不屬于我的家，庇護了我的夢想

Jonathan Ababiy 喬納森·阿巴比(Jonathan Ababiy)

At age 6, I remember the light filled openness of the house, how the whir of my mother’s vacuum floated from room to room. At 9, I remember how I used to lounge on the couch and watch Disney cartoons on the sideways refrigerator of a TV implanted in a small cave in the wall. At 12, I remember family photographs of the Spanish countryside hanging in every room. At 14, I remember vacuuming each foot of carpet in the massive house and folding pastel shirts fresh out of the dryer.

我還記得6歲那年，光線填滿寬敞的房間，我母親手中吸塵器的嗡嗡聲從一個房間飄到另一個房間。我還記得9歲那年，我常常懶洋洋地躺在長沙發(fā)上，看迪士尼卡通片，電視機有過道內的冰柜那么大，放在墻上的一個山洞大小的內嵌空間里。我還記得12歲那年，每個房間都掛著在西班牙鄉(xiāng)間拍的家人照片。我還記得14年那年，我在偌大的房子里一點點地給地毯除塵，折疊剛剛烘干的色彩柔和的襯衫。

I loved the house. I loved the way the windows soaked the house with light, a sort of bleach against any gloom. I loved how I could always find a book or magazine on any flat surface.

我喜歡那棟房子。我喜歡陽光透過窗戶傾灑進來的樣子，仿佛可以掃清所有愁云。我喜歡自己總是可以在任何一個平面上找到一本書或雜志。

But the vacuum my mother used wasn’t ours. We never paid for cable. The photographs weren’t of my family. The carpet I vacuumed I only saw once a week, and the pastel shirts I folded I never wore. The house wasn’t mine. My mother was only the cleaning lady, and I helped.

但我母親使用的吸塵器不屬于我們。我們從未付過有線電視費。照片拍的不是我的家人。我一周只能見到一次自己清理的地毯，我從未穿過自己折疊的色彩柔和的襯衫。那棟房子不是我們的。我母親只是清潔工，而我是她的幫手。

My mother and father had come as refugees almost twenty years ago from the country of Moldova. My mother worked numerous odd jobs, but once I was born she decided she needed to do something different. She put an ad in the paper advertising house cleaning, and a couple, both professors, answered. They became her first client, and their house became the bedrock of our sustenance. Economic recessions came and went, but my mother returned every Monday, Friday and occasional Sunday.

大約20年前，我的父母以難民的身份從摩爾多瓦來到美國。我母親做過許多種兼職工作，但我一出生，她就認定自己需要做點不一樣的事情。她在報紙上登了一份提供房屋保潔服務的廣告，一對同為教授的夫婦聯(lián)系了她。他們成了她的第一個客戶，他們的房子成了我們維持生計的基石。經濟衰退來了又去，但我母親每逢周一和周五都要回到那里，有時周日也過去。

She spends her days in teal latex gloves, guiding a blue Hoover vacuum over what seems like miles of carpet. All the mirrors she’s cleaned could probably stack up to be a minor Philip Johnson skyscraper. This isn’t new for her. The vacuums and the gloves might be, but the work isn’t. In Moldova, her family grew gherkins and tomatoes. She spent countless hours kneeling in the dirt, growing her vegetables with the care that professors advise their protégés, with kindness and proactivity. Today, the fruits of her labor have been replaced with the suction of her vacuum.

她整日戴著天青色的乳膠手套，操著藍色的胡佛(Hoover)吸塵器，給仿佛有幾英里長的地毯除塵。她擦過的所有鏡子沒準可以堆疊成那種由菲利普·約翰遜(Philip Johnson)打造的亮閃閃的摩天大樓。這對她來說并不新鮮。吸塵器和手套或許有些新鮮，但這份工作并非如此。在摩爾多瓦，她家里種有黃瓜和西紅柿。她曾花無數個小時跪在泥土里，以教授指導學生的用心程度、以仁慈和積極主動的態(tài)度侍弄她的蔬菜?，F在，她勞作的蔬果被吸塵器取而代之。

The professors’ home was a telescope to how the other (more affluent) half lived. They were rarely ever home, so I saw their remnants: the lightly crinkled New York Times sprawled on the kitchen table, the overturned, half-opened books in their overflowing personal library, the TV consistently left on the National Geographic channel. I took these remnants as a celebrity-endorsed path to prosperity. I began to check out books from the school library and started reading the news religiously.

透過那兩位教授的房子，可以一窺(更富裕的)另一半人的生活。他們很少待在家，于是我便觀察他們留下的痕跡：攤在廚房桌子上稍稍發(fā)皺的《紐約時報》，滿當當的私人圖書館中翻到一半倒扣過去的書，總是停留在國家地理頻道的電視。我把這些痕跡當成由名人代言的通往繁榮之路。我開始從學校的圖書館往外借書，并經常閱讀新聞。

Their home was a sanctuary for my dreams. It was there I, as a glasses-wearing computer nerd, read about a mythical place called Silicon Valley in Bloomberg Businessweek magazines. It was there, as a son of immigrants, that I read about a young senator named Barack Obama, the child of an immigrant, aspiring to be the president of the United States. The life that I saw through their home showed me that an immigrant could succeed in America, too. Work could be done with one’s hands and with one’s mind. It impressed on me a sort of social capital that I knew could be used in America. The professors left me the elements to their own success, and all my life I’ve been trying to make my own reaction.

他們的家是為我的夢想提供庇護之處。在那里，我這個戴著眼鏡的電腦迷從《彭博商業(yè)周刊》(Bloomberg Businessweek)上知道了一個名叫硅谷的神秘地方。在那里，我這個移民的兒子讀到了一個名叫貝拉克·奧巴馬(Barack Obama)的年輕參議員立志做美國總統(tǒng)的消息——他也是移民之子。我從他們家看到過的生活告訴我，在美國，移民也可以成功。工作可以用雙手來完成，也可以用頭腦來完成。它讓我對一種社會資本有了深刻的概念，我知道在美國可以使用這種資本。兩位教授讓我看到了他們取得成功的要素，我這一生都在試圖做出自己的反應。

Ultimately, the suction of the vacuum is what sustains my family. The squeal of her vacuum reminds me why I have the opportunity to drive my squealing car to school. I am where I am today because my mom put an enormous amount of labor into the formula of the American Dream. It’s her blue Hoover vacuums that hold up the framework of my life. Someday, I hope my diploma can hold up the framework of hers. 最終，吸塵器的吸力養(yǎng)活了我們一家。她手中吸塵器的嗡嗡聲提醒著我，我為什么有機會開著叮當亂響的小汽車去上學。我之所以能成為今天的我，是因為我的媽媽往美國夢的公式中傾注了太多勞動。她用藍色胡佛吸塵器為我的生活撐起了一片天。有朝一日，我希望能用自己的畢業(yè)證書為她撐起一片天。