The Kite Runner(追风筝的人): Chapter16

There were a lot of reasons why I went to Hazarajat to find Hassan in 1986. The biggest one, Allah forgive me, was that I was lonely. By then, most of my friends and relatives had either been killed or had escaped the country to Pakistan or Iran. 

1986年，有很多原因促使我到哈扎拉贾特寻找哈桑。最大的一个，安拉原谅我，是我很寂寞。当时，我多数朋友和亲人若不是死于非命，便是离乡背井，逃往巴基斯坦或者伊朗。

I barely knew anyone in Kabul anymore, the city where I had lived my entire life. Everybody had fled. I would take a walk in the Karteh-Parwan section—where the melon vendors used to hang out in the old days, you remember that spot?—and I wouldn’t recognize anyone there. No one to greet, no one to sit down with for chai, no one to share stories with, just Roussi soldiers patrolling the streets. So eventually, I stopped going out to the city. I would spend my days in your father’s house, up in the study, reading your mother’s old books, listening to the news, watching the communist propaganda on television. Then I would pray namaz, cook something, eat, read some more, pray again, and go to bed. I would rise in the morning, pray, do it all over again.

喀布尔，那个我生活了一辈子的城市，我再也没几个熟人了。大家都逃走了。我会到卡德帕湾区散步——你记得吗，过去那儿经常有叫卖甜瓜的小贩出没，看到的都是不认识的人。没有人可以打招呼，没有人可以坐下来喝杯茶，没有人可以说说话，只有俄国士兵在街头巡逻。所以到了最后，我不再在城里散步。我会整天在你父亲的房间里面，上楼到书房去，看看你妈妈那些旧书，听听新闻，看看电视上那些宣传。然后我会做午祷，煮点东西吃，再看看书，又是祷告，上床睡觉。早上我会醒来，祷告，再重复前一天的生活。

And with my arthritis, it was getting harder for me to maintain the house. My knees and back were always aching—I would get up in the morning and it would take me at least an hour to shake the stiffness from my joints, especially in the wintertime. 

因为患了关节炎，照料房子对我来说越来越难。我的膝盖和后背总是发痛——早晨我起床之后，至少得花上一个小时，才能让麻木的关节活络起来，特别是在冬天。

I did not want to let your father’s house go to rot; we had all had many good times in that house, so many memories, Amir jan. It was not right—your father had designed that house himself; it had meant so much to him, and besides, I had promised him I would care for it when he and you left for Pakistan. Now it was just me and the house and . . . I did my best. I tried to water the trees every few days, cut the lawn, tend to the flowers, fix things that needed fixing, but, even then, I was not a young man anymore.

我不希望你父亲的房子荒废，我们在这座房子有过很多美好的时光，有很多记忆，亲爱的阿米尔。你爸爸亲自设计了那座房子，它对他来说意义重大，除此之外，他和你前往巴基斯坦的时候，我亲口应承他，会把房子照料好。如今只有我和这座房子……我尽力了，我尽力每隔几天给树浇水，修剪草坪，照料花儿，钉牢那些需要固定的东西，但，就算在那个时候，我也已经不再是个年轻人了。

……

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