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She remembered when he had opened his palms on the table and said, "I went on a trip to Mecca." There had been pride in his voice.
她记得他曾经在桌子上摊开他的手掌说，“我去过麦加旅行。”声音中充满着骄傲。
I should have gone somewhere else for the course, he went on. "A new place, somewhere down south."
“我应该为课程去一些其他的地方，”他继续说“一个新的地方，南部的某个地方。”
He was on a plateau, not like her. She was fighting and struggling for a piece of paper that would say she was awarded an M.Sc. from British university. For him, the course was continuation.
他情绪很稳定，不像她。她在为一张能证明她获得了英国大学的科学硕士学位的纸而苦苦挣扎。而对他而言，课程仅仅是一个附加的东西。
Come and see, he said, and he held her arm. No one had touched her before, not since she had hugged her mother goodbye. Months now in this country and no one had touched her.
“到这边来看看，”他说，他挽着她的手臂。自从上次她和妈妈拥抱说再见以后，就再也没有有人碰过她。现在在这个国家，已经有好几个月没有人碰过她了。
She pulled her arm away. She walked away. She ran up the stairs to the next floor. Guns, a row of guns aiming at her. They had been waiting to blow her away. Scottish arms of centuries ago, gunfire in service of the empire.
她把手臂抽了出来。径直走开了。她上了一层楼。枪，一排的枪对着她。它们曾等待着将她赶走。几百年前苏格兰的武器，为部队服务的军火。
Silver muzzles, dirty grey now. They must have shone prettily once, under a sun far away. She shivered in spite of the wool she was wearing, layers of clothes. Hell is not only blazing fire, a part of it is freezing cold, torturous ice and snow. In Scotland's winter you have a glimpse of this unseen world, feel the breath of it in your bones.
银色的枪口，现在是一种肮脏的灰色。它们曾经在太阳下闪闪发亮。尽管她穿着羊毛衫，好几层的衣服，她依旧忍不住地颤抖。地狱不仅是焰焰烈火，地狱的一部分是彻骨的寒冷，是令人遭罪的冰与雪。苏格兰的冬天，你看一眼这个模糊的世界，就能感觉到它在你骨骼中的呼吸。
There was a bench and she sat down. There was no one here on this floor. She was alone with sketches of jungle animals, words on the wall. A diplomat away from home, in Ethiopia in 1903:
她坐在一张长椅上。这层没有其他人。她和丛林中动物的骨骼，还有墙上的那些话单独待在一起。一名远离家乡，在埃塞俄比亚的外交官于1903年写道：
It is difficult to imagine anything more satisfactory or better worth taking part in than a lion drive. We rode back to camp feeling very well indeed. Archie was quite right when he said that this was the first time since we have started that we have really been in Africa-the real Africa of jungle inhabited only by game, and plains where herds of antelope meet your eye in every direction.
很难想象还有什么事可以比围追阻截狮子群更令人满足和更值得参与的了。我们返回营地的时候感觉确实非常棒。阿奇说得对，这是我们自从开始这个活动以来第一次真正体验到非洲——真正的非洲就是只有野禽栖息的原始丛林以及一望无际的、到处都是羚羊的大平原。
"Shadiya, don't cry." He still pronounced her name wrongly because she had not told him how to say it properly.
“莎迪雅拉，你不要哭。”他还是叫错她的名字，因为她没有告诉过他如何正确地发音。
He sat next to her on the bench the blur of his navy jacket blocking the guns, the wall-length pattern of antelope herds. She should explain that she cried easily, there was no need for the alarm on his face. His awkward voice: "Why are you crying?"
他坐在她旁边的长椅上，深蓝色的夹克衫让她面前的枪支以及羚羊群变得模糊。她应该告诉他为什么哭，这样他脸上的表情就不会如此惊恐。他紧张地问她：“你为什么哭？”
He didn't know, he didn't understand. He was all wrong, not a substitute…
他不知道，他不会理解。他完全是个错误，他不能替换她的未婚夫……”
"They are telling lies in this museum," she said. "Don't believe them. It's all wrong. It's not jungle and antelopes, it's people. We have things like computers and cars. We have 7UP in Africa, and some people, a few people, have bathrooms with golden taps… I shouldn't be here with you. You shouldn't talk to me…"
“这个博物馆在撒谎，”她说。“不要相信他们。全都是错的。不是只有丛林和羚羊，我们还有人。我们也有像计算机和汽车一样的东西。在非洲我们有七喜，一些人，少量的一些人，他们的卫生间里有金子做的马桶座圈……我不应该在这里和你在一起。你不应该和我说话……”
He said, "Museums change, I can change…"
他说，“博物馆可以改变，我也可以改变……”
He didn't know it was a steep path she had no strength for. He didn't understand. Many things, years and landscapes, gulfs. If she had been strong she would have explained, and not tired of explaining. She would have patiently taught him another language, letters curved like the epsilon and gamma he knew from mathematics. She would have shown him that words could be read from right to left. If she had not been small in the museum, if she had been really strong, she would have made his trip to Mecca real, not only in a book.
布莱恩不了解克服他们两个人之间存在的文化障碍是一个极其困难艰巨的任务，甚至莎迪雅都没有勇气去触碰。他不理解许多的事情，时代、景色和分歧。假如她足够坚强，她会为他解释，而不是像现在这样懒得解释。假如她足够坚强，她就会耐心地教他一种字母像他数学中遇到的弯弯曲曲的希腊字母一样的新的语言。她应该向他展示如何从左到右地阅读这些文字。假如在博物馆里她不觉得是那么微不足道、无能为力；假如她真的坚强有力，她就会使他的麦加之行成为现实，而不仅在书本上。
