宝姐姐读书：家族的奴隶丨CD电台

MY FAMILY'S SLAVE

文 | Alex Tizon 朗读者 | 迟小宝

Her name was Eudocia Tomas Pulido. We called her Lola. She was 4 foot 11, with mocha-brown skin and almond eyes that I can still see looking into mine—my first memory. She was 18 years old when my grandfather gave her to my mother as a gift, and when my family moved to the United States, we brought her with us. No other word but slave encompassed the life she lived. Her days began before everyone else woke and ended after we went to bed. She prepared three meals a day, cleaned the house, waited on my parents, and took care of my four siblings and me. My parents never paid her, and they scolded her constantly. She wasn’t kept in leg irons, but she might as well have been. So many nights, on my way to the bathroom, I’d spot her sleeping in a corner, slumped against a mound of laundry, her fingers clutching a garment she was in the middle of folding.

她的名字叫尤多西亚.托马斯.普利多，我们叫她罗拉。她只有四英尺十一英寸，摩卡棕的肤色，胡桃木色眼睛，到现在，我还能看见那双眼睛，直望进我的瞳孔-那是我最初的回忆。她18岁的时候被我外公作为礼物送给了我母亲。我家搬去美国时，我们带上了她。没有比奴隶两个字更能准确涵盖她一生的词汇了。她每天起的比我们早，睡的比我们晚。她准备一日三餐，打扫房间，服侍我父母，照顾我以及四个兄弟姐妹。父母从未支付过她一分钱，而且经常责骂她。虽然她脚上没有脚镣，但是也跟戴着差不多。许多个夜晚，我去洗手间时，总会看见她睡在角落，倒在堆积成山的衣服上，手里还攥着一件衣服，可能是叠衣服时睡着了。

To our American neighbors, we were model immigrants, a poster family. They told us so. My father had a law degree, my mother was on her way to becoming a doctor, and my siblings and I got good grades and always said “please” and “thank you.” We never talked about Lola.

Our secret went to the core of who we were and, at least for us kids, who we wanted to be.

对于我们美国的邻居来说，我们是模范移民，是可以放在海报上的家庭。一直有人这么跟我们说。 父亲有法律学位，母亲即将当上医生，我们兄弟姐妹成绩优秀，彬彬有礼，会经常说“请”和“谢谢”。但我们从不提罗拉。这个秘密直指我们身份的核心问题；并且至少对于我们这几个孩子来说，这也是我们想成为什么样的人的问题。

After my mother died of leukemia, in 1999, Lola came to live with me in a small town north of Seattle. I had a family, a career, a house in the suburbs—the American dream. And then I had a slave.

1999年母亲白血病去世之后，罗拉搬过来和我住，我们住在西雅图北部的一个小镇。我有家庭，有事业，住在一幢在郊区的房子-我的美国梦实现了。但是和别人不同的是，我有一个奴隶。

My brother Arthur was born in 1951. I came next, followed by three more siblings in rapid succession. My parents expected Lola to be as devoted to us kids as she was to them. While she looked after us, my parents went to school and earned advanced degrees, joining the ranks of so many others with fancy diplomas but no jobs. Then the big break: Dad was offered a job in Foreign Affairs as a commercial analyst. The salary would be meager, but the position was in America—a place he and Mom had grown up dreaming of, where everything they hoped for could come true.

我的哥哥亚瑟在1951年出生了，接下来就是我，然后又是我三个弟妹，我们中间隔得很近。父母希望罗拉对我们几个也能像对他们俩那样尽心尽力。她照顾我们的时候，我父母去学校学习，获取了高等学位，加入许多学位花哨却没有工作的人的行列。之后不久，我们遇到有了重大转机——父亲得到了一份工作——在外交部做商业分析员。工资不高，但是地点却是在美国。这是一个我父母从小就梦想去的地方——在美国，他们的一切希望都可以成真。

Dad was allowed to bring his family and one domestic. Figuring they would both have to work, my parents needed Lola to care for the kids and the house. My mother informed Lola, and to her great irritation, Lola didn’t immediately acquiesce. Years later Lola told me she was terrified. “It was too far,” she said. “Maybe your Mom and Dad won’t let me go home.”

父亲可以携带家眷，外加一个佣人。父母想到他们都必须工作，需要罗拉照顾孩子们和家里。但是，我母亲告诉罗拉这个消息时，罗拉居然没有立即同意，这让我母亲大为光火。  许多年后，罗拉告诉我，她当时很害怕，“太远了，”她说到。“也许你爸妈会不允许我回家”。

In the end what convinced Lola was my father’s promise that things would be different in America. He told her that as soon as he and Mom got on their feet, they’d give her an “allowance.” Lola could send money to her parents, to all her relations in the village. Her parents lived in a hut with a dirt floor. Lola could build them a concrete house, could change their lives forever. Imagine.

最后说服罗拉的是我父亲的一个许诺，他说在美国，事情会不一样。 他告诉她，一旦他们站稳了脚跟，他们就会给她“补贴”。罗拉可以把钱寄给父母，给村子里的所有其他亲戚朋友。她的父母住在一座泥土地面的草棚里。罗拉可以给他们建一座水泥房子，这可以永远改变他们的生活。想象一下吧。

We landed in Los Angeles on May 12, 1964, all our belongings in cardboard boxes tied with rope. Lola had been with my mother for 21 years by then. In many ways she was more of a parent to me than either my mother or my father. Hers was the first face I saw in the morning and the last one I saw at night. As a baby, I uttered Lola’s name (which I first pronounced “Oh-ah”) long before I learned to say “Mom” or “Dad.” As a toddler, I refused to go to sleep unless Lola was holding me, or at least nearby.

我们1964年5月12 日登陆洛杉矶，绳索捆着的纸箱装着我们所有的财产。罗拉那时已经跟随母亲有21年了。 很多时候，她对我而言，比我的父母还更像是家长。清晨我醒来看到的第一张脸是她的，夜晚临睡前最后一张脸也是她的。婴儿时期，在学会喊“妈妈”或“爸爸”之前，我就会叫罗拉的名字了（一开始我发的音是“欧-阿”）蹒跚学步时，只要罗拉不抱着我，或者不在我身边，我就拒绝入睡。

Lola never got that allowance. She asked my parents about it in a roundabout way a couple of years into our life in America. Her mother had fallen ill (with what I would later learn was dysentery), and her family couldn’t afford the medicine she needed. “Pwede ba?” she said to my parents. Is it possible? Mom let out a sigh. “How could you even ask?,” Dad responded in Tagalog. “You see how hard up we are. Don’t you have any shame?”

罗拉从未拿到那一份补贴。来美国几年后，她委婉地问过父母。罗拉的母亲生病了（后来我得知是痢疾），家里拿不出钱去买药，“可以吗？”她问我父母。我母亲叹了口气。我父亲用他加禄语回道：“你怎么问得出口？你看得到我们现在有多艰难，你怎么一点羞耻都没有呢？”

One night when Dad found out that my sister Ling, who was then 9, had missed dinner, he barked at Lola for being lazy. “I tried to feed her,” Lola said, as Dad stood over her and glared. Her feeble defense only made him angrier, and he punched her just below the shoulder. Lola ran out of the room and I could hear her wailing, an animal cry.

一天晚上，父亲发现我当时9岁的妹妹玲没有吃晚饭，立马朝罗拉怒吼，责备她偷懒。“我试着喂过她了，”罗拉说。父亲俯视地瞪着她，她微弱的抵抗只加剧了他的怒火。父亲一拳打在她肩膀下面。罗拉跑出了房间，我听见了她的哭号。听上去像是野兽的恸哭。

“Ling said she wasn’t hungry,” I said.

“玲说过她不饿，” 我说。

My parents turned to look at me. They seemed startled. I felt the twitching in my face that usually preceded tears, but I wouldn’t cry this time. In Mom’s eyes was a shadow of something I hadn’t seen before. Jealousy?

我父母转过头来看我，看似很惊讶。我感觉到自己面部抽搐，就像往常快哭的时候那样。但这一次，我不会哭。母亲的眼里好像藏着什么我以前没见过的东西。那是嫉妒吗？

“Are you defending your Lola?,” Dad said. “Is that what you’re doing?”

“你在维护你的罗拉吗？”父亲说到。“是这样吗？”

“Ling said she wasn’t hungry,” I said again, almost in a whisper.

“玲说过她并不饿，”我又重复了一遍，声音小到几乎听不到。

I was 13. It was my first attempt to stick up for the woman who spent her days watching over me. The woman who used to hum Tagalog melodies as she rocked me to sleep, and when I got older would dress and feed me and walk me to school in the mornings and pick me up in the afternoons. Once, when I was sick for a long time and too weak to eat, she chewed my food for me and put the small pieces in my mouth to swallow. One summer when I had plaster casts on both legs (I had problem joints), she bathed me with a washcloth, brought medicine in the middle of the night, and helped me through months of rehabilitation. I was cranky through it all. She didn’t complain or lose patience, ever.

我那时13岁。这是我第一次尝试为一直照顾我的这个女人撑腰。我还是个婴儿的时候，这个女人摇着我入睡时总会给我哼唱他加禄语歌曲；当我大一点时，她会给我穿衣服，喂我吃饭，早上送我上学，下午接我放学。有一次，当我生病了好长一段时间，太虚弱了以至于不能进食，是她嚼碎了我的食物，一小口一小口地放入我口中，让我吞咽下去。一个夏天，我的双腿缠着石膏绷带（我当时关节有毛病），是她给我用毛巾擦澡，半夜给我拿药，帮助我度过了几个月的复健。我那段时间一直暴躁不堪。她从未抱怨或失去耐心，从来没有。

To now hear her wailing made me crazy.

直到现在，听到她哭泣还是能让我发疯。

Lola’s mother, Fermina, died in 1973; her father, Hilario, in 1979. Both times she wanted desperately to go home. Both times my parents said “Sorry.” No money, no time. The kids needed her. My parents also feared for themselves, they admitted to me later. If the authorities had found out about Lola, as they surely would have if she’d tried to leave, my parents could have gotten into trouble, possibly even been deported. They couldn’t risk it. Lola’s legal status became what Filipinos call tago nang tago, or TNT—“on the run.” She stayed TNT for almost 20 years.

罗拉的母亲法敏娜1973年去世；她的父亲希拉罗1979年去世。 两次，她都迫切地想回家。两次，我父母都只是说了“对不起。”没有钱，没有时间，孩子们需要她。他们后来对我承认，他们也怕给自己惹上麻烦。如果罗拉企图离境，那么政府部门一定会发现她非法滞留的问题。这样，我父母肯定逃不了干系，甚至有可能被驱逐出境。他们不能冒这个险。罗拉的身份就变成了菲律宾语中的"Tago nang tago",  或者简称为“TNT”-“逃跑中”。她这个身份状态维持了将近20年。

When I was 15, Dad left the family for good. I didn’t want to believe it at the time, but the fact was that he deserted us kids and abandoned Mom after 25 years of marriage. She wouldn’t become a licensed physician for another year, and her specialty—internal medicine—wasn’t especially lucrative. Dad didn’t pay child support, so money was always a struggle.

当我15岁时，父亲永远离开了这个家。我那时不想相信这个事实，但现实是，他抛弃了我们几个孩子，还有和他结婚25年的母亲。母亲还有一年才能成为执业医师。她的专业是内科，并不怎么赚钱。我父亲不支付我们的抚养费，所以那时我们总是缺钱。

My mom kept herself together enough to go to work, but at night she’d crumble in self-pity and despair. Her main source of comfort during this time: Lola. As Mom snapped at her over small things, Lola attended to her even more—cooking Mom’s favorite meals, cleaning her bedroom with extra care. I’d find the two of them late at night at the kitchen counter, griping and telling stories about Dad, sometimes laughing wickedly, other times working themselves into a fury over his transgressions. They barely noticed us kids flitting in and out.

我母亲白天还能打起精神去工作，但到了晚上，她便在自怨自艾中崩溃绝望。那时她的主要安慰来自罗拉。母亲越在小事上训斥罗拉，罗拉就越发照顾母亲：给母亲做她爱吃的饭菜，格外细心地打扫她的卧室。有时，深夜我会在厨房柜台看到她们饶有兴趣地谈论父亲的轶事，还不时嘲笑一下；或是俩人谈论着他的劣行，便开始同仇敌忾。她们很少注意我们小孩轻声地进进出出。