雙語暢銷書《我是馬拉拉》第3章10:父親

My father insisted that they needed to think big. One day Hidayatullah came back from trying to enrol pupils to find my father sitting in the office talking about advertising with the local head of Pakistan TV. As soon as the man had gone, Hidayatullah burst into laughter. ‘Ziauddin, we don’t even have a TV, ’ he pointed out. ‘If we advertise we won’t be able to watch it.’ But my father is an optimistic man and never deterred by practicalities.

父親堅持認爲，他們應該想得更長遠一點。一天，希達亞圖拉招生回來，發現父親正在與巴基斯坦電視臺駐本地的臺長討論刊登廣告的問題。臺長一走，希達亞圖拉禁不住大笑。“齊亞烏丁，我們根本沒電視”，他指出，“就算我們真的登了廣告，我們自己也看不到。”但父親是個樂觀之人，他從不會被現實擊退。

One day my father told Hidayatullah he was going back to his village for a few days. He was actually getting married, but he didn’t tell any of his friends in Mingora as he could not afford to entertain them. Our weddings go on for several days of feasting. In fact, as my mother often reminds my father, he was not present for the actual ceremony. He was only there for the last day, when family members held a Quran and a shawl over their heads and held a mirror for them to look into. For many couples in arranged marriages this is the first time they see each other’s faces. A small boy was brought to sit on their laps to encourage the birth of a son.

某天，父親跟希達亞圖拉說他要回家幾天。其實他是要結婚了，但他沒有向任何明戈拉的朋友提起此事，因爲他沒有錢招待他們。按照我們的傳統，婚禮的慶祝活動要持續好幾天。事實上，後來母親常常提醒父親，結婚儀式開始時，父親根本不在現場，他在最後一天才趕到。家人拿着《古蘭經》和披肩越過新人頭頂，再拿出一面鏡子，讓他們看看鏡中的彼此。對於其他由父母安排婚事的新人來說，這是夫妻第一次見到彼此真實的模樣。然後，有一個小男孩被帶去坐在他們的腿上，鼓勵新人們生個兒子。

It is our tradition for the bride to receive furniture or perhaps a fridge from her family and some gold from the groom’s family. My grandfather would not buy enough gold so my father had to borrow more money to buy bangles. After the wedding my mother moved in with my grandfather and my uncle. My father returned to the village every two or three weeks to see her. The plan was to get his school going then, once it was successful, send for his wife. But Baba kept complaining about the drain on his income and made my mother’s life miserable. She had a little money of her own so they used it to hire a van and she moved to Mingora. They had no idea how they would manage. ‘We just knew my father didn’t want us there, ’ said my father. ‘At that time I was unhappy with my family, but later I was grateful as it made me more independent.’

在我們的傳統中，新娘的孃家會送她傢俱或是一臺冰箱，而新郎家會送新娘一點黃金。我的祖父買的黃金不夠，父親又去借了些錢，買了手鐲。婚禮後，我母親搬來與我祖父和大伯同住，我父親則每隔兩三個星期回村裏看望她一次。父親原計劃等學校上了軌道、成功了，再把妻子接過去。但爺爺一直抱怨這增加了他的支出，母親的生活於是很難熬。她自己存了一點錢，父母用這筆錢租了一臺貨車，就這樣，母親搬到了明戈拉。他們完全不知道日子要怎麼過下去。“我們只知道我父親不想要我們待在那裏。”父親說，“當時我對我的家人很不滿。但是後來我很感謝他們，因爲他們促使我更加獨立。”