15 Leaving the Valley
15 离开河谷
Leaving the valley was harder than anything I had done before.
离开河谷,比我之前做过的任何事情都要艰难许多。
I remembered the tapa my grandmother used to recite: 'No Pashtun leaves his land of his own sweet will.
我还记得祖母以前经常背诵的一首拓帕:“普什图人不会自愿离开他的土地。
Either he leaves from poverty or he leaves for love.'
若要离开,不是因为贫穷,就是因为爱。”
Now we were being driven out for a third reason the tapa writer had never imagined – the Taliban.
现在,我们因为诗人从来没有想象过的第三个被迫离开的理由——塔利班。
Leaving our home felt like having my heart ripped out.
离开我们的家,让我觉得心如刀割。
I stood on our roof looking at the mountains, the snow-topped Mount Elum where Alexander the Great had reached up and touched Jupiter.
我站在屋顶眺望远山,亚历山大大帝曾登上白雪覆盖的埃勒姆山顶,在那里碰触到了木星。
I looked at the trees all coming into leaf.
我看到了树木正在萌芽。
The fruit of our apricot tree might be eaten by someone else this year.
今年,我们家那棵杏树的果实会被其他人采摘吧。
Everything was silent, pin-drop silent.
世界悄然静寂,就连一根针掉在地上都能听得见。
There was no sound from the river or the wind; even the birds were not chirping.
河流和春风都静默了,甚至连鸟儿都停止了鸣叫。
I wanted to cry because I felt in my heart I might never see my home again.
我想哭,因为我从心底感觉到,我可能再也见不到我的家了。
The documentary makers had asked me how I would feel if one day I left Swat and never came back.
纪录片的制作人曾经问我,如果有一天我要离开斯瓦特,永远不再归来,我会有什么感觉。
At the time I had thought it was a stupid question, but now I saw that everything I could not imagine happening had happened.
当时,我认为那是个愚蠢的问题。但现在我发现,所有那些我无法想象会发生的事情,都发生了。