63
那是非常艰难的时刻。尼诺非常烦躁地回到家里，他很气愤，用方言不停地说：“现在我们看看谁能赢。”我意识到，我母亲住院的这件事情，已经触及到了他的原则问题。我很担心，索拉拉真会把她带到那些为洗钱而设的黑诊所。尼诺用意大利语大声说：“在医院里，你母亲会得到高级专家的治疗，尽管她的病已经到晚期了，但那些教授会让她体面地活着。”
Those were difficult hours. Nino arrived
distraught, he was speaking in dialect, he was extremely nervous, he
repeated: Now let’s see who wins. I realized that my mother’s admission to
the hospital had become for him a question of principle. He was afraid that
Solara really would take her to some unsuitable place, one of those which
operate just to make money. In the hospital, he exclaimed, returning to
Italian, your mother has high-level specialists available, professors who, in
spite of the advanced stage of the illness, have so far kept her alive in a
dignified way.
我觉得他的担心是有道理的，他越来越关心这个问题了。尽管那时候是吃晚饭的时间，他开始给一些重要人物打电话，都是当时那不勒斯大名鼎鼎的人物。我不知道他是为了发泄一下自己的情绪，或者说是为了让这些人支持他，战胜不可一世的马尔切洛。但我感觉到，对方一听到索拉拉的名字，对话就变得很复杂，都是那边的人在讲，他在默默地听着。直到晚上十点时，他才停了下来。我非常焦虑，但我尽量不让他看出来，只是不希望他决定再回到医院里去，但我的不安情绪传递到了伊马可拉塔身上。她开始哇哇哭，我给她喂奶，她平静了一会儿，又哭了起来。
I shared his fears, and he took the
matter to heart. Although it was dinnertime he telephoned important people,
names well known in Naples at the time, I don’t know if to complain or to
gain support in a possible battle against Marcello’s aggression. But I could
hear that as soon as he uttered the name Solara the conversation became
complicated, and he was silent, listening. He calmed down only around ten. I
was in despair, but I tried not to let him see it, so that he wouldn’t decide
to go back to the hospital. My agitation spread to Immacolata. She wailed, I
nursed her, she was quiet, she wailed again.
晚上我没法合眼，电话在早上六点时又响了，我跑去接电话，我希望电话没有吵醒孩子还有尼诺。那是莉拉的电话，她在医院待了一个晚上。她用非常疲惫的声音，跟我讲了那里的情况。马尔切洛表面上作出了让步，没跟她打招呼就走了。她通过一道道楼梯和走廊，最后找到了我母亲的病房。那里住的全是重症病人，里面还有五个痛苦呻吟、不停叫喊的女人，每个人都很受罪。她看到我母亲躺在病床上，一动不动盯着天花板，眼睛瞪得很大，嘴里在念叨着：“圣母啊，让我马上死吧。”她因为疼痛而全身发抖。莉拉弯着身子，待在我母亲旁边，让她平静下来了。现在莉拉不得不离开了，因为天亮了，那些护士都出现了。她打破了医院的规定，这让她挺兴奋的，她总是喜欢干这种事儿。但在当时的情况下，我觉得她是在故作轻松，她为我做了那么多，不想让我有压力。她快要生了，我想象她已经精疲力竭了，她自己本身也有很多事儿。我为她感到担心，不亚于对我母亲的担心。
I didn’t close my eyes. The telephone
rang again at six in the morning, I rushed to answer hoping that neither the
baby nor Nino would wake up. It was Lila, she had spent the night in the
hospital. She gave me the report in a tired voice. Marcello had apparently
given in, and had left without even saying goodbye to her. She had sneaked
through stairways and corridors, had found the ward where they had brought my
mother. It was a room of agony, there were five other suffering women, they
groaned and cried, all abandoned to their suffering. She had found my mother,
who, motionless, eyes staring, was whispering at the ceiling, Madonna, let me
die soon, her whole body shaking with the effort of enduring the pain. Lila
had squatted beside her, had calmed her. Now she had had to get out because
it was day and the nurses were beginning to show up. She was pleased at how
she had violated all the rules; she always enjoyed disobedience. But in that
circumstance it seemed to me that she was pretending, in order not to make me
feel the weight of the effort she had undertaken for me. She was close to
giving birth, I imagined her exhausted, tortured by her own needs. I was
worried about her at least as much as about my mother.
“你感觉怎么样？”
“How do you feel?”
“很好。”
“Fine.”
“你确信？”
“Sure?”
“非常确信。”
“Very sure.”
“你去休息吧。”
“Go and sleep.”
“你妹妹和马尔切洛一来我就走。”
“Not until Marcello arrives with your
sister.”
“你确信他们会回来？”
“You’re sure they’ll be back?”
“他们不来捣乱就怪了。”
“As if they would give up making a
scene.”
我在讲电话时，尼诺出现了，他睡眼惺忪，在那里听了一会儿之后。他说：
While I was on the phone Nino appeared,
sleepy. He listened for a while, then said:
“让我讲几句。”
“Let me speak to her.”
我没有把电话给他，我说：“她已经挂断了。”尼诺没有抱怨，他只是说，他已经发动了一系列人，想让我母亲得到最好的照顾，他只是想知道他的努力有没有什么结果。现在还没有，我对他说。虽然风很大，天气很冷，我们协商好了，他陪着我和孩子去医院，他会和伊马可拉塔待在汽车里，我在喂奶间隙，去医院里照看我母亲。他说好的，他那么合作，这让我很心软，除了有一件事儿让我很生气，他想到了所有事情，但有一件实际的事情却没有考虑到，他没有记下可以探望病人的时间。我打电话问了一下，然后把孩子包好，我们就一起去了。莉拉没再打电话来，我确信她还在医院里。当我们到医院时，我们发现她没在那里，我母亲也没有在，她已经办好出院手续了。
I didn’t hand him the phone, I muttered:
She already hung up. He complained, he said he had mobilized a series of
people to ensure that my mother would have the best care possible and he
wanted to know if there had been any result of his interest. For now, no, I
answered. We made a plan for him to take me to the hospital with the baby,
even though there was a strong, cold wind. He would stay in the car with
Immacolata and I would go to my mother between feedings. He said all right,
and his helpfulness softened me toward him, then annoyed me, because he had
taken care of everything except the practicality of noting the visiting
hours. I called to find out, we carefully bundled up the baby, and went. Lila
hadn’t been heard from; I was sure we would find her in the hospital. But
when we arrived we found that not only was she not there but neither was my
mother. She had been discharged.
64
我从我妹妹那里得知当时的情况。她跟我讲这些时，话里话外的意思是：你们都觉得自己特别了不起，但没有我们，你们谁也不是。早上九点整，马尔切洛和一位主治医生一起去了医院，马尔切洛早上亲自去了医生家里，把他接了过来。我们的母亲马上就坐上救护车，被转移到了卡波迪蒙特的诊所里。埃莉莎说，在那里，她受到女王般的待遇，家属和亲戚想什么时候去探望都行，房间里还有一张给爸爸睡的床，他晚上可以住在那里陪妈妈。尤其是，她用一种带有鄙夷的语气说：“你不用担心钱的事情，都由我们来承担。”她后来说的话带着很明显的威胁：“也许，你的教授朋友没弄明白他是在和谁打交道，你最好跟他解释一下。你给莉娜那个贱人也说说，尽管她很聪明，但马尔切洛现在变了，已经不再是她当年的那个小男朋友了，他也不像米凯莱，她想怎么摆布都行。马尔切洛说了，如果下次她还像在医院里那样，当着所有人的面那么对他，那就不要怪他不客气了。”
I learned later from my sister what had
happened. She told me as if she were saying: You give yourself a lot of airs,
but without us you are no one. At exactly nine Marcello had arrived at the
hospital with some head physician—he had taken the trouble himself to pick
him up at home in the car. Our mother had been immediately transferred by
ambulance to the Capodimonte clinic. There, Elisa said, she’s like a queen,
we relatives can stay as much as we want, there’s a bed for Papa, who will
keep her company at night. And she specified, contemptuously: Don’t worry,
we’ll pay for it. What followed was explicitly threatening. Maybe your friend
the professor, she said, doesn’t understand who he’s dealing with, you’d
better explain it to him. And tell that shit Lina that she may be very
intelligent, but Marcello has changed, Marcello isn’t her little boyfriend
from long ago, and he’s not like Michele, whom she twists around her little
finger: Marcello said that if she raises her voice again with me, if she insults
me the way she did in front of everyone in the hospital, he’ll kill her.
我没对莉拉说这些，我也不想知道，她和我妹妹之间具体有什么矛盾。但在之后的几天里，我对莉拉很关心，我经常打电话给她，想让她知道，我对她很感激，我很爱她，希望她的孩子尽快出生。
I didn’t report anything to Lila and I
didn’t even want to know in what terms she had quarreled with my sister. But
in the days that followed I became more affectionate, I telephoned often to
let her know that I was grateful, that I loved her and couldn’t wait until
she, too, gave birth.
“一切都好吧？”我问。
“Everything all right?” I asked.
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“还是一点儿动静都没有？”
“Nothing moving?”
“顺其自然吧。今天你需要帮忙吗？”
“Of course not. Do you want help today?”
“今天不用，明天——假如可能的话。”
“No, tomorrow if you can.”
那些天好多事儿，新旧的羁绊似乎都叠加在一起了，让人很难承受。我的身体和伊玛小小的身体紧密相连，我没办法和她分开，但我也想念黛黛和艾尔莎，我给彼得罗打电话，他终于把她们送回来了。艾尔莎开始假装很爱这个小妹妹，但她没坚持多久，没过几个小时，她就对伊玛做出很讨厌的表情，对我说：“你把她生得可真丑啊。”黛黛想向我展示，她比我更擅长做一个母亲，有几次差点儿把妹妹掉在地上，在洗澡时差点儿把她淹死。
The days were intense, with a complicated
adding up of old restraints and new. My whole body was still in symbiosis
with Imma’s tiny organism, I couldn’t separate from her. But I also missed
Dede and Elsa, so I telephoned Pietro and he finally brought them back. Elsa
immediately pretended to love her new little sister dearly, but she didn’t
hold out for long, in a few hours she began to make faces of disgust at her,
she said: You made her really ugly. Dede, on the other hand, wanted to prove
that she could be a much more capable mamma than I was and was in constant
danger of dropping her or drowning her in the bath.
我需要帮助，尤其是刚开始那几天，我得说，彼得罗自告奋勇想要帮我。他还是我丈夫时，一直都没怎么减轻我的负担，现在我们正式分开了，他不忍心把我一个人扔下，照顾三个孩子，其中一个还刚刚出生。他说，他可以留下来照顾我几天，但我不得不让他走了，并不是我不需要他的帮助，而是他在塔索街上待的那短短的几个小时，尼诺一直在逼迫我，一直在打电话，想知道他是不是走了，想知道他能不能在不遇到彼得罗的情况下，回“他的家”。当然了，我前夫离开之后，尼诺开始忙自己的事儿，他有很多工作，加上政治工作，就这样，剩下我一个人管三个孩子：买东西，把两个女儿送到学校，接她们回来，看几眼书，或者写上几行，我不得不经常把伊玛放到邻居家里。
I needed a lot of help, at least in those
early days, and I have to say that Pietro offered it. He, who as a husband
had barely exerted himself to make things easier, now that we were officially
separated didn’t want to leave me alone with three children, one of whom was
a newborn, and offered to stay for a few days. But I had to send him away,
and not because I didn’t want his help but because during the few hours he
was in Via Tasso Nino harassed me, he kept calling to find out if Pietro had
gone and if he could come to his house without being forced to meet him.
Naturally when my ex-husband left Nino was overwhelmed by his job and his
political engagements, so I was on my own: in order to shop, take the
children to school, pick them up, read a book or write a few lines, I had to
leave Imma with the neighbor.
但这些事情都好办，最难办的是要去诊所看我母亲。我不信任米雷拉，因为两个孩子再加上一个新生儿，对她来说也太多了。我决定带上伊玛和我一起去，我把她包好，叫了一辆出租车，我利用黛黛和艾尔莎在学校的几个小时去卡波迪蒙特。
But that was the least of it. Much more
complicated was arranging to go and see my mother in the clinic. I didn’t
trust Mirella, two children and a newborn seemed too much for her. So I
decided to take Imma with me. I bundled her up, called a taxi, and was driven
to Capodimonte, taking advantage of the time when Dede and Elsa were in
school.
我母亲精神好多了。当然，她还是很脆弱，如果一天没看到几个孩子出现，她就会担心，就会开始哭。除此之外，她只能待在床上，在这之前，尽管很艰难，她还是能走动，她能出去。我感觉，诊所里的高档设施让她很舒心，她得到了阔太太一样的待遇，毫无疑问，这能分散一下她的注意力，让她觉得没那么疼痛。她使用的一些缓解疼痛的药品，会让她忽然很高兴。她喜欢那间宽敞明亮的病房，她觉得床垫非常舒适，她很自豪，因为她的房间里有洗手间，她想起来给我展示一下。“地地道道的洗手间，”她强调说，“而不是一个厕所。”更不用说我把伊玛带给她看，让她很兴奋。当我去看她时，她让我把伊玛放到她跟前，她用小孩的语气说话，非常兴奋。她觉得孩子对着她笑了，我觉得这是不太可能的事儿。
My mother had recovered. Of course, she
was frail, and if she didn’t see us children every day she feared catastrophe
and began to cry. Also, she was permanently in bed, while before, even if
laboriously, she had moved, gone out. But it seemed indisputable that the
luxuries of the clinic were beneficial to her. To be treated like a great
lady became a game that distracted her from the illness and that, with the
help of some drug, diminished the pain, making her at times euphoric. She
liked the large luminous room, she found the mattress comfortable, she was
proud of having her own bathroom, and in the room, no less. A real
bathroom—she pointed out—not a toilet, and she wanted to get up and show it
to me. Not to mention that there was the new granddaughter. When I went with
Imma to see her she held the baby next to her, talked to her in baby talk,
grew excited, claiming—which was very unlikely—that Imma had smiled at her.
但是，通常她对孩子的注意力不会持续很长时间。她会说起自己的童年、少年。她说了自己五岁时的事儿，然后跳到了十二岁、十四岁，她跟我讲了那些年发生在她身上的事儿，还有她的小伙伴的故事。有一天早上，她用方言对我说：“从小我就知道人是会死的，我一直都知道，但我从来都没想到过这事儿会落在我头上，我到现在还是觉得难以置信。”有一次，不知道想到了什么，她忽然笑了起来，嘀咕一句：“你没给小孩洗礼，你做得对，这都是很傻的事儿，我现在知道，人死了之后会变成一小块一小块的，会变成小颗粒。”在那缓慢的几个小时里，我尤其感到我是她最爱的女儿。当我离开时，她拥抱我，就好像她要我像婴儿一样又回到她的肚子里。过去她健康时，和她身体接触让我觉得很讨厌，但现在我很喜欢。
But in general her interest in the infant
didn’t last long. She began to speak of her own childhood, of adolescence.
She went back to when she was five, then she slid to twelve, then fourteen,
and she related to me from within those ages things that had happened to her
and her companions of that time. One morning she said to me in dialect: As a
child I knew about death, I’ve always known about it, but I never thought it
would happen to me, and even now I can’t believe it. Another time, following
her own thoughts, she began to laugh, and whispered: You’re right not to
baptize the baby, it’s nonsense; now that I’m dying I know that I’ll turn
into little bits and pieces. But mostly it was in those slow hours that I
truly felt I was her favorite child. When she embraced me before I left, it
was as if she meant to slip inside me and stay there, as once I had been
inside her. That contact with her body, which had irritated me when she was
healthy, I now liked.
65
那家诊所很快成为了城区的新人老人会面的地方，这让我很惊异。
It was odd how the clinic soon became a
place of meeting for the old and the young of the neighborhood.
我父亲和我母亲一起睡在病房里，有几次我早上遇见他时，他胡子很长，眼睛里充满了忧虑。我们只是打个招呼，但我觉得这很正常，我和他的关系不是很紧密，偶尔很亲，但通常都是漫不经心，有时候我们会联合起来反对我母亲。但我们的关系流于表面，我母亲会按照自己的需求，赋予他或者剥夺他的权威，尤其是关于我的问题——我母亲认为，只有她能决定我的生活，我父亲就成了陪衬。现在他妻子的精力已经基本耗尽了，他也不知道要跟我说什么。我说，早上好。他对我说，早上好，然后说：“你现在陪着她，我去抽根烟。”有时候我想，像他这样平庸的男人，在这个残酷的世上，在那不勒斯，在我们城区，在他工作的地方，甚至在家里，是怎样活下来的？
My father slept there with my mother, and
when I saw him in the morning his beard was unshaven, his eyes were
frightened. We barely greeted each other, but that didn’t seem unusual. I had
never had much contact with him: at times affectionate, often distracted,
occasionally in support of me against my mother. But it had almost always
been superficial. My mother had given him a role and taken it away according
to convenience, and especially when it came to me—making and unmaking my life
was to be only for her—she had pushed him into the background. Now that the
energy of his wife had almost completely vanished, he didn’t know how to talk
to me nor I to him. I said hi, he said hi, then he added: while you keep her
company, I’ll go smoke a cigarette. Sometimes I wondered how he had managed
to survive, a man so ordinary, in the fierce world he had moved in, in
Naples, in his job, in the neighborhood, even at home.
埃莉莎带着孩子来时，我看到她和父亲的关系要亲切一些，埃莉莎对他充满敬意。我父亲经常一整天都在，有时候晚上也在，我们要一再坚持，才能让他回去睡在自己床上。我妹妹一来，就要把所有事儿说一遍：灰尘，窗户玻璃没擦干净，食品的问题等等。她这么做是为了让别人尊敬她，她想让所有人都搞清楚，这里是她说了算。佩佩和詹尼也一样霸道，他们一看到我母亲有点儿受罪，我父亲很绝望，就会马上按呼唤铃叫护士来。假如护士来得晚了，他们会很气愤，会斥责她，但前后矛盾的是，他们会给护士塞很多小费。尤其是詹尼，每次在离开时，都会在护士口袋里塞钱，说：“你应该待在门口，我妈妈一叫你，你就来，下了班再去喝咖啡喝茶，你明白了吗？”为了让护士明白我们的母亲是一个重要人物，他又三四次都提到了索拉拉。“格雷科太太，”他说，“是索拉拉家的人。”
When Elisa arrived with her baby I saw
that there was a greater intimacy between her and our father. Elisa treated
him with affectionate authority. Often she stayed all day and sometimes all
night, sending him home to sleep in his own bed. As soon as she arrived, my
sister had to criticize everything, the dust, the windows, the food. She did
it to make herself respected, she wanted it to be clear that she was in
charge. And Peppe and Gianni matched her. When they felt my mother was
suffering and my father desperate, both would get upset, press the bell, call
the nurse. If the nurse delayed, my brothers reprimanded her harshly and
then, contradicting themselves, gave her lavish tips. Gianni especially,
before leaving, would stick some money in her pocket, saying: Stay right
outside the door and hop up as soon as Mamma calls you, have your coffee when
you’re off duty, is that clear? Then, to let it be understood that our mother
was a person of consequence, he would mention three or four times the name of
the Solaras. Signora Greco—he would say—is the Solaras’ business.
“索拉拉家的人。”这句话让我很愤怒，也让我感觉很羞耻，但同时我又想，要么是这样，要么就只能去公立医院了。我想：但之后（我说的之后是什么时候，我自己也不清楚），我要和我的两个弟弟，还有马尔切洛把很多事说清楚。但现在每次到病房，我看到我母亲和她城区的朋友在一起，那些人都是她的同龄人，这让我很高兴，在她们面前，我母亲会用她虚弱的声音说着这样的话：“几个孩子想要我来这里住院。”这时候她会指着我说：“埃莱娜是一个著名作家，她在塔索街上有一套房子，那里可以看到大海。你们看，她生了一个多漂亮的孩子啊！孩子叫伊马可拉塔，和我的名字一样。”当她的那些熟人走了，小声说：“她睡了。”我会马上进去查看，然后我会和伊玛回到走廊里，那里空气要好一些。我让病房门开着，想听着我母亲粗重的呼吸。通常，来访的人走了之后，她会睡过去，会在梦中发出痛苦的呻吟。
The Solaras’ business. Those words
enraged me, I was ashamed. But meanwhile I thought, either this or the
hospital, and I said to myself: but afterward (what I meant by afterward I
didn’t admit even to myself) I’ll have to clear up a lot of things with my
siblings and with Marcello. For now it gave me pleasure to arrive in the room
and find my mother with her friends from the neighborhood, all her
contemporaries, to whom she boasted weakly, saying things like, My children
wanted it like this, or, pointing to me: Elena is a famous writer, she has a
house on Via Tasso from which the sea is visible, look what a beautiful baby,
she’s called Immacolata, like me. When her friends left, murmuring, Sleep, I
went in to check on her, then returned with Imma to the corridor, where the
air seemed fresher. I left the door of the room open so I could monitor my
mother’s heavy breathing; after the fatigue of those visits, she often fell
asleep and groaned in her sleep.
时不时也有那么一两天，日子会好过些。比如卡门说想看望我母亲，她会开着车来接我。阿方索也一样，但他们是想对我展示他们的友情。他们满怀敬意地对我母亲说话，有时候为了让我母亲高兴，他们会赞美一下那个房间的舒适，还有她的小外孙女，其他时候，他们要么和我在走廊里聊天，要么在楼下的车里等着带我去接两个女儿放学。我和他们一起度过的早上总是激动人心，也带来了古怪的效果：他们让我母亲属于的那个已经日薄西山的城区和在莉拉的影响下建立的城区联合起来了。
Occasionally the days were simpler.
Carmen, for example, sometimes came to get me in her car. And Alfonso did the
same. Naturally it was a sign of affection for me. They spoke respectfully to
my mother, at most they gave her some satisfaction by praising her
granddaughter and the comfort of the room. The rest of the time they spent
either talking in the corridor with me or waiting outside, in the car, to be
in time to take me to pick up the girls at school. The mornings with them
were always intense and created a curious effect: they brought together the
neighborhood of my mother, now near its end, and the one being constructed
under Lila’s influence.
我给卡门讲了我们的朋友莉拉为我母亲所做的事。她很满意地说：“我们都知道，莉娜想做什么，谁都拦不住。”她提到莉拉时的语气，就好像莉拉具有神奇的力量。但让我印象最深的，是我和阿方索在诊所干净的走廊里度过的一刻钟，当时医生在病房里。阿方索也对莉拉充满感激，但最让我震撼的是，他开诚布公地和我谈起了自己。他说：“莉娜教给了我一个很有前途的工作。”他感叹说：“没有她，我不知道自己会是什么，我什么都不是，就像一具行尸走肉，永远都不会实现自我。”他拿莉拉和他妻子做对比：“我给了玛丽莎最大的自由，她想给我戴多少绿帽子都行，我让她生的孩子跟我姓，但她还是很生我的气，她一直都在折磨我，到现在也是，她无数次啐到我的脸上，说我骗了她。”他为自己开脱：“我怎么欺骗了她，莱农，你是一个知识分子，你可以理解我，我才是那个被骗的人，我被自己骗了。假如莉娜没有帮我，我到死都不明白。”说到这里，他的眼里亮晶晶的，“对于我来说，她做得最好的事儿，就是让我脑子变得清晰。她教我说，假如我抚摸这个女人赤裸的脚没什么感觉，但我特别渴望抚摸那个男人的脚，就是他，我想抚摸他的双手，想用小剪刀帮他修剪指甲，帮他挤黑头，那我就去和他在舞厅里跳舞，对他说：假如你会跳华尔兹，你就带我吧，让我感受一下你高超的技巧。”他提到了一件年代久远的事儿：“你记不记得？你和莉娜来我们家里，让我父亲把你们的娃娃还给你们，他叫了我一声，很不屑地问：‘阿方！是不是你拿的？’因为我是家里的耻辱，我玩姐姐的布娃娃，戴我妈妈的项链。”他跟我说，就好像我已经知道了所有事，他只想跟我说明他的真实本性：“从很小的时候，我就已经知道我不是其他人看到的样子，也不是我自己所想的样子。我想：有一种不同的东西，一种隐藏在血液里的东西，它没有名字，在那里等着，但我不知道那是什么，尤其是我不知道自己应该是什么样子的。直到莉拉逼迫我——我不知道该怎么描述这事儿——学她的样子。你知道她的，她说：你从这里开始，你看看会发生什么事。就这样，我们混合在一起。这非常有趣，现在我既不是我之前的样子，也不是莉拉，而是另一个逐渐成形的人。”
I told Carmen what our friend had done
for my mother. She said with satisfaction: You know no one can stop Lina, and
she spoke of her as if she attributed to her magical powers. But I learned
more from a quarter of an hour spent with Alfonso in the spotless corridor of
the clinic, while the doctor was with my mother. He, too, usually, was
inflamed with gratitude toward Lila, but what struck me was that for the
first time he talked explicitly about himself. He said: Lina taught me a job
with a great future. He exclaimed: Without her what would I have been,
nothing, a piece of living flesh, without fulfillment. He compared Lila with
his wife’s behavior: I left Marisa free to betray me as much as she wanted, I
gave my name to her children, but just the same she’s angry at me, she
tormented me and torments me, she has spit in my face countless times, she
says I cheated her. He defended himself: How did I cheat, Lenù, you’re an
intellectual and you can understand me, the one who was cheated was me,
cheated by myself, and if Lina hadn’t helped me I would have died cheated.
His eyes were shining. The most beautiful thing she did for me was to impose
clarity on me, teach me to say: If I touch the bare foot of this woman I feel
nothing, while I die of desire if I touch the foot of that man, there, and
caress his hands, cut his nails with scissors, squeeze his blackheads, be
with him on a dance floor and say to him, If you know how to waltz lead me,
let me feel how well you lead. He recalled faraway events: Do you remember
when you and Lina came to my house to ask my father to give you back the
dolls and he called me, he asked, teasing, Alfò, did you take them—because I
was the shame of the family, I played with my sister’s dolls and I tried on
Mamma’s necklaces? He explained to me, but as if I already knew everything
and was useful only in enabling him to express his true nature. Even as a
child, he said, I knew I wasn’t what the others thought but not what I
thought, either. I said to myself: I’m another thing, a thing that is hidden
in the veins, it has no name and waits. But I didn’t know what that thing was
and especially I didn’t know how it could be me, until Lila forced me—I don’t
know how to say it—to take a little of her. You know what she’s like, she
said: start here and see what happens; so we were mixed up—it was a lot of
fun—and now I’m not what I was and I’m not Lila, either, but another person
who is slowly defining himself.
他很高兴对我讲这些，我也很高兴听他说。在当时的情况下，我们之间产生了一种新的信任，和高中时一起步行回家的感觉完全不同。我感觉我和卡门的关系也变得更加坚实了。有两次——都是马尔切洛在诊所露面时，我意识到，他们俩通过不同的方式，对我也有了更多要求。
He was happy to share these confidences
and I was happy, too, that he made them. A new intimacy arose between us,
different from when we used to walk home from school. And with Carmen, too, I
had the impression that our relationship was becoming more trusting. Then I
realized that both, if in different ways, were asking something more of me.
It happened twice, both times connected to Marcello’s presence in the clinic.
我妹妹埃莉莎和她的孩子，通常都是由一个名叫多梅尼科的老男人开车送过来的，多梅尼科把他们放到诊所，然后会把我父亲送回城区。但有时候，马尔切洛会亲自送埃莉莎和西尔维奥过来。有一天早上，他出现了，卡门和我在一起。我很确信，他们之间的气氛会很紧张，但他们只是淡淡地打了个招呼，没有太多热情，也没有太大矛盾。卡门围着他转悠，就好像一只家养的动物，马尔切洛一招手，她就会过去。等到我和卡门单独在一起时，她非常焦虑地小声对我说，尽管索拉拉兄弟很讨厌她，她还是很努力对他们很客气，她这么做是为了帕斯卡莱。“但是我，”她大声说，“我真做不到，莱农！我恨他们，我真想杀了他们！”她问我：“如果你是我，你会怎么做呢？”
My sister Elisa and her baby were usually
driven to the clinic by an old man named Domenico. Domenico left them there
and drove our father back to the neighborhood. But sometimes it was Marcello
himself who brought Elisa and Silvio. One morning when he appeared in person
Carmen was there with me. I was sure there would be tensions between them,
but they exchanged a greeting that wasn’t warm but not confrontational,
either, and she hovered around him like an animal ready to approach at the
first hint of favor. Once we were alone she confided to me nervously, in a
low voice, that even if the Solaras hated her she was trying to be friendly
and she did it for love of Pasquale. But—she exclaimed—I can’t do it, Lenù, I
hate them, I want to strangle them, it’s only out of necessity. Then she
asked: How would you act in my place?
和阿方索在一起时也发生了类似的事。有一天早上，他陪着我去了我母亲那里，忽然间马尔切洛出现了，虽然索拉拉的表现和往常没什么差别，但阿方索看到他之后有些害怕。马尔切洛有些笨拙地跟我打招呼，对阿方索只是点了点头，假装没看到他伸出来的手。为了避免冲突，我和阿方索来到了走廊里，借口说要给伊玛喂奶。我们到了外面，阿方索忍不住说：“假如我有一天被杀了，你要记住，凶手就是马尔切洛。”我对他说：“你不要太夸张了。”但他很紧张，带着敌意，开始列举我们城区里那些想把他干掉的人的名字，有的我认识，有的我不认识。在这个名单上，他提到了他哥哥斯特凡诺（他笑着说：“他上了我妻子，只是为了显示我们家的男人并不都是飘飘”），还有里诺（他依然笑着说：“当他发现我像他妹妹时，他想对我做那些不能对他妹妹做的事儿”），但是，马尔切洛还是排在第一位，他觉得，马尔切洛是最痛恨他的人。他用一种混杂着不安和满足的语气说：“他觉得，米凯莱发疯是因为我的缘故。”他用开玩笑的语气补充说：“莉拉鼓励我学她，她很高兴我做出的努力，她喜欢看到我这个样子，也很高兴这在米凯莱身上起作用了，我也很高兴。”然后他停了下来，问我：“你怎么看？”
Something similar happened with Alfonso.
One morning when he took me to see my mother, Marcello appeared and Alfonso
panicked just at the sight of him. And yet Solara behaved just as he usually
did: he greeted me with awkward politeness, and gave Alfonso a nod,
pretending not to see the hand that he had mechanically extended. To avoid
friction I pushed my friend into the hall with the excuse that I had to nurse
Imma. Once outside the room Alfonso muttered: If they murder me, remember it
was Marcello. I said: Don’t exaggerate. But he was tense, he began
sarcastically to make a list of the people in the neighborhood who would
gladly kill him, people I didn’t know and people I knew. On the list he put
his brother Stefano (he laughed; he fucks my wife only to demonstrate that
we’re not all fags in the family) and also Rino (he laughed; ever since he
realized I’m able to look like his sister, he would do to me what he can’t do
to her). But at the top he always left Marcello, according to him it was
Marcello who hated him most. He said it with satisfaction and yet anguish: he
thinks Michele went mad because of me. And he added, sneering: Lila
encouraged me to be like her, she likes the effort I make, she likes to see
how I distort her, she’s pleased with the effect that this distortion has on
Michele, and I’m pleased, too. Then he stopped, he asked me: What do you
think?
我一边给孩子喂奶，一边听他说话。他和卡门不满足于我在那不勒斯只是时不时和他们见面。他们希望我再次融入我们的城区里，希望我能陪在莉拉身边，做她的保护神。尽管有时候我们会吵架，有时候会和好，他们希望我们在一起，会像神仙一样能改变现状，会关心他们遇到的麻烦。他们希望我更多投入到他们的事情上，莉拉也经常会表示出这一点。通常，我都觉得这是一种不合时宜的压力，但在当时的情况下，我很感动。我觉得我母亲疲惫的声音里也融入了这种情感，她很自豪地把我指给她在城区的熟人看，就好像我是她非常重要的一部分。我把伊玛紧紧抱在怀里，给她整理了一下小被子，让她不要被风吹到。
I listened, nursing the baby. He and
Carmen were not satisfied that I lived in Naples, that every so often we met:
they wanted me to be fully reintegrated into the neighborhood, they asked me
to stand beside Lila as a guardian deity, they urged that we act as
divinities at times in agreement, at times in competition, but in any case
attentive to their problems. That request for greater involvement in their
affairs, which in her way Lila, too, often made and which in general seemed
an inappropriate pressure, in that situation moved me, I felt that it
reinforced the tired voice of my mother when she proudly pointed me out to
her friends of the neighborhood as an important part of herself. I hugged
Imma to my breast and adjusted the blanket to protect her from the drafts.
66
只有尼诺和莉拉从来不来诊所。尼诺说得很明确：“我一点儿也不想见到那个克莫拉分子，我为你母亲感到遗憾，代我向她问好，但我不能陪你去医院。”有时候我确信那是他消失的借口，更多时候，我觉得他很伤心，他真的为我母亲做了很多，但我所有的家人后来都按照索拉拉兄弟的意思来了。我跟他解释，这是一件很棘手的事情，也是为了让我母亲满意。他嘟囔了一句：“这样，那不勒斯永远都不会发生改变。”
Only Nino and Lila never came to the
clinic. Nino was explicit: I have no desire to meet that Camorrist, I’m sorry
for your mother, give her my best, but I can’t go with you. Sometimes I
convinced myself that it was a way of justifying his disappearances, but more
often he seemed truly hurt, because he had gone to a lot of trouble for my
mother and then I and my whole family had ended up going along with the
Solaras. I explained to him that it was a difficult system. I said: It
doesn’t have to do with Marcello, we only agreed to what made our mother
happy. But he grumbled: that’s why Naples will never change.
至于莉拉，她从来都没提到那次转院的事。那个阶段，她随时都可能生孩子，但她还是一直在帮助我，这让我很愧疚。我说：“你不要为我担心，你自己要小心。”她总是指着她的肚子，用一种介乎担心和开玩笑之间的语气说：“小心什么啊，你看看他，赖着不出来，我不想生，他也不想。”就这样，我需要她的时候，她会马上跑过来。当然了，她从来都没说开车送我去卡波迪蒙特，就像卡门和阿方索做的那样。但假如两个孩子有点发烧，她们不能去上学——就像伊马可拉塔刚出生时发生过的情况，因为下雨，天气很冷，她总是会来帮我照顾她们，她会把工作交给恩佐和阿方索，她来塔索街照顾三个孩子。
As for Lila, she said nothing about the
move to the clinic. She continued to help me out even though she was about to
give birth herself at any moment. I felt guilty. I said: Don’t worry about
me, you should look after yourself. But no—she answered pointing to her
stomach with an expression between sarcasm and alarm—he’s late, I don’t want
to and he doesn’t want to. And as soon as I needed something she hurried
over. Naturally, she never offered to drive me to Capodimonte, as Carmen and
Alfonso did. But if the children had a fever and I couldn’t send them to
school—as happened several times in Immacolata’s first three weeks of life,
which were cold and rainy—she was available, she left the job to Enzo and
Alfonso, she came up to Via Tasso to take all three of them.
我对此感到高兴，因为和莉拉在一起，黛黛和艾尔莎总会有收获。莉拉会让两个姐姐和伊玛一起玩，她会激发黛黛的责任心，会控制艾尔莎，同时也会让伊玛安静下来，而不是像米雷拉那样，只是在她嘴里塞一个奶嘴。唯一的问题是尼诺，我很害怕，当我一个人照看孩子时他总是有很多事儿要做，但当莉拉看着三个孩子时，他会奇迹般地找到时间来帮助她。因此，在我内心最隐秘的一个角落，我从来都不是很放心。莉拉来了，我会千叮咛万嘱咐，我在一张纸上给她写了诊所的电话，我还交代了我的邻居，出了什么情况就过去帮忙。我急忙跑去卡波迪蒙特，和我的母亲待上不到一个小时，就要赶紧回去给孩子喂奶，做饭。但有时候，在回家的路上，我忽然会想象，当我进家门时会看到尼诺和莉拉在一起，他们会无所不谈，就像在伊斯基亚时那样。我当然也会想象一些更难忍受的事情，但马上会很惊恐地抛开这种想法。当我开车回家时，我最大的恐惧是另一个——我觉得这种恐惧更有依据——就是尼诺在家中时，她开始阵痛，他不得不马上把莉拉带到诊所里去，让吓坏了的黛黛扮演一个懂事的孩子，艾尔莎会在莉拉包里翻找，偷她的东西，伊玛因为饥饿或者尿布湿了在摇篮里哭。
I was glad; the time Dede and Elsa spent
with Lila was always valuable. She was able to bring the two sisters closer
to the third, making Dede take responsibility, keeping Elsa under control,
soothing Imma without sticking the pacifier in her mouth, as Mirella did. The
only problem was Nino. I was afraid I would discover that—though he was
always busy when I was alone—he had miraculously managed to find time to help
Lila when she was with the girls. And so in a hidden corner of myself I was
never really serene. Lila arrived, I gave her endless advice, I wrote down
the number of the clinic, I alerted my neighbor just in case, I hurried to
Capodimonte. I stayed with my mother no longer than an hour and then I
slipped away to get home in time for nursing, for cooking. But sometimes, on
the way home, I’d have a flash of entering the house and finding Nino and
Lila together, talking about everything under the sun, as they used to do in
Ischia. I also tended, naturally, to more intolerable fantasies, but I repressed
them, horrified. The most persistent fear was a different one, and, while I
drove, it appeared to me the most well founded. I imagined that her labor
would begin while Nino was there, so that he would have to take her to the
emergency room, leaving Dede to play, terrified, the part of the sensible
woman, Elsa to rummage in Lila’s bag and steal something, Imma to wail in her
cradle, tormented by hunger and diaper rash.
后来的确发生了类似的事情，但跟尼诺没什么关系。有一天早上，我很准时地回到家里，但我发现莉拉没在，她的阵痛开始了。我感到一种无法忍受的不安，她害怕事物的抖动和弯曲变形，她痛恨任何形式的病痛，她痛恨失去意义的语言。因此我为她祈祷，希望她能挺过去。
Something like that did happen, but Nino
had no part in it. I returned home one morning, punctual, within the half
hour, and discovered that Lila wasn’t there; her labor had begun. An
intolerable anguish seized me. More than anything she feared the shaking and
bending of matter, she hated illness in any form, she detested the hollowness
of words when they were emptied of any possible meaning. So I prayed that she
would hold up.