《渺小一生》:他会成为一个更满怀爱意的人

　 It ends with Julia finally going to the kitchen and making another sandwich; it ends with him eating it, truly hungry for the first time in months; it ends with him spending the night in the extra bedroom, with Harold and Julia kissing him good night; it ends with him wondering if maybe time really is going to loop back upon itself after all, except in this rendering, he will have Julia and Harold as parents from the beginning, and who knows what he will be, only that he will be better, that he will be healthier, that he will be kinder, that he won’t feel the need to struggle so hard against his own life. He has a vision of himself as a fifteen-year-old, running into the house in Cambridge, shouting words—“Mom! Dad!”—he has never said before, and although he can’t imagine what would have made this dream self so excited (for all his study of normal children, their interests and behaviors, he knows few specifics), he understands that he is happy. Maybe he is wearing a soccer uniform, his arms and legs bare; maybe he is accompanied by a friend, by a girlfriend. He has probably never had sex before; he is probably trying at every opportunity to do so. He would think sometimes of who he would be as an adult, but it would never occur to him that he might not have someone to love, sex, his own feet running across a field of grass as soft as carpet. All those hours, all those hours he has spent cutting, and hiding the cutting, and beating back his memories, what would he do instead with all those hours? He would be a better person, he knows. He would be a more loving one.

最后朱丽娅又去厨房做了一个三明治；他吃了，好几个月以来真的饿了；之后他在客房过夜，哈罗德跟他吻颊道晚安；他纳闷时间是否真的会倒流，他又重活了一次童年，只不过这回他从一开始就有朱丽娅和哈罗德这对父母，天晓得他将来会成为什么样，只不过他会变得更好、更健康、更善良，他不会觉得有必要挣扎得那么厉害，去对抗自己的人生。他看到一个15岁的自己，跑进剑桥市的一栋房子里，大声喊出他从没喊过的话：“妈妈！爸爸！”他无法想象是什么让这个美梦如此令人兴奋（他虽然会研究正常的儿童，观察他们的兴趣和行为，但他实际接触过的儿童很少），但他知道那个自己很快乐。或许他穿着橄榄球的球衣，露出双臂和双腿；或许他旁边有个朋友或是女朋友陪着。他大概从来没有过性经验；他大概会想尽办法体验看看。这个他，有时会想着自己长大后会怎么样，但绝不会想到他不会有个人可以爱、可以上床，也绝对想不到他没有双脚可以跑过一片柔软如地毯的田野。过去那么多时间、那么多个小时，他都用来割自己，然后把那些割伤藏起来，击退他的回忆；如果那些时间能拿来做别的，他会变成什么样？他知道他会成为一个更好的人。他会成为一个更满怀爱意的人。

　 But maybe, he thinks, maybe it isn’t too late. Maybe he can pretend one more time, and this last bout of pretending will change things for him, will make him into the person he might have been. He is fifty-one; he is old. But maybe he still has time. Maybe he can still be repaired.

但或许，他心想，或许现在还不算太迟。或许他可以再假装一次，而这最后一回合的假装会改变很多事情，让他变成他原先可能成为的那个人。他51岁了，他老了。但或许他还有时间，或许他还是可以修复的。

　 He is still thinking this on Monday when he goes to see Dr. Loehmann, to whom he apologizes for his awful behavior the week before—and the weeks before that, as well.

星期一他去看娄曼医生时还在想着这件事情。咨询一开始，他先对上个星期，包括之前好几个星期自己恶劣的行为道歉。

　 And this time, for the first time, he really tries to talk to Dr. Loehmann. He tries to answer his questions, and to do so honestly. He tries to begin to tell a story he has only ever told once before. But it is very difficult, not only because the story is barely possible for him to speak, but because he cannot do so without thinking of Willem, and how when he had last told this story, he was with someone who had seen him the way no one had since Ana, with someone who had managed to see past who he was, and yet see him completely as well. And then he is upset, breathless, and he turns his wheelchair sharply—he is still six or seven pounds away from using his prostheses for walking again—and excuses himself and leaves Dr. Loehmann’s office, spinning down the hall to the bathroom, where he locks himself in, breathing slowly and rubbing his palm against his chest as if to soothe his heart. And here in the bathroom, which is cold and silent, he plays his old game of “If” with himself: If I hadn’t followed Brother Luke. If I hadn’t let myself be taken by Dr. Traylor. If I hadn’t let Caleb inside. If I had listened more to Ana.

这回，他头一次真正试着跟娄曼医生谈。他设法回答医生的问题，而且诚实地回答。他设法说出他之前只说过一次的那个故事。但是很困难，不光是他几乎无法说出那个故事，也因为他说的时候无法不想到威廉，还有上次说出来的时候，他和一个从安娜以来、再也没这样看待他的人在一起，这个人忽略他过去是什么样的人，却也能完全看清他。之后他很难过，简直喘不过气，只得猛地转开轮椅告退（他还得增加大约六七磅的体重，才有办法用义肢走路），离开娄曼医生的诊间，沿着走廊迅速来到洗手间，把自己锁在里面，缓缓地呼吸，用一只手掌揉着胸口，仿佛要缓和一下心脏。在这个冰冷寂静的浴室里，他跟自己玩着“如果”的老游戏：如果我没跟着卢克修士，如果我没让自己被特雷勒医生带走，如果我没让凯莱布进门，如果我更听安娜的话。

　 On he plays, his recriminations beating a rhythm in his head. But then he also thinks: If I had never met Willem. If I had never met Harold. If I had never met Julia, or Andy, or Malcolm, or JB, or Richard, or Lucien, or so many other people: Rhodes and Citizen and Phaedra and Elijah. The Henry Youngs. Sanjay. All the most terrifying Ifs involve people. All the good ones do as well.

就在他玩这个游戏的时候，脑袋也不断地反过来指责他。接着他想到：如果我从来没认识威廉。如果我从来没认识哈罗德。如果我从来没认识朱丽娅，或安迪、马尔科姆、杰比、理查德、吕西安，或者其他好多人，包括罗兹、西提任、菲德拉、伊利亚、两个亨利·杨、桑杰。最可怕的如果假设都和人有关，但所有好的如果假设也带有人的成分。

　 Finally he is able to calm himself, and he wheels himself out of the bathroom. He could leave, he knows. The elevator is there; he could send Mr. Ahmed back for his coat.

最后他终于冷静下来，出了浴室。他知道自己可以离开，电梯就在那儿，他的大衣还留在诊间里，他可以请艾哈迈德再过来帮他拿。

　 But he doesn’t. Instead he goes the other direction, and returns to the office, where Dr. Loehmann is still sitting in his chair, waiting for him.

但他没离开。反之，他走向反方向，回到诊间，娄曼医生还坐在椅子上等着他。

　 “Jude,” says Dr. Loehmann. “You’ve come back.”

“裘德，”娄曼医生说，“你回来了。”

　 He takes a breath. “Yes,” he says. “I’ve decided to stay.”

他吸了一口气。“是的，”他说，“我决定留下来。”

　 [ VII ]

第七部分

　 Lispenard Street

利斯本纳街

　 ON THE SECOND anniversary of your death, we went to Rome. This was something of a coincidence, and also not: he knew and we knew he’d have to be out of the city, far away from New York State. And maybe the Irvines felt the same way, because that was when they had scheduled the ceremony—at the very end of August, when all of Europe had migrated elsewhere, and yet we were flying toward it, that continent bereft of all its chattering flocks, all its native fauna.

你过世后两周年，我们去了罗马。这算是巧合，但同时也不是：他知道，我们也知道，他必须离开纽约市，远离纽约州。或许欧文夫妇也有同样的想法，因为他们把仪式排在这个时候——在八月底，欧洲所有人都往外地跑，我们却飞到那里，飞向那个失去了所有嘈杂人群、所有当地动物的大陆。

　 It was at the American Academy, where Sophie and Malcolm had both once had residencies, and where the Irvines had endowed a scholarship for a young architect. They had helped select the first recipient, a very tall and sweetly nervous young woman from London who built mostly temporary structures, complex-looking buildings of earth and sod and paper that were meant to disintegrate slowly over time, and there was the announcement of the fellowship, which came with additional prize money, and a reception, at which Flora spoke. Along with us, and Sophie and Malcolm’s Bellcast partners, there were Richard and JB, both of whom had also had residencies in Rome, and after the ceremony we went to a little restaurant nearby they had both liked when they had lived there, and where Richard showed us which part of the building’s walls were Etruscan and which were Roman. But although it was a nice meal, comfortable and convivial, it was also a quiet one, and at one point I remember looking up and realizing that none of us were eating and all of us were staring—at the ceiling, at our plates, at one another—and thinking something separate and yet, I knew, something the same as well.

那个仪式在罗马的美国学院举行，苏菲和马尔科姆都曾在那里驻留过，所以欧文夫妇出资设立了一个鼓励年轻建筑师的奖学金。他们还协助选出了第一位得主，是一个高个子、容易紧张但可爱的年轻伦敦女子，她做的大都是暂时性建筑物，以泥土、草和纸做出复合建筑群，随着时间会缓缓瓦解。颁奖仪式宣布了奖学金得主、颁发了奖金，此外还举办了一个招待会，弗洛拉发表了演讲。参加的除了我们，苏菲和马尔科姆在“钟模”的合伙人之外，还有也曾在罗马驻留过的理查德和杰比。仪式过后，我们去了附近一家小餐厅，他们两个住罗马时都很喜欢，理查德还带我们看了那栋建筑物有哪些墙壁是伊特拉斯坎风格，哪些是罗马风格。尽管那一餐很美好，舒适又欢乐，但也很安静，中间有一度，我记得自己抬头，才发现大家都没在吃东西，全瞪着眼睛，看着天花板、看着盘子、看着彼此，各自想着不同的事物，但我知道，大家也不约而同地想着同样的事情。

　 The next afternoon Julia napped and we took a walk. We were staying across the river, near the Spanish Steps, but we had the car take us back over the bridge to Trastevere and walked through streets that were so close and dark that they might have been hallways, until finally we came to a square, tiny and precise and adorned with nothing but sunlight, where we sat on a stone bench. An elderly man, with a white beard and wearing a linen suit, sat down on the other end, and he nodded at us and we nodded at him.

次日下午朱丽娅午睡时，我们出门散步。我们的旅馆在台伯河这一边，靠近西班牙大台阶那一带，不过我们请司机载我们过桥到越台伯河区，走在那些又窄又暗、简直像是走廊的街道上，最后终于来到了一个小而简洁的广场，除了阳光没有任何装饰，我们来到一张石凳前坐下。一个留着白色大胡子、身穿亚麻西装的老人也在石凳另一头坐下，看着我们点了个头，我们也朝他点头。

　 For a long time we were silent together, sitting in the heat, and then he suddenly said that he remembered this square, that he had been here with you once, and that there was a famous gelato place just two streets away.

我们沉默地坐在那里许久，晒着太阳，忽然他说他记得以前跟你来过一次这个广场，还说两条街之外有一家冰淇淋店很有名。

　 “Should I go?” he asked me, and smiled.

“我该去买吗？”他问我，露出微笑。

　 “I think you know the answer,” I said, and he got up. “I’ll be back,” he said. “Stracciatella,” I told him, and he nodded. “I know,” he said.

“我想你知道答案。”我说。他站起来。“我马上回来。”他说。“瑞士巧克力口味。”我告诉他。他点点头。“我知道。”他说。

　 We watched him leave, the man and I, and then the man smiled at me and I smiled back. He wasn’t so elderly after all, I saw: probably just a few years older than I. And yet I was never able (and am still not) to think of myself as old. I talked as if I knew I was; I bemoaned my age. But it was only for comedy, or to make other people feel young.

我们——那个老人和我——看着他离开，然后那老人朝我微笑，我也对他笑。仔细一看，我才发现他其实没那么老，大概只比我大几岁而已。我当时始终没办法（到现在还是没办法）把自己想成老人。我总是讲得好像知道自己很老，我总是埋怨自己的年龄，但那只是耍宝，或是让别人觉得年轻而已。

　 “Lui è tuo figlio?” the man asked, and I nodded. I was always surprised and pleased when we were recognized for who we were to each other, for we looked nothing alike, he and I: and yet I thought—I hoped—there must have been something about the way we were together that was more compelling evidence of our relation than mere physical resemblance.

“他是你儿子？”那老人用意大利语问，我点点头。每回被人认出我们是父子，我总是惊讶又开心，因为他和我长得一点也不像。但是我认为，或该说希望，我们在一起的样子，一定有个比外形相似度更具说服力的证据，让别人相信我们是父子。

　 “Ah,” the man said, looking at him again before he turned the corner and disappeared from sight. “Molto bello.”

“啊，”那老人说，看着他走到一个转角，然后消失，“真是俊美啊。”