殘忍而美麗的情誼:The Kite Runner 追風箏的人(100)

But it wasn’t just that she’d found an audience for her monologues of illness. I firmly believed that if I had picked up a rifle and gone on a murdering rampage, I would have still had the benefit of her unblinking love. Because I had rid her heart of its gravest malady. I had relieved her of the greatest fear of every Afghan mother: that no honorable khastegar would ask for her daughter’s hand. That her daughter would age alone, husbandless, childless. Every woman needed a husband. Even if he did silence the song in , from Soraya, I learned the details of what had happened in were at a wedding. Soraya’s uncle, Sharif, the one who worked for the INS, was marrying his son to an Afghan girl from Newark. The wedding was at the same hall where, six months prior, Soraya and I had had our awroussi. We were standing in a crowd of guests, watching the bride accept rings from the groom’s family, when we overheard two middle-aged women talking, their backs to us.
“What a lovely bride,” one of them said, “Just look at her. So maghbool, like the moon.”
“Yes,” the other said. “And pure too. Virtuous. No boyfriends.”
“I know. I tell you that boy did well not to marry his cousin.”
Soraya broke down on the way home. I pulled the Ford off to the curb, parked under a streetlight on Fremont Boulevard.
“It’s all right,” I said, pushing back her hair. “Who cares?”
“It’s so fucking unfair,” she barked.
“Just forget it.”

但她發現，我不僅是聽她訴說病痛的好聽衆。我深信不疑，就算我抓起來複槍殺人越貨，也依然能得到她對我毫不動搖的憐愛。因爲我治癒了她最大的心病，我使她免受折磨，擺脫了每個阿富汗母親最大的恐懼：沒有門戶光彩的人來向她的女兒提親。那她的女兒就會獨自隨着年華老去，無夫無子，無依無靠。凡是女人都需要丈夫，即使他扼殺了她唱歌的天賦。並且，從索拉雅口中，我得知了在弗吉尼亞發生的事情的細節。我們去參加婚禮。索拉雅的舅舅，沙利夫，替移民局工作那位，替他兒子娶了個紐瓦克的阿富汗女孩。婚禮舉行的宴會廳，就是半年前我和索拉雅成百年之好的地方。我們站在一羣賓客之中，看着新娘從新郎家人手中接過戒指。其時我們聽到兩個中年婦女在談話，她們背對着我們。
“多麼可愛的新娘啊，”她們中一個說，“看看她，那麼美麗，就像月亮一般。”
“是的，”另外一個說，“而且還純潔呢，品德良好，沒有談過男朋友。”
“我知道，我告訴你，男孩最好別和他表姐那樣的女人結婚。”回家路上，索拉雅放聲大哭。
我把福特駛向路邊，停在弗裏蒙特大道的一盞路燈下面。
“事情已經過去了，”我說，撩撥着她的秀髮，“誰在乎呢？”
“這太他媽的不公平了。”她嚎叫道。
“忘掉就好。”