《渺小一生》:但是這些他都不能告訴哈羅德

　 “I’m sorry, Harold,” he said. Harold said nothing. “You’re so angry at me,” he murmured.

“對不起，哈羅德?！彼f，哈羅德沒吭聲，“你對我很生氣?！彼麌肃榈?。

　 “I’m not angry, Jude,” Harold said. “I’m disappointed. Do you know how special you are? Do you know what a difference you could make if you stayed? You could be a judge if you wanted to—you could be a justice someday. But you’re not going to be now. Now you’re going to be another litigator in another corporate firm, and all the good work you could have done you’ll instead be fighting against. It’s just such a waste, Jude, such a waste.”

“我不是生你的氣，裘德，”哈羅德說，“我是失望。你知道你有多特別嗎？你知道你如果留下，可以改變多少事情嗎？如果你想要，你可以成為法官，有一天還能當(dāng)上最高法院大法官。但是現(xiàn)在不可能了。你到一間大型律師事務(wù)所當(dāng)辯護(hù)律師，你原來可以完成那么多杰出的工作，如今卻要站到敵對的那一方。這真是太浪費(fèi)了，裘德，太浪費(fèi)了?！?

　 He was silent again. He repeated Harold’s words to himself: Such a waste, such a waste. Harold sighed. “So what is this about, really?” he asked. “Is it money? Is this what this is about? Why didn’t you tell me you needed money, Jude? I could’ve given you some. Is this all about money? Tell me what you need, Jude, and I’m happy to help you out.”

他又沉默了。他心中重復(fù)著哈羅德的話：太浪費(fèi)了，太浪費(fèi)了。哈羅德嘆氣：“所以你到底是為了什么呢？”他問，“是錢嗎？就是為了錢嗎？裘德，你為什么不告訴我你需要錢？我可以給你一些的。一切都是為了錢嗎？告訴我你需要什么，我很樂意幫忙的?！?

　 “Harold,” he began, “that’s so—that’s so kind of you. But—I can’t.”

“哈羅德，”他開口，“你真是太好心了。但是——但是我沒辦法接受?！?

　 “Bullshit,” said Harold, “you won’t. I’m offering you a way to let you keep your job, Jude, to not have to take a job you’re going to hate, for work you will hate—and that’s not a maybe, that’s a fact—with no expectations or strings attached. I’m telling you that I’m happy to give you money for this.”

“狗屎，”哈羅德說，“你是不肯。我現(xiàn)在提出一個(gè)辦法，讓你不要辭職，裘德，不要接受一個(gè)你會痛恨的職務(wù)或工作——不是或許，而是一定——而且我不要求你回報(bào)，也沒有附帶條件。我是在告訴你，為了讓你留在原來的地方工作，我很樂意給你錢?！?

　 Oh, Harold, he thought. “Harold,” he said, wretchedly, “the kind of money I need isn’t the kind of money you have. I promise you.”

啊，哈羅德，他心想?！肮_德，”他痛苦地說，“我跟你保證，我需要的錢，不是你給得了的?！?

　 Harold was silent, and when he spoke next, his tone was different. “Jude, are you in any kind of trouble? You can tell me, you know. Whatever it is, I’ll help you.”

哈羅德沉默不語，再度開口時(shí)，他的口氣變了：“裘德，你是惹上什么麻煩了嗎？你知道你可以告訴我的。無論是什么，我都會幫你?！?

　 “No,” he said, but he wanted to cry. “No, Harold, I’m fine.” He wrapped his right hand around his bandaged calf, with its steady, constant ache.

“不是，”他說，可是好想哭，“哈羅德，不是這樣。我很好?！彼糜沂肿プ≠N了繃帶的小腿，因?yàn)槟抢锍掷m(xù)作痛。

　 “Well,” said Harold. “That’s a relief. But Jude, what could you possibly need so much money for, besides an apartment, which Julia and I will help you buy, do you hear me?”

“唔，”哈羅德說，“那我就松了口氣。但是裘德，你怎么可能需要那么多錢呢？除了買房子。這個(gè)朱麗婭和我會幫你的，你聽到了沒？”

　 He sometimes found himself both frustrated and fascinated by Harold’s lack of imagination: in Harold’s mind, people had parents who were proud of them, and saved money only for apartments and vacations, and asked for things when they wanted them; he seemed to be curiously unaware of a universe in which those things might not be givens, in which not everyone shared the same past and future. But this was a highly ungenerous way to think, and it was rare—most of the time, he admired Harold’s steadfast optimism, his inability or unwillingness to be cynical, to look for unhappiness or misery in every situation. He loved Harold’s innocence, which was made more remarkable considering what he taught and what he had lost. And so how could he tell Harold that he had to consider wheelchairs, which needed to be replaced every few years, and which insurance didn’t wholly cover? How could he tell him that Andy, who didn’t take insurance, never charged him, had never charged him, but might want to someday, and if he did, he certainly wasn’t not going to pay him? How could he tell him that this most recent time his wound had opened, Andy had mentioned hospitalization and, maybe, someday in the future, amputation? How could he tell him that if his leg was amputated, it would mean a hospital stay, and physical therapy, and prostheses? How could he tell him about the surgery he wanted on his back, the laser burning his carapace of scars down to nothing? How could he tell Harold of his deepest fears: his loneliness, of becoming the old man with a catheter and a bony, bare chest? How could he tell Harold that he dreamed not of marriage, or children, but that he would someday have enough money to pay someone to take care of him if he needed it, someone who would be kind to him and allow him privacy and dignity? And then, yes, there were the things he wanted: He wanted to live somewhere where the elevator worked. He wanted to take cabs when he wanted to. He wanted to find somewhere private to swim, because the motion stilled his back and because he wasn’t able to take his walks any longer.

有時(shí)，哈羅德缺乏想象力的程度讓他懊惱又驚奇。在哈羅德的心目中，人人都有以自己為榮的父母，存錢只是為了買房子或度假，想要什么開口就是了。他似乎沒意識到在某些人生活的世界里，這些東西不見得是與生俱來的，也不是人人都有同樣的過去和未來。但是這樣想太不厚道了，他很少這么想。大部分時(shí)間，他都欣賞哈羅德堅(jiān)定的樂觀，他沒辦法或不愿意變得憤世嫉俗，不愿意去尋找不幸或悲慘的一面。他很愛哈羅德的純真，尤其是想到他所教授的、他所失去的，就更覺得他了不起。所以他怎么能告訴哈羅德，自己必須考慮到每隔幾年就得換新，而且保險(xiǎn)不完全給付的輪椅？他怎么能告訴哈羅德，安迪的診所沒跟保險(xiǎn)公司合作，從沒收過他醫(yī)療費(fèi)，但有一天可能開始要收；如果是這樣，他當(dāng)然不能不付錢？他怎么能告訴哈羅德，他最近腿上的這個(gè)瘡，安迪提過要他去住院，而且有一天或許要截肢？他怎么能告訴哈羅德，如果他截肢，就得花錢住院，做物理治療、裝義肢？他怎么能告訴哈羅德，他想動背部手術(shù)，用激光把那些疤痕清除得一干二凈？他怎么能告訴哈羅德他最深的恐懼：他的寂寞，他害怕成為一個(gè)裝了導(dǎo)尿管、胸部瘦骨嶙峋的老人？他怎么能告訴哈羅德，他夢想的不是婚姻或子女，而是有一天如果有需要，有足夠的錢雇人來照顧他，這個(gè)人會對他很和氣，同時(shí)給他隱私和尊嚴(yán)？沒錯(cuò)，還有一些他想要的東西：他想住在一個(gè)電梯不會壞的地方。他想隨時(shí)想坐出租車就能坐。他想找私人游泳池，因?yàn)橛斡灸芷綋崴谋惩?，而且他現(xiàn)在再也沒法到處亂走了。

　 But he couldn’t tell Harold any of this. He didn’t want Harold to know just how flawed he was, what a piece of junk he’d acquired. And so he said nothing, and told Harold he had to go, and that he would talk to him later.

但是這些他都不能告訴哈羅德。他不想讓哈羅德知道他的毛病這么多、知道他收養(yǎng)的根本是個(gè)廢物。于是他什么都沒說，只跟哈羅德說他得掛電話了，說下回再跟他談。

　 Even before he had talked to Harold, he had prepared himself to be resigned to his new job, nothing more, but to first his unease, and then his surprise, and then his delight, and then his slight disgust, he found that he enjoyed it. He’d had experience with pharmaceutical companies when he was a prosecutor, and so much of his initial caseload concerned that industry: he worked with a company that was opening an Asia-based subsidiary to develop an anticorruption policy, traveling back and forth to Tokyo with the senior partner on the case—this was a small, tidy, solvable job, and therefore unusual. The other cases were more complicated, and longer, at times infinitely long: he mostly worked on compiling a defense for another of the firm’s clients, this a massive pharmaceutical conglomerate, against a False Claims Act charge. And three years into his life at Rosen Pritchard and Klein, when the investment management company Rhodes worked for was investigated for securities fraud, they came to him, and secured his partnership: he had trial experience, which most of the other associates didn’t, but he had known he would need to bring in a client eventually, and the first client was always the hardest to find.

甚至在跟哈羅德談?wù)撝埃呀?jīng)準(zhǔn)備好，面對新工作要逆來順受，不要期望什么，但先是讓他不安、繼而讓他驚奇、接著讓他開心、最后讓他有點(diǎn)厭惡的是，他發(fā)現(xiàn)自己樂在其中。他當(dāng)聯(lián)邦助理檢察官時(shí)，處理過藥廠的案子，于是剛到律師事務(wù)所時(shí)，承辦的案子很多都跟藥廠有關(guān)：有家藥廠新設(shè)立了亞洲分公司，要發(fā)展一套反腐敗政策，于是他和一位資深合伙人律師出差去東京，這是一個(gè)清楚、好解決的小案子，并不常見。其他案子都比較復(fù)雜，拖得比較久，有時(shí)還會拖到地老天荒，他大部分時(shí)間都在忙著為另一個(gè)客戶（某大型制藥集團(tuán)）匯整出針對“詐領(lǐng)法案”的辯護(hù)依據(jù)。進(jìn)入羅普克律師事務(wù)所不久，羅茲工作的那家投資管理公司因?yàn)樽C券詐欺案被調(diào)查，于是來找他，也因此確保了他能升任合伙人：他有出庭經(jīng)驗(yàn)，這是事務(wù)所里大多數(shù)普通律師沒有的，但他知道自己必須帶來客戶，而第一個(gè)客戶總是最難找的。

　 He would never have admitted it to Harold, but he actually liked directing investigations prompted by whistle-blowers, liked pressing up against the boundaries of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, liked being able to stretch the law, like a strip of elastic, just past its natural tension point, just to the point where it would snap back at you with a sting. By day he told himself it was an intellectual engagement, that his work was an expression of the plasticity of the law itself. But at night he would sometimes think of what Harold would say if he was honest with him about what he was doing, and would hear his words again: Such a waste, such a waste. What was he doing?, he would think in those moments. Had the job made him venal, or had he always been so and had just fancied himself otherwise?

他永遠(yuǎn)不會向哈羅德承認(rèn)，不過他真心喜歡調(diào)查由內(nèi)部吹哨人檢舉的起訴案，喜歡設(shè)法挑戰(zhàn)“海外反腐敗法”的適用范圍，喜歡有機(jī)會延展法律，像延展一條橡皮筋，拉到超過自然最大張力的點(diǎn)，讓它彈回來刺痛你。白天他會告訴自己，這是一種智力的投入，他的工作不過是表達(dá)法律本身的彈性。但夜里，他有時(shí)會想到，如果老實(shí)跟哈羅德談自己的工作，哈羅德會說些什么，于是耳邊又響起他的話：太浪費(fèi)了，太浪費(fèi)了。那些時(shí)刻他會想，他在做什么？這份工作讓他見利忘義了嗎？或者他其實(shí)一直是這樣，只不過把自己想成另一個(gè)樣子了？

　 It’s all within the law, he would argue with the Harold-in-his-head.

一切都在法律的范圍內(nèi)，他會這么跟腦袋里的哈羅德辯駁。

　 Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should, Harold-in-his-head would shoot back at him.

只因?yàn)槟阕龅玫?，不表示你就該去做，他腦袋里的哈羅德會這么反駁他。

　 And indeed, Harold hadn’t been completely wrong, for he missed the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He missed being righteous and surrounded by the passionate, the heated, the crusading. He missed Citizen, who had moved back to London, and Marshall, whom he occasionally met for drinks, and Rhodes, whom he saw more frequently but who was perpetually frazzled, and gray, and whom he had remembered as cheery and effervescent, someone who would play electrotango music and squire an imaginary woman around the room when they were at the office late and feeling punchy, just to get him and Citizen to look up from their computers and laugh. They were getting older, all of them. He liked Rosen Pritchard, he liked the people there, but he never sat with them late at night arguing about cases and talking about books: it wasn’t that sort of office. The associates his age had unhappy girlfriends or boyfriends at home (or were themselves unhappy girlfriends or boyfriends); the ones older than he were getting married. In the rare moments they weren’t discussing the work before them, they made small talk about engagements and pregnancies and real estate. They didn’t discuss the law, not for fun or from fervor.

的確，哈羅德當(dāng)初說的話還是有幾分道理，因?yàn)樗肽盥?lián)邦檢察官辦公室。他想念站在正確的那一方，身邊環(huán)繞著熱情、憤怒、熱衷于改革的同伴。他想念搬回倫敦的西提任，想念現(xiàn)在偶爾會跟他碰面喝酒的馬歇爾，還有比較常見到面的羅茲。羅茲現(xiàn)在常年一副疲憊蒼白的樣子，他記得以前的羅茲總是歡樂且充滿活力，他們在辦公室加班到很晚、累得頭昏眼花時(shí)，他會播放電子探戈音樂，然后跟一個(gè)想象中的女人在辦公室里回旋起舞，只為了逗他和西提任從電腦上抬頭，并且在看了之后大笑。他們漸漸老了，所有的人都一樣。他喜歡羅普克律師事務(wù)所，他喜歡里面的人，但他從來不曾跟他們加班到深夜、討論案子、聊起彼此看的書，這里不是那種辦公室。他這個(gè)年紀(jì)的普通律師，家里都有不快樂的女友或男友（或者他們本身就是不快樂的女友或男友）；年紀(jì)比他大的都結(jié)婚了。少數(shù)不討論手上工作的時(shí)刻，他們會聊一下訂婚、懷孕、買房子。他們不會為了好玩或熱情而討論法律。

　 The firm encouraged its attorneys to do pro bono work, and he began volunteering with a nonprofit group that offered free legal advice to artists. The organization kept what they called “studio hours” every afternoon and evening, when artists could drop by and consult with a lawyer, and every Wednesday night he left work early, at seven, and sat in the group’s creaky-floored SoHo offices on Broome Street for three hours, helping small publishers of radical treatises who wanted to establish themselves as nonprofit entities, and painters with intellectual property disputes, and dance groups, photographers, writers, and filmmakers with contracts that were either so extralegal (he was presented with one written in pencil on a paper towel) that they were meaningless or so needlessly complicated that the artists couldn’t understand them—he could barely understand them—and yet had signed them anyway.

事務(wù)所鼓勵(lì)大家從事公益服務(wù)工作，于是他開始去一個(gè)非營利的藝術(shù)家團(tuán)體當(dāng)義工，提供免費(fèi)的法律咨詢服務(wù)。那個(gè)組織的辦公時(shí)間是每天下午和晚上，藝術(shù)家會來找律師咨詢，因此他每周三晚上會早些下班，7點(diǎn)就離開，到蘇荷區(qū)的布魯姆街，在那個(gè)團(tuán)體地板破爛的辦公室里坐三小時(shí)，協(xié)助專門出版激進(jìn)學(xué)術(shù)著作的非營利小出版社、有知識產(chǎn)權(quán)糾紛的畫家，或是拿著各式各樣合約前來咨詢的舞蹈團(tuán)體、攝影師、作家。那些合約要不就因?yàn)槌龇煞秶ㄋ催^一份用鉛筆寫在紙巾上的合約）而沒有意義，要不就是復(fù)雜得沒有必要，害那些藝術(shù)家看不懂（連他都看不太懂了），但上面卻有他們的簽字。

　 Harold didn’t really approve of his volunteer work, either; he could tell he thought it frivolous. “Are any of these artists any good?” Harold asked. “Probably not,” he said. But it wasn’t for him to judge whether the artists were good or not—other people, plenty of other people, did that already. He was there only to offer the sort of practical help that so few of them had, as so many of them lived in a world that was deaf to practicalities. He knew it was romantic, but he admired them: he admired anyone who could live for year after year on only their fastburning hopes, even as they grew older and more obscure with every day. And, just as romantically, he thought of his time with the organization as his salute to his friends, all of whom were living the sorts of lives he marveled at: he considered them such successes, and he was proud of them. Unlike him, they had had no clear path to follow, and yet they had plowed stubbornly ahead. They spent their days making beautiful things.

哈羅德其實(shí)不太贊成他做這份義務(wù)工作，他感覺得出來，哈羅德認(rèn)為這份工作很瑣碎。“這些藝術(shù)家里有真正優(yōu)秀的嗎？”哈羅德問過他?！按蟾艣]有吧?！彼f。但這些藝術(shù)家優(yōu)秀與否輪不到他來判斷，因?yàn)橐呀?jīng)有其他一大堆人在做了。他去那里，只是提供一些藝術(shù)圈里非常缺乏的協(xié)助，因?yàn)槟莻€(gè)圈子有太多人都活在對實(shí)用性充耳不聞的世界里。他知道自己這樣想太浪漫了，但他欣賞他們。他欣賞可以一年又一年只靠著自己被急速消耗的希望活下去的人，即使他們每一天都變得更老，也變得更卑微。而同樣浪漫的是，他覺得自己去這個(gè)組織當(dāng)義工的時(shí)間，等于是在向他的朋友們致敬。這些人都過著令他驚異的生活，他覺得他們非常成功，也以他們?yōu)闃s。不像他，這些人沒有清楚的路徑可以遵循，卻依然頑強(qiáng)地開路前進(jìn)，他們把自己的時(shí)間用來創(chuàng)造美麗的事物。

　 His friend Richard was on the board of the organization, and some Wednesdays he’d stop by on his way home—he had recently moved to SoHo—and sit and talk with him if he was between clients, or just give him a wave across the room if he was occupied. One night after studio hours, Richard invited him back to his apartment for a drink, and they walked west on Broome Street, past Centre, and Lafayette, and Crosby, and Broadway, and Mercer, before turning south on Greene. Richard lived in a narrow building, its stone gone the color of soot, with a towering garage door marking its first floor and, to its right, a metal door with a face-size glass window cut into its top. There was no lobby, but rather a gray, tiled-floor hallway lit by a series of three glowing bare bulbs dangling from cords. The hallway turned right and led to a cell-like industrial elevator, the size of their living room and Willem’s bedroom at Lispenard Street combined, with a rattling cage door that shuddered shut at the press of a button, but which glided smoothly up through an exposed cinder-block shaft. At the third floor, it stopped, and Richard opened the cage and turned his key into the set of massive, forbidding steel doors before them, which opened into his apartment.

他的朋友理查德是那個(gè)組織的理事，最近搬到蘇荷區(qū)了，有時(shí)星期三回家途中會順道過來。如果他剛好有空，兩人會坐在一起聊一下；如果他正好在忙，理查德就遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)跟他揮個(gè)手。某天晚上咨詢結(jié)束后，理查德邀他去自己家喝杯酒。他們從布魯姆街往西走，經(jīng)過中央街、拉斐特街、克羅斯比街，以及百老匯大道、默瑟街，然后在格林街向南轉(zhuǎn)。理查德住在一棟窄長的大樓內(nèi)，石材已經(jīng)轉(zhuǎn)為煤灰色，一扇高聳的車庫門占據(jù)了一樓。車庫門右邊還有一道金屬門，門的上端嵌了一面像臉那么大的玻璃窗。這棟大樓沒有大廳，只有一道鋪了瓷磚的灰色走廊，上方用電線吊著三顆燈泡。沿著走廊往右轉(zhuǎn)，是囚室般的工用電梯，就像利斯本納街他們原始的客廳那么大，按一個(gè)鈕，柵欄式的電梯門會顫抖著嘩啦嘩啦關(guān)上，但卻能在裸露煤渣磚的電梯井里順暢運(yùn)作。到了三樓，電梯停下，理查德打開電梯門，把鑰匙插入面前那道巨大得令人生畏的鋼制雙扇門，門后就是他住的公寓。

　 “God,” he said, stepping into the space, as Richard flicked on some lights. The floors were whitewashed wood, and the walls were white as well. High above him, the ceiling winked and shone with scores of chandeliers—old, glass, new, steel—that were strung every three feet or so, at irregular heights, so that as they walked deeper into the loft, he could feel glass bugles skimming across the top of his head, and Richard, who was even taller than he was, had to duck so they wouldn’t scrape his forehead. There were no dividing walls, but near the far end of the space was a shallow, freestanding box of glass as tall and wide as the front doors, and as he drew closer, he could see that within it was a gigantic honeycomb shaped like a graceful piece of fan coral. Beyond the glass box was a blanket-covered mattress, and before it was a shaggy white Berber rug, its mirrors twinkling in the lights, and a white woolen sofa and television, an odd island of domesticity in the midst of so much aridity. It was the largest apartment he had ever been in.

“老天?！彼呎f邊走進(jìn)去。理查德開了燈，地上是刷白的木地板，墻面也漆成白色。上方挑高的天花板，每隔約三英尺就有一座枝狀吊燈——古老的、玻璃制的、新的、鋼制的——高度不等，他往前深入時(shí)，可以感覺到玻璃的喇叭形燈罩輕輕擦過他的頭頂，而理查德的個(gè)子比他還高，就得彎下身子，免得撞到額頭。整間公寓沒有隔間，但快到盡頭之處，有一個(gè)淺淺的、獨(dú)立的玻璃箱，高度和寬度就跟前門一樣。他走近時(shí)，發(fā)現(xiàn)箱子里是個(gè)巨大的蜂巢，形狀就像優(yōu)雅的柳珊瑚。玻璃箱再過去，有一張罩著毛毯的床墊，床墊前鋪著一張白色粗毛的柏柏爾地毯，幾面鏡子映照著燈光，還有一張白色羊毛沙發(fā)、電視機(jī)，像是廣大荒漠中的小孤島。他從沒見過面積這么大的公寓。