评论
打印
"Stay away from my sister," Nath said to Jack, very quietly, as they left. Lydia, already walking away, shaking grass off her towel, didn't hear, but Hannah had.
“离我妹妹远点。”他们离开时，纳轻声对杰克说。莉迪亚已经走了，边走边抖掉毛巾上的草，没听见，但汉娜听见了。
It sounded like Nath had meant her—Hannah—but she knew he'd really meant Lydia.
听起来纳指的是她——汉娜——但她知道他说的是莉迪亚。
When they stopped at the corner to let a car pass, she peeked back over her shoulder, one quick glance too fast for Nath to notice.
当他们在拐角处停下来让车时，她回头看了一眼，她看得太快了，纳都没注意到。
Jack was watching them go. Anyone would think he was looking at Lydia, with the towel slung around her hips now, like a sarong.
杰克看着他们离开。每个人都会以为杰克在看莉迪亚，现在她的屁股上挂着毛巾，像一条围裙。
Hannah shot him a little smile, but he didn't smile back, and she could not tell if he hadn't seen her, or if her one little smile hadn't been enough.
汉娜朝他微微一笑，但他没有回以微笑，她不知道他是没看见她，还是她的一个微笑还不够。
Now she thinks of Jack's face as he looked down at his hands, as if something important had happened to them.
现在她想起了杰克低头看自己双手时的表情，仿佛有什么重要的事情发生在他们身上。
No. Nath is wrong. Those hands could never have hurt anyone. She is sure of it.
不。纳是错的。这双手不可能伤害任何人。她对此很有把握。
On Lydia's bed, Marilyn hugs her knees like a little girl, trying to leap the gaps between what James has said and what he thinks and what he meant.
在莉迪亚的床上，玛丽琳像个小女孩一样抱着膝盖，试图跨越詹姆斯所说、所想的和所指的之间的鸿沟。
Your mother was right all along. You should have married someone more like you. With such bitterness in his voice that it choked her.
你母亲一直是对的。你应该嫁给一个更像你的人。他的声音如此苦涩，使她透不过气来。
These words sound familiar and she mouths them silently, trying to place them.
这些话听起来很熟悉，她默默地说着，试图把它们说出来。
Then she remembers. On their wedding day, in the courthouse: her mother had warned her about their children, how they wouldn't fit in anywhere.
然后她想起来，在他们的婚礼上，在法院：她的母亲已经警告过她关于他们的孩子，他们将如何不适合任何地方。
"You'll regret it," she had said, as if they would be flippered and imbecile and doomed, and out in the lobby, James must have heard everything.
“你会后悔的，”她说，仿佛他们会变得轻率、愚蠢，注定要完蛋似的，在大厅里，詹姆一定什么都听到了。”
Marilyn had said only, "My mother just thinks I should marry someone more like me," then brushed it away, like dust onto the floor.
玛丽琳只是说：“我母亲只是认为我应该嫁给一个更像我的人，”然后把它像灰尘一样掸到地板上。
But those words had haunted James. How they must have wound around his heart, binding tighter over the years, slicing into the flesh.
但这些话一直困扰着詹姆斯。它们一定是缠绕在他的心脏上，多年来越绑越紧，切进他的肉里。
He had hung his head like a murderer, as if his blood were poison, as if he regretted that their daughter had ever existed.
他像个杀人犯似的垂下了头，仿佛他的血是毒药，仿佛他后悔他们的女儿曾经存在过。
When James comes home, Marilyn thinks, speechless with aching, she will tell him: I would marry you a hundred times if it gave us Lydia. A thousand times. You cannot blame yourself for this.
当詹姆斯回家时，她将告诉他：如果能给我们莉迪亚，我愿意嫁给你一百次。一千次。你不能为此责备自己。玛丽琳心里想着，痛得说不出话来。
Except James does not come home. Not at dinner; not at nightfall; not at one, when the bars in town close.
可是詹姆斯没有回家。晚饭时间没有；日落时没有；凌晨一点没有；城里的酒吧都关门的时候也没有回家。
All night Marilyn sits awake, pillows propped against the headboard, waiting for the sound of his car in the driveway, his footsteps on the stairs.
玛丽琳彻夜难眠，枕头靠在床头板上，等着他的车停在车道上的声音，等着他在楼梯上的脚步声。
At three, when he still hasn't come home, she decides she will go to his office.
已经三点了，他还没回家，她决定去他的办公室。
All the way to campus, she pictures him huddled in his wheeled armchair, crushed with sadness, soft cheek pressed to hard desk.
在去学校的路上，她想象着他蜷缩在带轮子的扶手椅里，被悲伤压得喘不过气来，柔软的脸颊贴在坚硬的课桌上。
When she finds him, she thinks, she will convince him this is not his fault. She will bring him home. But when she pulls into the lot, it is empty.
当她找到他时，她想，她会说服他这不是他的错。她会把他带回家的。但当她把车开进停车场时，里面空无一人。
She circles his building three times, checking all the spots where he usually parks, then all the faculty lots, then all the meters nearby. No sign of him anywhere.
她绕着教学楼转了三圈，检查了他经常停车的地方，以及所有教职工的停车场，最后检查了附近所有的仪表。到处都没有他的影子。
In the morning, when the children come downstairs, Marilyn sits stiff-necked and bleary-eyed at the kitchen table.
早晨，孩子们下楼时，玛丽琳僵着脖子，睡眼惺忪地坐在餐桌旁。
"Where's Daddy?" Hannah asks, and her silence is enough of an answer. It is the Fourth of July: everything is closed.
“爸爸在哪里？”汉娜问道，她的沉默已经回答了一切。今天是7月4日，所有的商店都关门了。
James has no friends on the faculty; he is not close with their neighbors; he loathes the dean. Could he have been in an accident? Should she call the police?
詹姆斯在学院里没有朋友；他与邻居不亲近；他讨厌系主任。他会发生意外吗？她应该报警吗？
Nath rubs his bruised knuckle across the crack in the counter and remembers the perfume on his father's skin, his reddening cheeks, his sharp and sudden fury.
纳在柜台的裂缝上擦着瘀伤的指关节，想起了父亲皮肤上的香水味，泛红的脸颊，以及突如其来的愤怒。
I don't owe him anything, he thinks, but even so, he has the feeling of leaping off a high cliff when he swallows hard and says at last, "Mom? I think I know where he is."
他想，我不欠他什么，但即便如此，他艰难地咽了一口口水，最后说道，“妈妈？我想我知道他在哪儿。”说完后，他有一种从悬崖上跳下来的感觉。
At first Marilyn will not believe it. It is so unlike James. Besides, she thinks, he doesn't know anyone. He does not have any female friends.
起初玛丽琳不相信。这太不像詹姆斯了。此外，她想，他谁也不认识。他没有任何女性朋友。
There are no women in the history department at Middlewood, only a few women professors at the college at all.
米德尔伍德学院的历史系没有女教授，只有几位女教授。
When would James meet another woman? Then a terrible thought occurs to her.
詹姆斯什么时候会遇到另一个女人？这时她突然有了一个可怕的想法。
