在马萨诸塞州的伍斯特，我陪康斯韦洛阿姨去看牙医，坐在牙医的候诊室里等她。那是冬天。天很早就黑了。候诊室里挤满了成年人，有北极、大衣、灯和杂志。姑妈在里面呆了似乎很长一段时间，我一边等着看《国家地理》(我能读)，一边仔细研究照片:火山内部，黑色，满是灰烬;然后它就像火的小溪一样溢出来了。奥萨和马丁·约翰逊穿着马裤，系鞋带的靴子，戴着木髓头盔。一个死人挂在一根杆子上，上面写着“长猪”。尖尖的脑袋被绳子绕着一圈又一圈的婴儿;黑色的裸体女人，脖子上缠着一圈又一圈的电线，就像灯泡的脖子。 Their breasts were horrifying. I read it right straight through. I was too shy to stop. And then I looked at the cover: the yellow margins, the date. Suddenly, from inside, came an oh! of pain --Aunt Consuelo's voice-- not very loud or long. I wasn't at all surprised; even then I knew she was a foolish, timid woman. I might have been embarrassed, but wasn't. What took me completely by surprise was that it was me: my voice, in my mouth. Without thinking at all I was my foolish aunt, I--we--were falling, falling, our eyes glued to the cover of the National Geographic, February, 1918. I said to myself: three days and you'll be seven years old. I was saying it to stop the sensation of falling off the round, turning world. into cold, blue-black space. But I felt: you are an I, you are an Elizabeth, you are one of them. Why should you be one, too? I scarcely dared to look to see what it was I was. I gave a sidelong glance --I couldn't look any higher-- at shadowy gray knees, trousers and skirts and boots and different pairs of hands lying under the lamps. I knew that nothing stranger had ever happened, that nothing stranger could ever happen. Why should I be my aunt, or me, or anyone? What similarities boots, hands, the family voice I felt in my throat, or even the National Geographic and those awful hanging breasts held us all together or made us all just one? How I didn't know any word for it how "unlikely". . . How had I come to be here, like them, and overhear a cry of pain that could have got loud and worse but hadn't? The waiting room was bright and too hot. It was sliding beneath a big black wave, another, and another. Then I was back in it. The War was on. Outside, in Worcester, Massachusetts, were night and slush and cold, and it was still the fifth of February, 1918.