《渺小一生》:一个更好的朋友是会这样。

　 The next morning he woke very early, creeping past Willem sleeping on the sofa at the far end of his bedroom, and walked through the apartment. Someone had put flowers in every room, or branches of maple leaves, or bowls of squashes. The space smelled delicious, like apples and cedar. He went to his study, where someone had stacked his mail on his desk, and where Malcolm’s little paper house sat atop a stack of books. He saw unopened envelopes from JB, from Asian Henry Young, from India, from Ali, and knew they had made drawings for him. He walked past the dining-room table, letting his fingers skim along the spines of the books lined up on their shelves; he wandered into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator and saw that it was filled with things he liked. Richard had started working more with ceramics, and at the center of the dining table was a large, amorphous piece, the glaze rough and pleasant under his palms, painted with white threadlike veins. Next to it stood his and Willem’s Saint Jude statue, which Willem had taken with him when he moved to Perry Street, but which had now found its way back to him.

次日早晨他很早就醒来，蹑手蹑脚经过睡在卧室另一头沙发上的威廉，在公寓里四处转了一圈。有人在每个房间摆了鲜花，或是整枝枫叶，或是一钵钵小南瓜。整个空间闻起来很宜人，就像苹果和雪松木。他走到书房，看到有人把他的信件放在书桌上，马尔科姆的纸制小房子放在一叠书上头。他看到几个没拆的信封，寄件人有杰比、亚洲人亨利·杨、印蒂亚，还有阿里，于是知道里头是他们替他画的素描。他走过餐厅的桌子，手指滑过书架上成排的书脊；他走进厨房，打开冰箱，看到里头装满他喜欢的食物。理查德之前开始做更多的陶瓷，餐桌中央就摆了他一件不规则的大型作品，上面的釉彩描出绳子般的白色纹路，摸起来粗糙而舒适。旁边是他和威廉的圣裘德雕像，威廉搬去佩里街的时候带走了，但现在又带回来了。

　 The days slipped by and he let them. In the morning he swam, and he and Willem ate breakfast. The physical therapist came and had him practice squeezing rubber balls, short lengths of rope, toothpicks, pens. Sometimes he had to pick up multiple objects with one hand, holding them between his fingers, which was difficult. His hands shook more than ever, and he felt sharp prickles vibrating through his fingers, but she told him not to worry, that it was his muscles repairing themselves, his nerves resetting themselves. He had lunch, he napped. While he napped, Richard came to watch him and Willem went out to run errands and go downstairs to the gym and, he hoped, do something interesting and indulgent that didn’t involve him and his problems. People came to see him in the afternoon: all the same people, and new people, too. They stayed an hour and then Willem made them leave. Malcolm came with JB and the four of them had an awkward, polite conversation about things they had done when they were in college, but he was glad to see JB, and thought he might like to see him again when he was less cloudy-headed, so he could apologize to him and tell him he forgave him. As he was leaving, JB told him, quietly, “It’ll get better, Judy. Trust me, I know,” and then added, “At least you didn’t hurt anyone in the process,” and he felt guilty, because he knew he had. Andy came at the end of the day and examined him; he unwrapped his bandages and cleaned the area around his stitches. He still hadn’t looked at his stitches—he couldn’t bring himself to—and when Andy was cleaning them, he looked elsewhere or closed his eyes. After Andy left, they ate dinner, and after dinner, after the boutiques and few remaining galleries had shuttered for the night and the neighborhood was deserted, they walked, making a neat square around SoHo—east to Lafayette, north to Houston, west to Sixth, south to Grand, east to Greene—before returning home. It was a short walk, but it left him exhausted, and he once fell on the way to the bedroom, his legs simply sliding out from beneath him. Julia and Harold took the train down on Thursdays and spent all day Friday and Saturday with him, and part of Sunday as well.

他任由日子一天天过去。早上他去游泳，回来后和威廉吃早餐。接着物理治疗师过来要他练习握泡沫橡胶球、短绳子、牙签、笔。有时他得用一只手拿起好几样东西，夹在手指间，非常困难。他的手抖得比以前更厉害，手指感到阵阵刺骨的抽痛，但治疗师告诉他别担心，那是他的肌肉在自我修复，他的神经在重新设定。然后他吃午餐，小睡一下。他午睡时，理查德就过来看着，威廉则出门办些事情，或是下楼去健身房，或者，他希望，去做一些有趣、放纵，跟他及他的问题无关的事情。下午会有人来看他，除了以前那些老面孔，也有新面孔。他们会待一个小时，然后威廉就会请他们离开。马尔科姆和杰比来过，他们四人有一段尴尬、礼貌的谈话，聊着大学时代做过的事，但他很高兴看到杰比，希望等自己脑袋不那么糊涂时可以再碰面，以便跟他道歉，告诉他自己原谅他了。杰比离开前小声告诉他：“一切都会好转的，裘德。相信我，我懂的。”然后又说：“至少你在这个过程中没有伤害任何人。”他觉得内疚，因为他知道他有。安迪晚上会过来给他做检查，拆掉绷带，清理缝线周围的区域。他还是没看过自己手上的缝线（他没有勇气看），所以安迪清理时，他就看别的地方或是闭上眼睛。安迪离开后，他和威廉吃晚餐，吃过晚餐，附近的精品店和少数几家画廊都打烊了，路上空寂无人，此时他们就出门散步，绕着苏荷区走一个正方形的路线，往东到拉斐特街，往北到休斯敦街，往西到第六大道，往南到格兰特街，往东到格林街，然后回家。这段路很短，但走得他筋疲力尽。有次回家后，他双腿突然一软，在走往卧室的中途倒下。朱丽娅和哈罗德每周四坐火车来，整个周五、周六，外加周日半天都陪着他。

　 Every morning, Willem asked him, “Do you want to talk to Dr. Loehmann today?” And every morning he answered, “Not yet, Willem. Soon, I promise.”

每天早上，威廉都会问他：“你今天想跟娄曼医生谈谈吗？”他每天早上都回答：“还没准备好，威廉。但快了，我保证。”

　 By the end of October, he was feeling stronger, less shaky. He was managing to stay awake for longer stretches at a time. He could lie on his back and hold a book up without it trembling so badly that he had to roll over onto his stomach so he could prop it against a pillow. He could butter his own bread, and he could wear shirts with buttons again because he was able to slip the button into its hole.

到了十月底，他觉得强壮一些，没那么虚弱了，清醒的时间也可以维持得比较久。他可以躺着拿起一本书看，不会颤抖得必须转身趴着，好把书靠在枕头上；吃面包时可以自己涂奶油；也可以穿上有扣子的衬衫，因为他现在可以把扣子塞进扣眼了。

　 “What’re you reading?” he asked Willem one afternoon, sitting next to him on the living-room couch.

“你在读什么？”某天下午他跟威廉坐在客厅沙发上，他问威廉。

　 “A play I’m thinking of doing,” Willem said, putting the pages down.

“一个剧本，我在考虑要接。”威廉说，放下手上的那叠纸。

　 He looked at a point beyond Willem’s head. “Are you going away again?” It was monstrously selfish to ask, but he couldn’t stop himself.

他看着威廉脑袋后方的一个点。“你又要离开了吗？”这样问实在自私得可怕，但他忍不住。

　 “No,” said Willem, after a silence. “I thought I’d stick around New York for a while, if that’s okay with you.”

“不，”威廉顿了一下说，“我想我会留在纽约一阵子，如果你觉得可以的话。”

　 He smiled at the couch’s cushions. “It’s fine with me,” he said, and looked up to see Willem smiling at him. “It’s nice to see you smile again,” was all he said, and went back to reading.

他对着沙发上的椅垫微笑。“我觉得可以。”他说，然后抬头看到威廉对着他微笑。“能再看到你笑，真的很好。”威廉只这么说，又继续读剧本。

　 In November he realized that he had done nothing to celebrate Willem’s forty-third birthday in late August, and mentioned it to him. “Well, technically, you get a pass, because I wasn’t here,” said Willem. “But sure, I’ll let you make it up to me. Let’s see.” He thought. “Are you ready to go out into the world? Do you want to have dinner? An early dinner?”

到了十一月，他才想到八月下旬威廉43岁生日的时候他毫无表示。他跟威廉提了。“唔，严格来说，你并没有错过，因为我当时不在纽约，”威廉说，“不过当然，你要帮我补过也可以。我来看看。”他想了一下。“你准备好要面对外面的世界了吗？要不要出去吃顿晚餐？早一点去？”

　 “Sure,” he said, and they went the next week to a little Japanese place in the East Village that served pressed sushi and where they’d been going for years. He ordered his own food, although he had been nervous, worried that he was somehow choosing incorrectly, but Willem was patient and waited as he deliberated, and when he had decided, he’d nodded at him. “Good choice,” he said. As they ate, they spoke of their friends, and the play Willem had decided he was going to do, and the novel he was reading: anything but him.

“没问题。”他说。于是他们隔周去了东村一家卖压制寿司的日料小店，这几年来他们常去。他点了自己要吃的；他一直很紧张，担心自己选错了，但威廉很有耐心等他慢慢考虑。等到他决定了，威廉朝他点点头。“选得好。”他说。他们吃的时候，聊起两人的朋友、威廉决定要接的那出戏，以及他在读的一本小说。什么都聊，就是不聊他。

　 “I think we should go to Morocco,” he said as they walked slowly home, and Willem looked at him.

“我想我们应该去摩洛哥。”他们慢慢散步回家时他说。威廉看着他。

　 “I’ll look into it,” Willem said, and took his arm to move him out of the path of a bicyclist who was zooming down the street.

“我再想想。”威廉说，握住他的手臂，带着他往旁边挪，好避开迎面而来的骑车人。

　 “I want to get you something for your birthday,” he said, a few blocks later. Really, he wanted to get Willem something to thank him, and to try to express what he couldn’t say to him: a gift that would properly convey years of gratitude and love. After their earlier conversation about the play, he had remembered that Willem had, in fact, committed the previous year to a project that would be shooting in Russia in early January. But when he mentioned this to him, Willem had shrugged. “Oh, that?” he’d asked. “Didn’t work out. It’s fine. I didn’t really want to do it anyway.” He had been suspicious, though, and when he had looked online, there were reports that Willem had pulled out of the film for personal reasons; another actor had been cast instead. He had stared at the screen then, the story blurring before him, but when he had asked Willem about it, Willem had shrugged again. “That’s what you say when you realize you and the director really aren’t on the same page and no one wants to lose face,” he said. But he knew that Willem wasn’t telling him the truth.

“我想送你一个生日礼物。”过了几个街区后，他说。真的，他想送个东西给威廉谢谢他，表达他无法对威廉说出口的：一个可以适当传达他多年来的感激与爱的礼物。他们稍早谈过那出戏之后，他想到威廉去年其实已经答应要接拍一部电影，预定一月初要去俄罗斯拍摄。但他问起时，威廉只是耸耸肩。“喔，那个啊，”他说，“结果没成。没关系，反正我也不是很想接。”他很怀疑，于是上网查，看到有报道说威廉因为私人原因退出那部电影，最后由另一名演员接演。当时他看着屏幕，那篇报道在他眼前模糊起来，但后来他跟威廉问起，威廉又是耸耸肩。“如果你发现跟导演的想法实在不合，你就会这样说。大家都不想没面子。”他说。但他知道威廉没说实话。

　 “You don’t need to get me anything,” Willem said, as he knew he would, and he said (as he always did), “I know I don’t need to, but I want to.” And then he added, also as he always did, “A better friend would know what to get you and wouldn’t have to ask for suggestions.”

“你不必送什么给我。”威廉说。他早就知道威廉会这么说，而且一如往常，他回答说：“我知道我不必送，但是我想送。”他又补了一句，一如往常，“一个更好的朋友会懂得该送你什么，不必你建议。”

　 “A better friend would,” Willem agreed, as he always did, and he smiled, because it felt like one of their normal conversations.

“一个更好的朋友是会这样。”威廉同意，而他也是老样子，同时微笑，因为感觉上这就像他们以往的正常对话。

　 More days passed. Willem moved back into his suite at the other end of the apartment. Lucien called him a few times to ask him about one thing or another, apologizing as he did, but he was happy to get his calls, and happy that Lucien now began their conversations by complaining about a client or a colleague instead of asking how he was. Aside from Tremain and Lucien and one or two other people, no one at the firm knew the real reason he’d been absent: they, like his clients, had been told he was recovering from emergency spinal cord surgery. He knew that when he returned to Rosen Pritchard, Lucien would immediately restart him on his normal caseload; there would be no talk of giving him an easy transition, no speculation about his ability to handle the stress, and he was grateful for that. He stopped taking his drugs, which he realized were making him feel dopey, and after they had left his system, he was amazed by how clear he felt—even his vision was different, as if a plate-glass window had been wiped clean of all grease and smears and he was finally getting to admire the brilliant green lawn beyond it, the pear trees with their yellow fruit.

又过去了很多天。威廉搬到公寓另一头的套房。吕西安打了几次电话来，问他一些事情，每回都会道歉，但他其实很开心接到他的电话，也很开心吕西安现在每次打来，都会先抱怨某个客户或同事，而不是问候他状况如何。除了特里梅因、吕西安和其他一两个人，事务所没人知道他缺席的真正原因：同事和客户听到的，都是他动了紧急的脊椎手术，现在正在复原期。他知道等他回到罗森·普理查德，吕西安会立刻派给他正常的工作量；不会说要让他慢慢进入状态，不会猜测他的抗压能力，而他很感激。他没再吃药了，这才明白是那些药害他迟钝，等到药效完全消退，他很惊讶自己整个人有多清醒——就连视野都不一样了，好像把一面玻璃窗上所有的油污和脏痕擦掉，他终于可以看清外头鲜绿的草坪，还有结着黄色果实的梨子树。

　 But he also realized that the drugs had been protecting him, and without them, the hyenas returned, less numerous and more sluggish, but still circling him, still following him, less motivated in their pursuit but still there, his unwanted but dogged companions. Other memories came back to him as well, the same old ones, but new ones too, and he was made much more sharply aware of how severely he had inconvenienced everyone, of how much he had asked from people, of how he had taken what he would never, ever be able to repay. And then there was the voice, which whispered to him at odd moments, You can try again, you can try again, and he tried to ignore it, because at some point—in the same, undefinable way that he had decided to kill himself in the first place—he had decided he would work on getting better, and he didn’t want to be reminded that he could try again, that being alive, as ignominious and absurd as it often was, wasn’t his only option.

但他也明白那些药之前一直保护着他，现在没了药，那些鬣狗又回来了，数量比较少，动作也比较缓慢，但还是绕着他打转，跟着他不放，就算不那么起劲，也还是在那儿，成了一群讨厌但顽强的同伴。其他记忆也回来了，同样的老记忆，但也有新的，他强烈意识到自己为每个人造成多大的不便，欠了别人多少情，而且永远偿还不了。然后还有那个声音，会在零碎的时刻忽然低语：“你可以再试一次，你可以再试一次。”他试着不理会，因为在某个阶段（就像他当初决定自杀一样，同样无法说清确切时间），他就决定要努力好起来，所以他不想被提醒自己可以再试一次，而活着（往往让他觉得可耻又荒谬）不是他唯一的选择。

　 Thanksgiving came, which they once again had at Harold and Julia’s apartment on West End Avenue, and which was once again a small group: Laurence and Gillian (their daughters had gone to their husbands’ families’ houses for the holiday), him, Willem, Richard and India, Malcolm and Sophie. At the meal, he could feel everyone trying not to pay too much attention to him, and when Willem mentioned the trip they were taking to Morocco in the middle of December, Harold was so relaxed, so incurious, that he knew that he must have already thoroughly discussed it with Willem (and, probably, Andy) in advance, and given his permission.

感恩节到了，他们再度去哈罗德和朱丽娅在西端大道的公寓，而且又是一小群人共聚：劳伦斯和吉莉安（他们的两个女儿去各自的夫家过节了）、他、威廉、理查德和印蒂亚、马尔科姆和苏菲。吃晚餐时，他感觉到每个人都在尽量不要太注意他。当威廉提到他们十二月中要去摩洛哥旅行时，哈罗德的反应太放松、太不好奇了，他知道他一定事先跟威廉彻底讨论过（大概也跟安迪谈过），也同意了。

　 “When do you go back to Rosen Pritchard?” asked Laurence, as if he’d been away on holiday.

“你什么时候要回罗森·普理查德上班？”劳伦斯问，好像他只是暂时放几天假似的。