“Anyway, I came home and--” She was crying. “Excuse me.” I heard her put the phone down. Blow her nose. “Sorry,” she came back on, sounding hoarse¹. “When I came home, I saw my mother had had a stroke, the right side of her face was paralyzed and... I felt so guilty. She didn’t deserve that. “不管怎样，我回家了，并且……”她在哭，“对不起。”我听见她放低话筒，擦着鼻子。“对不起，”她又开始了，声音有点嘶哑，“我回到家里，发现妈妈中风了，她右半边脸麻痹……我觉得很内疚。她本来不会这样的。”

“Padar moved us to California shortly after.” A silence followed. “过后不久，爸爸就举家搬到加利福尼亚来了。”跟着一阵沉默。

“How are you and your father now?” I said. “你和你爸爸现在怎么样?”我说。

“We’ve always had our differences, we still do, but I’m grateful he came for me that day. I really believe he saved me.” She paused. “So, does what I told you bother you?” “我们一直有分歧，现在还有，但我很感激他那天去找我。我真的相信他救了我。”她停顿，“那么，我所说的让你为难吗?”

“A little,” I said. I owed her the truth on this one. I couldn’t lie to her and say that my pride, my iftikhar, wasn’t stung at all that she had been with a man, whereas I had never taken a woman to bed. It did bother me a bit, but I had pondered this quite a lot in the weeks before I asked Baba to go khastegari. And in the end the question that always came back to me was this: How could I, of all people, chastise² someone for their past? “有一点。”我说。这次我对她说了真话。我不能欺骗她，在听到她跟男人上床之后，说我的尊严毫发无伤是假的，毕竟我从来没把女人带上床。这让我非常为难，但在让爸爸替我求婚之前，我已经想了好几个星期。而每次到最后，总是回到同一个问题：我凭什么去指责别人的过去?

“Does it bother you enough to change your mind?” “你很为难，要改变主意吗?”

“No, Soraya. Not even close,” I said. “Nothing you said changes anything. I want us to marry.” “不，索拉雅。没那么严重。”我说，“你无论说什么，都不会改变任何事情。我想娶你。”

She broke into fresh tears. 她又哭起来。

I envied her. Her secret was out. Spoken. Dealt with. I opened my mouth and almost told her how I’d betrayed Hassan, lied, driven him out, and destroyed a forty-year relationship between Baba and Ali. But I didn’t. I suspected there were many ways in which Soraya Taheri was a better person than me. Courage was just one of them. 我妒忌她。她的秘密公开了，说出来了，得到解决了。我张开嘴巴，差点告诉她，我如何背叛了哈桑，对他说谎，把他赶出家门，还毁坏了爸爸和阿里四十年的情谊。但我没有。我怀疑，在很多方面，索拉雅?塔赫里都比我好得多。勇气只是其中之一。