《渺小一生》:這部電影的成績遠超過任何人的預料

　 And then it is Tuesday, a day that feels like summer, and Willem’s last in the city. He leaves for work early that morning but comes home at lunchtime so he can say goodbye.

到了星期二，這一天感覺像夏天，也是威廉待在紐約的最后一天。他那天一早出門上班，不過午餐時間又回家來跟威廉告別。

　 “I’m going to miss you,” he tells Willem, as he always does.

“我會想念你的?！彼嬖V威廉，一如往常。

　 “I’m going to miss you more,” Willem says, as he always does, and then, also as he always does, “Are you going to take care of yourself?”

“我會更想念你的?！蓖f，一如往常，然后，還是一如往常?！澳銜煤谜疹欁约簡幔俊?

　 “Yes,” he says, not letting go of him. “I promise.” He feels Willem sigh.

“會的，”他說，不肯放開他，“我保證?！彼杏X到威廉嘆氣了。

　 “Remember you can always call me, no matter what time it is,” Willem tells him, and he nods.

“別忘了你總是可以打電話給我，不管是幾點?！蓖嬖V他，他點點頭。

　 “Go,” he says. “I’ll be fine,” and Willem sighs again, and goes.

“去吧，”他說，“我會好好的?！蓖謬@氣，隨即出門。

　 He hates to have Willem leave, but he is excited, too: for selfish reasons, and also because he is relieved, and happy, that Willem is working so much. After they had returned from Vietnam that January, just before he left to film Duets, Willem had been alternately anxious and bluffly confident, and although he tried not to speak of his insecurities, he knew how worried Willem was. He knew Willem worried that his first movie after the announcement of their relationship was, no matter how much he protested otherwise, a gay movie. He knew Willem worried when the director of a science-fiction thriller he wanted to do didn’t call him back as quickly as he had thought he might (though he had in the end, and everything had worked out the way he had hoped). He knew Willem worried about the seemingly endless series of articles, the ceaseless requests for interviews, the speculations and television segments, the gossip columns and the editorials, about his revelation that had greeted them on their return to the States, and which, as Kit told them, they were powerless to control or stop: they would simply have to wait until people grew bored of the subject, and that might take months. (Willem didn’t read stories about himself in general, but there were just so many of them: when they turned on the television, when they went online, when they opened the paper, there they were—stories about Willem, and what he now represented.) When they spoke on the phone—Willem in Texas, he at Greene Street—he could feel Willem trying not to talk too much about how nervous he was and knew it was because Willem didn’t want him to feel guilty. “Tell me, Willem,” he finally said. “I promise I’m not going to blame myself. I swear.” And after he had repeated this every day for a week, Willem did at last tell him, and although he did feel guilty—he cut himself after every one of these conversations—he didn’t ask Willem for reassurances, he didn’t make Willem feel worse than he already did; he only listened and tried to be as soothing as he could. Good, he’d praise himself after they’d hung up, after every time he’d kept his mouth closed against his own fears. Good job. Later, he’d burrow the tip of the razor into one of his scars, flicking the tissue upward with the razor’s corner until he had cut down to the soft flesh beneath.

他很不想讓威廉離開，但是他也很興奮：因為自私的理由，他松了一口氣，另外，看到威廉的工作這么忙，他其實很高興。那年一月他們從越南回來后，在出發(fā)去拍《二重唱》之前，威廉不是陷入焦慮，就是虛張聲勢的信心十足；威廉盡量不談自己的不安全感，但他知道威廉有多擔心。他知道威廉擔心他在宣布兩人戀情后的第一部電影就是同性戀電影（無論他怎么抗議說不是）。他知道有一部科幻驚悚片威廉很想演，但試鏡后導演遲遲沒打電話來，讓威廉很擔心（后來還是打來了，而且一切發(fā)展都如他期望的那般順利）。他知道他們一回到美國，那些永無止境、關于他們戀情的報道文章，還有不間斷的專訪要求、種種推測和電視片段、八卦專欄和雜志評論，都會讓威廉很擔心?；貏t告訴他們，他們沒有辦法控制或阻止，只能等到大家對這個主題厭倦，而這個過程可能要花上好幾個月（通常威廉不去讀自己的報道，但這些報道實在太多了：他們看電視、上網、打開報紙，就會不小心看到威廉的新聞，或是他現(xiàn)在代表的意義）。他們通電話時（威廉在德州，他在格林街），他感到威廉試著不去談他有多緊張，也知道這是因為威廉不希望他覺得內疚?！案嬖V我吧，威廉，”他最后終于說，“我保證我不會怪自己。我發(fā)誓。”他這么重復了一星期后，威廉終于告訴他。盡管他的確覺得內疚（每回這類對話之后，他都會割自己），但他沒要求威廉保證不離開他，知道這只會讓威廉感覺更糟；他只是傾聽，設法安慰對方。很好，每回掛了電話、他再次忍住沒說出自己的恐懼時，都會這么稱贊自己。做得很好。稍后，他會把刮胡刀片的尖端壓進一道疤里，把那肌肉組織往上挑開來，直到他能往下割到柔軟的肉里。

　 He thinks it a good sign that the film Willem is shooting in London now is, as Kit would say, a gay film. “Normally I’d say not to,” Kit told Willem. “But it’s too good a script to pass up.” The film is titled The Poisoned Apple, and is about the last few years of Alan Turing’s life, after he was arrested for indecency and was chemically castrated. He idolized Turing, of course—all mathematicians did—and had been moved almost to tears by the script. “You have to do it, Willem,” he had said.

威廉目前在倫敦拍攝的電影，一如基特所說，是一部同性戀電影，他覺得這是個好跡象。“正常狀況下，我會勸你別接，”基特告訴威廉，“但這個劇本太棒了，錯過可惜?！蹦遣侩娪敖小抖咎O果》，描述英國數(shù)學家艾倫·圖靈因為猥褻罪被捕并被化學閹割后，人生的最后幾年。他崇拜圖靈（所有數(shù)學家都崇拜圖靈），也被那個劇本感動得差點掉淚。“你一定要接這部片子，威廉?！碑敃r他說。

　 “I don’t know,” Willem had said, smiling, “another gay movie?”

“不知道哎，”威廉微笑著說，“又一部同性戀電影？”

　 “Duets did really well,” he reminded Willem—and it had: better than anyone had thought it would—but it was a lazy sort of argument, because he knew Willem had already decided to do the film, and he was proud of him, and childishly excited to see him in it, the way he was about all of Willem’s movies.

“《二重唱》結果相當好啊?！彼嵝淹拇_，這部電影的成績遠超過任何人的預料——但這場爭辯不太起勁，因為他知道威廉已經決定要接這部電影了。他很以他為榮，且一如面對威廉拍過的所有電影，他像孩子般興奮，期待要看他的表現(xiàn)。

　 The Saturday after Willem leaves, Malcolm meets him at the apartment and he drives the two of them north, to just outside Garrison, where they are building a house. Willem had bought the land—seventy acres, with its own lake and its own forest—three years ago, and for three years it had sat empty. Malcolm had drawn plans, and Willem had approved them, but he had never actually told Malcolm he could begin. But one morning, about eighteen months ago, he had found Willem at the dining-room table, looking at Malcolm’s drawings.

威廉離開的那個星期六，馬爾科姆來公寓接他，兩人開車北上，到紐約州加里森村外的一片土地，他們正在這里蓋房子。威廉三年前買下這塊土地（七十英畝，有一座湖和一片森林），但一直空著沒用。馬爾科姆畫好設計圖，威廉已經同意，但一直沒跟馬爾科姆說可以動工?？墒谴蠹s十八個月前的一個早晨，他發(fā)現(xiàn)威廉坐在餐桌旁，看著馬爾科姆的設計圖。

　 Willem held out his hand to him, not lifting his eyes from the papers, and he took it and allowed Willem to pull him to his side. “I think we should do this,” Willem said.

威廉朝他伸出一只手，目光仍停留在紙上，他握住威廉的手，讓威廉把他拉到身邊?！拔蚁胛覀儜撨M行這個了?！蓖f。

　 And so they had met with Malcolm again, and Malcolm had drawn new plans: the original house had been two stories, a modernist saltbox, but the new house was a single level and mostly glass. He had offered to pay for it, but Willem had refused. They argued back and forth, Willem pointing out that he wasn’t contributing anything toward the maintenance of Greene Street, and he pointing out that he didn’t care. “Jude,” Willem said at last, “we’ve never fought about money. Let’s not start now.” And he knew Willem was right: their friendship had never been measured by money. They had never talked about money when they hadn’t had any—he had always considered whatever he earned Willem’s as well—and now that they had it, he felt the same way.

于是他們又跟馬爾科姆碰面，馬爾科姆畫出新的設計圖。原來的房子是一棟兩層樓的現(xiàn)代主義坡頂鹽盒式房屋，但新的房子是一層樓，大部分都是玻璃。他提出他要出錢，但威廉拒絕了。他們爭辯了半天。威廉指出格林街公寓的維修費用他從來沒分攤過，他說他不在乎?！棒玫?，”威廉最后說，“我們從來沒為錢吵過，就不要破這個例吧。”他知道威廉說得沒錯：他們的友誼從來不是用錢衡量的。他們沒錢時從來不談錢（他總覺得無論自己賺多少，那些錢也是威廉的），現(xiàn)在他們有錢了，他的感覺還是一樣。

　 Eight months ago, when Malcolm was breaking ground, he and Willem had gone up to the property and had wandered around it. He had been feeling unusually well that day, and had even allowed Willem to hold his hand as they walked down the gentle hill that sloped from where the house would sit, and then left, toward the forest that held the lake in its embrace. The forest was denser than they had imagined, the ground so thick with pine needles that their every footfall sank, as if the earth beneath them was made of something rubbery and squashy and pumped half full of air. It was difficult terrain for him, and he grasped Willem’s hand in earnest, but when Willem asked him if he wanted to stop, he shook his head. About twenty minutes later, when they were almost halfway around the lake, they came to a clearing that looked like something out of a fairy tale, the sky above them all dark green fir tops, the floor beneath them that same soft pelt of the trees’ leavings. They stopped then, looking around them, quiet until Willem said, “We should just build it here,” and he smiled, but inside him something wrenched, a feeling like his entire nervous system was being tugged out of his navel, because he was remembering that other forest he had once thought he’d live in, and was realizing that he was to finally have it after all: a house in the woods, with water nearby, and someone who loved him. And then he shuddered, a tremor that rippled its way through his body, and Willem looked at him. “Are you cold?” he asked. “No,” he said, “but let’s keep walking,” and so they had.

八個月前，馬爾科姆破土動工了。當時他和威廉北上，在這片土地上漫游。那天他感覺出奇的好，甚至讓威廉牽著他的手從房子的工地走下緩坡，然后左轉，朝環(huán)繞湖泊的森林走去。那片森林比他們想象的更濃密，滿地厚厚的松針讓他們每一步都往下陷，好像腳下的土地是某種有彈性、柔軟、灌了一半空氣的東西。這片地形對他來說并不好走，他認真握緊威廉的手，但威廉問他要不要停下休息時，他搖了搖頭。大約走了二十分鐘，環(huán)湖快一半，他們來到一片宛如出自童話的林間空地，上方的天空充滿墨綠色的冷杉樹頂，腳下則是同樣厚而柔軟的落葉。他們在此停了下來，默默看著四周，最后威廉說：“我們應該把房子蓋在這里。”他微笑，但心底有個東西猛地一扯，仿佛他整個神經系統(tǒng)都被人從肚臍拉出來，因為他想起另一片森林，他小時候以為會去住的那個，這才明白自己的愿望終于實現(xiàn)了：樹林里的一棟房子，附近有水，還有個愛他的人。他打了個寒噤，顫抖躥遍全身，威廉看著他?！澳憷鋯?？”他問?！安焕?，”他說，“我們繼續(xù)走吧?！庇谑撬麄兙碗x開了。

　 Since then, he has avoided the woods, but he loves coming up to the site, and is enjoying working with Malcolm again. He or Willem go up every other weekend, though he knows Malcolm prefers it when he goes, because Willem is largely uninterested in the details of the project. He trusts Malcolm, but Malcolm doesn’t want trust: he wants someone to show the silvery, stripey marble he’s found from a small quarry outside Izmir and argue about how much of it is too much; and to make smell the cypress from Gifu that he’s sourced for the bathroom tub; and to examine the objects—hammers; wrenches; pliers—he’s embedded like trilobites in the poured concrete floors. Aside from the house and the garage, there is an outdoor pool and, in the barn, an indoor pool: the house will be done in a little more than three months, the pool and barn by the following spring.

自此開始，他總是避開那些樹林，但他喜歡來到這片土地，也很開心跟馬爾科姆再度合作。每隔一周，他或威廉就會來這里看一下，但他知道馬爾科姆比較喜歡他來，因為威廉對項目的細節(jié)大都沒興趣。威廉信任馬爾科姆，但馬爾科姆不想要信任：他想要有個人讓他炫耀他在土耳其伊茲密爾外一個小采礦場找到的那種帶銀色條紋的大理石，然后跟他爭辯太貴有多貴；他想要有個人聞聞他找來當浴缸的那塊岐阜[1]柏木；來檢視像三葉蟲般嵌在水泥地板的種種物件——槌子、扳手、鉗子等。除了房子和車庫，這里有戶外游泳池，谷倉里還有一座室內游泳池：房子大約三個月后會完工，池塘和谷倉則會在明年春天前完成。

　 Now he walks through the house with Malcolm, running his hands over its surfaces, listening to Malcolm instruct the contractor on everything that needs fixing. As always, he is impressed watching Malcolm at work: he never tires of watching any of his friends at work, but Malcolm’s transformation has been the most gratifying to witness, more so than even Willem’s. In these moments, he remembers how carefully and meticulously Malcolm built his imaginary houses, and with such seriousness; once, when they were sophomores, JB had (accidentally, he claimed later) set one on fire when he was high, and Malcolm had been so angry and hurt that he had almost started crying. He had followed Malcolm as he ran out of Hood, and had sat with him on the library steps in the cold. “I know it’s silly,” Malcolm had said after he’d calmed down. “But they mean something to me.”

現(xiàn)在他跟著馬爾科姆走過屋子，雙手摸過各種表面，聽著馬爾科姆指揮承造商解決各式各樣的事情。一如往常，觀察馬爾科姆工作總是令他嘆為觀止：他總是看不厭朋友工作，但目睹馬爾科姆的轉變讓他最有滿足感，比威廉猶有過之。在這些時刻，他就會想起馬爾科姆以前是多么小心、一絲不茍地制作想象中的房子模型，而且是那么認真；大二那年，有一回杰比嗑藥嗑多了，放火燒掉一個房屋模型（他后來宣稱是不小心的），馬爾科姆又氣又傷心，差點當場哭出來。他追著馬爾科姆跑出虎德館，在寒風中陪他坐在圖書館前的階梯上。“我知道這樣很蠢，”馬爾科姆冷靜下來后，說，“但是那些模型對我是有意義的。”

　 “I know,” he’d said. He had always loved Malcolm’s houses; he still has the first one Malcolm ever made him all those years ago, for his seventeenth birthday. “It’s not silly.” He knew what the houses meant to Malcolm: they were an assertion of control, a reminder that for all the uncertainties of his life, there was one thing that he could manipulate perfectly, that would always express what he was unable to in words. “What does Malcolm have to worry about?” JB would ask them when Malcolm was anxious about something, but he knew: he was worried because to be alive was to worry. Life was scary; it was unknowable. Even Malcolm’s money wouldn’t immunize him completely. Life would happen to him, and he would have to try to answer it, just like the rest of them. They all—Malcolm with his houses, Willem with his girlfriends, JB with his paints, he with his razors—sought comfort, something that was theirs alone, something to hold off the terrifying largeness, the impossibility, of the world, of the relentlessness of its minutes, its hours, its days.

“我知道?！彼f。他一直很喜歡馬爾科姆做的房子模型，到現(xiàn)在還留著多年前馬爾科姆做給他的第一個，是他17歲的生日禮物。“這樣并不蠢。”他知道那些房子對馬爾科姆的意義：它們是一種控制權，提醒他，盡管他人生中有種種不確定，有一件事是他完全可以操控、永遠可以表達言語無法說出的?！榜R爾科姆有什么好擔心的？”杰比看到馬爾科姆焦慮時，就會這么問他們，但是他懂：馬爾科姆擔心是因為活著本來就要擔心。人生很可怕；人生是不可知的。即使馬爾科姆家那么有錢，也不能讓他完全免疫。人生會丟出種種意外難題給他，他得試著回答，就像他們其他人一樣。他們全都以自己的方式在尋求舒適感——馬爾科姆用他的房子、威廉用他的女朋友、杰比用他的畫筆、他用他的刮胡刀片——這些東西只屬于他們，可以用來抵抗這個廣闊得令人膽寒、難以面對的世界，以及其中持續(xù)不斷的每一分鐘、每一小時、每一天。

　 These days, Malcolm works on fewer and fewer residences; in fact, they see far less of him than they once did. Bellcast now has offices in London and Hong Kong, and although Malcolm handles most of the American business—he is now planning a new wing of the museum at their old college—he is increasingly scarce. But he has overseen their house himself, and he has never missed or rescheduled one of their appointments. As they leave the property, he puts his hand on Malcolm’s shoulder. “Mal,” he says, “I can’t thank you enough,” and Malcolm smiles. “This is my favorite project, Jude,” he says. “For my favorite people.”

這幾年，馬爾科姆越來越少接住宅設計了；事實上，他們看到馬爾科姆的機會少了很多。鐘模如今在倫敦和香港都有分公司，盡管馬爾科姆負責大部分的美國業(yè)務（他正在為他們大學母校的博物館設計一棟新的翼樓），但已經越來越難分身了。不過他們的房子，馬爾科姆還是親自監(jiān)督，而且每次相約來視察時從不失約，也從不改期。他們離開工地前，他一手放在馬爾科姆的肩膀上。“馬爾，”他說，“我怎么謝你都不夠。”馬爾科姆聽了微笑：“這是我最喜歡的項目，裘德，”他說，“而且是設計給我最喜歡的人?！?

　 Back in the city, he drops Malcolm off in Cobble Hill and then drives over the bridge and north, to his office. This is the final piece of pleasure he finds in Willem’s absences: because it means he can stay at work later, and longer. Without Lucien, work is simultaneously more and less enjoyable—less, because although he still sees Lucien, who has retired to a life of, as he says, pretending to enjoy golf in Connecticut, he misses talking to him daily, misses Lucien’s attempts to appall and provoke him; more, because he has found that he enjoys chairing the department, that he enjoys being on the firm’s compensation committee, deciding how the company’s profits will be divvied up each year. “Who knew you were such a powermonger, Jude?” Lucien asked him when he admitted this, and he had protested: it wasn’t that, he told Lucien—it was that he took satisfaction in seeing what had actually been brought in each year, how his hours and days at the office—his and everyone else’s—had translated themselves into numbers, and then those numbers into cash, and then that cash into the stuff of his colleagues’ lives: their houses and tuitions and vacations and cars. (He didn’t tell Lucien this part. Lucien would think he was being romantic, and there would be a wry, ironic lecture on his tendency toward sentimentalism.)

回到紐約市區(qū)，他先送馬爾科姆到布魯克林科布爾山的家，然后往北過橋回曼哈頓，到自己的辦公室去。這是他發(fā)現(xiàn)威廉不在所帶來的最后一部分樂趣：因為這表示他可以加班到更晚、工作時間更久。沒了呂西安，他的工作變得更愉快，也更不愉快——更不愉快，是因為他還是常?？吹絽挝靼玻皇撬呀浲诵萘?，而且一如他自己說的，假裝很享受在康涅狄格州打高爾夫球的生活。他很想念每天跟呂西安談話，想念呂西安總是想嚇他或挑釁他；更愉快，則是因為他發(fā)現(xiàn)自己很喜歡主持這個部門，很喜歡成為事務所里薪酬委員會的一分子，可以決定公司每一年的利潤如何分配。有回他跟呂西安承認這一點，呂西安問他：“裘德，誰知道你居然這么喜歡玩弄權力啊？”他抗議：不是這樣的。他告訴呂西安，他的滿足感來自看著每年實際賺進多少錢、看著他和其他人花在公司的時間轉化為數(shù)字，然后這些數(shù)字變成錢，這些錢再變成同事生活中的東西：他們的房子、學費、假期、汽車（最后這部分他沒告訴呂西安，因為呂西安會覺得他太浪漫了，又會挖苦地批評他多愁善感的傾向）。

　 Rosen Pritchard had always been important to him, but after Caleb it had become essential. In his life at the firm, he was assessed only by the business he secured, by the work he did: there, he had no past, he had no deficiencies. His life there began with where he had gone to law school and what he had done there; it ended with each day’s accomplishments, with each year’s tallies of billable hours, with each new client he could attract. At Rosen Pritchard, there was no room for Brother Luke, or Caleb, or Dr. Traylor, or the monastery, or the home; they were irrelevant, they were extraneous details, they had nothing to do with the person he had created for himself. There, he wasn’t someone who cowered in the bathroom, cutting himself, but instead a series of numbers: one number to signify how much money he brought in, and another for the number of hours he billed; a third representing how many people he oversaw, a fourth for how much he rewarded them. It was something he had never been able to explain to his friends, who marveled at and pitied him for how much he worked; he could never tell them that it was at that office, surrounded by work and people he knew they found almost stultifyingly dull, that he felt at his most human, his most dignified and invulnerable.

羅森·普理查德律師事務所對他來說一直很重要，而在跟凱萊布的那一段結束后，就變得更不可或缺。他在事務所的這部分人生中，評估他價值的，純粹是他完成的業(yè)務，以及他所做的工作。在事務所里，他沒有過去，沒有缺陷。他在那里的人生始自他上的是哪一所法學院、在里頭做了什么，止于他每天達到的成就、每年的工時，以及他吸引到的新客戶。在羅森·普理查德，沒有給盧克修士、凱萊布、特雷勒醫(yī)生、修道院或少年之家的空間；那些都是不相干的，都是無關的細節(jié)，跟他為自己創(chuàng)造出來的這個大律師形象一點邊也扯不上。在羅森·普理查德，他不是那個躲在浴室里割自己的人，而是一連串數(shù)字：一個數(shù)字代表他為事務所賺了多少錢，另一個數(shù)字是他的工時，第三個數(shù)字代表他管理的員工數(shù)量，第四個數(shù)字是他獎勵他們的分紅。這種事情他從來沒辦法跟好友們解釋，他們對于他的工作量既驚嘆又同情。他永遠沒辦法告訴他們，只有在那個辦公室里，被工作和那些人（他知道他的朋友認為這些人簡直呆滯又乏味）環(huán)繞，才是他自覺最像個人、最有尊嚴、最不脆弱的時候。