25
过去了那么多年，尼诺还是会不失时机地提到莉拉，远距离对她表示出关切。我当时就在他面前，我爱过他，我身边是他的女儿——伊玛正在吃巧克力冰激凌。但他只把我当成是他年轻时的一个朋友，在我面前炫耀他走过的辉煌历程，从高中的课桌一直到议会的席位。我们最后一次见面，他对我最大的恭维就是把我和他放在同一个等级上。我不记得当时是在说什么事情，他说：“我们俩取得了很高的社会地位。”但他说这句话时，我在他的眼睛里读到了，他把我们放在一起只是一种客套。他觉得自己要比我好得多，证据就在那里，尽管我写了一些很成功的小书，但我还不是出现在他面前恳求他帮忙。他看着我，对我很客气地微笑着，好像在说：看看你离开我之后错过了什么。
So many years had passed, and yet Nino
didn’t miss a chance to mention Lila, to show that he was solicitous of her
even at a distance. I was there with him, I had loved him, I had beside me
his daughter who was licking a chocolate ice-cream cone. But he considered me
only a friend of his youth to whom he could show off the extraordinary path
he had traveled, from his high school desk to a seat in parliament. In that
last encounter of ours his greatest compliment was to put me on the same rung
of the ladder. I don’t remember in relation to what subject he said: The two
of us climbed very high. But even as he uttered that sentence I read in his
gaze that the declaration of equality was a sham. He considered himself much
better than me and the proof was that, in spite of my successful books, I
stood before him as a petitioner. His eyes smiled at me cordially,
suggesting: Look what you lost by losing me.
我很快带着孩子离开了。我很确信，假如莉拉出现，他的态度会完全不一样。他会支支吾吾，会觉得自己受到了挤压，甚至会觉得这些炫耀很滑稽。当我们走到了停车的地方——那次我是开车去罗马的——我想起了一件之前从来都没想到过的问题：尼诺只有跟莉拉在一起时，才差点儿毁掉了自己的前程。在伊斯基亚还有之后的一年时间里，他陷入了一场只能给他带来灾难的热恋。在他的一生中，这是一件很不寻常的事。那时候，他已经是一个很有名、很有前途的大学生。现在我很清楚，他和娜迪亚在一起，因为她是加利亚尼老师的女儿，他认为这是他进入上层社会的一把钥匙。他的选择和他的野心总是相符的。他和埃利奥诺拉结婚不是出于利益吗？还有我，我为了他离开了彼得罗，我当时已经是一个取得一定成功的作家，在社会上有一定的地位，出版我的书的出版社很重要，我不是对他的事业也很有用吗？所有那些帮助过他的太太们，不也是按照这个逻辑来的吗？当然了，尼诺很爱女人，他尤其善于经营那些对他有用的关系。如果他仅仅凭借聪明才智，而不凭借他从小就开始编织的权力网络，是不能走到这一步的。但莉拉呢？她只上到小学五年级，很年轻就成了一个小老板的妻子，假如斯特凡诺发现他们的关系，会把他们俩都杀了的。为什么尼诺在当时会赌上自己的前途呢？
I left in a hurry with the child. I was
sure that he would have had quite a different attitude if Lila had been
present. He would have mumbled, he would have felt mysteriously crushed,
maybe even a little ridiculous with that preening. When we reached the garage
where I had left the car—that time I had come to Rome by car—something
occurred to me for the first time: only with Lila had Nino put at risk his
own ambitions. On Ischia, and for the following year, he had given in to a
romance that could have caused him nothing but trouble. An anomaly, in the
journey of his life. At the time he was already a well-known and very
promising university student. He had taken up with Nadia—that was clear to me
now—because she was the daughter of Professor Galiani, because he had
considered her the key to gaining access to what then appeared to us a
superior class. His choices had always been consistent with his ambitions.
Hadn’t he married Eleonora out of self-interest? And I myself, when I had
left Pietro for him, wasn’t I in fact a well-connected woman, a writer of
some success, with ties to an important publishing house—useful, in short, to
his career? And all the other women who had helped him: didn’t they come
under the same logic? Nino loved women, certainly, but he was above all a
cultivator of useful relations. What his intelligence produced would never,
alone, have had sufficient energy to assert itself, without the web of power
that he had been weaving since he was a boy. What about Lila? She had gone to
school up to fifth grade, she was the very young wife of a shopkeeper, if
Stefano had known of their relationship he could have killed them both. Why
had Nino in that case gambled his entire future?
我让伊玛上车坐好，我批评了她，因为她把冰激凌滴在了我给她特意为那次会面买的新衣服上。我发动了车子，从罗马出发了。也许莉拉吸引尼诺的地方，就是尼诺一开始在她身上看到了以为自己也有的东西，但对比之下他发现自己并没有。她拥有才智，但她没有利用它为自己谋福利，而像贵妇一样在挥霍着自己的才智，就好像对她来说，整个世界的财富都是庸俗的。莉拉的才智是免费的，这就是她让尼诺入迷的原因。她和其他女人不一样，因为她天生就那么桀骜不驯，不会为任何事儿弯腰。我们所有人都作出让步了，经过考验、失败和成功，这种让步重新塑造了我们。只有莉拉，没有任何人、任何事可以改变她。不仅如此，随着年龄的增长，她和任何人一样变得顽固、难相处，但她的那些品质一直都原封未动，甚至更加坚固。我们恨她的同时，也害怕她，会对她充满敬意。想想看，娜迪亚和她没见过几次面，就那么痛恨她，想陷害她，我觉得这一点儿也不奇怪。莉拉从她手里把尼诺抢走了，莉拉羞辱了她的革命信仰。莉拉很坏，莉拉在别人出击之前就已经开始进攻。莉拉是一个庶民，但她拒绝救赎。总之，莉拉是一个劲敌，伤害她可以让人得到极大的满足感，不会像伤害帕斯卡莱，会激起别人的愧疚感，娜迪亚可能是那么想的。在那些年里，一切都变得那么猥琐：加利亚尼老师、她位于海湾边上的房子、她的几千本书、她的画儿、那些文雅的交谈、阿尔曼多，还有娜迪亚——她当时那么秀气，那么有教养，当我在学校外面看到她出现在尼诺身边时，在她父母那套漂亮的房子里举办舞会接待我时，当她放下自己的架子完全投身于建立一个新世界时，当时她身上也有着无与伦比的东西，也有着灿烂的形象。但现在她去掉伪装，那些高贵的理想都消散了，只剩下对曾经滥杀的恐惧，以及对嫁祸于以前的泥瓦匠的羞愧。以前她觉得，帕斯卡莱是新人类的先锋，现在她利用帕斯卡莱和其他人，把自己的责任推卸得一干二净。
I put Imma in the car, I scolded her for
letting the ice cream drip on the dress bought for the occasion. I started
the car, I left Rome. Maybe what had attracted Nino was the impression of
having found in Lila what he, too, presumed he had and that now, just by
comparison, he discovered that he didn’t have. She possessed intelligence and
didn’t put it to use but, rather, wasted it, like a great lady for whom all
the riches of the world are merely a sign of vulgarity. That was the fact
that must have beguiled Nino: the gratuitousness of Lila’s intelligence. She
stood out among so many because she, naturally, did not submit to any
training, to any use, or to any purpose. All of us had submitted and that
submission had—through trials, failures, successes—reduced us. Only Lila,
nothing and no one seemed to reduce her. Rather, even if over the years she
became as stupid and intractable as anyone, the qualities that we had
attributed to her would remain intact, maybe they would be magnified. Even
when we hated her we ended by respecting her and fearing her. It didn’t
surprise me, when I thought about it, that Nadia, although she had met Lila
only a few times, detested her and wanted to hurt her. Lila had taken Nino
from her. Lila had humiliated her in her revolutionary beliefs. Lila was mean
and could hit before being hit. Lila was from the proletariat but rejected
any deliverance. In other words Lila was an honorable enemy and hurting her
could be pure satisfaction, without the store of guilt that a designated
victim like Pasquale would certainly arouse. Nadia could truly think of her
in that way. How tawdry everything had become over the years: Professor
Galiani, her house with a view of the bay, her thousands of books, her
paintings, her cultured conversations, Armando, Nadia herself. She was so
pretty, so well brought up, when I saw her beside Nino, outside the school,
when she welcomed me to the party at her parents’ beautiful house. And there
was still something incomparable about her when she stripped herself of every
privilege with the idea that, in a radically new world, she would have a more
dazzling garment. But now? The noble reasons for that denuding had all
dissolved. There remained the horror of so much blood stupidly shed and the
villainy of unloading the blame on the former bricklayer, who had once seemed
to her the avant-garde of a new humanity, and who now, along with so many
others, served to reduce her own responsibilities almost to nothing.
我很激动。当我一路开车回那不勒斯时，我想着黛黛，我觉得她要犯一个类似于娜迪亚犯过的错误，那些错误会让你失去自己。那时候已经是七月底了，正好是前一天，黛黛在高中毕业考试中得了最高的分数，她是艾罗塔家的人，是我的女儿，以她的聪明才智，得到这样的结果顺理成章。很快她就能超过我，超过她的父亲。我通过辛勤努力和幸运才得到的东西，她以后很随意就能得到，就好像生来就拥有这些。但她有什么样的人生计划？她去和里诺告白，她为了公正和团结抛弃自己的所有优势，受到那些和我们不一样的东西的吸引，和他一起沉沦下去，我不知道她从那个小伙子身上看到了什么过人之处。我透过后视镜看着伊玛，忽然问她：
I was upset. As I drove toward Naples I
thought of Dede. I felt she was close to making a mistake similar to Nadia’s,
similar to all mistakes that take you away from yourself. It was the end of
July. The day before Dede had got the highest grades on her graduation exam.
She was an Airota, she was my daughter, her brilliant intelligence could only
produce the best results. Soon she would be able to do much better than I had
and even than her father. What I had gained by hard work and much luck, she
had taken, and would continue to take, with ease, as if by birthright.
Instead, what was her plan? To declare her love for Rino. To sink with him,
to rid herself of every advantage, lose herself out of a spirit of solidarity
and justice, out of fascination with what doesn’t resemble us, because in the
muttering of that boy she saw some sort of extraordinary mind. I asked Imma
suddenly, looking at her in the rearview mirror:
“你喜欢里诺吗？”
“Do you like Rino?”
“我不喜欢，但黛黛喜欢。”
“No, but Dede likes him.”
“你怎么知道的？”
“How do you know?”
“是艾尔莎告诉我的。”
“Elsa told me.”
“又是谁告诉艾尔莎的呢？”
“And who told Elsa?”
“黛黛。”
“Dede.”
“你为什么不喜欢里诺呢？”
“Why don’t you like Rino?”
“因为他很丑。”
“Because he’s very ugly.”
“那你喜欢谁？”
“And who do you like?”
“我爸爸。”
“Papa.”
我在她眼里看到了一种热情，她看到父亲散发出的光芒。我想，假如尼诺和莉拉一起沉下去的话，他是不会有这种光芒的。娜迪亚现在也永远失去了这种光芒，因为她和帕斯卡莱混在了一起。假如黛黛和里诺一直在一起的话，她也会失去这种光芒。忽然间，我充满羞愧地明白了，为什么加利亚尼老师看到她女儿坐在帕斯卡莱的膝盖上时，会那么厌烦，我开始理解她的感受，我也明白尼诺为什么后来会离开莉拉，为什么不呢？我也开始理解阿黛尔为什么不得不强颜欢笑，接受我和他儿子结婚。
I saw in her eyes the flame that in that
moment she saw blazing around her father. A light—I thought—that Nino would
never have had if he had sunk with Lila; the same light that Nadia had lost
forever, sinking with Pasquale; and that would abandon Dede if she were lost
following Rino. Suddenly I felt with shame that I could understand, and
excuse, the irritation of Professor Galiani when she saw her daughter on
Pasquale’s knees, I understood and excused Nino when, one way or another, he
withdrew from Lila, and, why not, I understood and excused Adele when she had
had to make the best of things and accept that I would marry her son.
26
一回到城区，我就去敲莉拉家的门，她很不情愿地给我开了门，看到她一副心不在焉的样子，我一点儿也不担心，这已经是她的常态了。我很仔细地跟她讲了尼诺跟我说的那些事，最后我才跟她说了与她有关的那句话，即她可能面临的威胁。我问她：
As soon as I was back in the neighborhood
I rang Lila’s bell. I found her listless, absent, but now it was typical of
her and I wasn’t worried. I told her in detail what Nino had said and only at
the end did I report that threatening phrase that concerned her. I asked:
“娜迪亚真的会伤害到你吗？”
“Seriously, can Nadia hurt you?”
她做了一个无所谓的表情。
She assumed a look of nonchalance.
“只有你爱某个人时，别人才能伤害到你，我已经谁也不爱了。”
“You can be hurt only if you love
someone. But I don’t love anyone.”
“里诺呢？”
“And Rino?”
“里诺已经走了。”
“Rino’s gone.”
我马上想到了黛黛和她的计划，我很害怕。
I immediately thought of Dede and her
intentions. I was frightened.
“去哪儿了？”
“Where?”
她从桌上拿起了一张纸条，递了过来，嘟哝了一句：
She took a piece of paper from the table,
she handed it to me, muttering:
“他小时候字写得那么好，现在你看看，他又成了文盲了。”
“He wrote so well as a child and now
look, he’s illiterate.”
我看了那张纸条，里诺用一种歪歪扭扭的字体写着他厌烦了这里的一切，他还毫不留情地骂了恩佐，他说他要去博洛尼亚，找一个当兵时认识的朋友。纸上一共六行字，没有提到黛黛。我的心开始狂跳，他的字迹、拼写和句法和我女儿有什么关系吗？甚至他母亲也觉得，这张纸条是一个失败的象征，一个失望的结果，甚至像一个预言：假如蒂娜没被人带走的话，这就是会发生在她身上的事情。
I read the note. Rino, very laboriously,
said he was tired of everything, insulted Enzo heavily, announced that he had
gone to Bologna to a friend he had met during his military service. Six lines
in all. No mention of Dede. My heart was pounding in my chest. That writing,
that spelling, that syntax, what did they have to do with my daughter? Even
his mother considered him a failed promise, a defeat, perhaps even a
prophecy: look what would have happened to Tina if they hadn’t taken her.
“他一个人走的吗？”我问。
“He left by himself?” I asked.
“你想他能和谁一起走？”
“Who would he have left with?”
我很迟疑地摇了摇头。她从我的眼睛里看到了忧虑，微笑着说：
I shook my head uncertainly. She read in
my eyes the reason for my concern, she smiled:
“你害怕他和黛黛一起走的？”
“You’re afraid he left with Dede?”
27
我马上跑回家了，伊玛紧跟在我后面。我进到屋里叫了黛黛，也叫了艾尔莎，没人回答。我一下子闯进了平时我大女儿睡觉和学习的地方，我看到了黛黛，她躺在床上，眼睛哭得红红的。我舒了一口气，我想她一定是跟里诺告白了，结果那个小伙子拒绝了她。
I hurried home, trailed by Imma. I went
in, I called Dede, I called Elsa. No answer. I rushed into the room where my
older daughters slept and studied. I found Dede lying on the bed, her eyes
burning with tears. I felt relieved. I thought that she had told Rino of her
love and that he had rejected her.
我还没开口，伊玛可能没看到姐姐的精神状况，她开始热情洋溢地讲起了自己的父亲，但黛黛用方言骂了一句，坐起来一下把妹妹推开了，又哭了起来。我示意伊玛不要生气，我很温柔地对我的大女儿说：“我知道这很可怕，我理解，但这件事会过去的。”她的反应很激烈，我当时正在轻轻抚摸她的头发，她猛地甩了一下头，摆脱了我。她叫喊起来：“你说什么，你什么都不知道，什么都不明白，你只想着你自己，还有你写的那些破玩意儿。”她递给我一张方格纸，准确地说是甩到我脸上，然后走开了。
I didn’t have time to speak: Imma, maybe
because she hadn’t realized her sister’s state, began talking
enthusiastically about her father, but Dede rebuffed her with an insult in
dialect, then sat up and burst into tears. I nodded to Imma not to get mad, I
said to my oldest daughter gently: I know it’s terrible, I know very well,
but it will pass. The reaction was violent. As I was caressing her hair she
pulled away with an abrupt movement of her head, crying: What are you talking
about, you don’t know anything, you don’t understand anything, all you think
about is yourself and the crap you write. Then she handed me a piece of graph
paper—rather—she threw it in my face and ran away.
伊玛看到姐姐那么绝望，眼睛也亮晶晶的，涌出了眼泪。我想分散一下她的注意力，就对她说：“你去叫艾尔莎，看看她在哪儿。”我抓起了那张纸，那天的纸条可真多。我马上认出了我二女儿娟秀的字迹，纸条是写给黛黛的。艾尔莎解释说，情感是无法控制的，里诺早就爱上她了，她也逐渐爱上了里诺。她当然知道这会让黛黛痛苦，她觉得很遗憾，但她知道即使退出，放弃自己爱的人，也无法解决问题。后面的话是写给我的，几乎用了一种戏谑的语气说她已经决定放弃学业，我对学习的重视让她觉得很可笑，书本并不会使人变好，而是偶尔会有些好人会写一些好书，里诺虽然没看过一本书，但他很善良。她强调说，她父亲是个好人，写了非常好的书，书本、人还有善良之间的联系在这里就结束了：她没提到我。她最后充满感情地跟我告别，让我不要太生气：黛黛和伊玛会让我满意，她觉得她已经没法遵循我的想法。她给小妹妹画了一个带翅膀的心。
Once Imma realized that her sister was
desperate, her eyes began to tear up in turn. I whispered, to keep her
occupied: Call Elsa, see where she is, and I picked up the piece of paper. It
was a day of notes. I immediately recognized the fine handwriting of my
second daughter. Elsa had written at length to Dede. She explained to her
that one can’t control feelings, that Rino had loved her for a long time and
that little by little she, too, had fallen in love. She knew, of course, that
she was causing her pain and she was sorry, but she also knew that a possible
renunciation of the loved person would not fix things. Then she addressed me
in an almost amused tone. She wrote that she had decided to give up school,
that my cult of study had always seemed to her foolish, that it wasn’t books
that made people good but good people who made some good books. She
emphasized that Rino was good, and yet he had never read a book; she
emphasized that her father was good and had made very good books. The
connection between books, people, and goodness ended there: I wasn’t cited.
She said goodbye with affection and told me not to be too angry: Dede and
Imma would give me the satisfactions that she no longer felt able to give me.
To her younger sister she dedicated a little heart with wings.
我变得怒不可遏。我对黛黛发了一顿脾气，我说，她怎么能够没察觉到妹妹像往常一样，总是会把她在意的东西抢走。我对她吼道：“你应该发现这一点，你应该阻止她，你那么聪明，但你让一个虚荣的小滑头玩得团团转。”我对莉拉说：
I turned into a fury. I was angry with
Dede, who hadn’t realized how her sister, as usual, intended to steal what
she valued. You should have known, I scolded her, you should have stopped
her, you’re so intelligent and you let yourself be tricked by a vain sly
girl. Then I ran downstairs, I said to Lila:
“你儿子不是一个人走的，他把艾尔莎带走了。”
“Your son didn’t go alone, your son took
Elsa with him.”
她看着我，有些迷糊：
She looked at me, disoriented:
“艾尔莎？”
“Elsa?”
“是的，艾尔莎还是未成年人，里诺要比她大九岁，我真想去警察局告他。”
“Yes. And Elsa is a minor. Rino is nine
years older, I swear to God I’ll go to the police and report him.”
她笑了起来，那不是出于恶意，而是难以置信的笑。
She burst out laughing. It wasn’t a mean
laugh but incredulous.
她笑着说自己的儿子：
She laughed and said, alluding to her son:
“你看看，他还真能干啊！我简直太低估他了。他让两位娇小姐都为之疯狂，我简直无法相信。莱农，你过来，放松一下，坐到这儿来。我越想就越觉得可笑，而不是想哭。”
“But look how much damage he was able to
do, I underrated him. He made both young ladies lose their heads, I can’t
believe it. Lenù, come here, calm down, sit down. If you think about it,
there’s more to laugh at than cry about.”
我大声说，这没什么好笑的，里诺现在做的事情非常严重，我真的要去警察局了。这时候她语气变了，她指着门对我说：
I said in dialect that I found nothing to
laugh at, that what Rino had done was very serious, that I really was about
to go to the police. Then she changed her tone, she pointed to the door, she
said:
“你去啊，去告啊，你还等什么。”
“Go to the cops, go on, what are you
waiting for?”
我出去了，走到警察局门口，我就折回来了，每步两个台阶地上楼回到家里。我对着黛黛叫喊：“我想知道，那两个狗东西到底去哪儿了，马上告诉我。”她很害怕，伊玛用手把耳朵堵住了。但我一直在大声嚷嚷，直到黛黛承认，艾尔莎认识里诺在博洛尼亚的一个朋友，那人来过城区一次。
I left, but for the moment I gave up the
idea of the police. I went home, taking the steps two at a time. I shouted at
Dede: I want to know where the fuck they went, tell me immediately. She was
frightened, Imma put her hands over her ears, but I wouldn’t calm down until
Dede admitted that Elsa had met Rino’s Bolognese friend once when he came to
the neighborhood.
“你知道他叫什么名字吗？”
“Do you know his name?”
“知道。”
“Yes.”
“你有没有地址和电话？”
“Do you have the address, the phone
number?”
她在发抖，我问她什么她就说什么。尽管她痛恨妹妹已经超过了痛恨里诺，但她觉得跟我合作也不光彩，就不说了。我自己想办法，我一边叫喊，一边翻艾尔莎的东西，把家里翻了个底朝天。最后我停了下来，当我想要找到写着地址的纸条或者艾尔莎学校里的日记，但我发现我的有些东西不见了：抽屉里的钱都不见了，我平时都是把钱放在那里的，而且我的首饰都不见了，包括我母亲的手镯。艾尔莎一直都很喜欢那只手镯，她总是半开玩笑半严肃地说，假如外婆写遗嘱的话，会把手镯留给她，而不是留给我。
She trembled, she was on the point of
giving me the information I wanted. Then, although by now she hated her
sister even more than Rino, she must have thought it would be shameful to
collaborate and was silent. I’ll find it myself, I cried, and began to turn
her things upside down. I rummaged through the whole house. Then I stopped.
While I was looking for yet another piece of paper, a note in a school diary,
I realized that a lot else was missing. All the money was gone from the
drawer where I normally kept it, and all my jewelry was gone, even my
mother’s bracelet. Elsa had always been very fond of that bracelet. She said,
partly joking and partly serious, that her grandmother, if she had made a
will, would have left it to her and not to me.
28
我发现艾尔莎拿走了钱和首饰，我变得更坚决，黛黛最后把我要找的电话和地址给了我。当她决定给我时，她又对自己的做法很不满，她叫喊着说，我和艾尔莎一模一样，我们不会尊重任何人、任何事儿。我让她闭嘴，我开始打电话。里诺的朋友叫莫莱诺，我威胁了他。我对他说，我知道他贩卖海洛因，我会让他坐大牢，一辈子别想出来。但我没得到任何有用的消息。他向我发誓说，他不知道里诺在哪儿，他记得黛黛，但我说的那个女儿艾尔莎，他从来都没见过，也不认识。
That discovery made me even more
determined, and Dede finally gave me the address and telephone number I was
looking for. When she made up her mind, despising herself for giving in, she
shouted at me that I was just like Elsa, we didn’t respect anything or
anyone. I silenced her and went to the telephone. Rino’s friend was called
Moreno, I threatened him. I told him that I knew he sold heroin, that I would
get him in such deep trouble that he would never get out of jail. I got
nothing. He swore that he didn’t know anything about Rino, that he remembered
Dede, but that this daughter I was talking about, Elsa, he had never met.
我又去找莉拉，是她给我开的门，恩佐也在，他让我坐下，对我很客气。我说我要马上去博洛尼亚，我用命令的语气让莉拉陪我去。
I went back to Lila. She opened the door,
but now Enzo was there, who made me sit down, and treated me kindly. I said I
wanted to go to Bologna right away, I ordered Lila to go with me.
“没有必要去找的。”她回答说，“你看吧，他们一分钱没有了，会回来的。”
“There’s no need,” she said, “you’ll see
that when they run out of money they’ll be back.”
“里诺拿了你多少钱？”
“How much money did Rino take?”
“没拿。他知道，即使是拿我十里拉，我也会把他骨头打断。”
“Nothing. He knows that if he touches
even ten lire I’ll break his bones.”
我感觉很屈辱，嘟哝着说：
I felt humiliated. I muttered:
“艾尔莎把我的钱和首饰都拿走了。”
“Elsa took my money and my jewelry.”
“那是因为你教育得不好。”
“Because you didn’t know how to bring her
up.”
这时候恩佐对她说：
Enzo said to her:
“别说了。”
“Stop it.”
她忽然发作了，对他说：
She turned against him sharply:
“我就是想说！我儿子吸毒，我儿子不学习，我儿子不会说话，不会写字，我儿子很懒，我儿子犯下所有的过错，但偷东西的是她女儿，背叛姐姐的是艾尔莎。”
“I say what I like. My son is a drug
addict, my son didn’t study, my son speaks and writes poorly, my son is a
good-for-nothing, my son has all the sins. But the one who steals is her
daughter, the one who betrays her sister is Elsa.”
恩佐对我说：
Enzo said to me:
“我们走吧，我陪你去博洛尼亚。”
“Let’s go, I’ll go with you to Bologna.”
我们是晚上开车去的。我刚从罗马开车回来，一路上已经很累了，但我悲愤交加，痛苦和怒火已经消耗了我剩下的全部力气，紧张的气氛一过去，我就感觉精疲力竭。我坐在恩佐旁边，我们驶出了那不勒斯城，上了高速公路，我才渐渐开始为黛黛的状况担忧，我害怕可能会发生在艾尔莎身上的事情，而且我也吓到了伊玛，在莉拉面前谈到里诺时，我忘了里诺是她唯一的儿子，我为自己的言行感到羞愧。我不知道是不是应该打电话给在美国的彼得罗，让他马上回来，我不知道自己是不是真的应该去报警。“我们会把这些问题都解决了的。”恩佐装出一副确信的样子说，“你不用担心，即使告了里诺，也没什么用。”
We left in the car, we traveled at night.
I had scarcely returned from Rome, the trip in the car had tired me. The
sorrow and the fury that had arisen had absorbed all my remaining forces and
now that the tension was easing I felt exhausted. Sitting next to Enzo, as we
left Naples and got on the highway, what took hold was anxiety for the state
in which I had left Dede, fear for what could happen to Elsa, some shame for
the way I had frightened Imma, the way I had spoken to Lila, forgetting that
Rino was her only child. I didn’t know whether to telephone Pietro in America
and tell him to come back right away, I didn’t know if I really should go to
the police. “We’ll solve it ourselves,” Enzo said, feigning confidence.
“Don’t worry, it’s pointless to hurt the boy.”
“我不想去告里诺。”我对他解释说，“我只是想让警察帮着找到艾尔莎。”
“I don’t want to report Rino,” I said. “I
just want them to find Elsa.”
我真是这么想的。我小声说，我希望我能找到我女儿，带她回家，然后收拾行李，我一分钟也不想待在那个家里，不想继续待在城区，待在那不勒斯。我对他说，这已经没有意义了，现在我和莉拉开始为了谁把孩子教育得好的问题吵架。我们在争执，发生这样的事情，到底是她的错还是我的错，我受不了了。
It was true. I muttered that I wanted to
recover my daughter, go home, pack my bags, not remain a minute longer in
that house, in the neighborhood, in Naples. It makes no sense, I said, that
now Lila and I start fighting about who brought up her children better, and
if what happened is her fault or mine—I can’t bear it.
恩佐一直在默默地听我说话，虽然他最近也在生莉拉的气，但他开始为莉拉开脱。他并没说到里诺还有里诺给他母亲带来的麻烦，而是说到了蒂娜。他说：“假如一个没几岁的孩子死了，死了就完了，大人迟早也就不想这事儿了，但假如失踪了，一点儿消息也没有，那你生活里的一切都再也无法恢复了。蒂娜到底还回不回来呢？她什么时候回来？她是活着，还是已经死了？”他小声说，“你时时刻刻都在想这个问题。她是不是在街上流浪，像吉普赛人一样？还是她在有钱但没孩子的人家里当女儿？他们会不会让她做一些丑事儿，然后把那些照片和电影卖掉？她是不是被肢解了，心脏被取出来高价卖给了另一个孩子？她身体的其他部位被埋葬了，还是被烧了？或者她整个被埋了，因为她被绑架时不小心被人弄死了？假如她没被烧掉，被埋掉，不知道她在哪里长大，她现在是什么样子的，以后会变成什么样子，假如在路上遇到她，我们能不能认出她来？假如我们认出她来，谁把我们失去的东西还给我们，我们错过了蒂娜身上发生的那些事。蒂娜那时候很小，她会不会觉得自己被遗弃了？”
Enzo listened to me at length, in
silence, then, although I felt he had been angry at Lila for a long time, he
began to make excuses for her. He didn’t speak about Rino, about the problems
he caused his mother, but about Tina. He said: If a being a few years old
dies, she’s dead, it’s over, sooner or later you resign yourself. But if she
disappears, if you no longer know anything about her, there’s not a thing
that remains in her place, in your life. Will Tina never return or will she
return? And when she returns, will she be alive or dead? Every moment—he
murmured—you’re asking where she is. Is she a Gypsy on the street? Is she at
home with rich people who have no children? Are people making her do horrible
things and selling the photographs and films? Did they cut her up and sell
her heart for a high price so it could be transplanted to another child’s
chest? Are the other pieces underground, or were they burned? Or is she under
the ground intact, because she died accidentally after she was abducted? And
if earth and fire didn’t take her, and she is growing up who knows where,
what does she look like now, what will she become later, if we meet her on
the street will we recognize her? And if we recognize her who will give us
back everything we lost of her, everything that happened when we weren’t
there and little Tina felt abandoned?
在他说出这些艰难但激烈的话时，我在车灯下看到了恩佐脸上的泪水，我明白他不仅仅说的是莉拉，他是想表达自己的痛苦。那次和他出去很重要，到现在我还很难想出一个比他更敏感的男人。刚开始，他跟我说了在那四年里，每个白天和晚上，莉拉一直对他说的或嚷嚷的事情。然后他让我讲讲我的工作，还有我觉得遗憾的事。我跟他讲了我的女儿、书本、男人，还有一些懊悔的事情，以及我对成功的渴望。我说，现在写东西已经成为了一种义务，我不分昼夜地努力，想让人感觉我的存在，不要被排挤出去，就是为了和那些认为我是一个没天分却喜欢发表见解的小女人的人作斗争。“那些迫害者，”我嘀咕着，“他们的唯一目的就是让我失去读者，他们并没有一个很高尚的目的，只是为了阻止我继续进步，或者他们只是想通过贬低我，来抬高他们自己或者他们维护的人。”他让我发泄了一下，他赞扬了我做事时投入的激情。他说：“你看你多投入，这种狂热让你稳稳地扎根在你选择的世界里，你已经展示出了你所有的才华，尤其是你会投入所有情感，这样生活就不会把你拖着走。对于你来说，蒂娜失踪是一件可怕的事情，想到这件事情，你可能会忧伤，但这已经是过去很久的事儿了。但对于莉拉来说，在所有这些年里，就像天塌下来，雨水从屋檐上掉下来，她完全陷入了失去女儿留下的空白之中。她就停在了蒂娜身上，在蒂娜之后，那些依然活生生的、生长繁茂的东西让她充满敌意。”他说：“她很强势，她对我态度很糟糕，她生你的气，她会说一些很难听的话。但是你不知道有多少次她洗着盘子，或者透过窗子看着大路，她看起来很平静，其实已经失去意识了。”
At a certain point, while Enzo spoke in
his laborious but dense sentences, I saw his tears in the glow of the
headlights, I knew he wasn’t talking only about Lila but was trying to
express his own suffering as well. That trip with him was important; I still
find it hard to imagine a man with a finer sensibility than his. At first he
told me what, every day, every night in those four years Lila had whispered
or shouted. Then he urged me to talk about my work and my dissatisfactions. I
told him about the girls, about books, about men, about resentments, about
the need for approval. And I mentioned all my writing, which now had become
obligatory, I struggled day and night to feel myself present, to not let
myself be marginalized, to fight against those who considered me an upstart
little woman without talent: persecutors—I muttered—whose only purpose is to
make me lose my audience, and not because they’re inspired by any elevated
motives but, rather, for the enjoyment of keeping me from improvement, or to
carve out for themselves or for their protégés some wretched power harmful to
me. He let me vent, he praised the energy I put into things. You see—he
said—how excited you get. The effort has anchored you to the world you’ve
chosen, it’s given you broad and detailed expertise in it, above all it has
engaged your feelings. So life has dragged you along, and Tina, for you, is
certainly an atrocious episode, thinking about it makes you sad, but it’s
also, by now, a distant fact. For Lila, on the other hand, in all these
years, the world collapsed as if it were hearsay, and slid into the void left
by her daughter, like the rain that rushes down a drainpipe. She remains
frozen at Tina, and feels bitter toward everything that continues to be
alive, that grows and prospers. Of course, he said, she is strong, she treats
me terribly, she gets angry with you, she says ugly things. But you don’t
know how many times she has fainted just when she seemed tranquil, washing
the dishes or staring out the window at the stradone.
29
在博洛尼亚，我们没有发现到里诺和我女儿的影子。尽管在恩佐不懂声色的恐吓下，莫莱诺把我们带到了一些他们可能会去的地方，假如他们在这个城市，在那些地方他们一定会受到欢迎。恩佐经常给莉娜打电话，我也给黛黛打了电话。我们希望有好消息，但是并没有。这时候我又陷入了危机，我不知道该怎么办。我又一次说：
In Bologna we found no trace of Rino and
my daughter, even though Moreno, frightened by Enzo’s fierce calm, dragged us
through streets and hangouts where, according to him, if they were in the
city, the two would certainly have been welcomed. Enzo telephoned Lila often,
I Dede. We hoped that there would be good news, but there wasn’t. At that
point I was seized by a new crisis, I no longer knew what to do. I said
again:
“我要去警察局。”
“I’m going to the police.”
恩佐摇了摇头。
Enzo shook his head.
“再等一下。”
“Wait a little.”
“里诺把我的艾尔莎毁了。”
“Rino has ruined Elsa.”
“你现在还不能这么说。你要看清楚你女儿，你要看到她们真实的样子。”
“You can’t say that. You have to try to
look at your daughters as they really are.”
“我对她们一直很关心。”
“It’s what I do continuously.”
“是的，但你并不真正了解她们。为了伤害黛黛，艾尔莎什么事儿都能做得出来，她们俩在一件事情上态度是一致的——折磨伊玛。”
“Yes, but you don’t do it well. Elsa
would do anything to make Dede suffer and they are in agreement on a single
point: tormenting Imma.”
“你不要让我说我不想说的话：这是莉拉对她们的看法，你只是重复了她的话。”
“Don’t make me say mean things: it’s Lila
who sees them like that and you’re repeating what she says.”
“莉拉很爱你，很欣赏你，她对你的几个女儿很有感情，是我这么想的，我说这些是为了让你好好想想。不要着急，你看吧，我们会找到他们的。”
“Lila loves you, admires you, is fond of
your daughters. It’s me who thinks these things, and I’m saying them to help
you be reasonable. Calm down, you’ll see, we’ll find them.”
但我们没找到他们，我们决定回那不勒斯。车开到佛罗伦萨时，恩佐想给莉拉打一个电话，想知道有什么新消息。他把电话挂上了之后，很不安地对我说：
We didn’t find them, we decided to return
to Naples. But as we were nearing Florence Enzo wanted to call Lila again to
find out if there was any news. When he hung up he said, bewildered:
“黛黛要和你谈谈，但莉娜不知道是什么事儿。”
“Dede needs to talk to you but Lina
doesn’t know why.”
“她在你们家吗？”
“Is she at your house?”
“没有，她在你家。”
“No, she’s at yours.”
我马上就把电话打过去了，我很担心是伊玛生病了。黛黛没有给我开口的时间，她说：
I called immediately, I was afraid that
Imma was sick. Dede didn’t even give me a chance to speak, she said:
“我明天就出发去美国，我去那里上学。”
“I’m leaving tomorrow for the United
States, I’m going to study there.”
我尽量压抑着自己的声音，说：
I tried not to shout:
“现在不是说这些的时候，等我一回去，我们就和你爸爸说。”
“Now is not the moment for that
conversation, as soon as possible we’ll talk about it with Papa.”
“妈妈，有一件事情我要跟你讲清楚：我离开这个家之后，艾尔莎才能回来。”
“One thing has to be clear, Mamma: Elsa
will return to this house only when I am gone.”
“现在最要紧的是要知道她在哪儿。”
“For now the most urgent thing is to find
out where she is.”
她用方言对着我喊道：
She cried to me in dialect:
“那个贱人刚刚打了电话，她在奶奶家。”
“That bitch telephoned a little while
ago, she’s at Grandma’s.”
