不尋常的“禮物”

I was 12 years old when my mum finally 1）cajoled my grandmother into buying a one-way ticket to Texas. It was 1994， and my grandmother—an 2）azure-eyed， high-cheeked beauty—was already well into the mid-stages of Alzheimers disease. It had been a few months since my family had last seen her and we werent sure what to expect. “Do you still have the same 3）plaid suitcases？” My mother asked my grandmother at the airport， as we eyed the 4）baggage carousel. “Oh，” my grandmother said.“I forgot to bring anything！ I guess well have to go shopping.” To conceal our dismay， my parents and I turned back to the whirring 5）conveyor belts， which soon spat out the familiar plaid bags.

A week or so later， we all took a trip to the 6）Dallas Museum of Art. In the museum gift shop， my grandmother bought for me a childrens book about the 7）Rosetta Stone. To my significant disappointment， I saw on the books cover that the Rosetta Stone was not the fist-sized jewel I had imagined； it was just a cracked slab of granite with a bunch of ancient scribbling. It might not look like much， my grandmother told me， but this was the key that unlocked the mysteries of ancient Egypt. The Rosetta Stone， I read in that book， had been found only a couple of hundred years ago， and its 8）inscription was just the boasting of some minor Pharaoh from the dying Egyptian empire. And yet， the Stone displayed the same message written in three languages， and it had been the close study of it that made legible the Egyptiansanimal-cracker markings， a cipher that unlocked all the great texts written on the stones and scrolls of a long-dead kingdom. A few days later， in return， we gave my grandmother the gift of a 9）leather-bound， 10）gilded journal. My parents and I encouraged her to write down her thoughts and memories in it. We tried to be encouraging， we tried to stay hopeful， but at 2：15am on September 9 of that year， we lost her thoughts and memories forever. My grandmother slipped while wandering through my aunts dark house and fell to her death at the base of the basement-black staircase.

Many years passed， I grew up and then I grew older. Yet I also wondered if， in some ways， I was growing backward， into my familys past. When I was 20—after a five-day， electric bout of insomnia—a doctor gave me the same diagnosis， 11）bipolar disorder， that another doctor had once given my grandfather， just a few years before his early， mysterious death. Then， just as my mum had once 12）fretted over the slips and omissions in my grandmothers memory， I began to make similarly fretful assessments of my mum. In these， and in many other ways as well， my own future felt bound to my grandmothers deep and silent history， all the stories that we had also lost when we lost her.

One summer day， when I was 25， I searched my familys house for something to read. Scanning the contents of an old pile of books that a housekeeper had long ago boxed and put in a closet， my eyes caught on a familiar 13）spine， and I slipped it free. In my hands was the journal we had given my grandmother， 13 years before.

I held my breath as I cracked open the front cover， hoping for something impossible—a story of her life？ A full account of everything she wanted me to know？ On the very first page my grandmother had written two 14）cryptic sentences：“Function in disaster. Finish in style.” The rest of those dusty， gilded pages were blank.

Function in disaster. Finish in style. I Googled those words and learned that they were not originally hers—it was a quote from a famous American schoolteacher. Why had my grandmother written it？

Maybe it was just something she 15）jotted down， some 16）aphorism she heard， liked and wished to remember. Still， preceding the hundreds of empty pages of her journal， it was impossible not to read those two short， imperative sentences as an 17）epigraph， or else a concluding moral， to the blanked story of her life.

Function in disaster. Finish in style. I imagined my grandmother in the chaotic midst of her adult life， with four young daughters and a husband in a mental asylum， barely managing， and yet never relinquishing the coolly radiant elegance that is so plainly visible in any photograph of her.

Function in disaster. Finish in style. The spirit of that sentiment attached to the few facts I knew about her history， and more images and words came—I knew they were more the imagined stuff of my own hopes and worries than actual history， but they felt indelible. I wrote them down.

Function in disaster. Finish in Style： it might only have been a simple quotation， words that were not even her own， but it became the Rosetta Stone by which I translated her silence into my imagination. Soon I had filled three hundred blank pages， a book I titled The Storm at the Door.

The Rosetta Stone was found by accident， my grandmother once told me. It had been there all along， but no one had seen it for what it was. A feather of wonderment brushed my 12-yearold spine as I sat to read.

I dont know if my grandmother meant to leave those sentences for me to discover， just as I cant ever know the full story of the disasters in which she managed to function. But I cant imagine a better final gift， nor can I think of how she could have given it to me with any more wondrous style.

我12歲那年，母親終于說服祖母買了一張來德克薩斯州的單程票。那是1994年，我的祖母——一位長著湛藍(lán)眼睛、高顴骨的美人——當(dāng)時(shí)已經(jīng)徹底進(jìn)入阿爾茨海默癥中期階段。上一次我們?nèi)乙姷剿咽菙?shù)月前的事了，我們當(dāng)時(shí)并不知道接下來將會(huì)發(fā)生什么事。“你還是用原來那個(gè)格子行李箱嗎？”在機(jī)場時(shí)，母親這樣問祖母。我們則盯著行李傳送帶看?！班蓿弊婺刚f道，“我什么都忘記帶了！我想我們得去買東西了?！睘榱穗[藏我們的憂傷，父母和我又回到嗡嗡作響的行李輸送帶那兒，不一會(huì)兒那熟悉的格子行李箱就滑出來了。

大約一個(gè)星期后，我們都去了一趟達(dá)拉斯藝術(shù)博物館。在博物館的禮品店，祖母給我買了一本關(guān)于羅塞達(dá)石的兒童讀物。讓我特別失望的是，在書的封面上，我看到的羅塞達(dá)石并非我所想象的拳頭那般大小的寶石；它只是一塊刻著一連串古老字跡的又破又厚的花崗石。祖母告訴我，可能它看起來不太像，但它卻是開啟古埃及神秘大門的鑰匙。我從那本書中讀到，羅塞達(dá)石是直到幾百年前才被發(fā)現(xiàn)的，它上面的銘文也不過是奄奄一息的埃及帝國里某個(gè)小法老的自我吹捧之詞。然而，那塊石頭卻用三種不同的語言呈現(xiàn)了相同的訊息，對其所作出的深入研究使得埃及人的牲畜交易記錄清晰地呈現(xiàn)在我們面前，也為我們揭秘石塊上所有偉大文字中的秘密和一個(gè)消失已久國度的歷史點(diǎn)滴。幾天后，我們回贈(zèng)給祖母一個(gè)皮革封面鍍金邊的日記本。我和父母鼓勵(lì)她記錄下自己的想法和記憶。我們試圖鼓勵(lì)她，試圖保持懷有希望的心理，但是在那年9月9號(hào)的凌晨兩點(diǎn)一刻，我們永遠(yuǎn)地失去了她的想法和記憶。祖母在穿過我阿姨漆黑的房間時(shí)滑倒，跌下地下室的黑色樓梯而去世了。

多年以后，我長大了，年紀(jì)也漸長。但我還是好奇，是不是以某種方式，我便能逆生長，回到我家的往昔歲月。當(dāng)我20歲時(shí)——在和連續(xù)五天令人崩潰的失眠較量之后——一位醫(yī)生給了我這樣的診斷：躁郁癥，而幾年前另一位醫(yī)生，在我的祖父英年離奇去世前，也曾對他做出同樣的診斷。然后，正如我母親曾為祖母記憶的丟失感到著急一樣，我的狀況使得母親有了同樣焦慮的擔(dān)憂。以這些或是許多其他的方式，我自己的未來仿佛與祖母深沉且無聲的往事聯(lián)系在一起，當(dāng)我們失去祖母的時(shí)候，我們也失去了所有關(guān)于她的故事。

25歲那年的一個(gè)夏日，我在家中翻箱倒柜，想找些東西來讀。我搜尋出了管家裝箱存放在壁櫥里的一堆舊書，我注意到其中一本有著熟悉的書脊，于是我慢慢地拿起它。在我手里的就是13年前那個(gè)我們送給祖母的日記本。

我屏住呼吸，打開日記本封面，期待見證奇跡——她的人生故事？是她想讓我知道的一切事情的完整記錄嗎？在扉頁上，祖母寫了兩句神秘的句子：“在逆境中奮起，優(yōu)雅地走到終點(diǎn)?！背酥?，滿是灰塵的金邊頁面上空空如也。

在逆境中奮起，優(yōu)雅地走到終點(diǎn)。我在谷歌上查找這兩句話，然后發(fā)現(xiàn)它們并非我祖母原創(chuàng)，而是引用一位著名美國教師的話。我祖母為什么寫下這句話呢？

也許祖母只是草草記下一些她所聽到的、喜歡的并希望銘記的警句。當(dāng)然，她把這兩個(gè)簡短祈使句寫在日記本的上百張空白頁之前，這不得不使人覺得這便是她的墓志銘，或者是她從其人生的空白故事中總結(jié)出來的道理。

在逆境中奮起，優(yōu)雅地走向終點(diǎn)。我想象祖母身處混亂的成年生活中，帶著四個(gè)年幼的女兒，而丈夫則在精神病院，勉強(qiáng)維持生計(jì)，然而從來不丟棄自己散發(fā)光芒的沉著優(yōu)雅氣質(zhì)，這種氣質(zhì)在她的每張照片中都明顯可見。

在逆境中奮起，優(yōu)雅地走向終點(diǎn)。這種情操所體現(xiàn)的精神正好和我所知的關(guān)于她的幾件事有所聯(lián)系，更多的畫面和語言涌進(jìn)腦海——我深知這更多的是我出于期望和擔(dān)憂而想象的事物，而非真實(shí)的歷史，但是它們都顯得如此真實(shí)、不可磨滅。于是我將它們寫了下來。

在逆境中奮起，優(yōu)雅地走向終點(diǎn)：這可能只是一句簡單的引語，并非出自祖母之口，但是它成為了羅塞達(dá)石，而憑借此我用自己的想象力來理解她的緘默。很快地，我寫了三百頁，這本書名為《暴風(fēng)雨在門口》。

羅塞達(dá)石是被意外發(fā)現(xiàn)的，祖母曾這么跟我說。它自始至終都在那里，但是無人發(fā)覺其價(jià)值。12歲那年，當(dāng)我坐下來閱讀這本書時(shí)，那驚異的感覺似羽毛一樣掠過我的脊梁骨，震撼了我。

我無法知道祖母是否是為了讓我發(fā)現(xiàn)而寫下那些句子的，正如我永遠(yuǎn)無法得知她曾成功地克服過怎樣的難關(guān)。但是我想象不到還會(huì)有更好的最后禮物，也想不到有什么更讓人驚嘆的方式來讓她把這個(gè)禮物傳給我。