《渺小一生》:“爱你的哈罗德。”

　 “But it was Jacob’s,” he heard himself say.

“但那是雅各布做的。”他愣愣地说。

　 “Yes,” said Harold. “And it still is.” He stood. “Look at me, Jude,” he said, and he finally did. “It’s okay. Come on,” and Harold held out his hand, and he took it, and let Harold pull him to his feet. He wanted to howl, then, that after everything Harold had given him, he had repaid him by destroying something precious created by someone who had been most precious.

“没错。”哈罗德说，“摔破了也还是。”他站起来。“看着我，裘德。”他说。他终于看了。“没事的。来吧。”哈罗德伸出一只手，他握住了，让哈罗德拉他站起来。那时他好想大哭，在哈罗德给了他一切之后，他的回报竟是毁掉他最心爱的人所做的珍贵物件。

　 Harold went upstairs to his study with the mug in his hands, and he finished his cleaning in silence, the lovely day graying around him. When Julia came home, he waited for Harold to tell her how stupid and clumsy he’d been, but he didn’t. That night at dinner, Harold was the same as he always was, but when he returned to Lispenard Street, he wrote Harold a real, proper letter, apologizing properly, and sent it to him.

哈罗德拿着马克杯碎片上楼回他的书房，他则默默地打扫完客厅。美好的白天逐渐变得灰暗。朱丽娅回家时，他等着哈罗德跟她说他有多愚蠢、多笨拙，但没有。那天的晚餐席上，哈罗德跟往常没有两样。等到他回到利斯本纳街，他手写了一封得体的信，很得体地道歉，然后寄给哈罗德。

　 And a few days later, he got a reply, also in the form of a real letter, which he would keep for the rest of his life.

几天后，他收到了回信，也是手写的信，日后他将珍藏一辈子。

　 “Dear Jude,” Harold wrote, “thank you for your beautiful (if unnecessary) note. I appreciate everything in it. You’re right; that mug means a lot to me. But you mean more. So please stop torturing yourself.

“亲爱的裘德，”哈罗德写道，“谢谢你漂亮（但是没必要）的信。我感激你所写的一切。你说得没错，那个马克杯对我意义重大，但是你的意义更重大。所以请别再折磨自己了。

　 “If I were a different kind of person, I might say that this whole incident is a metaphor for life in general: things get broken, and sometimes they get repaired, and in most cases, you realize that no matter what gets damaged, life rearranges itself to compensate for your loss, sometimes wonderfully.

“如果我是另一种人，我可能会说，这整件事就是人生大致状况的隐喻：东西会破损，有时能被修复，但大多数情况下，你会明白无论什么被毁掉了，生活都会自我调整，弥补损失，有时甚至是令人惊叹的补偿。

　 “Actually—maybe I am that kind of person after all.

“其实呢——或许我就是那种人。

　 “Love, Harold.”

“爱你的哈罗德。”

　 It was not so many years ago—despite the fact that he knew otherwise, despite what Andy had been telling him since he was seventeen—that he was still maintaining a sort of small, steady hope that he might get better. On especially bad days, he would repeat the Philadelphia surgeon’s words to himself—“the spine has wonderful reparative qualities”—almost like a chant. A few years after meeting Andy, when he was in law school, he had finally summoned the courage to suggest this to him, had said aloud the prediction he had treasured and clung to, hoping that Andy might nod and say, “That’s exactly right. It’ll just take time.”

尽管他知道不是如此，尽管从他17岁起安迪就一直告诉他那些话，不过几年前，他还抱着某种小小的、坚定的希望，觉得自己可能会好转。尤其在特别糟糕的日子里，他会把费城那位外科医师的话说给自己听，“脊椎有很神奇的恢复能力”，一遍又一遍，简直像在念经。认识安迪几年后他上了法学院，终于鼓起勇气跟安迪提起，把他珍爱且紧抓不放的这句预言说出来，希望安迪会点点头说“一点也没错，只是需要时间而已”。

　 But Andy had snorted. “He told you that?” he asked. “It’s not going to get better, Jude; as you get older, it’ll get worse.” Andy had been looking down at his ankle as he spoke, using tweezers to pick out shreds of dead flesh from a wound he’d developed, when he suddenly froze, and even without seeing Andy’s face, he could tell he was chagrined. “I’m sorry, Jude,” he said, looking up, still cupping his foot in his hand. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you differently.” And when he couldn’t answer, he sighed. “You’re upset.”

但安迪听了冷哼一声，“他这么告诉你？”他问，“这个状况不会好转的，裘德。等到你年纪大一些，状况还会恶化。”安迪当时正低头看着他的脚踝，用镊子把死肉从一个疮里夹出来。他听了忽然全身僵住，即使没看到安迪的脸，也知道他很懊恼。“裘德，对不起。”安迪说着抬头看，手还握着他的脚，“很抱歉我只能这样告诉你。”看他没回答，安迪叹了口气，“你不高兴。”

　 He was, of course. “I’m fine,” he managed to say, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at Andy.

没错，那是当然。“我没事。”他设法开口，但还是没有勇气看安迪。

　 “I’m sorry, Jude,” Andy repeated, quietly. He had two settings, even then: brusque and gentle, and he had experienced both of them often, sometimes in a single appointment.

“我很抱歉，裘德。”安迪又轻声说了一遍。即使在当时，安迪就有两种反应模式：凶巴巴和温柔。两种他都常常碰到，有时还是在同一次看诊时。

　 “But one thing I promise,” he said, returning to the ankle, “I’ll always be here to take care of you.”

“但有件事我可以保证。”安迪说，又回去对着他的脚踝，“我永远会照顾你。”

　 And he had. Of all the people in his life, it was in some ways Andy who knew the most about him: Andy was the only person he’d been naked in front of as an adult, the only person who was familiar with every physical dimension of his body. Andy had been a resident when they met, and he had stayed in Boston for his fellowship, and his postfellowship, and then the two of them had moved to New York within months of each other. He was an orthopedic surgeon, but he treated him for everything, from chest colds to his back and leg problems.

安迪说到做到。就某些方面而言，安迪是他生命中最了解他的人。安迪是他成年后唯一赤身裸体面对过的人，也是唯一熟悉他身体实际状况的人。他们认识时，安迪是住院医生，在研究生时期以及之后的时间里，他一直待在波士顿。后来，他们两人又在几个月内先后搬到纽约。他是整形外科医生，但他会帮他治疗各种状况，从感冒到背痛到腿的毛病。

　 “Wow,” Andy said dryly, as he sat in his examining room one day hacking up phlegm (this had been the previous spring, shortly before he had turned twenty-nine, when a bout of bronchitis had been snaking its way through the office), “I’m so glad I specialized in orthopedics. This is such good practice for me. This is exactly what I thought I’d do with my training.”

“哇，”有天安迪看着他坐在诊疗室里咳痰（前一年春天，在他满29岁前不久，办公室的人纷纷染上了支气管炎），不动声色地讽刺说，“我真高兴我专攻的是整形外科，这对我真是个好练习。我想我受的训练就是要我做这个。”

　 He had started to laugh, but then his coughing had begun again and Andy had thumped him on the back. “Maybe if someone recommended a real internist to me, I wouldn’t have to keep going to a chiropractor for all my medical needs,” he said.

他想笑，但又接着咳了一轮，咳到安迪得用力拍他的背部。“如果有人给我推荐一个真正的内科医生，我就不必跑来找一个整脊师来满足我所有的医疗需求了。”他说。

　 “Mmm,” Andy said. “You know, maybe you should start seeing an internist. God knows it’d save me a lot of time, and a shitload of headaches as well.” But he would never go to see anyone but Andy, and he thought—although they had never discussed it—that Andy wouldn’t want him to, either.

“哦……”安迪说，“你知道，或许你真的该去看内科医生。天晓得那会节省我多少时间，还有一大堆麻烦。”但除了安迪以外，他绝不会去看其他医生，而且，他认为安迪也不希望他去找别人，只是他们从来没谈过这个问题。

　 For all Andy knew about him, he knew relatively little about Andy. He knew that he and Andy had gone to the same college, and that Andy was a decade older than he, and that Andy’s father was Gujarati and his mother was Welsh, and that he had grown up in Ohio. Three years ago, Andy had gotten married, and he had been surprised to be invited to the wedding, which was small and held at Andy’s in-laws’ house on the Upper West Side. He had made Willem come with him, and was even more surprised when Andy’s new wife, Jane, had thrown her arms around him when they were introduced and said, “The famous Jude St. Francis! I’ve heard so much about you!”

安迪知道他这么多，他对安迪却所知甚少。他知道安迪和他毕业于同一所大学，比他大十岁，也知道安迪的父亲来自印度古吉拉特邦，母亲是威尔士人，而安迪是在俄亥俄州长大的。三年前，安迪要结婚时，他很惊讶自己会受邀参加。那是个小小的婚礼，地点在安迪的岳父母位于上西城的一栋房子里。他找威廉陪他一起去。让他更惊讶的是，安迪跟他们介绍新婚妻子简时，简张开双手抱住他说：“大名鼎鼎的裘德·圣弗朗西斯！我听说过你好多事情！”

　 “Oh, really,” he’d said, his mind filling with fear, like a flock of flapping bats.

“啊，真的。”他说，满心的恐惧像是一群扑着翅膀的蝙蝠。