小说：女服务员的愿望

图/梅琳达·贝克

“呦，美女，屁股不赖。”出租车司机坐在彻夜营业的餐馆柜台说道，眼神给人悲戚的感觉，胡子没有刮，嘴里享用着甜甜圈。女服务员瞪了他一眼。她厌倦了别人冲她抛媚眼，也讨厌每次弯腰捡抹布时被人淫邪地盯着。收银机边站着个拾荒老妇人，女服务员给她要了份免费的热汤。女服务员对她说，“就算是山羊跑进来，他们也会抛媚眼过去，说一样傻逼的话。我受够了，真希望没人看我。”拾荒人实际上是个伪装起来的精灵仙母，并且为了感谢服务员送了她一份汤，仙母像举魔棒一样举起汤匙，让女服务员愿望成真。于是，女服务员给出租车司机递账单的时候，司机粗壮的脖子一扭，头猛地转向一边。他这是拒绝买单吗？女服务员又站到他面前，司机又把头扭到另一边。“我的天，疼。”他抽泣道。女服务员扭头瞥拾荒女人，但她已经没影了。

“Hey, sweetheart, nice patoot,” says the sad-eyed taxi-driver sitting at the all-night-diner counter, a doughnut wallowing in his unshaven jowls. The waitress glares at him. She is fed up with being ogled, or else stared at in disgust, whenever she bends over to pick up a dishrag. “If a goat wandered in, they’d ogle the goat and say the same stupid things,” she complains to the old bag lady near the cash register, to whom she has offered a free bowl of hot soup. “I’m sick of it. I wish nobody could ever look at me.” The bag lady turns out to be a fairy godmother in disguise, and, in thanks for the soup, she raises her spoon like a wand and grants the waitress her wish, so that when she tries to hand the taxi-driver his check, his head swivels sharply on his bovine neck. Is he refusing it? The waitress moves over into his line of sight and his head pops the other way. “Jesus, that hurt,” he whimpers. She glances over at the bag lady, but the sweet old thing has vanished.

从此以后，人们见到女服务员都避开不看她，他们没法不这么做。扭头，扭头，扭头，女服务员从身边经过，人们的脑袋就转到一边。有时候他们发出轻微的叫声，她觉得挺可乐。女服务员喜欢在高峰时间逛繁华的商场、城市公园和火车站，看着脑袋一个个像搞合唱一样啪啪扭过去。有时候，她只是觉得好玩，脱掉衣服，回想起小时候在卧室窗户前宽衣解带的兴奋，但是现在看着橱窗反射出自己的样子（模特眼神冷漠，直勾勾地看着她），她看到了一个傻里傻气的胖子，于是不再看下去。

People turn away from then on—they just can’t stop themselves. Whisk, whisk, whisk, go their heads as she passes by. Sometimes they make little yipping sounds, which adds to her amusement. She likes to stroll through busy department stores, city parks, and railway stations at rush hour, watching the heads snap away in choral waves. Sometimes, just for fun, she takes her clothes off, remembering her thrill as a child undressing in front of her bedroom window, but then, catching sight of her reflection in a shopwindow (the mannequins stare icily, straight at her), she sees what a silly fat fool she is and stops that.

在餐馆，老板拧着脖子，递给女服务员一些零碎小票，说她是人们脖子上的痛，顾客投诉不断，她必须走人。这让女服务员想起各种劝人谨慎小心的忠告。因此，她失了业。她进了家酒吧，拿着小气鬼老板给的薄薪，能喝多醉就喝多醉，希望找个不会扭头的人倾诉心中的愁苦。出了酒吧，女服务员遇见个一直盯着她看的乞丐。这个乞丐胡须茂盛，蹲靠着墙，手里攥着茶色纸袋和锡制杯子。咒语失灵了？不是的，她立马猜出来：这人是瞎子。她也不太确定，可能是她用了第二个愿望。因为她朝旁边一看，看到了拾荒女人的背影，在一个拐弯儿附近步履蹒跚地走着。

At the diner, her boss, head twisting away, hands her a few small bills and tells her she’s become a literal pain in the neck, the customers are complaining, she’ll have to go—which brings to mind all those cautionary admonitions about being careful what you wish for. So, jobless, she heads to a bar to get as drunk as she can on her cheapskate boss’s payoff, wishing she could find someone to tell her troubles to who wouldn’t turn away. Outside the bar, she comes upon a guy who does keep looking at her, a beardy panhandler, slumped against the building clutching a brown paper bag and a tin cup. Has the spell worn off? No, she guesses it at once: he is blind. She’s not sure, but maybe she has just used up a second wish, because, glancing over her shoulder, she sees the backside of the old bag lady, toddling away around a corner.

她带瞎子乞丐回家，乞丐像是她抽奖中的东西。女服务员给他吃饭洗澡，愉快地度过了几个小时。乞丐摸摸女服务员，给出了赞赏的评价“丰腴”。欢乐过后，女服务员必须考虑下一步怎么办，自己没有工作，有两张嘴要吃饭，两个人要穿衣服要照顾。乞丐的杯子里没有钱，茶色纸袋也是空空如也。他俩一样，事业毫无起色。或许可以找拾荒女人帮忙。女服务员大概已经用光了两个愿望。这样的话，她把这两个愿望都给浪费了。假如传说是真的，那她还有第三个愿望可以许。要是能找到拾荒女人，她许愿得小心些，因为拾荒女人的幽默感太诡异。例如，长命百岁可能是个噩梦般的选择；要是没人看她，变漂亮也没什么必要；如果自己注定贫穷，身体健康也没什么好。于是乎女服务员决定要一大笔财富，并在心里反复叨念，以防冒出什么不该说的话，从而落得像那对许愿鼻子变香肠的夫妇的下场。

She takes the blind beggar home with her, as if he were something she’d won in a raffle, feeds and showers him, and they have a good time for a few hours. “Ample” is his favorable judgment after doing the Braille thing. But then she has to think about what happens next. She has no job now and two mouths to feed, two bodies to clothe and care for. His tin cup was empty, the bottle in his brown paper bag as well—his own career, like hers, has been going nowhere. Maybe that old homeless lady could help if she could find her. She may have used up two wishes already and, if so, has essentially wasted them both, but, if the legends are true, she still has a third. If she finds the bag lady, she’ll have to be careful, given the old dear’s wicked sense of humor. Wishing to live forever, for example, might be a nightmarishly bad choice. No need to wish for beauty if no one can see her, and perfect health’s no good if she’s condemned to poverty. So she decides to wish for fabulous wealth, and to keep on repeating it, so as not to blurt out something stupid and end up like that couple who wished their noses into sausages.

她跑到第一次遇见拾荒妇人的餐馆附近，在大街上找，心里不断许愿发财发财，可哪里都没有拾荒妇人的影子。最后，她放弃了，朝一家卖酒的店走去，准备用尽可能好的方式用光最后一点钱。她经过一家银行时，恰巧有人正在抢劫银行。劫匪遇见女服务员，头用力扭向一边，因为力度过大，一个踉跄，手里的东西掉了，撒了一大街。警报声响起，劫匪奋力逃跑。洒落的钱一摞一摞，伸手可得，她不用浪费愿望就可以有钱。但事情恰恰相反，她意识到自己用掉了最后一个愿望。那个老家伙肯定在什么地方开怀大笑。如果女服务员拿被偷的钱，她会被列入人人最想通缉的要犯名单。但是，如果不拿钱就走，最后一个愿望就彻底浪费了。她抬头，看见被电线吊着的安保摄像头扭向其他方向。抓一把散落的钞票绝不会被抓，但得到一把钞票不是她许的愿望。况且，如果她只拿一点，惹来的麻烦可能比把钱都拿走要大。

She checks the streets near the diner where she first saw her, wishing her money wish over and over, but the bag lady is nowhere to be seen. Finally, she gives up and heads instead to a liquor store to use up her last couple of bills in the best way possible, passing a bank where, by chance, a robbery is taking place. The heads of the thieves snap aside so violently when they rush out of the bank door toward her that they stumble and drop what they’re carrying, spilling it out on the street. There are sirens, the thieves are on the run, and the money’s there for the taking, piles of it. She wouldn’t even have to waste a wish. Then she realizes that, on the contrary, she has just used up her last one. Somewhere, the old bird is laughing again. If the waitress grabs up the stolen loot, she’ll be on everybody’s most-wanted list, but if she walks away the granting of her final wish will be recklessly wasted. She looks up and sees that the security cameras have snapped away from her and hang by their wires. A handful of the scattered bills would never be missed, but a handful is not what she wished for; if she pinched a little she might be in more trouble than if she took it all.

这时，突然刮起一阵风，飘来几个硕大肮脏的购物袋，随着警报声哭泣般的节奏飘舞。拾荒女人是在关照她，也有可能是在玩她。女服务员把袋子装满后，地上还剩有钱。她的裙子、裙子和内衣都能作成袋子，于是她脱下衣服，把衣服打结当袋子，装满钱。现在地上的钱太多，她一个人没法搬回家。女服务员叫出租车，可司机想看却看不见她。很幸运，她发现有辆出租车停着，司机在车里打盹儿。她许愿望要车了吗？貌似他和许愿事件开始时在餐馆出现的那个没刮胡子的神经病是同一个。女服务员把钱袋子扔进后座，爬进车里，挤在钱袋子边上，把自家地址告诉哼哧一声醒过来的司机。司机想看看她带了什么，但脑袋不断弹回来。“哎呦，哎呦，”他咕哝道，伸手去拉门。“等等，”女服务员说完，往司机旁边的座位扔过去一些大票。他可能这辈子都没见过这么多崭新的现金。司机吹了声赞赏的口哨，车门一拉，又问了下地址。到女服务员家可不是件容易的事儿，其他司机朝他们这方向看去，但脑袋都扭到一边。路上到处都有事故发生。司机左躲右闪，粗口咒骂。“嘿，这是个危险四伏的世界，”她说着蹲到前座下边，好让司机操作方便，而司机对她的话付之一笑。

A couple of large grimy shopping bags come floating past on a sudden breeze, dancing to the tune of the wailing sirens. The bag lady is still taking care of her. Or teasing her. The waitress fills them, but there’s money left over. Her skirt and shirt and underclothes can all be tied into bags, so she takes them off, knots them, and loads them up, too. There’s more now than she can drag home on her own, but when she tries to hail a taxi the drivers can’t see her, for all there is to see. Luckily, she finds a guy snoozing in his parked cab. Did she wish for that? Looks like he might be the same unshaven yo-yo who was in the diner the night it all began. She heaves the bags of money into the back seat, crawls in beside them, and gives the driver, who wakes with a snort, her address. He tries to see what she has brought in with her, but his head keeps bouncing away. “Oh, oh,” he grunts, reaching for the door. “Wait!” she says, and drops some big bills onto the seat beside him. It’s probably more raw cash than he’s ever seen before. With an appreciative whistle, he pulls the door shut and asks for that address again. It’s not easy getting there. Other drivers’ heads, glancing their way, snap to the side, and up and down the street there are accidents. Her guy is ducking, dodging, cursing. “Hey, it’s a dangerous world,” she says, squatting down behind the front seat to make it easier for him, and he laughs sourly at that.

回到家，她会想办法把袋子弄进家，然后打电话叫披萨，向卖酒的商店要了一两箱酒，播放音乐，她和瞎子乞丐彻夜跳舞。两人并没有就此过上了幸福的生活，拾荒女人从一开始就没有给过女服务员这样的承诺。

At home, she’ll wrestle the bags in somehow, then call up for pizza delivery and a case or two from the liquor store, put some music on, and she and the blind beggar will dance the night away. It won’t exactly be happily ever after, but the bag lady never promised her that.