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By Nancy Christie Each spring, the urge to plant something—a flower or vegetable or anything that would blossom and produce—pulled at her. It must have been a legacy from her grandmother who had, long ago, kept a garden of small and neat proportions. There had been cabbage-sized roses and delicate white pea blossoms. And in the fertile earth hid golden carrot spears and round white onions, layered and pearly. The garden gave forth its best from early spring, when the frost still powdered the ground, until late autumn amidst the flaming leaves. And Alice came to believe her grandmother had found the secret to life itself buried deep in the soft black earth. There had been space and light for things to grow at her grandmother’s house—unlike here in the city where even weeds had a difficult time breaking through the ever-present asphalt. There was no place for Alice to grow even a single flower—not in front of the brownstone building, where angled cracks only hinted at the earth below, not inside her small dark apartment where the life-giving sunlight would have to traverse an impossibly long distance just to reach her grimy windows. She had tried, that first year she had come to the city, when hope blossomed in her heart and the future seemed filled with promise. She had carried to her rooms a red clay pot of patio tomatoes, guaranteed to produce scarlet globes hanging in abundance from the dark green stems. But the lack of sunlight and fresh air turned the green to faded brown, and by summer’s end, the tomatoes themselves were shriveled and misshapen—a nightmare version of what nature intended. Alice threw the plant away, and never brought home another. Instead, every spring, when the desire for life burned in her, she would stop at the flower sellers waiting patiently outside the subway entrance and buy armfuls of freesias and roses and carnations. Tenderly, she would carry the paper-wrapped bundle home, to arrange the fragrant rootless blossoms in a crystal vase to die. 春天 寒心 译 每到春天，艾丽丝便渴望种点什么——鲜花，或蔬菜或一切能开花能生长的东西。很久以前，从她祖母那儿遗留下来一个整洁的小花园。 那里，春季的时候，簇簇洋白菜大的玫瑰和丛丛散发着幽香的雪白的豌豆花竞相开放。肥沃的土地下埋藏着金色的胡萝卜的幼苗以及珍珠样又白又圆的洋葱。 早春的花园冲破严寒霜冻，把最美的景色带给人间，晚秋时节则呈现在一片火红的树叶中。艾丽丝确信祖母已经发现深埋在柔软的黑色土地下的生命本身的秘密。 祖母的房屋外面有足够的空间和阳光适合植物的生长，不像这城市里，种子要从布满沥青的地上破土而出非常艰难。 在城里，爱丽丝找不出一点地方哪怕是种一株花，褐石房屋外面不行，那里只是从房屋之间的夹缝中透进少许的阳光，在她狭小而黑暗的公寓更不行，哺育生命的阳光不可能穿过那么远的距离，最多只能到达昏暗的窗户。 来到城里的第一年，她曾努力去尝试，那时她心中充满希望，对未来似乎也有点盼头。她种了一砵西红柿放在房间外的露台上，里面盛满红色的粘土，指望那深绿的枝桠上定会挂满又圆又红的果实。 但是因为缺乏阳光和新鲜空气，绿叶褪变成了褐色，直到夏末，西红柿也变得干瘪且畸形，当初的美好愿望成了一场空。 爱丽丝扔掉西红柿，从今往后不往家里带任何其它的植物了。然而，每当春天来临，她的心里依然充满对生命的渴望，她耐心地等在地铁入口处，流连于卖花人面前，买了一大束小苍兰、玫瑰和康乃馨，抱在臂弯里。 她小心翼翼地捧着这束用纸包装好的花回了家，把这芬芳的无根的鲜花插在水晶瓶子里，直到枯萎。 2014.10.09 赞 (散文编辑：江南风) |
