《渺小一生》:“等你大一點(diǎn)。”

　 “Jude,” he began, but he didn’t know how to continue.

“裘德……”他起了頭，但不知道接著該說(shuō)什么。

　 “You’d better get them,” Jude said, and although each word came out as a gasp, he smiled at Willem again.

“你最好去救他們。”裘德說(shuō)。就算每個(gè)字都在喘，他仍再度對(duì)威廉露出微笑。

　 “Fuck ’em,” he said, “I’ll stay here with you,” and Jude laughed a little, although he winced as he did so, and carefully tipped himself backward until he was lying on his side, and Willem helped lift his legs up onto the bed. His sweater was freckled with more flecks of rust, and Willem picked some of them off of him. He sat on the bed next to him, unsure where to begin. “Jude,” he tried again.

“讓他們?nèi)ニ馈?rdquo;他說(shuō)，“我留在這里陪你。”裘德還是笑了一聲。他痛得皺起臉，小心翼翼往后傾斜，直到側(cè)躺下來(lái)，威廉幫忙把他的兩腿抬起來(lái)放上床。他的毛衣上也有鐵銹碎屑，威廉幫他挑掉一些，然后緊挨著裘德坐在床上，不確定該從何說(shuō)起。“裘德。”他又試了一次。

　 “Go,” Jude said, and closed his eyes, although he was still smiling, and Willem reluctantly stood, shutting the window and turning off the bedroom light as he left, closing the door behind him, heading for the stairwell to save Malcolm and JB, while far beneath him, he could hear the buzzer reverberating through the staircase, announcing the arrival of the evening’s first guests.

“去吧。”裘德說(shuō)，閉上眼睛，但還在微笑。于是威廉不情愿地站起來(lái)，關(guān)上窗子，離開(kāi)時(shí)熄掉臥室的燈，然后出了房間，關(guān)上門(mén)，走向樓梯間去解救馬爾科姆和杰比。在遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)的下方，他聽(tīng)到樓梯底下傳來(lái)的電鈴聲，宣告晚上第一批客人抵達(dá)了。

　 [ II ]

第二部分

　 The Postman

后男人

　 1

1

　 SATURDAYS WERE FOR work, but Sundays were for walking. The walks had begun out of necessity five years ago, when he had moved to the city and knew little about it: each week, he would choose a different neighborhood and walk from Lispenard Street to it, and then around it, covering its perimeter precisely, and then home again. He never skipped a Sunday, unless the weather made it near impossible, and even now, even though he had walked every neighborhood in Manhattan, and many in Brooklyn and Queens as well, he still left every Sunday morning at ten, and returned only when his route was complete. The walks had long ceased to be something he enjoyed, although he didn’t not enjoy them, either—it was simply something he did. For a period, he had also hopefully considered them something more than exercise, something perhaps restorative, like an amateur physical therapy session, despite the fact that Andy didn’t agree with him, and indeed disapproved of his walks. “I’m fine with your wanting to exercise your legs,” he’d said. “But in that case, you should really be swimming, not dragging yourself up and down pavement.” He wouldn’t have minded swimming, actually, but there was nowhere private enough for him to swim, and so he didn’t.

星期六要工作，星期天則要出門(mén)走路。五年前剛開(kāi)始走時(shí)是出于必要，當(dāng)時(shí)他剛搬到紐約市，對(duì)環(huán)境很不熟悉。每星期他都會(huì)挑一個(gè)不同的街區(qū)，從利斯本納街走過(guò)去，然后繞著那個(gè)區(qū)域走完周?chē)蝗?，這才回家。除非天氣實(shí)在不允許，否則他一次都沒(méi)有漏掉。即使是現(xiàn)在，即使他已經(jīng)走遍曼哈頓的每一個(gè)街區(qū)，也走過(guò)布魯克林和皇后區(qū)的許多區(qū)域，他還是每星期天上午10點(diǎn)出門(mén)，把預(yù)定的路線(xiàn)走完，才會(huì)回家。這些星期天的步行，對(duì)他早已不是什么樂(lè)在其中的事，不過(guò)他也沒(méi)有不樂(lè)在其中，只不過(guò)是他每星期會(huì)做的事情罷了。有一陣子，他還滿(mǎn)懷希望，認(rèn)為走這些路不光是運(yùn)動(dòng)，或許還有復(fù)健的功效，就像是一次業(yè)余的物理治療，但是安迪不同意，也表明不贊成他這樣走。“你想活動(dòng)一下雙腿，我沒(méi)意見(jiàn)。”他老這么說(shuō)，“不過(guò)如果是這樣，你真的應(yīng)該游泳，而不是拖著身子在人行道上上下下。”其實(shí)他不討厭游泳，只是找不到足夠有隱私的地方，于是就沒(méi)游了。

　 Willem had occasionally joined him on these walks, and now, if his route took him past the theater, he would time it so they could meet at the juice stand down the block after the matinee performance. They would have their drinks, and Willem would tell him how the show had gone and would buy a salad to eat before the evening performance, and he would continue south, toward home.

威廉偶爾會(huì)加入這些行程。最近，如果他的路線(xiàn)經(jīng)過(guò)戲院，就會(huì)算好午后場(chǎng)演出結(jié)束的時(shí)間，兩人在戲院那個(gè)街區(qū)的果汁攤會(huì)合。他們會(huì)一起喝果汁，威廉會(huì)告訴他那出戲的演出狀況如何，然后買(mǎi)一份沙拉在晚場(chǎng)演出前填個(gè)肚子，而他則會(huì)繼續(xù)往南，朝家的方向走。

　 They still lived at Lispenard Street, although both of them could have moved into their own apartments: he, certainly; Willem, probably. But neither of them had ever mentioned leaving to the other, and so neither of them had. They had, however, annexed the left half of the living room to make a second bedroom, the group of them building a lumpy Sheetrocked wall one weekend, so now when you walked in, there was only the gray light from two windows, not four, to greet you. Willem had taken the new bedroom, and he had stayed in their old one.

他們還住在利斯本納街，盡管兩個(gè)人各自都租得起公寓了：他當(dāng)然沒(méi)問(wèn)題，威廉大概也沒(méi)問(wèn)題。但兩個(gè)人都沒(méi)提過(guò)要搬走，于是就這樣繼續(xù)下去。不過(guò)他們把左半邊客廳隔出來(lái)，變成第二間臥室。他們一群人找了個(gè)周末，砌了一道不太平整的石膏板墻，所以現(xiàn)在走進(jìn)他們那間公寓，客廳里只有兩扇窗透進(jìn)灰灰的光，而不是原來(lái)的四扇窗。威廉搬進(jìn)了這間新臥室，他則留在原來(lái)的臥室。

　 Aside from their stage-door visits, it felt like he never saw Willem these days, and for all Willem talked about how lazy he was, it seemed he was constantly at work, or trying to work: three years ago, on his twenty-ninth birthday, he had sworn that he was going to quit Ortolan before he turned thirty, and two weeks before his thirtieth birthday, the two of them had been in the apartment, squashed into their newly partitioned living room, Willem worrying about whether he could actually afford to leave his job, when he got a call, the call he had been waiting for for years. The play that had resulted from that call had been enough of a success, and had gotten Willem enough attention, to allow him to quit Ortolan for good thirteen months later: just one year past his self-imposed deadline. He had gone to see Willem’s play—a family drama called The Malamud Theorem, about a literature professor in the early throes of dementia, and his estranged son, a physicist—five times, twice with Malcolm and JB, and once with Harold and Julia, who were in town for the weekend, and each time he managed to forget that it was his old friend, his roommate, onstage, and at curtain call, he had felt both proud and wistful, as if the stage’s very elevation announced Willem’s ascendancy to some other realm of life, one not easily accessible to him.

這陣子除了去劇院外頭碰面之外，他都沒(méi)什么機(jī)會(huì)看到威廉了。盡管威廉老在說(shuō)自己有多懶，但他看起來(lái)一直在工作，或者試著要工作。三年前，他29歲生日那天，威廉發(fā)誓要在30歲以前辭掉奧爾托蘭餐廳的工作。而就在他30歲生日前的兩個(gè)星期，他們兩人待在少了一半的客廳里，威廉正擔(dān)心自己辭職后是不是過(guò)得下去，忽然接到一通電話(huà)，得到了他等待多年的機(jī)會(huì)。那通電話(huà)找他去演的劇后來(lái)相當(dāng)成功，讓威廉得到了足夠的注意，于是十三個(gè)月后，他永遠(yuǎn)地辭掉了奧爾托蘭的工作，超過(guò)他自己定下的期限剛好一年。威廉的戲他總共去看了五次［那是一出刻畫(huà)家庭生活的戲劇，叫《馬拉穆定理》（The Malamud Theorem），講一個(gè)老年癡呆癥初期的文學(xué)教授和與他疏遠(yuǎn)的物理學(xué)家兒子］，兩次是跟馬爾科姆和杰比去，一次是陪周末來(lái)紐約的哈羅德和朱麗婭。每回看戲，他都忘了臺(tái)上那位是他的老友、他的室友，到了謝幕時(shí)，他覺(jué)得光榮又惆悵，仿佛那高起的舞臺(tái)宣告威廉走進(jìn)了人生另一個(gè)更優(yōu)越的領(lǐng)域，他再也無(wú)法輕易企及。

　 His own approach to thirty had triggered no latent panic, no fluster of activity, no need to rearrange the outlines of his life to more closely resemble what a thirty-year-old’s life ought to be. The same was not true for his friends, however, and he had spent the last three years of his twenties listening to their eulogies for the decade, and their detailing of what they had and hadn’t done, and the cataloging of their self-loathings and promises. Things had changed, then. The second bedroom, for example, was erected partly out of Willem’s fear of being twenty-eight and still sharing a room with his college roommate, and that same anxiety—the fear that, fairy-tale-like, the turn into their fourth decade would transform them into something else, something out of their control, unless they preempted it with their own radical announcements—inspired Malcolm’s hasty coming out to his parents, only to see him retreat back in the following year when he started dating a woman.

他自己接近30歲時(shí)，并沒(méi)有引發(fā)任何潛在的恐慌。不用急著做些什么，也沒(méi)必要重新安排人生的重要事項(xiàng)，使它們更符合30歲該有的人生。但對(duì)于其他三個(gè)好友卻并非如此，他30歲以前的那三年，總是聽(tīng)他們悼念過(guò)去的十年，檢討自己做到了什么、沒(méi)做到什么，還列出種種自我厭惡與期許的事項(xiàng)，因此做出種種改變。比方第二間臥室，當(dāng)初會(huì)隔出來(lái)的一部分原因，就是威廉擔(dān)心自己都28歲了，還跟大學(xué)室友住在同一個(gè)房間，而同樣的焦慮——這種恐懼本身就像童話(huà)里講的，仿佛一過(guò)30歲生日，他們就會(huì)忽然變成別的什么，自己完全無(wú)法控制，除非做出一些革命性的宣告，先發(fā)制人——讓馬爾科姆匆忙草率地跟父母出柜，但次年他又回到異性戀者的領(lǐng)域，開(kāi)始跟一個(gè)女人交往。

　 But despite his friends’ anxieties, he knew he would love being thirty, for the very reason that they hated it: because it was an age of undeniable adulthood. (He looked forward to being thirty-five, when he would be able to say he had been an adult for more than twice as long as he had been a child.) When he was growing up, thirty had been a far-off, unimaginable age. He clearly remembered being a very young boy—this was when he lived in the monastery—and asking Brother Michael, who liked to tell him of the travels he had taken in his other life, when he too might be able to travel.

其他朋友都很焦慮，但他知道自己會(huì)很高興進(jìn)入30歲，原因正是他們所痛恨的：因?yàn)槟鞘且粋€(gè)絕對(duì)無(wú)法否認(rèn)的成人年齡（他很期待45歲，因?yàn)榈綍r(shí)他就可以說(shuō)，他當(dāng)成人的時(shí)間已經(jīng)是當(dāng)兒童時(shí)間的兩倍有余了）。在他成長(zhǎng)期間，30歲曾經(jīng)是一個(gè)遙遠(yuǎn)、無(wú)法想象的年紀(jì)。他清楚記得自己很小的時(shí)候（當(dāng)時(shí)他還住在修道院）曾問(wèn)過(guò)邁克修士，那時(shí)邁克修士喜歡跟他回憶自己成為修士之前的旅行，還說(shuō)他有朝一日也可以去。

　 “When you’re older,” Brother Michael had said.

“等你大一點(diǎn)。”當(dāng)時(shí)邁克修士這么說(shuō)。

　 “When?” he’d asked. “Next year?” Then, even a month had seemed as long as forever.

“什么時(shí)候？”他問(wèn)，“明年嗎？”在當(dāng)時(shí)，連一個(gè)月都漫長(zhǎng)得像是永遠(yuǎn)。

　 “Many years,” Brother Michael had said. “When you’re older. When you’re thirty.” And now, in just a few weeks, he would be.

“要很多年。”邁克修士說(shuō)，“等到你大一點(diǎn)。等到你30歲。”如今，再過(guò)幾個(gè)星期，他就30歲了。

　 On those Sundays, when he was readying to leave for his walk, he would sometimes stand, barefoot, in the kitchen, everything quiet around him, and the small, ugly apartment would feel like a sort of marvel. Here, time was his, and space was his, and every door could be shut, every window locked. He would stand before the tiny hallway closet—an alcove, really, over which they had strung a length of burlap—and admire the stores within it. At Lispenard Street, there were no late-night scrambles to the bodega on West Broadway for a roll of toilet paper, no squinching your nose above a container of long-spoiled milk found in the back corner of the refrigerator: here, there was always extra. Here, everything was replaced when it needed to be. He made sure of it. In their first year at Lispenard Street he had been self-conscious about his habits, which he knew belonged to someone much older and probably female, and had hidden his supplies of paper towels under his bed, had stuffed the fliers for coupons into his briefcase to look through later, when Willem wasn’t home, as if they were a particularly exotic form of pornography. But one day, Willem had discovered his stash while looking for a stray sock he’d kicked under the bed.

那些星期天，準(zhǔn)備出門(mén)走路前，有時(shí)他會(huì)赤腳站在廚房里，周?chē)囊磺卸己冒察o，那間丑陋的小公寓感覺(jué)就像某種奇跡。在這里，時(shí)間是他的，空間是他的，每一扇門(mén)都可以關(guān)上，每一扇窗子都可以鎖上。他可以站在那小小的門(mén)廳衣柜前（其實(shí)只是一個(gè)小凹洞，他們?cè)诶镱^釘了一條麻繩），欣賞著里面的東西。在利斯本納街，不必為了一卷衛(wèi)生紙，三更半夜跑去西百老匯大道上的小雜貨店；不必湊著鼻子聞從冰箱深處挖出來(lái)的那盒過(guò)期鮮奶還能不能喝。在這里，總是有多余的備用品。在這里，該換該修的東西就會(huì)被換被修。他一直確保做到這一點(diǎn)。剛搬進(jìn)利斯本納街的第一年，他曾對(duì)自己的種種習(xí)慣很不好意思，因?yàn)橥ǔＪ悄昙o(jì)大的人，大概都是女性，才會(huì)有這些習(xí)慣。于是他把備用的衛(wèi)生紙藏在自己的床底下，把折價(jià)券傳單塞在公文包里，打算等稍后威廉不在家時(shí)再仔細(xì)研究，好像那些傳單是某種特別刺激的黃色書(shū)刊。但是有一天，因?yàn)橥乙恢徊簧魈叩酱驳紫碌囊m子，就發(fā)現(xiàn)了他囤積的衛(wèi)生紙。

　 He had been embarrassed. “Why?” Willem had asked him. “I think it’s great. Thank god you’re looking out for this kind of stuff.” But it had still made him feel vulnerable, yet another piece of evidence added to the overstuffed file testifying to his pinched prissiness, his fundamental and irreparable inability to be the sort of person he tried to make people believe he was.

他覺(jué)得很難為情。“為什么？”威廉問(wèn)他，“我覺(jué)得這樣太棒了。謝天謝地，還好有你在處理這類(lèi)事情。”不過(guò)這還是讓他很心虛，在他爆滿(mǎn)的檔案里又加了一項(xiàng)證據(jù)，證明他過(guò)于神經(jīng)質(zhì)，證明他設(shè)法裝出來(lái)的表象根本瞞不了人。

　 And yet—as with so much else—he couldn’t help himself. To whom could he explain that he found as much contentment and safety in unloved Lispenard Street, in his bomb-shelter stockpilings, as he did in the facts of his degrees and his job? Or that those moments alone in the kitchen were something akin to meditative, the only times he found himself truly relaxing, his mind ceasing to scrabble forward, planning in advance the thousands of little deflections and smudgings of truth, of fact, that necessitated his every interaction with the world and its inhabitants? To no one, he knew, not even to Willem. But he’d had years to learn how to keep his thoughts to himself; unlike his friends, he had learned not to share evidence of his oddities as a way to distinguish himself from others, although he was happy and proud that they shared theirs with him.

然而就像其他很多事情，他改不掉這些習(xí)慣。他能跟誰(shuí)解釋?zhuān)l(fā)現(xiàn)置身于討人厭的利斯本納街、他囤積的物資中，那種滿(mǎn)足感和安全感一點(diǎn)也不遜于學(xué)業(yè)或工作所能帶來(lái)的。又能跟誰(shuí)解釋?zhuān)l(fā)現(xiàn)自己在廚房獨(dú)處的那些時(shí)刻幾乎處于類(lèi)似冥想的狀態(tài)，他的腦袋不再慌張地設(shè)想，預(yù)先計(jì)劃幾千個(gè)稍微偏離或扭曲的真相、事實(shí)，才能與這個(gè)世界和其他人互動(dòng)？他知道沒(méi)辦法跟任何人解釋?zhuān)B威廉都不能。多年來(lái)，他已經(jīng)學(xué)會(huì)隱藏自己的想法，與其他三位好友不同，他學(xué)會(huì)不要為了有別于他人而透露自己的種種怪癖，不過(guò)別人要是愿意分享自己的怪癖，他倒是很樂(lè)意聽(tīng)，也引以為傲。

　 Today he would walk to the Upper East Side: up West Broadway to Washington Square Park, to University and through Union Square, and up Broadway to Fifth, which he’d stay on until Eighty-sixth Street, and then back down Madison to Twenty-fourth Street, where he’d cross east to Lexington before continuing south and east once more to Irving, where he’d meet Willem outside the theater. It had been months, almost a year, since he had done this circuit, both because it was very far and because he already spent every Saturday on the Upper East Side, in a town house not far from Malcolm’s parents’, where he tutored a twelve-year-old boy named Felix. But it was mid-March, spring break, and Felix and his family were on vacation in Utah, which meant he ran no risk of seeing them.

今天他會(huì)走到上東城：沿西百老匯大道往北到華盛頓廣場(chǎng)公園，轉(zhuǎn)入大學(xué)街，經(jīng)過(guò)聯(lián)合廣場(chǎng)，沿著百老匯大道接上第五大道，繼續(xù)往北走到86街，然后回頭，沿著麥迪遜大道走到24街，往東轉(zhuǎn)到列克星敦大道，再繼續(xù)往東南，來(lái)到爾文街的劇院區(qū)，跟威廉在劇院外頭碰面。這條路線(xiàn)他走了好多個(gè)月，快一年了。因?yàn)檫@條路線(xiàn)很遠(yuǎn)，也因?yàn)樗總€(gè)星期六都會(huì)待在上東城，在離馬爾科姆父母家不遠(yuǎn)處的一棟連排別墅里當(dāng)家教，幫一個(gè)叫菲利克斯的12歲男孩補(bǔ)習(xí)。但現(xiàn)在是三月中的春假，菲利克斯跟家人去猶他州度假了，這表示他不會(huì)有遇到他們的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。