殘忍而美麗的情誼:The Kite Runner 追風箏的人(122)
She lived to see him turn four, and then, one morning, she just did not wake up. She looked calm, at peace, like she did not mind dying now. We buried her in the cemetery on the hill, the one by the pomegranate tree, and I said a prayer for her too. The loss was hard on Hassan--it always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place. But it was even harder on little Sohrab. He kept walking around the house, looking for Sasa, but you know how children are, they forget so then--that would have been 1995--the Shorawi were defeated and long gone and Kabul belonged to Massoud, Rabbani, and the mujahedin. The infighting between the factions was fierce and no one knew if they would live to see the end of the day. Our ears became accustomed to the whistle of falling shells, to the rumble of gunfire, our eyes familiar with the sight of men digging bodies out of piles of rubble. Kabul in those days, Amir jan, was as close as you could get to that proverbial hell on earth. Allah was kind to us, though. The Wazir Akbar Khan area was not attacked as much, so we did not have it as bad as some of the other neighborhoods.
On those days when the rocket fire eased up a bit and the gunfighting was light, Hassan would take Sohrab to the zoo to see Marjan the lion, or to the cinema. Hassan taught him how to shoot the slingshot, and, later, by the time he was eight, Sohrab had become deadly with that thing: He could stand on the terrace and hit a pinecone propped on a pail halfway across the yard. Hassan taught him to read and write--his son was not going to grow up illiterate like he had. I grew very attached to that little boy--I had seen him take his first step, heard him utter his first word. I bought children’s books for Sohrab from the bookstore by Cinema Park--they have destroyed that too now--and Sohrab read them as quickly as I could get them to him. He reminded me of you, how you loved to read when you were little, Amir jan. Sometimes, I read to him at night, played riddles with him, taught him card tricks. I miss him terribly.
In the wintertime, Hassan took his son kite running. There were not nearly as many kite tournaments as in the old days--no one felt safe outside for too long--but there were still a few scattered tournaments. Hassan would prop Sohrab on his shoulders and they would go trotting through the streets, running kites, climbing trees where kites had dropped. You remember, Amir Jan, what a good kite runner Hassan was? He was still just as good. At the end of winter, Hassan and Sohrab would hang the kites they had run all winter on the walls of the main hallway. They would put them up like paintings.
I told you how we all celebrated in 1996 when the Taliban rolled in and put an end to the daily fighting. I remember coming home that night and finding Hassan in the kitchen, listening to the radio. He had a sober look in his eyes. I asked him what was wrong, and he just shook his head. “God help the Hazaras now, Rahim Khan sahib,” he said.
“The war is over, Hassan,” I said. “There’s going to be peace, _Inshallah_, and happiness and calm. No more rockets, no more killing, no more funerals!” But he just turned off the radio and asked if he could get me anything before he went to bed.
A few weeks later, the Taliban banned kite fighting. And two years later, in 1998, they massacred the Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif.
她活到他四歲的時候，然後，某個早晨，她再也沒有醒來。她神情安詳平靜，似乎死得無牽無掛。我們在山上的墓地埋了她，那座種着石榴樹的墓地，我也替她禱告了。她的去世讓哈桑很難過——得到了再失去，總是比從來就沒有得到更傷人。但小索拉博甚至更加難過，他不停地在屋裏走來走去，找他的“莎莎”，但你知道，小孩就是那樣，他們很快就忘了。和人民聖戰者組織手裏。不同派系間的內戰十分激烈，沒有人知道自己是否能活到一天結束。我們的耳朵聽慣了炮彈落下、機槍嗒嗒的聲音，人們從廢墟爬出來的景象也司空見慣。那些日子裏的喀布爾，親愛的阿米爾，你在地球上再也找不到比這更像地獄的地方了。瓦茲爾?阿克巴?汗區沒有遭受太多的襲擊，所以我們的處境不像其他城區一樣糟糕。
在那些炮火稍歇、槍聲較疏的日子，哈桑會帶索拉博去動物園看獅子“瑪揚”，或者去看電影。哈桑教他射彈弓，而且，後來，到了他八歲的時候，彈弓在索拉博手裏變成了一件致命的武器：他可以站在陽臺上，射中院子中央水桶上擺放着的松果。哈桑教他讀書識字——以免他的兒子長大之後跟他一樣是個文盲。我和那個小男孩越來越親近——我看着他學會走路，聽着他牙牙學語。我從電影院公園那邊的書店給索拉博買童書——現在它們也被炸燬了——索拉博總是很快看完。他讓我想起你，你小時候多麼喜歡讀書，親愛的阿米爾。有時，我在夜裏講故事給他聽，和他猜謎語，教他玩撲克。我想他想得厲害。
冬天，哈桑帶他兒子追風箏。那兒再也沒有過去那麼多風箏大賽了——因爲缺乏安全，沒有人敢在外面待得太久——但零星有一些。哈桑會讓索拉博坐在他的肩膀上，在街道上小跑，追風箏，爬上那些掛着風箏的樹。你記得嗎，親愛的阿米爾，哈桑追風箏多麼在行？他仍和過去一樣棒。冬天結束的時候，哈桑和索拉博會把他們整個冬天追來的風箏掛在門廊的牆上，他們會像掛畫像那樣將它們擺好。
我告訴過你，1996年，當塔利班掌權，結束日復一日的戰爭之後，我們全都歡呼雀躍。我記得那晚回家，發現哈桑在廚房，聽着收音機，神情嚴肅。我問他怎麼了，他只是搖搖頭：“現在求真主保佑哈扎拉人，拉辛汗老爺。”
“戰爭結束了，哈桑，”我說，“很快就會有和平，奉安拉之名，還有幸福和安寧。再沒有火箭，再沒有殺戮，再沒有葬禮！”但他只是關掉收音機，問我在他睡覺之前還需要什麼。
幾個星期後，塔利班禁止鬥風箏。隔了兩年，1998年，他們開始在馬紮裏沙里夫屠殺哈扎拉人。
