Or perhaps his smile was his way of countering my reading tit for tat with the unstated suggestion that, much as he’d been caught trying to affect total casualness on the face of his offer, he too had found something to smile about in me—namely, the shrewd, devious, guilty pleasure I derived in finding so many imperceptible affinities between us. There may have been nothing there, and I might have invented the whole thing. But both of us knew what the other had seen. That evening, as we biked to the movie theater, I was—and I didn’t care to hide it—riding on air.
或者他的微笑可能是他以自己的方式以牙還牙地反制我的解讀,心照不宣地暗示:如同我識破他企圖若無其事提出邀約的表象,他也發(fā)現(xiàn)我因為明白彼此有這么多難以察覺的相似點而獲得那種精明、狡猾、罪惡的樂趣這點,覺得實在令人莞爾。這一切或許都不是真的,只是我無中生有的想象,但我們倆都知道對方看到了什么。當(dāng)晚,我們騎車去戲院時,我開心得像是飛翔在云端,而且一點兒也無意隱藏這樣的心情。
So, with so much insight, would he not have noticed the meaning behind my abrupt shrinking away from his hand? Not notice that I’d leaned into his grip? Not know that I didn’t want him to let go of me? Not sense that when he started massaging me, my inability to relax was my last refuge, my last defense, my last pretense, that I had by no means resisted, that mine was fake resistance, that I was incapable of resisting and would never want to resist, no matter what he did or asked me to do? Not know, as I sat on my bed that Sunday afternoon when no one was home except for the two of us and watched him enter my room and ask me why I wasn’t with the others at the beach, that if I refused to answer and simply shrugged my shoulders under his gaze, it was simply so as not to show that I couldn’t gather sufficient breath to speak, that if I so much as let out a sound it might be to utter a desperate confession or a sob—one or the other? Never, since childhood, had anyone brought me to such a pass. Bad allergy, I’d said. Me too, he replied. We probably have the same one. Again I shrugged my shoulders. He picked up my old teddy bear in one hand, turned its face toward him, and whispered something into its ear. Then, turning the teddy’s face to me and altering his voice, asked, “What’s wrong? You’re upset.” By then he must have noticed the bathing suit I was wearing. Was I wearing it lower than was decent? “Want to go for a swim?” he asked. “Later, maybe,” I said, echoing his word but also trying to say as little as possible before he’d spot I was out of breath. “Let’s go now.” He extended his hand to help me get up. I grabbed it and, turning on my side facing the wall away from him to prevent him from seeing me, I asked, “Must we?” This was the closest I would ever come to saying, Stay. Just stay with me. Let your hand travel wherever it wishes, take my suit off, take me, I won’t make a noise, won’t tell a soul, I’m hard and you know it, and if you won’t, I’ll take that hand of yours and slip it into my suit now and let you put as many fingers as you want inside me.
He wouldn’t have picked up on any of this?
既然他那么善于察言觀色,又怎么可能沒注意我為何唐突地躲開他雙手的撫觸?怎么可能沒注意到我已投身在他的掌握中?怎么可能不明白我不希望他放開我?怎么可能沒察覺他替我按摩時,我僵硬的身體是最后的避難所、我最后的反抗、我最后的偽裝,而我無論如何也不會抗拒,我只是假裝在抵抗,事實上我已經(jīng)無力抗拒也不想抗拒,無論他做什么、或要我做什么?那個周日下午,除了我們倆之外沒人在家,當(dāng)我坐在床上,看著他走進(jìn)我房間,問我怎么沒跟其他人去海邊而我沒有回答,只是在他的凝視下聳了聳肩——他怎么可能不知道那只不過是為了隱藏我已經(jīng)無法鼓足氣力說話的事實,只要我發(fā)出一點聲音,恐怕就會不顧一切向他告白,或者禁不住啜泣不止?從小到大,從來沒人讓我陷入這樣的困境。我拿過敏當(dāng)借口。他說他也是,我們或許有同樣的毛病。我又聳了聳肩。他一手抓起我的泰迪熊,把熊的臉轉(zhuǎn)向自己,在布偶耳邊低語幾句,接著把泰迪熊的臉轉(zhuǎn)向我,變了聲音問道:“怎么回事?你心情不好?”他一定注意到我只穿著泳褲——我的褲腰是否太低了?“想去游泳嗎?”他問。“回頭再說,或許吧。”我模仿他的措辭,也想在他發(fā)現(xiàn)我呼吸困難之前盡量少說話。“我們現(xiàn)在去吧。”他伸手要扶我站起來。我抓住他的手起身,卻轉(zhuǎn)身面對墻,避開他的視線。“非去不可嗎?”這已經(jīng)最接近我想說的。別去。留在這里陪我。任你的手隨意撫觸你想碰的地方;脫掉我的泳褲,占有我。我不會發(fā)出一絲聲音,不會告訴任何人……
他什么也沒察覺嗎?
《請以你的名字呼喚我》