《渺小一生》:“他要到晚上才會回來。”

　 “But Jude,” Malcolm had begun, and then stopped. He knew what Malcolm wanted to say: But you have been. And you will be again. But he didn’t. “These are standard ADA guidelines,” he said instead.

“可是裘德……”馬爾科姆開口，然后又停下。他知道馬爾科姆想說什么：可是你以前坐過輪椅，以后也會重演的。但馬爾科姆沒這么說，而是說：“這些是美國殘疾人法案的參考原則。”

　 “Mal,” he’d said, chagrined by how upset he was. “I understand. But I don’t want this to be some cripple’s apartment.”

“小馬，”他說，因為自己動氣而懊惱，“我明白。但我不希望這里變成那種殘障公寓。”

　 “It won’t be, Jude. It’ll be yours. But don’t you think, maybe, just as a precaution—”

“不會的，裘德。這里會是你的公寓。但是你不覺得，或許預(yù)防一下……”

　 “No, Malcolm. Get rid of them. I mean it.”

“不，馬爾科姆。拿掉這些東西。我說真的?！?

　 “But don’t you think, just as a matter of practicality—”

“可你不覺得，為了實用性起見……”

　 “Now you’re interested in practicalities? The man who wanted me to live in a five-thousand-square-foot space with no walls?” He stopped. “I’m sorry, Mal.”

“現(xiàn)在你倒是對實用性有興趣了？你之前不是希望我住在這個五千平方英尺[1]、沒有墻壁隔間的空間里？”他停下來，“對不起，小馬?！?

　 “It’s okay, Jude,” Malcolm said. “I understand. I do.”

“沒關(guān)系，裘德。”馬爾科姆說，“我了解。我真的了解?！?

　 Now, Malcolm stands before him, grinning. “I have something to show you,” he says, waving the baton of rolled-up paper in his hand.

這會兒，馬爾科姆站在他面前咧嘴笑著：“我有個東西要給你看。”他說，揮著手上那根卷成棒狀的紙。

　 “Malcolm, thank you,” he says. “But should we look at them later?” He’d had to schedule an appointment with the tailor; he doesn’t want to be late.

“馬爾科姆，謝謝你，”他說，“但是我們晚一點再來看吧？”他之前已經(jīng)跟西裝裁縫師約好了時間，不希望遲到。

　 “It’ll be fast,” Malcolm says, “and I’ll leave them with you.” He sits next to him and smooths out the sheaf of pages, giving him one end to hold, explaining things he’s changed and tweaked. “Counters back up to standard height,” says Malcolm, pointing at the kitchen. “No grab bars in the shower area, but I gave you this ledge that you can use as a seat, just in case. I swear it’ll look nice. I kept the ones around the toilet—just think about it, okay? We’ll install them last, and if you really, really hate them, we’ll leave them off, but … but I’d do it, Judy.” He nods, reluctantly. He won’t know it then, but years later, he will be grateful that Malcolm has prepared for his future, even when he hadn’t wanted to: he will notice that in his apartment, the passages are wider, that the bathroom and kitchen are oversize, so a wheelchair can make a full, clean revolution in them, that the doorways are generous, that wherever possible, the doors slide instead of swing, that there is no cabinetry under the master bathroom sink, that the highest-placed closet rods lower with the touch of a pneumatic button, that there is a benchlike seat in the bathtub, and, finally, that Malcolm won the fight about the grab bars around the toilet. He’ll feel a sort of bitter wonderment that yet another person in his life—Andy, Willem, Richard, and now Malcolm—had foreseen his future, and knew how inevitable it was.

“很快的，”馬爾科姆說，“我會留下來讓你仔細看?！彼谒赃呑?，解釋他修改、調(diào)整過的地方?！傲侠砼_回到原先的標準高度。”馬爾科姆說，指著廚房，“淋浴區(qū)沒有安全扶手，但我加了這個壁架，你可以用來當座位，以防萬一。我發(fā)誓看起來會很棒。我也保留了馬桶旁邊的扶手——你還是考慮一下，好嗎？我們最后才會裝。如果你真的、真的很討厭，我們可以拿掉，可是——可是，小裘，我還是要裝上?！彼懿磺樵傅攸c頭。當時他并不知道，多年后，他會很感激馬爾科姆為他的未來做好準備。即使當時他不想要，他仍會注意到他公寓里的通道比較寬，浴室和廚房特別大，輪椅可以利落順暢地旋轉(zhuǎn)；所有的門都很寬，而且盡可能用橫向拉門取代轉(zhuǎn)動式推門；主浴室水槽底下沒有儲藏柜；最高的衣櫥桿只要按一個氣動按鈕就可以下降；而且馬爾科姆贏了有關(guān)馬桶周圍安全扶手的那場爭執(zhí)。他會感覺到一種略帶苦澀的驚訝，沒想到他人生中又有另一個人預(yù)見到了他的未來（先是安迪、威廉、理查德，現(xiàn)在是馬爾科姆），而且知道會有什么必然的結(jié)果。

　 After their appointment, where Malcolm is measured for a navy suit and a dark gray one, and where Franklin, the tailor, greets him and asks why he hasn’t seen him for two years—“I’m pretty sure that’s my fault,” Malcolm says, smiling—they have lunch. It’s nice taking a Saturday off, he thinks, as they drink rosewater lemonade and eat za’atar-dusted roasted cauliflower at the crowded Israeli restaurant near Franklin’s shop. Malcolm is excited to start work on the apartment, and he is, too. “This is such perfect timing,” Malcolm keeps saying. “I’ll have the office submit everything to the city on Monday, and by the time it’s approved, I’ll be done with Doha and be able to get started right away, and you can move into Willem’s while it’s being done.” Malcolm has just finished the final pieces of work on Willem’s apartment, which he has supervised more of than Willem has; by the end of the process, he was making decisions for Willem on paint colors. Malcolm did a beautiful job, he thinks; he won’t mind at all staying there for the next year.

接著他們?nèi)ノ餮b店，馬爾科姆量身定做了一套海軍藍西裝和一套深灰色西裝。裁縫師富蘭克林跟他打招呼，問他為什么兩年沒來了。“我很確定是我的錯?！瘪R爾科姆微笑著說。然后他們一起來到西裝店附近一家客滿的以色列餐廳吃中飯，喝著玫瑰檸檬水、吃著中東香料烤花椰菜。他心想，星期六能休息真好。馬爾科姆對就要開始裝修那間公寓感到很興奮，他也很興奮。“這個時機真是太完美了?！瘪R爾科姆一直說，“我星期一就讓辦公室把所有的申請數(shù)據(jù)送去市政府，等許可下來，我多哈那邊的工作也完成了，可以馬上動工。施工期間，你可以搬去威廉那邊。”馬爾科姆才剛完成威廉公寓的裝修工作，而且施工期間大都是他在監(jiān)工，而不是威廉。到了施工末期，連油漆顏色都是他幫威廉決定的。他覺得馬爾科姆的工作成果完美極了，他不介意接下來一年都住在那里。

　 It is early when they finish lunch, and they linger on the sidewalk outside. For the past week it’s been raining, but today the skies are blue and he is still feeling strong, and even a little restless, and he asks Malcolm if he wants to walk for a bit. He can see Malcolm hesitate, flicking his gaze up and down his body as if trying to determine how capable he is, but then he smiles and agrees, and the two of them start heading west, and then north, toward the Village. They pass the building on Mulberry Street that JB used to live in before he moved farther east, and they are quiet for a minute, both of them, he knows, thinking about JB and wondering what he’s doing, and knowing but also not knowing why he hasn’t answered their and Willem’s calls, their texts, their e-mails. The three of them have had dozens of conversations with one another, with Richard, with Ali and the Henry Youngs about what to do, but with every attempt they have made to find JB, he has eluded them, or barred their way, or ignored them. “We just have to wait until it gets worse,” Richard had said at one point, and he fears that Richard is correct. It is, sometimes, as if JB is no longer theirs at all, and they can do nothing but wait for the moment in which he will have a crisis only they can solve, and they will be able to parachute into his life once again.

吃過中飯后時間還早，于是他們在餐廳外的人行道上逗留。過去一星期都在下雨，但今天的天空是藍色的，而且他覺得精神還很好，甚至有點坐立不安，便問馬爾科姆要不要散步。他看得出來馬爾科姆遲疑了，目光上下打量他，好像想確認他到底有沒有辦法走，但接著就微笑地答應(yīng)了。他們兩個人開始往西走，然后向北，朝格林威治村走去。他們經(jīng)過馬爾伯里街以前杰比住過的那棟樓房（杰比后來搬到更東邊去了），同時沉默了一會兒，他知道兩人都想起了杰比，很納悶他現(xiàn)在怎么樣了，同時知道、但也不知道為什么他不肯回復(fù)他們和威廉的電話、短信和電子郵件。他們?nèi)齻€談過幾十次，還跟理查德、阿里和兩個亨利·楊商量過該怎么辦，但每回他們想找杰比，他都躲著他們，拒絕碰面，或是根本不理會?！拔覀円仓荒艿鹊綘顩r惡化了。”理查德有回說。他擔心理查德的判斷是對的。有時候，杰比好像再也不是他們當初那位好友了，而他們什么也做不了，只能等到他碰上足夠大的危機，大到只有他們能解決時，他才會再度空降到他們的生活里。

　 “Okay, Malcolm, I’ve got to ask you,” he says, as they walk up the stretch of Hudson Street that is deserted on the weekends, its sidewalks treeless and empty of people, “are you getting married to Sophie or not? We all want to know.”

“好吧，馬爾科姆，有件事我得問清楚?！彼f。他們走在哈德遜街上，這一個路段周末時一片荒涼，人行道上沒有行道樹，路上也空蕩蕩的，沒什么行人，“你到底要不要跟蘇菲結(jié)婚？我們都很想知道。”

　 “God, Jude, I just don’t know,” Malcolm begins, but he sounds relieved, as if he’s been waiting to be asked the question all along. Maybe he has. He lists the potential negatives (marriage is so conventional; it feels so permanent; he’s not really interested in the idea of a wedding but fears Sophie is; his parents are going to try to get involved; something about spending the rest of his life with another architect depresses him; he and Sophie are cofounders of the firm—if something happens between them, what will happen to Bellcast?) and the positives, which also sound like negatives (if he doesn’t propose, he thinks Sophie will leave; his parents have been bothering him about it nonstop and he’d like to shut them up; he really does love Sophie, and knows he won’t be able to do better than her; he’s thirty-eight, and feels he has to do something). As he listens to Malcolm, he tries not to smile: he has always liked this about Malcolm, how he can be so decisive on the page and in his designs, and yet in the rest of his life so in a dither, and so unself-conscious about sharing it. Malcolm has never been someone who pretended he was cooler, or more confident, or silkier than he actually is, and as they grow older, he appreciates and admires more and more his sweet guilelessness, his complete trust in his friends and their opinions.

“老天，裘德，我真的不知道。”馬爾科姆說，但聽起來他像是松了一口氣，好像一直等著有人問起這個問題。他舉出潛在的缺點（婚姻太傳統(tǒng)；感覺上過于永久；他其實對婚禮沒興趣，但擔心蘇菲想要舉辦；他父母一定會設(shè)法插手；接下來的人生要跟另一個建筑師共度害他沮喪；他和蘇菲是“鐘模”建筑師事務(wù)所的共同創(chuàng)辦人，要是兩個人之間出了什么狀況，那事務(wù)所會怎么樣？），還有優(yōu)點，但聽起來也像缺點（如果他不求婚，他覺得蘇菲會離開他；他父母一直跟他啰唆個不停，他很想結(jié)婚好讓他們閉嘴；他真的很愛蘇菲，也知道他不可能找到比她更好的對象了；他現(xiàn)在38歲，覺得自己必須做個決定了）。他聽著馬爾科姆傾訴，忍著不要露出笑容。他一直很喜歡馬爾科姆這一點，在紙上規(guī)劃設(shè)計時可以這么果斷，但在生活的其他部分中卻又這么猶豫不決，而且這么毫不害羞地就講出來。馬爾科姆從來不會假裝自己比實際上更酷、更有自信或更圓滑。隨著年紀漸長，他越來越欣賞且佩服馬爾科姆可愛的坦誠性格，以及對朋友和朋友意見的完全信賴。

　 “What do you think, Jude?” Malcolm asks at last. “I’ve actually really wanted to talk to you about this. Should we sit down somewhere? Do you have time? I know Willem’s on his way back home.”

“裘德，你覺得呢？”馬爾科姆最后終于問，“我其實一直很想找你談?wù)劇Ｎ覀円灰覀€地方坐下來？你有時間嗎？我知道威廉正在飛回來的途中?！?

　 He could be more like Malcolm, he thinks; he could ask his friends for help, he could be vulnerable around them. He has been before, after all; it just hasn’t been by choice. But they have always been kind to him, they have never tried to make him feel self-conscious—shouldn’t that teach him something? Maybe, for instance, he will ask Willem if he could help him with his back: if Willem is disgusted by his appearance, he’ll never say anything. And Andy was right—it is too difficult to apply the creams by himself, and eventually he stopped, although he didn’t throw any of them away, either.

他可以更像馬爾科姆一點，他心想，他可以向朋友尋求幫助，在朋友面前顯露自己的脆弱。畢竟，他以前就顯露出過脆弱的一面，只不過都不是自愿的。他們一直對他很好，從來不會讓他難為情——這不該讓他有所領(lǐng)悟嗎？比方說，他可以問威廉能不能幫他按摩背部，如果威廉看了很反感，他以后再也不提就是了。而且安迪說得沒錯，他自己實在沒辦法擦那些按摩藥膏，最后就沒擦了，但是他也沒把藥膏丟掉。

　 He tries to think how he might begin the conversation with Willem, but he finds he can’t move beyond the first word—Willem—even in his imaginings. And in that moment, he knows he won’t be able to ask Willem after all: Not because I don’t trust you, he says to Willem, with whom he will never have this conversation. But because I can’t bear to have you see me as I really am. Now when he imagines himself as an old man, he is still alone, but on Greene Street, and in these wanderings, he sees Willem in a house somewhere green and tree-filled—the Adirondacks, the Berkshires—and Willem is happy, he is surrounded by people who love him, and maybe a few times a year he comes into the city to visit him on Greene Street, and they spend the afternoon together. In these dreams, he is always sitting down, so he’s uncertain if he can still walk or not, but he knows that he is delighted to see Willem, always, and that at the end of all their meetings, he is able to tell him not to worry, that he can take care of himself, giving him that assurance like a benediction, pleased that he has had the strength to not spoil Willem’s idyll with his needs, his loneliness, his wants.

他思索著自己可以怎么跟威廉談這件事，卻發(fā)現(xiàn)即使用想的，他才說出威廉，就再也說不下去了。于是那一刻，他知道自己終究沒辦法拜托威廉幫忙：不是因為我不信任你，而是我受不了讓你看到真正的我。他想象自己跟威廉說，但這段對話永遠不會發(fā)生?，F(xiàn)在他想象自己是個老人，仍是孤單一人，在格林街上，在這些漫游中，他看到威廉在一處有濃密綠樹環(huán)繞的房子里（紐約州東北部的阿第倫達克山脈，或是佛蒙特州的伯克希爾地區(qū)）過得很快樂，周圍是愛他的人?；蛟S一年有幾次，他會進城來格林街看他，共度一個下午。在這些白日夢中，他總是坐著，所以他不確定自己是不是還能走路，但他知道自己很高興看到威廉，而且每次碰面結(jié)束，他都可以告訴他不必擔心，說他可以照顧自己，像祝禱般向威廉保證，同時很高興自己夠堅強，不會用他的需求、他的孤單、他的向往，去破壞威廉的田園牧歌生活。

　 But that, he reminds himself, is many years in the future. Right now there is Malcolm, and his hopeful, anxious face, waiting to hear his reply.

但他提醒自己，那是很多年以后的事了。眼前是馬爾科姆和他充滿希望、期待的臉，等著聽他的回答。

　 “He’s not back until this evening,” he tells Malcolm. “We’ve got all afternoon, Mal. I’ve got as much time as you need.”

“他要到晚上才會回來?！彼嬖V馬爾科姆，“我們有一整個下午，小馬。你要談多久，我都奉陪?！?

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