Iraq’s children
伊拉克儿童

Saving the orphans
救救孤儿们
Jun 4th 2009
From The Economist print edition

                                                                                   Panos

BLESSED with courage, humanity, a Lebanese background and the support of a British newspaper, Hala Jaber had the credentials to spell out the true ugliness of “collateral damage” in the Iraqi war. When the Sunday Times, among other newspapers, established a fund to help injured civilians, Ms Jaber and her photographer husband Steve set out to find stories that would pierce hearts and empty wallets. It was an all too easy commission.

Hala Jaber完全有能力和资格揭露伊战对平民的伤害中所蕴含的真实的丑恶性，因为她不仅有着黎巴嫩的背景，并富有勇气和人性，还得到了英国报纸的支持。星期日泰晤士报，和其他报纸一起成立了一个基金会帮助受伤的平民，Jaber女士和他的摄影师丈夫史蒂夫出发寻找刺痛心灵和倾尽钱财的故事。实在是一个太简单的任务。

In one hospital, a young boy, with both his arms missing, was the sole survivor when an American missile crashed into his family’s farmhouse. “Will I get my arms back?” he asks Ms Jaber. “What about my hands?” Nearby a weeping grandmother sits beside a little girl wrapped in bandages. Another American missile had hit the car in which her parents and their seven children were fleeing danger in Baghdad. They were all killed except for the little girl and her baby sister, who had been thrown through the window by her burning mother.

一枚美国导弹爆炸在一个小男孩家的农舍，他失去了双臂，是唯一的幸存者，正呆在一家医院里。“我还能得回我的双臂吗？”他问Jaber女士。“那我的双手呢？”一个包着绷带的小女孩坐在一个低垂着头的祖母身边问道。另一个美国导弹殃及了一辆小汽车，小女孩的父母和七个孩子在巴格达逃难。除了这个小女孩和还是个婴儿的妹妹以外，她的父母和其他孩子都死了，妹妹还是被烧伤的妈妈抛出窗外的。

Such horrors could be too strong meat. Ms Jaber places them in the framework of a narrative about her own childlessness. Living in Britain, she had tried hard to conceive and had undergone several IVF cycles. After ten years she gave up and returned to reporting from the Middle East. The Iraqi orphans reawoke her maternal longing and, for the first time, she thought seriously of adoption. When those hopes received an awful setback, she dealt with her unhappiness and guilt by plunging ever deeper into journalism, covering the insurgency and the brutal civil fighting that followed the invasion.

如此恐怖的事情也许是非常不错的故事素材。Jaber女士将这些故事放到一个关于她自己没有孩子的叙事故事框架中。在英国生活时，她很努力的去尝试怀孕，并且经历了几个试管受精周期。十年后她放弃了，而转专注于从中东发回报道。伊拉克的孤儿唤起了她内心的渴望，并且她第一次认真考虑了领养的事情。当这些希望都受到了令人灰心的挫折后，为了调整不愉快的心情并减少罪恶感，她更加深入到新闻业中去，报道了美国入侵之后，伊拉克国内的暴乱和血腥内讧。

She felt “seized with a sense of mission, a duty to bear witness to the havoc wreaked by war on the lives of the innocents.” In fulfilling this mission she was brave, foolhardy even, travelling more or less unescorted to areas where most correspondents feared to go in convoy. Deservedly, she won several prestigious awards. She met outstanding people, above all Marla, a blonde Californian, who single-handedly outfaced the authorities as she strove to save children, until she herself was killed by a car bomb. And some of her stories are almost funny. Just before Fallujah was blitzed by the Americans, she was allowed to “embed” herself with the insurgents only by promising to cook their evening meal (it was Ramadan). She struggled with “the ultimate kitchen nightmare” to produce an inventive dinner. But drama descended into farce when she discovered that her period had started, for which she had none of the necessary supplies. She fled back to Baghdad, her embarrassment saving her from probable death in the bombardment.

她有种被赋予使命的感觉，有责任为无辜生命被战争摧毁的事实作证。在完成这个任务时，她是勇敢的甚至是莽撞的，那些大多数记者即使有人陪同也惧怕去的地方，她也敢单枪匹马去。当然，她赢得了最受尊敬的奖励。她遇到过非常了不起的人，尤其是玛勒（Marla)，一个来自加州的白肤金发碧眼的女人，当玛勒坚持要救孩子时，敢于单独面对当局，最后她自己在一次汽车炸弹爆炸中不幸遇难。她的一些故事很有趣。就在美国对费卢杰进行猛烈空袭时，她可以混在叛乱者队伍中，只要玛勒保证每天给他们做晚餐（当时是斋月）。她努力与“最可怕的厨房噩梦”作斗争，提供一顿具有创意的晚餐。但是戏剧突然转变为闹剧，当她发现她快要来月经时，她没有必备的女性卫生用品。她又逃回了巴格达，正是她的这场尴尬救了自己，否则很有可能会命丧爆炸中。

Ms Jaber’s self-examination is sometimes irritating but her theme is devastating. She recounts few happy endings, even for the children who were helped by charities. The little girl dies in an American field hospital which had to improvise its paediatric equipment. The armless boy was plucked out of his plundered hospital and sent to Britain for generous treatment and education. But years later Ms Jaber finds him back in Baghdad, his exams unfinished and without the prosthetics which he found too heavy. He had leave to stay in Britain and had learnt to do a lot with his toes. But not everything; and his uncle, who was prepared to care for him, had been refused a visa by mean-spirited British officialdom.

Jaber女士的反省有时很令人恼怒，但她的主题确实很引人注目。她详细叙述了少之又少的美好结局，尽管也只是对于孩子们来说，只因为孩子们得到了慈善机构的帮助。一个小女孩死在了一个美国野战医院里，该医院的儿科设备必须得改善。失去双臂的小男孩被从野战医院里推出来，并送到了英国，接受良好的治疗和教育。然而，几年之后，Jaber女士发现他又回到了巴格达，他的考试还没结束，也没有做弥补术，因为他觉得义肢太重而没有装上。他留在英国，学着用他脚趾做许多事情。不过，并不是所有的事情；他的叔叔准备照顾他，然而，铁石心肠的英国官员拒签了他叔叔的签证。

The Flying Carpet of Small Miracles: A Woman’s Fight to Save Two Orphans
By Hala Jaber

Riverhead Books; 282 pages; $25.95. Macmillan; £16.99

Buy it at
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Amazon.co.uk

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