The poplar trees lined the redbrick driveway, which led to a pair of wrought iron gates. They in turn opened into an extension of the driveway into my father’s estate. The house sat on the left side of the brick path, the backyard at the end of it.
那条通向两扇锻铁大门的红砖车道两旁植满白杨。车道延伸进敞开的双扉，再进去就是我父亲的地盘了。砖路的左边是房子，尽头则是后院。
Every one agreed that my father, my Baba, had built the most beautiful house in the WazirAkbar Khan district, a new and affluent neighborhood in the northern part of Kabul. Some thought it was the prettiest house in all of Kabul. A broad entryway flanked by rosebushes led to the sprawling house of marble floors and wide windows. Intricate mosaic tiles, handpicked by Baba in Isfahan, covered the floors of the four bathrooms. Gold-stitched tapestries, which Baba had bought in Calcutta,lined the walls; a crystal chandelier hung from the vaulted ceiling.
人人都说我父亲的房子是瓦兹尔·阿克巴·汗区最华丽的屋宇，甚至有人认为它是全喀布尔最美观的建筑。它坐落于喀布尔北部繁华的新兴城区，入口通道甚为宽广，两旁种着蔷薇；房子开间不少，铺着大理石地板，还有很大的窗户。爸爸亲手在伊斯法罕(Isfaham，伊朗中部城市。)选购了精美的马赛克瓷砖，铺满四个浴室的地面，还从加尔各答(Calcutta，印度城市。)买来金丝织成的挂毯，用于装饰墙壁，拱形的天花板上挂着水晶吊灯。
Upstairs was my bedroom, Baba’s room, and his study, also known as “the smoking room,”which perpetually smelled of tobacco and cinnamon. Baba and his friends reclined on black leather chairs there after Ali had served dinner. They stuffed their pipes--except Baba always called it “fattening the pipe”--and discussed their favorite three topics: politics, business, soccer. Sometimes I asked Baba if I could sit with them, but Baba would stand in the doorway. “Go on, now,” he’d say. “This is grown-ups’ time. Why don’t you go read one of those books of yours?”He’d close the door, leave me to wonder why it was always grown-ups’ time with him. I’d sit by the door, knees drawn to my chest. Sometimes I sat there for an hour, sometimes two, listening to their laughter, their chatter.
楼上是我的卧房，还有爸爸的书房，它也被称为“吸烟室”，总是弥漫着烟草和肉桂的气味。在阿里的服侍下用完晚膳之后，爸爸跟他的朋友躺在书房的黑色皮椅上。他们填满烟管——爸爸总说是“喂饱烟管”，高谈阔论，总不离三个话题：政治，生意，足球。有时我会求爸爸让我坐在他们身边，但爸爸会堵在门口。“走开，现在就走开，”他会说，“这是大人的时间。你为什么不回去看你自己的书本呢？”他会关上门，留下我独自纳闷：何以他总是只有大人的时间？我坐在门口，膝盖抵着胸膛。我坐上一个钟头，有时两个钟头，听着他们的笑声，他们的谈话声。
The living room downstairs had a curved wall with custombuilt cabinets. Inside sat framed family pictures: an old, grainy photo of my grandfather and King NadirShah taken in 1931, two years before the king’s assassination; they are standing over a dead deer, dressed in knee-high boots, rifles slung over their shoulders.There was a picture of my parents’ wedding night, Baba dashing in his black suit and my mother a smiling young princess in white. Here was Baba and his best friend and business partner, Rahim Khan, standing outside our house, neither one smiling--I am a baby in that photograph and Baba is holding me, looking tired and grim. I’m in his arms, but it’s Rahim Khan’s pinky my fingers are curled around.
楼下的起居室有一面凹壁，摆着专门订做的橱柜。里面陈列着镶框的家庭照片：有张模糊的老照片，是我祖父和纳迪尔国王[Nadir Shah(1883～1933)，阿富汗国王，1929年登基，1933年11月8日被刺杀。]在1931年的合影，两年后国王遇刺，他们穿着及膝的长靴，肩膀上扛着来复枪，站在一头死鹿前。有张是在我父母新婚之夜拍的，爸爸穿着黑色的套装，朝气蓬勃，脸带微笑的妈妈穿着白色衣服，宛如公主。还有一张照片，爸爸和他最好的朋友和生意伙伴拉辛汗站在我们的房子外面，两人都没笑，我在照片中还是婴孩，爸爸抱着我，看上去疲倦而严厉。我在爸爸怀里，手里却抓着拉辛汗的小指头。
The curved wall led into the dining room, at the center of which was a mahogany table that could easily sit thirty guests-- and, given my father’s taste for extravagant parties, it did just that almost every week. On the other end of the dining room was a tall marble fireplace, always lit by the orange glow of a fire in the wintertime.
凹壁可通往餐厅，餐厅正中摆着红木餐桌，坐下三十人绰绰有余。由于爸爸热情好客，确实几乎每隔一周就有这么多人坐在这里用膳。餐厅的另一端有高大的大理石壁炉，每到冬天总有橙色的火焰在里面跳动。
A large sliding glass door opened into a semicircular terrace that overlooked two acres of backyard and rows of cherry trees. Baba and Ali had planted a small vegetable garden along the eastern wall: tomatoes, mint, peppers, and a row of corn that never really took. Hassan and I used to call it “the Wall of Ailing Corn.”
拉开那扇玻璃大滑门，便可走上半圆形的露台；下面是占地两英亩的后院和成排的樱桃树。爸爸和阿里在东边的围墙下辟了个小菜园，种着西红柿、薄荷和胡椒，还有一排从未结实的玉米。哈桑和我总是叫它“病玉米之墙”。
On the south end of the garden, in the shadows of a loquat tree, was the servants’home, a modest little mud hut where Hassan lived with his father. It was there,in that little shack, that Hassan was born in the winter of 1964, just one year after my mother died giving birth to me.
花园的南边种着枇杷树，树阴之下便是仆人的住所了。那是一座简陋的泥屋，哈桑和他父亲住在里面。在我母亲因为生我死于难产之后一年，也即1964年冬天，哈桑诞生在那个小小的窝棚里面。
