文◎ Jonathan Ababiy

繪◎馬豆子

《紐約時報》每年征集美國學生關于金錢、職業(yè)和社會階層方面的大學申請陳述，并發(fā)表其中最出色的文章。阿巴比是布萊恩高中的學生，即將前往明尼蘇達大學就讀。

掃我，朗讀給你聽

At age 6, I remember the light filled openness of the house,how the whir①whir英 [w??] 美 [hw?; w?]vi. 作呼呼聲，呼呼作聲地飛n. 呼呼聲，嗖嗖聲of my mother's vacuum②vacuum 英 ['v?kj??m] 美 ['v?kj??m]n. 真空；空間；真空吸塵器fl oated from room to room. At 9, I remember how I used to lounge③lounge 英 [la?n(d)?] 美 [la?nd?]n. 休息室；閑逛；躺椅vi. 閑逛；懶洋洋地躺臥on the couch and watch Disney cartoons on the sideways refrigerator of a TV implanted in a small cave in the wall. At 12, I remember family photographs of the Spanish countryside hanging in every room.At 14, I remember vacuuming each foot of carpet in the massive house and folding pastel shirts fresh out of the dryer.

I loved the house. I loved the way the windows soaked④soak英 [s??k] 美 [sok] vt. 吸收，吸入vi. 浸泡；滲透the house with light, a sort of bleach against any gloom. I loved how I could always find a book or magazine on any fl at surface.

But the vacuum my mother used wasn't ours. We never paid for cable. The photographs weren't of my family. The carpet I vacuumed I only saw once a week, and the pastel shirts I folded I never wore. The house wasn't mine. My mother was only the cleaning lady, and I helped.

My mother and father had come as refugees almost twenty years ago from the country of Moldova. My mother worked numerous odd jobs, but once I was born she decided she needed to do something different. She put an ad in the paper advertising house cleaning, and a couple, both professors, answered. They became her first client, and their house became the bedrock of our sustenance⑤sustenance 英 ['s?st(?)n?ns; -t?n-]美 ['s?st?n?ns] n. 食物；生計；支持. Economic recessions came and went, but my mother returned every Monday, Friday and occasional Sunday.

我記得6歲那年，寬敞的房間充滿亮光，我母親手中吸塵器的嗡嗡聲從一個房間飄到另一個房間。我記得9歲那年，我懶洋洋地躺在長沙發(fā)上，看迪士尼卡通片，電視機有冰柜那么大，放在墻上的一個內嵌里。我記得12歲那年，每個房間都掛著在西班牙鄉(xiāng)間拍的家庭合照。我記得14年那年，我在偌大的房子里仔細地給地毯除塵，折疊剛剛烘干的淡色襯衫。

我喜歡那棟房子。我喜歡陽光透過窗戶傾灑進來的樣子，仿佛可以消散所有愁云。我喜歡自己總是可以在目光所及之處找到書或雜志。

但我母親使用的吸塵器并不屬于我們。我們從未掏過電視費。照片上也不是我的家人。我一周見一次自己清理的地毯，我從未穿過自己疊的淡色襯衫。那棟房子不是我們的。我母親只是清潔工，而我是她的幫手。

20年前，我父母以難民的身份從摩爾多瓦來到美國。我母親做過各類兼職工作，但我一出生，她就決定自己需要做些改變。她在報紙上登提供房屋保潔服務的廣告，一對教授夫婦回應了她。他們成了她第一家客戶，他們的房子成了我們維持生計的基石。經(jīng)濟衰退時來時往，但我母親每周一和周五都要去那里，有時周日也過去。

她整日戴著天青色的乳膠手套，操著藍色的胡佛吸塵器，給幾英里長的地毯除塵。她擦過的所有鏡子幾乎可以堆疊成由菲利普·約翰遜打造的亮閃閃的摩天大樓。這樣的工作對她來說并不陌生。吸塵器和手套或許還算新鮮事物，但如此勞作卻早已習慣。在摩爾多瓦，她在家里種小黃瓜和西紅柿。她曾花無數(shù)個小時跪在泥土里，以教授指導學生的用心程度、以仁慈和積極的態(tài)度侍弄她的蔬菜。現(xiàn)在，她勞作的蔬果被換成了吸塵器。

She spends her days in teal latex gloves, guiding a blue Hoover vacuum over what seems like miles of carpet. All the mirrors she's cleaned could probably stack up to be a minor Philip Johnson skyscraper. This isn't new for her. The vacuums and the gloves might be, but the work isn't. In Moldova, her family grew gherkins and tomatoes. She spent countless hours kneeling in the dirt, growing her vegetables with the care that professors advise their protégés, with kindness and proactivity. Today, the fruits of her labor have been replaced with the suction⑥suction 英 ['s?k?(?)n] 美 ['s?k??n] n. 吸；吸力；抽吸of her vacuum.

The professors' home was a telescope to how the other (more affl uent) half lived.They were rarely ever home, so I saw their remnants⑦remnant英 ['remn?nt] 美 ['r?mn?nt] n. 剩余 adj. 剩余的: the lightly crinkled New York Times sprawled on the kitchen table, the overturned, half-opened books in their overfl owing personal library, the TV consistently⑧consistently 美 [k?n's?st?ntli] adv. 一貫地；一致地；堅實地left on the National Geographic channel. I took these remnants as a celebrity-endorsed path to prosperity. I began to check out books from the school library and started reading the news religiously.

Their home was a sanctuary for my dreams. It was there I,as a glasses-wearing computer nerd, read about a mythical place called Silicon Valley in Bloomberg Businessweek magazines. It was there, as a son of immigrants⑨immigrant英 ['?m?gr(?)nt]美 ['?m?ɡr?nt] adj. 移民的；遷入的 n. 移民，僑民, that I read about a young senator named Barack Obama, the child of an immigrant, aspiring to be the president of the United States. The life that I saw through their home showed me that an immigrant could succeed in America, too. Work could be done with one's hands and with one's mind. It impressed on me a sort of social capital that I knew could be used in America. The professors left me the elements to their own success, and all my life I've been trying to make my own reaction.

Ultimately, the suction of the vacuum is what sustains my family. The squeal of her vacuum reminds me why I have the opportunity to drive my squealing car to school. I am where I am today because my mom put an enormous amount of labor into the formula of the American Dream. It's her blue Hoover vacuums that hold up the framework of my life. Someday, I hope my diploma can hold up the framework of hers.

透過教授一家，我可以一窺（更富裕的）另一半人的生活。他們很少待在家，于是我仔細觀察他們留下的痕跡：攤在廚房桌子上稍稍發(fā)皺的《紐約時報》，豐富的私人圖書館中翻到一半倒扣過去的書，總是停留在國家地理頻道的電視。我把這些痕跡當成由名人代言的通往繁榮之路。我開始從學校的圖書館往外借書，并開始認真細心閱讀新聞。

他們的家是我的夢想的庇護所。在那里，我這個戴著眼鏡的電腦迷從《彭博商業(yè)周刊》上知道了一個名叫硅谷的神秘地方。在那里，我這個移民的兒子讀到了一個名叫貝拉克·奧巴馬的移民之子——年輕參議員立志做美國總統(tǒng)的消息。在他們家感受過的生活告訴我，在美國，移民也可以成功。工作可以用雙手來完成，也可以用頭腦來完成。我對社會資本有了深刻的概念，我知道在美國可以使用這種資本。兩位教授讓我看到了他們取得成功的要素，我在生活中一直都在試圖做出自己的成果。

最終，吸塵器維持了我們一家的生活。她手中吸塵器的嗡嗡聲總在提醒我，我為什么有機會開著哐哐當當?shù)男∑嚾ド蠈W。我能成為今天的我，是因為我的母親往美國夢的公式中傾注了無法估計的勞動。她用藍色胡佛吸塵器撐起了我的生活。有朝一日，我希望能用自己的畢業(yè)證書撐起她的生活。