《渺小一生》:然而，那些感觉依然持续着

　 “I don’t think you hate yourself enough for it, no,” he’d yelled back. “Why did you do that, JB? Why did you do that to him, of all people?”

“不，我觉得你恨自己还恨得不够，”他喊，“为什么你要那样做，杰比？你为什么要对他那样？偏偏是他？”

　 And then, to his surprise, JB had sunk, defeated, to the curb. “Why didn’t you ever love me the way you love him, Willem?” he asked.

然后，他很惊讶，杰比竟然整个人垮了下去，坐在人行道边缘。“威廉，为什么你从来不像爱他那样爱我？”他问。

　 He sighed. “Oh, JB,” he said, and sat down next to him on the chilled pavement. “You never needed me as much as he did.” It wasn’t the only reason, he knew, but it was part of it. No one else in his life needed him. People wanted him—for sex, for their projects, for his friendship, even—but only Jude needed him. Only to Jude was he essential.

他叹了口气。“啊，杰比，”他说，然后坐在杰比旁边寒冷的人行道上，“你从来不像他那么需要我啊。”那不是唯一的原因，他知道，但的确是其中的一部分。他的生活里没有其他人需要他。人们都想要他——为了性爱，为了自己的新片，甚至为了他的友谊——但只有裘德需要他。只有对裘德而言，他才是不可或缺的。

　 “You know, Willem,” said JB, after a silence, “maybe he doesn’t need you as much as you think he does.”

“你知道，威廉，”杰比安静了一会儿说，“或许他不像你以为的那么需要你。”

　 He had thought about this for a while. “No,” he said, finally, “I think he does.”

他想了一会儿。“不，”他最后说，“我想他就是那么需要我。”

　 Now JB sighed. “Actually,” he had said, “I think you’re right.”

接下来，换杰比叹气了。“其实呢，”他说，“我觉得你说得没错。”

　 After that, things had, strangely, improved. But as much as he was—cautiously—learning to enjoy JB again, he wasn’t sure he was ready to discuss this particular topic with him. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear JB’s jokes about how he had already fucked everything with two X chromosomes and so was now moving on to the Ys, or about his abandonment of heteronormative standards, or, worst of all, about how this attraction he thought he was feeling for Jude was really something else: a misplaced guilt for the suicide attempt, or a form of patronization, or simple, misdirected boredom.

很奇怪，之后状况就改善了。尽管他（小心翼翼地）努力学着再度享受与杰比相处，但他不确定自己准备好要跟他谈这个特定的话题。他不确定自己想听到杰比打趣说，他已经上过一切有两条X染色体的，所以现在要换到有Y染色体的，或者开玩笑说他放弃了异性恋霸权的标准，或是最糟糕的，说他感觉自己被裘德吸引，其实是出于其他的原因：因为裘德自杀未遂而产生的错误内疚，或是某种施恩的心态，或者不过是无聊而已。

　 So he did nothing and said nothing. As the months passed, he dated, casually, and he examined his feelings as he did. This is crazy, he told himself. This is not a good idea. Both were true. It would be so much easier if he didn’t have these feelings at all. And so what if he did? he argued with himself. Everyone had feelings that they knew better than to act upon because they knew that doing so would make life so much more complicated. He had whole pages of dialogue with himself, imagining the lines—his and JB’s, both spoken by him—typeset on white paper.

所以他什么也没做，什么也没说。几个月过去了，他草率地跟其他女人约会，每次都会检视自己的感觉。这太疯狂了，他告诉自己。这不是个好主意。这两句话都没错。如果他没有这些感觉，那就简单得多了。但是有这些感觉又怎样？每个人都知道，有些事情最好不要按照自己的感觉去做，否则人生会变得复杂不已。他不断跟自己长篇对话，想象出一句又一句的台词——他的跟杰比的，但两者都是他自己的话。

　 But still, the feelings persisted. They went to Cambridge for Thanksgiving, the first time in two years that they’d done so. He and Jude shared his room because Julia’s brother was visiting from Oxford and had the upstairs bedroom. That night, he lay awake on the bedroom sofa, watching Jude sleep. How easy would it be, he thought, to simply climb into bed next to him and fall asleep himself? There was something about it that seemed almost preordained, and the absurdity was not in the fact of it but in his resistance to the fact of it.

然而，那些感觉依然持续着。他们到剑桥市过感恩节，这是两年来的头一回。晚上他和裘德同房，因为朱丽娅的哥哥从英国牛津来访，住在楼上的卧室。当天夜里，他躺在卧室沙发上还没睡着，看着裘德睡觉。他心想，如果能爬到那张床上，躺在他旁边睡着，那该有多简单？他觉得整件事似乎有种命中注定的意味，而荒谬的不是这件事本身，而是他的抗拒。

　 They had taken the car to Cambridge, and Jude drove them home so he could sleep. “Willem,” Jude said as they were about to enter the city, “I want to ask you about something.” He looked at him. “Are you okay? Is something on your mind?”

他们是开车到剑桥的，回程由裘德开车，好让他在车上补眠。“威廉，”即将进入纽约市区时，裘德说，“我有件事要问你。”他看着他，“你还好吗？有什么心事吗？”

　 “Sure,” he said. “I’m fine.”

“没问题啊，”他说，“我很好。”

　 “You’ve seemed really—pensive, I guess,” Jude said. He was quiet. “You know, it’s been a huge gift having you live with me. And not just live with me, but—everything. I don’t know what I would have done without you. But I know it must be draining for you. And I just want you to know: if you want to move back home, I’ll be fine. I promise. I’m not going to hurt myself.” He had been staring at the road as he spoke, but now he turned to him. “I don’t know how I got so lucky,” he said.

“你最近好像蛮……忧心忡忡吧，我想。”裘德说。他没吭声。“你知道，你跟我住真的是很大的恩情。而且不光是跟我住，而是……一切。要是没有你，我真不知道该怎么办。但我知道你一定累坏了。我只是希望你知道：如果你想搬回家，我不会有事的。我保证。我不会再伤害自己了。”裘德说的时候一直看着前面的路，但现在转向他，“我不知道自己怎么这么幸运。”裘德说。

　 He didn’t know what to say for a while. “Do you want me to move home?” he asked.

有好一会儿，他不知道该说什么。“你希望我搬回家吗？”他问。

　 Jude was silent. “Of course not,” he said, very quietly. “But I want you to be happy, and you haven’t seemed very happy recently.”

裘德沉默了一会儿。“当然不希望，”他很小声地说，“但是我希望你快乐，而你最近好像不是很快乐。”

　 He sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been distracted, you’re right. But it’s certainly not because I’m living with you. I love living with you.” He tried to think of the right, the perfect next thing to add, but he couldn’t. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

他叹气。“对不起，”他说，“你猜得没错，我最近是有别的心事。但绝对不是因为我跟你一起住。我喜欢跟你一起住。我很爱跟你一起住。”他设法想着接下来该讲什么正确、完美的话，但是想不出来。“对不起。”他又说了一次。

　 “Don’t be,” Jude said. “But if you want to talk about any of it, ever, you always can.”

“不必道歉，”裘德说，“但是如果你想谈谈你的心事，随时都可以的。”

　 “I know,” he said. “Thanks.” They were quiet the rest of the way home.

“我知道，”他说，“谢了。”之后两个人一路沉默到家。

　 And then it was December. His run finished. They went to India on holiday, the four of them: the first trip they’d taken as a unit in years. In February, he began filming Uncle Vanya. The set was the kind he treasured and sought but only rarely found—he had worked with everyone before, and they all liked and respected one another, and the director was shaggy and mild and gentle, and the adaptation, which had been done by a novelist Jude admired, was beautiful and simple, and the dialogue was a pleasure to get to speak.

接下来是十二月，他的舞台剧演完了。他们四个人一起去印度度假，这是多年来的头一回。二月时，他开始拍《凡尼亚舅舅》。拍片现场是他很珍惜也一直在寻找、但很少碰到的组合——他跟每个人都合作过，每个人都喜欢并尊敬彼此，导演满头乱发，个性和善而温柔，编剧是一位裘德很欣赏的作家，把剧本改编得完美而简单，能有机会讲出那些对白让他觉得愉快极了。

　 When Willem was young, he had been in a play called The House on Thistle Lane, which had been about a family that was packing up and leaving a house in St. Louis that had been owned by the father’s family for generations, but which they could no longer afford to maintain. But instead of a set, they had staged the play on one floor of a dilapidated brownstone in Harlem, and the audience had been allowed to wander between the rooms as long as they remained outside a roped-off area; depending on where you stood to watch, you saw the actors, and the space itself, from different perspectives. He had played the eldest, most damaged son, and had spent most of the first act mute and in the dining room, wrapping dishes in pieces of newspaper. He had developed a nervous tic for the son, who couldn’t imagine leaving his childhood house, and as the character’s parents fought in the living room, he would put down the plates and press himself into the far corner of the dining room near the kitchen and peel off the wallpaper in shreds. Although most of that act took place in the living room, there would always be a few audience members who would remain in his room, watching him, watching him scraping off the paper—a blue so dark it was almost black, and printed with pale pink cabbage roses—and rolling it between his fingers and dropping it to the floor, so that every night, one corner would become littered with little cigars of wallpaper, as if he were a mouse inexpertly building its tiny nest. It had been an exhausting play, but he had loved it: the intimacy of the audience, the unlikeliness of the stage, the small, detailed physicality of the role.

威廉年轻时曾演过一出舞台剧《蓟草巷大宅》，剧情描述一个正在打包，要搬离圣路易斯一栋大宅的家庭，这栋房子在父亲家已经传了好几代，但现在他们没办法继续负担庞大的维修费用。这出戏不是单一布景，而是在哈林区找来的一栋荒废的褐石公寓里上演，舞台就设在一楼，观众可以在各个房间来去，只要别进入绳子围起的区域就行；你可以从各个不同的角度观赏，看到不同的演员和空间。他当时饰演心理损伤最严重的长子，第一幕的大部分时间都沉默地待在餐厅里，用报纸把盘子包起来。他为这个儿子想出一种紧张的抽搐动作，因为这个角色无法想象离开自己童年的房子，当父母在客厅吵架时，他就放下盘子，整个人贴在餐厅的另一头、靠近厨房的那面墙上，开始抠壁纸。虽然大部分表演都发生在客厅，但总是有少数几个观众会留在他的餐厅，看着他抠下壁纸（是深蓝色的壁纸，近乎全黑，上头印着淡蓝色的百叶蔷薇）在手里捻揉着，扔到地上。所以每天晚上，餐厅一角就会散落着小小的壁纸卷，好像他是只笨拙的老鼠，正在盖自己的小巢穴。那出戏演起来很累，但是他非常喜欢：那种跟观众的亲密，和不可思议的舞台设定，还有他为那个角色创造出来的小小的、细微的肢体动作。

　 This production felt very much like that play. The house, a Gilded Age mansion on the Hudson, was grand but creaky and shabby—the kind of house his ex-girlfriend Philippa had once imagined they’d live in when they were married and ancient—and the director used only three rooms: the dining room, the living room, and the sunporch. Instead of an audience, they had the crew, who followed them as they moved through the space. But although he relished the work, part of him also recognized that Uncle Vanya was not exactly the most helpful thing he could be doing at the moment. On set, he was Dr. Astrov, but once he was back at Greene Street, he was Sonya, and Sonya—as much as he loved the play and always had, as much as he loved and pitied poor Sonya herself—was not a role he had ever thought he might perform, under any circumstance. When he had told the others about the film, JB had said, “So it’s a gender-blind cast, then,” and he’d said, “What do you mean?” and JB had said, “Well, you’re obviously Elena, right?” and everyone had laughed, especially him. This was what he loved about JB, he had thought; he was always smarter than even he knew. “He’s far too old to play Elena,” Jude had added, affectionately, and everyone had laughed again.

这回的《凡尼亚舅舅》在感觉上就很接近那出舞台剧。那栋房子是哈德逊河畔镀金年代[2]的豪宅，当年富丽堂皇，但如今已经朽烂而破败（就是他的前女友菲丽帕一度想象他们年老时会住的那种房子），导演只用到三个房间：餐厅、客厅，还有阳光房。这回没有观众，取而代之的是剧组，跟着他们在那些空间内移动。他很喜欢这部作品，但一部分的他也知道《凡尼亚舅舅》不是现阶段对他最有帮助的作品。在拍片现场，他是阿斯特洛夫医生，但回到格林街，他就成了桑妮娅，而桑妮娅（他以前就很喜欢这出戏，也很喜欢、很同情桑妮娅）在任何情况下，都从来不是他想过自己会饰演的角色。他跟其他人谈起这部电影时，杰比说：“所以这是一部性别盲（gender-blind）电影了。”然后他问：“什么意思？”杰比说：“唔，你显然是伊莲娜嘛，对吧？”大家笑了起来，尤其是他。他当时心想，这就是他最喜欢杰比的一点，杰比总是比他所知道的更聪明。“他演伊莲娜太老了啦。”裘德充满感情地补充，他们又笑了起来。