追风筝的人是真实的吗 残忍而美丽的情谊:The Kite Runner 追风筝的人(34)

残忍而美丽的情谊:The Kite Runner 追风筝的人(34)  

EVERY WINTER
districts in Kabul held a kite-fighting tournament. And if you were a boy living in Kabul
the day of the tournament was undeniably the highlight of the cold season. I never slept the night before the tournament. I'd roll from side to side
make shadow animals on the wall
even sit on the balcony in the dark
a blanket wrapped around me. I felt like a soldier trying to sleep in the trenches the night before a major battle. And that wasn't so far off. In Kabul
fighting kites was a little like going to war.
As with any war
you had to ready yourself for battle. For a while
Hassan and I used to build our own kites. We saved our weekly allowances in the fall
dropped the money in a little porcelain horse Raba had brought one time from Herat. When the winds of winter began to blow and snow fell in chunks
we undid the snap under the horse's belly. We went to the bazaar and bought bamboo
glue
string
and paper. We spent hours every day shaving bamboo for the center and cross spars
cutting the thin tissue paper which made for easy dipping and recovery And then
of course
we had to make our own string
or tar. If the kite was the gun
then "tar"
the glass-coated cutting line
was the bullet in the chamber. We'd go out in the yard and feed up to five hundred feet of string through a mixture of ground glass and glue. We'd then hang the line beeen the trees
leave it to dry. The next day
we'd wind the battle-ready line around a wooden spool. By the time the snow melted and the rains of spring swept in
every boy in Kabul bore telltale horizontal gashes on his fingers from a whole winter of fighting kites. I remember how my classmates and I used to huddle
pare our battle scars on the first day of school. The cuts stung and didn't heal for a couple of weeks
but I didn't mind. They were reminders of a beloved season that had once again passed too quickly. Then the class captain would blow his whistle and we'd march in a single file to our classrooms
longing for winter already
greeted instead by the specter of yet another long school year.
But it quickly became apparent that Hassan and I were better kite fighters than kite makers. Some flaw or other in our design always spelled its doom. So Baba started taking us to Saifo's to buy our kites. Saifo was a nearly blind old man who was a "moochi" by profession--a shoe repairman. But he was also the city's most famous kite maker
working out of a tiny hovel on Jadeh Maywand
the crowded street south of the muddy banks of the Kabul River. I remember you had to crouch to enter the prison cell-sized store
and then had to lift a trapdoor to creep down a set of wooden steps to the dank basement where Saifo stored his coveted kites. Baba would buy us each three identical kites and spools of glass string. If I changed my mind and asked for a bigger and fancier kite
Baba would buy it for me--but then he'd buy it for Hassan too. Sometimes I wished he wouldn't do that. Wished he'd let me be the favorite.
但是没隔多久，事实证明我和哈桑造风筝实在不行，斗风筝倒是好手。我们设计的风筝总是有这样或那样的问题，难逃悲惨的命运。所以爸爸开始带我们去塞弗的店里买风筝。塞弗是个近乎瞎眼的老人，以替人修鞋为生，但他也是全城最著名的造风筝高手。他的小作坊在拥挤的雅德梅湾大道上，也就是喀布尔河泥泞的南岸那边。爸爸会给我们每人买三个同样的风筝和几轴玻璃线。如果我改变主意，求爸爸给我买个更大、更好看的风筝，爸爸会买给我，可是也会给哈桑买一个。有时我希望他别给哈桑买，希望他最疼我。
The kite-fighting tournament was an old winter tradition in Afghanistan. It started early in the morning on the day of the contest and didn't end until only the winning kite flew in the sky--I remember one year the tournament outlasted daylight. People gathered on sidewalks and roofs to cheer for their kids. The streets filled with kite fighters
jerking and tugging on their lines
squinting up to the sky
trying to gain position to cut the opponent's line. Every kite fighter had an assistant--in my case
Hassan--who held the spool and fed the line.