商检费Alice Walker Everyday Use中英文版本

Everyday Use

Alice Walker

I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon. A yard

like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room.

When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular

grooves, anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come

inside the house.

Maggie

will

be

nervous

until

after

her

sister

goes:

she

will

stand

hopelessly

in

corners,

homely

and

ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She

thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that

say to her.

You've no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has

by her own mother

and

father, tottering in

weakly from

backstage. (A pleasant

surprise, of course:

What

would they do if parent and child came on the show only to curse out and insult each other?) On TV mother

and child embrace and smile into each other's faces. Sometimes the mother and father weep, the child wraps

them in her arms and leans across the table to tell how she would not have made it without their help. I have

seen these programs.

Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a TV program of this

sort. Out of a dark and soft-seated limousine I am ushered into a bright room filled with many people. There

I meet a smiling, gray, sporty man like Johnny Carson who shakes my hand and tells me what a fine girl I

have. Then we are on the stage and Dee is embracing me with tears in her eyes. She pins on my dress a large

orchid, even though she has told me once that she thinks orchids are tacky flowers.

In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel

nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat

keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat

pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog. One winter I knocked a

bull

calf

straight

in

the brain

between

the

eyes

with

a

sledge

hammer

and

had

the

meat

hung

up

to

chill

before nightfall. But of course all this does not show on television. I am the way my daughter would want

me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake. My hair glistens in the hot

bright lights. Johnny Carson has much to do to keep up with my quick and witty tongue.

But that is a mistake. I know even before I wake up. Who ever knew a Johnson with a quick tongue?

Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? It seems to me I have talked to them

always with

one foot raised in

flight,

with

my head fumed in

whichever way is

farthest

from

them.

Dee,

though. She would always look anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature.

and red blouse for me to know she's there, almost hidden by the door.

Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own

a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way my Maggie walks. She

has been like this, chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since the fire that burned the other

house to the ground.

Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure. She's a woman now, though sometimes I

forget. How long ago was it that the other house burned? Ten, twelve years? Sometimes I can still hear the

flames and feel Maggie's arms sticking to me, her hair smoking and her dress falling off her in little black

papery flakes. Her eyes seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflected in them. And Dee. I see

her standing off under the sweet gum tree she used to dig gum out of; a look of concentration on her face as

she watched the last dingy gray board of the house fall in toward the red-hot brick chimney. Why don't you

do a dance around the ashes? I'd wanted to ask her. She had hated the house that much.

I used to think she hated Maggie, too. But that was before we raised money, the church and me, to send

her to Augusta to school. She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks' habits, whole

lives

upon

us

two,

sitting

trapped

and

ignorant

underneath

her

voice.

She

washed

us

in

a

river

of

make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with

the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand.

Dee

wanted

nice

things.

A

yellow

organdy

dress

to

wear

to

her

graduation

from

high

school;

black

pumps to match a green suit she'd made from an old suit somebody gave me. She was determined to stare

down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelids would not flicker for minutes at a time. Often I fought off the

temptation to shake her. At sixteen she had a style of her own: and knew what style was.

I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down. Don't ask my why: in

1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now. Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She stumbles along

good- naturedly

but

can't

see

well.

She

knows

she

is

not

bright.

Like

good

looks

and

money,

quickness

passes her by. She will marry John Thomas (who has mossy teeth in an earnest face) and then I'll be free to

sit here and I guess just sing church songs to myself. Although I never was a good singer. Never could carry

a tune. I was always better at a man's job. I used to love to milk till I was hooked in the side in '49. Cows are

soothing and slow and don't bother you, unless you try to milk them the wrong way.

I have deliberately turned my back on the house. It is three rooms, just like the one that burned, except

the roof is tin; they don't make shingle roofs any more. There are no real windows, just some holes cut in the

sides, like the portholes in a ship, but not round and not square, with rawhide holding the shutters up on the

outside. This house is in a pasture, too, like the other one. No doubt when Dee sees it she will want to tear it

down. She wrote me once that no matter where we

will never bring her friends. Maggie and I thought about this and Maggie asked me,

ever have any friends?

She had a few. Furtive boys in pink shirts hanging about on washday after school. Nervous girls who

never

laughed.

Impressed

with

her

they

worshiped

the

well-turned

phrase,

the

cute

shape,

the

scalding

humor that erupted like bubbles in Iye. She read to them.

When she was courting Jimmy T she didn't have much time to pay to us, but turned all her faultfinding

power on him. He flew to marry a cheap city girl from a family of ignorant flashy people. She hardly had

time to recompose herself.

When she comes I will meet

—

but there they are!

Maggie

attempts

to

make

a

dash

for

the

house,

in

her

shuffling

way,

but

I

stay

her

with

my

hand.

It is hard to see them clearly through the strong sun. But even the first glimpse of leg out of the car tells

me it is Dee. Her feet were always neat-looking, as if God himself had shaped them with a certain style.

From the other side of the car comes a short, stocky man. Hair is all over his head a foot long and hanging

from his chin like a kinky mule tail. I hear Maggie suck in her breath.

Like when you see the wriggling end of a snake just in front of your foot on the road.

Dee next. A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud it hurts my eyes. There are

yellows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun. I feel my whole face warming from the heat

waves it throws out. Earrings gold, too, and hanging down to her shoulders. Bracelets dangling and making

noises when she moves her arm up to shake the folds of the dress out of her armpits. The dress is loose and

flows, and as she walks closer, I like it. I hear Maggie go

straight up like the wool on a sheep. It is black as night and around the edges are two long pigtails that rope

about like small lizards disappearing behind her ears.

she

says,

coming

on

in

that

gliding

way

the

dress

makes

her

move.

The

short

stocky fellow with the hair to his navel is all grinning and he follows up with

and sister!

trembling there and when I look up I see the perspiration falling off her chin.

a second or two before I make it. She turns, showing white heels through her sandals, and goes back to the

car. Out she peeks next with a Polaroid. She stoops down quickly and lines up picture after picture of me

sitting there in front of the house with Maggie cowering behind me. She never takes a shot without making

sure the house is included. When a cow comes nibbling around the edge of the yard she snaps it and me and

Maggie and the house. Then she puts the Polaroid in the back seat of the car, and comes up and kisses me on

the forehead.

Meanwhile Asalamalakim is going through motions with Maggie's hand. Maggie's hand is as limp as a

fish, and probably as cold, despite the sweat, and she keeps trying to pull it back. It looks like Asalamalakim

wants to shake hands but wants to do it fancy. Or maybe he don't know how people shake hands. Anyhow,

he soon gives up on Maggie.

me.

Dee. We called her

said. Though, in fact, I probably could have carried it back beyond the Civil War through the branches.

back?

He just stood there grinning, looking down on me like somebody inspecting a Model A car. Every once

in a while he and Wangero sent eye signals over my head.

Well, soon we got the name out of the way. Asalamalakim had a name twice as long and three times as

hard. After I tripped over it two or three times he told me to just call him Hakim-a- barber. I wanted to ask

him was he a barber, but I didn't really think he was, so I didn't ask.

they met you, too, but they didn't shake hands. Always too busy: feeding the cattle, fixing the fences, putting

up salt-lick shelters, throwing down hay. When the white folks poisoned some of the herd the men stayed up

all night with rifles in their hands. I walked a mile and a half just to see the sight.

Hakim-a-barber said,

(They didn't tell me, and I didn't ask, whether Wangero (Dee) had really gone and married him.)

We

sat

down

to

eat

and

right

away

he

said

he

didn't

eat

collards

and

pork

was

unclean.

Wangero,

though, went on through the chitlins and com bread, the greens and everything else. She talked a blue streak

over the sweet potatoes. Everything delighted her. Even the fact that we still used the benches her daddy

made for the table when we couldn't effort to buy chairs.

You can feel the rump prints,

gave a sigh and her hand closed over Grandma Dee's butter dish.

something I wanted to ask you if I could have.

where the churn stood, the milk in it crabber by now. She looked at the churn and looked at it.

have?

Dee (Wangero) looked up at me.

name was Henry, but they called him Stash.

for the alcove table,

the dasher.

When she finished wrapping the dasher the handle stuck out. I took it for a moment in my hands. You

didn't even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a

kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of small sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers

had sunk into the wood. It was beautiful light yellow wood, from a tree that grew in the yard where Big Dee

and Stash had lived.

After

dinner

Dee

(Wangero)

went

to

the

trunk

at

the

foot

of

my

bed

and

started

rifling

through

it.

Maggie

hung

back

in

the

kitchen

over

the

dishpan.

Out

came

Wangero

with

two

quilts.

They

had

been

pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and

quilted them. One was in the Lone Stat pattern. The other was Walk Around the Mountain. In both of them

were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell's

Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from Great

Grandpa Ezra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War.

I heard something fall in the kitchen, and a minute later the kitchen door slammed.

Dee from some tops your grandma pieced before she died.

< br>

this stitching by hand. Imagine!

I said, moving up to touch the quilts. Dee (Wangero) moved back just enough so that I couldn't reach the

quilts. They already belonged to her.

She gasped like a bee had stung her.

everyday use.

hope she will!

college. Then she had told they were old-fashioned, out of style.

on the bed and in five years they'd be in rags. Less than that!