旅行的藝術(shù):旅行中的特定場所-1

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在倫敦通往曼徹斯特的高速公路旁，有一家用紅磚搭建的加油站。加油站只有一層高，有玻璃櫥窗，從那里可以俯瞰下方的高速公路，以及路旁單調(diào)的平坦無垠的原野。加油站的前院懸著一幅巨大的塑膠廣告旗幟。上面的內(nèi)容是一只煎雞蛋、兩根香腸和成堆的烤菜豆。它招攬來過路的司機，也吸引了鄰近田野里的一群羊。

Overlooking the motorway between London and Manchester, in a flat, featureless expanse of country, stands a single-storey glass and red-brick service station. In its forecourt hangs a giant laminated flag that advertises to motorists and to sheep in an adjacent field a photograph of a fried egg, two sausages and a peninsula of baked beans.

我是在傍晚時分到達(dá)這家加油站的。西邊，天空正布滿紅霞。加油站的一邊是一排景觀樹，在過往車輛持續(xù)低悶的噪音里，還能聽到樹叢里的鳥鳴。我已經(jīng)在路上顛簸了兩個小時，孤獨地看車窗外天邊的云起云聚；看路旁草坡外市鎮(zhèn)里的燈火閃爍，看公路大橋和車窗外超前的大車小車的匆促背影……車廂里的空調(diào)機制冷時，總發(fā)出連續(xù)不斷的噼噠聲，像是有回形針不停地落在引擎罩上。下車時，我已覺昏眩。我的感官也需要調(diào)整，重新適應(yīng)腳下堅實的土地，習(xí)慣拂面的微風(fēng)和夜即將來臨時似有若無的天籟。

I arrived at the service station towards evening. The sky was turning red in the west and in a row of ornamental trees to the side of the building birds could be heard against the incessant bass note of the traffic. I had been on the road for two hours, alone with clouds forming on the horizon, with the lights of commuter towns beyond the grass banks, with motorway bridges and the silhouettes of overtaking cars and coaches. I felt dizzy stepping out of my craft, which gave off a series of clicks as it cooled, as if paper clips were being dropped through the bonnet. My senses needed to readjust themselves to firm land, to the wind and to the discreet sounds of night drawing in.

餐館里燈火通明，有些太過暖熱。墻上掛著咖啡杯、糕點和漢堡包的巨幅照片。一位女招待在給自動飲料售賣機添加飲料。我拿了一只托盤，沿著金屬臺面滑過去，買了一塊巧克力和一份橙汁，在餐館全是玻璃窗的那一邊找了位子坐下來。大塊的窗玻璃被帶狀的米色油灰所固定，油灰濕濕的、粘粘的，我都禁不住想用指甲去摳它。窗外，草坡往下，一直伸延到高速公路邊。隔著窗玻璃看過去，6個車道的高速公路上車輛無聲疾馳，車流優(yōu)雅而對稱，在漸濃的夜色里，每輛車的車型和顏色已不可辨，只能看見由紅、白兩色鉆石般閃亮的車燈串成的彩帶朝著相反的方向，伸展到無盡遠(yuǎn)處。

The restaurant was brightly illuminated and exaggeratedly warm. Large photographs of coffee cups, pastries and hamburgers hung on the walls. A waitress was refilling a drinks dispenser. I slid a damp tray along a metal runway, bought a bar of chocolate and an orange juice and sat by a window that made up one wall of the building. Vast panes were held in place by strips of beige putty, into whose chewy clamminess I was tempted to dig my nails. Beyond the window, the grass sloped down to the motorway, where traffic ran in silent, elegant symmetry along six lanes, the differences in makes and colours of cars disguised by the gathering darkness, leaving a uniform ribbon of red and white diamonds extending into infinity in two directions.

加油站里的顧客并不多。一位女士正悠閑地轉(zhuǎn)動茶杯里的茶葉袋。一位男士和兩個小女孩在吃漢堡包。一位年紀(jì)稍長蓄著胡須的男人在做填字游戲。沒有人交談。整個的氛圍讓人易于冥想，也會略覺傷感——只有隱隱約約的吹奏管樂的輕快節(jié)奏和柜臺上一張照片里正要張口咬一塊熏肉三明治的女人靚麗的微笑，讓人稍覺輕松。餐廳正中央的天花板下懸著一只紙板箱，伴著空調(diào)出風(fēng)口送出的微風(fēng)不安分地晃動。紙板箱上寫著餐館的促銷廣告——買任何一種熱狗即可獲得免費的蔥油圈。紙板箱形狀奇怪，還倒置著，看來這并非完全是餐廳主管所設(shè)想的形狀，一如羅馬帝國偏遠(yuǎn)國土上的那些里程碑石，其形狀背離了帝國中心標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的設(shè)計規(guī)范。

There were few other customers in the service station. A woman was idly rotating a teabag in a cup. A man and two small girls were eating hamburgers. A bearded elderly man was doing a crossword. No one was talking. There was an air of reflection, of sadness too-only heightened by the faint sound of piped upbeat music and the enamel smile of a woman about to bite into a bacon sandwich in a photograph above the counter. In the middle of the room, hanging from the ceiling and dancing nervously in the breeze of an air vent, was a cardboard box announcing an offer of free onion rings with every hotdog. Misshapen and upside down, the box seemed only a rough approximation of what head office must have stipulated, like those milestones in distant parts of the Roman Empire whose form strayed from the designs of the centre.

從建筑學(xué)的角度看，加油站的建構(gòu)很糟糕。整個餐廳里都能聞到一股燃油味，還有地板清潔劑中檸檬香精的氣味。餐廳提供的食物油膩膩的，餐桌上有星星點點已發(fā)干的番茄醬，這是早已離開的旅客留下的紀(jì)念。盡管如此，在我看來，這遠(yuǎn)離喧囂、孑然獨立在高速公路一旁高地上的加油站，還是有些詩意的。它的情狀讓我聯(lián)想到別的一些同樣能讓人意外地發(fā)現(xiàn)詩意的地方，如機場大樓、港口、火車站和小旅館等等；它也使我聯(lián)想到一位19世紀(jì)作家和一位20世紀(jì)的畫家的作品，這位19世紀(jì)的作家對人類較少注意到的旅行地點有著不同尋常的感知能力，受其啟發(fā)，那位20世紀(jì)的畫家找到了自己的創(chuàng)作靈感。

The building was architecturally miserable, it smelt of frying oil and lemon-scented floor polish, the food was glutinous and the tables were dotted with islands of dried ketchup from the meals of long-departed travellers, and yet something about the scene moved me. There was poetry in this forsaken service station, perched on the ridge of the motorway far from all habitation. Its appeal made me think of certain other equally and unexpectedly poetic travelling places-airport terminals, harbours, train stations and motels-and the work of a nineteenth-century writer and a twentieth-century painter he had inspired, who had, in different ways, been unusually alive to the power of the liminal travelling place.