“Listen to this,” he’d sometimes say, removing his headphones, breaking the oppressive silence of those long sweltering summer mornings. “Just listen to this drivel.” And he’d proceed to read aloud something he couldn’t believe he had written months earlier.
“Does it make any sense to you? Not to me.”
“Maybe it did when you wrote it,” I said.
He thought for a while as though weighing my words.
“That’s the kindest thing anyone’s said to me in months”—spoken ever so earnestly, as if he was hit by a sudden revelation and was taking what I’d said to mean much more than I thought it did. I felt ill at ease, looked away, and finally muttered the first thing that came to mind: “Kind?” I asked.
“Yes, kind.”
I didn’t know what kindness had to do with it. Or perhaps I wasn’t seeing clearly enough where all this was headed and preferred to let the matter slide. Silence again. Until the next time he’d speak.
 
他偶尔会摘掉耳机，打破漫长而闷热的夏日早晨那种压抑的沉默，说：“你听听这个……你听听这段蠢话。”然后大声朗读出来，不愿相信这是几个月前他自己写下的句子。
“你觉得有道理吗？我觉得说不通。”
“或许你写的时候觉得有道理。”我说。
他思考了一会儿，仿佛在斟酌我的话。
“这是几个月以来，所有人对我说过的最仁慈的话。”讲得非常诚恳，仿佛突然降临的天启感动了他，超乎预期地看重我的话。我觉得很不自在，撇开目光，终于还是喃喃说出我脑海中出现的第一句话：“仁慈？”
“对，仁慈。”
我不知道仁慈跟这件事有何关系。然而我似乎对于这事态会往何处发展不是很明白，所以宁可让事情不知不觉地过去。再度沉默。直到他下一次开口。
 
How I loved it when he broke the silence between us to say something—anything—or to ask what I thought about X, or had I ever heard of Y? Nobody in our household ever asked my opinion about anything. If he hadn’t already figured out why, he would soon enough—it was only a matter of time before he fell in with everyone’s view that I was the baby of the family. And yet here he was in his third week with us, asking me if I’d ever heard of Athanasius Kircher11, Giuseppe Belli12, and Paul Celan13.
“I have.”
“I’m almost a decade older than you are and until a few days ago had never heard of any of them. I don’t get it.”
“What’s not to get? Dad’s a university professor. I grew up without TV. Get it now?”
“Go back to your plunking, will you!” he said as though crumpling a towel and throwing it at my face.
 
我多么喜欢他打破我们之间的沉默说点什么，什么都好——问我对 A 的看法，或问我是否听说过 B。在我们家，从来没人针对任何事问过我的想法——我以为就算他不清楚个中原因，不用多久也会明白并赞同大家的看法，认为我是这个家里的小婴儿。然而他已经和我们同住了三个星期，现在还在问我是否听过基歇尔、贝利、保罗·策兰这些名字吗？
“听过。”
“我比你大了将近十岁，但直到几天前，这些人我一个也没听过。我真不懂。”
“有什么好不懂的？我爸是大学教授。我从小到大不看电视，懂了吗？”
“够了，回去弹你的吉他吧！”他还作势揉起一团毛巾往我脸上扔。

《请以你的名字呼唤我》