No Other Choice—别无选择（乔治·布莱克）（第二章~end）
Two days later I was reunited with my mother and sisters after our first long separation. There were to be many more in later life, some much longer and more painful, but always carrying with them the hope and joy of a reunion.
【两天后，在我们第一次长期分居后，我与母亲和妹妹们团聚。 以后的生活还有很多这样的重逢，有些更长，更痛苦，但总是带着重逢的希望和喜悦。】
The summer passed quickly. In September I left again to join the Bruse Jarl in Antwerp for the return journey to Egypt and school.
【夏天很快就过去了。 9 月，我再次离开，登上安特卫普的布鲁斯·贾尔号，返回埃及和学校。】
Having learned to express myself freely in French, the language spoken at home, my uncle and aunt were of the opinion that the next step should be for me to learn to speak English fluently, all the more so as I was a British subject. There was an excellent English school in Cairo, for the children of British officials serving in Egypt, but attended by children from other communities as well. I was sent there to prepare for the London University matriculation examinations. I was much happier at this school than I had been at the French Lycee and felt more at home. The school was run on the lines of an English public school though most of the boys were day boys. The masters wore gowns, there were prefects, morning prayers and corporal punishment. I acquired several good friends there, among them an American boy of Dutch extraction. He loved English literature and under his influence I became a great fan of Dickens. I read nearly all his works, which I liked all the more at that time for the contrast they offered with the life around me in Egypt. Other friends I made were an Irish-American boy and girl who lived nearby, the children of the Greek Ambassador, who were cousins -of my cousin Henri's best friend and through whom I met the children of the Dutch Ambassador, a boy and a girl of my age. We used to meet at each other's houses, listen to music, play games and talk. The wives of the representatives of Phillips also took an interest in me which enabled me to spend the occasional afternoon in a Dutch atmosphere.
【在学会了用法语自由交流之后，我的姑父和姑姑认为下一步应该让我学会说流利的英语，尤其是我是英国人。开罗有一所知名的英语学校，为在埃及工作的英国官员的孩子开设，但也有来自其他社区的孩子上学。我在这所学校比在法国中学快乐得多，而且感觉更自在。这所学校是按照英国公立学校的路线开办的，尽管大多数男孩都是走读生。老师们穿着长袍，有年级长，晨祷和体罚。我在那里结识了几个好朋友，其中包括一个荷兰血统的美国男孩。他热爱英国文学，在他的影响下，我成了狄更斯的忠实粉丝。我几乎读了他所有的作品，当时我非常喜欢这些作品，因为它们与我在埃及的生活形成了鲜明的对比。我结交的其他朋友是住在附近的爱尔兰裔美国男孩与女孩，希腊大使的孩子，他们是我表弟亨利最好朋友的堂兄弟，通过他们我认识了荷兰大使的孩子。我们曾经在彼此的家里见面，听音乐，玩游戏，聊天。菲利普斯的大使的妻子也对我很感兴趣，这使我能够偶尔在荷兰的氛围中度过一个下午。】
Looking back now, I am sure that I lived through an identity crisis in those years. Where did I belong? A Jewish cosmopolitan home, an English school, which reflected the glory of British imperial power of which I also felt a part and in my heart, all the time, a longing for Holland and all things Dutch.
【现在回想起来，我确信那些年我经历过身份危机。 我属于哪里？ 一个犹太大都会的家，一所英语学校，它反映了英国皇权的荣耀，我也感受到我是其中的一部分，而在我的心中，我无时无刻不在向往着荷兰与荷兰的一切。】
I was a very religious boy and always went to church on Sundays, sometimes even twice. The first year I spent in Egypt I was not able to do this because I could not follow the service, but the second year, when I began to speak English well, I started going to the American Reformed church, where the services were most like those in the Dutch Church. Later I also liked going to the Anglican cathedral, being much attracted by the beauty of the liturgy. In my uncle's library I had found a large French Bible which I took to my room and from which I read a chapter every morning and evening. My aunts did not put any obstacles in the way of my going to church. On the contrary, they rather welcomed it. They never tried to convert me to Judaism. Only once was the question raised in a rather casual way and when I politely declined it was never referred to again. I could not imagine, how, having known and recognised the Messiah, one could go back to not knowing and recognising Him. Otherwise the fact that I had Jewish blood did not worry me. On the contrary I was rather proud of it. It seemed to me that I was now twice elect; once by birth through the promise made to Abraham and once by grace through redemption by the blood of Christ.
【我是一个非常虔诚的男孩，周日总是去教堂，有时甚至两次。我在埃及度过的第一年我无法做到这一点，因为我无法参加礼拜，但是第二年，当我开始说一口流利的英语时，我开始去美国归正教会，那里的礼拜最像荷兰教会的人。后来我也喜欢去圣公会教堂，被美丽的礼仪所吸引。在我叔叔的图书馆里，我找到了一本很大的法语圣经，我把它带到我的房间里，每天早晚都要读一章。我的姑姑们没有给我去教堂的路上设置任何障碍。相反，她们对此表示欢迎。她们从未试图让我皈依犹太教。只有一次以相当随意的方式提出了这个问题，当我礼貌地拒绝时，它就再也没有被提及过。我无法想象，在认识和认出弥赛亚之后，一个人怎么会回到不认识和认出他的状态。其实，我对我有犹太人血统这一事实并不担心。相反，我对此感到相当自豪。我现在似乎是两次选择:一次是通过对亚伯拉罕的应许而出生，一次是通过基督的宝血的救赎。】
My religious fervour was increased through my heated discussions with my cousin Henri. He was my aunt's youngest son and studying law at Cairo University. Tall and extremely thin he had at that age already a slight stoop. He had wavy black hair, a pale complexion and well defined features. Immense charm and a dazzling smile made him very attractive, not only to women, but to all who met him. His principal interest was politics and left-wing politics at that. It was the misery of the Egyptian people, which he had seen around him since his childhood, that motivated him. He had been introduced to the works of Marx and Lenin by his elder brother Raoul who himself, however, remained a social-democrat throughout his life and was at that time a young protege of Leon Blum, the French Prime Minister, of the Front Populaire. Henri saw the only solution to Egypt's ills in Communism and used his considerable skills, acquired from his Jesuit schoolmasters, to propagate the faith. Later he became a co-founder of the Egyptian Communist Party and spent many years in prison. After being expelled from Egypt, he settled in France, where he became deeply involved in support for the Algerian war of liberation. He was also very active in seeking a rapprochement between the Israelis and the Palestine Liberation Movement. He was murdered in Paris in 1978 by right-wing extremists.
【通过与表弟亨利的激烈讨论，我的宗教热情增加了。他是我姑姑最小的儿子，在开罗大学学习法律。那个年纪的他又高又瘦，已经有点驼背了。他有一头卷曲的黑发，苍白的肤色和清晰的五官。巨大的魅力和耀眼的笑容使他非常有吸引力，不仅对女性，而且对所有遇到他的人。他的主要兴趣是政治和左翼政治。正是他从小就在他身边看到的埃及人民的苦难激励了他。他的哥哥拉乌尔向他介绍了马克思和列宁的著作，而拉乌尔本人终生都是社会民主党人，当时是法国总理莱昂·布鲁姆（的年轻门生。亨利看到了埃及弊病的唯一解决方案，并利用他从耶稣会校长那里获得的可观技能来传播信仰。后来他成为埃及共产党的联合创始人，并在监狱中度过了多年。在被驱逐出埃及后，他定居在法国，在那里他深入参与了对阿尔及利亚解放战争的支持。他还非常积极地寻求以色列人和巴勒斯坦解放运动之间的和解。他于 1978 年在巴黎被右翼极端分子谋杀。】
Although he was eight years older than me he liked talking to me and sometimes took me with him when he visited the peasants on his father's large estate fifty miles outside Cairo. Their living conditions were miserable. Most of them suffered from eye disease and bilharzia. Henri always took large quantities of eye lotion and medicines with him which he handed out to the peasants and their families. His father did not approve of this at all and, generally, disliked his left-wing views. It was not that he was not a kind man and he gave generously to Jewish charitable works, but his charity did not extend to the Egyptian fellah. Anyway that would have been a hopeless undertaking. Henri soon began to realise this himself. Handing out eye lotion wasn't the right remedy. It was necessary to change the whole system. Only political action was truly effective.
【虽然他比我大八岁，但他喜欢和我交谈，有时在他父亲在开罗以外 50 英里的大庄园里拜访农民时，还带我一起去。 他们的生活条件很糟糕。 他们中的大多数人患有眼病和血吸虫病。 亨利总是随身携带大量的眼药水和药品，分发给农民和他们的家人。 他的父亲根本不赞成这一点，而且总体上不喜欢他的左翼观点。 并不是说他不是一个善良的人，他慷慨地为犹太人的慈善事业捐款，但他的慈善事业并没有延伸到埃及人身上。 无论如何，那将是一项无望的事业。 亨利很快就开始意识到这一点。 分发眼药水不是正确的补救措施。 有必要改变整个系统。 只有政治行动才是真正有效的。】
I liked him very much and got on very well with him, but his example and the discussions I had with him had little or no influence on me. On the contrary it called forth strong opposition. It was not that I was insensitive to the sufferings of the Egyptian poor, though I tended in those days to look upon this more as a traditional aspect of the oriental scene than as a great social evil which could be remedied. Nor could I deny that the Communist ideals were in many ways admirable. But there was for me one insurmountable obstacle to accepting his views. Communism was the declared enemy of God and wherever it had triumphed, be it in the Soviet Union or in the Spanish Republic (it was the time of the Spanish Civil War), it had relentlessly persecuted the Christian churches and their ministers. This alone was enough for me to condemn it utterly and doom it for ever. All my cousin's arguments in the end butted on this point. If, when I later joined the Secret Service, the check on my background ever revealed that I had been close to my Communist cousin, I have no idea. If it did, then the Service never raised it with me. And of course, in 1943, the enemy was Germany and not the Soviet Union, so it would have made no difference anyway.
【我非常喜欢他，和他相处得很好，但他举的例子和我与他的讨论对我影响甚微或根本没有影响。相反，它引起了我强烈的反对。并不是说我对埃及穷人的苦难漠不关心，当时我倾向于将其视为东方里必然出现的场景，而不是可以补救的巨大社会弊端。我也不能否认共产主义理想在很多方面都是令人钦佩的。但对我来说，接受他的观点有一个不可逾越的障碍。共产主义被宣布为上帝的敌人，无论它在苏联还是在西班牙共和国（西班牙内战时期）取得了胜利，它都无情地宣判了基督教及牧师的死刑。仅此一点就足以让我彻底谴责它并永远毁灭它。我表弟的所有论点最后都针对这一点。如果，当我后来加入特勤局时，我的背景调查显示我和我的共产党表弟关系密切，如果确实如此，那么该组织从未向我提出过。当然，在 1943 年，敌人是德国而不是苏联，所以无论如何也没什么区别。】
Thus I lived for three years, spending the winters in Egypt and the summers partly at sea on the Bmse Jarl, which I always managed to catch, and partly with my mother and sisters in Holland. Then came the summer of 1939. I had passed my end-of-term exams well with prizes for History and Latin. I had moved up to the sixth form and was due to sit for the London University matriculation examination the following spring. I was sixteen and enjoying life. I had spent a pleasant summer staying with various relatives and was due to sail for Egypt again in a week's time. Then came the news that the German forces had entered Poland. Two days later on a Sunday morning, drinking a cup of coffee with my mother and sisters after church, I heard Mr Chamberlain announcing that war had been declared. I wondered then how its end would find us. Would I come out of it alive? At once it was decided that I should not return to Egypt. The times being so dangerous, the future so uncertain, my mother felt that we should all stay together. I did not offer much resistance. Deep in my heart I was pleased that it was now possible to resume what I thought was going to be my normal life.
【就这样我住了三年，冬天在埃及度过，夏天则部分在布鲁斯·贾尔号的海上度过，部分时间和我在荷兰的母亲和妹妹们一起度过。然后是 1939 年夏天，我顺利通过了期末考试，并获得了历史和拉丁语的奖项。我已经升入中六，并准备参加次年春天的伦敦大学预科考试。我十六岁，享受生活。我和各种亲戚一起度过了一个愉快的夏天，一周后就要再次启程前往埃及。随后传来德国军队进入波兰的消息。两天后的星期天早上，我和我的母亲和妹妹们在教堂后喝了一杯咖啡，听到张伯伦先生宣布已经宣战。那时我想知道它的结局会如何找到我们。我会活着出来吗？我立刻决定不回埃及。时代如此危险，未来如此不确定，我妈妈觉得我们都应该在一起。在我的内心深处，我很高兴现在可以恢复我认为的正常生活。】
