殘忍而美麗的情誼:The Kite Runner 追風箏的人(80)

“It’s not so bad now,” he said, meaning since he had become the day manager at the gas station. But I’d seen the way he winced and rubbed his wrists on damp days. The way sweat erupted on his forehead as he reached for his bottle of antacids after meals. “Besides, I didn’t bring us here for me, did I?”
I reached across the table and put my hand on his. My student hand, clean and soft, on his laborer’s hand, grubby and calloused. I thought of all the trucks, train sets, and bikes he’d bought me in Kabul. Now America. One last gift for Amir.
Just one month after we arrived in the U.S., Baba found a job off Washington Boulevard as an assistant at a gas station owned by an Afghan acquaintance--he’d started looking for work the same week we arrived. Six days a week, Baba pulled twelve-hour shifts pumPing gas, running the register, changing oil, and washing windshields. I’d bring him lunch sometimes and find him looking for a pack of cigarettes on the shelves, a customer waiting on the other side of the oil-stained counter, Baba’s face drawn and pale under the bright fluorescent lights. The electronic bell over the door would ding-dong when I walked in, and Baba would look over his shoulder, wave, and smile, his eyes watering from fatigue.
The same day he was hired, Baba and I went to our eligibility officer in San Jose, Mrs. Dobbins. She was an overweight black woman with twinkling eyes and a dimpled smile. She’d told me once that she sang in church, and I believed her--she had a voice that made me think of warm milk and honey. Baba dropped the stack of food stamps on her desk. “Thank you but I don’t want,” Baba said. “I work always. In Afghanistan I work, in America I work. Thank you very much, Mrs. Dobbins, but I don’t like it free money.”
Mrs. Dobbins blinked. Picked up the food stamps, looked from me to Baba like we were pulling a prank, or “slipping her a trick” as Hassan used to say. “Fifteen years I been doin’ this job and nobody’s ever done this,” she said. And that was how Baba ended those humiliating food stamp moments at the cash register and alleviated one of his greatest fears: that an Afghan would see him buying food with charity money. Baba walked out of the welfare office like a man cured of a tumor. THAT SUMMER OF 1983, I graduated from high school at the age of twenty, by far the oldest senior tossing his mortarboard on the football field that day. I remember losing Baba in the swarm of families, flashing cameras, and blue gowns. I found him near the twenty-yard line, hands shoved in his pockets, camera dangling on his chest. He disappeared and reappeared behind the people moving between us: squealing blue-clad girls hugging, crying, boys high-fiving their fathers, each other. Baba’s beard was graying, his hair thinning at the temples, and hadn’t he been taller in Kabul? He was wearing his brown suit--his only suit, the same one he wore to Afghan weddings and funerals--and the red tie I had bought for his fiftieth birthday that year. Then he saw me and waved. Smiled. He motioned for me to wear my mortarboard, and took a picture of me with the school’s clock tower in the background. I smiled for him--in a way, this was his day more than mine. He walked to me, curled his arm around my neck, and gave my brow a single kiss. “I am moftakhir, Amir,” he said. Proud. His eyes gleamed when he said that and I liked being on the receiving end of that look.
He took me to an Afghan kabob house in Hayward that night and ordered far too much food. He told the owner that his son was going to college in the fall. I had debated him briefly about that just before graduation, and told him I wanted to get a job. Help out, save some money, maybe go to college the following year. But he had shot me one of his smoldering Baba looks, and the words had vaporized on my tongue.
After dinner, Baba took me to a bar across the street from the restaurant. The place was dim, and the acrid smell of beer I’d always disliked permeated the walls. Men in baseball caps and tank tops played pool, clouds of cigarette smoke hovering over the green tables, swirling in the fluorescent light. We drew looks, Baba in his brown suit and me in pleated slacks and sports jacket. We took a seat at the bar, next to an old man, his leathery face sickly in the blue glow of the Michelob sign overhead. Baba lit a cigarette and ordered us beers. “Tonight I am too much happy,” he announced to no one and everyone. “Tonight I drinking with my son. And one, please, for my friend,” he said, patting the old man on the back. The old fellow tipped his hat and smiled. He had no upper teeth.
Baba finished his beer in three gulps and ordered another. He had three before I forced myself to drink a quarter of mine. By then he had bought the old man a scotch and treated a foursome of pool players to a pitcher of Budweiser. Men shook his hand and clapped him on the back. They drank to him. Someone lit his cigarette. Baba loosened his tie and gave the old man a handful of quarters. He pointed to the jukebox. “Tell him to play his favorite songs,” he said to me. The old man nodded and gave Baba a salute. Soon, country music was blaring, and, just like that, Baba had started a party.
At one point, Baba stood, raised his beer, spilling it on the sawdust floor, and yelled, “Fuck the Russia!” The bar’s laughter, then its full-throated echo followed. Baba bought another round of pitchers for everyone.
When we left, everyone was sad to see him go. Kabul, Peshawar, Hayward. Same old Baba, I thought, smiling.
I drove us home in Baba’s old, ochre yellow Buick Century. Baba dozed off on the way, snoring like a jackhammer. I smelled tobacco on him and alcohol, sweet and pungent. But he sat up when I stopped the car and said in a hoarse voice, “Keep driving to the end of the block.”
“Why, Baba?”

“現在還好啦。”他說，他的意思是自升任加油站日班經理之後。但在天氣潮溼的日子，我總能見到他忍痛揉着手腕。也見過他在飯後，頭冒冷汗去拿止痛藥瓶子的模樣。“再說，我又不是爲了自己才讓我們兩個來到這裏的，你知道嗎?”
我把手伸過桌子，握住他的手。我的是學生哥兒的手，乾淨柔軟；他的是勞動者的手，骯髒且長滿老繭。我想起在喀布爾時，他給我買的所有那些卡車、火車玩具，還有那些自行車。如今，美國是爸爸送給阿米爾的最後一件禮物。
我們到美國僅一個月之後，爸爸在華盛頓大道找到工作，在一個阿富汗熟人開的加油站當助理——他從我們到美國那天就開始找工作了。每週六天，每天輪班十二小時，爸爸給汽車加油、收銀、換油、擦洗擋風玻璃。有好幾次，我帶午飯給他吃，發現他正在貨架上找香菸，油污斑斑的櫃檯那端，有個顧客在等着，在明亮的熒光映襯下，爸爸的臉扭曲而蒼白。每次我走進去，門上的電鈴會“叮咚叮咚”響，爸爸會擡起頭，招招手，露出微笑，他的雙眼因爲疲累而流淚。
被聘請那天，爸爸和我到聖荷塞［1］SanJose，美國加利福尼亞州城市。［1］去找我們的移民資格審覈官杜賓斯太太。她是個很胖的黑人婦女，眼睛明亮，笑起來露出兩個酒窩。有一回她跟我說她在教堂唱歌，我相信——她的聲音讓我想起熱牛奶和蜂蜜。爸爸將一疊食物券放在她的櫃檯上。“謝謝你，可是我不想要。”爸爸說，“我一直有工作。在阿富汗，我有工作；在美國，我有工作。非常感謝，杜賓斯太太，可是我不喜歡接受施捨。”
杜賓斯太太眨眨眼，把食物券撿起來，看看我，又看看爸爸，好像我們在開她玩笑，或者像哈桑經常說的“耍她一下”。“我幹這行十五年了，從來沒人這麼做過。”她說。就是這樣，爸爸結束了在收銀臺用食物券支付的屈辱日子，也消除了他最擔心的事情之一：被阿富汗人看到他用救濟金買食物。爸爸走出福利辦公室時，好像大病初癒。1983年那個夏天，我20歲，高中畢業。那天在足球場上擲帽子的人中，要數我最老了。我記得球場上滿是藍色袍子，學生的家人、閃光的鏡頭，把爸爸淹沒了。我在二十碼線附近找到他，雙手插袋，相機在胸前晃盪。我們之間隔着一羣人，一會兒把他擋住，一會兒他又出現。穿藍色衣服的女生尖叫着，相互擁抱，哭泣；男生和他們的父親拍掌慶賀。爸爸的鬍子變灰了，鬢邊的頭髮也減少了，還有，難道他在喀布爾更高?他穿着那身棕色西裝——他只有這麼一套，穿着它參加阿富汗人的婚禮和葬禮——繫着那年他五十歲生日時我送的紅色領帶。接着他看到我，揮揮手，微笑。他示意我戴上方帽子，以學校的鐘樓爲背景，替我拍了張照片。我朝他微笑着——在某種意義上，那日子與其說是我的，毋寧說是他的。他朝我走來，伸手攬住我的脖子，親吻了我的額頭。“我很驕傲，阿米爾。”他說。他說話的時候眼睛閃亮，那樣的眼光望着的是我，讓我很高興。
那晚，他帶我到海沃德［1］Hayward，美國加利福尼亞州城市，近弗裏蒙特。［1］的阿富汗餐廳，點了太多的食物。他跟店主說，他的兒子秋天就要上大學了。畢業之前，我就上大學的事情跟他稍稍爭論過，告訴他我想工作，補貼家用，存些錢，也許次年才上大學。但他恨鐵不成鋼地盯了我一眼，我只好閉嘴。
晚飯後，爸爸帶我去飯店對面的酒吧。那地方光線陰暗，牆壁上散發着我素來不喜歡的啤酒酸味。男人們頭戴棒球帽，身穿無袖上衣，玩着撞球，綠色的桌子上煙霧升騰，嫋嫋繞着熒光燈。爸爸穿着棕色西裝，我穿着打褶長褲和運動外套，顯得格外引人注目。我們在吧檯找到位子，坐在一個老人身邊。老人頭上有個麥克羅啤酒的商標，發出藍光，將他那張滄桑的臉照得病懨懨的。爸爸點了根香菸，給我們要了啤酒。“今晚我太高興了!”他自顧自地向每個人宣佈，“今晚我帶我的兒子來喝酒。來，請給我的朋友來一杯。”他的手拍在那個老人背上。老頭擡擡帽子，露出微笑，他沒有上排的牙齒。
爸爸三口就喝完了他的啤酒，又要了一杯。我強迫自己，還沒喝完四分之一，他已經幹掉三杯了。他請那個老頭一杯蘇格蘭烈酒，還請那四個打撞球的傢伙一大罐百威。人們同他握手，用力拍他的後背。他們向他敬酒，有人給他點菸。爸爸鬆了鬆領帶，給那個老人一把二毛五分的硬幣，指指電唱機。“告訴他，來幾首他最拿手的。”他對我說。老人點點頭，向爸爸敬禮。不久就響起鄉村音樂，就像這樣，爸爸開始宴會了。
酒到酣處，爸爸站起來，舉起酒杯，將它摔在遍地鋸屑的地板，高聲喊叫。“操他媽的俄國佬!”酒吧裏爆發出一陣笑聲，大家高聲附和，爸爸又給每個人買啤酒。
我們離開的時候，大家都捨不得他走。喀布爾，白沙瓦，海沃德。爸爸還是爸爸，我想，微笑着。
我開着爸爸那輛土黃色的舊別克世紀轎車，駛回我們家。爸爸在路上睡着了，鼾聲如氣鑽。我在他身上聞到菸草的味道，還有酒精味，甜蜜而辛辣。但我在停車的時候，他醒過來，嘶啞的嗓音說:“繼續開，到街道那邊去。”
“幹嗎，爸爸?”