《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 95 (225):蓋新房

I finally sat down with Wayan and told her about the money I'd raised for her house. I ex-plained about my birthday wish, showed her the list of all my friends' names, and then told her the final amount which had been raised: Eighteen thousand American dollars. At first she was shocked to such an extent that her face looked like a mask of grief. It is strange and true that sometimes intense emotion can cause us to respond to cataclysmic news in exactly the op-posite manner logic might dictate. This is the absolute value of human emotion—joyful events can sometimes register on the Richter scale as pure trauma; dreadful grief makes us some-times burst out laughing. This news I had just handed to Wayan was too much for her to take in, she almost received it as a cause for sorrow, so I sat there with her for a few hours, telling her the story repeatedly and showing her the numbers again and again, until the reality began to sink in.

我終於和大姐坐下來，告訴她有關我爲她籌款購屋的事情。我說明一下我的生日願望，讓她看一看我全部朋友的名單，而後告訴她最後籌得的款數：一萬八千美元。首先，她震驚萬分，表情好似哀傷不已。有時強烈情緒能使我們對意想不到的消息產生違反邏輯的反應，這雖然奇怪卻也真確。這是人類情感的絕對價值——喜悅的大事，有時在芮氏地震儀上顯示出徹底的創傷；而可怕的悲痛有時讓我們突然大笑起來。我剛纔遞給大姐的消息，令她難以承受，使她幾乎以接受哀傷事件的方式接收，因此我陪她坐了幾個小時，一而再、再而三地告訴她整件事情的始末，不斷讓她看籌款數目，直到她開始會意到事實。

Her first really articulate response (I mean, even before she burst into tears because she realized she was going to be able to have a garden) was to urgently say, "Please, Liz, you must explain to everyone who helped raise money that this is not Wayan's house. This is the house of everyone who helped Wayan. If any of these people comes to Bali, they must never stay in a hotel, OK? You tell them they come and stay at my house, OK? Promise to tell them that? We call it Group House . . . the House for Everybody . . ."

她第一個清晰的反應（我是說，甚至在她意識到自己即將擁有一座庭園而哭起來之前），是急忙說："拜託，小莉，你一定得向幫忙籌款的每個人說明，這不是大姐的房子。這房子屬於幫助大姐的每個人。假使哪個人來到巴厘島，誰也不準住旅館，好嗎？你請他們過來住我的房子，好嗎？答應我跟他們說喔！我們把房子叫做"集團屋"……"衆人之屋"……"

Then she realized about the garden, and started to cry.

然後她意識到自己能夠擁有庭園，於是哭了起來。

Slowly, though, happier realizations come to her. It was like she was a pocketbook shaken upside down and emotions were spilling all over the place. If she had a home, she could have a small library, for all her medical books! And a pharmacy for her traditional remedies! And a proper restaurant with real chairs and tables (because she had to sell all her old good chairs and tables to pay the divorce lawyer). If she had a home, she could finally be listed in Lonely Planet, who keep wanting to mention her services, but never can do so, because she never has a permanent address that they can print. If she had a home, Tutti could have a birthday party someday!

然而，慢慢地，她開始領略到快樂，彷彿把錢包裏的情感抖落四處。倘若有家，她就能有間小書房擺放所有的醫療書籍，一間傳統醫藥房，一間體面的餐廳，有真正的桌椅（因爲她已經把昔日的好桌椅變賣，以償付離婚律師費）。倘若有家，她終於能被列入《孤獨星球》旅遊指南；他們一直想提及她的服務，卻老是辦不到，因爲她沒有永久住址能讓他們列入書中。倘若有個家，圖蒂下次就能開生日派對！

Then she got very sober and serious again. "How can I thank you, Liz? I would give you anything. If I had husband I loved, and you needed a man, I would give you my husband."

然後她又冷靜、嚴肅起來。"小莉，我該怎麼謝你？我願意給你一切。如果我有個我愛的丈夫，你如果需要一個男人，我也會把丈夫給你。"

"Keep your husband, Wayan. Just make sure Tutti goes to university."

"留着丈夫吧，大姐。只要讓圖蒂上大學就行了。"

"What would I do if you never came here?"

"假如你沒來這裏，我該如何是好？"

But I was always coming here. I thought about one of my favorite Sufi poems, which says that God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen.

但我"一直"都來到這裏。我想起我最愛的一首蘇菲詩歌，說神很久以前就在你此刻腳下的所在地周圍，畫上圓圈了。我永遠不會不來到這裏。這是註定發生的事情。

"Where are you going to build your new house, Wayan?" I asked.

"你要在哪裏蓋你的新房子？"我問。

Like a Little Leaguer who's had his eye on a certain baseball glove in the shop window for ages, or a romantic girl who's been designing her wedding dress since she was thirteen, it turned out that Wayan already knew exactly the piece of land she would like to buy. It was in the center of a nearby village, was connected to municipal water and electricity, had a good school nearby for Tutti, was nicely located in a central place where her patients and customers could find her on foot. Her brothers could help her build the home, she said. She'd all but picked out the paint chips for the master bedroom already.

猶如小球迷老早看中櫥窗裏的某個棒球手套，或夢幻少女打從十三歲就開始設計自己的結婚禮服，大姐也早就知道自己想買哪一塊地。那個地點是在附近某村子的中心，連接公共水電，附近有好學校讓圖蒂上學，而因爲坐落於中心地帶，病患與客人步行即可找到她。她說她的兄弟們會幫忙蓋房子。她也已經挑好主臥室的油漆。