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“Do you two see what you’re doing to me right now?” the English therapist interrupts us, clutching her head; my mother and I have been shouting.
“你们两个人知道你们在对我做什么吗?” 这位英国治疗师挠着头打断了我们; 我和母亲一直在叫喊。
We go silent. We’ve disgraced ourselves in front of a white person.
我们沉默了。我们在一个白人面前颜面尽失。
We have a habit of returning to those chaotic days when every release was forgivable.
我们习惯于回到那些混乱的日子，那时，每次的宣泄都可以被原谅。
Now we need an English woman in the room to make us behave.
现在我们的房间里需要一个英国女人来让我们规矩点。
Though we’re in the middle of a fight, I have an urge to translate my mother for the European, because that’s my job.
虽然我们正在吵架，但我还是很想把母亲的话翻译给欧洲人听，因为那是我的工作。
I’ve been doing it since childhood, but it’s also my literal job – I write about Iranians for western readers.
我从小就开始翻译母亲的话，但这确实也是我的工作——为西方读者撰写关于伊朗人的文章。
My mother hates that I write candidly about my insecurities or failures: I am revealing too much and damaging our redemptive refugee story.
我母亲不喜欢我坦率地写自己的不安全感、或是失败经历: 我透露了太多，破坏了我们难民救赎的故事。
The writer Matthew Salesses, whose work grapples with storycraft across cultures, writes that a sentence will read differently depending on expectations.
作家马修·塞莱斯的作品致力于处理跨文化的叙事技巧，他写道，预期不同，一句话的解读也会有所不同。
“She was absolutely sure she hated him,” could have a range of meanings.
“她非常肯定她恨他，”这句话有多种含义。
To a western reader, it signals that by the end of the story she will love him, or that she already does.
对西方读者来说，这意味着在故事结束时，她会爱上他，或者说，她已经爱上他了。
To my grandmother, that sentence might signal that soon she’ll be forced to marry him.
对祖母来说，这句话可能意味着她很快会被迫嫁给他。
This is precisely the kind of sentence my mother and I fight over.
这正是我和母亲争论的问题。
If I reveal a small flaw in a fictional Iranian mother, a flaw that might later bloom into understanding or connection, she dissects it for insults.
如果我在小说中揭露伊朗母亲身上的一个小缺陷，一个日后可能发展为理解或联系的缺陷，她就会将其剖析为侮辱。
“You think I’m just a dumb immigrant,” she says.
“你觉得我只是一个愚蠢的移民，”她说。
I explain that it’s boring to show only resilience and strength.
我解释说，只表现出韧性与毅力令人生厌。
Imperfect stories are more interesting, more redemptive than heroic myths.
不完美的故事比英雄神话更有趣，更具救赎性。
Flawed characters are more beloved. She waves away all of this. It’s American nonsense.
有缺点的人更受人喜爱。她挥手否认了这一切。这是美国人的胡说八道。
For my mother, being unmasked in front of westerners is terrifying.
对母亲来说，在西方人面前揭下面具是件可怕的事。
For me, writing honestly, in my voice, is restorative, a kind of prayer.
于我而言，如实地写，以我的名字，是一种滋养，一种祈祷。
My mother enshrines our good days in her memory.
母亲把我们的美好时光珍藏在记忆中。
She makes our clothes cleaner, our faces prettier, smiling at each other as in Hallmark cards.
在她的记忆中，我们衣服整洁干净，脸蛋精致漂亮，如印在贺曼贺卡上一般，彼此微笑着。
I store these same memories with our cracks showing. I write what I find worthy of preserving.
我储存着让我们的裂痕显现的同样记忆。我只书写我觉得值得保留的东西。
“You ruined my precious memory,” she says, when she reads my work.
“你毁了我宝贵的记忆，”她读到我的作品时说。
But why should we give these falsely soothing immigrant stories?
但我们为什么要讲述这些虚假的、舒服的移民故事呢?
Why should we run off into our corner and giggle about the plate of cold cuts alone?
为什么我们要跑到角落里，独自对着那盘冷盘咯咯笑呢?
I want to invite readers to look through my lens, not appear presentable in theirs.
我想邀请读者从我的视角看待我，而不是在他们的视角下显得体面。
