《渺小一生》:“你难道不想为自己说话？”

　 He, too, thought of money—it was impossible not to. Every time he came home from a party at one of JB’s or Malcolm’s friends’ apartments, Lispenard Street seemed a little shabbier, a little less tolerable. Every time the elevator broke and he had to walk up the flights of stairs, and then rest on the floor in the hallway, his back against their front door, before he had the energy to let himself in, he dreamed of living somewhere functional and reliable. Every time he was standing at the top of the subway stairs, readying himself for the climb down, gripping the handrail and nearly breathing through his mouth with effort, he would wish he could take a taxi. And then there were other fears, bigger fears: in his very dark moments, he imagined himself as an old man, his skin stretched vellum-like over his ribs, still in Lispenard Street, pulling himself on his elbows to the bathroom because he was no longer able to walk. In this dream, he was alone—there was no Willem or JB or Malcolm or Andy, no Harold or Julia. He was an old, old man, and there was no one, and he was the only one left to take care of himself.

他也会考虑钱，不可能不考虑。每回他去杰比或马尔科姆朋友的公寓参加派对回家，利斯本纳街就显得更寒碜，更难忍受。每次电梯故障，他得爬楼梯上楼，到了门口还得背靠着前门坐在地上休息一阵子，才有力气开门进去。此时，他就会梦想住在一个电梯不会出故障的可靠地方。每回他站在地铁入口的楼梯顶端准备往下走，抓着扶手且吃力得几乎要用嘴巴呼吸时，他会希望自己能坐出租车。然后还有其他恐惧：在他心情低落的时刻，他会想象自己老了，肋骨外头的皮肤都像羊皮纸了，还住在利斯本纳街，手肘撑地爬进浴室，因为他再也没办法走路了。在这个梦里，他孤单一人，没有威廉、杰比、马尔科姆、安迪，没有哈罗德和朱丽娅。他很老很老，身边没有其他人，只剩他自己照顾自己。

　 “How old are you?” asked Voigt.

“你几岁了？”沃伊特问。

　 “Thirty-one,” he said.

“31。”他说。

　 “Thirty-one’s young,” said Voigt, “but you won’t be young forever. Do you really want to grow old in the U.S. Attorney’s Office? You know what they say about assistant prosecutors: Men whose best years are behind them.” He talked about compensation, about an accelerated path to partnership. “Just tell me you’ll think about it.”

“31还很年轻，”沃伊特说，“但是你不会永远这么年轻。你真的想在联邦检察官办公室里变老吗？你知道大家怎么说助理检察官的：人生的大好年华就这样过了。”沃伊特谈到报酬，谈到升迁机会，“答应我你会考虑。”

　 “I will,” he said.

“我会的。”他说。

　 And he did. He didn’t discuss it with Citizen or Rhodes—or Harold, because he knew what he’d say—but he did discuss it with Willem, and together they debated the obvious benefits of the job against the obvious drawbacks: the hours (but he never left work as it was, Willem argued), the tedium, the high probability he’d be working with assholes (but Citizen and Rhodes aside, he already worked with assholes, Willem argued). And, of course, the fact that he would now be defending the people he’d spent the past six years prosecuting: liars and crooks and thieves, the entitled and the powerful masquerading as victims. He wasn’t like Harold or Citizen—he was practical; he knew that making a career as a lawyer meant sacrifices, either of money or of moralities, but it still troubled him, this forsaking of what he knew to be just. And for what? So he could insure he wouldn’t become that old man, lonely and sick? It seemed the worst kind of selfishness, the worst kind of self-indulgence, to disavow what he knew was right simply because he was frightened, because he was scared of being uncomfortable and miserable.

他的确考虑了。他没跟西提任或罗兹讨论（也没跟哈罗德谈，因为知道他会说什么），而是跟威廉讨论，两人一起比较这份工作明显的优点和缺点。工作时间长（他的工时本来就很长，威廉说），工作性质很无聊，而且很可能要跟一堆混蛋共事（除了西提任和罗兹，他本来也跟一堆混蛋共事，威廉说）。当然，他现在得去帮他过去六年起诉的那些人辩护：撒谎者、骗子、小偷，以及伪装成受害者的有地位、有权势的人。他不像哈罗德或西提任，他很务实，他知道当律师意味着牺牲，不是牺牲金钱，就是牺牲道德，但这样背弃他明知是正义的一方，还是令他很困扰。是为了什么？确保他不会变成那个孤单又患病的老人？这好像是最糟糕的那种自私、最糟糕的那种任性，拒绝承担他明知道应该承担的责任，只因为他害怕，担心自己过得不舒适或很凄惨。

　 Then, two weeks after his meeting with Voigt, he had come home one Friday night very late. He was exhausted; he’d had to use his wheelchair that day because the wound on his right leg hurt so much, and he was so relieved to get home, back to Lispenard Street, that he had felt himself go weak—in just a few minutes, he would be inside, and he would wrap a damp washcloth, hot and steamed from the microwave, around his calf and sit in the warmth. But when he tried the elevator button, he heard nothing but a grinding of gears, the faint winching noise the machine made when it was broken.

然后，他和沃伊特碰面两周后的星期五，他很晚才回家。那天他筋疲力尽，必须坐轮椅，因为右腿实在太痛了，回到利斯本纳街的公寓时，他一放松，就觉得自己整个人都虚脱了，因为再过几分钟，他就可以进门，用微波炉加热过、冒着蒸汽的湿毛巾包住小腿，坐在温暖的公寓里。但是当他按了电梯按钮，却听到齿轮摩擦声，还有电梯坏掉时微弱的绞盘怪声。

　 “No!” he shouted. “No!” His voice echoed in the lobby, and he smacked his palm against the elevator door again and again: “No, no, no!” He picked up his briefcase and threw it against the ground, and papers spun up from it. Around him, the building remained silent and unhelpful.

“不要！”他大喊，“不要！”他的声音在门厅里回荡，他对着电梯门拍了又拍，“不，不，不！”他拿起公文包朝地上摔，里头的文件散落一地。在他周围，整栋公寓依然一片寂静，没人能帮他。

　 Finally he stopped, ashamed and angry, and gathered his papers back into his bag. He checked his watch: it was eleven. Willem was in a play, Cloud 9, but he knew he’d be off stage by then. But when he called him, Willem didn’t pick up. And then he began to panic. Malcolm was on vacation in Greece. JB was at an artists’ colony. Andy’s daughter, Beatrice, had just been born the previous week: he couldn’t call him. There were only so many people he would let help him, whom he felt at least semi-comfortable clinging to like a sloth, whom he would allow to drag him up the many flights.

最后他停止发火，觉得羞愧又愤怒，然后把那些文件收回公文包里。他看了一下手表：11点。威廉正在演出《九重天》，但他知道此时他已经下台了。可是他打电话过去，威廉没接。他恐慌起来。麦坎·马尔科姆去希腊度假了。杰比在一个艺术村。安迪的女儿比阿特丽斯上个星期才出生，所以他不能找他。他只肯让这几个人帮他，让他们拖着他爬那么多层楼，当他像树懒似的抓着对方不放时，至少不会觉得太不自在。

　 But in that moment, he was irrationally, intensely desperate to get into the apartment. And so he stood, tucking his briefcase under his left arm and collapsing his wheelchair, which was too expensive to leave in the lobby, with his right. He began to work his way up the stairs, cleaving his left side to the wall, gripping the chair by one of its spokes. He moved slowly—he had to hop on his left leg, while trying to avoid putting any weight on his right, or letting the wheelchair bang against the wound. Up he went, pausing to rest every third step. There were a hundred and ten steps from the lobby to the fifth floor, and by the fiftieth, he was shaking so badly he had to stop and sit for half an hour. He called and texted Willem again and again. On the fourth call, he left the message he hoped he would never have to leave: “Willem, I really need help. Please call me. Please.” He had a vision of Willem calling him right back, telling him he’d be right there, but he waited and waited and Willem didn’t call, and finally he managed to stand again.

但那一刻，他失去了理智，拼命只想赶紧回到家里。于是他站起来，把公文包夹在左边腋下，然后把轮椅（太贵了，不能留在大厅里）收起来夹在右边腋下，开始爬楼梯。他身子左边紧贴着墙，右手抓着轮椅的一根轮辐，爬得很慢——只能靠左腿往上跳，尽量避免把任何重量放在右腿，也避免轮椅碰到伤口。他往上爬，每爬三级就要停下来休息。从大厅到五楼要爬一百一十级楼梯。爬到第五十级时，他全身抖得厉害，不得不停下来坐半小时。他一次又一次打电话给威廉并发短信给他。打到第四通电话，他留言了，但希望自己永远不必留：“威廉，我真的需要帮忙。拜托打给我。拜托。”他想象威廉立刻回电话，告诉他马上赶来，但他等了又等，威廉都没回电话。最后，他设法又站了起来。

　 Somehow he made it inside. But he can’t remember anything else from that night; when he woke the next day, Willem was asleep on the rug next to his bed, and Andy asleep on the chair they must have dragged into his room from the living room. He was thick-tongued, fogged, nauseated, and he knew that Andy must have given him an injection of pain medication, which he hated: he would feel disoriented and constipated for days.

总之，他努力进了门。但那一夜接下来的事情他完全不记得了。次日醒来时，他发现威廉睡在他床边的地毯上，安迪睡在客厅拖来的椅子上。他舌头不听使唤，意识蒙眬，还很想吐，于是他知道安迪一定帮他注射了止痛药。他很讨厌止痛药，因为接下来他会变得茫然，还会便秘好几天。

　 When he woke again, Willem was gone, but Andy was awake, and staring at him.

他再度醒来时，威廉不在了，但安迪已经醒来，死瞪着他。

　 “Jude, you’ve got to get the fuck out of this apartment,” he said, quietly.

“裘德，你他妈的一定得搬出这栋公寓。”他轻声说。

　 “I know,” he said.

“我知道。”他说。

　 “Jude, what were you thinking?” Willem asked him later, after he had returned from the grocery store and Andy had helped him into the bathroom—he couldn’t walk: Andy had had to carry him—and then put him back into bed, still in his clothes from the day before, and left. Willem had gone to a party after the show and hadn’t heard his phone ring; when he had finally listened to his messages, he had rushed home and found him convulsing on the floor and had called Andy. “Why didn’t you call Andy? Why didn’t you go to a diner and wait for me? Why didn’t you call Richard? Why didn’t you call Philippa and make her find me? Why didn’t you call Citizen, or Rhodes, or Eli, or Phaedra, or the Henry Youngs, or—”

“裘德，你那时在想什么？”威廉从杂货店回来后问他。安迪已经帮着他去过洗手间（他没办法走路，得让安迪抱他去），让他躺回床上，他身上还穿着前一天的衣服，等到威廉回来才离开。威廉前一晚演出后去参加派对，没听到手机响；等他终于听到留言，急忙赶回家时，发现他躺在地板上抽搐，才打给安迪。“你为什么不打给安迪？你为什么不找间餐馆坐下来等我？你为什么不打给理查德？你为什么不打给菲莉帕叫她找到我？你为什么不打给西提任、罗兹、伊莱，或菲德拉，或两个亨利·杨，或……”

　 “I don’t know,” he said, miserably. It was impossible to explain to the healthy the logic of the sick, and he didn’t have the energy to try.

“不知道。”他悲惨地说。他无法跟健康的人解释病人的逻辑，也没有力气去试。

　 The following week, he contacted Lucien Voigt and finalized the terms of the job with him. And once he had signed the contract, he called Harold, who was silent for a long five seconds before taking a deep breath and beginning.

下一个星期，他联络了卢西恩·沃伊特，谈好了工作条件。签约后，他打电话给哈罗德，沉默了五秒钟，才深吸一口气，开始讲话。

　 “I just don’t get this, Jude,” he said. “I don’t. You’ve never struck me as a money-grubber. Are you? I mean, I guess you are. You had—you have—a great career at the U.S. Attorney’s. You’re doing work there that matters. And you’re giving it all up to defend, who? Criminals. People so entitled, so certain they won’t be caught that being caught—that very concern—doesn’t even occur to them. People who think the laws are written for people who make less than nine figures a year. People who think the laws are applicable only by race, or by tax bracket.”

“裘德，我只是不明白，”哈罗德说，“真的不明白。你从来没让我觉得你很爱钱。你爱钱吗？我的意思是，你当然爱钱。你在联邦检察官办公室有大好前程。你在那里的工作很重要。可是你现在完全放弃，要去帮谁辩护？一堆罪犯。他们太有权势、太确定自己不会被抓到，因而被抓这件事他们根本从没想过。他们认为法律只适用于年收入不到九位数的人。他们认为法律要制裁谁，只能由种族或收入来决定。”

　 He said nothing, just let Harold become more and more agitated, because he knew Harold was right. They had never explicitly discussed it, but he knew Harold had always assumed that he would make his career in public service. Over the years, Harold would talk with dismay and sorrow about talented former students he admired who had left jobs—at the U.S. Attorney’s, at the Department of Justice, at public defender offices, at legal aid programs—to go to corporate firms. “A society cannot run as it should unless people with excellent legal minds make it their business to make it run,” Harold often said, and he had always agreed with him. And he agreed with him still, which was why he couldn’t defend himself now.

他什么都没说，只是乖乖听着哈罗德越来越生气的声音，因为他知道哈罗德说得对。他们没有明确谈过，但他知道哈罗德一直以为他会朝公职体系发展。这些年来，哈罗德不时丧气而悲伤地谈到一些他很欣赏的优秀学生辞掉工作（包括联邦检察官办公室、司法部、公设辩护律师服务处、法律援助组织的工作），跳槽去大型律师事务所。“一个社会要发挥应有的功能，就必须靠那些拥有杰出法律头脑的人才，把维持社会运作当成自己的责任。”哈罗德常常说。而他也赞同，至今不变。这也是为什么他此刻无法为自己辩护。

　 “Don’t you have anything you want to say for yourself?” Harold asked him, finally.

“你难道不想为自己说话？”哈罗德最后终于问他。