《渺小一生》:可观、不可观，他不在乎
At some point he went back to work: the end of September, he thought. By this point, he knew what had happened. He did. But he was trying not to, and back then, it was still easy. He didn’t read the papers; he didn’t watch the news. Two weeks after Willem died, he and Harold had been walking down the street and they had passed a newspaper kiosk and there, before him, was a magazine with Willem’s face on it, and two dates, and he realized that the first date was the year Willem had been born, and the second was the year he had died. He had stood there, staring, and Harold had taken his arm. “Come on, Jude,” he’d said, gently. “Don’t look. Come with me,” and he had followed, obediently.
然后在某个时间，他回去上班了。他觉得应该是九月底。此时他已经知道发生了什么事。虽然知道，但设法不要知道；在当时，这一点还算容易做到。他不看报纸，不看电视新闻。威廉过世两周后，那天他和哈罗德走在路上，经过一个报摊，忽然看到一本杂志上印着威廉的脸，还有两个数字，然后他明白第一个数字是威廉出生的那一年，第二个数字是他死的那一年。他站在那里瞪着那本杂志看，哈罗德不得不抓住他的手臂。“走吧，裘德，”他柔声说，“不要看，跟我走。”他就乖乖跟着走了。
Before he returned to the office, he had instructed Sanjay: “I don’t want anyone offering me their condolences. I don’t want anyone mentioning it. I don’t want anyone saying his name, ever.”
他回去上班前交代桑杰：“我不要任何人来慰问我。我不要任何人提起这件事。我不要任何人提起他的名字，绝对不要。”
“Okay, Jude,” Sanjay had said, quietly, looking scared. “I understand.”
“好吧，裘德，”桑杰那时低声说，一脸害怕，“我明白了。”
And they had obeyed him. No one said they were sorry. No one said Willem’s name. No one ever says Willem’s name. And now he wishes they would say it. He cannot say it himself. But he wishes someone would. Sometimes, on the street, he hears someone say something that sounds like his name—“William!”: a mother, calling to her son—and he turns, greedily, in the direction of her voice.
事务所里的人都乖乖照办。没有人来说他们很遗憾。没有人提到威廉的名字。再也没有人敢提起威廉的名字。而现在他真希望他们提起。有时在路上，他听到有人叫着类似威廉的名字，比方一个妈妈对儿子喊：“威伦！”他会渴望地转身，望着发出声音的方向。
In those first months, there were practicalities, which gave him something to do, which gave his days anger, which in turn gave them shape. He sued the car manufacturer, the seat-belt manufacturer, the air-bag manufacturer, the rental-car company. He sued the truck driver, the company the driver worked for. The driver, he heard through the driver’s lawyer, had a chronically ill child; a lawsuit would ruin the family. But he didn’t care. Once he would have; not now. He felt raw and merciless. Let him be destroyed, he thought. Let him be ruined. Let him feel what I feel. Let him lose everything, the only things, that matter. He wanted to siphon every dollar from all of them, all the companies, all the people working for them. He wanted to leave them hopeless. He wanted to leave them empty. He wanted them to live in squalor. He wanted them to feel lost in their own lives.
头几个月还有些实际的事情要处理，让他有事可做，让他的每一天有了愤怒，也让那些日子具体起来。他告了汽车厂、安全带制造商、气囊制造商、租车公司。他告了那个卡车司机、他服务的那家公司。他听那个司机的律师说，那个司机有个长期患病的小孩，打官司会毁掉这个家，但他不在乎。以前他会在乎，现在不会了。他觉得自己苛刻、毫无同情心。就把他毁了吧，他心想。让他完蛋。让他感受我所感受到的。让他失去一切，让他失去所有重要的东西。他要吸干这些人、这些公司和他们员工的每一分钱。他要让他们绝望。他要让他们一无所有。他希望他们活得很惨。他希望他们茫然无措。
They were being sued, each of them, for everything Willem would have earned had he been allowed to live a normal lifespan, and it was a ridiculous number, an astonishing number, and he couldn’t look at it without despair: not because of the figure itself but because of the years that figure represented.
他们都被求偿，没有一个被漏掉，金额是威廉正常寿命下可赚到的钱。那个数字很荒谬、很吓人，而他看到这数字觉得很绝望：不是因为数字本身，而是那个数字所代表的年数。
They would settle with him, said his lawyer, a notoriously aggressive and venal torts expert named Todd with whom he had been on the law review, and the settlements would be generous.
他们会跟他和解的，他的律师告诉他。那是个出了名好斗又贪婪的侵权专家，名叫托德，两个人以前一起编过法学评论学报。而且和解金额会非常可观，托德说。
Generous; not generous. He didn’t care. He only cared if it made them suffer. “Obliterate them,” he commanded Todd, his voice croaky with hatred, and Todd had looked startled.
可观、不可观，他不在乎。他只在乎要让他们痛苦。“彻底摧毁他们。”他跟托德说，他的声音因为恨意而沙哑，托德的表情很震惊。
“I will, Jude,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
“裘德，我会的。”托德说，“别担心。”
He didn’t need the money, of course. He had his own. And except for monetary gifts to his assistant and his godson, and sums that he wanted distributed to various charities—the same charities Willem gave to every year, along with an additional one: a foundation that helped exploited children—everything that Willem had he had left to him: it was a photo negative of his own will. Earlier that year, he and Willem had set up two scholarships at their college for Harold’s and Julia’s seventy-fifth birthdays: one at the law school under Harold’s name; one at the medical school under Julia’s. They had funded them together, and Willem had left enough in a trust so that they always would be. He disbursed the rest of Willem’s bequests: he signed the checks to the charities and foundations and museums and organizations that Willem had designated his beneficiaries. He gave to Willem’s friends—Harold and Julia; Richard; JB; Roman; Cressy; Susannah; Miguel; Kit; Emil; Andy; but not Malcolm, not anymore—the items (books, pictures, mementoes from films and plays, pieces of art) that he had left them. There were no surprises in Willem’s will, although sometimes he wished there would have been—how grateful he would have been for a secret child whom he’d get to meet and would have Willem’s smile; how scared and yet how excited he would have been for a secret letter containing a long-held confession. How thankful he would have been for an excuse to hate Willem, to resent him, for a mystery to solve that might occupy years of his life. But there was nothing. Willem’s life was over. He was as clean in death as he had been in life.
当然，他不需要那些钱。他自己有钱。而且威廉的遗嘱里，除了留钱给助理和教子，以及他希望捐给各个慈善机构的金额（除了威廉每年都会捐助的那些机构，还有一个帮助受虐儿童的基金会），其他的一切都留给了他；他的遗嘱也是一样，把一切都留给威廉。那一年稍早，他和威廉在他们大学母校设立了两个奖学金，当作送给哈罗德和朱丽娅的75岁生日礼物：一个在法学院，用的是哈罗德的名字；一个在医学院，用了朱丽娅的名字。他们两个共同成立，而且威廉留了够多的钱给一个信托基金，让这两个奖学金能永远持续下去。他处理了威廉剩下的遗产：开了支票给威廉指定的慈善机构、基金会、博物馆和组织。剩下的东西（书、照片、拍片和演出的纪念物、艺术品）遵照遗嘱送给威廉的朋友，包括哈罗德和朱丽娅、理查德、杰比、罗蒙、克雷西、苏珊娜、米盖尔、基特、埃米尔、安迪，但是没有马尔科姆，再也没有了。威廉的遗嘱里没有令他惊讶之处，虽然有时他真希望有：要是威廉有个私生子，跟威廉有相同的笑容，可以让他看看，那该有多好；要是遗嘱留给他一封信，说出他隐瞒已久的秘密，那该有多可怕，又多令人兴奋。他会有多庆幸找到可以恨威廉、讨厌威廉的借口，感谢终于解开占据他人生多年的谜团。但什么都没有。威廉的人生结束了。他死了，跟他活着的时候一样，干干净净。
He thought he was doing well, or well enough anyway. One day Harold called and asked what he wanted to do for Thanksgiving, and for a moment he couldn’t understand what Harold was talking about, what the very word—Thanksgiving—meant. “I don’t know,” he said.
他觉得自己过得很好，总之够好。有天哈罗德打电话来，问他感恩节打算怎么过。一时之间，他不明白哈罗德在说什么，不懂“感恩节”是什么意思。“我不知道。”他说。
“It’s next week,” Harold said, in the new quiet voice everyone now used around him. “Do you want to come here, or we can come over, or we can go somewhere else?”
“就是下星期了。”哈罗德说，用一种新的、轻柔的声音，现在每个人都用这种声音跟他讲话。“你想来我们这，或者我们可以过去，还是我们去别的地方？”
“I don’t think I can,” he said. “I have too much work, Harold.”
“我想我没办法，”他说，“哈罗德，我工作实在太多了。”
But Harold had insisted. “Anywhere, Jude,” he’d said. “With whomever you want. Or no one. But we need to see you.”
但哈罗德坚持。“随便哪里都行，裘德，”他说，“看你想邀请谁一起过都可以，谁都不邀请也行。但是我们一定要跟你一起过节。”
“You’re not going to have a good time with me,” he finally said.
“你们跟我在一起不会愉快的。”最后他终于说。
“We won’t have a good time without you,” Harold said. “Or any kind of time. Please, Jude. Anywhere.”
“如果没有你，我们也不会愉快的，”哈罗德说，“没有你，我们根本没办法过节。拜托，裘德，哪里都好。”
So they went to London. They stayed in the flat. He was relieved to be out of the country, where there would have been scenes of families on the television, and his colleagues happily grousing about their children and wives and husbands and in-laws. In London, the day was just another day. They took walks, the three of them. Harold cooked ambitious, disastrous meals, which he ate. He slept and slept. Then they went home.
于是他们去了伦敦，待在那里的公寓。能离开美国让他松了一口气；待在美国的话，电视上成天都是家人团聚的画面，同事会开心地抱怨子女或妻子或丈夫或姻亲。但是伦敦不过感恩节，这一天只是平常的一天。他们三个出门散步，哈罗德屡次满怀抱负地做菜，做出灾难性的一餐，他吃了。他睡了又睡。然后他们回家。
And then one Sunday in December he had woken and had known: Willem was gone. He was gone from him forever. He was never coming back. He would never see him again. He would never hear Willem’s voice again, he would never smell him again, he would never feel Willem’s arms around him. He would never again be able to unburden himself of one of his memories, sobbing with shame as he did, would never again jerk awake from one of his dreams, blind with terror, to feel Willem’s hand on his face, to hear Willem’s voice above him: “You’re safe, Judy, you’re safe. It’s over; it’s over; it’s over.” And then he had cried, really cried, cried for the first time since the accident. He had cried for Willem, for how frightened he must have been, for how he must have suffered, for his poor short life. But mostly he had cried for himself. How was he going to keep living without Willem? His entire life—his life after Brother Luke, his life after Dr. Traylor, his life after the monastery and the motel rooms and the home and the trucks, which was the only part of his life that counted—had had Willem in it. There had not been a day since he was sixteen and met Willem in their room at Hood Hall in which he had not communicated with Willem in some way. Even when they were fighting, they spoke. “Jude,” Harold had said, “it will get better. I swear. I swear. It won’t seem like it now, but it will.” They all said this: Richard and JB and Andy; the people who wrote him cards. Kit. Emil. All they told him was that it would get better. But although he knew enough to never say so aloud, privately he thought: It won’t. Harold had had Jacob for five years. He had had Willem for thirty-four. There was no comparison. Willem had been the first person who loved him, the first person who had seen him not as an object to be used or pitied but as something else, as a friend; he had been the second person who had always, always been kind to him. If he hadn’t had Willem, he wouldn’t have had any of them—he would never have been able to trust Harold if he hadn’t trusted Willem first. He was unable to conceive of life without him, because Willem had so defined what his life was and could be.
接下来，十二月的一个星期天，他醒来时很清楚：威廉走了。永远离开他了。永远不会回来了。他再也看不到他了。他再也听不到威廉的声音，再也闻不到他的气味，再也不会感觉到威廉的双手拥着他了。他再也无法倾诉他的回忆，同时羞愧地啜泣，再也无法半夜从噩梦中惊醒，惊骇而茫然时感觉威廉的手摸着他的脸，听着威廉的声音在他上方说：“你安全了，小裘，你很安全。都结束了，都结束了，都结束了。”然后他哭了，真正地哭了，是威廉车祸以来他第一次哭。他为威廉哭，哭他当时一定很害怕，哭他当时一定很痛苦，哭他可怜的短暂人生。但最重要的是哭他自己。没了威廉，他要怎么活下去？他的整个人生——在卢克修士之后，在特雷勒医生之后，在修道院、汽车旅馆房间、少年之家和那些卡车之后的人生，始终都有威廉在其中。自从他16岁在虎德馆的宿舍房间里认识威廉以来，他们没有一天不曾以某种方式沟通。即使吵架时，两人还是会说话。“裘德，”哈罗德曾说，“以后会好转的，我发誓。我发誓。现在看起来好像不可能，但一定会好转的。”他们都这么说，理查德、杰比、安迪，或者写卡片给他的人。还有基特、埃米尔，他们都跟他说以后会好转。尽管没说出口，但私底下他心想：不会的。哈罗德拥有雅各布五年。他拥有威廉三十四年。两者根本没办法相提并论。威廉是第一个爱他的人，第一个没把他当成利用或怜悯的对象，而是当成朋友的人；他是第二个永远、永远对他和善的人。如果没有威廉，也不会有这些对他和善的人——要不是他先信任了威廉，后来也不可能信任哈罗德。没有了威廉，他就没办法想象人生要怎么过，因为威廉太重要了，不但决定他现在的人生，也决定他往后的人生。
The next day he did what he never did: he called Sanjay and told him he wasn’t coming in for the next two days. And then he had lain in bed and cried, screaming into the pillows until he lost his voice completely.
次日他做了他从没做过的事：他打电话给桑杰，说他接下来两天不去上班了。然后，他躺在床上哭，埋在枕头里尖叫，直到嗓子完全发不出声音。
But from those two days he had found another solution. Now he stays very late at work, so late that he has seen the sun rise from his office. He does this every weekday, and on Saturdays as well. But on Sundays he sleeps as late as he can, and when he wakes, he takes a pill, one that not only makes him fall asleep again but bludgeons into obsolescence all glimmers of wakefulness. He sleeps until the pill wears off, and then he takes a shower and gets back into bed and takes a different pill, one that makes sleep shallow and glassy, and sleeps until Monday morning. By Monday, he has not eaten in twenty-four hours, sometimes more, and he is trembly and thoughtless. He swims, he goes to work. If he is lucky, he has spent Sunday dreaming of Willem, for at least a little while. He has bought a long, fat pillow, as long as a man is tall, one meant to be pressed against by pregnant women or by people with back problems, and he drapes one of Willem’s shirts over it and holds it as he sleeps, even though in life, it was Willem who held him. He hates himself for this, but he cannot stop.
在那两天里，他找到另一个解决办法。现在他总是加班到很晚，直到天亮。每个工作日他都这样，外加星期六。但是到了星期天，他会尽量睡到很晚，醒来时，他就吃一颗药，让他不但再度入睡，而且会持续消灭任何醒来的可能性。他会睡到药效退了，起来冲个澡，回到床上吃另一颗不同的药丸，让他的睡眠浅而透明，直到星期一早晨。到了星期一，他已经二十四小时没吃东西，有时更久，所以会一直颤抖、无法思考。他先游泳，再去工作。如果运气好，他星期天就可以梦见威廉，至少梦到一小段时间。他买了一个粗大的长抱枕，长度就像成年的高个男子，这本来是供怀孕妇女或是背部有问题的人靠着使用的，但他拿威廉的衬衫套在抱枕上，睡觉时抱着，尽管威廉生前，通常是威廉抱着他。他痛恨自己这样，但他就是忍不住。
