雙語故事:那些在國外租房而居的日子

Thirty years ago, I stepped off an Amtrak train into the heat and stench of New York's Penn Station clutching an oversize trash bag full of my clothes.

30年前，我乘坐美國全國鐵路貨運公司(Amtrak)的火車抵達了紐約賓州火車站(Penn Station)，一下車，撲面而來的是燥熱的空氣和惡臭。我手裏拎着一個巨大的垃圾袋，裏面裝滿了我的衣服。

I had $1, 000─my life savings─tucked into the front pocket of my bluejeans, and a piece of paper with an address scrawled on it in my back pocket: 228 Sullivan St.

我藍色牛仔褲的前袋裏塞了1,000美元，那是我所有的積蓄，後褲兜裏有一張紙條，上面潦草地寫着一個地址：蘇利文大街( Sullivan St.)228號。

I had never laid eyes on the apartment in an improbably pink building that I was about to call home for the next three months. My impulsive decision to leave Boston and move to Manhattan came for complicated reasons: a new love affair, the hope of learning how to become a writer and some romantic vision shaped by the Saturday-matinee Doris Day movies of my childhood. Also, like many people who move away from home, I was escaping. A few months earlier, my only sibling, Skip, had died in a household accident and I had spent all the time since futilely trying to comfort my parents. I was 25 years old, and the thought of living in that grief even one minute more was too much for me to imagine. Here, among the piles of trash that lined the street and the smell of falafels and exhaust, I thought I might take refuge.

這是我頭一次見到這棟荒謬可笑的粉色建築內的公寓，未來三個月這裏將是我的家。我衝動地做出了離開波士頓搬到曼哈頓的決定，這其中有着複雜的原因：我剛開始一段新的戀情，也希望學習如何成爲一名作家，還有童年時期每週六多莉絲•戴(Doris Day)的日場電影帶給我的浪漫幻想。和許多離家在外的人一樣，我是從家裏逃出來的。幾個月前，我唯一的兄弟斯基普(Skip)死於一場家庭事故，此後我一直試圖安慰我的父母，但卻是徒勞。我當時才25歲，哪怕在這種悲傷中再多活一分鐘也令我難以忍受。在這裏，道路兩旁堆着垃圾，空氣中瀰漫着炸豆丸三明治和汽車尾氣的味道，我覺得我可以在這裏得到庇護。

Heather, the woman subletting the apartment to me, was a dancer, blonde and lithe with Betty Boop eyes. She was moving across town to live with her on-again, off-again boyfriend. Eager to start her own new life, she showed me the dishes and cups─there were two of each─her coffeepot, which involved boiling water and pouring it through what appeared to be a sock, and all of the other things that made this Heather's home. I thought longingly of my Mr. Coffee tucked away in storage, my Farberware pans and Marimekko comforter. Heather gave me a quick tour of the neighborhood─where to buy coffee and a newspaper, where to go for a drink. Then she was gone.

把公寓轉租給我的女子叫希瑟，她是一名舞蹈演員，金髮，長着一對貝蒂娃娃(Betty Boop)似的大眼睛。她要搬到城市的另一頭與她分分合合的男朋友同住。希瑟迫不及待地要想要開始新生活。她向我展示了她成對的杯盤、咖啡壺以及家中其他的生活用品。那個咖啡壺可以把水煮開，再把水從一個襪子樣的兜裏濾出來。我格外想念我塞在儲物櫃裏的ee咖啡壺，我的Farberware平底鍋和Marimekko被子。希瑟帶我快速地在周圍轉了一圈，告訴我哪裏可以買到咖啡和報紙，哪裏可以喝東西。然後她就走了。

I sat on the bed, a door on top of two sawhorses and topped with foam, and wondered what to do next. I grew up in a family that didn't move. My mother still lives in the house where she was born 81 years ago. All of her siblings lived and died within a 5-mile radius of that house. Even though I had lived away, I had never stopped thinking of it as my home, too. But now, alone in a new city in someone else's home, I felt less tethered, unsure.

我的牀是一扇搭在兩個鋸木架上的門板，上面覆了一層泡沫，我坐在牀上，想着接下來要做什麼。我生長在一個從不搬家的家庭。我母親現在仍居住在81年前她出生的房子裏。她所有兄弟姐妹一生都住在距離這座房子5英里（約1.6公里）的範圍內。雖然我搬了出來，卻也從來沒認爲那不再是我的家。但現在，獨自在一個陌生的城市裏，在另外一個人的家裏，我感到少了些歸屬感和安全感。

The next morning, I made coffee in Heather's coffee pot and drank it out of her cracked mug. I hung a map of the neighborhood on the refrigerator door with her magnet and wrote lists with her pencils. Soon I could not remember the exact shade of orange on that packed-away comforter. In fact, my old belongings all grew blurry and dull.

第二天早上，我用希瑟的壺煮了咖啡，並用她帶裂縫的杯子把咖啡喝掉。我用她的磁鐵把這個社區的地圖吸在冰箱門上，用她的鉛筆寫購物清單。很快，我忘掉了自己那條收起來的被子是哪種橘色。事實上，我對過去自己擁有物的印象都變得模糊而黯淡了。

Eventually, Heather returned and I moved to another sublet, a slightly larger apartment in Chelsea. Outside on 21st Street, Tara handed me the keys, advised me to keep the gate on the window locked so burglars didn't come up the fire escape and into the apartment. Then she disappeared down the subway steps. Tara had a fondness for Indian prints and incense, and the apartment had a vague hippie feeling to it. Soon, the smell of patchouli that clung to my clothes and hair made me queasy, and I saw that by subletting apartments, I was beginning to understand who I was, what I liked and disliked, how I wanted to shape my own life.

希瑟最終搬了回來，我又搬到了另一間出租房裏，這是位於切爾西(Chelsea)的一間略大些的公寓。在21大街上，塔拉(Tara)把鑰匙交給我，並建議我把窗門鎖好，防止竊賊從消防梯爬上來進入公寓。然後她就走下了地鐵臺階。塔拉喜歡印度印花和香料，這套公寓有一點嬉皮風格。很快，粘在我衣服上、頭髮上的廣藿香氣讓我感到噁心，我發現，通過租房，我開始明白了我是誰，我喜歡什麼，討厭什麼，以及我想要怎樣的人生。

From each sublet─the one in the Ansonia building that smelled of mothballs and had fake Picassos; the East Village walk-up with the bathtub in the kitchen; the Barrow Street two-bedroom with padlocks on the kitchen cupboards─I took a piece of that person's life and held it up against my own. At night in all of these borrowed beds, my own idea of home started to take shape.

我租住過的公寓包括，安索尼亞(Ansonia)大樓的公寓，這裏有樟腦丸氣味和山寨畢加索畫作；東村(East Village)沒有電梯的一套公寓，這套公寓的浴缸在廚房裏；巴羅(Barrow)大街的帶兩間臥室的公寓，這套公寓廚房碗櫃上掛着掛鎖。每一次租房，我都把房東生活的一部分和我自己的生活拼湊在了一起。在所有的租來的牀上度過的夜裏，我開始形成了自己對家的憧憬。

Eventually, of course, I got my own apartment, and then left the city and moved into my own house. When I think back to my first night in Manhattan, on the door that served as a bed in that tiny Sullivan Street apartment, I remember how frightened I had been─of the city, of the grief for my dead brother that I had carried there with me, of the new love I thought I'd found. I remembered longing for even one thing that was mine, something I could hold on to through the long night. I didn't know it all those years ago, but I had come in search of a home. And I had found it on plywood and futons and all the other pieces of lives I borrowed as I, bit by bit, built my future.

當然，最終我有了自己的公寓，我離開紐約，搬到了自己的房子裏。當我回想起在曼哈頓度過的第一個夜晚，在蘇利文大街的狹小公寓裏，在門板搭成的牀上，我記得當時自己是多麼的害怕，怕這座城市，怕對我死去兄弟忘不掉的悲痛，怕我自己以爲已找到的新的愛情。我記得我是那麼渴望擁有哪怕一件屬於自己的東西，可以在漫漫長夜中擁之入懷。在那之前我並不知道，其實我是在尋找一個家。在膠合板、蒲團以及我借來的所有他人生活的碎片裏，我找到了它，並一點一點地，建立起屬於自己的未來。