《渺小一生》:“這里的電梯運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)都正常吧？”

　 “Annika, this is my friend Willem,” JB said. “Willem, Annika works in the art department. She’s cool.”

“安妮卡，這位是我的朋友威廉。”杰比說(shuō)，“威廉，安妮卡在美編組工作。她很酷。”

　 Annika looked down and stuck out her hand in one movement. “It’s nice to meet you,” she said to the floor. JB kicked Willem in the foot and grinned at him. Willem ignored him.

安妮卡低頭的同時(shí)伸出手，“很高興認(rèn)識(shí)你。”她對(duì)著地板說(shuō)。杰比踢了一下威廉的腳，朝他咧嘴一笑。威廉沒(méi)理他。

　 “It’s nice to meet you, too,” he said.

“我也很高興認(rèn)識(shí)你。”他說(shuō)。

　 “Well, this is the apartment? It’s my aunt’s? She lived here for fifty years but she just moved into a retirement home?” Annika was speaking very fast and had apparently decided that the best strategy was to treat Willem like an eclipse and simply not look at him at all. She was talking faster and faster, about her aunt, and how she always said the neighborhood had changed, and how she’d never heard of Lispenard Street until she’d moved downtown, and how she was sorry it hadn’t been painted yet, but her aunt had just, literally just moved out and they’d only had a chance to have it cleaned the previous weekend. She looked everywhere but at Willem—at the ceiling (stamped tin), at the floors (cracked, but parquet), at the walls (on which long-ago-hung picture frames had left ghostly shadows)—until finally Willem had to interrupt, gently, and ask if he could take a look through the rest of the apartment.

“好吧，就是這間公寓了。原來(lái)是我阿姨的，她在這里住了五十年，最近剛搬進(jìn)養(yǎng)老院。”安妮卡講話很快，而且她顯然認(rèn)為最佳策略就是把威廉當(dāng)成日食，不要看他就好。她講得越來(lái)越快，講她阿姨老念叨這一帶變了，還有她自己搬到市區(qū)之前也從沒(méi)聽(tīng)過(guò)利斯本納街，又說(shuō)她很抱歉屋子里還沒(méi)粉刷，不過(guò)她阿姨真的才剛搬出去，他們唯一的打掃機(jī)會(huì)就是上周末。她哪里都看，就是不看威廉——看天花板（錘印錫板），看地板（裂了，不過(guò)是拼花木地板），看墻壁（上頭長(zhǎng)年掛著的相框留下一個(gè)個(gè)幽靈似的印子）——直到最后威廉不得不柔聲打斷她，問(wèn)她能不能看一下公寓的其他部分。

　 “Oh, be my guest,” said Annika, “I’ll leave you alone,” although she then began to follow them, talking rapidly to JB about someone named Jasper and how he’d been using Archer for everything, and didn’t JB think it looked a little too round and weird for body text? Now that Willem had his back turned to her, she stared at him openly, her rambling becoming more inane the longer she spoke.

“啊，盡量看。”安妮卡說(shuō)，“我就不打擾你們了。”但接著，她就跟在他們后頭，講話還是很快，跟杰比說(shuō)起一個(gè)叫賈斯珀的，總是什么都要用Archer字體，杰比不覺(jué)得正文用這種字體，看起來(lái)有點(diǎn)太圓太詭異嗎？現(xiàn)在威廉背對(duì)著她，她就敢盯著他看了。她講得越久，那些閑扯就越顯得愚蠢。

　 JB watched Annika watch Willem. He had never seen her like this, so nervous and girlish (normally she was surly and silent and was actually a bit feared in the office for creating on the wall above her desk an elaborate sculpture of a heart made entirely of X-ACTO blades), but he had seen lots of women behave this way around Willem. They all had. Their friend Lionel used to say that Willem must have been a fisherman in a past life, because he couldn’t help but attract pussy. And yet most of the time (though not always), Willem seemed unaware of the attention. JB had once asked Malcolm why he thought that was, and Malcolm said he thought it was because Willem hadn’t noticed. JB had only grunted in reply, but his thinking was: Malcolm was the most obtuse person he knew, and if even Malcolm had noticed how women reacted around Willem, it was impossible that Willem himself hadn’t. Later, however, Jude had offered a different interpretation: he had suggested that Willem was deliberately not reacting to all the women so the other men around him wouldn’t feel threatened by him. This made more sense; Willem was liked by everyone and never wanted to make people feel intentionally uncomfortable, and so it was possible that, subconsciously at least, he was feigning a sort of ignorance. But still—it was fascinating to watch, and the three of them never tired of it, nor of making fun of Willem for it afterward, though he would normally just smile and say nothing.

杰比觀察著安妮卡打量威廉。他從來(lái)沒(méi)見(jiàn)過(guò)她這樣，緊張又充滿少女態(tài)（通常她在辦公室里沉默又易怒，其實(shí)還有點(diǎn)令人擔(dān)心，因?yàn)樗k公桌上方的墻面放了一個(gè)她自制的心形雕塑，完全是用筆刀雕出來(lái)的），可是杰比看過(guò)太多女人碰到威廉就這樣。他們?nèi)家?jiàn)過(guò)。他們的朋友萊諾以前老說(shuō)威廉上輩子一定是漁夫，天生就是會(huì)吸引貓咪[1]。然而大多數(shù)時(shí)候（但不是每次都這樣），威廉似乎對(duì)女人的關(guān)注渾然不覺(jué)。杰比有回問(wèn)馬爾科姆為什么威廉會(huì)這樣，馬爾科姆說(shuō)他認(rèn)為是因?yàn)橥疀](méi)注意到。杰比聽(tīng)了只是哼了一聲，他心里真正的想法是：馬爾科姆是他認(rèn)識(shí)的人里頭最遲鈍的，如果連馬爾科姆都注意到女人碰到威廉的反應(yīng)，威廉自己不可能沒(méi)注意到。不過(guò)稍后，裘德提出另一個(gè)不同的解釋：他說(shuō)威廉可能是刻意不回應(yīng)那些女人，這樣在場(chǎng)的其他男人就不會(huì)覺(jué)得受到威脅。這個(gè)說(shuō)法比較合理，人人都喜歡威廉，他也絕對(duì)不會(huì)想害別人不舒服，所以有可能（至少在潛意識(shí)里）他只是裝傻而已。可是啊——那真是個(gè)奇觀，讓他們?nèi)齻€(gè)百看不厭，而且事后老拿來(lái)取笑威廉，不過(guò)他通常只是笑一笑，什么也不說(shuō)。

　 “Does the elevator work well here?” Willem asked abruptly, turning around.

“這里的電梯運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)都正常吧？”威廉忽然轉(zhuǎn)身問(wèn)。

　 “What?” Annika replied, startled. “Yes, it’s pretty reliable.” She pulled her faint lips into a narrow smile that JB realized, with a stomach-twist of embarrassment for her, was meant to be flirtatious. Oh, Annika, he thought. “What exactly are you planning on bringing into my aunt’s apartment?”

“什么？”安妮卡回答，嚇了一跳，“是的，蠻可靠的。”她薄薄的嘴唇扯出一個(gè)小小的微笑，杰比胃里一緊，他知道安妮卡的那個(gè)笑是想放電，替她覺(jué)得難為情。啊，安妮卡，他心想。“你們是打算搬什么東西進(jìn)來(lái)啊？”

　 “Our friend,” he answered, before Willem could. “He has trouble climbing stairs and needs the elevator to work.”

“我們的朋友。”杰比搶在威廉前頭回答，“他爬樓梯有困難，所以需要電梯。”

　 “Oh,” she said, flushing again. She was back to staring at the floor. “Sorry. Yes, it works.”

“喔。”她說(shuō)，又臉紅了。然后回頭瞪著地板看，“對(duì)不起。沒(méi)錯(cuò)，電梯能用。”

　 The apartment was not impressive. There was a small foyer, little larger than the size of a doormat, from which pronged the kitchen (a hot, greasy little cube) to the right and a dining area to the left that would accommodate perhaps a card table. A half wall separated this space from the living room, with its four windows, each striped with bars, looking south onto the litter-scattered street, and down a short hall to the right was the bathroom with its milk-glass sconces and worn-enamel tub, and across from it the bedroom, which had another window and was deep but narrow; here, two wooden twin-bed frames had been placed parallel to each other, each pressed against a wall. One of the frames was already topped with a futon, a bulky, graceless thing, as heavy as a dead horse.

這間公寓沒(méi)什么好的。進(jìn)門的門廳很小，比門墊大不了多少，門廳往右通向廚房（一個(gè)悶熱、油膩的小方間），往左通向餐廳，或許可以放下一張小牌桌。餐廳和客廳只隔著一道矮墻，里頭有四個(gè)窗子，裝了鐵窗，朝南開(kāi)向一條散落著垃圾的街道。沿著一條短廊往前走，右邊是浴室，里頭有乳白燈罩的壁燈和舊搪瓷浴缸，浴室對(duì)面則是臥房，里頭有一扇窗，整個(gè)房間深而窄，左右靠墻平行放著兩張雙人床的木制床架，其中一個(gè)上頭已經(jīng)放了日式床墊，巨大而丑陋，重得像一匹死馬。

　 “The futon’s never been used,” Annika said. She told a long story about how she was going to move in, and had even bought the futon in preparation, but had never gotten to use it because she moved in instead with her friend Clement, who wasn’t her boyfriend, just her friend, and god, what a retard she was for saying that. Anyway, if Willem wanted the apartment, she’d throw in the futon for free.

“這張日式床墊沒(méi)用過(guò)。”安妮卡說(shuō)。她講了一個(gè)漫長(zhǎng)的故事，說(shuō)她本來(lái)要搬進(jìn)來(lái)，甚至先買了那張床墊，結(jié)果卻沒(méi)機(jī)會(huì)用，因?yàn)樗髞?lái)又搬去她朋友克萊門那里了，不是男朋友，只是朋友。老天，她真是白癡，講這干嗎?？傊?，如果威廉決定租下這間公寓，床墊就免費(fèi)送他。

　 Willem thanked her. “What do you think, JB?” he asked.

威廉謝了她。“你覺(jué)得怎么樣，杰比？”他問(wèn)。

　 What did he think? He thought it was a shithole. Of course, he too lived in a shithole, but he was in his shithole by choice, and because it was free, and the money he would have had to spend on rent he was instead able to spend on paints, and supplies, and drugs, and the occasional taxi. But if Ezra were to ever decide to start charging him rent, no way would he be there. His family may not have Ezra’s money, or Malcolm’s, but under no circumstances would they allow him to throw away money living in a shithole. They would find him something better, or give him a little monthly gift to help him along. But Willem and Jude didn’t have that choice: They had to pay their own way, and they had no money, and thus they were condemned to live in a shithole. And if they were, then this was probably the shithole to live in—it was cheap, it was downtown, and their prospective landlord already had a crush on fifty percent of them.

他覺(jué)得怎么樣？他覺(jué)得這是個(gè)破爛狗窩。當(dāng)然，他自己也住在一個(gè)破爛狗窩，但那是出于自己的選擇，因?yàn)槟抢锊灰X，他可以把省下的房租拿來(lái)買顏料、生活用品，還有迷幻藥，以及偶爾搭趟出租車。但如果埃茲拉哪天忽然要收他房租，他才不會(huì)住在那兒。他家不像埃茲拉家或馬爾科姆家那么有錢，但他的家人也絕不會(huì)讓他花錢住在一個(gè)破爛狗窩里。他們會(huì)替他找個(gè)更好的住處，每個(gè)月接濟(jì)他一點(diǎn)。但威廉和裘德就沒(méi)有辦法了，他們得自食其力，而且沒(méi)錢就注定要住破爛狗窩。既然如此，那或許就該搬進(jìn)眼前這個(gè)狗窩——這里很便宜，又在市區(qū)，而且他們未來(lái)的房東已經(jīng)對(duì)他們其中的一個(gè)有了好感。

　 So “I think it’s perfect,” he told Willem, who agreed. Annika let out a yelp. And a hurried conversation later, it was over: Annika had a tenant, and Willem and Jude had a place to live—all before JB had to remind Willem that he wouldn’t mind Willem paying for a bowl of noodles for lunch, before he had to get back to the office.

所以，“我覺(jué)得這里很完美。”他告訴威廉，而威廉也贊成，安妮卡輕呼了一聲。匆匆交談之后，一切都敲定了：安妮卡找到了房客，威廉和裘德有了住的地方。末了，杰比提醒威廉，要他替自己出錢買碗面當(dāng)午餐，然后他就得回去上班了。

　 JB wasn’t given to introspection, but as he rode the train to his mother’s house that Sunday, he was unable to keep himself from experiencing a vague sort of self-congratulation, combined with something approaching gratitude, that he had the life and family he did.

杰比不是那種天生會(huì)內(nèi)省的人，不過(guò)那個(gè)星期天，他搭地鐵去母親家的路上不禁有點(diǎn)沾沾自喜，還有一種近乎感激的情緒，為自己擁有的人生和家庭感到慶幸。

　 His father, who had emigrated to New York from Haiti, had died when JB was three, and although JB always liked to think that he remembered his face—kind and gentle, with a narrow strip of mustache and cheeks that rounded into plums when he smiled—he was never to know whether he only thought he remembered it, having grown up studying the photograph of his father that sat on his mother’s bedside table, or whether he actually did. Still, that had been his only sadness as a child, and even that was more of an obligatory sadness: He was fatherless, and he knew that fatherless children mourned the absence in their lives. He, however, had never experienced that yearning himself. After his father had died, his mother, who was a second-generation Haitian American, had earned her doctorate in education, teaching all the while at the public school near their house that she had deemed JB better than. By the time he was in high school, an expensive private day school nearly an hour’s commute from their place in Brooklyn, which he attended on scholarship, she was the principal of a different school, a magnet program in Manhattan, and an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College. She had been the subject of an article in The New York Times for her innovative teaching methods, and although he had pretended otherwise to his friends, he had been proud of her.

他父親是從海地移民來(lái)到紐約的，在杰比3歲時(shí)就過(guò)世了。雖然杰比總是認(rèn)為他記得父親的臉（和善又溫柔，唇上一道細(xì)細(xì)的小胡子，笑起來(lái)圓圓的兩頰像李子），但他永遠(yuǎn)不確定是真的記得，或只是從小就仔細(xì)打量母親床頭柜上那張父親的照片，才以為自己記得。不過(guò)，這是小時(shí)候唯一讓他憂傷的事，而且這更像是一種必需的憂傷：他沒(méi)有父親，他也知道沒(méi)有父親的小孩會(huì)為人生的這個(gè)缺憾而傷感。然而，他從來(lái)沒(méi)有真正感覺(jué)到那種渴望。父親過(guò)世后，他的母親，海地第二代移民，拿到了博士學(xué)位，之后就一直在他們家附近的公立學(xué)校教書(shū)，她認(rèn)為杰比該讀更好的學(xué)校。等到杰比上高中時(shí)，他拿到獎(jiǎng)學(xué)金，去布魯克林一所昂貴的私立學(xué)校讀書(shū)，乘車上學(xué)要將近一小時(shí)；此時(shí)他母親是曼哈頓一所重點(diǎn)公立學(xué)校的校長(zhǎng)，同時(shí)也是布魯克林學(xué)院的兼職教授。她曾因?yàn)榉N種創(chuàng)新教學(xué)法被《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》報(bào)道，杰比心底很以母親為榮，雖然在朋友面前他都假裝不是如此。

　 She had always been busy when he was growing up, but he had never felt neglected, had never felt that his mother loved her students more than she loved him. At home, there was his grandmother, who cooked whatever he wanted, and sang to him in French, and told him literally daily what a treasure he was, what a genius, and how he was the man in her life. And there were his aunts, his mother’s sister, a detective in Manhattan, and her girlfriend, a pharmacist and second-generation American herself (although she was from Puerto Rico, not Haiti), who had no children and so treated him as their own. His mother’s sister was sporty and taught him how to catch and throw a ball (something that, even then, he had only the slightest of interest in, but which proved to be a useful social skill later on), and her girlfriend was interested in art; one of his earliest memories had been a trip with her to the Museum of Modern Art, where he clearly remembered staring at One: Number 31, 1950, dumb with awe, barely listening to his aunt as she explained how Pollock had made the painting.

在杰比的成長(zhǎng)過(guò)程中，母親總是很忙，但他從不覺(jué)得被忽略，也從不覺(jué)得母親愛(ài)學(xué)生勝過(guò)愛(ài)自己。家里還有他的外婆，會(huì)做他愛(ài)吃的菜，唱法語(yǔ)歌給他聽(tīng)，而且天天都跟他說(shuō)他是個(gè)不得了的寶貝，是個(gè)天才，說(shuō)他是她一生最重要的男人。他還有兩個(gè)阿姨，一個(gè)是她母親的姐姐，在曼哈頓當(dāng)刑警，另一個(gè)是她的藥劑師女朋友，也是第二代移民（不過(guò)是從波多黎各來(lái)的，不是海地）。她們沒(méi)有子女，所以把杰比當(dāng)成自己的小孩。他的親阿姨是運(yùn)動(dòng)健將，教他如何傳接球（他小時(shí)候一點(diǎn)興趣也沒(méi)有，不過(guò)后來(lái)證明這是很管用的社交技巧）；她女友則對(duì)藝術(shù)有興趣，杰比最早的記憶之一，就是跟著她去參觀紐約現(xiàn)代藝術(shù)博物館，他清楚地記得自己呆呆瞪著《壹：三十一號(hào)，一九五〇》（One:Number 31,1950）這件作品，敬畏不已，他阿姨在一旁解釋波洛克（Jackson Pollock）當(dāng)初怎么創(chuàng)作這幅油畫(huà)時(shí)，他幾乎充耳不聞。

　 In high school, where a bit of revisionism seemed necessary in order to distinguish himself and, especially, make his rich white classmates uncomfortable, he blurred the truth of his circumstances somewhat: He became another fatherless black boy, with a mother who had completed school only after he was born (he neglected to mention that it was graduate school she had been completing, and so people assumed that he meant high school), and an aunt who walked the streets (again, they assumed as a prostitute, not realizing he meant as a detective). His favorite family photograph had been taken by his best friend in high school, a boy named Daniel, to whom he had revealed the truth just before he let him in to shoot their family portrait. Daniel had been working on a series of, as he called it, families “up from the edge,” and JB had had to hurriedly correct the perception that his aunt was a borderline streetwalker and his mother barely literate before he allowed his friend inside. Daniel’s mouth had opened and no sound had emerged, but then JB’s mother had come to the door and told them both to get in out of the cold, and Daniel had to obey.

上高中后，他覺(jué)得應(yīng)該稍微做些修正，讓自己與眾不同，更讓富有的白人同學(xué)不舒服，便故意改動(dòng)了自己的家庭背景：他變成了另一個(gè)沒(méi)有父親的黑人男孩，母親在他出生后才完成學(xué)業(yè)（故意不提她在研究生院完成學(xué)業(yè)，于是大家以為他指的是高中畢業(yè)），阿姨的工作是在街上走來(lái)走去（大家又以為那是妓女，不曉得他指的是刑警）。他最喜歡的全家福照片，是高中時(shí)他最要好的朋友丹尼爾幫他們拍的，一直到讓丹尼爾進(jìn)家門拍照之前，杰比才向他吐露實(shí)情。當(dāng)時(shí)丹尼爾在進(jìn)行一系列他稱為“從邊緣力爭(zhēng)上游”的家庭照拍攝計(jì)劃，而杰比不得不匆忙修正阿姨是街頭妓女、母親受教育不多的錯(cuò)誤印象后，才讓朋友進(jìn)門。當(dāng)時(shí)丹尼爾的嘴巴張得好大，還沒(méi)發(fā)出聲音，杰比的母親就來(lái)到門邊，說(shuō)天氣這么冷，叫他們兩個(gè)趕緊進(jìn)屋，丹尼爾只好照做。

　 Daniel, still stunned, positioned them in the living room: JB’s grandmother, Yvette, sat in her favorite high-backed chair, and around her stood his aunt Christine and her girlfriend, Silvia, to one side, and JB and his mother to the other. But then, just before Daniel could take the picture, Yvette demanded that JB take her place. “He is the king of the house,” she told Daniel, as her daughters protested. “Jean-Baptiste! Sit down!” He did. In the picture, he is gripping both of the armrests with his plump hands (even then he had been plump), while on either side, women beamed down at him. He himself is looking directly at the camera, smiling widely, sitting in the chair that should have been occupied by his grandmother.

依然處于震驚狀態(tài)中的丹尼爾讓他們?cè)诳蛷d擺好位置：杰比的外婆伊薇特坐在她最喜歡的高背椅上，一邊站著他阿姨克里斯蒂娜和她女友西爾維婭，一邊則是杰比和他母親。但接著，丹尼爾還沒(méi)來(lái)得及拍，伊薇特就要求杰比坐在她的位置上。兩個(gè)女兒抗議起來(lái)，但伊薇特告訴丹尼爾：“他是這個(gè)家的國(guó)王。”又說(shuō)，“讓·巴蒂斯特[2]，坐下！”他坐了。在照片中，他胖嘟嘟的雙手抓著椅子的扶手（即便是在那時(shí)，他就胖嘟嘟的），站在他兩邊的女人滿面笑容地朝他看。他的雙眼直視鏡頭，露出大大的笑容，坐在那張?jiān)緫?yīng)該給他外婆坐的椅子上。