20
一直到那时候，我都没关注黛黛的感情动向，她和艾尔莎完全不同，艾尔莎很欢快，每周都会换一个鞍前马后的“骑士”，黛黛在感情方面从来都没有表示或者朦胧的表白。我把她的这种内向态度，归结为她感觉自己不美。她对自己有点太严厉，我有时候会开她玩笑（“你的那些男同学真的这么没意思？”）。她是一个无法容忍别人言行轻浮的姑娘，尤其是对自己，但也针对我。比如说，我对某个送她回家的男性朋友很热情，我对着一个男人微笑，她都会指责我，更别说卖弄风骚了。几个月前，有一次我们搞得很不开心，她甚至用方言对我说了很难听的话，让我非常生气。
Until that moment I had paid little
attention to the fact that Dede, unlike her sister, who happily changed
suitors every month, had never had a declared and ostentatious passion. I had
attributed that withdrawn attitude partly to the fact that she didn’t feel
pretty, partly to her rigor, and from time to time I had teased her (Are all
the boys in your school unappealing?). She was a girl who didn’t forgive
frivolity in anyone, above all in herself, but especially in me. The times
she had seen me, I wouldn’t say flirt but even just laugh with a man—or, I
don’t know, give a warm welcome to some boy who had brought her home—she made
her disapproval clear and on one unpleasant occasion some months earlier had
even gone so far as to use a vulgarity in dialect to me, which had made me
furious.
这也许不是对轻浮行为的排斥。听了莉拉的话之后，我开始仔细地观察黛黛。我意识到，她对于莉拉的儿子的保护态度，不是因为她儿童时代的感情，或者说就像我在那之前想到的，是一个少女对于那些受屈辱的人的热情捍卫。我意识到，她对别人的排斥是源于她对于里诺的强烈依恋，这种感情是从小就有的。这让我觉得很害怕，我想到了我对尼诺漫长的爱情，我很不安：黛黛现在走上了同一条道路，但是一条更糟糕的路，因为尼诺是一个很出色的男生，他后来成为一个英俊、聪明、成功的男人，但里诺是一个很不自信、没有文化、没有魅力，也没有任何未来的年轻男子。现在看看他，他的样子已经不像斯特凡诺了，而像他爷爷堂·阿奇勒。
But maybe it wasn’t a question of a war
on frivolity. After Lila’s words I began to observe Dede and I realized that
her protective attitude toward Lila’s son could not be reduced, as I had
thought until then, to a long childhood affection or a heated adolescent
defense of the humiliated and offended. I realized, rather, that her
asceticism was the effect of an intense and exclusive bond with Rino that had
endured since early childhood. That frightened me. I thought of the long
duration of my love for Nino and I said to myself in alarm: Dede is setting
off on the same path, but with the aggravating factor that if Nino was an
extraordinary boy and had become a handsome, intelligent, successful man,
Rino is an insecure, uneducated youth, without attractions, without any
future, and, if I thought about it, more than Stefano he physically recalled
his grandfather, Don Achille.
我决定和黛黛谈谈这件事。离她的高中毕业考试还有短短几个月，她很忙，她可以对我说：“我有事儿，我们回头再说吧。”但黛黛不是艾尔莎，黛黛不会敷衍我，也不会假装。对于我的大女儿，我确信无论是什么时候，无论她在做什么，只要我开口，她都会对我开诚布公。我问：
I decided to speak to her. It was a few
months until her final exams, she was very busy, it would be easy for her to
say to me: I’ve got a lot to do, let’s put it off. But Dede wasn’t Elsa, who
was able to reject me, who could pretend. With my oldest daughter it was
enough to ask and I was sure that she, at any moment, whatever she was doing,
would answer with the greatest frankness. I asked:
“你是不是爱上了里诺？”
“Are you in love with Rino?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“那他呢？”
“And he?”
“我不知道。”
“I don’t know.”
“你从什么时候爱上他的？”
“Since when have you had that feeling?”
“一直。”
“Forever.”
“但假如他不爱你呢？”
“But if he doesn’t reciprocate?”
“我的生活会变得没有任何意义。”
“My life would no longer have meaning.”
“那你打算怎么做？”
“What are you thinking of doing?”
“我考完试再告诉你。”
“I’ll tell you after the exams.”
“你现在就告诉我。”
“Tell me now.”
“假如他接受我的话，我们会离开这里。”
“If he wants me we’ll go away.”
“去哪儿？”
“Where?”
“我不知道，但一定会离开这里。”
“I don’t know, but certainly away from
here.”
“他也痛恨那不勒斯吗？”
“He also hates Naples?”
“是的，他想去博洛尼亚。”
“Yes, he wants to go to Bologna.”
“为什么？”
“Why?”
“那是一个自由的地方。”
“It’s a place where there’s freedom.”
我用充满爱意的目光看着她，我说：
I looked at her with affection.
“黛黛，你知道你父亲和我都不会让你去的。”
“Dede, you know that neither your father
nor I will let you go.”
“并不需要你们的认可，我会离开这里的。”
“There’s no need for you to let me go.
I’m going and that’s it.”
“哪里来的钱呢？”
“What about money?”
“我会工作的。”
“I’ll work.”
“那你的两个妹妹呢？我呢？”
“And your sisters? And me?”
“妈妈，我们迟早都要分开的。”
“Some day or other, Mamma, we’ll have to
separate anyway.”
和黛黛的这次谈话让我觉得很无力。她一本正经地跟说我了这些不可理喻的事，但我尽量表现得很镇静，就好像她在说一些很有道理的话。
I emerged from that conversation drained
of strength. Although she had presented unreasonable things in an orderly
fashion, I tried to behave as if she were saying very reasonable things.
然后我带着非常不安的心情，想着要找到什么对策。黛黛只是一个陷入爱河的少女，无论通过什么手段我都要让她听我的话，但问题是莉拉，我很怕她，我马上意识到，跟她的冲突会在所难免。她已经失去了蒂娜，里诺是她唯一的儿子。她和恩佐采用了很强硬的手段及时把他从毒品里拽了出来，她肯定无法接受我也伤害他。再加上有我两个女儿陪伴着，对他有好处，在这个阶段他有时候甚至会去帮恩佐干活。假如让两个姑娘不和他来往，里诺可能会又一次迷失。里诺可能出现的退步让我也很担忧，我对他很有感情，他是一个很不幸的孩子，现在成了一个不幸的青年人。他一定一直都很爱黛黛，放弃黛黛对他来说绝对是一件无法忍受的事情。怎么办呢？我对他态度更加热情，我希望不会有什么误解：我欣赏他，只要他提出要求，我会一直帮助他，但无论是谁，都会发现他和黛黛是截然不同的人，无论他们有什么打算，在很短的时间里肯定会遭遇挫折。我的态度让里诺对我很热情，他把我家里坏了的百叶窗、漏水的水龙头修好了，三姐妹在旁边帮忙。但莉拉并不欣赏她儿子的积极态度。如果他在楼上待的时间有点儿长，她会在下面喊他，语气非常蛮横。
Later, anxiously, I tried to think what
to do. Dede was only an adolescent in love, one way or another I would make
her obey. The problem was Lila, I was afraid of her, I knew immediately that
the fight with her would be bitter. She had lost Tina, Rino was her only
child. She and Enzo had gotten him away from drugs in time, using very harsh
methods; she wouldn’t accept that I, too, would cause him suffering. All the
more since the company of my two daughters was doing him good; he was even
working a little with Enzo, and it was possible that separating him from them
would send him off the rails again. Besides, any possible regression of Rino
worried me, too. I was fond of him, he had been an unhappy child and was an
unhappy youth. Certainly he had always loved Dede, certainly giving her up
would be unbearable for him. But what to do. I became more affectionate, I
didn’t want any misunderstandings: I valued him, I would always try to help
him in everything, he had only to ask; but anyone could see that he and Dede
were very different and that any solution they came up with would in a short
time be disastrous. Thus I proceeded, and Rino became in turn kinder, he
fixed broken blinds, dripping faucets, with the three sisters acting as
helpers. But Lila didn’t appreciate her son’s availability. If he spent too
much time at our house she summoned him with an imperious cry.
21
我不仅采取了这个策略，还给彼得罗打了电话。他正准备去波士顿，他去意已决。他很生多莉娅娜的气，用很厌烦的语气对我说，多莉娅娜现在露出了本性，她是一个不可靠的人，没有底线，然后他耐心听我讲了这些。我跟他说了黛黛的事儿，他很熟悉里诺，也记得里诺小时候的样子，也知道他长大了会成为什么样的人。他问了我好几次，就是想确信自己没搞错：“他没有毒品的问题吗？”又问：“他工作吗？”最后他说：“这是一件不着边际的事儿。”我们两个达成一致，但我们都知道这个女儿的脾气，这不是她一时兴起的决定。
I didn’t confine myself to that strategy,
I telephoned Pietro. He was about to move to Boston; now he seemed
determined. He was mad at Doriana, who—he said with disgust—had turned out to
be an untrustworthy person, completely without ethics. Then he listened to me
attentively. He knew Rino, he remembered him as a child and knew what he had
become as an adult. He asked a couple of times, to be sure of not making a
mistake: He has no drug problems? And once only: Does he work? Finally he
said: It’s preposterous. We agreed that between the two of them, taking
account of our daughter’s sensitivity, even a flirtation had to be ruled out.
我很高兴我们的看法一致，我让他来那不勒斯和黛黛谈谈。他答应说要来，但他有很多事儿要做，最后黛黛快要考试时他才出现了，其实是他在出发去美国之前来向两个女儿告别。我们有很长时间都没见面了，他还是一副心不在焉的样子，头发已经灰白了，身体看起来笨重了一些。在蒂娜失踪之前，他见过莉拉和恩佐——后来几次，他来看女儿时都只停留了几个小时，就把两个女儿带去旅行了。他这次来对莉拉和恩佐也很关心。彼得罗是一个客气的男人，他很小心，没有用自己大教授的身份让别人不自在。他和莉拉还有恩佐聊了很久，我很熟悉他严肃、投入的样子，在过去这可能让我觉得很讨厌，但现在我很欣赏这一点，因为他不是做做样子。黛黛说话时和她父亲很像，也是那种神情。关于蒂娜，我不知道他说了什么，恩佐不动声色，莉拉的脸色明朗起来了，感谢他之前写的那封感人的信，她说那封信对她帮助很大，他客气了一下。我那时才知道，因为蒂娜失踪的事情，彼得罗给他们写过信，莉拉真诚的感激也让我很惊讶。莉拉把恩佐完全排除在对话之外，跟我的前夫谈起了那不勒斯的事。他们谈了很久切拉马莱楼的历史，我知道那栋楼在基亚亚街上，我那时候才发现，她知道那座宫殿的结构、历史还有里面的珍藏。彼得罗满怀兴趣在听，我很气愤，我希望他能跟两个女儿多待一会儿，尤其是要面对黛黛的问题。
I was glad that we saw things the same
way, I asked him to come to Naples and talk to Dede. He promised he would,
but he had endless commitments and appeared only near Dede’s exams, in
essence to say goodbye to his daughters before leaving for America. We hadn’t
seen each other for a long time. He had his usual distracted expression. His
hair was by now grizzled, his body had become heavier. He hadn’t seen Lila
and Enzo since Tina’s disappearance—when he came to see the girls he would
stay only a few hours or take them off on a trip—and he devoted himself to
them. Pietro was a kind man, careful not to cause embarrassment with his role
as a prestigious professor. He talked to them at length, assuming that
serious and sympathetic expression that I knew well and that in the past had
irritated me, but that today I appreciated because it wasn’t feigned, and was
natural also to Dede. I don’t know what he said about Tina, but while Enzo
remained impassive Lila cheered up, she thanked him for his wonderful letter
of years earlier, said it had helped her a lot. Only then did I learn that
Pietro had written to her about the loss of her daughter, and Lila’s genuine
gratitude surprised me. He was modest; she excluded Enzo from the
conversation completely and began to speak to my ex-husband about Neapolitan
things. She dwelt at length on the Palazzo Cellamare, about which I knew
nothing except that it was above Chiaia, while she—I discovered then—knew in
minute detail the structure, the history, the treasures. Pietro listened with
interest. I fumed, I wanted him to stay with his daughters and, especially,
deal with Dede.
莉拉终于说完了。彼得罗先是和艾尔莎、伊玛亲热地交谈了一会儿，然后他找机会把黛黛叫到一边，父女俩谈了很久，他们都很平静。他们一边在大路边上走着，一边说话，我透过窗子看着他们。让我惊异的是，我是第一次发现他们是那么相似，黛黛的头发不像她父亲那么茂密，但她骨架很大，走路姿势有些笨拙，和她父亲很像。她已经是十八岁的大姑娘了，有着女性柔软的一面，但她的每个动作、每个步子都和彼得罗如出一辙，都好像她是从彼得罗的身体里冒出来的。我站在窗前很出神地看着他们。时间过去了很久，他们还在那里聊，艾尔莎和伊玛都开始不耐烦了。艾尔莎跺着脚说：“我也有话要和爸爸说，现在他要走了，我什么时候才能告诉他啊？”伊玛也嘀咕了一句：“他说，他待会儿也会和我说话的。”
When Lila finally left him free and
Pietro, after spending some time with Elsa and Imma, found a way of going off
with Dede, father and daughter talked a lot, peacefully. I observed them from
the window as they walked back and forth along the stradone. It struck me, I
think for the first time, how similar they were physically. Dede didn’t have
her father’s bushy hair but she had his large frame and also something of his
clumsy walk. She was a girl of eighteen, she had a feminine softness, but at
every gesture, every step, she seemed to enter and exit Pietro’s body as if
it were her ideal dwelling. I stayed at the window hypnotized by the sight.
The time extended, they talked so long that Elsa and Imma began to get
restless. I also have things to tell Papa, said Elsa, and if he leaves when
will I tell him? Imma murmured: He said he’d talk to me, too.
彼得罗和黛黛终于回来了，他们看起来心情都很好。晚上，几个姑娘围在他周围，听他说话。他说他要去一栋红砖建筑里工作，那是一栋非常宏伟的楼房，很漂亮，入口处有一座雕像，那是一座神情严肃的雕像，颜色很深，除了一只鞋子很亮，这只鞋子在阳光下熠熠生辉，简直像金子做的，那是因为进进出出的学生都会去摸它，他们觉得摸一下可以带来好运。他们几个把我排除在外，聊得很开心。每次遇到这样的时刻，我都会想，彼得罗现在不用每天都当她们的父亲，因此他是一个完美的父亲，伊玛也很喜欢他。也许在男人跟前，事情只能这样：一起生活一段时间，生完孩子然后散伙。假如是尼诺那样轻浮的男人会不负任何责任地走开；假如是像彼得罗一样严肃的人，他们会承担所有义务，给孩子所需要的东西，会表现出自己最好的一面。无论是对于男人还是女人，那种夫妻相互忠诚、白头到老的时代已经结束了。为什么我们要觉得可怜的詹纳罗对黛黛是一个威胁呢？黛黛会体验她的激情，然后燃尽这种激情，继续走自己的路，可能时不时会和詹纳罗见面，说一些温情的话。事情的发展是可以预测的：为什么我希望我女儿作出不同的选择呢？
Finally Pietro and Dede returned, they
seemed in a good mood. In the evening all three girls gathered around to
listen to him. He said he was going to work in a very big, very beautiful
redbrick building that had a statue at the entrance. The statue represented a
man whose face and clothes were dark, except for one shoe, which the students
touched every day for good luck and so it had become highly polished, and
sparkled in the sun like gold. They had a good time together, leaving me out.
I thought, as always on those occasions: now that he doesn’t have to be a
father every day he’s a very good father, even Imma adores him; maybe with
men things can’t go otherwise: live with them for a while, have children, and
then they’re gone. The superficial ones, like Nino, would go without feeling
any type of obligation; the serious ones, like Pietro, wouldn’t fail in any
of their duties and would if necessary give the best of themselves. Anyway,
the time of faithfulness and permanent relationships was over for men and for
women. But then why did we look at poor Gennaro, called Rino, as a threat?
Dede would live her passion, would use it up, would go on her way. Every so
often she would see him again, they would exchange some affectionate words.
The process was that: why did I want something different for my daughter?
这些问题让我很尴尬，我决定用我能显示出来的最权威的语气，告诉几个孩子该睡觉了。艾尔莎刚才发誓说，用不了几年，拿到高中毕业证之后，她会去美国和她父亲一起生活。伊玛拉着彼得罗的一条胳膊，也想得到他的关注，她当然想要问彼得罗，能不能让她也去。黛黛有些忐忑地沉默着，我想，也许问题已经解决了，里诺已经被放置在一边了，现在她正对着艾尔莎说：“你还要等四年，我高中要毕业了，顶多还有一个月，我就可以去找爸爸了。”
The question embarrassed me, I announced
in my best authoritarian tone that it was time to go to bed. Elsa had just
finished vowing that in a few years, once she got her high school diploma,
she would go and live in the United States with her father, and Imma was
tugging on Pietro’s arm, she wanted attention, she was no doubt about to ask
if she could join him, too. Dede sat in uncertain silence. Maybe, I thought,
things are already resolved, Rino has been put aside, now she’ll say to Elsa:
You have to wait four years, I’m finishing high school now and in a month at
most I’m going to Papa’s.
22
但当我和彼得罗单独在一起时，看看他的脸色，我就知道他非常担心。他说：
But as soon as Pietro and I were alone I
had only to look at his face to understand that he was very worried. He said:
“没办法了。”
“There’s nothing to do.”
“也就是说？”
“What do you mean?”
“黛黛是个死心眼儿。”
“Dede functions by theorems.”
“她跟你怎么说的？”
“What did she tell you?”
“她说什么不重要，而是她要做什么。”
“It’s not important what she said but
what she will certainly do.”
“她要和詹纳罗同居吗？”
“She’ll go to bed with him?”
“是的。她有一个非常细致的计划，每一步都安排好了。在考完试之后，她要向里诺表白，会失去童贞，他们会一起离开这里，不必自食其力，就靠乞讨为生。”
“Yes. She has a very firm plan, with the
stages precisely marked out. Right after her exams she’ll make a declaration
to Rino, lose her virginity, they’ll leave together and live by begging,
putting the work ethic in crisis.”
“不要开玩笑。”
“Don’t joke.”
“我不开玩笑，我只是一句一字跟你说她的计划。”
“I’m not joking, I’m reporting her plan
to you word for word.”
“你这话说起来轻省，你现在要走了，留下我做一个恶人，一个坏母亲。”
“Easy for you to be sarcastic, since you
can avoid it, leaving the role of the bad mother to me.”
“她还是很指望我的。她说如果这个小伙子愿意，他们会一起来波士顿找我。”
“She’s counting on me. She said that as
soon as that boy wants, she’ll come to Boston, with him.”
“我会打断她的腿。”
“I’ll break her legs.”
“他们俩把你的腿打断还差不多。”
“Or maybe he and she will break yours.”
我们一直谈到深夜，刚开始是关于黛黛，后来还谈到了艾尔莎和伊玛，最后我们聊到了很多事情：政治、文学、我正在写的书、发表在报纸上的文章，还有他正在写的一本专著。我们已经太久没这样说话了。他用一种开玩笑的语气说到我一直以来的中庸姿态。他说我是半个女性主义者，半个马克思主义者，半个弗洛伊德主义者，半个福柯主义者，还有半个颠覆主义者。他后来用一种有些辛酸的语气说：“只有在我这里，你没有采用折中的方法。”他叹了一口气说：“对你来说，怎么都不行，我怎么都愿意接受，但还是另一个男人最完美。但现在呢？他装出一副立场坚定的样子，后来还不是加入了社会党的帮派。埃莱娜，埃莱娜，你让我受了多少罪！甚至是有人用手枪对着我时，你也没站在我这边。你把两个小时候的朋友带到家里，他们是两个杀人犯。你记得吗？算了，你是埃莱娜，我深深爱着你，我们有两个女儿，我怎么可能不继续爱你呢。”
We talked into the night, at first about
Dede, then also about Elsa and Imma, finally everything: politics,
literature, the books I was writing, the newspaper articles, a new essay he
was working on. We hadn’t talked so much for a long time. He teased me
good-humoredly for always taking, in his view, a middle position. He made fun
of my halfway feminism, my halfway Marxism, my halfway Freudianism, my
halfway Foucault-ism, my halfway subversiveness. Only with me, he said in a
slightly harsher tone, you never used half measures. He sighed: Nothing was
right for you, I was inadequate in everything. That other man was perfect.
But now? He acted like the rigorous person and he ended up in the socialist
gang. Elena, Elena, how you have tormented me. You were angry with me even
when those kids pointed a gun at me. And you brought to our house your
childhood friends who were murderers. You remember? But so what, you’re
Elena, I loved you so much, we have two children, and of course I still love
you.
我让他说着这些，我在他面前承认，我经常会盲从。我承认他对尼诺的看法是对的，一切令人非常失望。我试着再和他聊黛黛和里诺的事，我很担心，不知道怎么处理这件事情。我说我之前试着让那个男孩远离我们的女儿，这已经给我和莉拉之间带来了很多麻烦，我感觉很愧疚，我知道她会觉得我看不起他们。他点了点头。
I let him talk. Then I admitted that I
had often held senseless positions. I even admitted that he was right about
Nino, he had been a great disappointment. And I tried to return to Dede and
Rino. I was worried, I didn’t know how to manage the issue. I said that to
keep the boy away from our daughter would cause, among other things, trouble
with Lila and that I felt guilty, I knew she would consider it an insult. He
nodded.
“你应该帮助她。”
“You have to help her.”
“我不知道怎么办。”
“I don’t know how to.”
“她已经想尽一切办法把脑子用在别的地方，想摆脱痛苦，但她做不到。”
“She’s trying everything possible to
engage her mind and emerge from her grief, but she’s unable to.”
“这不是真的，之前她的确是尝试过，但现在她不工作，她什么都不想做。”
“It’s not true, she did before, now she’s
not even working, she’s not doing anything.”
“你错了。”
“You’re wrong.”
莉拉跟他说她每天都在国家图书馆里泡着，她想了解关于那不勒斯的一切。我很不确信地看着他。莉拉又去图书馆了？并不是五十年代的城区图书馆，而是那家非常有名但很低效的国家图书馆？这就是她离开城区做的事情？这就是她的新爱好？为什么她没告诉我？她告诉彼得罗，就是为了让他转告我？
Lila had told him that she spent entire
days in the Biblioteca Nazionale: she wanted to learn all she could about
Naples. I looked at him dubiously. Lila again in a library, not the
neighborhood library of the fifties but the prestigious, inefficient Biblioteca
Nazionale? That’s what she was doing when she disappeared from the
neighborhood? That was her new mania? And why had she not told me about it?
Or had she told Pietro just so that he would tell me?
“她没有对你说吗？”
“She hid it from you?”
“她想说的时候会说的。”
“She’ll talk to me about it when she
needs to.”
“你要鼓励她继续，一个这么有天分的人，只停留在小学五年级的教育水平，真是让人难以接受。”
“Urge her to continue. It’s unacceptable
that a person so gifted stopped school in fifth grade.”
“莉拉只做自己想做的事情。”
“Lila does only what she feels like.”
“这只是你的看法。”
“That’s how you want to see her.”
“我在她六岁时就认识她了。”
“I’ve known her since she was six.”
“可能是因为这个原因，她才会痛恨你。”
“Maybe she hates you for that.”
“她不痛恨我。”
“She doesn’t hate me.”
“你很自由，而她却是囚徒，真的很难面对这样的处境。如果地狱真的存在，那也在她的脑子里。我一秒也不想进入那个地狱。”
“It’s hard to observe every day that you
are free and she has remained a prisoner. If there’s an inferno it’s inside
her unsatisfied mind, I wouldn’t want to enter it even for a few seconds.”
彼得罗用的正是“进入”这次词，他的语气里带着恐惧、入迷和同情。我又一次重申：
Pietro used precisely the phrase “enter
it,” and his tone was of horror, of fascination, of pity. I repeated:
“莉娜一点儿也不痛恨我。”
“Lina doesn’t hate me at all.”
他笑了。
He laughed.
“好吧，你这么想也好。”
“All right, as you like.”
“我们去睡觉吧。”
“Let’s go to bed.”
我没给他准备通常他睡的那张行军床，他很不自然地看着我。
He looked at me uncertainly. I hadn’t
made up the cot as I usually did.
“一起吗？”
“Together?”
我们已经有十几年时间连手都没触摸过了。整个晚上我都担心几个女儿起来，发现我们睡在同一张床上。在昏暗中，我看着那个体型庞大、头发凌乱，在轻轻打呼的男人，我们结婚之后，他很少跟我一起睡上那么长时间。通常因为很难达到高潮，他会折腾我很长时间，完事之后，他会仰面躺一会儿，然后起身去学习。但那次性爱很舒适，那是告别前的欢愉，我们两个都知道这种事情再也不会发生了，因此我们都很放得开。彼得罗从多莉娅娜那里学到了我不知道的或者不想教给他的东西，他尽量让我觉察到他的变化。
It was a dozen years since we had even
touched each other. All night I was afraid that the girls would wake up and
find us in the same bed. I lay looking in the shadowy light at that large,
disheveled man, snoring faintly. Rarely, when we were married, had he slept
with me for long. Usually he tormented me for a long time with his sex and
his arduous orgasm, he fell asleep, then he got up and went to study. This
time lovemaking was pleasant, a farewell embrace, we both knew it wouldn’t
happen again and so we felt good. From Doriana Pietro had learned what I had
been unable or unwilling to teach him, and he did all he could so that I
would notice.
在大约清晨六点，我叫醒了他，我对他说：“你该走了。”我陪他走到停车场，他不停地跟我叮咛两个女儿的事，尤其是黛黛。我们握了握手，吻了一下脸颊，然后他就出发了。
Around six I woke him, I said: It’s time
for you to go. I went out to the car with him, he urged me yet again to look
after the girls, especially Dede. We shook hands, we kissed each other on the
cheeks, he left.
彼得罗走了之后，我有些慵懒地来到了报刊亭，卖报的人正在拆开报纸的包装。我买了三份通常我只看标题的报纸。我开始准备早餐，一边想着彼得罗，还有我们聊过的事情。我可以接受他说的一切——他对我的那些柔和的抱怨、黛黛还有他对莉拉浮于表面的心理分析，但有时候他会在我们的思想和到现在还影响着我们的事情之间建立起一种隐秘的联系。我一直回味着他对帕斯卡莱和娜迪亚的定义——“两个杀人犯”，他就是用这种毫不客气的语气提到我童年的朋友。我意识到，在娜迪亚身上用“杀人犯”这个词，我可以很自然地接受，但对帕斯卡莱，我还是无法接受。我还在想这是为什么，这时候电话响了，是莉拉从楼下打来的。她听到了我和彼得罗出去的声音，也听到我回来的动静，她想知道我有没有买报纸，刚才广播里说，帕斯卡莱被捕了。
I walked idly to the newsstand, the news
dealer was unpacking the papers. I went home with, as usual, three dailies,
whose headlines I would look at but no more. I was making breakfast, I was
thinking about Pietro, and our conversation. I could have lingered on any
subject—his bland resentment, Dede, his somewhat facile psychologizing about
Lila—and yet sometimes a mysterious connection is established between our
mental circuits and the events whose echo is about to reach us. His
description of Pasquale and Nadia—the childhood friends he had polemically
alluded to—as murderers had stayed with me. To Nadia—I realized—I by now
applied the word “murderer” naturally, to Pasquale, no, I continued to reject
it. Yet again, I was asking myself why when the telephone rang. It was Lila
calling from downstairs. She had heard me when I went out with Pietro and
when I returned. She wanted to know if I had bought the papers. She had just
heard on the radio that Pasquale had been arrested.
23
这个消息让我们几个星期都很激动，我得承认，对于我们这位朋友，我的关注还有投入的精力，远远大于对黛黛的考试的关注。我和莉拉马上跑到了卡门家里，她已经知道了所有事情，或者说是最核心的部分，我觉得她挺平静的。帕斯卡莱是在阿维利诺的赛里诺山上被逮捕的，警察把他藏身的那间农舍包围了，他表现得很理性，没有暴力反抗，也没有试图逃走。卡门说：“现在我要祈祷他在监狱里不要被弄死，就像爸爸那样。”她还是继续认为她哥哥是个好人，不仅如此，在她激动时对我说，我们三个——她、我和莉拉都要比她哥哥坏得多。她忽然边哭边说：“我们只关心自己的事儿，但帕斯卡莱不是这样，帕斯卡莱完全是遵循父亲对他的教育成长起来的。”
That news absorbed us entirely for weeks,
and I was more involved—I admit—in the story of our friend than in Dede’s
exams. Lila and I hurried to Carmen’s house, but she already knew everything,
or at least the essentials, and she appeared serene. Pasquale had been
arrested in the mountains of Serino, in the Avellinese. The carabinieri had
surrounded the farmhouse where he was hiding and he had behaved in a
reasonable way, he hadn’t reacted violently, he hadn’t tried to escape.
Now—Carmen said—I only have to hope that they don’t let him die in prison the
way Papa did. She continued to consider her brother a good person, in fact on
the wave of her emotion she went so far as to say that the three of us—she,
Lila, and I—carried within us a quantity of wickedness much greater than his.
We have been capable of attending only to our own affairs—she murmured,
bursting into tears—not Pasquale, Pasquale grew up as our father taught him.
卡门的话，还有她真诚的痛苦——也许是我们认识以来第一次，让我和莉拉无话可说。比如说莉拉没有反驳她，至于我，她的话让我很不自在。佩卢索家的两兄妹仅仅是我的生活的一个背景，他们单纯简单的存在让我开始怀疑自己。我绝对排除了他们做木匠的父亲教给了他们这些事，就像弗朗科教给黛黛的关于梅尼乌斯·阿格里帕平息庶民起义的故事，但他们俩出于本能——卡门要少一些，帕斯卡莱要多一些——都认识到一个人吃饱肚子，不会给另一个人的四肢提供养分，如果有人试图让别人相信这一点，他们迟早会得到该有的下场。虽然我们各方面差别很大，但他们的历史阻碍了我和莉拉真正接近他们，但我没办法远离他们。因此，有一天我也许会对卡门说：“你应该高兴才对啊，现在帕斯卡莱受法了，我们更清楚怎么帮助他。”然后在第二天我会对莉拉说，我也完全同意她的看法：要捍卫一个没有权利的人时，法律和保证没什么用，他会在监狱里被他们折磨死的。有时候我会承认他们俩的观点，尽管从我出生起，我所经历的暴力让我很厌恶，但要面对我们生活的这个残酷的世界，还是需要一定剂量的暴力。在这些混乱思想的促进下，我尽一切努力，想帮助帕斯卡莱，我不希望他感觉自己和同伴受到的待遇不一样，因为娜迪亚受到了极大的重视，我不希望他觉得自己谁都不是，也没有人关心他。
Owing to the genuine suffering in those
words, Carmen managed, perhaps for the first time since we had known one
another, to have the better of Lila and me. For example, Lila didn’t make
objections, and, as for me, I felt uneasy at her speech. The Peluso siblings,
by their mere existence in the background of my life, confused me. I
absolutely ruled out that their father the carpenter had taught them, as
Franco had done with Dede, to challenge the silly moral fable of Menenius
Agrippa, but both—Carmen less, Pasquale more—had always known instinctively
that the limbs of a man are not nourished when he fills the belly of another,
and that those who would make you believe it should sooner or later get what
they deserve. Although they were different in every way, with their history
they formed a block that I couldn’t relate to me or to Lila, but that I
couldn’t distance us from, either. So maybe one day I said to Carmen: You
should be happy, now that Pasquale is in the hands of the law we can
understand better how to help him; and the next day I said to Lila, in
complete agreement with her: Laws and guarantees count for nothing, whereas
they should protect those who have no power—in prison they’ll kill him. At
times, I even admitted, with the two of them, that, although the violence we
had experienced from birth now disgusted me, a modest amount was needed to
confront the fierce world we lived in. Along those confusing lines I
undertook to do everything possible for Pasquale. I didn’t want him to
feel—unlike his companion Nadia, who was treated with great
consideration—like a nobody whom nobody cared about.
24
我找了一些可靠的律师，甚至决定不停地打电话找到尼诺，他是我唯一认识的议员。但是我一直都没能直接和他通话，都是他的秘书接的电话。经过漫长的协调之后，她为我安排了一个见面的时间。我冷冰冰地说：“请您告诉他，我会带着我们的女儿来见他。”电话那头是很长时间的迟疑。“我会告诉他的。”那个女人最后说。
I looked for reliable lawyers, I even
decided, through telephone calls, to track down Nino, the only member of
parliament I knew personally. I never managed to speak to him but a
secretary, after lengthy negotiations, made an appointment for me. Tell him—I
said coldly—that I’ll bring our daughter. At the other end of the line there
was a long moment of hesitation. I’ll let him know, the woman said finally.
过了几分钟，电话响了。依然是那位女秘书：“萨拉托雷议员阁下很高兴在复兴广场上他的办公室和你们见面。”但在接下来的几天里，见面的时间和地点在不停地变：议员阁下出去了，议员阁下回来了，但他很忙，他要参加一个会。尽管我有记者证，也小有名气，我是他女儿的母亲，但我直接和他——一个人民代表联系那么艰难，这让我自己都很惊异。但一切终于确定下来了，见面的地方定在蒙特奇托里奥宫。我和伊玛精心打扮了一番就出发去罗马了。她问我能不能带着那张珍贵的竞选宣传单，我说可以。在火车上，她不停地看着那张传单，就好像要对比照片和真人的差别。到了罗马后，我们就坐了一辆出租车到了蒙特奇托里奥宫。每次遇到障碍，我都会拿出证件，我说——尤其是为了让伊玛听到：“我们在等萨拉托雷议员阁下，这位是他女儿伊玛——伊玛·萨拉托雷。”
A few minutes later the telephone rang.
It was the secretary again: the Honorable Sarratore would be very happy to
meet us in his office in Piazza Risorgimento. But in the following days the
place and hour of the appointment changed continuously: the Honorable had
left, the Honorable had returned but was busy, the Honorable had an
interminable sitting in parliament. I marveled at how difficult it was to
have direct contact—in spite of my modest fame, in spite of my journalist’s
credentials, in spite of the fact that I was the mother of his child—with a
representative of the people. When everything was finally set—the location
was nothing less than Montecitorio, the parliament itself—Imma and I got
dressed up and left for Rome. She asked if she could take her precious
electoral flyer, I said yes. In the train she kept looking at it, as if to
prepare for a comparison between the photograph and the reality. In the
capital, we took a taxi, we presented ourselves at Montecitorio. At every
obstacle I showed our papers and said, mainly so that Imma could hear: We’re
expected by the Honorable Sarratore, this is his daughter Imma, Imma
Sarratore.
我们等了很久，孩子后来很担心地问我：“如果人民不放他走呢？”我向她保证：“不会的。”最后尼诺终于出现了，他跟在他秘书后面，那是一位非常迷人的年轻女人。尼诺很优雅，光芒四射，他非常热情地拥抱和亲吻了他女儿，一直抱着她不放，就好像她还很小。但最让我惊异的是，伊玛马上就和他变得很亲密，她抱着尼诺的脖子，拿着那张宣传单，幸福地说：“你比照片里更帅，你知道吗？我的老师投了你的票。”
We waited a long time, the child at one
point said, in the grip of anxiety: What if the people hold him up? I
reassured her: They won’t hold him up. Nino finally arrived, preceded by the
secretary, a very attractive young woman. Well dressed, radiant, he hugged
and kissed his daughter rapturously, picked her up and held her the whole
time, as if she were still little. But what surprised me was the immediate
assurance with which Imma clung to his neck and said to him happily,
unfolding the leaflet: You’re handsomer than in this photo, you know my
teacher voted for you?
尼诺非常关注她，让她讲了学校里的事、她的同学、她最喜欢的课程。他对我不怎么关注，我已经属于他过去的生活——一种已被超越的生活，他觉得没必要在我身上浪费精力。我说了帕斯卡莱的事，他在听我说的同时并没有忽视他女儿，他只是示意秘书把这件事情记下来。最后我讲完了，他很严肃地问我：
Nino was very attentive to her; he had
her tell him about school, about her friends, about the subjects she liked
best. He paid only the slightest attention to me, by now I belonged to
another life—an inferior life—and it seemed pointless to waste his energies.
I talked about Pasquale, he listened, but without neglecting his daughter,
and nodded at the secretary to take notes. At the end of my account he asked
seriously:
“你期望我为你做什么？”
“What do you expect from me?”
“想让你看看，他是不是得到了法律保护，身体有没有受到损害。”
“To find out if he’s in good health and
is getting the full protection of the law.”
“他在配合法律机关的工作吗？”
“Is he cooperating with the law?”
“没有，我怀疑他永远都不会。”
“No, and I doubt that he ever will.”
“他最好配合一下。”
“He’d be better off.”
“就像娜迪亚一样吗？”
“Like Nadia?”
他有些尴尬地微笑了。
He gave a small, embarrassed laugh.
“假如不想在监狱里度过余生，娜迪亚没有别的选择，她只能那么做。”
“Nadia is behaving in the only way
possible, if she doesn’t intend to spend the rest of her life in jail.”
“娜迪亚是一个被惯坏了的娇小姐，但帕斯卡莱不是。”
“Nadia is a spoiled girl, Pasquale
isn’t.”
他没有马上回答，他摁了一下伊玛的鼻子，就好像那是一只摁钮，然后模仿门铃的声音，他们一起笑了起来。他对我说：
He didn’t answer right away, he pressed
Imma’s nose as if it were a button and imitated the sound of a bell. They
laughed together and then he said:
“我会去看看你那个朋友的情况，我在这里就是为了捍卫所有人的权利。但我会告诉他，那些被杀的人的亲人也有权利。一个人当了革命者，杀人放火之后，再高喊：‘我也有权利！’事情不能这么来。你明白了吗，伊玛？”
“I’ll see what your friend’s situation
is, I’m here to be sure that the rights of everyone are protected. But I’ll
tell him that the relatives of the people he killed also have rights. You
don’t play at being a rebel, shed real blood, and then cry: we have rights.
Do you understand, Imma?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“是的，爸爸！”
“Yes, Papa.”
“是的，爸爸！”
“Yes, Papa.”
“假如老师对你不好，你打电话给我。”
“And if the teacher mistreats you, call
me.”
我说：
I said:
“假如老师对她不好，她自己想办法。”
“If the teacher mistreats her, she’ll
manage by herself.”
“就像帕斯卡莱·佩卢索那样吗？”
“The way Pasquale Peluso managed?”
“帕斯卡莱没有人可以求救，没有人可以保护他。”
“Pasquale never asked anyone to protect
him.”
“这就能为他开脱吗？”
“And that vindicates him?”
“不是。但你说了，假如伊玛要捍卫自己的权利，可以打电话给你。”
“No, but it’s significant that if Imma
has to assert her right you tell her: call me.”
“为了你的朋友帕斯卡莱，你不是也来找我了吗？”
“For your friend Pasquale aren’t you
calling me?”
我非常烦躁，很不高兴地离开了，但对于伊玛来说，那是她生命最初七年里最重要的一天。
I left very nervous and unhappy, but for
Imma it was the most important day of her first seven years of life.
时间一天天过去。我以为自己去罗马是白费时间，但尼诺却信守了诺言，他过问了帕斯卡莱的事情。随后我从他那里得知了律师要么不知道，要么没告诉我们的事情。我们的朋友参与了一些非常重大的政治犯罪，涉及整个坎帕尼亚大区。根据娜迪亚的供词，他是很多命案的核心人物，这也是之前我们就知道的。新的情况是，她把所有事都推到帕斯卡莱身上，包括一些影响不是很大的事情。这样，帕斯卡莱头上也被安上了谋杀吉诺和布鲁诺·索卡沃的罪名，另外，曼努埃拉·索拉拉以及后来她的两个儿子——马尔切洛和米凯莱的死，也算到了帕斯卡莱头上。
The days passed. I thought it had been a
waste of time, but in fact Nino kept his word, he looked into Pasquale’s
situation. It was from him I learned, later, things that the lawyers either
didn’t know or didn’t tell us about. The involvement of our friend in some
notorious political crimes that had afflicted Campania was at the center of
Nadia’s detailed confession, but this had also been common knowledge for some
time. The new information, instead, was that she now tended to ascribe
everything to him, even acts of minor interest. Thus the long list of
Pasquale’s crimes included mentions of the murder of Gino, of Bruno Soccavo,
the death of Manuela Solara, and, finally, that of her sons, Marcello and
Michele.
“警察和你以前的女朋友达成了什么协议？”最后一次见尼诺时，我问他。
“What agreement did your old girlfriend
make with the carabinieri?” I asked Nino the last time I saw him.
“我不知道。”
“I don’t know.”
“娜迪亚说了很多谎。”
“Nadia is telling a pile of lies.”
“我不排除这种可能。但有一件事情我很确信：她正在把很多自以为安全的人拉下水。你要告诉莉娜，让她小心点儿，娜迪亚一直都很恨她。”
“I don’t rule it out. But one thing I
know for sure: she is ruining a lot of people who thought they were safe. So
tell Lina to be careful, Nadia has always hated her.”
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