愛人之間短暫分離的藝術(shù)

The Art of Being Apart

愛人之間短暫分離的藝術(shù)

My husband was leaving for London on a business trip, just a short hop. He would be back before the end of the week, but naturally, I spent the morning making a special card for him.

我丈夫要去倫敦出差，這只能算短途旅行。周末之前他就會(huì)回來，但我還是習(xí)慣性地花一上午時(shí)間給他做了張?zhí)貏e的卡片。

I always slip a card into his briefcase when he flies somewhere. Sometimes I add an old picture or a heart-shaped piece of coral. I do this, in part, so that if his plane crashes, I’ll know I’ve said a last I-love-you.

我總是在他旅行前往他的手提箱里塞張卡片。有時(shí)我會(huì)加上一張舊照片或者一塊心形珊瑚。這樣做的一個(gè)原因是，如果他的飛機(jī)失事，我知道我已經(jīng)對(duì)他最后一次說過我愛你。

So far, this strategy seems to have kept his planes aloft. But, really, these notes are like bookmarks in the story of our marriage, each one created to hold a place until we’re together again.

到目前為止，這個(gè)方法似乎一直護(hù)佑他飛行平安。不過，說實(shí)在的，這些卡片就像我們婚姻故事中的書簽，每一張都具有重要意義，直到我們重逢。

Departures weren’t always this simple. I still remember his first business trip, mainly because I was on it. This was not a helicopter-wife thing. It was 27 years ago, and we were newlyweds, and I was just trying on a wifely role that seemed quaint and retro and loving.

離別并不總是這么容易。我還記得他的第一次商務(wù)旅行，主要原因是那次我也去了。我并不是那種一直跟在他身邊的妻子。那是27年前，我們剛結(jié)婚，我在嘗試扮演賢妻角色，當(dāng)時(shí)那種角色顯得別致古雅，充滿愛意。

The landscape of my childhood had been strewn with my parents’ suitcases — forever being packed and unpacked. Like my husband, my father had been a journalist, and my mother saw the world with him. Many wives got to do that then, and my mother brought back stories of large and little revelations, cotton caftans from Marrakesh and gold koi charms from Thailand.

我童年的記憶里滿是父母的手提箱，他們似乎總是在收拾行裝或打開行李。和丈夫一樣，我父親也是記者，母親跟著他周游世界。當(dāng)時(shí)很多妻子都是這樣做的，母親帶回具有不同程度啟發(fā)意義的故事、馬拉喀什的寬松長袖棉長衫以及泰國的金錦鯉護(hù)身符。

My husband’s first business trip was to Toronto, and I brought back a hotel shower cap. But I thought: Yes, this is marriage. You do whatever you can so that you’ll wake up in the same bed.

丈夫的第一次商務(wù)旅行是去多倫多。我?guī)Щ匾粋€(gè)酒店浴帽。不過，當(dāng)時(shí)我想：這就是婚姻。你盡己所能，這樣你們才能在同一張床上醒來。

Unlike my mother, though, I had an office job. Even if I had been willing to drop it for traveling now and then, the ’80s and ’90s hardly offered the plus-one largess of the previous decades. To take your wife on a business trip now would be the marital equivalent of having your mother walk you to high school. There were other obstacles in those days: employees-only off-sites (his), magazine and book deadlines (mine), two children (ours) and two school schedules (theirs).

不過，不像母親，我有份辦公室工作。即便我愿意丟下工作不時(shí)陪丈夫出差也難以如愿。因?yàn)椴幌裰澳菐资辏诎司攀甏?，公司幾乎都不?fù)擔(dān)家屬的旅行費(fèi)用。如今，帶妻子進(jìn)行商務(wù)旅行，就像讓媽媽陪你上高中一樣。那時(shí)還有其他一些障礙：(他的)只限員工的差旅;(我的)雜志和書稿截稿日期;(我們的)兩個(gè)孩子以及(孩子們)不同的學(xué)校日程。

Unable to go on work jaunts together, we did what we thought was the next best thing: We tried to talk on the phone every day. This was before the cellphone, so we sometimes failed to connect at all. When we did, though, we aimed for full debriefings: all the meetings and meals, the gossip and grind, of our days apart.

既然不能一起出差，我們就執(zhí)行次佳方案：我們盡量每天都打電話。當(dāng)時(shí)還沒有手機(jī)，所以有時(shí)完全聯(lián)系不上。不過，通上電話后，我們總是詳細(xì)講述各自的情況：所有的會(huì)議和餐食以及所有的小道消息和苦差事。

Even then — years before we started to edit anthologies together — I had read some exquisite old letters written from one spouse to another. To people like John and Abigail Adams, distances were the same as time. If there was an ocean between you, there were three or four months also, and the Adamses used their letters to express their feelings and distill the facts.

即便在當(dāng)時(shí)——當(dāng)時(shí)我們還沒有開始一起編輯文集——我已經(jīng)讀了一些夫妻之間的優(yōu)美書札。對(duì)約翰和阿比蓋爾·亞當(dāng)斯(John and Abigail Adams)那時(shí)的人來說，距離就是時(shí)間。如果你們中間隔著大海，那就相當(dāng)于隔著三四個(gè)月的時(shí)間，所以亞當(dāng)斯夫婦用書信表達(dá)感情，簡要講述各自的情況。

Traveling in America a century and a half later, Dylan Thomas wrote his wife, Caitlin: “My dear one, my Irish heart, my wonderful wonderful girl who is with me invisibly every second …. Why oh why did I think I could live, I could bear to live, I could think of living, for all these torturing, unending, echoing months without you.” (Granted, he would commit adultery many times, but still. Nice words.)

一個(gè)半世紀(jì)之后，迪倫·托馬斯(Dylan Thomas)到美國旅行，他在給妻子凱特琳(Caitlin)的信中寫道：“我親愛的，我的愛爾蘭甜心，我美妙絕倫的姑娘，雖然看不見你，但是每一秒鐘你都在我心里……為什么，哦，為什么我認(rèn)為沒有你我能活下去。為什么我以為自己能忍受所有這些折磨——無窮無盡、月復(fù)一月的折磨。”(沒錯(cuò)，他后來是多次通奸，不過這些情話還是很感人。)

Such communication, however, depended on husbands and wives understanding that apart was truly apart, that they had no life together except their lives in the past and future. Stephen and I were trying to be together while being apart, and instead of a florid Welsh poet, I got a harried New York journalist. Instead of a sweet Irish heart, he got a disconcerted writer facing work and children and the unexpected realization that the quaint wifely role had definitely lost the quaint.

不過，這樣的交流是因?yàn)榉蚱揠p方都知道，分開就是分開，他們共同經(jīng)歷的生活只存在于過去或?qū)?。我和斯蒂?Stephen)不在一起時(shí)總是盡量弄得好像我們還在一起。我的丈夫不是言辭優(yōu)美的威爾士詩人，而是忙碌的紐約記者。他的妻子也不是愛爾蘭甜心，而是焦慮不安的作家——她面臨著工作和孩子的壓力，并且意外地發(fā)現(xiàn)，古典賢妻的角色無疑已不再優(yōu)雅。

Absence was making the heart grow cranky. When we talked, I imagined him in his hotel room, rolling his eyes and mouthing the words “two minutes” to some colleague waiting to hit the town.

配偶不在身邊會(huì)讓人變得焦躁。我們通電話時(shí)，我想像著他在酒店房間里，轉(zhuǎn)動(dòng)眼珠，向某個(gè)等他進(jìn)城的同事做出“等我兩分鐘”的口型。

I thought: Where’s my Dylan Thomas letter? Why aren’t I “my wonderful wonderful girl who is with me invisibly every second”? (It didn’t occur to me that if Dylan had called home daily, Caitlin would have probably heard little more than the slurring of words over the rattle of ice cubes.)

當(dāng)時(shí)我想：我的迪倫·托馬斯情書在哪里?為什么我不是“美妙絕倫的姑娘”——“雖然看不見”我，“但是每一秒鐘”我“都在”他“心里”?(我當(dāng)時(shí)沒想到，如果迪倫每天都往家里打電話，凱特琳很可能聽到的只有咕咕噥噥的醉話，伴隨著攪動(dòng)冰塊的聲音。)

Petulantly, I sometimes resorted to monosyllables when Stephen called: “Fine.” “They’re good.” “Not much.” It was passive-aggressive and punishing, and I’m not usually either. If I had been married to me, I would have asked what I’d ever seen in myself.

有時(shí)，斯蒂芬打來電話時(shí)，我不耐煩地簡單作答：“挺好。”“他們挺好的。”“不太多。”這些話是消極攻擊，很折磨人，而我平常不是這樣的。如果我的丈夫是我自己，我肯定會(huì)詢問自己看到的任何東西。

Gradually, though, I realized that our daily reports could feel startlingly irrelevant. Deprived of the sharing of place, mood and time — all the factors that can make the mundane parts of marriage so festive — I was no more moved by the personnel problems of his newspaper’s Frankfurt office than he was by my editor’s comments on some article I’d rewritten. Dimly, I started to wonder if there might be certain benefits to getting some distance now and then.

不過，慢慢地，我吃驚地意識(shí)到我們的每日匯報(bào)沒有意思。因?yàn)槿狈餐?jīng)歷的地點(diǎn)、心情和時(shí)間——所有這些因素可能會(huì)讓婚姻乏味的部分變得有趣——我不再關(guān)心他所在的報(bào)紙?jiān)诜ㄌm克福分站的人事問題，就像他不再關(guān)心編輯對(duì)我重寫文章的評(píng)論。我開始隱隱約約地想，時(shí)不時(shí)分開一段時(shí)間可能也有些好處。

And there were. With Stephen away, I fudged the kids’ bedtimes. Sometimes I took them out for breakfast. They were shockingly young when they watched “The Godfather.” Along with the extra fun came extra duties. At night, I’d be the one, not Stephen, to take out the garbage and lock the doors. Chores get assigned in marriage, but a short separation reminds you what you can still do perfectly well by yourself. After the children were asleep, I rediscovered, too, how much more writing you can get done when you’re not also having a conversation, let alone having sex or dinner.

的確有好處。斯蒂芬不在的時(shí)候，對(duì)孩子的作息我就比較隨意。有時(shí)，我?guī)麄兂鋈コ栽绮汀Ｋ麄兒苄【涂戳恕督谈浮?The Godfather)。更多樂趣意味著更多責(zé)任。晚上，我得負(fù)責(zé)倒垃圾、鎖門，以前這些事都是斯蒂芬負(fù)責(zé)。平常我們是分做家務(wù)，但是短暫分離讓我明白，我自己一個(gè)人也完全能做好。孩子們睡著后，我還再次發(fā)現(xiàn)，如果不閑聊——更別提性愛或晚餐——能多寫很多文章。

My monosyllabic shtick slowly turned into confident restraint. I missed Stephen, but it was better to want him than to need him. The haunting mystery of any marriage — “What would I do without you?” — is often a rhetorical endearment. In my case, it was just practical: What would I do without him? What I had to. And sometimes I’d have fun.

我簡單的答復(fù)慢慢變成了自信的克制。我想念斯蒂芬，但是想要他比需要他好一些。在任何婚姻中，一個(gè)永恒的問題是“沒有你，我該怎么辦?”不過這個(gè)問題往往是表達(dá)親密的修辭手法。對(duì)我來說，答案很實(shí)際：我會(huì)做我必須做的事情。有時(shí)我還能從中獲得樂趣。

After more than two decades of marriage, we had finally gotten it down. We would talk when we could and keep it brief. If something big arose, we would share it. But mainly, we said what people in love say. The freedom from all the details allowed us to miss each other, and coming together again suddenly provided a fluttery joy.

在結(jié)婚20多年后，我們最終明白：我們會(huì)在有機(jī)會(huì)時(shí)交談，并盡量簡潔。如果出現(xiàn)大事，我們會(huì)分享。但是我們說的主要是情話。不必告知所有細(xì)節(jié)讓我們可以相互思念，重聚會(huì)突然帶來一絲欣喜。

Good thing we had found all this wisdom, because it came just before my doctor told me, seven years ago now, that I had multiple sclerosis. My energy, even for simple tasks, became finite. Daily, my batteries drained. My balance was off. I broke an arm.

7年前，我得知自己得了多發(fā)性硬化癥。幸運(yùn)的是，之前不久，我們就發(fā)現(xiàn)了所有這些智慧。病癥讓我的精力變得非常有限，哪怕是完成簡單的任務(wù)。我的精力每天都會(huì)耗盡。我經(jīng)常失去平衡，把胳膊都摔斷了。

I would lie in bed and look at a window and think, “I need to close that.” And then, half an hour later, I’d think, “I need to close that.” The children were older — a huge help. But all of our lives were altered.

當(dāng)時(shí)，我躺在床上，看著窗外，心想：“我需要把那個(gè)關(guān)了。”半小時(shí)后，又想到，“我需要把那個(gè)關(guān)了。”孩子們都長大了，這對(duì)我有很大幫助。但是我們的生活徹底變了。

Stephen was now head of a global news agency with offices all over the world, and yet he was traveling less than he had in a decade. The first year or two after I got sick, he kept his travel stateside. But it was clear he would have to go much farther to spend real time with colleagues abroad.

斯蒂芬現(xiàn)在是一個(gè)全球新聞機(jī)構(gòu)的主管，該機(jī)構(gòu)在世界各地都有辦公室，不過他出差比10年前少了。我生病后的前一兩年，他只在國內(nèi)出差。但是，顯然他必須去更遠(yuǎn)的地方，與國外的同事們真正相處了解。

The journey of 12,000 miles begins with a single plane reservation. In February 2011, he rolled his suitcase down the hall, out the door and toward China. We kissed goodbye and flashed reassuring smiles that were filled with equal amounts of love and lying. But no trip had ever felt more essential. He needed a break from the me who was sick, and I needed a break from the guy who needed a break from the me who was sick.

一萬兩千英里的旅程始于簡單的機(jī)票預(yù)訂。2011年2月，他拉著行李箱走過門廳，走出門，飛向中國。我們吻別，露出讓人放心的微笑，這微笑充滿愛，也同樣充滿欺騙。但是沒有哪次旅行像這次這么重要。他需要離開生病的我休息一下，我也需要短暫離開那個(gè)一直照顧我的需要休息的人。

Friends reminded him how easy it would be to stay in touch. There were iPhones. Wi-Fi everywhere. Skype. We could text and email at any hour. But we had learned our lesson, back when illness had nothing to do with it: For us, apart, if we did it right, allowed us to be our better selves, to rise above the daily dreck and feel the kind of marital bond that’s sometimes strongest when it’s stretched.

朋友們提醒他，保持聯(lián)系很容易。有蘋果手機(jī)。到處都有Wi-Fi。還有Skype。我們隨時(shí)都能發(fā)短信和郵件。不過，早在我生病前，我們就已吸取教訓(xùn)：如果處理得當(dāng)，分開能讓我們成為更好的自己，擺脫日常生活的負(fù)累，感受那種有時(shí)在松開時(shí)更密切的婚姻聯(lián)系。

More than 2,000 years ago, Pliny the Younger (Pliny the Younger!) wrote to his wife, Calpurnia: “The eagerness of my desire to see you is incredible. … I pass a great part of the night in thinking of you. In the day too, at those hours, when I used to see you, my feet carry me spontaneously … to your apartment, from whence I constantly return much out of humour and dejected.”

兩千多年前，小普利尼(Pliny the Younger)在給妻子凱爾普尼婭(Calpurnia)的信中寫道：“我想見你的欲望難以形容……我晚上的大部分時(shí)間都在想你。白天也是，在我過去常去看你的時(shí)間，我的腳會(huì)不由自主走進(jìn)你的房間，然后往往帶著沮喪和受挫的心情走出來。”

If Calpurnia had been sending him Snapchats, I doubt he would have felt the same.

如果凱爾普尼婭不時(shí)通過Snapchat給他發(fā)照片，我猜他的感覺就不是這樣的了。

I stayed home, and Stephen went to Asia. We talked occasionally, but we didn’t Skype or text. He had left a letter on my night table — not Pliny or Dylan Thomas, perhaps, but pretty majestic in its own right. And I had put a note in his bag.

我呆在家里，斯蒂芬去了亞洲。我們偶爾通話，但我們沒有用Skype視頻聊天或者發(fā)短信。他在我的臥室桌子上留了一封信，也許沒有小普利尼或迪倫·托馬斯的那么感人，但就它本身而言已經(jīng)相當(dāng)美好了。我在他的包里也放了張便條。