双语读剧：Call me by ...（一）52:音乐是我们很容易聊起的主题

And yet, out of the blue, a tender moment would erupt so suddenly between us that the words I longed to tell him would almost slip out of my mouth. Green bathing suit moments, I called them—even after my color theory was entirely disproved and gave me no confidence to expect kindness on “blue” days or to watch out for “red” days.
 
偶尔，突如其来地，我们之间会有一些温情时刻，我几乎脱口而出那些我渴望告诉他的话。那是我所谓的绿色泳裤时刻——即使我的色彩理论已经完全被现实推翻，让我没信心在“蓝色”日子里期待友善，或是在“红色”日子里谨慎提防。
 
Music was an easy subject for us to discuss, especially when I was at the piano. Or when he’d want me to play something in the manner of so-and-so. He liked my combinations of two, three, even four composers chiming in on the same piece, and then transcribed by me. One day Chiara started to hum a hit-parade tune and suddenly, because it was a windy day and no one was heading for the beach or even staying outdoors, our friends gathered around the piano in the living room as I improvised a Brahms variation on a Mozart rendition of that very same song. “How do you do this?” he asked me one morning while he lay in heaven.
 
音乐是我们很容易聊起的主题，尤其是我坐在钢琴前，或他希望我用某种风格弹点什么的时候。他喜欢我在一首曲子里融合两位、三位，甚至四位作曲家的风格，再依我的方法改编。有一天，奇亚拉哼起一首流行歌的曲调。那天风大，没人去海边，甚至也没人在户外逗留，我即兴弹起一首由布拉姆斯改编的莫扎特所演奏过的一首曲子，我们的朋友突然都聚在客厅钢琴的四周。“你是怎么做到的？”有一天早上他躺在“天堂”时问我。
 
“Sometimes the only way to understand an artist is to wear his shoes, to get inside him. Then everything else flows naturally.”
We talked about books again. I had seldom spoken to anyone about books except my father.
Or we talked about music, about the pre-Socratic philosophers, about college in the U.S.
Or there was Vimini.
 
“有时候，了解一位艺术家唯一的办法，就是设身处地进入他们的内心，然后一切自然水到渠成。”
我们又再度谈起书。除了父亲之外，我很少跟任何人谈书。
或者我们谈音乐，谈苏格拉底之前的哲学家，谈美国的大学。
或者还有薇米妮。
 
The first time she intruded on our mornings was precisely when I’d been playing a variation on Brahms’s last variations on Handel.
Her voice broke up the intense midmorning heat.
“What are you doing?”
“Working,” I replied.
Oliver, who was lying flat on his stomach on the edge of the pool, looked up with the sweat pouring down between his shoulder blades.
“Me too,” he said when she turned and asked him the same question.
“You were talking, not working.”
“Same thing.”
“I wish I could work. But no one gives me any work.”
Oliver, who had never seen Vimini before, looked up to me, totally helpless, as though he didn’t know the rules of this conversation.
 
那天早晨她第一次闯进来时，我正在改编布拉姆斯以韩德尔主题做的最后几个变奏。
她的声音穿透上午十点前后强烈的热气。
“你在干什么？”
“工作。”我回答。
趴在泳池边的奥利弗抬头看，汗水从他的肩胛骨骨间倾泻而下。
“我也是。”她转向奥利弗问同一个问题时，他说。
“你们在聊天，不是在工作。”
“一回事儿。”
“我希望我能工作。可是没人肯给我工作。”
从来没见过薇米妮的奥利弗抬头看我，一副茫然无措的样子，仿佛不明白这段对话到底是什么情况。