手机APP下载

您现在的位置: 首页 > 英语听力 > 国外媒体资讯 > 英国卫报 > 正文

异国母女: 在另一个宇宙,我们也许是朋友(2)

来源:可可英语 编辑:Kelly   可可英语APP下载 |  可可官方微信:ikekenet
  


扫描二维码进行跟读打分训练

Nowadays I often return to Nathan’s closed bedroom door.

如今,我经常会回想起内森紧闭的卧室门。

For two decades, my mother, brother and I lived deep inside each other’s psychic borders, sharing mattresses and plates of food and a hybrid language.

二十年来,我与母亲、哥哥生活在彼此心灵的深处,睡一张床垫,分一盘食物,使用混合语言。

We became good at loving one another in crisis but bad at solitude, peace or privacy.

我们变得很擅长在危机中彼此爱护,却不擅长独处、平和,或者说独享清净。

Each of us somehow denied the other two their own points of view.

我们每个人都以某种方式否定另外两个人的观点。

No matter where we were – whether we were stuck in a refugee camp, an airport or a grimy Oklahoma apartment – it was as if we lived together inside a familiar old room, one draped in tapestries and smelling like dinners from home.

无论我们身在何处——无论是深陷难民营、机场还是肮脏的俄克拉何马州公寓——我们都像是住在一个挂着毯子、散发着家乡晚餐味道的熟悉的老房间里一样。

Inside that warm bunker, we joked and wept and fought, shouting things we’d never say to anyone else.

在那个温暖的煤舱里,我们开玩笑、流泪、打架,喊着我们永远不会对任何人说的话。

We released our trauma in ugly ways, expecting to be forgiven.

我们以丑陋的方式释放我们的创伤,期望被原谅。

No outburst could get you banished if you were blood.

如果是一家人,即使发任何脾气也不会被赶出去。

While outside boomed wars and displacement and chaos, we filled the inside with cosy family dramas.

外面战火纷飞、流离失所、混乱不堪,我们却挤在里面观看温馨的家庭剧。

After many years, the outside noises died down and the inside grew darker and cacophonous.

许多年过去了,外面的响声渐渐消失了,而里面却越来越黑暗,意见也越来越大。

We grew taller, the air became rancid and my brother and I left, one after the other, seeking open skies and new families.

我们长得更高了,气氛变得紧张,我和哥哥一个接一个地离开了,去寻找开阔的天空、组建新的家庭。

A few months after my partner, daughter and I arrived in France, we ran into another boy from Elena’s school.

在我和爱人、女儿抵达法国几个月后,我们偶遇了埃琳娜学校的另一个男孩。

“Coucou, Benjamin!” Elena initiated the greeting this time, pronouncing his name in such a nasal way that I snorted.

“你好, 本杰明!” 这一次,埃琳娜主动打招呼,用我需要哼一声才能发出的鼻音念他的名字。

Bah-Jamah. It was like she’d picked up somebody’s deviated septum.

本--杰明。她就像学会了鼻中隔移位患者说话一样。

She glared at me. “Stop it, mummy!” she whisper-shouted. I shrank back.

她向我瞪着眼。“别说了,妈妈!” 她低声喊道。我住嘴了。

Elena was disappearing into a passable Frenchness that I couldn’t fake, because I had no hope of hearing a difference between en and an.

埃琳娜渐渐摆脱了还过得去但我却模仿不了的法语,因为我听不出en和an的区别。

Soon I was alone in our cocoon where the French are so silly, so funny.

很快,我独自一人呆在保护罩里,认为法国人愚蠢至极,可笑至极。

“Stop it!” Elena whispered each time I tried to speak French to her friends.

每次我想和埃琳娜的朋友说法语时,她都会小声说“住嘴!” 。

“Excuse me, miss,” I’d remind her, “but this is my third language.”

“请原谅,小姐,” 我会提醒她,“但这是我的第三语言。”

These words transported me back to my first home in the American south, a tiny apartment where my mother, brother and I began the long work of becoming American.

这些话把我带回了我在美国南部的第一个家,那是一间小小的公寓,我和母亲、哥哥就是在那里开启了我们成为美国人的漫长历程。

I’d make fun of my mother’s English and she’d say “Excuse me, Khanom (miss), but in Farsi, I have a medical degree.”

我嘲笑我母亲的英语,她会说: “请原谅,小姐,但在波斯语里,我有医学学位。”

I used to think that I stayed inside that warm, imaginary room with my mother for a decade.

我过去常常想,我和母亲会在那个温暖而虚幻的房间里呆十年。

But maybe I left her there, a year or two into our arrival in Oklahoma, where I assimilated quickly and deliberately, altering my accent in a hundred subtle ways that my mother couldn’t hear.

但也许是我把她留在了那里,在我们到达俄克拉何马州一两年之后,我迅速而又刻意地融入了那里,以一百种我母亲分辨不出的微妙方式改变了我的口音。

重点单词   查看全部解释    
chaos ['keiɔs]

想一想再看

n. 混乱,无秩序,混沌

联想记忆
cocoon [kə'ku:n]

想一想再看

n. 茧,茧状物, vt. 包围,包裹

联想记忆
partner ['pɑ:tnə]

想一想再看

n. 搭档,伙伴,合伙人
v. 同 ... 合

联想记忆
decade ['dekeid]

想一想再看

n. 十年

联想记忆
imaginary [i'mædʒinəri]

想一想再看

adj. 想象的,虚构的

联想记忆
hybrid ['haibrid]

想一想再看

n. 混血儿,杂种,混合物

联想记忆
trauma ['trɔ:mə]

想一想再看

n. 精神创伤,外伤

联想记忆
solitude ['sɔlitju:d]

想一想再看

n. 孤独
独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方

联想记忆
deliberately [di'libəritli]

想一想再看

adv. 慎重地,故意地

 
rancid ['rænsid]

想一想再看

adj. 腐臭的,令人反感的

联想记忆

发布评论我来说2句

    最新文章

    可可英语官方微信(微信号:ikekenet)

    每天向大家推送短小精悍的英语学习资料.

    添加方式1.扫描上方可可官方微信二维码。
    添加方式2.搜索微信号ikekenet添加即可。