River, Cross My heart River, Cross My heart
Breena Clarke, 1999, OPRAH'S Book Club
＊brass ring
Alice knew she was still able to work hard, was still a clear thinker,
was still pretty enough. But there had recently come about a transference.
She had come to a kind of resignation that real progress was not going
to come in time for her to really latch on to it. Johnnie Mae would
get it. Johnnie Mae would be coming around just in time for the brass ring. And what there was chiefly for Alice and Willie to do was to make sure Johnnie Mae was ready. They would prepare her - be sure she'd be able to reach for it. Johnnie Mae must be able to finish school, must go all the way through. Maybe she'd go on after high school to a college? Maybe she would find work as a teacher or a nurse? Alice's dreams took on an ever-rising spiral.
【全訳例】
アリスは今でも，充分働け，頭もしっかりしており，充分に器量もいいと思っていた．しかし，最近，変化も見えてきた．本当の進歩というものは，自分がしっかりつかむようには来ないかもしれない，という一種のあきらめが出てきたのだ．ジョニーメイはつかむだろう．ジョニーメイは成功の輪を手にするだろう．そして，アリスとウィリーの主な仕事はジョニーメイの準備を整えてあげることだ．二人は彼女の準備をするだろう．確実にそれに手が届くように．ジョニーメイは学校を卒業しなければならない．やりぬかなければならない．ひょっとしたら，高校卒業後，大学へ行くだろうか？教師か看護婦になるだろうか？アリスの夢は際限のない上昇カーブを描いた．
brass ring 真鍮（しんちゅう）の輪;《比喩》機会;成功;褒美.昔の遊園地のゲームから.
noun slang. An opportunity to
achieve wealth or success; a prize or reward.
She pulled Willie into the room while clapping him hard on the back. "You got you a boy, Willie! You got a son!" Willie,the fifth wheel in the proceedings, had sat by himself in the kitchen the whole long night. He sat thinkingabout Clara and Big Mama and Merle.
WillieはAliceの夫．Claraが死んでから，次の子供の出産を決意．ここはその赤ちゃんが生まれる場面．
女性の出産の場面では男はほとんど役立たず．ということで，「予備の車輪; めったに使わないもの,
無用の長物」（活用英和辞典）
She wanted to sigh, to expel a long, slow chestful of air. But sighing annoyed her mother so. Mama disapproved of it as a behavior for young girls. She never sighed herself and she never let one of Johnnie Mae's sighs go unnoticed. "Sighing will age you," she said now, going back into a closet of aphorisms and mother-wit mumbo jumbo.
「ため息をすると年をとる」 なんか，ドキッとする格言(aphorisms and mother-wit mumbo jumbo)ですね．
自分もしないし，娘にも「ため息はつかせない」
私もそうありたいものです．
Johnnie Mae's favorite picnic game was the three-legged race, but she'd made herself scarce and hadn't been chosen for a team.
物語の後半部分．白人専用のプールで泳ぎたいばかりに，深夜にプールに侵入．そのことがばれてしまいジョニーメイは謹慎中．
「ジョニーメイの好きなゲームは二人三脚だったが，彼女は目立たないようにしており，チームに選ばれていなかった」
make oneself scarce 《略式》（通例めんどうな［ばつの悪い］事態を避けるため）立ち去る,姿を消す
I'll make myself ～ now. このあたりで退散しよう.
