好英语网亲历贝鲁特大爆炸：我的惊惧与黎巴嫩人令人心碎的镇静
BEIRUT — I was just about to look at a video a friend had sent me on Tuesday afternoon — “the port seems to be burning,” she said — when my whole building shook, as if startled, by the deepest boom I’d ever heard. Uneasily, naïvely, I ran to the window, then back to my desk to check for news.
贝鲁特——周二下午，我正准备看一个朋友发给我的视频——“港口似乎着火了”，她说——就在这时，我所在的整栋楼好像被我所听过的最低沉的轰隆声吓得一抖。我幼稚、不安地跑到窗前，然后回到办公桌查看新闻。
Then came a much bigger boom, and the sound itself seemed to splinter. There was shattered glass flying everywhere. Not thinking but moving, I ducked under my desk.
接着是更大的轰隆声，声音本身似乎都爆裂开来。碎玻璃飞得到处都是。我来不及思考身体就先动了起来，钻到桌子下面。
周二，黎巴嫩贝鲁特市发生大规模爆炸，伤者被疏散。
When the world stopped cracking open, I couldn’t see at first because of the blood running down my face. After blinking the blood from my eyes, I tried to take in the sight of my apartment turned into a demolition site. My yellow front door had been hurled on top of my dining table. I couldn’t find my passport, or even any sturdy shoes.
当整个世界不再炸裂的时候，一开始我什么都看不见，因为血从我脸上流了下来。我眨了眨眼让血流出去，试图看一眼我的公寓变成拆迁现场的景象。我家的黄色大门倒在了餐桌上。我找不到我的护照，甚至找不到一双结实的鞋子。
Later, someone would tell me that Beirutis of her generation, who had been raised during Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, instinctively ran into their hallways as soon as they heard the first blast, to escape the glass they knew would break.
后来，有人告诉我，她那一代人是在黎巴嫩长达15年的内战中长大的，一听到第一声爆炸，就会本能地冲进走廊，躲开他们知道一定会碎的玻璃。
I was not so well-trained, but the Lebanese who would help me in the hours to come had the heartbreaking steadiness that comes from having lived through countless previous disasters. Nearly all of them were strangers, yet they treated me like a friend.
我没那么训练有素，但在接下来几小时里帮助我的黎巴嫩人有着令人心碎的镇静，那源自于他们经历的无数次灾难。他们几乎都是陌生人，却把我当作了朋友。
When I got downstairs, dodging the enormous broken window that rested jaggedly in my stairwell, my neighborhood, with its graceful old-Beirut architecture and arched windows, looked like a picture from the wars I had seen from afar — a mouth missing all its teeth.
我躲开楼梯间那扇已经歪斜的巨大破窗下了楼，我住的地方有着优雅的贝鲁特老式建筑和拱形窗户，现在看起来就像我远远看过的战争场景——一张掉光了所有牙齿的嘴。
Someone passing on a motorbike saw my bloody face and told me to hop on. When we couldn’t get any closer to the hospital, our way blocked by hillocks of broken glass and stranded cars, I got off and started walking.
一个骑摩托车经过的人看到我满脸是血，叫我上车。等我们被一堆碎玻璃和被弃下的汽车挡住路，无法再靠近医院的时候，我下车开始步行。
Everyone on the street seemed to be either bleeding from open gashes or swathed in makeshift bandages — all except one woman in a chic, backless top leading a small dog on a leash. Only an hour before, we had all been walking dogs or checking email or shopping for groceries. Only an hour before, there had been no blood.
街上每个人不是因伤流血，就是被临时绷带包裹着——只有一个女人穿着时髦的露背上衣，牵着一条小狗。就在一个小时前，我们还在遛狗、查看电子邮件或者买杂货。就在一个小时前，还没有血迹。
As I neared the hospital, elderly patients sat dazed in wheelchairs, still hooked to their IV bags. A woman lay on the ground in front of the exploded emergency room, her whole body dripping red, not moving much. It was clear that they weren’t taking new patients, certainly not any as comparatively lucky as I was.
等我走近医院，看到一些上了年纪的病人茫然地坐在轮椅上，还挂着静脉注射袋。损毁的急诊室前，一个女人躺在地上，全身都被血浸透，一动不动。显然，医院不接收新病人了，当然不要我这样相对还算幸运的伤患。
Someone named Youssef saw me, sat me down and started cleaning and bandaging my face. Once he was satisfied I could walk, he left and I started wandering, trying to think of another hospital I could try.
一个叫尤瑟夫(Youssef)的人看到了我，让我坐下，开始给我的脸进行清洗包扎。当他清楚我还能走路后，就离开了，而我开始四处游荡，想着还有没有另一家医院是可以去的。
I ran into a friend of a friend, someone I had met only a few times before, and he bandaged the rest of my wounds, disinfecting the lacerations with splashes of Lebanon’s national liquor, an anise-flavored drink called arak.
我遇见了一个朋友的朋友，此前只碰过几次面，而他包扎了我身上剩下的伤口，用黎巴嫩的国酒——一种叫亚力酒的茴香酒——洒在伤口上消毒。
His roommate swept up their terrace as I bloodied their towels. “I can’t think unless it’s clean,” he explained.
他的室友打扫了他们的露台，我弄脏了他们的毛巾。“除非打扫干净，不然我没法思考，”他解释道。
Until then, I hadn’t had more than the vaguest guesses about what might have happened. Someone was reporting that fireworks had exploded at the port. Much later, Lebanese officials acknowledged that a large cache of explosive material seized by the government years ago was stored where the explosions occurred.
直到那时，我对可能发生的事情都只有最模糊的猜测。有人说放在港口的烟花爆炸了。很久之后，黎巴嫩官员承认，政府多年前缴获的大量爆炸材料就存放在爆炸发生的地方。
Survivors walked by, moving faster than the jammed-up traffic. To anyone who appeared unhurt, people called out, “alhamdulillah al-salama,” or, roughly translated, thank God for your safety.
幸存者来来往往，移动速度比拥堵的交通快。人们对那些看起来没受伤的人喊着“alhamdulillah al-salama”，大致翻译过来的意思就是感谢真主保佑你的平安。
Before the end of the night, after my co-workers had found me, after a passing driver named Ralph had offered to take us to one of the few hospitals still accepting patients, after a doctor had put 11 staples in my forehead and another sprinkling on my leg and arms, people would be saying the same thing to me: Thank God for your safety.
在这个夜晚结束之前，在我的同事找到我之后，在路过的司机拉尔夫(Ralph)提出带我们去少数几家还收治伤患的医院之后，在一名医生给我的额头缝了11针、另一位医生给我手脚的伤口做了缝合之后，人们终于可以对我说同一句话：感谢真主保佑你的平安。
“Thank you,” I said in reply, truly “thank you,” and I didn’t mean just for the good wishes.
“谢谢，”我回答道，真的“谢谢”，我的意思不仅仅是祝福。