双语畅销书《我是马拉拉》第6章3:垃圾山的孩子

Though my mother was not educated, she was the practical one in the family, the doer while my father was the talker. She was always out helping people. My father would get angry sometimes – he would arrive home at lunchtime and call out, ‘Tor Pekai, I’m home!’ only to find she was out and there was no lunch for him. Then he would find she was at the hospital visiting someone who was ill, or had gone to help a family, so he could not stay cross. Sometimes though she would be out because she was shopping for clothes in the Cheena Bazaar, and that would be a different matter.

虽然我的母亲没有受过教育，但她是家里的实干家；父亲发号施令，母亲则是执行者。她总是在外面帮助其他人。父亲有时回家吃午餐的时候发现母亲出门了，没有帮他准备午餐，就会很生气。如果父亲发现母亲在医院里探视生病的人，或是去帮助其他家庭，这时他就不会再生气了。但有时候，母亲是去妇女巴扎逛街买衣服，那就另当别论了。

Wherever we lived my mother filled our house with people. I shared my room with my cousin Aneesa from the village, who had come to live with us so she could go to school, and a girl called Shehnaz whose mother Sultana had once worked in our house. Shehnaz and her sister had also been sent out to collect garbage after their father had died leaving them very poor. One of her brothers was mentally ill and was always doing strange things like setting fire to their clothes or selling the electric fan we gave them to keep cool. Sultana was very short-tempered and my mother did not like having her in the house, but my father arranged a small allowance for her and a place for Shehnaz and her other brother at his school. Shehnaz had never been to school, so even though she was two years older than me she was put two classes below, and she came to live with us so that I could help her.

不论我们住在哪里，家里都挤满了人。我和堂姐安妮纱，还有一个女孩谢娜姿住一个房间。安妮纱来跟我们同住，这样她才能上学。谢娜姿的母亲索塔娜曾在我们家做事。谢娜姿的父亲过世后，家里变得非常穷困，她和她的姐妹也曾被派去垃圾山捡垃圾。她们的一个兄弟有精神疾病，常常做奇怪的事情，比如放火烧她们的衣服，或是把我们送的电风扇拿去卖掉。索塔娜的脾气很坏，母亲不喜欢让她在家里帮忙，但是父亲安排了一笔小小的津贴给她，并让谢娜姿和她的其他兄弟来学校上课。谢娜姿以前从没上过学，所以虽然她比我大两岁，还是被安排在比我小两届的班上。她来跟我们同住，这样，我就可以给她辅导功课了。

There was also Nooria, whose mother Kharoo did some of our washing and cleaning, and Alishpa, one of the daughters of Khalida, the woman who helped my mother with the cooking. Khalida had been sold into marriage to an old man who used to beat her, and eventually she ran away with her three daughters. Her own family would not take her back because it is believed that a woman who has left her husband has brought shame on her family. For a while her daughters also had to collect rubbish to survive. Her story was like something out of the novels I had started reading.

努丽亚也和我们住在一起。她的母亲卡努帮我们洗衣服和打扫。还有阿丽施巴，她是卡丽达的女儿，卡丽达帮我母亲煮饭。卡丽达曾被卖给一个喜欢揍她的老男人当太太，最后她终于带着三个女儿逃了出来。她的家人不愿意收留她，因为人们认为离开丈夫的女人会让自己的家族蒙羞。有一阵子，她的女儿也得在垃圾山捡垃圾度日。她的经历对我来说，就像是小说的故事情节一样。