《渺小一生》:最后，我也没办法再说什么了

　 “Like what?”

“比方说？”

　 “Sometimes it’s because I feel so awful, or ashamed, and I need to make physical what I feel,” he began, and glanced at me before looking down again. “And sometimes it’s because I feel so many things and I need to feel nothing at all—it helps clear them away. And sometimes it’s because I feel happy, and I have to remind myself that I shouldn’t.”

“有时候是因为我感觉很糟糕，或者很羞愧，我必须让身体实际感觉到。”他开口，瞥了我一眼又低下头，“有时候是因为我感受到太多事情，而我不想有任何感觉——这个能帮我把那些感觉清理掉。有时候是因为我觉得快乐，我必须提醒自己不应该快乐。”

　 “Why?” I asked him once I could speak again, but he only shook his head and didn’t answer, and I too went silent.

“为什么？”我愣了一下，才勉强开口，但他只是摇摇头没回答。我也陷入沉默。

　 He took a breath. “Look,” he said, suddenly, decisively, looking at me directly, “if you want to dissolve the adoption, I’ll understand.”

他吸了口气，“听我说，”他说，忽然果断起来，看着我的双眼，“如果你想取消收养，我会谅解的。”

　 I was so stunned that I was angry—that hadn’t even occurred to me. I was about to bark something back when I looked at him, at how he was trying to be brave, and saw that he was terrified: He really did think this was something I might want to do. He really would understand if I said I did. He was expecting it. Later, I realized that in those years just after the adoption, he was always wondering how permanent it was, always wondering what he would eventually do that would make me disown him.

我震惊得简直要生气了——我根本没想到这回事。我正要骂他几句，却看到他此时的样子，明白他设法要勇敢起来，但其实已经吓得要死了：他真的以为我可能想取消收养。如果我这样说，他真的会谅解的。他正等着我开口。后来我才明白，刚办收养手续的那几年，他一直在想能持续多久，总是想着他会不会做出什么事，让我取消收养。

　 “I would never,” I said, as firmly as I could.

“我绝对不会取消的。”我说，尽可能说得坚决。

　 That night, I tried to talk to him. He was ashamed of what he did, I could see that, but he genuinely couldn’t understand why I cared so much, why it so upset you and me and Andy. “It’s not fatal,” he kept saying, as if that were the concern, “I know how to control it.” He wouldn’t see a shrink, but he couldn’t tell me why. He hated doing it, I could tell, but he also couldn’t conceive of a life without it. “I need it,” he kept saying. “I need it. It makes things right.” But surely, I told him, there was a time in your life when you didn’t have it?, and he shook his head. “I need it,” he repeated. “It helps me, Harold, you have to believe me on this one.”

那天晚上，我设法跟他谈。我看得出来他对自己的所作所为很羞愧，但他真的不明白为什么我这么在乎，为什么你、我和安迪要这么大惊小怪。“那又不会致命，”他一直说，好像我们担心的是这个，“我知道怎么控制。”他不肯去做心理咨询，但也无法告诉我为什么。我看得出来他讨厌割自己，但他也无法想象不割自己的生活。“我需要，”他一直说，“我需要的。这会让事情好一点。”但是我告诉他，你这辈子总有一段时间是没有这个的吧？他摇摇头。“我需要。”他重复说，“这能帮助我，哈罗德。这件事你得信我。”

　 “Why do you need it?” I asked.

“为什么你需要？”我问。

　 He shook his head. “It helps me control my life,” he said, finally.

他摇头。“它帮助我控制我的生活。”他终于说。

　 At the end, there was nothing more I could say. “I’m keeping this,” I said, holding the bag up, and he winced, and nodded. “Jude,” I said, and he looked back at me. “If I throw this away, are you going to make another one?”

最后，我也没办法再说什么了。“这个我要没收。”我说，举起那个袋子，他皱了一下脸，然后点点头。“裘德，”我说，他也看着我，“如果我把这个丢掉，你还会再弄一包来吗？”

　 He was very quiet, then, looking at his plate. “Yes,” he said.

他静默了一会儿，然后看着他的盘子，说：“会。”

　 I threw it out anyway, of course, stuffing it deep into a garbage bag that I carried to the Dumpster at the end of the road. We cleaned the kitchen in silence—we were both exhausted, and neither of us had eaten anything—and then he went to bed, and I did as well. In those days I was still trying to be respectful of his personal space, or I’d have grabbed him and held him, but I didn’t.

当然，我还是把那袋子扔了，塞进垃圾袋深处，扔到街尾的垃圾拖车里。我们沉默地收拾厨房——两个人都累坏了，完全吃不下——之后他去睡觉，我也回房休息。那些年我还一直试着尊重他的个人空间，否则我就会抓住他不放了，但当时我没有。

　 But as I was lying awake in bed, I thought of him, his long fingers craving the slice of the razor between them, and went downstairs to the kitchen. I got the big mixing bowl from the drawer beneath the oven, and began loading it with everything sharp I could find: knives and scissors and corkscrews and lobster picks. And then I took it with me to the living room, where I sat in my chair, the one facing the sea, clasping the bowl in my arms.

我躺在床上睡不着。我想到他，想到他长长的手指渴望地抓着刮胡刀片，于是我起床，下楼到厨房去。我从烤箱下头的抽屉里拿出大型搅拌钵，然后把所有我能找到的锋利对象放进去：刀子、剪刀、葡萄酒开瓶器和龙虾叉。然后我拿着那些东西到客厅，坐在我那张面海的椅子上，怀里紧紧抱着那个大钵。

　 I woke to a creaking. The kitchen floorboards were noisy, and I sat up in the dark, willing myself to stay silent, and listened to his walk, the distinctive soft stamp of his left foot followed by the swish of his right, and then a drawer opening and, a few seconds later, shutting. Then another drawer, then another, until he had opened and shut every drawer, every cupboard. He hadn’t turned on the light—there was moonlight enough—and I could envision him standing in the newly blunt world of the kitchen, understanding that I’d taken everything from him: I had even taken the forks. I sat, holding my breath, listening to the silence from the kitchen. For a moment it was almost as if we were having a conversation, a conversation without words or sight. And then, finally, I heard him turn and his footsteps retreating, back to his room.

我听到吱嘎声，醒过来。厨房的地板发出声音，我在黑暗中坐直了，逼自己不要出声，听着他走路，左脚轻轻落下，随之是右脚的拖行声，非常清楚。一个抽屉打开，几秒钟后关上。然后是另一个抽屉，再是另一个，直到他打开、关上每个抽屉、每个橱子。他没开灯——那天的月光够亮——我可以想象他站在那个刚被清除掉锋利对象的厨房里，明白我拿走了一切：连叉子都拿走了。我坐在那里，屏住气，听着厨房里的寂静。一时之间，我们仿佛在对话，一种不用言语或视觉的对话。终于，我听到他转身，脚步声逐渐远去，退回他的房间。

　 When I got home to Cambridge the next night, I went to his bathroom and found another bag, a double of the Truro one, and threw it away. But I never found another of those bags again in either Cambridge or Truro. He must have found some other place to hide them, someplace I never discovered, because he couldn’t have carried those blades back and forth on the plane. But whenever I was at Greene Street, I would find an opportunity to sneak off to his bathroom. Here, he kept the bag in his same old hiding place, and every time, I would steal it, and shove it into my pocket, and then throw it away after I left. He must have known I did this, of course, but we never discussed it. Every time it would be replaced. Until he learned he had to hide it from you as well, there was not a single time I checked that I failed to find it. Still, I never stopped checking: whenever I was at the apartment, or later, the house upstate, or the flat in London, I would go to his bathroom and look for that bag. I never found it again. Malcolm’s bathrooms were so simple, so clean-lined, and yet even in them he had found somewhere to conceal it, somewhere I would never again discover.

次日晚上我回到剑桥市，在他的浴室找到一个跟特鲁罗那个一模一样的袋子，随即丢掉。但是从此以后，我在剑桥市或特鲁罗再也没有找到过这种袋子了。他一定是藏到了其他地方，让我找不到，因为他带着那些刀片是上不了飞机的。我每次去格林街，就会找机会跑去他的浴室。他在里头的老地方也藏了一个袋子，每回我都会偷走，塞在口袋里，带出去丢掉。当然，他一定知道是我偷走的，但是我们从来没谈过。每回他都会再弄个新袋子放在老地方，而每回我去，也总能找到袋子。直到后来他知道得防着我为止。然而，我从来没有停止检查过：每次去他的公寓，或是后来去他纽约州北部的别墅，或伦敦的那间公寓，我都会去他的浴室找那个袋子。我后来再也没找到过，马尔科姆的浴室设计得很单纯、很简洁，但即使是这样的设计，他还是找得到地方藏那些袋子，让我再也无法找到。

　 Over the years, I tried to talk about it with him. The day after I found the first bag, I called Andy and started yelling at him, and Andy, uncharacteristically, let me. “I know,” he said. “I know.” And then: “Harold, I’m not asking sarcastically or rhetorically. I want you to tell me: What should I do?” And of course, I didn’t know what to tell him.

这些年来，我一直试着跟他谈这件事。我发现第一个袋子的次日，就打电话骂安迪，安迪很破例地让我骂。“我知道，”他说，“我都知道。哈罗德，我想问你，不是挖苦也不是耍嘴皮子。我要你告诉我：我该怎么做？”而当然，我不知道能说什么。

　 You were the one who got furthest with him. But I know you blamed yourself. I blamed myself, too. Because I did something worse than accepting it: I tolerated it. I chose to forget he was doing this, because it was too difficult to find a solution, and because I wanted to enjoy him as the person he wanted us to see, even though I knew better. I told myself that I was letting him keep his dignity, while choosing to forget that for thousands of nights, he sacrificed it. I would rebuke him and try to reason with him, even though I knew those methods didn’t work, and even knowing that, I didn’t try something else: something more radical, something that might alienate me from him. I knew I was being a coward, because I never told Julia about that bag, I never told her what I had learned about him that night in Truro. Eventually she found out, and it was one of the very few times I’d seen her so angry. “How could you let this keep happening?” she asked me. “How could you let this go on for this long?” She never said she held me directly responsible, but I knew she did, and how could she not? I did, too.

你是跟他谈得最深的人。但我知道你很自责。我也自责，因为我做了比接受更糟糕的事：我容忍了一切。我选择忘记他在割自己，因为实在太难找到解决办法了，也因为我想开心享受他希望我们看到的那一面，即使我知道实情不只是这样。我告诉自己我应该让他保持自己的尊严，同时选择忘记在几千个夜里，他牺牲了自己的尊严。我应该要指责他、试着开导他，就算知道这些方法行不通，而我明知道自己该怎么做，却没有试过其他办法：更激烈、可能害我们疏远的方法。我知道自己懦弱，因为我从来没跟朱丽娅提过那个袋子，我从没把特鲁罗那一夜发现的事情告诉她。最后她发现了，那是少数几次我看到她那么生气。“你怎么可以让这种事情一再发生？”她问我，“你怎么可以让这种事持续这么久？”她从没说过她认为我该负直接的责任，但我知道她是这么想的，怎么可能不是呢？连我也是这么想的。

　 And now here I was in his apartment, where a few hours ago, while I was lying awake, he was being beaten. I sat down on the sofa with my phone in my hand to wait for Andy’s call, telling me that he was ready to be returned to me, that he was ready to be released into my care. I opened the shade across from me and sat back down and stared into the steely sky until each cloud blurred into the next, until finally I could see nothing at all, only a haze of gray as the day slowly slurred into night.

此刻我待在他的公寓里，而几个小时前，我躺着睡不着时，他正在这里被毒打。我拿着手机坐在沙发上，等着安迪打电话来，告诉我他已经准备好要回到我身边，就要回来让我照顾了。我打开对面的遮光帘，往后坐回去，瞪着钢灰的天空，直到每片云融入另一片中，直到最后我什么都看不见，只看到一片模糊的灰，白昼缓缓融入夜晚。

　 Andy called at six that evening, nine hours after I’d dropped him off, and met me at the door. “He’s asleep in the examining room,” he said. And then: “Broken left wrist, four broken ribs, thank Christ no broken bones in his legs. No concussion, thank god. Fractured coccyx. Dislocated shoulder, which I reset. Bruising all up and down his back and torso; he was kicked, clearly. But no internal bleeding. His face looks worse than it is: his eyes and nose are fine, no breaks, and I iced the bruising, which you have to do, too—regularly.

那天傍晚6点，是我送他过去的九个小时后，安迪打电话来，我马上赶过去。“他在检查室里睡着了。”安迪说，接着说明，“左手腕骨折，还断了四根肋骨。谢天谢地两腿没有骨折。没有脑震荡，感谢老天。尾椎骨裂了。一边肩膀脱臼，我帮他复位了。背部和躯干到处都是瘀伤，显然是被踢的，不过没有内出血。他的脸没有看起来那么糟：双眼和鼻子都没有骨折或外伤。我给他的瘀伤冰敷了，你也必须定时帮忙冰敷。

　 “Lacerations on his legs. This is what I’m worried about. I’ve written you a scrip for antibiotics; I’m going to start him on a low dosage as a preventative measure, but if he mentions feeling hot, or chilled, you have to let me know right away—the last thing he needs is an infection there. His back is stripped—”

“他双脚有划伤。这是我担心的。我开了个低剂量的抗生素处方给你，为了预防，要让他先开始吃。但如果他提到觉得发热或发冷，就得马上通知我。他现在最不需要的，就是双腿感染。他的背上有脱皮……”