误认的身份，令人感动的“事实”

在先后被两个陌生人错认为是我丈夫的妈妈后，我一度心情沮丧，甚至怀疑他偷偷用了我的面霜。但当他字斟句酌地讲出“You look lovely”这一“事实”后，我释然了。

My husband is only nine months younger than I am. But lately people have begun to mistake him for my son.

Picture[1] the scene. I have persuaded him to accompany me to my local supermarket in eastern Zimbabwe.[2] I am relishing having someone to trot up to the bread counter, then back to the shopping trolley, off to find some vinegar, back to the trolley, while I muse languidly by the peanut butter.[3] “I must do this more often,” I say to myself happily.

We proceed to the till[4]. A security guard comes closer to help pack our groceries[5]. He greets me warmly: “Hello Amai” (mother).

I smile at him.

“Is this your son?” the guard asks.

“My son?” (My husband says afterward that my mouth dropped open.) I start to stammer[6]. “H’s ... h’s my husband!”

I beat a hasty retreat from the store vowing to always shop alone.[7]

Then it happens again.

This time we have been stopped at a police roadblock[8], one of several on the main highway between the capital, Harare, and the border town of Mutare.

An officer peers in through the driver’s window. “Where is the daddy?” he asks.

“The daddy?” This time it’s my husband who is stumped[9]. “My father is at home.”

The officer considers us. The thought of a fine keeps my lips clamped together.[10]

“Well, look after the mother,” he orders my husband before waving us on.

“He thought you were my son!” I say crossly, as soon as the driver’s window is safely sealed.[11] I turn and glare at my husband. “Can’t you stop looking like you’re 16 years old?”

“I don’t look 16,” he says mildly.

I study his profile[12]: not the hint of a wrinkle there. I wonder: Has he been secretly smoothing on the face cream my sister faithfully sends me? If so, it must work better on him than it ever has on me.

“You do,” I am forced to concede[13]. “Seventeen at the very most.”

My husband looked boyish when I first set eyes on him more than 10 years ago. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love. I’d just gotten off a long-haul flight from Paris, stumbled into an office in Harare, and there, behind the first desk I came across, was a ravishingly handsome man with thick dark curls and brown eyes.[14]

Six months and a bit later we were married.

Together we’ve weathered Zimbabwe’s long-running economic and political crisis, raised a son (and six cats), nurtured friendships, cherished two cottages, and argued over literature in the flickering candlelight characteristic of many an electricity-less evening here.[15] All of these are things you’d think would leave their mark on a man. Not on my husband, it seems. He has stayed boyish.

While I must have matured.

“Tell me: Do I really look old?” I ask, a few miles farther down the road. I fix my eyes on the thin gray strip of tar[16] ahead. As a writer in a country where spreading falsehoods can land you in jail, truth is my husband’s core business.[17] He weighs every word he types, checks every date in his carefully maintained set of diaries. I know that every word he says is true, or as near to the truth as he can get it. I wait with bated[18] breath.

“You look lovely,” my husband says. Mollified[19], I settle back into the passenger seat, congratulating myself on my choice of a mate. I will forgive the security guard and the police officer for their small mistake, I think. I am sorry I ever suspected my husband of using my face cream.

The world looks rosy again. I watch as vendors hold out perfectly balanced pyramids of shiny tomatoes as our car skims past.[20]

“You could always dye your hair bright red,” he says suddenly. “You know you’ve always wanted to.”

Vocabulary

1. picture: 描绘，描述。

2. accompany: 伴随，陪同;Zimbabwe: 津巴布韦，非洲南部国家。

3. 我正尽情享受有某人快步跑到面包货台后返回购物推车，再跑开去找醋后再返回来之时，而我却优哉游哉地凝视着花生酱。

4. till: =cash register，现金出纳机。

5. groceries: [复] 食品杂货。

6. stammer: 结巴，口吃。

7. 我从超市匆忙撤退并发誓以后要自己单独购物。beat: 辟出(路)，踏出(小径)。

8. roadblock: 路障。

9. stump: 使……受挫(为难)。

10. fine: 罚金;clamp: 紧紧抓住，此处指“紧闭双唇”。

11. crossly: 坏脾气地，易怒地;seal: 密封。

12. profile:(人或组织的)形象，姿态，(头部的)侧面。

13. concede: 妥协地承认。

14. long-haul: (尤指飞机)长途的;stumble: 蹒跚而行;ravishingly: 令人陶醉地;curl: 卷发。

15. weather: 平安度过(困境);nurture: 培养;cherish: 爱护。

16. tar: 柏油碎石路面。

17. 作为身在一个传播谬论会招致牢狱之灾的国家的作家，真实是我丈夫的核心事务。

18. bated: 减弱的，降低的。

19. mollified: 使平静的，经抚慰的。

20. vendor: 小贩;skim: 掠过。