《渺小一生》:他想念你。我也想念你。

　 “Sì,” I said, and was suddenly sad.

“是啊。”我也用意大利语回答，忽然觉得好哀伤。

　 He looked sly, then, and asked, or rather stated, “Tua moglie deve essere molto bella, no?” and then grinned to show me he meant it in fun, that it was a compliment, that if I was a plain man, I was also a lucky one, to have such a beautiful wife who had given me such a handsome son, and so I couldn’t be offended. I grinned back at him. “She is,” I said, and he smiled, unsurprised.

那老人露出狡猾的表情，问我，或者比较像是陈述句：“你太太一定是个大美女吧？”随即咧嘴一笑，表示他在打趣，或是个恭维，因为我长相这么平凡，却很幸运能有个美丽的太太，帮我生了一个这么俊美的儿子，所以我不可能被得罪。我也对着他笑，说：“没错。”他保持微笑，一点都不惊讶。

　 The man had already left by the time he returned—nodding at me as he went, leaning on his cane—with a cone for me and a container of lemon granita for Julia. I wished he had bought something for himself, too, but he hadn’t. “We should go,” he said, and we did, and that night he went to bed early, and the following day—the day you died—we didn’t see him at all: he left us a message with the front desk saying he had gone for a walk, and that he would see us tomorrow, and that he was sorry, and all day long we walked too, and although I thought there was a chance we might see him—Rome is not such a large city, after all—we didn’t, and that night as we undressed for bed, I was aware that I had been looking for him on every street, in every crowd.

他回来时，那个老人已经离开了（离开时跟我点了个头，拄着拐杖）。他买了一个装在甜筒里的冰淇淋给我，还买了一杯柠檬冰沙要带回去给朱丽娅。我真希望他也买了一份给自己，但他没有。“我们该走了。”他说，于是我们起身离开。那天夜里他很早就去睡了，次日，也就是你的忌日，我们完全没看到他，他在柜台留了张字条，说他出去散步了，明天再跟我们碰面，说他很抱歉。于是我们也出去走了一整天，我以为有机会在路上碰到他，毕竟罗马这个城市不大，但结果没有。那一夜我们更衣就寝前，我想到自己一整天都在经过的每条街道、每堆人群中寻找他。

　 The next morning there he was at breakfast, reading the paper, pale but smiling at us, and we didn’t ask him what he’d done the day before and he didn’t volunteer it. That day we just walked around the city, the three of us an unwieldy little pack—too wide for the sidewalks, we strolled in single file, each of us taking the position of the leader in turn—but just to familiar places, well-trafficked places, places that would have no secret memories, that held no intimacies. Near Via Condotti Julia looked into the tiny window of a tiny jewelry store, and we went inside, the three of us filling the space, and each held the earrings she had admired in the window. They were exquisite: solid gold, dense and heavy and shaped like birds, with small round rubies for eyes and little gold branches in their beaks, and he bought them for her, and she was embarrassed and delighted—Julia had never worn much jewelry—but he looked happy to be able to, and I was happy that he was happy, and that she was happy, too. That night we met JB and Richard for a final dinner, and the next morning we left to go north, to Florence, and he to go home.

次日早晨，他出现在餐桌旁，看着报纸，脸色苍白，但对我们露出微笑，我们没问他前一天做了什么，他也没主动说。那天我们只是在市区里闲逛，三个人很不好控制，走在人行道上太宽，于是我们排成一列，每个人轮流当领队，但我们只去有名的地点、人多的地方，不会有隐秘的回忆、不曾发生亲昵的举止的景点。快到水管路时，朱丽娅望着一家小珠宝店的小窗，我们走进去，三个人把那家小店塞满，每个人轮流把她在窗外看中的耳环拿起来细瞧。那耳环非常精致：纯金，密实而沉重，形状像鸟，眼睛处镶了圆形的小红宝石，鸟喙叼着金枝。他买下那对耳环送给她，她不好意思，但又很开心，朱丽娅向来不太戴首饰。但他看起来很高兴能送她礼物，我看他高兴也跟着开心，朱丽娅也很欢喜。那天晚上，我们跟杰比和理查德会合吃最后一顿晚餐，次日早晨我们离开，北上去佛罗伦萨，他则回纽约。

　 “I’ll see you in five days,” I told him, and he nodded.

“我们五天后见了。”我告诉他，他点点头。

　 “Have a good time,” he said. “Have a wonderful time. I’ll see you soon.”

“好好玩。”他说，“祝你们玩得愉快。我们很快就会再见了。”

　 He waved as we were driven away in the car; we turned in our seats to wave back at him. I remember hoping my wave was somehow telegraphing what I couldn’t say: Don’t you dare. The night before, as he and Julia were talking to JB, I asked Richard if he would feel comfortable sending me updates while we were away, and Richard said he would. He had gained almost all the weight Andy wanted, but he’d had two setbacks—one in May, one in July—and so we were all still watching him.

我们的汽车开走时，他站在那挥手；我们坐在后座，回头跟他挥手。我还记得当时希望挥手能传达我说不出口的讯息：不准你乱来。前一夜，趁他和朱丽娅跟杰比聊天时，我问理查德这几天我们不在期间，能不能麻烦他发短信随时告诉我们状况？理查德答应了。他几乎恢复到了安迪希望的体重，但中间有两度倒退，一次在五月，另一次在七月，所以我们还在持续监视他。

　 It sometimes felt as if we were living our relationship in reverse, and instead of worrying for him less, I worried for him more; with each year I became more aware of his fragility, less convinced of my competence. When Jacob was a baby, I would find myself feeling more assured with each month he lived, as if the longer he stayed in this world, the more deeply he would become anchored to it, as if by being alive, he was staking claim to life itself. It was a preposterous notion, of course, and it was proven wrong in the most horrible way. But I couldn’t stop thinking this: that life tethered life. And yet at some point in his life—after Caleb, if I had to date it—I had the sense that he was in a hot-air balloon, one that was staked to the earth with a long twisted rope, but each year the balloon strained and strained against its cords, tugging itself away, trying to drift into the skies. And down below, there was a knot of us trying to pull the balloon back to the ground, back to safety. And so I was always frightened for him, and I was always frightened of him, as well.

有时，感觉我们的父子关系好像是倒退着走，随着他年纪渐长，我对他的担心没有减少，反而增加；随着每一年过去，我都更加意识到他的脆弱，也对自己当父亲的能力更没信心。雅各布还是婴儿时，我发现每过一个月，我就更有把握一点，好像他待在这个世界越久，就能扎根扎得越深，好像光是活着，就宣示他拥有这个生命。当然，这个想法很荒唐，而且以最可怕的方式被证明是错的。但我忍不住想：活下去会产生牵系的力量。然而在他人生的某一个点（如果非得指出的话，我想是在凯莱布之后），我感觉他像是搭上了热气球，被一根长长的绳子固定在深入地面的木桩上。但每一年，那个气球一直扯紧那根绳子，想要挣脱，飘向天空。在底下的我们就设法把那气球扯回地面，回到安全的状态。所以我总是为他担惊受怕，同时也很怕他。

　 Can you have a real relationship with someone you are frightened of? Of course you can. But he still scared me, because he was the powerful one and I was not: if he killed himself, if he took himself away from me, I knew I would survive, but I knew as well that survival would be a chore; I knew that forever after I would be hunting for explanations, sifting through the past to examine my mistakes. And of course I knew how badly I would miss him, because although there had been trial runs for his eventual departure, I had never been able to get any better at dealing with them, and I was never able to get used to them.

你能跟一个你害怕的人真正发展出感情吗？当然可以。但他还是令我恐惧，因为他拥有力量，我却没有。如果他自杀了，如果他把自己从我手上夺走，我知道我还能活下去，但我也知道那种人生很乏味；我知道之后我会永远纠结着想找到解释，不断仔细检视过去，想找出自己哪里犯了错。当然，我知道自己会多么想念他，尽管之前他尝试过，他也终将离开，但我始终没能变得更能面对，也永远无法习惯。

　 But then we came home, and everything was the same: Mr. Ahmed met us at the airport and drove us back to the apartment, and waiting for us with the doorman were bags of food so we wouldn’t have to go to the grocery store. The next day was a Thursday and he came over and we had dinner, and he asked what we had seen and done and we told him. That night we were washing the dishes, and as he was handing me a bowl to put in the dishwasher, it slipped through his fingers and broke against the floor. “Goddammit,” he shouted. “I’m so sorry, Harold. I’m so stupid, I’m so clumsy,” and although we told him it wasn’t a problem, that it was fine, he only grew more and more upset, so upset that his hands started to shake, that his nose started to bleed. “Jude,” I told him, “it’s okay. It happens,” but he shook his head. “No,” he said, “it’s me. I mess up everything. Everything I touch I ruin.” Julia and I had looked at each other over his head as he was picking up the pieces, unsure what to say or do: the reaction was so out of proportion to what had happened. But there had been a few incidents in the preceding months, ever since he had thrown that plate across the room, that made me realize, for the first time in my life with him, how truly angry he was, how hard he must work every day at controlling it.

接着我们回到纽约，一切如常：艾哈迈德先生来机场接我们，载我们回公寓，门房那儿已经有几袋食物，这样我们就不必去杂货店采买了。次日是星期四，他过来跟我们一起吃晚餐，问起我们这几天旅行看到什么、做了什么，我们告诉他。那天晚上我们一起洗碗，他递给我一个碗要放进洗碗机时，手一滑在地板上摔破了。“该死！”他大吼，“真是对不起，哈罗德。我太蠢了，太笨手笨脚了。”我们告诉他没关系，没事的，但他只是越来越生气，气到双手开始颤抖，气到开始流鼻血。“裘德，”我告诉他，“没关系的。这种事难免的。”但他摇头。“不，”他说，“都是我。我搞砸了一切。我碰到的一切都会毁掉。”他低头捡起碎片时，朱丽娅和我隔着他的头面面相觑，不知该说什么、做什么才好：他的反应太小题大做了。但自从那回他把盘子摔到餐厅对面的墙上后，之后几个月还发生了几次这样的事件，让我从认识他以来第一次明白，他心中原来有那么多愤怒，他每天要多努力去控制这股怒气。

　 After that first incident with the plate there had been another, a few weeks later. This was up at Lantern House, where he hadn’t been in months. It was morning, just after breakfast, and Julia and I were leaving to go to the store, and I went to find him to ask what he wanted. He was in his bedroom, and the door was slightly ajar, and when I saw what he was doing, I for some reason didn’t call his name, didn’t walk away, but stood just outside the frame, silent and watching. He had one prosthesis on and was putting on the other—I had never seen him without them—and I watched as he sank his left leg into the socket, drawing the elastic sleeve up around his knee and thigh, and then pushed his pants leg down over it. As you know, these prostheses had feet with paneling that resembled the shape of a toe box and a heel, and I watched as he pulled on his socks, and then his shoes. And then he took a breath and stood, and I watched as he took a step, and then another. But even I could tell something was wrong—they were still too big; he was still too thin—and before I could call out, he had lost his balance and pitched forward onto the bed, where he lay still for a moment.

他第一次摔盘子之后，过了几星期又有一次。那是在灯笼屋，他已经好几个月没去了。当时是早上，才刚吃过早餐，朱丽娅和我要出门买东西，我去找他，想问他有没有什么想买的。他在卧室里，门开了一条缝，我看到他在做什么之后，基于某个原因就没喊他，也没有走开，只是站在门外悄悄观察。他已经戴上一边的义肢，正要戴上另一边，我从来没看过他没戴义肢的样子。然后我看着他的左腿伸进托架内，把弹性袜套拉起来套住膝盖和大腿，再将裤管拉下盖住。你也知道，这些义肢上的脚仿造了脚趾和脚跟的形状，我看着他穿上袜子，接着穿鞋。他吸了一口气站起来，我看着他走了一步，再一步。但就连我都看得出哪里不大对劲，那些义肢还是太大，而他依旧太瘦。我还来不及喊他，他就失去平衡往前摔在床上，有好一会儿都没动。

　 And then he reached down and tore off both legs, one and then the other, and for a second—they were still wearing their socks and shoes—it appeared as if they were his real legs, and he had just yanked away a piece of himself, and I half expected to see an arcing splash of blood. But instead he picked one up and slammed it against the bed, again and again and again, grunting with the effort, and then he threw it to the ground and sat on the edge of the mattress, his face in his hands, his elbows on his thighs, rocking himself and not making a sound. “Please,” I heard him say, “please.” But he didn’t say anything else, and I, to my shame, crept away and went to our bedroom, where I sat in a posture that mimicked his own, and waited as well for something I didn’t know.

然后他伸手脱掉义肢，先脱一边，再脱另一边。有那么片刻，那两根还穿着袜子和鞋子的义肢看起来就像他的真腿，他仿佛硬是扯断了自己的小腿，我还半期待地会看到一道血喷出来。结果他只是拿起一根义肢朝床上打，打了又打，用力得发出闷哼，再把义肢摔在地上，坐在床沿，脸埋进双手，手肘撑在大腿上，无声地前后摇晃着。“拜托，”我听到他说，“拜托。”但接着他什么都没再说，我很羞愧地静静溜掉，回到我们的卧室，模仿他的姿势坐在床边，等待着我不知道的状况。

　 In those months I thought often of what I was trying to do, of how hard it is to keep alive someone who doesn’t want to stay alive. First you try logic (You have so much to live for), and then you try guilt (You owe me), and then you try anger, and threats, and pleading (I’m old; don’t do this to an old man). But then, once they agree, it is necessary that you, the cajoler, move into the realm of self-deception, because you can see that it is costing them, you can see how much they don’t want to be here, you can see that the mere act of existing is depleting for them, and then you have to tell yourself every day: I am doing the right thing. To let him do what he wants to do is abhorrent to the laws of nature, to the laws of love. You pounce upon the happy moments, you hold them up as proof—See? This is why it’s worth living. This is why I’ve been making him try—even though that one moment cannot compensate for all the other moments, the majority of moments. You think, as I had thought with Jacob, what is a child for? Is he to give me comfort? Is he for me to give comfort to? And if a child can no longer be comforted, is it my job to give him permission to leave? And then you think again: But that is abominable. I can’t.

那几个月，我常常想着自己尝试在做的事情，想到要让一个不想活的人继续活下去有多困难。首先你得尝试讲道理（你有那么多值得活下去的理由），然后尝试利用罪恶感（你欠我），再尝试用愤怒、威胁、恳求（我老了；不要这样对待一个老人）。但接着，一旦他同意，你这个哄骗的人必然会进入自我欺骗的状态，因为你看得出他很吃力，他多么不想活下去，光是存在这件事都让他耗尽心力，于是你每天就得告诉自己：我做的是正确的。让他做他想做的事是违背自然法则及爱的法则的。你会利用每个快乐的时刻，抓紧它们当成证据，看到没？这就是人生为什么值得活，这就是为什么我一直逼他尝试，即使那一刻无法抵消其他大部分的时刻。你会想，就像我以前对雅各布的想法，子女是要用来做什么？是要抚慰我吗？还是我抚慰的对象？如果抚慰对你的子女再也没有用，那么我的责任是不是允许他离开？然后你会再想：可是那太恶劣了，我做不到。

　 So I tried, of course. I tried and tried. But every month I could feel him receding. It wasn’t so much a physical disappearance: by November, he was back at his weight, the low side of it anyway, and looked better than he had perhaps ever. But he was quieter, much quieter, and he had always been quiet anyway. But now he spoke very little, and when we were together, I would sometimes see him looking at something I couldn’t see, and then he would twitch his head, very slightly, like a horse does its ears, and come back to himself.

所以我还是继续尝试，那是当然。我试了又试。但每个月我都可以感觉到他越退越远。不太是外貌的关系；到了十一月，他恢复到原来的体重，总之是理想体重的最低标准，而且气色从来没有那么好过。不过他变得安静了许多，虽然他向来很安静，但现在他很少讲话。我们在一起时，我有时会看到他盯着某个我看不到的东西，脑袋轻轻一扯，像马在抽动耳朵似的，然后又回过神来。

　 Once I saw him for our Thursday dinner and he had bruises on his face and neck, just on one side, as if he was standing near a building in the late afternoon and the sun had cast a shadow against him. The bruises were a dark rusty brown, like dried blood, and I had gasped. “What happened?” I asked. “I fell,” he said, shortly. “Don’t worry,” he said, although of course I did. And when I saw him with bruises again, I tried to hold him. “Tell me,” I said, and he worked himself free. “There’s nothing to tell,” he said. I still don’t know what had happened: Had he done something to himself? Had he let someone do something to him? I didn’t know which was worse. I didn’t know what to do.

有个星期四，我们照例一起吃晚餐，我看到他脸上和脖子上有瘀青，仿佛他傍晚站在一栋建筑物旁边，太阳照射的阴影落在他身上。那些瘀青是深红褐色的，像干掉的血，我看了猛吸一口气。“发生什么事？”我问。“我摔倒了，”他只说，“别担心。”我当然还是会担心。下回我看到他时又有瘀青，就设法抓着他问个清楚。“告诉我。”我说，但是他挣脱了。“没什么好说的。”他说。我至今不明白到底发生了什么事：是他自己弄的吗？还是他让别人对他这样？我不知道哪一个更糟。我不知道该怎么办。

　 He missed you. I missed you, too. We all did. I think you should know that, that I didn’t just miss you because you made him better: I missed you for you. I missed watching the pleasure you took in doing the things you enjoyed, whether it was eating or running after a tennis ball or flinging yourself into the pool. I missed talking with you, missed watching you move through a room, missed watching you fall to the lawn under a passel of Laurence’s grandchildren, pretending that you couldn’t get up from under their weight. (That same day, Laurence’s youngest grandchild, the one who had a crush on you, had made you a bracelet of knotted-together dandelion flowers, and you had thanked her and worn it all day, and every time she had spotted it on your wrist, she had run over and buried her face in her father’s back: I missed that, too.) But mostly, I missed watching you two together; I missed watching you watch him, and him watch you; I missed how thoughtful you were with each other, missed how thoughtlessly, sincerely affectionate you were with him; missed watching you listen to each other, the way you both did so intently. That painting JB did—Willem Listening to Jude Tell a Story—was so true, the expression so right: I knew what was happening in the painting even before I read its title.

他想念你。我也想念你。我们全都很想念你。我想你应该要知道，我想念你不光是因为你让他更好，我想念你是因为你。我想念看着你做喜欢的事情时得到的那种愉悦，无论是吃东西或追着网球跑或跳进游泳池里。我想念跟你谈话，想念看着你在一个房间里走动，想念看着你倒在草皮上被劳伦斯的一群孙子孙女压着，假装你被他们压得起不来（同一天，劳伦斯年纪最小的孙女，暗恋你的那个，曾把蒲公英绑在一起做了手环送给你。你谢谢她，戴在手上一整天，那天她每回看到你手腕上的手环，就冲向她父亲，把脸埋在他背部——这个我也想念）。但我最想念的，就是看着你们两个在一起；我想念看到你望着他，他望着你；我想念你们对彼此那么体贴，想念你和他在一起时那种出自直觉、诚挚的关爱；我想念看着你们倾听对方说话，两人都那么专注。杰比的那幅画作《威廉听裘德说故事》太真实了，那表情太准确了。还没看到画名，我就知道画中的你在听他讲话。

　 And I don’t want you to think that there weren’t happy moments as well, happy days, after you left. They were fewer, of course. They were harder to find, harder to make. But they existed. After we came home from Italy, I began teaching a seminar at Columbia, one open to both law school students and graduate students from the general population. The course was called “The Philosophy of Law, the Law of Philosophy,” and I co-taught it with an old friend of mine, and in it we discussed the fairness of law, the moral underpinnings of the legal system and how they sometimes contradicted our national sense of morality: Drayman 241, after all these years! In the afternoon, I saw friends. Julia took a life-drawing class. We volunteered at a nonprofit that helped professionals (doctors, lawyers, teachers) from other countries (Sudan, Afghanistan, Nepal) find new jobs in their fields, even if these jobs bore only a tangential resemblance to what they had done before: nurses became medical assistants; judges became clerks. A few of them I helped apply to law school, and when I saw them, we would talk about what they were learning, how different this law was from the law they had known.

而且我也不希望你以为你走了之后，我们没有快乐的时刻、快乐的日子。当然是减少了，比较难出现，比较难引发，但还是有的。从意大利回纽约后，我开始在哥伦比亚大学教一门专题研讨课，兼收法学院学生和所有研究生。那门课叫“法律的哲学，哲学的法律”，由我跟一个老朋友合作授课。我们讨论法律的公平性、司法系统的道德基础，以及有时法律会如何抵触我们国家的道德观。教室就在锥蒙大楼241室，过了这么多年以后！下午，我会跟朋友碰面。朱丽娅去上裸体素描课。另外我们在一个非营利组织当义工，专门协助其他国家（苏丹、阿富汗、尼泊尔）的专业人员（医生、律师、教师）在各自的领域找到新工作，即使这些工作跟他们之前在本国做的只略微相关：护士变成医疗助理，法官变成法律助理；其中我帮过的几个人后来去读法学院，我碰到他们时，就会聊聊他们现在学的，以及美国的某些法律跟他们原先所知的有多么不同。

　 “I think we should work on a project together,” I told him that fall (he was still doing pro bono work with the artist nonprofit, which—when I went to volunteer there myself—was actually more moving than I had thought it would be: I had thought it would just be a bunch of untalented hacks trying to make creative lives for themselves when it was clear they never would, and although that was in fact what it was, I found myself admiring them, much as he did—their perseverance, their dumb, hardy faith. These were people no one and nothing could ever dissuade from life, from claiming it as theirs).

“我想我们应该一起做一个项目计划。”那个秋天我告诉他（他还在那个艺术家非营利组织做公益服务，我后来也去当义工，发现那个组织比我原先想的更令人感动。我原本以为那只是一群没有才华的文人想要创作，但显然永远不会成功。尽管事实上的确是如此，但我发现自己跟他一样，都很佩服这些艺术家，佩服他们的坚持，他们傻气、勇敢的信念。没有任何人、任何事可以劝阻他们不要过这样的生活，不要当个艺术家）。

　 “Like what?” he asked.

“比方说？”他说。

　 “You could teach me to cook,” I told him, as he gave me that look he had, in which he was almost smiling but not quite, amused but not ready to show it. “I’m serious. Really cook. Six or seven dishes I could have in my arsenal.”

“你可以教我做菜。”我告诉他，他用那种表情看了我一眼，就是要笑不笑、觉得很乐还不想表现出来的表情。“我是说真的。真正做点菜，让我多学六七道料理。”