本帖最后由 ヮ成熟、羙° 于 2014-4-20 08:12 编辑
母爱 荷叶/译 即使我已长大，不能和母亲再做那样的游戏，不能再向她说我爱你了，我依然认为我是最好的女儿。只要她吩咐，我不是一路跑着到阳台上去查看她晒在那的腌芒果吗？ 随着我步入少年，似乎我这个女儿变得更好，更富有爱心了。每天下午我不是放下手头的一切，跑到街角杂货店里去买母亲用光的任何调料吗？ 相反，母亲对我的爱却越来越少。有些时候，她活像个老巫婆，如果我的成绩没有起色，她就威胁要打发我到远在巴哈马乡下的二叔家去，对于我这样一个顶呱呱的加尔格达女孩来说，这种命运比死更可怕。还有些时候，她会让我坐下听她讲述那些使家族蒙羞的女孩的故事。很明显，给家族带来耻辱的方式千千万万，母亲决心让我警惕每一种可能。原则上，我要做的一切，从去美国留学到烫发，她都会反对，她的口头禅是“等我死了再说”。很明显我对她的爱远远超过她对我的爱，如果她对我还有一点爱的话。 在美国读完研究生并结婚以后，我和母亲的关系改善了很多。尽管她偶尔对我选择写作职业有所怀疑外，她认为我总体进展还不错。我对她的想法也一样。我们建立起了一种循环：她从印度给我写信，告诉我些家常里短，并给我寄来我最喜欢的腌芒果；我从美国给她打电话，告诉她我正忙的事情，并给她寄去她已经喜欢上的香草布丁。我们之间的爱对等了，至少在我大儿子阿诺德出生前，我是这样认为的。 我儿子的出生，以很多意想不到的方式打乱了我有条理，有计划，平静的成年生活。六周来，我精疲力竭，笼罩在一种产后抑郁的阴影之中。当我和丈夫抱着彻夜啼哭的婴儿走来走去时，我开始认真考虑，想甩手不干了，我不知道自己是否适合做母亲。我想到了母爱，母爱究竟是什么呢？ 然后，有一天，当我给阿诺德换尿布时，他咧着没长牙的嘴朝我笑了起来。我想：嗯，这个又黑又瘦的小家伙还是有点可爱。此后，情况迅速改观。不知不觉间，我在婴儿房里加了张床，有很多晚上我睡在上面陪儿子。 附：原文 Even I was too grown-up too play that game and too grown-up to tell my mother that Ilove her, I still believed that I was the best daughter. Didn’t I run all theway up to the terrace to check on the drying mango pickles whenever she askedme? AsI entered my teens, it seemed that I was becoming a even better, more lovingdaughter. Didn’t I drop whatever I was doing each afternoon to go to the cornergrocery to pick up any spices my mother had run out of? My mother, onthe other hand, becoming more and more unloving to me. Some days she positivelybecame a witch as she threatened to pack me off to my second uncle’s home inprovincial Bardhaman—a fate worse than death to a cool Calcutta girl like me—if my grades didn’timprove. Other days she would sit me down and tell my about “girls who broughtshame to their families”. There were, apparently a million ways in which onecould do this, and my mother was determined that I should be cautioned againstevery one of them. On principle, she disapproved of everything I would do, fromgoing to study in Americato perming my hair, and her favorite phrase was “over my dead body”. It wasclear that I loved her far more than she loved me—that is , if she loved me atall. After I finished graduate school in Americaand got married, my relationship with my mother improved a lot. Thoughoccasionally dubious about my choice of a writing career, overall she thought Ishaped up nicely. I thought the same about her. We established a rhythm:she’d write from India and give me allthe gossip and send care packages with my favorite kind of mango pickle; I’dcall her from America and tell her all the things that I’ve been up and sendcare packages with instant vanilla pudding, for which she’d developed a greatfondness. We loved each other equally—or so I believed until my first son,Anand, was born. My son’sbirth shook up my neat, organized, in control adult existence in ways I hadn’timagined. I went through six weeks of being shrouded in an exhausted fog ofpostpartum depression. As my husband and I walked our wailing baby up and downthrough the night, and I seriously contemplated going AWOL, I wondered if I wascut out to be a mother at all. And mother love—what as all that about? Thenone morning, as I was changing yet another diaper, Anand grinned up at me withhis toothless gums. Hmm, I thought. This little brown scrawny thing is a kindof cute after all. Things progressed rapidly from here. Before I knew it, I’dmoved the extra bed into the baby’s room and was spending many nights on it ,bonding with my son. | 
发表于 2014-4-20 08:11:19
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