With the exception of my family, he was probably the only other Jew who had ever set foot in B. But unlike us he let you see it from the very start. We were not conspicuous Jews. We wore our Judaism as people do almost everywhere in the world: under the shirt, not hidden, but tucked away. “Jews of discretion,” to use my mother’s words. To see someone proclaim his Judaism on his neck as Oliver did when he grabbed one of our bikes and headed into town with his shirt wide open shocked us as much as it taught us we could do the same and get away with it. I tried imitating him a few times. But I was too self-conscious, like someone trying to feel natural while walking about naked in a locker room only to end up aroused by his own nakedness. In town, I tried flaunting my Judaism with the silent bluster that comes less from arrogance than from repressed shame. Not him. It’s not that he never thought about being Jewish or about the life of Jews in a Catholic country. Sometimes we spoke about just this topic during those long afternoons when both of us would put aside work and enjoy chatting while the entire household and guests had all drifted into every available bedroom to rest for a few hours. He had lived long enough in small towns in New England to know what it felt like to be the odd Jew out. But Judaism never troubled him the way it troubled me, nor was it the subject of an abiding, metaphysical discomfort with himself and the world. It did not even harbor the mystical, unspoken promise of redemptive brotherhood. And perhaps this was why he wasn’t ill at ease with being Jewish and didn’t constantly have to pick at it, the way children pick at scabs they wish would go away. He was okay with being Jewish. He was okay with himself, the way he was okay with his body, with his looks, with his antic backhand, with his choice of books, music, films, friends. He was okay with losing his prized Mont Blanc pen. “I can buy another one just like it.” He was okay with criticism too. He showed my father a few pages he was proud of having written. My father told him his insights into Heraclitus were brilliant but needed firming up, that he needed to accept the paradoxical nature of the philosopher’s thinking, not simply explain it away. He was okay with firming things up, he was okay with paradox. Back to the drawing board—he was okay with the drawing board as well. He invited my young aunt for a tête-à-tête midnight gita—spin—in our motorboat. She declined. That was okay. He tried again a few days later, was turned down again, and again made light of it. She too was okay with it, and, had she spent another week with us, would probably have been okay with going out to sea for a midnight gita that could easily have lasted till sunrise.
 
除了我的家人之外，涉足 B 城的猶太人或許只有他一個了。但他與我們不同，他從一開始就亮給人看。我的家人從不高調(diào)彰顯猶太人身份，而是像其他分散世界各地的猶太人一樣，放在襯衫里，不加隱藏卻保持低調(diào)——借用我母親的話來說，我們是“謹慎的猶太人”?？匆妸W利弗敞著襯衫領口宣告項鏈所代表的猶太信仰，直接騎上家里的腳踏車進城，令我們震驚，同時也讓我們知道我們也可以這樣，完全不會遇上什么麻煩。我?guī)状卧囍鴮W他那樣出門，可是我太放不開，像個想要大大方方光著身子在更衣室走動的人，到頭來卻被自己的裸體勾起了性欲。更多是出于壓抑的羞恥感而非自大的心態(tài)，我試著在城里以一種靜默的虛張聲勢來昭示我的猶太信仰；而他則不然，盡管他并非從未考慮過在這個天主教國度里身為猶太人意味著什么，或猶太人的生活是怎樣的。偶爾在漫長的午后，趁著一家老小和客人全都懶洋洋地晃進空余臥房里小憩個把鐘頭的時候，我倆會拋開工作，愉快地聊天，而我們討論的正是這個話題。他曾在美國新英格蘭的幾個小鎮(zhèn)住過相當長一段時間，很清楚猶太人只身在異鄉(xiāng)的局外人感受，但猶太信仰帶給我的困擾從未發(fā)生在他身上，也從來不是他自處或面對世界時，那個會引發(fā)永恒不變的、深奧難解的苦惱不安的主題。猶太信仰甚至并不包含那種玄秘的、未以言明的關于相互救贖的兄弟關系的美好預言?；蛟S正是出于這個理由，猶太人身份對他絲毫不是困擾，他也不需要時不時就此煩惱一下，不像小孩子經(jīng)常去摳傷疤，盼望著疤痕早些消失。身為猶太人對他而言不是問題。他很能接受自己，就像他接受自己的身體，接受自己的相貌，接受自己古怪的反手拍動作，接受自己選擇讀的書、聽的音樂、看的電影和交的朋友。他弄丟了獲獎得來的萬寶龍鋼筆也不介意。“我可以自己買支一模一樣的。”他也不介意批評。他拿了幾頁引以為傲的文章給我父親看。父親告訴他，他對赫拉克利特的見解很精彩，但論點還需加強，他必須接受哲學家思想中的悖論本質(zhì)，而不是一味找理由開脫。于是他接受立論必須加強的意見，也接受悖論，重起爐灶——他不介意從頭開始修改文章。他邀請我的小阿姨半夜單獨（開我們的汽艇）去 gita，也就是兜風。小阿姨拒絕了。沒關系。幾天后他又試一次，再度遭拒，同樣不以為意。小阿姨也無所謂，若是再多住一周，她或許就會答應半夜出海去兜風，甚至玩到天亮。
 

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