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丹尼尔·希基，高海奇 记者，作家，爱尔兰人， 现为诺里奇《东方日报》记者。 有时我会被最意想不到的事情感动。 Sometimes I am moved by the most unexpected things. 我的意思是，你可以给我讲一个很好的笑话，但我可能会坐在那里，脸上僵硬、毫无表情，然后说：“是的，我想这很有趣吧？” I mean, you could tell me a pretty good joke but I might sit there with a rigid, expressionless face and say, 'Yeah, I guess that was funny?' 或者，你可以告诉我，我是世界上最糟糕的人。我会默默地思考一下这句话，然后说：“我应该把这件事当真吗？” Or you could tell me I'm the worst person in the world and I'd silently consider the statement for a minute before replying, 'Am I supposed to take that personally?' 我妻子说我像块石头，这似乎是一个足够准确的比喻。 My wife sometimes says I'm like a stone. Which seems like an accurate enough metaphor. 但当我看到儿子的午餐菜单，得知他中午吃什么时，我却哭成了一个泪人。 But show me my son's lunch menu, tell me what he eats for for his midday meal… and I'm reduced to a weeping heap. Is 'reduced’ the right word? Maybe 'elevated’ is better. 'Where are the tissues?' I say. 'Someone please pass me a Kleenex!' 前几天，学校给家长发了一封群发邮件，告知我们孩子们最新的午餐菜单。 The other day the school sent out a mass email to parents, informing us of the children's updated lunch menu. 我打开了附件，带馅的烤鸡、裹面包屑的鱼条、奶酪和土豆派、自制咖喱鸡、柠檬松饼、香草冰淇淋、水果酸奶…… Not knowing what was about to hit me, I opened the attachment. Roast chicken with stuffing, breaded fish fingers, cheese and potato pie, homemade chicken curry...Lemon muffin, vanilla icecream, fruit yoghurt… 当我读着菜单时，嘴唇开始颤抖，眼睛湿润了。 As I read down the list of meals, my lips began to tremble and my eyes watered. 当我意识到发生了什么时，我开始用第三人称思考自己。看看他，我想，对他五岁儿子的午餐菜单感到很激动。他没事吧？为什么，在世界上所有的针头中，这一根针刺痛了他往日里厚厚的情感皮肤？ When I realised what was happening, I started thinking about myself in the third-person. Look at him, I thought, getting emotional about his five-year-old son's lunch menu. Is he okay? Why, of all the world's needles, is this the one that has pricked his normally thick emotional skin? 想象成一部电影，我坐在笔记本电脑前阅读菜单，眼中含泪的场景会与我儿子小时候的回忆交替出现，我有时会用瓶子喂他，后来他用勺子胡乱地尝试给自己喂食…… In the movie version, the scene of me sitting at my laptop reading the menu, tears appearing in my eyes, would be intercut with flashbacks of when my son was a baby and I sometimes fed him with a bottle and later on his early messy attempts at using a spoon to feed himself… 那些日子过去了，那些日子结束了。现在的他，在一个遥远的房间里，在星期三选择烤牛肉，而不是奶酪和土豆馅饼。 Those days are gone, those days are over. Now he is out there in a distant room, choosing roast beef over cheese and potato pie on a Wednesday. “爸爸，你知道我今天午餐吃了什么吗？” 'Do you know what I had for lunch today, daddy?’ “我不知道。” 'I don’t.’ “我吃了咖喱鸡。” 'I had chicken curry.’ “你吃光了吗？” 'Did you eat it all up?’ “是的。我现在喜欢咖喱鸡。” 'I did. I like chicken curry now.’ 昨天他带着一本书回家了。每周他们都能从学校图书馆借两本书。这本书从雄性的角度描述了知更鸟的生命周期。晚饭后我们一起读。 Yesterday he returned home with a book. Every week they get to borrow two books from the school’s library. This book described the life cycle of robins from the perspective of a male. We read it together after dinner. 一开始，雄性知更鸟在花园里唱歌，让其他雄性知更鸟远离。后来他又唱歌了，但这次是为了吸引雌性知更鸟。当一只雌鸟来的时候，他给了她一条虫子。两人决定组建家庭，雌鸟用枯叶、草和苔藓筑巢。她下了四个蛋，坐在上面取暖。两周后，小鸟从蛋中孵化出来，他们的父母便开始捕捉昆虫。一张照片显示，四只小鸟张开嘴等待喂食。当小鸟两周大时，他们可以从巢中跳出来，但仍然不能飞。相反，他们会振翅向父母索要食物。几天后，小鸟学会了飞，当他们八周大的时候，就飞走了，把父母留在了花园里。 At the beginning, the male robin is in a garden singing to tell other male robins to stay away. Later he sings again but this time to attract a female robin. When one arrives he gives her a worm. The pair decide to start a family and the female robin builds a nest from dead leaves, grass and moss. She lays four eggs and sits on them to keep them warm. After two weeks the chicks hatch from the eggs and their mother and father catch insects. A photo shows the four chicks with their beaks wide open waiting for their parents to feed them. When the chicks are two weeks old they can jump from the nest but still cannot fly. Instead they flap their wings to ask their parents for food. After a few days the chicks learn to fly and when they are eight weeks old they fly away, leaving their parents in the garden. “有一天你会离开我们吗？”我问儿子。 'Will you fly away from us one day?’ I asked my son. “不，我想永远和你在一起。”他说。 'No, I want to stay with you forever,’ he said. “但也许你长大后会想要自己的房子？” 'But maybe you’ll want your own house when you’re grown up?’ “等我长大了，你还会在吗？” 'When I’m a grown up will you still be around?’ “我会的。” 'I will.’ 在他很小的时候，大概是两岁，他曾经以为，随着年龄的增长，他慢慢长大，我和妻子会再次变小，我们会变成孩子，然后变成婴儿。当这种情况发生时，他已经长大，而我们变小了，他会照顾我们。 When he was younger, probably two-years-old, he used to think that as he grew older, as he grew up, my wife and I would get small again, that we’d turn into children and then babies again, and when that happened, when he was big and we were small, he would look after us.E 审 | 周春伦 排 | 彭运康 图 | 受访者 END  |
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