介绍:
(点击右边黑三角下拉有中英配文）
When I turned her around, her whole body was covered in bright pigment. Herbs and stones and light and the ash of acacia to make her eternal. The body pressed against sacred colour. Only the eye blue removed, made anonymous, a naked map where nothing is depicted, no signature of lake, no dark cluster of mountain as there is north of the Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti, no lime-green fan where the Nile rivers enter the open palm of Alexandria, the edge of Africa.
当我转过她的身子时，她的全身涂了鲜艳的颜料。草药、石头、刺槐的灰使她变得永恒，身体印上了神圣的颜色。只有眼睛的蓝色被抹去了，被抹去了姓名，一张什么都没有标出的地图，没有湖泊的标记，没有黑森森的群山，博尔库——恩内迪——提贝斯提以北，没有尼罗河经亚历山大城出海的灰绿色扇形标记，非洲的边缘。
And all the names of the tribes, the nomads of faith who walked in the monotone of the desert and saw brightness and faith and colour. The way a stone or found metal box or bone can become loved and turn eternal in a prayer. Such glory of this country she enters now and becomes part of. We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography— to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience. All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.
所有部落的名字，游牧民——他们走在单调的沙漠里，看到光明、信仰和色彩。就像经过祈祷，一块石头或一个捡到的铁盒，或一个骨制的盒子可以变成珍爱之物，成为永恒之物。她现在进入并融人那个辉煌的国度。我们死时带走情人和部落的富足，我们所尝的味道，我们所寄托的躯体，我们所掌握的智慧，我们所形成的性格，我们所隐藏的恐惧。我希望在我死的时候，我的身上会被打上这样的记号。我相信这样的绘图——烙上自然的印迹，而不仅仅在图上标出我们自己，就像有钱男女的名字被雕刻在高楼大厦上一般。我们是共有的历史，共有的书籍。在我们的品味或经历中，我们并非被人占有，或实行一夫一妻制。我只渴求踏上一个没有地图的地球。
I carried Katharine Clifton into the desert, where there is the communal book of moonlight. We were among the rumour of wells. In the palace of winds.
Almasy’s face fell to the left, staring at nothing—Caravag-gio’s knees perhaps.
“Do you want some m0rphine now?”
“No.”
“Can I get you something?”
“Nothing.”
“我带着凯瑟琳进入沙漠，那里的月光是我们共有的书。我们陷于流言中，置身于风的宫殿。”
奥尔马希的脸倒向左边，茫然地凝视前方——也许是在凝视卡拉瓦焦的双膝。
“现在想要些马啡吗?”
“不。”
“我帮你拿点什么?”
“什么都不要。”
CARAVAGGIO CAME DOWN the stairs through darkness and into the kitchen. Some celery on the table, some turnips whose roots were still muddy. The only light came from a fire Hana had recently started. She had her back to him and had not heard his steps into the room.
卡瓦焦穿过黑暗的楼梯，来到楼下的厨房。桌上放着一些芹菜和芜菁，芜菁的根上还沾着泥。哈纳刚生起的火是惟一的光源。她背对着他，没有听见他走进厨房的脚步声。
He raised his arm. He felt that he had been in deserts for too long.
“How is he?”
“Asleep. Talked himself out.”
“Is he what you thought he was?”
“He’s fine. We can let him be.”
“I thought so. Kip and I are both sure he is English. Kip thinks the best people are eccentrics, he worked with one.”
“I think Kip is the eccentric myself. Where is he, anyway?”
“He’s plotting something on the terrace, doesn’t want me out there. Something for my birthday.” Hana stood up from her crouch at the grate, wiping her hand on the opposite forearm.
“For your birthday I’m going to tell you a small story,” he said.
She looked at him.
“Not about Patrick, okay?”
“A little about Patrick, mostly about you.”
“I still can’t listen to those stories, David.”
“Fathers die. You keep on loving them in any way you can. You can’t hide him away in your heart.”
“Talk to me when the morphia wears off.”
他抬起手臂，他觉得他在沙漠里待的时间太长了。
“他怎么样了?”
“睡了。把他的一切都说出来了。”
“他是你想象的那种人吗?”
“他很好，我们就放过他吧。”
“我也是这样想，基普和我都认为他是个英国人。基普认为最优秀的人都有点怪，他就曾与一个这样的人共事过。”
“我认为基普是个怪人，管他的，他在哪儿?”
“他在阳台上想他的计划，不让我去那儿。他在想该怎么庆祝我的生日。”她从炉栅前站起身，将手贴在另一只手臂上擦拭着。
“为了你的生日，我要给你讲个小故事。”他说。
她看着他。
“不要讲关于帕特里克的故事，好吗?”
“只有一点点和帕特里克有关，绝大部分与你有关。”
“我还是不能听那些故事，大卫。”
“每个人的父亲都会死的。你继续以你能做到的方式爱着他们。你不能把他藏在内心深处。”
“等你戒了马啡再对我说吧。”
She came up to him and put her arms around him, reached up and kissed his cheek. His embrace tightened around her, his stubble like sand against her skin. She loved that about him now; in the past he had always been meticulous. The parting in his hair like Yonge Street at midnight, Patrick had said. Caravaggio had in the past moved like a god in her presence. Now, with his face and his trunk filled out and this greyness in him, he was a friendlier human.
她走到他身旁，用双臂抱着他，仰起脸，吻着他的脸颊。他紧紧地拥抱着她，他的胡须像砂于—样摩擦着她。她喜欢他现在这样，在过去，他总是过分谨慎。他头发的中分处就像夜晚热闹的街道，帕特里克曾这样说。卡拉瓦焦过去在她面前总是表现得像个神一样。现在他的脸和身体渐渐发福，头发也开始灰白，他显得更和蔼可亲。
Tonight dinner was being prepared by the sapper. Caravaggio was not looking forward to it. One meal in three was a loss as far as he was concerned. Kip found vegetables and presented them barely cooked, just briefly boiled into a soup. It was to be another purist meal, not what Caravaggio wished for after a day such as this when he had been listening to the man upstairs.
今天的晚餐是工兵做的，卡拉瓦焦并不想吃。就他而言，三餐中有—一餐是没有什么胃口的。基普找到了些蔬菜，没有经过特别的烹调就摆上桌，只能算是一碗汤。它是另一道精简主义者吃的菜，而卡拉瓦焦今天听了楼上那个人讲的故事之后，对这样的菜实在没有胃口。
“I can get you off the m0rphine, you know. I’m a good nurse.”
“You’re surrounded by madmen...”
“Yes, I think we are all mad.”
When Kip called them, they walked out of the kitchen and onto the terrace, whose border, with its low stone balustrade, was
ringed with light.
It looked to Caravaggio like a string of small electric candles found in dusty churches, and he thought the sapper had gone too far in removing them from a chapel, even for Hana’s birthday.
“我能帮你戒掉马啡，你知道，我是个好护土。”
“你被疯子包围着……”
“是的，我想我们都疯子。”
基普叫他们的时候，他们走出厨房，来到阳台上，边缘低矮的石头栏杆上，环绕着一圈小小的灯光。
在卡拉瓦焦眼中，这些小灯像是从堆满灰尘的教堂找来的一串小电蜡烛，他想即使是为了哈纳的生日。
“I kept finding dead shells wherever I was digging,” the sapper said.
They still didn’t understand. Caravaggio bent over the flutter of lights. They were snail shells filled with oil. He looked along the row of them; there must have been about forty.
“Forty-five,” Kip said, “the years so far of this century. Where I come from, we celebrate the age as well as ourselves.”
“我在所有我挖掘过的地方，总会发现空蜗牛壳。”工兵说。
他们还是不明白。卡拉瓦焦弯下腰，看着晃动的灯光，它们是用注满了油的蜗牛壳做成的。他沿这一圈看下去，恐怕有四十个蜗牛壳。
“四十五个，”基普说，“这个世纪开始多少年来，在我的故乡，我们都这样庆祝自己的生日。”
Hana moved alongside them, her hands in her pockets now, the way Kip loved to see her walk. So relaxed, as if she had put her arms away for the night, now in simple armless movement.
哈纳沿着它们走着，她把手放在口袋里，基普喜欢看她这样走路。这么轻松，好像她把手臂收藏起来过夜似的。现在，只是这样不摆动手臂地走着。
Caravaggio was diverted by the startling presence of three bottles of red wine on the table. He walked over and read the labels and shook his head, amazed. He knew the sapper wouldn’t drink any of it. All three had already been opened. Kip must have picked his way through some etiquette book in the library. Then he saw the corn and the meat and the potatoes. Hana slid her arm into Kip’s and came with him to the table. They ate and drank, the unexpected thickness of the wine like meat on their tongues.
桌上醒目的三瓶红酒引起了卡拉瓦焦的注意。他走过去，读着瓶上的标签，赞叹地摇摇头。他知道工兵不喝酒。三瓶酒全打开了。基普肯定是在书房找到了一本关于礼仪之类的书。然后他看见了玉米、肉和马铃薯。哈纳把手伸进他的臂弯，和他一起走到桌前。
他们吃喝着，意外发现酒浓得在舌尖留下肉般的香气。
----每周一/三/五晚更---- 【文本翻译均为电台英伦好声音读给你听所有，转载请联系播主并注明】
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