Limbo

By Rhonda Lucas

My parents’ divorce was final. The house had been sold and the day had come to move. Thirty years of the family’s life was now crammed into the garage. The two-by-fours that ran the length of the walls were the only uniformity among the clutter of boxes, furniture, and memories. All was frozen in limbo between the life just passed and the one to come.

The sunlight pushing its way through the window splattered against a barricade of boxes. Like a fluorescent river, it streamed down the sides and flooded the cracks of the cold, cement floor. I stood in the doorway between the house and garage and wondered if the sunlight would ever again penetrate the memories packed inside those boxes. For an instant, the cardboard boxes appeared as tombstones, monuments to those memories.

The furnace in the corner, with its huge tubular fingers reaching out and disappearing into the wall, was unaware of the futility of trying to warm the empty house. The rhythmical whir of its effort hummed the elegy for the memories boxed in front of me. I closed the door, sat down on the step, and listened reverently. The feeling of loss transformed the bad memories into not-so-bad, the not-so-bad memories into good, and committed the good ones to my mind. Still, I felt as vacant as the house inside.

A workbench to my right stood disgustingly empty. Not so much as a nail had been left behind. I noticed, for the first time, what a dull, lifeless green it was. Lacking the disarray of tools that used to cover it, now it seemed as out of place as a bathtub in the kitchen. In fact, as I scanned the room, the only things that did seem to belong were the cobwebs in the corners.

A group of boxes had been set aside from the others and stacked in front of the workbench. Scrawled like graffiti on the walls of dilapidated buildings were the words “Salvation Army.” Those words caught my eyes as effectively as a flashing neon sign. They reeked of irony. “Salvation – was a bit too late for this family,” I mumbled sarcastically to myself.

The houseful of furniture that had once been so carefully chosen to complement and blend with the color schemes of the various rooms was indiscriminately crammed together against a single wall. The uncoordinated colors combined in turmoil and lashed out in the greyness of the room.

I suddenly became aware of the coldness of the garage, but I didn’t want to go back inside the house, so I made my way through the boxes to the couch. I cleared a space to lie down and curled up, covering myself with my jacket. I hoped my father would return soon with the truck so we could empty the garage and leave the cryptic silence of parting lives behind.

（选自Patterns: A Short Prose Reader, by Mary Lou Conlin, published by Houghton Mifflin, 1983.）

空 留

文/朗达·卢卡斯 译/吴初桐

父母的离异是无法更改了。房屋已变卖出去，搬家的日子一天天临近。三十载的生活岁月积淀如今让车库也难以消受。纸箱、家具横七竖八地放着，到处一片狼藉，记忆也纷乱不堪，理不出丝毫头绪。如果说还有哪儿见得整齐，恐怕就只有齐墙码放的那堆木材了。刚逝去的生活记忆与将到来的生活图景都在这里交汇、凝结、定格。

阳光渐次层第铺开，爬上窗台，因了纸箱的阻挡而曲折映照下来，似一条波光粼粼的小河，沿着箱缘流下来，涌进冰冷的水泥地板裂缝。我站在门口，这边通向房屋，那边通向车库，思索着阳光能否再次射进，穿透那些尘封于箱中的记忆。一瞬间，这些纸板箱彷佛一块块林立的墓碑，埋葬的是逝去的记忆。

墙角的火炉还在徒劳地为房屋供暖，它上面连着的一根根如巨型手指般的管道部分露在外面，部分隐没于墙中。它呼呼地燃烧着，发出有节奏的声响，为我眼前那些纸箱中盛放的记忆哀歌低吟。我关上房门，在台阶上坐下，一心虔诚地听它低唱。那些苦涩的回忆在失落感的渲染下变得不那么令人难受，并且越来越觉出有些甜美，这甜美的回忆浸润至我的心间。尽管如此，我的心一如这腾空的房屋，空荡荡的。

在我右边有张长条桌，上面空无一物，甚至连颗钉子都没落下，令人烦恶。我生平第一次注意到桌子泛出的绿色是那么黯淡无光，了无生气。桌子上原本常常乱七八糟地撂着些工具，如今都没有了，使得它就像厨房里谬置的浴缸一样格格不入。其实，当我扫视房间一周，觉得只有各个角落里张结的蜘蛛网才真正与房间搭调。

桌子前面堆着些分拣出来的纸箱。房屋均破旧不堪，墙上涂鸦似的写着“救世军”的字样。它们像闪烁的霓虹灯一样一下跳入我的视野，不禁透出讽刺的味道，“什么救世啊——这个家现在都没法救了”，我嘲讽地自言自语道。

这一屋子以往为了搭配调和不同房间色彩风格而精心挑选的家具，如今都一古脑地被任意扔在墙边，色彩斑杂，混乱不堪，在昏暗的房间中更显得突兀。

车库传来的一阵寒意忽而袭遍了我全身，可我并不想回屋。于是，我探身穿过纸箱堆，来到沙发前，清出块地方蜷缩着躺下，将夹克脱下来盖在身上。我期盼父亲很快就会同着卡车过来，然后我们就可以将车库清空，只留下逝去生活岁月的一地沉寂。

（选自《修辞格：短篇散文读本》，玛丽·卢·康林著，霍顿•米夫林出版公司，1983）

注：这是我参加第五届“《英语世界》杯”翻译大赛的译文，仅作留存，以纪念自己还在悄悄燃烧的文学翻译梦。