The Lost Father

失散的父亲

In the meantime, Mona Simpson had been trying to track down their father, who had wandered off when she was five. Through Ken Auletta and Nick Pileggi, prominent Manhattan writers, she was introduced to a retired New York cop who had formed his own detective agency. “I paid him what little money I had,” Simpson recalled, but the search was unsuccessful. Then she met another private eye in California, who was able to find an address for Abdulfattah Jandali in Sacramento through a Department of Motor Vehicles search. Simpson told her brother and flew out from New York to see the man who was apparently their father.

当时，莫娜·辛普森一直在努力寻找他们的父亲，他在她五岁的时候就离开了。通过曼哈顿两位知名作家肯·奥莱塔和尼克·派勒吉（NickPileggi），她结识了一位退休后开侦探所的前纽约警察。“我把当时仅有的一点儿钱都给他了。”辛普森回忆说，可是并没有找到她父亲。后来她在加利福尼亚遇到另一位私家侦探，通过机动车管理局捜索到了阿卜杜勒法塔赫·钱德里在萨克拉门托的一个地址。辛普森通知了哥哥，然后从纽约飞过去找他，显然，那是她的父亲。

Jobs had no interest in meeting him. “He didn’t treat me well,” he later explained. “I don’t hold anything against him—I’m happy to be alive. But what bothers me most is that he didn’t treat Mona well. He abandoned her.” Jobs himself had abandoned his own illegitimate daughter, Lisa, and now was trying to restore their relationship, but that complexity did not soften his feelings toward Jandali. Simpson went to Sacramento alone.

乔布斯对见他丝毫不感兴趣。“他没有善待我，”他后来解释，“我并不是对他有意见——我很高兴我活下来了。最让我不满的是他对莫娜不好。他拋弃了她。”乔布斯自己也抛弃了私生女丽萨，当时还正在试图恢复父女之间的关系，但这并没有减轻他对钱德里的反感。辛普森一个人去了萨克拉门托。

“It was very intense,” Simpson recalled. She found her father working in a small restaurant. He seemed happy to see her, yet oddly passive about the entire situation. They talked for a few hours, and he recounted that, after he left Wisconsin, he had drifted away from teaching and gotten into the restaurant business.

“当时非常紧张。”辛普森回忆道。她发现父亲在一家小餐馆工作。他见到她似乎很高兴，但是对整个局面都表现得很被动。他们聊了几个小时，他讲述了离开威斯康星之后，他如何从教书转到了餐饮生意。他的第二次婚姻很短暂，之后又跟一个有钱的年长些的女人有过一段长一些的婚姻，但再没有过孩子。

Jobs had asked Simpson not to mention him, so she didn’t. But at one point her father casually remarked that he and her mother had had another baby, a boy, before she had been born. “What happened to him?” she asked. He replied, “We’ll never see that baby again. That baby’s gone.” Simpson recoiled but said nothing.

乔布斯之前告诉辛普森不要提起他，所以她只字未提。但是她父亲不经意地提到，在她之前，他和她母亲还曾经有过一个男孩。“他怎么样了？”她问。他答道：“我们再也没见过那个孩子。他不在了。”辛普森犹豫了一下，没说什么。

An even more astonishing revelation occurred when Jandali was describing the previous restaurants that he had run. There had been some nice ones, he insisted, fancier than the Sacramento joint they were then sitting in. He told her, somewhat emotionally, that he wished she could have seen him when he was managing a Mediterranean restaurant north of San Jose. “That was a wonderful place,” he said. “All of the successful technology people used to come there. Even Steve Jobs.” Simpson was stunned. “Oh, yeah, he used to come in, and he was a sweet guy, and a big tipper,” her father added. Mona was able to refrain from blurting out, Steve Jobs is your son!

接下来还有更惊人的。钱德里描述他曾经经营过的餐馆，强调说曾经有些很不错，比现在萨克拉门托的这个要漂亮。他有点儿激动地说，真希望她能看到他在圣何塞北部经营的那个地中海餐厅。“那个地方真棒，”他说，“所有科技界的成功人士都会去那儿，甚至包括史蒂夫·乔布斯。”辛普森惊呆了。“是真的，他来过，而且他很友善，小费给得很多。”她爸爸接着说。莫娜强忍着没有脱口而出，史蒂夫·乔布斯是你儿子！

When the visit was over, she called Jobs surreptitiously from the pay phone at the restaurant and arranged to meet him at the Espresso Roma café in Berkeley. Adding to the personal and family drama, he brought along Lisa, now in grade school, who lived with her mother, Chrisann. When they all arrived at the café, it was close to 10 p.m., and Simpson poured forth the tale. Jobs was understandably astonished when she mentioned the restaurant near San Jose. He could recall being there and even meeting the man who was his biological father. “It was amazing,” he later said of the revelation. “I had been to that restaurant a few times, and I remember meeting the owner. He was Syrian. Balding. We shook hands.”

跟父亲告别后，她偷偷用餐馆的付费电话打给她哥哥，安排在伯克利的罗马咖啡厅（ExpressoRoma）见面。像是述嫌这个家庭的故事不够丰富多彩，他届然把丽萨也带来了。丽萨已经上小学了，跟她妈妈克里斯安生活在一起。他们到咖啡厅时，已经快晚上10点了，辛普森把故事一股脑儿地讲了出来。当她提到圣何塞附近那家餐厅时，可想而知乔布斯大吃一惊。他还记得去过那儿甚至还见到了他的生父。“这真是神奇，”他后来谈道，“我去过那家餐厅几次，而且我记得见到了老板。他是叙利亚人。我们还握过手。”

Nevertheless Jobs still had no desire to see him. “I was a wealthy man by then, and I didn’t trust him not to try to blackmail me or go to the press about it,” he recalled. “I asked Mona not to tell him about me.”

尽管如此，乔布斯还是不想见他。“那时我已经很富有了，我不敢肯定他会不会来敲诈我或是去跟媒体说什么，”他回忆道，“我让莫娜别跟他谈起我。”