《渺小一生》:我們離波士頓只剩一個小時

　 “No,” Jude pleads with him, “no, Willem, no—I just—”

“不，”裘德懇求地說，“不是，威廉，不是……我只是……”

　 But he interrupts him. “Why have you never told me who Brother Luke is?” he hears himself ask.

但他打斷他，“你為什么從不告訴我盧克修士是誰？”他不覺間就脫口而出。

　 He can tell that Jude is startled. “What?” he asks.

他看得出裘德愣住了?！笆裁?？”他問。

　 “You promised me you would,” he says. “Remember? It was my birthday present.” The final words sound more sarcastic than he intended. “Tell me,” he says. “Tell me right now.”

“你答應過你會說的。”他說，“記得嗎？那是我的生日禮物?！弊詈筮@個詞聽起來充滿諷刺意味，他本來沒打算那么刻薄的。“告訴我，”他說，“現(xiàn)在就告訴我?！?

　 “I can’t, Willem,” Jude says. “Please. Please.”

“我沒辦法，威廉，”裘德說，“拜托。拜托?！?

　 He sees that Jude is in agony, and still he pushes. “You’ve had four years to figure out how to do it,” he says, and as Jude moves to put the keys in the ignition, he reaches over and snatches them from him. “I think that’s enough of a grace period. Tell me right now,” and then, when there is still no reaction, he shouts at Jude again: “Tell me.”

他看得出裘德非常痛苦，但依然步步緊逼?！澳阌兴哪甑臅r間去想出該怎么說?！彼f。當裘德要把鑰匙插入點火開關(guān)時，他伸手把鑰匙奪過來。“我想這個寬限期夠了。你現(xiàn)在就告訴我?！比缓?，他看裘德還是沒反應，又朝他吼：“告訴我！”

　 “He was one of the brothers at the monastery,” Jude whispers.

“他是修道院里的一個修士?！濒玫螺p聲說。

　 “And?” he screams at him. I am so stupid, he thinks, even as he yells. I am so, so, so stupid. I am so gullible. And then, simultaneously: He’s scared of me. I’m yelling at someone I love and making him scared of me. He suddenly remembers yelling at Andy all those years ago: You’re mad because you can’t figure out how to make him better and so you’re taking it out on me. Oh god, he thinks. Oh god. Why am I doing this?

“還有呢？”他朝他大喊。我太蠢了，他心想，即使大吼時都在想。我真是太、太、太蠢了。我太好騙了。然后，他同時又想著︰我在吼一個我深愛的人，讓他怕我。他忽然想起多年前吼過安迪：你生氣是因為你想不出辦法讓他好過一點，于是就把氣出在我身上。啊老天，他心想。啊老天，我為什么要這么做？

　 “And I ran away with him,” Jude says, his voice so faint now that Willem has to lean in to hear him.

“我跟著他逃離修道院?！濒玫抡f，聲音小得威廉得湊近才能聽到。

　 “And?” he says, but he can see that Jude is about to cry, and suddenly, he stops, and leans back, exhausted and disgusted with himself, and suddenly frightened as well: What if the next question he asks is the question that finally opens the gates, and everything he has ever wanted to know about Jude, everything he has never wanted to confront, comes surging out at last? They sit there for a long time, the car filling with their shaky breaths. He can feel his fingertips turning numb. “Let’s go,” he finally says.

“然后呢？”他說，但他看得出裘德就要哭出來了。忽然間，他停下，往后靠，筋疲力盡又很厭惡自己，同時忽然很恐懼︰如果他問的下一個問題，就能打開閘門，所有他想知道的關(guān)于裘德的事，所有他從來不想面對的事，全像洪水般涌出來呢？他們坐在那里好久，車子里充滿了他們顫抖的呼吸聲。他可以感覺到自己的指尖發(fā)麻?！白甙??！弊詈笏K于說。

　 “Where?” Jude asks, and Willem looks at him.

“去哪里？”裘德問，威廉看著他。

　 “We only have an hour to Boston,” he says. “And they’re expecting us,” and Jude nods, and wipes his face with his handkerchief, and takes the keys from him, and drives them slowly out of the gas station.

“我們離波士頓只剩一個小時車程了，”他說，“而且他們在等我們?！濒玫曼c頭，用手帕擦擦臉，從他手里拿了鑰匙，緩緩開出加油站。

　 As they move down the highway, he has a sudden vision of what it really means to set yourself on fire. He thinks of the campfires he had built as a Boy Scout, the tepee of twigs you’d arrange around a knot of newspaper, the way the shimmering flames made the air around them wobbly, their awful beauty. And then he thinks of Jude doing that to his own skin, imagines orange chewing through his flesh, and he is sick. “Pull over,” he gasps to Jude, and Jude screeches off the road and he leans out of the car and vomits until he has nothing more to expel.

他們沿著高速公路往前開時，他忽然開始想象點火燒傷自己是什么狀況。他想到當童子軍時曾負責生火，先把報紙揉成一團，周圍用小樹枝搭成尖錐狀，那小小的火焰隨著周圍的空氣搖晃著，可怕又美麗。然后他想到裘德對自己的皮膚做這種事，想象橘色的火焰侵蝕了他的肉，覺得很想吐?！翱窟呁＼?。”他喘著氣說。裘德轉(zhuǎn)出路面，他開門探出身子一直吐，吐到再也沒有東西可吐為止。

　 “Willem,” he hears Jude saying, and the sound of his voice enrages him and devastates him, both.

“威廉?！彼牭紧玫抡f。那聲音讓他火大，同時也令他悲痛。

　 They are silent for the rest of the drive, and when Jude pulls the car bumpily into Harold and Julia’s driveway, there is a brief moment in which they look at each other, and it is as if he is looking at someone he has never seen before. He looks at Jude and sees a handsome man with long hands and legs and a beautiful face, the kind of face you look at and keep looking at, and if he were meeting this man at a party or at a restaurant, he would talk to him, because it would be an excuse to keep looking at him, and he would never think that this man would be someone who cut himself so much that the skin on his arms no longer felt like skin, but cartilage, or that he once dated someone who beat him so hard he could have died, or that one night he rubbed his skin with oil so that the flame he touched to his own body would burn brighter and faster, and that he had gotten this idea from someone who had once done this very thing to him, years ago, when he was a child and had done nothing worse than take something shiny and irresistible from a loathed and loathsome guardian’s desk.

接下來他們一路沉默，等到裘德把車開進哈羅德和朱麗婭家的車道，有短暫的片刻，他們看著彼此，他覺得他好像看著一個從未見過的人。他看著裘德，看到一個英俊的男子，四肢修長，容貌俊美，那是你會一直看、一直看的臉龐。如果你在派對上或餐廳里碰到這個男子，你會去找他說話，因為這樣就有借口一直看著他，而你永遠想不到這個人會割自己割得那么兇，割到手臂上的皮膚再也不像是皮膚，而是軟骨；你想不到他曾跟一個打他打得很兇的人約會，打到他差點死掉；你想不到有天夜里他會把油抹在自己身上，在皮膚上點火后讓它燒得更亮、更快；你想不到他這個點子是來自某個曾經(jīng)這樣對他的人。那是很多年以前，他當時還是個孩子，不過是從一個可恨而又討厭的監(jiān)護者桌上拿了某個發(fā)亮又充滿誘惑的東西。

　 He opens his mouth to say something when they hear Harold and Julia calling out their welcomes to them, and they both blink and turn and get out of the car, fixing their mouths into smiles as they do. As he kisses Julia, he can hear Harold, behind him, saying to Jude, “Are you okay? Are you sure? You look a little off,” and then Jude’s murmured assent.

他張開嘴巴正想說些什么時，卻聽到哈羅德和朱麗婭朝他們喊著歡迎的話，他們兩個都眨眨眼，擠出微笑，轉(zhuǎn)身下了車。他吻朱麗婭時，聽到哈羅德在他身后對裘德說：“你還好嗎？你確定嗎？你看起來有點沒精神。”裘德咕噥著附和。

　 He goes to the bedroom with their bag, and Jude goes directly to the kitchen. He takes out their toothbrushes and electric razors and puts them in the bathroom, and then he lies down on the bed.

他拿著兩人的旅行袋去臥室，裘德則是直接進了廚房。他把牙刷和電動刮胡刀拿出來，放進浴室，然后就在床上躺下。

　 He sleeps all afternoon; he is too overwhelmed to do anything else. Dinner is just the four of them, and he looks in the mirror, quickly practicing his laugh, before he joins the others in the dining room. Over dinner, Jude is very quiet, but Willem tries to talk and listen as if everything is normal, though it is difficult, as his mind is full of what he has learned.

他睡了一整個下午，整個人心力交瘁得什么事都沒辦法做。晚餐只有他們四個人，他走出房門前還先照了鏡子，練習了他的笑容，才去餐廳加入其他人。晚餐席上，裘德非常安靜，威廉仍試著講話、傾聽，仿佛一切都很正常。但是很難，他心里被早上得知的事情占據(jù)了。

　 Even through his rage and despair, he registers that Jude has almost nothing on his plate, but when Harold says, “Jude, you have to eat more; you’ve gotten way too skinny. Right, Willem?” and looks to him for the support and cajoling he would normally, reflexively offer, he instead shrugs. “Jude’s an adult,” he says, his voice odd to him. “He knows what’s best for him,” and out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Julia and Harold exchange glances with each other, and Jude look down at his plate. “I ate a lot when I was cooking,” he says, and they all know this is untrue, because Jude never snacks while he’s cooking, and doesn’t let anyone else do so, either: “The Snack Stasi,” JB calls him. He watches Jude absentmindedly cup his hand around his sweatered arm right where the burn would be, and then he looks up, and sees Willem staring, and drops his hand and looks back down again.

即使在怒氣和絕望中，他還是注意到裘德盤子幾乎是空的。當哈羅德說：“裘德，你得多吃一點；你實在太瘦了。對吧，威廉？”同時望向他，尋求他平常想都不想就會給予的支持和好言相勸，然而這回他只是聳聳肩。“裘德是大人了。”他說，覺得自己的聲音聽起來很奇怪，“他知道什么對他是最好的。”然后眼角看到朱麗婭和哈羅德彼此交換一個眼色，而裘德只是低頭看著盤子?！拔易鲲垥r就已經(jīng)吃了很多?！濒玫抡f，他們都知道不是這樣的，因為裘德做飯時從來不偷吃，而且也不準其他人偷吃。“偷吃警察。”杰比都這樣說他。他看著裘德心不在焉地攏起右手，罩在穿了毛衣的左手臂上，應該就是燒傷的地方。然后裘德抬頭，看到威廉盯著他，就放下右手，又繼續(xù)盯著盤子。

　 Somehow they get through dinner, and as he and Julia do the dishes, he keeps the conversation topical and light. After, they go to the living room, where Harold is waiting for him to watch the previous weekend’s game, which he has recorded. At the entryway to the room, he pauses: normally, he would join Jude and squash in beside him on the oversize, overstuffed chair that has been squished in next to what they call Harold’s Chair, but tonight he cannot sit next to Jude—he can barely look at him. And yet if he doesn’t, Julia and Harold will know for certain that something is seriously wrong between them. But as he hesitates, Jude stands and, as if anticipating his quandary, announces that he’s tired and is going to bed. “Are you sure?” Harold asks. “The evening’s just beginning.” But Jude says he is, and kisses Julia good night and waves vaguely in Harold and Willem’s direction, and once again, he sees Julia and Harold look at each other.

他們總算熬過了晚餐。他和朱麗婭去洗碗，輕松地聊著一些時事。之后，他們?nèi)タ蛷d，哈羅德正等著他一起看上周末錄下來的球賽。在通往客廳的門口，他暫停了一下：通常他會跑到裘德旁邊，兩人擠在那張超大、超厚的椅子上，就在哈羅德慣常坐的那張椅子旁，但是今天他沒辦法坐在裘德旁邊——他簡直連看他都沒辦法。但如果他不過去，朱麗婭和哈羅德就會確定他們之間出了大問題。正當他猶豫時，裘德就站起來，仿佛預測到他的為難，說他累了，要去睡覺。“你確定嗎？”哈羅德問，“這個晚上才剛開始呢?！钡玫抡f他很確定，然后吻了朱麗婭道晚安，又朝哈羅德和威廉的方向揮了一下手。然后再一次，他瞄到朱麗婭和哈羅德朝彼此看了一眼。