《渺小一生》:我?guī)е蔫€匙回到格林街。

　 “Put your arm around my neck,” I told him, and he did, and as I lifted him, he cried out, and I apologized and settled him in his chair. As I did, I noticed that the back of his shirt—he was wearing one of those gray thermal-weave sweatshirts he liked to sleep in—was bloody, with new and old blood, and the back of his pants were bloody as well.

“一手勾住我脖子?！蔽腋嬖V他。他照做了，接著我扶他起來，他叫出聲，我連忙道歉，把他放在輪椅上。我注意到他的長袖運動衫背部沾著新的和舊的血（他穿著平常睡覺時穿的灰色保暖針織運動衫），而且長褲的背面也有血。

　 I stepped away from him and called Andy, told him I had an emergency. I was lucky: Andy had stayed in the city that weekend, and he would meet us at his office in twenty minutes.

我離開他幾步，打電話給安迪，說我有緊急狀況。我很幸運，安迪那個周末沒出城，他說二十分鐘內(nèi)會趕到診所跟我們會合。

　 I drove us there. I helped him out of the car—he seemed unwilling to use his left arm, and when I had him stand, he held his right leg aloft, so that it wouldn’t touch the ground, and made a strange noise, a bird’s noise, as I wrapped my arm around his chest to lower him into the chair—and when Andy opened the door and saw him, I thought he was going to throw up.

我開車送他過去，幫他下了車。他好像不愿意用左手臂，而且我扶著他站起來時，他的左腳一直懸空，避免碰到地面。當(dāng)我用手臂抱住他胸膛、把他放到輪椅上時，他發(fā)出一種像鳥叫的聲音。安迪打開門看到他時，我以為安迪就要吐出來了。

　 “Jude,” Andy said once he could speak, crouching beside him, but he didn’t respond.

“裘德?！卑驳辖K于開口喊他，蹲在他旁邊，但他沒回應(yīng)。

　 Once we’d installed him in an examination room, we spoke in the receptionist’s area. I told him about Caleb. I told him what I thought had happened. I told him what I thought was wrong: that I thought he had broken his left arm, that something was wrong with his right leg, that he was bleeding and where, that the floors had blood on them. I told him he wouldn’t report it to the police.

我們把他送進一間檢查室，就出來跟安迪在接待區(qū)談了一會。我告訴他凱萊布的事，還有我認(rèn)為發(fā)生了什么事。我告訴他我認(rèn)為他傷到哪里：他的左手臂應(yīng)該有骨折，左腿不太對勁，還有他身上哪里在流血，他家里地板上也有血。我還說他不肯報案。

　 “Okay,” Andy said. He was in shock, I could see. He kept swallowing. “Okay, okay.” He stopped and rubbed at his eyes. “Will you wait here for a little while?”

“好的。”安迪說，我看得出來他很震驚，不斷吞口水，“好的，好的。”他停下來揉揉眼睛，“你可以在這里等一陣子嗎？”

　 He came out from the examining room forty minutes later. “I’m going to take him to the hospital to get some X-rays,” he said. “I’m pretty sure his left wrist is broken, and some of his ribs. And if his leg is—” He stopped. “If it is, this is really going to be a problem,” he said. He seemed to have forgotten I was in the room. Then he recalled himself. “You should go,” he said. “I’ll call you when I’m almost done.”

四十分鐘后，他從檢查室出來?！拔乙退メt(yī)院照X光。”他說，“我很確定他的左手腕骨折了，還有幾根肋骨。另外如果他的左腿……”他停下來，“也有骨折的話，那就麻煩了?！彼f。他似乎忘了我也在場，忽然又想到了，“你該走了。”他說，“等我快處理完，會再打電話給你。”

　 “I’ll stay,” I said.

“我留下來吧。”我說。

　 “Don’t, Harold,” he said, and then, more gently, “you have to call his office; there’s no way he can go into work this week.” He paused. “He said—he said you should tell them he was in a car accident.”

“不要，哈羅德。”他說，然后聲音放柔和些，“你得打電話到他辦公室，他這星期不可能去上班了?！彼麜和Ｒ幌拢八f，他說請你告訴公司，說他出了車禍。”

　 As I was leaving, he said, quietly, “He told me he was playing tennis.”

我要離開時，安迪又低聲說：“他之前跟我說他在打網(wǎng)球?！?

　 “I know,” I said. I felt bad for us, then, for being so stupid. “He told me that, too.”

“我知道?！蔽艺f，很替彼此覺得難過，也覺得我們好笨，“他也是這么告訴我的。”

　 I went back to Greene Street with his keys. For a long time, many minutes, I just stood there in the doorway, looking at the space. Some of the cloud cover had parted, but it didn’t take much sun—even with the shades drawn—to make that apartment feel light. I had always thought it a hopeful place, with its high ceilings, its cleanliness, its visibility, its promise of transparency.

我?guī)е蔫€匙回到格林街。有好幾分鐘，我只是站在門口，看著那個空間。那時云散開了一些，不需要很多陽光（即使遮光簾都拉下來）就能讓整間公寓很亮。我一直覺得這是個充滿希望的地方，有高高的天花板，非常干凈、一目了然。

　 This was his apartment, and so of course there were lots of cleaning products, and I started cleaning. I mopped the floors; the sticky areas were dried blood. It was difficult to distinguish because the floors were so dark, but I could smell it, a dense, wild scent that the nose instantly recognizes. He had clearly tried to clean the bathroom, but here too there were swipes of blood on the marble, dried into the rusty pinks of sunsets; these were difficult to remove, but I did the best I could. I looked in the trash cans—for evidence, I suppose, but there was nothing: they had all been cleaned and emptied. His clothes from the night before were scattered near the living-room sofa. The shirt was so ripped, clawed at almost, that I threw it away; the suit I took to be dry-cleaned. Otherwise, the apartment was very tidy. I had entered the bedroom with dread, expecting to find lamps broken, clothes strewn about, but it was so unruffled that you might have thought that no one lived there at all, that it was a model house, an advertisement for an enviable life. The person who lived here would have parties, and would be carefree and sure of himself, and at night he would raise the shades and he and his friends would dance, and people passing by on Greene Street, on Mercer, would look up at that box of light floating in the sky, and imagine its inhabitants above unhappiness, or fear, or any concerns at all.

這是他的公寓，當(dāng)然有很多清潔用品，于是我開始打掃。我擦了地板，有些黏黏的地方是干掉的血。因為地板顏色太黑了，實在很難看出來，但我聞得到，是一種濃厚、野生的氣味，鼻子一聞就知道。他顯然曾試著清理浴室，但里頭的大理石上同樣有擦過的血，干掉后成了落日般的銹粉紅色，這些痕跡很難清洗，但我盡力。我去查看垃圾桶，可能是想尋找證據(jù)吧，但里頭什么都沒有，全都被清空了。他前一晚穿的衣服被扔在起居間的沙發(fā)附近。襯衫撕得破破爛爛，簡直像是爪子抓破的，于是我把它丟掉了，把西裝送去干洗。除此之外，公寓里面非常整齊。我不安地進入臥室，以為會看到破掉的燈、亂扔的衣服，但結(jié)果里面整齊干凈得像是沒人住，宛如是樣品屋、展示廣告里令人羨慕的生活。住在這里的人會開派對，無憂無慮，充滿自信。夜里他會拉起遮光簾，和朋友們在屋里跳舞，經(jīng)過格林街、默瑟街的人會往上看著這個浮在空中的燈箱，想象里面的人絕不會不快樂、恐懼或擔(dān)心。

　 I e-mailed Lucien, whom I’d met once, and who was a friend of a friend of Laurence’s, actually, and said there had been a terrible car accident, and that Jude was in the hospital. I went to the grocery store and bought things that would be easy for him to eat: soups, puddings, juices. I looked up Caleb Porter’s address, and repeated it to myself—Fifty West Twenty-ninth Street, apartment 17J—until I had it memorized. I called the locksmith and said it was an emergency and that I needed to have all the locks changed: front door, elevator, apartment door. I opened the windows to let the damp air carry away the fragrance of blood, of disinfectant. I left a message with the law school secretary saying there was a family emergency and I wouldn’t be able to teach that week. I left messages for a couple of my colleagues asking if they could cover for me. I thought about calling my old law school friend, who worked at the D.A.’s office. I would explain what had happened; I wouldn’t use his name. I would ask how we could have Caleb Porter arrested.

我寫了電子郵件給盧西恩（我跟他見過一次，他其實是勞倫斯一個朋友的朋友），說裘德出了車禍，現(xiàn)在住院了。我去雜貨店買了應(yīng)該適合他吃的食物：濃湯、布丁、果汁。我查到凱萊布·波特的地址，重復(fù)默念著，直到我背下來——西29街50號17J公寓。我打電話給鎖匠說很急，要請他換掉所有的鎖，包括一樓大門、電梯、這間公寓的前門。我打開窗子，讓潮濕的空氣帶走血和消毒水的氣味。我留了話給法學(xué)院的秘書說家里出了緊急狀況，我這星期沒辦法回學(xué)校上課，并留了話給兩個同事，問他們能不能幫我代課。我想過要打電話給以前法學(xué)院的朋友阿維，他在地檢署工作。我會解釋發(fā)生了什么事，不會提到他的名字。我會問這個朋友要怎么樣才能逮捕凱萊布·波特。

　 “But you’re saying the victim won’t report it?” Avi would say.

“可是你說被害人不肯報案？”阿維會說。

　 “Well, yes,” I’d have to admit.

“唔，是啊?！蔽冶仨毘姓J(rèn)。

　 “Can he be convinced?”

“可以說服他嗎？”

　 “I don’t think so,” I’d have to admit.

“我不認(rèn)為?！蔽冶仨毘姓J(rèn)。

　 “Well, Harold,” Avi would say, perplexed and irritated. “I don’t know what to tell you, then. You know as well as I do that I can’t do anything if the victim won’t speak.” I remembered thinking, as I very rarely thought, what a flimsy thing the law was, so dependent on contingencies, a system of so little comfort, of so little use to those who needed its protections the most.

“那么，哈羅德，”阿維會說，既困惑又煩惱，“這樣的話，我就不知道該跟你說什么了。你跟我一樣清楚，如果被害人不肯說，我什么都做不了。”我記得自己當(dāng)時想著，就像我非常偶爾會想到的，法律真是太靠不住了，這么取決于偶發(fā)事件，整個制度這么無法撫慰人心，對那些最需要法律保護的人這么沒有用處。

　 And then I went into his bathroom and felt under the sink and found his bag of razors and cotton pads and threw it down the incinerator. I hated that bag, I hated that I knew I would find it.

然后我進入他的浴室，摸著水槽下方，找到那個裝了刮胡刀片和棉墊的小袋子，丟進焚化爐。我厭惡那個袋子，也厭惡自己知道會發(fā)現(xiàn)它。