EVERY WINTER, districts in Kabul held a kite-fighting tournament. And if you were a boy living in Kabul, the day of the tournament was undeniably the highlight of the cold season. I never slept the night before the tournament. I'd roll from side to side, make shadow animals on the wall, even sit on the balcony in the dark, a blanket wrapped around me. I felt like a soldier trying to sleep in the trenches¹ the night before a major battle. And that wasn't so far off. In Kabul, fighting kites was a little like going to war.

每年冬天，喀布尔的各个城区会举办风筝比赛。如果你是生活在喀布尔的孩子，那么比赛那天，无疑是这个寒冷季节最令人振奋的时候。每次比赛前夜我都会失眠，我会辗转反侧，双手借着灯光在墙上投射出动物形状的影子，甚至裹条毛毯，在一片漆黑中到阳台上呆坐。我像是个士兵，大战来临前夜试图在战壕上入睡。其实也差不多，在喀布尔，斗风筝跟上战场有点相像。

As with any war, you had to ready yourself for battle. For a while, Hassan and I used to build our own kites. We saved our weekly allowances in the fall, dropped the money in a little porcelain² horse Raba had brought one time from Herat. When the winds of winter began to blow and snow fell in chunks³, we undid⁴ the snap under the horse's belly⁵. We went to the bazaar⁶ and bought bamboo, glue, string, and paper. We spent hours every day shaving bamboo for the center and cross spars, cutting the thin tissue paper which made for easy dipping and recovery And then, of course, we had to make our own string, or tar⁷. If the kite was the gun, then "tar", the glass-coated cutting line, was the bullet in the chamber⁸. We'd go out in the yard and feed up to five hundred feet of string through a mixture of ground glass and glue. We'd then hang the line between the trees, leave it to dry. The next day, we'd wind the battle-ready line around a wooden spool⁹. By the time the snow melted and the rains of spring swept in, every boy in Kabul bore telltale horizontal gashes¹⁰ on his fingers from a whole winter of fighting kites. I remember how my classmates and I used to huddle¹¹, compare our battle scars on the first day of school. The cuts stung and didn't heal for a couple of weeks, but I didn't mind. They were reminders¹² of a beloved season that had once again passed too quickly. Then the class captain would blow his whistle and we'd march in a single file to our classrooms, longing¹³ for winter already, greeted instead by the specter of yet another long school year.

跟任何战争一样，你必须为自己做好准备。有那么一阵，哈桑和我经常自己制作风筝。秋天开始，我们每周省下一点零用钱，投进爸爸从赫拉特买来的瓷马里面。到得寒风呼啸、雪花飞舞的时候，我们揭开瓷马腹部的盖子，到市场去买竹子、胶水、线、纸。我们每天花几个小时，打造风筝的骨架，剪裁那些让风筝更加灵动的薄棉纸。再接着，我们当然还得自己准备线。如果风筝是枪，那么缀有玻璃屑的线就是膛里的子弹。我们得走到院子里，把五百英尺线放进一桶混有玻璃屑的胶水里面，接着把线挂在树上，让它风干。第二天，我们会把这为战斗准备的线缠绕在一个木轴上。等到雪花融化、春雨绵绵，喀布尔每个孩子的手指上，都会有一些横切的伤口，那是斗了一个冬天的风筝留下的证据。我记得开学那天，同学们挤在一起，比较各自的战伤。伤口很痛，几个星期都好不了，但我毫不在意。我们的冬天总是那样匆匆来了又走，伤疤提醒我们怀念那个最令人喜爱的季节。接着班长会吹口哨，我们排成一列，走进教室，心中已然渴望冬季的到来，但招呼我们的是又一个幽灵般的漫长学年。

But it quickly became apparent that Hassan and I were better kite fighters than kite makers¹⁵. Some flaw or other in our design always spelled its doom¹⁶. So Baba started taking us to Saifo's to buy our kites. Saifo was a nearly blind old man who was a "moochi" by profession--a shoe repairman. But he was also the city's most famous kite maker¹⁴, working out of a tiny hovel on Jadeh Maywand, the crowded street south of the muddy banks of the Kabul River. I remember you had to crouch¹⁷ to enter the prison cell-sized store, and then had to lift a trapdoor to creep down a set of wooden steps to the dank basement where Saifo stored his coveted¹⁸ kites. Baba would buy us each three identical kites and spools¹⁹ of glass string. If I changed my mind and asked for a bigger and fancier kite, Baba would buy it for me--but then he'd buy it for Hassan too. Sometimes I wished he wouldn't do that. Wished he'd let me be the favorite.

但是没隔多久，事实证明我和哈桑造风筝实在不行，斗风筝倒是好手。我们设计的风筝总是有这样或那样的问题，难逃悲惨的命运。所以爸爸开始带我们去塞弗的店里买风筝。塞弗是个近乎瞎眼的老人，以替人修鞋为生，但他也是全城最著名的造风筝高手。他的小作坊在拥挤的雅德梅湾大道上，也就是喀布尔河泥泞的南岸那边。爸爸会给我们每人买三个同样的风筝和几轴玻璃线。如果我改变主意，求爸爸给我买个更大、更好看的风筝，爸爸会买给我，可是也会给哈桑买一个。有时我希望他别给哈桑买，希望他最疼我。

The kite-fighting tournament was an old winter tradition in Afghanistan. It started early in the morning on the day of the contest and didn't end until only the winning kite flew in the sky--I remember one year the tournament outlasted²⁰ daylight. People gathered on sidewalks and roofs to cheer for their kids. The streets filled with kite fighters, jerking and tugging²¹ on their lines, squinting²² up to the sky, trying to gain position to cut the opponent's line. Every kite fighter had an assistant--in my case, Hassan--who held the spool and fed the line.

斗风筝比赛是阿富汗古老的冬日风俗。比赛一大清早就开始，直到仅剩一只胜出的风筝在空中翱翔才告结束。我记得有一年，比赛到了天黑还没终结。人们在人行道上，在屋顶上，为自家的孩子鼓劲加油。街道上满是风筝斗士，手里的线时而猛拉、时而速放，目不转睛地仰望天空，力图占个好位置，以便割断敌手的风筝线。每个斗风筝的人都有助手，帮忙收放风筝线。我的助手是哈桑。