《渺小一生》:“因?yàn)槟蔷吞偪窳?，即使是你?！?/h1>

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2020年03月21日

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　 “It’s painful,” he managed to choke out.

“很痛?！彼銖?qiáng)說(shuō)了一聲。

　 “Scale of one to ten?”

“從一分到十分，有幾分呢？”

　 “Seven. Eight.”

“七八分?！?

　 “I’m sorry,” Andy replied. “I’m almost done, I promise. Five more minutes.”

“對(duì)不起?！卑驳匣卮?，“我快弄完了，我保證。再五分鐘?！?

　 When it was over, he would sit, and Andy would sit with him and give him something to drink: a soda, something sugary, and he’d feel the room begin to clarify itself around him, bit by blurry bit. “Slowly,” Andy would say, “or you’ll be sick.” He would watch as Andy dressed the wound—he was always at his calmest when he was stitching or sewing or wrapping—and in those moments, he would feel so vulnerable and weak that he would have agreed to anything Andy might have suggested.

等到結(jié)束了，他會(huì)坐下來(lái)，安迪會(huì)陪他一起坐著，給他一點(diǎn)喝的，一瓶汽水之類的甜飲料，慢慢地他會(huì)覺(jué)得朦朧的房間逐漸清晰起來(lái)，一點(diǎn)接一點(diǎn)?！奥??！卑驳蠒?huì)說(shuō)，“不然你會(huì)吐出來(lái)。”他看著安迪包扎傷口——他在縫合或包扎傷口時(shí)向來(lái)最冷靜——在那些時(shí)刻，他覺(jué)得自己好容易受傷、好虛弱，不論安迪要求什么，他都會(huì)答應(yīng)。

　 “You’re not going to cut yourself on your legs,” Andy would say, more a statement than a question.

“你不能再割在兩腿上了。”安迪會(huì)說(shuō)，比較像警告，而不是建議。

　 “No, I won’t.”

“對(duì)，我不會(huì)的?！?

　 “Because that would be too insane, even for you.”

“因?yàn)槟蔷吞偪窳耍词故悄??！?

　 “I know.”

“我知道?！?

　 “Your anatomy is so degraded that it’d get really infected.”

“你的身體結(jié)構(gòu)退化得太厲害，所以傷口感染得很嚴(yán)重?！?

　 “Andy. I know.”

“安迪，我知道。”

　 He had, at various points, suspected that Andy was talking to his friends behind his back, and there were times when they would use Andy-like language and turns of phrase, and even four years after “The Incident,” as Andy had begun calling it, he suspected that Willem was going through the bathroom trash in the morning, and he’d had to take extra cautions disposing of his razors, bundling them in tissue and duct tape and throwing them into garbage cans on the way to work. “Your crew,” Andy called them: “What’ve you and your crew been up to these days?” (when he was in a good mood) and “I’m going to tell your fucking crew they’ve got to keep their eyes on you” (when he wasn’t).

他曾在幾個(gè)不同的時(shí)間點(diǎn)，懷疑安迪背著他跟他的朋友談話，因?yàn)橛袔状?，他的朋友?huì)用類似安迪的詞匯和措辭講話。即使在安迪所謂的“嚴(yán)重事件”發(fā)生四年后，他懷疑威廉還會(huì)在早上翻浴室的垃圾桶，害他在丟刮胡刀片時(shí)得采取額外的措施，把它們包在衛(wèi)生紙和膠帶里，帶出去丟進(jìn)上班途中的垃圾桶?！澳愕慕M員”，安迪如此稱呼他們。心情好的時(shí)候，他會(huì)問(wèn)：“你和你的組員最近怎么樣？”，心情不好的時(shí)候，會(huì)說(shuō)：“我他媽的要告訴你的組員，讓他們好好看著你?！?

　 “Don’t you dare, Andy,” he’d say. “And anyway, it’s not their responsibility.”

“安迪，我不準(zhǔn)你說(shuō)。”他會(huì)說(shuō)，“總之，這不是他們的責(zé)任?！?

　 “Of course it is,” Andy would retort. As with other issues, they couldn’t agree on this one.

“當(dāng)然是他們的責(zé)任。”安迪會(huì)反駁。就像很多其他問(wèn)題，在這件事上他們也無(wú)法達(dá)成共識(shí)。

　 But now it was twenty months after the appearance of this most recent wound and it still hadn’t healed. Or rather, it had healed and then broken again and then healed again, and then he had woken on Friday and felt something damp and gummy on his leg—the lower calf, right above the ankle—and had known it had split. He hadn’t called Andy yet—he would do so on Monday—but it had been important to him to take this walk, which he feared would be his last for some time, maybe months.

但最近的這個(gè)瘡出現(xiàn)至今已經(jīng)是第二十個(gè)月了，一直沒(méi)有愈合。或者應(yīng)該說(shuō)，它愈合了又破開(kāi)，然后又愈合。他這星期五醒來(lái)時(shí)，覺(jué)得腿上有什么濕濕黏黏的，就在小腿下部、腳踝上方，顯然是那道傷口又裂開(kāi)了。他還沒(méi)打電話給安迪（他打算星期一再打），但走這趟路對(duì)他來(lái)說(shuō)很重要，因?yàn)樗麚?dān)心自己可能有一陣子沒(méi)辦法再走那么遠(yuǎn)了，說(shuō)不定會(huì)有好幾個(gè)月。

　 He was on Madison and Seventy-fifth now, very near Andy’s office, and his leg was hurting him so much that he crossed to Fifth and sat on one of the benches near the wall that bordered the park. As soon as he sat, he experienced that familiar dizziness, that stomach-lifting nausea, and he bent over and waited until the cement became cement again and he would be able to stand. He felt in those minutes his body’s treason, how sometimes the central, tedious struggle in his life was his unwillingness to accept that he would be betrayed by it again and again, that he could expect nothing from it and yet had to keep maintaining it. So much time, his and Andy’s, was spent trying to repair something unfixable, something that should have wound up in charred bits on a slag heap years ago. And for what? His mind, he supposed. But there was—as Andy might have said—something incredibly arrogant about that, as if he was saving a jalopy because he had a sentimental attachment to its sound system.

他來(lái)到麥迪遜大道和75街交叉口，離安迪的診所很近。他的腿很痛，痛到他不得不走到第五大道，坐在中央公園外墻邊的長(zhǎng)椅上。他一坐下就體驗(yàn)到那種熟悉的暈眩感和反胃的惡心感，于是他彎腰等著水泥地不再起伏旋轉(zhuǎn)，才有辦法站起來(lái)。在那幾分鐘里，他感覺(jué)到自己的身體在鬧叛變，如同他人生最核心、最乏味的掙扎，就是不愿意接受自己會(huì)一次又一次地遭到背叛。他根本不能指望自己的身體，但還是要持續(xù)維修它。這具軀殼多年前早該燒成一堆炭化的渣滓堆了，但他和安迪還是花了那么多時(shí)間，試著修理這無(wú)法修復(fù)的東西。為了什么？想必是為了他的心靈吧。但這其中有種不可思議的傲慢（就像安迪可能會(huì)說(shuō)的），仿佛他在搶救一輛破車，只因?yàn)樗麑?duì)車子的音響系統(tǒng)有特別的感情。

　 If I walk just a few more blocks, I can be at his office, he thought, but he never would have. It was Sunday. Andy deserved some sort of respite from him, and besides, what he was feeling now was not something he hadn’t felt before.

我只要再走幾個(gè)街區(qū)就會(huì)抵達(dá)安迪的診所了，他心想，但他絕不會(huì)走過(guò)去。這是星期天，安迪不必受他打擾，何況他現(xiàn)在的感覺(jué)以前也不是沒(méi)有過(guò)。

　 He waited a few more minutes and then heaved himself to his feet, where he stood for half a minute before dropping to the bench again. Finally he was able to stand for good. He wasn’t ready yet, but he could imagine himself walking to the curb, raising his arm to hail a cab, resting his head against the back of its black vinyl banquette. He would count the steps to get there, just as he would count the steps it would take him to get from the cab and to his building, from the elevator to the apartment, and from the front door to his room. When he had learned to walk the third time—after his braces had come off—it had been Andy who had helped instruct the physical therapist (she had not been pleased, but had taken his suggestions), and Andy who had, as Ana had just four years before, watched him make his way unaccompanied across a space of ten feet, and then twenty, and then fifty, and then a hundred. His very gait—the left leg coming up to make a near-ninety-degree angle with the ground, forming a rectangle of negative space, the right listing behind—was engineered by Andy, who had made him work at it for hours until he could do it himself. It was Andy who told him he thought he was capable of walking without a cane, and when he finally did it, he’d had Andy to thank.

他又等了幾分鐘，然后吃力地站起來(lái)，站了半分鐘，又跌坐回去。最后，他終于可以站起來(lái)了。他還沒(méi)準(zhǔn)備好，但他可以想象自己走到人行道邊緣，舉手招一輛出租車，腦袋靠在后座的黑色塑料椅面上休息。他會(huì)數(shù)著上車要幾步，就像他會(huì)數(shù)著下車到他那棟公寓要幾步，然后從電梯走到公寓要幾步，進(jìn)門后到他房間又要幾步一樣。他這輩子第三次學(xué)走路，是在他腿上的撐架拆掉后。當(dāng)時(shí)是安迪幫忙指導(dǎo)物理治療師（她并不情愿，但還是聽(tīng)從了他的建議），而且就像安娜四年前所做的一樣，安迪看著他走過(guò)一段十英尺的路，然后是二十英尺、五十英尺、一百英尺。他走路的步態(tài)——左腳抬起來(lái)跟地面成將近九十度角，胯下形成一個(gè)矩形空間，右腳在后頭傾斜——也是安迪設(shè)計(jì)的。他逼他練習(xí)了好幾個(gè)小時(shí)，直到可以自己行走為止。當(dāng)初也是安迪告訴他，說(shuō)他覺(jué)得他可以不用手杖走路。等到他終于辦到的時(shí)候，他非常感激安迪。

　 Monday was not very many hours away, he told himself as he struggled to stay standing, and Andy would see him as he always did, no matter how busy he was. “When did you notice the break?” Andy would say, nudging gently at it with a bit of gauze. “Friday,” he’d say. “Why didn’t you call me then, Jude?” Andy would say, irritated. “At any rate, I hope you didn’t go on your stupid fucking walk.” “No, of course not,” he’d say, but Andy wouldn’t believe him. He sometimes wondered whether Andy thought of him as only a collection of viruses and malfunctions: If you removed them, who was he? If Andy didn’t have to take care of him, would he still be interested in him? If he appeared one day magically whole, with a stride as easy as Willem’s and JB’s complete lack of self-consciousness, the way he could lean back in his chair and let his shirt hoist itself from his hips without any fear, or with Malcolm’s long arms, the skin on their insides as smooth as frosting, what would he be to Andy? What would he be to any of them? Would they like him less? More? Or would he discover—as he often feared—that what he understood as friendship was really motivated by their pity of him? How much of who he was was inextricable from what he was unable to do? Who would he have been, who would he be, without the scars, the cuts, the hurts, the sores, the fractures, the infections, the splints, and the discharges?

現(xiàn)在離星期一沒(méi)幾個(gè)小時(shí)，他告訴自己，同時(shí)努力保持站立的姿勢(shì)。而且安迪不管多忙，一定會(huì)像往常那樣幫他看診?！澳闶裁磿r(shí)候發(fā)現(xiàn)傷口又破了？”安迪會(huì)問(wèn)，輕輕用一塊紗布按著傷口?！靶瞧谖?。”安迪會(huì)很不高興地說(shuō)：“那你那時(shí)為什么不打電話給我，裘德？無(wú)論如何，我都希望你不要再繼續(xù)進(jìn)行你那些愚蠢的走路行程了。”“不了，當(dāng)然不會(huì)了?！彼麜?huì)說(shuō)，但安迪不會(huì)相信。他有時(shí)很好奇，安迪會(huì)不會(huì)覺(jué)得他只是一個(gè)病毒和疾病的組合，如果把這些病痛拿掉，他會(huì)變成什么？如果安迪不必照顧他，還會(huì)對(duì)他有興趣嗎？如果有一天他的身體神奇地健全了，出現(xiàn)在安迪面前，走起路來(lái)像威廉和杰比那樣毫無(wú)窘迫不安，可以靠坐在椅子上讓襯衫往上滑，露出后腰也不害怕，或者有馬爾科姆的長(zhǎng)手臂，手臂內(nèi)側(cè)光滑得像撒了糖霜，那么，他對(duì)安迪來(lái)說(shuō)會(huì)是什么？他對(duì)其他任何一個(gè)朋友來(lái)說(shuō)會(huì)是什么？他們會(huì)比較不喜歡他嗎？或是更喜歡他？或者他會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)——就像他常常害怕的——他以為是友情的東西，其實(shí)只是出于他們對(duì)他的憐憫？他這個(gè)人有多少是源于他的身體障礙？如果沒(méi)有那些疤痕、割傷、疼痛、傷口、斷裂、感染、夾板，以及分泌物，他現(xiàn)在會(huì)是什么樣？未來(lái)又會(huì)變成什么樣？

　 But of course he would never know. Six months ago, they had managed to get the wound under control, and Andy had examined it, checking and rechecking, before issuing a fleet of warnings about what he should do if it reopened.

當(dāng)然，他永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)知道了。六個(gè)月前，他們?cè)O(shè)法把那個(gè)傷口控制住。安迪檢查過(guò)，確認(rèn)再確認(rèn)，才發(fā)出一連串警告，傷口萬(wàn)一再裂開(kāi)，他該怎么處理。