殘忍而美麗的情誼:The Kite Runner 追風箏的人(159)

“Someone on the street said why don’t you.put the bag on the donkey? And he said, “That would be cruel, I’m heavy enough already for the poor thing.” We exchanged Mullah Nasruddin jokes until we ran out of them and we fell silent again.
“Amir agha?” Farid said, startling me from near sleep.
“Yes?”
“Why are you here? I mean, why are you really here?”
“I told you.”
“For the boy?”
“For the boy.”Farid shifted on the ground. “It’s hard to believe.”
“Sometimes I myself can hardly believe I’m here.”
“No... What I mean to ask is why that boy? You come all the way from America for... a Shi’a?”
That killed all the laughter in me. And the sleep. “I am tired,” I said. “Let’s just get some sleep.”
Farid’s snoring soon echoed through the empty room. I stayed awake, hands crossed on my chest, staring into the starlit night through the broken window, and thinking that maybe what people said about Afghanistan was true. Maybe it was a hopeless place.
A BUSTLING CROWD was filling Ghazi Stadium when we walked through the entrance tunnels. Thousands of people milled about the tightly packed concrete terraces. Children played in the aisles and chased each other up and down the steps. The scent of garbanzo beans in spicy sauce hung in the air, mixed with the smell of dung and sweat. Farid and I walked past street peddlers selling cigarettes, pine nuts, and biscuits.
A scrawny boy in a tweed jacket grabbed my elbow and spoke into my ear. Asked me if I wanted to buy some “sexy pictures.”
“Very sexy, Agha,” he said, his alert eyes darting side to side-- reminding me of a girl who, a few years earlier, had tried to sell me crack in the Tenderloin district in San Francisco. The kid peeled one side of his jacket open and gave me a fleeting glance of his sexy pictures: postcards of Hindi movies showing doe-eyed sultry actresses, fully dressed, in the arms of their leading men. “So sexy,” he repeated.
“Nay, thanks,” I said, pushing past him.

“有個路人問，你爲什麼不把袋子放在驢背上呢？他說：”那太殘忍了，我已經壓得這可憐的東西不堪重負。一‘我們輪流說着納斯魯丁毛拉的笑話，全都講完之後，我們再次陷入了沉默。
“阿米爾老爺？”法裏德說，驚醒睡意蒙嚨的我。
“怎麼？”
“你爲什麼到這裏來呢？我是說，你爲什麼真的到這裏來呢？”
“我告訴過你。”
“爲了那個男孩？”
“爲了那個男孩。”法裏德在地上翻身，“真叫人難以相信。”
“有時候，我也無法相信自己竟然來到這裏。”
“不……我想問的是，爲什麼是那個男孩？你從美國漂洋過海，就爲了……一個什葉派信徒？”
這句話讓我再也笑不出來，睡意全消。 “我累了。”我說，“我們睡覺吧。”法裏德的鼾聲很
快在空蕩蕩的房間響起。我睡不着，雙手交叉放在胸前，透過那扇破窗，望着星光閃閃的夜空，想起人們對阿富汗的評論，也許那是對的。也許它是一個沒有希望的地方。
我們走進伽茲體育館入口通道的時候，喧譁的人羣正在紛紛入座。階梯狀的水泥看臺上擠滿了幾千人。兒童在過道嬉鬧，上下追逐。空氣中散發着辣醬鷹嘴豆的味道，還有動物糞便和汗水的臭味。法裏德和我走過那些兜售香菸、松子和餅乾的小販。
有個骨瘦如柴的男孩身穿斜紋呢夾克，抓住我的胳膊，在我耳邊低語。他問我要不要買些“性感的圖片 ”。
“非常誘人，老爺。”他說，機警的眼睛四下掃視——讓我想起一個女孩，早幾年的時候，在舊金山田德龍區街頭，她竭力勸我買毒品。那男孩拉開夾克的一邊，讓我匆匆看一眼他的性感圖片：印度電影的明信片，上面是媚眼如絲的女演員，穿着全套衣服，躺在男人懷裏。 “多麼性感。”他重複說。
“不了，謝謝。”我說，把他推開，繼續走。