《渺小一生》:“野心的灌腸。”

　 “What process?”

“什么過(guò)程？”

　 “Um, the transition process?” He should’ve stopped when he saw Edie’s befuddlement, but he didn’t. “JB said you were transitioning?”

“唔，轉(zhuǎn)換的過(guò)程？”他看到伊迪糊涂的表情時(shí)就該停下來(lái)的，但是他沒(méi)停，“杰比說(shuō)你正在轉(zhuǎn)換？”

　 “Yeah, to Hong Kong,” said Edie, still frowning. “I’m going to be a freelance vegan consultant for medium-size hospitality businesses. Wait a minute—you thought I was transitioning genders?”

“是啊，轉(zhuǎn)換到香港?！币恋险f(shuō)，還是皺著眉頭，“我要去那當(dāng)自由接活的素食顧問(wèn)，幫一些中型酒店從業(yè)者規(guī)劃。慢著——你以為我要轉(zhuǎn)換性別？”

　 “Oh god,” he said, and two thoughts, separate but equally resonant, filled his mind: I am going to kill JB. And: I can’t wait to tell Jude about this conversation. “Edie, I’m so, so sorry.”

“啊，老天?！彼f(shuō)，腦袋里同時(shí)冒出兩個(gè)不同的念頭：我要宰了杰比，還有我等不及要告訴裘德這段對(duì)話了，“伊迪，真是太對(duì)不起了。”

　 He remembered from college that Edie was tricky: little, little-kid things upset her (he once saw her sobbing because the top scoop of her ice cream cone had tumbled onto her new shoes), but big things (the death of her sister; her screaming, snowball-throwing breakup with her girlfriend, which had taken place in the Quad, and which everyone at Hood had leaned out of their windows to witness) seemed to leave her unfazed. He wasn’t sure into which category his gaffe fell, and Edie herself appeared equally uncertain, her small mouth convoluting itself into shapes in confusion. Finally, though, she started laughing, and called across the room at someone—“Hannah! Hannah! Come here! You’ve got to hear this!”—and he exhaled, apologized to and congratulated her again, and made his escape.

他還記得大學(xué)時(shí)代伊迪就有點(diǎn)怪：芝麻綠豆大的事情就會(huì)讓她崩潰（他有回看到她大哭，只因?yàn)樗稚媳苛茏铐敹说哪莻€(gè)球掉到了新鞋子上），但大事卻讓她無(wú)動(dòng)于衷（她姐姐過(guò)世；她跟她女友分手時(shí)在宿舍外頭的方院里尖叫、丟雪球，當(dāng)時(shí)虎德館里的每個(gè)人都探出窗子看熱鬧）。他不確定自己剛剛說(shuō)錯(cuò)話是屬于大事還小事，看起來(lái)伊迪自己也同樣不確定，她小小的嘴困惑地扭成不同的形狀。不過(guò)最后，她開(kāi)始大笑，喊著房間另一頭的某個(gè)人：“漢娜！漢娜！過(guò)來(lái)！你一定要聽(tīng)聽(tīng)這事！”他松了口氣，跟她道歉并道賀，然后趕緊溜掉。

　 He started across the room toward Jude. After years—decades, almost—of these parties, the two of them had worked out their own sign language, a pantomime whose every gesture meant the same thing—save me—albeit with varying levels of intensity. Usually, they were able to simply catch each other’s eye across the room and telegraph their desperation, but at parties like this, where the loft was lit only by candles and the guests seemed to have multiplied themselves in the space of his short conversation with Edie, more expressive body language was often necessary. Grabbing the back of one’s neck meant the other person should call him on his phone right away; fiddling with one’s watch-band meant “Come over here and replace me in this conversation, or at least join in”; and yanking down on the left earlobe meant “Get me out of this right now.” He had seen, from the edge of his eye, that Jude had been pulling steadily on his earlobe for the past ten minutes, and he could now see that Marta had been joined by a grim-looking woman he vaguely remembered meeting (and disliking) at a previous party. The two of them were looming interrogatively over Jude in a way that made them appear proprietary and, in the candlelight, fierce, as if Jude were a child who had just been caught breaking a licorice-edged corner off their gingerbread house, and they were deciding whether to broil him with prunes or bake him with turnips.

他穿過(guò)房間，朝裘德走去。多年來(lái)（到現(xiàn)在將近二十年了）參加過(guò)這么多派對(duì)，他們兩個(gè)發(fā)明出一套自己的暗號(hào)，每個(gè)手勢(shì)的含義都一樣：救我，但緊急程度不同。通常，他們只要看著對(duì)方、用嘴型表達(dá)就行了，但是像今天這樣的派對(duì)，整間公寓只點(diǎn)著蠟燭，而且就在他跟伊迪短暫交談的那一會(huì)兒，客人的數(shù)量似乎暴增了好幾倍，這時(shí)他們就得用上更夸張的肢體語(yǔ)言了。抓著頸背表示對(duì)方應(yīng)該立刻打電話給自己；轉(zhuǎn)動(dòng)表帶表示“過(guò)來(lái)這里取代我，或至少加入這場(chǎng)談話”；拉左邊耳垂表示“馬上把我弄走”。十分鐘之前，他早已用余光瞄見(jiàn)裘德一直拉著耳垂。現(xiàn)在他看到除了馬爾塔之外，裘德旁邊還有一個(gè)表情嚴(yán)肅的女人，他模糊地記得之前在一場(chǎng)派對(duì)上見(jiàn)過(guò)她（而且不喜歡）。她們低頭對(duì)著輪椅上的裘德提問(wèn)，看起來(lái)很霸道，而且在燭光下顯得格外兇狠，好像裘德是個(gè)小孩，剛剛弄斷了她們姜餅屋一角的甘草糖邊緣，被她們當(dāng)場(chǎng)逮住，而她們一時(shí)無(wú)法決定要拿他跟梅干一起燒烤，還是跟大頭菜一起進(jìn)烤箱烘焙。

　 He tried, he’d later tell Jude, he really did; but he was at one end of the room and Jude was at the other, and he kept getting stopped and tangled in conversations with people he hadn’t seen in years and, more annoyingly, people he had seen just a few weeks ago. As he pressed forward, he waved at Malcolm and pointed in Jude’s direction, but Malcolm gave him a helpless shrug and mouthed “What?” and he made a dismissive gesture back: Never mind.

他試了，稍后他會(huì)告訴裘德，他真的試過(guò)了；但他在房間這一頭，裘德在另一頭，他中途不斷被攔下來(lái)，跟一些多年不見(jiàn)的人談話，更煩的是，有的人他幾周前才見(jiàn)過(guò)。當(dāng)他努力往前擠時(shí)，還曾朝馬爾科姆揮手，指著裘德的方向，但馬爾科姆無(wú)奈地聳聳肩，用嘴型說(shuō)著“什么”，他只好比個(gè)放棄的手勢(shì)：算了。

　 I’ve got to get out of here, he thought, as he pushed through the crowd, but the truth was that he usually didn’t mind these parties, not really; a large part of him even enjoyed them. He suspected the same might be true of Jude as well, though perhaps to a lesser extent—certainly he did fine for himself at parties, and people always wanted to talk to him, and although the two of them always complained to each other about JB and how he kept dragging them to these things and how tedious they were, they both knew they could simply refuse if they really wanted to, and they both rarely did—after all, where else would they get to use their semaphores, that language that had only two speakers in the whole world?

我得離開(kāi)才行，他擠過(guò)人群時(shí)心想。但老實(shí)說(shuō)，他通常不介意這些派對(duì)，甚至頗有些樂(lè)在其中。他懷疑裘德也是如此，不過(guò)或許沒(méi)那么享受——這類派對(duì)他當(dāng)然應(yīng)付自如，大家總是想找他講話。盡管他們兩個(gè)私底下總是抱怨杰比，他總是拖著他們?nèi)ミ@類場(chǎng)合，這些冗長(zhǎng)無(wú)聊的派對(duì)，但他們心里也明白，如果他們真的不想去，拒絕就是了，但他們很少拒絕——畢竟，他們得去哪里，才能把這套全世界只有兩個(gè)人會(huì)講的語(yǔ)言派上用場(chǎng)。

　 In recent years, as his life had moved further from college and the person he had been, he sometimes found it relaxing to see people from there. He teased JB about how he had never really graduated from Hood, but in reality, he admired how JB had maintained so many of his, and their, relationships from then, and how he had somehow managed to contextualize so many of them. Despite his collection of friends from long ago, there was an insistent present tenseness to how JB saw and experienced life, and around him, even the most dedicated nostalgists found themselves less inclined to pick over the chaff and glitter of the past, and instead made themselves contend with whoever the person standing before them had become. He also appreciated how the people JB had chosen to remain friendly with were, largely, unimpressed with who he had become (as much as he could be said to have become anyone). Some of them behaved differently around him now—especially in the last year or so—but most of them were dedicated to lives and interests and pursuits that were so specific and, at times, marginal, that Willem’s accomplishments were treated as neither more nor less important than their own. JB’s friends were poets and performance artists and academics and modern dancers and philosophers—he had, Malcolm once observed, befriended everyone at their college who was least likely to make money—and their lives were grants and residencies and fellowships and awards. Success, among JB’s Hood Hall assortment, wasn’t defined by your box-office numbers (as it was for his agent and manager) or your costars or your reviews (as it was by his grad-school classmates): it was defined simply and only by how good your work was, and whether you were proud of it. (People had actually said that to him at these parties: “Oh, I didn’t see Black Mercury 3081. But were you proud of your work in it?” No, he hadn’t been proud of it. He had played a brooding intergalactic scientist who was also a jujitsu warrior and who successfully and single-handedly defeated a gargantuan space monster. But he had been satisfied with it: he had worked hard and had taken his performance seriously, and that was all he ever hoped to do.) Sometimes he wondered whether he was being fooled, if this entire circle of JB’s was a performance art piece in itself, one in which the competitions and concerns and ambitions of the real world—the world that sputtered along on money and greed and envy—were overlooked in favor of the pure pleasure of doing work. Sometimes this felt astringent to him, in the best way: he saw these parties, his time with the Hoodies, as something cleansing and restorative, something that returned him to who he once was, thrilled to get a part in the college production of Noises Off, making his roommates run lines with him every evening.

最近幾年，當(dāng)他的生活離大學(xué)時(shí)代越來(lái)越遠(yuǎn)，也離當(dāng)年的自己越來(lái)越遠(yuǎn)，他有時(shí)會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)，看到當(dāng)年的那些熟人可以讓他放松。他曾取笑過(guò)杰比從來(lái)沒(méi)有真正從虎德館畢業(yè)，但其實(shí)，他佩服杰比可以替他們一路維系那么多當(dāng)年的交情，也佩服他總有辦法掌握那么多人的動(dòng)態(tài)。盡管有那么多老朋友，杰比對(duì)生活的看法和體驗(yàn)方式總堅(jiān)持一種現(xiàn)在時(shí)。在他身邊，就連最懷舊的人也沒(méi)辦法像他那樣反復(fù)對(duì)過(guò)往的種種好壞小事一再檢視，寧可接受老友變成現(xiàn)在的模樣。他也很感激杰比選擇保持交情的那些人大部分都對(duì)現(xiàn)在的他無(wú)動(dòng)于衷（他變成任何人都無(wú)妨）。其中有些人現(xiàn)在對(duì)待他的態(tài)度大不相同，尤其是最近一年左右，但大部分人的生活、興趣和職業(yè)都太獨(dú)特了，甚至過(guò)于冷僻，在他們眼中，威廉的成就并不比他們自己的成就更重要，或更不重要。杰比的朋友是詩(shī)人、行為藝術(shù)家、學(xué)者、現(xiàn)代舞者和哲學(xué)家——有回馬爾科姆說(shuō)，杰比跟大學(xué)時(shí)代每一個(gè)最不可能賺錢的人都交上了朋友——而他們的生活，就是補(bǔ)助、住處、獎(jiǎng)金和獎(jiǎng)項(xiàng)。在杰比的虎德館交際圈內(nèi)，成功的定義不是看你的票房數(shù)字（那是他的經(jīng)紀(jì)人和經(jīng)理人的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)），或是跟你一起演戲的人以及你得到的評(píng)論（那是他研究生同學(xué)的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)），單純只看你的作品有多厲害，還有你是否引以為榮。（在這類派對(duì)上，還常常有人這么跟他說(shuō)：“啊，我沒(méi)看過(guò)《黑色水星三〇八一》，但是你為自己的表現(xiàn)感到驕傲嗎？”不，他并不引以為榮。他演的是一個(gè)憂愁而神秘的銀河系科學(xué)家，也是柔術(shù)高手，他獨(dú)自擊敗了一個(gè)龐大的太空怪物。但他對(duì)自己的表現(xiàn)很滿意：他很努力工作，認(rèn)真對(duì)待自己的表演，這就是他唯一期望能做到的。）有時(shí)他很好奇自己是不是被愚弄了，是否杰比的整個(gè)朋友圈本身就是一件行為藝術(shù)作品。在里頭，所有真實(shí)世界（始終只談金錢，貪婪、嫉妒的世界）的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)、關(guān)注和野心都被忽略了，人們只關(guān)注工作帶來(lái)的純粹愉悅。有時(shí)從最好的方面來(lái)看，這種觀點(diǎn)對(duì)他有止血作用，他把這些派對(duì)、這些和虎德館老友們相處的時(shí)間當(dāng)成某種凈化和滋補(bǔ)品，讓他重新成為以往的自己：為了在學(xué)校公演的《噪音遠(yuǎn)去》中得到一個(gè)角色而興奮不已，還每天晚上逼著室友陪他對(duì)臺(tái)詞。

　 “A career mikva,” said Jude, smiling, when he told him this.

“事業(yè)的浸禮池。”裘德聽(tīng)他說(shuō)出這個(gè)想法后，就微笑著說(shuō)。

　 “A free-market douche,” he countered.

“利伯維爾場(chǎng)的灌洗。”他回應(yīng)。

　 “An ambition enema.”

“野心的灌腸?！?

　 “Ooh, that’s good!”

“哇，這個(gè)好！”

　 But sometimes the parties—like tonight’s—had the opposite effect. Sometimes he found himself resenting the others’ definition of him, the reductiveness and immovability of it: he was, and forever would be, Willem Ragnarsson of Hood Hall, Suite Eight, someone bad at math and good with girls, an identity both simple and understandable, his persona drawn in two quick brushstrokes. They weren’t wrong, necessarily—there was something depressing about being in an industry in which he was considered an intellectual simply because he didn’t read certain magazines and websites and because he had gone to the college he had—but it made his life, which he knew was small anyway, feel smaller still.

但有時(shí)這些派對(duì)（比方今天的）則會(huì)造成反效果。有時(shí)他發(fā)現(xiàn)自己怨恨別人對(duì)他的定義，總是被簡(jiǎn)化且多年來(lái)從未改變：他以前是、且永遠(yuǎn)是虎德館八號(hào)套房的威廉·朗納松，數(shù)學(xué)很爛，但女人緣很好，簡(jiǎn)單、容易被理解，迅速兩筆就能畫出形象。這個(gè)定義不見(jiàn)得是錯(cuò)的（在這一行他被視為知識(shí)分子，是因?yàn)樗豢茨承╇s志和網(wǎng)站，而且讀過(guò)那所大學(xué)，這的確會(huì)讓人有點(diǎn)沮喪），他本來(lái)就知道自己這一生很渺小，但這么一來(lái)，他覺(jué)得更渺小了。

　 And sometimes he sensed in his former peers’ ignorance of his career something stubborn and willful and begrudging; last year, when his first truly big studio film had been released, he had been at a party in Red Hook and had been talking to a Hood hanger-on who was always at these gatherings, a man named Arthur who’d lived in the loser house, Dillingham Hall, and who now published an obscure but respected journal about digital cartography.

而有時(shí)，從昔日同伴對(duì)他事業(yè)的無(wú)知，他感覺(jué)到某種頑固、刻意和不滿。去年，他拍的第一部真正的大片上映期間，他剛好去布魯克林的瑞德胡克參加派對(duì)，跟一個(gè)以前常去虎德館、現(xiàn)在總是參加這些聚會(huì)的男生聊天。他叫阿瑟，以前住在失敗者大本營(yíng)迪林厄姆館，現(xiàn)在辦了一份關(guān)于數(shù)字地圖制作方法的雜志《歷史》，冷僻但相當(dāng)受尊崇。

　 “So, Willem, what’ve you been doing lately?” Arthur asked, finally, after talking for ten minutes about the most recent issue of The Histories, which had featured a three-dimensional rendering of the Indochinese opium route from eighteen thirty-nine through eighteen forty-two.

“那么，威廉，你在做什么？”阿瑟終于開(kāi)口問(wèn)，前十分鐘他都在談最近一期《歷史》的專題，用3D算法繪制出1839年到1842年中南半島的鴉片路線圖。

　 He experienced, then, that moment of disorientation he occasionally had at these gatherings. Sometimes that very question was asked in a jokey, ironic way, as a congratulations, and he would smile and play along—“Oh, not much, still waiting at Ortolan. We’re doing a great sablefish with tobiko these days”—but sometimes, people genuinely didn’t know. The genuine not-knowing happened less and less frequently these days, and when it did, it was usually from someone who lived so far off the cultural grid that even the reading of The New York Times was treated as a seditious act or, more often, someone who was trying to communicate their disapproval—no, their dismissal—of him and his life and work by remaining determinedly ignorant of it.

那一刻，他體會(huì)到了自己在這類聚會(huì)中偶爾會(huì)滋出的那種茫然迷失之感。有時(shí)這個(gè)問(wèn)題是用一種開(kāi)玩笑、諷刺的方式提出的，被當(dāng)成一種道賀，然后他會(huì)微笑配合：“啊，沒(méi)什么大不了的，還在奧爾托蘭端盤子。我們最近的銀鱈魚配飛魚卵很受歡迎?！钡袝r(shí)問(wèn)的人是真的不知道。這種狀況現(xiàn)在越來(lái)越少發(fā)生了，偶爾發(fā)生時(shí)，提問(wèn)者通常是某個(gè)生活圈離文化界很遠(yuǎn)、連閱讀《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》對(duì)他們來(lái)說(shuō)都算煽動(dòng)叛亂行為的人。不過(guò)更常見(jiàn)的是，某個(gè)人堅(jiān)定地?zé)o視他和他的生活與工作，為了表達(dá)他們的不以為然，不，是不屑。

　 He didn’t know Arthur well enough to know into which category he fell (although he knew him well enough to not like him, the way he pressed so close into his space that he had literally backed into a wall), so he answered simply. “I’m acting.”

他跟阿瑟沒(méi)熟到確知他屬于哪一類（不過(guò)倒是熟到足以不喜歡這個(gè)人，尤其阿瑟總是喜歡在跟人講話時(shí)湊得很近，搞得他都后退到貼著墻壁了），于是他只回答：“我在演戲?！?

　 “Really,” said Arthur, blandly. “Anything I’d’ve heard of?”

“真的啊?！卑⑸卣f(shuō)，“有什么是我聽(tīng)過(guò)的嗎？”

　 This question—not the question itself, but Arthur’s tone, its carelessness and derision—irritated him anew, but he didn’t show it. “Well,” he said slowly, “they’re mostly indies. I did something last year called The Kingdom of Frankincense, and I’m leaving next month to shoot The Unvanquished, based on the novel?” Arthur looked blank. Willem sighed; he had won an award for The Kingdom of Frankincense. “And something I shot a couple of years ago’s just been released: this thing called Black Mercury 3081.”

這個(gè)問(wèn)題——不是問(wèn)題本身，而是阿瑟那種不在乎和嘲弄的口氣——讓他無(wú)名火起，但是他按捺著沒(méi)有表現(xiàn)出來(lái)?！斑恚彼従徴f(shuō)，“大部分都是獨(dú)立制片。我去年拍了一部《乳香王國(guó)》，下個(gè)月要離開(kāi)紐約去拍《不敗者》，是由福克納的小說(shuō)改編的。”阿瑟一臉木然。威廉嘆氣：他還因?yàn)椤度橄阃鯂?guó)》得了獎(jiǎng)?！傲硗馕覂赡昵芭牡囊徊侩娪安艅偵嫌?，叫《黑色水星三〇八一》。”