撷自那片芳洲的清供
An Offering from His Sweet Homeland
探家归来，他左手提着旅行包，右手擎着盛了大半清水、插了一束嫩绿柳枝的玻璃瓶，在街上缓缓地走着。这时，轻风拂面，凉雨漫洒，叫人忧伤……
Returning from a visit to his hometown, he walked slowly alorig the streetina chilly drizzling rain, a travelling bag in his left hand, and in his right handa half-filled glass water bottle with a bunch of green tender willow twigs stuck in it. A light wind touching his face called for painful memories of the past...
当时，爸爸妈妈深翻土地去了，据说土地挖到五尺深，就能打下万斤粮。一尺深就是2，000斤啊!为了这“一本万利”的大事业，他们经常是十多天才回一趟家。.这样，照料幼小的他的活务，就落在了14岁小姐姐嫩弱的肩上……
Those were the days when Father and Mother went deep-ploughing in the fields. They were told that when the earth was ploughed five feet deep, the grain yield per mu would reach ten thousand jin. Simply digging one foot down would amount to two thousand jin of grain! Busy with such a "highly profitable" significant job, they could come back home only once in more than ten days. The task of taking care of him thus fell upon the limp shoul-ders of his 14-year-old sister.
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他肚子像着了火，热辣辣地难受，在炕上打滚哭闹：“我饿，我睡不着呀!”
His stomach was aching as if catching fire; he rolled back and forth on the kang crying out loud, "I am so hungry. I can't sleep!"
躺在他身边的姐姐连忙坐起来，伸手将他托到自己腿上，小声地唱着：
His sister who lay beside him sat up at once. Resting him on her legs, shesang to him soffly:
小弟弟，好宝宝，小弟弟，快睡觉。
Little Brother, good baby,Little Brother, sleep well.
天大亮了。没有苇席的土炕上，空落落地躺着他一个人，他急得大哭大喊：“妈，姐姐--”
It was broad daylight when he woke up to find himself alone on the matlesskang. He screamed with fear, "Mum! Sister-"
“小弟，我在这儿哩，快来呀!”他循着姐姐的声音，赤脚光腚跑出屋门，只见院子中央的那棵大柳树下，支着一根顶门棍，姐姐正踮起脚跟站在木棍的顶端上，左手抓着一根树权权，右手向一簇挂满了柳芽的柳枝伸去。由于个子矮，怎么也够不着。她忽然猛地向上一跃，扑向那柳枝。倏然间，就跌倒在地上了，手里却还紧紧攥着那簇柳枝。
"Little Brother, I am here. Come over here quickly!"Following the voice of his sister, he ran out of the room, his feet and bottom all bare. It was under the big willow tree in the middle of the courtyard that he found his sister standing on her toes on the top end of a door-propping stick being leaned against the tree. Her left hand seized hold of a branch while her right hand was stretching for a cluster of twigs prospering with buds. But she was too small to reach them. Then she suddenly jumped up in an attempt to get at them. Before he realized what had happened, she fell on the ground, but with a firm grip of those twigs in her hand.
“姐--”，他连滚带爬地扑过去。姐姐躺在地上，慢慢睁开了眼睛，朝他笑了。她的右眼角上方在滴血。他跑到墙根寻来极细极细的土末末，撤在姐姐的伤口上止住了血。姐姐两手撑地坐起来，把柳枝上的嫩芽一个个小心摘下，放进一个盛着清水的瓦盆里，然后两只手就在盆里不停地揉捏，不一会儿，清凌凌的水就给染上了浓重的翡翠色。姐姐又换了一盆清水，继续揉捏着，直到盆里的水不再变绿，才将柳芽捞出来，捏成一个拳头大小的团子，递到他的手里。
"Sister-"he threw himself upon her. Slowly she opened her eyes and smiledat him, when he spotted a bleeding cut above her right eye-corner. At the foot of the wall, he swiffly collected a pinch of very fine dust and sprinkled it on the cut. It stopped bleeding. Sister propped herself up with both hands. She carefully stripped all the buds off the willow twigs and put them in an earthen pot filled with clean water. Then she kept squashing and rubbing them between her fingers; soon the water was dyed a thick emerald green. She replaced it with another pot of clean water and repeated her action untilthe water no longer changed its color. Scooping up the buds and kneading them into a ball no bigger than a fist, she handed it to him.
“哈哈哈，好小弟，快吃呀!吃了肚子就不唱大戏了。”
"Aha, my good brother. Now eat it and your stomach will not make any noise again."
他一把夺过来就吃，淡淡的清苦味中，竟有一股甜丝丝的味道。
He grabbed it and gobbled it up. It even tasted somewhat sweet mingled with a slight bitterness.
深挖土地的鏖战还在进行，姐姐就病了。开始只说是脖子疼，后来脖子上暴起了又粗又红的筋，那破了的地方还流出黄粘的汁液。
The deep-ploughing battle was still on when Sister fellill. Initially, she felt apain on her neck; then reddish thick veins popped out along her neck, with ulcers oozing thick yellow mucus.
那天一早，一辆古老的独轮车推着姐姐和他走上了村头那条弯弯曲曲的蛋黄色小路。中午时分，他们找到了那家全县最大的医院，谁知医生们也都参加中心任务去了，值班的小阿姨根本没有见过姐姐得的这种病。独轮车又顺着来时的路返回了。
That morning saw an ancient one-wheeled pushcart, with both his sister andhim sitting on it, rolling along the yolk-yellow winding path stretching awayfrom the end of the village. At noon time, they arrived at the biggest hospitalin town. Who would have thought that all the doctors were away to partici-pate in the "central tasks" of the time! The young nurse on duty had never seen such a case before. The cart rolled back following the same route it came in the moming.
以后，就请乡下的土医生给姐姐治病。他们不用任何麻醉药拿一把明晃晃的刀子在姐姐脖子上割治。姐姐不哭，实在忍不住才哼一声。她用手紧紧抓着他的胳臂，指甲抠进他的肉里。土医生们吃喝一顿走了，却没有把姐姐的病带走。
Then some local medical men were called in. They performed an operation on Sister's neck with a dazzling knife without using anesthetic. She refused to cry, only uttering a groan at the most unbearable moment, her hand clutch-ing his arm, her nails digging into his flesh. The men left after a big dinner, but they did not take away Sister's disease.
他守在姐姐身边，给她端开水，倒便盆。她的病越来越重，身子越来越虚，一小碗开水分几次喝，还累得直喘气。想睡，脖子疼得不能合眼。
He stayed close by to look after her, bringing in drinking water and carrying away the bedpan. Nevertheless, she was getting weaker and weaker, so feeble that she even had to stop several times to gasp for breath when drinking a small bowl of water. She wanted to sleep, but the pain in the neck was too gnawing to let her close her eyes.
那天，她示意他走过去，摸住了他的手。
One day, she motioned him to come over and held his hand"
“人死了……还吃……吃饭吗?”昏昏迷迷中，姐姐像是问他，又像是问自己。
When...people die, do...they...eat?" she asked half-consciously,it was hardto tell whether she was asking him or herself.
他不点头，也不摇头，四顾茫然地瞪大了眼睛。
He did not nod, nor did he shake his head, his eyes wide opert staring aroundvacantly.
她忽然长了精神，眼睛也亮起来了，脸上有了红晕，说话也不那么气喘了。他想，姐姐这下可好了。
Suddenly, her spirit seemed to come back to her: her eyes shone, her cheeks flushed, and she no longer panted when she spoke. She's getting better now,he thought.
“……吃啥呢……”
"...what to eat..."
他依旧不点头，不摇头，只是昕到说“吃”，忙说：“吃柳芽，我给你摘好多柳芽。”
He was still motionless, but upon hearing the word "eat," he answered, "Hawillow buds. I'll pick up a lot of willow buds for you.
她的眉舒展了，带着一丝不易觉察的笑，慢慢地松开了手，眼睛虽然还看着她，却没有了往日的晶亮的闪耀。
"Her brows smoothed, and, with a smile that could hardly be deteaed, sheslowly loosened her hand. Her eyes still watched him, but lacked their usualluster.
她走了，带着小弟无意中的一句安慰，心满意足地永远地去，他那时虽然年岁还小，却没有忘记自己许诺过的，在姐姐唇边放了几枚枯黄的柳叶。
She was gone; she left forever satisfied with a word of comfort uttered unin-tentionally by her little brother. Though he was young at the time, he did not forget his promise. He put afew withered willow leaves on Sister's lips.
过了些时日，他提得动水桶，也扛得动铁锨了，就在姐姐的坟头上种了棵小柳树，三天两头浇水，施肥，没事就围着它看。不久，他上学了。
As time advanced, he was old enough to be able to carry a bucket and to usea shovel. He planted a small willow tree on his sister's grave and came al-most every day to see it and to take care of it. Before long, he went to school.
望着瓶里的那束柳枝，他心里默默地诉说着：
Gazing upon the willow twigs in the bottle, he poured out his heart silently to his sister:
“姐姐：你百般宝爱的小弟，已经是人民解放军的一名团级指挥员了。这次回乡省亲，愉悦慈颜，又到你的坟上去了。这束柳枝就是从那树上采来的，它将作为你的照片，你的雕像，供置于我的案头。
“姐姐：双亲虽然年逾古稀，体格尚好。娘对我说：可怜你姐她没有熬过来。这会儿吃啥?别说是啥柳芽子，黄灿灿的玉米面都喂鸡了。’……”
"My dear sister, your dearly beloved little brother is now a P.L.A. regimen-tal officer. I went to your grave again when I returned to our village recentlyto see our parents. This is a bunch of branches Ipicked up from that willowtree. I'II take it as your picture, as your statue, and place it as an offering toyou on my desk. "Dear Sister, our parents are now over 70, in fairly good health for their age. Mother said to me, 'It's a pity that your sister did not drag through thosehard years. See what we eat today? We even feed the chickens with goldencorn flour, not to mention willow buds..."
前面就是他的住所了。他一边回思着那段回弯曲折的历史，一边极小心地用脚试探着凸凹不平的路面，他想起曲折的路心里就酸楚得难以自抑，虽然他并不是不知道，世界总是在曲折中前进的…
Ahead of him was his house. As his feet carefully probed the uneven srufaceof the road, his mind kept pondering on that part of history, a tortuous paththey had gone by. He could not help feeling grief, even with an awarenessthat history never foUowed a straight forward course...
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