爱殇

                                     作者：詹姆斯·兰斯顿

                                     译者：施德生

“布瑞尔先生，午餐吃得好吗？”

“好极了。”

“在索利店吃得吗?”

“不，在一家……嗯，中餐馆。”

“你老婆打电话来了。”

他给家里回了电话，妻子接了电话，问：

“你到底死哪儿去了？”

“对不起，亲爱的。午餐有点应酬……”

真怪，又撒谎了。连参加个葬礼都得撒谎！

“汤姆要来咱家。到戴尔格里斯菜市场去一下，行吧？顺便买条大马哈鱼。野生的那种。最好马上就去，晚了就买不到了。”

七月，正是炙热的夏季。他一边慢慢地走着，一边回想着刚刚参加的葬礼。在参加葬礼的六个人中，他只认识十年前介绍他与玛莉亚相识那位律师，也是他上周告知玛莉亚的死讯的。

这条消息让他眩晕不已：他根本就不知道玛莉亚病了，而且他们已有七年没见过面了。在葬礼上，不知不觉地，他就泪流满面，难以自已。

戴尔格里斯菜市场的店员伸手从一大堆海藻和冰块中拿出一条大马哈鱼，足有整整一手臂那么长。

“这条怎么样？”

“行！能不能……？”

“宰好后洗干净，是不是，先生？”

“麻烦您了。”

那人用把小刀破开了鱼肚，甩手把湿漉漉的米色鱼肠扔进桶中。接着把鱼鳞上的斑斑点点和里面的红色鱼肉冲洗一遍，用报纸一包，放进了塑料袋里面。足有六英寸那么长，办公室里的冰箱是装不下了。

“可恶！”

他走进地下储藏室。地上放着好几个胶水夹子，上面粘着几个死老鼠和甲虫，但这儿总比楼上要凉快些。费了好一阵功夫，他才把鱼塞进一个旧金属文件柜的抽屉里。

之后的整个下午，他一头扎进公司的新租金价格表中，忙个不停。结束时，两眼发烧。天不早了，他得赶快乘地铁回家。等他气喘吁吁、大汗淋漓的赶到查林十字路口站时，正好赶上了6：40的车。

地铁车厢里挤满了周末度假的人。不知不觉地，他又想起玛莉亚来。有时，玛莉亚会在他耳边乱哼小曲，红唇靠近他的耳边，好像在嘀咕什么秘密。他想起了玛莉亚在伦敦流露出的怪异孤独，以及对自己孤独心情的无动于衷。他们住不起宾馆，于是，玛莉亚便常常扮成是他的一位客户，对公司房产目录上的某处房产感兴趣。对他们而言，走进的每家每户都是截然不同的世界。无论是在“奢侈的维多利亚式时代特色的住宅”还是在“舒适的花园式公寓”里幽会，每次都是一种感知各种可能生活的冒险经历，这给他们带来了无穷无尽的欢乐：某个下午，他们扮作社会名流；下一次，他们又扮作来自波西米亚的学生。三年来，他感觉自己是世上最快乐，也是最幸运的男人。玛莉亚从没要求他离开自己的家人，而他也认为这是幸福的一部分。

然后，就那么突然地，她就离开了。她曾实事求是地说：“我爱上你了，这爱让我心痛。”

他老婆在车站外等他。

“鱼呢？”她问道。

一阵恐惧袭来。

“我……我忘了拿回来。”

她扭过身去，又回过头来，狠狠地盯着他。

“白痴，”她说，“你这个该死的白痴。”

英语原文：

It’s Beginning to Hurt
by James Lasdun 

‘Good lunch Mr Bryar?’

‘Excellent lunch.’

‘Sorleys?’

‘No, some … Chinese place.’

‘Your wife rang.’

He dialled home: his wife answered:

‘Where on earth have you been?’

‘Sorry darling. Complicated lunch…’

Strange, to be lying to her again. And about a funeral!

‘Tom’s coming down. Stop at Dalgliesh’s, would you, and pick up a salmon. A wild one? Better go right now, actually, in case they run out.’

It was July, a baking summer. He walked slowly, thinking of the ceremony he had just attended. Among the half dozen mourners, he had known only the solicitor who had introduced him to Marie ten years ago and had told him of her death last week.

The news had stunned him: he hadn’t known she was ill, but then he hadn’t seen her for seven years. Throughout the service he had found himself weeping uncontrollably.

The man at Dalgliesh’s hoisted a fish the length of his arm from under a covering of seaweed and ice.

‘How’s that?’

‘Okay. Would you –’

‘Gut her and clean her sir?’

‘Please.’

The man slit the creature’s belly with a short knife, spilling the dewy beige guts into a bucket. He rinsed the flecked mesh of scales and the red flesh inside, then wrapped the fish in paper and put it in a plastic bag. It was six inches too long for the office fridge.

‘Bugger.’

He went down to the stock room. There were gluetraps lying about with dead mice and beetles on them, but it was cooler there than upstairs. Uneasily, he placed the fish in the drawer of an old metal filing cabinet.
For the rest of the afternoon he worked on new rental listings. His eyes were burning when he stopped. It was late and he had to hurry to the tube station. Sweating and panting he emerged at Charing Cross just in time to get the six-forty.

On the train, crowded with weekenders, he found himself thinking of Marie. Sometimes she would sing a nonsense song in his ear, her mouth close as if she were whispering a secret. He remembered the strange solitariness of her existence in London; her even stranger indifference to this solitariness. They couldn’t afford hotels so they used to pretend she was a client, interested in one of the properties listed with his firm. Every home they entered was a different world. Making love in the ‘sumptuously appointed Victorian maisonette’ or the ‘cosy garden flat’ was an adventure into a series of possible lives, each with its own reckless joys: one afternoon they were rich socialites; the next a pair of bohemian students… For three years he had felt the happiest man alive, and the luckiest. Marie never asked him to leave his family, and he had regarded this, too, as part of his luck.

And then, abruptly, she had ended it. ‘I’m in love with you’, she’d told him matter-of-factly, ‘and it’s beginning to hurt.’

His wife was waiting for him outside the station.

‘Where’s the salmon?’ She asked.

A sudden horror spread through him.

‘I – I left it behind.’

She turned abruptly away, then stared back at him a moment.

‘You’re a fool.’ She said. ‘You’re a complete bloody fool.’