经济学人逝者||刚果“老司机”---皮埃尔·曼贝勒

Congo’s wheels

刚果“老司机”

英文部分选自经济学人20190720期Obituary版块

Pieere Mambele

皮埃尔·曼贝勒

Congo’s wheels

刚果“老司机”

Pieere Mambele, taxi-driver, died on June 8^th, aged 74

出租车司机皮埃尔·曼贝勒，于6月8日去世，享年74岁

Since the best place to pick up a fare in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, was outside the Grand hotel (for a time, the Intercontinental), that was where Pierre Mambele usually parked his car. There he would wait, with a bottle of Sprite, under the trees for shade.

在刚果首都金沙萨，出租车最佳揽客地点是格兰德大酒店（曾名“洲际酒店”）外。因此，皮埃尔·曼贝勒常将出租车停在那里，他总是手拿一瓶雪碧，待在树荫底下，等候乘客。

His car was nothing fancy. It was a dark blue 1976 Fiat which had seen service on plenty of bad roads. The side mirrors and windscreen-wipers had long gone, good riddance to them. The front doors could fly open at speed, so sometimes had to be tied to the chassis with plastic bags. The exhaust trailed. This car limped from one criminal mechanic to another, but as long as it ran, and people were willing to pay him for a ride, he wasn’t bothered.

皮埃尔·曼贝勒的出租车不是什么豪车。那是辆1976年产的深蓝色菲亚特，曾走过不少坑坑洼洼的道路；后视镜和雨刷早已不见踪影，否则它们还要忍受更多的颠簸。高速行驶时，两扇前门会自动弹开，所以有时不得不用塑料袋将它们绑在底盘上；排气管也拖在地上。经过一个又一个黑市技工的修理，这辆破车开起来就像个一瘸一拐的残疾人，但是只要它还能继续跑，还有人愿意掏钱搭车，他就不在意。

His clothes were nothing fancy either. On most days in fashion-proud Kinshasa he wore a greasy t-shirt and dirty jeans. His thick glasses, mended with Sello tape, had never been much use. Yet he drove crazy-fast, pedal to the floor, roaring round the city. He was not a Kinois himself, one of that snooty so-sophisticated lot, and the other drivers outside the Grand called him “Kisangani” after the city where he was born, in the east. He spoke Swahili as well as Lingala. But he had been a taxi-driver in the capital for decades, and knew the ramshackle place like the back of his hand. Kin-la-belle, now Kin-la-poubelle, as everyone said.

曼贝勒先生的衣着也谈不上高档。在时尚之都金沙萨，他多数时候穿的是满是油污的T恤和脏兮兮的牛仔裤。他那副厚厚的眼镜，用透明胶带粘好了，也没派上多少用场。但是，他开车极快，近乎疯狂，油门踩到底，在这座城市呼啸穿行。他自己并不是金沙萨人，也并非当地那群傲慢势利的司机中的一员，格兰德大酒店周围的其他司机称他为“基桑加尼人”，基桑加尼在刚果东部，是他出生的城市。他讲斯瓦希里语和林加拉语，在首都开出租车已经几十年，对这座败落的城市了如指掌。人人都说，曾经的美人“金沙萨”如今已迟暮。

衍生阅读：非洲刚果的萨普尔协会(强烈推荐阅读）https://www.zhihu.com/question/65982957

Driving fast also showed his contempt for any sort of authority. Soldiers toting guns in the road were a joke: pas sérieux, quel cinéma! As for the roulages, the yellow-helmet traffic cops who would leap out to bang on his windscreen and demand money for some offence he hadn’t committed, he would shout and argue with them until it came to fists, and they gave up. A cop got in his way once when he was doing a three-point turn outside a grocery store. He just kept going, with the idiot spread eagled on the bonnet.

开快车也是皮埃尔·曼贝勒蔑视所有权威的一种方式。道路上持枪巡逻的士兵简直就是个笑话：装得一本正经，像拍电影一样！对于那些头顶黄色头盔的交警，从路边跳出来敲打挡风玻璃，想以莫须有罪名讹他钱财，皮埃尔·曼贝勒则会大声呵斥，据理力争，甚至动手，直到他们认输为止。有一次，他在杂货店外三点转向时，一名警察挡住了他的去路。他只管继续开车，直接将那个白痴警察撞倒在引擎盖上，就像一只展开翅膀的老鹰。

Because he was so audacious, and had good instincts, and would go to places other drivers wouldn’t, his taxi became the car of choice for Western journalists. It was good money, $35 a day in the 1990s (though the best money came from Western tv crews, if they turned up in town). His regular passengers for years included Michela Wrong and Stephanie Wolters of Reuters, Howard French of the New York Times, Dino Mahtani of Reuters (and The Economist), on whose office sofa he would take naps, William Wallis of the Financial Times. Though he spoke no English and growled thickly in French, often just to himself, they all knew what he was grumbling about. He was the conduit through which they, and their readers, came to grasp what was happening in Congo.

皮埃尔·曼贝勒胆大心善，愿意去那些其他司机不敢去的地方。因此，他的出租车成为西方记者出行的首选。对于皮埃尔来说，载西方记者出行的收入也喜人，在20世纪90年代，能有35美金一天（当然，如果西方电视节目摄制组来到城里，他们付的车费更可观）。多年来，皮埃尔的老主顾有路透社的米凯拉·容（Michela Wrong）和斯蒂芬妮·沃尔特斯（Stephanie Wolters），《纽约时报》的霍华德·弗兰奇（Howard French），路透社（以及《经济学人》）的迪诺·马塔尼（Dino Mahtani），以及《金融时报》的威廉· 沃利斯（William Wallis）。他还曾在迪诺▪马塔尼的办公室沙发上打盹。虽然他不会说英语，法语也吐字不清，经常只是用来自顾自地吼，但是他的常客都明白他在抱怨什么。他是这些记者以及他们的读者的消息渠道，他们通过他了解刚果正在发生的大事小情。

None of it was good. C’est pas bien, c’est foutu, finger wagging angrily as he careered along. He had ulcers, his stomach hurt and his wife was divorcing him, but his country pained him more. Everyone was corrupt. Everything was screwed. In his lifetime Congo had gone from brutal Belgian colonialism to brief independence under Patrice Lumumba to dictatorship under Mobutu Sese Seko, before the Kabila clan took over. He had met Lumumba at rallies in Kisangani, and liked him. For Mobutu and his henchmen he had no time at all. Nor for the Kabilas, whose claims to be rassembleurs, unifiers, made him laugh out loud. His hopes lay with Etienne Tshisekedi, “the Sphinx”, founder of a party for democratic change without violence. But Tshisekedi never made it to president, and his son Félix managed it only by villainy, like all the rest.

他的生活一点也不顺遂。“糟透了，要完蛋了！”他气得手发抖，一边驾车飞奔，一边抱怨说。他得了胃溃疡，胃老是疼，妻子也在跟他闹离婚；然而，他的祖国伤他更深。人人都贪腐，事事都糟糕。他一生经历了刚果从残暴的比利时殖民统治到帕特里斯·卢蒙巴（Patrice Lumumba）领导下的短暂独立，再到蒙博托·塞塞·塞科（Mobutu Sese Seko）的独裁统治，然后是卡比拉（Kabila）家族掌权。皮埃尔曾在基桑加尼的集会上见过卢蒙巴，对他印象不错；对于蒙博托和他的爪牙，他无心了解，对卡比拉家族也完全没兴趣。卡比拉家族宣称要统一刚果，更让他失笑。他寄希望于长得像狮身人面像的艾蒂安·齐塞凯迪（Etienne Tshisekedi）。齐塞凯迪创立了一个政党，主张非暴力民主变革。然而，齐塞凯迪没能当上总统，他的儿子菲利克斯（Félix）虽然当选，却跟其他人一样，靠的凶残卑劣手段。

注释：

the Shinx:

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Etienne Tshisekedi was knownas the Sphinx of Limete, named after his home neighborhood of Limete inthe capital Kinshasa. Whenever the veteran opposition leader appeared tohave been outmaneuvered by his opponents, he always managed to reclaimhis place in the political arena.  

选自Obituary: Etienne Tshisekedi, 84 | Africa | DW | 02.02.2017

www.dw.com/en/obituary-etienne-tshisekedi-84/a-37380033-0

There had been one golden moment. It came in 1974, the year he started driving a taxi. Congo, then called Zaire, won the African Soccer Cup and hosted the Rumble in the Jungle, the heavyweight boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali. Kinshasa was suddenly swarming with Americans, hands full of dollars, needing a cab. Even better, one evening Ali himself, his hero, came out of the hotel. One of the younger drivers tried to spar with him, and he, Pierre, stepped between them like a referee to shout “Break! Dégage-toi!” He saw that fight, which Ali won, and loved ever after to drive his journalists past the May 20th Stadium, remembering it.

皮埃尔的出租事业也曾有过黄金时刻。那是1974年，他开出租的第一年，时称扎伊尔的刚果（金）赢得了非洲杯冠军，举办了乔治·福尔曼（George Foreman）对阵穆罕默德·阿里（Muhammad Ali）的重量级拳击比赛——“丛林之战”。突然之间，金沙萨挤满了美国人，他们手舞美元，招呼出租车。更令人记忆深刻的是，一天晚上，他的偶像阿里从格兰德大酒店出来，一位年轻的出租司机上去和阿里比试，而他，皮埃尔，则站在他们中间，像裁判那样大喊“分开！分开！” 他观看了那场比赛，阿里获胜，自那以后，每次载着他的记者乘客经过五二零体育馆时，他脑海里都浮想起当时的场景，激动不已。

He could show them other good things, too. He took many to eat fish and cassava at Maluku on the Congo river, and encouraged some to meet Papa Wendo, the ancient father of the Congolese rumba, or to listen in on meetings of intellectuals who conversed in English. He wanted to display Congo’s best side—the really impressive side, not the overweening official villas on the hill in Binza towards which the little Fiat would trundle, then expire, and need to be jump-started while the sharp suits stood and stared.

他也带记者们去看刚果的其他好东西。他带很多人去过刚果河上的马鲁古群岛上吃鱼和木薯，他还鼓励他们去见刚果伦巴舞之父温杜老爹，带领他们偷听智者们的英语会谈。他想展示刚果最好的一面，最令人印象深刻的一面，而不是宾兹（Binza）山上宏伟的官家别墅。若是他的小菲亚特真要去那儿，光上坡的路途就非常吃力，然后熄火，接着就得在西装革履的人们众目睽睽之下重新打火。

注释：

温杜老爹：安东尼•温杜•克罗索伊，刚果的河船修理工、拳击手与伦巴歌手，于2008年7月28日逝世。他十来岁便是一个河船修理工，在混浊肮脏的刚果河上来来回回地工作，无论他到哪里停靠码头，他都能给小群人唱些歌曲。经济学人讣告篇曾介绍过他。

http://club.topsage.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=1481170&ordertype=1

Some of those officials, the grosses legumes, he knew, and they gave him a certain respect, both because he kept turning up with Western journalists and because, clearly, he was fearless. This made him useful as a fixer, though he was a driver first, and ran the same risks the journalists did when he strayed into presidential compounds or, as in the 1990s, into riots. But he and the car, as its bashes showed, would drive through anything. He had to get his journalists, first, to where they wanted to go and, second, safely back again. If bad stuff happened, and they ended up hauled from the car or in jail, he would stay until he had rescued them—sometimes because he knew the right person, often by shoving and shouting. He became their protector and friend. In return they gave him money to buy a better car, but he preferred to get a cheap one and, in his chaotic style, fritter the rest away.

他认识几个官员、国家精英，而他们也对他有所尊重，不仅因为他经常和西方记者一同出现，显然还因为他无所畏惧。虽然他首先是个出租车司机，但他的勇敢令他又有了另一重调解员的身份，也让他开车闯进总统官邸或是上世纪90年代在暴动现场驾车横冲直撞时，与车上的记者们共患难。但是，他的汽车伤痕累累，证明他能驾着这辆小破车穿越任何地方。首先他必须把他的记者乘客们送达他们要去的地方，然后再平安接回来。一旦遭遇不测，记者们被拖出汽车、关进监狱，他会留下来，直到记者们得救——有时是因为他恰好认识管用的人，但大多数时候都是靠一副大嗓门和推推搡搡来救他们。他成为记者们在刚果的保护者，也成为他们的朋友。作为回报，记者们出资让他去买辆好点的车，但他宁愿买便宜的，然后浪荡不羁地把剩下的钱挥霍一空。

注释：

Les Grosses Legumes 豆类蔬菜大王，是刚果国曾崛起的精英

http://t.cn/AijMLSN4

At times he found he was thinking like a journalist himself, pushing his charges to get closer to the action when something newsworthy occurred. He wanted to be there in the sweat of it when history happened. Yet history seemed to have slowed almost to a stop in Congo. Nothing changed, and nothing would. Its leaders were idiots. The economy was bust. Some parts were given over to constant war. Fewer journalists came to cover it, so it was hardly worth waiting even outside the Grand. Il n’y a rien, il n’y a rien, he would mutter down the phone to his journalist friends who had gone home. In response they sent him clothes and money for the hospital where eventually he had to go; they had not forgotten Congo. Sadly, it seemed to him that the rest of the world had.

很多时候，他发现自己会像记者一样思考；一旦发生有报道价值的事情，他就不顾酬劳，尽量靠近事件发生地。他希望自己能亲身经历历史的重要时刻，然而，刚果的历史进程似乎慢下脚步，几乎停顿。国家没有任何改变，也看不出变化的征兆。领导人都是白痴，经济一片萧条。一些地方常年烽烟不止。过来报道的记者越来越少，甚至在格兰德大酒店外等候，也没有什么意义。他给那些已经回家的记者朋友们打电话时，会咕哝抱怨：“什么也没有，什么新闻也没有”。他们听了后，给他寄去衣服，后来他不得不住院，又为他寄去医疗费；他们并没有忘记刚果。遗憾的是，对皮埃尔来说，世界早已遗忘了刚果。

翻译组：

Alex，不务正业的理工男

Cece，消防人，经济学人粉丝

Li Xia ， 女， 我视英语为初恋，英语瞧我像备胎

校核组：

Mona，悦读悦译，以译会友

Nikolai，子承父业，蛋糕厂员工