《渺小一生》:“錢的事情，我們討論過了。

　 They’re not completely certain if Malcolm is actually getting married or not. They think he is. Over the past three years, he and Sophie have broken up and gotten back together, and broken up, and gotten back together. But in the past year, Malcolm has had conversations with Willem about weddings, and does Willem think they’re an indulgence or not; and with JB about jewelry, and when women say they don’t like diamonds, do they really mean it, or are they just testing the way it sounds; and with him about prenuptial agreements.

他們還不確定馬爾科姆是不是真的要結(jié)婚，只是認為他會而已。過去三年來，馬爾科姆和蘇菲分手又復(fù)合，接著又分手，然后又復(fù)合。但過去一年，馬爾科姆找威廉談過婚禮的事情，還問威廉會不會覺得婚禮是一種遷就；又問杰比關(guān)于珠寶的事情，問女人說她們不喜歡鉆石時，是真的這么想、還是只是說著玩的；還找他詢問婚前協(xié)議書的事情。

　 He had answered Malcolm’s questions as best as he could, and then had given him the name of a classmate from law school, a matrimonial attorney. “Oh,” Malcolm had said, moving backward, as if he had offered him the name of a professional assassin. “I’m not sure I need this yet, Jude.”

他盡力回答馬爾科姆的問題，然后給了他一個法學(xué)院同學(xué)的名字，是一位婚姻法律師。“啊，”馬爾科姆當時說，身子往后退，好像他要告訴他的是職業(yè)殺手的名字，“我不確定我目前有這個需要，裘德。”

　 “All right,” he said, and withdrew the card, which Malcolm seemed unwilling to even touch. “Well, if and when you do, just ask.”

“好吧。”他說，收回那張馬爾科姆連碰都不想碰的名片，“唔，哪天要是你需要，問我一聲就是了。”

　 And then, a month ago, Malcolm had asked if he could help him pick out a suit. “I don’t even really have one, isn’t that nuts?” he asked. “Don’t you think I should have one? Don’t you think I should start looking, I don’t know, more grown-up or something? Don’t you think it’d be good for business?”

一個月前，馬爾科姆問他能不能幫他挑一套西裝。“我連一套西裝都沒有，這樣是不是很夸張？”他問，“你不覺得我應(yīng)該有一套西裝嗎？你不覺得我應(yīng)該讓自己看起來，我不知道，比較成人或什么的？你不覺得這樣應(yīng)該對生意有幫助？”

　 “I think you look great, Mal,” he said. “And I don’t think you need any help on the business front. But if you want one, sure, I’m happy to help you.”

“小馬，我覺得你看起來好得很，”他說，“而且我不覺得你在生意上還需要什么幫助。但是如果你想買一套西裝，沒問題，我很樂意幫你。”

　 “Thanks,” said Malcolm. “I mean, I just think it’s something I should have. You know, just in case something comes up.” He paused. “I can’t believe you have a suitmaker, by the way.”

“謝了。”馬爾科姆說，“我的意思是，我只是覺得自己應(yīng)該有一套西裝。你知道，以防有什么需要。”他暫停一下，“順帶講一聲，我不敢相信你有個西裝師傅。”

　 He smiled. “He’s not my suitmaker,” he said. “He’s just someone who makes suits, and some of them happen to be mine.”

他微笑，“他不是我的西裝師傅。”他說，“他只是專門做西裝，而某些西裝碰巧是我的。”

　 “God,” said Malcolm, “Harold really created a monster.”

“老天，”馬爾科姆說，“哈羅德真的創(chuàng)造了一個怪物。”

　 He laughed, obligingly. But he often feels as if a suit is the only thing that makes him look normal. For the months he was in a wheelchair, those suits were a way of reassuring his clients that he was competent and, simultaneously, of reassuring himself that he belonged with the others, that he could at least dress the way they did. He doesn’t consider himself vain, but rather scrupulous: when he was a child, the boys from the home would occasionally play baseball games with the boys from the local school, who would taunt them, pinching their noses as they walked onto the field. “Take a bath!” they would shout. “You smell! You smell!” But they did bathe: they had mandatory showers every morning, pumping the greasy pink soap into their palms and onto washcloths and sloughing off their skin while one of the counselors walked back and forth before the row of showerheads, cracking one of the thin towels at the boys who were misbehaving, or shouting at the ones who weren’t cleaning themselves with enough vigor. Even now, he has a horror of repulsing, by being unkempt, or dirty, or unsightly. “You’ll always be ugly, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be neat,” Father Gabriel used to tell him, and although Father Gabriel was wrong about many things, he knows he was right about this.

他忍不住大笑。他常常覺得，好像只有西裝能讓他看起來比較正常。坐輪椅的那幾個月，那些西裝能再度向他的客戶保證他很能干，同時也向自己再度保證他是公司的一分子，至少可以穿得跟其他人一樣。他并不覺得自己虛榮，而是一絲不茍。小時候在少年之家，他們偶爾會跟當?shù)貙W(xué)校的男學(xué)生打棒球賽。每回他們走上場，那些男學(xué)生總是捏著鼻子嘲笑他們：“去洗個澡吧！”他們會大叫，“你們好臭！你們好臭！”但他們確實會洗澡：按規(guī)定，他們每天早上都要淋浴，把黏答答的粉紅色沐浴乳擠在手掌和毛巾上，然后搓洗皮膚，同時會有一個輔導(dǎo)員在蓮蓬頭前方走來走去地巡視，拿著薄毛巾抽打那些不乖的男生，或者朝不夠認真洗澡的人大吼。即使到現(xiàn)在，他還是很怕自己邋遢、骯臟或難看。“你永遠會很丑，但這不代表你不能干凈點。”加布里埃爾神父以前總是這么告訴他。盡管加布里埃爾神父對很多事情的看法都是錯的，但他知道這點他說得沒錯。

　 Malcolm arrives and hugs him hello and then begins, as he always does, surveying the space, telescoping his long neck and rotating in a slow circle around the room, his gaze like a lighthouse’s beam, making little assessing noises as he does.

馬爾科姆來了，跟他擁抱打招呼后，就像往常那樣開始審視整間公寓，伸著長脖子，緩緩轉(zhuǎn)著圈，目光像燈塔的光，邊轉(zhuǎn)還邊喃喃發(fā)出評論。

　 He answers Malcolm’s question before he can ask it: “Next month, Mal.”

他在馬爾科姆開口提問前就先回答了：“小馬，下個月。”

　 “You said that three months ago.”

“你三個月前就這么說了。”

　 “I know. But now I really mean it. Now I have the money. Or I will, at the end of this month.”

“我知道。但是現(xiàn)在我是認真的?，F(xiàn)在我有錢了，或者這個月底就會有了。”

　 “But we discussed this.”

“錢的事情，我們討論過了。”

　 “I know. And Malcolm—it’s so unbelievably generous of you. But I’m not going to not pay you.”

“我知道。你真是太慷慨了，但是我不能不付你錢。”

　 He has lived in the apartment for more than four years now, and for four years, he’s been unable to renovate it because he hasn’t had the money, and he hasn’t had the money because he was paying off the apartment. In the meantime, Malcolm has drawn up plans, and walled off the bedrooms, and helped him choose a sofa, which sits, a gray spacecraft, in the center of the living room, and fixed some minor problems, including the floors. “That’s crazy,” he had told Malcolm at the time. “You’re going to have to redo it entirely once the renovation’s done.” But Malcolm had said he’d do it anyway; the floor dye was a new product he wanted to try, and until he was ready to begin work, Greene Street would be his laboratory, where he could do a little experimentation, if he didn’t mind (and he didn’t, of course). But otherwise the apartment is still very much as it was when he moved in: a long rectangle on the sixth floor of a building in southern SoHo, with windows at either end, one set facing west and the other facing east, as well as the entire southern wall, which looks over a parking lot. His room and bathroom are at the eastern-facing end, which looks onto the top of a stubby building on Mercer Street; Willem’s rooms—or what he continues to think of as Willem’s rooms—are at the western-facing end, which looks over Greene Street. There is a kitchen in the middle of the apartment, and a third bathroom. And in between the two suites of rooms are acres of space, the black floors shiny as piano keys.

他在這間公寓里已經(jīng)住了四年多，卻一直因為缺錢沒裝修，而他缺錢是因為他在付公寓貸款。這四年多里，馬爾科姆畫了設(shè)計圖，隔出兩個臥室，幫他挑了一張有如灰色宇宙飛船的沙發(fā)，放在客廳中央，又解決了一些小問題，包括地板。“這太瘋狂了，”當時他告訴馬爾科姆，“等整修完畢，你還是得重鋪地板。”但馬爾科姆說他無論如何都要做，那種地板漆是新產(chǎn)品，他想試用一下，而真正裝修之前，格林街會是他的實驗室，他可以拿它來做一些小實驗，如果他不介意的話（而他當然不介意）。但除此之外，整間公寓差不多還是保持了他剛搬進來時的樣子：一個長長的四方形，位于南蘇荷區(qū)一棟建筑的六樓，兩邊都有窗子，一側(cè)朝西，一側(cè)朝東；南邊整面墻也有窗子，俯瞰一座停車場。他的房間和浴室在東頭，看出去是默瑟街一棟低矮樓房的屋頂；威廉的房間和浴室（其實是客房，但他一直把它當成威廉的房間）則在西頭，下面是格林街。廚房位于公寓中央，還有第三間浴室。套房之間的空間很大，黑色地板像黑色琴鍵般發(fā)亮。

　 It is still an unfamiliar feeling to have so much space, and a stranger one to be able to afford it. But you can, he has to remind himself sometimes, just as he does when he stands in the grocery store, wondering whether he should buy a tub of the black olives he likes, which are so salty they make his mouth pucker and his eyes water. When he first moved to the city, they were an indulgence, and he’d buy them just once a month, one glistening spoonful at a time. Every night he’d eat only one, sucking the meat slowly off the stone as he sat reading briefs. You can buy them, he tells himself. You have the money. But he still finds it difficult to remember.

他擁有了這么多空間，但至今依然有一種不熟悉的感覺，更不熟悉的是自己居然負擔得起。但是你負擔得起，他有時還得提醒自己，就像他站在雜貨店里，想著是否該買一盒自己喜歡的黑橄欖；那種橄欖好咸，咸得他嘴巴發(fā)澀、雙眼泛淚。剛搬到紐約市時，吃黑橄欖是一種享受，他一個月只買一次，一次只買一匙。每天晚上他只吃一顆，一邊坐著讀案情摘要，一邊緩緩啜吸著橄欖核上的肉。你可以買，他現(xiàn)在告訴自己，你有那個錢了。但他還總是忘記。

　 The reason behind Greene Street, and the container of olives that are usually in the refrigerator, is his job at Rosen Pritchard and Klein, one of the city’s most powerful and prestigious firms, where he is a litigator and, for a little more than a year now, a partner. Five years ago, he and Citizen and Rhodes had been working on a case concerning securities fraud at a large commercial bank called Thackery Smith, and shortly after the case had settled, he had been contacted by a man named Lucien Voigt, whom he knew was the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein, and who had represented Thackery Smith in their negotiations.

他之所以買得起格林街的公寓，而且冰箱里常備著一盒橄欖，背后的原因是他在羅普克工作，這是全紐約最有權(quán)勢、最有名望的律師事務(wù)所之一。他在那里擔任辯護律師，而且一年多前升為合伙人。五年前，他跟西提任和羅茲經(jīng)辦一件證券詐欺案，起訴一家叫柴克瑞·史密斯的大型商業(yè)銀行。那個案子和解之后沒多久，一個叫盧西恩·沃伊特的人聯(lián)絡(luò)他，他知道他是羅普克訴訟部門的總監(jiān)，而且之前曾代表柴克瑞·史密斯銀行與他們協(xié)商。

　 Voigt asked him to have a drink. He had been impressed by his work, especially in the courtroom, he said. And Thackery Smith had been as well. He had heard of him anyway—he and Judge Sullivan had been on law review together—and had researched him. Had he ever considered leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office and coming to the dark side?

沃伊特邀他一起喝杯酒聊聊。他對他的工作印象深刻，尤其是法庭表現(xiàn)，他說。柴克瑞·史密斯銀行也對他印象深刻。其實他早聽過他的名字（他和沙利文法官是法學(xué)院的老同學(xué)），也打聽了一下他的狀況。他有沒有考慮過離開聯(lián)邦檢察官辦公室，加入黑暗陣營呢？

　 He would have been lying if he said he hadn’t. All around him, people were leaving. Citizen, he knew, was talking to an international firm in Washington, D.C. Rhodes was wondering whether he should go in-house at a bank. He himself had been approached by two other firms, and had turned them both down. They loved the U.S. Attorney’s Office, all of them. But Citizen and Rhodes were older than he was, and Rhodes and his wife wanted to have a baby, and they needed to make money. Money, money: it was all they spoke of sometimes.

要說他從沒想過，那就是撒謊了。在辦公室里，周圍的人不斷離去。他知道西提任正在跟華盛頓的一家國際法律事務(wù)所洽談。羅茲在猶豫是不是該去一家銀行的法務(wù)部工作。至于他，之前已經(jīng)有兩家律師事務(wù)所找上門來，但他都拒絕了。他們都很喜歡聯(lián)邦檢察官辦公室，所有人都是。但西提任和羅茲的年紀比他大，羅茲和他太太想生小孩，他們得賺錢。錢，錢，錢，有時他們談的唯一話題就是錢。