《渺小一生》:比方说，他知道凯莱布讨厌他

　 He stays at the office for another two hours, tidying and sorting papers, attempting to batten down the constant detritus. He feels no sense of relief, or victory, after these outcomes: just a tiredness, but a simple, well-earned tiredness, as if he has completed a day’s worth of physical labor. Eleven months: interviews, research, more interviews, fact-checking, writing, rewriting—and then, in an instant, it is over, and another case will take its place.

他又在办公室待了两小时，把文件整理分类，设法把零碎的东西收拾好。每回一个案子的结果出来，他都没有解脱或胜利的感觉：只有疲倦，一种单纯、应有的疲倦，好像他做完了一天该做的体力劳动。十一个月的工作，包括访谈、调查、更多访谈、事实查核、撰写、重写……然后，刹那间就结束了，另一个案子又要开始。

　 Finally he goes home, where he is suddenly so exhausted that he stops on the way to his bedroom to sit on the sofa, and wakes an hour later, disoriented and parched. He hasn’t seen or talked to most of his friends in the past few months—even his conversations with Willem have been briefer than usual. Part of this is attributable to Malpractice and Bastard, and the frantic preparations they had demanded; but the other part is attributable to his ongoing confusion over Caleb, about whom he has not told Willem. This weekend, though, Caleb is in Bridgehampton, and he is glad of the time alone.

最后他终于回到家。走向卧室途中，他忽然疲倦得停下来，坐在沙发上就睡着了，一个小时后醒来，他既茫然又口渴得要命。过去这几个月，他跟大部分朋友都没见面，也没谈话，就连跟威廉的通话都比平常简短。这一部分要怪弊端加混蛋，这个案子要准备的东西太多了；但另一部分则归因于他对凯莱布的事一直很困惑，而且还没跟威廉提起过他。不过这个周末凯莱布都在汉普顿桥，他很高兴自己能独处几天。

　 He still doesn’t know how he feels about Caleb, even three months later. He is not altogether certain that Caleb even likes him. Or rather: he knows he enjoys talking to him, but there are times when he catches Caleb looking at him with an expression that borders on disgust. “You’re really handsome,” Caleb once said, his voice perplexed, taking his chin between his fingers and turning his face toward him. “But—” And although he didn’t finish, he could sense what Caleb wanted to say: But something’s wrong. But you still repel me. But I don’t understand why I don’t like you, not really.

他们交往三个月了，他还是不知道自己对凯莱布有什么感觉，他甚至不太确定凯莱布是不是喜欢他。或者应该说：他知道他很喜欢跟他聊天，但有时他会不小心看到凯莱布用一种近乎厌恶的表情看他。“你真的很英俊，”凯莱布有回说，口气似乎茫然不解，手指抬起他的下巴，把他的脸转向自己，“可是……”凯莱布没讲完，但他感觉得出凯莱布想说：可是有什么不对劲，可是你还是让我受不了，可是我不懂为什么我没法真正喜欢你。

　 He knows Caleb hates his walk, for example. A few weeks after they had started seeing each other, Caleb was sitting on the sofa and he had gone to get a bottle of wine, and as he was walking back, he noticed Caleb staring at him so intently that he had grown nervous. He poured the wine, and they drank, and then Caleb said, “You know, when I met you, we were sitting down, so I didn’t know you had a limp.”

比方说，他知道凯莱布讨厌他的跛行。他们开始交往几周后，有一天凯莱布坐在沙发上，他去拿一瓶葡萄酒。走回来时，他注意到凯莱布很专心地看着他，让他紧张起来。他倒了酒，两人开始喝，然后凯莱布说：“你知道，我认识你的时候，我们都坐着，所以我不知道你走路会一跛一跛的。”

　 “That’s true,” he said, reminding himself that this was not something for which he had to apologize: he hadn’t entrapped Caleb; he hadn’t intended to deceive him. He took a breath and tried to sound light, mildly curious. “Would you not have wanted to go out with me if you’d known?”

“是啊。”他说，提醒自己不必为这种事道歉。他没有设圈套给凯莱布，他没有故意欺骗他。他吸了口气，设法让自己的语调轻松、带着一点好奇：“要是当初知道的话，你就不会想跟我交往了吗？”

　 “I don’t know,” Caleb said, after a silence. “I don’t know.” He had wanted to vanish, then, to close his eyes and reel back time, back to before he had ever met Caleb. He would have turned down Rhodes’s invitation; he would have kept living his little life; he would have never known the difference.

“不知道，”凯莱布沉默了一会儿说，“我不知道。”他当时很想消失，很想闭上眼睛让时光倒流，回到遇见凯莱布之前。他会婉拒罗兹的邀约；他会继续过着他渺小的人生；他永远不会知道有什么不同。

　 But as much as Caleb hates his walk, he loathes his wheelchair. The first time Caleb had come over in daylight, he had given him a tour of the apartment. He was proud of the apartment, and every day he was grateful to be in it, and disbelieving that it was his. Malcolm had kept Willem’s suite—as they called it—where it had been, but had enlarged it and added an office at its northern edge, close to the elevator. And then there was the long open space, with a piano, and a living-room area facing south, and a table that Malcolm had designed on the northern side, the side without windows, and behind it, a bookcase that covered the entire wall until the kitchen, hung with art by his friends, and friends of friends, and other pieces that he had bought over the years. The whole eastern end of the apartment was his: you crossed from the bedroom, on the north side, through the closet and into the bathroom, which had windows that looked east and south. Although he mostly kept the shades in the apartment lowered, you could open them all at once and the space would feel like a rectangle of pure light, the veil between you and the outside world mesmerizingly thin. He often feels as if the apartment is a falsehood: it suggests that the person within it is someone open, and vital, and generous with his answers, and he of course is not that person. Lispenard Street, with its half-obscured alcoves and dark warrens and walls that had been painted over so many times that you could feel ridges and blisters where moths and bugs had been entombed in its layers, was a much more accurate reflection of who he is.

凯莱布讨厌他的跛行，但更厌恶他的轮椅。凯莱布第一次白天来他家时，他带着他参观了一圈。他很以这间公寓为荣，每天都很庆幸自己住在里面，同时又不敢相信这里是他的。马尔科姆把威廉的套房（他们都这样称呼）留在原来的位置，但把它加大了，还在靠北的角落加了一间办公室，离电梯很近。公寓中间的长形开放空间放了一架钢琴，起居空间朝南，还有一张马尔科姆设计的餐桌放在没有窗子的北边，餐桌再过去是占满一整墙的书架，直到厨房。上头挂着艺术作品，有他朋友的，也有朋友的朋友的，或是他这些年买的其他作品。公寓的整个东头是他的：靠北边是卧室，往南经过衣物间，就来到浴室，里面有窗子，开向东边和南边。虽然大部分时间他都把公寓里的遮光帘拉下来，但也可以一口气全部打开，整个空间就像纯粹的光线构成的长方形，人在里面，和外面的世界只隔着一层迷离的薄纱帘。他常觉得这个公寓仿佛是个骗局：暗示住在里面的是个开放、地位重要且乐意回答所有问题的人，但他当然不是那样。利斯本纳街的旧居，有着黯淡的凹室和昏黑的狭窄通道，墙壁因为漆过太多次，可以摸到虫子在里头产卵而形成的突起和破洞。那样的地方，才更能准确地反映他这个人。

　 For Caleb’s visit, he had let the place shimmer with sunlight, and he could tell Caleb was impressed. They walked slowly through it, Caleb looking at the art and asking about different pieces: where he had gotten them, who had made them, noting the ones he recognized.

为了凯莱布的来访，他提前打开了所有遮光帘，让整个空间充满阳光。他看得出凯莱布的确印象深刻。他们缓缓走过去，凯莱布仔细审视着那些艺术作品，问起他是如何得到的、创作的艺术家是谁，也注意到某些他看过的。

　 And then they came to the bedroom, and he was showing Caleb the piece at the far end of the room—a painting of Willem in the makeup chair he had bought from “Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days”—when Caleb asked, “Whose wheelchair is that?”

然后他们进入卧室，他正要介绍房间另一头的那件作品（画作里，威廉坐在化妆师前的椅子上，是从“秒，分，时，日”的展览里买来的），凯莱布忽然问：“那是谁的轮椅？”

　 He looked where Caleb was looking. “Mine,” he said, after a pause.

他看向凯莱布的视线。“我的。”他顿了一下回答。

　 “But why?” Caleb had asked him, looking confused. “You can walk.”

“可是为什么？”凯莱布问他，一脸困惑，“你可以走路啊。”

　 He didn’t know what to say. “Sometimes I need it,” he said, finally. “Rarely. I don’t use it that often.”

他不知道该说什么。“有时候我需要轮椅。”最后他终于说，“少数时候，我没那么常用。”

　 “Good,” said Caleb. “See that you don’t.”

“很好，”凯莱布说，“看起来你不需要。”

　 He was startled. Was this an expression of concern, or was it a threat? But before he could figure out what he should feel, or what he should answer, Caleb had turned, and was heading into his closet, and he followed him, continuing his tour.

他很吃惊。这是表示关心，还是一种威胁？但他还没搞清楚自己该有什么感觉，或者该怎么回答，凯莱布已经转身进入他的衣物间，他跟在后面，继续为他介绍。

　 A month after that, he had met Caleb late one night outside his office in the far western borderland of the Meatpacking District. Caleb too worked long hours; it was early July and Rothko would present their spring line in eight weeks. He had driven to work that day, but it was a dry night, and so he got out of the car and sat in his chair under a streetlamp until Caleb came down, talking to someone else. He knew Caleb had seen him—he had raised his hand in his direction and Caleb had given him a barely perceptible nod: neither of them were demonstrative people—and watched Caleb until he finished his conversation and the other man had begun walking east.

一个月后，有天晚上很晚了，他们约在凯莱布的办公室外碰面，就在肉品包装区的西端。凯莱布的工时也很长；这是七月初，再过八周罗思科就要推出他们的春装秀。他那天开车去上班，但是晚上没下雨，所以他下车后坐上轮椅，在一盏路灯下等待，直到凯莱布下来，在跟某个人讲话。他知道凯莱布看到他了——他朝他举了下手，凯莱布微微点了个头：他们两个都不喜欢公然表达感情——就这么观察着，直到凯莱布讲完话，那个人开始朝东走。

　 “Hi,” he said, as Caleb came over to him.

“嗨。”他说，看着凯莱布走向他。

　 “Why are you in your wheelchair?” Caleb demanded.

“你为什么坐轮椅？”凯莱布问道。

　 For a moment, he couldn’t speak, and when he did, he stammered. “I had to use it today,” he finally said.

一时之间，他说不出话来，等到终于开口，他嗫嚅道：“我今天有需要。”

　 Caleb sighed, and rubbed at his eyes. “I thought you didn’t use it.”

凯莱布叹气，揉揉眼睛：“我还以为你没在用轮椅。”

　 “I don’t,” he said, so ashamed that he could feel himself start to sweat. “Not really. I only use it when I absolutely have to.”

“我是没在用啊。”他说，羞愧得都可以感觉到自己在冒汗了，“只有很偶尔，绝对需要的时候才用。”