中情局女特工不像美劇描述的那樣

Good Riddance, Carrie Mathison

中情局女特工不像美劇描述的那樣

WASHINGTON — The co-creator of “Homeland” on Showtime revealed recently that when the new season starts, Claire Danes' Carrie Mathison will no longer work at the CIA.

華盛頓—Showtime劇集《國土安全》(Homeland)的聯(lián)合劇創(chuàng)近日透露，在新的一季開始時，克萊爾·達內(nèi)什(Claire Danes)扮演的凱莉·馬西森(Carrie Mathison)將不再為中央情報局(CIA)工作。

Her real-life counterparts can't wait for her to clean out her desk.

現(xiàn)實生活中的CIA女員工已經(jīng)等不及她打包走人了。

The CIA sisterhood is fed up with the flock of fictional CIA women in movies and on TV who guzzle alcohol as they bed hop and drone drop, acting crazed and emotional, sleeping with terrorists and seducing assets.

影視作品中各種虛構(gòu)的CIA女性狂飲濫交，用無人機投炸彈，表現(xiàn)得既瘋狂又情緒化，還與恐怖分子上床，引誘有情報價值的人物。真正的CIA女性成員受夠了這種形象。

“The problem is that they portray most women in such a one-dimensional way; whatever the character flaw is, that's all they are,” said Gina Bennett, a slender, thoughtful mother of five who has been an analyst in the Counterterrorism Center over the course of 25 years and who first began sounding the alarm about Osama bin Laden back in 1993.

“問題是，它們以這種單一化的方式描繪大多數(shù)女性;無論角色的缺陷是什么，那就是她唯一的特質(zhì)，”吉娜·貝內(nèi)特(Gina Bennett)說。她身材苗條，有五個孩子，是位體貼周到的母親。貝內(nèi)特在反恐中心擔任分析師已逾25年，就是她于1993年率先拉響了對奧薩馬·本· 拉登(Osama bin Laden)的警報。

“It can leave a very distinct understanding of women at the agency — how we function, how we relate to men, how we engage in national security — that is pretty off,” Bennett said. She was sitting in a conference room at Langley decorated with photos of a memorial for the seven CIA officers — including Bennett's close friend Jennifer Matthews — who were blown up in 2009 by a Jordanian double agent in Khost, Afghanistan.

“關于CIA女性員工——我們?nèi)绾芜\作，我們與男性的關系，我們怎么處理國家安全問題——它們會給大家留下截然不同的印象，很離譜，”貝內(nèi)特說。她坐在CIA蘭利總部的一間會議室里，那里掛著七位CIA探員的紀念照片——其中包括貝內(nèi)特的密友珍妮弗·馬修斯(Jennifer Matthews)。2009年時，馬修斯在阿富汗霍斯特遭到了一名約旦雙重間諜的炸彈襲擊。

Agreed Sandra Grimes, a perky 69-year-old blonde who helped unmask her CIA colleague Aldrich Ames as a double agent for the Russians after noticing that he had traded up from a battered Volvo to a Jaguar: “I wish they wouldn't use centerfold models in tight clothes. We don't look that way. And we don't act that way.”

現(xiàn)年69歲的桑德拉·格蘭姆斯(Sandra Grimes)贊同這個說法。這位精力充沛的金發(fā)女士曾協(xié)助揭露了CIA同事奧爾德里奇·艾姆斯(Aldrich Ames)的俄羅斯雙重間諜身份，因為她發(fā)現(xiàn)此人把座駕從破舊的沃爾沃換成了捷豹。格蘭姆斯說：“我希望他們不要用雜志插頁中那種穿緊身服的模特。我們不像那樣打扮，也不像那樣行事。”

Indeed, when I ask Bennett if she is wearing a Tory Burch dress, she replies, “I couldn't afford anything like that. It's probably Burlington Coat Factory.”

事實上，當我問貝內(nèi)特是否穿湯麗柏琦(Tory Burch)品牌的服裝時，她回答：“我可買不起這樣的東西。我穿的大概是伯靈頓制衣廠(Burlington Coat Factory)的衣服。”

I talked to several current and former women at the CIA at the request of the usually close-lipped agency, which wants to show a stable side missing from portrayals like the one in the new NBC drama “State of Affairs.” In the premiere, Katherine Heigl's CIA analyst gets wasted on shots, picks up a stranger and upbraids her shrink for being “judge-y” — all before briefing the woman president. The women I spoke with agreed that the “honey pot” image of CIA women using sex to get secrets, as Carrie did in “Homeland,” was Hollywood sensationalism.

CIA通常口風頗緊，但是應它之邀，我與幾名現(xiàn)任和前任CIA女性員工進行了交談。CIA希望能展現(xiàn)出穩(wěn)健的一面，因為在NBC新劇《國事家事》 (State of Affairs)這樣的作品中，缺乏對這一面的表現(xiàn)。這部劇開場時，凱瑟琳·海格爾(Katherine Heigl)扮演的CIA分析師酩酊大醉，勾搭陌生人，并責備心理醫(yī)生對她的舉止“說三道四”——然后她向女總統(tǒng)進行了匯報。與我交談的女性一致認為，把 CIA女員工描繪成這種“色誘”他人以換取秘密消息的形象，就像《國土安全》中的凱莉那樣，這是好萊塢嘩眾取寵的手段。

“Let's not kid ourselves,” said a retired covert officer named Meredith, one of the first women to spy in hot spots around the globe. “For me, working in the Middle East, there's a lot of attraction for Middle Eastern men for Western women. I don't mean necessarily sexually, although they may be thinking that. But curiosity, if nothing else. And we certainly have played that.” With sex, she said, “you need to remove that off the table very quickly and clearly. Sometimes it's `Get your hands off my knee or I'm going to break it,' or you put as many people into the room as you can.”

“我們別自欺欺人了，”一位名為梅雷迪斯(Meredith)的退休秘密探員說。她是首批在全球熱點地區(qū)從事間諜活動的女性之一。“我的經(jīng)驗是，在中東工作時，當?shù)氐哪行缘拇_對西方女性非常著迷。倒不一定關乎性方面，盡管他們可能會那么想，但起碼是出于好奇。我們當然也會利用這一點。”涉及到性的時候，她說，“就需要非常迅速而利落地排除這一點。有時候說一句‘把手從我的膝蓋上拿開，不然我就把它打斷’，或是盡可能地讓房間里多一些人”。

Bennett said that women are good puzzle solvers. “Women don't think more intuitively than men, but we tend to trust our own gut less,” she said. “We are not going to put all our money in one basket.”

貝內(nèi)特表示，女性在解開謎團方面表現(xiàn)出色。“和男性相比，女性并不會更憑直覺思考，但我們對自己直覺的信賴程度往往更低，”她說。“我們不會把所有雞蛋都放在一個籃子里。”

Their struggle to juggle personal and professional can get intense.

她們竭力兼顧個人生活和職業(yè)生涯，有時會陷入艱難境地。

“I briefed Condoleezza Rice while in labor,” Bennett recalled. “I'd tell her about the global jihad and then I would turn away and breathe. When these two worlds clash, they clash really hard.”

“我曾在生孩子期間向康多莉扎·賴斯(Condoleezza Rice)匯報工作，”貝內(nèi)特回憶道。“我給她匯報全球的圣戰(zhàn)形勢，然后再轉(zhuǎn)過臉呼吸。當這兩個世界相沖突時，會非常的嚴重。”

Meredith recounted a coup in Africa where she got stuck at an embassy while her three kids were trapped at home alone.

梅雷迪斯說起了非洲的一場政變。當時，她被困在大使館，而三個孩子則單獨困在家里。

Lyssa Asbill, 38, an analyst now working in the public affairs office, had her first date with her future husband the same day she took her first polygraph exam. She was so jumpy, she thought he would never call her again.

38歲的莉莎·阿斯比爾(Lyssa Asbill)是一名分析師，現(xiàn)在供職于公共事務辦公室。第一次同后來的丈夫約會，恰好和她頭一回參加測謊考試是同一天。她很是緊張不安，以為他再也不會給自己打電話了。

Kali Caldwell, 34, a chic analyst now working with Asbill, said she recruited her mom to help her banker husband take care of their young daughter when she flew off on assignment. She recalled getting 48 hours' notice to go give a terrorism briefing to the military brass of a nation where women are second-class citizens. “Imagine their shock when they got this huge CIA briefing from this little African-American woman,” she said.

34歲的凱莉·考德威爾(Kali Caldwell)是一名分析師，外表時尚，現(xiàn)在和阿斯比爾是同事。她說，當自己外出執(zhí)行任務時，她就把母親叫來幫助在銀行業(yè)工作的丈夫照顧年幼的女兒。她回憶道，有一次提前48小時才得知，自己要向某國的軍方高層介紹有關恐怖主義的情況，而在該國，女性是二等公民。“想象一下，從這個嬌小的非裔美國女子口中聽取CIA的重大情況通報，他們該是多么震驚，”她說。

For Bennett, 9/11 “lasted 10 years.” She said that when you are holed up in a windowless office for days at a time trying to unravel and stop a terrorist plot, “to turn and be present and compassionate and patient with a spouse and children is very hard and does take a toll. And I'm not brilliant at it.” Tracking the virulent march of the Islamic State, she said, “it's hard to turn around and then care, honestly, about some of the minor things that are everything in your teenager's mind.

對貝內(nèi)特而言，9·11“持續(xù)了10年”。她說，當你在一段時間里，連續(xù)好多天躲在一間沒有窗戶的辦公室里，試圖揭露并阻止一場恐怖陰謀時，“轉(zhuǎn)過身陪在配偶和孩子身邊，對他們富有同情心和耐心，是非常困難的一件事情，并且的確會產(chǎn)生嚴重的負面影響。我在這上面做得不好。”她還說，追蹤伊斯蘭國 (Islamic State)無惡不作的發(fā)展歷程時，“老實說，很難轉(zhuǎn)過身來再關心裝滿十幾歲孩子腦袋里的那種小事。”

“I deal with people who are trying to kill lots of people in horrendous, painful ways. So I have a wall; it's really tall. Unfortunately, though, what happens with time is you can't click it on or off. You just block the sensation of feeling.

“和我打交道的人，都試圖以駭人、痛苦的方式殺害很多人。所以我筑起了一堵墻，一堵真的很高的墻。但不幸的是，隨著時間的推移，我不能自由地豎起或推倒這堵墻。我完全封鎖了對感覺的感知。”

“I'm no longer married because of my wall. So I have five kids whose parents aren't together because I constructed that wall over time and didn't know how to get through it.”

“因為那堵墻我離婚了。所以我五個孩子的父母不在一起，原因就是我隨著時間的推移筑起了那道墻，并且不知道如何穿過它。”

Carrie Mathison is so strung out that she contemplates drowning her baby daughter. But Caldwell said that when she was in the counterterrorism unit, looking at graphic images of children being killed, she would decompress on the way home by calling her mom and stopping to shop or eat sushi.

凱莉·馬西森的弦繃得如此緊，以至于考慮過溺死出生不久的女兒。但考德威爾說自己還在反恐部門時，看到孩子被殺害的畫面后，她會在回家的路上給自己減壓，方式是給母親打電話，并停下來逛街或吃壽司。

There has been progress made since the macho days when women were labeled “a bad investment” because they could get pregnant. There's a day care center at Langley now and flex time and the agency recently recruited at a Miami LGBT conference. Bennett said CIA moms might look forward to overseas trips — “I took to calling Kabul `spa-bul,”' she said, but there was criticism.

女性曾因為可能會懷孕而被貼上“垃圾投資”的標簽。自那個大男子主義時代以來，情況已經(jīng)有所改善。蘭利現(xiàn)在有一個日托中心，實行彈性工作時間。前不久，該機構(gòu)還在邁阿密的一場LGBT會議上舉行了招聘。貝內(nèi)特說，CIA的母親們可能期待出國。“我喜歡把喀布爾叫‘水療布爾’，”她說。但人們也能聽到批評之聲。

“The truth is, when a man takes an overseas assignment and leaves his family, including his children, it's seen as more normal than when a woman does that same thing,” Caldwell said.

“事實是，當一個男人接受海外任務，離開家人和孩子時，會被認為比一個女人這么做更正常一些，”考德威爾說。

Matthews was excoriated by her uncle, who had done covert work for the agency, for leaving her three young kids in Virginia with her husband to be chief of the CIA base in Khost. It is a sore point for the Band of Sisters, as the women who hunted Osama were called, that in “Zero Dark Thirty,” Matthews' character acted giddy. As in life, she baked a birthday cake for the Jordanian, who turned out to have explosives strapped to his body. Her friends say it was a distorted picture.

因為離開弗吉尼亞州三個年幼的孩子和丈夫而去擔任CIA在霍斯特的基地負責人，馬修斯遭到了曾在CIA從事秘密工作的叔父的嚴厲責備。追捕本拉登的女性被稱作娘子軍(Band of Sisters)，令她們感到痛心的是，在影片《獵殺本·拉登》(Zero Dark Thirty)中，馬修斯那個角色行為輕佻。但在生活中，馬修斯真的為那個約旦人烤了一個生日蛋糕，結(jié)果那人最后卻在自己身上綁上了炸藥。她的朋友說，事實被扭曲了。

Bennett, who bonded with Matthews when they were both pregnant and throwing up in the bathroom together, said the Band of Sisters had a favorite crime fighter: Elastigirl from “The Incredibles.”

在兩人都處于懷孕階段，并一起在洗手間嘔吐時，貝內(nèi)特和馬修斯建立起了親密的關系。她說，娘子軍最喜歡的打擊犯罪的斗士是《超人總動員》(The Incredibles)里的“彈力女超人”(Elastigirl)。