writer作者：Alice Sebold艾丽斯·西伯德

cast演播：underage未成年吖

可爱的骨头

Inside the snow globe on my father’s desk, there was a penguin wearing a red-and-white-striped scarf. When I was little my father would pull me into his lap and reach for the snow globe. He would turn it over, letting all the snow collect on the top, then quickly invert it. The two of us watched the snow fall gently around the penguin. The penguin was alone in there, I thought, and I worried for him. When I told my father this, he said, “Don’t worry, Susie; he has a nice life. He’s trapped in a perfect world.”

Chapter One

My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. In newspaper photos of missing girls from the seventies, most looked like me: white girls with mousy brown hair. This was before kids of all races and genders started appearing on milk cartons or in the daily mail. It was still back when people believed things like that didn’t happen.
我姓沙蒙，听起来就像“三文鱼”，名叫苏茜。一九七三年十二月六日,我被谋害时不过十四岁。七十年代报上刊登的失踪女孩照片，大部分看起来都和我一个模样：白种女孩、灰褐色头发。在那个年代，各种种族及不同性别的小孩照片，还没有出现在牛奶盒或是每天的邮递广告上；在那个年代，大家还想不到会发生小孩遭到谋杀之类的事情。

In my junior high yearbook I had a quote from a Spanish poet my sister had turned me on to, Juan Ramón Jiménez. It went like this: “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.” I chose it both because it expressed my contempt for my structured surroundings à la the classroom and because, not being some dopey quote from a rock group, I thought it marked me as literary. I was a member of the Chess Club and Chem Club and burned everything I tried to make in Mrs. Delminico’s home ec class. My favorite teacher was Mr. Botte, who taught biology and liked to animate the frogs and crawfish we had to dissect by making
them dance in their waxed pans.
妹妹让我迷上了一个名叫希梅聂兹的西班牙诗人，我在初中毕业纪念册上特别选抄了他的一句话：“如果有人给你一张画了格线的纸，你就不要按着格线书写。”这句话表达了我对四周中规中矩的一切，诸如教室之类建筑物的轻蔑，听来深得我心，所以我选了这句话。更何况，我觉得选用一句名诗人的话，而不是某个摇滚歌手说的蠢话，让自己感觉上比较有学问。我是国际象棋社及化学社的成员，在黛敏尼柯太太的家政课上，我每次都试着烧菜，结果总是把菜烧焦。我最喜欢的老师是伯特先生，伯特先生教生物，他喜欢抓起我们要解剖的青蛙、小虾，假装让它们在上蜡的铁盘上跳舞。

I wasn’t killed by Mr. Botte, by the way. Don’t think every person you’re going to meet in here is suspect. That’s the problem. You never know. Mr. Botte came to my memorial (as, may I add, did almost the entire junior high school – I was never so popular) and cried quite a bit. He had a sick kid. We all knew this, so when he laughed at his own jokes, which were rusty way before I had him, we laughed too, forcing it sometimes just to make him happy. His daughter died a year and a half after I did. She had leukemia, but I never saw her in my heaven.
顺带一提，谋杀我的凶手不是伯特先生。请你别把接下来每个即将出现的人当成凶手，但问题就在这儿：你永远料不到谁会出手杀人。伯特先生参加了我的丧礼，而且哭得很伤心。（请容我插一句：全校师生几乎都出席了丧礼，其实我在学校从来不是个万人迷。）他的小孩病得很严重，我们都知道这件事，因此，当他说了笑话，自己笑个不停时，虽然这些笑话早在我们选修他的课程之前就已过时，我们依然跟着大笑。我们有时还强迫自己跟着笑，目的只为了让他高兴一点。他的女儿在我去世一年半后也离开了人间，她得了血癌，但我在我的天堂里从未见过她。

My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertilizer. My murderer believed in old-fashioned things like eggshells and coffee grounds, which he said his own mother had used. My father came home smiling, making jokes about how the man’s garden might be beautiful but it would stink to high heaven once a heat wave hit.
谋杀我的凶手是我家邻居，妈妈喜欢他花坛里的花，爸爸还向他请教过如何施肥。凶手先生认为蛋壳、咖啡渣等传统肥料比较有效，他说他妈妈都用这些传统方式施肥。爸爸回家之后笑个不停，他开着玩笑说这人的花园或许很漂亮，但热浪一袭，八成臭气冲天。

But on December 6, 1973, it was snowing, and I took a shortcut through the cornfield back from the junior high. It was dark out because the days were shorter in winter, and I remember how the broken cornstalks made my walk more difficult. The snow was falling lightly, like a flurry of small hands, and I was breathing through my nose until it was running so much that I had to open my mouth. Six feet from where Mr. Harvey stood, I stuck my tongue out to taste a snowflake.
但一九七三年十二月六日可没有热浪，那天飘着雪，我从学校后面的玉米地抄近路回家。冬天天黑得早，那时天色已晚，我记得地里的玉米秆被人踩得乱七八糟，田间小径也变得更不好走，细雪有如一双双小手，轻飘飘地覆盖大地。我用鼻子呼吸，直到冷得不断流鼻涕才张嘴吸气。我停下来，伸出舌头尝尝雪花的味道，哈维先生就站在离我六英尺之处。

“Don’t let me startle you,” Mr. Harvey said.
“别让我吓着你。”哈维先生说。

Of course, in a cornfield, in the dark, I was startled. After I was dead I thought about how there had been the light scent of cologne in the air but that I had not been paying attention, or thought it was coming from one of the houses up ahead.
在灰暗的玉米地里，他确实吓了我一跳。离开人间之后，我想起当时空气中似乎飘来淡淡的科隆香水气味，但我却没有多加注意，或许那时我以为气味来自前面的房子。

“Mr. Harvey,” I said.
“哈维先生。”我打了招呼。

“You’re the older Salmon girl, right?”
“你是沙蒙家的大女儿，对不对？”

“Yes.”
“是的。”

“How are your folks?”
“你爸妈还好吗？”

Although the eldest in my family and good at acing a science quiz, I had never felt comfortable with adults.
虽然身为长女，在机智问答中也时常占上风，但我在大人面前依然觉得不自在。

“Fine,” I said. I was cold, but the natural authority of his age, and the added fact that he was a neighbor and had talked to my father about fertilizer, rooted me to the spot.
“他们很好。”我说。虽然觉得很冷，但他是个大人，再加上他是邻居，又和我爸爸谈过肥料等事情，所以我还是站在原地不动。

“I’ve built something back here,” he said. “Would you like to see?”
“我在附近盖了些东西，”他说，“你要不要过来看看？”

“I’m sort of cold, Mr. Harvey,” I said, “and my mom likes me home before
dark.”
“哈维先生，我觉得有点冷，”我说，“再说我妈希望我在天黑前回家。”

“It’s after dark, Susie,” he said.
“现在已经天黑了，苏茜。”他说。

I wish now that I had known this was weird. I had never told him my name. I guess I thought my father had told him one of the embarrassing anecdotes he saw merely as loving testaments to his children. My father was the kind of dad who kept a nude photo of you when you were three in the downstairs bathroom, the one that guests would use. He did this to my little sister, Lindsey, thank God. At least I was spared that indignity. But he liked to tell a story about how, once Lindsey was born, I was so jealous that one day while he was on the phone in the other room, I moved down the couch – he could see me from where he stood – and tried to pee on top of Lindsey in her carrier. This story humiliated me every time he told it, to the pastor of our church, to our neighbor Mrs. Stead, who was a therapist and whose take on it he wanted to hear, and to everyone who ever said “Susie has a lot of spunk!”
我当时若察觉出异样就好了。我从未告诉他我叫什么，我想或许爸爸曾提过我，我爸总喜欢跟大家说我们小时候的臭事，他觉得说说无妨，他只想借此表达他多疼我们。有些爸爸喜欢把小孩三岁时的光身子照片放在客人用的卫生间里，我爸就是如此，感谢上天，他放在那儿的是妹妹琳茜小时候的照片，最起码我躲过了这样的臭事。但他喜欢跟大家说我的另一件臭事，他说琳茜刚出生时，我非常忌妒小妹妹，有一天他在另一个房间打电话，从他站的地方可以清楚地看到我走到沙发旁边，爬到摇篮旁，试图在琳茜的头上撒尿。我爸把这件臭事告诉我们的牧师和邻居史泰德太太。史泰德太太是心理医生，我爸想听听她的分析，而且还不只这样，每次只要有人说“苏茜真有意思”，我爸就重复这个故事，每次都让我觉得很难为情。

“Spunk!” my father would say. “Let me tell you about spunk,” and he would launch immediately into his Susie-peed-on-Lindsey story.
“什么有意思！？”我爸总回答说，“让我告诉你这个小孩多有意思。”说完他马上兴高采烈地重复“苏茜在琳茜头上撒尿”的故事。

But as it turned out, my father had not mentioned us to Mr. Harvey or told
him the Susie-peed-on-Lindsey story.
事实上，爸爸从未向哈维先生提过我们，哈维先生也没听过“苏茜在琳茜头上撒尿”的故事。

Mr. Harvey would later say these words to my mother when he ran into her on the street: “I heard about the horrible, horrible tragedy. What was your daughter’s name, again?”
事发之后，哈维先生在街上碰到妈妈，他对妈妈这么说：“我听说了这个不幸的悲剧，真是太可怕了！您女儿叫什么来着？”

“Susie,” my mother said, bracing up under the weight of it, a weight that she naïvely hoped might lighten someday, not knowing that it would only go on to hurt in new and varied ways for the rest of her life.
“她叫苏茜。”妈妈勉强打起精神回答，提到我的名字让她心情沉重，她天真地希望心头的重负终有一天会放下，殊不知她始终挥不去心中的阴影，终其一生不断地受到伤害。

Mr. Harvey told her the usual: “I hope they get the bastard. I’m sorry for your loss.”
哈维先生像大家一样对她说：“我希望他们早点捉到这个混蛋。您痛失爱女，我真替您难过。”

I was in my heaven by that time, fitting my limbs together, and couldn’t
believe his audacity. “The man has no shame,” I said to Franny, my intake counselor.
他说这话时我已经在天堂，我气得四肢发抖，不敢相信他竟然如此大胆无耻。“这人真不知羞耻。”我对弗妮说，弗妮是天堂指派给新成员的辅导老师。

“Exactly,” she said, and made her point as simply as that. There wasn’t a lot of bullshit in my heaven.
“没错。”弗妮回答，简简单单两个字就表达了她的观点，在我的天堂里，大家就是这么坦率，没有人多说废话。

Mr. Harvey said it would only take a minute, so I followed him a little farther into the cornfield, where fewer stalks were broken off because no one used it as a shortcut to the junior high. My mom had told my baby brother, Buckley, that the corn in the field was inedible when he asked why no one from the neighborhood ate it. “The corn is for horses, not humans,” she said. “Not dogs?” Buckley asked. “No,” my mother answered. “Not dinosaurs?” Buckley asked. And it went like that.
哈维先生说，过去看看花不了多少时间，所以我跟着他走进玉米地深处。没有人从这里抄近路到学校，所以此处的玉米秆很少遭人践踏。我的小弟巴克利曾问妈妈为什么镇上的人都不吃地里的玉米。妈妈告诉小巴克利说地里的玉米吃不得，妈妈说：“玉米是给马吃的，人不吃玉米。”巴克利接着又问：“狗也不吃吗？”妈妈回答说：“不。”巴克利继续追问：“恐龙也不吃吗？”他们就这么一问一答，持续了好久。

“I’ve made a little hiding place,” said Mr. Harvey.
“我盖了一个简单的地洞。”哈维先生说。

He stopped and turned to me.
他停下来，转身盯着我。

“I don’t see anything,” I said. I was aware that Mr. Harvey was looking at me strangely. I’d had older men look at me that way since I’d lost my baby fat, but they usually didn’t lose their marbles over me when I was wearing my royal blue parka and yellow elephant bell-bottoms. His glasses were small and round with gold frames, and his eyes looked out over them and at me.
“我没看到什么地洞啊。”我说。我察觉到哈维先生的眼神非常奇怪，自从我长成少女，摆脱小时候胖嘟嘟的模样之后，一些年纪比较大的男人曾用同样的眼神看我。但当时我穿着宝蓝色的带帽外衣和紫黄色的喇叭裤，这副模样通常不会引起他们的兴趣。哈维先生戴着金边眼镜，此时，他透过小小的镜框盯着我。

“You should be more observant, Susie,” he said.
“你再仔细看看。”他说。

I felt like observing my way out of there, but I didn’t. Why didn’t I? Franny
said these questions were fruitless: “You didn’t and that’s that. Don’t mull it over. It does no good. You’re dead and you have to accept it.”
我本应该找条路逃开，但我却没有这么做。为什么我没有这么做呢？弗妮说这些问题都是白问：“当时你没逃开，没逃就是没逃，别再多想了，想再多也没用。你已经不在人间，你必须接受这个事实。”

“Try again,” Mr. Harvey said, and he squatted down and knocked against the ground.
“再试试看。”哈维先生说，他边说边蹲下来敲敲地面。

“What’s that?” I asked.
“那是什么？”我问道。

My ears were freezing. I wouldn’t wear the multicolored cap with the pompom and jingle bells that my mother had made me one Christmas. I had shoved it in the pocket of my parka instead.
我耳朵都快冻僵了。我妈在圣诞节帮我织了一顶杂色的帽子，上面还镶了一个绒球和一对铃铛，当时我没有把帽子戴在头上，而是塞在外衣口袋里。

I remember that I went over and stomped on the ground near him. It felt
harder even than frozen earth, which was pretty hard.
我记得我走过去，踩了踩哈维先生身旁的田地，冬天天寒地冻，我脚下的田地显得格外坚硬。

“It’s wood,” Mr. Harvey said. “It keeps the entrance from collapsing. Other
than that it’s all made out of earth.”
“你踩到的是木头。”哈维先生说，“搭上木头，入口处才不会崩塌。除了入口处之外，地洞里其他东西都是泥土做的。”

“What is it?” I asked. I was no longer cold or weirded out by the look he had given me. I was like I was in science class: I was curious.
“什么东西？”我问道，那时我已经感觉不到寒冷，也忘了他奇怪的眼神，我像在自然课上一样，心中充满好奇。

“Come and see.”
“进来看看。”

It was awkward to get into, that much he admitted once we were both inside the hole. But I was so amazed by how he had made a chimney that would draw smoke out if he ever chose to build a fire that the awkwardness of getting in and out of the hole wasn’t even on my mind. You could add to that that escape wasn’t a concept I had any real experience with. The worst I’d had to escape was Artie, a strange-looking kid at school whose father was a mortician. He liked to pretend he was carrying a needle full of embalming fluid around with him. On his notebooks he would draw needles spilling dark drips.
我笨手笨脚地跟了下去，等我们进入地洞之后，哈维先生也承认走进来不太容易。但我当时忙着看地洞里的烟囱，压根儿没想到进出地洞容不容易等问题。哈维先生在地洞里架了一个烟囱管道，如果他打算在洞里生火，烟雾可以从这里排出去。再说我也从未想过逃避任何人，在此之前，最糟的就是碰到怪模怪样的亚提。亚提的爸爸在殡仪馆上班，他喜欢假装带着一支装满防腐剂的长针筒，还在笔记本上画了好些滴出黑色液体的针管。

“This is neato!” I said to Mr. Harvey. He could have been the hunchback of Notre Dame, whom we had read about in French class. I didn’t care. I completely reverted. I was my brother Buckley on our day-trip to the Museum of Natural History in New York, where he’d fallen in love with the huge skeletons on display. I hadn’t used the word neato in public since elementary school.
“真够意思。”我对哈维先生说。那时即使他是我在法文课上读到过的钟楼怪人，我也不在乎，我变得像小孩一样。有一次我们带巴克利到纽约市的自然博物馆参观，他看到巨大的恐龙化石，着迷地说不出话来。我当时就和他一样，连我说的话都像小孩子：从小学之后，我就没有用过“够意思”这个字眼。

“Like taking candy from a baby,” Franny said.
“骗你就像从婴儿手里骗糖果。”弗妮说。

I can still see the hole like it was yesterday, and it was. Life is a perpetual
yesterday for us. It was the size of a small room, the mud room in our house, say, where we kept our boots and slickers and where Mom had managed to fit a washer and dryer, one on top of the other. I could almost stand up in it, but Mr. Harvey had to stoop. He’d created a bench along the sides of it by the way he’d dug it out. He immediately sat down.
我依然记得地洞的模样，往事历历，就好像发生在昨天。事实上，在天堂的我们，每天都活在过去的记忆中。地洞和一个小房间差不多大，大概和我们家放雨靴、球鞋的储藏室一般大小，妈妈在里面摆了洗衣机和干衣机，储藏室不够大，干衣机只好放在洗衣机上面。我在地洞里勉强可以站直，哈维先生则必须弯腰驼背，他挖地洞时顺便沿墙挖造了一个凳子，他一进来马上坐到那上面。

“Look around,” he said.
“随便看看。”他说。

I stared at it in amazement, the dug-out shelf above him where he had placed matches, a row of batteries, and a battery-powered fluorescent lamp that cast the only light in the room – an eerie light that would make his features hard to see when he was on top of me.
我惊讶地东张西望，他在凳子上方造了一个架子，架子上摆了火柴、一排电池和用电池的日光灯。日光灯是地洞中惟一的光源，光线像是鬼火，他压在我身上时，我几乎看不清他的脸。

There was a mirror on the shelf, and a razor and shaving cream. I thought that was odd. Wouldn’t he do that at home? But I guess I figured that a man who had a perfectly good split-level and then built an underground room only half a mile away had to be kind of loo-loo. My father had a nice way of describing people like him: “The man’s a character, that’s all.”
架子上还摆了一面镜子、一把刮胡刀和刮胡膏，我看了觉得很奇怪，难道他不在家里刮胡子吗？但我转念又想，这个人有栋很不错的大房子，却在离家只有半英里的玉米地里挖了一个地洞，他八成不太正常。我爸曾形容像哈维先生之类的人：“他真是个怪人，没错，就是这样。”这话说的真好。

So I guess I was thinking that Mr. Harvey was a character, and I liked the
room, and it was warm, and I wanted to know how he had built it, what the mechanics of the thing were and where he’d learned to do something like that.
我猜当时我只想到哈维先生是个怪人，这个地洞还不错，里面很温暖之类的事情，我想知道他怎么挖造地洞、地洞的构造如何，以及他从哪里学到这样的技术。

But by the time the Gilberts’ dog found my elbow three days later and brought it home with a telling corn husk attached to it, Mr. Harvey had closed it up. I was in transit during this. I didn’t get to see him sweat it out, remove the wood reinforcement, bag any evidence along with my body parts, except that elbow. By the time I popped up with enough wherewithal to look down at the goings-on on Earth, I was more concerned with my family than anything else.
三天之后，吉伯特家的小狗发现了我的臂肘，它把臂肘叼回家，臂肘上还粘带着一根显而易见的玉米须，但那时哈维先生已经掩埋了地洞。刚离开人间那几天，我恍恍惚惚，没有看到他忙得全身大汗拆下地洞入口的木板，把所有证物和我的尸块装进袋子里，惟独遗漏了我的臂肘。等我神智恢复清醒，能够观看人间的状况之后，我只关心我的家人，其他于我都不再重要。

My mother sat on a hard chair by the front door with her mouth open. Her
pale face paler than I had ever seen it. Her blue eyes staring. My father was driven into motion. He wanted to know details and to comb the cornfield along with the cops. I still thank God for a small detective named Len Fenerman. He assigned two uniforms to take my dad into town and have him point out all the places I’d hung out with my friends. The uniforms kept my dad busy in one mall for the whole first day. No one had told Lindsey, who was thirteen and would have been old enough, or Buckley, who was four and would, to be honest, never fully understand.
妈妈坐在门边的一张硬椅子上，她张着嘴，本来就苍白的脸上显出我从未见过的惨白，湛蓝的双眼直直地盯着前方。爸爸拼命地想找事情做，他要知道所有细节，也想跟着警察搜寻玉米地。感谢上帝，有个名叫赖恩·费奈蒙的警探非常帮忙，他派了两名警察带爸爸到镇上，请他指出平日我和朋友常去的地方，他们一整天都待在购物中心忙着认人。没有人告诉琳茜出了什么事，她已经十三岁了，应该能承受这个消息。四岁的巴克利也不知道怎么回事，老实说，他始终无法了解这个悲剧。

Mr. Harvey asked me if I would like a refreshment. That was how he put it. I said I had to go home.
哈维先生问我要不要喝饮料，他就是这么说的，我说我得回家了。

“Be polite and have a Coke,” he said. “I’m sure the other kids would.”
“有礼貌一点，喝瓶可口可乐吧。”他说，“我相信其他小孩一定会喝的。”

“What other kids?”
“什么其他小孩？”

“I built this for the kids in the neighborhood. I thought it could be some sort of clubhouse.”
“这个地方是为了邻居小孩盖的，我想大家说不定能把这里当成俱乐部之类的聚会场所。”

I don’t think I believed this even then. I thought he was lying, but I thought it was a pitiful lie. I imagined he was lonely. We had read about men like him in health class. Men who never married and ate frozen meals every night and were so afraid of rejection that they didn’t even own pets. I felt sorry for him.
即使在当时，我也不相信他说的话。我觉得他在说谎，但我想这样的谎话真是可怜，我想他一定很寂寞，我们在健康教育课上听说过像他这样的男人，这样的男人没有结婚，每天晚上吃冷冻食品，他们生怕受到拒绝，连宠物都不敢养，我真替他感到难过。

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll have a Coke.”
“好吧，”我说，“请给我一瓶可乐。”

In a little while he said, “Aren’t you warm, Susie? Why don’t you take off your parka.”
过了一会儿，他又说：“苏茜，你不会太热吗？你把外衣脱下来吧。”

I did.
我照办了。

After this he said, “You’re very pretty, Susie.”
然后他说：“苏茜，你真漂亮。”

“Thanks,” I said, even though he gave me what my friend Clarissa and I had dubbed the skeevies.
“谢谢。”我说。他让我觉得很不自在，就像我的朋友克莱丽莎所说的“起了一身鸡皮疙瘩”，尽管如此，我依然客气地道谢。

“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“你有没有男朋友？”

“No, Mr. Harvey,” I said. I swallowed the rest of my Coke, which was a lot,
and said, “I got to go, Mr. Harvey. This is a cool place, but I have to go.”
“没有，哈维先生。”我说，我一口气喝掉剩下的大半瓶可乐，然后说：“我得走了，哈维先生，这个地方真不错，可是我得回家了。”

He stood up and did his hunchback number by the six dug-in steps that led to the world. “I don’t know why you think you’re leaving.”
他站起来，弯腰驼背地站在阶梯上，地洞里有六阶阶梯，这是通往外界的惟一通道，“我不知道你干吗觉得该离开。”

I talked so that I would not have to take in this knowledge: Mr. Harvey was no character. He made me feel skeevy and icky now that he was blocking the door.
我一直说话，这样我才不必面对现实；哈维先生不只是个怪人，此时他挡住了出口，他让我全身起了鸡皮疙瘩，非常不舒服。

“Mr. Harvey, I really have to get home.”
“哈维先生，我真的得回家了。”

“Take off your clothes.”
“把你的衣服脱掉。”

“What?”
“什么？”

“Take your clothes off,” Mr. Harvey said. “I want to check that you’re still a
virgin.”
“把衣服脱掉，”哈维先生说，“我要检查一下，看看你还是不是处女。”

“I am, Mr. Harvey,” I said.
“哈维先生，我是。”我说。

“I want to make sure. Your parents will thank me.”
“我要确定一下，你爸妈会感谢我的。”

“My parents?”
“我爸妈？”

“They only want good girls,” he said.
“他们要确定你是好女孩。”他说。

“Mr. Harvey,” I said, “please let me leave.”
“哈维先生，”我说，“请让我走。”

“You aren’t leaving, Susie. You’re mine now.”
“你走不了的，苏茜，你是我的人了。”

Fitness was not a big thing back then; aerobics was barely a word. Girls were supposed to be soft, and only the girls we suspected were butch could climb the ropes at school.
那个时代的人不太在乎体能状况，几乎没有人知道什么叫有氧舞蹈，大家觉得女孩子应该娇柔一些，在学校里，只有那些疑似“假小子”的女孩才爬得上吊绳。

I fought hard. I fought as hard as I could not to let Mr. Harvey hurt me, but
my hard-as-I-could was not hard enough, not even close, and I was soon lying down on the ground, in the ground, with him on top of me panting and sweating, having lost his glasses in the struggle.
我奋力挣扎，拼命抵抗，不让哈维先生伤害我。我虽然使尽全力，却依然不够强壮，我的力气根本比不上他。我很快就被推倒在地，在阴暗的地洞中，他压在我身上气喘吁吁，大汗淋漓，眼镜在挣扎中被挤掉了。

I was so alive then. I thought it was the worst thing in the world to be lying
flat on my back with a sweating man on top of me. To be trapped inside the earth and have no one know where I was.
那时的我还相当清醒，我仰躺在地面上，身上压着一个全身大汗的男人，我被困在地洞里，没有人知道我在哪里，我想世间最难过的遭遇莫过于此。

I thought of my mother.
我想到妈妈。

My mother would be checking the dial of the clock on her oven. It was a new oven and she loved that it had a clock on it. “I can time things to the minute,” she told her own mother, a mother who couldn’t care less about ovens.
妈妈此刻八成看着烤箱上的计时器，她刚买了一个新烤箱，她喜欢上面附的钟，“我可以一分不差地计时呢。”她告诉外婆说，做母亲的没有不在乎烤箱的。

She would be worried, but more angry than worried, at my lateness. As my father pulled into the garage, she would rush about, fixing him a cocktail, a dry sherry, and put on an exasperated face: “You know junior high,” she would say. “Maybe it’s Spring Fling.” “Abigail,” my father would say, “how can it be Spring Fling when it’s snowing?” Having failed with this, my mother might rush Buckley into the room and say, “Play with your father,” while she ducked into the kitchen and took a nip of sherry for herself.
她会担心，但她更气我放学不准时回家。爸爸把车开进车库时，她会跑进客厅，帮爸爸调一杯干雪莉酒，然后满脸怒气地说：“你知道这些初中生啊，”她会这么说，“说不定是春天发情喽。”“艾比盖尔，”我爸会回答说，“现在外面下大雪，怎么可能是春天发情？”眼看抱怨不成，妈妈八成会把巴克利拉进客厅，说：“去，跟爸爸一起玩。”然后自己匆匆躲回厨房，呷一口雪莉酒。

Mr. Harvey started to press his lips against mine. They were blubbery and wet and I wanted to scream but I was too afraid and too exhausted from the fight. I had been kissed once by someone I liked. His name was Ray and he was Indian. He had an accent and was dark. I wasn’t supposed to like him. Clarissa called his large eyes, with their half-dosed lids, “freak-a-delic,” but he was nice and smart and helped me cheat on my algebra exam while pretending he hadn’t. He kissed me by my locker the day before we turned in our photos for the yearbook. When the yearbook came out at the end of the summer, I saw that under his picture he had answered the standard “My heart belongs to” with “Susie Salmon.” I guess he had had plans. I remember that his lips were chapped.
哈维先生想强吻我，他青紫色的双唇又黏又湿，我想尖叫，但我非常害怕，刚才的挣扎已经用尽了力气，根本叫不出声。一个我喜欢的男孩曾吻过我，他叫雷，是个印度男孩，他肤色黝黑，讲话带着口音。我不应该喜欢上他，克莱丽莎说雷的大眼睛睫毛半张，“怪得出奇”。但雷很聪明，也很和善，他装作没事人似的，帮我在数学测验时作弊。交毕业照的前一天，他在寄物柜旁边吻了我。夏天接近尾声，我们拿到毕业纪念册时，我看到他在他的照片下方“我衷心祝福某某人”的空栏里，填上了“苏茜·沙蒙”。我想他一定早有盘算，我还记得他干燥微颤的双唇。

“Don’t, Mr. Harvey,” I managed, and I kept saying that one word a lot. Don’t. And I said please a lot too. Franny told me that almost everyone begged “please” before dying.
“不要这样，哈维先生，”我勉强出声，我不停地说不要这样，还不停地说求你了。弗妮说几乎每个人临死之前，都哀求地说“求你了。”

“I want you, Susie,” he said.
“我要你，苏茜。”他说。

“Please,” I said. “Don’t,” I said. Sometimes I combined them. “Please don’t” or “Don’t please.” It was like insisting that a key works when it doesn’t or yelling “I’ve got it, I’ve got it, I’ve got it” as a softball goes sailing over you into the stands.
“求你了。”我说；“不要这样。”我说；有时我两者合用：“求你了，不要这样”或是“不要这样，求你了”。这就好像钥匙明明不管用，还拼命拿着它开门，或是眼看着垒球飞过你直达看台，还不停地大喊：“我接到了，我接到了，我接到了。”

“Please don’t.”
“求你了，不要这样。”

But he grew tired of hearing me plead. He reached into the pocket of my
parka and balled up the hat my mother had made me, smashing it into my mouth. The only sound I made after that was the weak tinkling of bells.
但他听厌了我的哀求，他把手伸进我的外衣口袋，扯出妈妈给我织的帽子，卷成一团塞进我嘴里。在此之后，我只能借着帽沿的铃铛，发出微弱的声响。

As he kissed his wet lips down my face and neck and then began to shove his hands up under my shirt, I wept. I began to leave my body; I began to inhabit the air and the silence. I wept and struggled so I would not feel. He ripped open my pants, not having found the invisible zipper my mother had artfully sewn into their side.
他黏湿的双唇吻上我的脸颊、脖子，然后双手开始在我衬衫里向上摸索。我呜咽啜泣。慢慢地，我开始离开自己的身体，我开始升入空气与静默中；我哭泣，我挣扎，惟有如此，我才能麻痹自己。他没有找到妈妈在裤子侧面精心缝制的隐形拉链，便撕开了我的长裤。

“Big white panties,” he said.
“你穿白色的内、裤啊。”他说。

I felt huge and bloated. I felt like a sea in which he stood and pissed and shat. I felt the corners of my body were turning in on themselves and out, like in cat’s cradle, which I played with Lindsey just to make her happy. He started working himself over me.
我觉得身体不断膨胀，我似乎变成一片汪洋，他则在海面上随意大小便。我想到我为了哄琳茜和她玩的翻花绳游戏，此时此刻，我全身上下好像被缠绕在翻花绳的绳子里，不停地扭曲、翻腾。他开始在我身上肆/虐。

“Susie! Susie!” I heard my mother calling. “Dinner is ready.”
“苏茜，苏茜，”我听到妈妈大喊，“吃晚饭了。”

He was inside me. He was grunting.
他进、入我的体内，他不停地呻、吟。

“We’re having string beans and lamb.”
“今天晚上吃菜豆和烤羊肉。”

I was the mortar, he was the pestle.
我是一团灰泥，他是一支捣槌。

“Your brother has a new finger painting, and I made apple crumb cake.”
“你弟弟又用指头画了一幅画，我烤了一个苹果派喔。”

Mr. Harvey made me lie still underneath him and listen to the beating of his heart and the beating of mine. How mine skipped like a rabbit, and how his thudded, a hammer against cloth. We lay there with our bodies touching, and, as I shook, a powerful knowledge took hold. He had done this thing to me and I had lived. That was all. I was still breathing. I heard his heart. I smelled his breath. The dark earth surrounding us smelled like what it was, moist dirt where worms and animals lived their daily lives. I could have yelled for hours.
哈维先生逼我躺在他身下不要动，他还叫我听我们的心跳。我的心简直像兔子在跳跃，他的心则隔着衣物发出阵阵巨响。我们躺在一起，肢体互相碰触，我全身发抖，心中忽然清楚地浮现一个念头：他已经对我做出这种事，而且我还活着。就是这么回事。我还能呼吸。我听得到他的心跳，闻得到他的鼻息。周遭阴暗的地洞带着潮湿的泥土味，闻得出来这里是各种昆虫和小动物的住处。在这里，我喊再久也没人知道。

I knew he was going to kill me. I did not realize then that I was an animal
already dying.
我知道他打算杀了我。我当时并不知道自己已像是要死的小动物。

“Why don’t you get up?” Mr. Harvey said as he rolled to the side and then
crouched over me.
“你为什么不站起来？”哈维先生边说边翻身到一旁，然后蹲下来俯身看着我。

His voice was gentle, encouraging, a lover’s voice on a late morning. A
suggestion, not a command.
他的声音温和，带着一丝鼓舞，仿佛早晨晚起的情人；这是个建议，而非命令。

I could not move. I could not get up.
我动不了。我站不起来。

When I would not – was it only that, only that I would not follow his
suggestion? – he leaned to the side and felt, over his head, across the ledge where his razor and shaving cream sat. He brought back a knife. Unsheathed, it smiled at me, curving up in a grin.
我没有动弹——就因为我不动？就因为我不听他的建议？——他就把身子歪向一边，伸手在放了剃刀和刮胡膏的架上摸索；他拿着一把刀回到我身边，刀身出鞘，锐利的刀锋发出阴森的笑容。

He took the hat from my mouth.
他扯掉我嘴里的帽子。

“Tell me you love me,” he said.
“告诉我你爱我。”他说。

Gently, I did.
我微弱地重复一遍。

The end came anyway.
结果还是落得一样的下场。