《渺小一生》:“你要講的，其實是干癟吧？

　 “No,” he said.

“不會。”他說。

　 Another silence, in which Lucien stared at the ceiling. “You’ve never brought anyone to one of these events, have you?” asked Lucien, his voice carefully casual.

又是一陣沉默，盧西恩只是盯著天花板。“這些場合，你從來沒攜伴參加過，對吧？”盧西恩問，聲音刻意裝得很輕松。

　 “No,” he said, and then, when Lucien didn’t say anything, “Are you trying to tell me something, Lucien?”

“對?！彼f，看盧西恩沒再說話，他主動問了，“盧西恩，你想跟我講什么嗎？”

　 “No, of course not,” Lucien said, looking back at him. “This isn’t the sort of firm where we keep track of those kinds of things, Jude, you know that.”

“沒有，當(dāng)然沒有?！北R西恩說，目光又回到他身上，“我們事務(wù)所不會管這種事情，裘德，你知道的?！?

　 He had felt a flush of anger and embarrassment. “Except it clearly is. If the management committee is saying something, Lucien, you have to tell me.”

他忽然感覺到一股憤怒和難堪：“只不過事實是顯然會管。如果管理委員會說了什么，盧西恩，那你可得告訴我?！?

　 “Jude,” said Lucien. “We’re not. You know how much everyone here respects you. I just think—and this is not the firm talking, just me—that I’d like to see you settled down with someone.”

“裘德，”盧西恩說，“我們沒有。你明知道這里的每個人有多么尊敬你。我只是覺得——這可不代表事務(wù)所的意見，純粹只是我個人的——很想看到你跟某個人定下來?！?

　 “Okay, Lucien, thanks,” he’d said, wearily. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

“好吧，盧西恩，謝了?！彼麉捑氲卣f，“我會好好考慮的?！?

　 But as self-conscious as he is about appearing normal, he doesn’t want a relationship for propriety’s sake: he wants it because he has realized he is lonely. He is so lonely that he sometimes feels it physically, a sodden clump of dirty laundry pressing against his chest. He cannot unlearn the feeling. People make it sound so easy, as if the decision to want it is the most difficult part of the process. But he knows better: being in a relationship would mean exposing himself to someone, which he has still never done to anyone but Andy; it would mean the confrontation of his own body, which he has not seen unclothed in at least a decade—even in the shower he doesn’t look at himself. And it would mean having sex with someone, which he hasn’t done since he was fifteen, and which he dreads so completely that the thought of it makes his stomach fill with something waxy and cold. When he first started seeing Andy, Andy would occasionally ask him if he was sexually active, until he finally told Andy that he would tell him when and if it ever happened, and until then, Andy could stop asking him. So Andy never asked again, and he has never had to volunteer the information. Not having sex: it was one of the best things about being an adult.

他總是刻意表現(xiàn)得很正常，但卻不會因此想要一個伴。他想要，是因為他明白自己很孤單。嚴(yán)重到有時覺得那孤單簡直是有形的，像是一堆濕透的臟衣服壓在他的胸口。他無法拋開那種感覺。其他人講起來好像很簡單，仿佛整個過程中最困難的部分，就是決定想要個伴。但他知道不是如此：有了伴就意味著要把自己袒露在某個人面前，但除了安迪之外，他從來沒有對任何人做過；有了伴就意味著他要面對自己的身體，他已經(jīng)至少十年沒看過自己脫光衣服的模樣——即使在沖澡時，他也不看自己。而且有了伴就表示要跟某個人性交，這部分他15歲以后就沒有做過，而且害怕得要命，光是想想就覺得整個胃填滿某種蠟般的冰冷物質(zhì)。他剛開始找安迪看診時，安迪偶爾會問他是否有性行為，到最后他告訴安迪，如果他哪天真有性行為就會告訴他，所以安迪可以不必再問了。于是安迪再也沒問，他也從來不會主動告訴他這項信息。

　 But as much as he fears sex, he also wants to be touched, he wants to feel someone else’s hands on him, although the thought of that too terrifies him. Sometimes he looks at his arms and is filled with a self-hatred so fiery that he can barely breathe: much of what his body has become has been beyond his control, but his arms have been all his doing, and he can only blame himself. When he had begun cutting himself, he cut on his legs—just the calves—and before he learned to be organized about how he applied them, he swiped the blade across the skin in haphazard strokes, so it looked as if he had been scratched by a crosshatch of grasses. No one ever noticed—no one ever looks at a person’s calves. Even Brother Luke hadn’t bothered him about them. But now, no one could not notice his arms, or his back, or his legs, which are striped with runnels where damaged tissue and muscle have been removed, and indentations the size of thumbprints, where the braces’ screws had once been drilled through the flesh and into the bone, and satiny ponds of skin where he had sustained burns in the injury, and the places where his wounds have closed over, where the flesh now craters slightly, the area around them tinged a permanent dull bronze. When he has clothes on, he is one person, but without them, he is revealed as he really is, the years of rot manifested on his skin, his own flesh advertising his past, its depravities and corruptions.

但盡管他那么害怕性行為，他也希望被碰觸，他想要感覺到另一個人的手撫摸他。這個想法讓他嚇壞了。有時他看著自己的手臂，滿心的自我厭惡頓時涌上來，強烈得讓他快沒法呼吸。他的身體會變成這個樣子，很多是他無法控制的，但兩只手臂就完全是他自己造成的了，只能怪自己。他剛開始割自己時，是割在腿上，只有小腿，而且原先還沒學(xué)到要安排位置，只是隨意用刀片劃過皮膚，看起來就像一堆交叉的刮痕。沒有人注意過，因為不會有人看別人的小腿，就連盧克修士也沒提過。但現(xiàn)在，沒有人不會注意到他的手臂、他的背部、他的雙腿，上頭遍布各種疤痕；小溪般的紋路是移除毀壞組織和肌肉時形成的，而大如拇指指紋的凹陷則是以前兩腿撐架的螺絲鉆入肉和骨頭所留下的，一片片光滑如緞的皮膚是車禍灼傷留下的痕跡，還有一些兩腿生瘡后愈合的傷口，現(xiàn)在像是微微隆起的火山口，周圍永遠染上了一種暗銅的色澤。穿著衣服時，他是一個人，但沒了衣服，他就露出了真正的模樣，墮落的那幾年清楚地顯示在他的皮膚上，他自己的肉身宣傳著他的過去，宣傳著其中的腐化和敗德。

　 Once, in Texas, one of his clients had been a man who was grotesque—so fat that his stomach had dropped into a pendant of flesh between his legs, and covered everywhere with floes of eczema, the skin so dry that when he moved, small ghostly strips of it floated from his arms and back and into the air. He had been sickened, seeing the man, and yet they all sickened him, and so in a way, this man was no better or worse than the others. As he had given the man a blow job, the man’s stomach pressing against his neck, the man had cried, apologizing to him: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, he said, the tips of his fingers on the top of his head. The man had long fingernails, each as thick as bone, and he dragged them over his scalp, but gently, as if they were tines of a comb. And somehow, it is as if over the years he has become that man, and he knows that if anyone were to see him, they too would feel repulsed, nauseated by his deformities. He doesn’t want someone to have to stand before the toilet retching, as he had done afterward, scooping handfuls of liquid soap into his mouth, gagging at the taste, trying to make himself clean again.

有一次在得克薩斯，他的一名顧客是個怪誕的男子——胖到肚子的肉像鐘擺似的垂在兩腿間，而且全身都是濕疹，皮膚非常干燥，只要一移動，就會有鬼影似的小片皮屑從他的手臂和背部浮起來，飄到空中。他看到那男人就覺得惡心，但反正所有顧客都很惡心，就某個方面來說，這個胖男人并不比其他人更好或更差。他幫那男人吹簫時，那個大肚子就壓住他的脖子，那男人邊叫邊跟他道歉：對不起，對不起，他說，用指尖摸著他的頭頂。那男人的指甲很長，厚得像骨頭，刮過他的頭皮，但是很輕柔，像一把扁梳的叉齒。不知怎的，仿佛這幾年來他也變成了那個男子，他知道要是有人看到他，也會覺得厭惡，被他的種種畸形搞得想吐。他不希望有人得站在馬桶前干嘔，就像他幫那男人服務(wù)過后，捧著洗手液塞進嘴里，想把自己洗干凈，又被那洗手液的味道弄得作嘔。

　 So he will never have to do anything he doesn’t want to for food or shelter: he finally knows that. But what is he willing to do to feel less alone? Could he destroy everything he’s built and protected so diligently for intimacy? How much humiliation is he ready to endure? He doesn’t know; he is afraid of discovering the answer.

所以，現(xiàn)在他終于明白，他再也不必為了食物或住處去做他不想做的事情了。但他愿意做什么，讓自己不那么孤單呢？為了得到親密關(guān)系，他有可能會摧毀自己努力建立且保護的一切嗎？他打算忍受多大的羞辱？他不知道，他很怕知道答案。

　 But increasingly, he is even more afraid that he will never have the chance to discover it at all. What does it mean to be a human, if he can never have this? And yet, he reminds himself, loneliness is not hunger, or deprivation, or illness: it is not fatal. Its eradication is not owed him. He has a better life than so many people, a better life than he had ever thought he would have. To wish for companionship along with everything else he has seems a kind of greed, a gross entitlement.

但是逐漸的，他更怕自己永遠不會有機會知道答案。如果永遠沒有親密關(guān)系，當(dāng)個人又有什么意義呢？但是他提醒自己，孤單不是饑餓、貧困或疾??；孤單是不會致命的，也不是非得消除不可。他現(xiàn)在的生活已經(jīng)比太多人好，也比他以往所能預(yù)料的好。除了眼前的一切，還想要擁有伴侶關(guān)系，似乎有點太貪婪、太奢侈了。

　 The weeks pass. Willem’s schedule is erratic, and he calls him at odd hours: at one in the morning, at three in the afternoon. He sounds tired, but it isn’t in Willem’s nature to complain, and he doesn’t. He tells him about the scenery, the archaeological sites they’ve been given permission to shoot in, the little mishaps on set. When Willem is away, he is increasingly inclined to stay indoors and do nothing, which he knows isn’t healthy, and so he has been vigilant about filling his weekends with events, with parties and dinners. He goes to museum shows, and to plays with Black Henry Young and to galleries with Richard. Felix, whom he tutored so long ago, now helms a punk band called the Quiet Amerikans, and he makes Malcolm come with him to their show. He tells Willem about what he’s seen and what he’s read, about conversations with Harold and Julia, about Richard’s latest project and his clients at the nonprofit, about Andy’s daughter’s birthday party and Phaedra’s new job, about people he’s talked to and what they’ve said.

幾個星期過去了。威廉的作息非常不規(guī)律，會在各式各樣的時間打電話來：凌晨1點，或是下午3點。他聽起來很疲倦，但從不抱怨，因為那不是威廉的本性。他告訴他當(dāng)?shù)氐娘L(fēng)景，他們獲準(zhǔn)拍攝的一些考古遺址，還有拍片現(xiàn)場的一些小事故。威廉不在時，他愈發(fā)傾向于待在屋里什么都不做，但他也知道這樣不健康，于是警覺地在周末排滿活動，參加派對或晚宴。他去博物館看展覽，跟黑亨利·楊去看舞臺劇，跟理查德去逛畫廊。他多年前的家教學(xué)生菲利克斯現(xiàn)在組了一個叫“沉靜的美國人”的朋克樂團，于是他找馬爾科姆一起去看他們的表演。他跟威廉說起自己看了什么、讀了什么，說起他和哈羅德、朱麗婭聊了些什么，說起理查德最新的作品計劃，還說起他在那個非營利組織的客戶，說起安迪女兒的生日派對和菲德拉的新工作，說起他跟其他人的談話。

　 “Five and a half more months,” Willem says at the end of one conversation.

“再過五個半月?！蓖谝淮瓮ㄔ捊Y(jié)束時這么說。

　 “Five and a half more,” he repeats.

“再過五個半月。”他跟著復(fù)述。

　 That Thursday he goes to dinner at Rhodes’s new apartment, which is near Malcolm’s parents’ house, and which Rhodes had told him over drinks in December is the source of all his nightmares: he wakes at night with ledgers scrolling through his mind, the stuff of his life—tuition, mortgages, maintenances, taxes—reduced to terrifyingly large figures. “And this is with my parents’ help,” he’d said. “And Alex wants to have another kid. I’m forty-five, Jude, and I’m already beat; I’m going to be working until I’m eighty if we have a third.”

那個星期四，他去羅茲的新公寓吃晚餐，那里離馬爾科姆父母家很近。去年十二月他們碰面喝酒時，羅茲談起這間新公寓成了他所有夢魘的源頭：他半夜醒來，滿腦子都是各種賬單 ——學(xué)費、房屋貸款、維修保養(yǎng)、稅——最后匯聚成一個嚇?biāo)廊说木薮髷?shù)字?！斑@還是有我爸媽幫忙?！彼f，“現(xiàn)在亞歷克絲還想再生個小孩。我現(xiàn)在45歲，裘德，可是已經(jīng)累垮了，要是再生一個，我就得工作到80歲了。”

　 Tonight, he is relieved to see, Rhodes seems more relaxed, his neck and cheeks pink. “Christ,” Rhodes says, “how do you stay so thin year after year?” When they had met at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, fifteen years ago, Rhodes had still looked like a lacrosse player, all muscle and sinew, but since joining the bank, he has thickened, grown abruptly old.

今天晚上羅茲似乎比較鎮(zhèn)定，脖子和臉頰呈粉紅色，他看了也比較放心。“天啊，”羅茲說，“你怎么一直這么苗條??？”十五年前，他們在聯(lián)邦檢察官辦公室剛認(rèn)識時，羅茲看起來還像個曲棍球選手，一身精瘦的肌肉，但自從跳槽到銀行后，他越來越胖，而且老得很快。

　 “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘scrawny,’ ” he tells Rhodes.

“你要講的，其實是干癟吧？”他告訴羅茲。

　 Rhodes laughs. “I don’t think so,” he says, “but I’d take scrawny at this point.”

羅茲大笑，“我可沒那么想，”他說，“不過我就暫時接受你的詮釋吧?！?

　 There are eleven people at dinner, and Rhodes has to retrieve his desk chair from his office, and the bench from Alex’s dressing room. He remembers this about Rhodes’s dinners: the food is always perfect, there are always flowers on the table, and yet something always goes wrong with the guest list and the seating—Alex invites someone she’s just met and forgets to tell Rhodes, or Rhodes miscounts, and what is intended as a formal, organized event becomes instead chaotic and casual. “Shit!” Rhodes says, as he always does, but he’s always the only one who minds.

這頓晚餐有十一個人，羅茲得把書房的辦公椅、亞歷克絲梳妝臺的凳子都搬出來。他記得羅茲家的晚餐有個特色：食物總是很完美，桌上總是有鮮花，但是賓客名單和座位安排總是出狀況。有時是亞歷克絲邀請了個剛認(rèn)識的人卻沒告訴羅茲，有時是羅茲算錯人數(shù)，于是他們原先精心策劃的正式晚宴，就會變得混亂而隨意?！肮肥?！”羅茲每次都這么說，但每次也只有他在意而已。