《渺小一生》:“为什么？你在开玩笑吧？”

　 It was almost two in the afternoon when Willem finally woke, and the first thing he remembered was his resolve from earlier that morning. Certainly things had been realigned to discourage his sense of initiative: Jude’s bed was clean. Jude was not in it. The bathroom, when he visited it, smelled eggily of bleach. And at the card table, there was Jude himself, stamping circles into dough with a stoicism that made Willem both annoyed and relieved. If he was to confront Jude, it seemed, it would be without the benefit of disarray, of evidence of disaster.

威廉终于醒来时，已经快下午2点，他想到的第一件事就是稍早清晨时下的决心。当然，情势又有了变化，让他的积极心态因而动摇：裘德的床很干净。他不在上头。威廉去浴室，闻到漂白过的淡淡腥味。厨房里的那张牌桌前，裘德坐在那里，正用茶杯的杯口把生面团压成一个个小圆饼，那坚忍的态度让威廉心烦的同时又松了一口气。如果他现在去正面质问裘德，似乎就少了前一夜混乱及大灾难的证据了。

　 He slouched into the chair across from him. “What’re you doing?”

他跨坐在他对面的椅子上：“你在干吗？”

　 Jude didn’t look up. “Making more gougères,” he said, calmly. “One of the batches I made yesterday isn’t quite right.”

裘德没抬头：“多做一些法式咸味奶酪泡芙。”他平静地说，“我昨天做的有一批不太成功。”

　 “No one’s going to fucking care, Jude,” he said meanly, and then, barreling helplessly forward, “We could just give them cheese sticks and it’d be the same thing.”

“他妈的没有人会在乎，裘德。”他凶巴巴地说，然后失控地继续暴发，“给他们吃奶酪条就好了，对他们来说是一样的。”

　 Jude shrugged, and Willem felt his annoyance quicken into anger. Here Jude sat after what was, he could now admit, a terrifying night, acting as if nothing had happened, even as his bandage-wrapped hand lay uselessly on the table. He was about to speak when Jude put down the water glass he’d been using as a pastry cutter and looked at him. “I’m really sorry, Willem,” he said, so softly that Willem almost couldn’t hear him. He saw Willem looking at his hand and pulled it into his lap. “I should never—” He paused. “I’m sorry. Don’t be mad at me.”

裘德耸耸肩，威廉感觉自己的不耐烦转为愤怒。在经过可怕的一夜之后，裘德就坐在面前，即使包着绷带的手无力地放在桌子上，还是摆出一副什么事都没发生过的样子。他正要开口时，裘德把用来切面团的玻璃水杯放下，看着他：“我真的很抱歉，威廉。”他说，声音轻得威廉几乎听不到。他看到威廉盯着他的手，于是缩回去放在膝上。“我实在不该……”他暂停了一下，“对不起。别生我的气。”

　 His anger dissolved. “Jude,” he asked, “what were you doing?”

威廉的怒气消失了。“裘德，”他问，“你昨天晚上做了什么？”

　 “Not what you think. I promise you, Willem.”

“威廉，我跟你保证。不是你想的那样。”

　 Years later, Willem would recount this conversation—its contours, if not its actual, literal content—for Malcolm as proof of his own incompetence, his own failure. How might things have been different if he spoke only one sentence? And that sentence could have been “Jude, are you trying to kill yourself?” or “Jude, you need to tell me what’s going on,” or “Jude, why do you do this to yourself?” Any of those would have been acceptable; any of those would have led to a larger conversation that would have been reparative, or at the very least preventative.

几年后，威廉将把这段谈话转述给马尔科姆听（就算不是逐字的内容，也是大致的状况），作为自己无能、失败的证据。要是当时他能多说一句，事情可能会有什么不同？那句话可以是“裘德，你想自杀吗？”“裘德，你得告诉我到底是怎么回事。”或是“裘德，你为什么要割自己？”任何一句都可以过关，任何一句都会导向更深入的谈话，这样就会有一些修复作用，至少有预防作用。

　 Wouldn’t it?

会吗？

　 But there, in the moment, he instead only mumbled, “Okay.”

但在那一刻，他只是咕哝说：“好吧。”

　 They sat in silence for what felt like a long time, listening to the murmur of one of their neighbors’ televisions, and it was only much later that Willem would wonder whether Jude had been saddened or relieved that he had been so readily believed.

他们不发一语对坐了好久，听着某个邻居家里电视机的沙沙声。一直要到很久以后，威廉才会想到，自己这么容易就买账，不知道裘德会不会觉得难过，还是松了口气。

　 “Are you mad at me?”

“你在生我的气吗？”

　 “No.” He cleared his throat. And he wasn’t. Or, at least, mad was not the word he would have chosen, but he couldn’t then articulate what word would be correct. “But we obviously have to cancel the party.”

“没有。”他清了清嗓子。他的确没生气。至少，生气不是他会选择的字眼，但他也无法确切说出哪个字眼才正确。“显然我们得取消派对了。”

　 At this, Jude looked alarmed. “Why?”

裘德一听就警觉起来：“为什么？”

　 “Why? Are you kidding me?”

“为什么？你在开玩笑吧？”

　 “Willem,” Jude said, adopting what Willem thought of as his litigatory tone, “we can’t cancel. People are going to be showing up in seven hours—less. And we really have no clue who JB’s invited. They’re going to show up anyway, even if we let everyone else know. And besides”—he inhaled sharply, as if he’d had a lung infection and was trying to prove it had resolved itself—“I’m perfectly fine. It’ll be more difficult if we cancel than if we just go forward.”

“威廉，”裘德说，换了一种口吻，威廉听起来像是在诉讼，“我们不能取消。不到七个小时，大家就会跑来了。我们实在不知道杰比邀请了谁。即使我们通知其他人取消，杰比邀请的那些人还是会来。何况……”他用力吸了口气，好像他得了肺炎，想证明自己已经康复，“我完全没问题。派对取消了反而麻烦，倒不如照常举行吧。”

　 Oh, how and why did he always listen to Jude? But he did, once again, and soon it was eight, and the windows were once again open, and the kitchen was once again hot with pastry—as if the previous night had never happened, as if those hours had been an illusion—and Malcolm and JB were arriving. Willem stood in the door of their bedroom, buttoning up his shirt and listening to Jude tell them that he had burned his arm baking the gougères, and that Andy had had to apply a salve.

啊，他怎么总是听裘德的话？但那回他还是听了。接下来很快就8点了，窗子再度打开，厨房再度因为烘焙食物而变得热烘烘的，好像前一夜的事没发生过，只是一场幻梦。然后马尔科姆和杰比来了。威廉站在卧室门边，扣着衬衫扣子，一边听裘德告诉另外两人，他因为烤那些奶酪泡芙烫伤了手臂，安迪帮他搽了药膏。

　 “I told you not to make those fucking gougères,” he could hear JB say, happily. He loved Jude’s baking.

“我早就叫你不要烤那些该死的奶酪泡芙了。”他听到杰比开心地说。他很爱裘德的烘焙料理。

　 He was overcome, then, with a powerful sensation: he could close the door, and go to sleep, and when he woke, it would be a new year, and everything would be wiped fresh, and he wouldn’t feel that deep, writhing discomfort inside of him. The thought of seeing Malcolm and JB, of interacting with them and smiling and joking, seemed suddenly excruciating.

然后，一种强烈的感觉排山倒海而来：他可以关上门，去睡觉，等到他醒来，就是新的一年，一切都会从头开始，他不会再感觉到心底那种深刻、煎熬的不安。想到要面对马尔科姆和杰比，想到要跟他们交谈、微笑、开玩笑，这些忽然间让他痛苦不堪。

　 But, of course, see them he did, and when JB demanded they all go up to the roof so he could get some fresh air and have a smoke, he let Malcolm complain uselessly and halfheartedly about how cold it was without joining in, before resignedly following the three of them up the narrow staircase that led to the tar-papered roof.

但是当然，威廉还是出去跟他们碰面，接着杰比吵着要他们四个人全部到屋顶去透透气，同时让他抽根烟。马尔科姆徒劳且不太认真地抱怨外头有多冷，说不要去，但最后又放弃了，跟着他们三个爬上窄窄的楼梯，来到铺有柏油纸的屋顶。