《渺小一生》:這兩年，病痛太常拜訪他們了

　 He nodded, barely. “Of course,” he said, just as quietly. This was always how their own trip on the Camino was supposed to end: with a train ride south to visit the Alhambra. And over the years, even as he knew their walk would never happen, he had never gone to the Alhambra, had never taken a day at the end of one shoot or another and come, because he was waiting for Jude to do it with him.

他勉強點點頭。“當然記得。”他說，同樣小聲。這里向來是他們夢想中圣雅各布之路朝圣之旅結(jié)束的地點：搭上往南的火車，去拜訪阿爾罕布拉宮。多年來，即使他知道他們這趟步行之旅永遠不可能實現(xiàn)，但他始終沒去過阿爾罕布拉宮，從來沒在拍攝完畢后花一天時間去一趟，因為他等著裘德跟他一起去。

　 “One of my clients,” Jude said, before he could ask. “You defend someone, and their godfather turns out to be the Spanish minister of culture, who lets you make a generous donation to the Alhambra’s maintenance fund for the privilege of seeing it alone.” He grinned at Willem. “I told you I’d do something for your fiftieth—albeit a year and a half later.” He placed his hand on Willem’s arm. “Willem, don’t cry.”

“是我的一個客戶。”裘德在他開口問之前就說，“你幫某個人辯護，結(jié)果他的教父是西班牙文化部長，他讓你捐一大筆錢給阿爾罕布拉宮的維修基金會，就可以換來單獨參觀的特權(quán)。”他朝威廉咧嘴笑。“我說過我會幫你慶祝50歲生日的——雖然已經(jīng)是一年半之后。”他把手放在威廉的胳膊上，“威廉，別哭。”

　 “I’m not going to,” he said. “I can do other things in life besides cry, you know,” although he was no longer sure that was even true.

“我不會哭的。”他說，“你知道，除了哭之外，我的人生還有別的事情可以做。”雖然他已經(jīng)不確定這話是不是真的了。

　 He opened the envelope that Jude handed him, and inside there was a package, and he undid the ribbon and tore the paper away and found a handmade book, organized by chapters—“The Alcazaba”; “The Lion Palace”; “The Gardens”; “Generalife”—each with pages of handwritten notes by Malcolm, who had written his thesis on the Alhambra and who had visited it every year since he was nine. Between each chapter was a drawing of one of the complex’s details—a jasmine bush blooming with small white flowers, a stone façade stippled with cobalt tilework—tipped into the pages, each dedicated to him and signed by someone they knew: Richard; JB; India; Asian Henry Young; Ali. Now he really did begin to cry, smiling and crying, until Jude told him that they had better get moving, that they couldn’t spend their entire time at the entryway, crying, and he grabbed him and kissed him, not caring about the silent, black-clad guards behind them. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

他打開裘德遞給他的那個信封，里頭是一個小包裹，他拆開外頭的絲帶和包裝紙，發(fā)現(xiàn)是一本手工書，分章編排——《阿爾卡薩瓦堡》《獅子宮》《庭園》《建筑師花園》。每一章都有馬爾科姆的手寫筆記，他的學(xué)位論文就是寫阿爾罕布拉宮，而且從他9歲開始，每年都會造訪。每一章之間，都穿插著一幅宮內(nèi)的手繪細節(jié)圖——一叢盛開著白色小花的茉莉，一片由精細的鈷藍彩瓷磚拼貼而成的巖石建筑物正面，都是他們認識的藝術(shù)家朋友繪制、題獻給他的，包括了理查德、杰比、印蒂亞、亞裔亨利·楊、阿里。現(xiàn)在他真的哭了，又哭又笑，直到裘德說他們最好開始參觀，總不能把所有時間都浪費在門口哭。他抓住裘德吻了他，也不管身后那幾位穿黑衣的沉默警衛(wèi)。“謝謝你，”他說，“謝謝你，謝謝你，謝謝你。”

　 Off they moved through the silent night, Jude’s flashlight bouncing a line of light before them. Into palaces they walked, where the marble was so old that the structure appeared to be carved from soft white butter, and into reception halls with vaulted ceilings so high that birds arced soundlessly through the space, and with windows so symmetrical and perfectly placed that the room was bright with moonlight. As they walked, they stopped to consult Malcolm’s notes, to examine details they would have missed had they not been alerted to them, to realize that they were standing in the room where, a thousand years ago, more, a sultan would have dictated his correspondence. They studied the illustrations, matching the images to what they saw before them. Facing each of their friends’ drawings was a note each had written explaining when they had first seen the Alhambra, and why they had chosen to draw what they had. They had that feeling, the same one they had often had as young men, that everyone they knew had seen so much of the world and that they hadn’t, and although they knew this was no longer true, they still felt that same sense of awe at their friends’ lives, at how much they had done and experienced, at how well they knew to appreciate it, at how talented they were at recording it. In the gardens of the Generalife section, they walked into a room that had been cut into a labyrinth hedgerow of cypresses, and he began to kiss Jude, more insistently than he had allowed himself to do in a long time, even though they could hear, faintly, one of the guard’s shoes tapping along the stone walkway.

于是他們在靜寂的夜晚往前走，裘德的手電筒在兩人之間照出一道光。他們走過一個個宮殿，那些大理石年代久遠，像是用柔軟的白奶油雕刻而成；走過一個個接待廳，上頭的拱頂好高，鳥兒在其間無聲地飛過，還有對稱完美的窗子，被月光照得一片明亮。他們走到一半，停下來參考馬爾科姆的筆記，檢視他們本來會錯過的種種細節(jié)，這才發(fā)現(xiàn)眼前所在的房間，一千多年前曾有一個蘇丹王在這口述信件。他們審視手工書上的插圖，跟眼前的景象對照。他們的朋友繪制的每幅圖畫旁邊的跨頁，是一段手寫的文字，解釋他們第一次看見阿爾罕布拉宮是什么時候，還有他們?yōu)槭裁催x擇畫這一部分。此刻，他們兩個人又有年輕時常有的那種感覺，就是他們認識的每個人都去過好多地方，他們卻沒有。盡管他們知道現(xiàn)在不是這樣了，還是體驗到和當年同樣的那種敬畏，敬畏這些朋友的生活，敬畏他們的成就和經(jīng)驗，也敬畏他們多么懂得欣賞，又擁有記錄下來的才華。在建筑師花園那部分的庭園里，他們走進一個以柏樹構(gòu)成的迷宮樹籬，他開始吻裘德，好久以來沒有那么急切了，即使他們隱約聽到警衛(wèi)沿著石頭走廊而行的腳步聲。

　 Back in the hotel room they continued, and he heard himself thinking that in the movie version of this night, they would be having sex now, and he was almost, almost about to say this out loud, when he remembered himself, and stopped, pulling back from Jude as he did. But it was as if he had spoken anyway, because for a while they were silent, staring at each other, and then Jude said, quietly, “Willem, we can if you want to.”

回到飯店房間里，他們繼續(xù)擁吻，他不覺間想著，在電影里的這一夜，他們現(xiàn)在就會做愛了。接著他差點、差點就要說出口，隨即忽然醒悟，停下來往后退開。但感覺上，仿佛他還是說出來了，因為兩人沉默了好一會兒，凝視著彼此。然后裘德低聲說：“威廉，如果你想要的話，我們可以的。”

　 “Do you want to?” he asked, finally.

“那你想要嗎？”最后他終于問。

　 “Sure,” Jude said, but Willem could tell, by the way he had looked down and the slight catch in his voice, that he was lying.

“當然。”裘德說，但從他低頭的動作和聲音里微微的緊繃，威廉看得出來他在撒謊。

　 For a second he thought he would pretend, that he would allow himself to be convinced that Jude was telling him the truth. But he couldn’t. And so “No,” he said, and rolled off of him. “I think this has been enough excitement for one evening.” Next to him, he heard Jude exhale, and as he fell asleep, heard him whisper, “I’m sorry, Willem,” and he tried to tell Jude that he understood, but by this time he was more unconscious than not and couldn’t speak the words.

有一秒鐘，他想著自己就假裝下去吧，假裝自己相信裘德說的是實話。但他沒辦法。于是，“不，”他說，翻身從他旁邊退開，“我想今天晚上興奮的事情已經(jīng)夠多了。”在他旁邊，他聽到裘德吐出一口氣，就在他睡著時，聽到裘德低聲說：“對不起，威廉。”他想告訴裘德他了解，但此時他已經(jīng)昏睡過去，說不出話來了。

　 But that was that period’s only sadness, and the source of their sadnesses were different: For Jude, he knew, the sadness rose from a sense of failure, a certainty—one Willem was never able to displace—that he wasn’t fulfilling his obligations. For him, the sadness was for Jude himself. Occasionally Willem allowed himself to wonder what Jude’s life would have been like if sex had been something he had been left to discover, rather than forced to learn—but it was not a helpful line of thought, and it made him too upset. And so he tried not to consider it. But it was always there, running through their friendship, their lives, like a vein of turquoise forking through stone.

但那段時間里唯一的哀傷只有這個，而且他們哀傷的源頭不一樣：他知道，對裘德來說，哀傷源自一種失敗的感覺（而威廉永遠無法改變），因為裘德很確定自己沒有盡到應(yīng)盡的義務(wù)。但對他來說，他的哀傷是為了裘德自己。偶爾威廉會允許自己胡思亂想，如果性愛是裘德可以自行探索而非被迫學(xué)習(xí)的東西，不知道他的人生會是什么樣。但這樣想也沒有用，只會害自己更心煩。于是他設(shè)法不要去想。但這個想法一直在，貫穿著他們的友誼、他們的人生，就像巖石里的一條綠松石礦脈。

　 In the meantime, though, there was normalcy, routine, both of which were better than sex or excitement. There was the realization that Jude had walked—slowly, but assuredly—for almost three straight hours that night. There was, back in New York, their lives, the things they used to do, resuming because Jude now had the energy to do so, because he could now stay awake through a play or an opera or a dinner, because he could climb the stairs to reach Malcolm’s front door in Cobble Hill, could walk down the pitched sidewalk to reach JB’s building in Vinegar Hill. There was the comfort of hearing Jude’s alarm blip at five thirty, of hearing him set off for his morning swim, the relief of looking into a box on the kitchen counter and seeing it was full of medical supplies—extra packets of catheter tubing and sterile gauze patches and leftover high-calorie protein drinks that Andy had only recently said Jude could stop ingesting—that Jude would return to Andy, who would donate them to the hospital. In moments he would remember how two years ago from this very date, he would come home from the theater to find Jude in bed asleep, so fragile that it seemed at times that the catheter under his shirt was actually an artery, that he was being steadily and irreversibly whittled down to only nerves and vessels and bone. Sometimes he would think of those moments and feel a sort of disorientation: Was that them, really, those people back then? Where had those people gone? Would they reappear? Or were they now other people entirely? And then he would imagine that those people weren’t so much gone as they were within them, waiting to bob back up to the surface, to reclaim their bodies and minds; they were identities now in remission, but they would always be with them.

不過同時，這段時間的常態(tài)性、例行性，兩者都比性愛或興奮更好。比如，他發(fā)現(xiàn)裘德那一夜緩慢但堅定地連續(xù)走了將近三個小時。比如，回到紐約之后，他們重拾過往的生活，可以做他們以前常做的事情，因為現(xiàn)在裘德有力氣做了，他現(xiàn)在有辦法醒著看完一出舞臺劇、歌劇或吃完一頓晚餐，他有辦法去科布爾山的馬爾科姆家，爬上一段階梯到前門，有辦法沿著布魯克林醋丘傾斜的人行道走到杰比住的那棟大樓前。比如，每天早晨5點半能聽到裘德的鬧鐘響，聽到他出去晨泳，讓他很安心。比如，看著廚房料理臺上的一個盒子裝滿了醫(yī)療用品，有備用的導(dǎo)管包、消毒紗布片和剩余的高熱量蛋白飲品（安迪最近才說裘德可以不必喝了）；裘德打算拿去還安迪，再由安迪捐給醫(yī)院。有時他會想起兩年前的今天，他從戲院回來時會發(fā)現(xiàn)裘德在床上睡覺，虛弱得讓人覺得他襯衫底下的導(dǎo)管其實是一根動脈，而他持續(xù)、不可逆地萎縮，一直到只剩神經(jīng)、血管和骨頭。有時他會想著這些時刻，茫然不知所措：當時那兩個人真的是他們嗎？那兩個人去了哪里？他們還會再出現(xiàn)嗎？或者現(xiàn)在的他們才是外來的？然后他會想象那兩個人其實沒有遠離，而是躲在他們體內(nèi)，會伺機跑出來，再度奪走他們的身體與心靈；那兩個人是暫時蟄伏的分身，但會永遠跟著他們。

　 Sickness had visited them recently enough so that they still remembered to be grateful for every day that passed so uneventfully, even as they grew to expect them. The first time Willem saw Jude in his wheelchair in months, saw him leave the sofa when they were watching a movie because he was having an episode and wanted to be alone, he had been disquieted, and he’d had to make himself remember that this, too, was who Jude was: he was someone whose body betrayed him, and he always would be. The surgery hadn’t changed this after all—it had changed Willem’s reaction to it. And when he realized that Jude was cutting himself again—not frequently, but regularly—he had to remind himself that, once again, this was who Jude was, and that the surgery hadn’t changed this, either.

這兩年，病痛太常拜訪他們了，所以他們依然記得要慶幸每一天可以如此平淡無奇地度過，他們甚至逐漸開始期待這樣的狀況。幾個月來，威廉第一次看到裘德坐輪椅，是有一天兩人看電影看到一半，裘德背痛發(fā)作離開沙發(fā)，想要獨自靜一靜。威廉覺得非常不安，但還得逼自己想起來，這也是裘德原來的樣子：他是個被身體背叛的人，永遠都是。截肢手術(shù)畢竟沒有改變這一點，只不過改變了威廉的反應(yīng)而已。當他發(fā)現(xiàn)裘德又在割自己（不頻繁，但是很規(guī)律），他也得再一次提醒自己，這就是裘德的老樣子，那場手術(shù)也沒有改變這點。

　 Still, “Maybe we should call these The Happy Years,” he told Jude one morning. It was February, it was snowing, and they were lying in bed, which they now did until late every Sunday morning.

然而，“也許我們該把這段時間稱為‘快樂年代’。”某天早上他告訴裘德。那是二月，外頭正下著雪，他們躺在床上，現(xiàn)在他們每個星期日早上都會賴床到很晚。

　 “I don’t know,” Jude said, and although he could only see the edge of his face, Willem could tell he was smiling. “Isn’t that tempting fate a little? We’ll call it that and then both of my arms will fall off. Also, that name’s taken already.”

“不知道。”裘德說。雖然只看得到他的側(cè)臉，威廉看得出他在微笑。“這樣會不會有點在挑釁命運？我們?nèi)×诉@個名字，然后我的兩條手臂就會掉下來了。而且這個名字已經(jīng)有人用了。”

　 And it was—it was the title of Willem’s next project, in fact, the one he would be leaving for in just a week: six weeks of rehearsals, followed by eleven weeks of filming. But it wasn’t the original title. The original title had been The Dancer on the Stage, but Kit had just told him that the producers had changed it to The Happy Years.

的確，這是威廉下一部電影的片名，他再過一個星期就要出門去工作了：排練六周，接著拍攝十一周。原來的片名不是這個，而是《舞臺上的舞者》，但基特剛剛通知他，制片方已經(jīng)把片名改為《快樂年代》了。

　 He hadn’t liked this new title. “It’s so cynical,” he told Jude, after complaining first to Kit and then to the director. “There’s something so curdled and ironic about it.” This had been a few nights ago; they had been lying on the sofa after his daily, thoroughly draining ballet class, and Jude was massaging his feet. He would be playing Rudolf Nureyev in the final years of his life, from his appointment as the ballet director of the Paris Opéra in nineteen-eighty-three, through his HIV diagnosis, and until he first noticed the symptoms of his disease, a year before he actually died.

他不喜歡這個新片名。“太挖苦了，”他告訴裘德，之前他跟基特、跟導(dǎo)演都抱怨過，“這個新片名有點太尖酸、太諷刺了。”這是幾天前的晚上，每天的芭蕾課后，他都筋疲力盡地躺在床上，裘德正在按摩他的雙腳。他將飾演人生最后幾年的魯?shù)婪?middot;努里耶夫[7]，從他在1983年被任命為巴黎歌劇院的芭蕾總監(jiān)開始，到被診斷出艾滋病，到第一次出現(xiàn)艾滋病的病征，直到他死前一年。

　 “I know what you mean,” Jude had said after he had finally finished ranting. “But maybe they really were the happy years for him. He was free; he had a job he loved; he was mentoring young dancers; he had turned around an entire company. He was doing some of his greatest choreography. He and that Danish dancer—”

“我明白你的意思。”他終于大罵完之后，裘德這么說，“但或許對他來說，那幾年真的是快樂年代。他自由了；他有熱愛的工作；他指導(dǎo)年輕舞者，改變了整個芭蕾舞團；他交出了幾件最棒的舞作。他和那個丹麥舞者……”

　 “Erik Bruhn.”

“埃里克·布魯恩。”

　 “Right. He and Bruhn were still together, at least for a little while longer. He had experienced everything he had probably never dreamed he would have as a younger man, and he was still young enough to enjoy it all: money and renown and artistic freedom. Love. Friendship.” He dug his knuckles into Willem’s sole, and Willem winced. “That sounds like a happy life to me.”

“對。他那幾年跟布魯恩還在一起，至少又維持了一陣子。他經(jīng)歷了他年輕時可能從沒夢想過的種種，而且他還夠年輕，可以享受一切：金錢、名望、藝術(shù)的自由。愛情。友誼。”他的指節(jié)用力壓著威廉的腳掌，威廉皺起臉，“我覺得，這樣就是快樂人生了。”

　 They were both quiet for a while. “But he was sick,” Willem said, at last.

他們兩個都沉默了一會兒。“可是他病了。”威廉終于說。