Life is Sweet at Kumansenu
by Abioseh Nicol
Abioseh Nicol (1924.9.14~1994.9.20) 為西非獅子山國Sierra Leon的學者、外交官、內科醫師、作家及詩人，被譽為獅子山國最富學養的公民。1924年出生於獅子山國首都自由城 Freetown，小學就讀於奈及利亞Nigeria，於英國劍橋大學獲得博士學位。
1960年擔任自由城名校 Fourah Bay大學的首位本土校長，1969年被任命為獅子山國派駐聯合國的常務代表。1972年擔任聯合國副祕書長及聯合國訓練研究所所長。1987~1991於美國加州大學及南卡羅里納大學擔任國際研究的訪問教授。退休後定居於英國倫敦直到1994年去世。
The sea and the wet sand to one side of it; green tropical forest on the other; above it, the slow, tumbling clouds. The clean, round, blinding disk of sun and the blue sky covered and surrounded the small African village, Kumansenu.1
A few square mud houses with roofs like helmets were here thatched, and there covered with corrugated zinc, where the prosperity of cocoa and trading had touched the head of the family. 2
The widow Bola stirred her palm-oil stew and thought of nothing in particular. She chewed a kola nut3 rhythmically with her strong toothless jaws, and soon unconsciously she was chewing in rhythm with the skipping of Asi, her granddaughter4. She looked idly at Asi, as the seven-year-old brought the twisted palm-leaf rope smartly over her head and jumped over it, counting in English each time the rope struck the ground and churned up a little red dust. Bola herself did not understand English well, but she could easily count up to twenty in English, for market purposes. Asi shouted, “Six,” and then said, “Nine, ten.” Bola called out that after six came seven. “And I should know,” she sighed. Although now she was old and her womb and breasts were withered, there was a time when she bore children regularly, every two years. Six times she had borne a boy child and six times they had died. Some had swollen up and with weak, plaintive5cries had faded away. Others had shuddered
1. Kumansenu是奈及利亞的一個小村落，故事開頭描述村落一邊是海洋沙灘，另一邊是綠蔭熱帶森林，浮雲翻湧，浩陽晴朗，天空蔚藍。故事的開頭非常重要，好的開頭能引人入勝。四周環境的美象徵生命的美，也映襯故事的哀傷。
2. 村裡有些人因為可可亞生意賺了些錢，蓋了幾間四方形的泥土房，屋頂像頭盔，有些地方用茅草鋪蓋，有些地方用波浪形鐵皮鋪蓋。
3. 在許多西非文化中，人們習慣咀嚼kola nut 可樂果，可舒緩飢餓感。在奈及利亞作家Chinua Achebe的名著THINGS FALL APART 中就有許多這樣的描寫場景。
4. 寡婦Bola一邊攪動棕櫚油燉煮物，一邊隨著孫女Asi跳繩節奏咀嚼著可樂果。
5. plaintive: 悲哀的，哀傷的
in sudden convulsions, with burning skins, and had rolled up their eyes and died. They had all died; or rather he had died, Bola thought, because she knew it was one child all the time whose spirit had crept up restlessly into her womb to be born and mock her. The sixth time, Musa, the village magician whom time had now transformed into a respectable Muslim, had advised her and her husband to break the bones of the quiet little corpse and mangle it so that it could not come back to torment them alive again. But she had held on to the child and refused to let them mutilate it. Secretly, she had marked it with a sharp pointed stick at the left buttock before it was wrapped in a mat and taken away. When at the seventh time she had borne a son and the purification ceremonies had taken place, she had turned it surreptitiously to see whether the mark was there. It was. She showed it to the old woman who was the midwife and asked her what it was, and she had forced herself to believe that it was an accidental scratch made while the child was being scrubbed with herbs to remove placental blood. But this child had stayed. Meji, he had been called. And he was now thirty years of age and a second-class clerk in government offices in a town ninety miles away. Asi, his daughter, had been left with her to do the things an old woman wanted a small child for: to run and take messages to the neighbors, to fetch a cup of water from the earthenware pot in the kitchen, to sleep with her, and to be fondled. 6
She threw the washed and squeezed cassava7 leaves into the red, boiling stew, putting in a finger’s pinch of salt, and then went indoors, carefully stepping over the threshold, to look for the dried red pepper. She found it and then dropped it, leaning against the wall with a little cry. He turned around from the window and looked at her with a twisted half smile of love and sadness8. In his short-sleeved, open-necked white shirt and gray gabardine9 trousers, gold wristwatch, and brown suede shoes, he looked like the picture in African magazines of a handsome clerk who would get to the top because he ate the correct food or regularly took the correct laxative10, which was being advertised. His skin was grayish brown and he had a large red handkerchief tied round his neck.
6. Asi用英語數著跳幾下，但從六就直接跳到九，於是Bola糾正她六之後應當是七。故事於此追述她之前生了六個小孩，生下沒多久就死掉，根據非洲土著迷信，那是惡靈不斷回到她子宮來作弄她，因此巫師Musa建議將小孩屍體的骨頭敲碎，它就不會再回來折磨他們。但是Bola拒絕這麼做，她在第六個小孩的左臀做個記號，當她產下第七胎是個兒子，偷偷查看左臀記號，而接生婆說那是用藥草刮胎盤血留下的痕跡。這男孩活了下來，他就叫Meji，現年30歲，在90英里外的城鎮某政府機構當名二職等雇員。Meji將女兒Asi留在Bola身邊，承歡膝下。
7. cassava: 樹薯，其根部磨成樹薯粉叫做tapioca，在奈及利亞Nigeria迦納Ghana 為普遍的主食。
8. 第二句寫Bola找到乾的紅胡椒卻又將它丟下，倚牆險些驚喊出來，作者立即接著敘述"他自窗邊轉身過來，臉上帶著扭曲的微笑，帶著愛與哀傷。我們很快就知道這裡的他是Meji，但為什麼 a twisted smile of love and sadness，這是故事情節的伏筆foreshadowing。
9. gabardine一種結實的斜紋布
10. laxative緩瀉藥或通便劑
“Meji, God be praised,” Bola cried. “You gave me quite a turn11. My heart is weak and I can no longer take surprises. When did you come? How did you come? By truck, by fishing boat? And how did you come into the house? The front door was locked. There are so many thieves nowadays. I’m so glad to see you, so glad,” she mumbled and wept, leaning against his breast. 12
Meji’s voice was hoarse, and he said, “I’m glad to see you too, Mother,” rubbing her back affectionately.
Asi ran in and cried, “Papa, Papa,” and was rewarded with a lift and a hug.
“Never mind how I came, Mother,” Meji said, laughing. “I’m here, and that’s all that matters.” 13
“We must make a feast, we must have a big feast. I must tell the neighbors at once. Asi, run this very minute to Mr. Addai, the catechist, and tell him your papa is home. Then to Mami Gbera to ask her for extra provisions, and to Pa Babole for drummers and musicians . . .”
“Stop,” said Meji, raising his hand. “This is all quite unnecessary. I don’t want to see anyone, no one at all. I wish to rest quietly and completely. No one is to know I’m here.”
Bola looked very crestfallen. She was so proud of Meji and wanted to show him off. The village would never forgive her for concealing such an important visitor. Meji must have sensed this because he held her shoulder comfortingly and said, “They will know soon enough. Let us enjoy each other, all three of us, this time. Life is too short.” 14
Bola turned to Asi, picked up the packet of pepper, and told her to go and drop a little into the boiling pot outside, taking care not to go too near the fire or play with it. After the child had gone, Bola said to her son, “Are you in trouble? Is it the police?” He shook his head. “No,” he said, “it’s just that I like returning to you. There will always be this bond of love and affection between us, and I don’t wish to share it with others. It is our private affair and that is why I’ve left my daughter with you.” He ended up irrelevantly, “Girls somehow seem to stay with relations longer.” 15
“And don’t I know it,” said Bola. “But you look pale,” she continued, “and you keep scraping your throat. Are you ill?” She laid her hand on his brow. “And you’re cold, too.” 16
“It’s the cold, wet wind,” he said, a little harshly. “I’ll go and rest now if you can open and dust my room for me. I’m feeling very tired. Very tired indeed. I’ve traveled very far today, and it has not been an easy journey.”
“Of course, my son, of course,” Bola replied, bustling away hurriedly but happily.
Meji slept all afternoon till evening, and his mother brought his food to his room and, later, took the empty basins away. Then he slept again till morning.
The next day, Saturday, was a busy one, and after further promising Meji that she would tell no one he was about, Bola went off to market. Meji took Asi for a long walk through a deserted path and up into the hills. She was delighted. They climbed high until they could see the village below in front of them, and the sea in the distance, and the boats with their wide white sails. Soon the sun had passed its zenith and was halfway toward the west. Asi had eaten all the food, the dried fish and the flat tapioca pancakes and the oranges. Her father said he wasn’t hungry, and this had made the day perfect for Asi, who had chattered, eaten, and then played with her father’s fountain pen and other things from his pocket. They soon left for home because he had promised that they would be back before dark; he had carried her down some steep boulders and she had held on to his shoulders because he had said his neck hurt so and she must not touch it. She had said, “Papa, I can see behind you and you haven’t got a shadow. Why?” 17
He had then turned her around facing the sun. Since she was getting drowsy, she had started asking questions, and her father had joked with her and humored her. “Papa, why has your watch stopped at twelve o’clock?” “Because the world ends at noon.” Asi had chuckled at that. “Papa, why do you wear a scarf always around your neck?” “Because my head would fall off if I didn’t.” She had laughed out loud at that. But soon she had fallen asleep as he bore her homeward. 18
11. You gave me quite a turn 你嚇了我一大跳
12. Bola喃喃問道：你什麼時候回來的？怎麼回來的？前門鎖住，你怎麼進得來？驚喜而泣，撲入兒子懷中。非常生動的遊子慈母畫面。Bola的問題不僅是伏筆，且具懸疑效果。
13. Meji笑著說：別管我怎麼來的，我在這裡，這才是最要緊的。這句話有夠經典。當讀完全篇故事，可知話中有話。
14. 兒子回來，Bola非常得意高興，要熱熱鬧鬧辦桌宴客，但Meji說他不打算見任何人，他們很快就會知道，這次就讓我們三人相聚，生命太短暫了。
15. Bola將Asi支開，她覺得不對勁，擔心地問Meji是不是惹了什麼麻煩，Meji說：沒有，只是想要回來看她，對話間自然流露母子情深。
16. Bola說他臉色蒼白，一直用手撫摸著喉嚨，全身冰冷，這些都是故事的伏筆。
17. 第二天，周六早晨，Meji帶Asi走一條荒蕪的路徑上山，村落在眼底，海在遠方，還有白色寬帆的船。Asi高興極了，有爸爸陪，所有食物(乾魚、樹薯餅、橘子)都她一個人吃，與爸爸聊天，玩著爸爸的鋼筆及口袋裡的其他東西。當Meji抱著Asi下山，Asi抓著他的肩膀，因為他頸部會痛。這時，Asi問道：爸爸，我看到你背後為什麼沒有影子？這故事一路敘述，處處皆見預告結局的伏筆。
18.Asi問：爸爸，為什麼你的手錶停在十二點？Meji回答：因為世界於中午停止。Asi問：爸爸，為什麼你脖子老繫著圍巾？Meji回答：因為若不繫圍巾，我頭會掉下來。Asi覺得很好玩，呵呵大笑，對映出小孩子的單純與天真。
Just before nightfall, with his mother dressed in her best, they had all three, at her urgent request, gone to his father’s grave, taking a secret route and avoiding the main village. It was a small cemetery, not more than twenty years or so old, started when the Rural Health Department had insisted that no more burials were to take place in the back yard of households. Bola took a bottle of wine and a glass and four split halves of kola, each a half sphere, two red and two white. They reached the graveside and she poured some wine into the glass. Then she spoke to her dead husband softly and caressingly. She had brought his son to see him, she said. This son whom God had given success, to the confusion and discomfiture of their enemies. Here he was, a man with a pensionable clerk’s job and not a poor farmer, a fisherman, or a simple mechanic. All the years of their married life, people had said she was a witch because her children had died young. But this boy of theirs had shown that she was a good woman. Let her husband answer her now, to show that he was listening. She threw the four kola nuts up into the air and they fell onto the grave. Three fell with the flat face upward and one with its flat face downward. She picked them up again and conversed with him once more and threw the kola nuts up again. But still there was an odd one or sometimes two. 19
They did not fall with all four faces up, or with all four faces down, to show that he was listening and was pleased. She spoke endearingly, she cajoled, she spoke severely. But all to no avail. She then asked Meji to perform. He crouched by the graveside and whispered. Then he threw the kola nuts and they rolled a little, Bola following them eagerly with her sharp old eyes. They all ended up face downward. Meji emptied the glass of wine on the grave and then said that he felt nearer his father at that moment than he had ever done before in his life.
It was sundown, and they all three went back silently home in the short twilight. That night, going outside the house toward her son’s window, she had found, to her sick disappointment, that he had been throwing all the cooked food away out there. She did not mention this when she went to say good night, but she did sniff and say that there was a smell of decay in the room. Meji said that he thought there was a dead rat up in the rafters20, and he would clear it away after she had gone to bed.
That night it rained heavily, and sheet lightning21 turned the darkness into brief silver daylight for one or two seconds at a time. Then the darkness again and the rain. Bola woke soon after midnight and thought she could hear knocking. She went to Meji’s room to ask him to open the door, but he wasn’t there. She thought he had gone out for a while and had been locked out by mistake. She opened the door quickly, holding an oil lamp upward. He stood on the veranda22, curiously unwet, and refused to come in.
“I have to go away,” he said hoarsely, coughing.
“Do come in,” she said.
“No,” he said, “I have to go, but I wanted to thank you for giving me a chance.” 23
“What nonsense is this?” she said. “Come in out of the rain.”
“I did not think I should leave without thanking you.”
The rain fell hard, the door creaked, and the wind whistled.
“Life is sweet, Mother dear, goodbye, and thank you.”
He turned around and started running.
There was a sudden diffuse flash of silent lightning, and she saw that the yard was empty. She went back heavily and fell into a restless sleep. Before she slept, she said to herself that she must see Mr. Addai next morning, Sunday, or better still, Monday, and tell him about all this, in case Meji was in trouble. She hoped Meji would not be annoyed. He was such a good son.
19. 這段祭拜父親的描述，竟然有好幾處與我們風俗如此相似。他們用切開一半的kola當杯筊，他們也用擲杯筊來問亡者，我們順杯是一杯朝上一杯朝下，他們順杯是四杯都朝上或四杯都朝下。我們祭拜後會將酒酹灑墳前，他們則是在祭拜之前將些酒灑在墳旁草間。
這裡也提到Nigeria鄉下地方的民情風俗，Bola之前生下六個小孩皆夭折，村人閒言閒語說她是女巫，她備感屈辱，如今兒子出人頭地有份受人尊敬的公務員職位，讓她揚眉吐氣。我們老一輩鄉下地區應當也有相同的情形，其實我們離所謂落後的非洲土著相去也沒那麼遠。
Bola 怎麼丟都沒杯，換Meji一擲杯筊就得順杯，他說他一生都沒這一刻感覺更接近父親，這也是一個伏筆。
20. rafter：屋椽
21. sheet lightning 雲層與雲層之間的閃電
22. veranda陽臺，走廊
23. Meji說他必須離去，但他想要跟Bola說謝謝給他一個機會。這是故事裡具關鍵意義的一句話。
But it was Mr. Addai who came instead, on Sunday afternoon, quiet and grave, and met Bola sitting on an old stool in the veranda, dressing Asi’s hair in tight, thin plaits. 24
Mr. Addai sat down and, looking away, he said, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” Soon half the village was sitting around the veranda and in the yard. 25
“But I tell you, he was here on Friday and left Sunday morning,” Bola said. “He couldn’t have died on Friday.” 26
Bola had just recovered from a fainting fit after being told of her son’s death in town. His wife, Asi’s mother, had come with the news, bringing some of his property. She said Meji had died instantly at noon on Friday and had been buried on Saturday at sundown. They would have brought him to Kumansenu for burial. He had always wished that. But they could not do so in time, as bodies did not last more than a day in the hot season, and there were no trucks available for hire. 27
“He was here, he was here,” Bola said, rubbing her forehead and weeping.
Asi sat by quietly. Mr. Addai said comfortingly, “Hush, hush, he couldn’t have been, because no one in the village saw him.”
“He said we were to tell no one,” Bola said.
The crowd smiled above Bola’s head and shook their heads. “Poor woman,” someone said, “she is beside herself with grief.”
“He died on Friday,” Mrs. Meji repeated, crying. “He was in the office and he pulled up the window to look out and call the messenger. Then the sash28 broke. The window fell, broke his neck, and the sharp edge almost cut his head off; they say he died at once.” 29
“My papa had a scarf around his neck,” Asi shouted suddenly.
“Hush,” said the crowd.
Mrs. Meji dipped her hand into her bosom and produced a small gold locket30 and put it around Asi’s neck, to quiet her. 31
“Your papa had this made last week for your Christmas present. You may as well have it now.”
Asi played with it and pulled it this way and that.
“Be careful, child,” Mr. Addai said, “it is your father’s last gift.”
“I was trying to remember how he showed me yesterday to open it,” Asi said.
“You have never seen it before,” Mrs. Meji said sharply, trembling with fear mingled with anger. 32
She took the locket and tried to open it.
“Let me have it,” said the village goldsmith, and he tried whispering magic words of incantation. Then he said, defeated, “It must be poor-quality gold; it has rusted. I need tools to open it.” 33
“I remember now,” Asi said in the flat, complacent voice of childhood.
The crowd gathered around quietly, and the setting sun glinted on the soft red African gold of the dangling trinket34. The goldsmith handed the locket over to Asi and asked in a loud whisper, “How did he open it?”
“Like so,” Asi said and pressed a secret catch35. It flew open and she spelled out gravely the word inside, “A-S-I.”
The silence continued.
“His neck, poor boy,” Bola said a little wildly. “That is why he could not eat the lovely meals I cooked for him.”
Mr. Addai announced a service of intercession36 after vespers37 that evening. The crowd began to leave quietly.
Musa, the magician, was one of the last to leave. He was now very old and bent. In times of grave calamity, it was known that even Mr. Addai did not raise objection to his being consulted.
He bent over further and whispered in Bola’s ear, “You should have had his bones broken and mangled thirty-one years ago when he went for the sixth time, and then he would not have come back to mock you all these years by pretending to be alive. I told you so. But you women are naughty and stubborn.” 38
Bola stood up, her black face held high, her eyes terrible with maternal rage and pride.
“I am glad I did not,” she said, “and that is why he came back specially to thank me before he went for good.”
She clutched Asi to her. “I am glad I gave him the opportunity to come back, for life is sweet. I do not expect you to understand why I did so. After all, you are only a man.” 39
24. Meji離去一事，Bola第一個想到要去請教的人是Mr. Addai，前面提到他是名傳道師catechist，尤其指傳授天主教教理問答者，可見Bola是信奉天主教的，但村裡也有些人是信奉回教的，例如巫師Musa。
25. Mr. Addai說道：上帝賜予的上帝帶走，簡單交代Bola已獲悉Meji去世的噩耗。
26. Bola 拒絕接受事實，說Meji周五還在這裡，周日凌晨才離開。
27. 奈及利亞也有這種習俗，人們希望死後歸葬家鄉。但非洲溫度這麼高，屍體一天就會腐壞，而且找不到運載的卡車，不得已只好就地埋葬。
28. sash窗框
29. Meji老婆敘述出事經過，周五中午十二點Meji在辦公室，拉起窗子，探頭叫喚信差，窗框斷裂窗戶墜下砸斷他的頸部，當場死亡。
30. locket：掛在錶鏈等下面裝相片的小金盒
31. Asi大聲叫道：我爸爸脖子有繫圍巾，想是在支援她奶奶的說法。但人們當作小孩子在吵，她媽媽拿出Meji買給Asi當聖誕禮物的項鍊金墜盒來安撫她。
32. Meji老婆的情緒反應：尖銳說話、顫抖、害怕、生氣。試著想像一個剛剛痛失先生的少婦這時的心理狀態，短短幾個字有效地傳達人物性格刻劃。
33. goldsmith: 金飾匠，照理講處理這種小玩意應當是他的專業，竟然還要輕聲呼神喚鬼，使用咒語，描寫非洲土人的神情維妙維肖。還是不管用，就推說這東西品質太差，銹蝕了，需要工具打開，十足生動地描繪蹩腳工匠又愛面子的性格。
34. trinket：小裝飾品
35. secret catch：暗鎖
36. service of intercession: 類似我們於喪事請師父誦經超渡
37. vespers: 天主教教堂於周日晚上舉行的晚禱
38. 巫師Musa說：31年前我就告訴過妳，要將第六個小孩的骨頭敲碎，它就不會這麼多年假裝活著來捉弄妳，妳們女人就是這樣任性固執。哇！這種安慰人的方式。
39. Bola的回答讓人讀完全篇忍不住要站起來大聲為她喝采。母親的愛涵蓋著所有生命的溫暖與光輝。
【淺嚐賞味】
曹操短歌行開首：「對酒當歌，人生幾何?譬如朝露，去日苦多。」波斯詩人Omar Khayyam歌云：What, without asking, hither hurried Whence?/And, without asking, Whither hurried hence! 生本無因死亦空，前身後世影朦朧。(黃克孫譯)。古來英雄豪傑、騷人墨客對於生命諸多興懷嘆詠，我們日常中亦有或多或少的感觸，但細究生命的意義與美好，幾人能如托爾斯泰於The Death of Ivan Ilych中那般透徹認識或像這篇故事中這般深刻感動？
這篇故事的主題相當完整與清楚：縱使生命無常、煩憂、苦難，因為有了愛我的人與我愛的人，生命才顯得無比的美好，即使短短30年光陰，也讓人心懷感恩。文學與藝術的評價並不在於其主題或傳達的訊息，而在於作者如何呈現與表達，包括氛圍營造、情節建構、人物刻劃，而讓讀者能生動且深刻地感受其傳達的訊息，這才是藝術與文學的要義。
故事一開始描繪純淨海洋、蔚藍天空、翠綠森林等自然環境，揭示生命的美麗風景，這場景(setting)襯烘後續之情節發展。Meji離去那晚閃電暴雨，這場景讓讀者也感到悽然愁苦。又Meji於周五正午十二點因窗戶突然墜砸殞命，此場景固然象徵生命的無常，亦具反諷(irony)意味。
這篇故事透過簡單的動作與對話描述，人物性格刻劃(characterization)躍然紙上。例如Bola將找到的乾紅胡椒掉落於地，倚牆險些驚喊出來，Meji自窗邊轉身過來，臉上呈現扭曲的微笑，帶著愛與哀傷。又如Asi於登山之行返家途中，與父親歡樂對答，天真呵笑。Mrs. Meji害怕且生氣地斥責Asi︰“妳根本沒見過這東西。”飾匠呼神喚鬼，使用咒語要打開項鍊金墜盒。巫師Musa自以為勘透一切地怪Bola當初不聽勸。有些人性表現是普世(universal)的，有些民情風俗則是非洲當地獨特的。交織著普世的人性表現與獨特的非洲風土色彩，讓閱讀故事的趣味豐富許多。
伏筆(foreshadowing)通常用來製造懸疑效果。這篇故事一路敘述，處處皆見明確的伏筆。顯然作者要寫的並非懸疑驚悚的鬼故事。相反地，作者藉著諸多明確的伏筆沖淡故事的荒誕色彩。畢竟，他要寫的是一則人性的故事。
故事的衝突與高潮在於最後巫師Musa與Bola的對答，那是兩種不同的生命價值觀的對決。Bola帶著母性的憤怒與驕傲反駁道︰“畢竟，你只是一個凡人。”讓母愛的光輝凌駕於Musa所代表的神靈巫術與愚昧的民間信仰，整篇故事的意義也從單純的親情中提昇到另一種生命終極價值的境界。
Traveler-Levin
留言列表
