现代大学英语精读第二版（第五册）学习笔记（原文及全文翻译）——2 - Two Kinds（两类人）

Unit 2 - Two Kinds

Two Kinds

Amy Tan

My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get good retirement. You could buy a house with almost no money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous.

"Of course you can be a prodigy, too," my mother told me when I was nine. "You can be best anything. What does Auntie Lindo know? Her daughter, she is only best tricky."

America was where all my mother's hopes lay. She had come to San Francisco in 1949 after losing everything in China: her mother and father, her family home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls. But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better.

We didn't immediately pick the right kind of prodigy. At first my mother thought I could be a Chinese Shirley Temple. We'd watch Shirley's old movies on TV as though they were training films. My mother would poke my arm and say, "Ni kan."—You watch. And I would see Shirley tapping her feet, or singing a sailor song, or pursing her lips into a very round O while saying "Oh, my goodness."

"Ni kan," said my mother as Shirley's eyes flooded with tears. "You already know how. Don't need talent for crying!"

Soon after my mother got this idea about Shirley Temple, she took me to a beauty training school in the Mission District and put me in the hands of a student who could barely hold the scissors without shaking. Instead of getting big fat curls, I emerged with an uneven mass of crinkly black fuzz. My mother dragged me off to the bathroom and tried to wet down my hair.

"You look like a Negro Chinese," she lamented, as if I had done this on purpose.

The instructor of the beauty training school had to lop off these soggy clumps to make my hair even again. "Peter Pan is very popular these days" the instructor assured my mother. I now had hair the length of a boy's, with straight-across bangs that hung at a slant two inches above my eyebrows. I liked the haircut, and it made me actually look forward to my future fame.

In fact, in the beginning I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so. I pictured this prodigy part of me as many different images, trying each one on for size. I was a dainty ballerina girl standing by the curtain, waiting to hear the right music that would send me floating on my tiptoes. I was like the Christ child lifted out of the straw manger, crying with holy indignity. I was Cinderella stepping from her pumpkin carriage with sparkly cartoon music filling the air.

In all of my imaginings, I was filled with a sense that I would soon become perfect. My mother and father would adore me. I would be beyond reproach. I would never feel the need to sulk, for anything. But sometimes the prodigy in me became impatient. "If you don't hurry up and get me out of here, I'm disappearing for good," it warned. "And then you'll always be nothing."

Every night after dinner my mother and I would sit at the Formica topped kitchen table. She would present new tests, taking her examples from stories of amazing children she had read in Ripley's Believe It or Not or Good Housekeeping, Reader's digest, and a dozen other magazines she kept in a pile in our bathroom. My mother got these magazines from people whose houses she cleaned. And since she cleaned many houses each week, we had a great assortment. She would look through them all, searching for stories about remarkable children.

The first night she brought out a story about a three-year-old boy who knew the capitals of all the states and even most of the European countries. A teacher was quoted as saying the little boy could also pronounce the names of the foreign cities correctly.

"What's the capital of Finland?" my mother asked me, looking at the story.

All I knew was the capital of California, because Sacramento was the name of the street we lived on in Chinatown. "Nairobi!" I quessed, saying the most foreign word I could think of. She checked to see if that was possibly one way to pronounce "Helsinki" before showing me the answer.

The tests got harder—multiplying numbers in my head, finding the queen of hearts in a deck of cards, trying to stand on my head without using my hands, predicting the daily temperatures in Los Angeles, New York, and London.

One night I had to look at a page from the Bible for three minutes and then report everything I could remember. "Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance and…that's all I remember, Ma," I said.

And after seeing my mother's disappointed face once again, something inside me began to die. I hated the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations. Before going to bed that night I looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink and when I saw only my face staring back—and that it would always be this ordinary face—I began to cry. Such a sad, ugly girl! I made high-pitched noises like a crazed animal, trying to scratch out the face in the mirror.

And then I saw what seemed to be the prodigy side of me—because I had never seen that face before. I looked at my reflection, blinking so I could see more clearly. The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful. This girl and I were the same. I had new thoughts, willful thoughts or rather thoughts filled with lots of won'ts. I won't let her change me, I promised myself. I won't be what I'm not.

So now on nights when my mother presented her tests, I performed listlessly, my head propped on one arm. I pretended to be bored. And I was. I got so bored that I started counting the bellows of the foghorns out on the bay while my mother drilled me in other areas. The sound was comforting and reminded me of the cow jumping over the moon. And the next day, I played a game with myself, seeing if my mother would give up on me before eight bellows. After a while I usually counted ony one maybe two bellow at most. At last she was beginning to give up hope.

Two or three months had gone by without any mention of my being a prodigy again. And then one day my mother was watching The Ed Sullivan Show on TV. The TV was old and the sound kept shorting out. Every time my mother got halfway up from the sofa to adjust the set, the sound would come back on and Ed would be talking. As soon as she sat down, Ed would go silent again. She got up, the TV broke into loud piano music. She sat down. Silence. Up and down, back and forth, quiet and loud. It was like a stiff embraceless dance between her and the TV set. Finally she stood by the set with her hand on the sound dial.

She seemed entranced by the music, a little frenzied piano piece with this mesmerizing quality, sort of quick passages and then teasing lilting ones before it returned to the quick playful parts.

"Ni kan," my mother said, calling me over with hurried hand gestures. "Look here."

I could see why my mother was fascinated by the music. It was being pounded out by a little Chinese girl, about nine years old, with a Peter Pan haircut. The girl had the sauciness of a Shirley Temple. She was proudly modest like a proper Chinese Child. And she also did this fancy sweep of a curtsy, so that the fluffy skirt of her white dress cascaded slowly to the floor like petals of a large carnation.

In spite of these warning signs, I wasn't worried. Our family had no piano and we couldn't afford to buy one, let alone reams of sheet music and piano lessons. So I could be generous in my comments when my mother badmouthed the little girl on TV.

"Play note right, but doesn't sound good!" my mother complained "No singing sound."

"What are you picking on her for?" I said carelessly. "She's pretty good. Maybe she's not the best, but she's trying hard." I knew almost immediately that I would be sorry I had said that.

"Just like you," she said. "Not the best. Because you not trying." She gave a little huff as she let go of the sound dial and sat down on the sofa.

The little Chinese girl sat down also, to play an encore of "Anitra's Tanz," by Grieg. I remember the song, because later on I had to learn how to play it.

Three days after watching the Ed Sullivan Show my mother told me what my schedule would be for piano lessons and piano practice. She had talked to Mr. Chong, who lived on the first floor of our apartment building. Mr.Chong was a retired piano teacher, and my mother had traded housecleaning services for weekly lessons and a piano for me to practice on every day, two hours a day, from four until six.

When my mother told me this, I felt as though I had been sent to hell. I wished and then kicked my foot a little when I couldn’t stand it anymore.

"Why don't you like me the way I am? I'm not a genius! I can't play the piano. And even if I could, I wouldn't go on TV if you paid me a million dollars!" I cried.

My mother slapped me. "Who ask you be genius." she shouted. "Only ask you be your best. For you sake. You think I want you be genius? Hnnh! What for! Who ask you!"

"So ungrateful," I heard her mutter in Chinese. "If she had as much talent as she had temper, she would be famous now."

Mr. Chong, whom I secretly nicknamed Old Chong, was very strange, always tapping his fingers to the silent music of an invisible orchestra. He looked ancient in my eyes. He had lost most of the hair on top of his head and he wore thick glasses and had eyes that always looked tired and sleepy. But he must have been younger than I thought, since he lived with his mother and was not yet married.

I soon found out why Old Chong had retired from teaching piano. He was deaf. "Like Beethoven!" he shouted to me "We're both listening only in our head!" And he would start to conduct his frantic silent sonatas.

Our lessons went like this. He would open the book and point to different things, explaining their purpose: "Key! Treble! Bass! No sharps or flats! So this is C major! Listen now and play after me!"

And then he would play the C scale a few times, a simple cord, and then, as if inspired by an old, unreachable itch, he gradually added more notes and running trills and a pounding bass until the music was really something quite grand.

I would play after him, the simple scale, the simple chord, and then I just played some nonsense that sounded like a cat running up and down on top of garbage cans. Old Chong smiled and applauded and then say "Very good! But now you must learn to keep time!"

So that's how I discovered that Old Chong's eyes were too slow to keep up with the wrong notes I was playing. He went through the motions in half-time. To help me keep rhythm, he stood behind me, pushing down on my right shoulder for every beat. He balanced pennies on top of my wrists so that I would keep them still as I slowly played scales and arpeggios. He had me curve my hand around an apple and keep that shape when playing chords. He marched stiffly to show me how to make each finger dance up and down, staccato like an obedient little soldier.

He taught me all these things, and that was how I also learned I could be lazy and get away with mistakes, lots of mistakes. If I hit the wrong notes because I hadn't practiced enough, I never corrected myself, I just kept playing in rhythm. And Old Chong kept conducting his own private reverie.

So maybe I never really gave myself a fair chance. I did pick up the basics pretty quickly, and I might have become a good pianist at that young age. But I was so determined not to try, not to be anybody different that I learned to play only the most ear-splitting preludes, the most discordant hymns.

Over the next year, I practiced like this, dutifully in my own way. And then one day I heard my mother and her friend Lindo Jong both talking in a loud bragging tone of voice so others could hear. It was after church, and I was leaning against a brick wall wearing a dress with stiff white petticoats. Auntie Lindo's daughter, Waverly, who was about my age, was standing farther down the wall about five feet away. We had grown up together and shared all the closeness of two sisters squabbling over crayons and dolls. In other words, for the most part, we hated each other. I thought she was snotty. Waverly Jong had gained a certain amount of fame as "Chinatown's Littlest Chinese Chess Champion."

"She brings home too many trophies." lamented Auntie Lindo that Sunday. "All day she plays chess. All day I have no time to do nothing but dust off her winnings." She threw a scolding look at Waverly, who pretended not to see her.

"You lucky you don't have this problem," said Auntie Lindo with a sigh to my mother.

And my mother squared her shoulders and bragged "our problem worse than yours. If we ask Jing-mei wash dish, she hear nothing but music. It's like you can't stop this natural talent."

And right then, I was determined to put a stop to her foolish pride.

A few weeks later，Old Chong and my mother conspired to have me play in a talent show which would be held in the church hall. By then, my parents had saved up enough to buy me a secondhand piano, a black Wurlitzer spinet with a scarred bench. It was the showpiece of our living room.

For the talent show, I was to play a piece called "Pleading Child" from Schumann's Scenes From Childhood. It was a simple, moody piece that sounded more difficult than it was. I was supposed to memorize the whole thing, playing the repeat parts twice to make the piece sound longer. But I dawdled over it, playing a few bars and then cheating, looking up to see what notes followed. I never really listed to what I was playing. I daydreamed about being somewhere else, about being someone else.

The part I liked to practice best was the fancy curtsy: right foot out, touch the rose on the carpet with a pointed foot, sweep to the side, left leg bends, look up, and smile.

My parents invited all the couples from their the Joy Luck Club to witness my debut. Auntie Lindo and Uncle Tin were there. Waverly and her two older brothers had also come. The first two rows were filled with children both younger and older than I was. The littlest ones got to go first. They recited simple nursery rhymes, squawked out tunes on miniature violins, twirled Hula Hoops, pranced in pink ballet tutus, and when they bowed or curtsied, the audience would sigh in unison, "Awww," and then clap enthusiastically.

When my turn came, I was very confident. I remember my childish excitement. It was as if I knew, without a doubt, that the prodigy side of me really did exist. I had no fear whatsoever, no nervousness. I remember thinking to myself, This is it! This is it! I looked out over the audience, at my mother's blank face, my father's yawn, Auntie Lindo's stiff-lipped smile, Waverly's sulky expression. I had on a white dress layered with sheets of lace, and a pink bow in my Peter Pan haircut. As I sat down I envisioned people jumping to their feet and Ed Sullivan rushing up to introduce me to everyone on TV.

And I started to play. It was so beautiful. I was so caught up in how lovely I looked that at first I didn't worried about how I would sound. So it was a surprise when I hit the first wrong note and I realized something didn't sound quiet right. And then I hit another and another followed that. A chill started at the top of my head and began to trickle down. Yet I couldn't stop playing, as though my hands were bewitched. I kept thinking my fingers would adjust themselves back, like a train switching to the right track. I played this strange jumble through two repeats, the sour notes staying with me all the way to the end.

When I stood up, I discovered my legs were shaking. Maybe I had just been nervous and the audience, like Old Chong, had seen me go through the right motions and had not heard anything wrong at all. I swept my right foot out, went down on my knee, looked up and smiled. The room was quiet, except for Old Chong, who was beaming and shouting, "Bravo! Bravo! Well done!" By then I saw my mother's face, her stricken face. The audience clapped weakly, and I walked back to my chair, with my whole face quivering as I tried not to cry, I heard a little boy whisper loudly to his mother. "That was awful," and the mother whispered "Well, she certainly tried."

And now I realized how many people were in the audience, the whole world it seemed. I was aware of eyes burning into my back. I felt the shame of my mother and father as they sat stiffly throughout the rest of the show.

We could have escaped during intermission. Pride and some strange sense of honor must have anchored my parents to their chairs. And so we watched it all: the eighteen-year-old boy with a fake moustache who did a magic show and juggled flaming hoops while riding a unicycle. The breasted girl with white makeup who sang from Madame Butterfly and got an honorable mention. And the eleven-year-old boy who won first prize playing a tricky violin song that sounded like a busy bee.

After the show, the Hsus, the Jongs, and the St. Clairs from the Joy Luck Club came up to my mother and father.

"Lots of talented kids," Auntie Lindo said vaguely, smiling broadly.

"That was something else," said my father, and I wondered if he was referring to me in a humorous way, or whether he even remembered what I had done.

Waverly looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. "You aren't a genius like me," she said matter-of-factly. And if I hadn't felt so bad, I would have pulled her braids and punched her stomach.

But my mother's expression was what devastated me: a quiet, blank look that said she had lost everything. I felt the same way, and it seemed as if everybody were now coming up, like gawkers at the scene of an accident, to see what parts were actually missing. When we got on the bus to go home, my father was humming the busy-bee tune and my mother was silent. I kept thinking she wanted to wait until we got home before shouting at me. But when my father unlocked the door to our apartment, my mother walked in and went straight to the back, into the bedroom. No accusations, No blame. And in a way, I felt disappointed. I had been waiting for her to start shouting, so I could shout back and cry and blame her for all my misery.

I assumed my talent-show fiasco meant I never had to play the piano again. But two days later, after school, my mother came out of the kitchen and saw me watching TV.

"Four clock," she reminded me, as if it were any other day. I was stunned, as though she were asking me to go through the talent-show torture again. I wedged myself more tightly in front of the TV.

"Turn off TV," she called from the kitchen five minutes later.

I didn't budge. And then I decided. I didn't have to do what my mother said anymore. I wasn't her slave. This wasn't China. I had listened to her before and look what happened. She was the stupid one.

She came out from the kitchen and stood in the arched entryway of the living room. "Four clock," she said once again, louder.

"I'm not going to play anymore," I said nonchalantly. "Why should I? I'm not a genius."

She walked over and stood in front of the TV. I saw that her chest was heaving up and down in an angry way.

"No!" I said, and I now felt stronger, as if my true self had finally emerged. So this was what had been inside me all along.

"No! I won't!" I screamed.

She yanked me by the arm, pulled me off the floor, snapped off the TV. She was frighteningly strong, half pulling, half carrying me towards the piano as I kicked the throw rugs under my feet. She lifted me up and onto the hard bench. I was sobbing by now, looking at her bitterly. Her chest was heaving even more and her mouth was open, smiling crazily as if she were pleased I was crying.

"You want me to be someone that I'm not!" I sobbed. "I'll never be the kind of daughter you want me to be!"

"Only two kinds of daughters," she shouted in Chinese. "Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter!"

"Then I wish I wasn't your daughter, I wish you weren't my mother," I shouted. As I said these things I got scared. It felt like worms and toads and slimy things crawling out of my chest, but it also felt good, as if this awful side of me had surfaced, at last.

"Too late to change this," said my mother shrilly.

And I could sense her anger rising to its breaking point. I wanted to see it spill over. And that's when I remembered the babies she had lost in China, the ones we never talked about. "Then I wish I'd never been born!" I shouted. "I wish I were dead! Like them."

It was as if I had said magic words. Alakazam!-and her face went blank, her mouth closed, her arms went slack, and she backed out of the room, stunned, as if she were blowing away like a small brown leaf, thin, brittle, lifeless.

It was not the only disappointment my mother felt in me. In the years that followed, I failed her many times, each time asserting my own will, my right to fall short of expectations. I didn't get straight As. I didn't become class president. I didn't get into Stanford. I dropped out of college.

For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be, I could only be me.

And for all those years, we never talked about the disaster at the recital or my terrible accusations afterward at the piano bench. All that remained unchecked, like a betrayal that was now unspeakable. So I never found a way to ask her why she had hoped for something so large that failure was inevitable.

And even worse, I never asked her about what frightened me the most: Why had she given up hope?

For after our struggle at the piano, she never mentioned my playing again. The lessons stopped. The lid to the piano was closed, shutting out the dust, my misery, and her dreams.

So she surprised me. A few years ago she offered to give me the piano, for my thirtieth birthday. I had not played in all those years. I saw the offer as a sign of forgiveness, a tremendous burden removed.

"Are you sure?" I asked shyly. "I mean, won't you and Dad miss it?"

"No, this is your piano," she said firmly. "Always your piano. You are the only one who can play it."

"Well, I probably can't play anymore," I said. "It's been years."

"You pick up fast," said my mother, as if she knew this was certain. "You have natural talent. You could be a genius if you want to."

"No, I couldn't."

"You just not trying," my mother said. And she was neither angry nor sad. She said it as if announce a fact that could never be disproved. "Take it," she said.

But I didn't at first. It was enough that she had offered it to me. And after that, every time I saw it in my parents ‘living room, standing in front of the bay window, it made me feel proud, as if it were a shiny trophy that I had won back.

Last week I sent a tuner over to my parents' apartment and had the piano reconditioned, for purely sentimental reasons. My mother had died a few months before and I had been begetting things in order for my father, a little bit at a time. I put the jewelry in special silk pouches. The sweaters she had knitted in yellow, pink bright orange-all the colors I hated-I put those in mothproof boxes. I found some old Chinese silk dresses, the kind with little slits up the sides. I rubbed the old silk against my skin, and then wrapped them in tissue and decided to take them home with me.

After I had the piano tuned, I opened the lid and touched the keys. It sounded even richer that I remembered. Really, it was a very good piano. Inside the bench were the same exercise notes with handwritten scales, the same secondhand music books with their covers held together with yellow tape.

I opened up the Schumann book to the dark little piece I had played at the recital. It was on the left-hand page, "Pleading Child" It looked more difficult than I remembered. I played a few bars, surprised at how easily the notes came back to me.

And for the first time, or so it seemed, I noticed the piece on the right-hand side, It was called "Perfectly Contented" I tried to play this one as well. It had a lighter melody but with the same flowing rhythm and turned out to be quite easy. "Pleading Child" was shorter but slower; "Perfectly Contented" was longer but faster. And after I had played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.

参考译文——两类人

两类人

谭恩美

母亲相信，在美国，任何梦想都能成为现实：你可以开餐馆；可以为政府工作以领取丰厚的退休金；可以几乎不用首付现款就买栋房子；可以变成富翁；可以一夜成名。

“你当然也可以成为天才。”我9岁时，母亲对我说。“你样样事都会做得最好。琳朵阿姨知道什么？她那女儿，只不过心眼多一点而已。”

母亲将一切未遂的希望都寄托在美国。她1949年来到这里。在中国，她失去了一切：双亲、家园、前夫以及一对孪生女婴。可她不用悔怨的目光回顾过去。很多途径都可以改善现状。

至于我将成为哪方面的天才，我们并没有即时决定。起初，母亲以为我可以成为华裔秀兰·邓波儿。我们常常看电视上秀兰的老电影，好像可以用来培训。母亲常碰碰我的胳膊，“Nikan”(你看）。秀兰不是在跳踢踏舞，就是唱一首水手歌曲，或者把嘴撮成O形说，“噢，我的上帝。”

“你看，”在秀兰眼泪汪汪时，母亲说，“你早就会哭了。会哭不算天才！”

了解秀兰·邓波儿后，她很快带我去米什地区一家美容培训班的实习理发店，把我交到一个学员手里。这个学员甚至连剪刀都拿不稳。我的头发没有做出我要的大卷花，而是给我弄成一头乱蓬蓬的黑色小卷毛。母亲把我拽进卫生间，想把我的头发蘸水归拢整齐。

“你看，像个黑人华人了。”母亲抱怨，好像我故意想这样似的。

美容培训班的指导老师不得不亲自出马，操起剪刀修理我头上那湿漉漉的乱发。“现在很时兴彼得·潘式的发型，”那老师想让母亲放心。结果我的头发被剪成男孩子的那样：直溜溜的刘海垂到眉毛上方两英寸的地方。我喜欢这种发式，它使我期待将来的名气。

真的，刚开始，我像母亲一样兴奋，或许比她更兴奋。我憧憬着自己种种各不相同的天才形象，看看哪个更加适合于自己。有时我犹如一位已在侧幕摆好优美姿势的芭蕾舞演员，只等着音乐的响起，即踮起足尖翩然起舞；有时我就像马厩里诞生的圣婴，用哭声宣布自己的降临；有时我又是灰姑娘，在卡通音乐声中迈下南瓜马车。

反正我觉得，我不久就会变得十分完美：父母会称赞我，我再不会挨骂，我从此再也不会憋闷。可是我大脑中的天才开始难耐:“你要再不赶紧展示我，我就永远消失，”它警告说，“如果这样，你将一事无成。”

每天晚饭后，母亲和我常常坐在没有桌布的餐桌边。她总用新题考我，这些题都是她读过故事中那些天才儿童的例子，是她从里普利的《信不信由你》《好管家》《读者文摘》等堆在我家浴室里十几种杂志上搜集来的。母亲从雇她做清洁工的人家弄来这些杂志。她每周给多户人家打扫房间，我们家的杂志种类自然就不少。她逐一浏览，搜刮非凡儿童的故事。

第一个晚上，她找出一个三岁男孩的故事。这个男孩熟知美国各州的州府，甚至大多数欧洲国家的首都的名字。人们引用一位教师的话，说这个小男孩还能准确无误地说出外国城市的名字。

“芬兰的首都是哪？”母亲看着杂志上的故事问我。

当时我只知道加州的首府！我们住的唐人街的街名就叫萨克拉曼多。“内罗毕！”我猜道，尽可能说出我能想到的最有外国味儿的名字。在她告诉我答案前，她对了对手中的杂志，看看“赫尔辛基”是否能这样发音。

测试越来越难：心算乘法，从一副扑克中找出红心K，试着拿大顶，预测洛杉矶、纽约和伦敦每天的气温。

每天晚上，我必须只用三分钟来读一页《圣经》，然后说出读过的内容。“约沙法大有尊荣资财……妈，我只记得这一句。”我说。

再次看到母亲那张失望的脸，我的梦想开始破灭。我憎恨这种测试，过高的希望和达不到的期盼。那天夜里睡觉前，对着洗手池上方的镜子，看到盯着向己看的这张永远平常的脸，我哭了。多么伤心、难看的女孩！我发出发狂野兽的嚎叫，想把镜子里的那张脸抓破。

可随后我看到自己似乎天才的一面，因为以前我从未见过那张脸。看着镜子里的自己，我睁大了眼睛，想看得更清楚些。盯着我看的这个女孩愤怒、自信。我和这个女孩一模一样。一个新的念头升起，固执的想法，或者说是一种永远说“不”的想法。我不会被她改变。我就是我。我向自己承诺。我要永远做自己。

所以后来，每当晚上妈妈再来考我，我就表现出无精打采，用手撑着头，一副心烦的样子。实际也是如此。当母亲开始其他方面的操练，我厌烦得竟开始数起海湾传来雾笛的次数。那声音令人感到慰藉，使我想到母牛跳过月亮的样子。第二天，我自己做了个游戏：看看雾笛低鸣八次之前母亲是否会放弃。过不多久，我只需数一次或者至多两次就够了。终于，她开始放弃希望。

两三个月平静地过去了，母亲没再提起让我成才的事。可不久后的一天，母亲在看电视上的埃德·沙利文秀。电视机很旧，声音总是时断吋续。可每次母亲从沙发上起身要去调整时，声音恢复，埃德又在说话。可她一坐下，埃德就又变成哑巴。她一起身，电视上就突然高奏钢琴曲；她一坐下，电视就戛然无声。起来，坐下，前前后后，无声，有声。她好像在电视机前僵硬地跳着独舞。最后，她索性守在电视旁，将手按在音量钮上。

她似乎被这音乐吸引住了。这钢琴曲不长，但有点狂乱，有着迷人的特点，乐曲一开始是快节奏的，接着是欢快跳动的节拍，然后又回到嬉戏的部分。

“你看，”母亲着急地打着手势招呼我过去，“看这儿。”

我明白了母亲为何被那支曲子所吸引。原来演奏者是个中国小女孩。她大约9岁，留着彼得·潘的发式。她既有秀兰·邓波儿的活泼，又持有典型中国式的谦和。她也行了漂亮潇洒的屈膝礼。她那蓬松的白裙下摆像一朵巨大的康乃馨上的片片花瓣慢慢地飘落到舞台上。

面对这些迹象，我却毫不担心：我们家没有钢琴，也买不起，更甭说花钱买厚厚的琴谱和上钢琴课了。因此当母亲对电视上那个小女孩的演奏吹毛求疵时，我就宽容地评论了几句。

妈妈挑剔地说: “音符倒没弹错，可不好听！没有和声。”

“为什么挑人家的错？”我漫不经心地说。“她弹得蛮不错了。虽然说不上最好，但至少她尽力了。”话一出口我就后悔了。

“跟你一样，”她说，“不是最好，因为你没有努力。”她哼了一声，放开声音钮，坐回到沙发上。

那个中国小女孩也重新坐在琴旁？演奏一首格里格的《阿尼特拉舞曲》。我仍记得那支曲子的歌词，因为后来我也得学习弹奏它。

看完埃德·沙利文电视秀的第三天，母亲制订了上钢琴课和练琴的时间表。她已与住在我们公寓一楼的钟先生谈过。钟先生是位退休的钢琴教师。母亲用为他家打扫卫生作为互惠条件，每周一次课，每天4点至6点用他的钢琴练两个小时。

母亲把这个安排告诉我时，我觉得像是跌入地狱。我忍无可忍，尖叫、跺脚以示抗议。

“你怎么就不喜欢我现在这样？我不是天才！我不会弹琴，学也学不会。即使我会，你就是给我100万美元，我也不上电视演奏！”我哭叫着。

母亲打了我一巴掌。“谁让你成天才？”她喊道，“只要你尽力就行了。这是为你好！你以为我想让你成天才？哼！为什么！谁要啊！”

“真不识好歹，”我听见她用汉语嘟囔着，“如果她的才气和她的脾气一样大，她早就出名了。”

钟先生非常古怪，我暗地里叫他老钟头。他常常用手指随着一支无形乐团的无声音乐打着拍子。我看他就是个老古董。他秃顶，戴眼镜，长着一双整日昏昏欲睡的眼睛。可他一定没我想得那么老，因为他和他母亲住在一起，没结婚。

我很快明白老钟头为何不再教琴了。他是个聋子。“像贝多芬那样！”他扯大嗓门说，“咱俩只能用心来听! ”然后，他会开始指挥无章狂乱的无声奏鸣曲。

我们的钢琴课是这样进行的——他会打开谱子，指着各种记号，讲解功能:“琴盘！高音部！低音部！没有升音或降音，这是C大调！现在先听我弹，然后跟我弹！”

随后他弹几次C音节，一组简单的和弦。然后，好像有了一种心底里原有的无法抑制的激情，他弹奏得越来越多，又加上连续的颤音和重重的低音，汇成一首磅礴的乐曲。

我会按照他的方式弹奏：简单的音阶、简单的和弦，可后来我就胡乱弹些音节，好像一只猫在垃圾箱上上蹿下跳。老钟微笑，鼓掌，然后说:“很好！但要学会掌握弹奏速度。”

我这才发现老钟的眼神跟不上我错误的音节，比我弹奏的速度慢半拍。为了帮我保持节奏准确，他站在我身后，每一节拍按一下我的右肩。他把几枚硬币放在我的手腕上，以保证我为了保持硬币平隐而慢慢弹奏音阶和琶音。他把我的手放在一个苹果上，要我以同样的手形弹奏和弦。他会昂首正步，以演示在弹奏断奏时每个手指要像顺从的小战士那样上下跳动。

就这样，他教给我整套的技巧，我也学会了如何偷懒和敷衍错误，许多错误。要是我没有充分练习而敲错音，我也从不改正，只是继续按节奏往下弹奏。老钟则自顾往下指挥他自己梦中的乐队。

也许我确实没有抓住机会。我很快学会了基本技能，或许真的会成为一个优秀少年钢琴家。可我决心已定，顽固地拒绝出众，所以只学会了弹奏最刺耳的前奏、最不和谐的赞美曲。

第二年，我依旧我行我索。一天，我听见母亲和她的朋友仲琳朵两个人炫耀各自的女儿，声音大得谁都听得到。那是做完礼拜后，我穿着衬有硬硬的白色衬裙的连衣裙，倚着砖墙。琳朵阿姨的女儿威芙丽与我年龄相仿，也站在距我大约五英尺处的墙边。我俩从小一起玩耍，也像姐妹一样因争抢蜡笔和洋娃娃争吵。也就是说，我们并不太友好。我觉得她傲慢。威芙丽·仲小有名气，是“唐人街最小的中国象棋冠军”。

“威芙丽捧回来的奖品太多了，”那个礼拜天琳朵阿姨抱怨说，“她整天下棋，我整天就给她的奖牌擦灰，什么也干不了。”她责怪地瞥了威芙丽一眼，可她假装没看见。

“没这烦心事，你真福气，”琳朵阿姨对母亲叹了口气。

可母亲也挺了挺身，回敬道：“我们可比你还要烦心呢。要是叫景梅洗碗，她根本听不见，只知道音乐。想挡都挡不住这天分。”

就在那一刻，我下定决心要制止她那愚蠢的自傲。

几星期后，老钟和母亲秘密谋划让我在即将于教堂大厅举办的才艺表演上演奏。那时父母已攒足了钱，给我买了一架二手钢琴。那是架黑色的乌立兹牌的立式钢琴，还有一个带有划痕的琴凳。钢琴成了我家起居室的唯一摆设。

我将演奏从舒曼《童年情景》中选出的《祈求的孩子》。这是一首指法简单，表达内心忧郁的曲子？听起来还是像很有难度的。我得把它背下来，重复部分弹两次，使曲子显得更长些。磨磨蹭蹭弹了几小节后我就开始偷懒，不停地抬头看后边的部分，而根本没有真正听自己弹出的音乐。我遐想自己身在他处，成了另外一个什么人。

我最喜欢练习的部分是花哨的谢幕行礼动作：先出右脚，脚尖点在地毯的玫瑰图案上，身子侧摆，左腿弯曲，抬头，微笑。

父母邀请喜福会的所有夫妇观看我的首次演奏。琳朵阿姨和提恩叔叔来了，威芙丽和她的两个哥哥也来了。坐在前两排的孩子有的比我年龄大，有的比我年龄小。最小的孩子先开始表演。他们背诵简单的儿歌，随着微型小提琴曲大呼小叫，转呼啦圈，身着粉色的芭蕾舞裙乱跃。结束时，他们鞠躬或行屈膝礼，观众齐声赞叹，“哇”，并致以热烈的掌声。

轮到我了，我很自信。我还记得我幼时的兴奋。毫无疑问，我好像觉得自己真有天才的一面。没有恐慌，也不紧张。我仍记得我对自己说：这就是天才！这就是天才！我抬头看了看观众：母亲表情麻木，父亲打着哈欠，琳朵阿姨僵硬地微笑着，威芙丽脸色阴沉。我穿了一件有几层花边的白色连衣裙，彼得·潘的发型上戴着一个粉色的蝴蝶结。我坐下幻想着全场观众会起立，埃德·沙利文会跑上台向电视观众做介绍。

我开始演奏。感觉真是太美了。我光顾着想自己有多么可爱，所以刚开始就根本没在意弹奏效果如何。弹错了第一个音符才使我感到吃惊，知道出错了。随后就一错再错。一股凉气从头顶开始，然后一点点传到全身。但我却不能停止演奏，双手犹如着了魔。我不停地想，我的手指会调整好，就像火车会被扳到正确的轨道上。整首曲子，包括两遍复奏，就这样乱乱糟糟、错误百出。

我站起身时，发觉双腿在颤抖，也许刚才太紧张了。观众们也许都跟老钟一样，只看见动作是正确的，压根就听不到弹错的音符。我滑出右脚，屈膝，抬头微笑。除了老钟愉快地微笑和叫喊，“好哇！好哇！弹得好!”之外，大厅里一片寂静。随后我看见了母亲痛苦不堪的面孔。观众敷衍着拍了几下巴掌。我带着抽搐的表情，强忍哭泣走回座位时，听见一个小男孩大声地对他妈妈耳语，“糟透了。”他母亲低声应道，“唉，可她尽力了。”

我这时才发现有那么多观众，好像全世界的人都来了。我能感觉到背后火辣辣的目光，我知道对不起父母，他们直挺挺地坐着，坚持看完了所有的演出。

我们本可以趁幕间休息逃走。一定是骄傲和莫名的荣誉感把父母牢牢地钉在座位上。我们就这样看完了余下的节目：一个戴着一撮假胡子的18岁男孩表演魔术，他骑着独轮车耍弄一些燃烧着的圈环。一个脸画得白白的丰满女孩演唱《蝴蝶夫人》片段并因此得了提名奖。然后是获得一等奖的11岁男孩演奏一首指法复杂的小提琴曲。那曲子听起来好像是一只忙碌的蜜蜂在飞舞。

演出结束后，喜福会的苏家、龚家和圣克莱尔夫妇走到父母跟前。

“这么多有才的孩子，”琳朵阿姨咧开嘴微笑着，含糊其辞。

“那是另一回事儿，”父亲说。我拿不准他是否在幽默地暗指我，还是他记得我的表现。

威芙丽看着我，耸耸肩，“你可不及我那么有才气。”她道出事实。要不是我当时感觉很糟，我一定会抓住她的小辫揍她的肚子。

可母亲的表情却令我惊讶：那是平静、茫然的表情，表明她已失去一切。我的感觉也是如此，好像所有的人都在事故现场看热闹，想看看到底是出了什么事。我们乘公交车回家的路上，父亲哼着忙碌的蜜蜂那首曲子，母亲一声不吭。我一直在想她回到家后再冲我大叫，可父亲打开公寓的房门后，母亲竟直奔里面的卧室。没有责备，没有埋怨。我感到有些失望。我一直等着她冲我发火，这样我才能顶撞她，哭诉、埋怨她带给我的痛苦。

我想才艺表演时失败意味着我以后不用练琴了。可两天后，母亲从厨房里出来看见我放学后正看电视。

“四点了。”她像平时那样提醒我。我惊呆了，好像她让我再次经历才艺表演的煎熬。我坐在电视机前，纹丝没动。

“关上电视。”她五分钟后从厨房里喊道。

我一动不动。我决心已定。我不会俯首帖耳，我不是她的奴隶。这儿不是中国。我以前对她言听计从，结果却是如此。她愚蠢至极。

她走出厨房，站在通向客厅的拱形门口。“四点了。”她又说了一次，声音比上一次更大。

“我不想再练了，”我不在乎地说，“为什么要练？我不是天才。”

她走过来，站在电视机前。我看见她气得胸脯起伏不停。

“就不练!”我说，感到底气更足，好像久久隐藏在我心里的真正自我终于浮现。

“不练！就不练!”我尖声高叫。

她拽住我的胳膊，把我拖到地上，啪地关掉电视。她力气大得吓人，尽管我蹬踢着脚下的地毯，她还是把我半拖半推到钢琴旁。随后，她把我拽起来弄到硬邦邦的琴凳上。我已泣不成声，恨恨地看着她。她的胸脯起伏得更剧烈，张着嘴，疯了般地咧着嘴笑，好像因为我哭而感到满足。

“你想把我培养成我做不到的人!”我抽泣着，“我绝不会成为你想要的那种女儿!”

“只有两种女儿，”她用汉语大喊，“听话的和不听话的！这个家只容得下一种女儿，那就是听话的!”

“希望我不是你的女儿。希望你也不是我的母亲!”我喊着。同时我有些害怕，好像有蠕虫、蟾蜍或别的滑溜溜的东西爬出我的胸膛。可我又感到畅快，好像我那可怕的一面最终显露出来了。

“来不及了！变不了了！”母亲尖声说道。

我能感觉到她气愤到极点，即将爆发。我真想让她的愤怒顷刻迸发。突然，我想到了她在中国那对失去的、我们从不谈论的孪生女婴。“我希望你没有生我!”我扯着嗓子喊，“我希望我死了！就像她们一样。”

我好像是说出神奇的咒语。阿拉卡扎姆！她的脸部失去了表情，嘴巴紧闭，双臂无力地垂下。她退出了房间，神色惊异，好像一小片枯黄的树叶被风吹走了，那样的单薄、脆弱、毫无生气。

我母亲不止一次对我失望。在随后的几年里，我多次令她失望，每次都是我坚持自己的意愿，坚持表达自己不能满足她期望的权力。我没有得到全A的成绩，没有当上班长，没能进斯坦福大学。我中途放弃了大学学业。

因为跟母亲不一样，我不相信心想事成。我只能做我自己。

后来的多年里，我们再没有谈过演奏会上的失败，没谈过我在琴凳上对她的指责。像不能泄露的背叛行为一样，所有这一切都被封存下来。我也因此没有机会问她怎么会有如此过高而注定失败的愿望。

更糟的是，我没有问过最令我害怕的问题：她为何最终选择了放弃？

自从我们在钢琴旁的争吵后，她从未再提起过要我练琴。钢琴课停了。钢琴盖关上了，灰尘、我的痛苦和她的梦想统统被挡住了。

令我感到意外的是，几年前，她要把那架钢琴作为我30岁的生日礼物送给我。多年来我一直没有碰过它。所以我把赠予看作是宽恕的象征，也因此感到卸下了一个极其沉重的负担。

“真的？”我小心地问，“我是说你和爸爸不会不舍得吧？”

“舍得，这是你的钢琴。”她毫不含糊地说，“一直都是你的。就你会弹。”

“可是，我现在可能不会了，”我说，“很多年都没弹了。”

“你捡得快，”母亲说的好像她坚信不疑，“你有天分。要是你想，你会成为天才的。”

“不，不可能。”

“你是不努力呀，”母亲说。既不生气，也不伤感。她好像在宣布一个颠扑不破的事实。“搬走吧。”她说。

可是我并没有马上把它搬走。送给我已经足够了。自那以后，每次我在父母家的客厅里看见它立在向外突出的窗前，都会感到骄傲，好像它是我赢得的闪闪奖章。

上周，出于怀旧，我请了一位调琴师去父母家。母亲已于几个月前去世，我一直在为父亲整理东西，一次整理一点儿。把珠宝放进特制的丝袋里，把她编织的彩色毛衣，黄的、粉的、亮橙的，这都是我最不喜欢的颜色，全都放进防蛀箱里。我还找到一些两侧开小衩的旧丝绸旗袍。我先将这些旧丝绸放在皮肤上轻轻地摩擦，然后用包装纸包好，要把它们带回我家。

钢琴调好后，我打开琴盖，轻触琴键。琴声听起来比我记忆中的圆润。真的，这是一架很好的钢琴。琴凳里放着的还是那些东西：手写的音阶练习曲，一些封皮用黄色胶条粘在一起的二手琴谱。

我打开舒曼的乐谱，找到了当年我演奏的那段伤感乐曲《祈求的孩子》。它在左半页。它可比我记忆中的还要难。弹了几节，我就惊奇地发现那些音符竟那么轻松地再现。

我第一次，或感觉好像是第一次，注意到右边的乐曲标题是《心满意足》。我也试着弹这首曲子。它的曲调比较轻松，但节奏同样流畅，不是很难。《祈求的孩子》较短、较慢，而《心满意足》更长、更快一些。在我弹了几遍后，我意识到，原来这两个曲子是同一首歌的两个组成部分。

Key Words:

prodigy ['prɔdidʒi]

n. 惊人的事物，奇迹，神童，天才，预兆

soggy ['sɔgi]

adj. 湿透的，乏味的

willful ['wilfəl]

adj. 任性的，故意的，有意的

playful ['pleifəl]

adj. 爱玩耍的，幽默的

encore [ɔŋ'kɔ:]

n. 再演，加演，安可曲 v. 要求加演

genius ['dʒi:njəs]

n. 天才，天赋

staccato [stə'kɑ:təu]

adj. 断音的，不连贯的 adv. 断音地，不连贯地

reverie ['revəri]

n. 幻想，白日梦

discordant [dis'kɔ:dənt]

adj. 不一致的，不和谐的

intermission [.intə'miʃən]

n. 中止，中断，停顿

trickle ['trikl]

vi. 滴流，慢慢移动 n. 细流，徐徐地流

recital [ri'saitl]

n. 背诵，吟诵，详述 n. 独奏会，独唱会

betrayal [bi'treiəl]

n. 背叛，暴露

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