“Okay, Oliver, later, okay,” said my mother, trying to speak his lingo, having even grown to accept her new title as Mrs. P. There was always something abrupt about that word. It wasn’t “See you later” or “Take care, now,” or even “Ciao.” Later! was a chilling, slam-dunk salutation that shoved aside all our honeyed European niceties. Later! always left a sharp aftertaste to what until then may have been a warm, heart-to-heart moment. Later! didn’t close things neatly or allow them to trail off. It slammed them shut.
 
“好，奥利弗，回头见，好。”母亲试着讲他特有的口头禅，甚至学着接受她的新头衔“教授太太”。那句话总有些唐突的成分，不是“再见”或“请保重”，甚至不是“拜拜”。“回头再说”是个冷眼鹰、给人一记重拳般的招呼，褪去了所有甜美亲昵的欧式优雅。“回头再说”总是为原本温馨美好、亲密无间的时刻留下一道尖锐苦涩的余韵。“回头再说”让事情不能灵巧利落地结束或是渐渐消失，而是戛然而止。
 
But Later! was also a way of avoiding saying goodbye, of making light of all goodbyes. You said Later! not to mean farewell but to say you’d be back in no time. It was the equivalent of his saying “Just a sec” when my mother once asked him to pass the bread and he was busy pulling apart the fish bones on his plate. “Just a sec.” My mother, who hated what she called his Americanisms, ended up calling him Il cauboi—the cowboy. It started as a putdown and soon enough became an endearment, to go along with her other nickname for him, conferred during his first week, when he came down to the dinner table after showering, his glistening hair combed back. La star, she had said, short for la muvi star. My father, always the most indulgent among us, but also the most observant, had figured the cauboi out. “É un timido, he’s shy, that’s why,” he said when asked to explain Oliver’s abrasive Later!
 
不过，“回头再说”也是一种避免说再见、淡化所有道别的方式。“回头再说”也并不算道别，而意味着立刻回来，就像有一回我母亲让奥利弗帮忙递面包，而他正忙着剔盘里的鱼刺时说的“等一下”。“等一下。”母亲很讨厌他的“美式作风”，于是唤他为“牛仔”。起初是种奚落，但不多久就变成疼爱他的表现，跟她给取的另一个外号“大明星”交替着使用。这是在他来的第一周取的，当时他刚洗完澡下楼吃晚餐，头发闪闪发亮，往后梳成大背头，母亲看到便说：“好像大明星呀！”父亲一向是我们之中最宽厚也是观察力最敏锐的，他早就看透这个“牛仔”。有人要他解释奥利弗粗鲁的“回头再说”时，他是这么说的：“他害羞，就是这么回事。”
 
Oliver timido? That was new. Could all of his gruff Americanisms be nothing more than an exaggerated way of covering up the simple fact that he didn’t know—or feared he didn’t know—how to take his leave gracefully? It reminded me of how for days he had refused to eat soft-boiled eggs in the morning. By the fourth or fifth day, Mafalda insisted he couldn’t leave the region without tasting our eggs. He finally consented, only to admit, with a touch of genuine embarrassment that he never bothered to conceal, that he didn’t know how to open a soft-boiled egg. “Lasci fare a me, Signor Ulliva, leave it to me,” she said. From that morning on and well into his stay with us, she would bring Ulliva two eggs and stop serving everyone until she had sliced open the shell of both his eggs.
 
奥利弗害羞？这可真新鲜。有没有可能他粗鲁的美式作风只是为了掩饰他不知道或生怕自己不知道如何优雅地告别？这让我想起，好几天早上他都不肯吃水煮溏心蛋。但到了第四或第五天，玛法尔达坚持说没尝过她煮的蛋不准离开。他终于答应了，却带着一点他懒得掩饰、真真切切的难为情，承认他其实不知道怎么剥开半熟蛋。“让我来吧，奥立法先生。”从那天早上起，在他与我们同住的这段期间，玛法尔达总为“奥立法”准备两颗蛋，先帮他敲开那两颗蛋的蛋壳后，才为其他人上菜。

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