原名
“风中树枝”
第二天，在床单上干成片片的泥土是黑的，更像在小屋附近的泥土而不像她第一个坟上的红土。当司各特起床时，他注意到她一直在他睡觉时忙活着。在干燥架上又摆上了才上釉的陶罐。再烧一遍就可出窑了。
他把她抱到他上次埋葬她的地方，但是却再也找不到那个坟了。所有的泥土都不像是最近动过土的，都还铺满了去年的落叶。所以，他又挖了一个新的洞。然后又去清洗床单刮擦地板。
他又开始了等待，虽然这次他明白，到她再次出现，可能会有好长一段时间。他把小木屋彻底打扫了一次，希望这样大卫和朱丽叶会觉得他终于又有了自己的生活秩序。可是他明显的恢复只是更加让他们觉得是该加紧给他再找个伴了。他现在接受所有的吃饭邀请而且总是在碗盏才收拾干净不久就走人。在家里，他时睡时醒，常常醒来聆听那个还没来的声音。
后来有一天在同大卫和朱丽叶一起用晚餐时，他遇见了帕特丽亚。
她个头小巧，一头黑发，不是特别吸引人，但是她却能让他在那顿晚餐上大笑。在大卫和朱丽叶的撺掇下，他同意第二天晚上带帕特丽亚去看电影。再下一个晚上，他在她的公寓里吃的晚饭。他们谈着他们各自的生活差不多谈到大天亮。她问到了莎伦，他在那晚谈她的事比自她死后一直以来谈的都要多。他开车回家时很疲倦但是却很快乐，然后在他又看见小屋时，所有的快乐都烟消云散了。围绕着小屋的青草和杂草都趴倒在地上，被人踩踏过，好象有人整夜都在绕着小屋走来走去，敲着窗户，要求进去。
再后的两天夜里他没有睡觉，一直等着，但是没有人敲窗。他把电话线拔了，白天睡觉。帕特丽亚开车来到小屋，看到她时，他为自己不接电话感到羞耻。他告诉她谈了那么多莎伦的事过去的事都涌上了心头。她说她理解。她带他去城里吃晚饭，他们在她的公寓里过了夜。
他再回小屋时，帕特丽亚也跟他一起来了，而且很快就每晚都留下过夜，第二天早上再开车去城里上班。
有一天夜里，他醒来感到在黑夜里帕特丽亚的身子紧紧地贴着他的身子。风在树林间轻柔地吹过，在黑暗里，他听到有人轻轻地敲着前窗。
挞，挞，挞。他闭上了眼睛。他想到了上过釉的陶罐等着烧窑。不烧出来，生釉就会渐渐风干成片剥落成灰。
挞，挞，挞。风刮着树枝，他心里说。就是风在刮着树枝。他躺在那儿醒了很长时间，听着这声响，听到不同的树枝在敲打着小屋的各个窗户。天快亮的时候，敲打声停止了，可是他却无法入眠。就是在那个早晨，他告诉帕特丽亚他要独自一人呆几天。
他等待着，彻夜不眠，过了两夜。然后到了第三天晚上，他又听到敲窗声了。
挞，挞，挞。司各起身下床。那天没有月亮，他在黑夜里几乎看不清她的脸。她悄无声息地从他身边滑过去进了屋子。当他关上门，温柔地把她拥入怀中，她只是站在那里双手垂在身边。“那好吧，”他说，把嘴唇贴到她冰冷的前额。这一次，泥土有股酸腐的味道。“没事。”.
她一直不说话。早晨，窑凉了下来。他用床单包裹了她的尸体，把她抱进树林深处。他最后一次埋葬了她。
下午晚些时候，当他把最后一点泥土从地板上清理干净时，他打开了窑门。那釉色，在烧制前泛着浅灰色，现在乌黑发亮。司各特小心翼翼地把陶罐装到给大卫和朱丽叶的箱子里。到他把电话线插回去并给帕特丽亚打了电话的时候，屋外微风乍起。
“我想你了，”
他告诉她，而她说她也想他。风把一根树枝刮到了司各特的窗户上。那个声音是混乱的，没有规则。挞，踢挞，踢踢挞，挞。司各特感到心中有个什么东西在解开，然后这种感觉就消失了。他深深地呼出一口气。“听着，帕特丽亚，”他说。“你开车过来吧。我不想一个人呆着了。”
**************** 英文
*****************
A Branch In the Wind
（Part II)
The mud drying in the
sheets the next morning was black, more like the soil near the
cabin than the red clay of her first grave. When he got up, Scott
noticed that she had been busy again while he was asleep. There was
raw glaze on the pots that sat again on the drying rack. One more
firing and they would be done.
He brought her to where he thought he had buried
her the last time, but he couldn’t find that grave. Everywhere,
the soil looked undisturbed and layered with last year’s leaves,
so he dug a new hole. Then he went back again to clean the sheets
and scrub the floor.
He started to wait again, though this time he
knew it might be a while before she returned. He gave the cabin a
thorough cleaning, hoping this would discourage David and Julie,
who would see that he finally had his life in order again, but his
apparent recovery
only convinced them that this was the time to work harder at
finding him
a companion. He accepted every other invitation and always exited
soon after the dishes were cleared. At home, he slept fitfully,
waking often to listen for the sound that did not come.
And then one night at dinner with David and
Julie, he met Patricia.
She was short, dark-haired, and not particularly
attractive, but she had made him laugh at dinner. With some
prodding from David and Julie, he had agreed to take Patricia to a
movie the next night. The night after that, he had dinner with her
at her apartment. They stayed up almost until dawn talking mostly
about themselves. She asked about Sharon, and he talked more about
her that night than he had since she had died. He drove home tired
and happy, and then all his happiness fell away when
he saw the cabin.
The grass and weeds near the house were lying
near the ground, trampled, as though by someone who had walked
around the house all night, tapping at the windows, asking to come
in.
He sat up the next two nights, waiting, but the
tap on the window didn't come. He unplugged the phone and slept
during the day.
Patricia drove to the cabin, and when he saw
her, he was ashamed for not answering the phone. He told her that
talking about Sharon so much had brought it all back to him. She
said she understood. She took him to dinner in town, and they spent
the night at her apartment.
When he went back to the cabin, Patricia went
with him and was soon staying every night, making the drive down to
work each morning.
One
night he woke up and felt Patricia’s body pressed against his in
the darkness. The wind breathed softly through the trees, and in
the darkness he heard something tap gently on the front window. Tip
tip tip.
He closed his eyes. He thought of the glazed
pots waiting to be fired. Unfinished,
the raw glaze would gradually chip and flake away into dust.
Tip tip tip.
A branch in the wind, he thought to himself.
It’s a branch in the wind.
For a
long time he lay awake, listening to the sound, hearing different
branches tapping at different windows around the cabin. Before dawn
it stopped, but he didn’t sleep. And that was the morning when he
told Patricia he needed time alone.
He waited, sleeping little, through the next two
nights. And then on the third night, he heard it again.
Tip tip tip.
Scott got up. It was a moonless night, and he
could barely see her in the darkness. She silently moved past him
into the room. When he closed the door and took her gently in his
arms, she just stood there with her arms at her sides.
“It’s all right,” he said. He pressed his
lips to her cold forehead. The mud this time smelled sour. “It’s
all right.”
She never said a word.
In the morning, the kiln was cooling. He wrapped
her body in the sheets and carried
her deep into the woods. For the last time, he buried her. Late in
the afternoon, when he had cleaned the last of the mud from the
floor, he opened the kiln. The glaze, which had been a light grey
before the firing, was black and lustrous. Scott packed the pots
carefully in a box for David and Julie.
A light wind had kicked up outside the cabin by
the time he plugged the phone
back in and called Patricia.
“I’ve missed you,” he told her, and she said
she missed him, too. The wind blew a branch against Scott’s front
window. The sound it made was chaotic, irregular. Tap.
Tip-a-tack-tack Tip. Tap. Scott felt something unwind inside
himself, and then the feeling was gone. He took a deep breath.
"Listen, Patricia," he said. "Why don't you drive on up. I don't
want to be alone any more."
加载中，请稍候......
加载中…
喜欢