《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 77 (173):汽車自由行

In the morning, Mario helps me buy a bicycle. Like a proper almost-Italian, he says, "I know a guy," and he takes me to his cousin's shop, where I get a nice mountain bike, a helmet, a lock and a basket for slightly less than fifty American dollars. Now I'm mobile in my new town of Ubud, or at least as mobile as I can safely feel on these roads, which are narrow and winding and badly maintained and crowded with motorcycles, trucks and tourist buses.

馬里奧早上幫我買了自行車。就像一位風度翩翩的準意大利人，他說："我認識一個傢伙。"而後帶我去他表哥的店，我花了不到五十塊美金，買下一輛山地自行車、一頂頭盔、一把鎖和籃子。如今我可以在我的新城烏布自由行動，或至少讓我在這些狹窄、迂迴、維護不良、擠滿摩托車、卡車和觀光巴士的路上自由行動，感到安全。

In the afternoon, I ride my bike down into Ketut's village, to hang out with my medicine man for our first day of . . . whatever it is we're going to be doing together. I'm not sure, to be honest. English lessons? Meditation lessons? Good old-fashioned porch-sitting? I don't know what Ketut has in mind for me, but I'm just happy to be invited into his life.

午後，我騎自行車前往賴爺的村子，和我的藥師一起過頭一天的……管它做什麼事。老實說，我並不確定。英語課？禪修課？美好的老式陽臺閒坐？我不曉得賴爺爲我安排了什麼，我只是高興受邀進入他的生活。

He's got guests when I arrive. It's a small family of rural Balinese who have brought their one-year-old daughter to Ketut for help. The poor little baby is teething and has been crying for several nights. Dad is a handsome young man in a sarong; he has the muscular calves of a Soviet war hero's statue. Mom is pretty and shy, looking at me from way below her timidly lowered eyelids. They have brought a tiny offering to Ketut for his services—2,000 rupiah, which is about 25 cents, placed in a handmade basket of palm fronds, slightly bigger than a hotel bar's ashtray. There is one flower blossom in the basket, along with the money and a few grains of rice. (Their poverty puts them in stark opposition to the richer family from the capital city of Denpesar who will come to see Ketut later in the afternoon, the mother balan-cing on her head a three-tiered basket filled with fruit and flowers and a roasted duck—a headgear so magnificent and impressive that Carmen Miranda would have bowed down in humility before it.)

我到的時候，剛好他有客人。是一戶巴釐鄉下小家庭帶來他們一歲的女兒找賴爺幫忙。可憐的小娃兒正在長牙，已經哭了好幾個晚上。父親是俊俏的年輕人，穿沙龍裙；有着蘇俄戰爭英雄雕像的健壯小腿肚。母親漂亮害羞，從羞怯低垂的眼瞼底下注視着我。他們給賴爺的服務帶來小小的奉獻——兩千盧比，相當於二十五美分左右，擺在比飯店酒吧的菸灰缸稍大一點的手工制棕櫚籃內。籃子裏有一朵花、錢和幾粒稻米。（他們的貧窮和傍晚從省會登巴薩［Denpasar］前來造訪賴爺的富裕人家——母親頭上頂着裝花果和烤鴨的三層籃，香蕉女郎看見她也會自嘆不如的頭飾——形成強烈對比。）