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双语·钟形罩 12

所属教程:译林版·钟形罩

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2022年05月01日

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Doctor Gordon's private hospital crowned a grassy rise at the end of a long, secluded drive that had been whitened with broken quahog shells. The yellow clapboard walls of the large house, with its encircling veranda, gleamed in the sun, but no people strolled on the green dome of the lawn.

As my mother and I approached the summer heat bore down on us, and a cicada started up, like an aerial lawnmower, in the heart of a copper beech tree at the back. The sound of the cicada only served to underline the enormous silence.

A nurse met us at the door.

“Will you wait in the living room, please. Doctor Gordon will be with you presently.”

What bothered me was that everything about the house seemed normal, although I knew it must be chock-full of crazy people. There were no bars on the windows that I could see, and no wild or disquieting noises. Sunlight measured itself out in regular oblongs on the shabby, but soft red carpets, and a whiff of fresh-cut grass sweetened the air.

I paused in the doorway of the living room.

For a minute I thought it was the replica of a lounge in a guest house I visited once on an island off the coast of Maine. The French doors let in a dazzle of white light, a grand piano filled the far corner of the room, and people in summer clothes were sitting about at card tables and in the lopsided wicker armchairs one so often finds at down-at-heel seaside resorts.

Then I realized that none of the people were moving.

I focused more closely, trying to pry some clue from their stiff postures. I made out men and women, and boys and girls who must be as young as I, but there was a uniformity to their faces, as if they had lain for a long time on the shelf, out of the sunlight, under siftings of pale, fine dust.

Then I saw that some of the people were indeed moving, but with such small, birdlike gestures I had not at first discerned them.

A gray-faced man was counting out a deck of cards, one, two, three, four…I though he must be seeing if it was a full pack, but when he had finished counting, he started over again. Next to him, a fat lady played with a string of wooden beads. She drew all the beads up to one end of the string. Then click, click, click, she let them fall back on each other.

At the piano, a young girl leafed through a few sheets of music, but when she saw me looking at her, she ducked her head crossly and tore the sheets in half.

My mother touched my arm, and I followed her into the room.

We sat, without speaking, on a lumpy sofa that creaked each time one stirred.

Then my gaze slid over the people to the blaze of green beyond the diaphanous curtains, and I felt as if I were sitting in the window of an enormous department store. The figures around me weren't people, but shop dummies, painted to resemble people and propped up in attitudes counterfeiting life.

I climbed after Doctor Gordon's dark-jacketed back.

Downstairs, in the hall, I had tried to ask him what the shock treatment would be like, but when I opened my mouth no words came out, my eyes only widened and stared at the smiling, familiar face that floated before me like a plate full of assurances.

At the top of the stairs, the garnet-colored carpet stopped. A plain, brown linoleum, tacked to the floor, took its place, and extended down a corridor lined with shut white doors. As I followed Doctor Gordon, a door opened somewhere in the distance, and I heard a woman shouting.

All at once a nurse popped around the corner of the corridor ahead of us leading a woman in a blue bathrobe with shaggy, waist-length hair. Doctor Gordon stepped back, and I flattened against the wall。

As the woman was dragged by, waving her arms and struggling in the grip of the nurse, she was saying, “I'm going to jump out of the window, I'm going to jump out of the window, I'm going to jump out of the window.”

Dumpy and muscular in her smudge-fronted uniform, the wall-eyed nurse wore such thick spectacles that four eyes peered out at me from behind the round, twin panes of glass. I was trying to tell which eyes were the real eyes and which the false eyes, and which of the real eyes was the wall-eye and which the straight eye, when she brought her face up to mine with a large, conspiratorial grin and hissed, as if to reassure me, “She thinks she's going to jump out the window but she can't jump out the window because they're all barred!”

And as Doctor Gordon led me into a bare room at the back of the house, I saw that the windows in that part were indeed barred, and that the room door and the closet door and the drawers of the bureau and everything that opened and shut was fitted with a keyhole so it could be locked up.

I lay down on the bed.

The wall-eyed nurse came back. She unclasped my watch and dropped it in her pocket. Then she started tweaking the hairpins from my hair.

Doctor Gordon was unlocking the closet. He dragged out a table on wheels with a machine on it and rolled it behind the head of the bed. The nurse started swabbing my temples with a smelly grease.

As she leaned over to reach the side of my head nearest the wall, her fat breast muffled my face like a cloud or a pillow. A vague, medicinal stench emanated from her flesh.

“Don't worry,” the nurse grinned down at me. “Their first time everybody's scared to death.”

I tried to smile, but my skin had gone stiff, like parchment.

Doctor Gordon was fitting two metal plates on either side of my head. He buckled them into place with a strap that dented my forehead, and gave me a wire to bite.

I shut my eyes.

There was a brief silence, like an indrawn breath.

Then something bent down and took hold of me and shook me like the end of the world.Whee-ee-ee-ee-ee, it shrilled, through an air crackling with blue light, and with each flash a great jolt drubbed me till I thought my bones would break and the sap fly out of me like a split plant.

I wondered what terrible thing it was that I had done.

I was sitting in a wicker chair, holding a small cocktail glass of tomato juice. The watch had been replaced on my wrist, but it looked odd. Then I realised it had been fastened upside down. I sensed the unfamiliar positioning of the hairpins in my hair.

“How do you feel?”

An old metal floor lamp surfaced in my mind. One of the few relics of my father's study, it was surrounded by a copper bell which held the light bulb, and from which a frayed, tiger-colored cord ran down the length of the metal stand to a socket in the wall.

One day I decided to move this lamp from the side of my mother's bed to my desk at the other end of the room. The cord would be long enough, so I didn't unplug it. I closed both hands around the lamp and the fuzzy cord and gripped them tight.

Then something leapt out of the lamp in a blue flash and shook me till my teeth rattled, and I tried to pull my hands off, but they were stuck, and I screamed, or a scream was torn from my throat, for I didn't recognize it, but heard it soar and quaver in the air like a violently disembodied spirit.

Then my hands jerked free, and I fell back onto my mother's bed. A small hole, blackened as if with pencil lead, pitted the center of my right palm.

“How do you feel?”

“All right.”

But I didn't. I felt terrible.

“Which college did you say you went to?”

I said what college it was.

“Ah!” Doctor Gordon's face lighted with a slow, almost tropical smile. “They had a WAC station up there, didn't they, during the war?”

My mother's knuckles were bone-white, as if the skin had worn off them in the hour of waiting. She looked past me to Doctor Gordon, and he must have nodded, or smiled, because her face relaxed.

“A few more shock treatments, Mrs. Greenwood,” I heard Doctor Gordon say, “and I think you'll notice a wonderful improvement.”

The girl was still sitting on the piano stool, the torn sheet of music splayed at her feet like a dead bird. She stared at me, and I stared back. Her eyes narrowed. She stuck out her tongue.

My mother was following Doctor Gordon to the door. I lingered behind, and when their backs were turned, I rounded on the girl and thumbed both ears at her. She pulled her tongue in, and her face went stony.

I walked out into the sun.

Pantherlike in a dapple of tree shadow, Dodo Conway's black station wagon lay in wait.

The station wagon had been ordered originally by a wealthy society lady, black, without a speck of chrome, and with black leather upholstery, but when it came, it depressed her. It was the dead spit of a hearse, she said, and everybody else thought so too, and nobody would buy it, so the Conways drove it home, cut-price, and saved themselves a couple of hundred dollars.

Sitting in the front seat, between Dodo and my mother, I felt dumb and subdued. Every time I tried to concentrate, my mind glided off, like a skater, into a large empty space, and pirouetted there, absently.

“I'm through with that Doctor Gordon,” I said, after we had left Dodo and her black station wagon behind the pines. “You can call him up and tell him I'm not coming next week.”

My mother smiled. “I knew my baby wasn't like that.”

I looked at her. “Like what.”

“Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at that hospital.” She paused. “I knew you'd decide to be all right again.”

STARLET SUCCUMBS AFTER 68-HOUR COMA.

I felt in my pocketbook among the paper scraps and the compact and the peanut shells and the dimes and nickels and the blue jiffy box containing nineteen Gillette blades, till I unearthed the snapshot I'd had taken that afternoon in the orange-and-white striped booth.

I brought it up next to the smudgy photograph of the dead girl. It matched, mouth for mouth, nose for nose. The only difference was the eyes. The eyes in the snapshot were open, and those in the newspaper photograph were closed. But I knew if the dead girl's eyes were to be thumbed wide, they would look at me with the same dead, black, vacant expression as the eyes in the snapshot.

I stuffed the snapshot back in my pocketbook.

“I will just sit here in the sun on this park bench five minutes more by the clock on that building over there,” I told myself, “and then I will go somewhere and do it.”

I summoned my little chorus of voices.

Doesn't your work interest you, Esther?

You know, Esther, you've got the perfect setup of a true neurotic.

You'll never get anywhere like that, you'll never get anywhere like that, you'll never get anywhere like that.

Once on a hot summer night, I had spent an hour kissing a hairy, ape-shaped law student from Yale because I felt sorry for him, he was so ugly. When I had finished, he said, “I have you typed, baby. You'll be a prude at forty.”

“Factitious!” my creative writing professor at college scrawled on a story of mine called “The Big Weekend.”

I hadn't known what factitious meant, so I looked it up in the dictionary.

Factitious, artificial, sham.

You'll never get anywhere like that.

I hadn't slept for twenty-one nights.

I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people's eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth.

I looked down at the two flesh-colored Band-Aids forming a cross on the calf of my right leg.

That morning I had made a start.

I had locked myself in the bathroom, and run a tub full of warm water, and taken out a Gillette blade.

When they asked some old Roman philosopher or other how he wanted to die, he said he would open his veins in a warm bath. I thought it would be easy, lying in the tub and seeing the redness flower from my wrists, flush after flush through the clear water, till I sank to sleep under a surface gaudy as poppies.

But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defenseless that I couldn't do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, a whole lot harder to get at.

It would take two motions. One wrist, then the other wrist. Three motions, if you counted changing the razor from hand to hand. Then I would step into the tub and lie down.

I moved in front of the medicine cabinet. If I looked in the mirror while I did it, it would be like watching somebody else, in a book or a play.

But the person in the mirror was paralyzed and too stupid to do a thing.

Then I thought maybe I ought to spill a little blood for practice, so I sat on the edge of the tub and crossed my right ankle over my left knee. Then I lifted my right hand with the razor and let it drop of its own weight, like a guillotine, onto the calf of my leg.

I felt nothing. Then I felt a small, deep thrill, and a bright seam of red welled up at the lip of the slash. The blood gathered darkly, like fruit, and rolled down my ankle into the cup of my black patent leather shoe.

I thought of getting into the tub then, but I realized my dallying had used up the better part of the morning, and that my mother would probably come home and find me before I was done.

So I bandaged the cut, packed up my Gillette blades and caught the eleven-thirty bus to Boston.

“Sorry, baby, there's no subway to the Deer Island Prison, it's on an island.”

“No, it's not on an island, it used to be on an island, but they filled up the water with dirt and now it joins on to the mainland.”

“There's no subway.”

“I've got to get there.”

“Hey,” the fat man in the ticket booth peered at me through the grating, “don't cry. Who you got there, honey, some relative?”

People shoved and bumped by me in the artificially lit dark, hurrying after the trains that rumbled in and out of the intestinal tunnels under Scollay Square. I could feel the tears start to spurt from the screwed-up nozzles of my eyes.

“It's my father.”

The fat man consulted a diagram on the wall of his booth. “Here's how you do,” he said, “you take a car from that track over there and get off at Orient Heights and then hop a bus with The Point on it.” He beamed at me. “It'll run you straight to the prison gate.”

“Hey you!” A young fellow in a blue uniform waved from the hut.

I waved back and kept on going.

“Hey you!”

I stopped and walked slowly over to the hut that perched like a circular living room on the waste of sands.

“Hey, you can't go any further. That's prison property, no trespassers allowed.”

“I thought you could go anyplace along the beach,” I said. “So long as you stayed under the tideline.”

The fellow thought a minute. Then he said, “Not this beach.”

He had a pleasant, fresh face.

“You've a nice place here,” I said. “It's like a little house.”

He glanced back into the room, with its braided rug and chintz curtains. He smiled.

“We even got a coffee pot.”

“I used to live near here.”

“No kidding. I was born and brought up in this town myself.”

I looked across the sands to the parking lot and the barred gate, and past the barred gate to the narrow road, lapped by the ocean on both sides, that led out to the one-time island.

The red brick buildings of the prison looked friendly, like the buildings of a seaside college. On a green hump of lawn to the left, I could see small white spots and slightly larger pink spots moving about. I asked the guard what they were, and he said, “Them's pigs 'n' chickens.”

I was thinking that if I'd had the sense to go on living in that old town I might just have met this prison guard in school and married him and had a parcel of little kids by now. It would be nice, living by the sea with piles of little kids and pigs and chickens, wearing what my grandmother called wash dresses, and sitting about in some kitchen with bright linoleum and fat arms, drinking pots of coffee.

“How do you get into that prison?”

“You get a pass.”

“No, how do you get locked in?”

“Oh,” the guard laughed, “you steal a car, you rob a store.”

“You got any murderers in there?”

“No. Murderers go to a big state place.”

“Who else is in there?”

“Well, the first day of winter we get these old bums out of Boston. They heave a brick through a window, and then they get picked up and spend the winter out of the cold, with TV and plenty to eat, and basketball games on the weekend.”

“That's nice.”

“Nice if you like it,” said the guard.

I said good-bye and started to move off, glancing back over my shoulder only once. The guard still stood in the doorway of his observation booth, and when I turned he lifted his arm in a salute.

The log I sat on was lead-heavy and smelled of tar. Under the stout, gray cylinder of the water tower on its commanding hill, the sandbar curved out into the sea. At high tide the bar completely submerged itself.

I remembered that sandbar well. It harbored, in the crook of its inner curve, a particular shell that could be found nowhere else on the beach.

The shell was thick, smooth, big as a thumb joint, and usually white, although sometimes pink or peach-colored. It resembled a sort of modest conch.

“Mummy, that girl's still sitting there.”

I looked up, idly, and saw a small, sandy child being dragged up from the sea's edge by a skinny, bird-eyed woman in red shorts and a red-and-white polka-dot halter.

I hadn't counted on the beach being overrun with summer people. In the ten years of my absence, fancy blue and pink and pale green shanties had sprung up on the flat sands of the Point like a crop of tasteless mushrooms, and the silver airplanes and cigar-shaped blimps had given way to jets that scoured the rooftops in their loud offrush from the airport across the bay.

I was the only girl on the beach in a skirt and high heels, and it occurred to me I must stand out. I had removed my patent leather shoes after a while, for they foundered badly in the sand. It pleased me to think they would be perched there on the silver log, pointing out to sea, like a sort of soul-compass, after I was dead.

I fingered the box of razors in my pocketbook.

Then I thought how stupid I was. I had the razors, but no warm bath.

I considered renting a room. There must be a boarding-house among all those summer places. But I had no luggage. That would create suspicion. Besides, in a boardinghouse other people are always wanting to use the bathroom. I'd hardly have time to do it and step into the tub when somebody would be pounding at the door.

The gulls on their wooden stilts at the tip of the bar miaowed like cats. Then they flapped up, one by one, in their ash-colored jackets, circling my head and crying.

“Say, lady, you better not sit out here, the tide's coming in.”

The small boy squatted a few feet away. He picked up a round purple stone and lobbed it into the water. The water swallowed it with a resonant plop. Then he scrabbled around, and I heard the dry stones clank together like money.

He skimmed a flat stone over the dull green surface, and it skipped seven times before it sliced out of sight.

“Why don't you go home?” I said.

The boy skipped another, heavier stone. It sank after the second bounce.

“Don't want to.”

“Your mother's looking for you.”

“She is not.” He sounded worried.

“If you go home, I'll give you some candy.”

The boy hitched closer. “What kind?”

But I knew without looking into my pocketbook that all I had was peanut shells.

“I'll give you some money to buy some candy.”

“Ar-thur!”

A woman was indeed coming out on the sandbar, slipping and no doubt cursing to herself, for her lips went up and down between her clear, peremptory calls.

“Ar-thur!”

She shaded her eyes with one hand, as if this helped her discern us through the thickening sea dusk.

I could sense the boy's interest dwindle as the pull of his mother increased. He began to pretend he didn't know me. He kicked over a few stones, as if searching for something, and edged off.

I shivered.

The stones lay lumpish and cold under my bare feet. I thought longingly of the black shoes on the beach. A wave drew back, like a hand, then advanced and touched my foot.

The drench seemed to come off the sea floor itself, where blind white fish ferried themselves by their own light through the great polar cold. I saw sharks' teeth and whales' earbones littered about down there like gravestones.

I waited, as if the sea could make my decision for me.

A second wave collapsed over my feet, lipped with white froth, and the chill gripped my ankles with a mortal ache.

My flesh winced, in cowardice, from such a death.

I picked up my pocketbook and started back over the cold stones to where my shoes kept their vigil in the violet light.

戈登大夫的私人诊所矗立在一座绿茵小丘之上,通向小丘的悠长而隐蔽的车道铺着圆蛤碎壳,一片白色。房子很大,黄色护墙板和四面回廊在太阳照耀下闪闪发光,但绿草青丘却不见有人漫步。

顶着袭人的暑气,母亲和我走向诊所。蝉声聒噪,像半空中开了台割草机,其实它们远远躲在诊所后面的一棵铜红山毛榉树上,反倒令这四周的空寂愈发无边。

一个护士站在门口迎接我们。

“请在客厅稍候,戈登医生马上就来。”

诊所里看似一切正常,反令我心中忐忑,因为我知道里面一定关着一屋子的疯子。窗户上看不见铁栏杆,也听不到让人不安的狂躁叫声,阳光被均匀地分割成长椭圆形,投射在陈旧但柔软的红地毯上,空气中弥漫着刚刚割完草的宜人清香。

我在客厅入口停下脚步。

恍惚之间,我以为这是我曾去过的缅因州海边小岛上某个宾馆的休息室。耀眼的白光自落地窗照进来,远处的角落有一架大钢琴,人们穿着夏装,或坐在牌桌边,或坐在歪斜的藤制扶手椅上——在脏乱破败的海边风景区常看到的那种椅子。

然后,我才发现这些人都一动不动。

我更仔细观察,试图从他们僵硬的姿势上找到一点线索。渐渐地,我分辨出男女,有些男孩女孩跟我一样年轻,所有人脸上的表情都如出一辙,好像已经在架子上闲置了很久,不见天日,覆上了一层灰白的微尘。

接着,我注意到有些人其实在动,只是动作细微堪比小鸟,初看之下难以察觉。

一个面色发灰的男人正数着手中的一沓扑克牌,一、二、三、四……我以为他肯定是在检查这副牌是否完整,没想到他数完后又从头数起。他旁边的胖女人在玩一串木珠子,她把所有珠子拢到线绳的一头,然后,嗒嗒嗒,让它们落回另一头。

一个女孩在钢琴前翻阅着琴谱,发现我在看她,竟然愤愤地低下头,将琴谱一撕两半。

母亲碰了碰我的胳膊,我跟着她走进房间。

我俩坐下,没有说话,身下是凹凸不平的沙发,稍稍一动就嘎吱作响。

我的视线越过客厅里的人,落在半透明窗帘后的那片盎然绿意上,感觉自己像是坐在一家大百货商店的橱窗里,四周的人都不是真的,而是店里的假人,描画得与人相像,神态也装得与活人一样。

我跟在穿着黑色外套的戈登大夫后面走上楼。

在楼下大厅时,我想问他电击治疗是怎么回事,可我张开嘴时却一个字也说不出来,只能睁大眼睛看着他那张带着笑容、满是自信的熟悉脸庞,像一只盘子飘浮在我面前。

石榴色的地毯铺到楼梯的顶端,换成了钉在地板上的朴素的褐色油毡,沿着走廊一路延伸,两侧是一扇扇紧闭的白色大门。我跟着戈登大夫往前走,远处的一扇门打开,我听到一个女人在呼叫。

冷不防,一个护士从我们前面的走廊转角冒出来,拖了一个穿着蓝色浴袍、蓬着一头及腰长发的女人。戈登大夫往后一退,我也赶紧贴墙而立。

女人一边被护士紧紧拖着,一边挥舞着手臂挣扎,嘴里不停嚷嚷:“我要跳窗,我要跳窗,我要跳窗。”

矮壮结实的护士穿着正面脏污的制服,拿斜视的眼睛直盯着我,两只圆圆的镜片厚到居然显现出四只眼睛。我尽力分辨哪只眼睛是真的,哪只是假的;真眼中哪只是斜视,哪只是直视。她却突然凑近我,居心叵测地咧着大嘴,笑得嘶嘶作响,好像在向我保证一般地说:“她以为可以跳窗,可她根本办不到,因为窗户都上了铁条!”

戈登大夫领我走进位于后方的一个空荡荡的房间。我发现这里的窗户果然都安了铁栏杆,房门、橱门和柜子的抽屉,一切能打开关上的东西都配了锁孔,以便上锁。

我躺到床上。

斜眼护士进来,解下我的手表,丢进她的口袋。然后她又开始扯我头发上的发夹。

戈登大夫打开上锁的柜子,拖出一张带滚轮的桌子,推到我的床头后面,桌上摆着一台机器。护士开始把一种难闻的油脂涂在我的太阳穴上。

她俯身涂抹我靠墙那侧的太阳穴时,丰满的胸脯像云朵或枕头一样蒙住我的脸,一股淡淡的药臭味从她身上散发出来。

“别担心。”她低头又对我笑,“每个人第一次都怕得要死。”

我想回赠一个笑脸,但皮肤僵得像羊皮纸。

戈登大夫把两个金属片贴在我的头两侧,用一条皮带固定住,皮带嵌入我的前额,然后再让我咬住一条电线。

我闭上眼睛。

短暂的安静,仿佛深吸了一口气。

然后,有个东西欺身而近,抓住我,用力摇撼,如世界末日来临。吱——它发出尖锐的声音,空中蓝光乍现,噼啪爆裂,每一次闪光就是一次剧烈的撞击,直痛得我魂飞魄散、骨碎血溅,好像树木被闪电劈裂。

我到底犯了什么滔天大罪?

我坐在藤椅里,端着小鸡尾酒杯装着的番茄汁。表又回到我的手腕上,但看起来怪怪的,原来是戴倒了。我察觉到,发夹在我头发里的位置也不是我熟悉的地方。

“感觉怎么样?”

我的脑海中浮现起一盏旧的金属落地灯,它是我父亲书房里为数不多的遗物之一。上面有一个钟形铜座托着灯泡,一条虎皮色的破损电线从铜座垂下,接入墙上的插座中。

一天,我打算把这盏灯从母亲的床头挪到房间另一头,放在我的书桌旁。电线足够长,所以我没拔插头,直接用双手紧握住落地灯柱和毛糙的破电线。

突然,灯柱里跳出一道蓝光,把我震得牙齿打战,我想松开手,可是手被吸住了,我放声尖叫。或者该说尖叫声冲破我的喉咙,因为我完全认不得那声音,只听见它在空中颤抖,像灵魂被残暴地驱离了肉体。

双手猝然挣脱,我往后一仰,倒在母亲的床上。右手掌正中有一个像被铅笔芯戳中的小黑坑。

“感觉怎么样?”

“还好。”

才不好呢,我感觉糟透了。

“你说你读的哪所大学?”

我说出校名。

“啊!”戈登大夫的脸缓缓绽开一个简直算得上热情的笑容,“二战期间那里有个陆军妇女队,是吧?”

母亲的指关节是骨白色,好像在等我的这段时间关节上的皮肤都脱落了。她望向我身后的戈登大夫,神色一松,后者必定是跟她点了个头或露出了个笑容。

“再做几次电击治疗,格林伍德太太。”我听见戈登大夫说,“我想,你就会看见她大有进展。”

那个女孩依旧坐在钢琴凳上,撕破的琴谱像只死鸟落在她的脚边。她瞪着我,我也瞪着她。她眯起眼,对我吐出舌头。

母亲跟着戈登大夫走到门口,我磨磨蹭蹭跟在后面,他们俩一转身,我就转头对着那女孩,捏着耳朵做鬼脸。她缩回舌头,变回了石头脸。

我走到户外的阳光下。

朵朵·康威的黑色旅行车像一只黑豹,等候在光影斑驳的树荫下。

这辆旅行车原本是个富有的名媛预订的,车身全黑,没有一点儿杂色,连内饰皮革也是黑的。结果车子一到,名媛看了之后好不沮丧,说这根本就是辆灵车,其他人也这么觉得,所以没人接手。于是,康威夫妇狠狠杀价,省了好几百美元,把车开回了家。

坐在前排的我,夹在母亲和朵朵之间,浑身无力,倍感压抑。每次想集中精神,心思就像溜冰似的,滑入广袤虚无之中,在那里自顾旋转。

“我受够戈登大夫了。”下车后,看着朵朵的黑色旅行车消失在松树后面,我对母亲说,“你给他打电话,说我下周不会去了。”

母亲微笑着道:“我就知道我的宝贝不是那样的。”

我看着她,问:“哪样?”

“那些可怕的人。医院里的那些行尸走肉。”她顿了顿,“我知道,你会下决心恢复正常的。”

新晋女星,昏迷68小时,终告不治

我在皮包里摸索了半天——纸片,化妆盒,花生壳,硬币,装着十九片吉列剃须刀片的蓝色盒子——终于找到那天下午在公园橙白条纹照相亭里拍的快照。

我把我的照片置于报纸上那张不治身亡的女星照片旁。她的照片有点模糊,但是两张照片看起来真像啊,嘴巴像,鼻子也像。唯一不像的是眼睛。快照里我的眼睛是睁着的,报纸照片中她的眼睛是闭着的。可我知道,如果用手指撑开她的眼睛,它们会如同快照里我的眼睛一样,死气沉沉、黝黑空洞地望向我。

我把快照塞回皮包。

“我就坐在公园的长椅上,晒着太阳,看着那边钟楼上的时钟,多待五分钟吧。”我心里想,“然后,我就找个地方动手。”

我召唤出脑海中小小的声音合奏。

你对工作提不起兴趣吗,埃斯特?

你知道吗,埃斯特,你有神经官能症的典型初期症状。

这样你会一事无成,这样你会一事无成,这样你会一事无成。

某个炎热的夏夜,我曾花了一个小时亲吻一个全身多毛、形似猿猴的耶鲁大学法学院的学生,因为我同情他长得这样丑。我亲完后,他竟告诉我:“宝贝,我知道你是哪种女人了。你到了四十岁会是个假正经的老古板。”

大学里教创意写作的教授在我那篇题为《大周末》的小说上,挥笔写下“矫揉造作!”的评语。

我不知道这词什么意思,所以去查了字典。

矫揉造作:不自然,虚假。

这样你会一事无成。

我已经二十一个晚上睡不着觉了。

我想,这世上最美的东西就是影子,上百万个影子,或移动或固守一方。影子在柜子抽屉、衣橱、皮箱里,影子在屋子、树木、石头底下;影子在眼眸、微笑背后,在地球上笼罩着黑夜的那一面,影子绵延万里。

我低头看着右小腿,两片肉色的创可贴在上面交叉成十字。

那天早上,我终于动手。

我把自己反锁在浴室里,放了一整浴缸的温水,拿出一片吉列剃须刀片。

有人向某位年迈的罗马哲学家之类的智者求教,问他会选择什么死法,哲学家说他要泡在温水里切开自己的血管。我想,这倒容易,躺在浴缸中,看着手腕冒出的红色血花开在澄净的水中,我沉入绚烂如罂粟的红色水底,永远睡去。

然而事到临头,我却发现手腕的皮肤如此苍白无助,我下不了手。仿佛我要杀的东西不在这层皮肤之下,也不是我拇指底下跳动的微弱蓝色脉搏,而是在某个更幽深、更隐秘、更难以企及的地方。

其实只需要两个动作。先割一只手腕,然后换另一只。如果把刀片换手的动作加进去,也就三个动作。然后,踏进浴缸,躺下。

我走到浴柜前,如果割腕时看着镜子,应该就像看着书中或戏里的人吧。

可是镜中人麻木无力,笨得什么也做不了。

我转念一想,或许该先弄出点血练习练习。于是我坐在浴缸边,把右脚踝架在左膝上,然后举起右手的刀片,让它像断头台的铡刀般自由落在我的小腿肚上。

没什么感觉。随后,是一股来自深处的细微震颤,伤口涌出一道鲜明的红色细流。血越聚颜色越暗,像个水果,滚落脚踝,流进黑色的漆皮鞋中。

我想进浴缸,但又想到刚才那番磨蹭耗尽了早上的大好时光,眼看妈妈就要到家,会在我完成一切前发现我。

于是,我给伤口贴上创可贴,将吉列刀片收好,搭十一点半的公交车去了波士顿。

“抱歉,姑娘,地铁到不了鹿岛监狱,因为它在岛上。”

“不,它不在岛上。以前那儿是岛,但是经过填海造地,岛已经和内陆相连了。”

“可是没有地铁。”

“我非去不可。”

“喂。”票亭里的胖男人隔着铁栅栏看着我,“别哭啊,姑娘。那里有你什么人?亲戚?”

夜色被人工照明设备点亮,火车在斯戈雷广场下的蜿蜒隧道中隆隆进出,四周人群你推我搡着追赶火车。我能感觉到泪水就要从我死死闭住的眼角涌出。

“是我的父亲。”

胖男人看了一下票亭内墙上的图表,说:“这么着吧,你先乘旁边的那路车,在‘东高地’下,转乘前往‘海角’的公交车。”他又笑道:“它会直接把你送到监狱门口。”

“喂,你!”小屋里一个穿着蓝色制服的小伙子朝我挥手。

我也对他挥挥手,然后继续往前走。

“喂,你!”

我止住脚步,慢慢地走向小屋,它就像个坐落在废弃沙堆上的圆形客厅。

“喂,你不能再往前走了。那里是监狱重地,禁止入内。”

“我以为沙滩沿岸都可以走。”我说,“只要不超过潮水线。”

小伙子想了一下,然后说:“这片海滩不行。”

他长了张讨人喜欢的充满青春气息的脸。

“你这地方真不错。”我说,“像个小房子。”

他回头看了眼铺着编织小地毯、挂着印花棉布窗帘的房间,笑了。

“我们还有咖啡壶。”

“我以前住在附近。”

“没开玩笑吧?我也是这个镇土生土长的呢。”

我的视线越过沙滩,望向停车场和铁栅门。门后有一条穿海破浪的窄路,通往昔日的小岛。

监狱的红砖建筑看起来挺友善,像是一所海滨大学的校舍。我看见左边山坡的草坪上有些小白点和稍大些的小粉点在移动,问警卫那是什么,他说:“猪和鸡嘛。”

我不禁浮想联翩。要是当初我明白事理,留在这个老镇,说不准会在学校里认识这个狱警,跟他结婚,现在已经有了一堆孩子。住在海边,守着孩子,喂喂小猪小鸡,穿着被祖母称作耐洗外套的衣服,坐在铺着鲜亮油毡的厨房里,陷在宽大的扶手椅当中,一壶一壶地喝着咖啡,这样也不错。

“怎样才能进监狱?”

“要有通行证。”

“不,怎样才能被关进去?”

“哦。”警卫笑了,“偷车啊,或者抢劫商店。”

“里头有杀人犯吗?”

“没有。杀人犯关在大型州立监狱。”

“里面还关着哪些人?”

“呃,冬天一到,波士顿的老流浪汉就会来。他们故意朝窗户扔砖头,等着被逮入狱,这样冬天就不必挨饿受冻了。监狱里有电视可看,三餐吃得饱,周末还有篮球赛。”

“不错嘛。”

“如果喜欢这种生活,的确不错。”警卫说。

我跟他道别,转身离开,只回头望了一眼。他仍站在岗亭门口,见我回头,他举手敬了个礼。

我坐着的树干沉重如铅,气味像是沥青。居高临下的山丘顶上矗立着粗壮的灰色圆柱水塔,下方的沙洲蜿蜒入海,涨潮时就会淹没不见。

我清楚记得这片沙洲。有一种奇特的贝壳只长在这片沙洲的内凹处,海滩的其他地方都寻不着。

这种贝壳厚而光滑,拇指关节大小,通常是白色的,但偶有粉红色或蜜桃色,长得很像一种不大不小的海螺。

“妈咪,那个女生还坐在那儿。”

我懒懒地抬起头,看见一个全身是沙的小孩被一个女人拖上岸,女人身形纤瘦,眼神锐利,穿着红色短裤和红白圆点的颈背系带背心。

我没想到,这个海滩挤满了消夏的人。我离开的这十年,一栋栋花哨的度假小屋如雨后春笋般出现在海角的平坦沙地上,或蓝或粉或浅绿,像一簇食之无味的蘑菇。银色的飞机和雪茄状的飞船已被喷气机取代,它从海湾对面的机场隆隆起飞,急速掠过一片屋顶。

我是海滩上唯一穿裙子和高跟鞋的人,想必很是惹眼。过了一会儿,我把漆皮鞋脱了,因为它们老是陷进沙子里。想到我死了之后,这双鞋子会静静地放在这截银色的木头上,鞋尖指向大海,有如某种灵魂罗盘,我就倍感开怀。

我用手指摸了摸皮包里的那盒剃须刀片。

随即想到自己真是蠢透了。有了刀片,可是这里没有温水供我浸泡。

我想到租个房间,所有避暑胜地肯定都有旅店。可是我没有行李,会让人生疑。而且,旅店里总是有其他房客等着用浴室,如果有人砰砰敲门,我就没时间动手,再迈入浴缸等死。

沙洲顶端的海鸥落在高跷一样的木头上,发出猫一般喵喵的叫声。接着它们振翅飞起,一只接一只,身披灰羽,在我头顶盘旋、哀鸣。

“我说,女士,你最好不要坐在那儿,快涨潮了。”

那个小男孩蹲在离我几英尺的地方,捡起一颗紫色的圆石子,往海里一抛,扑通一声,海水就吞没了它。他在沙滩上到处翻找,我听见干燥的石头发出钱币般的撞击声。

他横扔出一块扁平的石子打水漂,石子在暗绿色的水面上弹了七次才消失无踪。

“你怎么不回家?”我问。

男孩又扔出一块石子,这次的比较重,只弹了两下就沉入水里。

“不想回去。”

“你妈妈该找你了。”

“才没有。”他的声音听起来有点担心了。

“如果你回家,我就给你糖吃。”

男孩立刻往前凑。“什么样的糖?”

用不着打开皮包,我也知道里头只有花生壳。

“我给你钱去买糖。”

“亚——瑟!”

真的有个女人出现在沙洲上,她滑了一跤,嘴里嘀嘀咕咕,显然是对刚才那一跤心怀怨恨,因为她发出响亮急迫的叫喊声时,嘴唇还一上一下地动着。

“亚——瑟!”

她用一只手遮在眼睛上方,好像这样有助于她在渐浓的海边夜色中分辨出我们在哪儿。

我能感觉到,随着母亲催得越急,小男孩的兴致就越低。他开始假装不认识我,踢了几脚石头,像是要找什么东西,缓缓走远了。

我打了个冷战。

裸足之下的石块笨重而冰冷,令我特别想念放在海滩上的那双黑皮鞋。海浪退去,然后又往前涌,像手轻抚触摸着我的脚。

寒湿之气仿佛来自海底,在那样的海底,有种白鱼,目不能视,却以自身发出的亮光穿越酷寒的极地。在那海底,我还看见鲨鱼的牙齿和鲸鱼的耳骨散落各处,有如墓碑。

我等着,等着大海替我做出决定。

第二道浪花在我脚边拍碎,点点白沫轻吻我的赤足。寒意攫住双踝,剧痛难当。

我的肉体畏缩了,因为胆怯,不敢面对这样的死法。

我拾起皮包,走过森寒的石头,回到紫罗兰色的天光之下,我的鞋子守候的地方。

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