《渺小一生》:他無法講清楚問題是什么

　 Jude had told him that he and Caleb had told no one in their lives about the other, and although Jude’s secretiveness had been motivated by shame (and Caleb’s, Willem could only hope, by at least some small glint of guilt), he too felt that his relationship with Jude existed to no one but themselves: it seemed something sacred, and fought-for, and unique to them. Of course, this was ridiculous, but it was the way he felt—to be an actor in his position was to be, in many ways, a possession, to be fought over and argued about and criticized by anyone who wanted to say something, anything, about his abilities or appearance or performance. But his relationship was different: in it, he played a role for one other person, and that person was his only audience, and no one else ever saw it, no matter how much they thought they might.

裘德曾告訴他，他和凱萊布交往期間都沒告訴其他人。裘德保密是源于羞愧（而凱萊布保密，威廉只希望至少是出于微小的罪惡感），但他同時也覺得自己和裘德的交往只存在于他們兩個人之間，跟其他人無關(guān)；對他們而言，這段關(guān)系似乎是神圣不可侵犯、要為之奮戰(zhàn)的，而且是獨特的。當然，這樣很荒謬，但這就是他的感覺——當一個像他這種地位的演員，在很多方面，就會成為公共財產(chǎn)，任何想要針對他的能力、外表或演技說任何話的人，都可以為了他而爭吵、論辯、批評。但他的感情生活就不一樣了，在其中，他只為另一個人扮演一個角色，而那個人是他唯一的觀眾，沒有其他人會看到，無論他們自認有多懂。

　 His relationship also felt sacred because he had just recently—in the last six months or so—felt he had gotten the rhythm of it. The person he thought he knew had turned out to be, in some ways, not the person before him, and it had taken him time to figure out how many facets he had yet to see: it was as if the shape he had all along thought was a pentagram was in reality a dodecahedron, many sided and many fractaled and much more complicated to measure. Despite this, he had never considered leaving: he stayed, unquestioningly, out of love, out of loyalty, out of curiosity. But it hadn’t been easy. In truth, it had been at times aggressively difficult, and in some ways remained so. When he had promised himself that he wouldn’t try to repair Jude, he had forgotten that to solve someone is to want to repair them: to diagnose a problem and then not try to fix that problem seemed not only neglectful but immoral.

他會覺得自己的感情生活是神圣不可侵犯的，也是因為他最近（大約在過去六個月）才逐漸掌握其中的節(jié)奏。他原先自認為了解的那個人，在某些方面，根本不是他眼前的這個人，他花時間去搞清自己至今看到了多少面：那就好像他以前一直以為這是個五角星，但其實是個十二面體，有很多平面、很多分形，測量起來要復雜得多。盡管如此，他從沒想過要離開。他留下，毫無疑問，是出于愛，出于忠誠，也出于好奇。但這并不容易。事實上，有時還困難得要命，而且在某些方面，至今還是如此。當他向自己承諾他不會試圖修補裘德時，他忘了一點：想解開某個人的秘密，就是想要修補他。診斷一個問題，卻不試著解決這個問題，好像不光是疏忽，還很不道德。

　 The primary issue was sex: their sexual life, and Jude’s attitude about it. Toward the end of the ten-month period in which he and Jude had been together and he had been waiting for him to be ready (the longest sustained period of celibacy he had endured since he was fifteen, and which he had accomplished as partly a challenge to himself, the way other people stopped eating bread or pasta because their boyfriends or girlfriends had stopped eating them as well), he had begun to seriously worry about where this was all going, and about whether sex was something Jude was simply not capable of. Somehow he knew, and had always known, that Jude had been abused, that something awful (maybe several things awful) had happened to him, but to his shame, he was unable to find the words to discuss it with him. He told himself that even if he could find the words, Jude wouldn’t talk about it until he was ready, but the truth, Willem knew, was that he was too much of a coward, and that cowardice was really the only reason for his inaction. But then he had come home from Texas, and they’d had sex after all, and he had been relieved, and relieved too that he had enjoyed it as much as he had, that there had been nothing strained or unnatural about it, and when it turned out that Jude was much more sexually dextrous than he had assumed he would be, he allowed himself to be relieved a third time. He couldn’t bring himself, however, to determine why Jude was so experienced: Had Richard been right, and had Jude been leading some sort of double life all this time? It seemed too tidy an explanation. And yet the alternative—that this was knowledge Jude had accumulated before they had met, which meant these would have been lessons learned in childhood—was overwhelming to him. And so, to his great guilt, he said nothing. He chose to believe the theory that made his life less complicated.

主要的問題就是性愛：他們的性生活，還有裘德對此的態(tài)度。他和裘德在一起后，他一直等著他準備好，到了近十個月時（創(chuàng)下他15歲以來禁欲最久的紀錄，他也視之為對自己的挑戰(zhàn)，就像有的人會停止吃面包或意大利面，只因為男朋友或女朋友不吃），他嚴重擔心起要這樣等多久，也擔心裘德會不會根本就沒辦法有性生活。但不知怎的，他知道，而且一直知道，裘德被虐待過，出過很可怕的事情（說不定還有好幾件），但他出于羞愧，想不出該用什么字句跟他討論。他告訴自己，即使他可以找到字句，除非裘德準備好，否則也不會跟他談，但真正的原因，威廉知道，就是他自己太膽小了，這種膽小其實是他沒做任何事的唯一原因。但接著，他從德州拍完片回家，他們總算開始做愛了，于是他放心了；另外，讓他放心的是，他依然像以前那樣享受性愛，其中沒有任何勉強或不自然。而且結(jié)果證明，其實裘德對性事比他原先以為的要熟練很多，他就第三度放了心。然而，他沒有勇氣去想為什么裘德這么有經(jīng)驗，難道理查德猜得沒錯，難道裘德一直過著某種雙面生活？這個解釋似乎太完美了，但另一種解釋讓他無法承受——這些性愛方面的知識，是裘德在認識他之前就累積的，也就意味著是在童年時期學到的。于是，他罪惡感很重，卻什么都沒說。

　 One night, though, he’d had a dream that he and Jude had just had sex (which they had) and that Jude was next to him and crying, trying to stay silent and failing, and he knew, even in the dream, why he was crying: because he hated what he was doing; he hated what Willem was making him do. The next night he had asked Jude, outright: Do you like this? And he had waited, not knowing what the answer would be, until Jude had said yes, and then he had been relieved yet again: that the fiction could continue, that their equilibrium would remain unchanged, that he wouldn’t have to have a conversation that he didn’t know how to begin, much less lead. He had an image of a little boat, a dinghy, rocking wildly on the waves, but then righting itself again and sailing placidly on, even though the waters beneath it were black and filled with monsters and floes of seaweed that threatened with every current to pull the poor small boat beneath the ocean’s surface, where it would glug out of sight and be lost.

不過某天晚上，他做了個夢，夢到他和裘德剛做完愛（事實上的確如此），裘德在他旁邊哭，想忍著不出聲卻失敗了，即使在夢里，他也知道他為什么哭：因為他恨他所做的；他恨威廉逼他做的。次日晚上他就直截了當?shù)貑桇玫拢耗阆矚g這個嗎？他等著，不知道答案是什么，直到裘德說喜歡，他才又放心了：放心這個虛構(gòu)的狀態(tài)可以繼續(xù)下去，放心他們的平衡會保持不變，放心他不必展開一場他根本不知該如何啟齒的談話，更別說要一路引導了。他想象著一個畫面：一艘小小的船，敞篷的小艇，在浪潮中搖晃得很厲害，但接著又自行直立并穩(wěn)定下來，繼續(xù)平靜地航行，即使底下的黑色海水充滿妖怪和漂浮的海草，每一道水流都威脅著要把那艘可憐的小船拖到海面下，一口吞噬掉，再無蹤影。

　 But every so often, too sporadically and randomly to track, there would be moments when he would see Jude’s face as he pushed into him, or, after, would feel his silence, so black and total that it was almost gaseous, and he would know that Jude had lied to him: that he had asked him a question to which only one answer was acceptable, and Jude had given him that answer, but that he hadn’t meant it. And then he would argue with himself, trying to justify his behavior, and reproving himself for it as well. But when he was being very honest, he knew there was a problem.

但有時（太偶爾且隨機，因而無法追蹤）會有一些時刻，當他進入裘德，或是事后，他看到裘德的臉，會感覺到他的沉默，黑暗又徹底，幾乎成了氣態(tài)，于是他明白裘德跟他撒了謊：他之前問的問題只有一個可接受的答案，而裘德給了他那個答案，但其實他不是真心的。接著他會跟自己爭辯，設(shè)法解釋自己的行為，同時又回頭指責自己。但是當他捫心自問時，他知道就是存在問題。

　 Though he couldn’t quite articulate what the problem was: after all, Jude always seemed to want to have sex whenever he did. (Though wasn’t that suspicious in itself?) But he had never met anyone who was so opposed to foreplay, who didn’t want to even discuss sex, who never said the very word. “This is embarrassing, Willem,” Jude would say whenever he tried. “Let’s just do it.” He felt, often, as if their sessions together were being timed, and that his job was to perform as quickly and thoroughly as he could and then never talk about it. He was less concerned with Jude’s lack of erections than he was with the curious sensation he sometimes experienced—too indefinable and contradictory to even name it with language—that with every encounter they had, he was drawing closer to Jude, even as Jude pulled further from him. Jude said all the right things; he made all the right sounds; he was affectionate and willing: but still, Willem knew something, something was wrong. He found it bewildering; people had always enjoyed having sex with him—so what was happening here? Perversely, it made him want to have it more, if only so he could find some answers, even if he also dreaded them.

他無法講清楚問題是什么，畢竟，每回他想做愛，裘德似乎也想做（不過這本身不就很可疑嗎？）。他從來沒碰到過有人這么不喜歡前戲，甚至不愿意討論性愛的，而且還從來沒說過這個詞?！斑@樣太尷尬了，威廉?！泵炕厮囍崞?，裘德就會說，“我們做就是了?！彼３ＳX得，他們在一起做愛似乎是計時的，而他的工作就是盡可能快速徹底地完成，事后絕對不要再提。他比較不擔心裘德不會勃起，倒是比較擔心自己有時體驗到的奇怪感受（太不確定又太矛盾了，甚至沒法用語言清楚表達），覺得他們每多做一次愛，他都更接近裘德，裘德卻更遠離他。裘德說出所有適當?shù)脑?，發(fā)出所有適當?shù)穆曇簦钋槎母是樵?；然而，威廉知道有個什么，一定有個什么不對勁。他不知道該怎么辦，人們總是喜歡跟他做愛——所以眼前這是怎么回事？但反常的是，這讓他更想做了，好像只為了找出一些答案，即使他也很害怕這些答案。

　 And in the same way he knew there was a problem with their sex life, he also knew—knew without knowing, without ever being told—that Jude’s cutting was related to the sex. This realization would always make him shiver, as would his old, careworn way of excusing himself—Willem Ragnarsson, what do you think you’re doing? You’re too dumb to figure this out—from further exploration, from plunging an arm into the snake- and centipede-squirming muck of Jude’s past to find that many-paged book, sheathed in yellowed plastic, that would explain someone he had thought he had fundamentally understood. And then he would think how none of them—not he, not Malcolm, not JB or Richard or even Harold—had been brave enough to try. They had found other reasons to keep themselves from having to dirty their hands. Andy was the only person who could say otherwise.

就像他知道他們的性生活有問題，他也知道（但是毫無根據(jù)，甚至沒人告訴過他）裘德割自己跟性愛有關(guān)。這個領(lǐng)悟總是讓他打寒戰(zhàn)，同時他又會按照老樣子，憂心忡忡地原諒自己不去進一步探索，不愿把手臂伸進由裘德的過去所構(gòu)成的、充滿蠕動的蛇和蜈蚣的爛泥中，找出那本很多頁的、罩著發(fā)黃塑料皮的書，里頭會解釋裘德這個他自以為很了解的人——威廉·拉格納松，你以為自己在干嗎？你笨得根本沒辦法搞清楚這件事。然后他會想著他們這些人中，沒有一個人有勇氣去試，無論是他、馬爾科姆、杰比或理查德，甚至是哈羅德。他們找出其他理由，免得弄臟了自己的手。唯一算是例外的，只有安迪。

　 And yet it was easy for him to pretend, to ignore what he knew, because most of the time, pretending was easy: because they were friends, because they liked being around each other, because he loved Jude, because they had a life together, because he was attracted to him, because he desired him. But there was the Jude he knew in the daylight, and even in the dusk and dawn, and then there was the Jude who possessed his friend for a few hours each night, and that Jude, he sometimes feared, was the real Jude: the one who haunted their apartment alone, the one whom he had watched draw the razor so slowly down his arm, his eyes wide with agony, the one whom he could never reach, no matter how many reassurances he made, no matter how many threats he levied. It sometimes seemed as if it was that Jude who truly directed their relationship, and when he was present, no one, not even Willem, could dispel him. And still, he remained stubborn: he would banish him, through the intensity and the force and the determination of his love. He knew this was childish, but all stubborn acts are childish acts. Here, stubbornness was his only weapon. Patience; stubbornness; love: he had to believe these would be enough. He had to believe that they would be stronger than any habit of Jude’s, no matter how long or diligently practiced.

但是對他而言，去假裝、無視他所知道的一切很容易，因為大部分時間，假裝都很容易，因為他們是好友，因為他們喜歡和對方在一起，因為他愛裘德，因為自己受他吸引，因為自己渴望他。但他知道的裘德，是白天，甚至黃昏和黎明的裘德；還有另一個裘德，每夜會附身在他熟知的那位老友身上幾小時。有時他很擔心這個才是真正的裘德：這個裘德會獨自在他們的公寓里漫游。他看過這個裘德抓著刮胡刀片極慢地劃過手臂，雙眼因為痛苦而睜大，這個裘德他永遠碰觸不到，無論他做了多少保證，無論他發(fā)出多少威脅。有時感覺上，在他們的伴侶關(guān)系中，真正控制全局的是那個裘德。當他出現(xiàn)時，沒人能趕走他，連威廉都沒辦法。然而，他還是很頑固：他會趕走他，透過他熱烈、有力而堅決的愛。他知道這樣很幼稚，但所有頑固的行為都是幼稚的行為。在這段關(guān)系中，頑固就是他唯一的武器。耐心、頑固、愛：他必須相信這些就足夠了。他必須相信它們的力量能勝過任何裘德的習慣，無論那些習慣持續(xù)了多久、多么習以為常。

　 Sometimes he was given progress reports of sorts from Andy and Harold, both of whom thanked him whenever they saw him, which he found unnecessary but reassuring, because it meant that the changes he thought he saw in Jude—a heightened sense of demonstrativeness; a certain diminishment of physical self-consciousness—weren’t things he was imagining after all. But he also felt keenly alone, alone with his new suspicions about Jude and the depths of his difficulties, alone with the knowledge that he was unable or unwilling to properly address those difficulties. A few times he had been very close to contacting Andy and asking him what to do, asking him whether he was making the right decisions. But he hadn’t.

有時他會從安迪或哈羅德那里得到某種進度報告。他們兩個每次看到他都會謝謝他，他覺得沒有必要，但同時又覺得安心，因為這表示他認為他看到裘德身上的改變，畢竟不是想象出來的——感情表達的程度增加；對身體的忸怩不安也降低了一些。但他也同時感覺到強烈的孤單，因為他要獨自面對自己對裘德，以及對他遇上的種種問題的困難程度所產(chǎn)生的懷疑，而且他知道自己沒有能力、也不愿意妥善地處理這些問題。有幾次，他差點就要聯(lián)絡(luò)安迪，問他該怎么做，問他自己是否做了正確的決定。但最后還是作罷了。

　 Instead, he allowed his native optimism to obscure his fears, to make their relationship into something essentially joyous and sunny. Often he was struck by the sensation—which he had experienced at Lispenard Street as well—that they were playing house, that he was living some boyhood fantasy of running away from the world and its rules with his best friend and living in some unsuitable but perfectly commodious structure (a train car; a tree house) that wasn’t meant to be a home but had become one because of its occupants’ shared conviction to make it so. Mr. Irvine hadn’t been entirely wrong, he would think on those days when life felt like an extended slumber party, one they’d been having for almost three decades, one that gave him the thrilling feeling that they had gotten away with something large, something they were meant to have abandoned long ago: you went to parties and when someone said something ridiculous, you’d look across the table, and he’d look back at you, expressionless, with just the barest hint of a raised eyebrow, and you’d have to hurriedly drink some water to keep from spewing out your mouthful of food with laughter, and then back at your apartment—your ridiculously beautiful apartment, which you both appreciated an almost embarrassing amount, for reasons you never had to explain to the other—you would recap the entire awful dinner, laughing so much that you began to equate happiness with pain. Or you got to discuss your problems every night with someone smarter and more thoughtful than you, or talk about the continued awe and discomfort you both felt, all these years later, about having money, absurd, comic-book-villain money, or drive up to his parents’ house, one of you plugging into the car’s stereo an outlandish playlist, with which you would both sing along, loudly, being extravagantly silly as adults the way you never were as children. As you got older, you realized that really, there were very few people you truly wanted to be around for more than a few days at a time, and yet here you were with someone you wanted to be around for years, even when he was at his most opaque and confusing. So: happy. Yes, he was happy. He didn’t have to think about it, not really. He was, he knew, a simple person, the simplest of people, and yet he had ended up with the most complicated of people.

于是，他用自己天真的樂觀掩蓋了他的害怕，把他們的伴侶關(guān)系變得歡樂而溫暖。他常常猛然感覺到（他在利斯本納街時期也曾有過），他們正在玩扮家家酒，他實現(xiàn)了某種童年時代的幻想，跟他最要好的朋友逃離這個世界和其中的規(guī)則，住在某個不舒適但絕對夠用的空間里（一節(jié)火車廂，或是一座樹屋），這種地方本來不是給人住的，但因為住在里面的人都擁有信念且努力，于是這里才成了一個家。歐文先生說的不完全錯，他會想起那些日子，感覺人生就像是特別長的睡衣派對；在其中，他們度過了將近三十年；在其中，他們很興奮自己僥幸保留了某種重大、本來早該拋棄的東西：你去參加派對，聽到有人說了些荒謬的話，你會看著桌子對面，他也會看著你，面無表情，只有一邊的眉毛稍稍抬高，你得趕緊喝點水，免得大笑把滿嘴食物噴出來?；氐侥銈兊墓ⅰ忝赖貌幌裨挼墓?，你們兩個喜歡這里喜歡到簡直令人難為情的程度，原因是你們永遠不必跟對方解釋——你們會簡單扼要地講起整頓可怕的晚餐，笑到肚子痛?；蛘吣忝刻焱砩蠒粋€比你聰明、思慮比你周密的人討論心事，或者聊起這么多年后，你們兩個都擁有金錢了，而且是漫畫里大壞蛋擁有的那種多得荒謬的金錢，你們卻都因此覺得畏怯而不安。或者你們會開車北上到他父母家里，其中一人把一份古怪的音樂播放列表插進車子的音響里，兩個人一起跟著唱，很大聲。當個超級傻氣的成人，那是你小時候從來不可能想象的。當你年紀漸長，你就明白，其實你真正想一起相處超過兩三天的人非常少，現(xiàn)在跟你在一起的，是你想一起相處很多年的人，即使在他最隱晦難解的時間也不例外。所以：快樂。沒錯，他很快樂。他不必認真去思考。他知道自己是個簡單的人，最簡單的人，然而到頭來，他卻偏偏碰上了一個最復雜的人。

　 “All I want,” he’d said to Jude one night, trying to explain the satisfaction that at that moment was burbling inside him, like water in a bright blue kettle, “is work I enjoy, and a place to live, and someone who loves me. See? Simple.”

“我想要的一切，”某天夜里他跟裘德說，試著解釋那一刻他心中涌動的滿足感，有如一把亮藍色茶壺里燒滾的水，“就是有我喜歡的工作，有個住的地方，還有個愛我的人?？吹?jīng)]？很簡單?！?

　 Jude had laughed, sadly. “Willem,” he said, “that’s all I want, too.”

裘德哀傷地笑了?！巴彼f，“那也是我想要的一切?！?

　 “But you have that,” he’d said, quietly, and Jude was quiet, too.

“但是你已經(jīng)有了。”他輕聲說，裘德也沉默了。

　 “Yes,” he said, at last. “You’re right.” But he hadn’t sounded convinced.

“沒錯?！弊詈笏K于說，“你說得沒錯。”但他的口氣似乎并不相信。

　 That Tuesday night, they are lying next to each other, half talking and half not in one of the meandering almost-conversations they have when they both want to stay awake but are both falling asleep, when Jude says his name with a sort of seriousness that makes him open his eyes. “What is it?” he asks him, and Jude’s face is so still, so sober, that he is frightened. “Jude?” he says. “Tell me.”

那個星期二晚上，他們躺在床上，有一搭沒一搭地聊著，就是那種兩個人都想保持清醒、但逐漸要睡著的漫談狀態(tài)。此時裘德喊了他的名字，那種嚴肅的口吻讓他睜開眼睛?！笆裁词?？”他問他。裘德的臉靜止不動，很冷靜，讓他害怕起來?！棒玫?？”他說，“告訴我吧。”

　 “Willem, you know I’ve been trying not to cut myself,” he says, and Willem nods at him and waits. “And I’m going to keep trying,” Jude continues. “But sometimes—sometimes I might not be able to control myself.”

“威廉，你知道我一直試著不要割自己，”他說，威廉朝他點點頭等著，“而且我還會繼續(xù)努力?！濒玫吕^續(xù)說，“但是有時候——有時候我可能沒辦法控制自己?！?

　 “I know,” he says. “I know you’re trying. I know how hard it is for you.”

“我知道，”他說，“我知道你在努力。我了解這對你有多困難。”

　 Jude turns from him then, and Willem rolls over and wraps his arms around him. “I just want you to understand if I make a mistake,” Jude says, and his voice is muffled.

裘德轉(zhuǎn)身背對著他。威廉轉(zhuǎn)過去，雙手抱住他。“我只是想跟你說，要是我犯了錯，希望你能了解?！濒玫抡f，聲音悶在被子里。

　 “Of course I will,” he says. “Jude—of course I will.” There is a long silence, and he waits to see if Jude will say anything else. He is thin, with a marathon runner’s long muscles, but in the past six months, he has become thinner still, almost as thin as when he was released from the hospital, and Willem holds him a little tighter. “You’ve lost more weight,” he tells him.

“我當然會了解?！彼f，“裘德——我當然會了解啊?！苯酉聛硎呛荛L一陣沉默，他等著看裘德會不會再說些什么。裘德本來就瘦，有著馬拉松長跑選手的長肌肉，但過去六個月，他變得更瘦了，幾乎跟他剛出院時一樣瘦。此時威廉把他抱得更緊了一些?！澳阌质萘?。”他說。

　 “Work,” Jude says, and they are quiet again.

“是工作?！濒玫抡f，兩個人又沉默了。