【英文短篇小说】Hole in the Wall

On Bernadotte Avenue, right next to the Central Bus Station, there’s a hole in the wall. There used to be an ATM there once, but it broke or something, or else nobody ever used it, so the people from the bank came in a pickup¹ and took it, and never brought it back.

Somebody once told Udi that if you scream a wish into this hole it comes true, but Udi didn’t really buy that. The truth is that once, on his way home from the movies, he screamed into the hole in the wall that he wanted Dafne Rimalt to fall in love with him, and nothing happened. And once, when he was feeling really lonely, he screamed into the hole in the wall that he wanted to have an angel for a friend, and an angel really did show up right after that, but he was never much of a friend, and he’d always disappear just when Udi really needed him. This angel was skinny and all stooped and he wore a trench² coat the whole time to hide his wings. People in the street were sure he was a hunchback. Sometimes, when there were just the two of them, he’d take the coat off. Once he even let Udi touch the feathers on his wings. But when there was anyone else in the room, he always kept it on. Klein’s kids asked him once what he had under his coat, and he said it was a backpack full of books that didn’t belong to him and that he didn’t want them to get wet. Actually, he lied all the time. He told Udi such stories you could die: about places in heaven, about people who when they go to bed at night leave the keys in the ignition, about cats who aren’t afraid of anything and don’t even know the meaning of scat. The stories he made up were something else, and to top it all, he’d cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die.

Udi was nuts about him and always tried hard to believe him. Even lent him some money a couple of times when he was hard up. As for the angel, he didn’t do a thing to help Udi. He just talked and talked and talked, rambling³ off his harebrained stories. In the six years he knew him, Udi never saw him so much as rinse⁴ a glass.

When Udi was in basic training, and really needed someone to talk to, the angel suddenly disappeared on him for two solid months. Then he came back with an unshaven don’t-ask-what-happened face. So Udi didn’t ask, and on Saturday they sat around on the roof in their underpants just taking in the sun and feeling low. Udi looked at the other rooftops with the cable hookups and the solar heaters and the sky. It occurred to him suddenly that in all their years together he’d never once seen the angel fly.

“How about flying around a little,” he said to the angel. “It would make you feel better.”

And the angel said: “Forget it. What if someone sees me?”

“Be a sport,” Udi nagged⁵. “Just a little. For my sake.” But the angel just made this disgusting noise from the inside of his mouth and shot a gob of spit and white phlegm at the tar-covered roof.

“Never mind,” Udi sulked. “I bet you don’t know how to fly anyway.”

“Sure I do,” the angel shot back. “I just don’t want people to see me, that’s all.”

On the roof across the way they saw some kids throwing a water bomb. “You know.” Udi smiled. “Once, when I was little, before I met you, I used to come up here a lot and throw water bombs on people in the street below. I’d aim them into the space between that awning⁶ and the other one,” he explained, bending over the railing and pointing down at the narrow gap between the awning over the grocery store and the one over the shoe store. “People would look up, and all they’d see was the awning. They wouldn’t know where it was coming from.”

The angel got up too, and looked down into the street. He opened his mouth to say something. Suddenly, Udi gave him a little shove⁷ from behind, and the angel lost his balance. Udi was just fooling around. He didn’t really mean to hurt the angel, just to make him fly a little, for laughs. But the angel dropped the whole five floors, like a sack of potatoes. Stunned⁸, Udi watched him lying there on the sidewalk below. His whole body was completely still, except the wings that were still fluttering⁹ a little, like when someone dies. That’s when he finally understood that of all the things the angel had told him, nothing was true. That he wasn’t even an angel, just a liar¹⁰ with wings.

1 pickup   

n.拾起，获得

参考例句：

• I would love to trade this car for a pickup truck.我愿意用这辆汽车换一辆小型轻便卡车。||The luck guy is a choice pickup for the girls.那位幸运的男孩是女孩子们想勾搭上的人。

2 trench   

n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕

参考例句：

• The soldiers recaptured their trench.兵士夺回了战壕。
• The troops received orders to trench the outpost.部队接到命令在前哨周围筑壕加强防卫。

3 rambling   

adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的

参考例句：

• We spent the summer rambling in Ireland. 我们花了一个夏天漫游爱尔兰。
• It was easy to get lost in the rambling house. 在布局凌乱的大房子里容易迷路。

4 rinse   

v.用清水漂洗，用清水冲洗

参考例句：

• Give the cup a rinse.冲洗一下杯子。
• Don't just rinse the bottles. Wash them out carefully.别只涮涮瓶子，要仔细地洗洗里面。

5 nagged   

adj.经常遭责怪的；被压制的；感到厌烦的；被激怒的v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的过去式和过去分词 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责

参考例句：

• The old woman nagged (at) her daughter-in-law all day long. 那老太婆一天到晚地挑剔儿媳妇的不是。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She nagged him all day long. 她一天到晚地说他。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 awning   

n.遮阳篷；雨篷

参考例句：

• A large green awning is set over the glass window to shelter against the sun.在玻璃窗上装了个绿色的大遮棚以遮挡阳光。
• Several people herded under an awning to get out the shower.几个人聚集在门栅下避阵雨

7 shove   

vt.乱推，乱塞；vi.用力推，挤；n.猛推

参考例句：

• She will not shove the heavy load onto others.她不愿意把重担推给别人。
• Help me shove this furniture aside.帮我把这家具推到一边去。

8 stunned   

adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The fall stunned me for a moment. 那一下摔得我昏迷了片刻。
• The leaders of the Kopper Company were then stunned speechless. 科伯公司的领导们当时被惊得目瞪口呆。

9 fluttering   

v.飘动( flutter的现在分词 )；（心）快速跳动；振翼，拍翅膀

参考例句：

• The women were all fluttering about finishing their preparations for the wedding. 女人们做好婚礼准备后显得不安。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• It was autumn, and leaves were fluttering down in the light wind. 现在是秋天，树叶在微风中飘落下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 liar   

n.说谎的人

参考例句：

• I know you for a thief and a liar!我算认识你了，一个又偷又骗的家伙！
• She was wrongly labelled a liar.她被错误地扣上说谎者的帽子。