招魂花 / Spirit-of-the-Dead Flowers

招魂花 金雨田	Spirit-of-the-Dead Flowers Jin Yu Tian
那個叫川又的老人，在他買下的花園裡只種牡丹，不多不少，只種580棵。“該說是580棵呢？還是580個人？”	IN his private garden, the old man, Kawamata by name, grows no other flowers but peonies, keeping exactly 580 plants. “But should I say plants or persons, to be correct?”
人？是的，是人！580個冤魂。川又大佐，在南京大屠殺中，在他令下殺的死的中國人數以萬計，“但是他真正當作樂趣，親自下手殺死的不過580人。”	Persons? Yes, surely they are humans – the spirits of 580 of his victims. During the heinous Rape of Nanking – capital of China then, Colonel Kawamata ordered the death of tens of thousands of Chinese people. “But those he personally killed for pleasure numbered no more than 580.”
逃過了戰犯審判的風頭，現身時買下了牡丹園，每一棵牡丹，代表著一個女人。原來，川又大佐只有愛殺女人的“個人興趣”。	Having escaped the trial of war criminals, Kawamata reappeared later and purchased the garden, in which he now keeps peonies, each plant representing one murdered woman. The Colonel, it transpired, had a cherished hobby of killing females exclusively.
啊！我所描述的不過是三島由紀夫的一篇小說而已。這個牡丹園主，正凝視的是一株“旭日東升”的牡丹。無辜的冤魂，仍是軍國主義者心中蒔養的花朵。“他是在以隱密的方法紀念自己的惡，還是在彰顯自己難以忘懷的惡？”	Well, I am just retelling a story by the late Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, with some direct quotes. Now the garden-owner is admiring a peony plant dubbed “the rising sun” and, as a diehard militarist, enjoying the spirits of those innocent dead like flowers that gratify his sensuality. “Is he covertly celebrating his wartime atrocities, or overtly parading his wickedness that lingers in his mind?”
後來，三島由紀夫頭裹白巾，跪地切腹，供養一朵惡之花以求永生。	Later, however, the very writer took his own life. Wearing a white headscarf, Yukio Mishima knelt down and performed the ceremonial seppuku, thus planting a flower of evil to ensure eternal life for himself.
最近冒出頭的永野茂門的花圃裡，養的則是清一色招魂花，他蒔花的秘訣，都是當年他起於個人興趣，從戰場上搜集回來的眼睛，據說，埋得滿地皆是。	Another Japanese garden, which came to light recently, keeps spirit-of-the-dead flowers alone. Shigeto Nagano, the owner-gardener, derived his horticultural recipe from another wartime hobby – he had collected eyeballs from corpses on the battlefields. Later, he buried them everywhere in the garden soil as fertiliser, it is said. (Translated by Allen Zhuang)
參見 See also：邪眼 / The Evil Eyes [原載新加坡《聯合早報》(2000)；收入《不著地族 / A Lift-Off People》(潘正鐳著、Allen Zhuang 英譯；Singapore: All Publishing House, 2002)]