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《渺小一生》:“如果两个我都不愿意呢?”

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2020年07月01日

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  There’s a very long silence, until Andy says, “I don’t think so, Willem. Or rather: I don’t think there’s anything chemically wrong with him. I think his craziness is all man-made.” He is silent. “Make him talk to you, Willem,” he says. “If he talks to you, I think you’ll—I think you’ll understand why he is the way he is.” And suddenly, he needs to get home, and he is dressing and hurrying out the door, hailing a cab and getting into it, getting out and getting into the elevator, opening the door and letting himself into the apartment, which is silent, disconcertingly silent. On the way over, he had a sudden image, one that felt like a premonition, that Jude had died, that he had killed himself, and he runs through the apartment shouting his name.

安迪沉默了很久,最后才说:“我不认为,威廉。或者应该说,我不认为他有任何机能上的问题。我想他的疯狂完全是人为的。”他沉默了。“设法让他跟你谈吧,威廉。”他说,“如果他跟你谈,我想你会——我认为你会了解为什么他是这个样子。”挂了电话后,忽然间,他觉得必须回家,于是换好衣服又匆忙出门,招了一辆出租车坐上去,到家下了车冲进电梯,然后用钥匙开了门进入公寓。里头一片安静,令人不安的那种安静。赶来的路上,他脑中忽然冒出一个画面,一种不祥的预感。画面里,裘德死了,自杀了,于是他在公寓里奔跑,喊着裘德的名字。

  “Willem?” he hears, and he runs through their bedroom, with their bed still made, and then sees Jude in the far left corner of their closet, curled up on the ground, facing the wall. But he doesn’t think about why he’s there, he just drops to the floor next to him. He doesn’t know if he has permission to touch him, but he does so anyway, wrapping his arms around him. “I’m sorry,” he says to the back of Jude’s head. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean what I said—I would be distraught if you hurt yourself. I am distraught.” He exhales. “And I never, ever should have gotten physical with you. Jude, I’m so sorry.”

“威廉?”他听到后,跑进他们的卧室,里头的床还铺得好好的,他看到裘德缩在衣柜间另一头的角落,蜷缩在地上,面对着墙壁。他没去想他为什么在那儿,只是冲过去跪在他旁边。他不知道裘德是否愿意让他碰触,他不管了,用双手抱住他。“对不起,”他对着裘德的后脑勺说,“我好抱歉,我好抱歉。我说那些都不是真心的——我看到你伤害自己太难过了。我现在就很难过。”他吐出一口气,“而且我再怎么样都不该对你动手的。裘德,真的很对不起。”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Jude whispers, and they are silent. “I’m sorry about what I said. I’m sorry I lied to you, Willem.”

“我也很抱歉。”裘德轻声说,两人沉默了。“很抱歉我说了那些话。很抱歉我跟你撒谎,威廉。”

  They are quiet for a long time. “Do you remember the time you told me you were afraid that you were a series of nasty surprises for me?” he asks him, and Jude nods, slightly. “You aren’t,” he tells him. “You aren’t. But being with you is like being in this fantastic landscape,” he continues, slowly. “You think it’s one thing, a forest, and then suddenly it changes, and it’s a meadow, or a jungle, or cliffs of ice. And they’re all beautiful, but they’re strange as well, and you don’t have a map, and you don’t understand how you got from one terrain to the next so abruptly, and you don’t know when the next transition will arrive, and you don’t have any of the equipment you need. And so you keep walking through, and trying to adjust as you go, but you don’t really know what you’re doing, and often you make mistakes, bad mistakes. That’s sometimes what it feels like.”

他们沉默了许久。“你还记得那回你跟我说,你担心对我来说,你是一连串不愉快的惊讶吗?”他问他。裘德轻轻点了头。“你不是,”他告诉他,“你不是。但是跟你在一起,就像处在一个奇幻的风景里。”他继续缓缓地说,“你以为这是一片森林,然后忽然间变了,变成一片草原,或丛林,或一片冰崖。这些风景都很美,但也很陌生。你没有地图,也不明白为什么会突然间就从这块地转到了下一个,而且你不知道什么时候会发生下一次转变,你也没有任何所需的设备可以应付。你只能继续走,设法边走边调整,但你其实不明白你在做什么,还常常会犯错,犯很可怕的错。有时我的感觉就是这样。”

  They’re silent. “So basically,” Jude says at last, “basically, you’re saying I’m New Zealand.”

他们两个人沉默了一会儿。“所以基本上,”裘德最后终于说,“基本上,你的意思是我是新西兰。”

  It takes him a second to realize Jude is joking, and when he does he begins to laugh, unhingedly, with relief and sorrow, and he turns Jude toward him and kisses him. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, you’re New Zealand.”

他花了一秒钟才明白裘德在开玩笑,然后开始错乱地大笑,放心又哀伤。这时他把裘德转过来吻他。“没错,”他说,“没错,你是新西兰。”

  Then they are quiet again, and serious, but at least they are looking at each other.

之后他们又沉默了,而且都很严肃,好不容易他们才看着彼此。

  “Are you going to leave?” Jude asks, so quietly that Willem can barely hear him.

“你要离开我吗?”裘德问,小声得几乎听不到。

  He opens his mouth; shuts it. Oddly, even with everything he has thought and not thought over the last day and night, he has not considered leaving, and now he thinks about it. “No,” he says. And then, “I don’t think so,” and he watches Jude shut his eyes and then open them, and nod. “Jude,” he says, and the words come to his mouth as he says them, and as he speaks, he knows he is doing the right thing, “I do think you need help—help I don’t know how to give you.” He takes a breath. “I either want you to voluntarily commit yourself, or I want you to start seeing Dr. Loehmann twice a week.” He watches Jude for a long time; he can’t tell what he’s thinking.

他张开嘴,又闭上。奇怪的是,过去这一天一夜,有那么多想过又没想过的事情,但是他从没考虑要离开裘德,现在他想到这个可能性。“不,”他说,“我不这么认为。”然后他看着裘德闭上眼睛,又睁开点点头。“裘德,”他说,不自觉地就说了出来,说的时候,他觉得这么做是正确的,“我的确觉得你需要专业帮助——那是我没有办法给你的。”他吸了口气,“我希望你能自愿去医院的精神科住院,否则我希望你每星期去娄曼医生那两次。”他看着裘德好久,看不出他在想什么。

  “And what if I don’t want to do either?” Jude asks. “Are you going to leave?”

“如果两个我都不愿意呢?”裘德问,“你就要离开吗?”

  He shakes his head. “Jude, I love you,” he says. “But I can’t—I can’t condone this kind of behavior. I won’t be able to stick around and watch you do this to yourself if I thought you’d interpret my presence as some sort of tacit approval. So. Yes. I guess I would.”

他摇摇头。“裘德,我爱你,”他说,“但是我没办法——我没办法容忍这样的行为。我没办法待在你身边,看着你对自己做出这样的事,因为我觉得你会以为我是在默许这样的行为。所以,没错,我想我会离开。”

  Again they are quiet, and Jude turns over and lies on his back. “If I tell you what happened to me,” he begins, falteringly, “if I tell you everything I can’t discuss—if I tell you, Willem, do I still have to go?”

他们又沉默了一会儿,然后裘德转身,仰天躺着。“如果我告诉你以前发生在我身上的事,”他时断时续地说,“如果我告诉你一切我没办法讨论的事——威廉,如果我告诉你了,那我还得去医院或看精神科医生吗?”

  He looks at him, shakes his head again. “Oh, Jude,” he says. “Yes. Yes, you still have to. But I hope you’ll tell me anyway, I really do. Whatever it is; whatever it is.”

他看着他,再度摇头。“啊,裘德,”他说,“是的,你还是得去。但是我希望你无论如何会告诉我,真的。无论是什么事情,无论有多糟。”

  They are quiet once more, and this time, their quiet turns to sleep, and the two of them fit into each other and sleep and sleep until Willem hears Jude’s voice speaking to him, and then he wakes, and he listens as Jude talks. It will take hours, because Jude is sometimes unable to continue, and Willem will wait and hold him so tightly that Jude won’t be able to breathe. Twice he will try to wrench himself away, and Willem will pin him to the ground and hold him there until he calms himself. Because they are in the closet, they won’t know what time it is, only that there has been a day that has arrived and departed, because they will have seen flat carpets of sun unroll themselves into the closet’s doorways from the bedroom, from the bathroom. He will listen to stories that are unimaginable, that are abominable; he will excuse himself, three times, to go to the bathroom and study his face in the mirror and remind himself that he has only to find the courage to listen, although he will want to cover his ears and cover Jude’s mouth to make the stories cease. He will study the back of Jude’s head, because Jude can’t face him, and imagine the person he thinks he knows collapsing into rubble, clouds of dust gusting around him, as nearby, teams of artisans try to rebuild him in another material, in another shape, as a different person than the person who had stood for years and years. On and on and on the stories will go, and in their path will lie squalor: blood and bones and dirt and disease and misery. After Jude has finished telling him about his time with Brother Luke, Willem will ask him, again, if he enjoys having sex at all, even a little, even occasionally, and he will wait the many long minutes until Jude says he doesn’t, that he hates it, that he always has, and he will nod, devastated, but relieved to have the real answer. And then he will ask him, not even knowing where the question has been hiding, if he’s even attracted to men, and Jude will tell him, after a silence, that he’s not certain, that he had always had sex with men, and so assumed he always would. “Are you interested in having sex with women?” he’ll ask him, and he’ll watch as, after another long silence, Jude shakes his head. “No,” he’ll say. “It’s too late for me, Willem,” and he will tell him it’s not, that there are things they can do to help him, but Jude will shake his head again. “No,” he’ll say. “No, Willem, I’ve had enough. No more,” and he will realize, as if slapped, the truth of this, and will stop. They will sleep again, and this time, his dreams will be terrible. He will dream he is one of the men in the motel rooms, he will realize that he has behaved like one of them; he will wake with nightmares, and it will be Jude who has to calm him. Finally they will heave themselves from the floor—it will be Saturday afternoon, and they will have been lying in the closet since Thursday night—and shower and eat something, something hot and comforting, and then they will go directly from the kitchen into the study, where he will listen as Jude leaves a message for Dr. Loehmann, whose card Willem has kept in his wallet all these years and produces, magician-like, within seconds, and from there to bed, and they will lie there, looking at each other, each afraid to ask the other: he to ask Jude to finish his story; Jude to ask him when he is leaving, because his leaving now seems an inevitability, a matter of logistics.

他们再度沉默。这一回,他们的沉默转为睡眠,两个人紧挨着睡了又睡,直到威廉听见裘德的声音在跟他讲话,他醒过来,认真听裘德说。接下来,持续了好几小时,因为有时裘德说不下去,威廉会等待,紧拥着他,紧得裘德都没法呼吸了。裘德两度试着挣脱开,但威廉按住他,牢牢抱着,直到他安静下来。他们在衣柜间,不知道是几点,只知道白天来了又去,因为他们看到一小块阳光从卧室和浴室逐渐展开,延伸到衣柜间门内。他听着那些故事,无法想象,令人发指;中间他暂时离开过三次,去浴室审视镜中自己的脸,提醒自己只能鼓起勇气听下去,尽管他好想捂住耳朵,捂住裘德的嘴巴,让那些故事停止。他会看着裘德的后脑(因为裘德无法面对他),想象他自以为了解的那个人倒在碎石路上,周围环绕着一缕缕烟尘,同时在附近,一批批工匠试着重建他,用另一种材料,做成另一种形状,成为另一个人,而不是原先那个独自站立多年的人。那些故事持续又持续,沿途有种种肮脏:血、骨头、尘土、疾病、悲惨。裘德讲完他和卢克修士共度的时期之后,威廉再一次问他,他到底是否享受性爱,即使只是一点点,即使只是偶尔。他等了好多分钟,直到裘德说不,他痛恨性交,向来如此。他点点头,很震惊,但同时因为得到真正的答案而放了心。然后,不知道这个问题是从哪里冒出来的,他问裘德是否喜欢男人。裘德沉默了一会儿说,他不确定,说他向来都是跟男人性交,所以他认为以后也会是如此。“你有兴趣和女人性交吗?”他问他。好久的静默过后,他看到裘德摇摇头。“不,”他说,“对我来说太迟了,威廉。”他告诉他不会太迟,说有很多方法可以帮助他,但裘德再度摇摇头。“不,”他说,“不,威廉,我受够了。再也不要了。”他恍然大悟,像是脸上挨了一记耳光,知道裘德说得没错,于是便不再提起。他们又睡着了,这回他做了可怕的梦。他梦到自己是汽车旅馆里的那些男人之一,明白自己的行为就跟他们一样;他在梦魇中惊醒,换成裘德安抚他。最后,他们从地板上起身去冲澡,吃点抚慰的热食,时间已经是星期六下午,他们从星期四晚上就躺在衣柜间里。接下来他们从厨房进入书房,他听着裘德打电话留言给娄曼医生(这些年来,威廉的皮夹里一直放着娄曼医生的名片,几秒钟内就可以拿出来,像变魔术一样)。然后他们回到卧室,躺在床上,看着彼此,很怕问对方:他很怕问裘德接下来的故事;裘德则惧怕问他什么时候要离开,因为现在他的离开似乎是无可避免、很合逻辑的事情了。

  On and on they stare, until Jude’s face becomes almost meaningless as a face to him: it is a series of colors, of planes, of shapes that have been arranged in such a way to give other people pleasure, but to give its owner nothing. He doesn’t know what he is going to do. He is dizzy with what he has heard, with comprehending the enormity of his misconceptions, with stretching his understanding past what is imaginable, with the knowledge that all of his carefully maintained edifices are now destroyed beyond repair.

他们一直凝视着对方,直到裘德的脸对他来说几乎不像脸,而是一连串色彩、平面、形状组合而成的,给他人带来愉悦,却没带给主人任何好处。他不知道自己要怎么做。他头昏眼花,因为之前听到的那些,因为了解到自己的误解有多严重,因为他竭尽全力去理解种种无法想象的事,也因为知道他小心翼翼维持的种种假象,现在被完全摧毁了。

  But for now, they are in their bed, in their room, in their apartment, and he reaches over and takes Jude’s hand, holds it gently in his own.

但眼前,他们在床上,在他们的房间,在他们的公寓里,他伸手牵起裘德的手,轻柔握在手里。

  “You’ve told me about how you got to Montana,” he hears himself saying. “So tell me: What happened next?”

“你跟我说了你是怎么到蒙大拿州的。”他听到自己说,“那么告诉我:接下来呢?”

  It was a time he rarely thought about, his flight to Philadelphia, because it was a period in which he had been so afloat from himself that even as he had lived his life, it had felt dreamlike and not quite real; there had been times in those weeks when he had opened his eyes and was genuinely unable to discern whether what had just happened had actually happened, or whether he had imagined it. It had been a useful skill, this persistent and unshatterable somnambulism, and it had protected him, but then that ability, like his ability to forget, had abandoned him as well and he was never to acquire it again.

去到费城的那段时光他很少想起,那段期间他总是脱离自己在神游,实际的生活也像是做梦一般,不太真实;那几个星期里,有几度他睁开眼睛,真的无法搞清刚刚发生过的事情是真的发生过,还是他自己想象出来的。这种坚持且不可摧毁的梦游症状态是一种很有用的技巧,它曾经保护了他,但后来,这种能力就像他遗忘的能力一样,都弃他而去,再也找不回来了。

  He had first noticed this suspension at the home. At nights, he would sometimes be awakened by one of the counselors, and he would follow them down to the office where one of them was always on duty, and he would do whatever they wanted. After they were done, he would be escorted back to his room—a small space with a bunk bed that he shared with a mentally disabled boy, slow and fat and frightened-looking and prone to rages, whom he knew the counselors also sometimes took with them at night—and locked in again. There were a few of them the counselors used, but aside from his roommate, he didn’t know who the other boys were, only that they existed. He was nearly mute in those sessions, and as he knelt or squatted or lay, he thought of a round clock face, its second hand gliding impassively around it, counting the revolutions until it ended. But he never begged, he never pled. He never bargained or made promises or cried. He didn’t have the energy; he didn’t have the conviction—not any longer, not anymore.

他头一次注意到这种脱离自己的神游状态,是在少年之家。夜里,他有时会被某一位辅导员叫醒,跟着走到总有一名辅导员值班的办公室,然后他会做他们要他做的任何事。做完之后,他又会被送回自己的房间,被关在里头。那是一个小小的空间,有一张双层床,室友是一个智力不足的少年,迟缓而肥胖,一脸恐惧,而且很容易发脾气,他知道辅导员们夜里有时也会带走他。他们有少数几个人是辅导员会利用的,但除了他的室友之外,他不知道还有谁,只知道他们存在。这些待在办公室的夜间时刻,他几乎沉默无声,当他跪下、蹲下或躺下时,他会想着一个圆圆的钟面,上头的秒针无动于衷地转着圈,他数着转了几圈,直到完事。但他从不低声下气,从不乞求,也从不讨价还价、保证或哭泣。他没有那个力气,没有那个信心——再也没有,再也不会了。

  It was a few months after his weekend with the Learys that he tried to run away. He had classes at the community college on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and on those days, one of the counselors would wait for him in the parking lot and drive him back to the home. He dreaded the end of classes, he dreaded the ride home: he never knew which counselor would be waiting for him, and when he reached the parking lot and saw who it was, his footsteps would sometimes slow, but it was as if he was a magnet, something controlled by ions, not will, and into the car he would be drawn.

跟黎瑞夫妇共度周末的几个月后,他试着逃跑。他星期一、二、三、五会去社区大学上课,这几天,就会有一位辅导员在停车场等他,开车送他回去。他很怕课上完,很怕开车回去的路程。他从不知道来接他的会是哪个辅导员,当他来到停车场,看到是谁,有时步伐就会慢下来。然而他就像是磁铁,被离子所控制,没有意志,最后总会被吸进车子里。


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