雙語·當呼吸化為空氣 到朋友家已經要臨近黃昏了

到朋友家已經要臨近黃昏了。這里在曼哈頓以北八十多公里，是哈得孫河附近的冷泉小鎮(zhèn)。多年來交往的十幾個最親密的朋友全都出來迎接我，他們熱情的歡呼中夾雜著快樂的小孩子們吵吵嚷嚷的聲音。我跟他們一個接一個地擁抱，不過很快就聊到讓我臉色陰沉的事了。
It was late afternoon when I reached the house in Cold Spring, fifty miles north of Manhattan on the Hudson River, and was greeted by a dozen of my closest friends from years past, their cheers of welcome mixed with the cacophony of young, happy children. Hugs ensued, and an icecold dark and stormy made its way to my hand.

“露西沒來？”
“No Lucy?”

“工作上突然有急事，”我說，“快出發(fā)了才通知的。”
“Sudden work thing,” I said. “Very last-minute.”

“哎呀，真掃興！”
“Oh, what a bummer!”

“話說，能不能讓我把行李放下休息一下？”
“Say, do you mind if I put my bags down and rest a bit?”

我本來希望能遠離手術室?guī)滋欤叱渥?，好好休息，多多放松，簡單地說，就是過過正常的生活，能讓我的癥狀得到緩解，背痛和疲累都能控制在可以忍受的范圍內。但一兩天之后，很顯然沒有任何緩解。
I had hoped a few days out of the OR, with adequate sleep, rest, and relaxation—in short, a taste of a normal life—would bring my symptoms back into the normal spectrum for back pain and fatigue. But after a day or two, it was clear there would be no reprieve.

早飯時間我通常都在呼呼大睡，午飯時才搖搖晃晃地走到餐桌前，盯著盤子里滿滿的豆燜肉和蟹腿，卻完全沒有胃口。到吃晚飯的時候，我已經筋疲力盡，準備繼續(xù)睡覺了。有時候我會給孩子們讀點故事，但他們一般都在我身上和周圍玩耍，一邊跳，一邊大叫。（“孩子們，我覺得保羅叔叔需要休息。你們到那邊去玩好嗎？”）我想起十五年前，請了一天假去做夏令營輔導員，坐在北加州的湖岸邊，開心的孩子們在玩復雜的奪旗游戲，把我當作障礙物。而我讀著一本名為《死亡與哲學》的書。過去，每每想起這很不搭的一幕，都會發(fā)笑：一個二十歲的小伙子，在湖光山色、鳥鳴綠樹、四歲孩子嬉鬧的一片祥和之中，卻埋頭于一本關于死亡的黑暗之書。而此時此刻，我才感到命運冥冥中的交會：只是太浩湖換成哈得孫河；陌生的孩子變成朋友的小孩；那本讓我和周圍一派生機勃勃分離開來的死亡之書，變成我自己行將就木的身體。
I slept through breakfasts and shambled to the lunch table to stare at ample plates of cassoulet and crab legs that I couldn’t bring myself to eat. By dinner, I was exhausted, ready for bed again. Sometimes I read to the kids, but mostly they played on and around me, leaping and yelling. (“Kids, I think Uncle Paul needs a rest. Why don’t you play over there?”) I remembered a day off as a summer camp counselor, fifteen years prior, sitting on the shore of a lake in Northern California, with a bunch of joyous kids using me as an obstacle in a convoluted game of Capture the Flag, while I read a book called Death and Philosophy. I used to laugh at the incongruities of that moment: a twenty-year-old amid the splendor of trees, lake, mountains, the chirping of birds mixed with the squeal of happy fouryear-olds, his nose buried in a small black book about death. Only now, in this moment, I felt the parallels: instead of Lake Tahoe, it was the Hudson River; the children were not strangers’, but my friends’; instead of a book on death separating me from the life around me, it was my own body, dying.