殘忍而美麗的情誼:The Kite Runner 追風箏的人(214)

He sighed through his nose and closed his eyes. I wished I hadn’t said those last two words. “You know, I’ve done a lot of things I regret in my life,” I said, “and maybe none more than going back on the promise I made you. But that will never happen again, and I am so very profoundly sorry. I ask for your bakhshesh, your forgiveness. Can you do that? Can you forgive me? Can you believe me?” I dropped my voice. “Will you come with me?”
As I waited for his reply, my mind flashed back to a winter day from long ago, Hassan and I sitting on the snow beneath a leafless sour cherry tree. I had played a cruel game with Hassan that day, toyed with him, asked him if he would chew dirt to prove his loyalty to me. Now I was the one under the microscope, the one who had to prove my worthiness. I deserved this.
Sohrab rolled to his side, his back to me. He didn’t say anything for a long time. And then, just as I thought he might have drifted to sleep, he said with a croak, “I am so khasta.” So very tired. I sat by his bed until he fell asleep. Something was lost between Sohrab and me. Until my meeting with the lawyer, Omar Faisal, a light of hope had begun to enter Sohrab’s eyes like a timid guest. Now the light was gone, the guest had fled, and I wondered when it would dare return. I wondered how long before Sohrab smiled again. How long before he trusted me. If ever.
So I left the room and went looking for another hotel, unaware that almost a year would pass before I would hear Sohrab speak another word.
IN THE END, Sohrab never accepted my offer. Nor did he decline it. But he knew that when the bandages were removed and the hospital garments returned, he was just another homeless Hazara orphan. What choice did he have? Where could he go? So what I took as a yes from him was in actuality more of a quiet surrender, not so much an acceptance as an act of relinquishment by one too weary to decide, and far too tired to believe. What he yearned for was his old life. What he got was me and America. Not that it was such a bad fate, everything considered, but I couldn’t tell him that. Perspective was a luxury when your head was constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons.
And so it was that, about a week later, we crossed a strip of warm, black tarmac and I brought Hassan’s son from Afghanistan to America, lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty.
ONE DAY, maybe around 1983 or 1984, I was at a video store in Fremont. I was standing in the Westerns section when a guy next to me, sipping Coke from a 7-Eleven cup, pointed to _The Magnificent Seven_ and asked me if I had seen it. “Yes, thirteen times,” I said. “Charles Bronson dies in it, so do James Coburn and Robert Vaughn.” He gave me a pinch-faced look, as if I had just spat in his soda. “Thanks a lot, man,” he said, shaking his head and muttering something as he walked away. That was when I learned that, in America, you don’t reveal the ending of the movie, and if you do, you will be scorned and made to apologize profusely for having committed the sin of Spoiling the End.
In Afghanistan, the ending was all that mattered. When Hassan and I came home after watching a Hindi film at Cinema Zainab, what Ali, Rahim Khan, Baba, or the myriad of Baba’s friends--second and third cousins milling in and out of the house--wanted to know was this: Did the Girl in the film find happiness? Did the bacheh film, the Guy in the film, become katnyab and fulfill his dreams, or was he nah-kam, doomed to wallow in failure?Was there happiness at the end, they wanted to someone were to ask me today whether the story of Hassan, Sohrab, and me ends with happiness, I wouldn’t know what to say.
Does anybody’s?

他從鼻子嘆出氣，閉上眼睛。我要是沒有說出最後三個字就好了。“你知道嗎，我這一輩子做過很多後悔的事情，”我說，“也許最後悔的事情是對你出爾反爾。但那再也不會發生了，我感到非常非常對不起你。我乞求你的原諒。你能做到嗎？你能原諒我嗎？你能相信我嗎？”我降低聲音，“你會跟我一起走嗎？”
等待他回答的時候，我腦裏一閃，思緒回到了很久以前的某個冬日，哈桑和我坐在一株酸櫻桃樹下的雪地上。那天我跟哈桑開了個殘酷的玩笑，取笑他，問他願不願意吃泥巴證明對我的忠誠。而如今，我是那個被考驗的人，那個需要證明自己值得尊重的人。我罪有應得。
索拉博翻過身，背朝我。很久很久，他一語不發。接着，就在我以爲他也許昏昏睡去的時候，他嘶啞地說：“我很累很累。”我坐在他牀沿，直到他睡去。我和索拉博之間有些東西不見了。直到和奧馬爾?費薩爾律師碰面之前，一道希望的光芒曾像怯生生的客人那樣走進索拉博的眼睛。現在那光芒不見了，客人逃跑了，而我懷疑他是否有膽量回來。我尋思要再過多久才能見到索拉博的微笑，再過多久纔會信任我，倘若他會的話。
於是我離開病房，走出去尋找別的旅館，根本沒有意識到我再次聽到索拉博說話，已經是一年之後的事情。
結局，索拉博從來沒有接受我的邀請。他也沒有拒絕。當繃帶拆開，脫去病服，他只是又一個無家可歸的哈扎拉孤兒。他能有什麼選擇呢？他能去哪兒呢？所以我當他同意了，可是實際上，那更像是無言的屈服；與其說是同意，毋寧說是由於他心灰意懶、懷疑一切而來的任人擺佈。他渴望的是他原來的生活，而他得到的是我和美國。從方方面面看來，這並不能說是什麼悽慘的命運，可是我不能這麼告訴他。倘使惡魔仍在你腦中徘徊縈繞，前程又從何談起呢？
於是就這樣，一個星期之後，穿過一片溫暖的黑色的停機坪，我把哈桑的兒子從阿富汗帶到美國，讓他飛離那業已過去的悽惻往事，降落在即將到來的未知生活之中。
某天，興許是1983年或 1984年，我在弗裏蒙特一間賣錄像帶的商店。我站在西片區之前，身邊有個傢伙拿着便利店的紙杯，邊喝可樂邊指着《七俠蕩寇志》，問我有沒有看過。“看過，看了十三次。”我說，“查爾斯?勃朗森在裏面死了，詹姆斯‘科本和羅伯特?華恩也死了。”他狠狠盯了我一眼，好像我朝他的汽水吐口水一樣。“太謝謝你啦，老兄。”他說，搖頭咕噥着走開了。那時我才明白，在美國，你不能透露電影的結局，要不然你會被譴責，還得爲糟蹋了結局的罪行致上萬分歉意。
在阿富汗，結局纔是最重要的。每逢哈桑和我在索拉博電影院看完印度片回家，阿里、拉辛汗、爸爸或者爸爸那些九流三教的朋友——各種遠房親戚在那座房子進進出出——想知道的只有這些：電影裏面那個姑娘找到幸福了嗎？電影裏面那個傢伙勝利地實現了他的夢想嗎？還是失敗了，鬱鬱而終？他們想知道的是結局是不是幸福。如果今天有人問起哈桑、索拉博和我的故事結局是否圓滿，我不知道該怎麼說。
有人能回答嗎？