誰是我爸爸？（黎明女 2）

厭倦了整天給頭發上電刑，這幾天我找了一個偷懶的辦法： 把頭發拽直盤在後腦上， 再用幾十個卡子固定住， 這樣頭發裏的圈就不明顯了。 微微看到後皺了皺眉頭， 但沒有說什莫。剛才從外麵回來，我的頭發鬆開了。一圈兒一圈兒的伸展到我的肩膀。微微立刻注意到。她當時正在桌邊研墨， 盯著我，眼睛像東北 狼一般犀利。

我現在瞥一眼微微。她在漫無目的的把玩手裏的墨石。我意識到她的苦楚遠遠超越了我頭發裏的圈圈。這成了她的秘密之一，我也許會，也許不會揭開。

My curls have upset her. For the first time, it occurs to me that her anguish over my hair goes beyond the curls. It’s one of the many mysteries of her I may or may never find out.

As I tilt my head to iron my hair, my eyes fall on the family photos on the wall, inevitably gazing at the one on the side. The photo is small, hung on the edge of the cluster of photos like an afterthought. My father—or whom I insist to be my father—stands alone inside the simple, ill-fitting frame. Ever since I was a child, I’ve been obsessed with this picture, looking for resemblance between him and me. He has small, squinting eyes on his dark, square face, whereas my eyes are big and shaped like an apricot seed, or so others tell me. His nose is flared; his mouth is pulled slightly downward on the side, which gives him a sad expression. The only resemblance between us is the raven blackness of our hair, though his is straight. My father’s photo is small, but his image is huge in my mind. VeVe avoids talking about him. The only thing I know is that he was a renowned doctor who died from a rare illness when I was two. I’ve always had the inkling that he is still alive somewhere. As I grow older, that feeling grows stronger. Once VeVe became angry when I would not stop asking about him and said, “You must forget him. It's just you and me.” I knew then that VeVe was hiding the truth about my father from me, as she does so many other things. How do I even know if the man in the photo is indeed my father?

But he is, I always assure myself in the end.

 

Still grinding ink, VeVe has fallen into a trance; she seems locked in a place only she knows, and she will stay there until she is spent. This is the image of her I’ve known since childhood. She pours the ink into an empty milk bottle so she can grind more. Later, as always, I will empty the ink in the bottle, or bottles. She will need them again. And again.

As soon as every curl in my hair has yielded to the heat, I pull the electric comb out of the wall and sneak out. VeVe won’t notice I’m gone before I make it back.

此刻，微微仍然在研墨，好像落進了一個賭咒。好像被鎖進了一個隻有他她自己知道的地方。她要在那裏呆下去，直到精疲力盡。她的這個形象是我從小就熟悉的。 她把沒墨汁倒進空奶瓶裏。之後我會把墨倒出來，把奶瓶收好，我知道她還會再需要的。

我頭發裏最後一個圈在高熱裏屈服了。我把電梳子從牆裏拔出來。趁微微沒注意，我悄悄的打開門走了出去。也許微微注意到以前我已經回來了。

--待續

Girl at Dawn 黎明女 已經發表在 Amazon.com:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=girl+at+dawn&ref=nb_sb_noss