《渺小一生》:我们离波士顿只剩一个小时

　 “No,” Jude pleads with him, “no, Willem, no—I just—”

“不，”裘德恳求地说，“不是，威廉，不是……我只是……”

　 But he interrupts him. “Why have you never told me who Brother Luke is?” he hears himself ask.

但他打断他，“你为什么从不告诉我卢克修士是谁？”他不觉间就脱口而出。

　 He can tell that Jude is startled. “What?” he asks.

他看得出裘德愣住了。“什么？”他问。

　 “You promised me you would,” he says. “Remember? It was my birthday present.” The final words sound more sarcastic than he intended. “Tell me,” he says. “Tell me right now.”

“你答应过你会说的。”他说，“记得吗？那是我的生日礼物。”最后这个词听起来充满讽刺意味，他本来没打算那么刻薄的。“告诉我，”他说，“现在就告诉我。”

　 “I can’t, Willem,” Jude says. “Please. Please.”

“我没办法，威廉，”裘德说，“拜托。拜托。”

　 He sees that Jude is in agony, and still he pushes. “You’ve had four years to figure out how to do it,” he says, and as Jude moves to put the keys in the ignition, he reaches over and snatches them from him. “I think that’s enough of a grace period. Tell me right now,” and then, when there is still no reaction, he shouts at Jude again: “Tell me.”

他看得出裘德非常痛苦，但依然步步紧逼。“你有四年的时间去想出该怎么说。”他说。当裘德要把钥匙插入点火开关时，他伸手把钥匙夺过来。“我想这个宽限期够了。你现在就告诉我。”然后，他看裘德还是没反应，又朝他吼：“告诉我！”

　 “He was one of the brothers at the monastery,” Jude whispers.

“他是修道院里的一个修士。”裘德轻声说。

　 “And?” he screams at him. I am so stupid, he thinks, even as he yells. I am so, so, so stupid. I am so gullible. And then, simultaneously: He’s scared of me. I’m yelling at someone I love and making him scared of me. He suddenly remembers yelling at Andy all those years ago: You’re mad because you can’t figure out how to make him better and so you’re taking it out on me. Oh god, he thinks. Oh god. Why am I doing this?

“还有呢？”他朝他大喊。我太蠢了，他心想，即使大吼时都在想。我真是太、太、太蠢了。我太好骗了。然后，他同时又想着︰我在吼一个我深爱的人，让他怕我。他忽然想起多年前吼过安迪：你生气是因为你想不出办法让他好过一点，于是就把气出在我身上。啊老天，他心想。啊老天，我为什么要这么做？

　 “And I ran away with him,” Jude says, his voice so faint now that Willem has to lean in to hear him.

“我跟着他逃离修道院。”裘德说，声音小得威廉得凑近才能听到。

　 “And?” he says, but he can see that Jude is about to cry, and suddenly, he stops, and leans back, exhausted and disgusted with himself, and suddenly frightened as well: What if the next question he asks is the question that finally opens the gates, and everything he has ever wanted to know about Jude, everything he has never wanted to confront, comes surging out at last? They sit there for a long time, the car filling with their shaky breaths. He can feel his fingertips turning numb. “Let’s go,” he finally says.

“然后呢？”他说，但他看得出裘德就要哭出来了。忽然间，他停下，往后靠，筋疲力尽又很厌恶自己，同时忽然很恐惧︰如果他问的下一个问题，就能打开闸门，所有他想知道的关于裘德的事，所有他从来不想面对的事，全像洪水般涌出来呢？他们坐在那里好久，车子里充满了他们颤抖的呼吸声。他可以感觉到自己的指尖发麻。“走吧。”最后他终于说。

　 “Where?” Jude asks, and Willem looks at him.

“去哪里？”裘德问，威廉看着他。

　 “We only have an hour to Boston,” he says. “And they’re expecting us,” and Jude nods, and wipes his face with his handkerchief, and takes the keys from him, and drives them slowly out of the gas station.

“我们离波士顿只剩一个小时车程了，”他说，“而且他们在等我们。”裘德点头，用手帕擦擦脸，从他手里拿了钥匙，缓缓开出加油站。

　 As they move down the highway, he has a sudden vision of what it really means to set yourself on fire. He thinks of the campfires he had built as a Boy Scout, the tepee of twigs you’d arrange around a knot of newspaper, the way the shimmering flames made the air around them wobbly, their awful beauty. And then he thinks of Jude doing that to his own skin, imagines orange chewing through his flesh, and he is sick. “Pull over,” he gasps to Jude, and Jude screeches off the road and he leans out of the car and vomits until he has nothing more to expel.

他们沿着高速公路往前开时，他忽然开始想象点火烧伤自己是什么状况。他想到当童子军时曾负责生火，先把报纸揉成一团，周围用小树枝搭成尖锥状，那小小的火焰随着周围的空气摇晃着，可怕又美丽。然后他想到裘德对自己的皮肤做这种事，想象橘色的火焰侵蚀了他的肉，觉得很想吐。“靠边停车。”他喘着气说。裘德转出路面，他开门探出身子一直吐，吐到再也没有东西可吐为止。

　 “Willem,” he hears Jude saying, and the sound of his voice enrages him and devastates him, both.

“威廉。”他听到裘德说。那声音让他火大，同时也令他悲痛。

　 They are silent for the rest of the drive, and when Jude pulls the car bumpily into Harold and Julia’s driveway, there is a brief moment in which they look at each other, and it is as if he is looking at someone he has never seen before. He looks at Jude and sees a handsome man with long hands and legs and a beautiful face, the kind of face you look at and keep looking at, and if he were meeting this man at a party or at a restaurant, he would talk to him, because it would be an excuse to keep looking at him, and he would never think that this man would be someone who cut himself so much that the skin on his arms no longer felt like skin, but cartilage, or that he once dated someone who beat him so hard he could have died, or that one night he rubbed his skin with oil so that the flame he touched to his own body would burn brighter and faster, and that he had gotten this idea from someone who had once done this very thing to him, years ago, when he was a child and had done nothing worse than take something shiny and irresistible from a loathed and loathsome guardian’s desk.

接下来他们一路沉默，等到裘德把车开进哈罗德和朱丽娅家的车道，有短暂的片刻，他们看着彼此，他觉得他好像看着一个从未见过的人。他看着裘德，看到一个英俊的男子，四肢修长，容貌俊美，那是你会一直看、一直看的脸庞。如果你在派对上或餐厅里碰到这个男子，你会去找他说话，因为这样就有借口一直看着他，而你永远想不到这个人会割自己割得那么凶，割到手臂上的皮肤再也不像是皮肤，而是软骨；你想不到他曾跟一个打他打得很凶的人约会，打到他差点死掉；你想不到有天夜里他会把油抹在自己身上，在皮肤上点火后让它烧得更亮、更快；你想不到他这个点子是来自某个曾经这样对他的人。那是很多年以前，他当时还是个孩子，不过是从一个可恨而又讨厌的监护者桌上拿了某个发亮又充满诱惑的东西。

　 He opens his mouth to say something when they hear Harold and Julia calling out their welcomes to them, and they both blink and turn and get out of the car, fixing their mouths into smiles as they do. As he kisses Julia, he can hear Harold, behind him, saying to Jude, “Are you okay? Are you sure? You look a little off,” and then Jude’s murmured assent.

他张开嘴巴正想说些什么时，却听到哈罗德和朱丽娅朝他们喊着欢迎的话，他们两个都眨眨眼，挤出微笑，转身下了车。他吻朱丽娅时，听到哈罗德在他身后对裘德说：“你还好吗？你确定吗？你看起来有点没精神。”裘德咕哝着附和。

　 He goes to the bedroom with their bag, and Jude goes directly to the kitchen. He takes out their toothbrushes and electric razors and puts them in the bathroom, and then he lies down on the bed.

他拿着两人的旅行袋去卧室，裘德则是直接进了厨房。他把牙刷和电动刮胡刀拿出来，放进浴室，然后就在床上躺下。

　 He sleeps all afternoon; he is too overwhelmed to do anything else. Dinner is just the four of them, and he looks in the mirror, quickly practicing his laugh, before he joins the others in the dining room. Over dinner, Jude is very quiet, but Willem tries to talk and listen as if everything is normal, though it is difficult, as his mind is full of what he has learned.

他睡了一整个下午，整个人心力交瘁得什么事都没办法做。晚餐只有他们四个人，他走出房门前还先照了镜子，练习了他的笑容，才去餐厅加入其他人。晚餐席上，裘德非常安静，威廉仍试着讲话、倾听，仿佛一切都很正常。但是很难，他心里被早上得知的事情占据了。

　 Even through his rage and despair, he registers that Jude has almost nothing on his plate, but when Harold says, “Jude, you have to eat more; you’ve gotten way too skinny. Right, Willem?” and looks to him for the support and cajoling he would normally, reflexively offer, he instead shrugs. “Jude’s an adult,” he says, his voice odd to him. “He knows what’s best for him,” and out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Julia and Harold exchange glances with each other, and Jude look down at his plate. “I ate a lot when I was cooking,” he says, and they all know this is untrue, because Jude never snacks while he’s cooking, and doesn’t let anyone else do so, either: “The Snack Stasi,” JB calls him. He watches Jude absentmindedly cup his hand around his sweatered arm right where the burn would be, and then he looks up, and sees Willem staring, and drops his hand and looks back down again.

即使在怒气和绝望中，他还是注意到裘德盘子几乎是空的。当哈罗德说：“裘德，你得多吃一点；你实在太瘦了。对吧，威廉？”同时望向他，寻求他平常想都不想就会给予的支持和好言相劝，然而这回他只是耸耸肩。“裘德是大人了。”他说，觉得自己的声音听起来很奇怪，“他知道什么对他是最好的。”然后眼角看到朱丽娅和哈罗德彼此交换一个眼色，而裘德只是低头看着盘子。“我做饭时就已经吃了很多。”裘德说，他们都知道不是这样的，因为裘德做饭时从来不偷吃，而且也不准其他人偷吃。“偷吃警察。”杰比都这样说他。他看着裘德心不在焉地拢起右手，罩在穿了毛衣的左手臂上，应该就是烧伤的地方。然后裘德抬头，看到威廉盯着他，就放下右手，又继续盯着盘子。

　 Somehow they get through dinner, and as he and Julia do the dishes, he keeps the conversation topical and light. After, they go to the living room, where Harold is waiting for him to watch the previous weekend’s game, which he has recorded. At the entryway to the room, he pauses: normally, he would join Jude and squash in beside him on the oversize, overstuffed chair that has been squished in next to what they call Harold’s Chair, but tonight he cannot sit next to Jude—he can barely look at him. And yet if he doesn’t, Julia and Harold will know for certain that something is seriously wrong between them. But as he hesitates, Jude stands and, as if anticipating his quandary, announces that he’s tired and is going to bed. “Are you sure?” Harold asks. “The evening’s just beginning.” But Jude says he is, and kisses Julia good night and waves vaguely in Harold and Willem’s direction, and once again, he sees Julia and Harold look at each other.

他们总算熬过了晚餐。他和朱丽娅去洗碗，轻松地聊着一些时事。之后，他们去客厅，哈罗德正等着他一起看上周末录下来的球赛。在通往客厅的门口，他暂停了一下：通常他会跑到裘德旁边，两人挤在那张超大、超厚的椅子上，就在哈罗德惯常坐的那张椅子旁，但是今天他没办法坐在裘德旁边——他简直连看他都没办法。但如果他不过去，朱丽娅和哈罗德就会确定他们之间出了大问题。正当他犹豫时，裘德就站起来，仿佛预测到他的为难，说他累了，要去睡觉。“你确定吗？”哈罗德问，“这个晚上才刚开始呢。”但裘德说他很确定，然后吻了朱丽娅道晚安，又朝哈罗德和威廉的方向挥了一下手。然后再一次，他瞄到朱丽娅和哈罗德朝彼此看了一眼。