很久没有读过这样扣人心弦的小说了，记得上一次有这种爱不释手的感觉还是在高铁上读《三体》。一方面，作者讲述故事的方式非常精巧，细节和铺垫特别多，让人感觉既真实又意料之外。另一方面，因为作者的母语并不是英语，所以读英文原版就没有那么的吃力。好像和他一起在学习各种进阶词汇和表达一样，非常适合我。

读完后的感受颇多，很多人都写过主人公自己的背叛和救赎，这篇我想聚焦在另一个主要的角色上：Baba，主人公 Amir 的父亲。

善于经营

文章开篇就介绍了 Amir 家境的优越，而这一切都可以归功于 Baba：

Everyone agreed that my father, my Baba, had built the most beautiful house in the Wazir Akbar Khan district, a new and affluent neighborhood in the northern part of Kabul. Some thought it was the prettiest house in all of Kabul.

Baba proved them all wrong by not only running his own business but becoming one of the richest merchants in Kabul. Baba and Rahim Khan built a wildly successful carpet-exporting business, two pharmacies, and a restaurant.

Baba 不但是一位成功的商人，而且他还非常乐善好施。一个具体的例子就是他投入了巨大的精力和财力，花费了三年时间建设了一座孤儿院。在开业典礼上，Baba 做了一场精心准备的演讲，虽然还有些滑稽的场面，但最终赢得了大家经久不息的热烈掌声。

此外，Baba 还是一位非常活跃的社交家，这一点在 Amir 10 岁生日聚会上体现得淋漓尽致。

Baba’s motto about throwing parties was this: Invite the whole world or it’s not a party. I remember scanning over the invitation list a week before my birthday party and not recognizing at least three-quarters of the four hundred-plus Kakas and Khalas who were going to bring me gifts and congratulate me for having lived to thirteen. Then I realized they weren’t really coming for me. It was my birthday, but I knew who the real star of the show was.

The night before the big party Baba’s friend Del-Muhammad, who owned a kabob house in Shar-e-Nau, came to the house with his bags of spices. Like the butcher, Del-Muhammad – or Dello, as Baba called him – refused payment for his services. He said Baba had done enough for his family already. It was Rahim Khan who whispered to me, as Dello marinated the meat, that Baba had lent Dello the money to open his restaurant. Baba had refused repayment until Dello had shown up one day in our driveway in a Benz and insisted he wouldn’t leave until Baba took his money.

第一次读到这段内容的时候，我脑中浮现的是教父在女儿婚礼上的那一幕幕经典场景，众人环绕，德高望重。

毫无疑问，有如此一位成功的父亲，Amir 是十足幸运的。

思想开明且深刻

作为一个穆斯林国家，那时的阿富汗还认为喝酒是一种罪过，会在将来的审判日受到惩罚。不过 Baba 并不这么认为：

“They do nothing but thumb their prayer beads and recite a book written in a tongue they don’t even understand.” He took a sip. “God help us all if Afghanistan ever falls into their hands.”

他对于这些只会对着古兰经牵强附会的教条主义者嗤之以鼻。同时，他对于罪有一种更深的洞见：

“Good,” Baba said, but his eyes wondered. “Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. Do you understand that?”

“When you kill a man, you steal a life,” Baba said. “You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. Do you see?”

“There is no act more wretched than stealing, Amir,” Baba said. “A man who takes what’s not his to take, be it a life or a loaf of naan… I spit on such a man. And if I ever cross paths with him, God help him. Do you understand?”

“If there’s a God out there, then I would hope he has more important things to attend to than my drinking scotch or eating pork. Now, hop down. All this talk about sin has made me thirsty again.”

我自己出生在一个天主教家庭，祖上因为过于贫穷接受了教会的救济后入了教。对于圣经上的很多内容，还有时不时一些人宣扬的类似月亮后面有个巨大的十字架之类的圣迹，我个人也是持类似的态度。不过我也认为如果真的有神明，而且人真的有死后的生活，那么应该会公正地奖惩分明些吧。

对少时儿子的隐忧

作为父亲，Baba 非常疼爱 Amir，甚至有时候对他有些严格。并且，像所有父亲一样，Baba 也观察到儿子的一些不足之处：

“Sometimes I look out this window and I see him playing on the street with the neighborhood boys. I see how they push him around, take his toys from him, give him a shove here, a whack there. And, you know, he never fights back. Never. He just… drops his head and…”

“So he’s not violent,” Rahim Khan said.

“That’s not what I mean, Rahim, and you know it,” Baba shot back. “There is something missing in that boy.”

“You just need to let him find his way,” Rahim Khan said.

“And where is he headed?” Baba said. “A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.”

从一再出现的懦弱表现来看，Baba 开始对 Amir 的性格有些担忧，因为他觉得不能为自己挺身而出的人也不会为任何其他事情去奋争。这也预示了 Amir 未来必须面对的挑战。Baba 的这一评价对 Amir 产生了深远的影响，成为他成长过程中不断反思和努力改变的动力。

疼爱 Hassan

Amir 年少时对于 Hassan 是有一些羡慕嫉妒恨的，这其中极大一部分原因来自于 Baba 对 Hassan 不合逻辑的疼爱，远超一般主仆关系的界限。

一个典型的例子就是：Baba 从来不会忘记 Hassan 的生日：

Baba never missed Hassan’s birthday. For a while, he used to ask Hassan what he wanted, but he gave up doing that because Hassan was always too modest to actually suggest a present. So every winter Baba picked something out himself.

另一个例子是在 Amir 跟父亲提及是不是用新仆人换掉 Ali 的时候，Baba 怒不可遏，说了很严厉的一些话：

“Hassan’s not going anywhere,” Baba snapped. He dug a new hole with the trowel, striking the dirt harder than he had to. “He’s staying right here with us, where he belongs. This is his home and we’re his family. Don’t you ever ask me that question again!”

这些行为让 Amir 感到了深深的不安和嫉妒，进一步导致了后面的诬陷 Hassan 的事件。

逃亡路上的英勇之举

在阿富汗战乱中，Baba 不得不带着 Amir 开始了逃亡之旅。在经过一个检查站的时候，面对一个俄国士兵的无理要求，Baba 奋不顾身地挺身而出：

That was when Baba stood up. It was my turn to clamp a hand on his thigh, but Baba pried it loose, snatched his leg away. When he stood, he eclipsed the moonlight. “I want you to ask this man something,” Baba said. He said it to Karim, but looked directly at the Russian officer. “Ask him where his shame is.”

在对方威胁要枪毙他的时候，Baba 仍然据理力争：

“Tell him I’ll take a thousand of his bullets before I let this indecency take place,” Baba said. My mind flashed to that winter day six years ago. Me, peering around the corner in the alley. Kamal and Wali holding Hassan down. Assef’s buttock muscles clenching and unclenching, his hips thrusting back and forth. Some hero I had been, fretting about the kite. Sometimes, I too wondered if I was really Baba’s son.

这样的举动让懦弱的 Amir 深深触动，他不禁想到六年前 Assef 他们欺辱 Hassan 的时候，如果他更勇敢一些会怎么样，他甚至怀疑自己是不是 Baba 的亲生骨肉。我相信这样惊心动魄的经历也是让 Amir 后面踏上救赎之路的重要因素，Baba 的精神激励和鼓舞了他。

努力支撑在美国的移民生活

为了让 Amir 享受到更好的教育，父子俩移民到美国。一开始的生活并不容易，Baba 在大家的帮助下找到了加油站的工作，工作非常努力，即便是 996 也绝无抱怨。

“It’s not so bad now,” he said, meaning since he had become the day manager at the gas station. But I’d seen the way he winced and rubbed his wrists on damp days. The way sweat erupted on his forehead as he reached for his bottle of antacids after meals. “Besides, I didn’t bring us here for me, did I?”

对美国有更多熟悉后，Baba 善于经营的头脑再次发挥了重要作用。他找到了周末做二手货生意的好路子：

On Saturdays, Baba woke me up at dawn. As he dressed, I scanned the classifieds in the local papers and circled the garage sale ads. We mapped our route – Fremont, Union City, Newark, and Hayward first, then San Jose, Milpitas, Sunnyvale, and Campbell if time permitted. Baba drove the bus, sipping hot tea from the thermos, and I navigated. We stopped at garage sales and bought knickknacks that people no longer wanted. We haggled over old sewing machines, one-eyed Barbie dolls, wooden tennis rackets, guitars with missing strings, and old Electrolux vacuum cleaners. By midafternoon, we’d filled the back of the VW bus with used goods. Then early Sunday mornings, we drove to the San Jose flea market off Berryessa, rented a spot, and sold the junk for a small profit: a Chicago record that we’d bought for a quarter the day before might go for $1, or $4 for a set of five; a ramshackle Singer sewing machine purchased for $10 might, after some bargaining, bring in $25.

也就是在这样很多阿富汗移民的跳蚤市场上，Baba 开始慢慢找回在 Kabul 生活的感觉，结交了越来越多的朋友。

从他后面跟老相识介绍儿子的自豪中，我们可以感受到 Baba 对于儿子热烈的爱：

“Amir is going to be a great writer,” Baba said. I did a double take at this. “He has finished his first year of college and earned A’s in all of his courses.”

对儿子最后的付出

在跳蚤市场上，Amir 结识了 Soraya。两个年轻人非常投缘。Baba 明显看出了端倪，他这样评价 Soraya：

“I hear she is a decent girl, hardworking and kind. But no khastegars, no suitors, have knocked on the general’s door since.” Baba sighed. “It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime, Amir,” he said.

不知道是不是刻意地安排，这样的叙述让 Amir 在追求 Soraya 上变得更加主动积极了一些。

随后 Baba 被诊断出了小细胞肺癌，他不愿让任何其他人知道，免得大家出于同情而怜悯他。

面对越来越虚弱的父亲，在 Soraya 一家探望之后，Amir 终于鼓足勇气，做出了一个无比正确的决定：

I sat beside him. “Then I wonder if you’ll do something for me. If you’re not too exhausted.”

“What?”

“I want you to go khastegari. I want you to ask General Taheri for his daughter’s hand.”

Baba’s dry lips stretched into a smile. A spot of green on a wilted leaf. “Are you sure?”

“More sure than I’ve ever been about anything.”

Baba 对待儿子的方式一直是尊重，然后让孩子自己做决定，轻易绝不插手。所以，虽然明显看出老人明显想撮合两个年轻人，还是难以想象老父亲听到儿子这一请求时的激动。Amir 开始有一些可以为之而战的事情了，他的儿子，在 22 岁的这一时刻，终于迈出了勇敢的一步。

尽管体力虚弱，Baba 还是精心打扮一番后去上门提亲，并成功地完成了这一作为父亲的重要使命。

“Thank you, Baba. Are you all right? Do you feel up to this?”

“Up to this? It’s the happiest day of my life, Amir,” he said, smiling tiredly.

在婚礼后一个月，Baba 在睡梦中离世。

Hassan 的身世

父亲离世十多年后的 2001 年，他的挚友 Rahim 打来电话，从此 Amir 踏上了营救 Hassan 儿子的救赎之旅。在一封写给 Amir 的信中，Rahim 清晰阐述了 Baba 为何小时候对待 Amir 如此严厉：

Amir jan, I know how hard your father was on you when you were growing up. I saw how you suffered and yearned for his affections, and my heart bled for you. But your father was a man torn between two halves, Amir jan: you and Hassan. He loved you both, but he could not love Hassan the way he longed to, openly, and as a father. So he took it out on you instead – Amir, the socially legitimate half, the half that represented the riches he had inherited and the sin-with-impunity privileges that came with them. When he saw you, he saw himself. And his guilt. You are still angry and I realize it is far too early to expect you to accept this, but maybe someday you will see that when your father was hard on you, he was also being hard on himself. Your father, like you, was a tortured soul, Amir jan.

想必彼时彼刻，Amir 对父亲的理解会更深一个层次吧。Baba 也是在努力救赎自己。

写在最后

为了建立一个对 Baba 更加具象的理解，我后面去看了 Kite Runner 的电影版。里面的 Baba 非常符合我对书中这一角色的印象，聪明、英勇、坚毅、关爱家人。他希望 Amir 和 Hassan 都能成长为有所作为的人，能够为自己而战的男人。他很幸运，在人生的终点之前看到了 Amir 的蜕变。可惜的是，更像他的 Hassan 在战乱中不幸罹难，在一个英勇的举动之后。但这就是人生，只要你去努力了，结果并无所谓。