“What exactly are you saying?” Dad said.
“你到底在说什么？”爸爸说。
I didn’t feel particularly brave as I approached my father in the Chapel that night. I saw my role as reconnaissance: I was there to relay information, to tell Dad that Shawn had threatened Audrey, because Dad would know what to do.
那天晚上，来到“教堂”走向父亲时，我并没觉得自己特别勇敢。我将自己视为一名侦察者：我到那里是为了传递信息，告诉爸爸肖恩曾经威胁过奥黛丽，因为爸爸会知道该怎么做。
I said that Shawn had made a joke about shooting Audrey, and that I thought it was because Audrey had confronted him about his behavior. Dad stared at me, and the skin where his lips had been tightened. He shouted for Mother and she appeared. Her mood was somber; I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t look me in the eye.
我说肖恩开过一个要用枪射杀奥黛丽的玩笑，我觉得那是因为奥黛丽就他的行为与他当面对质过。爸爸盯着我，嘴唇上的皮肤绷得紧紧的。他喊母亲过来。她来了，神情忧郁。我不明白她为什么不敢直视我的眼睛。
From that moment it was an interrogation. Every time I suggested that Shawn was violent or manipulative in any way, Dad shouted at me: “Where’s your proof? Do you have proof?”
从那一刻起，谈话变成一场审问。每当我千方百计暗示肖恩有暴力倾向，是个控制狂，爸爸就对我大吼：“你的证据呢？你有证据吗？”
Or perhaps I was calm because I was not there, not really. Maybe I was across an ocean, on another continent, reading Hume under a stone archway. Maybe I was racing through King’s College, the Discourse on Inequality tucked under my arm.
也许我很平静是因为我没有在真正意义上置身那里。也许我越过大洋，在另一块大陆上，在石头拱门下阅读休谟的著作。也许我当时正在国王学院里飞奔，腋下夹着《论人类不平等的起源》[4]。【注：[4]Discourse on Inequality，法国思想家卢梭的哲学著作。】
“Dad, I need to tell you something.”
“爸爸，有件事我想告诉你。”
“Get them, I’m going to read them.”
“去把它们拿来，我要看看。”
“I don’t have them with me.” This was a lie; they were under my bed.
“我没带来。”我撒了一个谎，它们就在我的床底下。
“You don’t need proof,” I said quietly. “You’ve seen it. You’ve both seen it.”
“你不需要证据，”我平静地说，“你见过。你们俩都见过。”
“What the hell am I supposed to think if you ain’t got proof?” Dad was still shouting. Mother sat on the sofa’s edge, her mouth open in a slant. She looked in agony.
“如果你没有证据，我他妈的会怎么想？”爸爸还在吼着。母亲坐在沙发边上，嘴巴斜张着，看上去极度痛苦。
“I have journals,” I said.
“我记在日记上了。”我说。
Dad said I wouldn’t be happy until Shawn was rotting in prison, that I’d come back from Cambridge just to raise hell. I said I didn’t want Shawn in prison but that some type of intervention was needed. I turned to Mother, waiting for her to add her voice to mine, but she was silent. Her eyes were fixed on the floor as if Dad and I were not there.
爸爸说，是不是把肖恩关在监狱里任其烂掉，我才会开心；是不是我从剑桥回来，就为了让家里鸡犬不宁。我说我不想让肖恩进监狱，但需要对他进行某种形式的干预。我转向母亲，等着她帮我说话，但她一声不吭。她的眼睛紧盯地板，好像我和爸爸根本不在那里似的。
There was a moment when I realized she would not speak, that she would sit there and say nothing, that I was alone. I tried to calm Dad but my voice trembled, cracked. Then I was wailing — sobs erupted from somewhere, some part of me I had not felt in years, that I had forgotten existed. I thought I might vomit.
那一刻我意识到她不会开口，她会坐在那里一言不发，留我一个人孤军作战。我努力想让爸爸平静下来，但我声音颤抖而嘶哑。然后我放声痛哭——抽泣爆发自我身体某处，来自多年来我不曾感受过、已经被忘却的一部分。我想我可能要吐。
I ran to the bathroom. I was shaking from my feet to my fingers.
我跑去卫生间。我从脚到手指都在发抖。
I stared at the reflection. The mirror was mesmeric, with its triple panels trimmed with false oak. It was the same mirror I’d gazed into as a child, then as a girl, then as a youth, half woman, half girl. Behind me was the same toilet Shawn had put my head in, holding me there until I confessed I was a whore.
我凝视着镜中的自己。这面镜子很迷人，有三块嵌板，镶着仿橡木边框。我在童年、少女时代、青春期、成年之后，凝视的都是这同一面镜子。身后的马桶还是肖恩将我的头按进去的那个，他曾在那里控制住我，直到我承认自己是个妓女。
I had to strangle the sobs quickly — Dad would never take me seriously if I couldn’t — so I stopped the bawling using the old methods: staring my face down in the mirror and scolding it for every tear. It was such a familiar process, that in doing it I shattered the illusion I’d been building so carefully for the past year. The fake past, the fake future, both gone.
我得迅速止住抽泣——否则爸爸永远不会认真对待我——所以我用老办法止住了痛哭：盯着镜中自己的脸，指责它流下的每滴眼泪。这个过程如此熟悉，做这件事时，我在过去一年精心营造的幻想破碎了。虚伪的过去，虚假的未来，全都消失了。
I had often locked myself in this bathroom after Shawn let me go. I would move the panels until they showed my face three times, then I would glare at each one, contemplating what Shawn had said and what he had made me say, until it all began to feel true instead of just something I had said to make the pain stop. And here I was still, and here was the mirror. The same face, repeated in the same three panels.
肖恩松开我后，我常常把自己锁在这个卫生间里。我会移动嵌板，直到镜子上出现三张我的脸，然后我会盯着每一张脸，思索肖恩说了什么，又逼我说了什么，直到一切都开始变得真实，而不是说了几句可以让疼痛停止的话。现在我仍然静静地站在这里，面对这面镜子。还是同样的脸，呈现在同样的三块嵌板中。
I had regained a fragile sense of calm, and I left the bathroom carrying that calmness delicately, as if it were a china plate balancing on my head. I walked slowly down the hall, taking small, even steps.
我恢复了脆弱的平静，从容地离开卫生间，像头上顶着一个瓷盘一样。我迈着均匀的小碎步慢慢穿过走廊。
“I’m going to bed,” I said when I’d made it to the Chapel. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”
“我要去睡觉了。”走到“小教堂”时我说，“我们明天再谈。”
I considered making a run for it. Could I get to my car before Shawn made it to the house? Where were the keys? I need my laptop, I thought, with my research. Leave it, the girl from the mirror said.
我考虑要不要逃走。我能赶在肖恩到来之前将车开出去吗？车钥匙在哪儿？我需要带上笔记本电脑，我想，上面有我的论文。管不了那么多了，镜中的女孩说。
Except it wasn’t. This face was older, and floating above a soft cashmere sweater. But Dr. Kerry was right: it wasn’t the clothes that made this face, this woman, different. It was something behind her eyes, something in the set of her jaw — a hope or belief or conviction — that a life is not a thing unalterable. I don’t have a word for what it was I saw, but I suppose it was something like faith.
只不过这张脸变了，比以前老了，浮在一件柔软的羊绒衫上方。但克里博士说得没错：让这张脸，让这个女人与众不同的不是衣服，而是她眼睛后面的东西，是她咬在齿间的东西——是希望、信仰或信念——让人生不再一成不变。我无法用言辞描述自己看到了什么，但我想是诸如信仰的东西。
Dad was at his desk, holding a phone in his left hand. “We’ll talk about it now,” he said. “I told Shawn what you said. He is coming.”
爸爸坐在桌旁，左手拿着电话。“我们现在就谈，”他说，“我把你说的话告诉了肖恩。他马上就过来。”
I heard footsteps. Shawn had crossed the room and was now sitting next to me on the sofa. He waited for me to look at him, and when I didn’t he reached out and took my hand. Gently, as if he were unfolding the petals of a rose, he peeled open my fingers and dropped something into them. I felt the cold of the blade before I saw it, and sensed the blood even before I glimpsed the red streak staining my palm.
我听到脚步声。肖恩已经穿过房间，现在正坐在我旁边的沙发上。他等着我抬头看他，但见我没抬头，他便伸出手来握住我的手。他轻轻地掰开我的手指，好像展开玫瑰花瓣一般，往里面放了什么东西。还没看到那是什么，我就感觉到了刀刃的寒意；甚至还未瞥见浸染我手掌的红色血迹，我就感觉到了鲜血。
Dad told me to sit and I did. I don’t know how long I waited, paralyzed with indecision, but I was still wondering if there was time to escape when the French doors opened and Shawn walked in. Suddenly the vast room felt tiny. I looked at my hands. I couldn’t raise my eyes.
爸爸让我坐下，我照做了。我不知道自己等了多长时间，犹豫不决，不知所措，但我仍在考虑是否有时间逃走。这时法式大门开了，肖恩走了进来。突然间，宽敞的房间显得逼仄起来。我低头看着自己的手，无法抬起眼睛。
“If you’re smart, Siddle Lister,” Shawn said, “you’ll use this on yourself. Because it will be better than what I’ll do to you if you don’t.”
“小妹，如果你是聪明人，”肖恩说，“还是用这个自我了断吧。这样更好，否则我下手比这个狠多了。”
The knife was small, only five or six inches long and very thin. The blade glowed crimson. I rubbed my thumb and index finger together, then brought them to my nose and inhaled. Metallic. It was definitely blood. Not mine — he’d merely handed me the knife — but whose?
刀子很小很薄，只有五六英寸长。刀片泛着深红色的血光。我用拇指和食指捏起它放到鼻子前，深吸一口气。一股金属的味道。毫无疑问，肯定是血。不是我的——他只是把刀递给了我——但那是谁的呢？
I stared at the blade. Dad began a lecture, pausing often so Mother could ratify his remarks. I heard voices, among them my own, chanting harmonies in an ancient hall. I heard laughter, the slosh of wine being poured from a bottle, the tinkle of butter knives tapping porcelain. I heard little of my father’s speech, but I remember exactly, as if it were happening now, being transported over an ocean and back through three sunsets, to the night I had sung with my friends in the chamber choir. I must have fallen asleep, I thought. Too much wine. Too much Christmas turkey.
我盯着刀刃。爸爸开始了长篇大论，不时停下来，让母亲认可他的话。我听见声音，古老的大礼堂里的吟唱和声，其中有我自己的声音。我听见欢声笑语，酒从瓶子里倒出来时的咕嘟咕嘟声，黄油刀碰在瓷器上叮当作响。我几乎没听到父亲说了什么，但我清楚地记得，仿佛此刻我正漂洋过海，穿越三次日落，回到我和朋友在室内唱诗班唱歌的那个夜晚。我想，我一定已经睡着了。喝了太多的酒。吃了太多的圣诞火鸡。
I gaped at Mother, then at Shawn. I must have seemed like an idiot to them, but I couldn’t grasp what was happening well enough to respond to it. I half-wondered if I should return to the bathroom and climb through the mirror, then send out the other girl, the one who was sixteen. She could handle this, I thought. She would not be afraid, like I was. She would not be hurt, like I was. She was a thing of stone, with no fleshy tenderness. I did not yet understand that it was this fact of being tender — of having lived some years of a life that allowed tenderness — that would, finally, save me.
我目瞪口呆地看看母亲，又看看肖恩。在他们看来，我肯定像个傻瓜，但我不太明白到底发生了什么，也不知作何反应。我想着是否该回到卫生间，穿过镜子，派那个十六岁的女孩出来。我想，她能应付。她不会像我一样害怕。她不会像我一样受到伤害。她像块石头，没有血肉，没有柔软的内心。那时我还不明白一个事实，正是温柔——这些年来我所度过的一种温柔的生活——才会最终拯救我。
“That’s uncalled for,” Mother said.
“那倒没必要。”母亲说。
The blood on my hands had dried. The knife lay on the carpet, forgotten by everyone except me. I tried not to stare at it. Whose was the blood? I studied my brother. He had not cut himself.
我手上的血干了。那把刀躺在地毯上，除了我，每个人都忘了它的存在。我尽量不去盯着它看。到底是谁的血？我细细端详哥哥。他并没有割伤自己。
Having decided I was dreaming, I did what one does in dreams: I tried to understand and use the rules of this queer reality. I reasoned with the strange shadows impersonating my family, and when reasoning failed, I lied. The impostors had bent reality. Now it was my turn. I told Shawn I hadn’t said anything to Dad. I said things like “I don’t know how Dad got that idea” and “Dad must have misheard me,” hoping that if I rejected their percipience, they would simply dissipate. An hour later, when the four of us were still seated on the sofas, I finally came to terms with their physical persistence. They were here, and so was I.
我认定自己是在做梦，于是如梦中人一样行事：我努力理解并运用这奇怪的现实规则。我跟假扮我家人的陌生人影进行理论，当无法理论时，我就撒谎。骗子们已歪曲了现实，现在该轮到我了。我告诉肖恩，我不曾跟爸爸说任何事。我说了一些“我不知道爸爸怎么会有那种想法”和“爸爸一定是听错了”之类的话，希望如果我拒绝了他们的追根究底，他们就会消失。一个小时后，当我们四个仍坐在沙发上，我终于接受了他们的存在。他们在这里，所以我也在这里。
Dad had begun a new lecture, and this time I was present enough to hear it. He explained that little girls need to be instructed in how to behave appropriately around men, so as not to be too inviting. He’d noticed indecent habits in my sister’s daughters, the oldest of whom was six. Shawn was calm. He had been worn down by the sheer duration of Dad’s droning. More than that, he felt protected, justified, so that when the lecture finally ended he said to me, “I don’t know what you said to Dad tonight, but I can tell just by looking at you that I’ve hurt you. And I’m sorry.”
爸爸又开始了新一轮训话，这次我回过神来，能听见了。他解释说，小女孩需要接受指导，学习如何在男人身边举止得当，才不会招蜂引蝶。他已经注意到我姐姐的几个女儿有些习惯不太检点，她们中最大的才六岁。肖恩很平静。父亲冗长枯燥的唠叨让他精疲力竭。更重要的是，他觉得自己受到了保护，觉得自己有理，所以当父亲终于结束他的长篇大论时，他对我说：“我不知道今晚你对爸爸说了什么，但只是看着你，我就知道我曾伤害了你。我很抱歉。”
I went to bed but not to sleep. I waited until six in the morning, then I found Mother in the kitchen. I’d borrowed the car I was driving from Drew, so I told Mother something had come up unexpectedly, that Drew needed his car in Salt Lake. I said I’d be back in a day or two.
我到床上躺下，但无法入睡。我一直等到凌晨六点，然后在厨房找到母亲。我回来时开的车是向德鲁借的，所以我告诉母亲，德鲁突然有个意外状况，需要在盐湖城用车。我说过一两天我就回来。
I went to my room and shut the door, quietly sliding the bolt, and called Drew. I was nearly incoherent with panic but eventually he understood. He said I should leave, right now, and he’d meet me halfway. I can’t, I said. At this moment things are calm. If I try to run off in the middle of the night, I don’t know what will happen.
我回到自己房间，关上房门，悄悄拉下门闩，给德鲁打了个电话。我惊慌失措，几乎语无伦次，但他最终明白过来发生了什么。他说我应该离开，马上就走，他会到半路接我。我不能，我说。此刻，一切还风平浪静。如果我试图在半夜逃跑，不知道会发生什么。
We hugged. We laughed like we always did after a fight. I smiled at him like I’d always done, like she would have. But she wasn’t there, and the smile was a fake.
我们彼此拥抱，像通常吵完架后那样大笑。我一如往常对他微笑，就和当年十六岁的她一样。但她不在那里，笑容是假的。
A few minutes later I was driving down the hill. The highway was in sight when I saw something and stopped. It was the trailer where Shawn lived with Emily and Peter. A few feet from the trailer, near the door, the snow was stained with blood. Something had died there.
几分钟后，我开车下山。高速公路就在眼前，这时视野中出现了什么东西，我停了下来。那是肖恩、埃米莉和彼得住的拖车。离拖车几英尺远靠近门的雪地上血迹斑斑。有什么东西死在了那里。
But the real reason I didn’t believe her was the knife. I’d seen my father and brothers put down dozens of dogs over the years — strays mostly, that wouldn’t stay out of the chicken coop. I’d never seen anyone use a knife on a dog. We shot them, in the head or the heart, so it was quick. But Shawn chose a knife, and a knife whose blade was barely bigger than his thumb. It was the knife you’d choose to experience a slaughter, to feel the blood running down your hand the moment the heart stopped beating. It wasn’t the knife of a farmer, or even of a butcher. It was a knife of rage.
但我不相信她的真正原因还是那把刀。多年来，我目睹父亲和哥哥们放倒过很多狗——大多是不肯离开鸡舍的流浪狗。我从没见任何人动过刀子，都是一枪射中狗头或心脏，狗立刻毙命。但肖恩竟然选择一把刀，一把刀刃只比他的拇指大一点点的刀。你会选择这样的刀进行一场杀戮，在猎物的心脏停止跳动的那一刻，感受鲜血从掌心流过：那不是农夫的刀，甚至不是屠夫的刀。它是一把愤怒的刀。
I wanted to believe her but didn’t. Diego had been killing Luke’s chickens for more than a year. Besides, Diego was a purebred. Shawn had paid five hundred dollars for him. He could have been sold.
我很想相信她，但我做不到。迭戈咬死卢克的鸡这件事已经持续一年多了。此外，迭戈是条纯种狗，是肖恩花五百美元买来的，完全可以再卖掉。
From Mother I would later learn it was Diego, a German shepherd Shawn had purchased a few years before. The dog had been a pet, much beloved by Peter. After Dad had called, Shawn had stepped outside and slashed the dog to death, while his young son, only feet away, listened to the dog scream. Mother said the execution had nothing to do with me, that it had to be done because Diego was killing Luke’s chickens. It was a coincidence, she said.
后来我从母亲那里得知，死去的是迭戈，那是肖恩几年前买的一只德国牧羊犬。这只宠物狗一直深受彼得的喜爱。爸爸打过那通电话后，肖恩走到外面用刀把狗宰了，而他的儿子就在几英尺远的地方听着狗哀声嚎叫。母亲说，杀狗的事与我无关，不得不这么做是因为迭戈一直咬死卢克的鸡。她说，这只是个巧合。
I don’t know what happened in the days that followed. Even now, as I scrutinize the components of the confrontation — the threat, the denial, the lecture, the apology — it is difficult to relate them. When I considered it weeks later, it seemed I had made a thousand mistakes, driven a thousand knives into the heart of my own family. Only later did it occur to me that whatever damage was done that night might not have been done solely by me. And it was more than a year before I understood what should have been immediately apparent: that my mother had not confronted my father, and my father had not confronted Shawn. Dad had never promised to help me and Audrey. Mother had lied.
我不知道接下来几天发生了什么。即使是现在，再次审视那次对峙的每一个环节——威胁、否认、训诫、道歉——还是很难将它们联系起来。几周后再反思此事，我似乎犯了上千个错误，将一千把刀子插进了家人的心脏。后来我才意识到，那天晚上发生的任何伤害可能并不是我一个人造成的。而过了一年多，我才明白过来一个当时显而易见的事实：母亲从来没有跟父亲对质，父亲也从来没有与肖恩对质。父亲从未答应过要帮助我和奥黛丽。母亲撒了谎。
Now, when I reflect on my mother’s words, remembering the way they appeared as if by magic on the screen, one detail stands above the rest: that Mother described my father as bipolar. It was the exact disorder that I myself suspected. It was my word, not hers. Then I wonder if perhaps my mother, who had always reflected so perfectly the will of my father, had that night merely been reflecting mine.
现在，每当我回想母亲说过的话，忆起那些文字神奇地逐个出现在屏幕上，有一个细节凸显出来：母亲将父亲描述成躁郁症，那正是我所怀疑的症状。那是我的话，不是她的话。接着我怀疑，一向完美充当父亲喉舌的母亲，那天晚上只不过是在附和我的意愿。
No, I tell myself. They were her words. But hers or not, those words, which had so comforted and healed me, were hollow. I don’t believe they were faithless, but sincerity failed to give them substance, and they were swept away by other, stronger currents.
不，我告诉自己。那些是她说的话。但不管那些话是否出自她，那些曾安慰过我、治愈过我的话，都成了空。我并不相信它们是不真诚的，但真诚并未给它们带来实质性结果，它们被其他更强大的潮流冲走了。
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