《渺小一生》:然后：我該怎么辦？

　 “No,” Andy says. “If you ruin this, Jude—if you keep lying to someone who loves you, who really loves you, who has only ever wanted to see you exactly as you are—then you will only have yourself to blame. It will be your fault. And it’ll be your fault not because of who you are or what’s been done to you or the diseases you have or what you think you look like, but because of how you behave, because you won’t trust Willem enough to talk to him honestly, to extend to him the same sort of generosity and faith that he has always, always extended to you. I know you think you’re sparing him, but you’re not. You’re selfish. You’re selfish and you’re stubborn and you’re proud and you’re going to ruin the best thing that has happened to you. Don’t you understand that?”

“不，”安迪說，“如果你毀掉這段關系，裘德，如果你繼續(xù)對一個愛你的人撒謊，那你只能怪自己了；他真的很愛你，只想看到你真正的、本來的樣子。這會是你的錯。而且這個錯不是因為你這個人、你遭受過的經(jīng)歷、你得過的病，或是你自認的長相，而是因為你的行為，因為你不夠信任威廉，不肯老實跟他談。他一直、一直對你那么慷慨、那么有信心，你卻不肯給他同樣的慷慨和信心。我知道你以為你放過他，但其實沒有。你很自私。你不但自私，還頑固又驕傲，你就要搞砸你這輩子碰到過的最美好的事情了。你還不明白嗎？”

　 He is speechless for the second time that evening, and it is only when he begins, finally, to fall, so tired is he, that Andy reaches out and grabs him around his waist and the conversation ends.

他這天晚上第二度啞口無言，直到他累得要命，終于要倒下，安迪才伸手抱住他的腰。他們的談話到此結束。

　 He spends the next three nights in the hospital, at Andy’s insistence. During the day, he goes to work, and then he comes back in the evening and Andy readmits him. There are two plastic bags dangling above him, one for each arm. One, he knows, has only glucose in it. The second has something else, something that makes the pain furry and gentle and that makes sleep something inky and still, like the dark blue skies in a Japanese woodblock print of winter, all snow and a silent traveler wearing a woven-straw hat beneath.

接下來三個夜晚，在安迪的堅持下，他都在醫(yī)院度過。白天他去上班，晚上回到醫(yī)院，安迪重新幫他辦理住院。他上方掛著兩個輸液袋，分別輸入兩只手臂里。他知道其中一袋是葡萄糖，另一袋是別的，讓他的疼痛模糊并減輕，讓他的睡眠墨黑而安穩(wěn)，就像一幅日本木刻版畫中冬日的深藍色天空，大雪茫茫，下方有一個戴著草編帽的沉默旅人。

　 It is Friday. He returns home. Willem will be arriving at around ten that night, and although Mrs. Zhou has already cleaned, he wants to make certain there is no evidence, that he has hidden every clue, although without context, the clues—salt, matches, olive oil, paper towels—are not clues at all, they are symbols of their life together, they are things they both reach for daily.

星期五，他回到家。威廉會在晚上10點左右抵達。盡管周太太打掃過了，他還是想確認沒有任何證據(jù)、確認自己把所有的線索都藏好了。少了脈絡背景，各種線索（鹽、火柴、橄欖油、廚房紙巾）就根本不是線索了，只是他們共同生活的象征，是他們兩個人日常都可以拿到的東西而已。

　 He still hasn’t decided what he will do. He has until the following Sunday—he has begged nine extra days from Andy, has convinced him that because of the holidays, because they are driving to Boston next Wednesday for Thanksgiving, that he needs the time—to either tell Willem, or (although he doesn’t say this) to convince Andy to change his mind. Both scenarios seem equally impossible. But he will try anyway. One of the problems with having slept so much these past few nights is that he has had very little time to think about how he can negotiate this situation. He feels he has become a spectacle to himself, with all the beings who inhabit him—the ferret-like creature; the hyenas; the voices—watching to see what he will do, so they can judge him and scoff at him and tell him he’s wrong.

他還沒決定要怎么做。他跟安迪哀求多給他九天，說服他說因為假期，下周三他們就要開車去波士頓過感恩節(jié)，他需要多九天的時間。他還可以拖到下個星期天，要不告訴威廉，要不就說服安迪改變心意（他自然沒說出來）。兩種方案似乎同樣不可行，但總之他會嘗試。過去三個晚上睡得那么飽的麻煩之一，就是他沒有什么時間思索要怎么解決這個狀況。他覺得自己成了一副奇觀，所有寄居在他體內的活物——那個雪貂般的野獸、那些鬣狗、那些聲音——都等著看他會怎么做，然后它們就可以批判他、嘲笑他，跟他說他錯了。

　 He sits down on the living-room sofa to wait, and when he opens his eyes, Willem is sitting next to him, smiling at him and saying his name, and he puts his arms around him, careful not to let his left arm exert any pressure, and for that one moment, everything seems both possible—and indescribably difficult.

他坐在起居室的沙發(fā)上等待。當他睜開眼睛時，威廉坐在他旁邊微笑，輕喚他的名字。他伸出雙臂抱住他，小心地讓左手完全不要用力。那一刻一切似乎都有可能，但同時又困難得難以言喻。

　 How could I go on without this? he asks himself.

沒有這個，我怎么有辦法繼續(xù)下去？他問自己。

　 And then: What am I going to do?

然后：我該怎么辦？

　 Nine days, the voice inside him nags. Nine days. But he ignores it.

九天，他心里的聲音嘮叨著。九天。但是他不理會。

　 “Willem,” he says aloud, from within the huddle of Willem’s arms. “You’re home, you’re home.” He gives a long exhalation of air; hopes Willem doesn’t hear its shudder. “Willem,” he says again and again, letting his name fill his mouth. “Willem, Willem—you don’t know how much I missed you.”

“威廉，”他說，依然跟威廉相擁?！澳慊貋砹?，你回來了?！彼鲁鲆豢陂L氣；希望威廉沒聽到其中的顫抖。“威廉，”他說了一遍又一遍，讓那名字充滿他的口腔，“威廉，威廉——你不知道我有多么想念你?！?

　 The best part about going away is coming home. Who said that? Not him, but it might as well have been, he thinks as he moves through the apartment. It is noon: a Tuesday, and tomorrow they will drive to Boston.

離家外出最棒的一點，就是回家。這是誰說的？不是他，但是他也會說出同樣的話，他在公寓里走動時這么想。現(xiàn)在是星期二中午，明天他們就要開車去波士頓了。

　 If you love home—and even if you don’t—there is nothing quite as cozy, as comfortable, as delightful, as that first week back. That week, even the things that would irritate you—the alarm waahing from some car at three in the morning; the pigeons who come to clutter and cluck on the windowsill behind your bed when you’re trying to sleep in—seem instead reminders of your own permanence, of how life, your life, will always graciously allow you to step back inside of it, no matter how far you have gone away from it or how long you have left it.

如果你愛家（即使你不愛），再也沒有什么比得上歸來的第一個星期了——那么溫馨舒適、那么自在開心。那個星期，就連平常會讓他火大的事情——凌晨3點某輛汽車警報器的噪音；想睡覺時，床后頭那群擠在窗臺上咕咕叫的鴿子——似乎都轉為種種對你的提醒，讓你想到無論你原先離你的生活有多遠、離開多久，這不變的生活永遠會仁慈地允許你回來。

　 Also that week, the things you like anyway seem, in their very existence, to be worthy of celebration: the candied-walnut vendor on Crosby Street who always returns your wave as you jog past him; the falafel sandwich with extra pickled radish from the truck down the block that you woke up craving one night in London; the apartment itself, with its sunlight that lopes from one end to the other in the course of a day, with your things and food and bed and shower and smells.

在這個星期，你本來就喜歡的那些事物，只因為它們存在，就值得慶祝：克羅斯比街那個賣糖衣核桃的小販，每次你慢跑經(jīng)過時總會回應你的揮手；同一個街區(qū)上那輛快餐車賣的中東炸肉丸三明治夾著超多的腌白蘿卜，害你有天在倫敦半夜醒來想念得不得了；還有這間公寓本身，整個白天，陽光從這一頭緩緩移向另一頭，里面有你的東西、食物、床、淋浴間、氣味。

　 And, of course, there is the person you come back to: his face and body and voice and scent and touch, his way of waiting until you finish whatever you’re saying, no matter how lengthy, before he speaks, the way his smile moves so slowly across his face that it reminds you of moonrise, how clearly he has missed you and how clearly happy he is to have you back. Then there are the things, if you are particularly lucky, that this person has done for you while you’re away: how in the pantry, in the freezer, in the refrigerator will be all the food you like to eat, the scotch you like to drink. There will be the sweater you thought you lost the previous year at the theater, clean and folded and back on its shelf. There will be the shirt with its dangling buttons, but the buttons will be sewn back in place. There will be your mail stacked on one side of his desk; there will be a contract for an advertising campaign you’re going to do in Germany for an Austrian beer, with his notes in the margin to discuss with your lawyer. And there will be no mention of it, and you will know that it was done with genuine pleasure, and you will know that part of the reason—a small part, but a part—you love being in this apartment and in this relationship is because this other person is always making a home for you, and that when you tell him this, he won’t be offended but pleased, and you’ll be glad, because you meant it with gratitude. And in these moments—almost a week back home—you will wonder why you leave so often, and you will wonder whether, after the next year’s obligations are fulfilled, you ought not just stay here for a period, where you belong.

當然，還有等著你的那個人：他的臉、身體、聲音、氣味、觸摸，他會等你講完你想講的事情（無論多長），才會開口，他臉上緩緩綻開的微笑讓你想起月亮的升起，他多么清楚無疑地想念你，看到你回來又多么清楚無疑地開心。然后，如果你特別幸運的話，這個人還會在你離家時幫你做很多事：食品儲藏室、冷凍柜、冰箱里會充滿你愛吃的東西、你愛喝的蘇格蘭威士忌。你以為前一年在戲院搞丟的毛衣，會洗好、折好擺在你的衣柜里。那件扣子松掉的襯衫，上頭的扣子又縫得牢牢的。你的信件成疊擺在書桌的一端；你要去德國幫一個奧地利啤酒品牌代言的廣告活動合約幫你看好了，合約旁的空白處寫著一些給你律師的建議注記。而且不必提，你就知道這些事情都是他開開心心做好的，你會知道你喜歡住在這間公寓、喜歡這段伴侶關系的一部分原因（雖然只是一小部分，但也是一部分），是因為另一個人總是替你營造出家的感覺。當你這樣告訴他，他不會生氣而是開心，你也會很高興，因為你是真心感激。在這些時刻（回家近一星期了），你搞不懂自己為什么這么常離開，你會思忖，等下一年的合約履行完畢后，是否該多花點時間留在這個讓你有歸屬感的地方。

　 But you will also know—as he knows—that part of your constant leaving is reactive. After his relationship with Jude was made public, while he and Kit and Emil were waiting to see what would happen next, he had experienced that same insecurity that had visited him as a younger man: What if he never worked again? What if this was it? And although things had, he could now see, continued with almost no discernible hitch at all, it had taken him a year to be reassured that his circumstances hadn’t changed, that he was still as he had been, desirable to some directors and not to others (“Bullshit,” Kit had said, and he was grateful for him; “anyone would want to work with you”), and at any rate, the same actor, no better or worse, that he had been before.

但你也知道（他也知道），你總是離開的部分原因，是某種應變的對策。自從他和裘德的戀情公開后，雖然他、基特、埃米爾都等著看接下來會怎么樣，但他重新體會到年輕時代常有的那種不安全感：要是他再也接不到工作了呢？要是一切到此為止呢？盡管現(xiàn)在回頭看，他發(fā)現(xiàn)自己的事業(yè)其實還在繼續(xù)發(fā)展，幾乎看不出有任何影響，但他還是花了一年，才確定自己的處境沒有改變：跟以前一樣，有的導演喜歡找他，有的不喜歡（“狗屁，任何導演都想找你合作。”基特總是這樣說，他很感激他）。無論如何，他還是原來的那個演員，沒有比以往更好或更差。

　 But if he was allowed to be the same actor, he was not allowed to be the same person, and in the months after he was declared gay—and never refuted it; he didn’t have a publicist to issue these sorts of denials and avowals—he found himself in possession of more identities than he’d had in a very long time. For much of his adult life, he had been placed in circumstances that required the shedding of selves: no longer was he a brother; no longer was he a son. But with a single revelation, he had now become a gay man; a gay actor; a high-profile gay actor; a high-profile, nonparticipating gay actor; and, finally, a high-profile traitorous gay actor. A year or so ago he had gone to dinner with a director named Max whom he’d known for many years, and over dinner Max had tried to get him to give a speech at a gala dinner benefiting a gay-rights organization at which he would announce himself as gay. Willem had always supported this organization, and he told Max that although he would be pleased to present an award or sponsor a table—as he had every year for the past decade—he wouldn’t come out, because he didn’t believe there was anything to come out of: he wasn’t gay.

如果他被公認還是同樣的演員，但他并沒有被公認還是同樣的那個人。在他表明自己是同性戀之后（他從未否認，他沒有公關人員幫他發(fā)出這類否認或公開聲明），他發(fā)現(xiàn)自己好久沒有擁有這么多身份了。在成年的大部分時間里，他的處境讓他去除自己的種種身份：不再是一個兄弟；不再是一個兒子。但這回才揭露了一件私事，他就成了同性戀男子、同性戀演員、知名的同性戀演員，最后還成為知名又不忠的同性戀演員。大約一年前，他跟一個名叫麥克斯的導演吃晚餐，他們認識很多年了，晚餐時麥克斯想說服他在一個同性戀權利組織的慈善晚宴上演講，正式宣布自己是同性戀者。威廉向來支持這個組織，他告訴麥克斯，他很樂于頒獎或出錢贊助一桌（一如過去十年的每一年），但他不會公開出柜，因為他不認為這有什么好公開的——他不是同性戀者。

　 “Willem,” Max said, “you’re in a relationship, a serious relationship, with a man. That is the very definition of gay.”

“威廉，”麥克斯說，“你在談戀愛，很認真地跟一個男人交往。這就是同性戀的定義啊?！?

　 “I’m not in a relationship with a man,” he said, hearing how absurd the words were, “I’m in a relationship with Jude.”

“我沒在跟一個男人交往?！彼f，連自己都聽得出這話有多么荒謬，“我是在跟裘德交往?！?

　 “Oh my god,” Max muttered.

“啊，老天?！丙溈怂灌f。

　 He’d sighed. Max was sixteen years older than he; he had come of age in a time when identity politics were your very identity, and he understood Max’s—and the other people who pecked at and pleaded with him to come out, and then accused him of self-loathing, and cowardice, and hypocrisy, and denial, when he didn’t—arguments; he understood that he had come to represent something he had never asked to represent; he understood that whether he wanted this representation or not was almost incidental. But he still couldn’t do it.

他嘆氣。麥克斯比他大十六歲；在麥克斯成年的那個時代，身份政治就是你這個人，他也了解麥克斯的論點，還有其他人的論點，他們不斷抨擊或懇求他出柜，看他不出柜，就指控他自我厭惡，還有懦弱、偽善、否認；他領悟到自己開始代表他從來不想代表的身份；他領悟到，無論他想或不想要這種代表權，幾乎都是次要的。但他還是做不到。