7
有一天早上，我记得好像是一九八六年六月的一天，情况越来越糟糕了，又有一个人失踪了。农齐亚来我家打扫卫生，她脸色比平时更阴沉，她说里诺前一天晚上没回家睡觉，皮诺奇娅找遍了整个城区。她跟我说这些时，并没看我的脸，就像其他时候一样，她实际上是想让我把这事儿告诉莉拉。
Things got even worse when, one morning—I
think it was in June of 1986—there was another disappearance. Nunzia arrived,
grimmer than usual, and said that Rino hadn’t returned home the previous
night, that Pinuccia was looking for him all over the neighborhood. She gave
me the news without looking at me, as she did when what she was telling me
was really meant for Lila.
我去楼下跟莉拉说了这件事。莉拉马上就把詹纳罗叫了过来，她很肯定詹纳罗知道他舅舅在哪儿。儿子什么都不愿意说，这让莉拉变得越来越强硬。一整天过去了，还是没有找到里诺，詹纳罗决定配合。第二天早上，他不愿意和恩佐、莉拉一起去找，而是让他父亲和他一起去。斯特凡诺气喘吁吁地来了，妹夫的事儿让他很心烦，他也为自己感到不安，因为他感觉无力。他面如死灰，不停地摸着自己的喉咙说：“我喘不上气。”最后他们父子俩——孩子很强壮，斯特凡诺已经瘦得像铁丝上套着宽大的衣服，朝着铁路方向走去。
I went downstairs to report it. Lila
immediately summoned Gennaro—she took it for granted that he would know where
his uncle was. The boy resisted, he didn’t want to reveal anything that might
lead his mother to become even harsher. But when the entire day passed and
Rino still couldn’t be found, he decided to cooperate. The next morning he
refused to let Enzo and Lila come with him on the search, but resigned
himself to the company of his father. Stefano arrived out of breath, nervous
because of yet another difficulty that his brother-in-law was causing,
apprehensive because of his own ill health, and, continually touching his
throat, said, ashen-faced: I can’t breathe. Finally father and son—the boy
large, the man looking like a stick in his oversized clothes—set off for the
railroad.
他们穿过调车场的小广场，沿着老铁轨的方向走，那些铁轨上停着废弃的车厢。他们在一个废弃的车厢里找到了里诺，他是坐着的，眼睛睁着，鼻子看起来很大，黑色的络腮胡长得很长，就像野草一样。看到这一幕，斯特凡诺忘记了自己的身体状况，他气得要发疯了，对着妹夫的尸体破口大骂，想扑上去打他。他叫喊着：“你生是一个混蛋，死也是个混蛋，你真是活该，你真是死得像一个混球！”他那么生气，是因为里诺把她妹妹皮诺奇娅毁掉了，他还把自己的儿子还有外甥毁掉了。“你看，”他对詹纳罗说，“你看看，等待你的是什么下场。”詹纳罗紧紧抓住了他的肩膀，拉住他，但他还在挣扎，在用脚踢。
They crossed the switching yard and
walked along the old tracks where disused cars had been abandoned. In one of
them they found Rino. He was seated, his eyes were open. His nose seemed
enormous, his unshaved beard, still black, covered his face, up to the
cheekbones, like an overgrown plant. Stefano, seeing his brother-in-law,
forgot his health and had a real fit of rage. He shouted insults at the
corpse, he wanted to kick it. You were a shit as a boy—he screamed—and a shit
you’ve remained. You deserve this death, you died like a shit. He was angry
because he had ruined his sister Pinuccia, because he had ruined his nephews,
and because he had ruined his son. Look, he said to Gennaro, look what’s
waiting for you. Gennaro grabbed him from behind and gripped him hard to
restrain him while, kicking and thrashing, Stefano tried to get free.
当时是清晨，但天气已经很热了。那个车厢散发着屎尿的臭味，座位已经陷进去了，玻璃非常脏，已经看不到外面了。斯特凡诺还在那里挣扎着咒骂，詹纳罗失去了耐心，对他说了一些不敬的话。他说做斯特凡诺的儿子太恶心了，整个城区里，他最敬重的人是他母亲和恩佐。这时候斯特凡诺哭了起来。他们在里诺的尸体旁待了一会儿，并不是为了守着他，而是为了平静下来。最后他们回去和大家通报了这个消息。
It was early morning but already starting
to get hot. The car stank of shit and pee, the seats were broken, the windows
so dirty you couldn’t see out. Since Stefano continued to struggle and howl,
the boy lost his temper and said ugly things to his father. He said that it
disgusted him to be his son, that the only people in the whole neighborhood
he respected were his mother and Enzo. At that point Stefano began to cry.
They sat together for a while beside Rino’s body, not to watch over him, only
to calm down. They went home to deliver the news.
8
只有农齐亚和费尔南多为里诺的死感到难过。皮诺奇娅只是做了做样子为丈夫哭了几声，一分钟之后她就好像重生了一样。两个星期之后，她就跑到我家里来，问她能不能取代她婆婆——农齐亚现在沉浸在丧子之痛中，没法再干活，她会在我出去时打扫卫生、做饭，照顾我的女儿，只收取和她婆婆同样的钱。她的手脚没农齐亚那么勤快，但更爱聊天，黛黛、艾尔莎和伊玛相比之下更喜欢她。她说了三个姑娘很多好话，不停地恭维我。她说：“你看起来真漂亮啊，真是个阔太太。我在你衣柜里看到很多漂亮的裙子，还有很多鞋子，能看出来，你是个大人物，和那些重要的人物来往。听说你的小说要改编成电影，是不是真的？”
Nunzia and Fernando were the only ones
who felt the loss of Rino. Pinuccia mourned her husband only as much as was
indispensable and then seemed to be reborn. Two weeks afterward she showed up
at my house to ask if she could replace her mother-in-law, who was crushed by
grief and didn’t feel like working anymore: she would clean the house, cook,
and take care of my daughters in my absence for exactly the same sum. She was
less efficient than Nunzia but more talkative and above all more appealing to
Dede, Elsa, and Imma. She was full of compliments for all three of them and
for me as well. How well you look, she said, you’re a lady: I see you’ve got
beautiful dresses and a lot of shoes in the closet, it’s obvious that you’re
important and you go out with important people: is it true that they’re
making a film out of your book?
刚开始，她穿得像一个寡妇，过了一阵子，她就问我有没有不穿的衣服给她，尽管她很胖，穿不上我的衣服。她说：“我会改一改的。”我给她选了几件。她的手很巧，真的把衣服改得很合身。过了几天，她来干活时，穿得就像是去参加聚会一样，她在走廊里走来走去，想让我们说出自己的看法。她对我很感激，有时候她很高兴，不想干活只想聊天，她谈到了伊斯基亚的那段时光。她经常会非常感动地提到布鲁诺·索卡沃，会感叹说：“他死得真惨啊！”有两次她甚至说了一句她非常喜欢的话：“我守了两次寡。”有一天早上她跟我说，里诺作为真正的丈夫只有很少的几年，其他时候他就像小孩子，在床上也一样，一分钟就完事儿，有时候连一分钟都不到。她生气地说，“啊，是的，他一点儿也不成熟，夸夸其谈，爱说谎，还很自负，就像莉娜一样自负，这是他们赛鲁罗家人的特点，他们都是无情而且浮夸的人。”然后她就说起了莉拉的坏话，说她占有了哥哥的劳动成果。我反驳说：“这不是真的，莉娜一直都很爱里诺，是她哥哥一直都在利用她。”皮诺奇娅满脸敌意地看着我，冷不丁地就开始赞美起自己的丈夫。她一字一句地说：“赛鲁罗鞋子是里诺设计的，但莉娜说是她设计的，她利用这一点欺骗了斯特凡诺，让斯特凡诺娶了她，然后从他身上弄了很多钱——我爸爸给我们留了几百万里拉。然后她又和米凯莱·索拉拉联合起来，把我们所有人都毁了。”最后她说：“你不要维护她，你也很清楚。”
At first she acted like a widow, but then
she asked if there were dresses I didn’t wear anymore, even if she was large
and they didn’t fit her. I’ll let them out, she said, and I chose some for
her. She altered them carefully and skillfully, and then she appeared at work
as if she were going to a party, parading back and forth along the hall so
that the girls and I could give her our opinion. She was very grateful to me;
at times she was so content that she wanted to talk rather than work, and she
recalled the days of Ischia. She often alluded to Bruno Soccavo, becoming
emotional, and saying in a low voice: What a terrible end he had. A few times
she made a remark that must have pleased her greatly: I was widowed twice.
One morning she confided to me that Rino had been a real husband only for a
few years, otherwise he had behaved like a boy: even in bed, one minute and
off he got, sometimes not even the minute. Ah, yes, he was immature, he was a
braggart, a liar, but also arrogant, arrogant like Lina. It’s a
characteristic of the race of the Cerullos—she grew angry—they’re bigmouths
and they’ve got no feelings. Then she began to speak ill of Lila, she said
she had appropriated everything that was a product of her brother’s
intelligence and hard work. I replied: It’s not true, Lina loved Rino, it was
he who exploited her in every way. Pinuccia looked at me bitterly, out of the
blue she began to praise her husband. Cerullo shoes, she pronounced, he
invented, but then Lina took advantage, she cheated Stefano, she made him
marry her, she stole a lot of money—Papa had left us millionaires—and then
she made a deal with Michele Solara, she ruined us all. She added: Don’t
defend her, you know it perfectly well.
当然，这不是真的，事情并非如此。我清楚，皮诺奇娅说这些话是因为以前的恩怨。在她哥哥死后，莉拉唯一的真实反应就是承认了这些谎言。我早就发现，每个人都按照自己的方式来回忆过去，我惊异地发现自己也是如此，但让我震惊的是，一个人会承认一些对自己不利的事情。莉拉马上就说，鞋子的事情都是里诺的功劳。她说，她哥哥从小就充满想象力和创造力，假如不是索拉拉插了一手，那他一定会成为像“菲拉格慕”那样的大品牌。她努力把里诺的生活定格在她父亲的修鞋铺变成了小鞋厂的那个阶段，他做的其他事情，他对莉拉做的事情，都已经一笔勾销了。现在，唯一鲜活的形象就是她哥哥小时候在她暴戾的父亲面前一直在保护她，纵容她发挥自己的聪明才智。
It wasn’t true, naturally, I knew
something quite different, Pinuccia spoke like that because of old
resentments. And yet Lila’s only real reaction to the death of her brother
was that she confirmed many of those lies. I had long since realized that
each of us organizes memory as it suits him, I’m still surprised when I do it
myself. But it surprised me that one could go so far as to give the facts an
arrangement that went against one’s own interests. Lila began almost
immediately to attribute to Rino all the merits of the business with the
shoes. She said that her brother had had extraordinary imagination and skill
since he was a boy, that if the Solaras hadn’t interfered he might have
surpassed Ferragamo. She strove to stop the flow of Rino’s life at the exact
moment when her father’s workshop was transformed into a small factory, and
from all the rest—everything that he had done and had done to her—she removed
shape and form. She kept alive and solid only the figure of the boy who had
defended her against a violent father, who had indulged the yearnings of a
girl who sought outlets for her own intelligence.
对她来说，这应该是一种缓解痛苦的好办法，因为在同一段时间，她又重新激起了对蒂娜的回忆。她表现得不再像孩子随时都可能回来，而是用一个很阳光的形象来填补家里和她内心的虚空，就好像用一个电脑程序编造出来的一样，蒂娜成了一幅全息图：她在这里，同时也不在这里，莉拉一直都在召唤她。她把女儿拍得好看的照片拿给我看，或者她让我听恩佐给她录的一岁、两岁和三岁的声音，或者会重复她之前提到了一些有意思的问题，她的那些很聪明的回答。提到蒂娜时，她一直用的是现在时：蒂娜有什么，蒂娜做什么，蒂娜说什么。就好像她还在一样。
This must have seemed to her a good
remedy for grief, because in that same period she revived, and she began to
do the same thing with Tina. She no longer spent her days as if the child
might return at any moment, but tried to fill the void in the house and in
herself with a luminous little figure, as if it were the product of a
computer program. Tina became a sort of hologram, she was there and not
there. Lila called her up rather than recalling her. She showed me the photos
in which she looked best or made me listen to her voice that Enzo had
recorded on a tape recorder at one year, at two, at three, or quoted her
funny little questions, her extraordinary answers, taking care to speak of
her always in the present: Tina has, Tina does, Tina says.
但这并没让她开朗起来，她比以前更爱大喊大叫了。她对着儿子叫喊，和客户吵架，对着我嚷嚷，和皮诺奇娅嚷嚷，和黛黛、艾尔莎，有时候甚至和伊玛吵架。她尤其会和恩佐嚷嚷，他在工作时会忽然哭起来。但有时候她坐下来，就好像蒂娜刚丢的那阵子一样，她会跟伊玛讲起里诺和蒂娜，就像他们一起出去了。伊玛有时候会问：“他们什么时候回来啊？”这时候她不会发火，而是说：“他们想什么时候回来就什么时候回来。”但这种情况也越来越少了。在我因为几个女儿和莉拉发生冲突之后，她好像再也不需要伊玛了。事实上，慢慢地她很少叫伊玛去她家了，尽管她对伊玛很依恋，但她认为伊玛和两个姐姐一样。有一天晚上，我们刚进到我们那栋楼的楼梯口，艾尔莎抱怨说她看到了一只蟑螂，黛黛一听到蟑螂就恶心，伊玛想让我抱着。这时候莉拉对她们三个说——就好像我不在场一样：“你们是有钱人家的孩子，还住在这里干什么，让你们的母亲把你们带走吧。”
This didn’t soothe her, naturally, in
fact she yelled more than before. She yelled at her son, at her clients, at
me, at Pinuccia, at Dede and Elsa, sometimes at Imma. She yelled at Enzo, in
particular, if, while he was working, he burst into tears. But sometimes she
sat down, as she had done in the first days, and talked to Imma about Rino
and about the child, as if for some reason they had left together. If the
little girl asked, when are they coming back, she answered without getting
angry: They’ll come back when they feel like it. But this, too, became less
frequent. After our fight about my daughters she didn’t seem to need Imma
anymore. In fact, she gradually reduced Imma’s visits, and, though with more
affection, began to treat her like her sisters. One evening when we had just
come into the shabby entranceway of our building—and Elsa complained because
she had seen a cockroach, and Dede at the mere idea was disgusted, and Imma
wanted me to pick her up—Lila said to all three, as if I weren’t present:
You’re the daughters of a lady, what are you doing here, persuade your mother
to take you away.
9
从表面上看，里诺死后，莉拉好了很多，她不再像一只惊弓之鸟，满脸惊恐不安。她脸上的皮肤之前像一张被风吹着的、鼓鼓的白色帆布，现在看起来柔和下来了，但那只是临时的，很快她的脸上、额头上，还有眼睛周围出现了凌乱的皱纹，她脸颊上也出现了一些褶子。就好像她整个身体都开始变老了，她的腰开始弯曲，肚子也鼓了起来。
Apparently, then, after Rino’s death she
seemed to improve. She stopped narrowing her eyes in alarm. The skin of her
face, which seemed a pure white canvas sail flattened by a strong wind,
softened. But it was a momentary improvement. Soon there was a jumble of
wrinkles, on her forehead, at the edges of her eyes, even on her cheeks,
where they looked like fake pleats. And her whole body began to age, her back
was bent, her stomach swelled.
有一天卡门用她特有的语气，忧虑地说：“蒂娜现在成了她心里的一个死结，我们要想办法让这件事情过去。”但莉拉拒绝改变，关于她女儿的一切都保持原样。安东尼奥和恩佐还在继续默默地寻找着孩子，我觉得事情有些进展了，但忽然间安东尼奥也走了。他没有跟任何人告别，带着几个金发的孩子和妻子，还有已经年老的疯疯癫癫的梅丽娜走了，再也没人跟她提供一些密信。她只剩一个人，把气都撒在恩佐和詹纳罗身上，她还会让他们相互斗争，或者她只是漫不经心地想自己的心事，做出一副等待的样子。
Carmen one day used an expression of her
own, she said anxiously: Tina is encysted in her, we have to get her out. And
she was right, we had to find a way to flush out the story of the child. But
Lila refused, everything about her daughter was fixed. I think that something
shifted, very painfully, only with Antonio and with Enzo but, out of
necessity, in secret. And when suddenly Antonio left—without saying goodbye
to anyone, taking his blond family and crazy Melina, now old—she no longer
had even the mysterious reports he gave her. She was left alone to rage at
Enzo and Gennaro, often setting one against the other. Or distracted, with
her own thoughts, as if she were waiting.
我几乎每天都要去看她，甚至在我着急交稿时也想尽一切办法，想让我们像之前那样亲密。她越来越懒洋洋的，有一次，我问她：
I stopped by every day, even when I was
pressed by deadlines, and did all I could to revive our intimacy. Since she
was always idle, I asked her once:
“你还喜欢你的工作吗？”
“Do you still like your work?”
“我从来都没喜欢过。”
“I never liked it.”
“你说谎，我记得你以前很喜欢。”
“You’re lying, I remember you liked it.”
“不，你记错了，是恩佐喜欢，我是强迫自己喜欢。”
“No, you don’t remember anything: Enzo
liked it and so I made myself like it.”
“那你找点别的事情做。”
“Then find something else to do.”
“我现在这样就很好，恩佐心不在焉，假如我不帮他的话，那公司就要关门了。”
“I’m fine like this. Enzo’s head is in
the clouds and if I don’t help we’ll go out of business.”
“你们俩都应该从痛苦中走出来。”
“You both need to emerge from your
suffering.”
“莱农，什么痛苦？我们只是应该从愤怒中走出去。”
“What suffering, Lenù, we have to emerge
from our rage.”
“那你们就从愤怒中走出来。”
“Then emerge from rage.”
“我们正在努力。”
“We’re trying.”
“你们要振作一点，蒂娜的事情已经过去了。”
“Try with more conviction. Tina doesn’t
deserve it.”
“不要提蒂娜了，多关注一下你的女儿吧。”
“Forget Tina, think about your own
daughters.”
“我很关注她们。”
“I am thinking about them.”
“但还不够。”
“Not enough.”
那些年她总能发现一些问题，推翻我的看法，让我看到黛黛、艾尔莎和伊玛的缺点。她说：“你忽视她们了。”我接受她的批评，她的话有些是有根据的，我太沉迷于自己的事情，有时候会忽视她们。但我把话题挪到她和蒂娜身上，后来我一个劲儿强调她发黄的脸色。
She always found, in those years, cracks
through which to turn a situation upside down and force me to look at the
flaws of Dede, of Elsa, of Imma. You neglect them, she said. I accepted the
criticisms, some were well-founded, I too often pursued my own life,
neglecting theirs. But meanwhile I waited for an opportunity to shift the
conversation back to her and Tina. At a certain point, I began to harass her
about her pasty complexion.
“你脸色太苍白。”
“You’re very pale.”
“你脸色太红了，你看看你自己，整个人红扑扑的。”
“You’re too red: look, you’re purple.”
“我说的是你，你身体有什么问题吗？”
“I’m talking about you: what’s wrong?”
“贫血。”
“Anemia.”
“什么贫血。”
“What anemia.”
“我的月经想什么时候来什么时候来，有时候来了就不走了。”
“My period comes when it likes, but then
it doesn’t go away.”
“从什么时候开始的？”
“Since when?”
“一直都是这样。”
“Forever.”
“莉拉，你不说实话。”
“Tell the truth, Lila.”
“这就是实话。”
“The truth.”
我刺激她，有时候是挑衅她，但她从来都没失控，或者说摆脱我的提问。我想，这都是语言的问题：她使用意大利语，就好像那是一道屏障，我试着用方言，因为我们的语言会更直率。但当我们俩说话时，她的意大利语是方言翻译过来的，我的方言是意大利语翻译过去的，我们俩说的都是一种虚假的语言。而我们需要脱口而出，用一种没有经过过滤的语言。我希望她用童年那种真诚的语言对我说：“莱农！你他妈想干什么？我现在成为这个样子，是因为我失去了我女儿，她可能死了，也可能活着。无论是死是活，对我来说都是无法忍受的事，因为假如她活着，她现在生活在距离我很远的地方，每天在她身上都会发生非常可怕的事情。我看得很清楚，我每天白天夜里都好像能看到她；但假如她死了，那我也死了，我的心死了，这种死亡比真正的死亡更让人难以忍受，那是一种没有情感的死亡，逼着你感受这一切，每天叫醒你，让你洗漱，穿衣服，让你吃饭喝水，工作，和你说话。假如你不明白，那是你不想明白。只是看到你穿得整整齐齐，头发打理得像刚从理发店里出来，你的几个女儿在学校里学习很好，她们做什么都很完美，就连这个会让她们变坏的地方似乎对她们也有好处，会让她们变得更自信、更骄傲，更确信自己有权利获得一切，这都让我的血变得发苦，我已经那么苦了。你走吧，放过我吧，蒂娜应该会比你们所有人都好，但她被带走了，我受不了了。”
I pressed her, often I provoked her, and
she reacted but never to the point of losing control and letting go.It
occurred to me that it was now a linguistic question. She resorted to Italian
as if to a barrier; I tried to push her toward dialect, our language of
candor. But while her Italian was translated from dialect, my dialect was
increasingly translated from Italian, and we both spoke a false language. She
needed to explode, lose control of the words. I wanted her to say in the
authentic Neapolitan of our childhood: What the fuck do you want, Lenù, I’m
like this because I lost my daughter, and maybe she’s alive, maybe she’s
dead, but I can’t bear either of those possibilities, because if she’s alive
she’s alive far away from me, she’s in a place where horrible things are
happening to her, which I see clearly, I see them all day and all night as if
they were happening right before my eyes; but if she’s dead I’m dead, too,
dead here inside, a death more unbearable than real death, which is death without
feeling, while this death forces you to feel everything, every day, to wake
up, wash, dress, eat and drink, work, talk to you who don’t understand or
won’t understand, to you who even if I just see you, all set, fresh from the
hairdresser, with your daughters who do well in school, who always do
everything perfectly, who aren’t spoiled even by this place of shit, which,
rather, seems to do them good—makes them even more confident, even more
arrogant, even more sure they have the right to take everything—all this
makes me more furious than I already was: so go, go, leave me in peace, Tina
would have been better than all of you, and instead they took her, and I
can’t bear it anymore.
我应该让她说出这样混乱恶毒的话。我感觉她凌乱的脑子里已经浮现出这样的话，但她一直都没这样说。相反，仔细想想，在那个阶段她要比之前任何一个阶段平和一些。也许我所希望的那种发泄只是我自己的臆想，让我无法看清形势，让我更无法理解莉拉的行为。有几次，我怀疑她脑子里有一些无法言说、我无法想象的事情。
I would have liked to lead her into a
conversation like that, jumbled, intoxicated. I felt that if she made up her
mind she would extract from the tangled mass of her brain words of that sort.
But it didn’t happen. In fact, as I think back, in that phase she was less
aggressive than in other periods of our story. Maybe the outburst I hoped for
was made up of my own feelings, which therefore hindered me from seeing the
situation clearly and made Lila even more elusive. Sometimes I wondered if
she had in her mind something unutterable that I wasn’t even capable of
imagining.
10
最糟糕的是星期天，莉拉待在家里不工作，外面传来集市的声音。我下楼去找她，我说：“我们出去吧，去城里散步，去看海。”她总是会拒绝，假如我太坚持的话，她会发火。为了弥补她的恶劣态度，恩佐会说：“我和你们去。”她马上会叫喊起来，说：“去吧，你们去吧！让我安生一会儿，我洗个澡，洗个头，你们让我喘口气。”
Sundays were the worst. Lila stayed home,
she didn’t work, and from outside came the holiday voices. I went down, I
said: Let’s go out, let’s take a walk to the center, let’s go to the sea. She
refused, and got angry if I was too insistent. So, to make up for her
rudeness, Enzo said: I’ll go, come on. She shouted immediately: Yes, go,
leave me in peace, I’ll take a bath and wash my hair, let me breathe.
我们会一起出去，我的几个女儿会去，有时候詹纳罗也来，他舅舅死了之后，所有人都开始叫他里诺。在我们散步的那几个小时里，恩佐会用他的方式对我说他的心里话，话语不多，有时候语焉不详。他说，现在没有蒂娜，他都不知道挣钱有什么用。他说，那些偷别人的孩子，让他们的父母痛苦的行为，标志着我们处于一个非常恶心的时期。他说，他女儿出生之后，那就像他脑子里点亮了一盏灯，现在这盏灯灭了。他说：“你记得吗？就是在这里，在这条路上，我把她架在脖子上。”他说：“莱农，谢谢你帮助我们，你不要生莉娜的气，这个阶段发生了那么多不幸的事，你比我更了解她，她迟早会好起来的。”
We would go out, my daughters came with
us and sometimes also Gennaro—who, after the death of his uncle, we all
called Rino. During those hours of our walks Enzo confided in me, in his
laconic, sometimes obscure way. He said that without Tina he didn’t know what
the point of making money was. He said that stealing children to make their
parents suffer was a sign of the wretched times that were coming. He said
that after the birth of his daughter it was as if a light had switched on in
his head, and now the light had gone out. He said: You remember when right
here, on this street, I carried her on my shoulders? He said: Thank you,
Lenù, for the help you give us, don’t be angry with Lina, this is a time of
tribulation, but you know her better than I do, sooner or later she’ll
recover.
我默默听着，我问他：“她脸色很苍白，她身体到底怎么了？”我的意思是：我知道她现在备受痛苦折磨，但请告诉我，你有没有看到，她身体上有什么让人担忧的症状吗？但听到“身体”这个词，恩佐很尴尬。他对于莉拉的身体一无所知，他对她就像对待偶像一样，拘谨而敬畏。他有些不是很肯定地回答说：“很好。”然后他变得很不安，想马上回去，他说：“我们要尽量说服她出来，至少要在城区走走。”
I listened, I asked him: She’s very pale,
physically how is she? I meant: I know she is tortured by grief, but tell me,
is she healthy, have you noticed worrying symptoms? But in the face of
“physically” Enzo was embarrassed. He knew almost nothing about Lila’s body,
he adored it as one adores an idol, warily and with respect. And he answered
without conviction: fine. Then he grew nervous, he was in a hurry to get
home, he said: Let’s try to persuade her at least to take a short walk in the
neighborhood.
我们的努力也是徒劳，只有极少几次，我们在星期天把莉拉从家里拉出来，但这不是个什么好主意。她不修边幅，披头散发，走得很快，向四周投去愤恨的目光。我和几个女儿都很吃力地跟在她后面，低眉顺眼，就像几个侍女，虽然我们比主人更漂亮，穿着更华丽。所有人都认识她，包括那些摆摊的商贩，他们都记得蒂娜失踪时他们遇到的麻烦，他们很担心会有其他麻烦，都躲着她。对于所有人来说，她是一个可怕的女人，遭遇了极大的不幸，她身上有极大的力量，她向周围散发着这种力量。莉拉会带着恶狠狠的目光向大路走去，然后走向小公园，人们会低下头或者将目光移开。即使有人跟她打招呼，她也毫不在意，没有任何回应，看她走路的样子，就好像急着赶去哪里，实际上她只是想躲过几年前那个星期天的记忆。
Useless. Only very rarely could I get
Lila outside on a Sunday. But it wasn’t a good idea. She walked quickly,
carelessly dressed, her hair loose and disheveled, flashing angry glances. My
daughters and I followed haltingly behind her, supportive, like handmaidens
more beautiful, more richly adorned than our mistress. Everyone knew her,
even the peddlers, who remembered the troubles they had had because of Tina’s
disappearance and, afraid there could be others, avoided her. To everyone she
was the terrifying woman who, stricken by a great misfortune, carried its
potency with her, spreading it wherever she went. Lila walked along the
stradone with her fierce gaze, toward the gardens, and people lowered their
eyes, looked in another direction. But even if someone greeted her she paid
no attention, and didn’t respond. From the way she walked she seemed to have
an urgent goal. The truth is, she was running from the memory of that Sunday
two years earlier.
我们一起出去的那几次，不可避免会遇到索拉拉兄弟。有一段时间，他们一直都在城区，那个时期，那不勒斯有很多人都被杀了，至少星期天他们会选择在城区里安详度过，他们小时候生活的那些街道还是安全的，对于他们来说，这里就像一个堡垒。他们两家人总会做同样的事情，去教堂做弥撒，在那些摆摊的人中间逛逛，然后会带着几个孩子去城区图书馆，城区图书馆周末也对外开放，这是一个老传统了，我和莉拉小时候，就已经是这样了。我觉得，去图书馆可能是埃莉莎或者吉耀拉要求的，但有一次，我不得不停下来和他们聊几句，我发现这是米凯莱提出来的。他指着几个孩子对我说——那几个孩子已经长大了，但很明显，他们因为害怕而顺从父亲，但他们对母亲则一点儿敬意也没有：
When we went out together we inevitably
met the Solaras. Lately, they hadn’t been straying from the neighborhood
much; there had been a lengthy list of people murdered in Naples, and, at
least on Sundays, they preferred to remain peacefully on the streets of their
childhood that for them were as safe as a fortress. The two families always
did the same things. They went to Mass, they walked amid the stalls, they
brought their children to the neighborhood library, which by long tradition,
since the days when Lila and I were young, was open on Sundays. I thought it
must be Elisa or Gigliola who imposed that educated ritual, but once when I
stopped to exchange a few words I discovered that it was Michele. He said,
pointing to his children, who although they were grown obeyed him, evidently
out of fear, while they had no respect for their mother:
“这几个孩子都知道，假如他们每个月不能从头到尾读一本书，我就不会给他们一分钱。我做得对吗？莱农？”
“They know that if they don’t read at
least one book a month from the first page to the last I won’t give them a
lira. I’m doing the right thing, no, Lenù?”
我不知道他们是不是真的从图书馆借书，他们的钱多到可以买下整个国家图书馆。他们这样做是真的需要呢，还是演戏？无论如何他们已经养成了习惯：他们会走上楼梯，推开那道四十年代的玻璃门，走进去在里面待上不到十分钟就出来了。
I don’t know if they really took out
books, they had enough money to buy the entire Biblioteca Nazionale. But
whether they did it out of real need or as a performance, they now had this
habit: they went up the stairs, pushed open the glass door, a relic of the
forties, went in, stayed for no more than ten minutes, and came out.
当我独自带着几个女儿时，马尔切洛、米凯莱、吉耀拉还有几个孩子对我都很客气，只有我妹妹对我很冷淡。假如我和莉拉走在一起，事情会变得很复杂，我很担心会发生什么危险的事，但很少的几次相遇，她都假装索拉拉他们都不存在。索拉拉兄弟的态度也一样，因为我和莉拉在一起，他们也完全无视我。但有一个星期天的早上，艾尔莎不想遵守那条不成文的规定，她带着女王般的高傲跟米凯莱和吉耀拉的几个儿子打招呼，他们也很不自在地回应了，结果是，尽管天气很冷，我们不得不停下来聊几分钟。索拉拉兄弟假装他们之间有很重要的事情要说，我和吉耀拉聊了几句，我的女儿和米凯莱的儿子聊天，伊玛很好奇地看着她的表弟西尔维奥，他们现在见面越来越少了。没人对莉拉说话，莉拉也没有张口。只有米凯莱，当他停下和哥哥聊天，开始用那种不恭的语气对我说话，他提到了莉拉，但并没有看她。他说：
When I was alone with my daughters,
Marcello, Michele, Gigliola, and the boys, too, were cordial; only my sister
was cool. With Lila, on the other hand, things were complicated, and I was
afraid that the tension would rise dangerously. But on those very rare Sunday
walks she always pretended that they didn’t exist. And the Solaras behaved
the same way, and since I was with Lila they preferred to ignore me as well.
Elsa, however, one Sunday morning, decided not to follow that unwritten rule
and with her queen-of-hearts manners greeted the children of Michele and
Gigliola, who responded uneasily. As a result, although it was very cold, we
were forced to stop for a few minutes. The two Solaras pretended to have
urgent things to talk about with each other, I spoke to Gigliola, the girls
to the boys, Imma studied her cousin Silvio attentively, since we saw him so
infrequently. No one addressed a word to Lila, and Lila, for her part, was
silent. Only Michele, when he broke off his conversation with his brother and
spoke to me in his teasing way, referred to her without looking at her:
“莱农，现在我们去图书馆一下，然后去吃饭。你愿意陪我们去吗？”
“Now, Lenù, we’re going to look in at the
library and then we’re going to eat. Would you like to come with us?”
“不了。”我回答说，“我们要走了，改天吧。”
“No, thank you,” I said, “we have to go.
Another time, though, certainly.”
“那改天，这样你可以告诉几个孩子，他们应该读什么书，不应该读什么书。对于我们来说，你和你的几个女儿一直是楷模。看到你们走在路上，我们总是会说：莱农以前和我们一样，看看她现在变成什么样子了。尽管她已经是一个大人物了，但她一点儿傲气也没有，那么民主平和，她就像我们一样，也生活在这里。啊，是的，学习会让人变好。现在所有人都要上学，所有人都在看书，将来我们会好得不得了。但如果不读书，不学习，就像发生在莉娜身上的事一样，就像很多其他人，我们还是成不了好人，邪恶是很糟糕的。是不是，莱农？”
“Good, then tell the boys what they
should read and what they shouldn’t. You are an example for us, you and your
daughters. When we see you pass by on the street we always say: once Lenuccia
was like us, and look how she is now. She doesn’t know what pride is, she is
democratic, she lives here with us, just like us, even though she’s an
important person. Ah, yes, those who study become good. Today everyone goes
to school, everyone keeps his eyes on the books, and so in the future we’ll
have so much of that goodness it’ll be coming out of our ears. But if you
don’t read and you don’t study, which is what happened to Lina, it happened
to all of us, you stay malicious, and malice is ugly. Isn’t it true, Lenù?”
他抓住了我的一只手腕，眼睛里透着光。他带着不恭说：“是不是这样？”我点了点头，但我甩开他的手时太用力了，我母亲的手镯从我手腕上脱下来了，落到了他手上。
He grabbed me by the wrist, his eyes were
shining. He repeated sarcastically: Isn’t it true? and I nodded yes, but I
freed my wrist too forcefully, my mother’s bracelet remained in his hand.
“噢。”他感叹了一句，这次他想寻找莉拉的目光，但莉拉没看他。他带着一种虚假的懊悔说：“对不起，我会给你修好的。”
“Oh,” he exclaimed, and this time he
sought Lila’s gaze, but didn’t find it. He said with feigned regret: “I’m
sorry, I’ll have it fixed for you.”
“没关系。”
“It’s nothing.”
“绝对要给你修，这是我的错，我会让它完好如新。马尔切！你去一趟首饰加工店？”
“Absolutely not, it’s my duty: you’ll
have it back like new. Marcè, you’ll go by the jeweler’s?”
马尔切洛点了点头。
Marcello nodded yes.
周围的人都低着头经过，已经快到了吃午饭的时候了，我们终于摆脱了索拉拉兄弟。莉拉对我说：
People were passing, eyes lowered; it was
almost time for lunch. When we managed to get rid of the brothers Lila said
to me:
“你比之前更不会保护自己。那个手镯，你再也见不到了。”
“You’re even more defenseless than you
used to be: you’ll never see that bracelet again.”
11
我看到她很虚弱、焦虑，她好像在担忧一种无法控制的东西会把整栋楼、她的房子和她自己切成两半，我确信她的危机即将来临。有几天时间，我不知道她的情况，因为我感冒了，整个人晕乎乎的。黛黛也在咳嗽发烧，我肯定感冒也会传染给艾尔莎和伊玛。除此之外，我还有一份稿子要马上交（我要给以女性身体为主题的一期杂志写稿子），我一点儿也不想写，也没力气写。
I was convinced that she was about to
have one of her crises. I saw that she was debilitated and anguished, as if
she expected something uncontrollable to break the building in two, the
apartment, herself. For several days, knocked out by the flu, I didn’t hear
anything about her. Dede, too, had a cough and a fever, and I assumed that
the virus would soon be transmitted to Elsa and to Imma. Also, I had an
article to hand in urgently (I was supposed to do something for a magazine
that was devoting an entire issue to the female body) and I didn’t have the
desire or the strength to write.
外面刮起了冷风，窗户玻璃在抖动，窗扇闭合不是很好，刀片一样的风会吹到屋里来。星期五那天，恩佐过来跟我说，他要去阿维利诺一趟，因为他的一个老姑姑病了。至于里诺，他星期六和星期天会在斯特凡诺那儿，因为斯特凡诺让他帮忙把肉食店的家具拆下来，送到买下这些家具的某个人那里。就剩下莉拉一个人在家，恩佐说她有些抑郁，让我多陪陪她。但我很累，我刚有了一点儿思路，黛黛一会儿叫我，伊玛需要我，艾尔莎在抗议，我的想法就全没了。皮诺奇娅来收拾屋子时，我让她做了很多饭，把星期六和星期天的饭都做好了，然后我把自己关在卧室里，在小书桌前开始工作。
Outside a cold wind had arisen; it shook
the windowpanes, blades of cold penetrated the loose frames. On Friday Enzo
came to tell me that he had to go to Avellino because an old aunt of his was
ill. As for Rino, he would be spending Saturday and Sunday with Stefano, who
had asked him to help dismantle the fixtures in the grocery and take them to
a man who was willing to buy them. Lila therefore would be alone, and Enzo
said that she was a little depressed, he wanted me to keep her company. But I
was tired, I barely had time to focus on a thought when Dede called me, Imma
wanted me, Elsa protested, and the thought vanished. When Pinuccia came to
clean the house I asked her to cook enough for Saturday and Sunday, then I
shut myself in my bedroom, where I had a table to work at.
第二天，我看到莉拉没动静，我就下去请她上来吃饭。她披头散发来给我开门，穿着拖鞋，睡衣上面套着一件深绿色的家居服。但让我惊异的是，她的眼睛和嘴上化了很浓的妆。家里非常乱，味道也很难闻。她说：“如果风再刮得大一点儿，这个城区都要被吹走了。”这只是一句夸大之词，但我很不安，她这样说时，就好像真的很确信，这个城区会被风从根基卷起，刮到红桥那里去，变成碎片。当她意识到我感受到了她的不正常，她很勉强地挤出一个微笑，嘟哝了一句：“我开玩笑呢。”我点点头，我跟她说了中午我那儿有什么好吃的。她一下子来精神了，反应有些夸张，但一下之后，她的心情马上就变了。她说：
The next day, since I hadn’t heard from Lila, I went down to invite her to lunch. She came to the door in sandals, an old green bathrobe over her pajamas, her hair disheveled. But to my amazement her eyes and mouth were heavily made up. The house was a mess, and there was an unpleasant smell. She said: If the wind blows any harder the neighborhood will fly away. Nothing but an overused hyperbole and yet I was alarmed: she had said it as if she were convinced that the neighborhood really could be torn from its foundations and carried off to shatter near Ponti Rossi. Once she realized that I had perceived how odd her tone was, she smiled in a forced way, whispered: I was joking. I nodded, I listed the good things there were for lunch. She became excited in an exaggerated way, but a moment later her mood abruptly changed, she said:
“把午饭给我送到这里来，我不想去你那儿，你的几个女儿让我很烦。”
"Bring me lunch here, I don’t want
to come to your house, your daughters get on my nerves."
我把午饭和晚饭都给她带了下来，楼道里很冷，我很不舒服，我不想上上下下，只是听她说那些难听话。但我把饭送过去时，我很惊异地看到她很热情，她说：“你别走，你跟我待一会儿。”她把我拉到了洗手间，一边很仔细地梳头，一边跟我说到了我的几个女儿，语气很柔和，带着欣赏，就好像要说服我，不要把她几分钟前说的话放在心上。
I brought her lunch and also dinner. The
stairs were cold, I didn’t feel well, and I didn’t want to go up and down
just to have unpleasant things said to me. But this time I found her
surprisingly cordial, she said Wait, sit with me for a moment. She drew me
into the bathroom, she brushed her hair carefully, and meanwhile spoke about
my daughters with tenderness, with admiration, as if to convince me that she
didn’t seriously believe what she had said to me earlier.
“刚开始，”她把头发分成两股，开始编辫子，但眼睛一直盯着镜子里的自己，“黛黛和你很像，现在她变得和她父亲一样。艾尔莎正好相反，刚开始和她父亲一模一样，但现在她开始像你。一切都在变，愿望和想象比血液流得还快！”
“At first,” she said, dividing the hair
into two, and beginning to braid it without losing sight of her image in the
mirror, “Dede resembled you, now instead she’s becoming like her father. The
opposite is happening with Elsa: she seemed identical to her father and now
instead she’s starting to look like you. Everything moves. A wish, a fantasy
travels more swiftly than blood.”
“我不明白。”
“I don’t understand.”
“你记不记得，之前我以为詹纳罗是尼诺的孩子？”
“You remember when I thought Gennaro was
Nino’s?”
“我记得。”
“Yes.”
“我真是这么觉得，我觉得孩子长得和他一模一样，简直就是他的翻版。”
“To me he really seemed so, he was
identical to Nino, his exact image.”
“你是说，当一个愿望变得很强烈时，会看起来像实现了一样？”
“You mean that a desire can be so strong
as to seem fulfilled?”
“不，我想说的是，有几年詹纳罗真的是尼诺的儿子。”
“No, I mean that for a few years Gennaro
was truly Nino’s child.”
“你不要太夸张了。”
“Don’t exaggerate.”
她瞪了我一眼，在洗手间里，她拖着腿一瘸一拐地走了几步，假惺惺地笑了起来。
She stared at me spitefully for a moment,
she took a few steps in the bathroom, limping, she burst out laughing in a
slightly artificial way.
“你觉得我这样夸张吗？”
“So it seems to you that I’m
exaggerating?”
我明白她在模仿我的步子，我有些不悦。
I realized with some annoyance that she
was imitating my walk.
“不要取笑我，我的胯骨疼。”
“Don’t make fun of me, my hip hurts.”
“你哪儿都不疼，莱农，是你特意一瘸一拐的，因为你不想让你母亲完全死去，现在你真的瘸了。我研究过你，这对你有好处。索拉拉兄弟把你的手镯拿走了，你什么都没说，你并不难过，也不担忧。我当时想着，那是因为你不知道怎么反抗，但现在我明白了，其实事情并非如此，你只是成熟了。你觉得自己很强大，你已经不再是一个女儿，你成了一个真正的母亲。”
“Nothing hurts, Lenù. You invented that
limp in order not to let your mother die completely, and now you really do
limp, and I’ve studied you, it’s good for you. The Solaras took your bracelet
and you said nothing, you weren’t sorry, you weren’t worried. At the time I
thought it was because you don’t know how to rebel, but now I understand it’s
not that. You’re getting old properly. You feel strong, you stopped being a
daughter, you truly became a mother.”
我很不自在，我说：
I felt uneasy, I repeated:
“我只是有点儿疼。”
“It’s just a little pain.”
“对于你，就连疼痛也是有好处的。你只是稍微有点瘸，你母亲就继续静静地存在于你的身体里。你一瘸一拐，她的腿很高兴，因此你也很高兴，难道不是这样吗？”
“Even pain does you good. You just needed
a slight limp and now your mother stays quietly inside you. Her leg is glad
that you limp and so you, too, are glad. Isn’t that true?”
“不是。”
“No.”
她做了一个讽刺的表情，就像想重申她不相信我说的。她把化了浓妆的眼睛眯成一道缝，盯着我说：
She gave me an ironic look to reassert
that she didn’t believe me, and with her made-up eyes narrowed to cracks
said:
“你觉得，蒂娜四十二岁时会不会是我这个样子？”
“Do you think that when Tina is
forty-two, she’ll be like this?”
我盯着她，她满脸挑衅的表情，她的手抓着两根辫子。我说：
I stared at her. She had a provocative
expression, her hands tight around the braids. I said:
“有可能会，是的，也许会。”
“It’s likely, yes, maybe so.”