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By Kate Chambers

The policeman peered[1] in through the open window of our car. “Can I borrow...?” he began. My heart sank.

This was our sixth police checkpoint in an hour. We were in Marange district, Zimbabwe’s eastern diamond heartland.[2] The sand, silhouetted baobabs, and the ever-present security forces made it an eerie place.[3]

Diamonds were first found in the area in 2006, sparking a massive gem rush.[4] Students threw schoolbooks into the bushes in their hurry to dig, their teachers following them in a crazed search for instant riches.

In late 2008, President Robert Mugabe ordered a controversial military clampdown to reassert state control.[5] The authorities have been battling ever since to get the diamonds certified blood-free[6]. Foreigners venturing[7] into the area are viewed with suspicion: They might be diamond buyers or illegal dealers.

With the policeman’s eyes upon me, I steeled[8] myself. I knew that like most of Zimbabwe’s civil servants, policemen are badly underpaid. (In fact, public service unions are clamoring for a share of the state’s diamond wealth to be put into long overdue salary increases.)[9]

“... one of your books?” the policeman finished. He pointed to the dashboard[10].

My books! I’d almost forgotten them. Before leaving home, I had bundled three paperbacks into the car, hoping to while away a hot journey with a pleasant read.[11]

New and once-read books have reappeared on Zimbabwe’s flea markets and in city bookshops since a coalition government was formed between longtime President Mugabe and former opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in February 2009, putting a tentative stop to 10 years of economic downturn.[12] Perhaps understandably, motivational books[13] now appear to be the biggest sellers.

Not long ago, buying a good book in Zimbabwe was almost impossible. The government booksellers Kingstons sold flags and pens instead, its sparsely stocked shelves mirroring adjacent near-empty supermarkets.[14] Our two favorite secondhand bookstores in Harare closed down, forced out of business by hyperinflation that topped 231 million percent.[15]

Sometimes I felt I was starving for a nice novel. I wasn’t the only one. Friends here begged to borrow magazines or novels sent to me by family members overseas. “Haven’t you got anything for me to read?” they’d say. “Give us this day our daily bread”[16] took on a whole new meaning: I realized that Zimbabweans around me didn’t just want food, they also craved[17] new texts to read, digest, and discuss.

Newspapers were not satisfying enough. The local library offered little help. It was “seasonal,” I was informed: Because of a leaky tin roof,[18] the library closed during the rainy months. Unfortunately, the authorities had discovered the leaks too late, meaning that many of the books were destroyed.

A habitual flick-reader, I have learned the pleasures of rereading, savoring over and over again sentences I might once have skimmed.[19] I found echoes of Zimbabwe’s shortages in British novelist Helen Dunmore’s The Siege, an imaginative reconstruction of the blockade of Leningrad in 1941.[20] I recognized protagonist[21] Anna’s joy when she unexpectedly found an onion for her starving family: While we were never that hungry, I, too, had felt a sudden surge of elation when fruit disappeared from the shops but a neighbor invited us to pick mulberries from her tree.[22]

When flour was hard to find, I was soothed by Miriam’s Kitchen, Elizabeth Ehrlich’s account of her attempts to integrate her Jewish heritage into daily life. Ms. Ehrlich’s meticulous recording of the way to make her Polish mother-in-law’s apple cake reminded me that hardships teach us to cherish simple things.[23]

But here on a road in Marange, a policeman was waiting. I looked at the three books on my dashboard. Each one was precious to me: Each had a story. Naomi Alderman’s prize-winning novel Disobedience I had snapped up with glee when I saw it at a Harare flea market a few days earlier.[24] I bought The Vintage Book of Cats soon after we acquired our first cat in 2002. As the tribe expanded, I enjoyed reading extracts from this anthology of cat literature to my husband by candlelight (frequent power cuts have taught us you need a minimum of four candles to read by).[25] My son’s former teacher gave us The Fox Gate, a wonderful collection of stories by children’s author William Mayne. Sam and I had just read the tale of a mouse who found his way to its destination.

I looked again at the young officer. Behind him, wet laundry[26] hung on the ropes of a police tent. With Zimbabwe’s economy far from flourishing, graduates are joining the force in droves.[27] There are few other jobs available.

“I just want one,” the policeman pleaded. I heard the echoes of my own book hunger and knew there was only one thing to do.

Vocabulary

1. peer: 費(fèi)力地看，仔細(xì)看。

2. Marange: 馬蘭吉，津巴布韋著名的鉆石礦區(qū)；heartland: 心臟地帶。

3. 漫漫黃沙、黑色剪影似的的猴面包樹（一種熱帶樹木），還有常設(shè)的保安部隊(duì)，使該地顯得陰森恐怖。silhouetted: 呈黑色剪影狀的；eerie: （因陰森怪誕而）可怕的。

4. spark: 觸發(fā)，發(fā)動(dòng)；gem: 寶石。

5. Robert Mugabe: 穆加貝（1924— ），1987年任津巴布韋總統(tǒng)至今；controversial: 有爭(zhēng)議的；clampdown: 壓制，取締。

6. certified blood-free: 鑒定自己的鉆石并非“血鉆”。血鉆也稱沖突鉆石，是一種開采在戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)區(qū)域并銷往國(guó)際市場(chǎng)的鉆石，由于銷售鉆石得到的高額資金會(huì)被投入反政府或違背安理會(huì)精神的武裝沖突中，故而得名。

7. venture: 冒險(xiǎn)，敢于。

8. steel: 使堅(jiān)強(qiáng)。

9. clamor: 大聲抗議或要求；overdue: 延誤的。

10. dashboard: 儀表板。

11. paperback: 平裝書；while away: 消磨，打發(fā)時(shí)間。

12. coalition government: 聯(lián)合政府；tentative: 嘗試性的；downturn: 下降。

13. motivational book: 勵(lì)志書。

14. sparsely: 稀疏地；stock: 存放；adjacent: 臨近的。

15. Harare: 哈拉雷，津巴布韋首都，下文中還有幾處該國(guó)的地名，因不影響閱讀，故不一一加注；hyperinflation: 極度通貨膨脹。

16. 原為《圣經(jīng)》主禱文中的一句，出于《馬太福音》第6章11節(jié)。

17. crave: 渴望，熱望。

18. leaky: 有漏隙的；tin: 錫。

19. 身為一個(gè)慣于快速翻閱的讀者，我已經(jīng)學(xué)會(huì)了重讀的樂趣，一遍一遍細(xì)細(xì)品味先前我可能會(huì)跳過的字句。

20. 在英國(guó)作家海倫?鄧莫爾的小說《圍困》里，我找到了津巴布韋匱乏現(xiàn)狀的再現(xiàn)——小說虛構(gòu)了1941年（蘇聯(lián)）列寧格勒市（遭德軍）封鎖后的情景。下文中也提到了幾位作家的幾部作品，因不為中國(guó)讀者所熟悉，故不一一加注。

21. protagonist: 主人公。

22. surge: （感情等）洋溢，奔放；elation: 興高采烈；mulberry: 桑椹。

23. meticulous: 極其仔細(xì)的；Polish: 波蘭的。

24. snap: 猛地抓住；glee: 歡喜，高興。

25. tribe: 此處指“貓咪家族”；anthology: （詩(shī)、文等的）選集；candlelight: 燭光。

26. laundry: 洗好（或待洗的）衣物。

27. flourishing: 欣欣向榮的；in droves: 成群結(jié)隊(duì)。

（來源：英語(yǔ)學(xué)習(xí)雜志）