那不勒斯四部曲IV-失踪的孩子 中英双语版20
101
这个突如其来的动作让我完全束手无策。莉拉也没想到他会这样，我们已经习惯于一种想法：米凯莱不仅不会碰她，而且如果有人敢碰她的话，他会把那人杀了。因此我没办法叫喊出来，我什么话也说不出来。
I was paralyzed by that utterly
unpredictable gesture. Not even Lila could have imagined it, we were now so
used to the idea that Michele not only would never touch her but would kill
anyone who did. I was unable to scream, not even a choked sound came out of
me.
马尔切洛把他弟弟拉走了，马尔切洛在推搡弟弟时，莉拉嘴里冒出了鲜血和用方言说出的威胁（“我会杀了你的！我一定要杀了你，你们两个死定了。”），马尔切洛用一种开玩笑的语气对我说：“莱农，你可以把这个写到你的下一本小说里，假如她没明白的话，你告诉莉娜，我和我弟弟真的已经不喜欢她了。”
Marcello dragged his brother away, but as
he pulled and pushed him, as Lila vomited in words dialect and blood (I’ll
kill you, by God, you are both dead already), he said to me with affectionate
sarcasm: Put this in your next novel, Lenù, and tell Lina, if she doesn’t
understand yet, that my brother and I have truly stopped loving her.
莉拉的脸肿了，我们解释说，她忽然晕倒了，摔了一跤。这个解释很难说服恩佐，他一点儿也不相信我们说的，首先是我的版本——因为我太激动了，一定会让他觉得没一点儿说服力和底气，其次莉拉一点都没费劲儿去说服他。当恩佐表示他不能接受这个解释时，她很厌烦地说，事情就是这样，他就闭嘴了。他们的关系就是建立在这样的基础上，即使莉拉说了一个很明显的谎言，那也是唯一的真理。
It was hard to convince Enzo that Lila’s
swollen face was due to the disastrous fall that, as we told him, had
followed a sudden fainting fit. In fact I’m almost certain that he wasn’t
convinced at all, first because my version—agitated as I was—must have seemed
anything but plausible, second because Lila didn’t even make an effort to be
persuasive. But when Enzo tried to object she said sharply that it was true,
and he stopped discussing it. Their relationship was based on the idea that
even an open lie from Lila was the only truth that could be uttered.
我和几个女儿待在家里。黛黛很害怕，艾尔莎觉得难以置信，伊玛一直在问我：人的血都在鼻子里吗？我很失措，也很愤怒。我时不时会下楼去看看莉拉怎么样了。我想把蒂娜带上来，但那孩子很不安，她看到母亲的状况，手忙脚乱地照顾着莉拉，不想离开她妈妈一分钟。她在轻轻地给莉拉脸上涂药，把一些金属小玩意儿放在她的额头上，想让她的头疼缓解一点。我把几个女儿带下楼，想把这当成诱饵把蒂娜吸引上来，但这只能让情况更加复杂。伊玛想方设法也想加入到照顾莉拉的游戏中，但蒂娜一点儿也不愿意让步，黛黛和艾尔莎试着取代她，她会很绝望地叫喊起来，是她妈妈生病了，她不愿意让任何人照顾。最后莉拉把我们都赶走了，包括我，她说话声音那么大，我感觉她已经好多了。
I went home with my daughters. Dede was
frightened, Elsa incredulous, Imma asked questions like: Is there blood in a
nose? I was disoriented, I was furious. Every so often I went down to see how
Lila felt and to try and take Tina with me, but the child was alarmed by her
mother’s state and eager to help her. For both reasons she wouldn’t leave
her, even for a moment: she delicately spread an ointment, placed metal
objects on her mother’s forehead to cool it and make the headache go away.
When I brought my daughters down as a lure to draw Tina up to my place, I
merely made things more complicated. Imma tried every way she could to
intervene in the treatment game, but Tina wouldn’t yield at all and shrieked
desperately even when Dede and Elsa attempted to take away her authority. The
sick mamma was hers and she didn’t want to give her up to anyone. Finally
Lila sent everyone away, including me, and with such energy that it seemed to
me she was already better.
实际上，她很快就恢复了。而我没有，我的气愤先是变成了怒火，后来成了对自己的鄙视。我没办法原谅自己在暴力面前的不知所措。我对自己说：瞧瞧你现在变成什么样子了？假如你没办法对付那两个混蛋，你为什么要回这里生活？你装出一副民主阔太太的样子，生活在下层人民中间。你喜欢在报纸上说：“我生活在我出生的地方，我不想失去和现实的联系。”但你太可笑了，你已经早就失去了和这里的联系，假如闻到污秽、呕吐物和鲜血的味道，你会晕倒。我想着这些事，同时我脑子里涌现出我无情回击米凯莱的情景：我打他，抓他，咬他，我的心跳得很快。报仇雪恨的狂热过去了之后，我想：莉拉说的对，写作不仅仅是为了写东西，而是为了回击那些伤害别人的人，用语言来回击拳打脚踢，还有死亡的威胁。当然，她脑子里还残存着我们童年时的梦想：成为一个使用语言就像使用利剑的人，通过写作获得声誉、金钱和权力。但我早已经知道，现实中，一切都要平庸一些。一本书、一篇文章可以制造声音，就像古代的战士在作战前制造的声音，但这和真实的力量以及没有尺度的暴力并不相连，这只是一种表演。无论如何，我想采取行动，弄出一点声音，希望能伤到别人。有一天早上，我来到楼下，我问她：“你知道什么能吓到索拉拉兄弟的事情？”
She recovered quickly, in fact. Not me.
My fury first became rage, then changed into contempt for myself. I couldn’t
forgive myself for remaining paralyzed in the face of violence. I said to
myself: What have you become; why did you come back here to live, if you
weren’t capable of reacting against those two shits; you’re too well-meaning,
you want to play the democratic lady who mixes with the working class, you
like to say to the newspapers: I live where I was born, I don’t want to lose
touch with my reality; but you’re ridiculous, you lost touch long ago, you
faint at the stink of filth, of vomit, of blood. I had thoughts like that and
meanwhile images came to my mind in which I let loose mercilessly against
Michele. I hit him, scratched him, bit him, my heart pounding. Then the
desire for violence died down and I said to myself: Lila is right, one writes
not so much to write, one writes to inflict pain on those who wish to inflict
pain. The pain of words against the pain of kicks and punches and the
instruments of death. Not much, but enough. Of course, she still had in mind
our dreams of childhood. She thought that if you gained fame, money, and
power through writing, you became a person whose sentences were thunderbolts.
Whereas I had long known that everything was more mediocre. A book, an
article, could make noise, but ancient warriors before the battle also made
noise, and if it wasn’t accompanied by real force and immeasurable violence
it was only theater. Yet I wished to redeem myself, the noise could do some
damage. One morning I went downstairs, I asked her: What do you know that
frightens the Solaras.
她用好奇的目光看着我，有些懒洋洋地看了看四周，回答说：“我给米凯莱工作时，我看到了很多文件，有些东西是他亲手给我的，我把那些文件研究了一下。”她的脸色发青，她做了一个疼痛的表情，用很粗鲁的方言补充说：“假如一个男人想要一个女人，他的欲望那么强烈，他都没办法说出来他想要，这时候，即使你让他把那东西放在热油里，他也会放进去。”然后她用手扶着脑袋，使劲儿地摇晃着，就好像那是放着骰子的锡罐。我意识到，那时候她也很鄙视自己。她不喜欢自己不得不用那种方式对待詹纳罗，那样说阿方索，还有把她哥哥从公司赶走，她也不喜欢自己刚才说的那些口无遮拦的话。她受够了，一切都让她受不了。但后来她好像感觉到我们的心情是一样的。她问我：
She looked at me with curiosity, she
circled around reluctantly for a while, she answered: When I worked for
Michele I saw a lot of documents, I studied them, some stuff he gave me
himself. Her face was livid, she made a pained grimace, she added, in the
crudest dialect: If a man wants pussy and he wants it so much that he can’t
even say I want it, even if you order him to stick his prick in boiling oil
he does it. Then she held her head in her hands, she shook it hard as if it
were a tin cup with dice in it, and I realized that she, too, at that moment
despised herself. She didn’t like the way she was forced to treat Gennaro,
the way she had insulted Alfonso, the way she had thrown out her brother. She
didn’t like a single one of the very vulgar words that were coming out of her
now. She couldn’t bear herself, she couldn’t bear anything. But at a certain
point she must have felt that we were in the same mood and she asked me:
“如果我把材料给你，你会写吗？”
“If I give you things to write you’ll
write them?”
“会的。”
“Yes.”
“东西写好了之后，你会发表吗？”
“And then what you write you’ll get
printed?”
“我不知道，也许吧。”
“Maybe, I don’t know.”
“怎么样才会发表？”
“What does it depend on?”
“我得确信写的东西会伤到索拉拉兄弟，而不会伤到我和我的女儿。”
“I have to be sure that it will do damage
to the Solaras and not to me and my daughters.”
她看着我，很难做决定。然后她说：“你帮我看一会儿蒂娜。”她从家里出去了，过了半个小时，她带回来一只花布包，里面装满了文件。
She looked at me, unable to make up her
mind. Then she said: Take Tina for ten minutes, and she left. She returned
half an hour later with a floral-print bag full of documents.
我们坐在厨房的桌子前，这时候蒂娜和伊玛在小声说话，她们在地板上专注地玩着布娃娃、马车和马。莉拉从包里拿出了很多纸、她的笔记，还有两个很破旧的红皮本子。我很好奇地翻看了一下那两个红色的本子：里面是方格纸张，用小学生一样的笔迹很仔细地记着账，上面的注解充满了语法错误，每一页都签着一个姓名的缩写“M.S”。我明白，那就是整个城区都知道的曼努埃拉·索拉拉的红本子。那个本子虽然非常危险，但听起来很迷人——或者是因为危险而迷人——那是我们的童年和少年时期就反复听到的“红本子”。如果要换一个词来描述它，比如说“账本”，假如换一个颜色，它就不会那么激动人心。曼努埃拉·索拉拉的本子像一个绝密文件一样让我们激动，因为它是众多血腥事件的核心。我现在终于见到它了，那是学校用的那种系列笔记本，就像我之前用过的那种，非常普通，很脏，边上和页面下面都已经卷起来了。我忽然意识到，回忆也是一种文学加工，也许莉拉说得对：我的书虽然取得了很大的成功，但那都是很糟糕的故事，这些书很糟糕是因为它们条理清楚，是用过于考究的语言写成的，因为我没办法模仿现实的凌乱、扭曲、不合逻辑和反美学。
We sat down at the kitchen table, while
Tina and Imma chattered softly, moving dolls, horses, and carriages around
the floor. Lila took out a lot of papers, her notes, also two notebooks with
stained red covers. I immediately leafed through these with interest:
graph-paper pages written in the calligraphy of the old elementary
schools—account books, minutely annotated in a language full of grammatical
mistakes and initialed on every page “M.S.” I understood that they were part
of what the neighborhood had always called Manuela Solara’s red book. How the
expression “red book” had echoed during our childhood and adolescence:
evocative yet threatening—or perhaps evocative precisely because threatening.
But whatever other word one might use in speaking of it—“register,” for
example—and no matter if the color was altered, Manuela Solara’s book excited
us like a secret document at the center of bloody adventures. Here it was,
instead. It was a collection of school notebooks like the two I had before
me: very ordinary dirty notebooks with the lower right edge raised like a
wave. I realized in a flash that the memory was already literature and that
perhaps Lila was right: my book—even though it was having so much
success—really was bad, and this was because it was well organized, because
it was written with obsessive care, because I hadn’t been able to imitate the
disjointed, unaesthetic, illogical, shapeless banality of things.
两个孩子在一边儿玩儿——她们有时候会吵架，我们也会怒斥她们，让她们安静下来——莉拉把她搜集的材料放到我跟前，然后跟我讲了这些材料的意义。她把这些材料简述了一下。我们已经有多长时间没有一起做一件事情了？她看起来很高兴，我明白这是她希望我做的。那天结束时，她带着那个布包又消失了，我回到了自己的房子里，研究那些笔记。在接下来的几天里，我们在“Basic
Sight”见面。我们关在她的办公室里，她坐在电脑前，那就像一台带键盘的电视，这台电脑和她之前给我和几个孩子看的机器很不一样。她摁下一个开机的按钮，把一个长方形的深色盘放到了灰色的模块里。我很忐忑地等着，在屏幕上出现了一些跳动的亮光。这时候莉拉开始用键盘写字，我惊讶得张大了嘴巴，虽然这台机器也是用电，但这和我平时用的打字机一点儿也不一样。她用指头轻触灰色的键盘，她写的那些字默默出现在屏幕上，字的颜色就像刚发芽的青草。她脑子里的那些东西，记录在她大脑皮层上的东西，奇迹般地被倾倒了出来，显示在屏幕上。
While the children played—if they merely
hinted at a quarrel we let out nervous cries to quiet them—Lila placed before
my eyes all the material in her possession, and explained the meaning of it.
We organized and summarized. It was a long time since we had undertaken
something together. She seemed pleased, I understood that this was what she
wanted and expected from me. At the end of the day she disappeared again with
her bag and I returned to my apartment to study the notes. Then, in the
following days, she wanted us to meet at Basic Sight. We locked ourselves in
her office and sat at the computer, a kind of television with a keyboard,
very different from what she had showed me and the children some time before.
She pressed the power button, she slid dark rectangles into gray blocks. I
waited, bewildered. On the screen luminous tremors appeared. Lila began to
type on the keyboard, I was speechless. It was in no way comparable to a
typewriter, even an electric one. With her fingertips she caressed gray keys,
and the writing appeared silently on the screen, green like newly sprouted
grass. What was in her head, attached to who knows what cortex of the brain,
seemed to pour out miraculously and fix itself on the void of the screen.
那种力量，即使是出现在屏幕上也还是充满力量，经过电化学信号的刺激，很快就转变成了光。我感觉，上帝在西奈山上授予摩西的十诫，当时的情景大约就是这样的：无法触摸，非常可怕，但有一种很绝对、很纯粹的效果。我说，太棒了！她说，我教你。她开始教我，屏幕上耀眼的文字开始变长，我说的话、她说的话，还有我们的讨论都出现在深色的屏幕上，绝不拖泥带水。莉拉在写，我在旁边修改。她会用一个按键把写错的地方抹去，用其他键把大片的文字向上，或者向下移动，她动作很快。但很快，莉拉改变了主意，会重新改一遍，一眨眼的工夫，她就把这里的东西挪到那里，或者删除。不需要笔和纸，也不需要像打字机那样要换纸，屏幕就是唯一的纸张，上面也没有任何修改过的痕迹，还是同一张纸。虽然我们写的是索拉拉兄弟在半个坎帕尼亚大区干的那些脏事儿，但那些字迹都完美无缺，每一行都整整齐齐，让人感觉到很干净清爽。
It was power that, although passing for act, remained power, an electrochemical stimulus that was instantly transformed into light. It seemed to me like the writing of God as it must have been on Sinai at the time of the Commandments, impalpable and tremendous, but with a concrete effect of purity. Magnificent, I said. I’ll teach you, she said. And she taught me, and dazzling, hypnotic segments began to lengthen, sentences that I said, sentences that she said, our volatile discussions were imprinted on the dark well of the screen like wakes without foam. Lila wrote, I would reconsider. Then with one key she erased, with others she made an entire block of light disappear, and made it reappear higher up or lower down in a second. But right afterward it was Lila who changed her mind, and everything was altered again, in a flash: ghostly moves, what’s here now is no longer here or is there. And no need for pen, pencil, no need to change the paper, put another sheet in the roller. The page is the screen, unique, no trace of a second thought, it always seems the same. And the writing is incorruptible, the lines are all perfectly straight, they emit a sense of cleanliness even now that we are adding the filthy acts of the Solaras to the filthy acts of half of Campania.
我们一起工作了好几天。我们写的那些东西，通过一台吱吱嘎嘎的打印机打印出来，白纸黑字地出现在我们的眼前，简直就像从天而降。莉拉很不满意，我们又拿起笔开始改，费劲儿改了好久。她很易怒，她对我寄予的希望太大了，以为我能回答她的所有问题，她觉得我无所不知。但是她很生气，因为每写一行，她就发现我对这个大区的地理、地方关系、市议会或银行的内幕，还有犯罪和刑罚等等一无所知。奇怪的是，尽管如此，我已经有很长时间都没为自己还有我们的友谊这么自豪过。“我们应该把他们毁掉，莱农，假如这还不够，我就亲手把他们杀了。”我们的思想在发生强烈的撞击，仔细想想，这是我们的思想最后一次相互交融，慢慢变成一个思想。最后我们不得不接受，一切都已经结束，东西写好了，是什么样就是什么样。她又重新打印了一份，我把我们写的东西放在一个信封里，把它寄给了出版社主编，让他拿去给律师看。我在电话上跟他说，我想知道这些东西能不能让索拉拉兄弟进监狱。
We worked for days. The text descended
from Heaven to earth through the noise of the printer, materialized in black
dots laid on paper. Lila found it inadequate, we returned to pens, we labored
to correct it. She was irritable: from me she expected more, she thought I
could respond to all her questions, she got angry because she was convinced
that I was a well of knowledge, while at every line she discovered that I
didn’t know the local geography, the tiny details of bureaucracies, how the
communal councils functioned, the hierarchies of a bank, the crimes and the
punishments. And yet, contradictorily, I hadn’t felt her to be so proud of me
and of our friendship in a long time. We have to destroy them, Lenù, and if
this isn’t enough I’ll murder them. Our heads collided—for the last time, now
that I think of it—one against the other, and merged until they were one.
Finally we had to resign ourselves and admit that it was finished, and the
dull period of what’s done is done began. She printed it yet again, I put our
pages in an envelope, and sent it to the publishing house and asked the
editor to show it to the lawyers. I need to know—I explained on the
telephone—if this stuff was sufficient to send the Solaras to jail.
102
一个星期过去了，又一个星期过去了。有一天早上，主编给我打了电话，一张口就说了很多好话。
A week passed, two weeks. The editor
telephoned one morning and was lavish in his praise.
“这个阶段，你文思如泉涌啊！”他说。
“You’re in a splendid period,” he said.
“这是我和我一个朋友一起写的。”
“I worked with a friend of mine.”
“能看出来你的文风，但比之前更好了，这是一篇非常精彩的文章。拜托你让萨拉托雷教授看看这篇文章，这样他就明白，任何东西都可以通过文采飞扬、激动人心的文字表现出来。”
“It shows your hand at its best, it’s an
extraordinary text. Do me a favor: show these pages to Professor Sarratore,
so he sees how anything can be transformed into passionate reading.”
“我已经不再和尼诺见面了。”
“I don’t see Nino anymore.”
“可能是因为这个原因，你状态才这么好。”
“Maybe that’s why you’re in such good
shape.”
我没笑，我迫不及待地想知道，律师是怎么说的，他的回答却让我非常失望。主编说，没有足够的证据让他们进监狱，哪怕是一天。但你要知道，索拉拉兄弟是很难进监狱的，尤其是就像你说的，他们已经渗透进地方政治，可以买通任何人。我觉得很虚弱，双腿发软，我失去了信心，我想莉拉一定会很生气。我有气无力地说：“他们要比我写得更糟糕。”主编感受到了我的失望，尽量想让我打起精神，他接着赞美了我在那篇文章里投入的激情。但结论还是一样：凭我手头的东西，很难把他们摧毁。最后让我惊异的是，他让我不要把那篇文章搁置起来，而是要把它发表。“我打电话给《快报》，”他提议说，“假如在这个时候你发表一篇这样的文章，对你、你的读者和所有人来说都非常重要，因为你向他们展示了，我们生活的这个意大利，实际上要比小说里讲述的还要糟糕。”他说，他要重新咨询一下律师，想知道如果发表这篇文章我们会有什么法律方面的风险，需要删除或者修订什么。他想征得我的同意。我想，当时吓唬布鲁诺·索卡沃时，事情是多么简单，我很坚定地回绝了。我说：“我会又一次被起诉的，不得不陷入一大堆麻烦——出于对几个女儿的爱，我不愿意出现这种情况。我不得不想到，法律对于害怕它的人管用，对于打破它的人却没用。”
I didn’t laugh, I needed to know urgently
what the lawyers had said. The answer disappointed me. There’s not enough
material, the editor said, for even a day in jail. You can take some
satisfaction, but these Solaras of yours aren’t going to prison, especially
if, as you recount, they’re rooted in local politics and have money to buy
whoever they want. I felt weak, my legs went limp, I lost conviction, I
thought: Lila will be furious. I said, depressed: They’re much worse than
I’ve described. The editor perceived my disappointment, he tried to encourage
me, he went back to praising the passion I had put into the pages. But the
conclusion remained the same: with this you won’t ruin them. Then, to my
surprise, he insisted that I not put aside the text but publish it. I’ll call
L’Espresso, he suggested, if you come out with a piece like this right now,
it’ll be an important move for yourself, for your audience, for everyone,
you’ll show that the Italy we live in is much worse than the one we talk
about. And he asked permission to submit the pages to the lawyers again to
find out what legal risks I would run, what I would have to take out and what
I could keep. I thought of how easy everything had been when it was a matter
of scaring Bruno Soccavo, and I refused firmly. I said, I’ll end up being
sued again, I’d find myself in trouble for no reason, and I would be
forced—something I don’t want to do, for the sake of my children—to think
that the laws work for those who fear them, not for those who violate them.
我等了一会儿，才打起精神去找莉拉，一字不差地跟她转达了编辑的话。她很平静，打开电脑看着那篇文章，但我觉得，她没有重读那篇文章，她在盯着屏幕思考。然后她用一种带着敌意的语气问我：
I waited a while, then I gathered my
strength and told Lila everything, word for word. She stayed calm, she turned
on the computer, she scanned the text, but I don’t think she reread it, she
stared at the screen and meanwhile reflected. Then she asked me in a hostile
tone:
“你信任这个主编吗？”
“Do you trust this editor?”
“是的，他是个好人。”
“Yes, he’s a smart person.”
“那你为什么不愿意发表这篇文章？”
“Then why don’t you want to publish the
article?”
“发表有什么用？”
“What would be the point?”
“把事情讲清楚。”
“To clarify.”
“事情已经很清楚了。”
“It’s already clear.”
“谁清楚了？你，我，还是主编？”
“To whom? To you, to me, to the editor?”
她很不高兴地摇了摇头，冷冰冰地说她要工作。
She shook her head, displeased, and said
coldly that she had to work.
我说：
I said:
“等一下。”
“Wait.”
“我很忙。没有阿方索，这里的工作很麻烦。你走吧，拜托了，走吧。”
“I’m in a hurry. Without Alfonso work’s
gotten complicated. Go on, please, go.”
“为什么你要生我的气？”
“Why are you angry at me?”
“走吧。”
“Go.”
我们有一段时间没见面。早上，她让蒂娜自己上楼来，晚上恩佐来接她，要么她就在楼梯间大喊：“蒂娜，下来吧，妈妈回来了。”大约过了两个星期，主编兴高采烈地给我打电话了。
We didn’t see each other for a while. In
the morning she sent Tina up to me, in the evening either Enzo came to get
her or she shouted from the landing: Tina, come to Mamma. A couple of weeks
passed, I think, then the editor telephoned me in a very cheerful mood.
“很好，我很高兴你最后决定了。”
“Good for you, I’m glad you made up your
mind.”
我不明白他在说什么，他跟我解释说，他的一个朋友——一个在《快报》工作的编辑，非常着急要我的联系方式。从主编那里我得知，关于索拉拉的那篇文章，在删节之后会在这个星期刊出。他说：“你应该告诉我，你改变主意了。”
I didn’t understand and he explained to
me that his friend at L’Espresso had called, he urgently needed my address.
From him he had learned that the text on the Solaras would come out in that
week’s issue, with some cuts. You could have told me, he said, that you
changed your mind.
我出了一身冷汗，不知道说什么，我假装若无其事。但我一下子就明白了，是莉拉把我们的文章发给了那家周报。我非常气愤，跑到她那里去抗议，但她对我特别亲切，尤其是她很愉快。
I was in a cold sweat, I didn’t know what
to say, I pretended nothing was wrong. But it took me a moment to realize
that Lila had sent our pages to the weekly. I hurried to her to protest, I
was indignant, but I found her especially affectionate and above all happy.
“我看你没办法决定，就替你决定了。”
“Since you couldn’t make up your mind, I
did.”
“我已经决定不发表这篇文章。”
“I had decided not to publish it.”
“但我不是这么决定的。”
“Not me.”
“那你只署你自己的名字。”
“You sign it alone, then.”
“你在说什么？写东西的人是你。”
“What do you mean? You’re the writer.”
我没办法让她领会我的反对，还有我的不安，我每一句批评的话都会让她心情更好。那篇文章发表了，一共六页，密密麻麻的，占了非常重要的版面，当然文章只有一个署名，是我的名字。
It was impossible to communicate to her
my disapproval and my anguish, every critical sentence of mine was blunted
against her good humor. The article, six dense pages, was given great
prominence, and naturally it had a single byline, mine.
看到报纸时，我们吵了一架。我非常气愤地说：
When I saw that, we quarreled. I said to
her angrily:
“我不明白，为什么你要这样做。”
“I don’t understand why you behave like
that.”
“我明白。”她回答说。
“I understand,” she said.
她脸上还有米凯莱的拳头留下的痕迹，她没有署名并不是因为害怕。她害怕的是别的事情，就我所知，她根本就不在乎索拉拉兄弟。但我当时很生气，忍不住对她说：“你把你的名字去掉了，是因为你喜欢藏在暗处，丢完石头藏起手，对你来说是自然而然，我已经厌烦你的伎俩了。”她笑起来了，她认为我对她的控诉没有意义。她说：“我不喜欢你这么想。”她做出一副不高兴的样子，说她把那篇文章发给《快报》，只署了我的名字，那是因为她的名字一点分量都没有，我是上过大学的人，我是那个有名的人，可以毫无畏惧地发表自己的言论。听到她的这些话，我确信她太高估了我的作用，就告诉了她我的想法。但她很不屑，她说我总是低估自己，因此她希望我更加努力，表现得更出色，要获得更大的认可，她一心想着我能取得更大的成就。她感叹说：“你走着瞧吧，索拉拉兄弟没什么好下场。”
Her face still bore the marks of
Michele’s fist, but certainly it hadn’t been fear that kept her from putting
her name to it. She was terrified by something else and I knew it, she didn’t
give a damn about the Solaras. But I felt so resentful that I threw it in her
face just the same—You removed your name because you like to stay hidden,
because it’s convenient to throw stones and hide your hand, I’m tired of your
plots—and she began to laugh, it seemed to her a senseless accusation. I
don’t like that you think that, she said. She became sullen, she muttered
that she had sent the article to L’Espresso with only my name on it because
hers didn’t count, because I was the one who had studied, because I was
famous, because now I could give anyone a beating without fear. In those
words I found the confirmation that she ingenuously overestimated my role,
and I told her so. But she was annoyed, she answered that it was I who
underrated myself, so she wanted me to take on more and better, to have even
greater success, all she wanted was for my merits to be recognized. You’ll
see, she exclaimed, what will happen to the Solaras.
我灰溜溜地回到家里。我没办法摆脱那种怀疑，就是她在利用我，就像马尔切洛说的那样。她不管我的死活，利用我的那点儿名声来打赢她的那场战争，实现她的报复，消除自己的愧疚和不安。
I went home depressed. I couldn’t drive
out the suspicion that she was using me, just as Marcello had said. She had
sent me out to risk everything and counted on that bit of fame I had to win
her war, to complete her revenge, to silence all her feelings of guilt.
103
实际上，发表那篇文章，对于我的写作生涯来说是一个质的飞跃。因为这篇文章的出现，我的其他文章也被挖掘出来了。这些文章显示了我不仅仅是一个小说家，在过去我还参加过工会斗争，还致力于女性地位的提高，现在我在和那不勒斯的丑陋现象作斗争。我在六十年代末征服的那一小批读者，和七十年代的各种文化水平的读者，现在又有了一批新读者，加在一起人数更多了。这给我的前两本书也做了宣传——那两本书又被重印了，第三本书现在卖得越来越好，改编成电影的事儿，也越来越有眉目了。
In reality, having my name on that
article was a further step up for me. As a result of its wide circulation,
many of my fragments were connected. I proved that not only did I have a
vocation as a fiction writer but, as in the past I had been involved in the
union struggles, as I had engaged in criticizing the condition of women, so I
fought against the degradation of my city. The small audience I had won in
the late sixties merged with the one that, amid ups and downs, I had
cultivated in the seventies and the new, larger one of now. That helped the
first two books, which were reprinted, and the third, which continued to sell
well, while the idea of making a film from it became more concrete.
当然，这篇文章也给我带来了很大的麻烦。我被宪兵叫去谈话，财政警察也听了我的陈述。在右派的地方报纸上，我被贴上各种标签遭诋毁：离婚的女人、女权主义者、Communist、恐怖分子的支持者等等。我接到了一些匿名电话，那些人用非常猥亵的方言威胁我和我的女儿。我生活在不安之中，但我觉得不安已经是写作固有的一种心态，总的来说，这次我远远没有《全景》的那篇文章发表时，还有被卡门起诉的时候更激动。这是我的工作，我在研究怎么把我的工作做得更好。我感到，出版社的法律顾问在保护我，左派的报纸在支持我，我的读者见面会也越来越密集，我是站在正义的一边。
Naturally the article caused a lot of
bother. I was summoned by the carabinieri. I was bugged by the financial
police. I was vilified by local papers on the right with labels like
divorcée, feminist, Communist, supporter of terrorists. I received anonymous
phone calls that threatened me and my daughters in a dialect full of
obscenities. But, although I lived in anxiety—a state of anxiety now seemed
to me inherent to writing—I was in the end not as agitated as at the time of
the article in Panorama and Carmen’s lawsuit. It was my job, I was learning
to do it better and better. And then I felt protected by the legal support of
the publisher, by the success I had in newspapers on the left, by the
increasingly well attended public appearances, and by the idea that I was
right.
但我应该诚实地说，事实不仅仅是这些。我平静下来，主要是因为我发现索拉拉兄弟没做任何伤害我的事情。我太显眼了，这让他们尽可能地躲藏起来。马尔切洛和米凯莱非但没有再起诉我，他们这次什么话也没说，一直都没什么表示，甚至我在执法官员面前见到他们时，他们只是冷冰冰地、带着敬意向我打了个招呼。就这样，风波逐渐过去了。唯一确定的结果是，地方机关开始了一系列调查，报纸上也出现了很多报道。但就像出版社的法律顾问预测的那样，调查不了了之，那些报道也逐渐消失了。我想象，那篇报道被其他无数报道所淹没，索拉拉兄弟依然逍遥法外。这篇文章唯一造成的损害是情感方面的：我的妹妹、外甥西尔维奥，还有我父亲彻底把我从他们的生活中排挤出去了——话虽然没明说，但他们却已经那么做了。马尔切洛一直对我很客气。有一天下午，我在大路边上看见他，我把目光投向了另一边，但他在我的面前停了下来。他说：“莱农，我知道，你也完全可以不用那么做，我不生你的气，你没有错，但你要记住，我家大门一直对你敞开着。”我回答说：“埃莉莎昨天才把我的电话挂了。”他微笑着说：“你妹妹是家里的主人，我能怎么办呢？”
But, if I have to be honest, it wasn’t
only that. I calmed down mainly when it became evident that the Solaras would
do absolutely nothing to me. My visibility drove them to be as invisible as
possible. Marcello and Michele not only didn’t bring a second lawsuit but
were completely silent, the whole time, and even when I encountered them
before law-enforcement officers, both confined themselves to cold but
respectful greetings. Thus the waters subsided. The only concrete thing that
happened was that various investigations were opened, along with an equal
number of files. But, as the lawyers of the publishing house had predicted,
the first soon came to a halt, the second ended—I imagine—under thousands of
other files, and the Solaras remained free. The only harm the article caused
was of an emotional nature: my sister, my nephew Silvio, even my father—not
in words but in deeds—cut me out of their lives. Only Marcello continued to
be polite. One afternoon I met him along the stradone, and I looked away. But
he stopped in front of me, he said: Lenù, I know that if you could you
wouldn’t have done it, I’m not angry with you, it’s not your fault. So
remember that my house is always open. I replied: Elisa hung up on me just
yesterday. He smiled: Your sister is the boss, what can I do?
104
但这个本质上很平和的结果，却让莉拉非常失落，她没有掩饰自己的失望，也没有说出来。她假装什么事儿也没发生，照常过自己的日子：她会上楼来找我，把蒂娜托付给我，然后把自己关在办公室里工作。有时候她也会在床上躺一整天，说她脑子要爆炸了，会昏睡一整天。
But the outcome, which was in essence
conciliatory, depressed Lila. She didn’t hide her disappointment and yet she
didn’t put it into words. She carried on, pretending that nothing was wrong:
she dropped off Tina at my house and shut herself in the office. But
sometimes she stayed in bed all day; she said her head was bursting, and she
dozed.
我很留心，没有提醒她是她决定发表我们写的这篇文章。我没跟她说：“我已经告诉你了，索拉拉兄弟会毫发无损的，出版社的人已经跟我说了，你现在难受有什么用。”但她还是一脸懊悔，觉得自己作了错误的判断。那几个星期，她一直觉得很屈辱，因为她高估了一种力量——文字、写作还有书籍，这种力量在现在的权利等级里，真的算不上什么。我想，她一直看起来那么清醒，那么成熟，现在她终于放下她的童年了。
I was careful not to remind her that the
decision to publish our pages had been hers. I didn’t say: I warned you that
the Solaras would come out of it unharmed, the publisher told me, now it’s
pointless for you to suffer over it. But stamped on her face was also regret
that she had been wrong in her assessment. In those weeks she felt humiliated
at having always ascribed a power to things that in the current hierarchies
were insignificant: the alphabet, writing, books. Only then—I think today—did
she, who seemed so disillusioned, so adult, come to the end of her childhood.
她不再帮助我了，她越来越频繁地把她女儿交给我来管，有几次还让我管着詹纳罗，他不能出去，只能在我屋里转来转去。从另一个方面来说，我的生活越来越忙碌了，我自己都不知怎么办才好。有一天早上，我去找她，让她帮着看管几个女儿。她很厌烦地说：“你把我母亲叫来，让她帮你。”对我来说，这是新鲜事儿，我很尴尬地走了，听从了她的建议。就这样，农齐亚来到了我家里，她已经老了很多，有些不自在，但对我的话很服从，还是像在伊斯基亚的那个时期一样，勤快地照顾着家里。
She stopped helping me. More and more
often she gave me charge of her daughter and sometimes, though rarely, even
of Gennaro, who was forced to hang around my house. Yet my life had become
increasingly busy and I didn’t know how to manage. One morning when I asked
her about the children she answered in annoyance: Call my mother, get her to
help you. It was a novelty, I withdrew in embarrassment, I obeyed. So it was
that Nunzia arrived at my house, much aged, submissive, uneasy, but efficient
as in the days when she took care of the house in Ischia.
我的两个大女儿对她很无礼，尤其是黛黛，她正在青春期，对人一点儿情面也不留。她脸上的皮肤变得红肿，整个脸都变形了，她一天天变得和之前不一样了，她觉得自己很丑，脾气变得很坏。我们会产生这样的口角：
My older daughters immediately treated
her with disdain, especially Dede, who was going through puberty and had lost
any sense of tact. Her face was inflamed, her body was swelling, becoming
shapeless, driving out, day by day, the image she was used to, and she felt
ugly, she became mean. We began to bicker:
“为什么我们要和这个老太婆在一起呢？她做饭太恶心了，应该你来做饭。”
“Why do we have to stay with that old
lady? It’s disgusting what she cooks, you should cook.”
“别说了。”
“Stop it.”
“她没有牙，她说话时会吐口水，你看到了吗？”
“She spits when she talks, did you see
she doesn’t have any teeth?”
“够了，我一个字都不想听了。”
“I don’t want to hear another word,
that’s enough.”
“我们住的这个地方已经够破了，现在我们还让她待在家里？你不在的时候，我不想让她住在家里。”
“We already have to live in this toilet,
now we have to have that person in the house? I don’t want her to sleep here
when you’re not here.”
“黛黛，我说了，闭嘴！”
“Dede, I said that’s enough.”
艾尔莎更不省事儿，她有自己的方式。她满脸严肃，用一种看似支持我，但实际很阴险的语气说：
Elsa was no better, but in her own way:
she remained serious, assuming a tone that seemed to support me and yet was
duplicitous.
“妈妈，我喜欢她，你找她来，真是太好了，她身上尸体的味道真好闻。”
“I like her, Mamma, you were right to
have her come. She smells nice, just like a corpse.”
“我要给你一耳光，她会听到你的话，你知道吗？”
“Now I’ll slap you. You know she can hear
you?”
唯一对莉拉的母亲产生依赖的人是伊玛：她是蒂娜的附庸，什么事情都要学她，甚至也包括她的情感。农齐亚来打扫卫生时，她们俩一直都围在她身边，叫她外婆。但这个外婆有些粗暴，尤其是在伊玛跟前。她会抚摸自己真正的外孙女，她在默默劳动时，那个假外孙女想寻求她的关注，有时候孩子叽叽咕咕，非常可爱，会让她心软下来。我发现她也有自己的心事。在第一个星期的服务结束之后，她垂着眼睛，对我说：“莱农，你给我多少钱，我们还没有说呢。”我有些难过，我愚蠢地以为她来工作是因为她女儿让她来的，假如我知道要给钱，我会选一个年轻的、我女儿喜欢的人，会让她做所有我需要她做的事情。但我忍住了，我们谈了钱，定好报酬，这时候农齐亚才变得开朗起来。在我们谈定之后，她觉得自己需要解释一下，她说：“我丈夫生病了，不再工作了，莉拉疯了，她把里诺开除了，我们现在一分钱也没有了。”我说我明白，让她对伊玛好一点。她答应了，从那时候开始，虽然她什么事儿都向着蒂娜，但她对我女儿好一点了。
The only one who was immediately fond of
Lila’s mother was Imma: she was Tina’s slave and so she imitated her in
everything, even in her attachments. The two of them followed Nunzia around
as she worked in the apartment; they called her grandma. But Grandma was
brusque, especially with Imma. She caressed her real grandchild, occasionally
softening at her chatter and her affection, while she worked in silence when
her pretend grandchild looked for attention. Meanwhile—I discovered—something
was bothering her. At the end of the first week she said, looking down: Lenù,
we haven’t talked about how much you’ll give me. I felt hurt: I had stupidly
thought that she came because her daughter had asked her to; if I had known I
had to pay I would have chosen a young person, whom my daughters would like
and from whom I could have demanded what I needed. But I contained myself, we
talked about money and fixed on an amount. Only then Nunzia cheered up a
little. At the end of the negotiation she felt the need to justify herself:
My husband is sick, she said, he no longer works, and Lina is crazy, she
fired Rino, we don’t have a cent. I muttered that I understood, I told her to
be nicer to Imma. She obeyed. From then on, although she always favored Tina,
she made an effort to be kind to my daughter.
但莉拉的态度一直都没变。虽然这工作还是她女儿帮她找的，农齐亚无论来去都不会想着去她女儿家里看看。她们在楼道里遇到时，连招呼都不打，农齐亚已经失去了她以往的慎重和可靠，但不得不说，莉拉也越来越古怪，眼看着她脾气越来越糟糕。
Toward Lila, however, her attitude didn’t
change. Neither when she arrived nor when she left did Nunzia ever feel the
need to stop by at her daughter’s, although Lila had gotten the job for her.
If they met on the stairs they didn’t even greet each other. She was an old
woman who had lost her former wary friendliness. But Lila, too, it must be
said, was intractable, and visibly worsening.
105
在我面前，她还是那种无缘无故充满敌意的语气。最让我心烦的是，她让我觉得，我是一个不称职的母亲，错过了发生在我女儿身上的所有事。
With me she was always spiteful, for no
reason. It especially irritated me that she acted as if everything that
happened to my daughters escaped me.
“黛黛来大姨妈了。”
“Dede got the curse.”
“她跟你说的？”
“Did she tell you?”
“是啊，你从来都不在家。”
“Yes, you weren’t here.”
“你跟孩子用的就是这个词儿？”
“Did you use that expression with her?”
“那我应该用什么词儿？”
“What word should I have used?”
“可以用一个正式的词。”
“Something less vulgar.”
“你知道，你几个女儿之间是怎么说话的吗？她们是怎么说我母亲的，你从来都没有听到过吗？”
“You know how your daughters speak to
each other? And have you ever heard the things they say about my mother?”
我不喜欢她的语气。过去，她在黛黛、艾尔莎和伊玛身上投入了很多感情，我觉得她现在一门心思地贬低她们，她想向我展示：我现在一直在外面出差，我忽视了她们，这给她们的教育带来了严重的后果。她开始指责我，说我没有看到伊玛的问题，这让我尤其感到不安。
I didn’t like that tone. She, who in the
past had appeared so fond of Dede, Elsa, and Imma, seemed determined to
disparage them to me, and she took every opportunity to show me that, because
I was always traveling around Italy, I neglected them, with serious
consequences for their upbringing. I was especially upset when she began
accusing me of not seeing Imma’s problems.
“她怎么了？”我问她。
“What’s wrong,” I asked her.
“她的一个眼睛在抽搐。”
“She has a tic in her eye.”
“很少出现吧。”
“Not very often.”
“我经常看到。”
“I’ve seen it a lot.”
“你觉得这是怎么回事儿？”
“What do you think it means?”
“我不知道。我只知道，她觉得自己是没父亲的孩子，她也不确信自己有一个母亲。”
“I don’t know. I only know that she feels
fatherless and isn’t even sure she has a mother.”
我尽量不想这件事情，但很难。我曾经说过，伊玛一直让我有点儿担心，尽管她能和非常活跃的蒂娜玩得很好，但我总是感觉她缺点儿什么。除此之外，一段时间以来，我在她身上看到了一些我的特点，但我很不喜欢：她很顺从，因为担心别人不喜欢她，她会马上做出让步，事后又会为自己的让步伤心。我希望她能继承尼诺的那种诱惑力、他目中无人的姿态，还有他的厚颜无耻，但事情并非如此。伊玛的顺从是一种闷闷不乐的顺从，她想要得到一切，但她假装自己什么也不要。我想，孩子都是偶然的产物，她一点儿也不像她父亲。但莉拉并不赞同这一点，她总是能指出伊玛像尼诺的地方，就好像在谈论身体的某种毛病一样，她觉得那不是什么好事儿。她会不停地对我重复道：“我告诉你这些，是因为我爱她，我为她感到担心。”
I tried to ignore her but it was
difficult. Imma, as I’ve said, had always worried me a little, and even when
she stood up well to Tina’s vivacity she still seemed to lack something.
Also, some time earlier I had recognized in her features of mine that I
didn’t like. She was submissive, she gave in immediately out of fear of not
being liked, it depressed her that she had given in. I would have preferred
her to inherit Nino’s bold capacity for seduction, his thoughtless vitality,
but she wasn’t like that. Imma was unhappily compliant, she wanted everything
and pretended to want nothing. Children, I said, are the product of chance,
she’s got nothing of her father. Lila didn’t agree; she was always finding
ways of alluding to the child’s resemblance to Nino, but she didn’t see it as
positive, she spoke as if it were a congenital defect. And then she kept
repeating: I’m telling you these things because I love them and I’m worried.
我想找一个理由，来解释她对我几个女儿的态度为什么忽然发生了变化。我想，我让她失望了，她要远离我，首先要远离她们。我的书现在越来越成功了，这使我越来越独立于她还有她的判断，她尽量贬低我和我的几个女儿，以及我作为母亲的能力。但这些推测没有任何一个让我安心，我想到了第三种可能：莉拉看到了我作为母亲看不到、也不想看到的东西，她尤其是针对伊玛。我应该证实一下她说的是不是有根据。
I tried to explain to myself her sudden
persecution of my daughters. I thought that, since I had disappointed her,
she was withdrawing from me by separating first of all from them. I thought
that since my book was increasingly successful, which sanctioned my autonomy
from her and from her judgment, she was trying to belittle me by belittling
my children and my capacity to be a good mother. But neither of those
hypotheses soothed me and a third advanced: Lila saw what I, as a mother,
didn’t know how or didn’t want to see, and since she appeared critical of
Imma in particular, I had better find out if her comments had any foundation.
我开始非常仔细地观察伊玛，我很快发现，她真的很难过。她是蒂娜的附庸，蒂娜非常快乐开朗，很会说话，很招人疼，人见人爱，尤其是赢得了我的爱。我的女儿虽然也很漂亮，很聪明，但在蒂娜面前会黯然失色，让人看不到她的优点，她为此很难过。有一天，我看到了她们用很标准的意大利语在争执，蒂娜的发音很清楚，伊玛还有点儿咬字不清。她们在一起用粉笔在给一些动物上色，蒂娜决定把一只犀牛染成绿色，伊玛在胡乱涂抹一只猫。蒂娜说：
So I began to observe the child and was
soon convinced that she really suffered. She was the slave of Tina’s joyful
expansiveness, of her elevated capacity for verbalization, of the way she
aroused tenderness, admiration, affection in everyone, especially me.
Although my daughter was pretty, and intelligent, beside Tina she turned
dull, her virtues vanished, and she felt this deeply. One day I witnessed an
exchange between them, in a good Italian, Tina’s pronunciation very precise,
Imma’s still missing some syllables. They were coloring in the outlines of
animals and Tina had decided to use green for a rhinoceros, while Imma added
colors randomly for a cat. Tina said:
“你要么把它涂成灰色，要么涂成黑色的。”
“Make it gray or black.”
“你不应该命令我用什么颜色。”
“You mustn’t give me orders about the
color.”
“这不是命令，这是建议。”
“It’s not an order, it’s a suggestion.”
伊玛很不安地看着她，她不知道命令和建议有什么差别。她说：
Imma looked at her in alarm. She didn’t
know the difference between an order and a suggestion. She said:
“我也不想要建议。”
“I don’t want to follow the suggestion,
either.”
“那就不要吧。”
“Then don’t.”
伊玛的下嘴唇在抖动：
Imma’s lower lip trembled.
“好吧，”她说，“我听你的，但我不喜欢。”
“All right,” she said, “I’ll do it but I
don’t like it.”
我尽量多照顾伊玛。刚开始，我尽量不因蒂娜的表现过于振奋，我尽量鼓励伊玛，一有机会我都会表扬她。但我很快意识到，这还不够。两个小朋友很要好，相互对比有助于她们成长。有蒂娜作为对照，一些人为的赞扬并不能避免伊玛看到一些让她受伤的事儿，当然，她的小伙伴并不是问题的根源。
I tried to be more attentive to her. To
begin with, I stopped getting excited about everything Tina did, I reinforced
Imma’s skills, I praised her for every little thing. But I soon realized it
wasn’t enough. The two little girls loved each other. Dealing with each other
helped them grow, some extra artificial praise was of no help in keeping
Imma, looking at her reflection in Tina, from seeing something that wounded
her and that her friend was certainly not the cause of.
这时候，我耳边又回响起莉拉的话：她是没有父亲的孩子，现在她不肯定自己是不是有母亲。我想起了《全景》杂志上错误的照片说明，那个说明被黛黛和艾尔莎的恶作剧强化了（“你不是这个家里的人：你叫萨拉托雷，而不是艾罗塔。”），这些话一定是给这个孩子带来了很大的阴影。但问题真的是这个吗？我也排除了。我觉得缺少父亲是一个更严重的问题，我确信这是她痛苦的根源。
At that point I began to turn over Lila’s
words: she’s fatherless and isn’t even sure she has a mother. I remembered
the mistake in the Panorama caption. That caption, buttressed by Dede and
Elsa’s mean jokes (You don’t belong to this family: your name is Sarratore,
not Airota), must have done its damage. But was that really the core of the
problem? I ruled it out. Her father’s absence seemed to me something more
serious and I was sure that her suffering came from that.
想到了这个问题之后，我开始注意到，伊玛在想办法获得彼得罗的关注。他打电话给他的两个女儿时，伊玛坐在一个角落里听他们说话。假如两个姐姐很高兴，她也假装很高兴，当通话结束时，两个姐姐轮流和父亲告别，伊玛也会大声喊一句：“再见。”彼得罗通常会听到她的声音，会对黛黛说：“让伊玛来接电话，我跟她说几句。”但在这种情况下，她要么害羞地跑开了，要么拿着听筒一句话也不说。彼得罗来那不勒斯时，她的表现也差不多是这样。彼得罗从来都不会忘记给她带一个小礼物，伊玛会围着他转，假装自己是他的女儿，假如彼得罗赞美她一句，或者把她抱在怀里，她会很高兴。有一次，我前夫来城区把黛黛和艾尔莎接走，他也看出了伊玛很难过，走的时候他对我说：“你好好哄哄她，姐姐都走了，她一个人留下会很难过。”
Once I had started down this road I began
to notice how Imma sought Pietro’s attention. When he called his daughters,
she sat in a corner and listened to the conversation. If the sisters had a
good time she pretended to be having fun, too, and when the conversation
ended and they said goodbye to their father in turn, Imma shouted: Bye. Often
Pietro heard her and said to Dede: Give me Imma so I can say hello. But in
those cases either she became shy and ran away or took the receiver and
remained mute. She behaved the same way when he came to Naples. Pietro never
forgot to bring her a little present, and Imma hovered near him, played at
being his daughter, was happy if he said something nice or picked her up.
Once when my ex-husband came to get Dede and Elsa, the child’s sadness must
have seemed especially obvious, and as he left he said: Cuddle her, she’s
sorry that her sisters are leaving and she has to stay behind.
彼得罗的话让我更加不安，我想，我应该做些什么？我想跟恩佐谈谈，让他多出现在伊玛的生活里。但他已经很小心了，如果他把女儿架在脖子上，过一会儿会放下来，也会把我的女儿架在脖子上；假如他给蒂娜买一个玩具，也会给伊玛买一个一模一样的；假如有时候他女儿提出一些很聪明的问题，让他高兴甚至感动了，他也会对我女儿问出的一些平庸的“为什么”表现出热情。我还是跟恩佐说了几次，恩佐甚至说了蒂娜——假如她太过于表现自己，不给伊玛展示的空间。我觉得这样也不好，蒂娜没有错。在那种情况下，蒂娜会很迷惑，她生机勃勃的表现受到了压制，她觉得受了委屈，她不明白为什么会出现这样的转变，她急于获得父亲的宠爱。这时候我会把她拉过来，和她一起玩儿。
That observation increased my anxieties,
I said to myself that I had to do something, I thought of talking to Enzo and
asking him to be more present in Imma’s life. But he was already very
attentive. If he carried his daughter on his shoulders, after a while he put
her down, picked up my daughter, and put her up there; if he got Tina a toy,
he got an identical one for her; if he was pleased almost to the point of
being moved at the intelligent questions his child asked, he managed to
remember to show enthusiasm for the somewhat more prosaic questions of my
child. But I spoke to him anyway, and sometimes Enzo admonished Tina, if she
occupied the stage and didn’t leave room for Imma. I didn’t like that, it
wasn’t the child’s fault. In those cases Tina was as if stunned, the lid that
was suddenly lowered on her vivacity seemed an undeserved punishment. She
didn’t understand why the spell was broken, she struggled to regain her
father’s favor. At that point I would pull her to me, play with her.
总之，情况不怎么好。有一天早上，我在莉拉的办公室里，我想让她教我用电脑写东西。伊玛和蒂娜在写字台下玩，蒂娜像往常一样，滔滔不绝地讲起了想象的人物，那是一些可怕的猛兽，在追逐她们的娃娃，有一些勇敢的王子会救她们。我听见我女儿忽然很生气地说：
In other words things were not going
well. One morning I was in the office with Lila, I wanted her to teach me to
write on the computer. Imma was playing with Tina under the desk and Tina was
sketching in words imaginary places and characters with her usual brilliance.
Monstrous creatures were pursuing their dolls, courageous princes were about
to rescue them. But I heard my daughter exclaim with sudden rage:
“我不要！”
“Not me.”
“你不要？”
“Not you?”
“我不要得救。”
“I won’t rescue myself.”
“你不用救自己，是王子救你。”
“You don’t have to rescue yourself, the
prince rescues you.”
“我没有王子。”
“I don’t have one.”
“那我让我的王子救你。”
“Then mine will rescue you.”
“我已经说过了，我不要。”
“I said no.”
尽管蒂娜尽量和她好好玩儿，伊玛从她的娃娃突然说到了自己，这让我很难过。因为我分心了，莉拉很烦躁。她说：
The sudden leap with which Imma had gone
from her doll to herself wounded me, even though Tina tried to keep her in
the game. Because I was distracted, Lila became irritated, she said:
“孩子们，要么你们小声点儿，要么就去外面玩儿。”
“Girls, either talk quietly or go outside
and play.”
106
那天我给尼诺写了一封很长的信。我跟他列举了一系列在我眼里让我们的女儿生活变得复杂的问题：她的两个姐姐有一个照顾她们的父亲，她没有；她的玩伴——莉拉的女儿，有一个非常疼爱她的父亲，她却没有；我经常出门，不得不经常和她分开。总之，伊玛会在这种父爱缺失的状况中长大，会一直觉得自己不如别人。我把这封信寄了出去，等着他出现，但他没有露面，我决定打电话到他家里，是埃利奥诺拉接的电话。
That day I wrote a long letter to Nino. I
enumerated the problems that I thought were complicating our daughter’s life:
her sisters had a father who was attentive to them, she didn’t; her playmate,
Lila’s daughter, had a very devoted father and she didn’t; because of my work
I was always traveling and often had to leave her. In other words, Imma was
in danger of growing up feeling that she was continually at a disadvantage. I
sent the letter and waited for him to respond. He didn’t and so I decided to
call his house. Eleonora answered.
“他不在。”她很冷淡地说，“他在罗马。”
“He’s not here,” she said listlessly.
“He’s in Rome.”
“拜托了，你能不能告诉他，我女儿很需要他？”
“Would you please tell him that my
daughter needs him?”
她的声音卡在嗓子眼了，半天没说话，最后说：
Her voice caught in her throat. Then she
composed herself:
“我的几个孩子也已经至少六个月没见到他们的父亲了。”
“Mine haven’t seen their father, either,
for at least six months.”
“他离开你了？”
“Has he left you?”
“没有，他从来都不会主动离开谁。要么你有决心和他分开——在这方面，你很厉害，我欣赏你，要么他来了去了，消失又会出现，怎么方便怎么来。”
“No, he never leaves anyone. Either you
have the strength to leave him yourself—and in this you were smart, I admire
you—or he goes, comes, disappears, reappears, as it suits him.”
“你能不能告诉他我打电话了？假如他不能马上来看孩子，我会带着孩子去找他，什么地方都可以。”
“Will you tell him I called, and if he
won’t see the child I’ll track him down, and take her to him wherever he is?”
我把电话挂上了，过了很长一段时间，尼诺才决定给我打了电话。他打电话时，表现得好像我们几个小时前才见过。他精神很好，语气充满力量，他说了我很多好话。我长话短说，问他：
I hung up.It was a while before Nino made
up his mind to call, but in the end he did. As usual he acted as if we had
seen each other a few hours earlier. He was energetic, cheerful, full of
compliments. I cut him off, I asked:
“你收到我的信了吗？”
“Did you get my letter?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“为什么你没回信？”
“Then why didn’t you answer?”
“因为我一点时间也没有。”
“I’ve got no time.”
“想办法腾出点儿时间，越快越好，伊玛现在状况不太好。”
“Find the time, as soon as possible,
Imma’s not well.”
他有些不情愿地跟我说，他周末会回那不勒斯，我让他星期天中午来家里吃饭。我让他向我保证，他来家里时不能只是和我聊天，和黛黛还有艾尔莎开玩笑，而是要一整天都投入到伊玛身上。我说：“你要养成来看她的习惯。假如你能每个星期来一次，那就太好了，但是我不指望你，我也不要求你，一个月至少一次是有必要的。”他用严肃的语气说他每个星期都会来，他答应我，我想他在那一刻是真诚的。
He said reluctantly that he would return
to Naples for the weekend, I insisted that he come to lunch on Sunday. I
insisted that he was not to talk to me, not joke with Dede or Elsa, but focus
the whole day on Imma. That visit, I said, has to become a habit: it would be
wonderful if you would come once a week, but I won’t ask that, I don’t expect
that from you; once a month, however, is essential. He said in a serious tone
that he would come every week, he promised, and at that moment he was surely
sincere.
我不记得具体是哪天打的那通电话，但那个星期天早上十点，尼诺穿得很整齐，开着一辆火红色的豪车出现在城区。那是一九八四年九月十六日——我永远都忘不了那一天，我和莉拉刚刚过完四十岁生日，蒂娜和伊玛都已经快四岁了。
I don’t remember the day of the phone
call, but the day when, at ten in the morning, Nino appeared in the
neighborhood, elegantly dressed and driving a brand-new luxury car, I will
never forget. It was September 16, 1984. Lila and I had just turned forty,
Tina and Imma were almost four.
107
我告诉莉拉，尼诺会来我这儿吃午饭。我对她说：“是我强迫他来的，我想让他一整天都和伊玛在一起。”我希望她明白，至少是那一天，她不应该让蒂娜上我家里来，但她没有听出我的意思，也可能是她不想明白。她表现得很热心，她说：“我让我母亲做所有人的饭，你们可以来我家里吃，我那里宽敞一点。”这让我惊异，也让我很烦。她很讨厌尼诺，现在她想搅和进来，这是为什么呢。我拒绝了，我说：“我自己做饭。”我重申了那天是留给伊玛的，我们没时间做别的。但在早上九点整，蒂娜已经带着她的玩具，上楼来敲我的门。她穿得干干净净、整整齐齐，梳了两条黑漆漆的辫子，眼睛很亮，很可爱。
I told Lila that Nino was coming to lunch
at my house. I said to her: I forced him, I want him to spend the whole day
with Imma. I hoped she would understand that for at least that one day she
shouldn’t send Tina to my house, but she didn’t understand or didn’t want to.
Instead she acted helpful, she said: I’ll tell my mother to cook for everyone
and maybe we’ll eat here at my house where there’s more room. I was
surprised, and annoyed. She hated Nino; what was that intrusion all about? I
refused, I said: I’ll cook, and I repeated that the day was dedicated to
Imma, there would be no way and no time for anything else. But exactly at
nine the next day Tina climbed the stairs with her toys and knocked at my
door. She was tidy and neat, her black braids shiny, her eyes sparkling with
affection.
我让她进来，但我不得不马上和伊玛作斗争，她还穿着睡衣，蓬头垢面，还没吃早餐，就想马上开始玩儿。她不听我的话，而是对她的朋友一边做鬼脸一边笑，我生气了。我把蒂娜——她被我的语气吓坏了——关在一个小房间里一个人玩。我给伊玛洗漱，整个过程她都在叫喊：“我不洗脸！”我对她说：“你要穿上衣服，等一下爸爸要来了。”这几天我一直在跟她说爸爸要来的事儿，但她听到这个词，反抗得更激烈了。我自己在说这个词，宣布他的到来时，也变得更焦虑了。孩子挣扎着，叫喊起来了：“我不要爸爸！我不要爸爸！”就好像爸爸是一种难以下咽的药。我排除了她记着尼诺的可能，她不是排斥具体的一个人。我想：我让他来，也许我错了，当伊玛说她想要爸爸时，她说的不是任何一个爸爸，她想要恩佐，想要彼得罗，她想要蒂娜和两个姐姐拥有的东西。
I told her to come in, but I immediately
had to fight with Imma, who was still in her pajamas, sleepy, she hadn’t had
breakfast, and yet she wanted to start playing immediately. Since she refused
to obey me and kept making faces and laughing with her friend, I got mad and
closed Tina—frightened by my tone—in a room to play by herself, then I made
Imma wash. I don’t want to, she screamed. I told her: You have to get
dressed, Papa is coming. I had been announcing it for days, but she, hearing
that word, became even more rebellious. I myself, in using it to signal to
her the imminence of his arrival, became more anxious. The child writhed,
screamed: I don’t want Papa, as if Papa were a repellent medicine. I ruled
out that she remembered Nino, she wasn’t expressing a rejection of a definite
person. I thought: Maybe I was wrong to make him come; when Imma says she
doesn’t want Papa, she means that she doesn’t want just anyone, she wants
Enzo, she wants Pietro, she wants what Tina and her sisters have.
这时候我想起了蒂娜，她没有抗议，也没有过来偷看。我为自己的行为感到羞耻，这几天的紧张气氛和蒂娜没一点关系。我很温柔地叫她过来，她很高兴地出现了，坐在洗手间角落里的一张凳子上，教我怎样给伊玛编出和她一模一样的辫子。我女儿高兴起来了，她不再抗议，让我给她打扮。最后她们俩一起玩儿去了，我去叫黛黛和艾尔莎起床。
At that point I remembered the other
child. She hadn’t protested, she hadn’t poked her head out. I was ashamed of
my behavior. Tina was not responsible for the day’s tensions. I called her
affectionately, she reappeared and sat happily on a stool in a corner of the
bathroom giving me advice on how to braid Imma’s hair. My daughter
brightened, she let me dress her up without protesting. Finally they ran away
to play and I went to get Dede and Elsa out of bed. Elsa jumped up very
happily, she was glad to see Nino again and was ready in a short time. But
Dede spent an infinite amount of time washing and came out of the bathroom
only because I started yelling. She couldn’t accept her transformation. I’m
disgusting, she said, with tears in her eyes. She shut herself in the bedroom
crying that she didn’t want to see anyone.
艾尔莎非常高兴地起床了，她很高兴再见到尼诺，她用了很短的时间就准备好了。黛黛用了很长的时间洗漱，只有我在外面开始叫喊时，她才从洗手间里出来。她没办法接受自己的变化。“我太丑了。”她眼睛里含着眼泪说。她一下子钻进了她的房间，叫喊着说她不想见任何人。
I got myself ready in a hurry. I didn’t
care about Nino, but I didn’t want him to find me neglected and aged. And I
was afraid that Lila would show up and I was well aware that, if she wanted,
she could focus a man’s gaze totally on her. I was agitated and at the same
time lethargic.
我很快地把自己收拾了一下。我一点儿也不在乎尼诺了，但我不希望他觉得我现在老了或者邋遢了。我还害怕莉拉会露面，像往常一样，假如她愿意的话，她能让一个男人目光无法从自己身上挪开。我很激动，同时也很厌烦。
108
Nino was exceedingly punctual, and he
came up the stairs loaded with presents. Elsa ran to wait for him on the
landing, immediately followed by Tina and then, cautiously, Imma. I saw the
tic appear in her right eye. Here’s Papa, I told her, and she feebly shook
her head no.
尼诺非常准时，他带了很多礼物从楼梯上来。艾尔莎跑出去，在楼梯间等他，蒂娜也马上跟了出去，最后是小心翼翼的伊玛。我对她说：“这就是你爸爸。”她很无力地摇了摇头。
But Nino behaved well. Already on the
stairs he began to sing: Where’s my little Imma, I have to give her three
kisses and a little bite. When he reached the landing he said hi to Elsa,
pulled one of Tina’s braids absentmindedly, and grabbed his daughter, covered
her with kisses, told her he had never seen such pretty hair, complimented
her dress, her shoes, everything. He came in without even a greeting for me.
Instead he sat down on the floor, lifted Imma onto his crossed legs, and only
then gave some encouragement to Elsa, and warmly greeted Dede (Good Lord, how
you’ve grown, you’re magnificent), who had approached with a timid smile.
但尼诺一来就表现得很好。他在楼梯间就已经开始唱着：“我的小伊玛在哪儿？我要亲三口，咬一口。”他出现在楼梯间，对艾尔莎说：“你好！”顺手拽了拽蒂娜的辫子，最后抱住了他女儿亲了起来。他说，他从来都没见过这么漂亮的头发，他赞美了她身上的裙子、鞋子，她一切。他坐在地板上，让伊玛坐在他盘起来的腿上，只有这时候他才开始和艾尔莎说话，他很热情地给带着羞怯的微笑走过来的黛黛打招呼（“我的天哪！你长大了，看起来很棒”）。
I saw that Tina was puzzled. Strangers,
without exception, were dazzled by her and cuddled her as soon as they saw
her, whereas Nino had begun to distribute the gifts and was ignoring her. She
turned to him with her caressing little voice and tried to take a place on
his knees next to Imma, but she couldn’t and leaned against his arm, put her
head with a languid expression on one shoulder. No, Nino gave Dede and Elsa
each a book, then he focused on his daughter. He had bought her all kinds of
things. He waited for her to unwrap one gift and immediately gave her
another. Imma seemed charmed, moved. She looked at that man as if he were a
wizard who had come to cast spells for her alone and when Tina tried to take
a gift she cried: It’s mine. Tina quickly drew back with her lower lip
trembling, I picked her up, I said: Come with aunt. Only then did Nino seem
to realize that he was overdoing it and he dug in his pocket, took out an
expensive-looking pen, said: This is for you. I put the child down on the floor,
she took the pen whispering thank you and he seemed to really see her for the
first time. I heard him mutter in amazement:
我看到蒂娜很不安，她在研究尼诺，所有人看到她都会被她的乖巧可爱吸引，都会对她表示出各种喜爱，但这时候尼诺开始给大家分礼物，完全无视她的存在。她用一种甜美可人的声音和尼诺说话，想挨着伊玛坐在他腿上，但她没能坐上去，就靠着他的一条胳臂站着，头靠着他的肩膀，可怜巴巴的。但还是不管用，尼诺给了黛黛和艾尔莎一人一本书，他把注意力全部放在他女儿身上。他给伊玛买了各种各样的东西，他等着女儿打开一样，然后会给她递过去另一样。我看到伊玛心满意足，很感动。她看着那个男人，就好像他是一个巫师，专门来对她展示魔法。当蒂娜试着拿起一个礼物，她都会嚷嚷：“那是我的。”蒂娜下嘴唇抖动着走开了，我把她抱在怀里，说：“到阿姨这里来。”只有在这时候，尼诺看发现自己有些过了，他在口袋里翻找了一下，拿出来一根看起来很昂贵的钢笔说：“这是给你的。”我把蒂娜放在地板上，她拿过钢笔，小声说了一句谢谢。这时候尼诺好像第一次看到蒂娜。我听见他惊异地嘀咕着：
“You look exactly like your mother.”
“你长得和你母亲一模一样。”
“Shall I write my name for you?” Tina
asked, serious.
“我能不能给你写我的名字？”蒂娜很严肃地说。
“You already know how to write?”
“你已经会写字了？”
“Yes.”
“是的。”
Nino pulled a folded piece of paper out
of his pocket, she put it on the floor and wrote: “Tina.” Very good! he
praised her. But a moment afterward he sought my gaze, afraid of being
reprimanded, and to remedy the situation he turned to his daughter: I bet
you’re very good, too. Imma wanted to show him, and, snatching the pen away
from her friend, scribbled on the page with intense concentration. He
complimented her profusely, even as Elsa tormented her little sister (No one
can understand that, you don’t know how to write) and Tina tried in vain to
get her pen back, saying: I know how to write other words, too. Finally,
Nino, to cut it off, stood up with his daughter and said: Now let’s go see
the most beautiful car in the world, and he carried them all off, Imma in his
arms, Tina trying to get him to take her hand, Dede pulling her away and
keeping her close, Elsa taking possession of the expensive pen with a greedy
gesture.
尼诺从口袋里拿出一张折叠起来的纸。她把纸放在地板上，用笔写着“蒂娜”这个词。他表扬蒂娜说：“你很厉害。”但之后他马上寻找着我的目光，他很担心我说他。为了表示弥补，他对女儿说：“我敢打赌，你也很棒。”伊玛想展示一下，她把笔从蒂娜手里抢了过来，很专注地在地上胡乱写着。他一直在鼓励伊玛，尽管艾尔莎已经开始取笑妹妹了（“根本就看不出来你写的什么，你不会写字”）。蒂娜想把笔抢回来，她说：“我还会写其他的。”为了不再纠缠下去，尼诺就把女儿拉起来说：“我们现在去看这世界上最漂亮的汽车。”然后他把姑娘们都带走了，他抱着伊玛，蒂娜想拉着他的手，黛黛把她拉过来，自己领着。艾尔莎一把就把那根看起来很昂贵的笔掠过去，据为己有。
109
The door closed behind them. I heard
Nino’s thick voice on the stairs—he was promising to buy sweets, to take them
for a ride in the car—and Dede, Elsa, and the two little girls shouting their
excitement. I imagined Lila on the floor below, shut in her apartment, in
silence, while the same voices that reached me reached her, too. Separating
us was only a layer of floor, and yet she could shorten the distance further
or expand it according to her mood and convenience and the movements of her
mind, which shifted like the sea when the moon seizes it whole and pulls it
upward. I tidied, cooked, I thought Lila—below—was doing the same. We were
both waiting to hear again the voices of our daughters, the steps of the man
we had loved. It occurred to me that she must have recognized Nino’s features
in Imma countless times, as he had just now recognized hers in Tina. Had she
always felt an aversion, all these years, or was her loving concern for the
child a result of that resemblance? Did she still, in secret, like Nino? Was
she observing him from the window? Had Tina managed to get him to take her
hand and was she looking at her daughter beside that tall thin man, thinking:
If things had gone differently she could be his. What was she planning? Would
she come up to my house, in a moment, to wound me with a malicious comment?
Or would she open the door of her house just as he was passing by, returning
with the four girls, and would she invite him to come in and then call up
from below, so that I would be compelled to invite her and Enzo to lunch,
too?
门在他们身后关上了。我听见楼梯上传来尼诺低沉浑厚的声音，他答应说，要给她们买甜食，开车出去兜一圈。黛黛、艾尔莎，还有两个小姑娘在后面欢呼雀跃。我想象着莉拉在楼下，关在她的房子里，静静听着我也能听到的声音。只有薄薄的一层地板把我们隔开，但她懂得按照自己的心情和方便，来缩短或拉远我们之间的距离，还有她潮汐一样运作的脑子，就像月亮抓住大海，让它起伏。我收拾了屋子，开始做饭，我想着莉拉，她在下面也在做同样的事。我们都期望再次听到我们的女儿的声音，还有我们曾经爱过的男人的脚步声。我想，不知道有多少次，她在伊玛身上看到尼诺的样子，就像尼诺在蒂娜身上看到她的样子。所以这么多年里，她一直都很憎恶伊玛？或者她对这个孩子的关切，是因为她和她父亲的这种相似性？在她内心深处，是不是还喜欢着他？现在她正在冲窗口窥视着他？蒂娜后来终于让尼诺拉着她的手，她现在看着她女儿走在那个又高又瘦的男人旁边，会不会想着：如果事情是另外的样子，这个孩子会不会是她的？她在筹划着什么？还是她随时都会上楼来找我，跟我说一些难听话？或者她会在尼诺带着孩子们回来经过她家门口时，打开门邀请他进去坐坐。她会喊我下去，我就不得不邀请她和恩佐来吃午饭？
The apartment was very silent, but
outside there was a mixture of Sunday sounds: the pealing bells of midday,
the cries of vendors in the stalls, the trains passing on the siding, the
traffic of the trucks heading to work sites busy every day of the week. Nino
would no doubt let the girls fill up on sweets, without thinking that they
would not eat their lunch later. I knew him well: he granted every request,
he bought everything without batting an eye, he overdid it. As soon as lunch
was ready and the table set, I looked out the window onto the stradone. I
wanted to call them to say it was time to come home. But the stalls impeded
my view, all I could see was Marcello walking with my sister on one side and
Silvio on the other. The image of the stradone from above gave me a sense of
anguish. Sundays had always seemed to me a paint concealing the decay, but
that day the impression was stronger. What was I doing in that place, why did
I continue to live there, when I had enough money and could go anywhere. I
had given Lila too much rope, I had let her retie too many knots, I myself
had believed that, reassigning myself publicly to my origins, I would be able
to write better. Everything struck me as ugly, I felt a strong repulsion for
the food I had prepared. Then I pulled myself together, brushed my hair, made
sure that I looked all right, and went out. I passed Lila’s door almost on
tiptoe; I didn’t want her to hear me and decide to come with me.
楼下非常安静，但外面充满了假日的喧嚣：正午的钟声、摆摊的人的叫卖、火车在调车场发出的声音，还有附近周末也在施工的工地的声响，卡车来往的轰鸣。尼诺一定是给几个孩子买了很多甜食，根本就没有考虑到待会儿她们会吃不下饭。我了解他，他会满足她们的所有要求，他买任何东西眼睛都不会眨一下，他很夸张。饭做好了，我把桌子摆好，我从对着大路的窗口向外看，想叫他们回来吃饭。但那些卖东西的摊子挡住了我的视线，我只能隐约看见马尔切洛在外面走，他的一边是我妹妹，另一边是西尔维奥。从高处看着大路，总是让我觉得很不安。周末的时候，我感觉大路边的市场就像一层油彩一样，可以掩盖这里的破败。但在当时的情况下，我问自己：我在这里干什么？我已经有点钱了，可以去任何地方住，为什么我还继续住在这里？我太听从莉拉的建议了，我任凭自己和这地方又建立起了千丝万缕的联系。我同时也确信，回归我出生的地方，我会写得更好。在我眼里，一切忽然都得变丑陋，我甚至觉得我亲手煮的饭都很恶心。最后我决定采取行动，我把头发梳了一下，收拾了一下就出去了。经过莉拉的门口时，我几乎是踮着脚尖，我不希望她听到我的脚步声，想和我一起出去。
Outside there was a strong odor of
toasted almonds, I looked around. First I saw Dede and Elsa, eating cotton
candy and examining a stall selling junk: bracelets, earrings, necklaces,
hairpins. Not far away I could make out Nino, standing at the corner. Only
after a fraction of a second did I discover that he was talking to Lila,
beautiful the way she was when she wanted to be, and Enzo, serious, frowning.
外面的空气里弥漫着一股强烈的炒杏仁的味道，我看着四周，先看到了黛黛和艾尔莎，她们一边吃着棉花糖，一边看着摆满小玩意的地摊：手镯、耳环、项链和发卡。在不远的地方，我看到了尼诺，他站在一个角落里，片刻之后我才发现：他正在和莉拉说话。她很漂亮，就像她想打扮自己时的样子，恩佐在旁边皱着眉头，一脸严肃。她怀里抱着伊玛，伊玛在一个劲儿地拽着她的耳朵，通常她感觉自己被忽视时就会那么做。莉拉没有躲开，任凭她拽，好像很入迷地听着尼诺说话，尼诺微笑着，用他修长的手和胳膊做着手势，显得风度翩翩。
She was holding Imma, who was tormenting
one of her ears, as she usually did with mine when she felt neglected. Lila
let the child twist it roughly, without stopping her, she was apparently so
absorbed by Nino, who was talking in his pleasing way, smiling, gesturing
with his long arms, his long hands.
我非常生气，这就是为什么尼诺出去了就没再回来的原因，这就是他照顾女儿的方式。我叫了他一声，他没听到。但黛黛听到我了，她转过身来，她和艾尔莎一起嘲笑我声音太小，我抬高嗓门时，她们总是会这样。我又叫了一声，我希望尼诺马上停止聊天，单独和我的女儿回到家里。但到处都是吵闹声，卖坚果的人的叫卖声，还有一辆大卡车轰隆隆地经过，扬起了很大的灰尘。我叹了一口气，走到他们跟前。为什么莉拉会抱着我女儿，有这个必要吗？为什么伊玛不是和蒂娜一起玩儿？我没有跟他们打招呼，直接对伊玛说：“你干吗让人抱着，你已经长大了，下来吧。”我把她从莉拉手上抱了过来，放在地上。我对尼诺说：“饭做好了，几个孩子要吃饭。”这时候我意识到，我女儿抓着我的裙子，而不是跑去和她的朋友玩儿。我看了看四周，问莉拉：“蒂娜呢？”
I was enraged. That’s why Nino had gone
out and hadn’t been seen again. Here was how he cared for his daughter. I
called him, he didn’t hear me. Dede turned, she laughed with Elsa at my faint
voice, they always did when I shouted. I called again. I wanted Nino to come
back right away, return home, alone, alone with my daughters. But there was
the deafening whistle of the peanut seller and the din of a truck passing,
every one of its parts rattling, raising clouds of dust. I grumbled, I joined
them. Why was Lila holding my daughter in her arms, what need was there? And
why was Imma not playing with Tina? I didn’t say hello, I said to Imma: What
are you doing being held, you’re a big girl, come down, and I pulled her away
from Lila. Then I turned to Nino: The children have to eat, it’s ready.
Meanwhile I realized that my daughter was attached to my skirt, she hadn’t
left me to run to her friend. I looked around, I asked Lila: Where is Tina?
她脸上还是那副客气的表情，好像很认同尼诺说的话。她说：“可能是和黛黛还有艾尔莎在一起。”我回答说：“没有。”我希望她和恩佐关心一下他们的女儿，而不是在我女儿的父亲唯一露脸的一天插到他们中间。当恩佐环顾四周找寻蒂娜时，莉拉还是在和尼诺说话，她跟尼诺讲了有几次詹纳罗失踪的事。她笑了，说：“有一天早上，我找不见他了，所有孩子都从学校里出来了，但他没有，我当时吓得要死，我想象肯定是发生了很糟糕的事情，我们找到他时，他一个人静静坐在小花园里。”但是，正是想起了这段陈年旧事，她脸色忽然大变，她的声音也变了，她问恩佐：
She still had on her face the expression
of cordial assent with which until a minute earlier she had been listening to
Nino’s conversation. She must be with Dede and Elsa, she said. I answered:
She’s not. And I wanted her to see about her daughter, together with Enzo,
instead of inserting herself between mine and her father on the only day he
had made himself available. But while Enzo looked around for Tina, Lila
continued talking to Nino. She told him about the times Gennaro had
disappeared. She laughed, saying: One morning he couldn’t be found, everyone
had gone to school and he wasn’t there. I was terrified, I imagined the worst
things, and instead he was sitting quietly in the gardens. But it was
precisely as she remembered that episode that she lost color. Her eyes
emptied, in a changed voice she asked Enzo:
“你找到她了吗？她在哪儿？”
“Did you find her, where is she?”
110
我们沿着大路寻找蒂娜，找遍了整个城区，最后又沿着大路找，有很多人都加入了寻找的队伍，安东尼奥来了，卡门来了，卡门的丈夫罗伯特也来了，甚至是马尔切洛·索拉拉也动员了他的一些人手，他自己也亲自上街寻找，一直找到深夜。莉拉现在看起来就像梅丽娜一样，她仓皇地跑前跑后，没有任何逻辑。但恩佐比她还要失控，他叫喊着，对那些卖东西的人发出可怕的威胁，他要查看那些摆摊的人的汽车、面包车和小推车。最后警察来了，才让他平静下来。
We looked for Tina along the stradone,
then throughout the whole neighborhood, then again along the stradone. Many
people joined us. Antonio came, Carmen came, Roberto, Carmen’s husband, came,
and even Marcello Solara mobilized some of his people, walking the streets
himself, until late into the night. Lila now seemed like Melina, she ran here
and there with no reason. But Enzo seemed even crazier than she was. He
screamed, he got angry at the peddlers, he threatened terrible things, he
wanted to look in their cars and vans and carts. The carabinieri had to
intervene to calm him.
我感觉随时都可能找到蒂娜，大家都会舒一口气。所有人都认识这个孩子，每个遇到她的人都说，一分钟前还看见她站在这个或那个摊点前面，或者在某个角落，在院子里，在花园里，或者说她和一个高个子抑或矮个子男人向隧道那边走去了。但每个消息都不可靠，人们失去了信心。
At every moment it seemed that Tina had
been found and there was a sigh of relief. Everyone knew the child, there was
no one who wouldn’t swear to have seen her a moment before standing at this
stall or that corner or in the courtyard or in the gardens over by the tunnel
with a tall man, a short one. But every sighting turned out to be illusory,
people lost faith and goodwill.
晚上，传出来一些闲话，后来得到了很多人的认同：孩子追着一个蓝色皮球，从人行道跑到了大路上，这时候正好开过来一辆卡车，那辆卡车是泥土色的，开得很快，大路上有坑，它摇摇晃晃，一路铿铿作响，没人看到别的，只听到了一声撞击的声音。这种撞击的声音，很快从讲述变成了任何听到这个声音的人的记忆。卡车没有刹车，也没有任何迟疑，它和蒂娜的身体，还有她的辫子，一起消失在大路的尽头。路上没有留下一滴血，什么也没有。那辆车子消失了，孩子也永远消失了，无影无踪。
In the evening a rumor took hold that
later prevailed. The child had left the sidewalk to chase a blue ball. But
just at that moment a truck was passing. The truck was a mud-colored hulk,
traveling at high speed, clattering and bouncing because of the holes in the
stradone. No one had seen anything else, but the collision was heard, the
collision that passed directly from the story into the memory of whoever was
listening. The truck hadn’t braked, or even tried to, and had disappeared at
the end of the stradone along with Tina’s body, her braids. On the asphalt
not a drop of blood remained, nothing, nothing at all. In that nothing the
vehicle was lost, the child was lost forever.
