Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2 ALMOST FOUR MONTHS EARLIER FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1918 AROUND 3:30 P.M. THE NORTH END, BOSTON Carmen and her pal Tony were heading back from school, making their way through the noisy streets of their neighborhood, Boston's North End. Horse wagons clattered and squeaked, and motorcars

第二章大约四个月前1918年9月27日星期五下午三点半左右 卡门（Carmen）和她的朋友托尼（Tony）放学回家的路上，正穿过波士顿北端附近嘈杂的街道。 马车和汽车嘎吱作响

honked. A young newsboy shouted out the frontpage headline. "DEADLY FLU HITS BOSTON!" Usually Carmen and Tony would be talking and joking as they zigzagged their way through the packs of people that jammed the street. They would maybe stop at Ortelli's Bakery and see if they could sweet-talk Mrs. Ortelli into giving them a free creamy cannoli or crunchy biscotti. They always left empty-handed. But they kept trying, because anything was possible, right? But today Tony was in a rotten mood. He walked glumly, skinny shoulders slumped. Carmen had been trying to cheer him up, but nothing was helping. "He hates me," Tony moaned. "He" was their teacher, Mr. Lawrence. "No, he doesn't," Carmen said, for the hundredth time. Mr. Lawrence was the nicest teacher they'd ever had. Over the summer, he'd come back from

在按喇叭。一个年轻的报童大声喊出了头版头条。 “致命流感袭击波士顿！”通常，卡门和托尼会一边在拥挤的人群中穿梭，一边谈笑风生。 他们可能会在奥尔泰利面包店（Ortelli’s Bakery）停下来，看看能否用甜言蜜语说服奥尔泰利太太免费给他们一份奶油甜卷或脆脆的脆饼。 他们总是空手而归。 但他们一直在努力，因为一切皆有可能，对吧？ 但是今天托尼心情不好。 他闷闷不乐地走着，瘦削的肩膀耷拉着。 卡门一直想让他高兴起来，但没有用。 “他恨我。”托尼呻吟道。 “他”就是他们的老师劳伦斯先生。 “不，他没有。”卡门说了第一百遍。 劳伦斯先生是他们遇到过的最好的老师。 整个夏天，他从

fighting in the Great War. He'd been badly hurt in a bomb attack, and couldn't go back into battle. So he came home and took a job as a teacher. He had a bad limp, but he acted like it didn't bother him. "I'm stupid," Tony continued. "No, you're not," Carmen said, rolling her eyes. How many times had she told him he just had to study harder—or maybe open a book for once? That was why Tony flunked the first big math test of the year. Carmen knew it wasn't the F that upset him; he'd had plenty of those over the years. It was Mr. Lawrence's new idea to keep Tony in at recess so they could play some math games together. Carmen knew Mr. Lawrence was trying to help Tony. Tony thought Mr. Lawrence was trying to torture him. "That test was impossible!" Tony grumbled now, as they wove around a big pile of horse manure in the street. "Well…" Carmen said.

参加第一次世界大战 他在一次炸弹袭击中受了重伤，无法重返战场。 所以他回家找了一份老师的工作。 他一瘸一拐的，但他表现得好像并不在意。 “我很笨，”托尼继续说。 “不，你不是，”卡门说，翻了个白眼。 她告诉过他多少次，他只要更加努力地学习——或者哪怕打开一次书本？ 这就是托尼当年第一次数学大测验不及格的原因。 卡门知道让他心烦的不是那个F；这些年来，他有过很多这样的经历。 劳伦斯先生的新主意是让托尼在课间休息，这样他们就可以一起玩一些数学游戏。 卡门知道劳伦斯先生想帮托尼。 托尼认为劳伦斯先生想折磨他。 “那个测试根本不可能！”当他们绕着街上一大堆马粪打转时，托尼嘟囔着。 “嗯……”卡门说。

She'd gotten 100, but she hadn't told Tony that. She'd carefully folded the test and slipped it into the pages of the book Mr. Lawrence had lent to her, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The book was about a girl named Dorothy who gets sucked into a tornado and dropped down in a strange land called Oz. Carmen couldn't wait to show the test to Papa. He'd pin her perfect test up on the wall with all the others. Then he'd pat her cheek. "This is why we came here to America," he'd say. They'd come here four years ago, from a little village in Italy. The village was a beautiful place, where Mama's and Papa's families had lived for hundreds of years. But in 1908, when Carmen was two, a powerful earthquake struck the south of Italy. Entire cities turned to dust in the quake. Minutes later, gigantic tidal waves roared across the land. More than 100,000 people were killed.

她得了100分，但她没有告诉托尼。 她小心翼翼地把试卷折叠起来，塞进劳伦斯先生借给她的那本书《绿野仙踪》里。 这本书是关于一个名叫多萝西的女孩，她被卷进了一场龙卷风，掉到了一个叫做奥兹国的奇怪的地方。 卡门迫不及待地把测试拿给爸爸看。 他会把她的完美测试和其他人一起钉在墙上。 然后他拍拍她的脸颊。“这就是我们来美国的原因，”他说。 他们四年前从意大利的一个小村庄来到这里。 这个村庄是一个美丽的地方，妈妈和爸爸的家人在那里住了几百年。 但是在1908年，卡门两岁的时候，一场强烈的地震袭击了意大利南部。 整个城市在地震中化为灰烬。 几分钟后，巨大的海啸咆哮着席卷了陆地。 超过10万人丧生。

Including Mama, who was swept away when the sea rose up. Carmen had only one memory of that terrible day—dim and hazy like a dream. She was clinging to Papa's back as the sea churned all around them. "Hold on!" Papa had cried. "Hold on!" Papa's voice had risen above the roaring waves, above the screams of the people all around them. Carmen gripped The Wonderful Wizard of Oz harder as Tony kicked a rotten apple core into the gutter. Papa never talked about the earthquake. But growing up in Italy, Carmen had heard the stories from her grandmother, Nonna. And reminders of the disaster were everywhere in their village—the crumbling church, the ruined school, the graveyard where Mama was buried. Papa had wanted to stay in the village. But as the years crawled by, he realized there was no future there, especially for Carmen. The school

包括妈妈，她在涨潮时被卷走了。 卡门对那可怕的一天只有一个记忆——像梦一样模糊。 大海在他们周围翻腾，她紧紧地抱着爸爸的背。 “等等!”爸爸哭了。 “等等!”爸爸的声音盖过了汹涌的海浪，盖过了周围人们的尖叫声。 当托尼把一个烂苹果核踢进阴沟时，卡门更紧抓着《绿野仙踪》。 爸爸从不谈论地震。 但在意大利长大的卡门从她的祖母祖母那里听到了这些故事。 他们的村子里到处都是灾难的痕迹——摇摇欲坠的教堂、被毁的学校、埋葬妈妈的墓地。 爸爸本来想留在村里的。 但随着时间的流逝，他意识到那里没有未来，尤其是卡门。 这所学校

never reopened, and most girls didn't go to school anyway. It was harder and harder for Papa to earn money as a farmer. And that's why, when Carmen turned eight, she and Papa got onto a big ship and came here to America. They'd begged Nonna to come with them. But she'd refused. "Someone needs to stay and watch over this place, tesoro," she'd told Carmen. That's what she called Carmen. Her treasure. Carmen hated leaving Nonna. But she'd always been curious about that magical land across the Atlantic Ocean: l'America. Carmen had imagined golden streets, skyscrapers topped with rubies, wide-open spaces where she and Papa would build their new life. Life would be much easier in l'America, she was sure. Carmen smiled to herself now, remembering how shocked she was when she and Papa first arrived here, in the North End. She glanced

从未重新开放，而且大多数女孩都不去上学。 爸爸当农民挣钱越来越难了。 这就是为什么卡门八岁的时候，她和爸爸登上了一艘大船，来到了美国。 他们恳求奶奶和他们一起去。 但她拒绝了。“需要有人留下来照看这个地方，特索罗，”她告诉卡门。 她就是这么叫卡门的。 她的财富。卡门讨厌离开外婆。 但她一直对大西洋彼岸那片神奇的土地很好奇：美洲。 卡门想象着金色的街道，镶着红宝石的摩天大楼，广阔的空间，她和爸爸将在那里建立他们的新生活。 她确信，在美国生活要轻松得多。 卡门现在对自己笑了，想起她和爸爸第一次来到北端时是多么震惊。 她瞥了一眼