《渺小一生》:他這輩子最后一次自己走路

　 The last time in his life he would walk on his own—really walk: not just edging along the wall from one room to the next; not shuffling down the hallways of Rosen Pritchard; not inching his way through the lobby to the garage, sinking into the car seat with a groan of relief—had been their Christmas vacation. He was forty-six. They were in Bhutan: a good choice, he would later realize, for his final sustained spell of walking (although of course he hadn’t known that at the time), because it was a country in which everyone walked. The people they met there, including an old acquaintance of theirs from college, Karma, who was now the minister of forestry, spoke of walking not in terms of kilometers but in terms of hours. “Oh yes,” Karma had said, “when my father was growing up, he used to walk four hours to visit his aunt on the weekends. And then he would walk four hours back home.” He and Willem had marveled at this, although later, they had also agreed: the countryside was so pretty, a series of swooping, treed parabolas, the sky above a thin clear blue, that time spent walking here must move more quickly and pleasantly than time spent walking anywhere else.

他這輩子最后一次自己走路，是圣誕假期時。那是真正的走路：不光是沿著墻壁從這個房間慢慢挪到下一個房間；不是在羅森·普理查德律師事務(wù)所的走廊上拖著腳步；不是從公寓大廳一點一點移動到車庫，然后發(fā)出放心的哀嘆倒在車?yán)?。?dāng)時他46歲。他們在不丹。后來他才明白，在這里度過他最后一段行走的時期，是很好的選擇（當(dāng)時他自然還不知道），因為這個國家人人都走路。他們在那里碰到的人（包括大學(xué)時代的舊識、現(xiàn)在是林業(yè)部長的卡瑪）談起走路都不是講走了幾公里，而是講走了幾小時?！鞍?，沒錯。”卡瑪說，“我父親小時候常常周末走四小時去拜訪他的姑媽，再走四小時回家。”他和威廉聽了驚嘆不已，不過后來他們也同意：這里的鄉(xiāng)間太漂亮了，一連串陡降、充滿樹林的拋物線，上方的天空是清朗的淺藍(lán)色，在這里走路，一定比在其他地方都要走得快，更充滿愉悅。

　 He hadn’t felt at his best on that trip, although at least he was mobile. In the months before, he had been feeling weaker, but not in any truly specifiable way, not in any way that seemed to suggest some greater problem. He simply lost energy faster; he was achey instead of sore, a dull, constant thud of pain that followed him into sleep and was there to greet him when he woke. It was the difference, he told Andy, between a month speckled by thundershowers and a month in which it rained daily: not heavily but ceaselessly, a kind of dreary, enervating discomfort. In October, he’d had to use his wheelchair every day, which had been the most consecutive days he had ever been dependent on it. In November, although he had been well enough to make Thanksgiving dinner at Harold’s, he had been in too much pain to actually sit at the table to eat it, and he had spent the evening in his bedroom, lying as still as he could, semi-aware of Harold and Willem and Julia coming in to check on him, semi-aware of his apologizing for ruining the holiday for them, semi-aware of the muted conversation among the three of them and Laurence and Gillian, James and Carey, that he half heard coming from the dining room. After that, Willem had wanted to cancel their trip, but he had insisted, and he was glad he had—for he felt there was something restorative about the beauty of the landscape, about the cleanliness and quiet of the mountains, about getting to see Willem surrounded by streams and trees, which was always where he looked most comfortable.

那趟旅行，他覺得自己并沒有處于巔峰狀態(tài)，不過至少還走得動。之前幾個月，他覺得越來越虛弱，但沒有任何特別的征兆，看不出會有什么更大的問題。他只是很快就失去了活力；身上的酸痛變成疼痛，一種不太強烈、持續(xù)的抽痛，每天從起床就開始跟著他，直到入睡。這種差別，他告訴安迪，就像是一個月有零星的雷陣雨，以及一個月每天都下著小雨：不強烈但持續(xù)不斷，是一種令人沮喪、令人衰弱的不舒服。十月的時候，他每天都得使用輪椅，是他連續(xù)使用輪椅最長的一段時間。到了十一月，他好轉(zhuǎn)了一些，可以去哈羅德家趕上感恩節(jié)晚餐，但他痛得沒法上桌，整個晚上都待在臥室里，盡可能躺著不動。他模糊地意識到哈羅德、威廉和朱麗婭輪流進(jìn)來看他，自己還為破壞了他們的假期而道歉，也依稀聽到他們?nèi)撕蛣趥愃古c吉莉安、詹姆斯與凱瑞從餐廳傳來的低聲交談。之后，威廉本來想取消這趟不丹之旅的，但他堅持要去，而且他很慶幸他們?nèi)チ耍驗樗X得去那里會有恢復(fù)健康的效果：那里的美麗風(fēng)景，那些高山的清新與安靜，而且還可以看著威廉置身溪流和樹林之間——威廉在大自然里看起來總是特別自在。

　 It was a good vacation, but by the end, he was ready to leave. One of the reasons he had been able to convince Willem that they could go on this trip at all was because his friend Elijah, who now ran a hedge fund that he represented, was going on holiday to Nepal with his family, and they caught flights both from and back to New York on his plane. He had worried that Elijah might be in a talkative mood, but he hadn’t been, and he had slept, gratefully, almost the entire way home, his feet and back blazing with pain.

那是個美好的假期，但結(jié)束時，他已經(jīng)準(zhǔn)備好要離開了。他一開始能說服威廉成行的原因之一，就是他們的朋友伊利亞（現(xiàn)在主持并操作一個對沖基金）正好跟家人去尼泊爾度假，他們來回紐約都是順道搭他的私人飛機。他本來擔(dān)心伊利亞在飛機上會很想講話，但結(jié)果沒有?；爻虝r，他很慶幸自己幾乎都在睡覺，兩腳和背痛得灼熱。

　 The day after they returned to Greene Street he couldn’t lift himself out of bed. He was in such distress that his body seemed to be one long exposed nerve, frayed at either end; he had the sense that if he were to be touched with a drop of water, his entire being would sizzle and hiss in response. He was rarely so exhausted, so sore that he couldn’t even sit up, and he could tell that Willem—around whom he made a particular effort, so he wouldn’t worry—was alarmed, and he had to plead with him not to call Andy. “All right,” Willem had said, reluctantly, “but if you’re not better by tomorrow, I’m calling him.” He nodded, and Willem sighed. “Dammit, Jude,” he said, “I knew we shouldn’t’ve gone.”

他們回到格林街公寓的次日，他根本下不了床。痛得好像整個身體是一條長長的、裸露的神經(jīng)，兩端都磨損了；他感覺只要有一滴水掉到他身上，整個人就會嘶嘶作響。他很少這么疲倦、酸痛到根本坐不起來，而且他看得出威廉非?？只拧谕媲翱倳貏e努力，免得害他擔(dān)心。他還得懇求威廉不要打電話給安迪?！昂冒桑蓖磺樵傅卣f，“可是如果你明天沒有好轉(zhuǎn)，我就要打給他了?！彼c點頭，威廉嘆氣?！霸撍?，裘德，”他說，“我就知道我們不該去的?！?

　 But the next day, he was better: better enough to get out of bed, at least. He couldn’t walk; all day, his legs and feet and back felt as if they were being driven through with iron bolts, but he made himself smile and talk and move about, though when Willem left the room or turned away from him, he could feel his face drooping with fatigue.

但次日，他好轉(zhuǎn)了，至少可以下床了，只是還沒辦法走路；一整天，他的腿和腳都像是有螺絲朝里鉆，但他還是逼自己微笑、談話、到處移動，不過當(dāng)威廉離開房間或轉(zhuǎn)開身子，他可以感覺到自己的臉疲倦得垮下來。

　 And then that was how it was, and they both grew used to it: although he now needed his wheelchair daily, he tried to walk every day for as much as he could, even if it was just to the bathroom, and he was careful about conserving his energy. When he was cooking, he made certain he had everything assembled on the counter in front of him before he started so he wouldn’t have to keep going back and forth to the refrigerator; he turned down invitations to dinners, parties, openings, fund-raisers, telling people, telling Willem that he had too much work to attend them, but really he came home and wheeled his way slowly across the apartment, the punishingly large apartment, stopping to rest when he needed to, dozing in bed so he’d have enough life in him to talk to Willem when he returned.

情況就變成這樣，他們兩個也逐漸習(xí)慣了。雖然現(xiàn)在每天都要坐輪椅，他還是盡量多走些路，即使只是走去浴室，而且他會小心保留體力。做飯時，他會確保開始之前把所有東西放在面前的料理臺上，免得總是要去冰箱拿；他拒絕了晚餐、派對、開幕儀式、募款餐會的邀約，跟邀請的人和威廉說他工作忙得分不開身，但其實他只是回家，坐在輪椅上緩緩地在公寓里移動。這間公寓大得令人精疲力竭，累了他就停下來休息，然后躺在床上小睡。這樣等到威廉回來時，他才有足夠的精力聊天。

　 At the end of January he finally went to see Andy, who listened to him and then examined him, carefully. “There’s nothing wrong with you, as such,” he said when he was finished. “You’re just getting older.”

到了一月底，他終于去見安迪了。安迪聽了他描述的狀況，仔細(xì)幫他檢查?！按_切地說，你沒有什么不對勁?！卑驳蠙z查之后說，“你只是年紀(jì)大了而已?！?

　 “Oh,” he said, and they were both quiet, for what was there for them to say? “Well,” he said, at last, “maybe I’ll get so weak that I’ll be able to convince Willem I don’t have the energy to go to Loehmann any longer,” because one night that fall he had—stupidly, drunkenly, romantically even—promised Willem he’d see Dr. Loehmann for another nine months.

“喔，”他說，兩個人都沉默了，不然還能說什么？“唔，”最后他終于說，“或許我會虛弱到可以說服威廉，說我沒有力氣再去婁曼醫(yī)生那邊了?！币驗槟悄昵锾煊幸灰?，他喝醉了發(fā)傻，甚至有點太過浪漫，答應(yīng)威廉他會再去婁曼醫(yī)生那邊九個月。

　 Andy had sighed but had smiled, too. “You’re such a brat,” he said.

安迪嘆了氣，但也露出微笑?！澳阏娴暮芷ぁ！卑驳险f。

　 Now, though, he thinks back on this period fondly, for in every other way that mattered, that winter was a glorious time. In December, Willem had been nominated for a major award for his work in The Poisoned Apple; in January, he won it. Then he was nominated again, for an even bigger and more prestigious award, and again, he won. He had been in London on business the night Willem won, but had set his alarm for two a.m. so he could wake and watch the ceremony online; when Willem’s name was called, he shouted out loud, watched Willem, beaming, kiss Julia—whom he had brought as his date—and bound up the stairs to the stage, listened as he thanked the filmmakers, the studio, Emil, Kit, Alan Turing himself, Roman and Cressy and Richard and Malcolm and JB, and “my in-laws, Julia Altman and Harold Stein, for always making me feel like I was their son as well, and, finally and most important, Jude St. Francis, my best friend and the love of my life, for everything.” He’d had to stop himself from crying then, and when he got through to Willem half an hour later, he had to stop himself again. “I’m so proud of you, Willem,” he said. “I knew you would win, I knew it.”

現(xiàn)在，他充滿深情地回想這段時期，因為就其他每個重要的方面而言，那個冬天都是一段燦爛的時光。十二月，威廉因為《毒蘋果》的演出被一個重要的電影獎提名；一月，他得獎了。接著他獲得另一個更重要、更有威望的電影獎提名，而且又得獎了。威廉得獎的那天晚上，他剛好去倫敦出差，但是設(shè)了凌晨2點的鬧鐘，好爬起來看在線實況轉(zhuǎn)播；當(dāng)頒獎人宣布威廉的名字時，他大喊出聲，看著威廉滿臉笑容地吻了陪他出席的朱麗婭，走上階梯來到舞臺，聽著威廉謝謝制片和導(dǎo)演、電影公司、埃米爾、基特、艾倫·圖靈本人，還有羅蒙、克雷西、理查德、馬爾科姆、杰比，還有“我的岳父母哈羅德·斯坦和朱麗婭·阿特曼，他們總是讓我覺得我也是他們的兒子，還有最后也最重要的，謝謝裘德·圣弗朗西斯，我最好的朋友、我畢生的摯愛。謝謝你給我的一切”。他當(dāng)時勉強忍著沒哭，等到半個小時后終于跟威廉聯(lián)絡(luò)上時，他又得忍著哭。“我真是以你為榮，威廉?！彼f，“我就知道你會得獎，我就知道?！?

　 “You always think that,” Willem laughed, and he laughed too, because Willem was right: he always did. He always thought Willem deserved to win awards for whatever he was nominated for; on the occasions he didn’t, he was genuinely perplexed—politics and preferences aside, how could the judges, the voters, deny what was so obviously a superior performance, a superior actor, a superior person?

“你總是覺得我會得獎。”威廉大笑，他也笑了，因為威廉說得沒錯：他總是這么想。他總覺得威廉不管被提名什么，都應(yīng)該得獎；要是沒有，他就真的很困惑——不管政治和偏好，那些評審或投票者，怎么可以否定那么優(yōu)秀的表演、那么優(yōu)秀的演員、那么優(yōu)秀的人？

　 In his meetings the next morning—in which he had to stop himself from not crying, but smiling, dopily and incessantly—his colleagues congratulated him and asked him again why he hadn’t gone to the ceremony, and he had shaken his head. “Those things aren’t for me,” he said, and they weren’t; of all the awards shows, all the premieres, all the parties that Willem went to for work, he had attended only two or three. This past year, when Willem was being interviewed by a serious, literary magazine for a long profile, he vanished whenever he knew the writer would be present. He knew Willem wasn’t offended by this, that he attributed his scarcity to his sense of privacy. And while this was true, it wasn’t the only reason.

次日早晨開會時，他得忍著別哭，而是愚蠢地不斷微笑。他的同事紛紛向他道賀，再度問他為什么沒去參加頒獎典禮，他搖搖頭。“那些事情不適合我?！彼f，也的確如此。所有的頒獎典禮、首映會，所有威廉工作上要參加的派對，他只參加過兩三次。過去一年，威廉曾接受某個嚴(yán)肅文學(xué)雜志的專訪，要做長篇的特寫報道，只要是那個作者要出現(xiàn)的場合，他就會避開。他知道威廉沒有不高興，他把他避免露面歸因于他重視隱私。這也沒有錯，但其實不是唯一的原因。

　 Once, shortly after they had become a couple, there had been a picture of them that had run with a Times story about Willem and the first installment he had completed in a spy movie trilogy. The photo had been taken at the opening of JB’s fifth, long-delayed show, “Frog and Toad,” which had been exclusively images of the two of them, but very blurred, and much more abstract than JB’s previous work. (They hadn’t quite known what to think of the series title, though JB had claimed it was affectionate. “Arnold Lobel?” he had screeched at them when they asked him about it. “Hello?!” But neither he nor Willem had read Lobel’s books as children, and they’d had to go out and buy them to make sense of the reference.) Curiously, it had been this show, even more than the initial New York magazine story about Willem’s new life, that had made their relationship real for their colleagues and peers, despite the fact that most of the paintings had been made from photographs taken before they had become a couple.

他們成為一對之后不久，《紐約時報》曾刊登過一篇有關(guān)威廉的報道，談到他剛拍完一系列間諜電影三部曲的第一部，配了一張他們兩個人的照片。那張照片是在杰比拖延許久的第五次個展“青蛙與蟾蜍”的開幕酒會上拍的，展覽里的畫作全都是畫他和威廉，但非常模糊，而且比起杰比之前的作品都更抽象（對于這個展覽的標(biāo)題他們不知該做何感想，盡管杰比宣稱這個標(biāo)題充滿深情。他們問起時，杰比對著他們尖叫：“阿諾德·洛貝爾[2]？聽過嗎？！”但他和威廉小時候都沒看過洛貝爾的童書，還得跑去買，才能搞懂這個典故）。奇怪的是，這個展覽讓他的同事和同輩真正知道他們是一對，甚至比當(dāng)初一開始報道威廉新生活的《紐約》雜志還要有影響力，盡管展覽中大部分畫作依據(jù)的照片，都是他們在一起之前拍的。

　 It was also this show that would mark, as JB later said, his ascendancy: they knew that despite his sales, his reviews, his fellowships and accolades, he was tormented that Richard had had a mid-career museum retrospective (as had Asian Henry Young), and he hadn’t. But after “Frog and Toad,” something shifted for JB, the way that The Sycamore Court had shifted things for Willem, the way that the Doha museum had shifted things for Malcolm, even the way—if he was to be boastful—that the Malgrave and Baskett suit had shifted things for him. It was only when he stepped outside his firmament of friends that he realized that that shift, that shift they had all hoped for and received, was rarer and more precious than they even knew. Of all of them, only JB had been certain that he deserved that shift, that it was absolutely going to happen for him; he and Malcolm and Willem had had no such certainty, and so when it was given to them, they were befuddled. But although JB had had to wait the longest for his life to change, he was calm when it finally did—something in him seemed to become defanged; he became, for the first time since they had known him, mellowed, and the constant prickly humor that fizzed off of him like static was demagnetized and quieted. He was glad for JB; he was glad he now had the kind of recognition he wanted, the kind of recognition he thought JB should have received after “Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days.”

這個展覽也將證實（一如杰比后來所說的）杰比的優(yōu)越地位：他們都知道杰比的作品銷售狀況很好，獲得很正面的評論，而且得到了許多獎金和榮譽，但他一直很介意理查德被美術(shù)館邀請辦過生涯中期的回顧展（亞裔亨利·楊也有），他自己卻沒有。但是在“青蛙與蟾蜍”之后，事態(tài)有了根本的轉(zhuǎn)變，就像《梧桐法院》是威廉事業(yè)上的突破點，多哈博物館是馬爾科姆事業(yè)上的突破點，如果他自夸一點，馬格瑞夫與貝斯凱的訴訟案也是他事業(yè)上的突破點。直到他踏出了朋友圈，才明白這個突破（他們都期望過并且終于得到）比他們原先以為的更罕見，也更珍貴。在他們四個人之中，只有杰比確定自己應(yīng)該得到這樣的突破，這樣的事情一定會發(fā)生在自己身上；他和馬爾科姆和威廉從來沒有這樣的確定感，所以當(dāng)這個突破發(fā)生在他們身上時，他們都糊里糊涂的。盡管這樣的轉(zhuǎn)機，杰比等得最久，但終于等到時，他相當(dāng)冷靜，身上的一些棱角似乎被磨平了；認(rèn)識杰比這么久，這是他們第一次覺得他變得圓滑，那種長年帶刺的幽默感從杰比身上消失了，仿佛靜電被消磁，總算安靜下來。他很替杰比高興；他很高興杰比現(xiàn)在終于得到了自己想要的認(rèn)可，而且他認(rèn)為在“秒，分，時，日”那次個展后，杰比就該得到認(rèn)可了。

　 “The question is which one of us is the frog and which is the toad,” Willem had said after they’d first seen the show, in JB’s studio, and read the kindhearted books to each other late that night, laughing helplessly as they did.

“問題是，我們兩個誰是青蛙、誰又是蟾蜍？”威廉說。他們第一次看那個展覽的作品，是在杰比的工作室，那天深夜他們買了那幾本童書回家念給對方聽，一邊念一邊忍不住大笑。

　 He’d smiled; they had been lying in bed. “Obviously, I’m the toad,” he said.

他微笑；此時他們躺在床上。“很明顯啊，我是蟾蜍。”他說。

　 “No,” Willem said, “I think you’re the frog; your eyes are the same color as his skin.”

“不，”威廉說，“我想你是青蛙；你眼珠的顏色跟它的皮膚一樣?！?

　 Willem sounded so serious that he grinned. “That’s your evidence?” he asked. “And so what do you have in common with the toad?”

威廉的口氣好認(rèn)真，聽得他咧嘴笑了。“那就是你的證據(jù)？”他問，“那你跟蟾蜍有什么共同點？”

　 “I think I actually have a jacket like the one he has,” Willem said, and they began laughing again.

“我想我有一件跟它一樣的夾克。”威廉說，他們又開始大笑。

　 But really, he knew: he was the toad, and seeing the picture in the Times of the two of them together had reminded him of this. He wasn’t so bothered by this for his own sake—he was trying to care less about his own anxieties—but for Willem’s, because he was aware of how mismatched, how distorted a couple they made, and he was embarrassed for him, and worried that his mere presence might be somehow harmful to Willem. And so he tried to stay away from him in public. He had always thought that Willem was capable of making him better, but over the years he feared: If Willem could make him better, didn’t that also mean that he could make Willem sick? And in the same way, if Willem could make him into someone less difficult to regard, couldn’t he also make Willem into something ugly? He knew this wasn’t logical, but he thought it anyway, and sometimes as they were getting ready to go out, he glimpsed himself in the bathroom mirror, his stupid, pleased expression, as absurd and grotesque as a monkey dressed in expensive clothes, and would want to punch the glass with his fist.

但其實他知道：他才是蟾蜍，看著《紐約時報》那張他們兩個合影的照片，他又想起了這件事。他不太為自己擔(dān)心（他現(xiàn)在盡量不要在乎自己的焦慮），而是為威廉擔(dān)心，因為他意識到他們是多么不相配、不正常的一對。他替威廉感到難為情，也擔(dān)心他光是出現(xiàn)，就可能會害到威廉。于是他設(shè)法避免跟威廉一起出現(xiàn)在公共場合。他總是覺得威廉有辦法讓他更好，但這些年來他一直擔(dān)心：如果威廉能讓他更好，那不就表示他會害威廉變糟？同樣的，如果威廉能讓他成為一個比較不礙眼的人，那他不也害威廉變丑了？他知道這個想法不合邏輯，但反正他就是這樣想。有時他們準(zhǔn)備好要出門時，他會在浴室的鏡子里看自己一眼，看著自己愚蠢、高興的表情，荒謬、怪誕得像只猴子穿上昂貴的衣服。他很想揍鏡子里的自己一拳。