《渺小一生》:他雙眼發(fā)熱，又轉回去瞪著天

　 He looked at Willem, who took a breath. “At the hospital,” he said. “They were changing your dressings, and giving you a bath.”

他看著威廉，威廉吸了口氣。“在醫(yī)院里，”他說，“他們在幫你換藥，還有幫你洗澡?！?

　 His eyes turned hot, and he looked back up at the ceiling. “How much did you see?” he asked.

他雙眼發(fā)熱，又轉回去瞪著天花板。“你看到多少？”他問。

　 “I didn’t see everything,” Willem reassured him. “But I know you have scars on your back. And I’ve seen your arms before.” Willem waited, and then, when he didn’t say anything, sighed. “Jude, I promise you it’s not what you think it is.”

“沒有全看到，”威廉安慰他，“但我知道你背部有疤。我以前也看過你的手臂。”威廉等著，看他什么都沒說，就嘆了口氣，“裘德，我保證不是你想的那樣。”

　 “I’m afraid you’re going to be disgusted by me,” he was finally able to say. Caleb’s words floated back to him: You really are deformed; you really are. “I don’t suppose I could just never take my clothes off at all, right?” he asked, trying to laugh, to turn it into a joke.

“我怕你會對我反感?！彼詈蠼K于有辦法開口。凱萊布的話又浮現(xiàn)在他腦海：你真的很畸形；你真的是?！拔蚁胛乙膊豢赡苡肋h不脫掉衣服，對吧？”他問，試著笑出聲，把這件事轉成一個玩笑。

　 “Well, no,” Willem said. “Because I think—although it’s not going to feel like it, initially—it’ll be a good thing for you, Judy.”

“唔，是啊，”威廉說，“雖然一開始感覺不會太好，但小裘，我覺得這對你是好事?！?

　 And so the next night, he did it. As soon as Willem came to bed, he undressed quickly, under the covers, and then flung the blanket away and rolled onto his side, so his back was facing Willem. He kept his eyes shut the entire time, but when he felt Willem place his palm on his back, just between his shoulder blades, he began to cry, savagely, the kind of bitter, angry weeping he hadn’t done in years, tucking into himself with shame. He kept remembering the night with Caleb, the last time he had been so exposed, the last time he had cried this hard, and he knew that Willem would only understand part of the reason he was so upset, that he didn’t know that the shame of this very moment—of being naked, of being at another’s mercy—was almost as great as his shame for what he had revealed. He heard, more from the tone than the words themselves, that Willem was being kind to him, that he was dismayed and was trying to make him feel better, but he was so distraught that he couldn’t even comprehend what Willem was saying. He tried to get out of the bed so he could go to the bathroom and cut himself, but Willem caught him and held him so tightly that he couldn’t move, and eventually he somehow calmed himself.

于是次日晚上，他脫了。威廉一上床，他就趕緊在被子底下脫掉衣服，然后轉身面對自己那一頭，背對著威廉。從頭到尾眼睛都閉著，但是當他感覺威廉的手掌放在他背部，就在兩塊肩胛骨之間，他哭了出來，哭得很兇，是幾年來不曾有過的傷心、忿恨的痛哭，整個人被羞愧淹沒。他一直想起和凱萊布的那一夜，那是他最后一次這么沒有保護、最后一次哭得這么慘，而他知道威廉只了解部分他這么難受的原因，知道他不會明白他這一刻的羞愧——裸著身子，承受另一個人的憐憫——幾乎和他露出那些疤痕帶來的羞愧同樣重大。他聽到威廉（主要是從口氣，而不是從他所講的話）一直好言安慰，而且很驚慌，試著讓他好過一點，但他痛苦得根本聽不出威廉在講什么。他試著下床，好去浴室割自己，但威廉抱住他，抱得很緊，讓他沒法動彈，最后他終于平靜下來。

　 When he woke the following morning—late: it was a Sunday—Willem was staring at him. He looked tired. “How are you?” he asked.

次日早晨醒來時——很晚，這天是星期天——威廉凝視著他，一臉疲倦?！澳氵€好嗎？”威廉問。

　 The night returned to him. “Willem,” he said, “I’m so, so sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened.” He realized, then, that he still wasn’t wearing any clothes, and he put his arms beneath the sheet, and pulled the blanket up to his chin.

他想起前一夜?！巴彼f，“我真的、真的很抱歉。真的很抱歉。我不知道自己怎么了。”他這才想到自己身上還是沒穿衣服，于是雙手伸進被單里，把毯子拉高到下巴。

　 “No, Jude,” Willem said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was going to be so traumatic for you.” He reached over and stroked his hair. They were quiet. “That was the first time I’ve ever seen you cry, you know.”

“不，裘德，”威廉說，“我才應該抱歉。我不知道這對你會這么痛苦?！蓖焓謸嶂念^發(fā)。兩個人沉默了一會兒?！斑@是我第一次看到你哭，你知道。”

　 “Well,” he said, swallowing. “For some reason it’s not as successful a seduction method as I’d hoped,” and smiled at Willem, a little, and Willem smiled back.

“唔，”他說，吞咽著，“出于某些原因，這誘惑的招數(shù)沒有我希望的那么成功?！彼麑ν冻鲆唤z微笑，威廉也笑了。

　 They lay in bed that morning and talked. Willem asked him about certain scars, and he told him. He explained how he had gotten the scars on his back: about the day he had been caught trying to run away from the home; the beating that had followed; the resulting infection, the way his back had wept pus for days, the bubbles of blisters that had formed around the stray splinters from the broom handle that had embedded themselves into his flesh; what he had been left with when it was all over. Willem asked him when he was last naked before anyone and he lied and told him that—except for Andy—it had been when he was fifteen. And then Willem said various kind and unbelievable things about his body, which he chose to ignore, because he knew they weren’t true.

他們那天早上就躺在床上談話。威廉問他某些疤的來由，他告訴了他。他解釋自己為什么會有背部的那些疤：那天他想逃出少年之家，結果被逮到；接下來被毒打；因為掃帚柄上的碎木片嵌進肉里，造成感染，形成一個個膿包，他背部流膿流了好幾天；傷口痊愈之后，就留下了那些疤。威廉問他最后一次在任何人面前裸身是什么時候，他撒謊說除了安迪之外，是他15歲的時候。然后威廉針對他的身體說了各式各樣難以相信的好話，他選擇忽略，因為他知道那些不是實話。

　 “Willem, if you want out, I understand,” he said. It had been his idea not to tell anyone that their friendship might be changing into something else, and although he had told Willem it would give them space, and privacy, to figure out how to be with each other, he had also thought it would give Willem time to reconsider, opportunities to change his mind without fear of everyone else’s opinions. Of course, with this decision he cannot help but hear the echoes of his last relationship, which had also been conducted in secrecy, and he had to remind himself that this one was different; it was different unless he made it the same.

“威廉，如果你想退出，我能了解?！彼f。原先他建議不要跟任何人說他們的友誼可能轉變成別的關系。盡管他告訴威廉這樣可以給他們空間和隱私，好慢慢相處，但他也覺得這樣可以多給威廉一些重新考慮的時間，有機會改變心意，而不必擔心其他人的想法。當然，這個決定讓他不禁想起，自己跟凱萊布的交往同樣是秘密進行，但他還是得提醒自己這回不一樣，除非他自己偏要弄得一樣。

　 “Jude, of course I don’t,” Willem said. “Of course not.”

“裘德，我當然不想，”威廉說，“當然不要?！?

　 Willem was running his fingertip over his eyebrow, which for some reason he found a comforting gesture: it was affectionate without being in the least sexual. “I just feel like I’m going to be this series of nasty surprises for you,” he said at last, and Willem shook his head. “Surprises, maybe,” he said. “But not nasty ones.”

威廉用一根指尖撫過他的眉毛。出于某些原因，他覺得這個手勢很能安慰自己：深情卻又毫無性愛意味。“我只是覺得，對你來說，我會帶給你一連串不愉快的驚訝。”最后他終于說。威廉搖搖頭?！绑@訝，或許，”他說，“但不會是不愉快。”

　 And so every night, he tries to remove his clothes. Sometimes he can do it; other times, he can’t. Sometimes he can allow Willem to touch him on his back and arms, and other times, he can’t. But he has been unable to be naked before Willem in the daytime, or even in light, or to do any of the things that he knows from movies and eavesdropping on other people that couples are supposed to do around each other: he cannot get dressed in front of Willem, or shower with him, which he’d had to do with Brother Luke, and which he had hated.

于是每一夜，他都試著脫掉衣服。有時做得到，有時做不到。有時他可以讓威廉碰觸他的背部和手臂，有時就不行。但是他沒辦法大白天在威廉面前光著身子，有時連夜晚也沒辦法。他從電影和偷聽別人的談話中得知伴侶會對彼此做的事情，他也沒辦法。他無法在威廉面前換衣服，也無法跟他一起沖澡；他以前曾被盧克修士逼著一起沖澡，他很不喜歡。

　 His own self-consciousness has not, however, proven contagious, and he is fascinated by how often, and how matter-of-factly, Willem is naked. In the morning, he pulls back Willem’s side of the blanket and studies Willem’s sleeping form with a clinical rigor, noting how perfect it is, and then remembers, with a strange queasy giddiness, that he is the one seeing it, that it is being bestowed upon him.

但總之，結果證明他的害羞并沒有傳染效果，而且威廉那么頻繁且不當回事地光著身子，簡直讓他著迷。早上，他偷偷拉開威廉那一側的毯子，用一種臨床檢驗的精確程度，仔細打量威廉睡覺的模樣，注意到他的身體有多么完美。然后帶著奇怪的反胃和暈眩，想起他是能看到的那個人，而眼前這一幕是天上掉下來的。

　 Sometimes, the improbability of what has happened wallops him, and he is stilled. His first relationship (can it be called a relationship?): Brother Luke. His second: Caleb Porter. And his third: Willem Ragnarsson, his dearest friend, the best person he knows, a person who could have virtually anyone he wanted, man or woman, and yet for some bizarre set of reasons—a warped curiosity? madness? pity? idiocy?—has settled on him. He has a dream one night of Willem and Harold sitting together at a table, their heads bent over a piece of paper, Harold adding up figures on a calculator, and he knows, without being told, that Harold is paying Willem to be with him. In the dream, he feels humiliation along with a kind of gratitude: that Harold should be so generous, that Willem should play along. When he wakes, he is about to say something to Willem when logic reasserts itself, and he has to remind himself that Willem certainly doesn’t need the money, that he has plenty of his own, that however perplexing and unknowable Willem’s reasons are for being with him, for choosing him, that he has not been coerced, that he has made the decision freely.

有時，他領悟到這一切有多么不可靠，于是整個人平靜下來。他的第一次戀愛（那能稱為戀愛嗎？）：盧克修士。他的第二次：凱萊布·波特。第三次：威廉·拉格納松，他最親愛的朋友，他所認識最棒的人，他幾乎可以得到他想要的任何人，無論男女，然而出于某些奇怪的理由（扭曲的好奇心？瘋狂？同情？愚昧？）卻挑上了他。他有天晚上做了個夢，夢到威廉和哈羅德一起坐在桌前，兩人低頭看著一張紙，哈羅德用計算器加總一個數(shù)字，他知道（雖然沒人告訴他）哈羅德在付錢給威廉，好讓威廉跟他在一起。在那個夢里，他覺得被羞辱的同時，又有種感激。因為哈羅德竟然這么慷慨，而威廉居然愿意配合。他醒來時，正要跟威廉講話，然后腦子一轉，想到這實在太不合邏輯了。他還得提醒自己威廉當然不需要那些錢，他已經(jīng)很有錢了，而且無論威廉跟他在一起、選擇他的理由有多令人不解且不可知，總之沒有人強迫他，他是出于自由意志才做出這個決定的。

　 That night he reads in bed as he waits for Willem to come home, but falls asleep anyway and wakes to Willem’s hand on the side of his face.

那天晚上他在床上閱讀，等著威廉回家，但最后還是睡著了。醒來時，威廉的手摸著他的側臉。

　 “You’re home,” he says, and smiles at him, and Willem smiles back.

“你回來了?！彼f，露出微笑，威廉也朝他微笑。

　 They lie awake in the dark talking about Willem’s dinner with the director, and the shoot, which begins in late January in Texas. The film, Duets, is based on a novel he likes, and follows a closeted lesbian and a closeted gay man, both music teachers at a small-town high school, through a twenty-five-year marriage that spans the nineteen-sixties through the nineteen-eighties. “I’m going to need your help,” Willem tells him. “I really, really have to brush up on my piano playing. And I am going to be singing in it, after all. They’re getting me a coach, but will you practice with me?”

他們躺在黑暗中，談著威廉跟那個導演的晚餐，還有這部電影預定一月下旬在德州開拍?！抖爻愤@部片子是他很喜歡的一本小說改編的，描述同在小城一所高中任教的兩個音樂教師，一個是沒出柜的同性戀女子，一個是沒出柜的同性戀男子，兩人從20世紀60年代到80年代的二十五年婚姻?！拔倚枰銕兔?，”威廉告訴他，“我真的、真的得溫習一下彈鋼琴的技巧。而且我還得在電影里唱歌。他們會幫我請一個指導老師，不過你可以陪我練習嗎？”