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4楼
发表于 2006-2-27 20:29
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They were no longer young men with all of it before them. Jack had filled out through the shoulders and hams, Ennis stayed as lean as a clothes-pole, stepped around in worn boots, jeans and shirts summer and winter, added a canvas coat in cold weather. A benign growth appeared on his eyelid and gave it a drooping appearance, a broken nose healed crooked.
他们都已不再青春年少。杰克的肩膀和屁股上都堆满了肉。埃尼斯还像晾衣竿儿那么瘦,一年四季穿着破靴子、牛仔裤和衬衫,只有在天冷的时候才会加一件帆布外套。岁月使他的眼皮儿都耷拉下来,断过又接好了的鼻梁弯得像只钩子。
Years on years they worked their way through the high meadows and mountain drainages, horse-packing into the Big Horns, Medicine Bows, south end of the Gallatins, Absarokas, Granites, Owl Creeks, the Bridger-Teton Range, the Freezeouts and the Shirleys, Ferrises and the Rattlesnakes, Salt River Range, into the Wind Rivers over and again, the Sierra Madres, Gros Ventres, the Washakies, Laramies, but never returning to Brokeback.
年复一年,他们跨越高原,穿过峡谷,在崇山峻岭之间策马放牧。从大角山到药弓山,从加勒廷山南端到阿布萨罗卡斯山,从花冈山到夜枭湾,还有桥梁般的特顿山脉。他们的足迹直至佛瑞兹奥特山、费雷斯山、响尾蛇山和盐河山脉。他们还曾两度造访风河山。还有马德雷山脉、范特雷山、沃什基山、拉腊米山——但是再也不曾回过断背山。
Down in Texas Jack's father-in-law died and Lureen, who inherited the farm equipment business, showed a skill for management and hard deals. Jack found himself with a vague managerial title, traveling to stock and agricultural machinery shows. He had some money now and found ways to spend it on his buying trips. A little Texas accent flavored his sentences, "cow" twisted into "kyow" and "wife" coming out as "waf." He'd had his front teeth filed down and capped, said he'd felt no pain, and to finish the job grew a heavy mustache.
后来,杰克的德州岳父死了。露玲接手了她爹的农牧机械生意,开始展示出经商的手腕儿。杰克稀里糊涂地挂了个经理的头衔,成日价在牲口和机械展销会之间晃荡来晃荡去。他有了些钱,不过都杂七杂八地花掉了。说话也带上了点儿德州口音,比如把“母牛”说成“木牛”,把“老婆”说成“捞婆”。他将前面的大牙给磨平了,镶了镶,倒也没多疼。还留上了厚厚的唇髭。
In May of 1983 they spent a few cold days at a series of little icebound, no-name high lakes, then worked across into the Hail Strew River drainage.
1983年5月,他们在几处结冰的高山湖泊边过了几天冷日子。接着便打算穿过黑耳斯图河。
Going up, the day was fine but the trail deep-drifted and slopping wet at the margins. They left it to wind through a slashy cut, leading the horses through brittle branchwood, Jack, the same eagle feather in his old hat, lifting his head in the heated noon to take the air scented with resinous lodgepole, the dry needle duff and hot rock, bitter juniper crushed beneath the horses' hooves. Ennis, weather-eyed, looked west for the heated cumulus that might come up on such a day but the boneless blue was so deep, said Jack, that he might drown looking up.
一路前行。天气虽然晴好,水流却湍急幽深,岸边的湿地泥泞难走。他们辟出一条狭窄的道路,赶着马穿过了一片小树林。杰克的旧帽子上还插着那根鹰羽。他在正午的烈日下抬起头,嗅着空气里的树脂芬芳,还有干树叶和热石头的气味儿。马蹄过处,苦刺柏纷纷歪倒零落。埃尼斯用他那饱经风霜的眼睛向西了望,但见一团浓云将至未至。头上的青天依然湛蓝深邃,就像杰克说的,他都要淹死在这一片蔚蓝之中了。
Around three they swung through a narrow pass to a southeast slope where the strong spring sun had had a chance to work, dropped down to the trail again which lay snowless below them. They could hear the river muttering and making a distant train sound a long way off. Twenty minutes on they surprised a black bear on the bank above them rolling a log over for grubs and Jack's horse shied and reared, Jack saying "Wo! Wo!" and Ennis's bay dancing and snorting but holding. Jack reached for the .30-.06 but there was no need; the startled bear galloped into the trees with the lumpish gait that made it seem it was falling apart.
大约三点钟,他们穿过一条羊肠小道,来到了东南面的山坡上。此处春日正暖,冰雪渐消。流水潺潺,奔向远方。二十分钟之后,他们被一头觅食的黑熊给吓了一跳。那熊朝他们滚过来一根圆枕木,杰克的马惊得连连后退,暴跳如雷。杰克喝道:“吁……”又拉又拽的费了好半天劲儿。埃尼斯的马也是又踏又踩又打响鼻儿,不过好歹还算镇定。黑熊倒给吓坏了,一路狂奔逃进森林。步履沉重,地动山摇。
The tea-colored river ran fast with snowmelt, a scarf of bubbles at every high rock, pools and setbacks streaming. The ochre-branched willows swayed stiffly, pollened catkins like yellow thumbprints. The horses drank and Jack dismounted, scooped icy water up in his hand, crystalline drops falling from his fingers, his mouth and chin glistening with wet.
茶褐色的河水,带着融化的积雪,汇成一股急流,撞击在山石上,溅起朵朵水花,形成漩涡逆流。河堤上杨柳微动,柳絮轻飏,好似漫天飞舞的淡黄色花瓣。杰克跳下马背,让马饮水。自己则掬起一捧冰水,晶莹的水滴从他指间滑落,溅湿了他的嘴唇和下巴,闪闪发亮。
"Get beaver fever doin that," said Ennis, then, "Good enough place," looking at the level bench above the river, two or three fire-rings from old hunting camps. A sloping meadow rose behind the bench, protected by a stand of lodgepole. There was plenty of dry wood. They set up camp without saying much, picketed the horses in the meadow. Jack broke the seal on a bottle of whiskey, took a long, hot swallow, exhaled forcefully, said, "That's one a the two things I need right now," capped and tossed it to Ennis.
“别那么做,会发烧的。”埃尼斯说道。接着又说:“真是个好地方啊。”河岸上有几座陈旧的狩猎帐篷,点缀着一两处篝火。河岸后面隆起一面草坡,草坡四周黑松环绕,地上还有一些干木头。他们默不做声地安营扎寨,然后把马牵到坡上去吃草。杰克打开一瓶威士忌,喝了一大口,又深深吐了口气,说道:“威士忌正是我两件宝贝之一。”然后把瓶子盖好,抛给了埃尼斯。
On the third morning there were the clouds Ennis had expected, a grey racer out of the west, a bar of darkness driving wind before it and small flakes. It faded after an hour into tender spring snow that heaped wet and heavy. By nightfall it turned colder. Jack and Ennis passed a joint back and forth, the fire burning late, Jack restless and bitching about the cold, poking the flames with a stick, twisting the dial of the transistor radio until the batteries died.
到了第三天,不出埃尼斯所料,那块雨云果然挟着风,夹着雪片,灰蒙蒙地从西面涌来。过了一个小时,风雪渐缓,化作了温柔的春雪,空气变得潮湿而厚重。夜更深更冷了,他们上上下下地搓着自己的关节,篝火彻夜不灭。杰克骂骂咧咧地诅咒着天气,拿根棍子翻动着火堆,一个劲儿地换台,直到把收音机折腾得没了电。
Ennis said he'd been putting the blocks to a woman who worked part-time at the Wolf Ears bar in Signal where he was working now for Stoutamire's cow and calf outfit, but it wasn't going anywhere and she had some problems he didn't want. Jack said he'd had a thing going with the wife of a rancher down the road in Childress and for the last few months he'd slank around expecting to get shot by Lureen or the husband, one. Ennis laughed a little and said he probably deserved it. Jack said he was doing all right but he missed Ennis bad enough sometimes to make him whip babies.
埃尼斯说他和一个在狼耳酒吧打零工的女人搞上了——他如今在西格诺给斯图特埃米尔干活——不过也没什么结果,因为那女的有的地方不太招他待见;杰克则说他近来和切尔德里斯公路边上一家牧场的老板娘有一腿。他估计总有那么一天,露玲或者那戴绿帽子的老公会宰了他。埃尼斯轻轻笑骂道“活该”。杰克又说他一切都还好,就是有时候想埃尼斯想得发疯便忍不住要拿起鞭子抽人。
The horses nickered in the darkness beyond the fire's circle of light. Ennis put his arm around Jack, pulled him close, said he saw his girls about once a month, Alma Jr. a shy seventeen-year-old with his beanpole length, Francine a little live wire. Jack slid his cold hand between Ennis's legs, said he was worried about his boy who was, no doubt about it, dyslexic or something, couldn't get anything right, fifteen years old and couldn't hardly read, he could see it though goddamn Lureen wouldn't admit to it and pretended the kid was o.k., refused to get any bitchin kind a help about it. He didn't know what the f*ck the answer was. Lureen had the money and called the shots.
马儿在暗夜的火光中嘶鸣。埃尼斯伸臂搂住杰克,把他拥进怀里。他说他大概一个月见一次女儿,小阿尔玛17岁了,腼腆害臊,长得跟他似的又瘦又高,弗朗仙则是个疯丫头。杰克把冰凉的手搁在埃尼斯大腿中间,说担心自家儿子有阅读障碍什么的,都已经十五岁了,什么都不会念。露玲硬是不承认,非说孩子没事儿——有钱顶个屁用。
"I used a want a boy for a kid," said Ennis, undoing buttons, "but just got little girls."
“我曾经想要个小子,”埃尼斯边说边解开纽扣,“没想到上天注定是岳父命。”
"I didn't want none a either kind," said Jack. "But f*ck-all has worked the way I wanted. Nothin never come to my hand the right way." Without getting up he threw deadwood on the fire, the sparks flying up with their truths and lies, a few hot points of fire landing on their hands and faces, not for the first time, and they rolled down into the dirt. One thing never changed: the brilliant charge of their infrequent couplings was darkened by the sense of time flying, never enough time, never enough.
“我儿子闺女都不想要,”杰克说,“操!这辈子我想要的偏偏都得不到。”他说着把一截朽木扔进了火堆里,火星子和他们那些絮絮叨叨的废话情话一起四下里飞溅,落在他们的手上、脸上。就这样,他们又一次滚倒在脏兮兮的土地上。这么多年以来,在他们屈指可数的几次幽会当中,有一点从来不曾改变:那就是时间总是过得太快,总是不够用,总是这样。
A day or two later in the trailhead parking lot, horses loaded into the trailer, Ennis was ready to head back to Signal, Jack up to Lightning Flat to see the old man. Ennis leaned into Jack's window, said what he'd been putting off the whole week, that likely he couldn't get away again until November after they'd shipped stock and before winter feeding started.
一两天之后,在山道的起点处,马匹都被赶上了卡车。埃尼斯要动身回西格诺去了,杰克则要回赖特宁平原看他爹。埃尼斯靠着车窗,对杰克说:他已经把回程推迟了一周,得等到十一月份冬牧期开始之前,牲口们都被运走之后,他才能再次出来。
"November. What in hell happened a August? Tell you what, we said August, nine, ten days. Christ, Ennis! Whyn't you tell me this before? You had a f*ckin week to say some little word about it. And why's it we're always in the friggin cold weather? We ought a do somethin. We ought a go south. We ought a go to Mexico one day."
“十一月?!那八月呢?咱们不是说好了八月份抽个十来天在一起的?老天爷,埃尼斯,你为什么不早点说,你XXX一个礼拜屁都不放一个!为什么我们非得挑那种冻死人的鬼天气啊?不能这样下去了,干吗不去南方?我们可以去墨西哥啊。”
"Mexico? Jack, you know me. All the travelin I ever done is goin around the coffeepot lookin for the handle. And I'll be runnin the baler all August, that's what's the matter with August. Lighten up, Jack. We can hunt in November, kill a nice elk. Try if I can get Don Wroe's cabin again. We had a good time that year."
“墨西哥?杰克,你知道的,我不能去那么远的地儿。我八月一整月都得打包,这才是八月份该干的事。听着,杰克,咱们可以十一月去打猎,逮它一头大麋鹿。我看看还能不能借到罗尔先生那个小屋子,咱们那年在那儿多开心。”
"You know, friend, this is a goddamn bitch of a unsatisfactory situation. You used a come away easy. It's like seein the pope now."
“嘿,伙计,我可XXX开心不起来。老是说来就来说走就走,你以为你是谁?”
"Jack, I got a work. Them earlier days I used a quit the jobs. You got a wife with money, a good job. You forget how it is bein broke all the time. You ever hear a child support? I been payin out for years and got more to go. Let me tell you, I can't quit this one. And I can't get the time off. It was tough gettin this time -- some a them late heifers is still calvin. You don't leave then. You don't. Stoutamire is a hell-raiser and he raised hell about me takin the week. I don't blame him. He probly ain't got a night's sleep since I left. The trade-off was August. You got a better idea?"
“杰克,我得工作——以前我倒是可以拍拍屁股就走人。你有个有钱的老婆,有份好工作,你已经忘记当穷光蛋的滋味儿了。你知道养孩子有多难吗?这么多年来我不知道花了多少钱,以后还得花更多。让我跟你说,我不能扔掉这个饭碗。而且那时候我真走不开,母牛要产仔,且有得忙呢。斯图特埃米尔很麻烦,他因为我要迟回去一星期可没少为难我。我不怪他,我走后他连个囫囵觉都甭想睡。我跟他讲好了,八月份我不走——你能说出什么更好的法子来吗?”
"I did once." The tone was bitter and accusatory.
“我从前说过。”杰克的声音苦涩,带着抱怨。
Ennis said nothing, straightened up slowly, rubbed at his forehead; a horse stamped inside the trailer. He walked to his truck, put his hand on the trailer, said something that only the horses could hear, turned and walked back at a deliberate pace.
埃尼斯默然不语,缓缓站直身子,轻轻摸了摸自己的额头。一只马在车上跺脚。他走向自己的卡车,把手放在车厢上,说了些只有马儿才能听见的话,接着慢慢地走回来。
"You been a Mexico, Jack?" Mexico was the place. He'd heard. He was cutting fence now, trespassing in the shoot-em zone.
“你去过墨西哥了,杰克?”墨西哥那种地方他听说过,他要打破砂锅问到底,弄个水落石出。
"Hell yes, I been. Where's the f*ckin problem?" Braced for it all these years and here it came, late and unexpected.
“去过怎么着,有XXX什么问题吗?”这个话题时隔多年又再度被提起,有点儿迟,也有点儿突然。
"I got a say this to you one time, Jack, and I ain't foolin. What I don't know," said Ennis, "all them things I don't know could get you killed if I should come to know them."
“我总有一天得跟你说说这事儿,杰克,我可不是傻瓜。我现在是不知道你干了什么,”埃尼斯说,“等我知道了你就死定了。”
"Try this one," said Jack, "and I'll say it just one time. Tell you what, we could a had a good life together, a f*ckin real good life. You wouldn't do it, Ennis, so what we got now is Brokeback Mountain. Everthing built on that. It's all we got, boy, f*ckin all, so I hope you know that if you don't never know the rest. Count the damn few times we been together in twenty years. Measure the f*ckin short leash you keep me on, then ask me about Mexico and then tell me you'll kill me for needin it and not hardly never gettin it. You got no f*ckin idea how bad it gets. I'm not you. I can't make it on a couple a high-altitude f*cks once or twice a year. You're too much for me, Ennis, you son of a whoreson bitch. I wish I knew how to quit you."
“来啊,你倒是试试看,”杰克说,“我现在就能跟你说:我们本来可以一起过上好日子,那种真正的好日子。但你不肯,埃尼斯,所以我们有的只是一座断背山,全部的寄托都在断背山。小子,要是你以为还有别的什么,那我告诉你,这就是XXX全部!数数二十年来我们在一起的日子,看看你是怎么象拴狗一样拴住我的。你现在来问我墨西哥,还要因为你想要干又不敢干的事儿杀了我?你不知道我过得多糟糕!我可不是你,我不愿意一年一两次在这种见鬼的高山上偷偷摸摸地干。我受够了,埃尼斯,你这个该死的狗娘养的,我真希望我知道怎么才能离开你!”
Like vast clouds of steam from thermal springs in winter the years of things unsaid and now unsayable -- admissions, declarations, shames, guilts, fears -- rose around them. Ennis stood as if heart-shot, face grey and deep-lined, grimacing, eyes screwed shut, fists clenched, legs caving, hit the ground on his knees.
就象是冬天里突然迸发的热气流,这么多年来他们之间从不曾说出口的感受——名分,公开,耻辱,罪恶,害怕……统统涌上心头。埃尼斯的心被狠狠地击中了。他面如死灰,表情扭曲,闭上了眼睛。双拳紧握,两腿一软,重重地跪在地上。
"Jesus," said Jack. "Ennis?" But before he was out of the truck, trying to guess if it was heart attack or the overflow of an incendiary rage, Ennis was back on his feet and somehow, as a coat hanger is straightened to open a locked car and then bent again to its original shape, they torqued things almost to where they had been, for what they'd said was no news. Nothing ended, nothing begun, nothing resolved.
“天啊,”杰克叫道,“埃尼斯?”他跳下卡车,想看看埃尼斯是心脏病犯了还是给气坏了。埃尼斯却站起身,像个衣架子似的,直挺挺地向后退去。他爬上卡车,关上车门,又蜷缩了起来——他们仍旧是在原地打转,没有开始,没有结束,也没有解决任何问题。
What Jack remembered and craved in a way he could neither help nor understand was the time that distant summer on Brokeback when Ennis had come up behind him and pulled him close, the silent embrace satisfying some shared and sexless hunger.
让杰克·崔斯特一直念念不忘却又茫然不解的,是那年夏天在断背山上埃尼斯给他的那个拥抱。当时他走到他身后,把他拉进怀里,充满了无言的、与性爱无关的喜悦。
They had stood that way for a long time in front of the fire, its burning tossing ruddy chunks of light, the shadow of their bodies a single column against the rock. The minutes ticked by from the round watch in Ennis's pocket, from the sticks in the fire settling into coals. Stars bit through the wavy heat layers above the fire. Ennis's breath came slow and quiet, he hummed, rocked a little in the sparklight and Jack leaned against the steady heartbeat, the vibrations of the humming like faint electricity and, standing, he fell into sleep that was not sleep but something else drowsy and tranced until Ennis, dredging up a rusty but still useable phrase from the childhood time before his mother died, said, "Time to hit the hay, cowboy. I got a go. Come on, you're sleepin on your feet like a horse," and gave Jack a shake, a push, and went off in the darkness. Jack heard his spurs tremble as he mounted, the words "see you tomorrow," and the horse's shuddering snort, grind of hoof on stone.
当日,他们在篝火前静立良久,红彤彤的火焰摇曳着,把他俩的影子投在石头上,浑然一体,宛如石柱。只听得埃尼斯口袋里的怀表滴答作响,只见火堆里的木头渐渐燃成木炭。在交相辉映的星光与火光中,埃尼斯的呼吸平静而绵长,嘴里轻轻哼着什么。杰克靠在他的怀里,听着那稳定有力的心跳。这心跳仿佛一道微弱的电流,令他似梦非梦,如痴如醉。直到埃尼斯用从前母亲对自己说话时常用的那种轻柔语调叫醒了他:“我得走了,牛仔。你站着睡觉的样子好像一匹马。”说着摇了摇他,便消失在黑暗之中。杰克只听到他颤抖着说了声“明儿见”,然后就听到了马儿打响鼻的声音和马蹄得得远去之声。
Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives. Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to see nor feel that it was Jack he held. And maybe, he thought, they'd never got much farther than that. Let be, let be.
这个慵懒的拥抱凝固为他们分离岁月中的甜蜜回忆,定格为他们艰难生活中的永恒一刻,朴实无华,由衷喜悦。即使后来,他意识到,埃尼斯不再因为他是杰克就与他深深相拥,这段回忆、这一刻仍然无法抹去。又或许,他是明白了他们之间不可能走得更远……无所谓了,都无所谓了。
Ennis didn't know about the accident for months until his postcard to Jack saying that November still looked like the first chance came back stamped DECEASED. He called Jack's number in Childress, something he had done only once before when Alma divorced him and Jack had misunderstood the reason for the call, had driven twelve hundred miles north for nothing.
埃尼斯一直都不知道杰克出了意外,直到数月之后,他寄给杰克的明信片被盖上“收件人已故”的戳记退了回来。于是他拨通了杰克在切尔德里斯的号码——这号码他只打过一次,那还是在和阿尔玛离婚之前。当时杰克误会了他的意思,驱车120英里匆匆赶来却一无所获。
This would be all right, Jack would answer, had to answer. But he did not. It was Lureen and she said who? who is this? and when he told her again she said in a level voice yes, Jack was pumping up a flat on the truck out on a back road when the tire blew up. The bead was damaged somehow and the force of the explosion slammed the rim into his face, broke his nose and jaw and knocked him unconscious on his back. By the time someone came along he had drowned in his own blood.
没事儿的,杰克一定会听电话,他必须听——但是杰克并没有,接电话的是露玲。当他问起杰克的死因时,露玲说当时卡车轮胎突然爆裂,爆炸的碎片扎进了杰克的脸,撞碎了他的鼻子和下巴,把他砸晕了过去。等到有人发现时,他已经死在了血泊之中。
No, he thought, they got him with the tire iron.
不,埃尼斯想,他肯定也是给人用棍子打死的。
"Jack used to mention you," she said. "You're the fishing buddy or the hunting buddy, I know that. Would have let you know," she said, "but I wasn't sure about your name and address. Jack kept most a his friends' addresses in his head. It was a terrible thing. He was only thirty-nine years old."
“杰克常提起你,”她说。“你是他钓鱼的伙伴还是打猎的伙伴来着?你瞧,我不太清楚你的姓名和住址。杰克总喜欢把他朋友的地址记在脑袋里——出了这种事儿真可怕,他才39岁。”
The huge sadness of the northern plains rolled down on him. He didn't know which way it was, the tire iron or a real accident, blood choking down Jack's throat and nobody to turn him over. Under the wind drone he heard steel slamming off bone, the hollow chatter of a settling tire rim.
巨大的悲伤如北方平原般笼罩住了他。他不知道这究竟怎么回事儿,到底是意外还是人为。血卡在杰克的嗓子里,却没人帮他翻一翻身。在狂风的低吼中,他仿佛听到钢铁刺穿骨头的声音,看到轮胎的金属圈砸碎了杰克的脸。
"He buried down there?" He wanted to curse her for letting Jack die on the dirt road.
“他埋在哪儿?”他真想破口大骂:这娘们儿就让杰克死在了那样一条土路上。
The little Texas voice came slip-sliding down the wire. "We put a stone up. He use to say he wanted to be cremated, ashes scattered on Brokeback Mountain. I didn't know where that was. So he was cremated, like he wanted, and like I say, half his ashes was interred here, and the rest I sent up to his folks. I thought Brokeback Mountain was around where he grew up. But knowing Jack, it might be some pretend place where the bluebirds sing and there's a whiskey spring."
那细细的德州口音从电话里传来:“我们给他立了块碑。他曾经说过死后要火化,然后把骨灰撒在断背山上,我也不知道那是什么地方。按照他的愿望,我们火葬了他。我留下了一半骨灰,另一半给了他家人,他们应该知道断背山在哪。但是,你也知道杰克,断背山大概只是他凭空想象的地方,一个蓝知更鸟声声吟唱,威士忌畅饮不衰的地方。”
"We herded sheep on Brokeback one summer," said Ennis. He could hardly speak.
“有一年夏天,我们在那里放羊。”埃尼斯几乎说不出话来。
"Well, he said it was his place. I thought he meant to get drunk. Drink whiskey up there. He drank a lot."
“哦,他总说那是他的地盘。我还以为他是喝醉了,威士忌喝多了。他经常喝。”
"His folks still up in Lightnin Flat?"
“他的家人还住在赖特宁平原么?”
"Oh yeah. They'll be there until they die. I never met them. They didn't come down for the funeral. You get in touch with them. I suppose they'd appreciate it if his wishes was carried out."
“是的,他们生生世世都住在那里。我从没见过他们,他们也没来参加葬礼。你要是能联系他们,我想他们会很高兴帮助杰克完成遗愿。”
No doubt about it, she was polite but the little voice was cold as snow.
她无疑是彬彬有礼的,但那细细的声音却冷如冰霜。
The road to Lightning Flat went through desolate country past a dozen abandoned ranches distributed over the plain at eight- and ten-mile intervals, houses sitting blank-eyed in the weeds, corral fences down. The mailbox read John C. Twist. The ranch was a meagre little place, leafy spurge taking over. The stock was too far distant for him to see their condition, only that they were black baldies. A porch stretched across the front of the tiny brown stucco house, four rooms, two down, two up.
去赖特宁平原的路上要经过一座孤零零的村庄,每隔8到10英里就能看到一处荒凉的牧场,房子伫立在空荡荡的草堆中,篱笆东倒西歪。其中一个信箱上写着:约翰·C·崔斯特。农场小得可怜,杂草丛生。牲口离得太远,他看不清楚它们长得怎么样,只觉得都黑乎乎、光秃秃的。一条走廊,一幢褐色的泥房子,四个房间,上层两间,下层两间。
Ennis sat at the kitchen table with Jack's father. Jack's mother, stout and careful in her movements as though recovering from an operation, said, "Want some coffee, don't you? Piece a cherry cake?"
埃尼斯和杰克的老爹坐在厨房的餐桌旁。杰克的母亲,身形矮胖,步履蹒跚,好像刚做完手术。她说:“喝杯咖啡吧?要不吃块樱桃蛋糕?”
"Thank you, ma'am, I'll take a cup a coffee but I can't eat no cake just now."
“谢谢,夫人。我要杯咖啡就好,我现在吃不下蛋糕。”
The old man sat silent, his hands folded on the plastic tablecloth, staring at Ennis with an angry, knowing expression. Ennis recognized in him a not uncommon type with the hard need to be the stud duck in the pond. He couldn't see much of Jack in either one of them, took a breath.
杰克他爹却一直闷声不响地坐着,双手交叠放在塑料桌布上,怒气冲冲地盯着埃尼斯,一副“我什么都知道”的模样。他相貌寻常,长得像池塘里的大头鹅。他从这两位老人身上找不到半丝杰克的影子,只好深深地叹了口气。
"I feel awful bad about Jack. Can't begin to say how bad I feel. I knew him a long time. I come by to tell you that if you want me to take his ashes up there on Brokeback like his wife says he wanted I'd be proud to."
“对杰克的事,我难过极了……说不出的伤心。我认识他很久了。我来是希望你们能让我把杰克的骨灰带到断背山。杰克的太太说这是他的愿望。如果你们同意,我很乐意代劳。”
There was a silence. Ennis cleared his throat but said nothing more.
一片沉默。埃尼斯清了清嗓子,但什么也没说。
The old man said, "Tell you what, I know where Brokeback Mountain is. He thought he was too goddamn special to be buried in the family plot."
老爹开口了。他说:“我跟你说,我知道断背山在哪儿。他大概也知道自己不配埋在祖坟里。”
Jack's mother ignored this, said, "He used a come home every year, even after he was married and down in Texas, and help his daddy on the ranch for a week fix the gates and mow and all. I kept his room like it was when he was a boy and I think he appreciated that. You are welcome to go up in his room if you want."
杰克的母亲仿佛没听到这话,说,“他每年都回来,即使结了婚又在德州安了家也还是那样,他一回来就帮他爹干活,整个星期都在忙,修大门啊,收庄稼啊,什么都干。我一直保留着他的房间,跟他还是个小男孩那会儿一模一样。要是你愿意,可以去他房间看看。”
The old man spoke angrily. "I can't get no help out here. Jack used a say, 'Ennis del Mar,' he used a say, 'I'm goin a bring him up here one a these days and we'll lick this damn ranch into shape.' He had some half-baked idea the two a you was goin a move up here, build a log cabin and help me run this ranch and bring it up. Then, this spring he's got another one's goin a come up here with him and build a place and help run the ranch, some ranch neighbor a his from down in Texas. He's goin a split up with his wife and come back here. So he says. But like most a Jack's ideas it never come to pass."
那老爹生气地接口:“我看没必要。杰克老是念叨‘埃尼斯·德·玛尔’,还说‘我总有一天会把他带来,我们一起打理爹的农场’。他还有好多好多半生不熟的主意,都是关于你俩的。盖个小屋,经营农场,赚大钱……今年春天他带回另外一个人来,说是他在德州的邻居。他还说要和他那德州老婆分手回这儿来呢。反正他那些计划没一个实现的。”
So now he knew it had been the tire iron. He stood up, said, you bet he'd like to see Jack's room, recalled one of Jack's stories about this old man. Jack was dick-clipped and the old man was not; it bothered the son who had discovered the anatomical disconformity during a hard scene. He had been about three or four, he said, always late getting to the toilet, struggling with buttons, the seat, the height of the thing and often as not left the surroundings sprinkled down. The old man blew up about it and this one time worked into a crazy rage. "Christ, he licked the stuffin out a me, knocked me down on the bathroom floor, whipped me with his belt. I thought he was killin me. Then he says, 'You want a know what it's like with piss all over the place? I'll learn you,' and he pulls it out and lets go all over me, soaked me, then he throws a towel at me and makes me mop up the floor, take my clothes off and warsh them in the bathtub, warsh out the towel, I'm bawlin and blubberin. But while he was hosin me down I seen he had some extra material that I was missin. I seen they'd cut me different like you'd crop a ear or scorch a brand. No way to get it right with him after that."
埃尼斯现在知道了,杰克一准儿是给人打死的。他站起来,说‘我一定得看看杰克的房间’,说这话的同时想起了杰克和他爹之间的一件往事:杰克的阴茎是弯的,但他爹不是。这种生理上的不一致让做儿子的很是困扰。有那么三五次,杰克在厕所里待着不出来,解开裤子纽扣,估量着马桶和那玩意儿的位置,结果尿得满地都是。这可把他爹气坏了,简直是勃然大怒(杰克当时回忆说):“老天爷,他差点儿宰了我。把我往洗澡盆上撞,用皮带抽我,对我大吼:你想知道尿了一地是啥滋味吗?让我来告诉你!接着他就把那东西抽出来朝我身上尿,淋了我满头满脸。然后扔了块毛巾给我,让我擦干净地,又命令我把衣服脱了洗干净,还有毛巾,也得洗干净。从那时起,我突然发现我跟他不一样,那种不一样,就像缺了只耳朵或者烫了个烙印一样明显。从那之后,他就没再正眼看过我。”
The bedroom, at the top of a steep stair that had its own climbing rhythm, was tiny and hot, afternoon sun pounding through the west window, hitting the narrow boy's bed against the wall, an ink-stained desk and wooden chair, a b.b. gun in a hand-whittled rack over the bed. The window looked down on the gravel road stretching south and it occurred to him that for his growing-up years that was the only road Jack knew. An ancient magazine photograph of some dark-haired movie star was taped to the wall beside the bed, the skin tone gone magenta. He could hear Jack's mother downstairs running water, filling the kettle and setting it back on the stove, asking the old man a muffled question.
陡峭蜿蜒的楼梯把埃尼斯带进了杰克的卧室。房间又小又热,下午的阳光从西窗倾泻进来,把一张窄小的男孩床逼进墙角。一张墨迹斑斑的桌子,一把木椅子,一杆双筒枪挂在床头手工制作的枪架上。窗外,一条碎石路向南延伸,他蓦然想起,杰克小时候就只认得这一条路。床边贴着一些从旧杂志上剪下来的照片,照片上那些黑头发的电影明星,都已经褪色发黄。埃尼斯听到杰克的妈妈在楼下烧开水、灌满水壶、又把它放回炉子,同时在和杰克的老爹小声儿嘀咕。
The closet was a shallow cavity with a wooden rod braced across, a faded cretonne curtain on a string closing it off from the rest of the room. In the closet hung two pairs of jeans crease-ironed and folded neatly over wire hangers, on the floor a pair of worn packer boots he thought he remembered. At the north end of the closet a tiny jog in the wall made a slight hiding place and here, stiff with long suspension from a nail, hung a shirt. He lifted it off the nail. Jack's old shirt from Brokeback days. The dried blood on the sleeve was his own blood, a gushing nosebleed on the last afternoon on the mountain when Jack, in their contortionistic grappling and wrestling, had slammed Ennis's nose hard with his knee. He had staunched the blood which was everywhere, all over both of them, with his shirtsleeve, but the staunching hadn't held because Ennis had suddenly swung from the deck and laid the ministering angel out in the wild columbine, wings folded.
卧室里的衣橱,其实就是一个浅浅的凹槽,架着根木棍。一条褪色的布帘子把它跟整个房间隔离开来。衣柜里挂着牛仔裤,仔细烫过,并且折出笔直的裤线。地上放着双似曾相识的破靴子。衣橱最里面,挂着一件衬衣。他把衣服从钉子上摘下来,认出那是杰克在断背山时曾穿过的。袖子上已经干涸的血迹却是埃尼斯的——在断背山上的最后一天,他们扭打的时候,杰克用膝盖磕到了埃尼斯的鼻子,血流得他们两个身上都是,大概也流在了杰克的袖子上。但埃尼斯不能肯定,因为他还用它包过折断翅膀的野鸽子。
The shirt seemed heavy until he saw there was another shirt inside it, the sleeves carefully worked down inside Jack's sleeves. It was his own plaid shirt, lost, he'd thought, long ago in some damn laundry, his dirty shirt, the pocket ripped, buttons missing, stolen by Jack and hidden here inside Jack's own shirt, the pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one. He pressed his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through his mouth and nose, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of Jack but there was no real scent, only the memory of it, the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what he held in his hands.
那衬衣很重。他这才发现里面还套着另外一件,袖子被仔细地塞在外面这件的袖子里。那是埃尼斯的一件格子衬衣,他一直以为是洗衣店给弄丢了。他的脏衬衣,口袋歪斜,扣子也不全,却被杰克偷了来,珍藏于此。
In the end the stud duck refused to let Jack's ashes go. "Tell you what, we got a family plot and he's goin in it." Jack's mother stood at the table coring apples with a sharp, serrated instrument. "You come again," she said.
最终大头鹅老爹也不肯把杰克的骨灰给他:“告诉你,他得埋在自家的祖坟里。”杰克的妈妈用削皮器削着苹果,对他说:“你可得再来啊。”
Bumping down the washboard road Ennis passed the country cemetery fenced with sagging sheep wire, a tiny fenced square on the welling prairie, a few graves bright with plastic flowers, and didn't want to know Jack was going in there, to be buried on the grieving plain.
回去的路上,埃尼斯颠簸着经过村里的墓地。那只不过是一小块林间空地,松松垮垮地围着栅栏。有几座墓前搁着塑料假花。埃尼斯不知道杰克的墓是哪一座,不知道他被埋在这片伤心平原的哪个角落。
A few weeks later on the Saturday he threw all Stoutamire's dirty horse blankets into the back of his pickup and took them down to the Quik Stop Car Wash to turn the high-pressure spray on them. When the wet clean blankets were stowed in the truck bed he stepped into Higgins's gift shop and busied himself with the postcard rack.
几个星期后的一个周六,他把斯图特埃米尔家那些脏毯子扔上卡车,拉到洗车处,用高压水枪冲洗。在工人们将洗干净的湿毯子往车上搬的空当儿,他走进了辛吉斯礼品店,开始忙着挑选明信片。
"Ennis, what are you lookin for rootin through them postcards?" said Linda Higgins, throwing a sopping brown coffee filter into the garbage can.
“埃尼斯,你这是找什么呢?”玲达·辛吉斯问他,顺手把用过的咖啡滤纸扔进了垃圾筒。
"Scene a Brokeback Mountain."
“断背山的风景明信片。"
"Over in Fremont County?"
“在弗里蒙特的那座?”
"No, north a here."
“不是,北面那座。”
"I didn't order none a them. Let me get the order list. They got it I can get you a hunderd. I got a order some more cards anyway."
“我没进这种明信片,不过我可以把它列在进货单上,下次给你进上一百张,反正我也得进点儿明信片。”
"One's enough," said Ennis.
“一张就够。”
When it came -- thirty cents -- he pinned it up in his trailer, brass-headed tack in each corner. Below it he drove a nail and on the nail he hung the wire hanger and the two old shirts suspended from it. He stepped back and looked at the ensemble through a few stinging tears.
明信片到了,三十美分。他把它贴在自己车里,四个角用黄铜大头钉钉住。又在下面敲了跟铁钉,拿铁丝衣架把杰克和他的衬衣挂了起来。他后退几步,端详着套在一起的两件衬衣,泪水夺眶而出,刺痛了他的双眼。
"Jack, I swear -- " he said, though Jack had never asked him to swear anything and was himself not the swearing kind.
“杰克,我发誓……”他说。尽管杰克从没要求过他发什么誓,杰克自己就不是一个会发誓的人。
Around that time Jack began to appear in his dreams, Jack as he had first seen him, curly-headed and smiling and bucktoothed, talking about getting up off his pockets and into the control zone, but the can of beans with the spoon handle jutting out and balanced on the log was there as well, in a cartoon shape and lurid colors that gave the dreams a flavor of comic obscenity. The spoon handle was the kind that could be used as a tire iron. And he would wake sometimes in grief, sometimes with the old sense of joy and release; the pillow sometimes wet, sometimes the sheets.
从那时起,杰克开始出现在他的梦里。还像初次见面时那样,头发卷曲,微笑着,露出虎牙。他也有梦到那些放在枕木上的豆子罐头和从罐头里伸出来的汤匙柄。形状象卡通画,颜色也很怪异,使他的梦境显得又滑稽又色情。汤匙柄还会变成轮胎撬棍……一觉醒来,他有时伤心,有时高兴。伤心的时候枕头会湿,高兴的时候床单会湿……
There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it.
他知道发生了什么事,却无法相信它。到如今已经回天乏力,于事无补,只好默默承受。
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