2019年翻译资格考试三级口译练习题：父亲

　　My husband, Gary, and I were flying to Hawaii from New York to show our five-month old son, Timmy, to my parents for the first time. But what should have been a mission of joy filled me with apprehension. For five years I'd hardly spoken to my father. Loving but stern in the manner typical of Chinese fathers, he had made particular demands on me, and though we were very much alike, we'd also grown very far apart.

　　丈夫加里和我第一次带着我们五个月大的儿子提米乘飞机从纽约前往夏威夷去看望我的父母。 这本来应该是一件快乐的差事，而我却为此忧心忡忡; 因为我几乎五年没有和父亲讲话了。 父亲是一位有爱心但又严厉的典型的中国父亲，平时对我的要求很苛刻，虽然我们有很多相似之处，但我们的经历却大相径庭。

　　When I became a teenager, my father held up my mother as a model of feminine behavior. But she was gregarious and social, while I preferred books to parties. He pressed me to mingle with his friends' children. I insisted on choosing my own companions. He assumed I'd follow in my mother's footsteps and enroll in the local university to study teaching, and that I'd marry into one of the other long-established Chinese clans on the Hawaiian islands and settle down, as he and my mother had.

　　等我长到十几岁时，父亲便把母亲视为女性的典范。 可是她那么喜欢热闹，喜欢交往，而我喜欢读书胜过聚会。 他强迫我和他的朋友的孩子交往， 而我则坚持自己选择朋友。 他想当然地认为我会步我母亲的后尘，报考当地的师范大学，然后嫁到夏威夷岛上另外一个有名望的家族之中，再像他和我母亲那样定居下来。

　　But I didn't settle. As bullheaded as my father, I escaped to the University of California, where I fell in love with a haole, as we called Caucasians from the mainland. Gary had blue haole eyes and sandy haole hair. I announced that we were getting married — in Berkeley, California, not Hawaii. No huge, clamorous clan wedding for me. My parents came and met Gary just two days before our small, simple wedding. Afterwards we moved to New York, as far from the islands as we could get without leaving American soil.

　　但是我没有安顿下来。 和父亲一样执拗的我逃到加利福尼亚大学。在那儿，我爱上了一位“外族人”，那时我们对大陆来的白种人都这样称呼。 加里长有“外族人”的蓝眼睛和“外族人”的棕色头发。 我宣布我们就要结婚了———在加利福尼亚的伯克利而不是在夏威夷， 没有人为我操办声势浩大的、热闹的家族婚礼。 就在我们简短的婚礼举办的前两天，我父母才赶来见加里。 婚后我们搬到纽约，在不离开美国领土的前提下尽可能地远离群岛。

　　My father's subsequent silence resonated with disapproval. He didn't visit; neither did I. When my mother telephoned, he never asked to speak to me, and I never asked for him. We might have gone on like that, the habit of separation hardening into a permanent estrangement. Then Timmy was born, and I felt an unexpected tidal pull back to the island.

　　父亲随后的沉默意味着他对我的婚事的反对。 他没来看我们，我也没去看他。 当母亲打来电话时，他从来不要求和我说话，我也从来不要求和他讲话。 我们本可能会这样持续下去的，因为习惯性的分离会导致永久性的疏远。 后来，提米出生了，我感到仿佛有一股突如其来的潮水在将我推向岛乡。

　　On the long flight to Hawaii, memories of my childhood, when I was my father's small shadow, came flooding back. I was three years old, running behind him as he walked between the banana trees in the plantation town where he taught secondary school. When I grew tired, he carried me on his shoulders. From there, I could see forever. "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine," he would sing. "You make me happy when skies are grey." I laughed, taking his devotion as my due.

　　在飞往夏威夷的漫长的旅途中，儿时的记忆潮水般向我涌来。 那时，父亲在一个移民镇上教中学，我是父亲的小影子，跟随父亲在香蕉树林里穿行。 我累了，他就把我扛在肩上， 从他的肩上，我可以看到永恒的父爱。 “你是我的阳光，我惟一的阳光，”他常常这样唱着， “天空乌云密布时你会使我快乐。” 我笑着，把他的爱视为当然。

　　Now the prodigal daughter was returning with the firstborn of the next generation—a hazel-eyed, golden-skinned hapa haole (half-white) child who looked little like his Chinese ancestors. How would my father react? If he disapproved of Timmy, as he had of me, the breach between us would be complete. I would never return.

　　现在女儿浪子回头，带着下一代的长子———一个长着淡褐色眼睛、金色皮肤、有部分白人血统、很少像他的中国祖先的孩子回家了。 我父亲会有什么反应呢? 如果他拒绝了提米，就像他当年拒绝我一样，那我们之间的裂痕就会达到顶点， 我就再也不回来了。

　　The plane landed, and I gratefully placed a crying, hungry Timmy into my mother's eager arms. Here was instant and unconditional acceptance of a child by his grandmother.

　　飞机着陆了，我把饿得直哭的提米感激地放进母亲张开的双臂中。 此时，孩子立刻被外祖母无条件地接受了。

　　My father's expression was passive and hard to read. He greeted us politely: "Good trip?" Then he peered cautiously at Timmy, who promptly began to shriek. My father stepped back in alarm. Did he find it unsettling that this squalling stranger might be his own flesh and blood?

　　父亲的表情是被动的，而且让人难以理解。 他客气地和我们打招呼：“一路还好吧?”接着谨慎地凝视着提米，这时提米突然尖声哭起来， 父亲吓得后退一步。 他是不是因为看到这位尖叫的陌生人可能是他的血肉而深感不安?

　　After dinner at my parents' house, Gary and I retired to my old bedroom. My mother tucked Timmy into a burrowed crib in a room down the hall.

　　在我父母的房间里吃完晚饭后，加里和我回到我原来住过的房间。 母亲将提米安放在大厅一间房间里一个有围栏的童床里。

　　Four hours later mother instinct pulled me from sleep. This was the time Timmy usually woke for a bottle, but there were no cries of hunger, no fretful wails. Instead, I heard only the sweet, soft gurgle of baby laughter. I tiptoed down the hall.

　　四个小时后，做母亲的直觉催我醒来。 这个时间往往是提米醒来喝奶的时间，但我却听不见饥饿或烦躁不安的哭闹声， 相反，听到的只是婴儿甜甜的、柔和的咯咯声。 我踮着脚尖走进大厅。

　　In the living room, Timmy lay on a pillow on the floor in a circle of light, his plump, tiny fists and feet churning gleefully. He studied the face bent over him, an Asian face burned dark by the Hawaiian sun, with laugh wrinkles at the corners of the eyes. My father was giving Timmy a bottle, tickling his tummy and crooning softly, "You are my sunshine..."

　　在客厅里的一个光圈里，提米躺在地板上的一个枕头上，他胖乎乎的小拳头和小脚丫欢快地挥动着。 他端详着那张俯视他的脸，一张眼角长有笑纹、被夏威夷的阳光晒得黝黑的脸。 父亲正在给提米喂奶瓶，一边挠着他的肚皮一边轻声唱着：“你是我的阳光……”

　　I watched from the darkness, not wanting to break the spell then crept back to my room. It was then that I began to suspect that my father had wanted to mend the breach as much as I had. Awkward and proud, he hadn't known how, and neither had I. Timmy became the bridge over which we could reach for each other.

　　我在暗处观望着，不想打破这动人的场面，然后悄悄溜回房间。 就在那时，我开始猜测父亲和我一样一直想言归于好， 但出于面子和难为情不知如何是好，而我也不知该怎么办， 提米成为我们走近对方的桥梁。

　　For the rest of our stay, the tension slowly melted. My father and I didn't discuss our rift directly. Thanks to Timmy, we didn't need to. Having claimed his hapa haole grandson, my father no longer defined our family by a uniform set of features. Curly haired, hazel-eyed Timmy was loved for himself.

　　在那儿余下的日子里，紧张的空气渐渐缓和下来。 父亲和我没有直接谈及我们的分歧，我们也认为没这个必要，而这些多亏了提米。 既然已经接纳了这个具有半个白人血统的外孙，父亲不再将我们的家庭定位于一套统一的特征。 长有卷曲头发和褐色眼睛的提米因为他自身的可爱而为外祖父所爱。

　　We returned to the islands the following summer. Timmy, now a toddler, splashed in the surf with his grandfather. The summer after that they built a tree-house out of scrap lumber and painted it blue.

　　第二年的夏天，我们又回到了岛上。 提米已经一岁多了，和外公一起在激浪中嬉水。 第三年的夏天，他们用废旧的材料建成了一座树形房子并把它刷成蓝色。

　　So pleased was my father with his new grandfather status that he took early retirement when Timmy was four, to spend more time visiting his "New York family." My son and my father made a handsome pair as they walked together — the Chinese grandfather happily trailed by a different, bouncing shadow.

　　父亲对自己做了外公十分满意，以至于在提米四岁时就提前退休了，以便有更多的时间看望他的“纽约家人”。 我儿子和我父亲一起走道的情景形成一道美丽的风景———一位中国外公步态轻盈，后面跟着一个长相不同的、活蹦乱跳的影子。