatever it is that they wanted, Basim really liked this part of his job, teaching Iraqi police to work the way the police operate in modern countries, Western countries.
作为一个一直害怕萨达姆统治下的警察的伊拉克人，当警察似乎能够为所欲为时，巴西姆非常喜欢他的这部分工作，教伊拉克警察如何按照现代国家、西方国家的警察运作方式工作。
On how to treat detainees, how to respect prisoners' human rights.
关于如何对待被拘留者、如何尊重囚犯的人权。
How to stop a riot without brutality.
如何在不使用暴力的情况下制止骚乱。
How to exercise authority fairly, without taking bribes.
如何公平行使权力而不收受贿赂。
And so in April, 2004, when photos from Abu Ghraib prison became public, it was especially disheartening to Basim.
因此，2004 年 4 月，当阿布格莱布监狱的照片公开时，巴西姆尤其感到沮丧。
This is not what he believed the Americans were all about.
这不是他所认为的美国人的全部目的。
For me as a person, it was just like the shock of my lifetime, because it was the total opposite of what we were teaching the Iraqi prison guards on how to treat and deal with the prisoners.
对于我个人来说，这就像我一生中的震惊，因为这与我们教伊拉克狱警如何对待和对待囚犯的方式完全相反。
And that was the biggest thing that has turned most of the Iraqis against the Americans.
这是让大多数伊拉克人反对美国人的最重要的事情。
Even those Iraqis who were somehow supporting the American were very afraid to show their support to the American.
即使是那些以某种方式支持美国人的伊拉克人也非常不敢表达对美国人的支持。
They couldn't show any kind of support to the American anymore.
他们无法再向美国人表示任何形式的支持。
You mean after Abu Ghraib?
你是说阿布格莱布监狱之后？
Basim And here comes the loud voice of religious men and the tribal leaders in my city.
巴西姆 这里传来了我所在城市的宗教人士和部落领袖的响亮声音。
They said that everything that the American has came with is just a lie, just like their democracy, just like their liberty, just like their freedom of speech.
他们说美国人带来的一切都是谎言，就像他们的民主，就像他们的自由，就像他们的言论自由一样。
This is what they do to you if they arrest you, even if it was a wrongful arrest, or something like that.
如果他们逮捕你，这就是他们对你所做的事情，即使这是一次错误的逮捕或类似的事情。
This is nothing that I was fighting for.
这不是我奋斗的目标。
This is not the thing that I was willing to see happening again in my country.
这不是我愿意看到在我的国家再次发生的事情。
We have seen and heard too many examples of torture, of abuse of prisoners in Saddam's time.
我们已经看到和听到了太多萨达姆时代酷刑和虐待囚犯的例子。
During this period, it became much harder, Basim says, to convince Iraqis that the Americans were doing anything good.
巴西姆说，在此期间，要让伊拉克人相信美国人在做任何好事变得更加困难。
The unit that I was working with was doing its best, but people were not receiving the message.
我所在的单位正在尽最大努力，但人们没有收到信息。
Give me an example of the kind of thing that would happen in those months.
请给我举个例子，说明那几个月会发生什么事情。
For example, there were small kids who were just around the American convoys.
例如，美国车队周围有一些小孩子。
Those kids, for example, sell CDs, like music CDs, movies to the American soldier.
例如，这些孩子向美国士兵出售 CD，例如音乐 CD、电影。
And he gives them candy, and he looks at the things that they are selling, and he tries to help them with $1 or $2.
他给他们糖果，看看他们卖的东西，然后尝试用 1 或 2 美元来帮助他们。
And the next day we hear the imams in the mosque saying that the Americans are distributing porn CDs to the young children who were always around their convoys.
第二天，我们听到清真寺里的伊玛目说，美国人正在向他们车队周围的小孩子分发色情 CD。
Which was really shocking for me because I was there, and I know exactly that the Americans would not do that and I have not seen any incident that the American would do that.
这对我来说真的很震惊，因为我在那里，我确切地知道美国人不会这样做，而且我没有看到美国人会这样做的任何事件。
Everything was received negatively, at least by the people in my town, in my city.
一切都受到负面影响，至少我所在城镇的人们对此是负面的。
Before long, it became dangerous to be a translator.
不久之后，当一名翻译就变得危险了。
Early in the occupation, clerics had issued an official statement saying it was OK for Iraqis to work with the Americans, including translators.
在占领初期，神职人员曾发表官方声明，称伊拉克人可以与美国人合作，包括翻译。
But a year into the occupation, the mood in the country had changed.
但占领一年后，这个国家的情绪发生了变化。
Translator friends of Basim's were getting killed.
巴西姆的翻译朋友被杀。
One of his teachers, an assistant professor who trained English interpreters at the University of Mosul was killed by people who said that she was graduating traitors.
他的一位老师，一位在摩苏尔大学培训英语口译员的助理教授，被那些说她是毕业叛徒的人杀害了。
One day Basim's unit was supposed to process and release a bunch of prisoners who had been transported from Abu Ghraib.
有一天，巴西姆的部队应该处理并释放一批从阿布格莱布监狱运来的囚犯。
Men, they were told, who had been investigated by the Americans and found to have done nothing wrong.
他们被告知，美国人对这些人进行了调查，结果发现他们没有做错任何事。
So one of those prisoners who were about to be released after spending six months in Abu Ghraib prison.
这是一名在阿布格莱布监狱待了六个月后即将获释的囚犯。
He said, we will kill you one by one.
他说，我们会把你一一杀掉。
And I asked him, who do you mean by killing one by one?
我又问他，你说的一一杀掉的意思是谁？
The Americans or us, the policemen or the translator?
美国人还是我们，警察还是翻译？
He said, no, you.
他说，不，你。
And for me, I thought, well, this is a man who is totally angry for being in a prison for six months, and who has maybe been treated badly and I measure it out and say that this is an angry man.
对我来说，我想，这个人因为在监狱里待了六个月而完全愤怒，而且他可能受到了虐待，我衡量了一下，说这是一个愤怒的人。
He would not be killing anybody after he was released.
出狱后他不会再杀人。
So things like that, those things that I will not be translating, for example.
诸如此类的事情，例如我不会翻译的事情。
I don't know if I committed a mistake or not.
我不知道我是否犯了错误。
You wouldn't tell the Americans he said that he's going to kill you?
你不会告诉美国人他说他要杀了你吗？
No, I didn't tell them.
不，我没有告诉他们。
Ira Glass Because you just assumed, well, they will just throw him back in prison?
艾拉·格拉斯 因为你刚才假设，好吧，他们会把他扔回监狱？
Yeah, because I don't like to have anybody, because of me, get back to prison or receive any bad treatment, especially if he was Iraqi.
是的，因为我不喜欢任何人因为我而回到监狱或受到任何不良待遇，特别是如果他是伊拉克人。
Was it frightening?
吓人吗？
Basim Well, I was not frightened, I was surrounded by like 20 American soldiers or something like that.
Basim 嗯，我并不害怕，我被大约 20 名美国士兵或类似的人包围。
But after I left, and I sat back home with my wife, and I told her, and she said something that made me really frightened, saying that those people, especially those who've been in the prison and who have received bad treatment, will not sit down and feel very happy about they are being released.
但我离开后，我和妻子坐在家里，我告诉她，她说了一些让我非常害怕的话，说那些人，特别是那些在监狱里、受到不好待遇的人，不会坐下来为他们被释放而感到高兴。
They will come back trying to get revenge, not necessarily from the Americans but from anybody who they suspect has participated in putting them into prison.
他们会回来试图报复，不一定是针对美国人，而是针对任何他们怀疑参与将他们投入监狱的人。
And in that time especially, in early 2004, the word translator itself has became a taboo in Iraqi society.
尤其是在2004年初，翻译这个词本身已经成为伊拉克社会的禁忌。
It has became a very scary word, like Sunni religious authorities have suddenly decided that everybody who's working for the Americans is-- forgive me for saying this-- is worse than the Americans themselves.
它已经成为一个非常可怕的词，就像逊尼派宗教当局突然决定，每个为美国人工作的人——请原谅我这样说——比美国人自己更糟糕。
If you have the chance to kill a translator or American, kill the translator first.
如果你有机会杀死翻译或美国人，请先杀死翻译。
That's such a shocking thing.
这真是一件令人震惊的事情。
What did you think?
你觉得怎么样？
Do you remember where you were standing?
你还记得你当时站在哪里吗？
What did you think when you heard that?
当你听到这句话时，你有什么感想？
The feeling wasn't great, because you're just in the middle of 27 million, most of them thinking that killing you would be better than killing the Americans.
这种感觉不太好，因为你只是 2700 万人口中的一员，他们中的大多数人都认为杀了你比杀了美国人更好。
So it is just one of those feelings that make you really, really scared.
所以这只是让你真的非常害怕的感觉之一。
You might not imagine that, or maybe your audience might not imagine that, but speaking English-- like you're walking down the street with your friends, and it came up to your mind that now you are going to speak an English word, this is at some point in Iraq, especially in 2005, 2006, has become enough reason for somebody who do that to get killed.
你可能无法想象到这一点，或者也许你的观众可能无法想象到这一点，但是说英语——就像你和朋友一起走在街上，你想到现在你要说一个英语单词，这在伊拉克的某个时刻，特别是在2005年、2006年，已经成为这样做的人被杀的充分理由。
Speaking one word or two words in English in the street, or in the market, or in front of anybody else, would be enough reason for you to get assassinated.
在街上、在市场上、或者在任何人面前说一两个英语单词，就足以让你被暗杀。
A few weeks after the prisoner said that he was going to kill Basim, Basim got a threatening phone call.
在囚犯说他要杀死巴西姆几周后，巴西姆接到了一个威胁电话。
And then a package arrived.
然后一个包裹到了。
It was a message printed by a typical printer, by computer.
这是一条由典型的打印机通过计算机打印出来的消息。
The beginning was some verses of Ram Koran.
开头是《拉姆古兰经》的一些经文。
Then there is this message to me with my full name on it, saying that we have recognized you and identified you as an infidel and a traitor, and a helper of the infidels.
然后有一条消息给我，上面有我的全名，说我们已经认出了你，认定你是异教徒和叛徒，是异教徒的帮凶。
And if you don't quit your job at once, you would be killed with all your family.
如果你不立即辞职，你和你的家人都会被杀。
And that was serious because there was a CD disc, a disc, a compact disc with the message, showing the beheading of a friend of mine.
这很严重，因为有一张 CD 光盘，一张光盘，一张光盘，上面写着我的一个朋友被斩首的消息。
Well, he's a colleague more than a friend.
嗯，与其说他是朋友，不如说他是同事。
Another translator?
另一位翻译？
Basim Another translator, of course.
巴西姆 当然是另一位翻译。
He's a Christian.
他是基督徒。
When you get a DVD like that, did you watch the DVD?
当你拿到这样的 DVD 时，你看过 DVD 吗？
I watched the first part of it before the beheading started.
在斩首开始之前我看了第一部分。
And that feeling was just indescribable because it is the most scary feeling ever.
那种感觉是难以形容的，因为这是有史以来最可怕的感觉。
Seeing it happen to somebody that you know, somebody that you have talked to, somebody that you had conversation with is the most painful part of it, because those monsters were treating him very bad.
看到这样的事发生在你认识的人、与你交谈过的人、与你交谈过的人身上是最痛苦的部分，因为那些怪物对他非常不好。
They knew that they will behead him in minutes, but it was full of insults, and full of bad words.
他们知道几分钟后就会将他斩首，但这充满了侮辱，充满了脏话。
They beated him, they spoke to him very badly.
他们殴打他，对他说非常难听的话。
Did he speak in the video?
他在视频里说话了吗？
Basim Well, he spoke his name in a very low voice, because I think his teeth were broken or something.
巴西姆 嗯，他用很低的声音说出他的名字，因为我认为他的牙齿断了或者什么的。
He spoke his name, and they asked him about the nature of his job, so he said, I'm a traitor.
他说出了自己的名字，他们问他的工作性质，他说，我是叛徒。
It seems like they told him to say so.
看起来像是他们让他这么说的。
I haven't finished the rest of the film but I guess you can find it on the internet if you look for it, because they have posted like tens and hundreds of those films.
我还没有完成这部电影的其余部分，但我想如果你寻找它，你可以在互联网上找到它，因为他们已经发布了数十和数百部这样的电影。
And so around this time, your family basically kicked you out of the house, right?
所以大约在这个时候，你的家人基本上把你赶出了家门，对吗？
They didn't want you there because it made things too dangerous for them.
他们不希望你在那里，因为这对他们来说太危险了。
They kicked me out of the house.
他们把我赶出了家门。
They told me, this is your choice.
他们告诉我，这是你的选择。
You are not young.
你不年轻了。
You are an adult.
你是一个成年人了。
And you don't want us to die because of a decision that you have taken.
你也不希望我们因为你的决定而死去。
So it is not enough for you to quit your job now, it has become a necessity for you to disappear.
所以你现在辞职还不够，消失已经成为一种必然。
Basim went on the run.
巴西姆开始逃跑。
He hid in another town.
他躲到了另一个城镇。
But when his pregnant wife gave birth to their son, he drove back after curfew to reach her.
但当他怀孕的妻子生下儿子时，他在宵禁后开车回来见她。
A three hour drive in the dark past checkpoints where he had to guess if the checkpoints were Sunni or Shia.
在黑暗中开车三个小时经过检查站，他必须猜测检查站是逊尼派还是什叶派。
When they ask if you're Sunni or Shia, if you give the wrong answer, you're dead.
当他们问你是逊尼派还是什叶派时，如果你回答错误，你就死定了。
Then he just hid for three months.
然后他就躲了三个月。
Before all this running, he'd actually gone to the Americans to ask for help and for protection.
在这一切之前，他实际上已经向美国人寻求帮助和保护。
The Americans offered to let him live on the Army base, though without his family.
美国人提出让他住在陆军基地，但没有他的家人。
Or they said they would drive him home every night in a military convoy to his family's house.
或者他们说他们每天晚上都会派军队送他回家，送他回家。
At that point I realized that the Americans-- most of them-- have not realized the nature of their enemy.
那时我意识到美国人——他们中的大多数人——还没有意识到他们敌人的本质。
It is not a good thing to be seen in an American convoy that drives you to your home.
看到美国车队送你回家可不是什么好事。
That will be the cause of the death of maybe my whole family and my neighbors too.
这可能会导致我全家和邻居的死亡。
So in the end, you wanted to be a bridge between these two cultures, between the Americans and the Iraqis?
所以最后，你想成为这两种文化之间、美国人和伊拉克人之间的桥梁？
Yeah.
是的。
Ira Glass Was it naive to believe that someone could stand in the middle like that?
艾拉·格拉斯 (Ira Glass) 相信有人能像那样站在中间，是不是太天真了？
No, it wasn't at all.
不，根本不是。
Because most of the misunderstandings, most of the problems that are happening now between the Americans and the normal Iraqi people are due to the lack of full understanding.
因为美国人和普通伊拉克人民之间现在发生的大部分误解、大部分问题都是由于缺乏充分的了解而造成的。
And in order to achieve that level of full understanding between those totally different group of people, there should be somebody.
为了在这些完全不同的人群之间达到充分理解的程度，应该有人。
Our job is building a bridge.
我们的工作是建造一座桥梁。
If you are a translator, then you build a bridge.
如果你是一名翻译，那么你就搭建了一座桥梁。
And I always say that if something happened, something wrong happened in the process of building that bridge, the first people who sink into the water are people who are on the bridge, trying to reach out for the other side.
我总是说，如果发生了什么事，那就是在建造这座桥的过程中出了问题，第一个沉入水中的人是那些在桥上试图伸出援手的人。
And we translators play that role, not only in this war, but in all the wars that happens around the world between nations with different languages.
我们翻译人员不仅在这场战争中发挥着这一作用，而且在世界各地使用不同语言的国家之间发生的所有战争中也发挥着这一作用。
It always happens like that.
事情总是这样发生。
If I move away, and anybody move away, this would be the best chance for the evil forces, for the terrorism, to control the country, and to cut the bridges that we were trying to build.
如果我离开，任何人离开，这将是邪恶势力、恐怖主义控制国家、切断我们试图建立的桥梁的最佳机会。
In the end, Basim felt he had no choice.
最后，巴西姆觉得他别无选择。
He left Iraq feeling like he should still be there.
他离开伊拉克时感觉自己还应该留在那里。
Today, Iraqis doing translation for the American forces are kind of an endangered species, a hunted species.
如今，为美军做翻译的伊拉克人是一种濒临灭绝的物种，是一种被猎杀的物种。
The company that hired Basim to work for the Americans, Titan Corporation, has had 323 of its interpreters killed while on the job according to The Christian Science Monitor.
据《基督教科学箴言报》报道，雇佣巴西姆为美国人工作的公司泰坦公司 (Titan Corporation) 已导致 323 名翻译在工作期间丧生。
But when the US Army relies on interpreters from outside Iraq, Basim says, they have trouble with Iraqi dialects, local meanings and customs.
但巴西姆说，当美国陆军依赖伊拉克境外的翻译时，他们在伊拉克方言、当地含义和习俗方面遇到了困难。
And they make all kinds of translating mistakes that no Iraqi would make.
他们犯了伊拉克人不会犯的各种翻译错误。
Basim and his wife and his son are now in Europe, in a community where there are a number of Pakistani and Iranian and Iraqi exiles.
巴西姆和他的妻子和儿子现在在欧洲，在一个有许多巴基斯坦、伊朗和伊拉克流亡者的社区。
Back in Iraq, he was constantly having to explain the Americans to people.
回到伊拉克后，他不得不不断地向人们解释美国人的情况。
But in Europe, he's trying very hard to avoid doing that.
但在欧洲，他极力避免这样做。
He specifically tries to avoid telling people that he was an interpreter for the United States in Iraq.
他特别试图避免告诉人们他是美国在伊拉克的翻译。
It is not something to be ashamed of.
这不是什么值得羞耻的事情。
It is not dangerous here to tell people that I was a translator.
在这里告诉人们我是一名翻译并不危险。
But it's just, I wanted to avoid any situation where I have to justify why did I did what I've done in Iraq.
但这只是，我想避免任何我必须证明我为什么在伊拉克所做的事情的情况。
And I don't want to be asked by people, now you have been a friend with the American, why did they do that?
我不想被人问，现在你已经和美国人成为朋友了，他们为什么要这么做？
Why did they do this?
他们为什么这么做？
So I just don't want to put myself in a situation like that.
所以我只是不想让自己陷入这样的境地。
I just decided that I'm not really with or against the American policy, or the things that the Americans are doing in Iraq.
我只是决定我并不真正支持或反对美国的政策或美国人在伊拉克所做的事情。
And I don't feel like I have to explain anything to anyone.
我觉得我不需要向任何人解释任何事情。
[MUSIC - "DON'T LET ME BE MISUNDERSTOOD" BY NINA SIMONE]
[音乐 - NINA SIMONE 的《别让我被误解》]
Act three, Redemption By Proxy.
第三幕，代理赎回。
When you get right down to it, a reputation is kind of a strange idea.
当你认真思考时，你会发现声誉是一个奇怪的想法。
It is this idea about you, about who you really are that is somehow connected to you, but that is utterly abstract at the same time.
正是这种关于你、关于你真正是谁的想法在某种程度上与你联系在一起，但同时又是完全抽象的。
You can't touch it.
你不能碰它。
You can't pin it down in any exact way, and it changes depending on what you do.
你无法以任何精确的方式确定它，它会根据你所做的事情而变化。
Until the day you die, then your reputation is in the hands of whoever cares enough to step in as your proxy and take charge of the historical record and tell people who you really were.
直到你去世的那一天，你的声誉都掌握在任何关心你的人手中，作为你的代理人，负责历史记录，告诉人们你的真实身份。
Eve Abrams has this story.
伊芙·艾布拉姆斯有这样一个故事。
I taught elementary school for 10 years in New York City at this place called The Neighborhood School.
我在纽约市一个叫做邻里学校的地方教了 10 年小学。
It was one of those schools where students call teachers by their first names and where teachers really get to know their students well-- their families, their strengths, their dramas.
在这所学校里，学生们直呼老师的名字，老师们也能真正了解学生——他们的家庭、他们的优势、他们的戏剧。
But sometimes, one kid stands out.
但有时，一个孩子会脱颖而出。
This is a story about one of those kids, and his friend, and his teacher.
这是一个关于其中一个孩子、他的朋友和老师的故事。
Sophia is the teacher, and also a friend of mine.
索菲亚是我的老师，也是我的朋友。
Lily was our student years ago.
莉莉几年前是我们的学生。
She's 16 now.
她现在16岁了。
And Lily's classmate Robert was our student too, but he's dead, so I'll let Lily tell you about him.
莉莉的同学罗伯特也是我们的学生，但他死了，所以我让莉莉告诉你关于他的事。
I really had a hard time telling people who had died for a while, because I didn't want to say friend, and I didn't want to say best friend, because that makes it seem like, my best friend.
我真的很难告诉那些已经去世一段时间的人，因为我不想说朋友，也不想说最好的朋友，因为这让它看起来像是我最好的朋友。
You know what I mean?
你知道我的意思？
Anyone can say that they were his best friend.
任何人都可以说他们是他最好的朋友。
I mean, he lived so close to me, so we'd hang out 24/7.
我的意思是，他住得离我很近，所以我们会 24/7 一起出去玩。
We talked about everything.
我们谈论了一切。
In our school, everyone was pretty quiet and good, and I don't know, to me, he just seemed like he was different, and he was fun, and everyone else was boring.
在我们学校，每个人都很安静，很好，我不知道，对我来说，他只是看起来与众不同，他很有趣，其他人都很无聊。
Teachers never liked him.
老师们从来不喜欢他。
He was probably a little bit rude.
他可能有点粗鲁。
Like he didn't do his homework.
就像他没有做作业一样。
That was like a big thing, because at The Neighborhood School, everyone was like, got to do your homework, got to do your homework, or you're not going to go out for recess and all this stuff.
这就像一件大事，因为在邻里学校，每个人都说，必须做你的作业，必须做你的作业，否则你不会出去休息和所有这些事情。
And whatever, he'd be like, never going out for recess because he never did his homework.
不管怎样，他永远不会出去休息，因为他从来不做作业。
Robert didn't defer to adults and other kids were drawn to that.
罗伯特不服从大人，其他孩子也被这一点所吸引。
But he was also sort of hapless.
但他也有点不幸。
He was the kind of kid who, when he cut school, got caught.
他是那种一逃学就被抓的孩子。
He got kicked out of middle school, which was always like really weird to me, because there were so many kids that were so much worse.
他被中学开除了，这对我来说总是很奇怪，因为有很多孩子的情况更糟糕。
There was kids that came in that school once a week at 10 o'clock, and like grabbed a girl and left.
有些孩子每周 10 点到那所学校一次，然后抓住一个女孩就走了。
I had a crush on him the second I saw him.
我一见到他就喜欢上了他。
Fifth grade was the big year that I really had a big crush on him.
五年级是我真正迷恋他的重要一年。
It was just like, oh my God, I love you.
就像，天哪，我爱你。
He one time left me flowers at my door-- it was my birthday-- and knocked on the door and ran away.
有一次，他在我家门口留了花——那天是我的生日——然后敲了敲门就跑了。
And so I opened the door and there's flowers, and I was like, oh my God, he loves me, like flowers.
于是我打开门，看到了鲜花，我当时想，天哪，他爱我，就像爱鲜花一样。
And so I picked it up and there was a note, and it said: From Robert, To Lily, Happy Birthday.
于是我拿起它，里面有一张纸条，上面写着：来自罗伯特，致莉莉，生日快乐。
PS, don't get happy.
PS，别高兴。
Like, as in like, whatever, don't get happy, don't think I like you because I'm doing this.
就像，就像，无论如何，不要高兴，不要因为我这样做而认为我喜欢你。
Don't get happy.
别高兴起来。
I was like, but I am happy because you left me flowers.
我当时想，但我很高兴，因为你给我留下了鲜花。
I realized it's actually because I liked him so much as a friend, and I never really had somebody that was a boy that I liked so much as a friend.
我意识到这实际上是因为我非常喜欢他作为朋友，而我从来没有真正拥有一个让我如此喜欢作为朋友的男孩。
So I figured I must be in love with him or I must like have the big-- but it's also like I just actually always really liked him as a person.
所以我想我一定是爱上了他，或者我一定喜欢拥有大的东西——但这也就像我实际上一直非常喜欢他这个人。
That's how Lily saw Robert.
莉莉就是这样看罗伯特的。
Sofia saw him differently.
索菲亚对他的看法不同。
After he was in my class, Robert moved on to Sophia's class right next door, and a lot of times, I'd see and hear them out in the hall together.
在他上我的课后，罗伯特就转到隔壁索菲亚的班级，很多时候，我会在大厅里一起看到和听到他们的声音。
Mostly I'd hear Sofia.
大多数时候我会听到索菲亚的声音。
She would lecture Robert about homework and effort and attitude, and her voice got really loud and annoyed.
她会向罗伯特讲授作业、努力和态度，她的声音变得很大而且很恼火。
While Sophia lectured, Robert just stood there.
当索菲亚讲课时，罗伯特只是站在那里。
Rolling his eyes.
翻白眼。
I mean, it was more a physical manifestation, just kind of listening to me, but not really listening, kind of looking off in the distance.
我的意思是，这更多的是一种身体表现，只是在听我说话，但并没有真正在听，而是在看着远处。
Head was at a tilt, arms crossed, kind of like waiting for the episode to end.
头歪着，双臂交叉，有点像在等待这一集结束。
Sophia had a harder time with Robert than I did.
索菲亚和罗伯特在一起的日子比我更艰难。
He was older by the time she taught him, but his reading wasn't much better, and he still struggled with his schoolwork.
当她教他的时候，他已经长大了，但他的阅读能力并没有好多少，而且他的功课仍然很困难。
He'd also gotten really good at deflecting all of the things that teachers would try-- ordering, cajoling, tricking.
他还非常擅长转移老师尝试的所有事情——命令、哄骗、欺骗。
Sofia would see Robert around the neighborhood after school, hanging out with older boys, doing nothing much.
索菲亚放学后会看到罗伯特在附近闲逛，和年龄较大的男孩一起出去玩，无所事事。
And it frustrated her to no end that this smart, charming kid seemed headed for a lifetime of dead end jobs and disappointments.
让她感到无比沮丧的是，这个聪明、迷人的孩子似乎将终生从事没有出路的工作和失望。
At one point, when I was kind of getting near the end of my rope, I talked to his family about making him stay after school in the classroom just so he can get his homework done.
有一次，当我快要束手无策的时候，我和他的家人讨论让他放学后留在教室，这样他就可以完成作业。
And I think we did it for like a week or two, and I don't think it was a very successful-- it wasn't a habit he could replicate at home.
我想我们这样做了大约一两周，我不认为这是一个非常成功的——这不是他可以在家里复制的习惯。
Incidents between Sophia and Robert piled up and the year ended badly between them.
索菲亚和罗伯特之间的事件堆积如山，这一年他们的结局很糟糕。
Someone wrote an obscenity about Sofia on the school wall, up high where only a tall kid could write, and our principal was convinced it was Robert.
有人在学校的墙上写了一篇关于索菲亚的淫秽文章，高高的墙上只有高个子的孩子才能写字，我们的校长确信那是罗伯特。
He ended up being banned from the big end of the year party.
他最终被禁止参加大型年终派对。
When Robert didn't show up at graduation, other kids at the school, including Lily, blamed Sofia, even though Sophia had nothing to do with it.
当罗伯特没有出席毕业典礼时，学校的其他孩子，包括莉莉，都指责索菲亚，尽管索菲亚与这件事无关。
Not going had been Robert's decision.
罗伯特决定不去。
Mostly, Sophia felt she'd done the best that she could with Robert, but she wasn't sure.
大多数情况下，索菲亚觉得她已经对罗伯特尽力了，但她不确定。
She felt bad when she thought about him-- bad for not reaching him, bad for having been hard on him.
当她想到他时，她感觉很糟糕——因为没有联系到他而感到难过，因为对他太严厉而感到难过。
And for the next few years, she dreaded seeing Robert around the neighborhood, especially with other kids she knew, like Lily.
在接下来的几年里，她害怕在附近见到罗伯特，尤其是和她认识的其他孩子在一起，比如莉莉。
And then one day Sophia heard Robert was dead, stabbed to death for reasons no one knows, even today.
然后有一天，索菲亚听说罗伯特死了，被刺死的原因无人知晓，即使在今天也是如此。
He had just turned 16 two weeks before.
两周前他刚刚满 16 岁。
After Robert was killed, I had this nightmare.
罗伯特被杀后，我做了这个噩梦。
I dreamed that two or three of the girls in that class were really upset with me, and they were talking about the time when I had asked Robert to stay after school and work on his homework.
我梦见班上有两三个女孩对我很不高兴，她们正在谈论有一次我让罗伯特放学后留下来做作业。
One of the girls had accused me of preventing him from joining a basketball league.
其中一个女孩指责我阻止他加入篮球联盟。
And she said that because I didn't let him do that, because I made him stay after school to work on his homework, he didn't get a chance to make better friends, and do something that was better for him and more productive.
她说因为我不让他这样做，因为我让他放学后留下来做作业，所以他没有机会结交更好的朋友，做一些对他更好、更有成效的事情。
And it really felt like maybe they have something there.
真的感觉他们可能有一些东西。
If nothing else had happened, Robert would have stayed like that in Sophia's head for years-- a kid she always had regrets about, always wished she'd done a better job with.
如果没有发生其他事情，罗伯特会像这样在索菲亚的脑海里停留很多年——一个她总是后悔的孩子，总是希望她能做得更好。
But about six weeks after Robert died, Lily came back to her old elementary school and showed up in Sophia's classroom out of the blue, and she did something none of our students had ever done.
但罗伯特去世后大约六周，莉莉回到了原来的小学，突然出现在索菲亚的教室里，她做了我们学生从未做过的事情。
I was surprised to see her, of all people, in my room, in my class, visiting me.
我很惊讶地看到她，在我的房间里，在我的班级里，在所有人中来看望我。
And then she said, I wanted to give you this, and she handed me a note that she'd written, and then she left.
然后她说，我想给你这个，然后她递给我一张她写的便条，然后就离开了。
And then when I read the note, I couldn't believe-- I just couldn't leave.
然后当我读到这张纸条时，我简直不敢相信——我就是无法离开。
I had to read the letter over again.
我不得不再读一遍这封信。
I keep it in my wallet.
我把它放在钱包里。
I wanted to frame it.
我想把它框起来。
But sometimes I feel like I just need to read that letter again, just to remind me.
但有时我觉得我只需要再读一遍那封信，只是为了提醒我。
Sure, I'll read it.
当然，我会读它。
Dear Sophia, this is a letter of appreciation to you from me and Rob.
亲爱的索菲亚，这是我和罗布写给你的一封感谢信。
Thank you very much for coming to Rob's wake.
非常感谢您来参加罗布的守灵活动。
I know it would have meant so much to him to see how many people showed up.
我知道看到有这么多人出现对他来说意义重大。
In the past three years, well, four years since me and Rob left The Neighborhood School, we have been best friends together every day.
在过去的三年里，好吧，自从我和罗布离开邻里学校四年以来，我们每天都是最好的朋友。
I just wanted to let you know how much Rob appreciated what you did for him as a teacher.
我只是想让你知道罗布非常感谢你作为一名老师为他所做的一切。
Whenever we would talk about the past, he said that he understood everything you did for him, and that he was grateful for it.
每当我们谈论过去时，他都说他理解你为他所做的一切，并且对此心存感激。
He showed me that people care for you, that's why sometimes they are harsh.
他向我展示了人们关心你，这就是为什么有时他们会很严厉。
For that reason, I thank you for teaching it to him.
因此，我感谢你教给他。
Rob always liked when people showed him they cared.
罗布总是喜欢人们向他表示关心。
He cared for you very much.
他非常关心你。
Hope to see you soon, Lilly Torres.
希望很快就能见到你，莉莉·托雷斯。
Lily wrote the note to Sophia on an impulse while she was grieving.
莉莉在悲伤中一时冲动给索菲亚写了这张纸条。
She wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do, or if it was weird, or even if Robert would approve.
她不确定这样做是否正确，或者是否奇怪，甚至罗伯特是否会批准。
But before she could talk herself out of it, she sat down at her kitchen counter and wrote it on a pink PostIt.
但在她说服自己放弃之前，她坐在厨房柜台前，把它写在一张粉红色的便利贴上。
I think the thing is I really wanted people to know that he was a really great person.
我认为问题是我真的想让人们知道他是一个非常伟大的人。
I mean, teachers were just always not liking him.
我的意思是，老师总是不喜欢他。
And I just maybe thought maybe even if one teacher that he had knew that he liked them, or that-- not to change his reputation with every teacher that he ever had, but I was just trying to take a little bit of the bad off of his name, because I don't think he really deserved any bad at all.
我只是想，也许即使他认识的一位老师喜欢他们，或者——不要改变他在他曾经遇到过的每一位老师中的声誉，但我只是想从他的名字中去掉一点不好的东西，因为我认为他根本不应该受到任何不好的对待。
He was so mature about that whole thing about her and I wasn't at all.
他对她的一切都非常成熟，而我却一点也不成熟。
I thought maybe by showing her that, that she would know that he actually turned out pretty well.
我想也许通过向她展示这一点，她会知道他实际上表现得很好。
He said, I'm not mad, because I think that she was trying to do the best thing that she could for me, because we are talking about Sophia.
他说，我没有生气，因为我认为她正在尽力为我做最好的事情，因为我们正在谈论索菲亚。
I was just kind of like, she didn't how to handle you.
我只是觉得，她不知道如何对待你。
And he was like, what are you talking about, she didn't know how to handle me?
他说，你在说什么，她不知道如何对付我？
I was bad and she was just trying to help me.
我很糟糕，她只是想帮助我。
And he said that he was thankful that she took the time out to even care about him, even if it was yelling, or whatever it was, he said that it showed him that she cared.
他说他很感激她抽出时间来关心他，即使是大喊大叫，或者无论是什么，他说这表明她在乎他。
Sophia never wrote back to Lily.
索菲亚从未给莉莉回信。
She'd wanted to find the perfect way to thank her, but she couldn't decide what to say.
她想找到一个完美的方式来感谢她，但她不知道该说什么。
And then she figured too much time had passed.
然后她觉得时间已经过去太多了。
Though Lily doesn't see it that way.
虽然莉莉可不这么看。
It's fine if she doesn't write me back.
如果她不给我回信也没关系。
Or if she does, I don't think it's ever too late.
或者，如果她这样做了，我认为还不算太晚。
You just never know what people need to know.
你永远不知道人们需要知道什么。
Until I spoke to her, Lily had no idea how much her note had meant to Sophia.
在我和莉莉交谈之前，她并不知道她的便条对索菲亚来说有多重要。
That Sophia kept the note in her wallet, that it had lifted away years of guilt.
索菲亚把这张纸条放在钱包里，它消除了多年来的愧疚。
For Lily, the note was about saving Robert, the part of him that was left in the world.
对于莉莉来说，这张纸条是为了拯救罗伯特，他留在世界上的那一部分。
She hadn't realized that it would also rescue Sophia.
她没有意识到这也会拯救索菲亚。
Eve Abrams, in New York.
伊芙·艾布拉姆斯，在纽约。
Credits Ira Glass Well, our program was produced today by Lisa Pollack and myself, with Alex Blumberg, Jane Feltes, Sarah Koenig, and Nancy Updike.
图片来源：Ira Glass 嗯，我们今天的节目是由 Lisa Pollack 和我本人以及 Alex Blumberg、Jane Feltes、Sarah Koenig 和 Nancy Updike 制作的。
Our senior producer is Julie Snyder.
我们的高级制片人是朱莉·斯奈德。
Adrianne Mathiowetz runs our website.
阿德琳娜·马修韦茨 (Adrianne Mathiowetz) 负责运营我们的网站。
Production help from Seth Lind, Tommy Andres, PJ Vogt, and Emily Yousef.
Seth Lind、Tommy Andres、PJ Vogt 和 Emily Yousef 为制作提供帮助。
Music help from Jessica Hopper.
杰西卡·霍珀的音乐帮助。
Special thanks today to Dan Ephron, Sean Cullen, Dan Calhoun.
今天特别感谢 Dan Ephron、Sean Cullen、Dan Calhoun。
This American Life is distributed by Public Radio International.
《美国生活》由国际公共广播电台发行。
Support for This American Life is provided by Saab, founded by 16 Swedish aircraft engineers who decided to bring the spirit of flight down to Earth.
Saab 为“This American Life”提供支持，该公司由 16 名瑞典飞机工程师创立，他们决定将飞行精神带入现实。
Saab, born from jets.
萨博，诞生于喷气机。
Learn more at saabusa.com.
如需了解更多信息，请访问 saabusa.com。
Support for PRI comes from PBS, featuring their new series inspired by Car Talk, Click and Clack's As The Wrench Turns , premiering Wednesday night on most PBS stations.
对 PRI 的支持来自 PBS，他们的新系列节目灵感来自 Car Talk、Click 和 Clack 的《As The Wrench Turns》，周三晚上在大多数 PBS 电视台首播。
WBEZ management oversight for our program by our boss, Mr. Torey Malatia.
我们的老板 Torey Malatia 先生对我们的项目进行 WBEZ 管理监督。
You know, I tried to bring to him to my weekly basketball game.
你知道，我试图带他来参加我每周的篮球比赛。
I tried, I tried, but it just didn't work out.
我尝试过，我尝试过，但就是没有成功。
He didn't understand that he couldn't come out on the court when the grownups were playing, and I had to leave the game and take him home.
他不明白大人打球的时候他不能上场，我必须离开比赛带他回家。
I'm Ira Glass, back next week with more stories of This American Life.
我是艾拉·格拉斯，下周回来，带来更多《美国生活》的故事。
This American Life is produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago and delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange.
《This American Life》与 WBEZ Chicago 合作制作，并由 PRX 公共广播电台传送到各电台。