盡在不言中

When I read a book from my mother’s shelves, it’s not unusual to come across a gap in the text. A paragraph, or maybe just a sentence, has been sliced out, leaving a window in its place, with words from the next page peeping through. The chopped up page looks like a nearly complete jigsaw puzzle waiting for its missing piece. But the piece isn’t lost, and I always know where to find it. Dozens of quotations, clipped from newspapers, magazines—and books—plaster one wall of my mother’s kitchen. What means the most to my mother in her books she excises and displays.

當(dāng)我翻看媽媽書(shū)架上的書(shū)時(shí)，常常會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)其中的文字缺了一部分。其中的一個(gè)段落，或可能只是一個(gè)句子，被剪了下來(lái)，在原來(lái)的位置上留下了一扇窗戶，讓后一頁(yè)上的文字探頭探腦地露了出來(lái)。被挖掉一塊的那一頁(yè)看上去就像是一幅幾乎就要完成的拼圖作品，等待著缺失的那一塊拼圖。但那一塊拼圖并沒(méi)有丟，而且我總是知道在哪兒能找到它。在我媽媽的廚房里，從報(bào)紙上、雜志上——還有書(shū)上——剪下的紙片貼滿了一面墻。在她的書(shū)里，那些她最喜歡的句子和段落都被她剪了下來(lái)，貼在墻上。

I’ve never told her, but those literary amputations appall me. I know Ann Patchett and Dorothy Sayers, and Somerset Maugham would fume alongside me, their careful prose severed from its rightful place. She picks extracts that startle me, too: “Put your worst foot forward, because then if people can still stand you, you can be yourself.” Sometimes I stand reading the wall of quotations, holding a scissors-victim novel in my hand, puzzling over what draws my mother to these particular words.

我從未當(dāng)面和她說(shuō)過(guò)，但她對(duì)文學(xué)作品的這種“截肢手術(shù)”的確讓我感到震驚。我知道，安•帕契特、多蘿西•塞耶斯和薩默塞特•毛姆也在我身旁氣得冒煙呢，怎么能把這些他們嘔心瀝血寫出來(lái)的文字就這樣從它們?cè)瓉?lái)的位置上“截肢”了呢!她挑出來(lái)的那些段落也著實(shí)嚇了我一跳，比如：“以你最糟糕的一面示人，因?yàn)槿绻菢尤藗円材苋萑棠愕脑?，你就能做真正的自己了?rdquo;有時(shí)候，我會(huì)站在那兒讀墻上那些書(shū)摘，手里拿著一本備受剪刀“迫害”的小說(shuō)，心里充滿困惑，不知道到底是什么驅(qū)使媽媽剪下了這樣一些稀奇古怪的句子。

My own quotation collection is more hidden and delicate. I copy favorite lines into a spiral-bound journal-a Christmas present from my mother, actually—in soft, gray No. 2 pencil. This means my books remain whole. The labor required makes selection a cutthroat process: Do I really love these two pages of On Chesil Beach enough to transcribe them, word by finger-cramping word? (The answer was yes, the pages were that exquisite.)

我也摘錄和收藏文字，不過(guò)我的收藏更為隱秘和精致。我會(huì)用灰色的二號(hào)軟芯鉛筆把我最喜歡的句子摘抄到一個(gè)活頁(yè)日記本里——事實(shí)上，這還是我媽媽送我的一份圣誕禮物呢。也就是說(shuō)，我的書(shū)都是完整的。但因?yàn)檎枰し颍虼诉x擇哪些文字摘抄就成了一個(gè)痛苦的過(guò)程：我是不是真的喜歡《在切瑟爾海灘上》里的這兩頁(yè)文字?喜歡到我愿意一個(gè)字一個(gè)字地把它們抄下來(lái)，直抄到手指頭都抽筋?(答案為“是”，因?yàn)檫@兩頁(yè)文字寫得實(shí)在太美了。)

My mother doesn’t know any of this. She doesn’t know I prefer copying out to cutting out. I’ve never told her that I compile quotations at all.

我媽媽一點(diǎn)也不知道這件事。她不知道與剪貼相比，我更喜歡抄錄。我壓根就沒(méi)告訴過(guò)她我也收集自己喜歡的文字。

There’s nothing very shocking about that; for all our chatting, we don’t have the words to begin certain conversations. My mother and I talk on the phone at least once a week, and in some ways, we are each other’s most dedicated listener. She tells me about teaching English to the leathery Russian ladies at the library where she volunteers; I tell her about job applications, cover letters, and a grant I’d like to win. We talk about my siblings, her siblings, the president, and Philip Seymour Hoffman movies. We make each other laugh so hard that I choke and she cries. But what we don’t say could fill up rooms. Fights with my father. Small failures in school. Anything, really, that pierces us.

其實(shí)這一點(diǎn)沒(méi)什么值得大驚小怪的;盡管我們總是聊天，但對(duì)于某些特定的話題，我們總是不知道該怎么開(kāi)口。媽媽和我一個(gè)星期至少會(huì)通一次電話，從某些方面來(lái)說(shuō),我們是對(duì)方最專心的聽(tīng)眾。她會(huì)告訴我她在圖書(shū)館做志愿者教那些強(qiáng)悍的俄羅斯婦女英語(yǔ)時(shí)發(fā)生的事;而我會(huì)和她談?wù)勎艺夜ぷ鞯氖?、我的求職信，還有我想要爭(zhēng)取的補(bǔ)助什么的。我們會(huì)聊我的兄弟姐妹、她的兄弟姐妹、總統(tǒng)，還有菲利普•塞默•霍夫曼的電影。我們常常逗得對(duì)方大笑，笑得我喘不過(guò)氣來(lái)，笑得她眼淚都流出來(lái)了。但我們不聊的東西也很多，多得幾個(gè)房間都裝不下。譬如她和我爸吵架了，又譬如我在學(xué)校遇到一些小挫折了。事實(shí)上，所有讓我們傷心的事，我們都避而不談。

I like to say that my mother has never told me “I love you.” There’s something reassuring in its self-pitying simplicity—as if the three-word absence explains who I am and wins me sympathy-so I carry it with me, like a label on my back. I synthesize our cumbersome relationship with an easy shorthand: my mother never said “I love you”. The last time my mother almost spoke the words was two years ago, when she called to tell me that a friend had been hospitalized.

我常常說(shuō)，媽媽從來(lái)沒(méi)和我說(shuō)過(guò)“我愛(ài)你”。這句有點(diǎn)自憐的簡(jiǎn)單話語(yǔ)聽(tīng)起來(lái)頗有些自我安慰的味道——仿佛這三個(gè)字的缺失就為我為什么成為現(xiàn)在的我提供了借口，還為我贏得了同情——于是，我總是把這句話掛在嘴邊，就像把它貼在背上當(dāng)標(biāo)簽一樣。對(duì)于我和媽媽之間的這種微妙關(guān)系，我總是簡(jiǎn)單地用一句“誰(shuí)讓她從來(lái)不說(shuō)‘我愛(ài)你’”來(lái)總結(jié)。上一次媽媽差點(diǎn)說(shuō)出這幾個(gè)字是在兩年前，當(dāng)時(shí)她給我打電話，告訴我她有個(gè)朋友住院了。

I said, “I love you, Mom.” She said, “Thank you.” I haven’t said it since, but I’ve thought about it, and I’ve wondered why my mother doesn’t. A couple of years ago, I found a poem by Robert Hershon called “Sentimental Moment or Why Did the Baguette Cross the Road?” that supplied words for the blank spaces I try to understand in our conversations:

我對(duì)她說(shuō)：“我愛(ài)你，媽媽。” 而她說(shuō):“謝謝。” 這件事后來(lái)我再?zèng)]提過(guò)，但卻始終在我的腦海里盤旋不去，我一直想知道為什么我媽媽從來(lái)不說(shuō)這幾個(gè)字。幾年前，我讀到羅伯特•赫爾希寫的一首詩(shī)，詩(shī)名叫《感傷的時(shí)刻或面包為什么要過(guò)馬路?》，這首詩(shī)填補(bǔ)了我和媽媽的對(duì)話中許多我不能理解的空白：

Don’t fill up on bread. I say absent-mindedly. The servings here are huge. My son, whose hair may be receding a bit, says: Did you really just say that to me? What he doesn’t knowis that when we’re walking together, when we get to the curb. I sometimes start to reachfor his hand.

別用面包把肚子塞滿了。我心不在焉地說(shuō)。這兒的菜量大得很，我的兒子，我那發(fā)線已開(kāi)始后退少許的兒子，對(duì)我說(shuō)：你怎么會(huì)跟我說(shuō)這樣的話? 他不知道的是當(dāng)我們一起散步時(shí)，當(dāng)我們走到馬路邊時(shí)，我有時(shí)會(huì)不自覺(jué)地伸出手想要去牽他的手。

It’s a humble poem, small in scope, not the stuff of epic heartbreak, yet poignant. After copying it down in my quotation journal, my wrist smudging the pencil into a gray haze as I wrote, I opened an e-mail I had begun to my mother, and added a postscript: “This poem made me think of you,” with the 13 lines cut and pasted below. My mother doesn’t read poetry—or at least, she doesn’t tell me that she reads poetry-and I felt nervous clicking, “Send” .

這是一首樸實(shí)無(wú)華的小詩(shī)，篇幅不長(zhǎng)，不是動(dòng)人心魄的宏偉詩(shī)篇，但讀了卻讓人感到有點(diǎn)心酸。我把它抄在了我的書(shū)摘日記本里，寫的時(shí)候，手腕把灰色的鉛筆字跡都蹭模糊了。然后，我打開(kāi)一封寫給媽媽的電子郵件，信已經(jīng)開(kāi)了頭，我在后面加上了附言：“這首詩(shī)讓我想起了你。”然后，我在電腦上把這首13行詩(shī)剪切下來(lái)，粘貼在了郵件下面。我媽媽從來(lái)不讀詩(shī)——或至少她從沒(méi)告訴過(guò)我她讀詩(shī)——所以，點(diǎn)下“發(fā)送”鍵時(shí)，我感到心中隱隱的緊張和不安。

She never mentioned the poem. But the next time I went home for vacation, I noticed something new in the kitchen. Not on her quotation wall, but across the room, fixed to an antique magnetic board: Robert Hershon’s poem, printed on a scrap of white paper in the old-fashioned font of a typewriter. The board hung above the radiator, where we drape wet rags and mittens dripping with snow, in the warmest spot in the kitchen. The poem still hangs there. Neither my mother nor I have ever spoken about it.

她從未和我提起過(guò)這首詩(shī)，但后來(lái)放假回家時(shí)，我注意到廚房里有了樣新東西。這次不是在她常常粘紙片的墻上，而是在廚房的另一頭，粘在一塊老舊的磁力板上：羅伯特•赫爾希的詩(shī)。詩(shī)打印在一小片白紙上，字體有點(diǎn)過(guò)時(shí)，像是打字機(jī)打出來(lái)的字體。這塊板子高高掛在暖氣片的上方，那兒可是廚房里最溫暖的地方，我們常在那兒掛濕抹布和粘著雪的手套。那首詩(shī)現(xiàn)在還掛在那兒，但無(wú)論媽媽還是我，都從未開(kāi)口談?wù)撨^(guò)它。