“见到你真是太好了，”他见面就说，然后紧紧地拥抱了我，“可我有事，我只有一个小时的时间。”他接着说。
他把我当什么了？听起来像是一小时快速配眼镜一样！
可想而知的是，他的新女友并不怎么欢迎我的突如其来。我们随便喝了点东西，然后他就把我送回了旅馆。我凑了点零钱，找个自动贩卖机买了些汉堡包，晚餐就这么打发了。晚上将就着在旅馆里看了电影台播放的《三人探戈》。
“你应该看一部由《老友记》那帮演员演的一部片子，”电话那边哥哥同情地劝我说，“你现在看的那部太悲了。”
我和哥哥在老屋门口见了面，就像两只归家的鸽子。我们沿着街道找了家咖啡店，我把这几天发生的事情告诉了他。哥哥说最后一天就到他新家去住吧，就在市郊的圣布鲁诺城。其实我很乐意付98美金一晚住旅馆，只要能不麻烦别人，但哥哥似乎真的很想我过去住。
“我喜欢家里有客人来住！”哥哥坚持说。于是我就跟着去了。
很奇怪为什么人们总是不愿意承认自己已经长大了。看看我哥，我还记得他以前一遍一遍地强迫我看那部老掉牙的电影《傻子格麦派》，而现在他居然有了他自己的房子。哥哥刚搬来不久，地方不大，摆设也少，但却是他自己的家。冰箱里面的东西很少，有几根芥菜、几片芝士切片，还有十四罐健怡七喜。
我们在一家墨西哥速食店买了些食物，再去租了部电影，啃了点爆米花。后来我就在哥哥的沙发椅上睡着了。
我敢保证，常失眠的人是很难在别人家的沙发上睡着的。可是不知道为什么这次我却睡得很好，尽管我整个周末都在苦苦思考一个问题：如果我有家的话，那么我的家到底在哪里？我只知道，当我蜷缩在破破的睡袋里头，哥哥坐在椅子上看着蹩脚演员主演的电影，就在我的身旁，我会觉得既安全又舒适，或许家的一部分就应该是这样的。
但这些并不是全部。我可以相信诸如“家就在心中”这样的老话，也欣赏诗人罗伯特·莱特所说的：“家就是当你想去，人家就得让你进去的地方。”但同时我也坚信，真正的家既可以如陈词滥调所形容的那般飘渺，也可以跟26街那扇木门一样的坚实。
在以后的日子里，我可能还会不止一次地回到老屋门前徘徊。我会坐在屋子外面，像个小孩看到有人拿走了他心爱的玩具那样，默默地在心底大喊：“那是我的！”
A Walk In The Woods 林中漫步
I was puzzled! Why was this old woman making such a fuss about an old copse which was of no use to anybody? She had written letters to the local paper, even to a national, protesting about a projected by-pass to her village, and, looking at a map, the route was nowhere near where she lived and it wasn’t as if the area was attractive. I was more than puzzled, I was intrigued.
The enquiry into the route of the new by-pass to the village was due to take place shortly, and I wanted to know what it was that motivated her. So it was that I found myself knocking on a cottage door, being received by Mary Smith and then being taken for a walk to the woods.
“I’ve always loved this place”, she said, “It has a lot of memories for me, and for others. We all used it. They called it ‘Lovers lane’. It’s not much of a lane, and it doesn’t go anywhere important, but that’s why we all came here. To be away from people, to be by ourselves” she added.
It was indeed pleasant that day and the songs of many birds could be heard. Squirrels gazed from the branches, quite bold in their movements, obviously few people passed this way and they had nothing to fear. I could imagine the noise of vehicles passing through these peaceful woods when the by-pass was built, so I felt that she probably had something there but as I hold strong opinions about the needs of the community over-riding the opinions of private individuals, I said nothing. The village was quite a dangerous place because of the traffic especially for old people and children, their safety was more important to me than an old woman’s whims.
“Take this tree”, she said pausing after a short while. “To you it is just that, a tree. Not unlike many others here”. She gently touched the bark. “Look here, under this branch, what can you see?”
“It looks as if someone has done a bit of carving with a knife” I said after a cursory inspection.
“Yes, that’s what it is!” she said softly. “There are letters and a lover’s heart”.
I looked again, this time more carefully. The heart was still there and there was a suggestion of an arrow through it. The letters on one side were indistinct, but on the other an ‘R’ was clearly visible with what looked like an ‘I’ after it. “Some budding romance?” I asked, “Did you know who they were?”
“Oh yes, I knew them”, said Mary Smith, “it says RH loves MS”.
I realized that I could be getting out of my depth, and longed to be in my office, away from here and this old lady, snug, and with a mug of tea in my hand.
She went on, “He had a penknife with a spike for getting stones from a horse’s hoof, and I helped him to carve my initials. We were very much in love, but he was going away, and could not tell me what he was involved in the army. I had guessed of course. It was the last evening we ever spent together，because he went away the next day, back to his Unit. ”
Mary Smith was quiet for a while, and then she sobbed. “His mother showed me the telegram. ‘Sergeant R Holmes… Killed in action in the invasion of France’”.
“‘I had hoped that you and Robin would one day get married’ she said, ‘He was my only child, and I would have loved to be a Granny. They would have been such lovely babies’. She was like that! ”
“Two years later she too was dead. ‘Pneumonia, following a chill on the chest’ was what the doctor said, but I think it was an old fashioned broken heart. A child would have helped both of us.”
There was a further pause. Mary Smith gently caressed the wounded tree, just as she would have caressed him. “And now they want to take our tree away from me.” Another quiet sob, then she turned to me. “I was young and pretty then, I could have had anybody, and I wasn’t always the old woman you see here now. I had everything I wanted in life, a lovely man, health and a future to look forwards to.”
She paused again and looked around. The breeze gently moved through the leaves with a sighing sound. “There were others, of course, but not a patch on my Robin!” she said strongly. “And now I have nothing—except the memories this tree holds. If only I could get my hands on that awful man who writes in the paper about the value of the road they are going to build where we are standing now, I would tell him. Has he never loved, has he never lived, does he not know anything about memories? We were not the only ones, you know, I still meet some who came here as Robin and I did. Yes, I would tell him!”
I turned away, sick at heart.
我实在不明白！为什么这个年老女士会对一片毫无用处的老灌木林如此紧张呢？她给当地报纸写了信，甚至给全国性的报纸也写了信，对拟将在她们村子里修建小路的方案表示抗议。但从地图上看，这条拟建的小路离她家并不近，那一带也并非风景优美。这不仅使我感到迷惑，还激起了我的好奇心。