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我在盛夏时换了房子，是安东尼奥帮我搬的家。他找了一些强壮的男人，把塔索路上的房子腾空，把东西都搬到城区的房子里。新房子光线很暗，即使把房间重新刷过，也没能让它明亮起来。我现在的想法和刚回那不勒斯时的想法完全相反，这样的生活环境没有让我不悦，对于我来说：从旧楼窗户里透进来的黯淡的光，让我想起了童年的生活，我感觉很温馨。但黛黛和艾尔莎抗议了很长时间，她们是在佛罗伦萨、热内亚，还有塔索街上那些宽敞明亮的房子里长大的，她们马上就开始抗议地上坑洼不平的地砖，又小又黑的洗手间，大路上的喧嚣。她们后来接受了现实，那是因为住在这里也有很多好处：每天见到莉娜阿姨，学校很近，可以不用很早起床去学校，自己去学校，不用人送，可以在外面街上和院子里待很久。
I moved in midsummer, Antonio took care
of the logistics. He assembled some brawny men who emptied the apartment on
Via Tasso and arranged everything in the apartment in the neighborhood. The
new house was dark and repainting the rooms didn’t help brighten it. But,
contrary to what I had thought since I returned to Naples, this didn’t bother
me; in fact the dusty light that had always struggled to penetrate the
windows had the effect on me of an evocative childhood memory. Dede and Elsa,
on the other hand, protested at length. They had grown up in Florence, Genoa,
in the bright light of Via Tasso, and they immediately hated the floors of
uneven tiles, the small dark bathroom, the din of the stradone. They resigned
themselves only because now they could enjoy some not insignificant
advantages: see Aunt Lina every day, get up later because the school was
nearby, go there by themselves, spend time on the street and in the
courtyard.
我马上就重新融入城区。我给艾尔莎注册了我之前读的小学，让黛黛就读我之前读过的初中。我跟所有人都重新建立起了联系，老的少的，只要他们还记得我。我和阿方索、艾达、皮诺奇娅、卡门还有她的家人一起庆祝我搬回来的决定。我有些担心彼得罗的反应，自然，他对于我的这个选择很不满意，他跟我明确说了他的看法。他打电话对我说：
I was immediately seized by a yearning to
regain possession of the neighborhood. I enrolled Elsa in the elementary
school where I had gone and Dede in my middle school. I resumed contact with
anyone, old or young, who remembered me. I celebrated my decision with Carmen
and her family, with Alfonso, with Ada, with Pinuccia. Naturally I had
misgivings, and Pietro, who was very unhappy with the decision, made them
worse. He said on the telephone:
“你是基于什么样的原则，让我们的女儿在一个你逃离了的地方长大？”
“On the basis of what criteria do you
want to bring up our daughters in a place that you fled?”
“我不会让她们在这里长大。”
“I won’t bring them up here.”
“但你在那里租了房子，你给她们注册了那里的学校，你没有想过她们应该过更好的生活。”
“But you’ve taken a house and enrolled
them in school without considering that they deserve something else.”
“我要完成一本书，只有在这个地方，我才能写出来。”
“I have a book to finish and I can only
do it well here.”
“你可以让她们和我一起生活啊。”
“I could have taken them.”
“你也会让伊玛和你在一起生活吗？她们都是我的女儿，我不想让伊玛和她的两个姐姐分开。”
“You would also take Imma? All three are
my daughters and I don’t want the third to be separated from the other two.”
他平静下来了。他很高兴我离开了尼诺，所以很快就原谅了我搬家的事情。他说：“你好好写东西，我相信你，你知道自己在做什么。”我希望他说的是真的。我望着大路上来来往往的卡车，它们发出巨大的声响，扬起阵阵灰尘。我在小花园里散步，看到到处都是针管。我进到空荡荡、被人们忽视的教堂。我走在已经关闭了的教区电影院门口，各个党派的支部办公室也好像被遗弃的洞穴，我感到阵阵悲伤。我听着男人、女人和孩子在房子里叫喊，尤其是晚上，让我感到害怕的是家庭内部的冲突，邻居之间的敌意，人们一言不合就动手，还有男孩帮派之间的斗争。去药店时，我会想到吉诺，看到他被杀死的地方，我觉得毛骨悚然，我会小心翼翼地绕开那个地方，我对他的父母感到同情，他们依然站在深色的柜台后面，腰更弯、背更驼了，头发和他们的白大褂一样白，说话还是那么客气。我想，这就是我从小面对的一切，我倒要看看，现在我还能不能掌控。
He calmed down. He was happy that I had
left Nino and he soon forgave the move. Keep at your work, he said, I have
confidence in you, you know what you’re doing. I hoped it was true. I watched
the trucks that passed noisily along the stradone, raising dust. I walked in
the gardens that were full of syringes. I went into the neglected, empty
church. I felt sad in front of the parish cinema, which had closed, in front
of the party offices, which were like abandoned dens. I listened to the
shouting of men, women, children in the apartments, especially at night. The
feuds between families, the hostilities between neighbors, the ease with
which things came to blows, the wars between gangs of boys. When I went to
the pharmacy I remembered Gino; I felt revulsion at the sight of the place
where he had been killed, and went cautiously around it. I spoke
compassionately to his parents, who were still behind the old dark-wood
counter, more bent over, white-haired in their white smocks, and as kind as
ever. As a child I endured all this, I thought, let’s see if now I can
control it.
“你是怎么决定回来的？”我搬到城区之后，有一天莉拉问我。也许她期待我说一些念旧的话，或者说一些对她之前的选择表示肯定的话，比如说：你选择留在这里是对的，现在我明白了，去世上闯荡也没什么用。但我回答说：
“How is it that you decided to do it?”
Lila asked some time after the move. Maybe she wanted an affectionate answer,
or maybe a sort of recognition of the validity of her choices, words like:
You were right to stay, going out into the world was of no use, now I
understand. Instead I answered:
“这是一个尝试。”
“It’s an experiment.”
“什么尝试？”
“Experiment in what?”
当时我们在她的办公室里，蒂娜在她跟前，伊玛在自己转悠。我对她说：
We were in her office. Tina was near her,
Imma was wandering on her own. I said:
“尝试把一切重新组合起来。你能完整地生活在这里，但我不行，我感觉自己的生活支离破碎。”
“An experiment in recomposition. You’ve
managed to have your whole life here, but not me: I feel I’m in pieces
scattered all over.”
她看起来很不赞同。
She had an expression of disapproval.
“莱农，别想着这些实验，否则你会失望，又会离开。我也是支离破碎的，我父亲的修鞋铺子距离我办公室只有几米远，但我感觉我们就像一个在北极，一个在南极。”
“Forget these experiments, Lenù,
otherwise you’ll be disappointed and leave again. I’m also in pieces. Between
my father’s shoe repair shop and this office it’s only a few meters, but it’s
as if they were at the North Pole and the South Pole.”
我故作轻松地说：
I said, pretending to be amused:
“不要让我泄气，我的职业就是通过语言把一件事情和另一件事情粘合起来，最后所有一切应该前后连贯，虽然事实上它们并不连贯。”
“Don’t discourage me. In my job I have to
paste one fact to another with words, and in the end everything has to seem
coherent even if it’s not.”
“假如不存在连贯性，为什么要假装呢？”
“But if the coherence isn’t there, why
pretend?”
“就是把事情厘清。你记不记得我让你看的那本小说？你说不喜欢的那本。我想把我所知道的那不勒斯和我在比萨、佛罗伦萨和米兰学到的东西结合起来。现在我把这本书给了出版社，他们觉得这本书很好，决定出版了。”
“To create order. Remember the novel I
gave you to read and you didn’t like? There I tried to set what I know about
Naples within what I later learned in Pisa, Florence, Milan. Now I’ve given
it to the publisher and he thought it was good. It’s being published.”
她眯起眼睛，轻声说：
She narrowed her eyes. She said softly:
“我已经跟你说了，我什么都不懂。”
“I told you that I don’t understand
anything.”
我感觉到我伤害她了，我说那番话，就好像毫不客气地对她说：假如你不能把鞋子和计算机的故事放在一起，这就意味着你做不到，你没有必要的工具。我后来很仓促地说了一句：“你看吧，你的判断是对的，这本书不会有人买的。”我列举了这本书在我眼里的一系列缺陷，就是在出版前要修订或者决定保留的地方。但她却绕开了这个话题，开始说起了电脑，她说这些就好像为了占上风，就好像要强调：你有你的事业，我有我的。她给几个孩子说：“你们要不要看恩佐刚买的新机子？”
I felt I had wounded her. It was as if I
had thrown it in her face: if you can’t connect your story of the shoes with
the story of the computers, that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done, it means
only that you don’t have the tools to do it. I said hastily: You’ll see, no
one will buy the book and you’ll be right. Then I listed somewhat randomly
all the defects that I myself attributed to my text, and what I wanted to
keep or change before it was published. But she escaped, it was as if she
wanted to regain altitude, she started talking about computers and she did it
as if to point out: You have your things, I mine. She said to the children:
Do you want to see a new machine that Enzo bought?
她把我们带到了一个小房间里。她给黛黛还有艾尔莎解释说：“这台机子叫做个人电脑，花一大笔钱买的，它可以做一些很棒的事情，你们看看，这机子怎么用。”她坐在一张凳子上，把蒂娜抱起来放在膝盖上，开始仔仔细细给黛黛、艾尔莎还有小蒂娜讲解电脑的每个部件，她从来都没对着我说。
She led us into a small room. She
explained to Dede and Elsa: This machine is called a personal computer, it
costs a lot of money but it can do wonderful things, look how it works. She
sat on a stool and first she settled Tina on her knees, then she began
patiently to explain every element, speaking to Dede, to Elsa, to the baby,
never to me.
整个过程，我都在看着蒂娜，她在和她母亲说话，指着眼前的东西问：“这是什么？”假如母亲没有理会她，她会拽着莉拉的衣角，会摸她的下巴，坚持问：“妈妈，这是什么？”莉拉会跟她解释，就好像她已经是大人了。伊玛在房间里转悠，她拽着一个有轮子的小推车，有时候会很茫然地坐在地板上。我叫了她好几次：“伊玛，你过来听听莉娜阿姨说什么。”但她还是在那里玩小推车。
I looked at Tina the whole time. She
talked to her mother, asked, pointing: What’s this, and if her mother didn’t
pay attention she tugged on the edge of her shirt, grabbed her chin,
insisted: Mamma, what’s this. Lila explained it to her as if she were an
adult. Imma wandered around the room, pulling a little wagon, and sometimes
she sat down on the floor, disoriented. Come, Imma, I said, over and over,
listen to what Aunt Lina is saying. But she continued to play with the wagon.
我的女儿不像莉拉的女儿那么聪明。有一阵子，我一直很担忧她发育迟缓。我把她带到了一个非常出色的儿科医生那里，医生说，孩子各个方面的发育都没有问题，我才放心了。尽管如此，把伊玛和蒂娜放在一起比较，总是让我有些难受。蒂娜多活跃啊！看看她的表现，听她说话，真是让人高兴。她们母女两人在一起真是让我感动。莉拉在谈论电脑时——我们开始用“电脑”这个词——我用欣赏的目光注视着她们俩。在那种时刻，我觉得很幸福，为自己感到满意，我很清楚地感觉到，我爱我朋友本来的样子，爱她的优点和缺点，爱她所有的一切，包括她生的这个小家伙。蒂娜充满了好奇，她学东西很快，她的语言很丰富，手也很灵巧。我想，她一点儿都不像恩佐，她和莉拉一模一样，看看她瞪着眼睛，或者眯着眼睛的样子，还有她耳垂很小的耳朵，简直太像莉拉了。我不敢承认，蒂娜对我的吸引力要比我女儿大。当莉拉展示完电脑，这个新玩意让我也产生了兴趣。尽管我知道伊玛可能会难过，但我还是赞美了蒂娜：“你真聪明，真漂亮，你说话说得真好，懂的东西可真多啊！”我也说了莉拉很多好话，尤其是为了抵消我要出版那本书带来的不安。我最后为几个姑娘——我的三个女儿，还有蒂娜勾勒了一个美好的未来。我说，她们会学习，在全世界旅行，谁知道会成为什么样的人物。莉拉在蒂娜脸上亲来亲去，有些不悦地说：“是的，她很聪明。詹纳罗以前也很聪明，很会说话，也看书，在学校里学习很好，但你看看他现在成什么样子了。”
My daughter did not have the qualities of
Lila’s daughter. A few days earlier the anxiety that she was in some way
retarded had dissipated. I had taken her to a very good pediatrician, the
child showed no retardation of any sort. I was reassured. And yet comparing
Imma to Tina continued to make me uneasy. How lively Tina was: to see her, to
hear her talk put you in a good mood. And to see mother and daughter together
was touching. As long as Lila talked about the computer—we were starting then
to use that word—I observed them both with admiration. At that moment I felt
happy, satisfied with myself, and so I also felt, very clearly, that I loved
my friend for how she was, for her virtues and her flaws, for everything,
even for that being she had brought into the world. The child was full of
curiosity, she learned everything in an instant, she had a large vocabulary
and a surprising manual dexterity. I said to myself: She has little of Enzo,
she’s like Lila, look how she widens her eyes, narrows them, look at the ears
that have no lobe. I still didn’t dare to admit that Tina attracted me more
than my daughter, but when that demonstration of skill ended, I was very
excited about the computer, and full of praise for the little girl, even
though I knew that Imma might suffer from it (How clever you are, how pretty,
how well you speak, how many things you learn), I complimented Lila, mainly
to diminish the unease I had caused her by announcing the publication of my
book, and, finally, I drew an optimistic portrait of the future that awaited
my three daughters and hers. They’ll study, I said, they’ll travel all over
the world, goodness knows what they’ll be. But Lila, after smothering Tina
with kisses—yes, she’s sooo clever—replied bitterly: Gennaro was clever, too,
he spoke well, he read, he was very good in school, and look at him now.
83
有一天晚上，莉拉提到了詹纳罗的种种不好，黛黛鼓起勇气捍卫了詹纳罗。她的脸变得通红，她说：“詹纳罗非常聪明。”莉拉饶有兴趣地打量着她，微笑着对她说：“你太好心了，我是他妈妈，你的话让我很高兴。”
One night when Lila was speaking
disparagingly of Gennaro, Dede gathered her courage and defended him. She
became red-faced, she said: He’s extremely intelligent. Lila looked at her
with interest, smiled, replied: You’re very nice, I’m his mamma and what you
say gives me great pleasure.
从那时候开始，黛黛感觉自己得到了许可，她在各种场合都会向着詹纳罗，包括莉拉很生他的气时。詹纳罗已经是一个十八岁的大小伙子了，他的脸蛋很英俊，像他父亲年轻时的样子，他的身体要粗壮一些，但他脾气很古怪。黛黛那时候十二岁，詹纳罗眼里根本就没有她，他脑子里想的全是别的。但黛黛一直都觉得，詹纳罗是世界上最了不起的人，她一有机会就会赞美他。有时候莉拉心情不好，不作任何回应，但其他时候，她会笑着感叹说：“你说什么？他就是个混混。你们三姐妹才是好孩子，会比你们的母亲更有出息。”虽然黛黛听到这话很高兴（她很高兴能比我强），但她会通过贬低自己，来抬高詹纳罗。
From then on Dede felt authorized to
defend Gennaro on every occasion, even when Lila was very angry at him.
Gennaro was now a large boy of eighteen, with a handsome face, like his
father’s as a youth, but he was stockier and had a surly nature. He didn’t
even notice Dede, who was twelve, he had other things on his mind. But she
never stopped thinking of him as the most astonishing human creature who had
ever appeared on the face of the earth and whenever she could she sang his
praises. Sometimes Lila was in a bad mood and didn’t respond. But on other
occasions she laughed, she exclaimed: Certainly not, he’s a delinquent. You
three sisters, on the other hand, you’re clever, you’ll be better than your
mother. And Dede, although pleased with the compliment (when she could
consider herself better than me she was happy), immediately began to belittle
herself in order to elevate Gennaro.
黛黛喜欢詹纳罗，她经常会站在窗口看着他从修理厂回来。詹纳罗一出现，她就会喊：“里诺，你好！”通常他都会回应，假如他没有回应，她会跑到楼梯间，看着他走上台阶，和他搭讪，说一些类似这样的话：“你累吗？你的手怎么了？你穿着工装不热吗？”即使他不怎么说话，黛黛也会很振奋。有时候詹纳罗会比平时多说几句，她为了和他多一些接触，会拉上伊玛说：“我带她去莉娜阿姨家，让她和蒂娜玩一会儿。”我还没有来得及同意，她已经走出家门了。
She adored him. She would often sit at
the window to watch for his return from the shop, shouting at him as soon as
he appeared: Hi, Rino. If he answered hi (usually he didn’t) she hurried to
the landing to wait for him to come up the stairs and then tried to start a
serious conversation, like: You’re tired, what did you do to your hand,
aren’t you hot in those overalls, things of that sort. Even a few words from
him excited her. If she happened to get more attention than usual, in order
to prolong it she grabbed Imma and said: I’m taking her down to Aunt Lina, so
she can play with Tina. I didn’t have time to give her permission before she
was out of the house.
即使在小时候，我从来都没和莉拉那么亲近过。我家的地板挨着她的天花板，下两段楼梯，我就会来到她家，上两段楼梯，她就到了我家里。早晚我都能听到他们的声音：模糊不清的对话，蒂娜清脆的嗓音，莉拉回答的声音，就像她也在模仿孩子的叫喊，还有恩佐深沉的嗓音，他一直都不爱说话，但他和女儿会说很多，还会唱歌给她听。我推测，莉拉也能听见我的动静。当她去上班，我的两个女儿去了学校，家里只有伊玛和蒂娜时——现在蒂娜经常在我这儿，有时候也会在我家睡——我会感觉到楼下空荡荡的，我期待听到莉拉和恩佐回家的声音。
Never had so little space separated Lila
and me, not even when we were children. My floor was her ceiling. Two flights
of stairs down brought me to her house, two up brought her to mine. In the
morning, in the evening, I heard their voices: the indistinct sounds of
conversations, Tina’s trills that Lila responded to as if she, too, were
trilling, the thick tonality of Enzo, who, silent as he was, spoke a lot to
his daughter, and often sang to her. I supposed that the signs of my presence
also reached Lila. When she was at work, when my older daughters were at
school, when only Imma and Tina—who often stayed with me, sometimes even to
sleep—were at home, I noticed the emptiness below, I listened for the
footsteps of Lila and Enzo returning.
事情很快往好的方向发展，黛黛和艾尔莎会照顾伊玛，她们经常把妹妹带到院子里或者莉拉家里玩。假如我要出差的话，莉拉会照顾她们仨。这些年，我从来没有像现在这样有自己的时间，我读书，修订我的书。没有尼诺，我很自在，也不用生活在担心失去他的焦虑之中。我和彼得罗的关系也好了很多，他经常来那不勒斯看两个女儿，他彻底习惯了城区这套灰暗破旧的房子，特别是艾尔莎的那不勒斯口音。他经常会住几天，在这里时他对恩佐很客气，和莉拉也会聊很多。尽管彼得罗过去对莉拉的评价很糟糕，但我觉得很明显，他很乐意和莉拉聊天。至于莉拉，彼得罗一走，她就会满怀热情地跟我谈到他，通常她不会对任何人有这样的表示。她很严肃地说，他到底读了多少书啊？五万本，十万本？我觉得我的前夫成了她童年时想象的那种学者，不是职业作家，而是因为有文化才写作。
Things soon took a turn for the better.
Dede and Elsa frequently looked after Imma; they carried her down to the
courtyard with them or to Lila’s. If I had to go out Lila took care of all
three. It was years since I had had so much time available. I read, I revised
my book, I was at ease without Nino and free of the anxiety of losing him.
Also my relationship with Pietro improved. He came to Naples more often to
see the girls, he got used to the small, dreary apartment and to their
Neapolitan accents, Elsa’s especially, and he often stayed overnight. At
those times, he was polite to Enzo, and talked a lot to Lila. Even though in
the past Pietro had had definitely negative opinions of her, it seemed clear
that he was happy to spend time in her company. As for Lila, as soon as he
left she began to talk about him with an enthusiasm she rarely showed for
anyone. How many books must he have studied, she said seriously, fifty
thousand, a hundred thousand? I think she saw in my ex-husband the
incarnation of her childhood fantasies about people who read and write for
knowledge, not as a profession.
“你很厉害。”有一天晚上，她对我说，“但是他说话的方式，让我真的很喜欢，他说话时也像写作，而不是像念书。”
“You’re very smart,” she said to me one
evening, “but he has a way of speaking that I truly like: he puts the writing
into his voice, but he doesn’t speak like a printed book.”
“我是这样的吗？”我用开玩笑的语气问。
“I do?” I asked, as a joke.
“有点。”
“A little.”
“现在也是这样吗？”
“Even now?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“假如我没学会那样说话，在外面，不会有人理会我的。”
“If I hadn’t learned to speak like that I
would never have had any respect, outside of here.”
“他和你一样，但要自然一些。詹纳罗小时候——尽管那时候我还不认识彼得罗，我就想着把詹纳罗培养成彼得罗这样的人。”
“He’s like you, but more natural. When
Gennaro was little, I thought—even though I didn’t know Pietro yet—I thought
I’d want him to become just like that.”
她经常跟我谈到她儿子。她说，她本应该给予他更多照顾，但她没有时间，也没有条件和能力。她谴责了自己，她说刚开始她教给了儿子一些东西，但很快就失去了信心，彻底放弃他了。有一天晚上，毫无过渡地，她就从儿子讲到了她女儿，她担心蒂娜长大也会荒废了，我非常诚恳地赞美了蒂娜。她很严肃地说：
She often talked about her son. She said
she should have given him more, but she hadn’t had time, or consistency, or
ability. She accused herself of having taught him the little she could and of
having then lost confidence and stopped. One night she went from her first
child to the second without interruption. She was afraid that Tina, too, as
she grew up would be a waste. I praised Tina, sincerely, and she said in a
serious tone:
“现在你在这里，你应该帮助我，让她像你女儿那样，恩佐也希望，他让我跟你说说。”
“Now that you’re here you have to help
her become like your daughters. It’s important to Enzo, too, he told me to
ask you.”
“好吧。”
“All right.”
“你帮我，我也帮你。你记得奥利维耶罗老师吧？光上学是不够的，她教的，对我来说就不够。”
“You help me, I’ll help you. School isn’t
enough, you remember Maestra Oliviero, with me it wasn’t enough.”
“那是另一个年代了。”
“They were different times.”
“我不知道。我给詹纳罗提供了条件，但没成功。”
“I don’t know. I gave Gennaro what was
possible, but it went badly.”
“这是城区的缘故。”
“It’s the fault of the neighborhood.”
她很严肃地看着我，说：
She looked at me gravely, she said:
“我不觉得，但现在你决定留在这里，和我们生活在一起，我们就改变一下这个城区吧。”
“I don’t have much faith in it, but since
you’ve decided to stay here with us, let’s change the neighborhood.”
84
在短短几个月里，我们的关系变得非常密切。我们养成了一起出去买东西的习惯，每个星期天，我们已经不局限于在大路边上的小商贩中间闲逛，我们打起精神和恩佐一起去市中心，让几个女儿晒太阳，呼吸海边的空气。我们沿着卡拉乔洛海滨路走，或者在城市公园里散步。
In a few months we became very close. We got in the habit of going out together to do the shopping, and on Sundays, rather than strolling amid the stalls on the stradone, we insisted on going to the center of town with Enzo so that our daughters could have the sun and the sea air. We walked along Via Caracciolo or in the Villa Comunale.
恩佐会让蒂娜骑在他肩膀上，他很宠爱这个女儿，甚至都有些溺爱了。但他也从来不会忽视我的几个女儿，他会给她们买气球、点心，会和她们一起玩儿。我和莉拉故意走在后面，我们无所不谈，但和少年时期不一样了，那段时光已经一去不复返了。她会问我一些她在电视上看到的事，我会畅所欲言。我记得，我和她谈论过后现代艺术，还有出版的一些问题和女权主义的新动向，以及其他所有我能想到的东西。她会非常专注地听我说，目光带着一丝戏谑，她只是在不清楚某些东西时才会插话，但她从来都不说自己的想法。我喜欢和她说话，也喜欢她做出的赞赏表情。我喜欢她说出类似这样的话：“你懂的真多啊，你想的问题可真多啊！”虽然有时候有玩笑的成分。假如我问她对一个问题的看法，她会马上避开，嘟哝着说：“别问我，别让我说一些蠢话，还是你说吧。”她经常会提到一些名人，想知道我是不是很了解他们，假如我说不知道，她会很失望。我得说，当我贬低一些和我打过交到的名人时，她也会很失望。
He carried Tina on his shoulders, he
pampered her, maybe too much. But he never forgot my daughters, he bought
balloons, sweets, he played with them. Lila and I stayed behind them on
purpose. We talked about everything, but not the way we had as adolescents:
those times would never return. She asked questions about things she had
heard on television and I answered volubly. I talked about the postmodern,
the problems of publishing, the latest news of feminism, whatever came into
my mind, and Lila listened attentively, her expression just slightly ironic,
interrupting only to ask for further explanations, never to say what she
thought. I liked talking to her. I liked her look of admiration, I liked it
when she said: How many things you know, how many things you think, even when
I felt she was teasing. If I pressed for her opinion she retreated, saying:
No, don’t make me say something stupid, you talk. Often she asked me about
famous people, to find out if I knew them, and when I said no she was
disappointed. She was also disappointed—I should say—when I reduced to
ordinary dimensions well-known people I’d had dealings with.
有一天早上，她说：“因此，这些人和看起来完全不是一回事儿。”
“So,” she concluded one morning, “those
people aren’t what they seem.”
“的确是这样，通常他们在工作上很出色，但其他方面就很难说了，有的很贪婪，以伤害别人为乐趣，会站在强者的一边欺压弱者，他们会拉帮结派，对待女人就像对待宠物狗，一有机会，他们就会对你说一些猥亵的话，会动手动脚，就像我们这儿的公交车上那样。”
“Not at all. Often they’re good at their
work. But otherwise they’re greedy, they like hurting you, they’re allied
with the strong and they persecute the weak, they form gangs to fight other
gangs, they treat women like dogs on a leash, they’ll utter obscenities and
put their hands on you exactly the way they do on the buses here.”
“你是不是有些夸大其词了？”
“You’re exaggerating?”
“没有，要有思想，并不一定要成为圣人。无论如何，真正的知识分子非常少。大部分的文化人，一辈子都在慵懒地评论着别人的思想，他们大部分的精力都用于和对手勾心斗角了。”
“No, to produce ideas you don’t have to
be a saint. And anyway there are very few true intellectuals. The mass of the
educated spend their lives commenting lazily on the ideas of others. They
engage their best energies in sadistic practices against every possible
rival.”
“那你为什么要和他们在一起？”
“Then why are you with them?”
我回答说，我没和他们在一起，我在我们的城区里。我想让她觉得，我是那个上层世界的一员，但我却和别人不一样，她也把我推向了那个位子。我讽刺我的同行，这让她觉得很有趣。我感觉她坚持想让我确认：我真的属于那些告诉人们事情的真相、以及怎么想才对的人，我是知识分子中的一员。对于她来说，如果我继续把自己定位于那种写书，给杂志和报纸写文章，有时候会出现在电视上的人，那我回城区居住的选择才是对的。她想让我做她的朋友、邻居，但条件是我要有那层光环。我也顺从她的意思，她的认同给我信心。在城市公园里，我和我们的女儿走在她身边，但我和她却截然不同，我有着更为广阔的生活。让我骄傲的是，在她面前，我是一个经历丰富的女人，我感觉她对我也很满意。我跟她讲了我在法国、德国、奥地利还有美国的经历，我在各处参加的辩论会，还有我在尼诺之后遇到的男人。她会面带微笑听我讲，从来都不说自己的事儿。即使我说了我的一夜情经历，也没能激发她说出自己的事儿。
I answered: I’m not with them, I’m here.
I wanted her to feel that I was part of an upper-class world and yet
different. She herself pushed me in that direction. She was amused if I was
sarcastic about my colleagues. Sometimes I had the impression that she
insisted so that I would confirm that I really was one of those who told
people how things stood and what they should think. The decision to live in
the neighborhood made sense to her only if I continued to count myself among
those who wrote books, contributed to magazines and newspapers, appeared
sometimes on television. She wanted me as her friend, her neighbor, provided
I had that aura. And I supported her. Her approval gave me confidence. I was
beside her in the Villa Comunale, with our daughters, and yet I was
definitively different, I had a wide-ranging life. It flattered me to feel
that, compared to her, I was a woman of great experience and I felt that she,
too, was pleased with what I was. I told her about France, Germany, and
Austria, about the United States, the debates I had taken part in, here and
there, the men there had been recently, after Nino. She was attentive to
every word with a half smile, never saying what she thought. Not even the
story of my occasional relationships set off in her a need to confide.
“你和恩佐还好吧？”有一天早上，我问她。
“Are you happy with Enzo?” I asked one
morning.
“比较好。”
“Enough.”
“你从来都没对别人产生过兴趣？”
“And you’ve never been interested in
someone else?”
“没有。”
“No.”
“你很爱他吗？”
“Do you really love him?”
“比较爱。”
“Enough.”
没办法让她说出更多的话。通常我都是用一种毫不掩饰的方式谈论性事，我说了很多，但她一直都沉默不语。然而我们一起散步时，无论我们谈论什么问题，她身上都散发着一种东西，都会激发我的思想，让我想亲近她，就像一直以来的那样，会帮助我反思。
There was no way of getting anything else
out of her, it was I who talked about sex and often in an explicit way. My
ramblings, her silences. Yet, whatever the subject, during those walks,
something was released from her very body that enthralled me, stimulating my
brain as it always had, helping me reflect.
她一直都在散发出一种能量，给我信心，坚定我的决心，自然而然地会让我想到解决问题的方案。也许是因为这个原因，我一直在找她出去。那种力量并不仅仅只有我能感受到。有时候她邀请我和几个孩子去她家吃饭，更加经常的是，我邀请她和恩佐吃饭，自然还有蒂娜，但没办法请詹纳罗，他通常都在外面，半夜才会回来。我马上就意识到，恩佐对那孩子非常担心，但莉拉总会说：“他长大了，想干什么就干什么。”我感觉到，她这么说只是为了减轻伴侣的焦虑。她用的语气和我们交谈时用的语气一样，莉拉会传递给他一种东西，就像一针强心剂，恩佐会点点头。
Maybe that was why I sought her out. She
continued to emit an energy that gave comfort, that reinforced a purpose,
that spontaneously suggested solutions. It was a force that struck not only
me. Sometimes she invited me to dinner with the children, more often I
invited her, with Enzo and, naturally, Tina. Gennaro, no, there was nothing
to be done, he often stayed out and came home late at night. Enzo—I soon
realized—was worried about him, whereas Lila said: He’s grown-up, let him do
as he likes. But I felt she spoke that way to reduce her partner’s anxiety.
And the tone was identical to that of our conversations. Enzo nodded,
something passed from her to him like an invigorating tonic.
发生在城区街道上的事情也一样。和她一起出去买东西时，我经常都会感觉很吃惊。她俨然成为了这个城区的权威人士。她经常被拦住，那些人会带着敬意把她拉到一边，在耳边跟她说些什么，她不动声色地听着。他们现在这样尊敬她，是因为她在事业上的成功吗？为什么她看起来像一个无所不能的人？或者说，为什么她身上散发的那种能量，让她在快四十岁时看起来像一个巫师，可以实施魔法，让人害怕？我不知道。让我震动的是，人们都更关注她，而不是我。我是一个有名的作家，出版社现在正在推广我的新书，报纸上经常会提到我。《共和国报》上刊登了一篇文章，上面有一张我的照片，非常大，这篇文章是关于我要出版的新书，里面有类似这样的话：大家对埃莱娜·格雷科的新小说拭目以待，这本小说是以那不勒斯为背景，揭示了它不为人所知的血色的一面，等等。尽管如此，我们走在一起时，在我们的出生地，我只是一个装饰，证明了莉拉的功绩。有人从小就认识我们俩，他们会认为，在我们的城区路上能出现像我这样的人物，那也是因为她，还有她的吸引力。
It was no different on the streets of the
neighborhood. Going shopping with her never ceased to amaze me: she had
become an authority. She was constantly stopped, people drew her aside with a
respectful familiarity, they whispered something to her, and she listened,
without reacting. Did they treat her like that because of the success she had
had with her new business? Because she gave off the sense of someone who
could do anything? Or because, now that she was nearly forty, the energy she
had always had imbued her with the aura of a magician who cast spells and
instilled fear? I don’t know. Of course it struck me that people paid more
attention to her than to me. I was a well-known writer and the publishing
house was making sure that, in view of my new book, I was often mentioned in
the newspapers: the Repubblica had come out with a fairly large photograph of
me to illustrate a short article on forthcoming books, which at a certain
point said: Highly anticipated is the new novel by Elena Greco, a story set
in an unknown Naples, with bloodred colors, et cetera. And yet next to her,
in the place where we were born, I was only a decoration, that is, I bore
witness to Lila’s merits. Those who had known us from birth attributed to
her, to the force of her attraction, the fact that the neighborhood could
have on its streets an esteemed person like me.
85
我觉得很多人都在想，一个在报纸上看起来又有钱又有名的人，为什么要搬到这套破旧的房子里住，而且这套房子位于一个越来越破败的城区。也许首先我的两个女儿就不能理解这一点。有一天早上，黛黛从学校回来，满脸嫌弃地说：
I think there were many who wondered why
I, who in the newspapers seemed rich and famous, had come to live in a
wretched apartment, situated in an increasingly run-down area. Maybe the
first not to understand were my daughters. Dede came home from school one day
disgusted:
“有一个老头朝我们学校大门里尿尿。”
“An old man peed in our doorway.”
还有一次，艾尔莎从学校里回来，她吓得要死，说：
Another day Elsa arrived terrified:
“今天有个人在小花园里被人用刀子捅了。”
“Today someone was knifed in the
gardens.”
在这种情况下，我很害怕，脱离城区已经很久的那个我很恼火，很为两个孩子担心，我在心里说：我受够这里了！在家里，黛黛和艾尔莎说一口纯正的意大利语，但有时候，我隔着窗子，或者在她们上楼梯时，能听到艾尔莎会说一口粗俗的那不勒斯方言，有时候甚至会用很肮脏的词。我会骂她，她假装很难过，但我知道，需要很强的意志力才能抵挡说粗话还有其他的诱惑。有没有可能，我在搞文学的同时，她们迷失了？唯一给我带来安慰的是，我不会在这里住很久。我的书出版之后，我会彻底离开那不勒斯。我一遍又一遍地告诉自己：我只是需要等到我的小说定稿。
At such times I was afraid. The part of
me that had long ago left the neighborhood was indignant, was worried about
the children, and said, Enough. At home, Dede and Elsa spoke a good Italian,
but occasionally I heard them from the window or coming up the stairs, and I
realized that Elsa especially used a very aggressive, sometimes obscene
dialect. I reprimanded her, she pretended to be sorry. But I knew that it
took a lot of self-discipline to resist the lure of bad behavior and so many
other temptations. Was it possible that while I was devoting myself to making
literature they were getting lost? I calmed myself by repeating the temporal
limit of this stay: after the publication of my book I would definitively
leave Naples. I said it to myself and said it again: I needed only to reach a
final draft of the novel.
城区的方方面面无疑对这本书都有好处。我的工作进展得如此顺利，尤其是因为我对莉拉的关注：她全然融入了那个环境，她的声音、目光、动作，她的邪恶和慷慨，还有她说的方言，都和我们出生的这个地方紧密相连。就像她的“Basic
Sight”（人们会把她的公司称为“巴西西”），尽管是一个外国名字，但它不像一块来自太空的陨石，而是这个贫穷、暴力和落后的环境的一个令人意外的产物。我从她身上汲取能量，赋予我的小说一种真实的力量，这对于我来说是必不可少的。写完这本书之后，我会永远离开这里，我打算搬到米兰去住。
The book was undoubtedly benefiting from
everything that came from the neighborhood. But the work proceeded so well
mainly because I was attentive to Lila, who had remained completely within
that environment. Her voice, her gaze, her gestures, her meanness and her
generosity, her dialect were all intimately connected to our place of birth.
Even Basic Sight, in spite of the exotic name (people called her office
basissìt), didn’t seem some sort of meteorite that had fallen from outer
space but rather the unexpected product of poverty, violence, and blight.
Thus, drawing on her to give truth to my story seemed indispensable.
Afterward I would leave for good, I intended to move to Milan.
我在她的办公室里待上一会儿，就会意识到她在什么样的环境中工作。我看着她哥哥，他已经完全被毒品侵蚀了。我看着艾达，她越来越凶恶，成了玛丽莎誓不两立的敌人，因为玛丽莎彻底抢走了斯特凡诺。我看着阿方索，在他的面孔和举止里，男性和女性的气质一直在打破界限，产生的结果有时候让我很恶心，有时候让我很震撼，但我越来越不安，因为他的眼睛常常是乌青的，要么就是嘴唇被打破了，总是不知道是什么时候在哪里被人打了。我看着卡门，她穿着加油站的蓝色工作服，把莉拉拉到一边询问，就好像莉拉是一个先知。我看着安东尼奥，他也围着莉拉转，有时候会说两句，有时候会待在一边不说话，他会把他漂亮的德国妻子和孩子带到莉拉的办公室去拜访她，就像是一种示好的表现。我时不时会听到一些捕风捉影的消息：斯特凡诺·卡拉奇要彻底关掉他的肉食店，他现在一分钱都没有了，他想要钱；帕斯卡莱·佩卢索绑架了政治要人提兹奥，假如不是他自己动手的，也一定和他相关；阿弗拉戈拉的一家衬衣店发生火灾，是卡伊奥自己放的火，他只是想骗保险；让黛黛要小心点儿，他们会给小孩子下了药的糖果，在小学周围有一个变态在转悠，会把小孩子拐走；索拉拉兄弟要在新城区开一家夜总会，有女人和毒品，音乐声会非常大，以后晚上没人能睡着；在大路上，夜里会有一些超级大卡车经过，载着一些比核弹还可怕的东西；詹纳罗交了一些坏朋友，假如他再这样下去，莉拉就不让他出去上班了；那个在隧道里被杀死的人看起来是个女的，其实是个男的，他身上流了那么多血，一直到加油站那里都能看到。
I had only to sit in her office for a
while to understand the background against which she moved. I looked at her
brother, who was now openly consumed by drugs. I looked at Ada, who was
crueler every day, the sworn enemy of Marisa, who had taken Stefano away from
her. I looked at Alfonso—in whose face, in whose habits, the feminine and the
masculine continually broke boundaries with effects that one day repelled me,
the next moved me, and always alarmed me—who often had a black eye or a split
lip because of the beatings he got, who knows where, who knows when. I looked
at Carmen, who, in the blue jacket of a gas-pump attendant, drew Lila aside
and interrogated her like an oracle. I looked at Antonio, who hovered around
her with unfinished sentences or stood in a serene silence when he brought to
the office, as if on a courtesy visit, his beautiful German wife, the
children. Meanwhile I picked up endless rumors. Stefano Carracci is about to
close the grocery, he doesn’t have a lira, he needs money. It was Pasquale
Peluso who kidnapped so-and-so, and if it wasn’t him he certainly has
something to do with it. That other so-and-so set fire to the shirt factory
in Afragola by himself to fuck the insurance company. Watch out for Dede,
they’re giving children drugged candy. There’s a faggot hanging around the
elementary school who lures children away. The Solaras are opening a night
club in the new neighborhood, women and drugs, the music will be so loud that
no one will sleep again. Big trucks pass by on the stradone at night,
transporting stuff that can destroy us faster than the atomic bomb. Gennaro
has started hanging out with a bad crowd, and, if he continues like that, I
won’t even let him go to work. The person they found murdered in the tunnel
looked like a woman but was a man: there was so much blood in the body that
it flowed all the way down to the gas pump.
我观察着，倾听着，充分扮演着我的角色。我和莉拉小时候想成为作家，但我现在真的成了作家。我正在修订一本重要的书，有些地方我会重写，这本书马上会出版。我想，在第一版里，我用了太多方言，我把那些方言都抹掉了，重新写，但后来我又觉得方言太少了，又加了一些。我住在城区里，还在故事的场景之中，在那些角色之间。这本充满野心的小说，解释了我为什么会出现在那里，也使我完全投入其中。我赋予这里的每样事物意义：房间灰黄的灯光，路上粗鲁的叫喊，几个孩子所冒的风险，大路上来来往往的车辆，天气好的时候，会扬起一阵阵灰尘，下雨时会溅起泥浆，还有莉拉和恩佐的那些客户，都是小地方的一些小老板，他们开着豪车，穿得很奢华，但很庸俗，他们有时候会非常霸道地挺着肚子走来走去，有时候会点头哈腰。
I observed, I listened, from the vantage
point of what Lila and I as children had imagined becoming and what I had
actually become: the author of a big book that I was polishing—or at times
rewriting—and that would soon be published. In the first draft—I said to
myself—I put too much dialect. And I erased it, rewrote. Then it seemed that
I had put in too little and I added some. I was in the neighborhood and yet
safe in that role, within that setting. The ambitious work justified my
presence there and, as long as I was occupied with it, gave meaning to the
poor light in the rooms, the rough voices of the street, the risks that the
children ran, the traffic on the stradone that raised dust when the weather
was good and water and mud when it rained, Lila and Enzo’s swarm of clients,
small provincial entrepreneurs, big luxury cars, clothes of a vulgar wealth,
heavy bodies that moved sometimes aggressively, sometimes with servile
manners.
有一次我和伊玛、蒂娜在一起，在“Basic
Sight”等莉拉。事情变得非常明显：莉拉在做一项全新的工作，但她却完全沉浸在我们之前生活的那个世界里。我听见她为了钱的事儿用非常粗野的语言对着一个客户叫喊。我对此很震惊，那个全身都散发着权威的和气的女人去哪儿了？恩佐马上跑去察看，那个六十岁上下，个头很小，肚子很大的男人骂骂咧咧地走了。后来我问莉拉：
Once when I was waiting for Lila at Basic
Sight with Imma and Tina, everything seemed to become clearer: Lila was doing
new work but totally immersed in our old world. I heard her shouting at a
client in an extremely crude way about a question of money. I was shaken,
where had the woman who graciously emanated authority suddenly gone? Enzo
hurried in, and the man—a small man around sixty, with an enormous belly—went
away cursing. Afterward I said to Lila:
“你到底是什么人？”
“Who are you really?”
“什么意思？”
“In what sense?”
“如果你不想说，那就算了。”
“If you don’t want to talk about it,
forget it.”
“不，我想和你说，但你要说清楚，你想知道什么。”
“No, let’s talk, but explain what you
mean.”
“我是想说，在这样一个环境，你怎么对付那些和你打交道的人。”
“I mean: in an environment like this,
with the people you have to deal with, how do you behave?”
“像所有人一样，我会很小心。”
“I’m careful, like everyone.”
“仅仅是这些？”
“That’s all?”
“好吧，我很小心，我会让事情向我希望的方向发展。我们一直都是这样，不是吗？”
“Well, I’m careful and I move things
around in order to make them go the way I say. Haven’t we always behaved that
way?”
“是的，但我们现在要承担责任，对我们自己，还有我们的孩子。你不是说过，我们应该改变这个城区？”
“Yes, but now we have responsibilities,
toward ourselves and our children. Didn’t you say we have to change the
neighborhood?”
“要改变城区，你觉得我们应该怎么做？”
“And to change it what do you think needs
to be done?”
“我们要诉诸于法律。”
“Resort to the law.”
说出这样的话，连我自己都很惊异。我发现从某些方面来说，我的话比我前夫和尼诺的话更加冠冕堂皇。莉拉开玩笑地说：
I was startled myself by what I was
saying. I made a speech in which I was, to my surprise, even more legalistic
than my ex-husband and, in many ways, more than Nino. Lila said teasingly:
“法律只对有些人管用，就是那些你一说‘法律’，他们就会马上很小心的人，但你知道这里的情况。”
“The law is fine when you’re dealing with
people who pay attention if you merely say the word ‘law’. But you know how
it is here.”
“然后呢？”
“And so?”
“假如人们不害怕法律，你应该让他们感到害怕。你刚才看到的那个混蛋，我们为他做了很多工作，非常多的工作，但他不想给钱，他说他没钱。我威胁了他，我对他说：‘我会去告你。’他回答说：‘你去告啊，谁他妈在乎。’”
“So if people have no fear of the law,
you have to instill the fear yourself. We did a lot of work for that shit you
saw before, in fact a huge amount, but he won’t pay, he says he has no money.
I threatened him, I told him: I’ll sue you. And he answered: Sue me, who
gives a damn.”
“你会去起诉他吗？”
“But you’ll sue him.”
她笑了起来：
She laughed: “I’ll never see my money
that way. Some time ago, an accountant stole millions from us. We fired him
and filed charges. But the law didn’t lift a finger.”
“这样我永远都见不到我的钱了。之前有一个会计师，偷了我们好几百万里拉。我们把他开除了，告上法庭了，但法律并没解决这个问题。”
“So?”
“因此呢？”
“I was fed up with waiting and I asked
Antonio. The money was returned immediately. And this money, too, will
return, without a trial, without lawyers, and without judges.”
“我等得很心烦，就把安东尼奥叫来了，那些钱马上就回来了。这次的这些钱也会回来的，不用打官司，不用律师和法官。”
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