Orchard叔叔的樱桃园

In April， my uncle’s cherry orchard is an amazing sight. I used to score girls by taking them on a ride past Frauenstein， up on a hill where you could see the trees， the whole lot of them sparkling white and pink in the breeze. Then we’d go for a walk through the orchard to my special tree， where I had a ladder set up so you could get to one of the branches in the crown. We’d smoke a joint and then climb up higher to where you could stick your head out on top. It felt like coming up from a dive in an ocean of cherry blossoms， like taking a swim in cherry blossom seas. Girls loved it， and to be honest， I loved it too. The girls were just an added bonus.

我叔叔的樱桃园，一到4月，景色便美不胜收。我过去泡妞时经常开车带着女孩，经过弗劳恩施泰因，开上一座小山，那里可以居高临下俯视那些樱桃树，看那满园白色和粉色的樱桃花，微风中光彩照人。然后，我们会步行穿过果园，走到我特别喜欢的那棵树前——我早在树旁放了一架梯子，这样我们就可以爬到树冠中的树杈上。我们会抽一根大麻卷烟，之后爬到更高的地方，把头伸出树叶。那感觉，就像是在樱桃花的海洋中下潜出水，就像在樱桃花的大海里游泳。女孩儿们喜欢那么闹，说实话，我也喜欢。跟女孩儿们厮混只不过是个捎带。

At night， I’d often drink whiskey with my uncle and we’d take walks through the moonlit orchard， talking about the old days when I was a boy and my parents were still alive. He’s a good man， my uncle， and a great cherry farmer.

晚上，我经常和叔叔一起喝点儿威士忌。我俩会在月光下的果园里散步，边走边聊从前的好时光，那时我还小，我的父母都还活着。他是个好人，我是说我的叔叔，樱桃种得也不错。

Recently， though， things have been different. First of all， I’m older and I’ve been growing a bit of a paunch2. My good looks and boyish charms are getting away from me. I can tell. Convincing girls—women， really—to take a ride with me is more of a challenge than it used to be.

然而，最近事情出现了变化。首先，我年岁渐长，还有点儿长肚子了。我本来挺英俊，很有小伙子的魅力，如今却不那么俊朗了，男子汉气概也少多了。这我都知道。说服女孩子——实际上我只能跟少妇搭讪了——和我一起开车兜风比以前难多了。

And the orchard’s facing worse problems： my uncle says that every year， summer has been coming earlier and the cherries are rotting on the trees. He’s lost money for three years running. One year， half his harvest had worms， and many trees are dying from a bark disease related to the weather. Uncle tried to explain it to me， how the health of the trees hangs in a precarious balance， the way the weather， the worms， the water in the soil， and the fertilizer have to come together. “Like a hammock strung up on ten different poles，” he said. “If one is missing or hanging too high or too low， you’re going to roll out of the hammock and bump your head.”

叔叔的樱桃园面临的问题更严重：我叔叔说，如今夏天来得一年比一年早，樱桃还在树上就开始腐烂了。他已经连续三年亏损。有一年，他收获的樱桃中五成都有虫子，许多果树都死于与天气有关的一种树皮病。叔叔尽量向我解释，果树长得好不好，取决于多种不稳定的因素能否达到平衡，要想长得好，天气、虫害程度、土壤中的水分、所施的化肥都得合适才行。他说：“就像一张吊床挂在十根柱子上。如果少了一根柱子，或者哪一根上挂得太高或太低，你都会从吊床上掉下来撞伤头。”

A cherry orchard with dead trees is a sorry sight. Cherries with worms in them are an awful thing. It can scar you for life， biting into a worm， spitting it out and then checking the remaining half of the cherry to find a wiggling mealy-white maggot3. This happened to a redhead I picked up in a Frankfurt biergarten last summer， and I doubt she’ll ever eat another cherry again in her life. She gagged for several minutes， didn’t want to come for dinner afterwards， and hasn’t called me since. Uncle definitely had to do something about his orchard， or pack it in for good.

樱桃园有枯树令人遗憾。樱桃里有虫子令人恶心。吃一口樱桃咬到一条虫子，把它吐掉，再看看剩下那半个樱桃，却发现一条粉白色的蛆虫在蠕动——这可能叫你半辈子都心有余悸。这样的事我见过：那是去年夏天，我在法兰克福一家啤酒店里搭讪上了一个红头发的女人，就是她吃到了虫子。我怀疑她这辈子都不会再吃樱桃了。她干呕了好几分钟，呕完后不想来跟我共进晚餐了，后来也没再给我打过电话。我叔叔肯定得对他的樱桃园做点儿什么，要不就干脆关门大吉得了。

He really didn’t have much of a choice， then， when the man from Monsanto came with his suitcase full of studies and sample seeds， and made his proposition. Genetically modified cherry fertilizer had been used to great success in Japan， home of the most amazing cherry blossoms in the world， and even Washington， D.C. was considering Monsanto products for its famous trees at the Jefferson Memorial. The first year was free， the case studies were more than promising， the research nothing short of amazing. Uncle signed， and soon began to spread the fertilizer that subtly altered the DNA of his trees and made them resistant to worms， bark rot， and the onslaught of the seasons.

后来，孟山都公司的那个人带着装满研究报告和种子样本的手提箱来找我叔叔了，并提出了建议。当时，叔叔真的别无选择。转基因樱桃化肥已在世界上最令人惊叹的樱花之乡日本施用并获得了巨大成功，甚至美国首都华盛顿也在考虑为杰斐逊纪念堂周边那闻名于世的樱花树施用孟山都公司的化肥。第一年是免费的；那些案例说得言之凿凿，那些研究令人深感惊讶。叔叔在合同上签了字，很快就开始施肥。这种肥料巧妙地改变了他那些果树的DNA，使它们能够抵抗病虫害、树皮腐烂病和季节交替对果木的伤害。

I could never get a satisfying answer out of him about the side effects， whether or not the man from Monsanto had told him about that. I first noticed it in early April， when I took a girl named Sue I picked up at an orphanage in Wuppertal to the orchard. We were sitting on the top branch of my special tree， high as kites， sticking our heads through the canopy4 of blossoms， when Sue asked me why all the tiny leaves had tiny corporate logos on them. We’d smoked some powerful Amsterdam weed， and so I giggled for a bit before I realized she was serious and investigated a blossom myself. She was right： every little petal showed a company logo： the Nike swoosh5， the Yahoo “y” with exclamation point， a tiny Coca-Cola mark， the McDonald’s golden arches， and so forth. Sue and I laughed and laughed， but later that night， with a glass of Scotch in my hand， I asked Uncle about it， and he just shrugged.