32
一走到大路上，我就变得很迟疑：我是在栅栏门那里等着我父亲回来跟他打声招呼呢，还是在街上走走，看看我两个弟弟在哪里，或者去看看我妹妹有没有在家里？我找了一个电话亭，给埃莉莎打了电话，我领着两个孩子，来到了那幢能看见维苏威火山的大房子。我妹妹现在还看不出来怀孕了，但她变化很大。好像仅仅是怀孕，就让她忽然成长起来了，也让她有些扭曲，她的语言和语气忽然间变得粗俗了。她面如死灰，心情很坏，好像很不愿意接待我们。在她身上，我没有感到一点儿温情，也没有感到一丝她小时候对我怀有的那种带有天真的崇拜。我提到了母亲的状态，她的语气很霸道——我一直以为她不会这样说话，至少是和我。她感叹了一句：
Once on the stradone I hesitated: wait at
the gate for my father’s return, wander the streets in search of my brothers,
see if my sister was home? I found a telephone booth, I called Elisa, I
dragged the girls to her big apartment, from which you could see Vesuvius. My
sister showed no signs yet of pregnancy, and yet I found her very changed.
The simple fact of being pregnant must have made her expand suddenly, but
distorting her. She was as if coarsened in her body, in her words, in her
voice. She had an ashy complexion and was so poisoned by animosity that she
welcomed us reluctantly. Not for a moment did I find any trace of the
affection nor the slightly childish admiration she had always had for me. And
when I mentioned our mother’s health she took an aggressive tone that I
wouldn’t have thought her capable of, at least with me. She exclaimed:
“莱农，医生说她身体好得很，是她的精神在受罪。妈妈身体很健康，身体没事儿，都是心病。假如你没让她那么失望，她也不会成为现在这个样子。”
“Lenù, the doctor said she’s fine, it’s
her soul that suffers. Mamma is very healthy, she has her health, there’s
nothing to treat except sorrow. If you hadn’t disappointed her the way you
have she wouldn’t be in this state.”
“你在胡说什么？”
“What sort of nonsense is that?”
她的语气更加刻薄了：
She became even more rancorous.
“胡说？我只是想告诉你，我的身体状态比妈妈还要差。总之，你现在一直在那不勒斯，你认识的医生多一些，你带她看看吧，你不能把什么事儿都扔给我。只要你稍微关心一下她，你看吧，她会好起来的。”
“Nonsense? I’ll just tell you this: my
health is worse than Mamma’s. And anyway, now that you’re in Naples and you
know more about doctors, you take care of her, don’t leave it all on my
shoulders. Enough for you to give her a bit of attention and she’ll be
healthy again.”
我尽量忍着没发作，我不想吵架。她为什么要这样和我说话？我和她一样，也变得更糟糕了吗？我们身为姐妹的好时光已经结束了吗？或者说，埃莉莎——我们家里最小的孩子——证明了现在这个城区会比过去还变本加厉地毁掉一个人？至于我的两个孩子，她们都安安静静坐在那里，她们很失望，因为小姨对她们一点儿也不热情。我说，她们可以把外婆给的糖果吃完。然后，我问我妹妹：
I tried to control myself, I didn’t want
to quarrel. Why was she talking to me like that? Had I, too, changed for the
worse, like her? Were our good times as sisters over? Or was Elisa, the
youngest of the family, the outward sign that the life of the neighborhood
was even more ruinous than in the past? I told the children, who sat
obediently, in silence, but disappointed that their aunt paid them not the
slightest attention, that they could finish the candies from their
grandmother. Then I asked my sister:
“你和马尔切洛怎么样了？”
“How are things with Marcello?”
“非常好，还能怎么样？假如不是他母亲忽然死了，他有很多事情要操心，那我们会更幸福的。”
“Very good, how should they be? If it
weren’t for all the worries he’s had since his mother died, we’d really be
happy.”
“什么事情？”
“What worries?”
“莱农，操心就是操心。你想着你的书，但现实生活是另一回事儿。”
“Worries, Lenù, worries. Go think about
your books, life is something else.”
“佩佩和詹尼呢？”
“Peppe and Gianni?”
“他们在干活。”
“They work.”
“我一直都见不着他们。”
“I never see them.”
“那是你的事儿，因为你从来都不回来。”
“Your fault that you never come around.”
“现在我会经常回来的。”
“I’ll come more often now.”
“很好。那你试着和你的朋友莉娜说说。”
“Good for you. Then try to talk to your
friend Lina, too.”
“发生了什么事儿。”
“What’s happening?”
“没什么，让马尔切洛操心的事儿里头，也有她。”
“Nothing. But among Marcello’s many
worries she’s one.”
“也就是说？”
“What do you mean?”
“你问问莉娜——假如她还理会你的话，你告诉她，她最好要守着自己的本分。”
“Ask Lina, and if she answers, tell her
that she’d better stay where she belongs.”
我从这些话里听出了索拉拉兄弟的威胁语气，我意识到，我们再也不能回到之前那种亲密的关系。我告诉她，我和莉拉之间的关系现在已经淡了，但我刚从我们的母亲那里听到，她现在已经不给米凯莱·索拉拉干活了，她自己开了一家公司。这时候，埃莉莎忍不住爆发了：
I recognized the threatening reticence of
the Solaras and I realized that we would never regain our old intimacy. I
told her that Lila and I had grown apart, but I had just heard from our
mother that she had stopped working for Michele and had set up on her own.
Elisa muttered:
“她是用我们的钱开的。”
“Set up on her own with our money.”
“你跟我解释一下，这是怎么回事儿。”
“Explain.”
“我怎么给你解释，莱农？现在米凯莱任她摆布，但她拿马尔切洛没办法。”
“What is there to explain, Lenù? She
twists Michele around her finger. But not my Marcello.”
33
埃莉莎也没有留我们吃午饭，她把我们送到门口时，才意识到那样做太不近人情了。她对艾尔莎说：“跟小姨过来。”她们一起消失了几分钟，这让黛黛非常难受，她拉着我的手，不想觉得自己被忽视了。当她们重新出现时，艾尔莎满脸严肃，但目光里却透露着喜悦。我妹妹好像站在那里都很累，我们一走到楼梯上，她就把门关上了。
Elisa didn’t invite us to lunch, either.
Only when she led us to the door did she seem to become aware that she had
been rude, and she said to Elsa: Come with your aunt. They disappeared for a
few minutes, making Dede suffer; she clutched my hand in order not to feel
neglected. When they reappeared Elsa had a serious expression but a cheerful
gaze. My sister, who seemed worn out by being on her feet, closed the door as
soon as we started down the stairs.
一来到路上，艾尔莎就把我妹妹的秘密礼物展示给我们了：两万里拉。埃莉莎的做法像我们小时候，那些稍微比我们富裕的人送钱给我们的行为。但那时候，表面上那些钱是给我们这些孩子的，但实际上，我们收了钱之后，会交给母亲，她用这些钱来补贴家用。埃莉莎也一样，很明显，她想给我钱，而不是给艾尔莎钱，但目的却是另一个，她用这两万里拉——等于一家好出版社付给三本书的版税，向我展示，马尔切洛很爱她，让她过着很富裕的生活。
Once we were in the street the child
showed us her aunt’s secret gift: twenty thousand lire. Elisa had given her
money the way, when we were small, certain relatives did who were scarcely
better off than we were. But at that time the money was only in appearance a
gift for us children: we were bound to hand it over to my mother, who spent
it on necessities. Elisa, too, evidently, had wanted to give the money to me
rather than to Elsa, but for another purpose. With that twenty thousand
lire—the equivalent of three books in quality bindings—she meant to prove to
me that Marcello loved her and she led a life of luxury.
我让两个吵吵嚷嚷的孩子平静下来。我一个劲儿逼问艾尔莎，才使得她最终承认，小姨的意思是这些钱要她俩分，一万给她，一万给黛黛。她们还在争吵，这时候我听见有人叫我，是卡门，她身上穿着加油站的蓝色衣服。我刚才没留心，没绕过她的加油站，她向我招手，我看到她黑色的鬈发，还有宽宽的脸。
I calmed the children, who were
squabbling. Elsa had to be subjected to persistent questioning in order to
admit that, according to their aunt’s wishes, the money should be divided,
ten thousand to her and ten thousand to Dede. They were still wrangling and
tugging at each other when I heard someone calling me. It was Carmen, bundled
up in a blue gas-station attendant’s smock. Distracted, I hadn’t taken a
detour around the gas pump. Now she was making signs of greeting, her hair
curly and black, her face broad.
我很难抵挡她的热情，卡门把加油泵关了，想带我们去她家吃午饭。她丈夫也来了，我从来都没机会认识他。他去了幼儿园把两个孩子接了回来，两个男孩子，一个和艾尔莎年龄相仿，一个比她小一岁。卡门的丈夫看起来是一个温和的男人，很热情，他让两个孩子帮忙，吃饭前把餐具摆好，吃完又把餐具撤了，洗了盘子。这一代人，我还没见过这样关系和谐、息息相通的夫妻，他们看起来很高兴生活在一起。我终于得到了热情的款待，我看到，我的两个女儿都很自在：她们吃得很愉快，用大姐姐的语气和两个小男生说话。饭后，罗伯特跑去开加油泵，我和卡门单独在一起。
It was hard to resist. Carmen closed the
pump, wanted to take us to her house for lunch. Her husband, whom I had never
met, arrived. He had gone to get the children at school: two boys, one the
same age as Elsa, the other a year younger. He turned out to be a gentle,
very cordial man. He set the table, getting the children to help him, he
cleared, he washed the dishes. Until that moment I had never seen a couple of
my generation get along so well, so obviously content to live together.
Finally I felt welcomed, and I saw that my daughters, too, were at ease: they
ate heartily, with maternal tones they devoted themselves to the two boys. In
other words I felt reassured, I had a couple of hours of tranquility. Then
Roberto hurried out to reopen the pump, and Carmen and I were alone.
她很小心，没有问我尼诺的事儿。尽管她看起来已经知道了一切，没有问我搬到那不勒斯，是不是为了和他生活在一起。她跟我说起了她丈夫，他干活很卖力，也很顾家。她说：“莱农，虽然有很多痛苦要面对，但他和两个孩子是我的安慰。”她又提到了过去：她父亲的悲惨遭遇，她母亲做出的牺牲和她的死，在斯特凡诺·卡拉奇的肉食店工作的那段时间，就是艾达取代了莉拉成了老板娘，折磨她的那个阶段。我们甚至谈到了她和恩佐订婚的那段短暂的时间，我们笑了起来。她说，真傻！她一次都没提到过帕斯卡莱，是我问的她。她盯着地板，摇了摇头，然后站了起来，就好像要摆脱一些她不想说，或者不能说的事儿。
She was discreet, she didn’t ask about
Nino, if I had moved to Naples to live with him, even though she seemed to
know everything. Instead she talked about her husband, a hard worker, and
attached to the family. Lenù, she said, amid so much suffering he and the
children are the only consolation. She recalled the past: the terrible story
of her father, the sacrifices of her mother and her mother’s death, the
period when she worked in Stefano Carracci’s grocery store, and then when Ada
replaced Lila and had tortured her. We even laughed a little about the time
when she was Enzo’s girlfriend: What nonsense, she said. She didn’t mention
Pasquale even once; I had to ask. But she stared at the floor, shook her
head, jumped up as if to push away something she wouldn’t or couldn’t tell
me.
“我去给莉娜打电话。”她说，“假如她知道我们见面了，没有告诉她，她会不理我的。”
“I’m going to call Lina,” she said. “If
she knows we saw each other and I didn’t tell her she’ll never speak to me
again.”
“算了，她要上班的。”
“Forget it, she’ll be working.”
“瞧你说的，现在她是老板了，她想干嘛就干嘛。”
“Come on, she’s the boss now and she does
as she likes.”
我试着和她继续聊下去，我小心翼翼地问了莉拉和索拉拉兄弟的关系。但她好像很尴尬，说她真一点儿也不清楚，她还是去打电话了。我听见她用非常激动的声音说我在她家里。打完电话后，她说：
I tried to keep her talking, and asked
her cautiously about the relations between Lila and the Solaras. But she was
embarrassed, she answered that she didn’t know much about it and went to
call. I heard her announcing excitedly that my daughters and I were in her
house. When she returned she said:
“她非常高兴，她马上过来！”
“She’s very pleased, she’ll be right
over.”
从那时候开始，我越来越不安。无论如何，我感觉自己能扛得过去，在那个体面舒适的家里待着，也很自在，四个孩子在另一个房间玩儿。这时候，门铃响了，卡门去开门，我听到了莉拉的声音。
From that moment I began to get nervous.
And yet I felt well disposed, it was comfortable in that modest, respectable
house, the four children playing in the other room. The bell rang, Carmen
went to the door, there was Lila’s voice.
34
刚开始时我没有注意到詹纳罗，也没有看到恩佐，有漫长的几秒，他们就像是空气。我只看到莉拉，我感到一种出乎预料的愧疚感。也许，我觉得自己错了，因为她又一次赶着跑来看我，而我一直把她排除在我的生活之外。或者，我感觉自己很小气，她一直对我充满好奇，我却通过沉默、不出现，暗示她我对她已经不感兴趣了。我不知道。当然了，当她拥抱我时，我想：假如她不对我说尼诺的坏话，假如她假装不知道尼诺又一次要成为父亲，假如她对我两个女儿很关注，那我会对她笑脸相迎，其余的事再说吧。
I didn’t notice Gennaro at first, nor did
I see Enzo. They became visible only after a long series of seconds in which
I heard only Lila and felt an unexpected sense of guilt. Maybe it seemed
wrong that it was she, yet again, who was eager to see me, while I insisted
on keeping her outside of my life. Or maybe it seemed to me rude that she
continued to be interested in me, while I, by my silence, by my absence,
intended to signal to her that she no longer interested me. I don’t know.
Certainly as she hugged me I thought: if she doesn’t attack me with spiteful
talk about Nino, if she pretends not to know about his new child, if she is
nice to my daughters, I’ll be polite, then we’ll see.
就这样，我们几个人坐了下来。自从上次在多莫街的酒吧见面之后，我们再也没有见过。是莉拉开始说话的，她把詹纳罗推到我前面，他现在已经是一个很壮的小伙子了，脸上全是痘印。她马上就开始抱怨他在学校的成绩，但她是用一种充满感情的语气：“他上小学成绩很棒，在中学学习也很好，但今年恐怕是要不及格了，他的拉丁语、希腊语肯定会考不过。”我轻轻拍了一下詹纳罗，安慰他说：“詹纳，只要做点儿练习题就好了，你来找我吧，我帮你补补课。”忽然间，我决定采取主动，提出了那些比较尴尬的问题。我说：“我刚搬到那不勒斯没几天，和尼诺之间的问题基本上说清楚了，现在一切都好。”这时候，我用一种平静的语气，把我的两个女儿叫过来，当她们出现时，我大声说：“两个孩子在这里，你看看她们长得多快！”当时场面比较混乱，黛黛认出了詹纳罗，她很幸福，做出一副甜蜜的样子，拽着他不放，她九岁了，而他已经快十五岁了，艾尔莎也黏着詹纳罗不放，热情不在姐姐之下，我带着一种母亲的自豪看着她们。莉拉这时候说：“你回那不勒斯是个好主意，人应该做自己想做的事儿。两个姑娘真是漂亮，看起来很机灵！”
So we sat down. We hadn’t seen each other
since the meeting in the bar on Via Duomo. It was Lila who spoke first. She
pushed Gennaro forward—a large adolescent, his face marked by acne—and
immediately began to complain about his scholastic performance. She said, but
in an affectionate tone: he did well in elementary school, he did well in
middle school, but this year they’re failing him, he can’t manage Latin and
Greek. I gave the boy a pat, I consoled him: you just have to practice,
Gennà, come to me, I’ll tutor you. And impulsively I decided to take the
initiative, confronting what for me was the burning issue, I said: I moved to
Naples a few days ago, things with Nino are resolved within the limits of the
possible, everything’s fine. Then, calmly, I called my daughters, and when
they looked in I exclaimed, Here are the children, how do you find them, see
how they’ve grown. There was confusion. Dede recognized Gennaro and happily
pulled him after her with a seductive look, she nine and he nearly fifteen;
Elsa in turn tugged at him, in order not to be outdone by her sister. I
looked at them with motherly pride and was glad that Lila meanwhile said:
You’ve done well to return to Naples, one should do what one feels like
doing, the girls look really well, how pretty they are.
这时候，我松了一口气，恩佐为了加入我们的谈话，问起了我的工作。我炫耀了一下最近一本书的成功，但我很快明白，我的第一本书当时在城区有几个看过的人聊起过，但第二本书，不仅仅是恩佐和卡门，就连莉拉也没注意这本书的出版。就这样，我用一种自嘲的语气说了几句，然后问到了他们开的公司。我笑着说：“我知道，你们现在从无产阶级变成老板了。”莉拉撇了撇嘴，看向了恩佐，恩佐是用一种言简意赅的方式，向我解释了一下他们的情况。他说，最近几年，计算机已经得到了革新。他说，IBM已经推出了一些和之前完全不同的机型。就像通常一样，他说到了一些技术细节，让我觉得很乏味。他说了很多简称，“系统34”、“5120”，他说现在已经不用那些需要穿孔的卡片，也没有穿孔机和检验机，而是另一种程序语言“BASIC”。那些机子也越来越小了，虽然计算能力有限，存储数据的空间很小，但也没那么贵了。最后我明白了，对于他们来说，那种新技术起到了决定性作用，他们学会了编程语言，决定自己干。就这样，他们创建了自己的公司“Basic
Sight”，公司的本部就在他们家的一间房间里，“我们算什么老板啊！”“公司名字是英文的，因为如果不是英文的话，大家都不认。”恩佐是公司的最大股东和总裁，也是公司的灵魂，但真正的灵魂是莉拉——恩佐用自豪的语气指着她说，“你看看这个牌子，是她设计的。”
At that point I felt relieved. Enzo,
making conversation, asked me about work. I boasted a little about the
success of the last book, but I immediately understood that though people in
the neighborhood had heard of my first book at the time and some had even
read it, not even Enzo and Carmen, or Lila, knew about the second. So I
circled around it in a self-mocking tone and then I asked about their
activities, I said, laughing: I know you’ve gone from being workers to
bosses. Lila made a face as if to disparage this, and turned to Enzo, who
tried to explain in simple terms. He said that computers in recent years had
evolved, he said that IBM had put machines on the market that were completely
different from the earlier ones. As usual he got lost in technical details
that bored me. He cited products, the System 34, the 5120, and explained that
there were no longer either perforated cards or punch-card machines and
checkers but a different programming language, BASIC, while the machines kept
getting smaller, with less power for calculation and storage but much less
costly. In the end I understood only that that new technology had been
crucial for them; they had begun to study up and had decided that they could
go out on their own. So they had started their own business, Basic Sight—in
English, because otherwise they don’t take you seriously—and of that
business, with headquarters in the rooms of their house (hardly bosses), he,
Enzo, was the majority partner and administrator, but the soul, the true soul—Enzo
pointed to her with a gesture of pride—was Lila. Look at the logo, he said,
she designed it.
我看了那个商标，上面有一些不规则的图案围绕着一根竖线。我看着那个商标，忽然有些感动，那是她难以控制的头脑的进一步展现——我不知道我已经错过了多少。我对我们过去的一些美好时刻充满了怀念。莉拉学习，莉拉放下，然后再学习，她没办法停下来，她从来都没有退缩：“系统34”、“5120系统”、“BASIC”语言、“Basic
Sight”公司，还有他们的商标。我说，设计很漂亮。我感觉到一种温情，那是我在我母亲和妹妹那里没有感受到的。他们都为我出现在这里、和他们在一起感到高兴，他们慷慨大方地把我拉入他们的生活。为了向我证明，尽管他现在做起了生意，但他的思想没变，他开始用他那种干巴巴的方式，说到了他为之工作的那些工厂里看到的事情：人们为了几里拉在非常恶劣的环境里工作。有时候他觉得很羞愧，因为他要把剥削和压榨的肮脏材料转变成干净的程序。从莉拉的角度来说，她说，那些老板为了获得这些干净的程序，不得不让她近距离地看到他们的脏事儿。她用带着讽刺的语气，谈到了这些老板的虚伪和奸诈，还有他们在账面上的欺骗。卡门说，在加油站也是一样，她感叹了一句：“也全是狗屎！”只有在这时候，卡门才提到了她哥哥，她强调说，她哥哥是一个有头脑的人，不会做什么出格的事儿。她提到了小时候在我们的城区发生的事情。她说——这是之前她从来都没有提到过的事情——她和帕斯卡莱小时候，他们的父亲一条一条地对他们列举了以堂·阿奇勒为首的法西斯分子对他做的那些事情：有一次，他们在隧道口狠狠打了他一顿；还有一次，他们强迫他吻一张墨索里尼的照片，因为他在上面吐过口水；假如他当时没被杀死，他没有像其他Communist员一样消失——那些被法西斯杀死的人，被抹去的人都没有历史记载——那是因为他的木匠铺子当时在城区很显眼，假如把他从这个世界上抹去的话，大家都会发现的。
I examined the logo, a swirl around a
vertical line. I stared at it with sudden emotion, as a further manifestation
of her ungovernable mind—I wondered how many I had missed. I felt a sudden
longing for the good moments of our past. Lila learned, set aside, learned.
She couldn’t stop, she never retreated: the 34, the 5120, BASIC, Basic Sight,
the logo. Lovely, I said, and I felt then the way I hadn’t felt with my
mother and my sister. They all seemed happy to have me among them again, and
drew me generously into their lives. Enzo, as if to demonstrate that his
ideas hadn’t changed in spite of prosperity, began to relate in his dry
manner what he saw when he went around to the factories: people were working
in terrible conditions for practically nothing, and sometimes he was ashamed
at having to transform the filth of exploitation into the tidiness of
programming. Lila, for her part, said that to obtain that tidiness the bosses
had been forced to show her all their dirt close up, and she spoke sarcastically
about the duplicity, the tricks, the scams that were behind the façade of
orderly accounts. Carmen was not to be outdone, she talked about gas, she
exclaimed: Here, too, there’s shit everywhere. And only at that point she
mentioned her brother, citing all the right reasons that had led him to do
wrong things. She recalled the neighborhood of our childhood and adolescence.
She told the story—she had never told it before—of when she and Pasquale were
children and their father listed point by point what the fascists, led by Don
Achille, had done to him: the time he had been beaten up right at the
entrance to the tunnel; the time they’d made him kiss the photograph of
Mussolini but he had spit on it, and if they hadn’t murdered him, if he
hadn’t disappeared like so many comrades—there is no history of those whom
the fascists killed and then “disappeared”—it was only because he had the
carpentry shop and was well known in the neighborhood, and if they had
removed him from the face of the earth everyone would have noticed.
时间就这样过去了。后来，就是这种默契，使他们告诉了我一件事，证明了他们对我的友情和信任。卡门用询问的目光看了恩佐和莉拉，很小心地说：“莱农是信得过的人。”当她看到他们也表示同意，就对我说，他们最近见到了帕斯卡莱。他是晚上出现在卡门家里的，她马上打电话给了莉拉，莉拉和恩佐就过来了。帕斯卡莱现在很好，他身上干干净净，毫发无伤，看起来很阔气，就像一个外科医生。但他们都觉得他很忧伤，他的想法还是和原来一样，但他看起来非常非常难过。他说，他永远都不会妥协，除非把他杀了。在离开之前，他看了一眼两个正在沉睡的外甥，他都不知道他们的名字。卡门说到这里时哭了起来，是不出声的哭，因为怕她的两个儿子发现。我们说，我们不赞同帕斯卡莱的选择，因为我们很害怕全世界，包括意大利到处发生的流血事件。先是卡门表达了立场，她要比我和莉拉坚定（莉拉没什么反应，恩佐只是点了点头）。他和我们一样，都了解那些最根本的东西，除了在报上看到的消息，谁知道他还做了什么其他可怕的事情。尽管我们的生活已经通过电脑、拉丁语、希腊语、写书、加油站等等安置下来了，但我们永远都不会背叛他。任何一个爱他的人都不会那么做。
So the time passed. At a certain point
there was such a strong feeling of friendship that they decided to give me
real proof of it. Carmen consulted Enzo and Lila with a look, then she said
warily: We can trust Lenuccia. When she saw that they agreed she said that
they had recently seen Pasquale. He had appeared one night at Carmen’s house,
and she had called Lila, and Lila had hurried over with Enzo. Pasquale was
well. He was clean, not a hair out of place, very well dressed, he looked
like a surgeon. But they had found him sad. His ideas had remained the same,
but he was incredibly sad. He had said that he would never surrender, that
they would have to kill him. Before leaving he had looked in at his nephews
as they slept: he didn’t even know their names. Carmen here began to cry, but
silently, so that her children wouldn’t come in. We said, she first of all,
she more than me, more than Lila (Lila was laconic, Enzo confined himself to
nodding), that we didn’t like Pasquale’s choices, that we felt horror at the
bloody disorder of Italy and the world, but that he knew the same essential
things that we knew, and even if he had committed whatever terrible
acts—among those you read about in the papers—and even if we were comfortable
with our lives in information technology, Latin and Greek, books, gas, we
would never reject him. None of those who loved him would do so.
那天就这样结束了。最后我问了莉拉和恩佐一个问题，因为我当时比较自在，我想着刚才埃莉莎对我说的话。我问：“现在索拉拉兄弟怎么样了？”恩佐马上盯着地板看。莉拉耸了耸肩膀，说：“还是和之前一样，两个混蛋！”然后，她用讽刺的语气说米凯莱现在发疯了：他母亲去世之后，他离开了吉耀拉，他把妻子和孩子从波西利波的家里赶了出去，路上遇到他们，也会对他们拳脚相加。“索拉拉兄弟，”她带着一丝满意说，“他们完蛋了。你想想，马尔切洛在外面对人说，他弟弟现在变成这个样子，是因为我的缘故。”这时候，她眼睛眯了起来，做了一个满意的表情，就好像马尔切洛说的是一句恭维话。最后，她总结说：“莱农，你在外面这段时间，情况发生了变化，你应该多和我们在一起。你把你的电话号码给我吧，我们应该尽可能多见面。我还想让你教教詹纳罗，你应该明白，只有你能帮助他。”
The day ended there. There was only one
last question, which I asked Lila and Enzo, because I was feeling at ease and
had in mind what Elisa had said to me a little earlier. I asked: And the
Solaras? Enzo immediately stared at the floor. Lila shrugged, she said: The
usual pieces of shit. Then she said sarcastically that Michele had gone mad:
after his mother’s death he had left Gigliola, he had thrown his wife and
children out of the house on Posillipo and if they showed up there he beat
them. The Solaras—she said, with a hint of gratification—are finished:
imagine, Marcello goes around saying it’s my fault that his brother is
behaving like that. And here she narrowed her eyes, with an expression of
satisfaction, as if what Marcello said were a compliment. Then she concluded:
A lot of things have changed, Lenù, since you left; you should stay with us
now; give me your phone number, we ought see each other as much as we can;
and then I want to send you Gennaro, you have to see if you can help him.
她拿起了笔，准备记下号码。我马上跟她说了前面两个数字，后来我的脑子有些乱，那个号码是我前几天才记住的，我记得不是很清楚，但当我想起来时，我又有些犹豫，我很害怕她又搅进我的生活，我又说了两个数字，其他数字都是故意乱说的。
She took a pen and got ready to write. I
dictated the first two numbers right away, then I got confused, I had learned
the number only a few days earlier and I couldn’t remember it. When, however,
it did come to mind precisely, I hesitated again, I was afraid she would come
back and settle in my life; I dictated two more numbers, and got the other
numbers wrong on purpose.
我做得对。正当我要带了两个孩子离开时，她当着所有人的面，当然包括黛黛和艾尔莎，问我：
It was a good thing. Just as I was about
to leave with the girls Lila asked me in front of everyone, including Dede
and Elsa:
“你要和尼诺生一个孩子吗？”
“Will you have a child with Nino?”
35
“当然不会。”我回答说，然后很尴尬地笑了起来。一路上，黛黛阴着脸不说话，我要不断地向艾尔莎解释：我不会生其他孩子，她们是我的孩子，这已经够了。有两天，我的头很疼，晚上没办法合眼。莉拉三言两句，就把我认为很美好的一场会面搅乱了。我想：没办法，她还是屡教不改，她知道怎么让我的生活变得复杂。我说的不仅仅是黛黛和艾尔莎的不安，而是莉拉一针见血地揭示了我隐藏了很久的心事，那是在大约十二年前，我在马丽娅罗莎家里怀抱着米尔科时感受到的母性，那是一种非理性的冲动，就像受到爱的驱使，完全席卷了我。我那时候已经感觉到，那不是仅仅想要一个孩子，而是想要一个具体的孩子，一个像米尔科的孩子，也就是尼诺的孩子。实际上，和彼得罗生了黛黛和艾尔莎，并没有让我的那种狂热平息下来。相反地，最近我每一次看到西尔维亚的孩子，或者说尼诺告诉我埃利奥诺拉怀孕时，这种狂热的念头又浮现了。现在，这个念头一直萦绕在我的心头，莉拉用她犀利的眼光，看到了我的这个想法。这是她最喜欢的游戏——我想——她就是这样对待恩佐、卡门、安东尼奥和阿方索的，她一定也是用同样的办法对付米凯莱·索拉拉和吉耀拉的。她假装自己是一个友好、温情的人，但实际上，只要她轻轻碰你一下，挪动一下你，就会把你毁掉。她也想这样对我，对尼诺。她一下子就看清了在我内心的轻微波动，说透了我试着掩盖的想法。
Of course not, I responded, and laughed
in embarrassment. But on the street I had to explain, to Elsa especially—Dede
was grimly silent—that I would not have other children, they were my children
and that was that. And for two days I had a headache, I couldn’t sleep. A few
deliberately placed words and Lila had disrupted an encounter that had seemed
to me pleasant. I said to myself: There’s nothing to be done, she’s
incurable, she always knows how to complicate my existence. And I wasn’t
alluding only to the anxieties she had unleashed in Dede and Elsa. Lila had
struck with precision a point in myself that I kept carefully hidden and
which had to do with the urge for motherhood I’d noticed for the first time a
dozen years ago, when I had held little Mirko, in Mariarosa’s house. It had
been a completely irrational impulse, a sort of command of love, which at the
time had overwhelmed me. I had intuited even then that it was not a simple
wish to have a child, I wanted a particular child, a child like Mirko, a
child of Nino’s. And in fact that yearning had not been alleviated by Pietro
and the conception of Dede and Elsa. Rather, it had reemerged recently, when
I saw Silvia’s child and, especially, when Nino had told me that Eleonora was
pregnant. Now, with increasing frequency, it rummaged around in me, and Lila,
with her usual acute gaze, had seen it. It’s her favorite game—I said to
myself—she does it with Enzo, with Carmen, with Antonio, with Alfonso. She
must have behaved the same way with Michele Solara, with Gigliola. She
pretends to be a kind and affectionate person, but then she gives you a
slight nudge, she moves you a tiny bit, and she ruins you. She wants to go
back to acting like that with me, and with Nino, too. She had managed to
bring out into the open a secret tremor that in general I tried to ignore, as
one ignores the twitching of an eyelid.
有几天时间，在塔索街上的房子里，当我一个人或者和别人在一起时，我都会不断地想一个问题：我要和尼诺生一个孩子吗？现在，这已经不是莉拉提出的问题，而是我给自己提出的问题。
For days, in the house on Via Tasso,
alone and in company, I was constantly agitated by the question: Will you
have a child with Nino? But now it wasn’t Lila’s question, I asked it of
myself.
36
从那时候开始，我经常回城区，尤其是彼得罗过来看两个孩子时。我步行从阿米迪欧广场，坐上地铁。有时候，我站在铁路上面的天桥上，看着下面的大路，有时候我只是穿过隧道，一直走到教堂。但是，通常我都是去找我母亲，和她做斗争，让她去看医生，我让我父亲还有两个弟弟佩佩和詹尼也加入了这场斗争。她是一个倔强的女人，丈夫还有两个儿子一提看医生的事儿，她就会发火。对于我，她只是会嚷嚷：“你闭嘴，是你让我害病的！”要么她把我赶走，要么她把自己关在厕所里。
After that, I returned often to the
neighborhood, especially when Pietro came to stay with the girls. I walked to
Piazza Amedeo, I took the metro. Sometimes I stopped on the railroad bridge
and looked down on the stradone, sometimes I just went through the tunnel and
walked to the church. But more often I went to fight with my mother,
insisting that she go to a doctor, and I involved my father, Peppe, Gianni in
that battle. She was a stubborn woman, she got angry at her husband and sons
as soon as they alluded to her health problems. With me, it was always the
same, she cried: Shut up, you’re the one who’s killing me, and she threw me
out, or locked herself in the bathroom.
莉拉有本事，这是大家都知道的事儿，比如说，米凯莱早就发现了这一点。埃莉莎对她的敌意，不仅仅是因为马尔切洛的怨气，而是因为莉拉在利用了索拉拉兄弟之后，又一次把他们甩开了，“Basic
Sight”公司给她赢得了名声还有金钱。她不再是小时候那样，一个难缠的女人，而是能在你脑子的那团混乱中，能理出一个头绪的人，假如她不喜欢你，她会让你头脑昏乱，不知所措。现在，她已经学了一门新本领，一份没人懂但能赚很多钱的工作。她生意那么好，据说恩佐正在找一个地方做办公室，而不是他们在卧室和厨房之间布置的那个临时凑合的办公室。但恩佐是谁？虽然他那么聪明，他仅仅是莉拉的一个跟随者。现在她运筹帷幄，决定做什么，不做什么。假如说得夸张一点，就好像城区在短时间内形成了这样的格局：要么学着马尔切洛和米凯莱的样子，要么成为莉拉。
Lila instead had what it takes, and
everyone knew it; Michele, for example, had realized it long ago. So Elisa’s
aversion toward her was due not only to some disagreement with Marcello but
to the fact that Lila had yet again broken off from the Solaras and, after
using them, had done well. Basic Sight was earning her a growing reputation
for innovation and for profit. It was no longer a matter of the brilliant
person who since she was a child had had the capacity to take the disorder
from your head and heart to give it back to you well organized or, if she
couldn’t stand you, to confuse your ideas and leave you depressed. Now she
also embodied the possibility of learning a new job, a job that no one knew
anything about but was lucrative. The business was going so well—people
said—that Enzo was looking for a space for a proper office and not the
makeshift one that he had installed between the kitchen and the bedroom. But
who was Enzo, clever though he might be? Only a subordinate of Lila. It was
she who moved things, who made and unmade. So, to exaggerate just slightly,
the situation in the neighborhood seemed in a short time to have become the
following: you learned either to be like Marcello and Michele or to be like
Lila.
当然了，这可能只是我的想法。但在那段时间，我感觉从她身上，还有从所有曾经和她有关、现在围绕着在她身边的人身上，都能看到这一点。比如说，有一次我遇到了斯特凡诺·卡拉奇，他现在很胖，脸色发黄，穿得很糟糕，他身上已经一点儿也看不出当年那个和莉拉结婚的年轻商人的痕迹，他的钱也越来越少了。尽管我们没聊几句，但我觉得，他说的很多话都是莉拉说的。也包括艾达，在那个阶段她也很崇拜莉拉，因为莉拉给斯特凡诺钱，艾达说了莉拉很多好话，我感觉到她在模仿莉拉的动作，甚至是笑的方式。
Of course, it might be that it was my
obsession, but in that phase, at least, I seemed increasingly to see her in
all the people who had been or were close to her. Once, for example, I ran
into Stefano Carracci, much heavier, his complexion yellowish, shabbily
dressed. There was absolutely nothing left of the young shopkeeper Lila had
married, least of all his money. And yet from the little conversation we had
it seemed to me that he used many of his wife’s phrases. And Ada, too, who at
that point had great respect for Lila and said nice things about her, because
of the money she gave Stefano, seemed to imitate her gestures, maybe even her
way of laughing.
亲戚和朋友都去找她，希望能得到安置，他们也尽量表现得称职。艾达忽然就被“Bisic
Sight”雇佣了，因为她还什么都没学到，她要从接电话开始。里诺也被雇用了——有一天，他和马尔切洛吵架了，他离开了那家超市，他问都没问就加入了他妹妹的公司，他还夸口说，他三下五除二就掌握了那些需要掌握的东西。但最出乎我意料的消息是一天晚上尼诺跟我说的，他从玛丽莎那里得知，就连阿方索也投靠了“Basic
Sight”。米凯莱·索拉拉疯疯癫癫的，他无缘无故就把马尔蒂里广场上的商店关了，阿方索失业了，结果是，就连他也通过莉拉重新找到了工作。
Relatives and friends crowded around her
in search of a job, making an effort to appear suitable. Ada herself was
hired out of the blue at Basic Sight, she was to begin by answering the
telephone, then maybe she would learn other things. Rino, too—who one bad day
had quarreled with Marcello and left the supermarket—inserted himself into
his sister’s activity without even asking permission, boasting that he could
learn in no time all there was to learn. But the most unexpected news for
me—Nino told me one night, he had heard it from Marisa—was that even Alfonso
had ended up at Basic Sight. Michele Solara, who continued to act in a crazy
way, had closed the shop in Piazza dei Martiri for no reason and Alfonso was
left without a job. As a result now he, too—and successfully—was being
retrained, thanks to Lila.
假如我愿意的话，我本可以了解更多，给她打电话就好了，或者说去她的公司看一眼，但我从来都没有那么做过。有一次，我在路上遇到她了，她很不情愿地停了下来。因为我给了她一个错误号码的事儿，她应该很生我的气；我说了我要给她儿子补课，但我没有露面；她想尽一切办法想和我和好，但我躲开了。她说她有急事，她用方言问我：
I could have found out more, and maybe I
would have liked to, all I had to do was call her, stop by. But I never did.
Once only I met her on the street and stopped reluctantly. She must have been
offended that I had told her the wrong phone number, that I had offered to
give lessons to her son and instead had disappeared, that she had done
everything to reconcile with me and I had withdrawn. She said she was in a
hurry, she asked in dialect:
“你还是住在塔索街上？”
“Are you still living on Via Tasso?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“那里很方便。”
“It’s out of the way.”
“可以看见大海。”
“It has a view of the sea.”
“从那上面看到的海是什么样的？一片蓝色？你最好到近处看看，这样你就会看到，海上全是垃圾、尿、带病毒的脏水。你们这些读书写作的人喜欢说谎，而不是说出真相。”
“What’s the sea, from up there? A bit of
color. Better if you’re closer, that way you notice that there’s filth, mud,
piss, polluted water. But you who read and write books like to tell lies, not
the truth.”
我不想多说，就说：
I cut her short, I said:
“我已经住在那里了。”
“For now I’m there.”
她就更干脆了：
She cut me even shorter:
“总是可以换的，有多少次，我们说一套，做一套，你在这里找个房子吧。”
“One can always change. How many times do
we say one thing and then do another? Take a place here.”
我摇了摇头，和她告别了。她想要什么？想让我再次回到城区吗？
I shook my head, I said goodbye. Was that
what she wanted? To bring me back to the neighborhood?
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