《渺小一生》:有什么差别？那个声音凶回来

　 What’s the difference? the voice snapped back. They both want the same thing from you. You’re the same thing to them in the end.

有什么差别？那个声音凶回来。他们都想从你身上得到同样的东西。到头来，你对他们都是一样的。

　 Eventually his fear of the process diminished, though not his dread. He had always known that Willem enjoyed sex, but he had been surprised and dismayed that he seemed to enjoy it so much with him. He knew how unfair he was being, but he found himself respecting Willem less for this, and hating himself more for those feelings.

最后他对性爱过程的害怕逐渐降低，但畏惧还是没有减少。他一直知道威廉很享受性爱，但他很惊讶且很沮丧地发现，威廉似乎非常享受跟他做爱。他知道自己这样想有多不公平，但他发现自己因此对威廉失去了一点尊敬，而且因为自己有这些感觉而更恨自己。

　 He tried to focus on what had improved about the experience since Caleb. Although it was still painful, it was less painful than it had been with anyone else, and surely that was a good thing. It was still uncomfortable, although again, less so. And it was still shameful, although with Willem, he was able to comfort himself with the knowledge that he was giving at least a small bit of pleasure to the person he cared about most, and that knowledge helped sustain him every time.

他设法把重点放在这些经验比跟凯莱布时好太多了。还是会痛，但是跟其他任何人相比都比较不痛，这当然是好事。还是不舒服，不过比较轻微。另外，他仍觉得可耻。虽然跟威廉做，他有办法让自己安心些，因为他知道自己至少带给他最关心的人一点点愉悦。这一点帮助他撑过每一回。

　 He told Willem that he had lost the ability to have erections because of the car injury, but that wasn’t true. According to Andy (this was years ago), there was no physical reason why he couldn’t have them. But at any rate, he couldn’t, and hadn’t for years, not since he was in college, and even then, they had been rare and uncontrollable. Willem asked if there was something he could do—a shot, a pill—but he told him that he was allergic to one of the ingredients in those shots and pills, and that it didn’t make a difference to him.

他告诉威廉自己因为车祸受伤失去了勃起的能力，但这不是实话。根据安迪的说法（这已是好几年前了），他没有任何生理上的理由导致无法勃起。但无论如何，他就是没办法，而且好多年了，从大学开始就是这样。即使读大学时，他也很少勃起，就算有也无法控制。威廉问过他能不能做些什么，比方打针或吃药，但他说他对那些药物的某种成分过敏，对他而言也没有差别。

　 Caleb hadn’t been so bothered by this inability of his, but Willem was. “Isn’t there something we can do to help you?” he asked, again and again. “Have you talked to Andy? Should we try something different?” until finally he snapped at Willem to stop asking him, that he was making him feel like a freak.

凯莱布对他这种无能并不觉得太困扰，威廉却会。“难道我们不能做些什么帮你吗？”他一次又一次地问，“你跟安迪谈过吗？我们要不要试试别的方法？”直到最后他厉声叫威廉别再问了，说他搞得自己感觉像个怪胎。

　 “I’m sorry, Jude; I didn’t mean to,” Willem said after a silence. “I just want you to enjoy this.”

“对不起，裘德，我不是故意的，”威廉沉默了片刻说，“我只是希望你享受这个而已。”

　 “I am,” he said. He hated lying so much to Willem, but what was the alternative? The alternative meant losing him, meant being alone forever.

“我很享受啊。”他说。他讨厌跟威廉撒这么多谎，但他还能怎么办？不撒谎就意味着要失去他，意味着要孤独终老。

　 Sometimes, often, he cursed himself, and how limited he was, but at other times, he was kinder: he recognized how much his mind had protected his body, how it had shut down his sexual drive in order to shelter him, how it had calcified every part of him that had caused him such pain. But usually, he knew he was wrong. He knew his resentment of Willem was wrong. He knew his impatience with Willem’s affection for foreplay—that long, embarrassing period of throat-clearing that preceded every interaction, the small physical gestures of intimacy that he knew were Willem’s way of experimenting with the depths of his own ability for arousal—was wrong. But sex in his experience was something to be gotten through as quickly as possible, with an efficiency and brusqueness that bordered on the brutal, and when he sensed Willem was trying to prolong their encounters he began offering direction with a sort of decisiveness that he later realized Willem must mistake for zeal. And then he would hear Brother Luke’s triumphant declaration in his head—I could hear you enjoying yourself—and cringe. I don’t, he had always wanted to say, and he wanted to say it now: I don’t. But he didn’t dare. They were in a relationship. People in relationships had sex. If he wanted to keep Willem, he had to fulfill his side of the bargain, and his dislike for his duties didn’t change this.

有时，甚至常常，他会咒骂自己，责备自己能力多么有限，但有时，他会对自己宽容一点。他知道自己的脑子如何努力保护他的身体，为了庇护他，让他的性冲动完全停摆，把曾经引起庞大痛苦的那些部分完全冻结。但通常，他知道自己错了。他知道自己对威廉的怨恨是错的。他知道自己对威廉喜爱前戏的不耐烦是错的——每回性交前那漫长、尴尬的无聊时段，他知道那些细微的亲密动作，是威廉实验的方式，看自己能激起他多大的性冲动。但在他的经验里，性交是要尽快度过的一件事，带着几近粗暴的效率和简洁。当他发觉威廉试图拖长这个过程时，他开始提供一个果断的方向，后来他才明白威廉一定误以为那是热情。然后，他会听到卢克修士在他脑袋里胜利地宣告——我听得出来你自己也乐在其中——而觉得难堪。我没有，他以前总是想这么说，现在他也想说：我没有。但是他不敢。他们在谈恋爱，而谈恋爱的人总是会性交。如果他想保住威廉，他就得履行他的条件，而他不喜欢这些责任也改变不了这一点。

　 Still, he didn’t give up. He promised himself he would work on repairing himself, for Willem’s sake if not his own. He bought—surreptitiously, his face prickling as he placed the order—three self-help books on sex and read them while Willem was on one of his publicity tours, and when Willem returned, he tried to use what he had learned, but the results had been the same. He bought magazines meant for women with articles about being better in bed, and studied them carefully. He even ordered a book about how victims of sexual abuse—a term he hated and didn’t apply to himself—dealt with sex, which he read furtively one night, locking his study door so Willem wouldn’t discover him. But after about a year, he decided to alter his ambitions: he might not ever be able to enjoy sex, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make it more enjoyable for Willem, both as an expression of gratitude and, more selfishly, a way to keep him close. So he fought past his feelings of shame; he concentrated on Willem.

然而，他还是没有放弃。他向自己承诺他会努力修补自己，就算不是为了自己，也是为了威廉。他偷偷买了三本性爱自助书（下单时他不免觉得脸红），趁威廉去巡回宣传新片时偷偷阅读，等到威廉回来，他就设法学以致用，但结果还是一样。他买了一些给女性读者看的杂志，里头有文章提到如何在床上表现得更好，他仔细研读。他甚至买了一本书，讲性侵犯的受害者（他痛恨这个用语，从未用在自己身上）如何处理性事。有天晚上他锁起书房的门，关在里面阅读，免得被威廉发现。但是过了大约一年，他决定改变自己追求的目标：他可能永远都没办法享受性爱，但不表示他没办法让威廉更享受。这样既能表达他的感谢，自私一点，也更能保住他和威廉的亲密关系。所以他努力抛开羞愧感，专注在威廉身上。

　 Now that he was having sex again, he realized how much he had been surrounded by it all these years, and how completely he had managed to banish thoughts of it from his waking life. For decades, he had shied from discussions of sex, but now he listened to them wherever he encountered them: he eavesdropped on his colleagues, on women in restaurants, on men walking past him on the street, all talking about sex, about when they were having it, about how they wanted it more (no one wanted it less, it seemed). It was as if he was back in college, his peers once again his unwitting teachers: always, he was alert for information, for lessons on how to be. He watched talk shows on television, many of which seemed to be about how couples eventually stop having sex; the guests were married people who hadn’t had sex in months, occasionally in years. He would study these shows, but none of them ever gave him the information he wanted: How long into the relationship did the sex last? How much longer would he have to wait until this happened to him and Willem, too? He looked at the couples: Were they happy? (Obviously not; they were on talk shows telling strangers about their sex lives and asking for help.) But they seemed happy, didn’t they, or a version of happy at least, that man and woman who hadn’t had sex in three years and yet, through the touch of the man’s hand on the woman’s arm, obviously still had affection for each other, obviously stayed together for reasons more important than sex. On planes, he watched romantic comedies, farces about married people not having sex. All the movies with young people were about wanting sex; all the movies with old people were about wanting sex. He would watch these films and feel defeated. When did you get to stop wanting to have sex? At times he would appreciate the irony of this: Willem, the ideal partner in every way, who still wanted to have sex, and he, the unideal partner in every way, who didn’t. He, the cripple, who didn’t, and Willem, who somehow wanted him anyway. And still, Willem was his own version of happiness; he was a version of happiness he never thought he’d have.

现在他重拾性生活了，才发现这些年来周遭充满了性爱话题，而他竟然设法将之彻底排除在外。二十几年来，他一直回避讨论性爱，但现在每次碰到，他都会认真听：他偷听同事、餐厅里的女人、街上擦肩而过的男人的谈话，他们全在谈性爱；谈他们什么时候有、希望有更多（好像没人希望减少）。仿佛回到大学时代，他的同伴再度成为他偷学的老师，他总是警觉地收集信息，倾听各种方法。他收看电视上的谈话秀，很多是关于伴侣间是如何停止性生活的；那些已婚的来宾有好几个月，甚至好几年没有性生活。他会研究那些节目，但没有一个能提供他想要的信息：与人成为伴侣后，性生活会持续多久？他还得等多久，这种性生活停止的状况才会发生在他和威廉身上？他看着那些伴侣：他们快乐吗？（显然不，他们上谈话节目，把自己的性生活告诉一堆陌生人，是想寻求帮助。）但他们似乎很快乐，不是吗，至少是某种形式的快乐。电视上那对男女已经三年没有性爱了，但是那男人的手会碰触那女人的胳膊，显然他们对彼此还有关爱，显然他们还在一起的原因比性爱更重要。在飞机上，他会看浪漫爱情喜剧片，里头穿插已婚人士无性生活的笑料。所有年轻人演的电影都是关于想要性爱；所有老年人演的电影也是关于想要性爱。他看着这些电影，觉得好挫败。你们什么时候才能停止想要性交？有时他可以领略其中的讽刺：威廉，在各方面都是理想伴侣，他还是想要性爱；而他，在各方面都不是理想的伴侣，却不想要。他这个瘸子不想要性爱，威廉无论如何还是渴望他。然而，威廉就是他的快乐；他得到了自己从没想到过能拥有的快乐。

　 He assured Willem that if he missed having sex with women, he should, and that he wouldn’t mind. But “I don’t,” Willem said. “I want to have sex with you.” Another person would have been moved by this, and he was too, but he also despaired: When would this end? And then, inevitably: What if it never did? What if he was never allowed to stop? He was reminded of the years in the motel rooms, although even then he’d had a date to anticipate, however false: sixteen. When he turned sixteen, he would be able to stop. Now he was forty-five, and it was as if he was eleven once again, waiting for the day when someone—once Brother Luke, now (unfair, unfair) Willem—would tell him “That’s it. You’ve fulfilled your duty. No more.” He wished someone would tell him that he was still a full human being despite his feelings; that there was nothing wrong with who he was. Surely there was someone, someone in the world who felt as he did? Surely his hatred for the act was not a deficiency to be corrected but a simple matter of preference?

他曾经跟威廉保证，如果他想念跟女人上床，就应该去，他不会介意的。可是“我不想念，”威廉说，“我想跟你上床。”换作别人听了会很感动，他也很感动，可是他同时感到绝望：这个情况要到什么时候才会终止？无可避免地，如果永远不会终止呢？如果永远不可能让他停止呢？他想起那些年在汽车旅馆的房间里，即使在当时，无论多么虚假，他也有个日子可以期盼：16岁。当他满16岁，就可以停止了。现在他45岁了，感觉上好像又回到11岁，等着有一天某个人——以前是卢克修士，现在是威廉（不公平、不公平）——告诉他：“到此为止。你已经完成了你的责任，再也不会有了。”他真希望有个人能告诉他：尽管他有那些感觉，他还是一个完整的人；真希望有人跟他说他一点毛病都没有。这个世界肯定有个人跟他有相同的感觉吧？他对性交的厌恶肯定不是需要矫正的缺陷，只是偏好的问题吧？

　 One night, he and Willem were lying in bed—both of them tired from their respective days—and Willem had begun talking, abruptly, of an old friend he’d had lunch with, a woman named Molly he’d met once or twice over the years, and who, Willem said, had been having a difficult time; now, after decades, she had finally told her mother that her father, who had died the year before, had sexually abused her.

某天晚上，他和威廉躺在床上，两人都过了辛苦的一天。威廉忽然谈起他和一个老朋友吃了中饭，是个叫莫莉的女人，这些年他们偶尔会碰面一两次。威廉说，她以前有段时间过得很辛苦，现在经过二十多年，她终于告诉她母亲，说前一年过世的父亲曾对她实行性侵害。

　 “That’s terrible,” he said, automatically. “Poor Molly.”

“好可怕，”他不自觉地说，“可怜的莫莉。”

　 “Yes,” said Willem, and there was a silence. “I just told her that she had nothing to be ashamed of, that she hadn’t done anything wrong.” He could feel himself getting hot. “You were right,” he said at last, and yawned, extravagantly. “Good night, Willem.”

“是啊，”威廉说，沉默了一会儿，“我只是告诉她，她没什么好羞愧的，她没做错任何事。”他感觉自己浑身发热。“你说得没错。”最后他终于说，然后夸张地打了个大呵欠，“晚安，威廉。”

　 For a minute or two, they were quiet. “Jude,” Willem said, gently. “Are you ever going to tell me about it?”

有一两分钟，两个人都没说话。“裘德，”威廉柔声说，“你到底打不打算告诉我？”

　 What could he say, he thought, as he held himself still. Why was Willem asking about this now? He thought he had been doing such a good job being normal—but maybe he hadn’t. He would have to try harder. He never had told Willem about what had happened to him with Brother Luke, but along with being unable to speak of it, part of him knew he didn’t need to: in the past two years, Willem had tried to approach the subject through various directions—through stories of friends and acquaintances, some named, some not (he had to assume some of these people were creations, as surely no one person could have such a vast collection of sexually abused friends), through stories about pedophilia he read in magazines, through various discourses on the nature of shame, and how it was often unearned. After each speech, Willem would stop, and wait, as if he were mentally extending a hand and asking him to dance. But he never took Willem’s hand. Each time, he would remain silent, or change the subject, or simply pretend Willem had never spoken at all. He didn’t know how Willem had come to learn this about him; he didn’t want to know. Obviously the person he thought he was presenting wasn’t the person Willem—or Harold—saw.

能说什么？他心想，全身僵住不动。为什么威廉现在要问起这个？他这么努力表现得像正常人，还以为自己做得很好——或许其实没有。他得更努力才行。他从没告诉威廉他和卢克修士的事。不仅一直无法开口谈，而且一部分的他也知道自己不必说出来。过去两年，威廉一直用各种方法逼近这个话题，通过朋友和熟人的故事，有些有名字、有些没有（他不得不假设其中有些是编出来的，因为不可能有人有这么多被性侵的朋友），通过他在杂志上看到恋童癖的故事，通过各种关于羞愧本质的谈话，还有为何不该觉得羞愧。每回讲完，威廉会停下来等，好像在精神上伸出一只手邀他共舞。但他始终没握住威廉那只邀舞的手。每一回，他都保持沉默，改变话题，或只是假装威廉根本没说过。他不知道威廉是怎么逐渐明白他的这部分，他也不想知道。显然他以为自己假扮的那个人，并不是威廉或哈罗德所看到的。

　 “Why are you asking me this?” he asked.

“你为什么问我这个？”他问。

　 Willem shifted. “Because,” he said, and then stopped. “Because,” he continued, “I should’ve made you talk about this a long time ago.” He stopped again. “Certainly before we started having sex.”

威廉挪动了一下身子。“因为……”他说，停顿一下。“因为，”他又说，“我早就该逼你谈这个了，”他又停了一下，“早在我们开始有性生活之前。”

　 He closed his eyes. “Am I not doing a good enough job?” he asked, quietly, and regretted the question as soon as he said it: it was something he would have asked Brother Luke, and Willem was not Brother Luke.

他闭上眼睛。“难道我表现得不够好吗？”他低声问，可是一说出口就后悔了；这句话他该拿去问卢克修士，而威廉并不是卢克修士。

　 He could tell from Willem’s silence that he was taken aback by the question as well. “No,” he said. “I mean, yes. But Jude—I know something happened to you. I wish you’d tell me. I wish you’d let me help you.”

从威廉的沉默，他感觉得出来他也对这个问题感到震惊。“不是，”他说，“我的意思是，你表现得很好。但是裘德——我知道你以前出过一些事。我希望你能告诉我，我希望你让我帮你。”