以柏林墻為背景的童話

Digging to Freedom

以柏林墻為背景的童話

The 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall would hardly seem the occasion for an entrancing picture book, but the British author-illustrator Tom Clohosy Cole’s “Wall” is just that. The narrator is a little boy stuck in East Berlin with his mother and sister, while his father has ended up in the West. Out of this wrenching scenario Cole has fashioned a tight little narrative that has all the ambient foreboding of a fairy tale, the sense of children at the mercy of enormous, irrational, half-understood forces. But with a morose, shadowy palette of midnight blues and browns and a flat, elongated look that calls to mind Cold War poster art, it’s clear that the evil lurking is a distinctly modern one: jackboots and rifles, not malevolent spells, but what’s the difference to a child whose parent has been taken away?

柏林墻倒塌25周年似乎不是推薦一本引人入勝的圖畫書的好時機，但是英國作家、插畫家湯姆·科勒霍西·科爾(Tom Clohosy Cole)的《墻》(Wall)就是這樣一本好書。敘述者是一個小男孩，他和媽媽、姐姐(或妹妹)被困在東柏林，而他的爸爸在西柏林。以這個令人心酸的情況為背景，科爾講述了一個緊湊、短小的故事，它具有童話故事的所有氛圍和預兆，也描繪出孩子們在面臨強大、荒謬、似懂非懂的勢力時的感受。陰郁灰暗的深藍色和棕色色調(diào)，細長扁平的人物形象，讓人想起了冷戰(zhàn)時期的海報藝術(shù)，顯然，潛伏的惡勢力是個現(xiàn)代人物——穿著長筒靴、拿著來福槍——而非惡毒的魔咒，但是對這個父親不在身邊的孩子來說，這有什么不同呢?

The book’s first spread shows the wall in all its menacing, repressive glory: A guard tower is shrouded in darkness to the east, while to the west the sunset sky reveals throngs of agitated people congregating, many pointing up to the guards. On the left, darker side of the page we see the book’s opening words: “My mom said that while the wall was being made, . . .”; to the right, the sentence continues: “. . . our dad got stuck on the other side.” It’s a wonderful in medias res opening — for this child “the wall” exists without explanation, just as the sun or the mountains do. It cleaves the page just as it has divided his city and his family.

這本書的第一面展示了這道威武、壓抑的墻：一個面向東方的警戒塔隱藏在黑暗中，而西面落日的天空展示出一群焦躁不安的人，很多人用手向上指著衛(wèi)兵。在灰暗的左側(cè)頁面，我們看到了這本書的開篇語：“我媽媽說，這道墻修建的時候……”;后半句在右側(cè)頁面：“……我爸爸被困在了另一邊。”這個精彩的開篇語直奔主題。對這個孩子來說，“那道墻”沒有任何來由，就像太陽和山脈一樣。它把頁面分開，就像把這座城市和他的家人分開一樣。

“I worried he was lonely, but Mom said life was better over there,” the story continues. So our narrator begins trying to imagine a way to get to the other side of the wall. He knows that some people in East Berlin do try to escape: We see an image of the boy looking out his window as two hopefuls shimmy across a tightrope, followed by another of a soldier seen from behind, holding a limp body, with fields of razor wire in the background. The image is just otherworldly enough to be disturbing rather than grisly — the way he’s carrying the gracefully draping body almost evokes Sleeping Beauty.

“我擔心他會孤獨，但是媽媽說那邊的生活更好，”故事繼續(xù)寫道。所以我們的主人公開始努力設想到墻那邊去的方法。他知道東柏林這邊的確有人想逃走。我們看到這個男孩向窗外張望，看到兩個滿懷希望的人扭動著身體穿過一根拉緊的繩索，后面跟著一個士兵(我們看到的是他的背影)，他抱著一個軟弱無力的人，背景是一大片鐵絲網(wǎng)。這個畫面像是來自異界，令人不安，但并不可怕——他抱著那個優(yōu)雅、松垮的身體，像抱著睡美人。

Eventually the boy starts digging a hole in a field. He works until it goes all the way under the wall. One night the family slips out and goes to it, ready to escape in a decidedly old-fashioned way. They are stopped by a “thunderous voice” calling “HALT!” But a happy surprise follows: The soldier declares that “nothing should come between a father and his family,” and on the next page we see the family watching the sunrise in West Berlin from the edge of the woods. When they reach the father’s apartment, Cole gives the story one last spin, as the father is himself at work digging a hole right through the floor, with dirt smudges on his face. The exhausted arrivals are bathed in a beatific light, but behind them you can still just glimpse the field of razor wire, looking like a surreal roller coaster. It’s an ending with just the right dose of fairy tale. Maybe in real-life East Berlin, just explaining your situation to the nice soldier didn’t do the trick. But the wall did come down.

最后，這個男孩開始在地里挖洞。他不停地挖，一直挖到墻下面。一天晚上，這家人悄悄溜出去，走到洞邊，他們顯然打算用傳統(tǒng)方式逃走。忽然，他們聽到一個“雷鳴般的聲音”：“站住!”但是接下來發(fā)生了一個意外之喜——這個士兵宣布：“父親不應該和家人分開”。在下一頁，我們看到這家人在樹林邊望著西柏林的日出。他們到達父親的寓所時，科爾給這個故事設計了最后一個情節(jié)轉(zhuǎn)折點——這位父親也在地板上挖洞，臉上還有泥點。疲憊不堪的一家人沐浴在幸福的陽光中，但是你仍能看到他們身后的那片鐵絲網(wǎng)，它看起來像個超現(xiàn)實的過山車。這個結(jié)局的童話意味恰到好處。在東柏林的現(xiàn)實生活中，僅僅通過向一位好心的士兵解釋你的情況估計不能成功逃離。但是那面墻的確倒塌了。