【荆棘鸟】第六章 05

 尽管来人中大多数都是游民，但也不尽然，譬如，其中就有一个驾着老式的T型福特汽车而来的沃特金斯人。他什么都贩运。从马的涂抹剂到香皂；这种香皂和菲在洗衣的铜盆里用脂肪和苛性碱做成的那种硬如顽石的货色不可同日而语：他带来了薰衣草水和科隆香水，防止阳光灼伤脸部皮肤的香粉和雪花膏、有些你作梦也想不到能从任何人手中买到的东西，那沃特斯金人却有；比如他的药膏，比任何药房里的药膏或传统的药膏要好得多，这药对牧羊狗肋部的伤口到人皮肤上的溃疡，都有愈合的功效。无论他来到哪个厨房，女人们都会蜂拥而集、急不可耐地等他将他那百货箱"砰"地一声打开。

　　这里还有其他的买卖人，但是，他们都不如沃特金斯人那样定期地到这块边远地区来，但他们同样受欢迎，他们什么都兜售，从机制的烟卷到整匹的布料。有时，还有俗艳而又诱人的内衣和紧身胸衣。内地的妇女们极渴望他们的到来，因为她们很少出门，一年中兴许只到最近的币镇去一两次；她们离悉尼那些琳琅满目的商店太远，离时髦货和花哨的女用装饰品太远了。
　　生活中似乎总是离不开苍蝇和尘土。很长时间滴雨未下，哪怕来一场稀疏小雨都能使尘土落下，淹死苍蝇。由于缺少雨水、所以苍蝇愈多、尘土也就愈多。每个房间的天花板上都松松垮垮地低垂着长长的、带粘性的、螺旋状的毒蝇纸，黑乎乎地粘着苍蝇的尸体；这是一天之中粘上去的。所有的东西都得时时遮盖，否则不是成了苍蝇狂欢之处便是成了苍蝇的葬身坟场。苍蝇留下的小黑点肮里肮脏地附在家具上，墙壁上和基兰搏百货店的日历上。
　　噢，还有尘土！简直没法把尘土弄干净，那颗粒细小的棕色粉尘甚至能渗进紧紧盖着的容器里，把刚刚洗过的头发弄得毫无光泽，使皮肤粗糙，落满衣服和窗帘的褶缝，在刚刚掸过尘土的光滑的桌面上落上薄薄的一层。地板上满是厚厚的尘土，这都是人们漫不经心地擦靴子的时候留下来的，以及从敞开的门窗中随着又热又干的风飘进来的。菲不得不将起居室里的波斯地毯卷了起来，让斯图尔特用她瞒着人眼从基里的商店中买来的漆布将地毯包住。
　　人来人往最多的厨房铺上了柚木厚板，由于铁丝刷蘸碱皂液的没完没了的擦洗，柚木反被洗成了陈旧的骨头色。
 

Not all the visitors were swaggies, though they were in the majority; there was the Watkins man in his old model-T, for instance. He carried everything from horse liniment to fragrant 1 soap unlike the rock-hard stuff Fee made in the laundry copper 2 from fat and caustic 3; he had lavender water and eau de cologne, powders and creams for sun-dried faces. There were certain things one never dreamed of buying from anyone but the Watkins man; like his ointment 4, better by far than any drugstore or prescription 5 salve, capable of healing anything from a rent in the side of a work dog to an ulcer 6 on a human shin. The women would crowd around in every kitchen he visited, waiting eagerly for him to pop open his big suitcase of wares 7. And there were other salesmen, less regular patrollers of the back-blocks than the Watkins man but equally welcome, hawking 8 everything from tailor-made cigarettes and fancy pipes to whole bolts of material, sometimes even luridly 9 seductive underwear and lavishly 10 beribboned stays. They were so starved, these women of the Outback, limited to maybe one or two trips a year into the nearest town, far from the brilliant shops of Sydney, far from fashions and feminine furbelows.
 
Life seemed mostly flies and dust. There had not been any rain in a long time, even a sprinkle to settle the dust and drown the flies; for the less rain, the more flies, the more dust.
Every ceiling was festooned with long, lazily spinning helixes of sticky flypaper, black with bodies within a day of being tacked 11 up. Nothing could be left uncovered for a moment without becoming either an orgy or a graveyard 12 for the flies, and tiny speckles of fly dirt dewed the furniture, the walls, the Gillanbone General Store calendar.
And oh, the dust! There was no getting away from it, that fine-grained brown powder which seeped 13 into even tightly lidded containers, dulled freshly washed hair, made the skin gritty, lay in the folds of clothes and curtains, smeared 14 a film across polished tables which resettled the moment it was whisked away. The floors were thick with it, from carelessly wiped boots and the hot dry wind drifting it through the open doors and windows; Fee was forced to roll up her Persian carpets in the parlor 15 and have Stuart nail down linoleum 16 she bought sight unseen from the store in Gilly. The kitchen, which took most of the traffic from outside, was floored in teak planks 17 bleached 18 to the color of old bones by endless scrubbing with a wire brush and lye soap.