《渺小一生》:“你觉得可以修复吗？”

　 “Of course it is,” Willem had said. “There’s no better reason than that.”

“当然是。”威廉说，“没有更好的理由了。”

　 He had never done it before, and so he had no real understanding of how slow, and sad, and difficult it was to end a friendship. Richard knows that he and JB and Willem and JB don’t talk any longer, but he doesn’t know why—or at least not from him. Now, years later, he no longer even blames JB; he simply cannot forget. He finds that some small but unignorable part of him is always wondering if JB will do it again; he finds he is scared of being left alone with him.

他之前从来没有碰到过，所以并不真正了解要终止一份友谊会有多缓慢、多哀伤，又有多困难。理查德知道他和威廉都不跟杰比往来了，但不知道原因，至少无法从他这里知晓。现在，多年过后，他再也不怪杰比了；他只是忘不了。他发现他心底有一块很小但无法忽略的部分，始终担心杰比可能会再做一次，他发现自己很害怕跟他单独相处。

　 Two years ago, the first year JB didn’t come up to Truro, Harold asked him if anything was the matter. “You never talk about him anymore,” he said.

两年前，杰比首次没跟他们去特鲁罗度假，哈罗德问他是不是发生了什么事。“你现在都没提起他了。”哈罗德说。

　 “Well,” he began, not knowing how to continue. “We’re not really—we’re not really friends any longer, Harold.”

“这个嘛，”他说，不知道该怎么讲下去，“哈罗德，我们，我们现在不是朋友了。”

　 “I’m sorry, Jude,” Harold said after a silence, and he nodded. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“我很遗憾，裘德。”哈罗德顿了一会儿说，还点点头，“你可以告诉我发生了什么事吗？”哈罗德又问。

　 “No,” he said, concentrating on snapping the tops off the radishes. “It’s a long story.”

“没有办法。”他说，专心摘掉樱桃萝卜的叶梗，“那是个很长的故事。”

　 “Can it be repaired, do you think?”

“你觉得可以修复吗？”

　 He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

他摇摇头：“我不认为可以。”

　 Harold sighed. “I’m sorry, Jude,” he repeated. “It must be bad.” He was quiet. “I always loved seeing you four together, you know. You had something special.”

哈罗德叹气。“我很遗憾，裘德。”他又说了一次，“事情一定很严重。”他没吭声。“你知道，我一直很喜欢看你们四个在一起。你们的友谊很特别。”

　 He nodded, again. “I know,” he said. “I agree. I miss him.”

他再度点点头。“我知道，”他说，“我也这样觉得。我很想念他。”

　 He misses JB still; he expects he always will. He especially misses JB at events like this wedding, where the four of them would once have spent the night talking and laughing about everyone else, enviable and near obnoxious in their shared pleasure, their pleasure in one another. But now there are JB and Willem, nodding at each other across the table, and Malcolm, talking very fast to try to obscure any tension, and the other three people at the table, whom the four of them—he will always think of them as the four of them; the four of us—start interrogating with inappropriate intensity, laughing loudly at their jokes, using them as unwitting human shields. He is seated next to JB’s boyfriend—the nice white boy he had always wanted—who is in his twenties and has just gotten his nursing degree and is clearly besotted with JB. “What was JB like in college?” asks Oliver, and he says, “Very much the way he is today: funny, and sharp, and outrageous, and smart. And talented. He was always, always talented.”

他至今依然想念杰比，也预计自己会永远想念他。尤其是碰到这种婚礼的场合，以前他们四个都会整夜交谈、取笑其他人。那种四人共有的开心，还有从彼此身上得到的开心，令人羡慕，简直令人嫉恨。但现在杰比和威廉只是隔着桌子彼此点个头，而马尔科姆讲话飞快，以掩饰紧张的气氛，而且他们四个（他永远会想成他们四个、我们四个）开始不太得体地连番逼问同桌的其他三个人，对他们的笑话放声大笑，把他们当成不知情的人形盾牌。他隔壁坐着杰比的男朋友奥利弗（完全就是杰比一直想要的那种体贴白人小伙子），二十来岁，刚拿到护理学位，显然为杰比痴迷。“杰比在大学里是什么样子？”奥利弗问，而他回答：“很像他现在这样：搞笑、敏锐、嚣张、聪明，也很有才华。他一直都很有才华。”

　 “Hmm,” says Oliver thoughtfully, looking over at JB, who is listening to Sophie with what seems like exaggerated concentration. “I never think of JB as funny, really.” And then he looks over at JB as well, wondering if Oliver has perhaps interpreted JB incorrectly or whether JB has, in fact, become someone else, someone he now wouldn’t recognize as the person he knew for so many years.

“唔，”奥利弗思索着说，看着似乎太专心听苏菲讲话的杰比，“我从来不觉得杰比搞笑，真的。”然后他也望向杰比，很好奇是奥利弗对杰比解读错误，还是杰比已经变了一个人，他再也认不出来了。

　 At the end of the night, there are kisses and handshakes, and when Oliver—to whom JB has clearly told nothing—tells him they should get together, the three of them, because he’s always wanted to get to know him, one of JB’s oldest friends, he smiles and says something vague, and gives JB a wave before heading outside, where Willem is waiting for him.

那一夜的尾声，他们彼此吻颊或握手道别时，奥利弗（杰比显然什么都没告诉他）跟他说他们三个人应该找时间多聚一聚，因为他知道他是杰比认识最久的老友之一，一直想多了解他。他听了报以微笑，说了些含糊的话，然后朝杰比挥挥手就走出去了，威廉正在门外等他。

　 “How was it for you?” Willem asks.

“你觉得怎么样？”威廉问。

　 “Okay,” he says, smiling back at him. He thinks these meetings with JB are even harder for Willem than they are for him. “You?”

“还好。”他说，朝他微笑。他觉得这些有杰比的聚会，威廉比他更难受，“你呢？”

　 “Okay,” Willem says. His girlfriend drives up to the curb; they are staying at a hotel. “I’ll call you tomorrow, all right?”

“还好。”威廉说。他的女朋友把车开到人行道边缘，他们晚上住饭店，“我明天打电话给你，好吗？”

　 Back in Cambridge, he lets himself into the silent house and walks as softly as he can back to his bathroom, where he prises his bag from beneath the loose tile near the toilet and cuts himself until he feels absolutely empty, holding his arms over the bathtub, watching the porcelain stain itself crimson. As he always does after seeing JB, he wonders if he has made the right decision. He wonders if all of them—he, Willem, JB, Malcolm—will lie awake that night longer than usual, thinking of one another’s faces and of conversations, good and bad, that they have had with one another over what had been more than twenty years of friendship.

回到剑桥市，他自己开门进入静悄悄的屋里，尽量轻手轻脚走回自己的卧室，然后从马桶附近一块松掉的瓷砖底下拿出他的小袋子，割自己割到他觉得完全放空为止，双臂平举在浴缸上方，看着瓷面染上深红。他每次见过杰比总会有相同的行为，他好奇自己是否做了正确的决定。他好奇他们所有人——他、威廉、杰比、马尔科姆——当晚是否都难以入眠，躺在床上想着彼此的脸，想着二十多年友谊中种种有好有坏的对话。

　 Oh, he thinks, if I were a better person. If I were a more generous person. If I were a less self-involved person. If I were a braver person.

啊，他心想，如果我是个更好的人，如果我是个更宽厚的人，如果我是个比较不自我中心的人，如果我是个更勇敢的人。

　 Then he stands, gripping the towel bar as he does; he has cut himself too much tonight, and he is faint. He goes over to the full-length mirror that is hung on the back of the bedroom’s closet door. In his apartment on Greene Street, there are no full-length mirrors. “No mirrors,” he told Malcolm. “I don’t like them.” But really, he doesn’t want to be confronted with his image; he doesn’t want to see his body, his face staring back at him.

他今天割太多道了，觉得头昏眼花。他抓着毛巾杆站起来，走到浴室柜前，打开柜门，看着门后那面穿衣镜。他格林街的公寓里没有穿衣镜。“不要有镜子。”之前他告诉马尔科姆，“我不喜欢镜子。”但其实是因为他不想面对自己的模样，不想看到自己的身体，不想看到镜中自己的脸。

　 But here at Harold and Julia’s, there is a mirror, and he stands in front of it for a few seconds, contemplating himself, before adopting the hunched pose JB had that night. JB was right, he thinks. He was right. And that is why I can’t forgive him.

但是在哈罗德和朱丽娅的家，有一面镜子，而他站在镜前几秒钟，凝视着自己，然后摆出杰比那一夜模仿他的驼背姿势。杰比没有错，他心想，他没有错。这就是为什么我没办法原谅他。