《渺小一生》:“二月十五日。”

　 That night he had his first tantrum in years, and although the punishment here was the same, more or less, as it had been at the monastery, the release, the sense of flight it had once given him, was not: now he was someone who knew better, whose screams would change nothing, and all his shouting did was bring him back to himself, so that everything, every hurt, every insult, felt sharper and brighter and stickier and more resonant than ever before.

那一晚，他多年來第一次亂發(fā)脾氣。這里的處罰跟修道院一樣，大同小異，現(xiàn)在卻不能給他解脫，給他那種飛翔的感覺：現(xiàn)在他更懂事了，他的尖叫改變不了什么，他的怒吼只是召回原來的自己，召回過往的一切。于是每一種傷害、每一次侮辱，都變得更尖銳、更鮮明、更難受，而且比以往更刻骨銘心。

　 He would never, never know what he had done wrong that weekend at the Learys’. He would never know if it had been something he could control, or something he couldn’t. And of all the things from the monastery, from the home, that he worked to scrub over, he worked hardest at forgetting that weekend, at forgetting the special shame of allowing himself to believe that he might be someone he knew he wasn’t.

他永遠(yuǎn)、永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)知道自己在黎瑞夫婦家的那個(gè)周末做錯(cuò)了什么。他永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)知道那是不是自己能控制的事。多年來，他一直想忘卻修道院和少年之家的種種，但他最努力忘記的是那個(gè)周末。因?yàn)樗胪裟翘貏e的恥辱：當(dāng)時(shí)他竟然相信自己可以去當(dāng)另一個(gè)人；他明明知道那不是真正的自己。

　 But now, of course, with the court date six weeks, five weeks, four weeks away, he thought of it constantly. With Willem gone, and no one to monitor his hours and activities, he stayed up until the sun began lightening the sky, cleaning, scrubbing with a toothbrush the space beneath the refrigerator, bleaching each skinny grout-canal between the bathtub wall tiles. He cleaned so he wouldn’t cut himself, because he was cutting himself so much that even he knew how crazy, how destructive he was being; even he was scared of himself, as much by what he was doing as by his inability to control it. He had begun a new method of balancing the edge of the blade on his skin and then pressing down, as deep as he could, so that when he withdrew the razor—stuck like an ax head into a tree stump—there was half a second in which he could pull apart the two sides of flesh and see only a clean white gouge, like a side of fatted bacon, before the blood began rushing in to pool within the cut. He felt dizzy, as if his body was pumped with helium; food tasted like rot to him, and he stopped eating unless he had to. He stayed at the office until the night shift of cleaners began moving through the hallways, noisy as mice, and then stayed awake at home; he woke with his heart thudding so fast that he had to gulp air to calm himself. It was only work, and Willem’s calls, that forced him into normalcy, or he’d have never left the house, would have cut himself until he could have loosed whole pyramids of flesh from his arms and flushed them down the drain. He had a vision in which he carved away at himself—first arms, then legs, then chest and neck and face—until he was only bones, a skeleton who moved and sighed and breathed and tottered through life on its porous, brittle stalks.

但現(xiàn)在，隨著去法院的日子只剩六星期、五星期、四星期，他一直想著這件事。現(xiàn)在威廉不在家，沒人監(jiān)視他的作息和活動(dòng)，他總是熬夜不睡，在家里打掃，用牙刷清理冰箱底下的空間，把浴室瓷磚的每一道小縫隙都漂白一遍，直到太陽開始照亮天空。他打掃是因?yàn)檫@樣他就不會(huì)割自己，他割得太多了，就連他也知道自己有多瘋狂、多具毀滅性；甚至他都被自己嚇到了，包括自己做的事，還有自己的無力控制。他開始一種新的自殘方法，把刀片一角放在皮膚上，然后往下壓，盡可能深入，這樣抽出刀片時(shí)（像斧頭砍入樹干般卡?。蜁?huì)有半秒的時(shí)間可以拉開肉的兩側(cè)，出現(xiàn)一道干凈的白溝，像是培根的側(cè)面，然后血才開始涌出來，填滿那道口子。他覺得暈眩，好像身體里充滿了氦氣。食物在嘴里總是有腐爛的氣息，于是他停止進(jìn)食，除非必要。他留在辦公室加班，直到夜班清潔工開始在走廊上走動(dòng)，膠底鞋摩擦地板發(fā)出有如老鼠的吱吱聲，他才回家。有時(shí)他突然醒來，心臟跳得好快，得深吸幾口氣才能平靜下來。只有工作和威廉的電話才能逼著他恢復(fù)正常，否則他永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)離開屋子，會(huì)割自己割到手臂上的肉一塊塊掉光，然后沖進(jìn)馬桶里。他幻想著一刀刀割掉自己的肉，先是手臂，然后是雙腿，然后是胸部、脖子和臉，直到只剩骨頭，成了一具空蕩、脆弱的骷髏，四處移動(dòng)、嘆氣、呼吸，搖搖晃晃地過日子。

　 He was back to seeing Andy every six weeks, and had delayed his most recent visit twice, because he dreaded what Andy might say. But finally, a little less than four weeks before the court date, he went uptown and sat in one of the examining rooms until Andy peered in to say he was running late.

他每六周該去安迪那看診一次，但最近兩次都拖著沒去，因?yàn)樗軗?dān)心安迪可能會(huì)說的話。但最后，離法院公證日期不到四周時(shí)，他終于去了安迪那里，坐在一間診室里，直到安迪站在門口說他晚一點(diǎn)才有空。

　 “Take your time,” he said.

“你慢慢來，沒關(guān)系。”他說。

　 Andy studied him, squinting a bit. “I won’t be long,” he said, finally, and then was gone.

安迪打量著他，稍稍瞇起眼睛。“不會(huì)太久的。”他終于說話了，但隨即就走開了。

　 A few minutes later, his nurse Callie came in. “Hi, Jude,” she said. “Doctor wants me to get your weight; do you mind stepping on the scale?”

幾分鐘后，他的護(hù)士凱莉進(jìn)來。“嗨，裘德。”她說，“醫(yī)生要我?guī)湍懔矿w重；可以麻煩你站到體重計(jì)上嗎？”

　 He didn’t want to, but he knew it wasn’t Callie’s fault or decision, and so he dragged himself off the table, and onto the scale, and didn’t look at the number as Callie wrote it down in his chart, and thanked him, and left the room.

他不想，但他知道這不是凱莉的錯(cuò)，也不是她的決定。于是他慢吞吞地下了檢查臺(tái)，站到秤上，沒看數(shù)字。這時(shí)凱莉把數(shù)字寫在他的病歷表上，謝謝他，就離開了。

　 “So,” Andy said after he’d come in, studying his chart. “What should we talk about first, your extreme weight loss or your excessive cutting?”

“那么，”后來安迪進(jìn)來，看著他的病歷表說，“首先我們要談什么？你體重一下子減輕太多，還是你太常割自己？”

　 He didn’t know what to say to that. “Why do you think I’ve been cutting myself excessively?”

他不知道該怎么回答：“你為什么覺得我太常割自己？”

　 “I can always tell,” Andy said. “You get sort of—sort of bluish under the eyes. You’re probably not even conscious of it. And you’re wearing your sweater over the gown. Whenever it’s bad, you do that.”

“我一向看得出來。”安迪說，“你眼睛下頭有點(diǎn)——有點(diǎn)發(fā)青。你自己大概沒注意到。另外，你在病人袍外穿了毛衣。每回狀況糟糕的時(shí)候，你就會(huì)這樣。”

　 “Oh,” he said. He hadn’t been aware.

“啊。”他說，他以前都沒意識(shí)到。

　 They were quiet, and Andy pulled his stool close to the table and asked, “When’s the date?”

他們都沒說話，安迪把凳子拖近檢查臺(tái)，問他：“是哪一天？”

　 “February fifteenth.”

“二月十五日。”

　 “Ah,” said Andy. “Soon.”

“啊，”安迪說，“快了。”

　 “Yes.”

“對(duì)。”

　 “What’re you worried about?”

“你在擔(dān)心什么？”

　 “I’m worried—” he began, and then stopped, and tried again. “I’m worried that if Harold finds out what I really am, he won’t want to—” He stopped. “And I don’t know which is worse: him finding out before, which means this definitely won’t happen, or him finding out after, and realizing I’ve deceived him.” He sighed; he hadn’t been able to articulate this until now, but having done so, he knew that this was his fear.

“我在擔(dān)心……”他開了口，接著停下來，又試著開口，“我擔(dān)心如果哈羅德發(fā)現(xiàn)我的真面目，他就不會(huì)想……”他又停下了，“而且我不知道哪種狀況比較糟糕：如果他在收養(yǎng)前發(fā)現(xiàn)，那表示這事就不會(huì)成了；倘若事后才發(fā)現(xiàn)，他會(huì)明白我一直在欺騙他。”他嘆了口氣；之前他一直沒法講清楚，現(xiàn)在說出口，他才明白自己害怕的是這個(gè)。

　 “Jude,” Andy said, carefully, “what do you think is so bad about yourself that he wouldn’t want to adopt you?”

“裘德，”安迪小心翼翼地說，“你覺得自己有什么地方那么糟，糟到讓他不想收養(yǎng)你？”

　 “Andy,” he pled, “don’t make me say it.”

“安迪，”他懇求，“別逼我說出來。”