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(32)

残忍而美丽的情谊:The Kite Runner 追风筝的人(32)  

"Well
" Dr. Kumar said
"my job is to fix things on people's bodies. Sometimes their faces."
"Oh
"Hassan said. He looked from Dr. Kumar to Baba to Ali. His hand touched his upper lip. "Oh
"he said again.
"It's an unusual present
I know
" Baba said. "And probably not what you had in mind
but this present will last you forever."
"这不是份寻常的礼物，我知道。"爸爸说，"也许不是你想要的，但这份礼物会陪伴你终生。"
"Oh
"Hassan said. He licked his lips. Cleared his throat. "Agha sahib
will it... will it--"
"Nothing doing
"Dr. Kumar intervened
smiling kindly. "It will not hurt you one bit. In fact
I will give you a Medicine and you will not remember a thing."
"Oh
"Hassan said. He smiled back with relief. A little relief anyway. "I wasn't scared
Agha sahib
I just..." Hassan might have been fooled
but I wasn't. I knew that when doctors said it wouldn't hurt
that's when you knew you were in trouble. With dread
I remembered my circumcision the year prior. The doctor had given me the same line
reassured me it wouldn't hurt one bit. But when the numbing Medicine wore off later that night
it felt like someone had pressed a red hot coal to my loins. Why Baba waited until I was ten to have me circumcised was beyond me and one of the things I will never five him for.
I wished I too had some kind of scar that would beget Baba's sympathy. It wasn't fair. Hassan hadn't done anything to earn Baba's affections; he'd just been born with that stupid harelip.
The surgery went well. We were all a little shocked when they first removed the bandages
but kept our smiles on just as Dr. Kumar had instructed us. It wasn't easy
because Hassan's upper lip was a grotesque mesh of swollen
raw tissue. I expected Hassan to cry with horror when the nurse handed him the mirror. Ali held his hand as Hassan took a long
thoughtful look into it. He muttered something I didn't understand. I put my ear to his mouth. He whispered it again.
"Tashakor." Thank you.
Then his lips isted
and
that time
I knew just what he was doing. He was smiling. Just as he had
emerging from his mother's womb.
The swelling subsided
and the wound healed with time. Soon
it was just a pink jagged line running up from his lip. By the following winter
it was only a faint scar. Which was ironic. Because that was the winter that Hassan stopped smiling.