《渺小一生》:總是想讓自己變得更好

　 But his mind is also full of what he is about to do, and when Andy asks him, “And what does your better half have to say for himself these days?” he snaps at him: “What do you mean by that?” and Andy stops and looks at him, curiously. “Nothing,” he says. “I just wanted to know how Willem’s doing.”

但同時，他心里滿是他打算要做的事情，所以當(dāng)安迪問他：“那你另一半最近說了些什么嗎？”他兇巴巴地說：“你這話什么意思？”安迪停下手，好奇地看著他?！皼]什么，”他說，“我只是想知道威廉的近況怎么樣。”

　 Willem, he thinks, and simply hearing his name said aloud fills him with anguish. “He’s great,” he says, quietly.

威廉，他心想，光是聽到他的名字被人說出來，就讓他痛苦不堪。“他很好?！彼吐曊f。

　 At the end of the appointment, as always, Andy examines his arms, and this time, as he has for the last few times, grunts his approval. “You’ve really cut back,” he says. “No pun intended.”

看診的最后，一如往常，安迪檢查了他的手臂，這回就像前兩三次，安迪咕噥著贊許他。“你真的克制了，”他說，“絕對沒有諷刺的意思。”

　 “You know me—always trying to better myself,” he says, keeping his tone jocular, but Andy looks him in the eyes. “I know,” he says, softly. “I know it must be hard, Jude. But I’m glad, I really am.”

“你也知道我這個人——總是想讓自己變得更好嘛?！彼f，保持打趣的口吻，但安迪看著他的眼睛?！拔抑?，”他柔聲說，“我知道一定很辛苦，裘德。但是我很高興，真的?！?

　 Over dinner, Andy complains about his brother’s new boyfriend, whom he hates. “Andy,” he tells him, “you can’t hate all of Beckett’s boyfriends.”

晚餐時，安迪抱怨他雙胞胎兄弟新交的男朋友，說很討厭他?！鞍驳?，”他告訴他，“你不能恨貝克特所有的男朋友啊?！?

　 “I know, I know,” Andy says. “It’s just that he’s such a lightweight, and Beckett could do so much better. I did tell you he pronounced Proust as Prowst, right?”

“我知道，我知道，”安迪說，“只不過他實在太平庸了，貝克特可以找到好太多的對象。他把普魯斯特念成普勞斯特，這個我跟你說過吧？”

　 “Several times,” he says, smiling to himself. He had met this new reviled boyfriend of Beckett’s—a sweet, jovial aspiring landscape architect—at a dinner party at Andy’s three months ago. “But Andy—I thought he was nice. And he loves Beckett. And anyway, are you really going to sit around having conversations about Proust with him?”

“好幾次了?！彼f，兀自微笑。三個月前他在安迪家用晚餐，見過貝克特這位新男友，是個貼心、快活、充滿抱負的景觀建筑師?！翱墒前驳稀矣X得他人很好。而且他愛貝克特。總之，你打算沒事成天跟他聊普魯斯特嗎？”

　 Andy sighs. “You sound like Jane,” he says, grouchily.

安迪嘆氣?！澳阒v話就跟簡一樣?！彼г沟卣f。

　 “Well,” he says, smiling again. “Maybe you should listen to Jane.” He laughs, then, feeling lighter than he has in weeks, and not just because of Andy’s sulky expression. “There are worse crimes than not being fully conversant with Swann’s Way, you know.”

“這個嘛，”他說，又露出微笑，“也許你該聽簡的話?！彼执笮?，覺得好幾個星期沒這么輕松過了，不光是因為安迪那張悶悶不樂的臭臉，“你知道，這世上還有比不熟悉《在斯萬家那邊》[2]更糟糕的罪行呢?！?

　 As he drives home, he thinks of his plan, but then realizes he will have to wait, because he is going to claim that he has burned himself in a cooking accident, and if something goes wrong and he has to see Andy, Andy will ask him why he was cooking on the same night they were eating dinner. Tomorrow, then, he thinks; I’ll do it tomorrow. That way, he can write an e-mail to Willem tonight in which he’ll mention that he’s going to try to make the fried plantains JB likes: a semi-spontaneous decision that will go terribly wrong.

他開車回家時想著自己的計劃，但接著才想到他還得等，因為他打算宣稱自己做菜時不小心燒傷，如果出了錯，得去安迪那里，安迪就會問他為什么今晚才跟他吃過晚餐，回家還要做菜。那就明天吧，他心想；我明天就會做。這么一來，他今天晚上就可以寫一封電子郵件給威廉，提到他打算做杰比喜歡吃的炸芭蕉：是個有點臨時起意的決定，結(jié)果出了大錯。

　 You do know that this is how mentally ill people make their plans, says the dry and belittling voice inside him. You do know that this planning is something only a sick person would do.

你很清楚，有精神疾病的人就會這樣擬定計劃，他心中那個冷冰冰又輕蔑的聲音說。你很清楚，有病的人才會這樣事先籌備。

　 Stop it, he tells it. Stop it. The fact that I know this is sick means I’m not. At that, the voice hoots with laughter: at his defensiveness, at his six-year-old’s illogic, at his revulsion for the word “sick,” his fear that it might attach itself to him. But even the voice, its mocking, swaggering distaste for him, isn’t enough to stop him.

別說了，他告訴那個聲音。別說了。我知道這很病態(tài)，這表示我沒病。那聲音冷笑一聲，笑他的辯護，笑他6歲小孩的邏輯，笑他對“有病”這個字眼的深惡痛絕，還有他生怕這個字眼被貼在他身上。但即使那個聲音對他表達嘲弄和不屑的厭惡，也不足以阻止他。

　 The next evening he changes into a short-sleeve T-shirt, one of Willem’s, and goes to the kitchen. He arranges everything he needs: the olive oil; a long wooden match. He places his left forearm in the sink, as if it’s a bird to be plucked, and chooses an area a few inches above where his palm begins, before taking the paper towel he’s wet with oil and rubbing it onto his skin in an apricot-sized circle. He stares for a few seconds at the gleaming grease stain, and then he takes a breath and strikes the match against the side of its box and holds the flame to his skin until he catches on fire.

次日晚上，他換上一件威廉的短袖T恤，來到廚房。他安排好自己需要的一切：橄欖油、一根長長的木火柴。他把左手臂放在水槽里，好像那是一只等著要拔毛的雞，然后挑了掌根往上兩三英寸處的區(qū)域，拿沾了橄欖油的廚房紙巾在皮膚上抹，抹出一塊杏仁大小的圓形。他看著那塊發(fā)亮的油漬幾秒鐘，吸了口氣，拿起火柴朝火柴盒側(cè)邊一擦，將火焰湊向皮膚，直到著火。

　 The pain is—what is the pain? Ever since the injury, there has not been a single day in which he is not in some sort of pain. Sometimes the pain is infrequent, or mild, or intermittent. But it is always there. “You have to be careful,” Andy is always telling him. “You’ve gotten so inured to it that you’ve lost the ability to recognize when it’s a sign of something worse. So even if it’s only a five or a six, if it looks like this”—they had been speaking about one of the wounds on his legs around which he had noticed that the skin was turning a poisonous blackish gray, the color of rot—“then you have to imagine that for most people it would be a nine or a ten, and you have to, have to come see me. Okay?”

這個痛是——是什么？自從車禍?zhǔn)軅詠?，他身上沒有一天是不痛的。有時疼痛的頻率比較低、比較輕微，或者斷斷續(xù)續(xù)，但總是在?！澳愕眯⌒模卑驳峡偸沁@么告訴他：“你已經(jīng)太習(xí)慣疼痛了，碰到更糟糕的征兆時，就會失去辨認的能力。即使只是五分六分的痛，看起來像這樣……”他們那時談到他腿上的一個瘡，他注意到那個瘡周圍的皮膚已經(jīng)轉(zhuǎn)成一種毒黑的灰，是腐爛的顏色，“那你得想象，對大部分人來說，這已經(jīng)是九分、十分的痛了，那你一定、一定要來找我，好嗎？”

　 But this pain is a pain he has not felt in decades, and he screams and screams. Voices, faces, scraps of memories, odd associations whir through his mind: the smell of smoking olive oil leads him to a memory of a meal of roasted funghi he and Willem had had in Perugia, which leads him to a Tintoretto exhibit that he and Malcolm had seen in their twenties at the Frick, which leads him to a boy in the home everyone called Frick, but he never knew why, as the boy’s name was Jed, which leads him to the nights in the barn, which leads him to a bale of hay in an empty, fog-smeared meadow outside Sonoma against which he and Brother Luke had once had sex, which leads him to, and to, and to, and to, and to. He smells burning meat, and he breaks out of his trance and looks wildly at the stove, as if he has left something there, a slab of steak seething to itself in a pan, but there is nothing, and he realizes he is smelling himself, his own arm cooking beneath him, and this makes him turn on the faucet at last and the water splashing against the burn, the oily smoke rising from it, makes him scream again. And then he is reaching, again wildly, with his right arm, his left still lying useless in the sink, an amputation in a kidney-shaped metal bowl, and he is grabbing the container of sea salt from the cupboard above the stove, and he is sobbing, rubbing a handful of the sharp-edged crystals into the burn, which reactivates the pain into something whiter than white, and it is as if he is staring into the sun and he is blinded.

但眼前的這種痛是他二十多年來不曾感覺過的，他尖叫又尖叫。種種聲音、面孔、回憶的片段、古老的聯(lián)想，一口氣急速掠過他的腦海：冒煙的橄欖油氣味令他想起和威廉在佩魯賈吃過的一頓烤野菇大餐，進而聯(lián)想到他和馬爾科姆二十幾歲時去弗里克收藏館看過的一場丁托列托[3]作品展。接著聯(lián)想到在少年之家時有個男孩，大家都喊他弗里克，但他從來不明白為什么，因為那男孩真正的名字叫杰德。再聯(lián)想到在谷倉的那些夜晚，繼而聯(lián)想到北加州索諾馬郡外，在一片空蕩的草地上有一大捆干草，他靠在上頭和盧克修士性交。就這么一路聯(lián)想、聯(lián)想、聯(lián)想、聯(lián)想、聯(lián)想下去。他忽然聞到肉燒焦的氣味，他沖出神游狀態(tài)，慌張地看著爐子，好像他把東西落在那了，比方一塊牛排，正在平底鍋里煎著，但爐子上什么都沒有，他這才明白他聞到的是自己的肉，他的手臂正燒著。于是他終于打開水龍頭，把水潑濺在燒傷處，冒出油膩的煙，他再度尖叫起來。然后他慌亂地伸出右手臂（左手臂仍無力地放在水槽里，像一只切下的截肢放在腎形金屬盤內(nèi)），從爐子上方的碗櫥里拿出一罐海鹽，啜泣著抓起一把粗糙的結(jié)晶，抹在傷口上，讓那稍微平息的疼痛重新復(fù)活，轉(zhuǎn)為某種比白更白的東西，好像他直視著太陽，并因而目盲。

　 When he wakes, he is on the floor, his head against the cupboard beneath the sink. His limbs are jerking; he is feverish, but he is cold, and he presses himself against the cupboard as if it is something soft, as if it will consume him. Behind his closed eyelids he sees the hyenas, licking their snouts as if they have literally fed upon him. Happy? he asks them. Are you happy? They cannot answer, of course, but they are dazed and satiated; he can see their vigilance waning, their large eyes shutting contentedly.

他醒來時，發(fā)現(xiàn)自己躺在地板上。頭頂著水槽下的碗櫥。他的四肢正在抽搐；他發(fā)燒了，同時又覺得很冷。他的身體靠向碗櫥，仿佛那是某種柔軟的東西，會將他吞沒。在他閉著的眼皮后方，他看到那些鬣狗舔著口鼻，好像真的狠狠吃了他一頓。高興了嗎？他問它們。你們高興了嗎？它們當(dāng)然無法回答，但眼神茫然而滿足；他看得出它們的警惕性降低，心滿意足地閉上了大眼睛。

　 The next day he has a fever. It takes him an hour to get from the kitchen to his bed; his feet are too sore, and he cannot pull himself on his arms. He doesn’t sleep so much as move in and out of consciousness, the pain sloshing through him like a tide, sometimes receding enough to let him wake, sometimes consuming him beneath a grayed, filthy wave. Late that night he rouses himself enough to look at his arm, where there is a large crisped circle, black and venomous, as if it is a piece of land where he has been practicing a terrifying occult ritual: witch-burning, perhaps. Animal sacrifice. A summoning of spirits. It looks not like skin at all (and indeed, it no longer is) but like something that never was skin: like wood, like paper, like tarmac, all burned to ash.

次日他發(fā)燒了。他花了一小時才從廚房回到床上；他的腿很酸痛，而且還沒法用手臂拖行自己的身子。他斷斷續(xù)續(xù)失去意識，沒睡多少，疼痛就像浪潮拍打著他，有時潮水退得夠遠讓他醒來，有時又把他淹沒在灰色的骯臟潮水中。那天深夜，他逼自己清醒一點，檢視手臂，那里有一塊表皮發(fā)脆的大圓形，又黑又毒，像是一塊他用來進行某種可怕而神秘的儀式的土地：或許是燒女巫、獻祭動物，或者召喚鬼魂。那看起來一點也不像皮膚（的確，現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)不是了），而是某種從來不是皮膚的東西：像木頭，像紙，像柏油路面，全都燒成了灰。

　 By Monday, he knows it will become infected. At lunchtime he changes the bandage he had applied the night before, and as he eases it off, his skin tears as well, and he stuffs his pocket square into his mouth so he won’t scream out loud. But things are falling out of his arm, clots with the consistency of blood but the color of coal, and he sits on the floor of his bathroom, rocking himself back and forth, his stomach heaving forth old food and acids, his arm heaving forth its own disease, its own excretia.

到了星期一，他知道傷口會感染。午餐時間他換掉前一夜包扎的繃帶，揭開紗布時，表皮也跟著被撕了下來，他抓起西裝胸袋里的方巾捂住嘴，免得叫出聲來。上頭凝結(jié)的東西有血塊的黏稠度，但是顏色像煤炭。他坐在浴室的地板上，一陣又一陣地吐出消化到一半的食物和胃酸，他的手臂也吐出自己的疾病、自己的排泄物。

　 The next day the pain is worse, and he leaves work early to go see Andy. “My god,” Andy says, seeing the wound, and for once, he is silent, utterly, which terrifies him.

次日疼痛加劇，他提早下班去安迪那?！袄咸??！卑驳峡戳藗谡f。難得一次，安迪沉默了，完全沉默了，這把他嚇壞了。

　 “Can you fix it?” he whispers, because until that point, he had never thought himself capable of hurting himself in a way that couldn’t be fixed. He has, suddenly, a vision of Andy telling him he will lose the arm altogether, and the next thing he thinks is: What will I tell Willem?

“你能治好嗎？”他輕聲問。直到此時，他從沒想過他有辦法把自己傷到無法修復(fù)的地步。他忽然想到安迪有回跟他說，有一天他會把自己割到失去整只手臂。接下來他又想到：我要怎么告訴威廉？