《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 29 (60):帶着姐姐遊羅馬大綱
There's a game I like to play with my friends sometimes called "Watch This!" Whenever anybody's wondering about some obscure fact (for instance: "Who was Saint Louis?") I will say, "Watch this!" then pick up the nearest phone and dial my sister's number. Sometimes I'll catch her in the car, driving her kids home from school in the Volvo, and she will muse: "Saint Louis . . . well, he was a hairshirt-wearing French king, actually, which is interesting because . . ."
我喜歡和朋友玩一種叫“看我的”的遊戲。每當有人對某個模糊的事實——比方對“聖路易是什麼人？”有疑問，我就說“看我的”！然後拿起距離我最近的電話，撥我姐的號碼。有時碰上她在開車，去接她孩子放學回家，她便沉思道：“聖路易……這個嘛，他是穿粗毛襯衣的法國國王，這很有趣，因爲……”
So my sister comes to visit me in Rome—in my new city—and then shows it to me. This is Rome, Catherine-style. Full of facts and dates and architecture that I do not see because my mind does not work in that way. The only thing I ever want to know about any place or any person is the story, this is the only thing I watch for—never for aesthetic details. (Sofie came to my apartment a month after I'd moved into the place and said, "Nice pink bathroom," and this was the first time I'd noticed that it was, indeed, pink. Bright pink, from floor to ceiling, bright pink tile everywhere—I honestly hadn't seen it before.) But my sister's trained eye picks up the Gothic, or Romanesque, or Byzantine features of a building, the pattern of the church floor, or the dim sketch of the unfinished fresco hidden behind the altar. She strides across Rome on her long legs (we used to call her "Catherine-of-the-Three-Foot-Long-Femurs") and I hasten after her, as I have since toddlerhood, taking two eager steps to her every one.
於是我姐姐來羅馬——我的新城市——探望我，然後帶領我參觀這座城市。這是凱瑟琳風格的羅馬。充滿我未看見的數據、年代和建築，因爲我的腦子並非如此運作。我只想知道任何地方或任何人的“故事”，我只關心這個，從不關心美學細節。（蘇菲在我搬進公寓一個月後來訪，說“粉紅色浴室，不錯。”這是我頭一次留意到浴室確實是粉紅色的。鮮粉紅色，從地板到天花板，處處都是鮮粉紅色磁磚——老實說，我之前完全沒留意。）但我姐姐老練的眼睛看見了哥德式、羅馬式或拜占庭式的建築特點，教堂地板的圖案，或者隱藏在祭壇後方未完成的昏暗壁畫。她登着兩條長腿大步走過羅馬（我們過去叫她“腿節一米長的凱瑟琳”），我急忙跟在她後頭，因爲打從幼時，她每走一步路都得花我激烈的兩步。
"See, Liz?" she says, "See how they just slapped that nineteenth-century façade over that brickwork? I bet if we turn the corner we'll find . . . yes! . . . see, they did use the original Roman monoliths as supporting beams, probably because they didn't have the manpower to move them . . . yes, I quite like the jumble-sale quality of this basilica. . ."
“瞧，小莉？”她說“看那棟磚造建築的正面，弄成19世紀的樣子。我敢說，我們在轉角看得見……沒錯！瞧，他們採用原來的羅馬石柱作支撐樑柱，可能因爲缺乏人力搬動……是的，我很喜歡這座教堂的多種風格，彷彿舊貨拍賣場……”
Catherine carries the map and her Michelin Green Guide, and I carry our picnic lunch (two of those big softball-sized rolls of bread, spicy sausage, pickled sardines wrapped around meaty green olives, a mushroom pâté that tastes like a forest, balls of smoked mozzarella, peppered and grilled arugula, cherry tomatoes, pecorino cheese, mineral water and a split of cold white wine), and while I wonder when we're going to eat, she wonders aloud, "Why don't people talk more about the Council of Trent?"
凱瑟琳帶着地圖和她的米其林綠色指南，我則帶着我們的野餐（兩個大圓麪包、辣味臘腸、盤繞在綠橄欖上的醃沙丁魚、嚐起來有森林風味的磨菇餡餅、幾團煙燻乳酪、加胡椒的烤芝麻菜、小番茄、佩科裏諾〔Pecorino〕乳酪、礦泉水和半瓶冰白酒），我想知道何時該吃午飯，她則大聲地想知道：“爲什麼人們不多談談天特會議 （Council of Trent）？”
She takes me into dozens of churches in Rome, and I can't keep them straight—St. This and St. That, and St. Somebody of the Barefoot Penitents of Righteous Misery . . . but just because I cannot remember the names or details of all these buttresses and cornices is not to say that I do not love to be inside these places with my sister, whose cobalt eyes miss nothing. I don't remember the name of the church that had those frescoes that looked so much like American WPA New Deal heroic murals, but I do remember Catherine pointing them out to me and saying, "You gotta love those Franklin Roosevelt popes up there . . ." I also remember the morning we woke early and went to mass at St. Susanna, and held each other's hands as we listened to the nuns there chanting their daybreak Gregorian hymns, both of us in tears from the echoing haunt of their prayers. My sister is not a religious person. Nobody in my family really is. (I've taken to calling myself the "white sheep" of the family.) My spiritual investigations interest my sister mostly from a point of intellectual curiosity. "I think that kind of faith is so beautiful," she whispers to me in the church, "but I can't do it, I just can't . . ."
她帶我進十幾家羅馬教堂，我分不清哪座是哪座——聖此，聖彼，赤足苦行僧會的聖某某……但儘管我記不住一大堆扶壁與橫檐的名稱或細節，這並不表示我不喜歡和姐姐進這些地方，她那雙鈷藍色的眼睛不錯過任何東西。有一所教堂，裏頭的壁畫很像美國的英雄式壁畫，我雖不記得教堂名稱，卻記得凱瑟琳指着壁畫對我說“你不得不喜歡那些羅斯福教宗……”我也記得我們起大早去聖蘇撒納（nna）做彌撒的那個早晨，握着彼此的手聆聽修女們吟唱黎明聖歌，餘音繞樑的禱告聲使我們倆淚流滿面。我的姐姐並非信教之人。我們家沒有人真的是（我稱自己是家裏的“白羊”）。我的心靈探索引發姐姐的興趣，大半出於滿足知識的好奇。“我認爲這種信仰很美，”她在教堂內低聲對我說：“但我沒法辦到，我就是沒辦法……”
