《渺小一生》:然而，杰比也是他最早的朋友

　 “Thanks,” said JB. “So do you.”

“谢了。”杰比说，“你也是。”

　 For twenty minutes or so, they discussed JB’s life: he had joined Crystal Meth Anonymous. He was going to live with his mother for another few months or so, and then decide what to do next. He was working again, on the same series he’d been working on before he went away.

有大约二十分钟，他们谈着杰比的生活：他加入了戒冰毒的自助团体。他打算在母亲家继续住几个月，再决定往后的事情。他又开始工作了，继续住院前就在做的那个系列。

　 “That’s great, JB,” he’d said. “I’m proud of you.”

“太好了，杰比。”他说，“我真是以你为荣。”

　 And then there was a silence, and they both stared at other people. A few tables away from him was a girl wearing a long gold necklace she kept winding and unwinding around her fingers. He watched her talk to her friend, wrapping and unwrapping her necklace, until she looked up at him and he looked away.

接下来是一段沉默，他们看着店里的其他人。隔着几张桌子，有个年轻女郎戴了一条长长的金项链，不断地把项链绕在手指上又松开。他看着她跟她的朋友讲话，项链绕起又松开，直到她抬头看着他，他才别开眼睛。

　 “Jude,” JB began, “I wanted to tell you—completely sober—that I’m so sorry. It was horrible. It was—” He shook his head. “It was so cruel. I can’t—” He stopped again, and there was a silence. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“裘德，”杰比开口，“我想告诉你——我完全清醒了——我很抱歉。那件事太可怕了，太……”他摇摇头，“那真的太残忍了。我没有……”他又停下来，沉默了一会儿。“对不起，”他说，“我真的很抱歉。”

　 “I know you are, JB,” he said, and he felt a sort of sadness he’d never felt before. Other people had been cruel to him, had made him feel awful, but they hadn’t been people he loved, they hadn’t been people he had always hoped saw him as someone whole and undamaged. JB had been the first.

“我知道你很抱歉，杰比。”他说，忽然感到一种前所未有的哀伤。其他人曾经对他残忍，让他感觉很糟糕，但那些都不是他深爱的人，他不会总是期盼那些人把他视为完整无损的。而杰比是第一个。

　 And yet JB had also been one of the first to be his friend. When he’d had the episode in college that had made his roommates take him to the hospital where he had met Andy, it had been JB, Andy later told him, who had carried him in, and JB who had demanded that he be seen first, who had made such an upset in the ER that he had been ejected—but not before a doctor had been summoned.

然而，杰比也是他最早的朋友之一。他在大学时期因为疼痛发作、被室友送去医院而认识安迪那回，安迪后来告诉他，是杰比抱他进去的，而且要求医生先看他，还因为大闹急诊室被赶出去——但至少他先把医生找来了。

　 He could see JB’s love for him in his paintings of him. He remembered one summer in Truro, watching JB sketch, and he had known from the expression on JB’s face, his little smile, and the lingering, delicate way his large forearm moved over the page, that he was drawing something he treasured, something that was dear to him. “What’re you drawing?” he’d asked, and JB had turned to him, and held up the notepad, and he had seen it was a picture of him, of his face.

在杰比画他的那些作品中，他看得出杰比对他的爱。他还记得某个夏天在特鲁罗，他看到杰比在素描，从杰比脸上的笑容，那个小小的微笑，还有那粗壮的前臂在纸上小心移动的方式，就知道他在画他很珍惜、很心爱的事物。“你在画什么？”当时他问。杰比转向他，举起素描本，他看到上头画的是他，他的脸。

　 Oh, JB, he thought. Oh, I will miss you.

啊，杰比，他心想，啊，我会想念你的。

　 “Can you forgive me, Jude?” JB asked, and looked at him.

“你能原谅我吗，裘德？”杰比看着他问。

　 He didn’t have words, he could only shake his head. “I can’t, JB,” he said, finally. “I can’t. I can’t look at you without seeing—” He stopped. “I can’t,” he repeated. “I’m sorry, JB, I’m so sorry.”

他无话可说，只能摇摇头。“我没办法，杰比。”最后他终于说，“我没办法。我没办法看着你的脸而不想起……”他停下来。“我没办法。”他又说了一次，“对不起，杰比，真的很对不起。”

　 “Oh,” said JB, and he swallowed. They sat there for a long time, not saying anything.

“啊。”杰比说，然后他咽了口口水。他们又坐了好一会儿，什么话都没说。

　 “I’ll always want wonderful things for you,” he said to JB, who nodded, slowly, not looking at him.

“我会永远希望你有美好的人生。”他对杰比说。杰比缓缓点头，没看他。

　 “Well,” JB said, finally, and stood, and he stood as well, and held his hand out to JB, who looked at it as if it were something alien, something he’d never seen before, examining it, squinting at it. And then at last he took it, but instead of shaking it, he lowered his lips to it and held them there. And then JB returned his hand to him and bumbled, nearly ran, out of the café, bumping against the little tables—“Sorry, sorry”—as he went.

“唔。”杰比最后终于开口，并且站起来。他也站起来，朝杰比伸出一只手。杰比看着那手，好像那是外星来的，从没见过，眯着眼睛审视了一会，终于也伸出手握住，但是没握着上下摇晃，而是低头，用嘴唇吻了那手一下。然后杰比放开他的手，跌跌撞撞，几乎是跑着离开那家小餐馆，还撞到了几张小桌子，一边说着“对不起，对不起”。

　 He still sees JB now and then, mostly at parties, always in groups, and the two of them are polite and cordial with each other. They make small talk, which is the most painful thing. JB has never tried to hug or kiss him again; he comes over to him with his hand already outstretched, and he takes it, and they shake. He sent JB flowers—but with only the briefest of notes—when “Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days” opened, and although he skipped the opening, he had gone to the gallery the following Saturday, on his way up to work, where he had spent an hour moving slowly from one painting to the next. JB had planned on including himself in this series, but in the end he hadn’t: there was just him, and Malcolm, and Willem. The paintings were beautiful, and as he looked at each, he thought not so much of the lives depicted in them, as of the life who created them—so many of these paintings were done when JB was at his most miserable, his most helpless, and yet they were self-assured, and subtle, and to see them was to imagine the empathy and tenderness and grace of the person who made them.

他偶尔会碰到杰比，大部分是在派对上，总是在人群中，两人对彼此礼貌而热诚。他们会寒暄几句，这是最痛苦的。杰比再也不会试着拥抱他或吻他，而是大老远就伸出手朝他走来，然后他接住，两人握手。杰比的个展“秒，分，时，日”开幕时，他请花店送花过去，但附上的卡片极其简短。开幕日那天他没去，但下一个星期六，在去加班途中，他绕到那间画廊，逗留了一小时，慢条斯理地逐一欣赏那些画。杰比的这个系列本来也打算要纳入自己的一天，但最后还是没有，只有他、马尔科姆和威廉的一天。那些画很美，他把每一幅都看了，想到的不是里面描绘的生活，而是杰比创造这些作品时的生活——其中很多是在杰比最凄惨、最无助的时候画的，然而这些画却充满自信，而且精致。看着这些作品，会让人感受到创作者的同情心、温柔和优雅。

　 Malcolm has remained friends with JB, although he felt the need to apologize to him for this fact. “Oh no, Malcolm,” he’d said, once Malcolm had confessed, asking him for his permission. “You should absolutely still be friends with him.” He doesn’t want JB to be abandoned by them all; he doesn’t want Malcolm to feel he has to prove his loyalty to him by disavowing JB. He wants JB to have a friend who’s known him since he was eighteen, since he was the funniest, brightest person in the school, and he and everyone else knew it.

马尔科姆还是跟杰比维持着好友关系，但觉得有必要为此跟他道歉。于是马尔科姆找了他，把这件事说开，希望他认可。“啊不，马尔科姆，”他说，“你当然应该跟他维持好友关系啊。”他不希望杰比被他们所有人抛弃，他不希望马尔科姆觉得必须背弃杰比以证明自己的忠诚。他希望杰比有个从18岁开始就认识他的老友，从他是全校最搞笑、最聪明的人时开始，而他和每个人都很清楚这一点。

　 But Willem has never spoken to JB again. Once JB returned from rehab, he called JB and said that he couldn’t be friends with him any longer, and that JB knew why. And that had been the end. He had been surprised by this, and saddened, because he had always loved watching JB and Willem laugh together, and spar with each other, and loved having them tell him about their lives: they were both so fearless, so bold; they were his emissaries to a less inhibited, more joyful world. They had always known how to take pleasure from everything, and he had always admired that in them, and had been grateful that they had been willing to share it with him.

不过，威廉再也不跟杰比来往了。杰比一从勒戒中心出来，威廉就打电话给杰比，说他没办法再跟他当朋友了，还说杰比自己很清楚为什么。于是他们的友谊告终了。这件事令他很惊讶，也很难过，因为他一直很爱看杰比和威廉一起大笑、一起斗嘴，而且很爱听他们诉说他们的生活。他们两个都那么无畏、那么勇敢，他们是他派出去的特使，从一个不太拘谨、比较欢乐的世界带回讯息来给他。他们总是懂得如何享受各种事物，他也一直佩服他们这一点，很感激他们愿意与他分享。

　 “You know, Willem,” he said once, “I hope the reason you’re not talking to JB isn’t because of what happened with me.”

“你知道，威廉，”有回他说，“我希望你不跟杰比来往的原因，不是跟我有关的那件事。”

　 “Of course it’s because of what happened with you,” Willem had said.

“当然是因为跟你有关的那件事。”威廉说。

　 “But that’s not a reason,” he’d said.

“可是那不是理由。”他说。