诺贝尔文学经典:《宠儿》第3章Part 6

"What for?"
"I didn't understand it then. Not till I had a mark of my own."
"What happened to her?"
"Hung. By the time they cut her down nobody could tell whether she had a circle and a cross ornot, least of all me and I did look."Sethe gathered hair from the comb and leaning back tossed it into the fire. It exploded into starsand the smell infuriated them. "Oh, my Jesus," she said and stood up so suddenly the comb she hadparked in Denver's hair fell to the floor.
"Ma'am? What's the matter with you, Ma'am?"
Sethe walked over to a chair, lifted a sheet and stretched it as wide as her arms would go. Then shefolded, refolded and double folded it. She took another. Neither was completely dry but the foldingfelt too fine to stop. She had to do something with her hands because she was rememberingsomething she had forgotten she knew. Something privately shameful that had seeped into a slit inher mind right behind the slap on her face and the circled cross.
"Why they hang your ma'am?" Denver asked. This was the first time she had heard anything abouther mother's mother. Baby Suggs was the only grandmother she knew.

"I never found out. It was a lot of them," she said, but what was getting clear and clearer as shefolded and refolded damp laundry was the woman called Nan who took her hand and yanked heraway from the pile before she could make out the mark. Nan was the one she knew best, who wasaround all day, who nursed babies, cooked, had one good arm and half of another. And who useddifferent words. Words Sethe understood then but could neither recall nor repeat now. Shebelieved that must be why she remembered so little before Sweet Home except singing anddancing and how crowded it was. What Nan told her she had forgotten, along with the language she told it in. The same language her ma'am spoke, and which would never come back. But themessage — that was and had been there all along. Holding the damp white sheets against her chest,she was picking meaning out of a code she no longer understood. Nighttime. Nan holding her withher good arm, waving the stump of the other in the air. "Telling you. I am telling you, small girlSethe," and she did that. She told Sethe that her mother and Nan were together from the sea. Bothwere taken up many times by the crew. "She threw them all away but you. The one from the crewshe threw away on the island. The others from more whites she also threw away. Without names,she threw them. You she gave the name of the black man. She put her arms around him. The othersshe did not put her arms around. Never. Never. Telling you. I am telling you, small girl Sethe."

"那为什么？"
"当时我也不明白。直到后来我有了自己的记号。"
"她怎么样了？"
"吊死了。等到他们把她放下来的时候，谁也看不清楚她身上是不是有圆圈和十字，我尤其不能，可我的确看了。"塞丝从梳子上抓出头发，往后扔进炉火。头发炸成火星，那气味激怒了她们。"噢，我的耶稣。"她说着一下子站起来，插在丹芙头发里的梳子掉在地上。
"太太？你怎么啦，太太？"
塞丝走到一把椅子旁，拾起一张床单，尽她胳膊的长度抻开来。然后对叠，再叠，再对叠。她拿起另一张。都还没完全晾干，可是对叠的感觉非常舒服，她不想停下来。她手里必须干点什么，因为她又记起了某些她以为已经忘记的事情。事关耻辱的隐私，就在脸上挨的耳光和圆圈、十字之后，早已渗入她头脑的裂缝。
"他们干吗吊死你的太太？"丹芙问。这是她头一回听到有关她妈妈的妈妈的事。贝比·萨格斯是她知道的唯一的祖母。
"我一直没搞明白。一共有好多人。"她说道，但当她把潮湿的衣物叠了又叠时，越来越清晰的，是那个拉着她的手、在她认出那个记号之前把她从尸首堆里拽出来的名叫楠的女人。楠是她最熟悉的人，整天都在附近，给婴儿喂奶，做饭，一只胳膊是好的，另一只只剩了半截。楠说的是另一种不同的话，塞丝当时懂得，而现在却想不起来、不能重复的话。她相信，肯定是因为这个，她对"甜蜜之家"以前的记忆才这么少，只剩了唱歌、跳舞和拥挤的人群。楠对她讲的话，连同讲话时使用的语音，她都已忘记了。那也是她的太太使用的语言，一去不返了。但是其中的含义——却始终存在。她把潮湿的白床单抱在胸前，从她不再懂得的密码中分辨着那些含义。夜间，楠用完好的那条胳膊抓住她，在空中挥动着另一截残肢。"告诉你，我来告诉你，小姑娘塞丝。"然后她这么做了。楠告诉塞丝，她妈妈和楠是一起从海上来的。两个人都有好多次被水手带走。"她把他们全扔了，只留下你。有个跟水手生的她丢在了岛上。其他许多跟白人生的她也都扔了。没起名字就给扔了。只有你，她给起了那个黑人的名字。她用胳膊抱了他。别的人她都没用胳膊去抱。从来没有。从来没有。告诉你，我在告诉你，小姑娘塞丝。"