《渺小一生》:来到户外，他的幸福感增强了

　 In early November he goes back into the hospital with another fever, but only stays for two nights before he’s released again. Patrizia draws his blood every week, but Andy has told him that he’ll have to be patient; bone infections take a long time to eradicate, and he probably won’t have a sense of whether he’s been healed for good or not until the end of the twelve-week cycle. But otherwise, everything trudges on: He goes to work. He goes to have his treatments in the hyperbaric chamber. He goes to have his wounds vacuum-treated. He goes to have them debrided. One of the side effects from the antibiotics is diarrhea; another is nausea. He is losing weight at a rate even he can tell is problematic; he has eight of his shirts and two of his suits retailored. Andy prescribes him high-calorie drinks meant for malnourished children, and he swallows them five times a day, gulping water afterward to erase their chalky, tongue-coating flavor. Except for the hours he keeps at the office, he is conscious of being more obedient than he ever has been, of heeding every one of Andy’s warnings, of following his every piece of advice. He is still trying not to think of how this episode might end, trying not to worry himself, but in dark, quiet moments, he replays what Andy said to him on one of his recent checkups: “Heart: perfect. Lungs: perfect. Vision, hearing, cholesterol, prostate, blood sugar, blood pressure, lipids, kidney function, liver function, thyroid function: all perfect. Your body’s equipped to work as hard as it can for you, Jude; make sure you let it.” He knows that isn’t the complete measure of who he is—circulation, for example: not perfect; reflexes: not perfect; anything south of his groin: compromised—but he tries to take comfort in Andy’s reassurances, to remind himself that things could be worse, that he is, essentially, still a healthy person, still a lucky person.

十一月初，他因为发烧再度住院，不过只住了两晚就出院了。帕特里齐亚每周帮他抽血，但安迪跟他说他得耐心点；骨头感染要花很长的时间才能根除，而且在十二周的疗程结束前，他大概不会感觉到自己是否痊愈。但除此之外，一切都继续缓慢向前：他去上班，去医院躺在高压舱内治疗，做负压伤口治疗，做清创。抗生素造成的副作用之一是腹泻，另一个是恶心。他体重减轻的程度连自己都知道有问题；他重新定做了两套西装和八件衬衫。安迪专门给他开了给营养不良的儿童服用的高热量饮品，他每天服用五次，然后喝一大堆水去除像粉笔黏着舌头的味道。除了在办公室的时间，他感觉自己前所未有地听话，顺从安迪的每一个警告。他试图不要去想这回发病会怎么结束，试着不要担心自己。但是在夜里安静的时刻，他脑袋里会回放最近一次安迪帮他检查时所讲的话：“心脏：完全正常。肺脏：完全正常。视力、听力、胆固醇、前列腺、血糖、血压、血脂肪、肾功能、肝脏功能、甲状腺功能：完全正常。裘德，你的身体尽力为你服务了，你也一定要好好照顾身体才行。”他知道他的身体状况不光只有这些而已——比如，循环：不完全正常；反射：不完全正常；腹股沟以下的所有部位：功能不全。但他设法从安迪的保证中得到安慰，提醒自己状况有可能更糟；提醒自己：基本上，他依然是个健康的人，依然是个幸运儿。

　 Late November. Willem finishes Desperate Characters. They have Thanksgiving at Harold and Julia’s uptown, and although they have been coming into the city every other weekend to see him, he can sense them both trying very hard not to say anything about his appearance, not to bother him about how little he’s eating at dinner. Thanksgiving week also marks his final week of antibiotic treatments, and he submits to another round of blood work and X-rays before Andy tells him he can stop. He says goodbye to Patrizia for what he hopes is the last time; he gives her a gift to thank her for her care.

十一月下旬，威廉拍完了《绝望的性格》。他们到哈罗德和朱丽娅在纽约的公寓过感恩节。他们夫妇隔周的周末就会来纽约看他，但他可以感觉到他们两个都很努力不说他瘦了，不说他晚餐吃得好少。感恩节这星期刚好也是他抗生素疗程的最后一星期，他又做了另一轮血液检验和X光检查，然后安迪跟他说疗程结束了。他跟帕特里齐亚说再见，希望是最后一次；他还送她一个礼物，感谢她的照顾。

　 Although his wounds have shrunk, they haven’t shrunk as much as Andy had hoped, and on his recommendation, they stay in Garrison for Christmas. They promise Andy it will be a quiet week; everyone else will be out of town anyway, so it will be only the two of them and Harold and Julia.

他腿上的疮缩小了，但还是不如安迪的预期。于是依照安迪的建议，他们留在加里森村的房子里过圣诞节。他们保证那个星期会过得很安静；反正其他人都会离开纽约，只剩他们两个加上哈罗德和朱丽娅。

　 “Your two goals are: sleeping and eating,” says Andy, who is going to visit Beckett in San Francisco for the holidays. “I want to see you five pounds heavier by the first Friday in January.”

“你们两个的目标就是睡觉和吃东西。”安迪说，他打算利用圣诞假期去旧金山拜访贝基特，“一月的第一个星期五，我希望看到你增加五磅。”

　 “Five pounds is a lot,” he says.

“五磅很多。”他说。

　 “Five,” Andy repeats. “And then ideally, fifteen more after that.”

“五磅。”安迪又说一次，“之后，最好再增加十五磅。”

　 On Christmas itself, a year to the day he and Willem had walked along the spine of a low, wavy mountainside in Punakha, one that took them behind the king’s hunting lodge, a simple wooden structure that looked like it might be full of Chaucerian pilgrims, not the royal family, he tells Harold he wants to take a walk. Julia and Willem have gone horseback riding at an acquaintance’s nearby ranch, and he is feeling stronger than he has in a long time.

圣诞节当天，他想到一年前的今天，他和威廉在不丹首都普那卡一片低矮起伏的山坡上，沿着山脊而行。他们走过国王打猎的小屋后方，那是一栋简单的木造建筑物，看起来像住满了乔叟笔下的朝圣者，而非皇室家族。朱丽娅和威廉去附近他们熟悉的农场骑马了；他告诉哈罗德他想散步，觉得自己很久没那么强壮了。

　 “I don’t know, Jude,” says Harold, warily.

“不知道，裘德。”哈罗德谨慎地说。

　 “Come on, Harold,” he says. “Just to the first bench.” Malcolm has placed three benches along the path he has hacked through the forest to the house’s rear; one is located about a third of a way around the lake; the second at the halfway point; and the third at the two-thirds point. “We’ll go slowly, and I’ll take my cane.” It has been years since he has had to use a cane—not since he was a teenager—but now he needs it for any distance longer than fifty yards or so. Finally, Harold agrees, and he grabs his scarf and coat before Harold can change his mind.

“别这样嘛，哈罗德，”他说，“走到第一张石凳就好。”马尔科姆在房子后方的森林辟出一条小径，沿途设置了三张石凳。第一张在大约全程三分之一处的湖畔；第二张在中间点；第三张在三分之二处。“我们慢慢走就好，而且我会带着拐杖。”他已经好多年没用拐杖了，上一次是他还不满20岁的时候，但现在他只要走超过五十码，就得使用。最后，哈罗德终于同意了，他趁着哈罗德改变心意之前，赶紧抓了围巾和大衣出门。

　 Once they are outdoors, his euphoria increases. He loves this house: he loves how it looks, he loves its quiet, and most of all, he loves that it is his and Willem’s, as far from Lispenard Street as imaginable, but as much theirs as that place was, something they made together and share. The house, which faces a second, different forest, is a series of glass cubes, and preceding it is a long driveway that switchbacks through the woods, so at certain angles you can see only swatches of it, and at other angles it disappears completely. At night, when it is lit, it glows like a lantern, which was what Malcolm had named it in his monograph: Lantern House. The back of the house looks out onto a wide lawn and beyond it, a lake. At the bottom of the lawn is a pool, which is lined with slabs of slate so that the water is always cold and clear, even on the hottest days, and in the barn there is an indoor pool and a living room; every wall of the barn can be lifted up and away from the structure, so that the entire interior is exposed to the outdoors, to the tree peonies and lilac bushes that bloom around it in the early spring; to the panicles of wisteria that drip from its roof in the early summer. To the right of the house is a field that paints itself red with poppies in July; to the left is another through which he and Willem scattered thousands of wildflower seeds: cosmos and daisies and foxglove and Queen Anne’s lace. One weekend shortly after they had moved in, they spent two days making their way through the forests before and behind the house, planting lilies of the valley near the mossy hillocks around the oak and elm trees, and sowing mint seeds throughout. They knew Malcolm didn’t approve of their landscaping efforts—he thought them sentimental and trite—and although they knew Malcolm was probably right, they also didn’t really care. In spring and summer, when the air was fragrant, they often thought of Lispenard Street, its aggressive ugliness, and of how then they wouldn’t even have had the visual imagination to conjure a place like this, where the beauty was so uncomplicated, so undeniable that it seemed at times an illusion.

来到户外，他的幸福感增强了。他喜欢这栋房子：他喜欢它的外观、它的安静，最重要的是，他喜欢它是他和威廉的，尽管跟利斯本纳街那间公寓差太多了，但同样是他们两个共有的，是他们一起布置并共享的。这栋房子的正面是一连串玻璃立方体，面对另一片森林。屋前有一条漫长的之字形车道穿过森林，所以在某些角度只能看到房子的一部分，另一个角度又完全看不到。到了夜晚，亮灯之后，整栋房子就像发光的灯笼，因此马尔科姆在他的专题文章里将这里命名为“灯笼屋”。房子背面的外头是一片宽阔的草坪，再过去是一片湖。草坪尽头有一个游泳池，里头铺着石板，因此即使在最热的天气里，池水依然冰凉清澈。另外，谷仓里还有室内游泳池和起居室；谷仓的每一面墙都可以掀开并拆下，所以整个室内可以跟户外相连，早春有牡丹和紫丁香盛开，初夏时屋顶垂下成串的紫藤花。七月时，房子右边的原野被盛开的罂粟花染红；房子左边的原野上，他和威廉撒了几千颗野花的种子，有波斯菊、雏菊、洋地黄和雪珠花。他们刚搬进来不久的一个周末，曾花了两天在屋前和屋后的森林里，在栎树和榆树周围长满青苔的小丘旁种下铃兰，还到处撒了薄荷种子。他们知道马尔科姆并不赞同他们的造景方式，他觉得他们太感情用事又老套。他们知道马尔科姆的想法大概没错，但同时他们也不太在乎。春天和夏天，当空气充满芬芳时，他们常常想起利斯本纳街那间丑得吓人的公寓，才又想到他们当时无论如何都想象不出眼前这样的地方，美得这么单纯而无可否认，有时简直像是幻觉。

　 He and Harold set off toward the forest, where the rough walkway means that it is easier for him to navigate than it had been when construction began. Even so, he has to concentrate, for the path is only cleared once a season, and in the months between it becomes cluttered with saplings and ferns and twigs and tree matter.

他和哈罗德朝着森林走去，崎岖不平的小径比当初盖房子时要好走。即使如此，他还是必须专心，因为小径每一季只清理一次，中间那几个月就凌乱地散布着小树、蕨类、树枝和落叶。

　 They aren’t quite halfway to the first bench when he knows he has made a mistake. His legs began throbbing as soon as they finished walking down the lawn, and now his feet are throbbing as well, and each step is agonizing. But he doesn’t say anything, just grips his cane more tightly, trying to re-center the discomfort, and pushes forward, clenching his teeth and squaring his jaw. By the time they reach the bench—really, a dark-gray limestone boulder—he is dizzy, and they sit for a long time, talking and looking out onto the lake, which is silvery in the cold air.

他们还没走到通往第一张石凳的一半，他就知道自己犯了错。才走下草坪，他的双腿就开始抽痛，现在连两脚也在抽痛，每走一步都是酷刑。但他什么都没说，只是把拐杖抓得更紧，设法转移不适，咬紧牙关继续向前走。等他们走到第一张石凳（其实只是一块暗灰色的石灰岩巨石），他已经头晕目眩，两人在那里坐了好久，看着冷天里的一片银色湖面聊天。

　 “It’s chilly,” Harold says eventually, and it is; he can feel the cool of the stone through his pants. “We should get you back to the house.”

“好冷，”最后哈罗德终于说，的确很冷；他可以感觉到长裤下的岩石传来寒意。“我们该回去了。”

　 “Okay,” he swallows, and stands, and immediately, he feels a hot stake of pain being thrust upward through his feet and gasps, but Harold doesn’t notice.

“好吧。”他咽下口水，站起来，几乎立刻感到有一道热辣的剧痛从双脚往上蹿。他猛吸一口气，但哈罗德没注意。

　 They are only thirty steps into the forest when he stops Harold. “Harold,” he says, “I need—I need—” But he can’t finish.

他们才走进森林三十步，他就叫住哈罗德。“哈罗德，”他说，“我得……我得……”但是他没法讲完。

　 “Jude,” Harold says, and he can tell Harold is worried. He takes his left arm, slings it around his neck, and holds his hand in his own. “Lean on me as much as you can,” Harold says, putting his other arm around his waist, and he nods. “Ready?” He nods again.

“裘德，”哈罗德说。他看得出哈罗德很担心。他走过来抓住他的胳膊，绕到自己的脖子后方，然后握住他的手，“尽量靠在我身上。”哈罗德说，另一只手臂则环绕他的腰部。他点点头。“准备好了？”他又点头。

　 He’s able to take twenty more steps—such slow steps, his feet tangling in the mulch—before he simply can’t move any more. “I can’t, Harold,” he says, and by this time he can barely speak, the pain is so extreme, so unlike anything he has felt in such a long time. Not since he was in the hospital in Philadelphia have his legs, his back, his feet hurt so profoundly, and he lets go of Harold and falls to the forest floor.

他设法再走二十步，走得很慢，双脚纠缠在枯叶间，之后就再也走不下去了。“哈罗德，我没办法了。”他说。此时，他几乎说不出话来了，那疼痛太剧烈，完全不像他长久以来的任何痛法。打从他离开费城那家医院以来，他的两腿、背部和双脚就没有这么痛过了。他放开哈罗德，倒在森林里的地上。

　 “Oh god, Jude,” Harold says, and bends over him, helping him to sit up against a tree, and he thinks how stupid, how selfish, he is. Harold is seventy-two. He should not be asking a seventy-two-year-old man, even an admirably healthy seventy-two-year-old man, for physical assistance. He cannot open his eyes because the world is torquing itself around him, but he hears Harold take out his phone, hears him try to call Willem, but the forest is so dense that the reception is poor, and Harold curses. “Jude,” he hears Harold say, but his voice is very faint, “I’m going to have to go back to the house and get your wheelchair. I’m so sorry. I’m going to be right back.” He nods, barely, and feels Harold button his coat closed, feels him push his hands into his coat’s pockets, feels him wrap something around his legs—Harold’s own coat, he realizes. “I’ll be right back,” Harold says. “I’ll be right back.” He hears Harold’s feet running away from him, the crunch of the sticks and leaves as they snap and crumple beneath him.

“啊，天啊，裘德。”哈罗德说，弯腰查看他，把他扶起来靠坐在一棵树干。他心想自己怎么会这么愚蠢、这么自私。哈罗德都72岁了。他不该要求一个72岁的老人做这么费力的事，即使是个健康得令人佩服的72岁老人。他无法张开眼睛，因为整个世界在绕着他旋转，但他听到哈罗德掏出手机，打电话给威廉，只是森林太浓密了，信号很差，哈罗德诅咒着。“裘德，”他听到哈罗德说，但声音很模糊，“我得回屋拿你的轮椅。对不起。我马上就回来。”他勉强点了头，感觉到哈罗德把他的大衣扣子扣好，将他的双手塞进大衣口袋里，还用某个东西包着他的双腿，他随即明白那是哈罗德自己的大衣。“我马上就回来。”他听到哈罗德的双腿奔跑着离开，一路踩过树枝和树叶，发出嘎吱声。

　 He turns his head to the side and the ground beneath him shifts, dangerously, and he vomits, coughing up everything he has eaten that day, feels it slide off of his lips and drool down his cheek. Then he feels a bit better, and he leans his head against the tree again. He is reminded of his time in the forest when he was running away from the home, how he had hoped the trees might protect him, and now he hopes for it again. He takes his hand out of his pocket, feels for his cane, and squeezes it as hard as he can. Behind his eyelids, bright spangled drops of light burst into confetti, and then blink out into oily smears. He concentrates on the sound of his breath, and on his legs, which he imagines as large lumpen shards of wood into which have been drilled dozens of long metal screws, each as thick as a thumb. He pictures the screws being drawn out in reverse, each one rotating slowly out of him and landing with a ringing clang on a cement floor. He vomits again. He is so cold. He can feel himself begin to spasm.

他把头转向一侧，觉得下方的土地在危险地移动着，于是他吐了，把那天吃下的东西都吐了出来。他觉得那些东西滑出嘴唇，沿着一边脸颊流下。之后他觉得好一点了，又把头往后靠着树干。他想起自己逃离少年之家后在森林待过的那段时间，想起他当时多么希望那些树能保护他，现在他又生起同样的希望了。他一手从口袋里伸出来，摸索着他的拐杖，然后尽力握紧。在他眼皮后面，一片明亮的光点爆成满天的彩色碎纸，又闪烁成为一抹抹多油的污痕。他专注于自己的呼吸声和双腿，把那两条腿想象成两根笨重的木块，里头钻入了几十根长长的金属螺丝，每根都粗得像大拇指。他想象此时那些螺丝被反向转出来，每一根都缓缓脱离他的腿，“叮”一声落在一片水泥地上。他又吐了。他好冷。他可以感觉到自己开始抽搐。

　 And then he hears someone running toward him, and he can smell it is Willem—his sweet sandalwood scent—before he hears his voice. Willem gathers him, and when he lifts him, everything sways again, and he thinks he is going to be sick, but he isn’t, and he puts his right arm around Willem’s neck and turns his vomity face into his shoulder and lets himself be carried. He can hear Willem panting—he may weigh less than Willem, but they are still the same height, and he knows how unwieldy he must be, his cane, still in his hand, banging against Willem’s thighs, his calves knocking against Willem’s rib cage—and is grateful when he feels himself being lowered into his chair, hears Willem’s and Harold’s voices above him. He bends over, resting his forehead on his knees, and is pushed back out of the forest and up the hill to the house, and once inside, he is lifted into bed. Someone takes off his shoes, and he screams out and is apologized to; someones wipes his face; someone wraps his hands around a hot-water bottle; someone wraps his legs with blankets. Above him, he can hear Willem being angry—“Why did you fucking go along with this? You know he can’t fucking do this!”—and Harold’s apologetic, miserable replies: “I know, Willem. I’m so sorry. It was moronic. But he wanted to go so badly.” He tries to speak, to defend Harold, to tell Willem it was his fault, that he made Harold come with him, but he can’t.

这时，他听到有人跑向他，还没听到那人开口，他就闻出威廉身上那股甜甜的檀香味。威廉来到他面前，抱起他时，整个世界又开始摇晃。他想自己又要吐了，但结果没有。他的右手臂绕着威廉的颈背，吐过的那边脸靠在威廉的肩膀上，让自己被抱起来。他可以听到威廉在喘气。他的体重不如威廉，但两人身高一样。他知道自己一定很重，仍握在手里的拐杖撞击着威廉的大腿，他的小腿则敲着威廉的肋骨。他很庆幸地感觉到自己被放低到轮椅上，听到上方传来威廉和哈罗德的声音。他弯腰，前额靠在膝盖上，被推出森林，经过上坡来到屋里，一进门，就被搬上床。有人脱掉他的鞋子，他痛得尖叫又道歉；有人擦了他的脸，有人抓着他的双手，让他抱住一个装了热水的瓶子；有人用毯子裹住他的双腿。在他上方，他听得到威廉很生气——“你为什么要答应他去那么远？你明知道他妈的他根本做不到！”然后，哈罗德充满歉意又悲惨地回答：“我知道，威廉。对不起。我太白痴了。但他是那么想出去。”他想讲话，帮哈罗德辩护，跟威廉说这是他的错，说是他逼哈罗德跟他去的，但他没办法。