老年 壞血統(tǒng)的故事
OLD AGE THE STORY OF BAD BLOOD
1
我是一九九五年徹底離開那不勒斯的，那時候人們都說，這個城市正在崛起，但我對于它的崛起已經(jīng)不抱什么希望了。那些年，我看到新火車站、諾瓦拉街上的摩天大樓，以及斯卡姆比亞區(qū)那些展翅欲飛的建筑拔地而起。還有修建在阿萊納奇亞區(qū)灰色的石頭上的、塔代奧·達賽薩街和國家廣場上的那些鱗次櫛比的新建筑。那些建筑在法國或日本被設(shè)計出來，然后在彭蒂塞利和波焦雷亞萊區(qū)被用一種緩慢、晃晃悠悠的方式修建起來，在很短的時間里，這些大樓會失去所有光彩，成為那些絕望的人的巢穴。我們說的是什么復(fù)興呢？那只是現(xiàn)代化的胭脂，胡亂涂抹在這個城市腐朽的臉上，只能讓人覺得滑稽。
I left Naples definitively in 1995, when
? everyone said that the city was reviving. But I no longer believed in its
? resurrections. Over the years I had seen the advent of the new railway
? station, the dull tower of the skyscraper on Via Novara, the soaring
? structures of Scampia, the proliferation of tall, shining buildings above the
? gray stone of Arenaccia, of Via Taddeo da Sessa, of Piazza Nazionale. Those
? buildings, conceived in France or Japan and rising between Ponticelli and
? Poggioreale with the usual breakdowns and delays, had immediately, at high
? speed, lost all their luster and become dens for the desperate. So what
? resurrection? It was only cosmetic, a powder of modernity applied randomly,
? and boastfully, to the corrupt face of the city.
每次都會發(fā)生這樣的事情，重生的口號會點燃人們的希望，一切都會支離破碎，成為殘渣，落在之前的殘渣之上。因此我沒留在那不勒斯，支持在意大利Communist領(lǐng)導(dǎo)下的城市重建，我決定搬去都靈，去一家當(dāng)時勢頭很好的出版社當(dāng)主編。四十歲之后，時間開始狂奔，我沒法跟上來，真實的日歷被合同上的交稿日期取代了，一年一年就隨著一本本書的出版過去了。對于發(fā)生在我還有我女兒身上的事情，很難說出一個具體的日子。我大部分時間都在寫作，我把這些事情都嵌進寫作了，這件事或那件事是什么時候發(fā)生的？我?guī)缀鯐靡环N不自覺的方式，去查看我的書的出版日期。
It happened like that every time. The
? scam of rebirth raised hopes and then shattered them, became crust upon
? ancient crusts. Thus, just as the obligation arose to stay in the city and
? support the revival under the leadership of the former Communist party, I
? decided to leave for Turin, drawn by the possibility of running a publishing
? house that at the time was full of ambition. Once I turned forty, time had
? begun to race, I couldn’t keep up. The real calendar had been replaced by one
? of contract deadlines, the years leaped from one publication to the next;
? giving dates to the events that concerned me, and my daughters, cost me a
? lot, and I forced them into the writing, which took me more and more time.
? When had this or that happened? In an almost heedless way I oriented myself
? by the publication dates of my books.
我已經(jīng)寫了很多書了，這給我?guī)Я艘恍?quán)威和聲譽，還有富裕的生活。隨著時間的流逝，撫養(yǎng)幾個女兒的負擔(dān)也越來越輕省。黛黛和艾爾莎——先是老大，然后是老二——都去波士頓上學(xué)了。彼得羅那時已經(jīng)在哈佛當(dāng)了七八年教授，他鼓勵兩個女兒去美國。和父親在一起，她們很自在。除了有幾次，她們會寫信抱怨那里的氣候，還有波士頓人愛賣弄學(xué)問，她們對自己很滿意，很高興擺脫了很多年前我強迫她們作出的選擇。這時候伊瑪也渴望能像兩個姐姐一樣，我還在城區(qū)做什么？剛開始，回那不勒斯這個選擇給作為作家的我?guī)砹撕锰帯冶究梢赃x擇生活在別處，但卻留在了一個充滿危險的城郊，繼續(xù)接觸現(xiàn)實，從中汲取素材，但現(xiàn)在有很多知識分子都會這么做，其次是因為我的書選擇了其他的道路，城區(qū)的主題已經(jīng)退縮到一個角落了，我現(xiàn)在擁有一定的名聲和地位，假如我把自己的生活限定在一個很小的空間里，只能不安地記載我的兄弟姐妹、朋友、他們的孩子和侄子外甥，甚至是我的女兒的生活一步步惡化，這難道不是一種虛偽？
I now had quite a few books behind me,
? and they had won me some authority, a good reputation, a comfortable life.
? Over time the weight of my daughters had greatly diminished. Dede and
? Elsa—first one, then the other—had gone to study in Boston, encouraged by
? Pietro, who for seven or eight years had had a professorship at Harvard. They
? were at ease with their father. Apart from the letters in which they
? complained about the cruel climate and the pedantry of the Bostonians, they
? were satisfied, with themselves and with escaping the choices that, in the
? past, I had compelled them to confront. At that point, since Imma was
? desperate to do what her sisters had, what was I doing in the neighborhood?
? If at first the image of the writer who, although able to live elsewhere, had
? stayed in a dangerous outlying neighborhood to continue to nourish herself on
? reality, had been useful to me, now there were many intellectuals who prided
? themselves on the same cliché. And my books had taken other paths, the
? material of the neighborhood had been set aside. Wasn’t it therefore
? hypocritical to have a certain fame, and many advantages, and yet to limit
? myself, to live in a place where I could only record uneasily the
? deterioration of the lives of my siblings, my friends, their children and
? grandchildren, maybe even of my last daughter?
伊瑪當(dāng)時是一個十四歲的小姑娘，她學(xué)習(xí)很努力，生活上也什么都不缺。但她說一口粗糲的方言，她的同學(xué)我都不喜歡，假如她晚飯后出去，我會非常不安，但她常常會自覺待在家里。我自己不怎么出去，我在那不勒斯的生活很局限，我會和那不勒斯文化圈的朋友見面，會有一些男人追求我，后來都不了了之，非常短暫。那些非常出色的男人生活在這里，他們遲早也會為成為失望的人，對自己的處境感到憤怒，他們很風(fēng)趣，但總夾雜著一絲惡意。有時候我感覺到，他們追求我只是為了讓我看看他們的稿子，詢問我對于電視或者電影的看法，有時候只是為了向我借錢，然后就消失了。我強顏歡笑，很艱難地維系著我的社會和感情生活。晚上穿上漂亮的衣服從家里出去，對我來說不是一種樂趣，而是一種懲罰。有一次，我沒有來得及關(guān)上大門，就被兩個不到十三歲的男孩搶劫了，那個出租車司機在距離我兩步遠的地方等著，他一直沒有從窗口探出頭來。因此我決定離開。一九九五年夏天，我和伊瑪一起離開了那不勒斯。
Imma was then fourteen; I didn’t deprive
? her of anything, and she studied hard. But if necessary she spoke in a harsh
? dialect, she had schoolmates I didn’t like, I was so worried if she went out
? after dinner that often she decided to stay home. I, too, when I was in the
? city, had a limited life. I saw my friends from cultured Naples, I let myself
? be courted and embarked on relationships, but they never lasted. Even the
? most brilliant men sooner or later turned out to be disillusioned, raging at
? a cruel fate, witty and yet subtly malicious. At times I had the impression
? that they wanted me mainly so that they could give me their manuscripts to
? read, ask me about television or the movies, in some cases borrow money that
? they never paid back. I made the best of it, exerting myself to have a social
? and emotional life. But going out at night, dressed up, wasn’t a pleasure, it
? was a cause of anxiety. On one occasion I didn’t have time to close the
? street door behind me before I was beaten and robbed by two kids who were no
? more than thirteen. The taxi driver, who was waiting right out front, didn’t
? even look out the window. So in the summer of 1995 I left Naples with Imma.
我在波河沿岸租了一套房子，就在伊莎貝拉橋邊上，我和小女兒的生活馬上就好了很多。對我來說，住在都靈，讓反思那不勒斯的一切變得更加容易，我能更清醒地描述它。我熱愛我的城市，但我再也不會捍衛(wèi)它。我確信，我對那不勒斯的不安和沮喪遲早會消失，但對它的愛就像一個鏡子，可以讓我看到整個西方。那不斯勒是一個歐洲大都市，它的姿態(tài)很明確：相信技術(shù)、科學(xué)和經(jīng)濟發(fā)展，相信自然是善意的，歷史會向好的方向發(fā)展，相信民主會得到普及，但一切都缺乏根基。我有一次寫道——我想到的不是我自己，而是莉拉的悲觀主義——出生在那不勒斯，只在一個方面有用，就是從一開始我們就幾乎本能地知道：夢想著毫無限度的發(fā)展，其實是一個充滿暴力和死亡的噩夢，現(xiàn)在很多人都不約而同地產(chǎn)生了類似的想法。
I rented an apartment on the Po, near the
? Isabella Bridge, and my life and that of my third daughter immediately
? improved. From there it became simpler to reflect on Naples, to write about
? it and let myself write about it with lucidity. I loved my city, but I
? uprooted from myself any dutiful defense of it. I was convinced, rather, that
? the anguish in which that love sooner or later ended was a lens through which
? to look at the entire West. Naples was the great European metropolis where
? faith in technology, in science, in economic development, in the kindness of
? nature, in history that leads of necessity to improvement, in democracy, was
? revealed, most clearly and far in advance, to be completely without
? foundation. To be born in that city—I went so far as to write once, thinking
? not of myself but of Lila’s pessimism—is useful for only one thing: to have
? always known, almost instinctively, what today, with endless fine
? distinctions, everyone is beginning to claim: that the dream of unlimited
? progress is in reality a nightmare of savagery and death.
二〇〇〇年伊瑪去巴黎上學(xué)了，我又成了一個人。我盡量說服她不要去，我說沒這個必要，但她周圍的朋友都作出了這個選擇，她也不想落后。剛開始，我沒覺得太難過，因為我有很多事情要做。但過了兩年，我開始感覺到年老的到來，就好像我自己，還有我取得成功的那個世界都在慢慢淡去。盡管我的幾部作品都獲得了一些非常重要的獎項，但那些書賣得很少，比如說二〇〇三年，我寫的十三本小說還有兩本雜文，一共給我?guī)砹藘汕俣龤W元的收入。我應(yīng)該采取對策，我的老讀者對我已經(jīng)沒什么期待了，那些年輕的讀者——準(zhǔn)確來說應(yīng)該是女讀者，從我開始寫作以來，我的大部分讀者都是女性——她們都有著別的品味和興趣。為報紙撰稿也不再是一個收入來源，報紙對我已經(jīng)失去興趣了，編輯也很少找我約稿，要么他們會給我很少的稿費，要么就一點兒錢也不給。至于電視，在九十年代的幾次成功演播之后，我試著做了一個關(guān)于古希臘和古羅馬文學(xué)的節(jié)目，是一個下午的節(jié)目。產(chǎn)生這樣一個想法，只是因為幾個朋友——其中包括阿爾曼多·加利亞尼的建議，他在廣播5臺有自己的節(jié)目，他和國家電視臺的人關(guān)系不錯。結(jié)果那個節(jié)目徹頭徹尾地失敗了，我再也沒有過類似的工作機會。我之前一直擔(dān)任主編的出版社，也開始走下坡路。二〇〇四年，一個三十多歲、很聰明的小伙子讓我出局了，我成了一個外部顧問。我六十歲了，感覺自己走到了職業(yè)生涯的盡頭。在都靈，冬天太冷，夏天太熱，文化圈的人都不是很熱情，男人眼里已經(jīng)沒有我了。我很焦慮，晚上睡得很少。我從陽臺上看著波河，河上劃船的人，還有旁邊的小山，我很厭倦。
In 2000 I was left alone; Imma went to
? study in Paris. I tried to convince her that there was no need, but since
? many of her friends had decided to go, she didn’t want to be left out. At
? first it didn’t bother me, I had a busy life. But within a few years I began
? to feel old age, it was as if I were fading along with the world in which I
? had established myself. Although I had won, at various times and with various
? works, some prestigious prizes, my books were now hardly selling at all: in
? 2003, for example, the thirteen novels and two volumes of essays I had
? published earned altogether twenty-three hundred and twenty-three euros
? before taxes. I had to acknowledge, at that point, that my audience expected
? nothing more from me and that younger readers—it would be more accurate to
? say younger women readers; from the start it was mainly women who read my
? books—had other tastes, other interests. The newspapers were no longer a
? source of income, either. They weren’t interested in me; they rarely asked
? for articles, and paid nothing or next to nothing. As for television, after
? some successful experiences in the nineties, I had tried to do an afternoon
? show devoted to classics of Greek and Latin literature, an idea that was
? accepted only thanks to the regard of some friends, including Armando
? Galiani, who had a show on Channel 5 but good relations with public
? television. It was an unquestionable fiasco and I had not had other
? opportunities. Things also deteriorated at the publishing house I had run for
? many years. In the fall of 2004 I was pushed out by a clever young man,
? scarcely over thirty, and reduced to an external consultant. I was sixty, I
? felt my journey was ending. In Turin the winters were too cold, the summers
? too hot, the cultured classes unwelcoming. I was anxious, I didn’t sleep
? much. Men no longer noticed me. I looked out at the Po from my balcony, at
? the rowers, the hill, and I was bored.
我開始頻繁去那不勒斯，但我已經(jīng)不想再見我的親戚朋友了，他們也不想見我。我只和莉拉見面，但經(jīng)常我連她的面也不見，她讓我很不自在。最近幾年，她對那不勒斯產(chǎn)生了激情，但在我看來，那是一種很粗野的地方主義。我更愿意一個人沿著卡拉喬洛海濱路走，走上沃美羅，或者去法院路散步。二〇〇六年春天，我在維托里奧·埃曼努埃萊大街的一家老賓館住著，天開始下雨，一直停不下來，我關(guān)在房間里出不去。為了打發(fā)時間，我開始寫作，在短暫的幾天時間里，我寫了一篇大約八十頁的小說，以城區(qū)為背景，講了蒂娜的故事。我寫得很快，沒有時間去虛構(gòu)，結(jié)果寫出了一些干巴巴、很直接的文字，故事的結(jié)尾是通過想象加上去的。
I began to go more frequently to Naples,
? but I had no wish to see friends and relatives, and friends and relatives had
? no wish to see me. I saw only Lila, but often, by my choice, not even her.
? She made me uneasy. In recent years she had become passionate about the city
? with a chauvinism that seemed crude, so I preferred to walk alone on Via
? Caracciolo, or go up to the Vomero, or walk through the Tribunali. So it
? happened that in the spring of 2006, shut up in an old hotel on Corso
? Vittorio Emanuele during an incessant rain, I wrote, in a few days, to pass
? the time, a narrative of scarcely eighty pages that was set in the
? neighborhood and told the story of Tina. I wrote it rapidly in order not to
? give myself time to invent. The pages were terse, direct. The story took off
? imaginatively only at the end.
我在二〇〇七年秋天發(fā)表了這篇小說，題目是《友誼》。這本書很受歡迎，到現(xiàn)在還賣得很好，學(xué)校老師會讓學(xué)生讀這本書，作為暑假作業(yè)。
I published the book in the fall of 2007
? with the title A Friendship. It was very well received, and it still sells
? well today; teachers recommend it to students as summer reading.
但我很討厭這本書。
But I hate it.
在這本書出版兩年前，吉耀拉的尸體在城區(qū)小花園里被發(fā)現(xiàn)時——她死于心臟病發(fā)作，一場慘淡、孤寂、可怕的死亡——莉拉讓我答應(yīng)她，永遠都不會寫她，但我沒信守諾言，我用一種最直接的手法把她的故事寫了出來。有幾個月，我相信這是我至今為止寫得最好的一本書，我作為作家達到了新的頂峰，我已經(jīng)有很長時間沒受到關(guān)注了。但二〇〇七年年末快要到圣誕節(jié)時，我去馬爾蒂里廣場上的菲爾特瑞奈利書店推廣這本書，我忽然為自己感到羞恥，我很擔(dān)心在人群里看到莉拉，她可能會出現(xiàn)在第一排，已經(jīng)做好了提問的準(zhǔn)備，隨時會讓我陷入尷尬和困境。但那天晚上一切都很順利，我受到了大家的歡迎?；氐劫e館，我感覺信心大增，我試著給她打電話，先是固定電話，然后是手機，后來又打了固定電話，她沒有接。從那以后，她再也沒有接過我的電話。
Just two years earlier, when Gigliola’s
? body was found in the gardens—she had died of a heart attack, in solitude, a
? death terrible in its bleakness—Lila had made me promise that I would never
? write about her. Instead, here, I had done it, and I had done it in the most
? direct way. For a few months I believed that I had written my best book, and
? my fame as a writer took off again; it was a long time since I’d had such
? success. But already by the end of 2007—during the Christmas season—when I
? went to Feltrinelli in Piazza dei Martiri to present A Friendship, I suddenly
? felt ashamed and was afraid of seeing Lila in the audience, maybe the front
? row, ready to interrupt and make trouble for me. But the evening went very
? well, I was much celebrated. When I returned to the hotel, a bit more
? confident, I tried to telephone her, first on the regular phone, then on the
? cell, then again on the other. She didn’t answer, she hasn’t answered me
? since.
2
我沒辦法講述莉拉的痛苦，她命中注定遇到的那些事情，可能一直都潛伏在她的生活里：她女兒不是因為生病、事故或者暴力事件死去，而是忽然消失了。她的痛苦沒有著落，她沒有一具失去生命的身體可以擁抱，也不能舉行一場葬禮，她不能停在孩子的遺體前失聲痛哭，想著她剛才還在走路，奔跑，說話，擁抱母親，但忽然間就消失了。我覺得莉拉一定感覺到了一陣強烈的撞擊，一分鐘之前，蒂娜還是她身體的一部分，但一下子她女兒就脫離了出去，沒有經(jīng)歷生離死別，就消失得無影無蹤，我無法充分體會她的痛苦，也沒有辦法想象。
I don’t know how to recount Lila’s grief.
? What befell her, what had perhaps been lying in wait in her life forever, was
? not the death of a daughter through illness, an accident, an act of violence,
? but her daughter’s sudden disappearance. The grief couldn’t coagulate around
? anything. She had no lifeless body to cling to in despair, there was no one
? for whom to hold a funeral, she couldn’t linger before a corpse that had
? walked, run, talked, hugged her, and had ended up a broken thing. Lila felt,
? I think, as if a limb, which until a moment before had been part of her body,
? had lost form and substance without undergoing any trauma. But I don’t know
? the suffering that derived from it well enough, nor can I imagine it.
在失去蒂娜之后的十年時間里，盡管我們繼續(xù)住在同一棟樓里，我每天都會看到她，但我從來都沒看到她哭過，也沒有看到她絕望發(fā)狂的時刻。她先是日日夜夜在城區(qū)里跑來跑去，尋找她的女兒，毫無結(jié)果，后來她好像太疲憊了，不再繼續(xù)尋找，她坐在廚房的窗前，一動不動，一坐就是大半天，盡管從那里只能看到一小段鐵路，還有一丁點藍天。后來她又回到了日常生活里，但一點兒也沒有聽天由命，她的脾氣越來越壞了，讓周圍的人很不舒服，也很害怕。歲月在她身上留下痕跡，她在叫喊和爭吵中日益老去。剛開始，她在任何時候和任何人都會說起蒂娜，她死死地抓住這個名字，好像提到女兒的名字，就會讓她回到自己身邊。但之后，再在她跟前提蒂娜的名字變得不可能，甚至我在她面前提到蒂娜，幾秒之后她就會摔門而去。她對彼得羅寫的一封信表示欣賞，我覺得這是因為他表達了自己的慰問，但從來都沒有提蒂娜的名字。包括一九九五年，在我離開之前，除了很少幾次提到蒂娜，她表現(xiàn)得就好像什么事兒也沒發(fā)生一樣。有一次皮諾奇婭提到蒂娜，說她像一個天使，在天上看著我們所有人，莉拉對她說：“滾！”
In the ten years that followed the loss
? of Tina, although I continued to live in the same building, although I met
? Lila every day, I never saw her cry, I never witnessed a crisis of despair.
? After at first rushing through the neighborhood, day and night, in that vain
? search for her daughter, she gave in as if she were too weary. She sat beside
? the kitchen window and didn’t move for a long period, even though from there
? you could see only a slice of the railroad and a little sky. Then she pulled
? herself together and began normal life again, but without resignation. The
? years washed over her, her nasty character got even worse, she sowed
? uneasiness and fear, she grew old screeching, quarreling. At first she talked
? about Tina on every occasion and with anyone, she clung to the name of the
? child as if uttering it would serve to bring her back. But later it was
? impossible even to mention that loss in her presence, and even if it was I
? who did so she got rid of me rudely after a few seconds. She seemed to appreciate
? only a letter from Pietro, mainly—I think—because he managed to write to her
? lovingly without ever mentioning Tina. Even in 1995, before I left, except on
? very rare occasions she acted as if nothing had happened. Once Pinuccia spoke
? of the child as a little angel watching over us all. Lila said: Get out.
3
在我們的城區(qū)里，沒有任何人對于執(zhí)法機關(guān)和報紙抱有希望。男人、女人，甚至那些少年幫派，他們完全無視警察和電視，都在找蒂娜，找了一天又一天，一個星期又一個星期。所有親戚朋友都發(fā)動起來了。唯一偶爾打來電話的人是尼諾，他會說一些泛泛的話，唯一的目的就是重申：“我沒任何責(zé)任，我已經(jīng)把孩子交給莉娜和恩佐了。”但我一點兒也不驚異，他就是那種會陪著小孩一起玩兒的大人，但孩子跌倒了，摔破了膝蓋，他們也會變得和孩子一樣，擔(dān)心有人會對他說：“是你讓孩子摔倒的?！币矝]人想到他，在幾個小時之后，我們就忘了他這個人。恩佐和莉拉最信任的人是安東尼奧，發(fā)生這樣的事情之后，為了找到蒂娜，他又一次推遲了去德國的時間。他這么做是因為友誼，讓我們吃驚的是，他說這也是米凱萊·索拉拉交待的。
No one in the neighborhood put faith in
? the forces of order or in the journalists. Men, women, even gangs of kids
? spent days and weeks looking for Tina, ignoring the police and television.
? All the relatives, all the friends were mobilized. The only one who turned up
? just a couple of times—and by telephone, with generic phrases that existed
? only to be repeated: I have no responsibility, I had just handed the child
? over to Lina and Enzo—was Nino. But I wasn’t surprised, he was one of those
? adults who when they play with a child and the child falls and skins his knee
? behave like children themselves, afraid that someone will say: It was you who
? let him fall. Besides, no one gave him any importance, we forgot about him in
? a few hours. Enzo and Lila trusted Antonio above all, and he put off his
? departure for Germany yet again, to track down Tina. He did it out of
? friendship but also, as he himself explained, surprising us, because Michele
? Solara had ordered him to.
索拉拉兄弟比任何人都投入到孩子失蹤的事情中。我不得不說，他們很多時候都是做做樣子，讓人們看到他們在采取行動。盡管他們知道自己不受歡迎，有一天晚上，他們還是出現(xiàn)在莉拉家里，他們用一種代表整個城區(qū)的語氣，說他們想盡辦法，盡一切努力使蒂娜完好無損地回到她父母的身邊。莉拉一直都盯著索拉拉兄弟，好像根本聽不到他們在說什么。恩佐臉色非常蒼白，他聽他們說了幾分鐘，然后大聲說，是他們把孩子帶走了。他在其他場合也說過這樣的話，他對所有人說，索拉拉兄弟把蒂娜帶走了，因為他和莉拉一直拒絕給他們分公司的利潤。他期望有人能提出反對，他好跟人動手，但當(dāng)著他的面，沒人說什么，那天晚上索拉拉兄弟也沒說什么。
The Solaras undertook more than anyone
? else in that business of the child’s disappearance and—I have to say—they
? made their involvement highly visible. Although they knew they would be
? treated with hostility they appeared one evening at Lila’s house with the
? attitude of those who are speaking for an entire community, and they vowed
? they would do everything possible to return Tina safe and sound to her
? parents. Lila stared at them the whole time as if she saw them but didn’t
? hear them. Enzo, extremely pale, listened for a few minutes and then cried
? that it was they who had taken his daughter. He said it then and on many
? other occasions, he shouted it everywhere: the Solaras had taken Tina away
? from them because he and Lila had refused to give them a percentage of the
? profits of Basic Sight. He wanted someone to object so that he could murder
? him. But no one ever objected in his presence. That evening not even the two
? brothers objected.
“我們理解你的痛苦?！瘪R爾切洛說，“假如有人把我的西爾維奧帶走的話，我也會跟你一樣，會瘋了的?！?/p>
“We understand your grief,” Marcello
? said. “If they had taken Silvio I would have gone mad, just like you.”
他們等著有人讓恩佐平靜下來，然后走了。第二天，他們讓各自的妻子——吉耀拉和埃莉莎——過來探望，莉拉和恩佐很冷淡地接待了她們，但并沒有失禮。在這之后，他們尋找得更賣力了，可能就是索拉拉兄弟，組織人掃蕩了所有通常來城區(qū)擺攤的小商小販，還有周圍所有吉普賽人的營地。當(dāng)然，也是他們組織那些憤怒的民眾，針對那些開著警車、鳴著警笛過來抓人的警察。他們先抓了斯特凡諾——他那個階段第一次心臟病發(fā)作，后來住院了，他們還抓了里諾，但幾天后就被放出來了，最后甚至是詹納羅，他哭了好幾個小時，發(fā)誓說他比世界上任何人都愛這個小妹妹，他永遠都不可能傷害她。無法排除的是，索拉拉兄弟派人在小學(xué)門口守著，因為他們的緣故，那個在小學(xué)門口誘拐兒童的變態(tài)狂，才從一個道聽途說的傳言成了一件有理有據(jù)的事兒。那是一個三十多歲的瘦小男人，盡管沒孩子要接送，但他一直出現(xiàn)在學(xué)校門口。他被痛打了一頓，逃走了，他被一群憤怒的人追打到了小花園那里。假如他沒把話說清楚，那他肯定會被人們打死。他說，他不是人們想象的變態(tài)，他只是《晨報》的實習(xí)生，正在尋找素材。
They waited for someone to calm Enzo and
? they left. The next day they sent on a courtesy call their wives, Gigliola
? and Elisa, who were welcomed without warmth but more politely. And later they
? multiplied their initiatives. Probably it was the Solaras who organized a
? sort of roundup of all the street peddlers who were usually present in the
? neighborhood on Sundays and holidays and of all the Gypsies in the area. And
? certainly they were at the head of a real surge of anger against the police
? when they arrived, sirens blasting, to arrest Stefano, who had his first
? heart attack at that time and ended up in the hospital, and then Rino, who
? was released in a few days, and finally Gennaro, who wept for hours, swearing
? that he loved his little sister more than any other person in the world and
? would never harm her. Nor can it be ruled out that they were the ones
? responsible for surveillance of the elementary school—thanks to which the
? “faggot seducer of children,” who until then had been only a popular fantasy,
? materialized. A slender man of around thirty who, although he didn’t have
? children to deliver to the entrance and pick up at the exit, appeared just
? the same at the school, was beaten, managed to escape, was pursued by a
? furious mob to the gardens. There he would surely have been murdered if he
? hadn’t managed to explain that he wasn’t what they thought but a trainee at
? Il Mattino looking for news.
經(jīng)過那個事件之后，城區(qū)逐漸平靜下來了，人們逐漸恢復(fù)了之前的生活。因為沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)任何關(guān)于蒂娜的線索，她被大卡車軋了的傳言越來越可信了，那些厭倦于尋找的人，還有警察和記者都相信了這一點。人們的注意力放在了那個地區(qū)的工地上，那里停工已經(jīng)很久了。這時候，我重新見到阿爾曼多·加利亞尼——我高中老師的兒子，他已經(jīng)不再做醫(yī)生了，他在一九八三年的選舉中沒能進入議會，現(xiàn)在通過一家不怎么樣的私人電臺在嘗試一種非常尖銳的報道方式。我得知，他父親在一年多前死了，她母親在法國生活，身體也不怎么好。他讓我陪著他去找莉拉，我跟他說，莉拉現(xiàn)在狀態(tài)不好，但他依然堅持要去。我給莉拉打了電話，莉拉費了很大力氣才想起了阿爾曼多，想起他來之后——到那時候為止，她還沒和任何記者談過——她同意見面。阿爾曼多解釋說，他正在做一個地震后的報道，他在那些工地里走動時，他聽說有一輛卡車被快速報廢了，那是因為它卷入了一件很惡劣的事情。莉拉讓他說了一會兒，然后說：
After that episode the neighborhood began
? to settle down, people slowly slipped back into the life of every day. Since
? no trace of Tina was found, the rumor of the truck hitting her became
? increasingly plausible. Those who were tired of searching took it seriously,
? both police and journalists. Attention shifted to the construction sites in
? the area and remained there for a long time. It was at that point that I saw
? Armando Galiani, the son of my high-school teacher. He had stopped practicing
? medicine, had lost in the parliamentary elections of 1983, and now, thanks to
? a scruffy local television station, he was attempting an aggressive type of
? journalism. I knew that his father had died a little over a year earlier and
? that his mother lived in France but wasn’t in good health, either. He asked
? me to take him to Lila’s, I said Lila wasn’t at all well. He insisted, I
? telephoned. Lila struggled to remember Armando, but when she did she—who
? until that moment hadn’t spoken to journalists—agreed to see him. Armando
? explained that he had been investigating the aftermath of the earthquake and
? that traveling around to the construction sites he had heard of a truck that
? was scrapped in a hurry because of a terrible thing it had been involved in.
? Lila let him speak, then said:
“這都是你的想象?！?/p>
“You’re making it all up.”
“我只是告訴你我所知道的事情?！?/p>
“I’m saying what I know.”
“你根本就不在乎什么卡車、工地和我女兒。”
“You don’t care a thing about the truck,
? the construction sites, or my daughter.”
“你在罵我嗎？”
“You’re insulting me.”
“不，剛才不算，我現(xiàn)在開始罵你：你是一個很爛的醫(yī)生，一個很爛的革命者，現(xiàn)在你是一個很爛的記者，從我家里滾出去！”
“No, I’ll insult you now. You were
? disgusting as a doctor, disgusting as a revolutionary, and now you’re
? disgusting as a journalist. Get out of my house.”
阿爾曼多的眉毛皺了起來，他跟恩佐打了一個招呼就走了。我們到了外面，他表現(xiàn)得很難過。他嘟囔著說：“即使是這么大的痛苦，也沒能改變她，你跟她說說，我想幫助她?！彼麑ξ疫M行了一個非常漫長的采訪，然后我們告別了。讓我印象很深的是他和氣的態(tài)度，還有他說話時的措辭。他應(yīng)該度過了非常艱難的時刻，先是她妹妹娜迪亞作出的選擇，后來是他和妻子分開。他看起來很精神，他之前那種對反資本主義無所不知的態(tài)度，現(xiàn)在變成了一種痛楚的厭世。
Armando scowled, nodded goodbye to Enzo,
? and left. Out on the street he looked annoyed. He said: Not even that great
? sorrow has changed her, tell her I wanted to help. Then he did a long
? interview with me and we said goodbye. I was struck by his kind manners, by
? his attentiveness to words. He must have been through some bad times both
? when Nadia made her decisions and when he separated from his wife. Now,
? though, he seemed in good shape. His old attitude, of a know-it-all who
? follows a strict anticapitalist line, had turned into a painful cynicism.
“意大利現(xiàn)在變成了一個盲井?！彼猛纯嗟恼Z調(diào)說，“所有人都掉了進去，你四處看看，那些善良的人都明白了這一點。埃萊娜，真的太遺憾了，工人階級的黨派里有很多誠實正直的人，但他們都已經(jīng)失去希望了。”
“Italy has become a cesspool,” he said in
? an aggrieved tone, “and we’ve all ended up in it. If you travel around, you
? see that the respectable people have understood. What a pity, Elena, what a
? pity. The workers’ parties are full of honest people who have been left
? without hope.”
“為什么你要做現(xiàn)在這份工作？”
“Why did you start doing this job?”
“和你做你的工作原因一樣。”
“For the same reason you do yours.”
“也就是說？”
“What’s that?”
“當(dāng)我毫無遮掩時，我發(fā)現(xiàn)自己很虛榮?！?/p>
“Once I was unable to hide behind
? anything, I discovered I was vain.”
“誰說我很虛榮?！?/p>
“Who says I’m vain?”
“對比而言，你的朋友一點兒也不虛榮，我為她感到難過，虛榮是一種資源。假如你很虛榮，你會很小心你自己，還有你自己的東西。莉拉一點兒也不虛榮，因此她失去了女兒。”
“The comparison: your friend isn’t. But
? I’m sorry for her, vanity is a resource. If you’re vain you pay attention to
? yourself and your affairs. Lina is without vanity, so she lost her daughter.”
我聽了一陣子他的電臺，他似乎做得很出色。他在紅橋那里找到了一輛燒掉的卡車架子，他把這輛卡車和蒂娜的失蹤聯(lián)系在一起。這個消息引起了一陣轟動，后來出現(xiàn)在全國的報紙上，有一陣子，人們都在談?wù)撨@事兒。最后事情搞清楚了，這輛被燒的卡車和孩子的失蹤沒有任何關(guān)系。莉拉跟我說：
I followed his work for a while, he
? seemed good at it. He tracked down the burned-out wreck of an old vehicle in
? the neighborhood of the Ponti Rossi, and connected it to Tina’s
? disappearance. The news caused a certain sensation, it reverberated in the national
? dailies, and remained in the news for several days. Then it was ascertained
? that there was no possible connection between the burned vehicle and the
? child’s disappearance. Lila said to me:
“蒂娜活著，我再也不想見到那個爛人?！?/p>
“Tina is alive, I never want to see that
? piece of shit again.”
4
我不知道她在多長時間里一直相信她女兒還活著。恩佐越是絕望哭泣，越是憤恨，莉拉就越說：“你看吧，他們會把孩子還回來的。”她從來都不相信是那輛卡車肇事逃走。她說，如果事情真是那樣，她一定會馬上察覺的，她一定會比任何人更早聽到撞擊聲或者叫喊。我覺得，她也不贊同恩佐的看法，她從來都沒有說孩子丟了的事兒和索拉拉兄弟有關(guān)。但有很長一段時間，她認為是她的一個客戶把蒂娜帶走了，因為他知道“Basic
? Sight”的經(jīng)營情況，他一定是想要讓他們用錢把孩子贖回去。這也是安東尼奧的看法，不知道有什么具體的依據(jù)。警察當(dāng)然覺得這是有可能的，但他們從來都沒有接到要錢的電話，最后也只能不了了之。
I don’t know how long she believed that
? her daughter was still alive. The more Enzo despaired, worn out by tears and
? rage, the more Lila said: You’ll see, they’ll give her back. Certainly she
? never believed in the hit-and-run truck, she said that she would have noticed
? right away, that before anyone else she would have heard the collision, or at
? least a cry. And it didn’t seem to me that she gave credence to Enzo’s
? thesis, either, she never alluded to involvement on the part of the Solaras.
? Instead for a long period she thought that one of her clients had taken Tina,
? someone who knew what Basic Sight earned and wanted money in exchange for the
? child. That was also Antonio’s thesis, but it’s hard to say what concrete
? facts inspired it. Of course the police were interested in that possibility,
? but since there were never any telephone calls asking for ransom they finally
? let it go.
城區(qū)里的人持有兩種觀點，大部分人認為蒂娜已經(jīng)死了，小部分人認為她被關(guān)在了某個地方，我們這些愛莉拉的人屬于少數(shù)派。卡門非?？隙ㄟ@種可能，她遇到誰都會這樣說，假如有人認為蒂娜死了，那就會成為她的敵人。我聽見她有一次對恩佐說：“你告訴莉娜，帕斯卡萊和我們想法一樣，他覺得孩子一定能找到的?！钡蟛糠秩瞬荒敲凑J為，他們覺得那些繼續(xù)尋找蒂娜的人，要么很蠢，要么很虛偽。他們對于莉拉的看法也變了，覺得她的腦子幫不了她。
The neighborhood was soon divided into a
? majority that believed Tina was dead and a minority that thought she was
? alive and a prisoner somewhere. We who loved Lila dearly were part of that
? minority. Carmen was so sure of it that she repeated it insistently to
? everyone, and if, as time passed, someone was persuaded that Tina was dead
? she became that person’s enemy. I once heard her whisper to Enzo: Tell Lina
? that Pasquale is with you, he thinks the child will be found. But the
? majority prevailed, and those who kept on looking for Tina seemed to the
? majority either stupid or hypocritical. People also began to think that
? Lila’s intelligence wasn’t helping her.
卡門是第一個意識到：在蒂娜失蹤之前人們對莉拉的支持，以及孩子失蹤之后大家對她的安慰，都是非常表面的，在這些安慰和支持下面是對她根深蒂固的討厭。她對我說：“你看，以前人們都覺得她像圣母一樣，現(xiàn)在他們連看都不看她一眼，就過去了?！蔽乙查_始注意到這一點，我意識到事情真是這樣的。人們內(nèi)心深處一定是這么想的：蒂娜丟了，我們也很難過，但這意味著，假如你真是你之前表現(xiàn)的那么有能耐，那肯定沒人敢碰她的。我們一起走在路上，人們開始跟我而不是跟她打招呼。她那副心神不安的模樣，還有遭遇不幸的慘淡讓人很擔(dān)憂?？傊菂^(qū)里那些以前認為莉拉可以取代索拉拉兄弟的人也失望地退縮了。
Carmen was the first to intuit that the
? respect our friend had inspired before Tina’s disappearance and the
? solidarity that arose afterward were both superficial, an old aversion toward
? her lurked underneath. Look, she said to me, once they treated her as if she
? were the Madonna and now they pass by her without even a glance. I began to
? pay attention and saw that it was true. Deep inside, people thought: we’re
? sorry you lost Tina, but it means that if you had truly been what you wanted
? us to believe, nothing and no one would have touched you. On the street, when
? we were together, they began to greet me but not her. They were put off by
? her troubled expression and the cloud of misfortune they saw around her. In
? other words, the part of the neighborhood that had become used to thinking of
? Lila as an alternative to the Solaras withdrew in disappointment.
不僅僅如此，剛開始幾天人們的善意舉動，后來充滿了惡意。在她家大門口，在“Basic
? Sight”門口，剛開始幾個星期出現(xiàn)了一些寫給莉拉，或者是寫給蒂娜的紙條，甚至是一些從課本上抄的詩歌，后來開始有一些媽媽、奶奶和孩子送來的玩具、發(fā)卡、彩色的皮筋，還有穿過的鞋子，最后出現(xiàn)了手工縫制的表情很可怕的娃娃，上面有紅色的墨水，還有一些包在骯臟的破布里小動物的尸體。莉拉靜靜地把每樣?xùn)|西都撿了起來，扔到了垃圾桶里，但忽然間，她開始叫喊，大聲咒罵經(jīng)過那里的任何人，尤其是罵那些從遠處看著她的小孩子，她從一個讓人同情的母親，變成了一個讓人害怕的瘋子。有一次莉拉狠狠罵了一個女孩，那個女孩用粉筆在門上寫了一句：“蒂娜被鬼吃了?！焙髞磉@個女孩得了重病，之前關(guān)于莉拉的那些謠傳又回來了，就好像看她一眼都會帶來不幸。
Not only that. An initiative was
? undertaken that at first seemed kind but then became malicious. In the early
? weeks, flowers, emotional notes addressed to Lila or directly to Tina, even
? poems copied from schoolbooks appeared at the entrance to the house, at the
? door of Basic Sight. Then there were old toys brought by mothers,
? grandmothers, and children. Then barrettes, colorful hair ribbons, old shoes.
? Then puppets sewed by hand, with ugly sneers, stained with red, and animal
? carcasses wrapped in dirty rags. Since Lila calmly picked everything up and
? threw it into the trash, but suddenly began screaming horrible curses at
? anyone who passed by, especially the children, who observed her from a
? distance, she went from being a mother who inspired pity to a madwoman who
? spread terror. When a girl she had been angry with because she had seen her
? writing with chalk on the doorway, the dead are eating Tina, became seriously
? ill, old rumors joined the new and people avoided Lila, as if just to look at
? her could bring misfortune.
她自己好像沒覺察到這一點，她確信蒂娜還活著，她全身心地相信這一點，這把她推向了伊瑪。在開始幾個月，我盡量減少我的小女兒和她的接觸，我擔(dān)心莉拉看見她會更加痛苦，但莉拉不停地想要伊瑪和她待在一起，假如我允許，她讓孩子晚上也睡在她家里。有一天早上，我去她家接伊瑪，門虛掩著，我就進去了，孩子正在問蒂娜的事兒。在那個星期天蒂娜出事兒之后，為了讓伊瑪平靜下來，我一直都跟她說，蒂娜去了阿維利諾恩佐一個親戚家了，但她會一直追問，蒂娜到底什么時候回來。現(xiàn)在，她直接問莉拉，但莉拉好像沒聽到伊瑪?shù)穆曇?，她沒回答，而是仔細說起了蒂娜出生時的事兒，她的第一個玩具，還有她吃奶時很投入根本停不下來，諸如此類的事兒。我在門檻那里聽了幾秒鐘，我聽見伊瑪忽然很不耐心地打斷了她，問：
Yet she seemed not to realize it. The
? certainty that Tina was still alive absorbed her completely and it was what,
? I think, pushed her toward Imma. In the first months I had tried to reduce
? the contact between her and my youngest daughter, I was afraid that seeing
? her would cause more suffering. But Lila soon seemed to want her around
? constantly, and I let her keep her even to sleep. One morning when I went to
? get her the door of the house was half open, I went in. My child was asking
? about Tina. After that Sunday I had tried to soothe her by telling her that
? Tina had gone to stay for a while with Enzo’s relatives in Avellino, but she
? kept asking when she would return. Now she was asking Lila directly, but Lila
? seemed not to hear Imma’s voice, and instead of answering was telling her in
? detail about Tina’s birth, her first toy, how she attached herself to her
? breast and never let go, things like that. I stopped in the doorway for a few
? seconds, I heard Imma interrupt her impatiently:
“她什么時候回來??？”
“But when is she coming back?”
“你覺得孤單??？”
“Do you feel lonely?”
“我不知道和誰玩兒?！?/p>
“I don’t know who to play with.”
“我也一樣。”
“I don’t, either.”
“那她什么時候回來??？”
“Then when is she coming back?”
莉拉有很長時間都沒說話，然后開始責(zé)備伊瑪。
Lila said nothing for a long moment, then
? scolded her:
“你不要問了，那不是你管的事兒?！?/p>
“It’s none of your business, shut up.”
這樣的話用方言說出來，聽起來是那么粗暴，那么尖刻和不合時宜，這讓我很不安。我和她泛泛聊了幾句，就把我女兒帶回家了。
Those words, uttered in dialect, were so
? brusque, so harsh, so unsuitable that I was alarmed. I said something,
? brought my child home.
我一直原諒莉拉做的那些過分的事兒，在當(dāng)時的情況下，我比過去更傾向于原諒她。她經(jīng)常很夸張，我盡量體諒她。警察在審訊斯特凡諾時，她馬上確信蒂娜是他帶走的。在斯特凡諾心臟病發(fā)作后有一段時間，她拒絕去醫(yī)院看他，我開導(dǎo)了她，跟她一起去看了她前夫。警察在審訊里諾時，她沒把這事怪在她哥哥身上，那也是我的功勞。在她兒子詹納羅被叫去警察局的可怕的那天，我也全力緩和他們的關(guān)系，詹納羅回到家里，感覺自己受到了委屈，他和莉拉吵了一架，然后去他父親家里住了。他對莉拉說，她不但永遠失去了蒂娜，也永遠失去了他這個兒子?？傊闆r非常糟糕，我明白，她生所有人的氣，包括我。但她不能生伊瑪?shù)臍?，她沒這個權(quán)力。從那時候開始，當(dāng)莉拉把伊瑪帶走時，我會為此焦慮，我會想辦法，想找到解決的方案。
I had always forgiven Lila her excesses
? and in those circumstances I was inclined to do so even more than in the
? past. She often went too far, and as much as possible I tried to get her to
? be reasonable. When the police interrogated Stefano and she was immediately
? convinced that he had taken Tina—so that at first she refused even to visit
? him in the hospital after the heart attack—I mollified her, and we went
? together to visit him. And it was thanks to me that she hadn’t attacked her
? brother when the police questioned him. I had also done all I could on the
? awful day when Gennaro was summoned to the police station and, once at home,
? felt himself accused; there was a quarrel, and he went to live at his
? father’s house, shouting at Lila that she had lost forever not only Tina but
? also him. The situation, in other words, was terrible and I could understand
? why she fought with everyone, even me. But with Imma, no, I couldn’t allow
? it. From then on, when Lila took the child I became anxious, I pondered, I looked
? for ways out.
但沒辦法，她的痛苦已經(jīng)纏繞成一團，伊瑪是這團亂麻的一部分?？偟膩碚f，我們每個人都卷入其中，莉拉盡管很崩潰，還是一直跟我說我女兒的每個小問題，我后來不得不決定讓尼諾來家里。我感覺到她的頑固，這讓我很惱火，但我盡量讓自己看到事情好的一面：她慢慢把她的母愛移到了伊瑪身上。我想，她要對我說的是：你看你多幸運，你女兒還在，你應(yīng)該好好珍惜，關(guān)心她，好好照顧她。
But there was little to do; the threads
? of her grief were tangled and Imma was for a time part of that tangle. In the
? general chaos where we had all ended up, Lila, despite her weariness,
? continued to tell me about my daughter’s every little difficulty, as she had
? done until I decided to insist that Nino visit. I felt angry, I was
? irritated, and yet I tried also to see a positive aspect: she’s slowly
? shifting onto Imma—I thought—her maternal love, she’s saying to me: Since
? you’ve been lucky, and you still have your daughter, you ought to take
? advantage of it, pay attention to her, give her all the care you haven’t
? given her.
但這只是表面。我很快有了一個不同的推測，在莉拉內(nèi)心深處，伊瑪在她看來應(yīng)該是她內(nèi)疚感的象征。我經(jīng)常想著孩子丟失的情景，尼諾把孩子交給了莉拉，但莉拉沒有看好自己的女兒。當(dāng)時她可能對孩子說：“你在這兒待著?！比缓蟾遗畠赫f：“你跟阿姨來?！币苍S她這么做，是想把伊瑪放在她父親眼皮底下，是想在他面前贊揚她，激發(fā)尼諾的情感，誰知道呢。但蒂娜很活躍，或者她覺得自己被忽視了，生氣地走遠了。結(jié)果是那種痛苦和伊瑪在她懷里的感覺——一種活生生的熱度聯(lián)系在一起了。但我女兒脆弱、遲鈍，她和蒂娜截然不同，蒂娜是那么聰慧靈巧。伊瑪無論如何都不能取代蒂娜，她只是對抗時間的一道堤壩。我想象著，莉拉讓伊瑪在她跟前，就是想讓時間停留在那個可怕的星期天，她會想著：蒂娜馬上會回來，她一會兒就會拽著我的裙子，會叫我，我就會把她抱起來，一切都恢復(fù)到之前的樣子。這就是為什么她不愿意伊瑪打亂任何東西的原因，當(dāng)伊瑪問她蒂娜什么時候出現(xiàn)時，當(dāng)孩子讓莉拉想到蒂娜不在這里時，莉拉就會變得很粗暴，她對待伊瑪就好像對待我們大人一樣。我沒法接受這些。她來接伊瑪時，我會找一個借口讓黛黛或者艾爾莎跟去，看著她。如果我在場的時候，她就是用的那種語氣，我不在場的幾個小時，我不知道會發(fā)生什么事情。
But that was only the appearance of
? things. Soon I had a different theory: that, more deeply, Imma—her body—must
? be a symbol of guilt. I thought often of the situation in which the little
? girl had been lost. Nino had handed her over to Lila but Lila hadn’t attended
? to her. She had said to her daughter, You wait here, and to my daughter, Come
? with your aunt. She had done it, perhaps, to show off Imma to her father, to
? praise her to him, to stir his affection, who knows. But Tina was lively, or
? more simply she had felt neglected, offended, and had wandered off. As a
? result Lila’s suffering had made a nest in the weight of Imma’s body in her
? arms, in the contact, in the living warmth it still gave off. But my daughter
? was fragile, slow, different in every way from Tina, who was shining,
? vivacious. Imma could in no way become a substitute, she was only holding
? back time. I imagined, in other words, that Lila kept her nearby in order to
? stay within that terrible Sunday, and meanwhile thought: Tina is here, soon
? she’ll pull on my skirt, she’ll call me, and then I’ll pick her up in my
? arms, and everything will return to its place. That was why she didn’t want
? the child to upset everything. When the little girl kept asking for her
? friend, when she merely reminded Lila that in fact Tina wasn’t there, Lila
? treated her with the same harshness with which she treated us adults. But I
? couldn’t accept that. As soon as she came to get Imma, I found some excuse or
? other to send Dede or Elsa to watch her. If she had used that tone when I was
? present, what might happen when she took her away for hours?
5
我時不時離開那不勒斯去出差，離開把我和她房間隔開的那幾道臺階，離開小花園和大路。在那些時刻，我會舒一口氣，我會把自己打扮得漂漂亮亮，穿上優(yōu)雅的衣服，甚至是我生完孩子之后遺留的一絲跛足的痕跡，也成了一種與眾不同的特點。盡管我經(jīng)常諷刺那些文人和藝術(shù)家的種種表現(xiàn)，但對當(dāng)時的我來說，所有和出版、電影、電視以及任何與藝術(shù)沾邊的事兒，都是充滿想象的風(fēng)景，我都愿意投入其中。我去參加那些浮夸的研討會和筆會，各種大型演出、展覽、電影還有作品推廣會。我喜歡參與其中，當(dāng)我坐在前排那些預(yù)留的位子上和那些名流一起很舒適地欣賞節(jié)目時，我覺得非常有面子。莉拉一直生活在她的恐懼里，她從來都沒有可以讓她散心的事兒。有一次我受邀去圣卡羅劇院看一場歌劇——那是個非常神奇的地方，我自己從來都沒進去過，我堅持要帶她去，但她不想去，后來我說服卡門陪我去。分散注意力——假如可以這樣說的話，已經(jīng)成了另一個讓她痛苦的原因。這是一種新的痛苦，就像解藥一樣作用于她，她變得很有決心，充滿斗志，就像一個知道自己要淹死的人，但還是擺動著胳膊和腿想浮上水面。
Every so often I escaped from the
? apartment, from the flight of stairs between my rooms and hers, from the
? gardens, the stradone, and left for work. These were moments when I sighed
? with relief: I put on makeup, stylish clothes, even the slight limp that
? remained from the pregnancy was a sort of pleasingly distinctive trait.
? Although I frequently made sarcastic remarks about the ill-humored behavior
? of literary people and artists, at the time everything having to do with
? publishing, cinema, television—every type of aesthetic display—seemed to me a
? fantastic landscape in which it was marvelous to appear. I liked being
? present in the extravagant, festive chaos of big conventions, big
? conferences, big theater productions, big exhibitions, big films, big operas,
? and I was flattered on the few occasions when I had a place in the front
? rows, the reserved seats, from which, sitting among famous people, I could
? observe the spectacle of powers large and small. Lila, on the other hand,
? remained at the center of her horror, without any distraction. Once I had an
? invitation to an opera at the San Carlo—a magnificent place where not even I
? had been—and I insisted on taking her; she didn’t want to go, and persuaded
? Carmen to go instead. The only distraction, if that is the right word for it,
? she would allow was another reason for suffering. A new affliction acted on
? her as a sort of antidote. She became combative, determined, she was like
? someone who knows she has to drown but in spite of herself agitates her arms
? and legs to stay afloat.
有一天晚上，我得知她兒子又開始吸毒。她一句話都沒說，也沒告訴恩佐，就去斯特凡諾家里找她兒子了。那是新城區(qū)的房子，也是她十幾年前結(jié)婚后住的地方。但她沒找到兒子：詹納羅和父親吵架了，已經(jīng)搬到他舅舅里諾家里去了。斯特凡諾和瑪麗莎對她都充滿了敵意，他們現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)生活在一起了，之前那個英俊的男人已經(jīng)瘦成一把骨頭了，他非常蒼白，身上穿的衣服好像大了兩個號。
One night she discovered that her son had? started shooting up again. Without saying a word, without even telling Enzo,? she went to get him from Stefano, in the house in the new neighborhood where? decades earlier she had lived as a bride. But he wasn’t there: Gennaro had? quarreled with his father, too, and a few days earlier had moved to his uncle? Rino’s. She was greeted with open hostility by Stefano and Marisa, who now? lived together. That once handsome man was now skin and bones, and very pale;? his clothes seemed several sizes too big.?
心臟病把他摧毀了，他被嚇到了。他現(xiàn)在吃得很少，不喝酒，不抽煙，也不能太激動。但莉拉去時，他非常激動，他的激動是有道理的。因為心臟病的緣故，他把那家肉食店徹底關(guān)掉了，艾達為了自己和女兒向他要錢，他妹妹皮諾奇婭和母親瑪麗亞也指望他養(yǎng)活，瑪麗莎和她的幾個孩子也指望他。莉拉馬上明白，斯特凡諾想用詹納羅為借口問她要錢。實際上，盡管他幾天前就把兒子從家里趕了出去，他還在捍衛(wèi)詹納羅，瑪麗莎在聲援他。他說，為了讓詹納羅得到更好的治療，需要很多很多錢。這時候莉拉說，她再也不會給任何人一分錢，她再也不想理會什么親戚、朋友和整個城區(qū)，他們吵得更兇了。斯特凡諾滿眼淚水，叫喊著列舉了那些年他失去的東西——從肉食店到他的房子，而且他話里的意思是這都是莉拉應(yīng)該承擔(dān)的責(zé)任。但瑪麗莎對她的指責(zé)更可怕，她叫喊著說：“阿方索因為你才被毀掉了，你把我們所有人都毀掉了，你比索拉拉兄弟還要糟糕，你的孩子被偷走了，那是你活該！”
The heart attack had crushed him, he was
? frightened, he scarcely ate, he didn’t drink, he no longer smoked, he wasn’t
? supposed to get upset, because of his bad heart. But on that occasion he
? became extremely upset and had reason to be. He had closed the grocery
? because of his illness. Ada demanded money for herself and their daughter.
? His sister Pinuccia and his mother, Maria, also demanded money. Marisa
? demanded it for herself and her children. Lila understood immediately that
? Stefano wanted that money from her and that the excuse for getting it was
? Gennaro. In fact, although he had thrown his son out of the house, he took
? his side; he said, and Marisa supported him, that it would take a lot of
? money to get treatment for Gennaro. And since Lila replied that she would
? never give a cent to anyone, she didn’t give a damn about relatives, friends,
? or the whole neighborhood, the quarrel became furious. With tears in his
? eyes, Stefano listed all he had lost over the years—from the grocery stores
? to the house itself—and for those losses he in some obscure way blamed Lila.
? But the worst came from Marisa, who yelled at her: Alfonso was ruined because
? of you, you’ve ruined us all, you’re worse than the Solaras, whoever stole
? your child did a good thing.
只有在這時候，莉拉才不說話了，她看了看周圍，想找一把椅子坐下來。她沒有找到椅子，就靠在了客廳的墻壁上。十幾年前，這是她的客廳，當(dāng)時墻壁是白色的，家具嶄新，一切都完好無損，沒有被在那里長大的孩子糟蹋，沒有被大人疏忽?！拔覀冏甙伞！彼固胤仓Z跟她說，也許他已經(jīng)意識到瑪麗莎太夸張了，“我們?nèi)フ艺布{羅吧?！彼麄円黄鸪鋈チ?，斯特凡諾扶著她，他們一起去里諾家。
Only at that point did Lila become
? silent, she looked around for a chair to sit on. She couldn’t find one and
? leaned against the living room wall, which, decades earlier, had been her
? living room, a white room at the time, the furniture brand-new, nothing yet
? damaged by the havoc of the children who had grown up there, by the
? carelessness of the adults. Let’s go, Stefano said to her, perhaps realizing
? that Marisa had gone too far, let’s go get Gennaro. And they left together;
? he took her by the arm, and they went to Rino’s house.
一走到外面，莉拉就緩過來了，她甩開了斯特凡諾的手。他們一起走了一段，她走在前面，他跟在后面。她的哥哥現(xiàn)在和皮諾奇婭、他們的幾個孩子，還有他丈母娘住在卡拉奇家以前的老房子里。詹納羅在那里，他一看到父母出現(xiàn)就開始叫喊，又是一場爭吵，先是父親和兒子，然后是母親和兒子。剛開始里諾沒說話，然后他說起了他妹妹從小給他帶來的傷害。這時候斯特凡諾也插了進來，里諾也開始罵他，說所有的災(zāi)難都從他身上開始，他擺出一副了不起的樣子，但他先是被莉拉后是被索拉拉騙了。他們快要打起來。皮諾奇婭把丈夫拉住了，她小聲說：“你說得對，但這不是吵架的時候，消消氣。”老瑪麗亞太太不得不喘著氣，拉住斯特凡諾：“夠了，我的孩子，你就假裝沒聽到，里諾比你病得還厲害?！边@時候莉拉死死抓住了她兒子，把他帶走了。
Once they were outside, Lila recovered,
? and freed herself. They walked, she a few steps ahead. Her brother lived in
? the Carraccis’ old house, with his mother-in-law, Pinuccia, their children.
? Gennaro was there and as soon as he saw his parents he began shouting. So
? another fight broke out, first between father and son, then between mother
? and son. For a while Rino was silent, then, his eyes dull, he began whining
? about the harm his sister had done since they were children. When Stefano
? intervened Rino got angry at him, insulted him, insisted that all the trouble
? had started when he wanted to make people think he was someone and instead he
? had been cheated first by Lila and then by the Solaras. They were about to
? come to blows and Pinuccia had to restrain her husband, muttering, You’re
? right, but calm down, this isn’t the moment, while the old lady, Maria, had
? to restrain Stefano, wheezing: That’s enough, son, pretend you didn’t hear
? him, Rino is sicker than you. At that point Lila grabbed her son forcefully
? by the arm and took him away.
但在路上，里諾就趕了上來，他們聽到他在身后走得氣喘吁吁。他想要錢，他想盡一切辦法要錢，馬上就要。他說：“你如果不管我，我會死了。”莉拉接著往前走，她哥哥推她，全身發(fā)抖，笑著拽她的一條胳膊。詹納羅哭了起來，對她喊道：“你有錢，媽，給他點錢吧?！钡@時候莉拉把哥哥趕走了，她把兒子拉回家里，一字一句地說：“你要成為這樣嗎？你想落到你舅舅那個地步嗎？”
But Rino followed them to the street,
? they heard him limping after them. He wanted money, he wanted it at all
? costs, right away. He said: You’ll kill me if you leave me like this. Lila
? kept walking while he pushed her, laughed, moaned, held her back by the arm.
? Gennaro began to cry, he yelled at her: You have money, Ma, give it to him.
? But Lila drove her brother away and brought her son home, hissing: You want
? to become like that, you want to end up like your uncle?
6
詹納羅回到了樓下的房子里，一切都變得更糟糕了，有時候我擔(dān)心他們出事兒，就跑下去看。這種時候，莉拉會給我開門，冷冰冰地問我：“你想要什么？”我也冷冰冰地回答說：“你們太夸張了，黛黛在哭，她想打電話叫警察，艾爾莎被嚇壞了?！彼卮鹫f：“假如你們不想聽到的話，那就待在自己家里，把耳朵堵上！”
With the return of Gennaro the apartment
? below became an even worse inferno; at times I was compelled to go down
? because I was afraid they’d kill each other. Lila opened the door, said
? coldly: What do you want. I answered just as coldly: You’re overdoing it,
? Dede’s crying, she wants to call the police, and Elsa is scared. She
? answered: Stay in your own home and plug up your children’s ears if they
? don’t want to hear.
那個階段，莉拉對我的幾個女兒越來越失去了興趣，她稱她們?yōu)椤皨尚〗恪?。同時我?guī)讉€女兒對她的態(tài)度也變了，尤其是黛黛，已經(jīng)徹底不再迷戀她了，就好像蒂娜失蹤之后，莉拉失去了所有的權(quán)威。
In that period she showed less and less? interest in the two girls; with explicit sarcasm she called them the young? ladies. But my daughters’ attitude toward her changed as well. Dede? especially stopped feeling her fascination, as if in her eyes, too, Tina’s? disappearance had taken away Lila’s authority.?
有一天晚上，她問我：
One evening she asked me:
“假如莉娜阿姨不想生孩子，她為什么還生了這個孩子？”
“If Aunt Lina didn’t want another child
? why did she have one?”
“誰跟你說，她不想要這個孩子？”
“How do you know she didn’t want one?”
“這是她跟伊瑪說的。”
“She told Imma.”
“跟伊瑪？”
“Imma?”
“是的，我親耳聽見她對伊瑪說的，她跟伊瑪說話，就好像伊瑪已經(jīng)是大人了，我覺得她瘋了?！?/p>
“Yes, I heard it with my own ears. She
? talks to her as if she weren’t a child, I think she’s insane.”
“黛黛，那不是瘋狂，那是痛苦?！?/p>
“It’s not insanity, Dede, it’s grief.”
“但她從來都沒有掉過一滴眼淚?！?/p>
“She’s never shed a tear.”
“眼淚不代表痛苦?！?/p>
“Tears aren’t grief.”
“是的，但如果沒有眼淚，那誰向你保證她很痛苦？”
“Yes, but without tears how can you be
? sure that the grief is there?”
“沒有眼淚，通常代表更深的痛苦。”
“It’s there and often it’s an even
? greater suffering.”
“但這不是她的情況。你想知道我的想法嗎？”
“That’s not her case. You want to know
? what I think?”
“說來聽聽?！?/p>
“All right.”
“她是故意讓蒂娜丟掉了，她現(xiàn)在也想失去詹納羅，更別說恩佐了，你看到她是怎么對待恩佐的嗎？莉娜阿姨和艾爾莎一模一樣，她誰都不愛?！?/p>
“She lost Tina on purpose. And now she
? also wants to lose Gennaro. Not to mention Enzo, don’t you see how she treats
? him? Aunt Lina is just like Elsa, she doesn’t love anyone.”
黛黛就是這樣，她喜歡表現(xiàn)得比別人有遠見，愛下一些不容置否的判斷。我禁止她當(dāng)著莉拉的面說這些可怕的話。我試著跟她解釋，并不是所有人的感情機制都一樣，莉拉和艾爾莎的感情機制和她不同。
Dede was like that, she wanted to be
? someone who is more perceptive than everyone else, and loved to formulate
? judgments without appeal. I forbade her to repeat those terrible words in
? Lila’s presence and tried to explain to her that not all human beings react
? in the same way, Lila and Elsa had emotional strategies different from hers.
“比如說，你妹妹，”我說，“面對自己在意的事情，她的表現(xiàn)和你不一樣，她覺得那些過于直白的感情很可笑，她總是會向后退一步?！?/p>
“Your sister, for example,” I said,
? “doesn’t confront emotional issues the way you do; she finds feelings that
? are too intense ridiculous, and she always stands back a step.”
“總是向后退一步，她失去了所有的敏感度?！?/p>
“By standing back a step she’s lost any
? sensitivity.”
“你為什么要跟艾爾莎過不去？”
“Why are you so annoyed with Elsa?”
“因為她和莉娜阿姨一模一樣?！?/p>
“Because she’s just like Aunt Lina.”
這真是一個死循環(huán)，莉拉錯了，是因為她和艾爾莎一樣，艾爾莎做錯了，是因為她和莉拉一樣。實際上這種負面評價牽扯到了詹納羅。在那種情況下，按照黛黛的看法，艾爾莎和莉拉做出錯誤的判斷，是因為她們有同樣的情感障礙。艾爾莎對詹納羅的看法和莉拉一樣，她說詹納羅簡直比畜生還糟糕。黛黛跟我說，她妹妹經(jīng)常帶著鄙視對她說，莉拉和恩佐做得對，詹納羅想溜出去時，就是應(yīng)該痛毆他。艾爾莎對她姐姐說：“只有一個像你這么愚蠢、對男人一竅不通的人，才會被這個一點兒腦子也沒有、臟兮兮的臭男人所迷惑?！摈祺旎卮鹫f：“只有一個像你這樣的冷血動物，才會用這種話來描述一個人?！?/p>
A vicious circle: Lila was wrong because
? she was like Elsa, Elsa was wrong because she was like Lila. In reality at
? the center of this negative judgment was Gennaro. According to Dede,
? precisely in this crucial situation Elsa and Lila were making the same
? mistaken assessment and showed the same emotional disorder. Just as for Lila,
? for Elsa, too, Gennaro was worse than a beast. Her sister—Dede reported to
? me—often told her, to offend her, that Lila and Enzo were right to beat him
? as soon as he tried to stick his nose out of the house. Only someone as
? stupid as you—she taunted her—who doesn’t know anything about men, could be
? dazzled by a mass of unwashed flesh without a crumb of intelligence. And Dede
? replied: Only a bitch like you could describe a human being that way.
她們倆都讀了很多書，她們用書面語言進行爭吵，要不是她們忽然會用非常粗俗的方言互罵，我?guī)缀跏菐е蕾p聽她們相互攻擊。她們的爭吵，好的結(jié)果是黛黛對我的抵觸越來越少了，但這種矛盾帶來的負面影響讓我感覺很沉重：艾爾莎和莉拉成了她惡意的攻擊對象。黛黛不停地給我打艾爾莎的小報告，說她在學(xué)校的種種惡行：男女同學(xué)都很討厭她，因為她覺得自己高人一等，她不停羞辱別人，吹噓自己和一些成年男人的關(guān)系，甚至偽造我的簽名逃課。關(guān)于莉拉，黛黛說：“她是一個法西斯，你是怎么和她成為朋友的？”她毫無條件地站在詹納羅那邊，她覺得，毒品是敏感的人反對壓制的一種方式。她發(fā)誓，她一定要想辦法讓里諾逃出他母親的牢獄，黛黛一直把詹納羅稱為里諾，我們也跟著她那樣叫。
Since they both read a lot, they
? quarreled in the language of books, so that, if they didn’t slip suddenly
? into the most brutal dialect to insult each other, I would have listened to
? their squabbling almost with admiration. The positive side of the conflict
? was that Dede’s rancor toward me diminished, but the negative side burdened
? me greatly: her sister and Lila became the object of all her malice. Dede was
? constantly reporting to me Elsa’s disgraceful actions: she was hated by her
? schoolmates because she considered herself the best at everything and was
? always humiliating them; she boasted of having had relations with adult men;
? she skipped school and forged my signature on the absence slips. Of Lila she
? said: She’s a fascist, how can you be her friend? And she took Gennaro’s side
? with no equivocation. In her view drugs were a rebellion of sensitive people
? against the forces of repression. She swore that sooner or later she would
? find a way of getting Rino out—she always called him that, and only that,
? habituating us to call him that, too—from the prison in which his mother kept
? him.
我抓住一切機會想平息她們的爭端，我會捍衛(wèi)莉拉，批評艾爾莎。但有時候我很難找到話來捍衛(wèi)莉拉，她那種尖刻的痛苦讓我很害怕。另一方面，我害怕就像過去一樣，她的身體會無法承受這些痛苦。因此，盡管我喜歡黛黛的清醒和犀利，也覺得艾爾莎那種古怪的無禮行為很有意思，但我很小心，我不希望她們在莉拉面前說一些不該說的話（我知道，黛黛一定會不假思索地說：“莉娜阿姨，你就說實話吧，是你故意讓蒂娜丟掉的，這件事情并非偶然?！保５刻煳叶紦?dān)心更糟糕的事：兩位“嬌小姐”，就像莉拉稱呼她們的，盡管她們生活在城區(qū)的氛圍里，她們深知自己的不同之處。尤其當(dāng)她們從佛羅倫薩回來時，她們覺得自己高人一等，在任何人面前都想表現(xiàn)出這一點。黛黛在上高中，她成績優(yōu)異，她的老師是一位不到四十歲的男人，非常有文化，他仰慕艾羅塔家人的學(xué)識，他向黛黛提問時好像更擔(dān)心自己提錯問題，而不是擔(dān)心黛黛回答錯誤。艾爾莎在學(xué)校里成績平平，她的期中考試成績通常都很差，但最讓人無法忍受的是，她的期終考試成績會很瀟灑地名列前茅。我知道她們的不安全感和恐懼，我感覺她們是兩個驚恐的小姑娘，因此我并不太相信她們真的那么霸道。但其他人并不是這樣，從外人看來，她們倆一定是讓人生厭。比如說艾爾莎，她對誰都沒有敬意，她會給學(xué)校里外的人隨心所欲地起一些帶有貶義的外號。她給恩佐起的外號是“沉默的鄉(xiāng)巴佬”；她稱莉拉為“幺蛾子”；她稱詹納羅為“微笑的鱷魚”。她尤其針對安東尼奧，他幾乎每天都要來看莉拉，要么是去辦公室，要么是來她家里，每次他一來就把莉拉和恩佐拉到一個房間里說話。蒂娜丟了之后，安東尼奧變得鬼鬼祟祟。假如我在場的話，他們會明擺著打發(fā)我走，假如我兩個女兒在那里，一分鐘后她們就會被排除在外，關(guān)在門外。艾爾莎那時候很熟悉愛倫坡，她給安東尼奧起了一個外號叫做“黃死魔的面具”，因為他天生臉色有些發(fā)黃。很明顯，我擔(dān)心她們會說錯話，但我擔(dān)心的事情最后還是發(fā)生了。
I tried whenever I could to throw water
? on the flames, I reprimanded Elsa, I defended Lila. But sometimes it was hard
? to take Lila’s part. The peaks of her bitter grief frightened me. On the
? other hand I was afraid that, as had happened in the past, her body wouldn’t
? hold up, and so, even though I liked Dede’s lucid and yet passionate
? aggression, even though I found Elsa’s quirky impudence amusing, I was
? careful not to let my daughters set off crises with reckless words. (I knew
? that Dede would have been more than capable of saying: Aunt Lina, tell things
? as they are, you wanted to lose Tina, it didn’t happen by chance.) But every
? day I feared the worst. The young ladies, as Lila called them, although they
? were immersed in the reality of the neighborhood, had a strong sense that
? they were different. Especially when they returned from Florence they felt
? they were of superior quality and did all they could to demonstrate it. Dede
? was doing very well in high school and when her professor—a very cultivated
? man no more than forty, awestruck by the surname Airota—interrogated her he
? seemed more worried that he would make a mistake in the questions than that
? she would make a mistake in the answers. Elsa was less brilliant
? scholastically, and her midyear report cards were generally poor, but what
? made her intolerable was the ease with which at the end she shuffled the
? cards and came in among the top. I knew their insecurities and terrors, I
? felt them to be fearful girls, and so I didn’t put much credence in their
? domineering attitudes. But others did, and seen from the outside they must
? surely have seemed odious. Elsa, for example, gleefully bestowed offensive
? nicknames in class and outside, she had no respect for anyone. She called
? Enzo the mute bumpkin; she called Lila the poisonous moth; she called Gennaro
? the laughing crocodile. But she was especially irked by Antonio, who went to
? Lila’s almost every day, either to the office or to her house, and as soon as
? he arrived drew her and Enzo into a room to conspire. Antonio, after the
? episode of Tina, had become cantankerous. If I was present he more or less
? explicitly took his leave; if it was my daughters, he cut them off by closing
? the door. Elsa, who knew Poe well, called him the mask of yellow death, because
? Antonio had a naturally jaundiced complexion. It was obvious, therefore, that
? I should fear some blunder on their part. Which duly happened.
有一次我在米蘭，莉拉跑到了院子里。那時候黛黛在院子里看書，艾爾莎和她幾個朋友聊天，伊瑪在旁邊玩兒。她們已經(jīng)不是小孩子了，黛黛已經(jīng)十六歲了，艾爾莎十三歲，只有伊瑪很小，剛剛五歲。但莉拉把她們強行拉回家里，就好像她們還沒有任何自主能力。她二話不說（在這種情況下，她們期望把任何事情講清楚），就把她們帶回家里，她只是嚷嚷著說，待在外面很危險。我的大女兒無法忍受這種行為，就叫喊著說：
I was in Milan. Lila rushed into the
? courtyard, where Dede was reading, Elsa was talking to some friends, Imma was
? playing. They weren’t children. Dede was sixteen, Elsa almost thirteen; only
? Imma was little, she was five. But Lila treated all three as if they had no
? autonomy. She dragged them into the house without explanation (they were used
? to hearing explanations), crying only that staying outside was dangerous. My
? oldest daughter found that behavior unbearable, she said:
“我媽媽讓我照看兩個妹妹，由我自己來決定是不是回家！”
“Mamma entrusted my sisters to me, it’s
? up to me to decide whether to go inside or not.”
“你們的母親不在時，我就是你們的母親?！?/p>
“When your mother isn’t here I’m your
? mother.”
“什么狗屁母親?！摈祺煊梅窖哉f，“你把蒂娜弄丟了，你一聲都沒哭?！?/p>
“A shit mother,” Dede answered, moving to
? dialect. “You lost Tina and you haven’t even cried.”
莉拉一巴掌就扇了過去，讓她住嘴。艾爾莎捍衛(wèi)自己的姐姐，也被扇了一個耳光，這時候伊瑪哭了起來。我的朋友喘著氣，重申了一遍，她們別想著從這家里出去，外面很危險，外面有死亡的危險。她強迫她們待在家里，一直到我回來。
Lila slapped her, crushing her. Elsa
? defended her sister and was slapped in turn, Imma burst into tears. You don’t
? go out of the house, my friend repeated, gasping, outside it’s dangerous,
? outside you’ll die. She kept them inside for days, until I returned.
我回來時，黛黛跟我講了事件的始末。她很誠實，這是她的原則，她也跟我說了她那個毫不留情的回答。我想讓她明白，她說的那些話很可怕，我狠狠批評了她。我說：“我跟你說過了，你不能說這樣的話?！边@時候艾爾莎站在她姐姐一邊，她說，她覺得莉娜阿姨已經(jīng)瘋了，她以為關(guān)在家里就能躲過所有危險。我很難跟她們解釋說，錯并不在莉拉身上，而是因為蘇聯(lián)的一個叫切爾諾貝利的地方核電站發(fā)生了事故，會發(fā)射出非常危險的輻射，因為我們生活的是一個很小的星球，輻射可能會傷害到任何人。我說：“莉娜阿姨保護了你們?！钡瑺柹蠛爸f：“這不是真的，她打了我們，她每天都給我們吃速凍食品?！币连斦f：“我不愛吃速凍食品，我哭了好久?！边@時候黛黛說：“她對我們比對詹納羅還糟糕?！蔽倚÷曊f：“莉娜阿姨可能也會這樣對待蒂娜，你們想象，對于她來說，這是多么可怕的折磨，她保護了你們，同時想象著，她女兒在某個地方?jīng)]人照顧。”在伊瑪面前，我不應(yīng)該說這樣的話，黛黛和艾爾莎做出一副很懷疑的表情，伊瑪很不安，她跑出去玩了。
When I returned, Dede recounted the whole
? episode, and, honest as she was, on principle, she also reported her own ugly
? response. I wanted her to understand that what she had said was terrible, and
? I scolded her harshly: I warned you not to. Elsa sided with her sister, she
? explained to me that Aunt Lina was out of her mind, she was possessed by the
? idea that to escape danger you had to live barricaded in the house. It was
? hard to convince my daughters that it wasn’t Lila’s fault but the Soviet
? empire’s. In a place called Chernobyl a nuclear power plant had exploded and
? emitted dangerous radiation that, since the planet was small, could be
? absorbed by anyone. Aunt Lina was protecting you, I said. But Elsa shouted:
? It’s not true, she beat us, the only good thing is that she fed us only
? frozen food. Imma: I cried a lot, I don’t like frozen food. And Dede: She
? treated us worse than she treats Rino. I said: Aunt Lina would have behaved
? the same way with Tina, think of what torture it must have been for her to
? protect you, imagining that her daughter is somewhere and no one’s taking
? care of her. But it was a mistake to express myself like that in front of
? Imma. While Dede and Elsa looked skeptical, she was upset, and ran away to
? play.
幾天之后，莉拉用她那種很直接的方式對我說：
A few days later Lila confronted me in
? her direct way:
“是你告訴你女兒，我把蒂娜弄丟了，一聲都沒哭過？”
“Is it you who tell your daughters that I
? lost Tina and never cried?”
“你怎么能這么說？你覺得我會說出這樣的話嗎？”
“Stop it, do you think I would say a
? thing like that?”
“黛黛說我是一個狗屎母親?！?/p>
“Dede called me a shit mother.”
“她只是一個孩子?！?/p>
“She’s a child.”
“她是一個沒教養(yǎng)的孩子?！?/p>
“She’s a very rude child.”
這時候我犯了一個錯誤，和我女兒犯的錯誤同樣嚴(yán)重。我說：
At that point I committed errors no less
? serious than those of my daughters. I said:
“你不要太激動。我知道你曾經(jīng)多么愛蒂娜。你不要把一切都藏在心里，你應(yīng)該發(fā)泄出來，你應(yīng)該想到什么就說什么。的確生個孩子不容易，但你不要胡思亂想?！?/p>
“Calm down. I know how much you loved
? Tina. Try not to keep it all inside, you should let it out, you should say
? whatever comes into your mind. I know the birth was difficult, but you
? shouldn’t elaborate on it.”
我說錯話了，我不應(yīng)該說“曾經(jīng)多么愛”，不應(yīng)該用平淡的語氣，提到她生孩子的事情。她忽然爆發(fā)了，說：“這不關(guān)你的事兒！”然后她喊道——就好像伊瑪是一個大人：“你要告訴你女兒，假如別人跟她說一件事，她不應(yīng)該到處跟人說?！?/p>
I got everything wrong: the past tense of
? “you loved,” the allusion to the birth, the fatuous tone. She answered
? curtly: Mind your own business. And then she cried, as if Imma were an adult:
? Teach your daughter that if someone tells her something, she shouldn’t go
? around repeating it.
