Six days a week Lucy wakes first. It’s the hour of the mole1, an absolute dark, as she slips past her sleeping family.
Sam in the loft2 bed beside her, Ma and Ba on a mattress3 at the foot of the ladder—she circumvents4 them by memory as much as by sight, as she circumvents the heaped clothes, the bags of flour, the sheets, broom handles, trunks. The house has the close, stale musk6 of an animal’s burrow7. Last week a tub of creek8 water overturned, not improving the odor.
Once, Ma might have made it inviting9. A bunch of sweet grasses, a strategically spread cloth. Nowadays her sole occupation is sleep. Her cheeks look ever more gouged10 or bitten, as if something nibbles11 her in the night. She hasn’t eaten a proper meal in weeks. Says she can stomach only meat, which they lack the coin to buy.
Ba promised meat when they got to this big new mine, and a garden, good clothes, proper horses, school. Too many men beat them here. Wages are lower than promised. With Ma sick, it’s Lucy who puts off school to accompany Ba to the mine, Lucy who wakes first, fixes breakfast.
She sets a pan on the stove. Too loud—Ma stirs at the clang. If woken, Ma argues endlessly with Ba. The girls are hungry./ I’d be earning more if we’d gotten here sooner. / But we didn’t. / Not on my account. / Say what you mean. / All I mean is this taking sick was awful inconvenient12. / You think I did this on purpose? / Sometimes, qin ai de, you can be right stubborn.
Quiet, quiet, Lucy presses potatoes down into the pan. The oil leaps and scalds her hands, but at least the hiss13 is muted. Two potatoes in a cloth for her and Ba, one on the table for Sam. She leaves a hopeful fourth on the stove for Ma.
—
Two miles to the next valley. Ba splits from Lucy when they reach the mine, heading down the main shaft14 with the men. That leaves Lucy to face her tunnel alone.
She looks East. The sky is still a bruise15’s deep blue, yet she lingers as if she could afford to wait for sunrise. She crawls down. Colors disappear, then sounds. The black is entire by the time she reaches her door. Nothing else for a long while, until the first knock.
Miners emerge as Lucy drags the heavy door open and wedges her arm in the gap to hold it. Walls reappear at the slice of lanterns. She hardly feels the welt on her forearm. It’s nothing compared to the pain of the miners leaving, sight snuffed out.
In the long idle periods she rubs her body against the shaft wall, or screams experimentally. Five enormous bites of potato at what she guesses for noon. The food tastes of earth, too.
“Not forever,” Ba promises at the end of the day that might as well be the beginning. It’s dark again. The usual sorrow passes over Lucy like the line of sunlight over the distant hills. Where other miners cluster in fours and fives—slapping backs, exchanging greetings and complaints—Ba and Lucy walk apart. He smooths her wiry hair. “Ting wo. I got a plan. You’ll have that school soon enough if you want it, nu er.”
She believes him. She does. But belief only makes the pain worse, just as, in the tunnel, the desired lanterns hurt her eyes.
—
The shack16 is another darkness till Ba touches match to lamp. Ma dozes17, Sam runs wild somewhere in play. Lucy starts dinner while Ba changes behind a curtain. He’ll gobble his food and head across the creek to a second job cutting firewood for widows. They need the extra coin. Night after night. Day after day. The slow trickle18 of savings19, emptied so quick by the needs of their stomachs.
Tonight, something different.
The fourth potato is gone from the stove. Fingermarks split the pan’s congealed20 grease. Joy floods Lucy, strong as missing sunlight: Ma must have eaten.
Yet Ma’s cheeks look hollow as ever, Ma’s fingers clean. The only whiff on her breath is old vomit21.
“Did you see?” Lucy asks the moment Sam comes through the door. “Did she eat?”
Sam, skin bronzed, flits through the house like a piece of caught daylight. Over the course of the day Sam’s lost ribbons, bonnet22, a piece of fabric23 torn from her hem5. Gained, instead, this smell of sun and grass.
“Potatoes again?” Sam asks, sniffing24 at the pot of dinner.
“Did you keep an eye on Ma, like I asked you?” Lucy swats Sam’s hand away. “It needs another ten minutes. Did you watch her? We talked about this. You didn’t have a single other thing to do today.”
“Quit nagging25!”
Sam dodges26 Lucy and grabs for the pot lid, which slips away, clattering27. Sam’s outstretched fingers are shiny and slick. Sam marked by sun, grass—and grease.
“That potato wasn’t for you,” Lucy hisses28. “It was Ma’s.”
“I got hungry,” Sam says, clear-eyed, not trying to deny it. “Ma wasn’t eating it anyhow.”
Sam’s no liar29, no thief. Simply lives by a code of honor all her own, refusing to bend to other rules. Scoldings erode30 to laughter because Sam makes even stubbornness charming. On the worst days, Lucy wonders if this is the real reason Sam hasn’t been sent to the mines, a reason more enduring than young age: that Sam is too pretty to be harmed.
Lucy clutches the bruise on her arm. There are more on her shoulders and back if she consults the tin mirror. “I’m telling Ba on you.” But Ba will just pinch the baby fat on Sam’s cheeks. “I’ll tell him,” she adds with sudden inspiration, “and see if he thinks you’re grown enough to work.”
“No!”
Lucy crosses her arms.
Through gritted31 teeth, Sam says, “I guess I’m sorry.”
Ma likens an apology from Sam to water from dry firewood. Lucy savors32 the triumph till her stomach grumbles33. “I’m still telling.”
“Don’t! If you don’t . . . I’ll show you what Ma ate.”
Lucy hesitates.
“Tonight,” Sam adds, grinning. And then Sam is off, running crash into Ba as he emerges in clean clothes, axe34 and pistol hanging from his belt. Sam begs, as usual, to be taken along.
—
Some time later, Ma walks out the door with a dreamer’s shambling gait.
Lucy figures it for a visit to the outhouse, but Sam beckons35 her to follow. She leaves her book without marking the page. Anyhow she’s read each of the family’s three storybooks so often the drawings are faded, the princess’s face a blur36 atop which she can imagine her own.
Way down the slope of valley, the prick37 of distant lights. Ma turns away from them. She heads to a plot of land at the very back of the shack, where all evidence of others is obscured. There she roots in the earth, bare-handed, as if hoping for vegetables in the garden Ba hasn’t yet planted. Deep, unladylike grunts—then she pulls something free
Hidden, Lucy and Sam crouch38 too. The night is warm, Lucy’s back sweating. She can see the white stripe of Ma’s neck, the wings of shoulder blades through fabric. Nothing else. Then she hears the chewing. Ma half-turns, holding a long something—carrot? Yam? The caked soil makes it hard to discern.
“What is it?” Lucy whispers.
“Mud,” Sam says.
It can’t be. Ma reproaches Sam for picking food off the floor, wipes each plate twice—once for dryness, once for shine. Yet dark grains stand out against Ma’s cheeks. Sam isn’t quite right, though. Ma licks till a flat edge shows through the thing in her hand, then a round joint39, gleaming. She holds a piece of bone.
“No,” Lucy says, louder than she intends. Her cry is masked by crunching40.
Sam watches the rest, seemingly at home in the night, in the dirt with skirt hiked and one braid dragging. Lucy averts41 her eyes, not wanting to witness what else Ma might eat: earthworms, pebbles42, ancient twigs43, buried eggs and leaf mold, the scritch-scratch of beetle44 legs. A feast of the land’s dank secrets.
—
Used to be that Ma and Lucy kept one another’s secrets. Each day on the wagon45 trail Ba and Sam disappeared at dusk to hunt or scout46; and each day Lucy and Ma were left alone among hills emptied of noise. Into that wide, wide quiet Lucy spilled her fear of the mule47, how she’d nicked Ba’s knife, how she envied Sam. Ma drank Lucy’s words in, as her skin drank in the gilded48 late afternoons. Ma knew how to hold a secret in silence, sometimes murmuring, sometimes tipping her head, sometimes brushing Lucy’s hand. Ma listened.
In turn, Ma told Lucy how she rubbed lard on her hands to keep them soft, how she had tricks for bargaining with the butcher’s boy, how she chose, very carefully, who she associated with. In these moments, Lucy knew that Ma loved her best. Sam might have Ma’s hair and Ma’s beauty, but Ma and Lucy were joined by words.
Yet tonight, Lucy intends betrayal. She stays up long after Sam snores. She can’t sleep. Close her eyes and in seeps49, like moonlight, the shine of Ma’s teeth. When the door creaks open below, Lucy waves Ba up.
“Say that again,” Ba says when Lucy has told. He stands on the rungs, face level with hers, conspiratorial50. “Man man de. What was she eating?”
Oddly, he grins when Lucy asks if they should open Ma’s trunk. It holds fabric and dried plums, and most of all fragrant51, bitter medicines that Ma brews52 into healing soups.
“Go to sleep,” Ba says, descending53. “Your ma’s not sick. I’d wager54 good money on it.”
Lucy waits till he’s out of view, then rolls off the mattress and puts her eye to a knothole in the floor. Below she can see Ma huddled55 in the chair, Ba approaching to wake her. Ma’s eyes fly open first. Then her mouth.
Ma cusses at him.
Lucy has never heard Ma cuss—but she’s beginning to understand that night is a different territory. How many years and centuries were swallowed with those bones? Enough, this night, to make it seem as if something else clambers out of Ma’s throat. Something enormous, ungentle. History, Lucy thinks suddenly, remembering a drunk who spat56 at their wagon two towns back. While Ba and Ma stared ahead, the drunk shouted about the land, and claims to it, and who belonged by law, and what should be buried. Lucy doesn’t remember the man’s precise words, but she recognizes in Ma’s spitting, rising voice the same fearsome creature. It must be history.
Ma asks the hour. She calls Ba a liar. She asks how many widows there can be. She accuses him of gambling57 again.
When she pauses for breath, Ba says, “You’ve been eating mud.”
Ma snatches her blanket higher, likely to hide the filth58 beneath her nails. Cloth across dry hands like the sound of snakeskin being shed. “You have my own children spying on me? Ni zhe ge—”
“Don’t you see what it means?” Ba drops to his knees. Ma tilts59 back, surprised. “Qin ai de.” Ba’s hands take up Ma’s clawed ones, stroke them gentle. “These cravings. This sickness. This strain between us. It must be a baby.”
Ma shakes her head. Her cheeks catch pools of shadow. She looks scared. Though Ba’s voice is too quiet for Lucy to catch the words, she hears the old singsong of promises. Ma smiles partway through, and then her face changes once more. Goes hard. This hardness Lucy will remember years later. Trying to decide if it was resolve on Ma’s face, or courage, or coldness. Trying to call it to herself.
“I thought we couldn’t—” Ma says, though the argument has slunk from her voice. “And I wasn’t sick with the girls. I didn’t get this hunger.”
Ba laughs so loud that Sam wakes. Two bright slits60 in the dark—Sam’s eyes sting Lucy. Both of them hear Ba say, “It’s a boy. What else could be so greedy?”
—
In the morning, Ba takes to the hills with the tools of his old prospector’s trade, shut up two years back. Lovingly, now, he sharpens his pick and hefts his shovel61, fans his little brushes out.
The pick pries62 bones from the hillside rocks; the shovel digs them. Brushes shiver, biggest to smallest, along the dug-up lengths. Exposing the old white. Ba grinds the bones down and mixes them into water.
Lying back in bed, her too-thin hands shaking on the glass—Ma drinks. Her throat swells63 and falls. Hours of Ba’s work, centuries of life, disappearing into the baby.
History, Lucy thinks, and shivers.
点击
收听单词发音
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1
mole
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| n.胎块；痣；克分子 | |
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loft
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| n.阁楼，顶楼 | |
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mattress
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| n.床垫，床褥 | |
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4
circumvents
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| n.设法克服或避免（某事物），回避( circumvent的名词复数 )；绕过，绕行，绕道旅行v.设法克服或避免（某事物），回避( circumvent的第三人称单数 )；绕过，绕行，绕道旅行 | |
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hem
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| n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制 | |
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musk
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| n.麝香, 能发出麝香的各种各样的植物，香猫 | |
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burrow
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| vt.挖掘(洞穴)；钻进；vi.挖洞；翻寻；n.地洞 | |
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creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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9
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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10
gouged
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| v.凿( gouge的过去式和过去分词 )；乱要价；（在…中）抠出…；挖出… | |
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11
nibbles
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| vt.& vi.啃，一点一点地咬（nibble的第三人称单数形式） | |
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12
inconvenient
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| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
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13
hiss
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| v.发出嘶嘶声；发嘘声表示不满 | |
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14
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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15
bruise
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| n.青肿，挫伤；伤痕；vt.打青；挫伤 | |
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16
shack
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| adj.简陋的小屋，窝棚 | |
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17
dozes
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| n.打盹儿，打瞌睡( doze的名词复数 )v.打盹儿，打瞌睡( doze的第三人称单数 ) | |
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18
trickle
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| vi.淌，滴，流出，慢慢移动，逐渐消散 | |
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19
savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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congealed
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| v.使凝结，冻结( congeal的过去式和过去分词 )；（指血）凝结 | |
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vomit
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| v.呕吐，作呕；n.呕吐物，吐出物 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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24
sniffing
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| n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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25
nagging
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| adj.唠叨的，挑剔的；使人不得安宁的v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的现在分词 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责 | |
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26
dodges
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| n.闪躲( dodge的名词复数 )；躲避；伎俩；妙计v.闪躲( dodge的第三人称单数 )；回避 | |
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clattering
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
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28
hisses
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| 嘶嘶声( hiss的名词复数 ) | |
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29
liar
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| n.说谎的人 | |
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30
erode
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| v.侵蚀，腐蚀，使...减少、减弱或消失 | |
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31
gritted
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| v.以沙砾覆盖（某物），撒沙砾于( grit的过去式和过去分词 )；咬紧牙关 | |
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32
savors
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| v.意味，带有…的性质( savor的第三人称单数 )；给…加调味品；使有风味；品尝 | |
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33
grumbles
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| 抱怨( grumble的第三人称单数 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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35
beckons
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的第三人称单数 ) | |
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36
blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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37
prick
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| v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛 | |
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38
crouch
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| v.蹲伏，蜷缩，低头弯腰；n.蹲伏 | |
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39
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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40
crunching
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| v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的现在分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄 | |
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41
averts
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| 防止，避免( avert的第三人称单数 )； 转移 | |
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42
pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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43
twigs
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| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
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44
beetle
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| n.甲虫，近视眼的人 | |
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45
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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46
scout
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| n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索 | |
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47
mule
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| n.骡子，杂种，执拗的人 | |
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48
gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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49
seeps
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| n.（液体）渗( seep的名词复数 )；渗透；渗出；漏出v.（液体）渗( seep的第三人称单数 )；渗透；渗出；漏出 | |
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50
conspiratorial
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| adj.阴谋的，阴谋者的 | |
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51
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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52
brews
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| n.（尤指某地酿造的）啤酒( brew的名词复数 )；酿造物的种类；（茶）一次的冲泡量；（不同思想、环境、事件的）交融v.调制( brew的第三人称单数 )；酝酿；沏（茶）；煮（咖啡） | |
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53
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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54
wager
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| n.赌注；vt.押注，打赌 | |
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55
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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56
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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57
gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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58
filth
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| n.肮脏，污物，污秽；淫猥 | |
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59
tilts
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| （意欲赢得某物或战胜某人的）企图，尝试( tilt的名词复数 ) | |
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60
slits
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| n.狭长的口子，裂缝( slit的名词复数 )v.切开，撕开( slit的第三人称单数 )；在…上开狭长口子 | |
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61
shovel
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| n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出 | |
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62
pries
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| v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的第三人称单数 )；撬开 | |
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63
swells
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| 增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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