《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 102 (246):生日聚會
I blew out the candles of the birthday cake along with Little Ketut, the smallest orphan, whose birthday, I had decided a few weeks ago, would also be on July 18 from now on, shared with my own, since she'd never had a birthday or a birthday party before. After we blew out the candles, Felipe presented Little Ketut with a Barbie doll, which she unwrapped in stunned wonder and then regarded as though it were a ticket for a rocket ship to Jupiter—something she never, ever in seven billion light-years could've imagined receiving.
Everything about this party was kind of funny. It was an oddball international and intergenerational mix of a handful of my friends, Wayan's family and some of her Western clients and patients whom I'd never met before. My friend Yudhi brought me a six-pack of beer to wish me happy birthday, and also this cool young hipster screenwriter from L.A. named Adam came by. Felipe and I had met Adam in a bar the other night and had invited him. Adam and Yudhi passed their time at the party talking to a little boy named John, whose mother is a patient of Wayan's, a German clothing designer married to an American who lives in Bali. Little John—who is seven years old and who is kind of American, he says, because of his American dad (even though he himself has never been there), but who speaks German with his mother and speaks Indonesian with Wayan's children—was smitten with Adam because he'd found out that the guy was from California and could surf.
"What's your favorite animal, mister?" asked John, and Adam replied, "Pelicans."
"What's a pelican?" the little boy asked, and Yudhi jumped in and said, "Dude, you don't know what a pelican is? Dude, you gotta go home and ask your dad about that. Pelicans rock, dude."
Then John, the kind-of-American boy, turned to say something in Indonesian to little Tutti (probably to ask her what a pelican was) as Tutti sat in Felipe's lap trying to read my birthday cards, while Felipe was speaking beautiful French to a retired gentleman from Paris who comes to Wayan for kidney treatments. Meanwhile, Wayan had turned on the radio and Kenny Rogers was singing "Coward of the County," while three Japanese girls wandered ran-domly into the shop to see if they could get medicinal massages. As I tried to talk the Japan-ese girls into eating some of my birthday cake, the two orphans—Big Ketut and Little Ke-tut—were decorating my hair with the giant spangled barrettes they'd saved up all their money to buy me as a gift. Wayan's nieces and nephews, the child temple dancers, the children of rice farmers, sat very still, tentatively staring at the floor, dressed in gold like miniature deities; they imbued the room with a strange and otherworldly godliness. Outside, the roost-ers started crowing, even though it was not yet evening, not yet dusk. My traditional Balinese clothing was squeezing me like an ardent hug, and I was feeling like this was definitely the strangest—but maybe the happiest—birthday party I'd ever experienced in my whole life. Eat, Pray, Love
我和最小的孤兒小老四一同吹熄生日蛋糕的蠟燭；我在幾個禮拜前決定，從今以後，她也和我一樣在七月十八日過生日，因爲她從前都不曾有過生日或生日派對。我們吹熄蠟燭後，斐利貝送給小老四一隻芭比娃娃，她驚喜地打開禮物，把它當做前往木星的太空船票——這是想都想象不到的自己會收到的禮物。
有關這場派對的一切都有些詭異。古怪地混雜各種國籍、各種年紀的朋友，連大姐的家人以及幾位我沒見過面的她的西方客戶與病患都到場來。我的朋友尤弟帶來半打啤酒祝我生日快樂，還有個叫亞當的洛杉磯編劇家也來了。斐利貝和我某晚在酒吧認識亞當，邀請他過來。亞當和尤弟在派對上和一名叫約翰的小男孩說話；男孩的母親是大姐的病患，是德國服裝設計師，嫁給一位住在巴厘島的美國人。小約翰——七歲的他說盡管自己從未去過美國，但因爲老爸是美國人，因此他也算是美國人，可是他跟他母親講德語，跟大姐的孩子們講印尼語——很崇拜亞當，因爲他發現這傢伙來自加州，而且玩衝浪。
"你最喜歡的動物是什麼，先生？"約翰問。亞當回答："鵜鶘。"
"什麼是鵜鶘？"小男孩問道，尤弟於是插嘴說："好傢伙，你不曉得鵜鶘是什麼嗎？好傢伙，你該回家問你老爸。鵜鶘可酷呢，好傢伙。"
而後，算是美國人的小約翰轉身和小圖蒂說印尼話（或許問她鵜鶘是啥），圖蒂正坐在斐利貝腿上讀我的生日賀卡；斐利貝則和一位來找大姐治療腎臟的巴黎退休紳士講着漂亮的法語。同時，大姐打開收音機，肯尼?羅傑斯（KennyRogers）正在唱《鄉下膽小鬼》，而三名日本姑娘不經意間走進店裏，看看能否接受醫療按摩。我招呼日本姑娘吃生日蛋糕的時候，兩名孤兒——大老四和小老四——拿着她們存錢買給我當禮物的大亮片髮夾在裝飾我的頭髮。大姐的侄子、侄女——廟會舞者，稻農子弟——安靜地坐着，遲疑地盯着地板，一身金裝，彷彿小小神明；他們讓房間充滿某種奇異脫俗的神性。我的巴厘島傳統服飾緊緊勒着我，好似熱情的擁抱，我覺得這肯定是我有生以來最奇怪——卻可能也是最快樂——的生日派對。
