"There is no act more wretched than stealing, Amir,?Baba said. "A man who takes what's not his to take, be it a life or a loaf of "naan"... I spit on such a man. And if I ever cross paths with him, God help him. Do you understand?"

"没有比盗窃更十恶不赦的事情了，阿米尔。"爸爸说，"要是有人拿走不属于他的东西，一条性命也好，一块馕饼也好，我都会唾弃他。要是我在街上碰到他，真主也救不了。你明白吗?"

I found the idea of Baba clobbering¹ a thief both exhilarating and terribly frightening. "Yes, Baba."

我发现爸爸痛击窃贼这个主意让我既兴奋又害怕。"我明白，爸爸。"

"If there's a God out there, then I would hope he has more important things to attend to than my drinking scotch³ or eating pork. Now, hop² down. All this talk about sin has made me thirsty again."

"如果说有什么真主的话，我希望他有其他更重要的事情做，而不是来关注我喝烈酒。好了，下去吧。说了这么多关于罪行的看法，我又渴了。"

I watched him fill his glass at the bar and wondered how much time would pass before we talked again the way we just had. Because the truth of it was, I always felt like Baba hated me a little. And why not? After all, I "had" killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn't I? The least I could have done was to have had the decency⁴ to have turned out a little more like him. But I hadn't turned out like him. Not at all.

我看着他在吧台斟满酒杯，心里想着，要再过多久我们才能再次这样交谈呢?因为真相摆在那儿，我总觉得爸爸多少有点恨我。为什么不呢?毕竟，是我杀了他深爱着的妻子，他美丽的公主，不是吗?我所能做的，至少应该是试图变得更像他一点。但我没有变得像他，一点都没有。

IN SCHOOL, we used to play a game called "Sherjangi", or "Battle of the Poems."The Farsi teacher moderated it and it went something like this: You recited a verse from a poem and your opponent had sixty seconds to reply with a verse that began with the same letter that ended yours. Everyone in my class wanted me on their team, because by the time I was eleven, I could recite dozens of verses from Khayyam, Hãfez, or Rumi's famous "Masnawi". One time, I took on the whole class and won. I told Baba about it later that night, but he just nodded, muttered, "Good."

上学时，我们常常玩一种连句的游戏，也就是诗歌比赛。教授法尔西语课的老师从中主持，规则大抵是这样的：你背一句诗，你的对手有六秒钟的时间可以回答，但必须是以你背出来那句诗最后一个字开头的诗句。班里人人都想跟我一组，因为那时十一岁的我已经能背出迦亚谟（OmarKhayya＇m1048～1122，古代波斯诗人，代表作为《鲁拜集》RubaiyatofOmarKhayya＇m）、哈菲兹（ShamseddinMohammadHa~fez约1320～约1388，古代波斯诗人）的数十篇诗歌，也能诵得鲁米著名的《玛斯纳维》（MowlanaJalaluddinRumi1207～1273，古代波斯诗人,《玛斯纳维》Masnavi是他的故事诗）。有一次，我代表全班出战，并且旗开得胜。那天夜里我告诉爸爸，他只是点点头，咕哝了一声:"不错。"

That was how I escaped my father's aloofness⁵, in my dead mother's books. That and Hassan, of course. I read everything, Rumi, Hãfez, Saadi, Victor Hugo, Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Ian Fleming. When I had finished my mother's books--not the boring history ones, I was never much into those, but the novels, the epics--I started spending my allowance on books. I bought one a week from the bookstore near Cinema Park, and stored them in cardboard boxes when I ran out of shelf room.

为了逃避爸爸的冷漠，我埋首翻阅故去的母亲留下的书本。此外，当然还有哈桑。我什么都读，鲁米，哈菲兹，萨迪（Moslehal?DinSaadiShirazi约1210～约1290，古代波斯诗人），维克多·雨果，儒勒·凡尔纳，马克·吐温，伊恩·弗莱明（IanFleming1908～1964，英国小说家，撰写了007系列小说）。读完妈妈的遗藏--我从来不碰那些枯燥的历史书，只看小说和诗歌--之后，我开始用零花钱买书。我每周到电影院公园边上的书店买一本书，直到书架放不下了，就放在硬纸箱里面。