By Chigozie Obioma

∷韓玥 選注

小時(shí)候，每當(dāng)我生病住院，便能享有一項(xiàng)特權(quán)，那就是父親給我講故事。后來我漸漸不再生病，便也好久沒有聽到父親講的故事了。有一天，我實(shí)在忍不住，氣鼓鼓地沖進(jìn)了父親的房間，讓他給我講故事。父親笑了，他說道，你為什么不自己來讀呢？他從書架上取下一本書遞給了我。我拿著那本封面已經(jīng)掉落的書，坐在門廊的地板上開始讀起來。那天晚上我徹夜未眠，震驚并著迷于這一發(fā)現(xiàn)。也正是從那一刻起，我便一發(fā)不可收拾地愛上了閱讀……

For years my life followed a predictable pattern: I would sneak out of the house, play football with the neighborhood kids until dark and promptly contract malaria.1Football was so intoxicating2that I was willing to risk anything—the threat of punishment, injuries, even sickness—to play it. Soon enough, my mother would fi nd out where I'd been and rush me to the Sijuwade Specialist Hospital in Akure. There, the doctor would conclude that I had kept the malaria hidden for some time and now needed to be admitted—a word my parents dreaded.3By nightfall,I'd fi nd myself in a hospital bed, my arm strapped to an intravenous drip.4

1. sneak： 鬼鬼祟祟地行動(dòng)，偷偷地走；promptly： 立刻，馬上；contract： 感染（疾?。?；malaria： 瘧疾。

2. intoxicating： 醉人的，令人興奮的。

3. admit： 接收（某人入醫(yī)院治療）；dread： 擔(dān)心，害怕。

4. strap： 用帶子束??；intravenous：靜脈的；drip： 滴注器。

My dad would often spend the night with me at the hospital while my mother tended to my siblings at home.Although angry that I had gone to play where mosquitoes could bite me, my father would not reprimand5a sick child. Instead,I'd be treated with the utmost care and brought an assortment of6tasty treats I'd say I was hungry for. Then, once I'd eaten

and he'd changed from his suit and tie into a shirt and pants, I would seize the moment I'd been waiting for all day.

“Daddy?”

“Eh, Uko,” he'd say.

“Please tell me a story.”

It was during one such hospital stay that I unearthed7the greatest treasure of my life. I've come to understand that we stumble on the best things by serendipity.8There are no preparations, no choreographed9rehearsals. A man decides to plant a tree in his compound10, on a piece of land that his parents have owned for decades. One day he digs up crude oil11.In a year, his life is transformed! What he'd been just moments before his hoe dug into the earth becomes history.12

5. reprimand： 訓(xùn)斥，斥責(zé)。

6. an assortment of： 各式各樣的。

7. unearth： 發(fā)掘，挖掘。

8. stumble on： 偶然發(fā)現(xiàn)（某物）；serendipity： 意外發(fā)現(xiàn)有趣（或有用）之物。

9. choreograph： 為……設(shè)計(jì)舞蹈動(dòng)作，為……編舞。

10. compound：（四周有圍欄或圍墻的）場地，大院。

11. crude oil： 原油。

12. 自他的鋤頭挖進(jìn)土地的那一刻起，之前的一切都成為了歷史。hoe： 鋤頭。

13. gasp： 急促地喘氣。

14. imbue： 賦予（某物某種特質(zhì)，尤指強(qiáng)烈感情）。

15. riveting： 非常精彩的，引人入勝的；prolong： 延長。

16. surveillance： 監(jiān)視，監(jiān)督；steal： 悄悄地移動(dòng)。

17. hare： 野兔。

18. 只有幾次她講了關(guān)于人的故事；有一次，她甚至講了自己，她在位于森林深處的父親的農(nóng)場里，被足足二十幾只黑猩猩伏擊。ambush：伏擊。

19. barge into： 闖入。

20. threshold： 門檻；intrusion： 闖入，侵?jǐn)_。

My father was a gifted storyteller. At the hospital, he would tell me a story or two, or, sometimes, if he was not too tired, many in response to my request. I would try to imagine the worlds that opened up through his carefully chosen words. When, for instance, he told the story of the fi rst white man who arrived in Igboland riding a bicycle,he made bicycle sounds, tapped his feet and gasped13. He would imbue14these noises with so much dread, so much signif i cance, that vivid pictures would remain in my mind for days afterward. So riveting were these moments that I sometimes wished to prolong my hospital stay.15

Between the ages of fi ve and seven, I must have been admitted to the hospital at least four times, during which my father told me stories. I returned home after each stay to tightened surveillance, and it became increasingly diきcult to steal out of the compound in the evenings.16No longer sick,and with my father returning late from work, I was not able to get him to tell me stories. So I turned to my mother.

But my mother's stories did not please me. They often seemed childish because they were centered with animals,usually tortoises or hares17. Only a few times did she tell stories of people; once, even of herself, ambushed on her father's farm deep in the forest by what must have been two dozen chimpanzees.18Moreover, my father told stories in English; my mother in Igbo. In a way that I could not understand at the time, the stories sounded better in English.

I discovered the reason for all this in my eighth year. My father had not told me a story in a long time. Frustrated, I barged into19his room one evening just after he returned from work, and demanded he tell me a story. I had half hidden myself behind the curtain at the threshold of his door,afraid he would be angry at my intrusion.20

“Oh,” he said. “Come in, Chigozie.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“I si gini?” he said to me in Igbo, even though I had spoken in English.

“You tell me a story only when I am sick. Please tell me a story now that I am not sick.”

My father laughed. He rocked back and forth and shook his head.

“How old are you now?”“Eight,” I mumbled.

“You can read now. Why don't you read these stories yourself?” With that, he reached down to a small shelf21fi lled with Central Bank bulletins and handed me a book whose cover had fallen oあ. He straightened a wrinkled page, tucked in a thread hanging loose from the spine and gave it to me.22

“Go and read that, and it will tell you a story.”

I remember that night clearly. I took the book to the front porch and sat down on the fl oor, a foot from a trail of white ants.I opened the book to what I judged was the fi rst page and read what turned out to be the most fascinating of the stories my father had told me.

21. shelf： 架子，擱板。

22. tuck： 把……塞進(jìn)；thread：線；spine： 書脊。

23. distraught： 心急如焚的，心神不定的；shaman： 薩滿教巫師。

The story was about a man who lived in a village long ago and who had magical powers. For years, the other residents fail to consult him, and, despite having performed wonders in the past, he is almost forgotten. Then, one day, the king of the village knocks on his door. His daughter, an only child, had followed an “unknown man” of extraordinary beauty to a secret location.Distraught, the king asks the shaman to fi nd his daughter and return her to the village in exchange for half his lands.23The shaman sets out only to discover that the princess had followed a skull—a member of a race of creatures who lived as skulls—that had borrowed body parts to become “a complete gentleman.”24

I lay awake in bed all that night, mesmerized25, even shocked,by the discovery. My father had told me this story as if it were his own creation. I had been in awe,believing him possessed of the most spectacular of gifts: that of storytelling. I had no idea that he was reading these stories and then recounting them to me.

24. 結(jié)果薩滿教巫師發(fā)現(xiàn)公主跟著的是一個(gè)骷髏——以骷髏形式存在的一個(gè)生物種族的一員——通過借用他人的身體部位來變成“一個(gè)完整的男子”。

25. mesmerized： 著迷的。

26. repository： 博學(xué)者；ululation： 呼喊，哀號(hào)。

27. devour： 如饑似渴地閱讀；voracious：求知欲極強(qiáng)的。

28. swirl：（使）旋動(dòng)，（使）打轉(zhuǎn)；brim：充滿，滿溢。此處均用來形容作者沉浸在書中世界的狂喜之情。

While my mother, who had less education than my father, relied on tales told to her as a child, my father had gathered his stories from books. This was also why he told the stories in English. It struck me that if I could read well, I could be like my father. I, too, could become a repository of stories and live in their beautiful worlds,away from the dust and ululations of Akure.26

What I discovered that night transformed my life. I devoured that book, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, by Amos Tutuola, and became a voracious reader.27I read in the mornings, at nights, and, when that seemed insuきcient,I read at school, in between classes. Sometimes I read during classes, placing books under the desk while the teacher taught. I was unmoved by punishments, by failing grades from not paying attention. When I had read all the books on my father's shelf, he took more from a box on top of his wardrobe. I read those, too. My head swirled, and my mind brimmed.28I felt as though I were walking on a metaphysical plane where no one else but me could walk, and whose pathways were known only to me.29

I read while eating. I did errands hastily. I dressed hastily. My existence became mere machinery engineered to give me time to read. My mother complained, and my father began to panic. They put out strict orders that I should not read anything while at school. I complied, but took to making up the lost time at odd hours, waking up in the dead of the night, when everyone was asleep, to read.30

By the fi fth month, I had read every book my father owned. One Saturday, he returned home and asked me to get in the car.

“I have a surprise for you.”

We drove through streets clotted with people until we got to a newly painted building with an arch over the gate that read,31Ondo State Library. We walked through the arch into the building, the likes of which I had never seen. There were books everywhere, on shelves,on tables, on the fl oor.

“I want to register you here and bring you every Saturday here to read,” my father said.

I waited breathlessly as he completed the registration at the

counter with an elderly, bespectacled32woman who seemed in awe

of the idea of a child coming in alone to read. My father, proud,

agreed and said that it was all I wanted to do.

“That is good,” I heard the woman say. “Very, very good.

Reading is like fi nding light, you know. A light cannot be hidden under a bushel33.”

“That is true,” my father said, nodding as the woman wrote my name on a small, square yellow card.

“Your son has found the light under the bushel.”

She handed me the card, and my father said he would pick me up at noon. I waved him goodbye and disappeared among the crowded shelves.

29. metaphysical： 形而上學(xué)的，玄學(xué)的；pathway： 小路，小徑。

30. 我遵從了，但是用零碎的時(shí)間來彌補(bǔ)失去的閱讀時(shí)間，我在深更半夜大家都睡著的時(shí)候醒來，然后開始閱讀。comply： 遵守，服從。

31. clot： 使聚集；arch： 拱門。

32. bespectacled： 戴眼鏡的。

33. hide one's light under a bushel： 不露鋒芒。