《渺小一生》:他露出微笑。“可不是嗎？”

　 “What do you mean?” he asked.

“什么意思？”他問(wèn)。

　 “Well, I go,” Jude said, “but then—then I sit outside in the car and read through the session, and then when the session’s over, I drive back to the office.”

“唔，我去了，”裘德說(shuō)，“但是在該進(jìn)去的時(shí)間，我坐在外頭的車(chē)子上讀書(shū)，然后等到時(shí)間結(jié)束，我就開(kāi)車(chē)回辦公室?！?

　 He was quiet, and so was Jude, and then they both started laughing. “What’re you reading?” he asked when he could finally speak again.

他沒(méi)吭聲，裘德也沒(méi)說(shuō)話，然后兩個(gè)人開(kāi)始大笑。“你讀什么？”等到他終于有辦法說(shuō)話，他問(wèn)。

　 “On Narcissism,” Jude admitted, and they both started laughing again, so hard that Willem had to sit down.

“《論自戀》[1]。”裘德說(shuō)。兩個(gè)人又大笑起來(lái)，笑到威廉根本站不住，還得坐下來(lái)。

　 “Jude—” he began at last, and Jude interrupted him. “I know, Willem,” he said, “I know. I’ll go back. It was stupid. I just couldn’t bring myself to go in these past few times; I’m not sure why.”

“裘德……”他終于又開(kāi)口，裘德卻打斷他?！拔抑?，威廉，”他說(shuō)，“我知道，我會(huì)回去的。那真的太蠢了。我這幾次都沒(méi)辦法鼓起勇氣走進(jìn)去，也不知道為什么?！?

　 When he hung up, he was still smiling, and when he heard Idriss’s voice in his head—“And Willem, what do you think about the fact that Jude isn’t going when he said he would?”—he waved his hand before his face, as if fanning the words away. Jude’s lying; his own self-deceptions—both, he realized, were forms of self-protection, practiced since childhood, habits that had helped them make the world into something more digestible than it sometimes was. But now Jude was trying to lie less, and he was trying to accept that there were certain things that would never conform to his idea of how life should be, no matter how intensely he hoped or pretended they might. And so really, he knew that therapy would be of limited use to Jude. He knew Jude would keep cutting himself. He knew he would never be able to cure him. The person he loved was sick, and would always be sick, and his responsibility was not to make him better but to make him less sick. He was never to make Idriss understand this shift in perspective; sometimes, he could hardly understand it himself.

他掛斷電話時(shí)，臉上還帶著微笑，腦中浮現(xiàn)出伊德里斯的聲音——“還有，威廉，裘德說(shuō)他會(huì)去卻沒(méi)去，你有什么感覺(jué)？”他的手在臉前揮一揮，好像要把那些話趕跑。他現(xiàn)在明白，裘德撒謊，以及他自己的自我欺騙，都是自我保護(hù)的手段，從童年開(kāi)始就經(jīng)常被演練。這些習(xí)慣幫助他們，把這個(gè)有時(shí)太不堪的世界變得比較容易理解。但現(xiàn)在裘德試著減少撒謊，他也試著接受人生有些事永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)符合他理想中應(yīng)有的樣子，無(wú)論他多么期盼，也無(wú)論他怎么假裝。所以老實(shí)說(shuō)，他知道心理咨詢(xún)對(duì)裘德的作用有限，知道裘德還會(huì)繼續(xù)割自己，知道他永遠(yuǎn)沒(méi)法治愈他。他愛(ài)的人病了，而且會(huì)永遠(yuǎn)病下去，他的責(zé)任不是讓他好轉(zhuǎn)，而是讓他的病情減緩一些。他從來(lái)沒(méi)辦法讓伊德里斯了解這個(gè)觀點(diǎn)的轉(zhuǎn)變；有時(shí)，連他自己也不太了解。

　 That night he’d had a woman over, the deputy production designer, and as they lay there, he answered all the same questions: he explained how he had met Jude; he explained who he was, or at least the version of who he was that he had created for answers such as these.

那天夜里他找了個(gè)女人過(guò)來(lái)，是副美術(shù)指導(dǎo)伊莎貝爾。他們躺在床上時(shí)，他回答了那些老問(wèn)題：解釋他是怎么認(rèn)識(shí)裘德的，解釋他是什么樣的人，至少是他面對(duì)這類(lèi)狀況創(chuàng)造出來(lái)的版本。

　 “This is a lovely space,” said Isabel, and he glanced at her, a little suspiciously; JB, upon seeing the flat, had said it looked like it had been raped by the Grand Bazaar, and Isabel, he had heard the director of photography proclaim, had excellent taste. “Really,” she said, seeing his face. “It’s pretty.”

“這個(gè)地方真不錯(cuò)。”伊莎貝爾說(shuō)，他有點(diǎn)疑心地看了她一眼；杰比看到這間公寓后，曾說(shuō)這里看起來(lái)就像被伊斯坦布爾的大市集給強(qiáng)暴了。而伊莎貝爾，他聽(tīng)攝影指導(dǎo)宣稱(chēng)她的品位絕佳?！罢娴模彼f(shuō)，看到他臉上的表情?！斑@里很漂亮?！?

　 “Thanks,” he said. He owned the flat—he and Jude. They had bought it only two months ago, when it had become evident that both of them would be doing more work in London. He had been in charge of finding something, and because it had been his responsibility, he had deliberately chosen quiet, deeply dull Marylebone—not for its sober prettiness or convenience but because of the neighborhood’s surplus of doctors. “Ah,” Jude had said, studying the directory of the building’s tenants as they waited for the estate agent to show them the apartment Willem had settled on, “l(fā)ook at what’s downstairs from the unit: an orthopedic surgeon’s clinic.” He looked at Willem, raised an eyebrow. “That’s an interesting coincidence, isn’t it?”

“謝了?！彼f(shuō)。這間公寓是他的，他和裘德的。他們兩個(gè)月前才買(mǎi)下來(lái)，因?yàn)檫@兩年的狀況越來(lái)越明顯，他們兩個(gè)為了工作會(huì)更常待在倫敦。他負(fù)責(zé)找房子，因?yàn)槟鞘撬呢?zé)任。他刻意挑了安靜、非常乏味的馬里波恩，不是因?yàn)檫@里冷靜的美感或便利，而是因?yàn)檫@一帶有很多醫(yī)生。威廉終于選定這間公寓后，某天他們來(lái)到樓下，等著房地產(chǎn)經(jīng)紀(jì)人帶他們上去看房子?！鞍?，”裘德當(dāng)時(shí)說(shuō)，一面研究這棟建筑物的住戶名錄，“看看樓下是什么：一家整形外科診所呢。”他看著威廉，挑起一邊眉毛，“這真是有趣的巧合啊，不是嗎？”

　 He had smiled. “Isn’t it?” he asked. But beneath their joking was something that neither of them had been able to discuss, not just in their relationship but almost in their friendship as a whole—that at some point, they didn’t know when but that it would happen, Jude would get worse. What that might mean, specifically, Willem wasn’t certain, but as part of his new dedication to honesty, he was trying to prepare himself, themselves, for a future he couldn’t predict, for a future in which Jude might not be able to walk, might not be able to stand. And so finally, the fourth-floor Harley Street space had been the only possible option; of all the flats he had seen, this had been the one that had best approximated Greene Street: a single-story apartment with large doors and wide hallways, big square rooms, and bathrooms that could be converted to accommodate a wheelchair (the downstairs orthopedist’s office had been the final, unignorable argument that this apartment should be theirs). They bought the flat; he had moved into it all the rugs and lamps and blankets that he had spent his working life accumulating and that had been packed in boxes in the Greene Street basement; and before he returned to New York after the shoot ended, one of Malcolm’s young former associates who had moved back to London to work in Bellcast’s satellite office would begin renovating it.

他露出微笑?！翱刹皇菃?？”他說(shuō)。但在他們的玩笑之下，是兩個(gè)人都無(wú)法討論的事情，不光是在他們的伴侶關(guān)系中，甚至在他們多年的友誼中幾乎都沒(méi)討論過(guò)——到某個(gè)時(shí)間（他們不知道什么時(shí)候，但早晚會(huì)發(fā)生），裘德將會(huì)惡化。到底會(huì)是什么樣的惡化，威廉也不確定，但他現(xiàn)在決定要誠(chéng)實(shí)，所以他試著讓自己、讓他們兩人都做好準(zhǔn)備，去面對(duì)他無(wú)法預(yù)知的未來(lái)，面對(duì)有一天裘德可能沒(méi)有辦法走路、沒(méi)有辦法站起來(lái)。于是最后，這棟哈利街上的四層樓建筑成了唯一可能的選項(xiàng)；在他看過(guò)的所有房子里，這里最近似格林街：一戶占據(jù)整層樓的公寓，有大大的門(mén)和寬敞的走廊，房間都很大，浴室改裝得可供輪椅出入（樓下的整形外科診所是最后的、不可忽略的理由，說(shuō)服他這間公寓應(yīng)該由他們買(mǎi)下）。他們買(mǎi)下那間公寓；他把歷年到各地拍戲時(shí)買(mǎi)來(lái)、長(zhǎng)年裝箱堆積在格林街地下室的地毯、燈和毯子運(yùn)來(lái)；而且在他拍戲結(jié)束回紐約前，馬爾科姆以前的一個(gè)年輕同事、現(xiàn)在搬回倫敦且在“鐘模”倫敦分公司上班的建筑師維克拉姆，就要開(kāi)始裝修了。

　 Oh, he thought whenever he looked at the plans for Harley Street, it was so difficult, it was so sad sometimes, living in reality. He had been reminded of this the last time he had met with the architect, when he had asked Vikram why they weren’t retaining the old wood-framed windows in the kitchen that overlooked the brick patio, with its views of the rooftops of Weymouth Mews beyond it. “Shouldn’t we keep them?” he’d wondered. “They’re so beautiful.”

啊，每回他看到哈利街的設(shè)計(jì)圖都會(huì)想，活在現(xiàn)實(shí)世界有時(shí)好困難、好可悲。他總是回想起他上次跟維克拉姆碰面時(shí)，曾問(wèn)起為什么不保留廚房原來(lái)的木框窗子，通過(guò)窗外俯瞰天井還可看到外頭韋茅斯馬廄街上的屋頂?！拔覀儾皇窃摫Ａ魡?？”他納悶地問(wèn)，“那些窗子那么美。”

　 “They are beautiful,” Vikram agreed, “but these windows are actually very difficult to open from a sitting position—they demand a good amount of lift from the legs.” He realized then that Vikram had taken seriously what he had instructed him to do in their initial conversation: to assume that eventually one of the people who lived in the apartment might have a very limited range of motion.

“是很美沒(méi)有錯(cuò)，”維克拉姆贊同道，“不過(guò)這些窗子坐著很難打開(kāi)——得用上雙腿的力量才能拉起來(lái)?！彼@才明白，他和維克拉姆第一次談話時(shí)提到的，維克拉姆都很當(dāng)回事。他那時(shí)交代他們要假設(shè)：住在這間公寓的其中一人，肢體活動(dòng)的范圍最后可能會(huì)非常有限。

　 “Oh,” he’d said, and had blinked his eyes, rapidly. “Right. Thanks. Thanks.”

“啊，”他說(shuō)，迅速眨眨眼，“沒(méi)錯(cuò)。謝謝。謝謝?！?

　 “Of course,” Vikram had said. “I promise you, Willem, it’s going to feel like home for both of you.” He had a soft, gentle voice, and Willem had been unsure whether the sorrow he had felt in that moment was from the kindness of what Vikram said, or the kindness with which he said it.

“沒(méi)問(wèn)題，”維克拉姆說(shuō)，“威廉，我跟你保證，這里一定會(huì)給你們兩位家的感覺(jué)?！彼穆曇羧彳浂鴾睾停淮_定他那一刻感受到的哀傷是源自維克拉姆的那些體貼話，還是他體貼的口氣。

　 He remembers this now, back in New York. It is the end of July; he has convinced Jude to take a day off, and they have driven to their house upstate. For weeks, Jude had been tired and unusually weak, but then, suddenly, he hadn’t been, and it was on days like this—the sky above them vivid with blue, the air hot and dry, the fields around their house buttery with clumps of yarrow and cowslip, the stones around the pool cool beneath his feet, Jude singing to himself in the kitchen as he made lemonade for Julia and Harold, who had come to stay with them—that Willem found himself slipping back into his old habit of pretending. On these days, he succumbed to a sort of enchantment, a state in which his life seemed both unimprovable and, paradoxically, perfectly fixable: Of course Jude wouldn’t get worse. Of course he could be repaired. Of course Willem would be the person to repair him. Of course this was possible; of course this was probable. Days like this seemed to have no nights, and if there were no nights, there was no cutting, there was no sadness, there was nothing to dismay.

這會(huì)兒回到紐約，他想起了這件事?，F(xiàn)在是七月底，他說(shuō)服裘德休假一天，他們開(kāi)車(chē)到紐約州北部的房子去。有好幾星期，裘德都很疲倦，又非常虛弱，忽然間，他又好了起來(lái)，就在這樣的日子里——天空是鮮明的藍(lán)，空氣熱而干燥，他們房子四周的田野里散布著一叢叢的蓍草和黃花九輪草，圍繞池塘的石頭在腳下很冰涼，裘德在廚房里兀自唱著歌，一邊幫他們邀請(qǐng)來(lái)的朱麗婭和哈羅德做檸檬水。這時(shí)威廉就會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)自己又不小心掉回到假裝的老習(xí)慣里。在這樣的日子，他會(huì)屈服于某種著魔的狀態(tài)，在其中，他的人生似乎無(wú)法改善，同時(shí)又矛盾地可以完全修好：當(dāng)然裘德不會(huì)惡化。當(dāng)然他可以被治好。當(dāng)然威廉會(huì)是那個(gè)治好他的人。當(dāng)然這是可能的。當(dāng)然這是有希望的。這樣的日子似乎沒(méi)有黑夜，而沒(méi)有黑夜，就不會(huì)有割傷，不會(huì)有憂愁，沒(méi)有什么能讓人沮喪的。

　 “You’re dreaming of miracles, Willem,” Idriss would say if he knew what he was thinking, and he knew he was. But then again, he would think, what about his life—and about Jude’s life, too—wasn’t it a miracle? He should have stayed in Wyoming, he should have been a ranch hand himself. Jude should have wound up—where? In prison, or in a hospital, or dead, or worse. But they hadn’t. Wasn’t it a miracle that someone who was basically unexceptional could live a life in which he made millions pretending to be other people, that in that life that person would fly from city to city, would spend his days having his every need fulfilled, working in artificial contexts in which he was treated like the potentate of a small, corrupt country? Wasn’t it a miracle to be adopted at thirty, to find people who loved you so much that they wanted to call you their own? Wasn’t it a miracle to have survived the unsurvivable? Wasn’t friendship its own miracle, the finding of another person who made the entire lonely world seem somehow less lonely? Wasn’t this house, this beauty, this comfort, this life a miracle? And so who could blame him for hoping for one more, for hoping that despite knowing better, that despite biology, and time, and history, that they would be the exception, that what happened to other people with Jude’s sort of injury wouldn’t happen to him, that even with all that Jude had overcome, he might overcome just one more thing?

“威廉，你是在夢(mèng)想奇跡發(fā)生?！币恋吕锼谷绻浪谙胧裁矗蜁?huì)這么說(shuō)，他也知道自己在做夢(mèng)。但是他會(huì)想，他的人生（還有裘德的人生）不就是奇跡嗎？他本來(lái)應(yīng)該待在懷俄明州，成為一名牧場(chǎng)雇工。裘德最后應(yīng)該會(huì)在——哪里？監(jiān)獄、醫(yī)院，死掉或更糟。但結(jié)果他們都沒(méi)有。像他這樣一個(gè)基本上平凡無(wú)奇的人，居然能靠著扮演別人賺進(jìn)幾百萬(wàn)元，可以坐飛機(jī)到各個(gè)城市，每天生活所需都能得到滿足，在人工的場(chǎng)景里工作，被伺候得像一個(gè)腐敗小國(guó)的君主，這不是個(gè)奇跡嗎？在30歲時(shí)被收養(yǎng)，遇到愛(ài)你愛(ài)到要把你正式收為兒子的父母，這不是奇跡嗎？能夠克服種種不可能存活的境況存活下來(lái)，這不是奇跡嗎？而友誼本身，讓你能找到另一個(gè)人，使整個(gè)孤單的世界不那么孤單，不就是奇跡嗎？這棟房子、這片美景、這種舒適、這種生活，不就是奇跡嗎？所以誰(shuí)能怪他期望再多一個(gè)奇跡，盡管明知道不可能，盡管違背生物學(xué)、時(shí)間、歷史的法則，他還是期望他們會(huì)是例外，期望發(fā)生在有同樣傷勢(shì)的人身上的事，不會(huì)發(fā)生在裘德身上，期望即使裘德已經(jīng)克服那么多困難，他還是有可能再克服一件事？

　 He is sitting by the pool and talking to Harold and Julia when abruptly, he feels that strange hollowing in his stomach that he occasionally experiences even when he and Jude are in the same house: the sensation of missing him, an odd sharp desire to see him. And although he would never say it to him, this is the way in which Jude reminds him of Hemming—that awareness that sometimes touches him, as lightly as wings, that the people he loves are more temporal, somehow, than others, that he has borrowed them, and that someday they will be reclaimed from him. “Don’t go,” he had told Hemming in their phone calls, back when Hemming was dying. “Don’t leave me, Hemming,” even though the nurses who were holding the receiver to Hemming’s ear hundreds of miles away had instructed him to tell Hemming exactly the opposite: that it was all right for him to leave; that Willem was releasing him. But he couldn’t.

這會(huì)兒，他坐在池塘邊跟哈羅德和朱麗婭聊天。忽然間，他感覺(jué)到了偶爾會(huì)體驗(yàn)到的、胃里一種奇怪的空蕩，即使他和裘德就在同一棟房子里，那種想念他的感覺(jué)，一種好想看到他的渴望，奇異又強(qiáng)烈。他永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)跟裘德提，不過(guò)就像這樣，裘德讓他想起亨明——那種感覺(jué)有時(shí)會(huì)觸碰他，輕如鳥(niǎo)翼，感覺(jué)到自己深?lèi)?ài)的人不知怎的就是比其他人短暫，感覺(jué)他們是自己借來(lái)的，有一天他們會(huì)被收回去?！皠e走，”他曾在電話里告訴亨明，當(dāng)時(shí)亨明快死了，“別離開(kāi)我，亨明。”即使幾百英里外幫忙拿話筒湊在亨明耳邊的護(hù)士曾交代他要講恰恰相反的話：說(shuō)他離開(kāi)沒(méi)關(guān)系的，說(shuō)威廉會(huì)放他走。但他做不到。

　 And he hadn’t been able to either when Jude was in the hospital, so delirious from the drugs that his eyes had skittered back and forth with a rapidity that had frightened him almost more than anything else. “Let me go, Willem,” Jude had begged him then, “l(fā)et me go.”

之前裘德住院時(shí)，他也做不到。當(dāng)時(shí)裘德因?yàn)樗幬镎Z(yǔ)無(wú)倫次，雙眼不斷轉(zhuǎn)來(lái)轉(zhuǎn)去，那個(gè)狀況給他帶來(lái)的恐懼，幾乎超過(guò)了一切?！白屛易?，威廉?！碑?dāng)時(shí)裘德求他，“讓我走?！?

　 “I can’t, Jude,” he had cried. “I can’t do that.”

“我做不到，裘德，”他哭著說(shuō)，“我沒(méi)辦法?！?

　 Now he shakes his head to clear the memory. “I’m going to go check on him,” he tells Harold and Julia, but then he hears the glass door slide open, and all three of them turn and look up the sloping hill to see Jude holding a tray of drinks, and all three of them stand to go help him. But there is a moment before they begin heading uphill and Jude begins walking toward them in which they all hold their positions, and it reminds him of a set, in which every scene can be redone, every mistake can be corrected, every sorrow reshot. And in that moment, they are on one edge of the frame, and Jude is on the other, but they are all smiling at one another, and the world seems to hold nothing but sweetness.

現(xiàn)在他搖搖頭，擺脫思緒。“我去看看他怎么樣了?！彼嬖V哈羅德和朱麗婭。接著他聽(tīng)到玻璃滑門(mén)拉開(kāi)，他們?nèi)齻€(gè)人轉(zhuǎn)頭朝山坡上方看去，看到裘德拿著一個(gè)裝了飲料的托盤(pán)，他們?nèi)齻€(gè)都站起來(lái)要去幫他。但在他們朝上坡走去、裘德往下走來(lái)之前，有那么一刻，大家都停住不動(dòng)。那讓他想到在拍片現(xiàn)場(chǎng)，每一個(gè)布景都可以重新安排，每一個(gè)錯(cuò)誤都可以修正，每一種憂傷都可以重來(lái)。而在那一刻，他們?nèi)齻€(gè)在畫(huà)面的這一端，裘德在另一端，但他們相視微笑，整個(gè)世界似乎只有甜美。