芒果街上的小屋生辰不吉

生辰不吉

　　很可能我會去地獄，很可能我該去那裡。媽媽說我出生的日子不吉利，並為我祈禱。露西和拉切爾也祈禱。為我們自己也為相互之間……為我們對盧佩嬸嬸做的事情。

　　她的全名叫瓜達盧佩。她像我媽媽一樣漂亮。暗色皮膚。十分耐看。穿著瓊·克勞馥式的裙子，長著游泳者的腿。那是照片上的盧佩嬸嬸。

　　可我知道她生病了，疾病纏綿不去。她的腿綁束在黃色的床單下面，骨頭變得和蠕蟲一樣軟弱。黃色的枕頭，黃色的氣味，瓶子勺子。她像一個口渴的女人一樣向後仰著頭。我的嬸嬸，那個游泳者。

　　很難想像她的腿曾經強健。堅韌的骨，劈波分浪，動作乾淨爽利，沒有像嬰兒的腿那樣蜷曲皺縮，也沒有淹滯在黏濁的黃光燈下。二層樓背面的公寓。光禿的電燈泡。高高的天花板，燈泡一直在燃燒。

　　我不知道是誰來決定誰該遭受厄運。她出生的日子沒有不吉利。沒有邪惡的詛咒。頭一天我想她還在游泳，第二天她就病了。可能是拍下那張灰色照片的那天。也可能是她抱著表弟托奇和寶寶弗蘭克的那天。也可能是她指著照相機讓小孩們看可他們不看的那一刻。

　　也許天空在她摔倒的那天沒有看向人間。也許上帝很忙。也許那天她入水沒入好傷了脊椎是真的，也許托奇說的是真的，她從高高的梯凳上重重地摔了下來。

　　我想疾病沒有眼睛。它們昏亂的指頭會挑到任何人，任何人。比如我的嬸嬸，那天正好走在街上的嬸嬸，穿著瓊·克勞馥式裙子，戴著綴有黑羽毛的、滑稽的氊帽，一隻手裡是表弟托奇，一隻手裡是寶寶弗蘭克。

　　有時你會習慣病人，有時你會習慣疾病，如果病得太久，也就習以為常了。她的情況就是這樣。或者這就是我們選擇她的原因。

　　那是一個遊戲。僅此而已。我們每天下午都玩的遊戲，自從某天我們中的一個發明了它。我不記得是誰，我想那是我。

　　你得挑選一個人。你得想出大家都知道的一個人，一個你可以模仿，而別人都能猜出來的人。先是那些名人：神奇女俠、披頭士、瑪麗蓮·夢露……後來有人認為我們稍稍改變一下，如果我們假裝自己是賓尼先生，或者他的妻子布蘭卡，或者鷺鷥兒，或者別的我們認識的人，遊戲會好玩點。

　　我不知道我們為什麼挑選了她。也許那天我們很無聊，也許我們累了。我們喜歡我們的嬸嬸。她會聽我們講故事。她經常求我們再來。露西、我和拉切爾。我討厭一個人去那裡。走六個街區才到那昏暗的公寓，陽光從不會照射到的二層樓背面的房子，可那有什麼關係？我嬸嬸那時已經瞎了。她從來看不見水池裡的髒碗碟。她看不到落滿灰塵和蒼蠅的天花板。難看的醬色牆壁，瓶瓶罐罐和黏膩的茶勺。我無法忘記那裡的氣味。就像黏黏的膠囊注滿了凍糊糊。我嬸嬸，一瓣小牡蠣，一團小肉，躺在打開的殼上，供我們觀看。喂，喂。她好像掉在一口深井裡。

　　我把從圖書館借的書帶到她家裡。我給她讀故事。我喜歡《水孩子》這本書。她也喜歡。我從來不知道她病得有多重，直到那天我想要指給她看書裡的一幅畫，美麗的畫，水孩子在大海中游泳。我把書舉到她眼前。我看不到。她說。我瞎了。我心裡便很愧疚。

　　她會聽我念給她聽的每一本書，每一首詩。一天我讀了一首自己寫的給她聽。我湊得很近。我對著枕頭輕輕耳語：

　　我想成為
　　海裡的浪，風中的雲，
　　但我還只是小小的我。
　　有一天我要
　　跳出自己的身軀，
　　我要搖晃天空，
　　像一百把小提琴。

　　很好。非常好。她用有氣無力的聲音說。記住你要寫下去，埃斯佩朗莎。你一定要寫下去。那會讓你自由，我說好的，只是那時我還不懂她的意思。

　　那天我們玩了同樣的遊戲。我們不知道她要死了。我們裝做頭往後仰，四肢軟弱無力，像死人的一樣垂掛著。我們學她的樣子笑。學她的樣子說話，那種盲人說話的時候不轉動頭部的樣子。我們模仿她必須被人托起頭頸才能喝水的樣子。她從一個綠色的錫杯裡把水慢慢地吮出來喝掉。水是熱的，味道像金屬。露西笑起來，拉切爾也笑了。我們輪流扮演她。我們像鸚鵡學舌一樣，用微弱的聲音呼喊托奇過來洗碗。那很容易做到。

　　可我們不懂。她等待死亡很長時間了。我們忘了。也許她很愧疚。也許她很窘迫：死亡花了這麼多年時間。孩子們想要當回孩子，而不是在那裡洗碗涮碟，給爸爸熨襯衫。丈夫也想再要一個妻子。

　　於是她死了。聽我念詩的嬸嬸。

　　於是我們開始做起了那些夢。

　　Most likely I will go to hell and most likely I deserve to be there. My mother says I was born on an evil day and prays for me. Lud Rachel pray too. For ourselves and for each other……because of what we did to Aunt Lupe.

　　Her name was Guadalupe and she retty like my mother. Dark. Good to look at. In her Joan Crawford dress and swimmer's legs. Aunt Lupe of the photographs.

　　But I knew her sick from the disease that would not go, her legs bunched uhe yellow sheets, the bones gone limp as worms. The yellow pillow, the yellow smell， the bottles and spoons. Her head thrown back like a thirsty lady. My aunt, the swimmer.

　　Hard to imagine her legs orong, the bones hard and parting water, sharp strokes, not bent and wrinkled like a baby, not drowning uhe sticky yellow light. Sed-floor rear apartment. The naked light bulb. The high ceilings. The light bulb always burning.

　　I don't know who decides who deserves to go bad. There was no evil in her birth. No wicked curse. One day I believe she was swimming, and the day she was sick. It might have been the day that gray photograph was taken. It might have been the day she was holding cousin Totchy and baby Frank. It might have been the moment she poio the camera for the kids to look and they wouldn't.

　　Maybe the sky didn't look the day she fell down. Maybe God was busy. It could be true she didn't dive right one day and hurt her spine. Or maybe the story that she fell very hard from a high step stool, like Totchy said, is true.

　　But I think diseases have no eyes. They pick with a dizzy finger anyone, just anyone. Like my aunt who happeo be walking dowreet one day in her Joan Crawford dress, in her fun hat with the black feather, cousin Totchy in one hand, baby Frank iher.

　　Sometimes you get used to the sid sometimes the siess, if it is there too long, gets to seem normal. This is how it was with her, and maybe this is why we chose her.

　　It was a game, that's all. It was the game we played every afternoon ever sihat day one of us ied it——I 't remember who——I think it was me.

　　You had to piebody. You had to think of someone everybody knew. Someone you could imitate and everyone else would have to guess who it was. It started out with famous people：Wonder Woman, the Beatles, Marilyn Monroe……But then somebody thought it'd be better if we ged the game a little, if we pretended we were Mr. Benny, or his wife Blanca, or Ruthie, or anybody we knew.

　　I don't knoe picked her. Maybe we were bored that day. Maybe we got tired. We liked my aunt. She listeo our stories. She always asked us to e back. Lucy, me, Rachel. I hated to go there alohe six blocks to the dark apartment, sed-floor rear building where sunlight never came, and what did it matter? My aunt was blind by then. She never saw the dirty dishes in the sink. She couldn't see the ceilings dusty with flies, the ugly maroon walls, the bottles and sticky spoons. I 't fet the smell. Like sticky capsules filled with jelly. My aunt, a little oyster, a little pieeat on an open shell for us to look at. Hello, hello. As if she had fallen into a well.

　　I took my library books to her house. I read her stories. I liked the book The Waterbabies. She liked it too. I never knew how sick she was until that day I tried to show her one of the pictures in the book, a beautiful color picture of the water babies swimming in the sea. I held the book up to her face. I 't see it, she said, I'm blind. And then I was ashamed.

　　She listeo every book, every poem I read her. One day I read her one of my own. I came very close. I whispered it into the pillow：

　　I want to be

　　like the waves on the sea，

　　like the clouds in the wind，

　　but I'm me.

　　One day I'll jump

　　out of my skin.

　　I'll shake the sky

　　like a hundred violins.

　　That's hat's very good, she said iired voice. You just remember to keep writing, Esperanza. You must keep writing. It will keep you free, and I said yes, but at that time I didn't know what she meant.

　　The day we played the game, we didn't know she was going to die. We pretended with our heads thrown back, our arms limp and useless, dangling like the dead. We laughed the way she did. We talked the way she talked, the way blind people talk without moving their head. We imitated the way you had to lift her head a little so she could drink water, she sucked it up slow out of a green tin cup. The water was warm and tasted like metal. Lucy laughed. Rachel too. We took turns being her. We screamed in the weak voice of a parrot for Totchy to e and wash those dishes. It was easy.

　　We didn't know. She had been dying such a long time, we fot. Maybe she was ashamed. Maybe she was embarrassed it took so many years. The kids who wao be kids instead of washing dishes and ironing their papa's shirts, and the husband who wanted a wife again.

　　And then she died, my aunt who listeo my poems.

　　And then we began to dream the dreams.

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