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《渺小一生》:接下来六天就是这么度过的

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2020年07月06日

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  He tried to conserve his energy the next day. He was too twitchy to read, and he had to keep himself from pacing the floor. He saved that day’s sandwich and stuffed it into the pocket of the borrowed sweatpants so he would have something to eat if he had to hide for a long period. In the other pocket he shoved the plastic bag that lined the trash can in the bathroom—he thought he could tear it in half and make shoes for himself once he was safely out of Dr. Traylor’s reach. And then he waited.

次日他试图保留体力,整天焦躁得没法阅读,还得逼自己不要在地下室里踱步。他把午餐的三明治留着,塞在借来的运动裤口袋里,这样如果他必须在哪里躲久一点,就有东西可以吃。他在另一个裤子口袋塞了浴室垃圾桶里铺的塑料袋,等到安全脱离特雷勒医生的控制后,就可以把垃圾袋撕成两半套在脚上当鞋子穿。然后他静静地等待着。

  But that night he wasn’t let out of the room at all. From his perch near the flap, he could see the living room lights turning on, he could smell food cooking. “Dr. Traylor?” he called. “Hello?” But there was silence except for the sound of meat frying in a pan, the evening’s news on the television. “Dr. Traylor!” he called. “Please, please!” But nothing happened, and after calling and calling, he was spent, and slumped back down the stairs.

但那天晚上,特雷勒医生根本没放他出去。他蹲在楼梯顶的小门边,看到客厅里的灯打开了,闻到了烹煮食物的气味。“特雷勒医生?”他喊道,“哈喽?”但屋里一片安静,只有锅里煎肉的声音,还有电视正播放着晚间新闻。“特雷勒医生!”他喊道,“拜托,拜托!”但什么都没发生。他喊了又喊,喊到没有力气,只好又下了楼梯。

  That night he had a dream that on the upper floor of the house was a series of other bedrooms, all with low beds and round tufted rugs beneath them, and that each bed held a boy: some of the boys were older, because they had been in the house for a long time, and some were younger. None of them knew that the others existed; none of them could hear one another. He realized that he didn’t know the physical dimensions of the house, and in the dream the house became a skyscraper, filled with hundreds of rooms, of cells, each containing a different boy, each waiting for Dr. Traylor to let him out. He woke, then, gasping, and ran to the top of the stairs, but when he pushed against the flap, it didn’t move. He lifted it up and saw that the hole had been closed with a piece of gray plastic, and as hard as he pushed against it, it wouldn’t budge.

那一夜,他梦见这房子的楼上还有一连串其他卧室,都有低矮的床和铺在底下的圆形地毯,每张床上都有个男孩,有的年纪大一点,已经在这屋子关了很久,有的年纪小一点。没有一个人知道其他人的存在;没有一个人听得见其他人。然后他才想到,自己根本不知道这栋房子到底有几层楼,梦里的房子变成一栋摩天大厦,里面有几百个房间、牢房,每一间都关着不同的男孩,每个人都等着特雷勒医生放他们出去。然后他猛喘着气醒来,跑到楼梯顶,推着门下方小洞上的橡胶盖,但是推不动。然后他掀开那块盖板,发现那个洞被一块灰色塑料板封住了。无论他怎么用力推,那块板子完全不动。

  He didn’t know what to do. He tried to stay up the rest of the night, but he fell asleep, and when he woke, there was the tray with his breakfast and his lunch and two pills: one for the morning, one for evening. He pinched the pills between his fingers and considered them—if he didn’t take them, he wouldn’t get better, and Dr. Traylor wouldn’t touch him unless he was well. But if he didn’t take them, then he wouldn’t get better, and he knew from prior experience how awful he would feel, how almost unimaginably filthy he would be, as if his entire self, inside and out, had been sprayed with excrement. He began to rock himself, then. What do I do, he asked, what do I do? He thought of the fat truck driver, the one who had been kind to him. Help me, he begged him, help me.

他不知道该怎么办。那一夜他想撑着不睡,但还是睡着了,醒来时,发现有个托盘上放着他的早餐、午餐和两颗药丸:早上一颗,晚上一颗。他手指拿起药丸思索着:如果他不吃药,身体就不会好转,在他痊愈之前,特雷勒医生就不会碰他。但如果他不吃,就不会好转,根据从前的经验,他知道自己会有多难受,会变得难以想象地肮脏,好像整个人从里到外都喷上了粪便。然后他开始摇晃,我该怎么办?他问,我该怎么办?他想起那个肥胖的卡车司机,对他很好的那位。帮我,他哀求他,帮帮我。

  Brother Luke, he pled, help me, help me.

卢克修士,他求情着,帮帮我,帮帮我。

  Once again, he thought: I have made the wrong decision. I have left somewhere where I at least had the outdoors, and school, and where I knew what was going to happen to me. And now I have none of those things.

再一次,他心想:我做错决定了。我离开了一个至少还有户外,还有学校,而且知道会有什么事发生在我身上的地方。现在这些都没有了。

  You’re so stupid, the voice inside him said, you’re so stupid.

你太笨了,他心里那个声音说,你太笨了。

  For six more days it went on like this: his food would appear sometime when he was sleeping. He took the pills; he couldn’t not.

接下来六天就是这么度过的:他的食物会在他睡着时出现。他吃下药丸,不能不吃。

  On the tenth day, the door opened, and Dr. Traylor was standing there. He was so alarmed, so surprised, that he hadn’t been prepared, but before he could stand, Dr. Traylor had closed the door and was coming toward him. Over one shoulder he held an iron fire poker, loosely, as one would a baseball bat, and as he came toward him, he was terrified by it: What did it mean? What would be done to him with it?

到了第十天,门打开了,特雷勒医生站在那里。他太惊恐、太惊讶了,一点准备都没有,但他还没站起来,特雷勒医生就关上门,朝他走过来。他手里轻松地握着一根铁制拨火棒,扛在一边的肩膀上,像扛着一根球棒似的。他走向他时,他被那拨火棒吓坏了,那是什么意思?他会拿它来对他做什么?

  “Take off your clothes,” Dr. Traylor said, still in his same bland voice, and he did, and Dr. Traylor swung the poker off his shoulder and he ducked, reflexively, lifting his arms over his head. He heard the doctor make his small wet noise. And then Dr. Traylor unbelted his pants and stood before him. “Take them down,” he said, and he did, but before he was able to begin, Dr. Traylor nudged him in the neck with the poker. “You try anything,” he said, “biting, anything, and I will beat you in the head with this until you become a vegetable, do you understand me?”

“脱掉你的衣服。”特雷勒医生说,同样是那没有高低起伏的口气,他照做了。然后特雷勒医生把拨火棒从肩上放下,他出自本能地立刻缩起身子,举起双臂护住头。他听到特雷勒医生发出那潮湿的微弱声音,然后他解开长裤皮带,站在他面前。“把长裤拉下去。”医生说。他照办了,但他还没来得及开始,特雷勒医生就用拨火棒轻轻推着他的脖子。“你敢搞什么花样,”他说,“咬我或什么的,我就用这个打你的头,打到你变成植物人,懂了没?”

  He nodded, too petrified to say anything. “Speak,” Dr. Traylor yelled, and he startled.

他点头,恐慌得没法开口。“说话。”特雷勒医生大吼,他吓了一跳。

  “Yes,” he gulped. “Yes, I understand.”

“好,”他猛吸气,“好,我懂了。”

  He was scared of Dr. Traylor, of course; he was scared of all of them. But it had never occurred to him to fight with the clients, had never occurred to him to challenge them. They were powerful and he was not. And Brother Luke had trained him too well. He was too obedient. He was, as Dr. Traylor had made him admit, a good prostitute.

他很怕特雷勒医生,那是当然;所有顾客他都怕。但他从来没想过要反击顾客,从来没想过要挑战他们。顾客们力气很大,他却不是。而且卢克修士把他训练得太好了。他太听话了。一如特雷勒医生逼他承认的,他是个好男妓。

  Every day was like this, and although the sex was no worse than what he’d had before, he remained convinced that it was a prelude, that it would eventually get very bad, very strange. He had heard stories from Brother Luke—he had seen videos—about things people did to one another: objects they used, props and weapons. A few times he had experienced these things himself. But he knew that in many ways he was lucky: he had been spared. The terror of what might be ahead of him was, in many ways, worse than the terror of the sex itself. At night he would imagine what he didn’t know to imagine and begin gasping with panic, his clothes—a different set of clothes now, but still not his clothes—becoming clammy with perspiration.

每一天都像这样,尽管性交并不比以前碰到的糟,但他还是相信这只是前奏,最后一定会变得非常糟、非常怪。他听卢克修士说过一些故事,还看过录像,知道人们会对彼此做的事情:他们使用的对象、道具和武器。有少数几回他自己也体验过这些东西。但他知道自己在很多方面都算幸运了,他一直幸免于难。从很多方面来说,想到可能发生什么恐怖的事情,要比性交本身更可怕。夜里,他会想象他不知该怎么想象的事情,恐慌得猛喘气,他的衣服被汗水浸得湿黏(现在换了一套,但依然不是他的衣服)。

  At the end of one session, he asked Dr. Traylor if he could leave. “Please,” he said. “Please.” But Dr. Traylor said that he had given him ten days of hospitality, and that he needed to repay those ten days. “And then can I go?” he asked, but the doctor was already walking out the door.

有回结束时,他问特雷勒医生自己是否能离开。“拜托”,他说,“拜托。”但特雷勒医生说他招待了他十天,他得偿还这十天才行。“然后我就可以走了吗?”他问,但医生已经走出门了。

  On the sixth day of his repayment he thought of a plan. There was a second or two—just that—in which Dr. Traylor tucked the fire poker under his left arm and unbelted his pants with his right hand. If he could time it correctly, he could hit the doctor in the face with a book, and try to run out. He would have to be very quick; he would have to be very agile.

到了偿还的第六天,他想出了一个计划。每次特雷勒医生用右手解开长裤皮带前,有一两秒钟——只有一秒或两秒——会把拨火棒夹在左边腋下。如果他算准时间,就可以用一本书打医生的脸,然后设法跑出去。他的动作要非常快、非常灵巧才行。

  He scanned the books on their shelves, wishing yet again that some of them were hardcovers, not these thick bricks of paperbacks. A small one, he knew, would feel more like a slap, would be more wieldy, and so finally he chose a copy of Dubliners: it was thin enough for him to grip, pliable enough to crack against a face. He tucked it under his mattress, and then realized he didn’t even need to bother with the deception; he could just leave it by his side. So he did, and waited.

他浏览着书架上的书,再度恨不得其中有一些精装书,而不是这些厚厚的平装书。他知道开本小一点的书拿来打人比较像巴掌,比较好抓,于是他挑了一本《都柏林人》,够薄可以抓稳,也够软可以结实打在脸上。他把书塞在床下,然后才想到他根本不必藏起来。于是他把书放在旁边,等待着。

  And then there was Dr. Traylor and the fire poker, and as he began to unbelt his pants, he sprang up and smacked the doctor as hard as he could across his face, and he heard and felt the doctor screaming and the fire poker falling to the cement floor with a clang, and the doctor’s hand grabbing at his ankle, but he kicked away and stumbled up the stairs, tugged open the door, and ran. At the front door he saw a mess of locks, and he nearly sobbed, his fingers clumsy, throwing the bolts this way and that, and then he was outside and running, running faster than he ever had. You can do it, you can do it, screamed the voice in his head, encouraging for once, and then, more urgently, Faster, faster, faster. As he had gotten better, Dr. Traylor’s meals for him had gotten smaller and smaller, which meant that he was always weak, always tired, but now he was vividly alert and he was running, shouting for help as he did. But even as he ran and shouted, he could see that no one would hear his calls: there was no other house in sight, and although he had expected there might be trees, there weren’t, just flat blank stretches of land, with nothing to hide behind. And then he felt how cold it was, and how things were embedding themselves into the soles of his feet, but still he ran.

然后特雷勒医生带着拨火棒来了,正开始解开皮带扣环时,他就跳起来,使尽全力用那本书朝医生脸上打过去。他听到医生尖叫,拨火棒“吭啷”一声掉在水泥地上,接着医生一手抓住他的脚踝,但他踢开了,踉跄着爬上楼梯,拉开门就跑。他看到前门上有一堆锁,差点哭出来,他的手指笨拙,把门闩左拨右拨,终于出了门开始奔跑,这辈子从来没有跑得那么快过。你可以做到,你可以做到,他脑子里的那个声音尖叫着鼓励他,接着又更急切地说,快一点,快一点,快一点。他身体好转后,特雷勒医生给他的食物就愈来愈少,这表示他一直很虚弱、很疲倦,但现在他充满警觉地奋力往前跑,边跑边大喊着救命。但即使在他奔跑大叫时,他也看得出来没人听得到。他根本没看到其他房子,尽管他本来期望附近可能有树林,但结果没有,只有一片广大的空荡田野,没有地方可以躲。他觉得很冷,脚掌被刺得很痛,但是他还是继续跑。

  And then behind him he heard another pair of footsteps slapping against the pavement, and a familiar jangling noise, and he knew it was Dr. Traylor. He didn’t even shout at him, he didn’t even threaten, but as he turned his head to see how close the doctor was—and he was very close, just a few yards behind him—he tripped and fell, his cheek banging against the road.

他听到身后有另一组脚步声在柏油路上奔跑,还有一个熟悉的金属碰撞声。他知道那是特雷勒医生,根本没朝他喊,没威胁他,但他还是回头看医生离他有多远,结果发现非常近,只差几码。他脚下一绊跌倒了,一边脸颊狠狠地撞在马路上。

  After he had fallen, all of his energy deserted him, a flock of birds rising noisily and swiftly flying away, and he saw that the jangling noise was Dr. Traylor’s unbuckled belt, which he was sliding out from his pants and then using to beat him, and he huddled into himself as he was hit and hit and hit. All that time, the doctor said nothing, and all he could hear were Dr. Traylor’s breaths, his gasps from exertion as he brought the belt down harder and harder on his back, his legs, his neck.

他跌倒之后,所有的精力都离他远去,像一群鸟聒噪地飞起,转眼间就走了。然后他看见那金属碰撞声的来源,原来是特雷勒医生没扣上的皮带环,这会儿医生把皮带抽出来,对着他猛抽,他蜷缩成一团,被医生打了又打。从头到尾,医生都一言不发,他唯一能听到的就是特雷勒医生的呼吸,他吃力的喘息,同时那皮带越来越使劲地抽着他的背部、他的双腿、他的脖子。


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