母亲的信 All Mum's Letters
佚名/Anonymous
To this day I remember my mum's letters. It all started in December 1941.Every night she sat at the big table in the kitchen and wrote to my brother Johnny, who had been drafted that summer. We had not heard from him since the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
I didn't understand why my mum kept writing Johnny when he never wrote back.
“Wait and see-we'll get a letter from him one day,”she claimed. Mum said that there was a direct link from the brain to the written word that was just as strong as the light God has granted us. She trusted that this light would find Johnny.
I don't know if she said that to calm herself, dad or all of us down. But I do know that it helped us stick together, and one day a letter really did arrive. Johnny was alive on an island in the Pacific.
I had always been amused by the fact that mum signed her letters,“Cecilia Capuzzi”，and I teased her about that.“Why don't you just write‘Mum'？”I said.
I hadn't been aware that she always thought of herself as Cecilia Capuzzi. Not as Mum. I began seeing her in a new light, this small delicate woman, who even in high-heeled shoes was barely one and a half meters tall.
She never wore make-up or jewelry except for a wedding ring of gold. Her hair was fine, sleek and black and always put up in a knot in the neck. She wouldn't hear of getting a haircut or a perm. Her small silver-rimmed pince-nez only left her nose when she went to bed.
Whenever mum had finished a letter, she gave it to dad for him to post it. Then she put the water on to boil, and we sat down at the table and talked about the good old days when our Italian-American family had been a family often:mum, dad and eight children. Five boys and three girls. It is hard to understand that they had all moved away from home to work, enroll in the army, or get married. All except me.
Around next spring mum had got two more sons to write to. Every evening she wrote three different letters which she gave to me and dad afterwards so we could add our greetings.
Little by little the rumour about mum's letters spread. One day a small woman knocked at our door. Her voice trembled as she asked:“Is it true you write letters?”
“I write to my sons.”
“And you can read too?”whispered the woman.
“Sure.”
The woman opened her bag and pulled out a pile of airmail letters.“Read……please read them aloud to me.”
The letters were from the woman's son who was a soldier in Europe, a red-haired boy who mum remembered having seen sitting with his brothers on the stairs in front of our house. Mum read the letters one by one and translated them from English to Italian. The woman's eyes welled up with tears.“Now I have to write to him,”she said. But how was she going to do it?
“Make some coffee, Octavia,”mum yelled to me in the living room while she took the woman with her into the kitchen and seated her at the table. She took the fountain pen, ink and air mail notepaper and began to write. When she had finished, she read the letter aloud to the woman.
“How did you know that was exactly what I wanted to say?”
“I often sit and look at my boys'letters, just like you, without a clue about what to write.”
A few days later the woman returned with a friend, then another one and yet another one-they all had sons who fought in the war, and they all needed letters. Mum had become the correspondent in our part of town. Sometimes she would write letters all day long.
Mum always insisted that people signed their own letters, and the small woman with the grey hair asked mum to teach her how to do it.“I so much want to be able to write my own name so that my son can see it.”Then mum held the woman's hand in hers and moved her hand over the paper again and again until she was able to do it without her help.
After that day, when mum had written a letter for the woman, she signed it herself, and her face brightened up in a smile.
One day she came to us, and mum instantly knew what had happened. All hope had disappeared from her eyes. They stood hand in hand for a long time without saying a word. Then mum said:“We better go to church. There are certain things in life so great that we cannot comprehend them.”When mum came back home, she couldn't get the red-haired boy out of her mind.
After the war was over, mum put away the pen and paper.“Finito,”she said. But she was wrong. The women who had come to her for help in writing to their sons now came to her with letters from their relatives in Italy. They also came to ask her for her help in getting American citizenship.
On one occasion mum admitted that she had always had a secret dream of writing a novel.“Why didn't you?”I asked.
“All people in this world are here with one particular purpose,”she said.“Apparently, mine is to write letters.”She tried to explain why it absorbed her so.
“A letter unites people like nothing else. It can make them cry, it can make them laugh. There is no caress more lovely and warm than a love letter, because it makes the world seem very small, and both sender and receiver become like kings in their own kingdoms. My dear, a letter is life itself!”
Today all mum's letters are lost. But those who got them still talk about her and cherish the memory of her letters in their hearts.
至今，我仍记得母亲的那些信。事情要追溯到1941年的12月。每天晚上，母亲总要坐在厨房的大饭桌旁，写信给我的弟弟约翰。约翰是在那年夏天应征入伍的。自从日本袭击珍珠港后，他就杳无音讯了。
约翰从没回信，我不知道为什么母亲还要这样一直坚持写下去。
“等等看吧，总有一天他会回信的。”母亲断言。她坚信思想和文字是息息相通的，这种关联强大得如同上帝赐予人类的光芒，这道光芒终有一天会照到约翰。
我不知道她是否只是在安慰自己、父亲，或我们这几个孩子。但我知道，我们一家人因此更为亲密了。终于有一天，我们盼到了约翰的回信，他安然无恙，驻扎在太平洋的一个岛屿上。
母亲写信时总署名“塞西莉娅·卡普奇”，每次我都要取笑她几句：“为什么不直接写‘母亲’呢？”
以前我一直没在意她把自己当成塞西莉娅·卡普奇，而不是母亲。我禁不住以另一种眼光去审视自己的母亲，她如此瘦弱、矮小，即使穿上高跟鞋，身高仍不足一米五。
母亲从不刻意地修饰自己，除了那枚结婚戒指外，她基本不戴其他首饰。柔顺黑亮的头发自然地盘在颈后，从不剪短发或烫发。鼻梁上那副小小的银丝眼镜只有在睡觉时才摘下来。
母亲每次写完信，都会把信交给父亲，让他寄出去。然后，她把水烧开，和我们围坐在桌旁，追忆昔日的美好时光：那时我们这个意裔的美籍家庭人丁兴旺，父母亲和我们八个兄弟姐妹——五男三女，快乐地生活在一起。现在大家因工作、入伍或婚姻等原因纷纷离开了家，只有我留了下来，真是难以想象。
第二年春天，母亲又开始给另外两个儿子写信。每天晚上，她都要先写好三封内容不同的信，然后让我和父亲在后面加上自己的问候。
渐渐地，母亲写信的事传开了。一天，一个身材矮小的女人敲开我们家的门，用颤抖的声音问母亲：“您真的会写信吗？”
“我经常写信给我的儿子们。”
“那你也能读信？”女人低声问。
“当然。”
女人打开她的包，拿出一摞航空信：“请，请您大声读给我听吧。”
这些信都是女人的儿子写来的，他是名战士，现在欧洲。母亲还依稀记得他的模样：满头红发，常和兄弟们一起坐在我们家门前的楼梯上。母亲一封接一封地把信用英文翻译成意大利文读出来。听完，那女人满眼泪水地说：“现在，我一定要给他回信。”但是她该如何做呢？
“奥塔维娅，去冲杯咖啡。”母亲在客厅大声叫我，然后带那个女人到厨房的桌旁坐下，拿出钢笔、墨水和信纸开始写信。写完后又大声读给她听。
“这些的确都是我想说的话，您是怎么知道的呢？”
“我常坐下看儿子的来信，就像你一样，根本不知道该怎么写才好。”
几天后，女人带来一个朋友，而后络绎不绝地一个接一个的朋友被带来……他们的儿子都奋斗在战场上，都需要写信。妈妈成了我们城镇的通讯员，有时她一整天都在写信。
母亲总是坚持让大家署自己的名字。一位花白头发的女人要母亲教她如何签名：“我真想亲手写下自己的名字，让儿子看到我的笔迹。”于是，母亲手把手地教她在纸上一遍遍地写，直到她自己可以签名了。
第二天，母亲帮那个女人写好信，让她亲手签名，女人露出了灿烂的笑容。
有一天她到我家来，眼中失去了往日的光芒，母亲立刻明白了。两人握着手，久久不语。然后母亲说：“我们还是去教堂吧。生命中有许多我们无法解释的深奥的事情。”母亲回家后，一直忘不了那个红头发的小男孩。
战争结束后，母亲把纸笔收起来，说：“一切都结束了。”但是她错了。那个曾让母亲帮忙给儿子写信的女人又来了，带着意大利亲人的来信。他们还让母亲帮忙给他们的亲属申请入籍。
一次，母亲坦言，她一直有个秘密梦想，那就是自己写本小说。“那为什么不着手写呢？”我问。
“每个人来到这个世界上都带着一个特定的目的。很显然，我的目的就是写信。”母亲试图解释她如此沉迷于写信的原因。
“信可以把人们紧紧连在一起，这是其他任何东西都无法取代的。它能使我们哭，使我们笑。一封情书比任何爱抚都令人感到亲切和温暖，因为它缩小了世界，写信人和收信人都是自己世界的国王。亲爱的，要知道，信就是生命本身啊！”
今天，虽然母亲所有的信都遗失了，但那些收到信的人仍在谈论着她，并将这些与信有关的记忆珍藏在心底。
词汇笔记
grant[ɡrɑ：nt;ɡrænt]v.授予；同意；承认
I grant that your excuce is reasonable.
我承认你的辩解是合理的。
delicate['delikit]adj.细致优雅的；微妙的；美味的
She wears a dress with delicate lace.
她穿了一件带有精致花边的裙子。
afterwards['ɑ：ftəwədz]adv.以后；后来
And afterwards remember, do not grieve.
而后又记起，请不要忧伤。
correspondent[,kɔris'pɔndənt]n.通讯记者；通信者
I'm handing you over now to our home affairs correspondent.
现在请听本台记者报道的国内新闻。
小试身手
约翰是在那年夏天应征入伍的。
译____________________________
鼻梁上的那副小小的银丝眼镜只有在睡觉时才摘下来。
译____________________________
母亲试图解释她如此沉迷于写信的原因。
译____________________________
短语家族
“I write to my sons.”
write to：写信给……；给……写信；存盘
造____________________________
……it makes the world seem very small, and both sender and receiver become like kings in their own kingdoms.
both……and……：两者都；兼容并蓄
造____________________________