英语传记：Hands of My Father（节选 2）

英语传记：Hands of My Father（节选 2）ZT

One bleak winter day, while we were sitting at the kitchen table,
the rain sleeting against the windows of our Brooklyn apartment, his
hands told me the rest of his story, in which began my story:

"Sarah was a young girl. She had many friends. She liked to have
fun.

"I first noticed her at the beach in Coney Island. She was always
laughing.

"All the deaf boys were crazy about Sarah. Even the hearing boys.

"There were many handsome boys on the beach. All the young boys had
muscles and chocolate tans. They could jump and leap over each
other's backs. They could do handstands.

"I was older. I didn't have muscles. I couldn't stand on my hands if
my life depended on it. I didn't have a brown tan. I would get
sunburned. My skin turned red. And then I would peel.

"It didn't matter. The handsome young boys with their chocolate skin
and big muscles only wanted to have fun with Sarah. They were not
serious boys. They had no jobs. So they had plenty of time to play,
and make muscles, and get brown skin from the sun.

"I was a serious man. I had a job. A good job. The best job. I was
no longer an apprentice printer. I had a union card, just like the
hearing workers.

"I didn't want Sarah just to have fun. I wanted a wife for all time.
I wanted a mother for my children. I wanted a partner forever. We
would be two deaf people in the hearing world. We would make our own
world. A quiet world. A silent world.

"We would be strong together, and strong for our children."

Then, just as the rain stopped and thin rays of sunlight striped the
tabletop, my father smiled to himself, his hands thinking...

"Maybe we would have a little fun before the children came."

Lost in reverie, his hands, bathed in golden light, now lay silent
on the kitchen table. Time passed. I sat and watched his still
hands, waiting patiently for them to continue his story. I loved the
quiet time we spent together, and I loved the stories his hands
contained.

Then my father's hands came alive again, eloquently describing a
warm spring afternoon in 1932 Brooklyn.

"I knew I had to make a good impression.

"I had to dress well. I wore my best suit. Actually, it was my only
suit. The big Depression was still going strong, and I watched every
dollar."

He tells me his suit was a fine wool serge that cost him two weeks'
salary. Its jaunty design was at odds with the feeling of dread that
grew in him that day as he set off for the apartment where Sarah
lived with her family, having written to her father asking if he
might pay a call.

The scene unfolds with cinematic vividness as my father's hands
recount each stage of his quest.

He descends with the crowd, down the stairs from the subway
platform, sweat dampening his armpits, and exits the station into
the frantic gay activity of Sabbath shoppers rushing about, making
their last-minute purchases for the evening meal.

The salt scent of the Atlantic Ocean hangs over every shop awning,
every outdoor stall, reminding my father, as if he needed such a
reminder, how far he had traveled this warm day from his familiar
home in the northern leafy village reaches of the Bronx, after one
trolley ride and three subway transfers, to the very end of
Brooklyn, on the honky-tonk shore of Coney Island. And why has he
come here on this warm spring day, sweat pooling at the base of his
spine, palms moistly clutching now-wilted store-bought flowers?
Today, this very afternoon, my father will meet, for the first time,
the family of the girl he has chosen to be his wife.

Unfortunately for him, my future mother, waiting at home, believes
he is hopelessly boring and much too old for her; besides, she
feels, she's too young to be married, there being so much fun to be
had with all the good-looking boys who flutter around her like bees
around a hive of honey every weekend on the hot sand of Bay 6, their
hands gesturing wildly to gain her exclusive attention. And she
could not banish from her mind the image of the hearing golden boy
whose attentions she enjoyed so much and who said he loved her.

Glancing nervously at the written directions, my father marches down
the broad bustling avenue, so unlike the uneventful Bronx street
where he lives. His hands at his sides rehearse the arguments he
will employ this afternoon to convince this dark-haired young girl
and her father that he is the one to whom she should commit her
future. He has been marshaling the arguments in his favor for the
past two weeks. He has a steady job and a union card. He is mature
and serious. He is a loyal and dependable fellow, calm in an
emergency. He can read. He can write. He can sign fluently. And if
she will have him, he will love her forever. He finds himself
impressed with his qualifications as he cycles through them. He is
an up-and-comer. Besides, he has a full head of hair parted
perfectly down the middle and a dandy mustache, and is altogether a
fine-looking fellow.

Fifteen crowded blocks from the subway station, on a narrow tree-
lined side street, he finds her apartment building, fronted with a
narrow stoop, a five-story walkup in a typical dumbbell front-to-
back floor arrangement.

Up goes my father. Up the stone steps of the stoop. Up the five
flights of spongy wooden stairs. Up through the hallway smells of
cooking and laundry and close immigrant living. Arriving at the door
of 5B, he pauses. His future lies behind the dark wooden door. He
thinks: What if her parents don't like him? What if they disapprove
of him? What if they think he is too deaf? What will he do if they
don't give their blessings to his cause? How will he endure if he
cannot have this magnificent girl for his wife? He'll do anything,
he thinks, to win their approval. He'll even move to Brooklyn, if
that is the price he must pay to be accepted.