《渺小一生》:那个女孩一直在跟你放电。

　 Jude’s sex life, his sexuality, had been a subject of ongoing fascination for everyone who knew him, and certainly for Willem’s girlfriends. Occasionally, it had come up among the three of them—he and Malcolm and JB—when Jude wasn’t around: Was he having sex? Had he ever? With whom? They had all seen people looking at him at parties, or flirting with him, and in every case, Jude had remained oblivious.

裘德的性生活和性倾向对认识他的每个人来说，一直是引人好奇的话题，对威廉的女友来说更是如此。偶尔，裘德不在场时，他们三个（他、马尔科姆、杰比）也会聊起来：他有性生活吗？他有过性经验吗？跟谁？他们都看过派对上有人留意裘德或跟他调情，而每一回裘德都没注意。

　 “That girl was all over you,” he’d say to Jude as they walked home from one party or another.

“那个女孩一直在跟你放电。”派对后走路回家时，他会跟裘德说。

　 “What girl?” Jude would say.

“哪个女孩？”裘德会说。

　 They talked about it with one another because Jude had made it clear he wouldn’t discuss it with any of them: when the topic was raised, he would give them one of his stares and then change the subject with a declarativeness that was impossible to misinterpret.

他们三个谈过，因为裘德早就表明不肯跟任何一个人谈。每次一谈起，他就会狠狠瞪他们一眼，然后刻意改变话题，让你绝对不可能误解他的意思。

　 “Has he ever spent the night away from home?” asked JB (this was when he and Jude were living on Lispenard Street).

“他曾经晚上没回家过吗？”杰比问（他和裘德还住在利斯本纳街的时候）。

　 “Guys,” he’d say (the conversation made him uncomfortable), “I don’t think we should be talking about this.”

“两位，”他会说（这番谈话让他很不自在），“我不认为我们应该讨论这个。”

　 “Willem!” JB would say. “Don’t be such a pussy! You’re not betraying any confidences. Just tell us: yes or no. Has he ever?”

“威廉！”杰比会说，“别那么胆小了！你没有泄漏什么机密。只要告诉我们：有或没有。有过吗？”

　 He’d sigh. “No,” he’d say.

他叹了口气。“没有。”他说。

　 There would be a silence. “Maybe he’s asexual,” Malcolm would say, after a while.

然后三个人会沉默一会儿。“或许他没有性欲。”过一会儿马尔科姆会说。

　 “No, that’s you, Mal.”

“不，没性欲的是你，马尔[1]。”

　 “Fuck off, JB.”

“去你的，杰比。”

　 “Do you think he’s a virgin?” JB would ask.

“你觉得他是处男吗？”杰比会问。

　 “No,” he’d say. He didn’t know why he knew this, but he was certain he wasn’t.

“不是。”他会说。他不知道自己为什么知道，但他很确定裘德不是处男。

　 “It’s such a waste,” JB would say, and he and Malcolm would look at each other, knowing what was coming next. “His looks’ve been wasted on him. I should’ve gotten his looks. I would’ve had a good time with them, at least.”

“太浪费了。”杰比会说，他和马尔科姆会互看对方，知道接下来杰比会说什么。“那个长相在他身上太浪费了。他的长相应该给我，至少我会好好享受。”

　 After a while, they grew to accept it as part of who Jude was; they added the subject to the list of things they knew not to discuss. Year after year passed and he dated no one, they saw him with no one. “Maybe he’s living some hot double life,” Richard once suggested, and Willem had shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. But really, although he had no proof of this, he knew that Jude wasn’t. It was in this same, proof-less way that he assumed Jude was probably gay (though maybe not), and probably hadn’t ever had a relationship (though he really hoped he was wrong about this). And as much as Jude claimed otherwise, Willem wasn’t ever convinced that he wasn’t lonely, that he didn’t, in some small dark part of himself, want to be with someone. He remembered Lionel and Sinclair’s wedding, where it had been Malcolm with Sophie and he with Robin and JB—though they hadn’t been speaking then—with Oliver, and Jude with no one. And although Jude hadn’t seemed bothered by this, Willem had looked at him across the table and had felt sad for him. He didn’t want Jude to get old alone; he wanted him to be with someone who would take care of him and be attracted to him. JB was right: it was a waste.

过了一阵子，他们就逐渐接受这是裘德的一部分，把这个话题加入不能讨论的清单里。一年又一年过去，裘德从没跟谁约会过，也从没看到他跟谁交往。“或许他瞒着我们，过着另一种火辣的生活。”理查德有回说，而威廉只是耸耸肩。“或许吧。”他说。但其实，即使没有任何证据，他也知道裘德没有。以同样缺乏证据的方式，他认为裘德大概是同性恋者（或许不是），而且大概没有谈过恋爱（他真的希望这点自己猜错了）。尽管裘德一再宣称不是那样，威廉却从不相信他不孤单、从不相信他心底某个小小的黑暗角落里不想有个伴。他还记得在莱昂内尔和辛克莱的婚礼上，马尔科姆带着苏菲，他带着罗宾，杰比（虽然当时他们断交了）带着奥利弗，而裘德还是独自出席。裘德似乎不受困扰，但威廉看着桌子对面的他，还是很替他难过。他不希望裘德孤独终老，他希望裘德有个照顾他、被他吸引的伴。杰比说得没错，这样真的太浪费了。

　 And so was this what this was, this attraction? Was it fear and sympathy that had morphed itself into a more palatable shape? Was he convincing himself he was attracted to Jude because he couldn’t stand to see him alone? He didn’t think so. But he didn’t know.

所以他被裘德吸引，就是伴侣之间的吸引吗？或是担心与同情转化为另一种比较可以接受的形式？是他说服自己他被裘德吸引，只是因为他受不了看着裘德孤单一个人吗？他不认为是这样。但他也不知道。

　 The person he would’ve once discussed this with was JB, but he couldn’t speak to JB about this, even though they were friends again, or at least working toward friendship. After they had returned from Morocco, Jude had called JB and the two of them had gone out for dinner, and a month later, Willem and JB had gone out on their own. Oddly, though, he found it much more difficult to forgive JB than Jude had, and their first meeting had been a disaster—JB showily, exaggeratedly blithe; he seething—until they had left the restaurant and started yelling at each other. There they had stood on deserted Pell Street—it had been snowing, lightly, and no one else was out—accusing each other of condescension and cruelty; irrationality and self-absorption; self-righteousness and narcissism; martyrdom and cluelessness.

换作从前，他唯一会一起讨论这件事的人是杰比，但现在他没办法跟杰比谈了，即使他们又成为朋友，或至少努力在恢复友谊。他们从摩洛哥旅行回来后，裘德曾打电话给杰比，两人一起出去吃晚餐，一个月后，威廉和杰比也一对一吃了晚餐。不过奇怪的是，他觉得自己比裘德更难原谅杰比，于是他们的会面变成一场灾难：杰比一直炫耀、夸张地摆出欢乐的姿态，而他一直在生闷气，直到两个人离开餐厅，就开始骂对方。他们站在空荡的培尔街上（当时下着小雪，没有其他人出门），指控彼此高傲又残忍，不理性又只顾自己，自以为是又自恋，假圣人又搞不清楚状况。

　 “You think anyone hates themselves as much as I do?” JB had shouted at him. (His fourth show, the one that documented his time on drugs and with Jackson, had been titled “The Narcissist’s Guide to Self-Hatred,” and JB had referenced it several times during their dinner as proof that he had punished himself mightily and publicly and had now been reformed.)

“你认为有谁会像我这么恨自己吗？”杰比吼道（他的第四次个展，记录他嗑药以及跟杰克森在一起的那段日子，标题就是“自恋者的自我憎恨指南”，而杰比在他们的晚餐中好几次提到，证明他已经狠狠地公然惩罚过自己，改过自新了）。

　 “Yeah, JB, I do,” he’d shouted back at him. “I think Jude hates himself far more than you could ever hate yourself, and I think you knew that and you made him hate himself even more.”

“没错，杰比，我认为有，”他也吼，“我认为裘德恨自己远远超过你可能恨你自己的程度，而且我认为你明知道，还害他更恨自己。”

　 “You think I don’t know that?” JB had yelled. “You think I don’t fucking hate myself for that?”

“你以为我不知道吗？”杰比大喊，“你以为我他妈的不因此恨自己吗？”