《渺小一生》:這是今年第一個天氣溫和的夜

　 Now he drops his mouth open. Now he hops in a little circle. Now he drags his leg behind him. His moans fill the air in the quiet, still house.

現(xiàn)在他嘴巴松垮地張開，繞著小圈單腳跳，右腳拖在后方。在這個安靜、死寂的房子里，空氣中充滿了他的嗚咽聲。

　 The first Saturday in May, he and Willem have what they’ve been calling the Last Supper at a tiny, very expensive sushi restaurant near his office on Fifty-sixth Street. The restaurant has only six seats, all at a wide, velvety cypress counter, and for the three hours they spend there, they are the only patrons.

五月的第一個星期六，他和威廉去56街他辦公室附近一家很小、很貴的壽司店，吃了一頓他們所謂的“最后的晚餐”。那個餐廳只有六個座位，全部面對著一排寬敞、柔滑的柏木吧臺。而且用餐的三個小時里，只有他們兩個客人。

　 Although they both knew how much the meal would cost, they’re both stunned when they look at the check, and then both start laughing, though he’s not sure if it’s the absurdity of spending so much on a single dinner, or the fact that they have, or the fact that they can that is to blame.

他們都明白這一頓有多貴，但看到賬單時，兩個人還是當(dāng)場嚇呆，又開始大笑。他不確定笑的原因是花這么多錢吃一頓晚餐很荒謬，還是他們花得起。

　 “I’ll get it,” Willem says, but as he’s reaching for his wallet, the waiter comes over to him with his credit card, which he’d given to him when Willem was in the bathroom.

“我來吧。”威廉說，但是當(dāng)他要伸手掏皮夾時，侍者正拿著裘德的信用卡過來還他，因為他趁威廉去洗手間時，已經(jīng)把信用卡交給侍者了。

　 “Goddammit, Jude,” Willem says, and he grins.

“該死，裘德?！蓖f，他咧嘴笑了。

　 “It’s the Last Supper, Willem,” he says. “You can get me a taco when you come back.”

“這是最后的晚餐，威廉?！彼f，“等你回來，可以請我吃一頓墨西哥塔可卷餅?！?

　 “If I come back,” Willem says. It has been their running joke. “Jude, thank you. You weren’t supposed to pay for this.”

“如果我能回來的話?！蓖f。這是他們兩人最近常開的笑話，“裘德，謝了。這一頓不該由你付的?！?

　 It’s the first warm night of the year, and he tells Willem that if he really wants to thank him for dinner, he’ll walk with him. “How far?” asks Willem, warily. “We’re not going to walk all the way down to SoHo, Jude.”

這是今年第一個天氣溫和的夜晚。他告訴威廉如果他真想為這頓晚餐表示感謝，就陪他走走路?！岸噙h(yuǎn)？”威廉警覺地問，“裘德，我們可不能一路走回蘇荷區(qū)。”

　 “Not far.”

“又不遠(yuǎn)。”

　 “It’d better not be,” Willem says, “because I’m really tired.” This is Willem’s new strategy, and he is very fond of it: instead of telling him he can’t do certain things because it’s not good for his legs or back, Willem instead tries to make himself sound incapable in order to dissuade him. These days, Willem is always too tired to walk, or too achey, or too hot, or too cold. But he knows that these things are untrue. One Saturday afternoon after they’d gone to some galleries, Willem had told him he couldn’t walk from Chelsea to Greene Street (“I’m too tired”), and so they had taken a cab instead. But then the next day at lunch, Robin had said, “Wasn’t it a beautiful day yesterday? After Willem got home, we ran for—what, eight miles, right, Willem?—all the way up and down the highway.”

“最好不要，”威廉說，“因為我真的很累了?！边@是威廉的新招數(shù)，而且正合他意。威廉不會叫他不要做某些事情，因為對他的腿或背部不好，而是設(shè)法講得好像自己沒辦法去做，好讓他打消念頭。最近這陣子，威廉總是太累沒法走路，或是身子太酸痛、太熱、太冷。但他知道這些都不是真的。有個星期六下午，他們?nèi)ス淞藥准耶嬂群?，威廉跟他說他沒辦法從切爾西走回格林街（“我太累了”），于是他們坐出租車回家。次日午餐時，羅賓說：“昨天天氣真好不是嗎，威廉回家后，我們還出去慢跑呢——多遠(yuǎn)？八英里吧，是吧，威廉？——一路沿著西城高速公路往北再回來?！?

　 “Oh, did you?” he asked her, looking at Willem, who smiled sheepishly at him.

“哦，是嗎？”他問她，看著威廉露出尷尬的微笑。

　 “What can I say?” he said. “I unexpectedly got a second wind.”

“我能說什么？”威廉說，“沒想到我又恢復(fù)精力了?！?

　 They start walking south, first veering east from Broadway so they won’t have to cross through Times Square. Willem’s hair has been colored dark for his next role, and he has a beard, so he’s not instantly recognizable, but neither of them want to get stuck in a scrum of tourists.

這會兒他們開始朝南走，不過先往東離開百老匯大道，免得等一下還要經(jīng)過時代廣場。威廉已經(jīng)為下一個角色而把頭發(fā)染成了深色，還留了大胡子，不太會被認(rèn)出來。不過他們兩個都不想被堵在觀光人潮中。

　 This is the last time he will see Willem for what will likely be more than six months. On Tuesday, he leaves for Cyprus to begin work on The Iliad and The Odyssey; he will play Odysseus in both. The two films will be shot consecutively and released consecutively, but they will have the same cast and the same director, too. The shoot will take him all across southern Europe and northern Africa before moving to Australia, where some of the battle scenes are being shot, and because the pace is so intense and the distances he has to travel so far, it’s unclear whether he’ll have much time, if any, to come home on breaks. It is the most elaborate and ambitious shoot Willem has been on, and he is nervous. “It’s going to be incredible, Willem,” he reassures him.

這是威廉遠(yuǎn)行前最后一次見他了，接下來可能超過六個月都沒法見面。星期二，威廉就要離開紐約去塞浦路斯，開始拍《伊利亞特》和《奧德賽》，他在片中飾演主角奧德修斯。這兩部電影將連續(xù)拍攝并依序上映，不過它們的卡司和導(dǎo)演都一樣。拍片地點(diǎn)遍及歐洲和北非各地，還要到澳洲拍攝幾場戰(zhàn)爭戲。因為拍片行程緊湊，又要跑那么多地方，所以還不確定中間有沒有空檔回紐約。這是威廉參與過最復(fù)雜、野心最大的拍片計劃，他很緊張?！耙欢〞欠浅２豢伤甲h的經(jīng)歷，威廉?！彼蛩ＷC。

　 “Or an incredible disaster,” Willem says. He isn’t glum, he never is, but he can tell Willem is anxious, and eager to do well, and worried that he will somehow disappoint. But he is worried before every film, and yet—as he reminds Willem—every one has turned out fine, better than fine. However, he thinks, this is one of the reasons that Willem will always have work, and good work: because he does take it seriously, because he does feel so responsible.

“或是一場不可思議的災(zāi)難?！蓖f。威廉并不悲觀，從來不會，但他看得出來，威廉很焦慮，急著想把工作做好，同時擔(dān)心最后的表現(xiàn)不盡如人意。不過威廉每次開拍前都會擔(dān)心，但就如同他提醒威廉的那樣，每部片子的結(jié)果都很不錯，而且還不光是不錯而已?？傊?，他想，這就是威廉一直能接到工作，而且都是好工作的原因：因為他確實認(rèn)真對待自己的工作，也自覺責(zé)任重大。

　 He, though, is dreading the next six months, especially because Willem has been so present for the last year and a half. First he was shooting a small project, one based in Brooklyn, that lasted just a few weeks. And then he was in a play, a production called The Maldivian Dodo, about two brothers, both ornithologists, one of whom is slowly tipping into an uncategorizable madness. The two of them had a late dinner every Thursday night for the entire run of the play, which he saw—as he has with all of Willem’s plays—multiple times. On his third viewing, he spotted JB with Oliver, just a few rows ahead of him but on the left side of the theater, and throughout the show he kept glancing over at JB to see if he was laughing at or concentrating on the same lines, aware that this was the first of Willem’s productions that the three of them hadn’t seen together, as a group, at least once.

不過他很憂心接下來的六個月，尤其因為過去一年半威廉總是待在紐約。首先他拍了一部小成本電影，主要在布魯克林拍攝，只拍了幾個星期就殺青了。然后他演了一出舞臺劇《馬爾代夫渡渡鳥》，描述了兩個鳥類學(xué)家兄弟，其中一人緩慢地陷入一種無法歸類的瘋狂。演出期間，他們兩人每周四夜里都會一起吃遲來的晚餐。一如威廉的每一出戲，這一出他也看了好幾回。第三次去看時，他發(fā)現(xiàn)杰比和奧利弗也去了，就坐在他前面幾排，不過是在靠戲院的左側(cè)。整出戲期間，他的視線總是飄到杰比那里，看他是不是也被同樣的臺詞逗得大笑或被吸引得全神貫注。他同時想到，以前只要是威廉的演出，他們?nèi)齻€至少會結(jié)伴看一次，而這回是第一次沒約。

　 “So, listen,” Willem says as they move down Fifth Avenue, which is empty of people, just bright-lit windows and stray bits of garbage twirling in the light, soft breeze—plastic bags, puffed up with air into jellyfish, and twists of newspaper—“I told Robin I’d talk to you about something.”

兩人沿著第五大道往南走。此時路上沒有什么行人，只剩明亮的櫥窗，還有燈光下零星的垃圾在微風(fēng)中翻滾——被吹鼓后活像水母的垃圾袋和皺巴巴的報紙?！昂冒?，聽我說?！蓖f，“有件事我跟羅賓說我會跟你談?！?

　 He waits. He has been conscious of not making the same mistake with Robin and Willem that he made with Philippa and Willem—when Willem asks him to accompany them anywhere, he makes sure that he’s cleared it with Robin first (finally Willem had told him to stop asking, that Robin knew how much he meant to him and she was fine with it, and if she wasn’t fine with it, she’d have to get fine with it), and he has tried to present himself to Robin as someone independent and not likely to move in with them when he’s old. (He’s not sure exactly how to communicate this message, however, and so is therefore unsure if he’s been successful or not.) But he likes Robin—she’s a classics professor at Columbia who was hired to serve as a consultant on the films two years ago, and she has a spiky sense of humor that reminds him of JB, somehow.

他等著。對羅賓和威廉他一直很留意，不想犯當(dāng)初菲莉帕和威廉在一起時同樣的錯誤。所以每回威廉找他一起去哪里，他都會先確認(rèn)威廉問過羅賓了（最后威廉叫他別再問了，說羅賓知道他對他有多重要，她完全能接受，還說如果她不能接受，那她就要想辦法接受），而且在羅賓面前，他都設(shè)法表現(xiàn)出自己是個很獨(dú)立的人，老年時不可能搬去跟他們一起?。ú贿^他不太清楚到底該怎么傳達(dá)這個訊息，也不確定自己傳達(dá)得成功不成功）。他喜歡羅賓，她是哥倫比亞大學(xué)的古希臘羅馬文化教授，兩年前曾受邀擔(dān)任電影顧問，她有一種帶刺的幽默感，不知怎的老讓他想到杰比。

　 “Okay,” says Willem, and takes a deep breath, and he steadies himself. Oh no, he thinks. “Do you remember Robin’s friend Clara?”

“好吧。”威廉說，深吸一口氣，讓自己平靜下來。啊，不會吧，他心想?！澳氵€記得羅賓的朋友克拉拉嗎？”

　 “Sure,” he says. “The one I met at Clementine.”

“當(dāng)然記得?！彼f，“就是在克萊芒蒂娜餐廳見過的那個?！?