羅博德（小說，中英文）

羅博德

洪丕柱

在一次高校教學研討會上，我看到一位背稍僂、頭微禿的瘦高個子走上臺講話。
他介紹了Q大學新建的X市分校建校兩年來的教學情況。
從他講話的聲音和站立的姿態來看，我認出這位Q大學新分校的校長應該是我的老同事羅博德•亞瑟。
三年不見，他怎麼會瘦成這樣，連背也僂了？
他原先是一個很魁梧的人，身高至少一米八六，頭髮也很濃密的。

我記起幾年前他升任州教育培訓部副總裁的情況。這是一名副部長級別的官，負責全州的職業教育和職工培訓，領導著全州十三所高等職業學院並負責無數公司廠家的員工培訓和再就業。
每星期一我都會收到他發給他所領導的十三所高等學院的近萬名教職員工的電子郵件。
忽然就沒聽到他的聲音了。再接下來就聽同事們傳説他生癌了，正在接受檢查和治療，職務由由副手戴蓓女士接替。
他發出的最後一封郵件是告訴大家他因健康原因辭職，並附上他給部長的辭職信。然後，他似乎從我的視野蒸發了。

下午茶的休息時間，我找到了他。
“你好，洪經理！”看到我，羅博德微笑著向我伸出手，用中文跟我打招呼。
這中文是若干年前他同副州長布朗恩領隊的教育代表團一起去中國訪問時我教他的中文日常交際用語中的一些。然後，他還用中文笑著問我：“你有五毛嗎？”

當時我是代表團的中文翻譯，特別是當副州長布朗恩接見中國媒體採訪時。我們去了廣州、南京、上海和青島，訪問了一些中國的高校，討論教育合作的事。
在青島，一天午飯後我們在一個美麗的現代化廣場遊覽。忽然大家都想方便了，就走進了廣場邊的一間很漂亮的公厠。這樣漂亮的公厠當時在中國是很少見的。
公厠有一名女性管理員管門。我們一起徑直走進了男厠。可是我被那女管理員喝住了。
“交錢！”她朝我吼叫著，一面指著男厠門上貼著的一張紙，上面寫著“每次小便收費五毛，外賓免費”。
羅博德覺得很奇怪，停下來問我爲何。我告訴他門上寫的內容，他哈哈大笑起來。他知道女管理員把我當作中國人了。

最後我沒有付費，因爲向她解釋了情況。但這以後，每當我們一起在中國找公厠，他就笑著問我準備好五毛沒有，或者直接用中文對我説“五毛！”我沒有告訴他，在中國“五毛”代表怎樣的人，可是打那以後我就成了代表團的“五毛”了。以後很長一段時間，他常常開玩笑的叫我“五毛”。
他居然連這個也沒有忘記！就因爲這句話，我們都找回了幾年前的自己。

不過這次訪問，使他對中國大感興趣起來。
當時我們在同一所學院工作，他是院長，我是該院的國際項目部高級經理，因爲這次訪問之後，在我的努力和他的支持下，我們在廣州、南京、上海和青島都發展了合作項目，向那裏的一些高等工業或職業學院提供澳洲認證的課程。此外我們在香港、臺灣、新加坡和馬來西亞也有了合作學院，有三名副手和我的國際項目部就這樣建立起來了。他還將我的辦公室搬到了院長辦公室的隔壁。

“羅博德，你好嗎？你瘦多了，不過精神看來還不錯。”我關心地問。
“是嗎？謝謝。那癌可把我弄苦了。我住院半年，開了幾次刀，該割的都割了，又做化療，弄得頭髮都掉了，”他摸摸自己的頭說，“可醫生說還沒找到原位癌，雖然目前看來沒有大問題。”
他息了一下，繼續説：“我自我感覺恢復得不錯，就要求出院。我想我可能活不久了，能工作的話再抓緊幹些事，不能在病床浪費餘下的生命啊！”
這就是原型的他，生過癌，還是沒有改變。我心想。

“我就這樣活到了現在，也不吃藥。聼一位中國朋友的話，素食為主，只是定期去檢查，指標基本正常。
“出院不久，我應聘Q大X市分校籌委會主任的職務。他們知道我的病，可仍然錄用了我。”他爽快地回答。
我想，這當然是由於本州教育界對他的聲望和能力的瞭解啦。我和羅博德同事五六年，對他很瞭解。他沒架子，同員工關係特別好，沒事時會去各系科、各辦公室轉轉，同教師們隨便聊聊，大家都願意把教學情況、問題、困難、想法告訴他。所以他非常瞭解下情。他的威望來自他的親近員工、傾聽建議的工作作風，所以每年學院的各項工作在全州完成得最好。這就是爲何他被提升為副總裁的緣故。

對我來説，我最關心的是同中國各學院的合作。我們學院同中國的合作發展得特別好，爲此他被部裏任命為中國合作組組長，兼管其他各學院同中國的合作。他讓我做顧問，有要事會主動來找我，而不是像前任院長那樣讓秘書打電話叫我過去匯報。
當然我也會去一墻之隔的他的辦公室。他的記性特別好。在咨詢我的時候，他仰靠在他的大轉椅裏，雙手墊在腦後，翹著二郎腿，半閉目地靜聽，並不打斷我。我有時以爲他睡去了，可是他突然會提出一些問題。他不需要做筆記，卻對我所說的基本上能記得很清楚。
雖然對工作的細節的記性很好，可是他學中文的記性卻很糟！因爲常需接見來自中國的訪問團，他很想多學些中文，在我匯報工作時會順便讓我教他幾個中文詞，可是除了一些學院的中文名字、“你好”、“謝謝”、“再見”，還有諸如“厠所”、“啤酒”等，我無法將他的學中文的熱情、努力同他的成績掛鈎。

爲了有利於同中國的交流、合作，他讓他那當中學英文教師的年輕太太戴安娜入學G大學亞洲研究院的中文系，我便成了她課餘的輔導老師。澳洲教育體系的最大優點之一是，無論什麼年齡，你都可以報名入學，但畢業就不那麼容易，即所謂寬進嚴出。
同羅博德恰恰相反，戴安娜極有語言天分，進步很快。念到第三年，按照大學的規定，必須到中國去學習和生活半年，通過那裏的測試才能畢業。G大學讓她有機會作為交流學生到合作學校，北京S大學的中文系學習半年。
羅博德非常高興，戴安娜也極其興奮地來學院同我告別。那天我們一起在校長辦公室喝了下午茶，吃了蛋糕。

半年很快就過去了。
記得她回來後給我打電話來，用全中文同我交談，説話中已經有好些帶有“兒”的北京腔了。那次交談是在羅博德的辦公室裏。羅博德問我戴安娜的中文程度如何。我說，她的中文已經相當熟練和地道，發音也很純正。羅博德聽得開心地笑起來了。
於是，每次接見中國代表團，他常會將夫人帶上做翻译。聼到中國朋友驚訝地表揚這位洋美女的中文，羅博德總會感到特別驕傲，得意洋洋，尤其是有一次聽到一位中國代表團的團長說：你太太的中文就跟她本人那麼漂亮！真的，戴安娜確實是一個美女，我也這麼想。

“戴安娜怎樣？”想到這裏我沒加思索隨便地問他。
“戴？哦，我們離了。這你是應能預料到的。我們賣了威靈頓岬的那海景房– 我記得你去過我家 — 就分手了。這樣也好，誰也不影響誰：那時我剛查出生癌。我愛戴，不想拖累她，就成全她吧。”
他盡量控制著自己的感情，淡淡地、緩緩地說，眼神變得虛無縹緲。

他所謂的我應能預料到，是因為有一天他突然找我到他辦公室，關上門，將一曡打印出來的電子郵件交到我手裏，讓我翻譯給他聼。
那些電子郵件基本上是用中文拼音寫的，其中夾帶著幾個漢字或者英文詞。我知道，洋人中有好些能將中文説得很地道流利的人，但是能用漢字寫信的人只是鳳毛麟角，除非是漢學家，雖然很多人能用拼音寫些東西。
這些是戴安娜紅杏出墻，同她在北京S大學中文系的中文老師張教授的非常熱情甚至有點肉麻的情書來往！
我突然想起一年前羅博德曾告訴我戴安娜想回北京S大學去繼續進修半年中文。羅博德高興地同意了。戴安娜的中文水平的提高對他來説永遠是件重要的事情。

我沒有問他是怎樣印出這些電子郵件的。我知道，作為翻譯，我的職業道德不允許我向客戶打聽不該打聽的信息，只是忠實地翻譯原文。不過對於這樣的原文，忠實地翻譯，我有些顧慮。
羅德的目光嚴厲地註視著我，他要我盡量如實地翻給他聼，絕不要顧慮他的感受。儘管這麼説，我還是能感覺到，他的聲音有點發抖。
當我翻到戴安娜非常欣賞張教授的風度和學問，又溫存體貼，非常留戀他們在一起度過的甜蜜美好的時光，也很渴望再去北京見他。又說羅博德是個毫無情趣的工作狂，一點也不愛她，只愛他的工作和往上爬，工作累到晚上連做愛都做不動，讓她的感情十分空虛孤獨，很想同他離婚 …… 這時，羅博德的嘴唇抽動了一下，突然止不住像小孩一樣地痛哭起來。
他抽咽地說他非常非常地愛戴。這我知道：他的書桌上總是放著她那美麗的照片。
我突然有點惶恐不安，感到他們間會有兇險結局的感覺。因爲他一再叫他所愛的戴安娜“戴”。這是英文對戴安娜的愛稱。但我覺得它卻意味著他們間的關係會死亡，因爲“戴”就是英文“死”的意思啊！中國人是連買房子也不願意買4號的，因爲4和死同音。

我們都靜默不言了。顯然都回憶起了當時的情景。我真後悔提到了戴安娜！

At a higher education conference on education research, I saw a tall but pretty lean man walking up onto the stage and started his speech.  His back was a bit bent and his head a bit bald.
He introduced to the audience the teaching and research development since the establishment of the new campus of Q University in the City of X two years ago.
From his voice and his posture standing on the stage, I recognised this man, the Director of this new campus of Q University, should be my old colleague Robert Author.
I had not seen him for about three years.  How come that this man had changed such a lot?
He was a tall and bulky guy, at least over six foot-two, with straight figure and thick hair.
I remember that a few years ago he was promoted to the position of Deputy Director General of the State Education Department.  This is a position at the level of Deputy Minister, in charge of the vocational education and staff training of the whole State, being the leader of the State’s 13 higher vocational education institutes and their nearly 10,000 staff, in addition to the training and re-employment of the workforce of the State’s countless companies, enterprises and factories.
We would receive emails from him every Monday, sent to the 10,000 staff of the 13 Higher Vocational Education Institutes under his leadership.
All of a sudden, we stopped receiving emails from him, neither did we hear anything about him.  This was followed by a sort of hear-say or rumour that he was sick or he got cancer, was receiving various tests and treatments.  His job was taken over by his Assistant Director General Ms Debra Johnson.
Then we received his last email saying he had resigned from his position because of his health problem.  A resigning letter from him to the Minister was in the attachment.  Then, he seemed to have be evaporated from our sight.
During afternoon tea time, I tried to find him among the conference attendants.
“Ni Hao, Hong Jingli (Hello, Manager Hong)!” Robert stretched his hands to me with familiar smiles when he saw me.  He was saying hello to me in his usual way in Mandarin.
Then, he seemed to have recalled some funny incidents and added with a question in mandarin to me, with a sort of funny tune: Do you have fifty cents?
That question made me laugh, and I said in mandarin “Sorry, I don’t” in response to his question.  We both remembered a funny story than occurred during our visit to China.
This was the bit of mandarin of daily communication I taught him some years ago when we were visiting China.  We were members of an education delegation that visited a number of Chinese provinces and cities, headed by the then Deputy Premier of the State Mr Tom Brown.
“How are you, Robert?” I asked him with concern, “You look much thinner than before but you look quite OK with pretty good spirits.”
“Really?  Thanks.  I suffered greatly with that cancer.  I stayed in the hospital for a good six months.  The doctors operated on me a number of times, and they cut whatever they thought should be cut, followed by chemo-therapy so my hair was lost like what you see now.” He said, stoking on his half-bald head. “However, the doctors told me they still could not find the original cancer, although they thought I would not have problems for the time being.”
He paused for a little while and continued.  “I felt I had recovered quite well and asked to be discharged.  I thought I might not be able to live too long and I would like to do something if I could, rather than wasting the rest of my life on hospital bed.”
He was still originally himself, even cancer could not change him, I thought to myself.
“I have just been living like that up to now and strangely I am not getting worse without taking any medication.  I have followed advice from a Chinese friend in diet, and have become a quasi-vegetarian, basically live on vegetables, eggs and milk.  That’s why I look skinny.  I just go to take regular tests and my doctor told me so far all the test results had been basically normal.”
“Not long after I was discharged from the hospital, I applied for the position of director of preparatory program of the new campus of the University and I got it.  They knew my illness, but they still took me on.” He told me frankly and honestly.
I thought that was because his reputation and capabilities were well known in the education circle of this State.  I had been his colleague for five to six years and known him very well.
He was a pretty easy-going guy and had good relationship with all the staff, and he was fond of walking around to all the departments and units of the institute and chatting casually with the teachers and other staff members.  The staff of the institute were happy to tell him about the situations of their teaching, any problems and difficulties they had encountered in the work and so on so he knew about everything that had happened in the institute really well.  He was close to the staff and actively listened to them and understood their needs well.  That was his personal style and also where his authority came from.  The consequence was all the targets of the institute were excellently achieved so the institute was in a leading position in the State Education Department.  As a result, he was promoted to the position of Deputy Director General.

We visited some Chinese higher education institutes or universities in Guangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai and Qingdao, discussing matters about education cooperation.
During our visit to Qingdao, one day, after lunch, we were touring around a beautiful and modern square.  Suddenly, all of us felt the call of nature — we badly needed to find a public toilet.  Then we saw a quite pretty and clean public toile at the verge of the square.   Such an up-to-date public toilet was rarely seen at that time in China.

There was a female door keeper sitting outside the toilet and looking after it.  We all went directly into the toilet, all of us.  But I was stopped by the female door keeper.

She yelled at me: “Pay!” pointing at a notice on the door of the male toilet, on which was written: toilet use charge, 50 cents each time; foreign tourist exempted.

Robert felt strange why only I was stopped at the toilet door.  I told him the content of on the door notice.  He laughed loudly.  He knew that the toilet door keeping women took me as a Chinese person as I was the only Chinese looking guy in this group of six!
Finally I did not pay as Robert explained to her that I was one member of the “foreign tourist” group.
Since then, every time when we were looking for a public toilet in China, Robert would ask me laughingly whether I got fifty cents ready for the toilet charge, or even he would directly say to me using the mandarin language “wu mao!”  Thus “wu mao” had become my nickname in the delegation and for a long time they simply called me “wu mao” in a joking way!
However, I did not tell them that “wu mao” was a special group of people in China that many people despise, as the term “wu mao” had a special derogative meaning: those who spy on people for their behaviour and what they said.
He had not even forgotten this joke after so many years.  Just because this we had both found back our identities many years ago.
However, after this visit to China and the achievements the education delegation had made, Robert started to be greatly interested in China and getting into in Chinese education markets through cooperating with the Chinese universities and institutes.
At that time we both worked in the same institute.  He was the director and I was the senior manager in charge of our international programs.
After the above-mentioned visit to China, with my efforts and his support, we had developed cooperative programs in Guangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai and Qingdao, offering to some higher industrial or vocational institutes Australia recognised courses.  On top of these programs, we had also cooperative institutes or colleges in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia.  An International Program Unit was thus established with three assistants supporting me as the manager.  He also moved my International Office to the next door to his Director’s Office.

To me, my most concerned matter was the education cooperation with various Chinese institutes and universities, which had developed especially well.  Because of this he was nominated to be group leader of the China Cooperation Group of the State Education Department, looking after the cooperation between all the institutes of the State with their Chinese counterpart.
He made me his adviser and he would come to me himself if there was anything about China that mattered to him.  That was very different from our previous Director: he would ask his secretary to call me and tell me to report to him in the Director’s Office.
Certainly I would also go to see him from time to time in his office, which was only next door to my office.  He had unusually good memory.  When he was consulting me, he would sit in his large office chair, holding his both hands behind his head, listening to me attentively with his eyes half closed, one leg resting on the other, not disturbing my talk at all.  Sometimes I even thought he might have fallen asleep.  But suddenly he would raise a question to what I had said.  He did not need to take notes, as he could remember quite clearly what I had told me.
Although Robert had extremely good memory for all the details at work, his memory for the Chinese language was horribly poor!  He wanted very much to learn some mandarin as we regularly received visiting Chinese education or training delegations.  I knew that, so when I was reporting work to him I would by the way teach him a few words including the names of the Chinese institutes that had formed cooperative relationship with our institute and such daily vocabulary as Hello, How are you? Thank you, Buy-bye.  Oh, I definitely would not forget to teach him Chinese words for toilet, wine and beer.  However hard did I try in my teaching, I was not able to connect his learning result with his enthusiasm and efforts.
In order to improve our exchange and cooperation with the Chinese counterparts, he got his young wife Diana enrolled in the Chinese Department of the Asian Studies Faculty at the G University.  Diana was a teacher of English in a local high school.  Then I had become her spare time Chinese tutor.  One of the greatest advantages of the Australian higher education is that anybody can be enrolled in a university or college program and study part time under a flexible study plan.  But it is not so easy to graduate as the enrolled student must pass all the assessments with strict requirements.  This is known as easy to get enrolled but hard to exit with qualification earned.

Opposite to Robert, Diana had great linguistic talents so she had made quick progress in her studies.  Time passed by quickly and Diana had entered Year Three of her bachelor program.  According to the teaching plan of her degree program, she had to go to a Chinese university to study and live there for six month and pass their assessments and fluency tests.  G University could offer her an opportunity to study at the Chinese Department of their sister University, the Beijing S University for six months as a foreign exchange student.
Robert was extremely happy for Diana to have obtained this opportunity to study at the Beijing S University for six months.  On the day of her departure, Diana came to our institute to say good-bye to me.  She was so excited.  That day we had afternoon tea and cakes together in Robert’s office.
Six months passed just like a moment.
I remember when she came back to Brisbane, she called me and spoke with me on the phone totally in mandarin.  Her mandarin had acquired some Beijing accents with a distinct
“-r” sound.
That phone talk took place in Robert’s office and Robert was eager to ask me what Diana’s mandarin efficiency was.  I told him her mandarin was fluent and quite standard with good pronunciation.  Robert was so pleased that he could not help laughing merrily.
From then on, every time we received a delegation from China, Robert would bring Diana to the institute and let her attend the meetings as an interpreter.  Every time when Robert heard the surprised Chinese visitors praise Diana’s mandarin as well as her beauty, he would feel very proud and complacent, especially when once there was a leader of the Chinese delegation, who said: your wife’s Chinese is as beautiful as herself.  That was true, I would also think that Diana was a beauty.
With that memory of mine, I causally asked Robert how Diana was now without much thinking.
“Di?  Oh, we had separated.  This is what you would have expected.  We sold our sea-view property at Cape Wellington – I remember you had been to our home – and said good-bye to each other.  This is good to both of us, I think, so we would not interfere each other.  I had just been diagnosed to have cancer at that time.  I love Di and did not want to give her trouble, and it was better to her, as she would have the freedom she needed.”
He tried very hard to control his emotion and said that calmly and slowly and his eyes became vague and empty.
What Robert meant that I should have expected was because one day some years ago he suddenly told me to go to his office.  He closed the office door behind him and produced a bunch of printed paper on which were many emails.  He handed the emails to me and wanted me to translate the content to him.
These emails were basically written in Chinese pin-yin mixed with some characters and English words.  Some western learners of mandarin might be able to speak mandarin very well but most of them could only write a text in pin-yin, few of them could write a letter purely in Chinese characters except the sinologists.
These were love letters she exchanged with her Chinese teacher Professor Zhang of the Beijing S University – some of which were extremely passionate even nauseating with lust that could indicate that they might have had affairs when Diana was studying at the Beijing S University.
I suddenly remembered that Robert told me Diana would like to return to Beijing S University to continue her study of Chinese for another six months.  Robert agreed to her request willingly as it was always important to him for Diana to improve her mandarin.
I did not ask Robert how he had obtained and printed these emails.  I knew, as an interpreter, my code of profession conduct did not allow me to ask for information from my client that I should not ask for.  My responsibility was to translate the original text loyally from one language into another language.  However, to be honest, I was a bit reluctant to translate such original text — passionate love letter loyally.
Robert stared at me with severity in his eyes and he required that I translate everything loyally and faithfully for him, not omitting anything, nor concerning about his feeling.  Even though when he said that I could still feel that his voice was slightly trembling.
When I translated that Diana admired Professor Zhang’s elegance and rich knowledge so much, plus his gentleness and consideration to her feelings, and she also cherished so much the nice and sweet time they spent together and she was so longed for seeing him again in Beijing, as well as what she said about Robert – a workaholic with no fun nor interested in anything else, who did not love her at all.  What he loved was work and climbing upward in his position, and often he came home so tired that he would not even have any energy left to make love with her.  This made her feel so lonely and void that she wanted to divorce him…  upon these words I translated, I saw Robert’s lips twitched a bit and all of a sudden he burst into tears and cried sadly like a child.
He said in a sobbing voice that he loved Di so much … I knew that was true as on his desk there were always Diana’s pretty photos.
I felt a bit of panic-stricken all of a sudden as I seemed to have smelt a sort of horrible ending between the couple as he called his beloved wife “Di” all the time.  In English, a nickname like Di for Diana is a loving way that Robert called his wife, however, in my ears it sounded just like “die”, equivalent to the Chinese word “si” (die, death), which to me seemed to indicate their relationship will “die”.  To many Chinese people, they would avoid the sound of “si” as much as they could, even number 4 (si) in Chinese, a homonym to the word “die (si)” so that they would not buy a house that is No. 4 in a street or Unit 4 in an apartment building.
We were both silent.  Apparently we had both been recalling this troubled moment of that day in Robert’s office.
How much had I regretted that I had mentioned Diana!