《渺小一生》:他第一次獲邀去哈羅德家吃晚飯

　 Harold sighed dramatically, grabbed the dictionary off his desk, flipped it open, and studied it for a moment. “Okay, fine,” he said, tossing it back onto a heap of papers, which slid toward the edge of the surface. “The third definition. But I meant the first definition: the leftovers, the detritus—the remains of politics past. Happy?”

哈羅德夸張地嘆了口氣，抓起桌上的字典，打開來翻找，研究了一會兒。“好吧，”他說，把字典扔回桌上的一堆紙上，任它滑到書桌邊緣，“第三個定義是垃圾沒錯。但是我指的是第二個定義：剩余物、殘屑——過往政治的殘余物。這樣你高興了吧？”

　 “Yes,” he said, trying not to smile.

“是的。”他說，設(shè)法憋住笑意。

　 He began working for Harold on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons and evenings, when his course load was lightest—on Tuedays and Thursdays he had afternoon seminars at MIT, where he was getting his master’s, and worked in the law library at night, and on Saturdays he worked in the library in the morning and in the afternoons at a bakery called Batter, which was near the medical college, where he had worked since he was an undergraduate and where he fulfilled specialty orders: decorating cookies and making hundreds of sugar-paste flower petals for cakes and experimenting with different recipes, one of which, a ten-nut cake, had become the bakery’s best seller. He worked at Batter on Sundays as well, and one day Allison, the bakery’s owner, who entrusted him with many of the more complicated projects, handed him an order form for three dozen sugar cookies decorated to look like various kinds of bacteria. “I thought you of all people might be able to figure this out,” she said. “The customer’s wife’s a microbiologist and he wants to surprise her and her lab.”

每星期一、三、五的下午和晚上，他開始幫哈羅德工作，這三天他的課最輕松——星期二和星期四下午他要去麻省理工學(xué)院（他在那里拿到碩士學(xué)位）上專題研討課，晚上在法律圖書館打工。每個星期六，他上午去圖書館工作，下午去醫(yī)學(xué)院附近一家叫“烘焙工房”的面包店工作，他從大學(xué)時代就在那里打工，現(xiàn)在負(fù)責(zé)特殊訂單，比如裝飾餅干、做幾百個裝飾蛋糕的翻糖花瓣，以及試驗不同的新配方，其中一款以十種堅果為原料的蛋糕后來成為店里的暢銷產(chǎn)品。他星期天也在烘焙工房工作。老板艾莉森常把一些比較復(fù)雜的訂單交給他。有天艾莉森遞給他一張訂單，上頭寫著要三打糖霜餅干，還要裝飾得像各式各樣的細(xì)菌?！拔蚁胨腥死镱^，大概只有你能想出辦法了?！彼f，“那個顧客的太太是微生物學(xué)家，他想給她跟她的實驗室一個驚喜。”

　 “I’ll do some research,” he said, taking the page from her, and noting the customer’s name: Harold Stein. So he had, asking CM and Janusz for their advice, and had made cookies shaped like paisleys, like mace balls, like cucumbers, using different-colored frosting to draw their cytoplasms and plasma membranes and ribosomes and fashioning flagella from strands of licorice. He typed up a list identifying each and folded it into the box before closing it and tying it with twine; he didn’t know Harold very well then, but he liked the idea of making something for him, of impressing him, even if anonymously. And he liked wondering what the cookies were meant to celebrate: A publication? An anniversary? Or was it simple uxoriousness? Was Harold Stein the sort of person who showed up at his wife’s lab with cookies for no reason? He suspected he perhaps was.

“我會研究一下?！彼f，接過那張訂單，注意到顧客的名字：哈羅德·斯坦。于是他就問了CM和雅努什的意見，做出像渦輪圖形、流星槌球、小黃瓜的圖案，利用不同顏色的糖霜畫出上頭的細(xì)胞質(zhì)、細(xì)胞膜和核糖體，還用甘草糖繩做出鞭毛。他印出一張清單，標(biāo)明每一種是什么細(xì)菌，折起來放進盒子里，蓋上盒蓋，用繩子綁好。他當(dāng)時和哈羅德還不熟，但他很樂于替他做些事情，讓他印象深刻，即使是匿名。而且他樂于猜測這些餅干是要慶祝什么：論文發(fā)表？周年紀(jì)念？或者只是寵愛妻子而已？哈羅德·斯坦是那種會無緣無故帶著餅干出現(xiàn)在太太實驗室的人嗎，他猜想說不定真是。

　 The following week, Harold told him about the amazing cookies he’d gotten at Batter. His enthusiasm, which just a few hours ago in class had been directed at the Uniform Commercial Code, had found a new subject in the cookies. He sat, biting the inside of his cheek so he wouldn’t smile, listening to Harold talk about how genius they’d been and how Julia’s lab had been struck speechless by their detail and verisimilitude, and how he had been, briefly, the hero of the lab: “Not an easy thing to be with those people, by the way, who secretly think everyone involved in the humanities is something of a moron.”

隔周，哈羅德跟他提起在烘焙工房訂的餅干太驚人了。幾個小時前他在課堂上對統(tǒng)一商業(yè)法的熱情，這會兒落在了那些餅干上。他坐在那里咬住臉頰內(nèi)側(cè)，免得笑出來，聽哈羅德談起那些餅干多么天才，還有朱麗婭的實驗室被那些餅干的細(xì)節(jié)和逼真弄得啞口無言，一時間他成了實驗室的英雄。“順便說一聲，要讓那些人這么驚訝可不是件簡單的事情。他們暗地里都認(rèn)為念人文學(xué)科的都是智障。”

　 “Sounds like those cookies were made by a real obsessive,” he said. He hadn’t told Harold he worked at Batter, and didn’t plan on doing so, either.

“聽起來，那個餅干師傅真的有強迫癥?！彼f。他沒跟哈羅德提過他在烘焙工房打工，也不打算告訴他。

　 “Then that’s an obsessive I’d like to meet,” said Harold. “They were delicious, too.”

“那我還真想見見這位強迫癥患者?！惫_德說，“而且那些餅干很好吃?！?

　 “Mmm,” he said, and thought of a question to ask Harold so he wouldn’t keep talking about the cookies.

“嗯。”他說，想著要問哈羅德什么問題，免得他一直談那些餅干。

　 Harold had other research assistants, of course—two second-years and a third-year he knew only by sight—but their schedules were such that they never overlapped. Sometimes they communicated with one another by notes or e-mail, explaining where they’d left off in their research so the next person could pick it up and carry it forward. But by the second semester of his first year, Harold had assigned him to work exclusively on the fifth amendment. “That’s a good one,” he said. “Incredibly sexy.” The two second-year assistants were assigned the ninth amendment, and the third-year, the tenth, and as much as he knew it was ridiculous, he couldn’t help but feel triumphant, as if he had been favored with something the others hadn’t.

當(dāng)然，哈羅德還有別的研究助理，兩個法學(xué)院二年級生和一個三年級生，他都見過，不過他們的上班時間沒有重疊。有時他們會用紙條或電子郵件溝通，解釋手上的研究進行到哪里，好讓下一個人接手繼續(xù)做。但是到了他一年級的第二個學(xué)期，哈羅德派他專門研究第五修正案?！澳菞l修正案很棒，”他說，“性感得不得了。”兩個二年級助理被分配到第九修正案，三年級的助理則是第十修正案。他知道這么想很荒謬，但他不禁有種勝利感，好像他得到其他人沒有的東西。

　 The first invitation to dinner at Harold’s house had been spontaneous, at the end of one cold and dark March afternoon. “Are you sure?” he asked, tentative.

他第一次獲邀去哈羅德家吃晚飯，是三月一個冰冷而灰暗的傍晚，哈羅德臨時起意邀請他。“你確定嗎？”他遲疑地問。

　 Harold had looked at him, curiously. “Of course,” he said. “It’s just dinner. You have to eat, right?”

哈羅德詫異地看著他?！爱?dāng)然確定?！彼f，“只是吃頓飯而已。你總得吃飯吧？”

　 Harold lived in a three-story house in Cambridge, at the edge of the undergraduate campus. “I didn’t know you lived here,” he said, as Harold pulled into the driveway. “This is one of my favorite streets. I used to walk down it every day as a shortcut to the other side of campus.”

哈羅德住在劍橋市一棟三層樓房里，位于大學(xué)校園的邊緣?！拔叶疾恢滥阕≡谶@里?！彼f，看著哈羅德把車子開入車道，“這是我最喜歡的街道之一。我以前每天都會經(jīng)過，抄近路去校園的另一頭?！?

　 “You and everybody else,” Harold replied. “When I bought it just before I got divorced, all these houses were occupied by grad students; all the shutters were falling off. The smell of pot was so thick you could get stoned just driving by.”

“不光是你，每個人都這樣?！惫_德說，“我是在離婚前不久買下這棟房子的。當(dāng)時這一帶房子里住的都是研究生，所有的護窗板都快掉光了，大麻的氣味濃得要命，光是開車經(jīng)過都可能會吸到?！?

　 It was snowing, just lightly, but he was grateful that there were only two steps leading up to the door, and that he wouldn’t have to worry about slipping or needing Harold’s help. Inside, the house smelled of butter and pepper and starch: pasta, he thought. Harold dropped his briefcase on the floor and gave him a vague tour—“Living room; study behind it; kitchen and dining room to your left”—and he met Julia, who was tall like Harold, with short brown hair, and whom he liked instantly.

當(dāng)時下著小雪，但他很慶幸門前的臺階只有兩級，這樣他就不必?fù)?dān)心會滑倒，或者需要哈羅德幫忙。進屋之后，他聞到奶油、胡椒和淀粉的氣味，猜想是在做意大利面。哈羅德把公文包扔在地板上，稍微跟他介紹了屋子：“客廳，后頭是書房，廚房和餐廳在你左邊。”然后把他介紹給朱麗婭，她跟哈羅德一樣是高個子，一頭褐色短發(fā)，他立刻喜歡上了她。

　 “Jude!” she said. “Finally! I’ve heard so much about you; I’m so happy to be meeting you at last.” It sounded, he thought, like she really was.

“裘德！”她說，“終于！我聽說了你好多事，真高興終于看到你了。”他覺得她的口氣好像真的很高興。

　 Over dinner, they talked. Julia was from an academic family from Oxford and had lived in America since graduate school at Stanford; she and Harold had met five years ago through a friend. Her lab studied a new virus that appeared to be a variant of H5N1 and they were trying to map its genetic code.

晚餐時，他們邊吃邊聊。朱麗婭出生于英國牛津的學(xué)者家庭，來美國斯坦福大學(xué)讀完研究生后就留了下來。她和哈羅德是五年前經(jīng)由一個朋友介紹而認(rèn)識的。她的實驗室正在研究一種新病毒，顯然是H5N1流感病毒的變種，他們正在想辦法繪制出這種病毒的基因圖譜。

　 “Isn’t one of the concerns in microbiology the potential weaponization of these genomes?” he asked, and felt, rather than saw, Harold turn toward him.

“微生物學(xué)界不是很擔(dān)心這類基因組有武器化的可能嗎？”他問，然后感覺到（而不是看到）哈羅德的目光轉(zhuǎn)向自己。

　 “Yes, that’s right,” Julia said, and as she explained to him the controversies surrounding her and her colleagues’ work, he glanced over at Harold, who was watching him, and who raised an eyebrow at him in a gesture that he couldn’t interpret.

“是啊，沒錯?！敝禧悑I說，然后跟他解釋她和同事們工作上的種種爭議。他看了哈羅德一眼，他正抬起一邊眉毛看著他，那個表情不知是什么意思。

　 But then the conversation shifted, and he could almost watch as the discussion moved steadily away from Julia’s lab and inexorably toward him, could see how good a litigator Harold would be if he wanted to, could see his skill in redirecting and repositioning, almost as if their conversation were something liquid, and he was guiding it through a series of troughs and chutes, eliminating any options for its escape, until it reached its inevitable end.

接著話題轉(zhuǎn)移，他幾乎可以看到討論逐漸離開朱麗婭的實驗室，勢不可擋地朝他的方向移動，看得出如果哈羅德愿意的話，會是一位多么出色的訴訟律師。他看得出他在引導(dǎo)方向和改變位置方面的技巧，他們的談話簡直是某種液體，他要引導(dǎo)它穿過一連串的水槽和滑道，消除掉任何漏水的可能，直到這些液體達(dá)到不可避免的終點。

　 “So, Jude,” Julia asked, “where did you grow up?”

“那么，裘德，”朱麗婭問，“你是在哪里長大的？”