《渺小一生》:他的眼睛看起來死氣沉沉

　 And he did. For the next few weeks, when he woke in the night, or after they’d had sex and he was waiting for Willem to fall asleep so he could go to the bathroom, he instead made himself lie still, his hands in fists, counting his breaths, the back of his neck perspiring, his mouth dry. He pictured one of the motels’ stairwells, and throwing himself against it, the thud he would make, how satisfyingly tiring it would be, how much it would hurt. He both wished Willem knew how hard he was trying and was grateful that he didn’t.

于是他試了。接下來幾個(gè)星期，他半夜醒來時(shí)，或者他們做愛后、他等著威廉睡著以便去浴室時(shí)，他就改逼自己躺著不動(dòng)，雙手握拳，數(shù)著自己的呼吸，頸背冒汗，嘴巴發(fā)干。他想象某個(gè)汽車旅館的樓梯間，想象自己摔下去，發(fā)出“砰”的一聲，那是多么令人滿足又疲倦，那會(huì)多么的痛。他真希望威廉知道他多么努力嘗試，同時(shí)很慶幸他不知道。

　 But sometimes this wasn’t enough, and on those nights, he would skulk down to the ground floor, where he would swim, trying to exhaust himself. In the mornings, Willem demanded to look at his arms, and they had fought over that as well, but in the end it had been easier to just let Willem look. “Happy?” he barked at him, jerking his arms back from Willem’s hands, rolling his sleeves back down and buttoning the cuffs, unable to look at him.

但有時(shí)這樣還不夠。于是在那樣的夜里，他會(huì)輕手輕腳到一樓去游泳，設(shè)法把自己累到筋疲力盡。到了早上，威廉要求看他的手臂，他們?cè)虼顺臣?，但最后還是乖乖讓威廉看比較簡單。“高興了沒？”他會(huì)兇巴巴地說，從威廉手里拽回手臂，把袖子放下來，扣好袖扣，沒法抬頭看威廉。

　 “Jude,” Willem said, after a pause, “come lie down next to me before you go,” but he shook his head and left, and all day he had regretted it, and with every passing day that Willem didn’t ask him again, he hated himself more. Their new morning ritual was Willem examining his arms, and every time, sitting next to Willem in bed as Willem looked for evidence of cuts, he felt his frustration and humiliation increase.

“裘德，”威廉暫停一下說，“出門前先過來陪我躺一下吧。”但他搖搖頭就離開了，接著一整天都很后悔。隨著每一天過去，威廉沒再要求他陪他躺一下，他就更加怨恨自己。他們新的早晨例行儀式，就是威廉檢查他的手臂。而每一回，坐在床上、在威廉旁邊，讓威廉檢查他是否有割傷的痕跡，他就覺得懊惱與羞辱感更增一分。

　 One night a month after he had promised Willem he would try harder, he had known that he was in trouble, that there would be nothing he could do to quell his desires. It had been an unexpectedly, peculiarly memory-rich day, one in which the curtain that separated his past from his present had been oddly gauzy. All evening he had seen, as if in peripheral vision, fragments of scenes drifting before him, and over dinner he had fought to stay rooted, to not let himself wander into that frightening, familiar shadow world of memories. That night was the first night he had almost told Willem he didn’t want to have sex, but in the end he had managed not to, and they had.

他答應(yīng)威廉他會(huì)更努力的一個(gè)月后，有一天晚上，他知道自己慘了，無論做什么都平息不了他想割自己的渴望。那是意外的、特別充滿回憶的一天，隔開過去和現(xiàn)在的那面紗簾變得非常薄。整個(gè)晚上，仿佛在視野邊緣，他不斷看到片段畫面浮現(xiàn)眼前，晚餐時(shí)他一直努力不要脫離現(xiàn)實(shí)，不讓自己陷入充滿回憶的陰影世界中。那一夜是他第一次差點(diǎn)告訴威廉他不想做愛，但最后還是設(shè)法忍住。他們做愛了。

　 Afterward, he was exhausted. He always struggled to remain present when they were having sex, to not let himself float away. When he was a child and had learned that he could leave himself, the clients had complained to Brother Luke. “His eyes look dead,” they had said; they hadn’t liked it. Caleb had said the same thing to him. “Wake up,” he’d once said, tapping him on the side of his face. “Where are you?” And so he worked to stay engaged, even though it made the experience more vivid. That night he lay there, watching Willem asleep on his stomach, his arms tucked under his pillow, his face more severe in sleep than it was in wakefulness. He waited, counting to three hundred, and then three hundred again, until an hour had passed. He snapped on the light next to his side of the bed and tried to read, but all he could see was the razor, and all he could feel was his arms tingling with need, as if he had not veins but circuitry, fizzing and blipping with electricity.

事后，他筋疲力盡。他們做愛時(shí)，他總得艱難地設(shè)法讓自己專注在當(dāng)下，不讓自己飄離。他小時(shí)候就學(xué)會(huì)脫離自己，客人會(huì)跟盧克修士抱怨。“他的眼睛看起來死氣沉沉?！彼麄冋f，他們不喜歡這樣。凱萊布也說過類似的話?！靶研寻??！彼谢卣f，拍拍他的側(cè)臉，“你跑去哪里啦？”于是他努力投入，即使這樣會(huì)讓整個(gè)經(jīng)驗(yàn)更鮮明。那一夜他躺在那兒，看著威廉趴在旁邊，手臂塞在枕頭底下，睡覺時(shí)，那張臉比醒著時(shí)更嚴(yán)肅。他等著，數(shù)到三百，然后又?jǐn)?shù)了三百，直到一小時(shí)過去了。他打開自己那一側(cè)的床頭燈，試著看書，但是他唯一能看到的就是刮胡刀片，唯一感覺到的就是雙臂因?yàn)樾枰掏?，仿佛全身的血管都化為電路，隨著通電發(fā)出嘶嘶聲和嗶嗶聲。

　 “Willem,” he whispered, and when Willem didn’t answer, he placed his hand on Willem’s neck, and when Willem didn’t move, he finally got out of bed and walked as softly as he could into their closet, where he retrieved his bag, which he had learned to store in the interior pocket of one of his winter coats, and then out of the room and across the apartment to the bathroom at the opposite end, where he closed the door. Here too there was a large shower, and he sat down inside of it and took off his shirt and leaned his back against the cool stone. His forearms were now so thickened from scar tissue that from a distance, they appeared to have been dipped in plaster, and you could barely distinguish where he had made the cuts in his suicide attempt: he had cut between and around each stripe, layering the cuts, camouflaging the scars. Lately he had begun concentrating more on his upper arms (not the biceps, which were also scarred, but the triceps, which were somehow less satisfying; he liked to see the cuts as he made them without twisting his neck), but now he made long, careful cuts down his left tricep, counting the seconds it took to make each one—one, two, three—against his breaths.

“威廉?！彼p聲喊，威廉沒回應(yīng)，他一手放在威廉的脖子上，威廉也沒動(dòng)。最后他終于下床，盡可能輕手輕腳走進(jìn)衣帽間，把他藏在一件冬天大衣內(nèi)側(cè)口袋的刀片袋拿出來，走出房間，到公寓另一頭的浴室里，關(guān)上門。這里的淋浴間比較大，他坐在里頭，脫掉上衣，背靠著冰冷的大理石。他的前臂現(xiàn)在蓋滿了厚厚的疤痕，從遠(yuǎn)處看，他的手臂就像浸了灰泥，幾乎看不出他企圖自殺時(shí)割下的傷痕。他在每一刀之間和周圍又割下新的刀痕，一層又一層，掩蓋了那些疤。最近，他更常割在上臂（不是疤痕也很多的二頭肌，而是三頭肌，那里感覺比較沒那么滿足，因?yàn)樗矚g不必轉(zhuǎn)頭就看到自己割下的刀痕），但現(xiàn)在他小心翼翼沿著左三頭肌割下長長的痕跡，憋氣數(shù)著每割一道要花的時(shí)間——一秒、兩秒、三秒。

　 Down he cut, four times on his left, and three times on his right, and as he was making the fourth, his hands fluttery from that delicious weakness, he had looked up and had seen Willem in the doorway, watching him. In all his decades of cutting himself, he had never been witnessed in the act itself, and he stopped, abruptly, the violation as shocking as if he had been slugged.

他左臂割了四道，右臂割了三道，正在割第四道時(shí)，雙手因?yàn)樘撊醵环€(wěn)。他一抬頭忽然看到威廉站在門口盯著他。在他割自己的三十多年來，從來沒讓人見過他進(jìn)行中的樣子，他猛然停下，被人侵犯的感覺讓他很震驚，像是挨了一記重拳。

　 Willem didn’t say anything, but as he walked toward him, he cowered, pressing himself against the shower wall, mortified and terrified, waiting for what might happen. He watched Willem crouch, and gently remove the razor from his hand, and for a moment they remained in those positions, both of them staring at the razor. And then Willem stood and, without preamble or warning, sliced the razor across his own chest.

威廉什么也沒說，但是當(dāng)他走向他時(shí)，他畏縮了，往后緊靠著淋浴間的墻壁，難堪又恐懼，等著接下來可能會(huì)發(fā)生的事。他看著威廉蹲下來，溫柔地拿走他手上的刮胡刀片，一時(shí)之間兩人都沒動(dòng)，只是瞪著那刀片。然后威廉站起來，毫無前奏和預(yù)警，就用刀片劃過胸部。

　 He snapped alive, then. “No!” he shouted, and tried to get up, but he didn’t have the strength, and he fell back. “Willem, no!”

他整個(gè)人猛然醒覺。“不要！”他大喊，想站起來，但是沒那個(gè)力氣，于是又往后坐回去。“威廉，不要！”

　 “Fuck!” Willem yelled. “Fuck!” But he made a second cut anyway, right under the first.

“媽的！”威廉喊道，“媽的！”但他還是劃了第二刀，就在第一刀的下方。

　 “Stop it, Willem!” he shouted, almost in tears. “Willem, stop it! You’re hurting yourself!”

“別割了，威廉！”他喊，差點(diǎn)掉淚，“威廉，別割了！你弄傷自己了！”

　 “Oh, yeah?” asked Willem, and he could tell by how bright Willem’s eyes were that he was almost crying himself. “You see what it feels like, Jude?” And he made a third cut, cursing again.

“哦，是嗎？”威廉問，他看得出來威廉的眼睛有多亮，知道他幾乎也要哭出來了?！棒玫?，你明白這是什么感覺了嗎？”然后他劃了第三刀，又罵了粗話。

　 “Willem,” he moaned, and lunged for his feet, but Willem stepped out of his way. “Please stop. Please, Willem.”

“威廉，”他呻吟著，撲向他的雙腳，但威廉往后退開，“拜托別割了。拜托，威廉?！?

　 He had begged and begged, but it was only after the sixth cut that Willem stopped, slumping down against the opposite wall. “Fuck,” he said, quietly, bending over at the waist and wrapping his arms around himself. “Fuck, that hurts.” He scooted over to Willem with his bag to help clean him up, but Willem moved away from him. “Leave me alone, Jude,” he said.

他求了又求，但威廉割了六刀才停下，垮坐在對(duì)面墻底?！皨尩?，”他低聲說，彎下腰，雙手抱住自己，“媽的，好痛。”他趕緊拿著袋子過去，想幫忙清潔傷口，但威廉躲開了?！皠e管我，裘德?！彼f。

　 “But you need to bandage them,” he said.

“但是你得包扎傷口啊?！彼f。

　 “Bandage your own goddamn arms,” Willem said, still not looking at him. “This isn’t some fucked-up ritual we’re going to share, you know: bandaging each other’s self-inflicted cuts.”

“包扎你自己的吧。”威廉說，還是不肯看他?！澳阒溃@可不是我們以后要一起共享的病態(tài)儀式：各自割傷，然后互相包扎?！?

　 He shrank back. “I wasn’t trying to suggest that,” he said, but Willem didn’t answer him, and finally, he did clean off his cuts, and then slid the bag over toward Willem, who at last did the same, wincing as he did.

他往后瑟縮。“我沒有那個(gè)意思?！彼f，但威廉沒回答他。終于，他清理完自己的傷口，然后把袋子推向威廉。威廉也清理了傷口，邊弄邊皺起臉。

　 They sat there in silence for a long, long time, Willem still bent over, he watching Willem. “I’m sorry, Willem,” he said.

他們沉默地坐了好久好久，威廉還是彎著腰。他看著威廉?！皩?duì)不起，威廉。”他說。

　 “Jesus, Jude,” Willem said, a while later. “This really hurts.” He finally looked at him. “How can you stand this?”

“天哪，裘德，”威廉過了一會(huì)兒說，“這真的很痛，”他終于肯看他了，“你怎么受得了？”

　 He shrugged. “You get used to it,” he said, and Willem shook his head.

他聳聳肩，說：“會(huì)習(xí)慣的?！蓖畵u頭。