英国卫报：中国,我想回来!(5)（在线收听）

In my memory yeye was always alone in his room, playing cards. In the afternoons he played go; in the evening, mahjong.

在我的记忆里，爷爷总是一个人在他的房间里打牌。他下午玩围棋，晚上打麻将。

Before dinner, he always clapped his hands and said, in English, "HALLO HALLO EAT". The other English word he knew was "MONSTER".

晚饭前他总会拍拍手，用英语说：“哈罗，哈罗，吃饭吧”。他知道的另一个英语单词是“怪物”。

I remember the green jacket he wore in his photos from his first visit to LA.

我还记得他第一次去洛杉矶时在照片里穿的那件绿色夹克。

One day, in the winter, when I was two or three years old and living in Hefei, I watched him walk out with a plastic bag to fill with snow for us to play with.

有一年冬天的一天，那时我两三岁，住在合肥，我看着他拿着一个装满雪的塑料袋走了出来让我们玩。

From the balcony overhead, I could see the footsteps trailing behind him, and the green jacket.

从头顶的阳台上，我可以看到他身后的脚步声和那件绿色的夹克。

In the Hefei apartment, I spent several days paging through old photos.

在合肥的公寓里，我花了好几天的时间翻看旧照片。

My, as a soldier in black-and-white, and then, in full colour, swinging in a hammock in the US, grinning over a deck of pinup cards on the carpet, sitting on the front step of a very American porch.

我曾是一名身穿黑白服饰的士兵，后来，在美国的一张吊床上晃荡，对着地毯上的一摞海报卡咧嘴笑，坐在一个非常美式门廊的前台阶上。

The pictures of him when he was younger filled me with a sense of loss.

他年轻时的照片让我有一种失落感。

The family joke had always been how robust he was, how healthy despite his age and all his drinking and smoking. He could walk for miles, his back never drooping.

家里人总是开玩笑说尽管他上了年纪，又抽烟又喝酒，但他的身体很健壮。他还能走好几里路，他的背一直都是笔直的。

Instead of talking to him, I looked through what was left of his writings.

我没有和他说话，而是浏览了一下他剩下的作品。

I found two essays, including an autobiographical piece he wrote when he was 86, titled My Legacy, which looked back on his life.

我找到了两篇散文，其中包括他86岁时写的自传，题为《我的遗产》，它回顾了他自己的一生。

"From the time my memory begins, my most enduring impression is of my father lying sick in his bed," he began.

“从我记事起，我印象最深的就是我那卧病在床的父亲，”开头写道。

"I constantly brewed herbal medicine for him, drained the dregs, washed out the jars. One night, my mother woke me suddenly.

“我要一直给他煮草药，吸干渣滓，洗瓶子。一天晚上，妈妈突然把我叫醒。

My father had already been carried outside and his body placed on to a wooden board.

我父亲已经被抬到外面，他的尸体被放在一块木板上。

His head faced north, at his side was a burning dusk-yellow rushlight, and my mother was wailing, exhorting us children to quickly call out to our father, to not let him go … "

他头朝北，身旁是燃烧着的暗黄色的灯光，我的母亲在恸哭，叮劝我们这些孩子赶快喊父亲，不要让他走……”

At the end of the essay, he reflected: "From 1940, when I enlisted in the New Fourth Army, until now, history has leapt 70 years."

在文章的结尾他回忆道：“从1940年我应征新四军到现在，历史已经不知不觉跨越了70年。”