Vocabulary

torment v. 折磨;使痛苦萬分顶燕；

When I was older, I read in my poetry books that ‘yelda’ was the starless night tormented lovers kept vigil, enduring the endless dark, waiting for the sun to rise and bring with it their loved one.

極度痛苦凑保；苦惱萬分；折磨涌攻；

He spent days in torment while the police searched for his stolen car.

smirk v./n. (占了便宜或知道了別人不知道的事情時)洋洋得意地笑欧引，自鳴得意地笑；

I invented excuses to stroll down the aisle--which Baba acknowledged with a playful smirk--and pass the Taheris' stand.

teeter v.瀕臨(危險的形勢)恳谎；

This was teetering dangerously on the verge of gossip material, and the best kind of it. Poison tongues would flap.

Excerpt

After I met Soraya Taheri, every night of the week became a 'yelda' for me. And when Sunday mornings came, I rose from bed, Soraya Taheri's brown-eyed face already in my head. In Baba's bus, I counted the miles until I'd see her sitting barefoot, arranging cardboard boxes of yellowed encyclopedias, her heels white against the asphalt, silver bracelets jingling around her slender wrists. I'd think of the shadow her hair cast on the ground when it slid off her back and hung down like a velvet curtain. Soraya. Swap Meet Princess. The morning sun to my yelda.

(yelda is the first night of the month of ‘Jadi’, the first night of winter, and the longest night of the year in Afghanistan.)

看到心愛人后芝此，每天夜晚都是yelda，盼望見到Soraya的日子度日如年惠爽。

Sometimes she sat alone, the general off to some other row to socialize, and I would walk by, pretending not to know her, but dying to. Sometimes she was there with a portly middle-aged woman with pale skin and dyed red hair. I promised myself that I would talk to her before the summer was over, but schools reopened, the leaves reddened, yellowed, and fell, the rains of winter swept in and wakened Baba's joints, baby leaves sprouted once more, and I still hadn't had the heart, the dil, to even look her in the eye.

這段加粗部分讀起來美感十足，值得背誦瞬哼。

She was alone, reading. White ankle-length summer dress today. Open-toed sandals. Hair pulled back and crowned with a tulip-shaped bun. I meant to simply walk by again and I thought I had, except suddenly I was standing at the edge of the Taheris' white tablecloth, staring at Soraya across curling irons and old neckties. She looked up.

幾段男孩子對心儀女孩子愛慕的細膩描寫婚肆，如歌如詩，扭捏卻不造作坐慰。

這一段趣在作者說著女孩兒的外貌较性，說著說著發(fā)現(xiàn)自己Suddenly站在桌布旁了，原來是剛才看得入神结胀，一步步被吸引過去了赞咙。畫面感十足。

“Amir jan, good to see you,” she said, unloading the bag on the tablecloth. Her brow glistened with a sheen of sweat. Her red hair, coiffed like a helmet, glittered in the sunlight--I could see bits of her scalp where the hair had thinned. She had small green eyes buried in a cabbage-round face, capped teeth, and little fingers like sausages. A golden Allah rested on her chest, the chain burrowed under the skin tags and folds of her neck. “I am Jamila, Soraya jan's mother.”

說道Soraya的母親糟港，外貌就差很多攀操，比喻多是與不是很有美感的食物相關(guān)，有些戲謔的味道秸抚。

Thought

“Listen,” she said, “I want to tell you something. Something you have to know before...”

“I don’t care what it is.”

“You need to know. I don’t want us to start with secrets. And I’d rather you hear it from me.”

Soraya的勇敢和坦誠令人動容速和，在新婚前夕，在如意郎君面前剥汤，她無比誠實地講述了自己屈辱的過去颠放，并做好了最壞的準(zhǔn)備。她和Baba吭敢，從本質(zhì)上講是一類人碰凶，真誠，勇敢鹿驼，認真欲低。Amir想必正是在這樣的環(huán)境下，逐漸被浸染畜晰，才能走出陰霾伸头，最終得以贖罪和解脫。

Notes

愛情總是來得猝不及防舷蟀，Amir顯然已深陷其中恤磷。從遠觀面哼，到想念，到聊天扫步，Amir對Soraya的愛慕越來越深魔策。行動上也逐漸從被動轉(zhuǎn)為主動。與Soraya的交往越來越深河胎，同時Soraya也心生好感闯袒，愛情在萌芽。

但同時游岳，Baba發(fā)現(xiàn)自己身患癌癥政敢，時日不多了。他拒絕有損尊嚴(yán)胚迫、僅僅是延長死期的化療喷户，而是選擇坦然接受疾病，直面死亡访锻。