《渺小一生》:“钱的事情，我们讨论过了。

　 They’re not completely certain if Malcolm is actually getting married or not. They think he is. Over the past three years, he and Sophie have broken up and gotten back together, and broken up, and gotten back together. But in the past year, Malcolm has had conversations with Willem about weddings, and does Willem think they’re an indulgence or not; and with JB about jewelry, and when women say they don’t like diamonds, do they really mean it, or are they just testing the way it sounds; and with him about prenuptial agreements.

他们还不确定马尔科姆是不是真的要结婚，只是认为他会而已。过去三年来，马尔科姆和苏菲分手又复合，接着又分手，然后又复合。但过去一年，马尔科姆找威廉谈过婚礼的事情，还问威廉会不会觉得婚礼是一种迁就；又问杰比关于珠宝的事情，问女人说她们不喜欢钻石时，是真的这么想、还是只是说着玩的；还找他询问婚前协议书的事情。

　 He had answered Malcolm’s questions as best as he could, and then had given him the name of a classmate from law school, a matrimonial attorney. “Oh,” Malcolm had said, moving backward, as if he had offered him the name of a professional assassin. “I’m not sure I need this yet, Jude.”

他尽力回答马尔科姆的问题，然后给了他一个法学院同学的名字，是一位婚姻法律师。“啊，”马尔科姆当时说，身子往后退，好像他要告诉他的是职业杀手的名字，“我不确定我目前有这个需要，裘德。”

　 “All right,” he said, and withdrew the card, which Malcolm seemed unwilling to even touch. “Well, if and when you do, just ask.”

“好吧。”他说，收回那张马尔科姆连碰都不想碰的名片，“唔，哪天要是你需要，问我一声就是了。”

　 And then, a month ago, Malcolm had asked if he could help him pick out a suit. “I don’t even really have one, isn’t that nuts?” he asked. “Don’t you think I should have one? Don’t you think I should start looking, I don’t know, more grown-up or something? Don’t you think it’d be good for business?”

一个月前，马尔科姆问他能不能帮他挑一套西装。“我连一套西装都没有，这样是不是很夸张？”他问，“你不觉得我应该有一套西装吗？你不觉得我应该让自己看起来，我不知道，比较成人或什么的？你不觉得这样应该对生意有帮助？”

　 “I think you look great, Mal,” he said. “And I don’t think you need any help on the business front. But if you want one, sure, I’m happy to help you.”

“小马，我觉得你看起来好得很，”他说，“而且我不觉得你在生意上还需要什么帮助。但是如果你想买一套西装，没问题，我很乐意帮你。”

　 “Thanks,” said Malcolm. “I mean, I just think it’s something I should have. You know, just in case something comes up.” He paused. “I can’t believe you have a suitmaker, by the way.”

“谢了。”马尔科姆说，“我的意思是，我只是觉得自己应该有一套西装。你知道，以防有什么需要。”他暂停一下，“顺带讲一声，我不敢相信你有个西装师傅。”

　 He smiled. “He’s not my suitmaker,” he said. “He’s just someone who makes suits, and some of them happen to be mine.”

他微笑，“他不是我的西装师傅。”他说，“他只是专门做西装，而某些西装碰巧是我的。”

　 “God,” said Malcolm, “Harold really created a monster.”

“老天，”马尔科姆说，“哈罗德真的创造了一个怪物。”

　 He laughed, obligingly. But he often feels as if a suit is the only thing that makes him look normal. For the months he was in a wheelchair, those suits were a way of reassuring his clients that he was competent and, simultaneously, of reassuring himself that he belonged with the others, that he could at least dress the way they did. He doesn’t consider himself vain, but rather scrupulous: when he was a child, the boys from the home would occasionally play baseball games with the boys from the local school, who would taunt them, pinching their noses as they walked onto the field. “Take a bath!” they would shout. “You smell! You smell!” But they did bathe: they had mandatory showers every morning, pumping the greasy pink soap into their palms and onto washcloths and sloughing off their skin while one of the counselors walked back and forth before the row of showerheads, cracking one of the thin towels at the boys who were misbehaving, or shouting at the ones who weren’t cleaning themselves with enough vigor. Even now, he has a horror of repulsing, by being unkempt, or dirty, or unsightly. “You’ll always be ugly, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be neat,” Father Gabriel used to tell him, and although Father Gabriel was wrong about many things, he knows he was right about this.

他忍不住大笑。他常常觉得，好像只有西装能让他看起来比较正常。坐轮椅的那几个月，那些西装能再度向他的客户保证他很能干，同时也向自己再度保证他是公司的一分子，至少可以穿得跟其他人一样。他并不觉得自己虚荣，而是一丝不苟。小时候在少年之家，他们偶尔会跟当地学校的男学生打棒球赛。每回他们走上场，那些男学生总是捏着鼻子嘲笑他们：“去洗个澡吧！”他们会大叫，“你们好臭！你们好臭！”但他们确实会洗澡：按规定，他们每天早上都要淋浴，把黏答答的粉红色沐浴乳挤在手掌和毛巾上，然后搓洗皮肤，同时会有一个辅导员在莲蓬头前方走来走去地巡视，拿着薄毛巾抽打那些不乖的男生，或者朝不够认真洗澡的人大吼。即使到现在，他还是很怕自己邋遢、肮脏或难看。“你永远会很丑，但这不代表你不能干净点。”加布里埃尔神父以前总是这么告诉他。尽管加布里埃尔神父对很多事情的看法都是错的，但他知道这点他说得没错。

　 Malcolm arrives and hugs him hello and then begins, as he always does, surveying the space, telescoping his long neck and rotating in a slow circle around the room, his gaze like a lighthouse’s beam, making little assessing noises as he does.

马尔科姆来了，跟他拥抱打招呼后，就像往常那样开始审视整间公寓，伸着长脖子，缓缓转着圈，目光像灯塔的光，边转还边喃喃发出评论。

　 He answers Malcolm’s question before he can ask it: “Next month, Mal.”

他在马尔科姆开口提问前就先回答了：“小马，下个月。”

　 “You said that three months ago.”

“你三个月前就这么说了。”

　 “I know. But now I really mean it. Now I have the money. Or I will, at the end of this month.”

“我知道。但是现在我是认真的。现在我有钱了，或者这个月底就会有了。”

　 “But we discussed this.”

“钱的事情，我们讨论过了。”

　 “I know. And Malcolm—it’s so unbelievably generous of you. But I’m not going to not pay you.”

“我知道。你真是太慷慨了，但是我不能不付你钱。”

　 He has lived in the apartment for more than four years now, and for four years, he’s been unable to renovate it because he hasn’t had the money, and he hasn’t had the money because he was paying off the apartment. In the meantime, Malcolm has drawn up plans, and walled off the bedrooms, and helped him choose a sofa, which sits, a gray spacecraft, in the center of the living room, and fixed some minor problems, including the floors. “That’s crazy,” he had told Malcolm at the time. “You’re going to have to redo it entirely once the renovation’s done.” But Malcolm had said he’d do it anyway; the floor dye was a new product he wanted to try, and until he was ready to begin work, Greene Street would be his laboratory, where he could do a little experimentation, if he didn’t mind (and he didn’t, of course). But otherwise the apartment is still very much as it was when he moved in: a long rectangle on the sixth floor of a building in southern SoHo, with windows at either end, one set facing west and the other facing east, as well as the entire southern wall, which looks over a parking lot. His room and bathroom are at the eastern-facing end, which looks onto the top of a stubby building on Mercer Street; Willem’s rooms—or what he continues to think of as Willem’s rooms—are at the western-facing end, which looks over Greene Street. There is a kitchen in the middle of the apartment, and a third bathroom. And in between the two suites of rooms are acres of space, the black floors shiny as piano keys.

他在这间公寓里已经住了四年多，却一直因为缺钱没装修，而他缺钱是因为他在付公寓贷款。这四年多里，马尔科姆画了设计图，隔出两个卧室，帮他挑了一张有如灰色宇宙飞船的沙发，放在客厅中央，又解决了一些小问题，包括地板。“这太疯狂了，”当时他告诉马尔科姆，“等整修完毕，你还是得重铺地板。”但马尔科姆说他无论如何都要做，那种地板漆是新产品，他想试用一下，而真正装修之前，格林街会是他的实验室，他可以拿它来做一些小实验，如果他不介意的话（而他当然不介意）。但除此之外，整间公寓差不多还是保持了他刚搬进来时的样子：一个长长的四方形，位于南苏荷区一栋建筑的六楼，两边都有窗子，一侧朝西，一侧朝东；南边整面墙也有窗子，俯瞰一座停车场。他的房间和浴室在东头，看出去是默瑟街一栋低矮楼房的屋顶；威廉的房间和浴室（其实是客房，但他一直把它当成威廉的房间）则在西头，下面是格林街。厨房位于公寓中央，还有第三间浴室。套房之间的空间很大，黑色地板像黑色琴键般发亮。

　 It is still an unfamiliar feeling to have so much space, and a stranger one to be able to afford it. But you can, he has to remind himself sometimes, just as he does when he stands in the grocery store, wondering whether he should buy a tub of the black olives he likes, which are so salty they make his mouth pucker and his eyes water. When he first moved to the city, they were an indulgence, and he’d buy them just once a month, one glistening spoonful at a time. Every night he’d eat only one, sucking the meat slowly off the stone as he sat reading briefs. You can buy them, he tells himself. You have the money. But he still finds it difficult to remember.

他拥有了这么多空间，但至今依然有一种不熟悉的感觉，更不熟悉的是自己居然负担得起。但是你负担得起，他有时还得提醒自己，就像他站在杂货店里，想着是否该买一盒自己喜欢的黑橄榄；那种橄榄好咸，咸得他嘴巴发涩、双眼泛泪。刚搬到纽约市时，吃黑橄榄是一种享受，他一个月只买一次，一次只买一匙。每天晚上他只吃一颗，一边坐着读案情摘要，一边缓缓啜吸着橄榄核上的肉。你可以买，他现在告诉自己，你有那个钱了。但他还总是忘记。

　 The reason behind Greene Street, and the container of olives that are usually in the refrigerator, is his job at Rosen Pritchard and Klein, one of the city’s most powerful and prestigious firms, where he is a litigator and, for a little more than a year now, a partner. Five years ago, he and Citizen and Rhodes had been working on a case concerning securities fraud at a large commercial bank called Thackery Smith, and shortly after the case had settled, he had been contacted by a man named Lucien Voigt, whom he knew was the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein, and who had represented Thackery Smith in their negotiations.

他之所以买得起格林街的公寓，而且冰箱里常备着一盒橄榄，背后的原因是他在罗普克工作，这是全纽约最有权势、最有名望的律师事务所之一。他在那里担任辩护律师，而且一年多前升为合伙人。五年前，他跟西提任和罗兹经办一件证券诈欺案，起诉一家叫柴克瑞·史密斯的大型商业银行。那个案子和解之后没多久，一个叫卢西恩·沃伊特的人联络他，他知道他是罗普克诉讼部门的总监，而且之前曾代表柴克瑞·史密斯银行与他们协商。

　 Voigt asked him to have a drink. He had been impressed by his work, especially in the courtroom, he said. And Thackery Smith had been as well. He had heard of him anyway—he and Judge Sullivan had been on law review together—and had researched him. Had he ever considered leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office and coming to the dark side?

沃伊特邀他一起喝杯酒聊聊。他对他的工作印象深刻，尤其是法庭表现，他说。柴克瑞·史密斯银行也对他印象深刻。其实他早听过他的名字（他和沙利文法官是法学院的老同学），也打听了一下他的状况。他有没有考虑过离开联邦检察官办公室，加入黑暗阵营呢？

　 He would have been lying if he said he hadn’t. All around him, people were leaving. Citizen, he knew, was talking to an international firm in Washington, D.C. Rhodes was wondering whether he should go in-house at a bank. He himself had been approached by two other firms, and had turned them both down. They loved the U.S. Attorney’s Office, all of them. But Citizen and Rhodes were older than he was, and Rhodes and his wife wanted to have a baby, and they needed to make money. Money, money: it was all they spoke of sometimes.

要说他从没想过，那就是撒谎了。在办公室里，周围的人不断离去。他知道西提任正在跟华盛顿的一家国际法律事务所洽谈。罗兹在犹豫是不是该去一家银行的法务部工作。至于他，之前已经有两家律师事务所找上门来，但他都拒绝了。他们都很喜欢联邦检察官办公室，所有人都是。但西提任和罗兹的年纪比他大，罗兹和他太太想生小孩，他们得赚钱。钱，钱，钱，有时他们谈的唯一话题就是钱。