“Listen to this,” he’d sometimes say, removing his headphones, breaking the oppressive silence of those long sweltering summer mornings. “Just listen to this drivel.” And he’d proceed to read aloud something he couldn’t believe he had written months earlier.
“Does it make any sense to you? Not to me.”
“Maybe it did when you wrote it,” I said.
He thought for a while as though weighing my words.
“That’s the kindest thing anyone’s said to me in months”—spoken ever so earnestly, as if he was hit by a sudden revelation and was taking what I’d said to mean much more than I thought it did. I felt ill at ease, looked away, and finally muttered the first thing that came to mind: “Kind?” I asked.
“Yes, kind.”
I didn’t know what kindness had to do with it. Or perhaps I wasn’t seeing clearly enough where all this was headed and preferred to let the matter slide. Silence again. Until the next time he’d speak.
 
他偶爾會摘掉耳機，打破漫長而悶熱的夏日早晨那種壓抑的沉默，說：“你聽聽這個……你聽聽這段蠢話。”然后大聲朗讀出來，不愿相信這是幾個月前他自己寫下的句子。
“你覺得有道理嗎？我覺得說不通。”
“或許你寫的時候覺得有道理。”我說。
他思考了一會兒，仿佛在斟酌我的話。
“這是幾個月以來，所有人對我說過的最仁慈的話。”講得非常誠懇，仿佛突然降臨的天啟感動了他，超乎預(yù)期地看重我的話。我覺得很不自在，撇開目光，終于還是喃喃說出我腦海中出現(xiàn)的第一句話：“仁慈？”
“對，仁慈。”
我不知道仁慈跟這件事有何關(guān)系。然而我似乎對于這事態(tài)會往何處發(fā)展不是很明白，所以寧可讓事情不知不覺地過去。再度沉默。直到他下一次開口。
 
How I loved it when he broke the silence between us to say something—anything—or to ask what I thought about X, or had I ever heard of Y? Nobody in our household ever asked my opinion about anything. If he hadn’t already figured out why, he would soon enough—it was only a matter of time before he fell in with everyone’s view that I was the baby of the family. And yet here he was in his third week with us, asking me if I’d ever heard of Athanasius Kircher11, Giuseppe Belli12, and Paul Celan13.
“I have.”
“I’m almost a decade older than you are and until a few days ago had never heard of any of them. I don’t get it.”
“What’s not to get? Dad’s a university professor. I grew up without TV. Get it now?”
“Go back to your plunking, will you!” he said as though crumpling a towel and throwing it at my face.
 
我多么喜歡他打破我們之間的沉默說點什么，什么都好——問我對?A?的看法，或問我是否聽說過?B。在我們家，從來沒人針對任何事問過我的想法——我以為就算他不清楚個中原因，不用多久也會明白并贊同大家的看法，認(rèn)為我是這個家里的小嬰兒。然而他已經(jīng)和我們同住了三個星期，現(xiàn)在還在問我是否聽過基歇爾、貝利、保羅·策蘭這些名字嗎？
“聽過。”
“我比你大了將近十歲，但直到幾天前，這些人我一個也沒聽過。我真不懂。”
“有什么好不懂的？我爸是大學(xué)教授。我從小到大不看電視，懂了嗎？”
“夠了，回去彈你的吉他吧！”他還作勢揉起一團毛巾往我臉上扔。

《請以你的名字呼喚我》