Others might have found refuge in a pint of whiskey, or a bottle of vodka, or a six-pack of beer. James, though, has never liked the taste of alcohol, and he finds it does not dull his mind; it only turns him a dark beet-red, as if he has endured some terrible battering, while his mind races all the faster. He takes long drives, crisscrossing Middlewood, following the highway almost to Cleveland before turning back. He takes sleeping pills from the drugstore, and even in his dreams, Lydia is dead. Again and again, he finds only one place where he can stop thinking: Louisa’s bed.
换作别人，可能会到威士忌、伏特加或者啤酒中寻求解脱，而詹姆斯从不喜欢酒精的味道，也不觉得酒能麻痹他的神经；酒精只会把他变成深红色——仿佛被人狠揍了一顿，让他的大脑疯狂旋转。他长时间地开车兜风，以各种角度穿越米德伍德，沿着公路一直开到克利夫兰郊区，然后才掉头。他服用安眠药，即便在他的梦里，莉迪亚也是死的。一遍又一遍，他发现自己很难不去想的一个地方，是路易莎的床。
James is all too familiar with this kind of forgetting. From Lloyd Academy to Harvard to Middlewood, he has felt it every day — that short-lived lull, then the sharp nudge to the ribs that reminded you that you didn’t belong. It seemed a false comfort to him, like a zoo animal crouched in its cage, ignoring the gawking eyes, pretending it is still running wild. Now, a month after Lydia’s funeral, he treasures those moments of forgetting.
詹姆斯对这种遗忘太过熟悉。从劳埃德学院到哈佛到米德伍德，他每天都感受着——先是短暂的镇定，然后肋骨仿佛被人戳了一下，提醒你与环境的格格不入。他觉得这是一种虚假的安慰，好比动物园的动物趴在笼子里，拼命忽略围观的游客，假装自己还在野外自由地奔跑。现在，莉迪亚的葬礼已经过去一个月了，他却珍惜起那些遗忘的时刻来。
He tells Marilyn that he’s going in to class, or to meet with students; on weekends, he says he has papers to grade. These are lies. The dean had canceled his summer class the week after Lydia’s death. “Take some time for yourself, James,” he had said, touching James gently on the shoulder. He did this with everyone he needed to soothe: students enraged over low grades, faculty slighted by the grants they did not receive. His job was to make losses feel smaller. But the students never turned their C-minuses into Bs; new funding never materialized. You never got what you wanted; you just learned to get by without it. And the last thing James wants is time for himself — being at home is unbearable. At every moment, he expects Lydia to appear in the doorway, or to hear the squeak of her floorboards overhead. One morning, he heard footsteps in her room, and before he could stop himself, he ran upstairs, breathless, only to find Marilyn pacing before Lydia’s desk, opening and closing her desk drawers. Get out, he wanted to shout, as if this were a sacred space. Now, every morning, he picks up his briefcase, as if he is going to teach, and drives in to the college. Even in his office, he finds himself mesmerized by the family photo on his desk, where Lydia — barely fifteen, then — peers out, ready to leap through the frame’s glass and leave everyone behind. By afternoon, he finds himself at Louisa’s apartment, plunging into her arms, then between her legs, where, blessedly, his mind shuts off.
他告诉玛丽琳，他要去上课，或者见学生；周末，他就说他要回学校批论文。这些都不是实话。莉迪亚死后一周，系主任取消了他的全部暑期课程。“给你自己留点时间，詹姆斯。”他和蔼地拍拍詹姆斯的肩膀。每当需要安抚别人——因为得了低分而暴跳如雷的学生、没得到福利的教职员工——的时候，系主任都会做这个动作。他的工作就是息事宁人。但是，即便这样，那些学生永远不会把C—变成B；新来的拨款也不会变成实际福利。你永远得不到你想要的；你只是学会了如何得过且过而已。詹姆斯最不想要的就是属于他自己的时间——待在家里是难以忍受的。他每时每刻都希望莉迪亚能出现在走廊里，或者听到楼上她房间里的地板吱呀作响的声音。一天早晨，他听到莉迪亚房间里有脚步声，立刻不假思索地冲上楼，结果发现是玛丽琳在莉迪亚的书桌前踱步，把她的所有抽屉打开再关上。“出去。”他很想这么喊，好像这里是一块圣地。现在，每天早晨他都会拿起公事包，像平时上课一样，开车去学校。在办公室，他会无意识地对着桌上的全家福发呆，照片上的莉迪亚——还不到十五岁——看着他，好像随时都能跳出相框，把其他人甩在身后。到了下午，他会不由自主地去路易莎的公寓，投入她的两臂之间，然后是两腿之间，在那里，他的大脑会陷入一片幸福的空白。
But after leaving Louisa’s, he remembers again, and he is always angrier than before. On the way back to his car one evening, he seizes a stray bottle from the street and hurls it into the side of Louisa’s building. Other nights, he fights the temptation to steer into a tree. Nath and Hannah try to stay out of his way, and he and Marilyn have barely exchanged a word in weeks. As the Fourth of July approaches, James passes the lake and finds that someone has festooned the dock with bunting and red and white balloons. He swerves to the side of the road and rips it all down, bursting each balloon under his heel. When everything has sunk beneath the surface of the water, and the dock lies solemn and barren, he heads home, still shaking.
然而，离开路易莎家，他又会想起一切，甚至变得比原先还要愤怒。一天晚上，他走向自己的车，顺手拎起路边的一个空瓶子，朝着路易莎住的公寓楼使劲一扔。有时候，他会在与怒火的搏斗中把车朝树开去。内斯和汉娜都尽量躲着他走，他和玛丽琳有时一连几周都不怎么说话。七月四日快到了，詹姆斯路过湖边，发现码头上装饰了彩旗，还有红色和白色的气球。他跑过去扯下所有彩旗，把气球逐一踩破。当所有装饰都沉入湖水，整个码头显得寥落而萧索的时候，他才颤抖着回家。
“Sorry,” Nath says. He cups a hard-boiled egg in one hand, a paper napkin in the other. “I didn’t expect you.” Out of the car, with its lingering air of exhaust and engine grease, James realizes he can smell Louisa’s perfume on his skin, musky and spicy-sweet. He wonders if Nath can, too.
“对不起。”内斯说，他一手握着个煮鸡蛋，另一手捏着张餐巾纸，“我没想到是你。”詹姆斯想起，当他钻出汽车，呼吸到掺杂了汽车尾气和发动机油味道的空气时，突然发觉，他能在自己的皮肤上闻到路易莎的香水味——是一种麝香和甜香的混合气味，他怀疑内斯也能闻到。
The sight of Nath rummaging in the refrigerator sets him ablaze again. “You’re wasting power,” James says. Nath shuts the door, and his quiet obedience only makes James angrier. “Do you always have to be in the way?”
看到内斯翻冰箱，他也会生气。“你在浪费电。”詹姆斯说。内斯关上冰箱门，他安静的顺从只会让詹姆斯更加愤怒：“你怎么老是挡着路？”
“For your information,” he says, “my summer course comes with a great deal of responsibility. And I have conferences. Meetings.” His face flushes at the memory of that afternoon — Louisa kneeling before his chair, then slowly unzipping his fly — and this makes him angry. Nath stares, lips slightly pursed, as if he wants to frame a question but can’t get past the W –, and suddenly, James is furious. For as long as he has been a father, James has believed that Lydia looked like her mother — beautiful, blue-eyed, poised — and that Nath looked like him: dark, hesitating in midspeech, preparing to stumble over his own words. He forgets, most of the time, that Lydia and Nath resemble each other, too. Now, in Nath’s face, James suddenly sees a flash of his daughter, wide-eyed and silent, and the pain of this makes him cruel. “You’re just home all day. Do you have any friends at all?”
“你最好知道，”他说，“我的暑期课程非常繁重，还要开好几个会。”想起当天下午的事情，他的脸红了——路易莎跪在他的椅子前面，慢慢拉开他的裤链——而脸红让他愤怒。内斯凝视着他，嘴唇微微撅起，似乎想发问，但是难以启齿。詹姆斯突然火冒三丈，因为，自从做了父亲以来，詹姆斯一直觉得莉迪亚像她母亲——美丽、蓝眼睛、沉稳，内斯则像他，忧郁、讲话吞吞吐吐。大多数时候，他却忘记了莉迪亚和内斯也相像这个事实。现在，他猛然在内斯的脸上发现了莉迪亚的影子：大眼睛，性格安静。想到这里，他愈发难以忍受：“整天都待在家里，你难道没有朋友吗？”
“What do you mean, you didn’t expect me?” he says. “Don’t I have a right to come into my own kitchen after a hard day of work?” He sets his bag down. “Where’s your mother?”
“这是什么意思，你没想到是我？”他说，“工作了一天，我难道没有权利进自己家的厨房吗？”他放下包，“你妈妈呢？”
Under his son’s eye, James feels a sharp prickle between his shoulder blades, as if Nath is blaming him.
在儿子的注视下，詹姆斯觉得肩胛骨中间传来一阵尖锐的刺痛，好像是内斯对他的指责。
“In Lydia’s room.” Nath pauses. “She’s been in there all day.”
“在莉迪亚房间，”内斯顿了顿，“她一天都在里面。”
His father has said things like this for years, but at this moment Nath feels something snap, like an overstretched wire. “None. I’m not like you. No conferences. No — meetings.” He wrinkles his nose. “You smell like perfume. From your meetings, I guess?”
这样的话，他父亲说了很多年，但是这一次，内斯感觉什么东西断掉了，仿佛一根拉伸过度的线。“没有，我又不像你，我不用……开会。”他皱皱鼻子，“你身上有香水味，是开会开的，对吗？”
Nath’s expression doesn’t change, but his whole face stiffens, like a mask. James wants to snatch the words back out of the air, like moths, but they’ve already crawled into his son’s ears: he can see it in Nath’s eyes, which have gone shiny and hard as glass. He wants to reach out and touch his son — his hand, his shoulder, anywhere — and tell him he didn’t mean it. That none of this is his fault. Then Nath punches the countertop so hard it leaves a crack in the old, worn laminate. He runs out of the room, footsteps thundering up the stairs, and James lets his bag fall to the floor and slumps back against the counter. His hand touches something cold and wet: the crushed remains of the hard-boiled egg, shards of shell driven deep into the tender white.
内斯的表情没变，但他的整张脸都僵了，犹如扣着面具。詹姆斯很想像抓蛾子那样把刚才说的话抓回来，但那些字句已经钻进了儿子的耳朵。他能从内斯的眼睛里看出来，内斯的眼神变得冰冷僵硬，像玻璃一样。他想伸手碰碰儿子——碰他的手、他的肩膀，随便什么地方——告诉他自己不是故意的，这件事不是儿子的错。这时，内斯一拳打向柜台，在老旧的台面上砸出一条裂缝。他朝自己的房间跑去，跺得楼梯咚咚直响。詹姆斯的包滑落在地，他无力地靠在柜台上，手触到一个冰冷潮湿的东西：被捏碎的煮鸡蛋。锋利的蛋壳深深插进了柔软的蛋白里。
James grabs him by the shoulder, so hard his knuckles crack. “Don’t you talk to me that way,” he says. “Don’t you question me. You don’t know anything about my life.” Then, before he even realizes the words are forming, they shoot from his mouth like spit. “Just like you didn’t know anything about your sister’s.”
詹姆斯一把拽过儿子的肩膀，非常用力，连指关节都在响。“不许你这样和我说话，”他说，“不许这样问我。你根本不了解我的生活。”然后，他不假思索地脱口而出，“就像你根本不了解你妹妹的生活一样。”
All night he thinks about this, his son’s frozen face, and the next morning he rises early. Retrieving the newspaper from the front porch, he sees the date black and stark in the corner: July 3. Two months to the day since Lydia disappeared. It doesn’t seem possible that just two months ago he had sat in his office grading papers, that he had been embarrassed to pluck a ladybug from Louisa’s hair. Until two months ago, July 3 had been a happy date, secretly treasured for ten years — the day of Marilyn’s miraculous return. How everything has changed. In the kitchen, James slides the rubber band from the newspaper and unrolls it. There, below the fold, he sees a small headline: Teachers and Classmates Remember Departed Girl. The articles about Lydia have grown shorter and sparser. Soon they would stop entirely, and everyone would forget about her. James cups the paper toward him. The day is cloudy, but he leaves the light off, as if the dimness will soften what he’s about to read. From Karen Adler: She seemed lonely. She didn’t really hang out with anyone. From Pam Saunders: She didn’t have a lot of friends, or even a boyfriend. I don’t think the boys even noticed her. At the bottom: Lee’s physics teacher, Donald Kelly, remembered her as the lone sophomore in a class of juniors, noting, “She worked hard, but of course she stood out.” Beside the article, a sidebar: Children of Mixed Backgrounds Often Struggle to Find Their Place.
他一晚上都在想这件事，眼前全是儿子僵硬的脸。次日清晨，他早早起来，从门廊里拿来报纸，看到上面的黑体日期：七月三日。莉迪亚消失两个月了。两个月前，他还在办公室批改论文，含羞带怯地帮路易莎捉头上的甲虫；两个月前，七月三日还是个快乐的日子，还是个十年来都让他打心底里珍惜的日子——这是玛丽琳奇迹般归来的日子。世事真是无常。詹姆斯走进厨房，取下捆在报纸上的橡皮筋。翻开报纸，他看到一行小标题：《师生纪念逝去的女孩》。最近，有关莉迪亚的文章越来越短，也越来越少，它们很快就会完全消失，大家也会忘记她这个人。詹姆斯捧起报纸。外面阴着天，但他没有开灯，似乎暗淡的光线能够柔化他即将读到的内容。卡伦·阿德勒说：她显得挺孤独，她不和任何人来往。帕姆·桑德斯说：她没有太多朋友，连男朋友都没有。我不觉得男孩们会注意她。最底部，李的物理老师唐纳德·凯利回忆道：她是一个孤独的高一学生，上着高二的物理课。凯利说：“她学习努力，但是，她显然不合群。”文章旁边有一条补充报道：来自混血家庭背景的孩子，通常难以找到自己的定位。
Then the telephone rings. Every time, his first thought is: They’ve found her. In that instant, a tiny part of him shouts that it’s all a mix-up, a case of mistaken identity, a bad dream. Then the rest of him, which knows better, pulls him down with a sickening thud: You saw her. And he remembers again, with awful clarity, her swollen hands, her pale and waxen face.
然后，电话响了。每次听到电话铃声，他的第一个念头都是：他们找到她了。他的一小部分自我会觉得，一定是警察发现案子弄错了，把别人当成了莉迪亚，所以他只是做了一个糟糕的梦而已。他其余的自我则会摆出更加理智的姿态，当头棒喝道：你已经看到她了。于是他会再次痛苦而清醒地想起女儿肿胀的手、苍白的脸。
It is because of this that his voice, when he answers the phone, always trembles.
所以，当他接起电话时，声音总是颤抖的。
“Mr. Lee?” It’s Officer Fiske. “I hope it’s not too early to call. How are you this morning?”
“李先生，”是菲斯克警官打来的，“我希望现在打给你不算太早，你今天早晨觉得怎么样？”
“Fine,” James says. Everyone asks this, and by now it is an automatic lie.
“不错。”詹姆斯说。大家都会这么问，所以，现在他会自动撒个谎。
James has to repeat these words to himself before he understands. “Suicide?”
詹姆斯觉得，他必须重复一遍这些话，才能理解它们的意思：“自杀？”
“Well, Mr. Lee,” Officer Fiske says, and James knows now it is bad news. No one called you by name so insistently unless they were trying to be kind. “I’m calling to let you know that we’ve decided to close our investigation. We are ruling this case a suicide.”
“好的，李先生。”菲斯克警官说。詹姆斯意识到，他准备宣布坏消息。除了想要表示亲切，没人会那么郑重地叫你的名字。“我想通知你，我们决定结案。我们判断这个案子是自杀。”
Officer Fiske pauses. “Nothing in police work is ever sure, Mr. Lee. I wish it were. It’s not like the movies — things are hardly ever clear-cut.” He does not like breaking bad news, and he takes refuge in official language. “Circumstances suggest suicide is by far the most likely scenario. No evidence of foul play. A history of loneliness. Her grades were slipping. Going out on the lake when she knew she couldn’t swim.”
菲斯克警官顿了顿，说：“警察的工作也不会永远没有纰漏，李先生，但我希望没有。这不是电影——很难清楚判定。”他不喜欢宣布坏消息，只能用公事公办的腔调说，“根据现场的情况，自杀是最有可能的，没有死者遭受虐待的证据，而且，她性格孤僻，成绩下滑，在明知自己不会游泳的情况下到湖里去。”
James bows his head, and Officer Fiske continues. His tone is gentler now, like a father consoling a young child. “We know this isn’t easy for you and your family, Mr. Lee. We hope this at least helps you move on.”
詹姆斯低下头，菲斯克警官继续说下去，他的语气温和了一些，就像父亲在安慰年幼的孩子：“我们知道这个消息让你和你的家人难以接受，李先生，但我们希望它至少能帮助你们走出阴影。”
“Thank you,” James says. He sets the receiver back on its hook. Behind him, Marilyn hovers in the doorway, one hand on the jamb.
“谢谢你。”詹姆斯放下听筒。他身后，玛丽琳悄悄从走廊过来，手扶着门框。
“Who was it?” she asks. By the way she clutches her robe, tight over her heart, James knows she’s already heard everything. She flicks the light switch, and in the sudden brightness, he feels exposed and raw.
“刚才是谁？”她问。从她紧紧揪着睡袍前襟的姿势来看，詹姆斯知道她已经听到了每一句话。玛丽琳按下电灯开关，突然而来的光明让他觉得十分刺眼。
“Whoever did this? The police think –” James pauses. “They don’t think there was anyone else involved.”
“凶手？警察认为……”詹姆斯顿了顿，“他们认为没有别的人卷入这件事。”
“They don’t know her. Someone must have taken her out there. Lured her.” Marilyn hesitates, the cigarettes and condoms surfacing in her mind, but anger muscles them aside and turns her voice shrill. “She wouldn’t have gone out there by herself. Do you think I don’t know my own daughter?”
“他们又不了解她，一定是有人把她带到那里去的，哄骗了她。”玛丽琳含糊地说，香烟和安全套浮现在她的脑海，但愤怒又把它们扫到一边，促使她尖声叫道，“她不会自己溜出去的。你难道觉得我不了解自己的女儿吗？”
“They can’t close the case,” Marilyn says. “Whoever did this is still out there.”
“他们不能结案，”玛丽琳说，“真正的凶手还没抓住。”
A rock plummets into James’s gut. In all their time together, white has been only the color of paper, of snow, of sugar. Chinese — if it is mentioned at all — is a kind of checkers, a kind of fire drill, a kind of takeout, one James doesn’t care for. It did not bear discussion any more than that the sky was up, or that the earth circled the sun. He had naively thought that — unlike with Marilyn’s mother, unlike with everyone else — this thing made no difference to them. Now, when Marilyn says this — If she were a white girl — it proves what James has feared all along. That inside, all along, she’d labeled everything. White and not white. That this thing makes all the difference in the world.
詹姆斯觉得，好像有一块大石头砸进了他的肚子里。自他们结婚以来，白色就单纯是纸的颜色、雪的颜色和糖的颜色。中国——如果非要提到这个词的话——只能跟象棋、某种消防训练和中餐外卖有关。如同地球围着太阳转，不去过多谈论这些词汇也是天经地义的事。詹姆斯曾经天真地认为——与玛丽琳的母亲和其他人的想法不同——玛丽琳对不同人种一视同仁。现在，玛丽琳嘴里说出来的话——如果她是个白人女孩——证实了詹姆斯一直以来的恐惧：内心深处，她还是会给所有事物贴上标签。白种人和非白种人，正是这些标签让世界面目全非。
James does not reply. All he can think is: If we’d never moved here. If she had never seen the lake. The silence between them thickens, like ice, and Marilyn shivers.
詹姆斯没回答。他只有一个想法：要是我们没搬到这里，要是她从未见过那个湖就好了。两人之间的沉默和疏离逐渐发展成厚重的冰层，玛丽琳打起了冷战。
“You believe them, don’t you?” she says. “You think she did this thing.” She cannot bring herself to use the word suicide; the mere thought of it sets her aboil again. Lydia would never do such a thing to her family. To her mother. How could James believe it? “They just want to close the case. Easier to stop looking than to do any real work.” Marilyn’s voice quivers, and she clenches her hands, as if stilling them will still the trembling inside her. “If she were a white girl, they’d keep looking.”
“你相信他们，对吗？”她说，“你认为这是她自己的决定。”她说不出“自杀”这个词；单是想到它，她就会怒气沸腾。莉迪亚绝对不会这样对待她的家庭，尤其是她的母亲。詹姆斯怎么会相信他们？“他们只想结案，因为这样最省事。”玛丽琳颤抖着说，她双手紧握，仿佛这样做就能平息内心的震颤，“如果她是个白人女孩，他们就会调查下去。”
“If she were a white girl,” he says, “none of this would ever have happened.”
“如果她是个白人女孩，”他说，“这一切就都不会发生。”
Marilyn, still fuming at the police, does not understand, and her confusion makes her angrier. “What do you mean?” Under the kitchen light, her wrists are pale and thin, her lips set, her face cold. James remembers: long ago, when they were young and the worst thing they could imagine was not being together, he had once leaned in to touch her, and his fingertips had left a trail of goose bumps across her shoulder blade. Every tiny hair on his arm had stood up, electrified. That moment, that connection, seems far away and small now, like something that happened in another life.
玛丽琳还在生警察的气，她没听明白詹姆斯的话，困惑加深了她的愤怒。“你是什么意思？”在厨房的灯光下，她的手腕显得苍白瘦削，嘴唇黯淡无光，脸色冰冷。詹姆斯记得，很久以前，在他们年轻的时候，能够想到的最可怕的事就是不能在一起。有一次，他伸出手来抚摸她的背，她觉得自己肩胛上的汗毛都竖起来了，他的手指仿佛带着电流一样。现在，那种时刻已经一去不复返，一切恍如隔世。
“You know what I mean. If she’d been a white girl –” The words are ash-bitter on his tongue. If she’d been a white girl. If I’d been a white man. “She would have fit in.”
“你知道我的意思，如果她是白人女孩……”他苦涩地说，如果她是白人女孩，如果我是白人，“她就能适应环境了。”
For moving would never have been enough; he sees that now. It would have been the same anywhere. Children of Mixed Backgrounds Often Struggle to Find Their Place. The mistake was earlier, deeper, more fundamental: it had happened the morning they’d married, when the justice of the peace had looked at Marilyn and she had said yes. Or earlier, on that first afternoon they’d spent together, when he had stood beside the bed, naked and shy, and she had twined her legs around his waist and pulled him toward her. Earlier yet: on that first day, when she’d leaned across his desk and kissed him, knocking the breath out of him like a swift, sharp punch. A million little chances to change the future. They should never have married. He should never have touched her. She should have turned around, stepped out of his office into the hallway, walked away. He sees with utter clarity: none of this was supposed to happen. A mistake.
他意识到，搬到米德伍德不是理由，因为在哪里都一样。来自混血家庭背景的孩子，通常难以找到自己的定位。所以说，这个错误更久远，更深刻，更根本。它就发生在他们结婚的那天上午，治安法官看着玛丽琳，她说“我愿意”的时候。抑或是他们共同度过第一个下午的时候，他站在床边，赤裸羞涩，她的腿缠在他腰上，把他拉过去。甚至更早，她隔着桌子亲他的那一刻，像是恰到好处地打了他一拳，令他无法呼吸。总之，存在一百万种改变未来的微小可能性。他们不应该结婚，他不应该碰她，她应该转身离开他的办公室。他已经彻底看明白了，这些都不应该发生，都是错误。
“You need to eat something,” Louisa says. She steps into the kitchen and returns with a small Tupperware. “Here.” Gently, she pries open the lid and nudges the box toward him. Inside lie three snow-colored buns, tops ruffled like peony heads ready to blossom, revealing a glint of deep tawny red within. The sweet scent of roast pork wafts up to his nose.
“你得吃点东西。”路易莎说完，走进厨房，拿出一个小保鲜盒，“给你。”她轻轻揭开盒盖，把盒子推到他眼前。里面是三块雪白的小点心，表层的褶皱就像含苞待放的牡丹花球，露出一点里面的红褐色馅料，烤猪肉的香甜味道飘进他的鼻孔。
This time, he does not bother to stop at the college. He drives straight to Louisa’s, speeding through every traffic light, arriving out of breath, as though he’d run there on foot. “Is everything all right?” she says when she opens the door, still smelling of the shower, dressed but wet-haired, hairbrush in hand. “I didn’t expect you so early.” It’s only quarter to nine, and James hears the questions that ripple behind her surprise: Has he come to stay? What about his wife? He does not know the answers. Now that he has finally pushed those words out into the air, he feels strangely light. The room wobbles and spins, and he sinks down onto the sofa.
这一次，他干脆没有先开车去学校，而是直接来到路易莎那里。他一路闯过无数个红灯，气喘吁吁地闯上楼，仿佛是跑过来的一样。“你还好吧？”她开门的时候问道。她身上传来刚洗完澡的味道，虽然穿上了衣服，但头发没有擦，手里还拿着梳子。现在才上午九点一刻，从她惊讶的语气中，詹姆斯听出了言外之意：他是来住的吗？那他妻子怎么办？对于这些问题，他也不知道答案。他终于对玛丽琳说出了憋在心里很久的话，有一种奇怪的轻松感，觉得眼前的房间摇晃旋转，他跌坐在了沙发上。
Before Marilyn can say anything — before she knows whether to be angry or sad or hurt, before she really understands what James has said — he is gone.
玛丽琳还没来得及开口——她还没有时间分辨自己的感觉是愤怒、难过还是受伤，还没真正理解詹姆斯的意思——他就出去了。
“Your mother was right, after all,” he says. “You should have married someone more like you.”
“你母亲说得对，”他说，“你应该和一个更像你的人结婚。”
Slowly he lifts a bun from the box. It is lighter than he remembers, cloudlike, yielding beneath his fingertips. He had forgotten that anything could be so tender. He breaks the bun open, revealing glossy bits of pork and glaze, a secret red heart. When he puts it to his mouth, it is like a kiss: sweet and salty and warm.
他慢慢地从盒子里拿出一个叉烧包，它的重量比他记忆中的轻，捏起来十分柔软，像一朵白云。他已经不记得还有什么更软的东西了。他撕开外皮，露出里面油光闪亮的猪肉，宛如一颗神秘的红心。他把它放进嘴里，觉得它的味道就像一个吻，充斥着甜咸交织的温暖。
His mother had made these, long ago, in their tiny cinder-colored apartment. She had roasted the pork and crimped the dough and arranged the buns in the bamboo steamer she’d brought all the way from China. His father’s favorite. Char siu bau.
以前，在他们栖身的那座狭窄阴暗的小公寓里，他母亲也做过这种食物。她先把猪肉烤好，包进面团，在上面捏出褶皱，放进竹笼屉里蒸，笼屉是她从中国买来的。这种点心是他父亲的最爱，叫作“叉烧包”。
Louisa beams, and only then does James realize he has spoken aloud. He has not said a word in Chinese in forty years, but he is amazed at how his tongue still curls around their familiar shape. He has not had one of these buns since he was a child. His mother had packed them in his lunches until he told her to stop, he’d rather eat what the other kids were eating. “Go on,” Louisa says now. “Taste.”
路易莎笑了。这时，詹姆斯才意识到，他刚才大声说出了它们的名字。他已经有四十年没讲过中文了，但他的舌头仍然能够卷曲成它熟悉的形状。长大后，他就没吃过叉烧包。他母亲曾经让他带到学校里当午饭，但后来被他拒绝了，他宁愿和其他孩子吃一样的东西。“快点，”路易莎说，“尝尝。”
“I made them yesterday,” Louisa says. She pauses. “You know what these are?”
“这是我昨天做的，”路易莎说完顿了顿，“你知道它们是什么吗？”
He does not wait for her to wrap her arms around him, as if he is a small and hesitant child, or for her to coax him into the bedroom. Instead he pushes her to the floor as he reaches for his fly, tugging her skirt up and pulling her onto him right there in the living room. Louisa moans, arching her back, and James fumbles with the buttons on her blouse, peeling it away and unsnapping her bra and catching her breasts, heavy and round, in his cupped hands. As she grinds herself against him, he focuses on her face, on the dark hair that tumbles down into his mouth, on the deep brown eyes that close as her breath grows faster, her thrusts more urgent. This is the sort of woman, he thinks, he should have fallen in love with. A woman who looked just like this. A woman just like him.
他没有等着她过来拥抱自己——仿佛把他当成一个犹豫迟疑的小孩——或者哄着他进入卧室，而是直接把她推到客厅的地板上，拉开他的裤子拉链，掀起她的裙子，把她直接拽到自己身上。路易莎呻吟着弓起了脊背，詹姆斯胡乱解开她衬衫的纽扣，把它扔到一边，脱下她的胸罩，握住她又圆又沉的乳房。她在他身上蠕动的时候，他注视着她的脸，看到她的黑发垂下来，落到嘴里，她棕色的眼睛闭着，呼吸随着身体的动作加快。他想，这就是他应该爱上的那种女人，一个长得像这样的女人，和他相像的女人。
“You’re the kind of girl I should have married,” he whispers afterward. It is the kind of thing every man says to his lover, but to him it feels like a revelation. Louisa, half-asleep in the crook of his arm, does not hear him, but the words snake into her ear, giving her the tangled dreams of every other other woman. He will leave her — he will marry me — I will make him happy — there will be no other woman.
“你是我应该娶的那种女孩。”后来，他低声告诉她。每个男人都会对爱人这么说，但是对他而言，这句话如同天启。路易莎在他的臂弯里半睡半醒，没听到他的话，但零星的词语钻进了她的耳朵，让她做了一个有关其他女人的纠结的梦。“他会离开她——他会和我结婚——我会让他快乐——就不会有其他女人了。”
At home, when Nath and Hannah come downstairs, Marilyn sits motionless at the kitchen table. Though it is past ten o’clock, she is wearing her bathrobe still, hugged so tightly around her that they cannot see her neck, and they know there is bad news even before she chokes out the word suicide. “Was it?” Nath asks slowly, and, turning for the stairs without looking at either of them, Marilyn says only, “They say it was.”
家里，内斯和汉娜下楼的时候，看到玛丽琳呆坐在厨房桌边。虽然已经过了十点，她还是穿着浴袍。她缩成一团，他们根本看不到她的脖子，所以，没等她抽抽噎噎地说出“自杀”这个词，他们就知道传来了坏消息。“是吗？”内斯缓缓地问道。他转身朝楼上走，没有看母亲和妹妹，玛丽琳只回答了一句：“他们说是这样的。”
For half an hour, Nath pokes at the dregs of cereal in the bottom of his bowl while Hannah watches him nervously. He has been checking the Wolffs’ house every day, looking for Jack, trying to catch him — though for what, he isn’t quite sure. One time he even climbed the porch steps and peeked in the window, but no one is ever home. Jack’s VW hasn’t puttered down the street in days. At last, Nath pushes the bowl away and reaches for the telephone. “Get out,” he says to Hannah. “I want to make a phone call.” Halfway up the stairs, Hannah pauses, listening to the slow clicks as Nath dials. “Officer Fiske,” he says after a moment, “this is Nathan Lee. I’m calling about my sister.” His voice drops, and only bits and pieces come through: Ought to reexamine. Tried to talk to him. Acting evasive. Toward the end, only one word is audible. Jack. Jack. As if Nath cannot say the name without spitting.
内斯戳了足足半个小时碗底的麦片，汉娜紧张地望着他。他每天都要去伍尔夫家外面察看一番，寻找杰克，企图抓住他——至于为了什么，他也不太确定。一次，他甚至爬上杰克家门口的台阶，朝窗户里面偷窥，但是没人在家。杰克的甲壳虫有好多天没停在街上了。终于，内斯把碗一推，去拿电话。“出去，”他对汉娜说，“我想打个电话。”上楼上到一半，汉娜站定，听内斯拨号。“菲斯克警官，”过了一会，他说，“我是内森·李，我想和你谈谈我妹妹的事。”他压低了声音，只能断断续续地听到“应该重新调查……设法和他谈谈……闪烁其词……”什么的。讲到最后，就只能听清楚一个词了，那就是“杰克”。杰克，内斯提到这个名字时总是咬牙切齿，似乎不这样就说不出来。
After Nath puts the phone down, so hard the bells jangle, he shuts himself in his room. They think he’s being hysterical, but he knows there’s something there, that there’s some connection to Jack, some missing piece of the puzzle. If the police don’t believe him, his parents won’t either. His father is hardly home these days anyway, and his mother has locked herself in Lydia’s room again; through the wall he can hear her pacing, like a prowling cat. Hannah raps at his door, and he puts on a record, loud, until he can’t hear the sound of her knuckles, or his mother’s footsteps, anymore. Later, none of them will remember how the day passes, only a numbed blur, overshadowed by all that would happen the next day.
内斯“砰”地放下电话，回到房间带上了门。他们以为他疯了，但他知道，杰克肯定跟这件事有联系，他就是链条上缺失的那一环。如果警察不相信他，父母也不会相信他。他父亲这些日子都不怎么在家；他母亲又把自己锁在了莉迪亚房间里，隔着墙壁都能听到她在里面踱步，像一只焦躁的猫。汉娜正在敲他的门，他开始听唱片，声音开得很大，这样就听不到敲门声和他母亲的脚步声了。后来，他们都不记得这一天是怎么过去的，剩下的只有一些模糊的印象。对于明天将要发生什么的担忧，已经麻痹了他们的知觉。
When evening falls, Hannah opens her door and peers through the crack. A razor of light slices under Nath’s door, another under Lydia’s. All afternoon Nath had played his record over and over, but he has finally let it wind to a stop, and now a thick silence, like fog, seeps out onto the landing. Tiptoeing downstairs, she finds the house dark, her father still gone. The kitchen faucet drips: plink, plink, plink. She knows she should turn it off, but then the house will be silent, and at the moment this is unbearable. Back in her room, she imagines the faucet dripping to itself in the kitchen. With every plink, another bead of water would form on the brushed steel of the sink.
夜幕降临时，汉娜敞开她房间的门，从门缝里往外看。内斯的门底下现出一线灯光，莉迪亚房间里也亮着灯。内斯把那张唱片反复播放了一下午，现在终于停了，整条走廊逐渐陷入厚重的浓雾一般的寂静之中。汉娜轻轻走下楼梯，发现楼下一片漆黑，她父亲还没有回来。厨房的水龙头往下滴着水，哒、哒、哒。她知道应该关掉它，但这样的话，家里就没有了任何声音，而现在这种时候，没有声音令人难以忍受。她回到房间，想象着水龙头滴水的情景，每响一声，都会有一滴水珠出现在满是划痕的钢制水池的底部。
She longs to climb into her sister’s bed and sleep, but with her mother there, she cannot, and to console herself, Hannah circles the room, checking her treasures, pulling each from its hiding place and examining it. Tucked between mattress and box spring: the smallest spoon from her mother’s tea set. Behind the books on the shelf: her father’s old wallet, the leather worn thin as tissue. A pencil of Nath’s, his toothmarks revealing wood grain beneath the yellow paint. These are her failures. The successes are all gone: the ring on which her father kept his office keys; her mother’s best lipstick, Rose Petal Frost; the mood ring Lydia used to wear on her thumb. They were wanted and missed and hunted down in Hannah’s hands. These aren’t a toy, said her father. You’re too young for makeup, said her mother. Lydia had been more blunt: Stay out of my things. Hannah had folded her hands behind her back, savoring the lecture, nodding solemnly as she memorized the shape of them standing there beside the bed. When they were gone, she repeated each sentence under her breath, redrawing them in the empty spot where they’d been.
她很想爬到姐姐的床上睡觉，但玛丽琳在那里，她不能过去。为了自我安慰，汉娜在房间里转圈，把她的宝藏从秘密地点拖出来检查，她的床垫和弹簧床垫之间，藏着玛丽琳的成套茶具中最小的那把勺子；书架上的书后面塞着她父亲的旧钱包，皮子磨得像手纸一样薄；还有内斯的铅笔，上面有他的牙印，黄色油漆底下的木纹都露了出来。这些是她失败的收藏，而那些成功的收藏都不见了——他父亲挂办公室钥匙的钥匙环；她母亲最好的唇膏“玫瑰花瓣霜”；莉迪亚曾经戴在拇指上的心情戒指。它们要么被原主人索要回去了，要么丢了，要么让人发现了。她父亲说：“这些不是玩具。”她母亲说：“你太小了，不需要化妆。”莉迪亚则更直接：“别拿我的东西。”汉娜把手叠放在身后，像检阅军队一样庄严地对着床点头，想象着这些藏品的模样，假装它们都立在了床前。那些东西被没收之后，她就默默复述着家人对她说过的话，在曾经放置这些物品的地方画下它们的样子。
All she has left are things unwanted, things unloved. But she doesn’t put them back. To make up for them being unmissed, she counts them carefully, twice, rubs a spot of tarnish from the spoon, snaps and unsnaps the change pocket of the wallet. She’s had some of them for years. No one has ever noticed they were gone. They slipped away silently, without even the plink of a drop of water.
她得以保留的所有藏品，都是别人不要或不再喜欢的，但她并没有把它们放回原处。为了弥补它们遭到遗弃的悲惨境遇，她先是仔细地清点了两遍，然后擦掉了勺子上的污迹，反复摆弄着钱包上零钱袋的开关。有些东西她保存了很多年，没人注意到它们不见了，它们消失的时候很安静，甚至都没有像水龙头上滴下的水那样发出“哒”的一声。
This is how she knows. Last summer, she and Nath and Lydia had been down at the lake. It was hot and Nath had gone in for a swim. Lydia sunbathed on a striped towel in her swimsuit on the grass, one hand over her eyes. Hannah had been listing Lydia’s many nicknames in her mind. Lyd. Lyds. Lyddie. Honey. Sweetheart. Angel. No one ever called Hannah anything but Hannah. There were no clouds, and in the sun, the water had looked almost white, like a puddle of milk. Beside her, Lydia let out a little sigh and settled her shoulders deeper into the towel. She smelled like baby oil and her skin gleamed.
汉娜是怎么知道的呢？去年夏天，她和内斯、莉迪亚一起去湖边玩。天气炎热，内斯下湖游泳，莉迪亚穿着泳衣，在草地上铺开一块条纹毛巾，她手搭凉棚，躺在上面晒太阳。汉娜在心里默默回忆莉迪亚都有哪些昵称：莉德、莉兹、莉迪、亲爱的、甜心、天使。但大家都只叫汉娜她的本名。天上没有云，太阳底下的湖面几乎是白色的，像一摊牛奶。莉迪亚在她旁边轻叹一声，肩膀又朝毛巾里面拱了拱。她身上有婴儿护肤油的味道，皮肤闪闪发光。
She knows Nath is convinced, no matter what the police say, that Jack brought Lydia to the lake, that he had something to do with it, that it’s his fault. In his mind, Jack dragged her into the boat, Jack pushed her underwater, Jack’s fingerprints are pressed into her neck. But Nath is all wrong about Jack.
她知道，内斯坚信，无论警察怎么说，都是杰克把莉迪亚带到湖边去的，杰克一定和这件事有关系，都是他的错。他认为，是杰克把她拽到船上，然后把她推到水中，杰克肯定在她的脖子上留下了指纹。但是，内斯完全误解了杰克。
As Hannah squinted, looking for Nath, she thought of possibilities. “Hannah Banana”– they might call her that. Or something that had nothing to do with her name, something that sounded strange but that, from them, would be warm and personal. Moose, she thought. Bean. Then Jack had strolled by, with his sunglasses perched atop his head, even though it was blindingly bright.
汉娜一边眯起眼睛寻找内斯，一边设想自己可能获得哪些昵称。“香蕉汉娜”——他们可能叫她这个，或者和她的名字无关的外号，比如听起来奇怪，但对他们来说很亲切和个人化的名词——“慕斯”，或者“豆子”。这时，杰克溜达过来，他的太阳眼镜扣在头上，反射着耀眼的阳光。
“What are you doing here?” he’d said to Jack, and Jack stubbed the cigarette out in the grass and put on his sunglasses before looking up.
“你在这干什么？”他对杰克说。杰克在草地上按灭香烟，戴上太阳眼镜，然后才抬起头。
“Better watch out,” he said to Lydia. “You’ll have a white patch on your face if you lie like that.” She laughed and uncovered her eyes and sat up. “Nath not here?” Jack asked, settling down beside them, and Lydia waved out toward the water. Jack pulled his cigarettes from his pocket and lit one, and suddenly there was Nath, glowering down at them. Water speckled his bare chest and his hair dripped down onto his shoulders.
“最好小心点，”他对莉迪亚说，“你要是保持这个姿势，脸上会出现白斑的。”她笑了，收回挡着眼睛的手，坐了起来。“内斯不在这？”杰克走过来，坐在她们旁边，莉迪亚朝着湖面招招手。杰克掏出烟盒，点起一支烟，突然，内斯出现了，怒视着杰克。他胸前有一大片水迹，头发上的水不停地滴到肩膀上。
“Just enjoying the sun,” he said. “Thought I might go for a swim.” His voice didn’t sound nervous, but from where she was sitting, Hannah could see his eyes behind the tinted lenses, how they fluttered to Nath, then away. Without speaking, Nath plunked himself down right between Jack and Lydia, bunching his unused towel in his hand. Blades of grass stuck to his wet swimsuit and his calves, like thin streaks of green paint.
“就是晒个太阳。”他说，“看看能不能游个泳。”他的声音一点都不紧张，但是，从她坐的位置，汉娜能顺着太阳眼镜的侧面看到杰克的眼皮在紧张地颤动，他的视线先是对着内斯，接着又挪开了。内斯没说话，他一屁股坐在杰克和莉迪亚之间，把他没用过的毛巾缠在手上。地上的草叶戳着他的游泳裤和小腿，像绿色的油漆刷出的条纹。
“I’m fine.” Lydia shielded her eyes with her hand again.
“我没事。”莉迪亚又抬手挡住眼睛。
“You’re going to burn,” he said to Lydia. “Better put on your T-shirt.”
“你都快晒焦了，”他对莉迪亚说，“还是穿上T恤吧。”
“You’re already turning pink,” Nath said. His back was to Jack, as if Jack weren’t there at all. “Here. And here.” He touched Lydia’s shoulder, then her collarbone.
“你都变成粉红色的了，”内斯说，他背对着杰克，仿佛杰克根本不存在，“这里，还有这里。”他碰碰莉迪亚的肩膀，然后是她的锁骨。
“I’m fine,” Lydia said again, swatting him away with her free hand and lying back again. “You’re worse than Mom. Stop fussing. Leave me alone.” Something caught Hannah’s eye then, and she didn’t hear what Nath said in return. A drop of water trickled out of Nath’s hair, like a shy little mouse, and ran down the nape of his neck. It made its slow way between his shoulder blades, and where his back curved, it dropped straight down, as if it had jumped off a cliff, and splashed onto the back of Jack’s hand. Nath, facing away from Jack, didn’t see it, and neither did Lydia, peeking up through the slits between her fingers. Only Hannah, arms curled around knees, a little way behind them, saw it fall. In her ears, it made a noise, like a cannon shot. And Jack himself jumped. He stared at the drop of water without moving, as if it were a rare insect that might fly away. Then, without looking at any of them, he raised his hand to his mouth and touched his tongue to it, as if it were honey.
“我没事。”莉迪亚又说，她用另一只手把他拍到一边，重新躺了下来，“你比妈妈还唠叨，别大惊小怪的，让我一个人待着。”这时，一件事吸引了汉娜的注意力，所以她没有听到内斯接下来说了什么。一滴水顺着内斯的头发移动到他的脖子上，好像一只害羞的小老鼠，慢慢地从他的肩胛骨之间流下来，沿着脊背的曲线一直向下，犹如跳下一座悬崖一样，落到了杰克的手背上。这一幕，背对着杰克的内斯根本发觉不了，正透过指缝向外张望的莉迪亚也不会注意。只有抱着膝盖，稍微坐得靠后一点的汉娜看到那滴水落了下来——在她听来，那溅落的声音像炮弹一样响。只见杰克一下子跳了起来。他盯着那滴水，却没再动，好像那是一只稀有的昆虫，可能随时会振翅飞走。然后，他没有看他们中的任何一个人，只是盯着那滴水。他抬起手放到嘴边，用舌头把它舔掉，简直像在品尝甜美的蜂蜜。
It happened so quickly that if she were a different person, Hannah might have wondered if she’d imagined it. No one else saw. Nath was still turned away; Lydia had her eyes shut now against the sun. But the moment flashed lightning-bright to Hannah. Years of yearning had made her sensitive, the way a starving dog twitches its nostrils at the faintest scent of food. She could not mistake it. She recognized it at once: love, one-way deep adoration that bounced off and did not bounce back; careful, quiet love that didn’t care and went on anyway. It was too familiar to be surprising. Something deep inside her stretched out and curled around Jack like a shawl, but he didn’t notice. His gaze moved away to the far side of the lake, as if nothing had happened. She stretched her leg and touched her bare foot to Jack’s, big toe to big toe, and only then did he look down at her.
一切发生得如此之快，汉娜甚至觉得这一幕是她想象出来的，其他人都没有看到。内斯依旧背对着杰克，为了对抗阳光，莉迪亚闭上了眼睛。刚才的那个瞬间，如闪电一般令汉娜觉得震撼。多年来对爱的渴求让她变得敏锐，她就像一条饥饿的狗，不停地翕动鼻孔，捕捉着哪怕是最微弱的食物香气。她不会弄错的。她一看到就认出了它。那是爱，是一厢情愿的深切渴慕，只有付出，得不到回报；是小心翼翼而安静的爱恋，却无所畏惧，无论如何，都会执着地进行下去。这种感情太过熟悉，她一点都不觉得惊讶。她的内心深处仿佛生发出某种东西，钻出她的身体，像披风一样包裹着杰克，而他却没有发觉。他的目光早已移动到了湖的对岸，似乎什么都没有发生过。汉娜伸过腿去，拿光脚碰了碰杰克的脚，两个人的大脚趾相对。这时，杰克才低头看她。
“Hey, kiddo,” he said, ruffling her hair with his hand. Her whole scalp had tingled and she thought her hair might stand up, like static electricity. At the sound of Jack’s voice, Nath glanced over.
“嘿，小毛孩。”他说着，抬手揉了揉她的头发。她立刻觉得整块头皮发麻，每一根头发都竖了起来，仿佛过电一样。听到杰克的声音，内斯看了过来。
Now she thinks of Jack’s face as he looked down at his hands, as if something important had happened to them. No. Nath is wrong. Those hands could never have hurt anyone. She is sure of it.
现在，汉娜想起了杰克低头看着他的手时的表情，好像它们发生了什么不得了的变化。不。内斯错了，那双手绝不会伤害任何人。她非常肯定。
On Lydia’s bed, Marilyn hugs her knees like a little girl, trying to leap the gaps between what James has said and what he thinks and what he meant. Your mother was right all along. You should have married someone more like you. With such bitterness in his voice that it choked her. These words sound familiar and she mouths them silently, trying to place them. Then she remembers. On their wedding day, in the courthouse: her mother had warned her about their children, how they wouldn’t fit in anywhere. You’ll regret it, she had said, as if they would be flippered and imbecile and doomed, and out in the lobby, James must have heard everything. Marilyn had said only, My mother just thinks I should marry someone more like me, then brushed it away, like dust onto the floor. But those words had haunted James. How they must have wound around his heart, binding tighter over the years, slicing into the flesh. He had hung his head like a murderer, as if his blood were poison, as if he regretted that their daughter had ever existed.
玛丽琳在莉迪亚的床上像个小女孩那样抱住膝盖，仔细回忆詹姆斯说的话，琢磨他的想法和意思。“你母亲一直是对的，你应该嫁给一个更像你的人。”他声音里的苦涩让她觉得呼吸困难。这些话听起来很熟悉，她不出声地复述了一遍，努力回忆着。然后，她想起来了。在他们结婚那天的法院大楼里，她母亲提醒她，要为他们将来的孩子想想，他们可能走到哪里都不合群。“你会后悔的。”她当时说，仿佛他们是两个在劫难逃的傻瓜。在门厅里等着的詹姆斯一定听到了她们的每一句对话。玛丽琳只告诉他：“我母亲觉得我应该嫁给一个更像我的人。”然后她就遗忘了这件事，把它像尘土一样丢在了地上。但这些话一直让詹姆斯忧心忡忡，不得安宁，像尖刀一样划开他的皮肉，刺进他的心，让他像个自动站上绞刑架的杀人犯，让他觉得自己的血统害人不浅，让他后悔生下了莉迪亚这个女儿。
“Stay away from my sister,” Nath said to Jack, very quietly, as they left. Lydia, already walking away, shaking grass off her towel, didn’t hear, but Hannah had. It sounded like Nath had meant her — Hannah — but she knew he’d really meant Lydia. When they stopped at the corner to let a car pass, she peeked back over her shoulder, one quick glance too fast for Nath to notice. Jack was watching them go. Anyone would think he was looking at Lydia, with the towel slung around her hips now, like a sarong. Hannah shot him a little smile, but he didn’t smile back, and she could not tell if he hadn’t seen her, or if her one little smile hadn’t been enough.
“离我妹妹远点。”内斯对杰克说，语气非常平静。然后，他们就离开了。莉迪亚已经走出一段距离，正抖着毛巾上的草。她没听到内斯刚才的话，但汉娜听到了。内斯口中的“妹妹”听起来好像指的是她——汉娜，但她明白，他的真实所指是莉迪亚。当他们在街角停下来等路上的车过去时，汉娜扭头向后看了一眼——为了不让内斯发现，她的动作非常迅速。她发现杰克在后面看着他们向前走。任何人都会觉得他是在看莉迪亚；莉迪亚把毛巾围在腰上，好像东南亚人穿的莎笼。汉娜朝着杰克微微一笑，但他没有对她笑，她也不确定他是否看到了她，抑或是她的一个小小微笑不足以得到他的回报。
“Hannah,” he said, and without knowing why, she stood up. Nath nudged Lydia with his foot. “Let’s go.” Lydia groaned but picked up her towel and the bottle of baby oil.
“汉——娜。”他说。不知怎的，她站了起来。内斯用脚推了推莉迪亚，“我们走吧。”莉迪亚抱怨着，但还是拿起毛巾和婴儿护肤油的瓶子。
Except James does not come home. Not at dinner; not at nightfall; not at one, when the bars in town close. All night Marilyn sits awake, pillows propped against the headboard, waiting for the sound of his car in the driveway, his footsteps on the stairs. At three, when he still hasn’t come home, she decides she will go to his office. All the way to campus, she pictures him huddled in his wheeled armchair, crushed with sadness, soft cheek pressed to hard desk. When she finds him, she thinks, she will convince him this is not his fault. She will bring him home. But when she pulls into the lot, it is empty. She circles his building three times, checking all the spots where he usually parks, then all the faculty lots, then all the meters nearby. No sign of him anywhere.
然而，詹姆斯并没有回家。晚饭时没回，天黑时没有，凌晨一点也没有——那是镇上的酒吧打烊的时间。玛丽琳坐了一宿，她倚着斜靠在床头板上的枕头，等待他的车开进车道的声音和他走上楼梯的脚步声。凌晨三点，他依旧没回家，她决定到他办公室去看看。去学校的路上，她想，他也许正蜷缩在转椅上，脸枕着桌子，被悲伤压垮了。找到他之后，她就能让他明白，这不是他的错，然后带他回家。但是，当她来到停车场，却发现这里一辆车都没有。她围着办公楼转了三圈，察看了所有他可能停车的地点和全部教职工的停车位，又在周围转了一圈，都是一无所获。
When James comes home, Marilyn thinks, speechless with aching, she will tell him: I would marry you a hundred times if it gave us Lydia. A thousand times. You cannot blame yourself for this.
她痛苦地想，等詹姆斯回到家，她就告诉他：“哪怕只是为了生下莉迪亚，我也会嫁给你一百次，甚至一千次，你不必为此自责。”
In the morning, when the children come downstairs, Marilyn sits stiff-necked and bleary-eyed at the kitchen table. “Where’s Daddy?” Hannah asks, and her silence is enough of an answer. It is the Fourth of July: everything is closed. James has no friends on the faculty; he is not close with their neighbors; he loathes the dean. Could he have been in an accident? Should she call the police? Nath rubs his bruised knuckle across the crack in the counter and remembers the perfume on his father’s skin, his reddening cheeks, his sharp and sudden fury. I don’t owe him anything, he thinks, but even so, he has the feeling of leaping off a high cliff when he swallows hard and says at last, “Mom? I think I know where he is.”
早晨孩子们下楼时，玛丽琳脖子僵硬、两眼模糊地坐在厨房桌前。“爸爸呢？”汉娜问，母亲的沉默已经回答了她。今天是七月四日，一切都落下了帷幕。詹姆斯在同事中没有朋友，他和邻居们也不熟，他不喜欢系主任。他会不会出了事故？她应该报警吗？内斯淤青的指关节划过柜台上的裂缝，想起父亲身上的香水味和变红的脸，他的敏感和突然的愤怒。“我又没有亏欠他。”他想。但即使这样，当他硬下心肠终于开口的时候，依然有一种跃下高耸悬崖的感觉：“妈妈，我想我知道他在哪儿。”
Fourth Street is near the college, a student-heavy area of town, and even as she turns down it, squinting at building numbers, Marilyn has no plan. Maybe, she thinks, Nath is all wrong, maybe she is making a fool of herself. She feels like an overtuned violin, strung too tight, so that even the slightest vibration sets her humming. Then, in front of number 97, she sees James’s car, parked beneath a scrubby maple. Four stray leaves dot its windshield.
第四大街在大学附近，这里住着很多学生，在门牌号码之间搜寻的时候，玛丽琳的心里还是没底。她想，也许内斯错了，也许她会出洋相。她觉得自己像一把弦绷得太紧的小提琴，即使最微不足道的振动，也会让她嗡嗡作响。接着，她在97号门口看到了詹姆斯的车，就停在一棵矮小的枫树下，挡风玻璃上沾着四片落叶。
At first Marilyn will not believe it. It is so unlike James. Besides, she thinks, he doesn’t know anyone. He does not have any female friends. There are no women in the history department at Middlewood, only a few women professors at the college at all. When would James meet another woman? Then a terrible thought occurs to her.
玛丽琳起初不相信，这太不像是詹姆斯。而且，她想，他谁都不认识。他没有什么女性朋友，米德伍德学院的历史系没有女人，整个学院里只有屈指可数的几位女教授。詹姆斯是什么时候认识别的女人的？然后，她产生了一个可怕的想法。
She takes down the phone book and skims down the Cs until she finds it, the only Chen in Middlewood: L Chen 105 4th St #3A. A telephone number. She nearly reaches for the receiver, but what would she say? Hello, do you know where my husband is? Without shutting the phone book, she grabs her keys from the counter. “Stay here,” she says. “Both of you. I’ll be back in half an hour.”
她翻开电话薄，在C栏找到了米德伍德唯一姓陈的人：L。 陈，第四大街，105号，3楼A户，后面是一串电话号码。她差点就要去拿听筒，但是，该怎么开口呢？“你好，你知道我丈夫在哪儿吗？”她电话薄都没合上，便从柜台上拿起钥匙，“在家等着，”她说，“你们两个。我半小时后就回来。”
“Oh, yes,” Louisa says. Her eyes flick away from Marilyn’s. “I’m sorry. I’m not dressed yet –“
“噢，是的，”路易莎说，她避开玛丽琳的视线，“对不起，我还没穿好衣服……”
Now she feels strangely calm. She parks the car, lets herself into 105, and climbs the steps to the third floor, where with one steady fist she raps at 3A. It is nearly eleven, and when the door opens, just wide enough to reveal Louisa still in a pale blue robe, Marilyn smiles.
现在，她感觉异常冷静。她把车停好，走进105号楼，爬到三层，然后握紧拳头，稳稳地敲了敲3A的门。接近上午十一点钟，门开了，仍旧穿着淡蓝色睡袍的路易莎出现在门缝里，玛丽琳笑了。
“Hello,” she says. “It’s Louisa, isn’t it? Louisa Chen? I’m Marilyn Lee.” When Louisa does not respond, she adds, “James Lee’s wife.”
“你好，”她说，“你是路易莎，对吗？路易莎·陈？我是玛丽琳·李。”见路易莎没有反应，她补充道，“詹姆斯·李的妻子。”
“I can see that.” Marilyn sets her hand on the door, holding it open with one palm. “I’ll just take a moment of your time. You see, I’m looking for my husband. He didn’t come home last night.”
“我看得出来。”玛丽琳把手放在门上，不让它关上，“我只占用你一点时间。你瞧，我在找我丈夫，他昨天晚上没回家。”
“I am. Very worried.” She keeps her eyes trained on Louisa’s face. They have met only twice before, in passing at the college Christmas party and then at the funeral, and Marilyn studies her carefully now. Long ink-colored hair, long lashes over downturned eyes, small mouth, like a doll’s. A shy little thing. As far from me, she thinks with a twinge, as a girl could be. “Do you have any idea where he might be?”
“是的，非常担心。”玛丽琳凝视着路易莎的脸。她们以前只见过两次面，一次是在学院的圣诞节派对上，另一次是莉迪亚的葬礼上。玛丽琳仔细地打量着她：墨黑的长发，长睫毛，眼角下垂，小嘴巴，像娃娃一样。腼腆的小东西，玛丽琳想，只是个小女孩而已。“你知道他可能去哪儿了吗？”
“Oh?” Louisa swallows hard, and Marilyn pretends not to notice. “How terrible. You must be very worried.”
“噢？”路易莎故作镇定，玛丽琳假装没有看出她的慌乱，“真糟糕，你一定非常担心。”
“Well,” Louisa says at last. “Have you checked his office?”
“好吧，”路易莎终于说，“你去他办公室找过吗？”
“Thank you anyway,” she says. “You’ve been very helpful.” She lets her eyes drift past Louisa, to the tiny sliver of living room she can see through the doorway, and Louisa glances back over her shoulder nervously, as if James might have wandered out of the bedroom unawares. “If you see him,” Marilyn adds, raising her voice, “tell my husband that I’ll see him at home.”
“还是要谢谢你帮忙。”玛丽琳说。她的视线越过路易莎，沿着门廊投向起居室的一角，路易莎紧张地回头张望，害怕詹姆斯会突然走出卧室。“要是你见到他，”玛丽琳补充道，提高了声音，“告诉我丈夫，我在家里等他。”
“He does?” Confusion and pleasure and surprise mingle in Louisa’s face, and Marilyn can see exactly what is running through her mind. That Louisa — she’s so smart. So talented. So beautiful. She thinks, Oh Louisa. How young you are.
“是吗？”迷惑、喜悦和惊讶三种情绪在路易莎脸上交织出现，玛丽琳轻而易举地读懂了她的心思，“那个路易莎——她很聪明，很有才华，很漂亮。”她想，“哦，路易莎，你是多么的年轻。”
“You’re his assistant, aren’t you? You work together every day.” She pauses. “He speaks of you so often at home.”
“你是他的助教，不是吗？你们每天在一起工作。”她顿了顿，“他经常在家里提起你。”
Louisa blushes bright pink, and Marilyn feels almost sorry for her, she is so transparent. “Why would I know?”
路易莎的脸明显一红，她太容易被看穿——玛丽琳几乎都要可怜她了。“我怎么知道？”
“He wasn’t there earlier,” Marilyn says. “Perhaps he’s there now.” She sets her hand on the doorknob. “Could I use your telephone?”
“他刚才不在那里，”玛丽琳说，“现在也许在那里。”她抓住门把手，“我能用一下你的电话吗？”
Louisa swallows again. “I will,” she says, and at last Marilyn lets her shut the door.
路易莎又咽了一下口水。“我会的。”她说。玛丽琳终于让她关上了门。
Louisa’s smile vanishes. “I’m sorry,” she says. “My phone’s actually not working right now.” She looks desperately at Marilyn, as if wishing she would just give up and go away. Marilyn waits, letting Louisa fidget. Her hands have stopped shaking. Inside she feels a quiet smoldering rage.
路易莎的笑容消失了。“对不起，”她说，“我的电话坏了。”她绝望地看着玛丽琳，似乎在祈求她赶紧放弃，快些离开。玛丽琳等待着，任由路易莎烦躁不安。她的手已经停止了颤抖，但内心深处升腾起难以抑制的怒火。
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