《渺小一生》:但他和三个好友都没有子女

　 Alex is seated to his left, and he talks to her about her job as the public relations director of a fashion label called Rothko, which she has just quit, to Rhodes’s consternation. “Do you miss it yet?” he asks.

今天亚历克丝坐在他左边，两人聊起她的工作。她原来在一家时装公司罗思科当公关主任，刚刚辞职，让罗兹非常惊恐。“开始想念上班的日子了吗？”他问。

　 “Not yet,” she says. “I know Rhodes isn’t happy about it”—she smiles—“but he’ll get over it. I just felt I should stay home while the kids are young.”

“还没。”她说，“我知道罗兹很不高兴，”她微笑，“但是他会想开的。我只是觉得应该趁孩子还小，待在家里多陪陪他们。”

　 He asks about the country house the two of them have bought in Connecticut (another source of Rhodes’s nightmares), and she tells him about the renovation, which is grinding into its third summer, and he groans in sympathy. “Rhodes said you were looking somewhere in Columbia County,” she says. “Did you end up buying?”

他问起了他们夫妇在康涅狄格州买的乡村住宅（罗兹梦魇的另一个来源），她把状况告诉他，缓慢的整修过程现在已经进入了第三个夏天。他发出同情的叹息。“罗兹说过你去哥伦比亚郡看房子。”她说，“你后来买了吗？”

　 “Not yet,” he says. It had been a choice: either the house, or he and Richard were going to renovate the ground floor, make the garage usable and add a gym and a small pool—one with a constant current, so you could swim in place in it—and in the end, he chose the renovation. Now he swims every morning in complete privacy; not even Richard enters the gym area when he’s in it.

“还没。”他说。那栋房子只是个选项：看要买下那里，还是跟理查德一起出钱整修一楼，把车库修得能用，再加个健身房和一个小游泳池——会制造恒定水流的那种，这样你就可以在原地逆水游泳——结果他们选择整修一楼。现在他每天早上都在完全私人的状态下游泳：他在健身房的时候，连理查德都不会进去。

　 “We wanted to wait on the house, actually,” Alex admits. “But really, we didn’t have a choice—we wanted the kids to have a yard while they were little.”

“我们其实在等那栋房子整修好。”亚历克丝承认，“可是也没有办法——小孩还小，我们希望他们有个院子。”

　 He nods; he has heard this story before, from Rhodes. Often, it feels as if he and Rhodes (and he and almost every one of his contemporaries at the firm) are living parallel versions of adulthood. Their world is governed by children, little despots whose needs—school and camp and activities and tutors—dictate every decision, and will for the next ten, fifteen, eighteen years. Having children has provided their adulthood with an instant and nonnegotiable sense of purpose and direction: they decide the length and location of that year’s vacation; they determine if there will be any leftover money, and if so, how it might be spent; they give shape to a day, a week, a year, a life. Children are a kind of cartography, and all one has to do is obey the map they present to you on the day they are born.

他点点头，之前他听罗兹说过了。他常常觉得，他和罗兹（还有几乎律师事务所每个同龄的人）似乎过着两种并行但截然不同的成人生活。他们的世界由子女统治，那些小暴君的需求（学校、度假营、活动、家教）支配了每个决定，而且接下来十年、十五年、十八年都会如此。子女为成人生活提供了一种迫切而无法改变的目的感和方向感：他们决定了每年度假要去哪里、去多久；他们决定了家里会不会有多余的钱，如果有，该怎么花；他们让每一天、每一星期、每一年、每一生成形。拥有子女就像是在绘制某种地图，你唯一要做的，就是遵循他们出生那天给你的路线，乖乖地照着画。

　 But he and his friends have no children, and in their absence, the world sprawls before them, almost stifling in its possibilities. Without them, one’s status as an adult is never secure; a childless adult creates adulthood for himself, and as exhilarating as it often is, it is also a state of perpetual insecurity, of perpetual doubt. Or it is to some people—certainly it is to Malcolm, who recently reviewed with him a list he’d made in favor of and against having children with Sophie, much as he had when he was deciding whether to marry Sophie in the first place, four years ago.

但他和三个好友都没有子女，因此整个世界在眼前展开，种种可能性简直多得令人透不过气来。没了子女，你的成人身份是永远不确定的；没有小孩的成人为自己创造出一种成年生活，这常常令人振奋，但也是一种长年不稳定、令人陷入自我怀疑的状态。或者对某些人来说是如此，马尔科姆肯定就是这样，他最近还拟了一张清单，列出生小孩的优点和缺点，来找他商量，差不多就像四年前在决定要不要跟苏菲结婚时那样。

　 “I don’t know, Mal,” he said, after listening to Malcolm’s list. “It sounds like the reasons for having them are because you feel you should, not because you really want them.”

“不知道，小马，”他听完马尔科姆的清单后说，“听起来你生小孩的理由，好像是因为你觉得自己应该要，而不是你真的想要。”

　 “Of course I feel I should,” said Malcolm. “Don’t you ever feel like we’re all basically still living like children, Jude?”

“我当然会觉得应该要。”马尔科姆说，“裘德，难道你从来不觉得，我们基本上还活得像个小孩吗？”

　 “No,” he said. And he never had: his life was as far from his childhood as he could imagine. “That’s your dad talking, Mal. Your life won’t be any less valid, or any less legitimate, if you don’t have kids.”

他不曾有这种感觉，他的人生离童年很远，远得不能再远了。“不会。”他说，“小马，那是你爸的想法。如果你没有小孩，你的人生也不会更不完整，或更不理直气壮。”

　 Malcolm had sighed. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe you’re right.” He’d smiled. “I mean, I don’t really want them.”

马尔科姆叹气，“或许吧，”他说，“或许你说得没错。”他露出微笑，“我的意思是，我不是真的很想要小孩。”

　 He smiled back. “Well,” he said, “you can always wait. Maybe someday you can adopt a sad thirty-year-old.”

他也微笑，“唔，”他说，“反正你永远可以改变心意。或许有一天你可以收养一个悲惨的30岁孤儿。”

　 “Maybe,” Malcolm said again. “After all, I hear it is a trend in certain parts of the country.”

“或许吧。”马尔科姆说，“毕竟，我听说国内有些地方正流行这种事呢。”

　 Now Alex excuses herself to help Rhodes in the kitchen, who has been calling her name with mounting urgency—“Alex. Alex! Alex!”—and he turns to the person on his right, whom he doesn’t recognize from Rhodes’s other parties, a dark-haired man with a nose that looks like it’s been broken: it starts heading decisively in one direction before reversing directions, just as decisively, right below the bridge.

这会儿罗兹在厨房喊亚历克丝，越喊越急——“亚历克丝。亚历克丝！亚历克丝！”——她只好暂时告退去帮忙。他转向坐在右边的那个人，他在罗兹的其他晚宴中从没见过他，是个深色头发的男子，鼻子看起来像是被打断的：一开始坚决地往一个方向延伸，过了鼻梁又忽然改变方向，而且同样坚决。

　 “Caleb Porter.”

“凯莱布·波特。”

　 “Jude St. Francis.”

“裘德·圣弗朗西斯。”

　 “Let me guess: Catholic.”

“让我猜猜看：天主教徒。”

　 “Let me guess: not.”

“让我猜猜看：不是。”

　 Caleb laughs. “You’re right about that.”

凯莱布大笑：“你猜对了。”

　 They talk, and Caleb tells him he’s just moved to the city from London, where he’s spent the past decade as the president of a fashion label, to take over as the new CEO at Rothko. “Alex very sweetly and spontaneously invited me yesterday, and I thought”—he shrugs—“why not? It’s this, a good meal with nice people, or sitting in a hotel room looking desultorily at real estate listings.” From the kitchen there is a timpani clatter of falling metal, and Rhodes swearing. Caleb looks at him, his eyebrows raised, and he smiles. “Don’t worry,” he reassures him. “This always happens.”

他们聊天，凯莱布说他之前十年都在伦敦担任一家时装公司的董事长，最近刚搬来纽约接任罗思科的执行长。“亚历克丝很好心，昨天临时起意邀请我来，我心想，”他耸耸肩，“有何不可呢？要不是来这里跟一群友善的好人吃一顿大餐，就是坐在旅馆房间看着一堆房地产清单找房子。”厨房里传来金属落地连串的叮咚响声，还有罗兹的咒骂。凯莱布看着他，抬起双眉。他笑出来，“别担心，”他向他保证，“这种事很常见。”