殘忍而美麗的情誼:The Kite Runner 追風箏的人(158)

That night, I took the bed and Farid lay on the floor, wrapped himself with an extra blanket for which the hotel owner charged me an additional fee. No light came into the room except for the moonbeams streaming through the broken window. Farid said the owner had told him that Kabul had been without electricity for two days now and his generator needed fixing. We talked for a while. He told me about growing up in Mazar-i-Sharif, in Jalalabad. He told me about a time shortly after he and his father joined the jihad and fought the Shorawi in the Panjsher Valley. They were stranded without food and ate locust to survive. He told me of the day helicopter gunfire killed his father, of the day the land mine took his two daughters. He asked me about America. I told him that in America you could step into a grocery store and buy any of fifteen or twenty different types of cereal. The lamb was always fresh and the milk cold, the fruit plentiful and the water clear. Every home had a TV, and every TV a remote, and you could get a satellite dish if you wanted. Receive over five hundred channels.
“Five hundred?” Farid exclaimed.
“Five hundred.”
We fell silent for a while. Just when I thought he had fallen asleep, Farid chuckled. “Agha, did you hear what Mullah Nasrud din did when his daughter came home and complained that her husband had beaten her?” I could feel him smiling in the dark and a smile of my own formed on my face. There wasn’t an Afghan in the world who didn’t know at least a few jokes about the bumbling mullah.
“What?”
“He beat her too, then sent her back to tell the husband that Mullah was no fool: If the bastard was going to beat his daughter, then Mullah would beat his wife in return.”
I laughed. Partly at the joke, partly at how Afghan humor never changed. Wars were waged, the Internet was invented, and a robot had rolled on the surface of Mars, and in Afghanistan we were still telling Mullah Nasruddin jokes. “Did you hear about the time Mullah had placed a heavy bag on his shoulders and was riding his donkey?” I said.
“No.”

那天晚上，我睡牀，法裏德睡地板，我額外付了錢，讓老闆取來一條毛毯，給法裏德裹上。除了月色從破窗傾瀉進來，再無其他光線。法裏德說老闆告訴過他，喀布爾停電兩天了，而他的發電機需要修理。我們談了一會。他告訴我他在馬紮裏沙里夫長大的故事，在賈拉拉巴特的故事。他告訴我說，在他和他爸爸加入聖戰者組織，在潘傑希爾峽谷抗擊俄國佬之後不久，他們糧草告罄，只好吃蝗蟲充飢。他跟我說起那天直升機的炮火打死了他父親，說起那天地雷索走他兩個女兒的命。他問我美國的情況。我告訴他，在美國，你可以走進雜貨店，隨意選購十五或者二十種不同的麥片。羔羊肉永遠是新鮮的，牛奶永遠是冰凍的，有大量的水果，自來水很乾淨。每個家庭都有電視，每個電視都有遙控器，如果你想要的話，可以安裝衛星接收器，能看到超過五百個電視臺。
“五百個？”法裏德驚歎。
“五百個。”
我們沉默了一會。我剛以爲他睡着，法裏德笑起來。“老爺，你聽過納斯魯丁毛拉的故事嗎？他女兒回家，抱怨丈夫打了他，你知道納斯魯丁怎麼做嗎？”我能感到他在黑暗中臉帶微笑，而我臉上也泛起笑容。關於那個裝腔作勢的毛拉有很多笑話，世界各地的每個阿富汗人多多少少知道一些。
“他怎麼說？”
“他也揍了她，然後讓她回家告訴她丈夫，說毛拉可不是蠢貨：如果哪個混蛋膽敢揍他的女兒，毛拉會揍他的妻子以示報復。”
我大笑。部分是因爲這個笑話，部分是由於阿富汗人的幽默從不改變。戰爭發動了，因特網發明了，機器人在火星的表面上行走。而在阿富汗，我們仍說着納斯魯丁毛拉的笑話。“你聽說過這個故事嗎？有一次毛拉騎着他的驢子，肩膀上扛着一個重重的袋子。”我說。
“沒有。”