《渺小一生》:他太天真了，當(dāng)他緩步走回飯

　 “Don’t you think you should ask Jude first if I can confirm his identity?” Kit had asked him when they were deciding what he’d say to the reporter on Willem’s behalf.

“你不認(rèn)為你應(yīng)該先問裘德，看我可不可以證實(shí)你交往的對(duì)象是他？”基特之前曾經(jīng)問他，當(dāng)時(shí)他們?cè)谏塘炕匾浾哒f些什么。

　 “No, it’s fine,” he’d said. “He won’t mind.”

“不，沒問題，”他說，“他不會(huì)介意的?！?

　 Kit had been quiet. “He might, Willem.”

基特沉默了一會(huì)兒。“威廉，他可能會(huì)介意?！?

　 But he really hadn’t thought he would. Now, though, he wondered if he had been arrogant. What, he asked himself, just because you’re okay with it, you thought he would be, too?

他原先真的不認(rèn)為裘德會(huì)介意。但現(xiàn)在，他很懷疑自己是否太過傲慢了。他自問，怎么回事，只因?yàn)槟銦o所謂，你就以為他也無所謂？

　 “Willem, I’m sorry,” Jude said, and although he knew that he should reassure Jude, who was probably feeling guilty, and apologize to him as well, he wasn’t in the mood for it, not then.

“威廉，對(duì)不起。”裘德說。他知道自己應(yīng)該好言安撫，裘德大概覺得很內(nèi)疚，而且自己也該道歉，但當(dāng)時(shí)他實(shí)在沒有心情。

　 “I’m going for a run,” he announced, and although he wasn’t looking at him, he could feel Jude nod.

“我要出去跑步?！彼?。就算沒看裘德，他也感覺到裘德點(diǎn)了頭。

　 It was so early that outside, the city was still quiet and still cool, the air a dirtied white, with only a few cars gliding down the streets. The hotel was near the old French opera house, which he ran around, and then back to the hotel and toward the colonial-era district, past vendors squatted near large, flat, woven-bamboo baskets piled with tiny, bright green limes, and stacks of cut herbs that smelled of lemon and roses and peppercorns. As the streets grew threadlike, he slowed to a walk, and turned down an alley that was crowded with stall after stall of small, improvised restaurants, just a woman standing behind a kettle roiling with soup or oil, and four or five plastic stools on which customers sat, eating quickly before hurrying back to the mouth of the alley, where they got on their bikes and pedaled away. He stopped at the far end of the alley, waiting to let a man cycle past him, the basket strapped to the back of his seat loaded with spears of baguettes, their hot, steamed-milk fragrance filling his nostrils, and then headed down another alley, this one busy with vendors crouched over more bundles of herbs, and black hills of mangosteens, and metal trays of silvery-pink fish, so fresh that he could hear them gulping, could see their eyes rolling desperately back in their sockets. Above him, necklaces of cages were strung like lanterns, each containing a vibrant, chirping bird. He had a little cash with him, and he bought Jude one of the herb bouquets; it looked like rosemary but smelled pleasantly soapy, and although he didn’t know what it was, he thought Jude might.

現(xiàn)在還很早，外頭的城市依然安靜而涼爽，空氣是一種臟白色，街道上只有少數(shù)幾輛汽車掠過。他們住的飯店位于法國區(qū)的歌劇院附近，他跑過歌劇院，然后回頭朝向飯店所在的殖民時(shí)代區(qū)域跑去，經(jīng)過一堆蹲著的小販，面前擺著許多扁平的大竹籃，上頭放著鮮綠色的小青檸，還有一堆堆剛割下來的香草植物，聞起來有檸檬、玫瑰、胡椒的氣味。街道變窄時(shí)，他放慢腳步，彎進(jìn)一條巷子，里頭擠滿了一個(gè)個(gè)小吃攤，只有一個(gè)女人站在一個(gè)大鍋后頭攪拌著濃湯或油，顧客們坐在四五張塑料凳子上趕緊吃完早餐，就走出巷子，騎上自行車離開。他停在巷子的另一端，等著一名男子騎自行車經(jīng)過，自行車后座綁著的籃子上裝著一根根法棍，熱騰騰如同蒸牛奶般的香氣充滿了他的鼻腔。之后，他走進(jìn)另一條巷子，里面蹲滿了小販，面前擺著香草植物和一堆堆山竹，還有一盤盤裝在金屬盤子里銀粉色的魚，新鮮得他都能聽到魚的吸氣聲，看得到魚的眼珠絕望地游移。在他上方掛著一串串燈籠般的鳥籠，每個(gè)籠子里都有一只鳥生氣勃勃地鳴叫著。他身上有一點(diǎn)現(xiàn)金，便買了一把香草植物打算給裘德；那把香草看起來像迷迭香，但聞起來有種宜人的肥皂味，他不知道那是什么植物，但他覺得裘德可能知道。

　 He was so na?ve, he thought as he made his slow way back to the hotel: about his career, about Jude. Why did he always think he knew what he was doing? Why did he think he could do whatever he wanted and everything would work out the way he imagined it? Was it a failure of creativity, or arrogance, or (as he assumed) simple stupidity? People, people he trusted and respected, were always warning him—Kit, about his career; Andy, about Jude; Jude, about himself—and yet he always ignored them. For the first time, he wondered if Kit was right, if Jude was right, if he would never work again, or at least not the kind of work he enjoyed. Would he resent Jude? He didn’t think so; he hoped not. But he had never thought he would have to find out, not really.

他太天真了，當(dāng)他緩步走回飯店時(shí)心想：有關(guān)他的演員生涯，有關(guān)裘德。為什么他總是以為他知道自己在做什么？為什么他總是認(rèn)為自己可以做任何想做的事，而且一切都能如他想象的那樣發(fā)展？這次失敗是因?yàn)閯?chuàng)造力、傲慢，或者（一如他的假設(shè)）純粹是因?yàn)橛薮?？很多他信賴且尊敬的人一直警告他（基特的警告關(guān)乎他的事業(yè)；安迪的警告關(guān)乎裘德；裘德的警告則是關(guān)乎他自己），然而他總是不理會(huì)。生平頭一次，他納悶基特是不是說對(duì)了，裘德是不是說對(duì)了，是不是自己永遠(yuǎn)都接不到工作了，或至少不會(huì)是他喜歡的那類工作。他會(huì)怨恨裘德嗎？他不認(rèn)為；他希望不會(huì)。但他從沒想到，竟然真有這個(gè)可能。

　 But greater than that fear was the one he was rarely able to ask himself: What if the things he was making Jude do weren’t good for him after all? The day before, they had taken a shower together for the first time, and Jude had been so silent afterward, so deep inside one of his fugue states, his eyes so flat and blank, that Willem had been momentarily frightened. He hadn’t wanted to do it, but Willem had coerced him, and in the shower, Jude had been rigid and grim, and Willem had been able to tell from the set of Jude’s mouth that he was enduring it, that he was waiting for it to be over. But he hadn’t let him get out of the shower; he had made him stay. He had behaved (unintentionally, but who cared) like Caleb—he had made Jude do something he didn’t want to, and Jude had done it because he had told him to do it. “It’ll be good for you,” he’d said, and remembering this—although he had believed it—he felt almost nauseated. No one had ever trusted him as unquestioningly as Jude did. But he had no idea what he was doing.

但比這種恐懼更大的問題，是他很少有勇氣問自己：如果他逼裘德做的那些事情，根本對(duì)裘德沒有好處呢？前一天，他們頭一次一起沖澡，事后裘德很安靜，深深陷入了神游狀態(tài)里，雙眼無神而空蕩，讓威廉一時(shí)間害怕起來。裘德根本不想一起洗澡的，但威廉逼他。在淋浴間里，裘德僵硬而嚴(yán)肅，威廉從裘德緊繃不動(dòng)的嘴巴看出他在忍受，在等著趕緊結(jié)束。但他沒讓他離開淋浴間，一直逼他留下。他的表現(xiàn)（不是故意的，但是誰管你）就像凱萊布——他逼裘德去做他不想做的事，而裘德去做是因?yàn)樗??！斑@樣對(duì)你有好處的?！彼f，想到這里（雖然他當(dāng)時(shí)如此相信）他簡直要反胃了。從來沒有人像裘德這樣毫不懷疑地相信他，他卻根本不知道自己在做什么。

　 “Willem’s not a health-care professional,” he remembered Andy saying. “He’s an actor.” And although both he and Jude had laughed at the time, he wasn’t sure Andy was wrong. Who was he to try to direct Jude’s mental health? “Don’t trust me so much,” he wanted to say to Jude. But how could he? Wasn’t this what he had wanted from Jude, from this relationship? To be so indispensable to another person that that person couldn’t even comprehend his life without him? And now he had it, and the demands of the position terrified him. He had asked for responsibility without understanding completely how much damage he could do. Was he able to do this? He thought of Jude’s horror of sex and knew that behind that horror lay another, one he had always surmised but had never inquired about: So what was he supposed to do? He wished there was someone who could tell him definitively if he was doing a good job or not; he wished he had someone guiding him in this relationship the way Kit guided him in his career, telling him when to take a risk and when to retreat, when to play Willem the Hero and when to be Ragnarsson the Terrible.

“威廉不是專業(yè)醫(yī)療人員，”他還記得安迪曾這么說，“他是個(gè)演員?！北M管當(dāng)時(shí)他和裘德都大笑起來，但他不確定安迪是錯(cuò)的。他憑什么試圖指導(dǎo)裘德的心理健康呢？“別這么信賴我?！彼雽?duì)裘德說。但他怎么能？他不是一直希望裘德信賴他、希望這段戀情由他負(fù)責(zé)？他不是一直希望自己對(duì)另一個(gè)人不可或缺，以至于沒了他，那個(gè)人甚至無法掌握自己的人生？現(xiàn)在他得到了，但這個(gè)位置的種種要求嚇壞他了。他之前要求負(fù)責(zé)，卻沒完全了解自己可能造成多大的傷害。他真的有能力擔(dān)負(fù)這個(gè)責(zé)任嗎？他想到裘德對(duì)性愛的恐懼，知道在那恐懼背后還有另一個(gè)問題，那是他一直在推測(cè)、但從來沒有問起的。所以他該怎么做？他真希望有個(gè)人可以斬釘截鐵地告訴他做得好或不好；他真希望有個(gè)人能在這段戀情中指引他，就像基特指引他的事業(yè)那般，告訴他什么時(shí)候該冒險(xiǎn)，什么時(shí)候該撤退；什么時(shí)候該扮演英雄威廉，什么時(shí)候又該扮演恐怖的拉格納松。

　 Oh, what am I doing? he chanted to himself as his feet smacked against the road, as he ran past men and women and children readying themselves for the day, past buildings as narrow as closets, past little shops selling stiff, brick-like pillows made of plaited straw, past a small boy cradling an imperious-looking lizard to his chest, What am I doing, oh what am I doing?

啊，我在做什么？他步伐沉重地跑過街道，對(duì)自己喃喃念叨著，沿途經(jīng)過了男人、女人和兒童，正準(zhǔn)備開始這一天，也走過窄如櫥柜的建筑物，以及一些販賣形如磚頭的硬挺草編枕的小店，還有胸前抱著一只模樣傲慢的蜥蜴的小男孩，我在做什么？啊，我在做什么？

　 By the time he returned to the hotel an hour later, the sky was shading from white to a delicious, minty pale blue. The travel agent had booked them a suite with two beds, as always (he hadn’t remembered to have his assistant correct this), and Jude was lying on the one they had both slept in the night before, dressed for the day, reading, and when Willem came in, he stood and came over and hugged him.

一個(gè)小時(shí)后他回到飯店，天空已經(jīng)從白色轉(zhuǎn)為一種可口的、帶著薄荷綠的藍(lán)。旅行社如往常一樣幫他們訂了一間雙床套房（他忘了請(qǐng)助理去更改），裘德正躺在前一夜他們睡的那張床上閱讀，已經(jīng)換好了外出服。他進(jìn)門時(shí)，裘德站起身，走過來擁抱他。

　 “I’m all sweaty,” he mumbled, but Jude didn’t let go.

“我全身是汗?！彼緡佒?，但裘德不肯放手。

　 “It’s okay,” Jude said. He stepped back and looked at him, holding him by the arms. “It’s going to be fine, Willem,” he said, in the same firm, declarative way Willem sometimes heard him speak to clients on the phone. “It really is. I’ll always take care of you, you know that, right?”

“不會(huì)有事的?！濒玫抡f。他后退看著他，抓住他的雙臂?！耙磺卸紩?huì)好好的，威廉?！彼f，用威廉偶爾聽到他跟客戶講電話時(shí)那種堅(jiān)定、宣告的語氣，“真的。我永遠(yuǎn)會(huì)照顧你，你知道的，對(duì)吧？”

　 He smiled. “I know,” he said, and what comforted him was not so much the reassurance itself, but that Jude seemed so confident, so competent, so certain that he, too, had something to offer. It reminded Willem that their relationship wasn’t a rescue mission after all, but an extension of their friendship, in which he had saved Jude and, just as often, Jude had saved him. For every time he had gotten to help Jude when he was in pain, or defend him against people asking too many questions, Jude had been there to listen to him worrying about his work, or to talk him out of his misery after he hadn’t gotten a part, or to (for three consecutive months, humiliatingly) pay his college loans when a job had fallen through and he didn’t have enough money to cover them himself. And yet somehow in the past seven months he had decided that he was going to repair Jude, that he was going to fix him, when really, he didn’t need fixing. Jude had always taken him at face value; he needed to try to do the same for him.

他微笑?！拔抑??！彼f，但讓他安心的其實(shí)不是保證本身，而是裘德看起來這么自信、這么有能力、這么確定他也有辦法付出。這讓威廉想到他們的關(guān)系畢竟不是一場(chǎng)救援任務(wù)，而是他們友誼的延伸；在他們過去的友誼中，他救過裘德很多次，裘德也常常救他。每回他都會(huì)幫助疼痛中的裘德，或者幫裘德?lián)醯魡柼鄦栴}的人，同樣地，裘德也總是耐心地傾聽他擔(dān)心自己的工作，在他沒接到角色時(shí)，勸慰他走出愁慘的心情，或者在他丟掉一份工作、沒有足夠的錢養(yǎng)活自己時(shí)，出錢幫他支付大學(xué)的學(xué)生貸款（而且連續(xù)三個(gè)月，讓他覺得好丟臉）。然而在過去七個(gè)月，他不知怎地決定要修補(bǔ)裘德，要把他修理好，但其實(shí)他根本不需要修理。裘德一直相信他說的話；他也得試著對(duì)裘德做同樣的事。

　 “I ordered breakfast,” Jude said. “I thought you might want some privacy. Do you want to take a shower?”

“我點(diǎn)了早餐送到房間來，”裘德說，“我想你可能需要一點(diǎn)隱私。要去沖個(gè)澡嗎？”

　 “Thanks,” he said, “but I think I’ll wait until after we eat.” He took a breath. He could feel his anxiety fade; he could feel himself returning to who he was. “But would you sing with me?” Every morning for the past two months, they had been singing with each other in preparation for Duets. In the film, his character and the character’s wife led an annual Christmas pageant, and both he and the actress playing his wife would be performing their own vocals. The director had sent him a list of songs to work on, and Jude had been practicing with him: Jude took the melody, and he took the harmony.

“謝謝你，”他說，“但我想等吃過飯?jiān)偃ハ??！彼丝跉?，可以感覺到焦慮退去，自己又恢復(fù)到正常的狀態(tài)。“不過你可以陪我唱歌嗎？”過去兩個(gè)月，為了準(zhǔn)備《二重唱》，他們每天早上都一起練唱。在電影里，他的角色和飾演他太太的角色要參加一場(chǎng)年度的圣誕表演，他和那位女演員都必須唱歌。導(dǎo)演給了他一份練習(xí)歌單，裘德會(huì)陪他一起練：裘德唱主旋律，他唱和聲。

　 “Sure,” Jude said. “Our usual?” For the past week, they’d been working on “Adeste Fideles,” which he would have to sing a cappella, and for the past week, he’d been pitching sharp at the exact same point, at “Venite adoremus,” right in the first stanza. He’d wince every time he did it, hearing the error, and Jude would shake his head at him and keep going, and he’d follow him until the end. “You’re overthinking it,” Jude would say. “When you go sharp, it’s because you’re concentrating too hard on staying on key; just don’t think about it, Willem, and you’ll get it.”

“當(dāng)然可以，”裘德說，“老樣子？”過去一星期，他們都在練習(xí)他在電影中必須清唱的《齊來崇拜歌》，而且一整個(gè)星期，他都在同一個(gè)地方走音、唱得太高，就是第一段的“齊來虔誠同崇拜”。他每回走音，聽到自己唱壞了，就皺起臉，而裘德會(huì)朝他搖搖頭，繼續(xù)唱下去，他就跟著唱完。“你想太多了，”裘德會(huì)說，“你唱得太高，是因?yàn)槟闾珜Ｗ⒁岩舫獪?zhǔn)；不要想就是了，威廉。這樣你就能掌握了?！?

　 That morning, though, he felt certain he’d get it right. He gave Jude the bunch of herbs, which he was still holding, and Jude thanked him, pinching its little purple flowers between his fingers to release its perfume. “I think it’s a kind of perilla,” he said, and held his fingers up for Willem to smell.

但是那天早上，他很有把握自己會(huì)唱對(duì)。他把還拿在手上的那束香草植物遞給裘德。裘德謝謝他，摘下幾朵紫色小花在指尖揉捻出香氣。“我想這是一種紫蘇?！彼f，伸出手指讓威廉聞。

　 “Nice,” he said, and they smiled at each other.

“好香?！彼f，他們相視而笑。