纽约客小说：《第一任丈夫》（4）
没有亚戎就不会有卡莱布。拉维不得不提醒自己记着这个令人难过的事实。她的前继女婿招惹了一大堆麻烦，可是，因为有他，才有这个小男孩在她面前，让她疼爱也爱着她。卡莱布会长大，或许会疏远她——他们之间没有血缘关系，总有一天他会明白这一点。总有一天，他会摆脱拉维，摆脱那些以“前任”“继祖母”标记的羁绊。他会长成少年，然后消失在黑夜里，就像他父亲一样。拉维与第一任丈夫的三个女儿一同度过青春期，姑娘们一个比一个不像话，伯纳蒂特的品行不端达到了顶峰，简直令人叹为观止。伯纳蒂特身体里好像根本没有自制力或者道德界限这类东西的存在，她逃课、酒驾、撞车、被抓，随便什么人递给她随便什么东西她都肯吸、肯抽、肯喝，然后进监狱，她也许是找不到让自己想要继续活下去的活法。
Without Aaron, there would be no Caleb. Lovey had to remind herself of this sad fact. Her ex-stepson-in-law caused a lot of trouble, but, because of him, here before her was a boy for her to love, who loved her. Caleb would grow up and perhaps grow away from her—there was no shared blood, and someday he would understand that. Someday he might untie the knots of those prefixes that labelled Lovey, ex- and step-. He would turn into a teen-ager and disappear, like his father, into the night. Lovey had lived through those adolescent years with her first husband’s three daughters, each girl more outrageous than the one before, culminating with the spectacular misbehavior of Bernadette, who’d had, it seemed, no kernel of self-control or restraint at her center, who’d run away, totalled vehicles, got arrested, inhaled or smoked or drunk whatever substance anyone handed her, landed in jail, who had perhaps been unable to find a way to make herself want to continue living.
直到有了卡莱布。这个孩子也拯救了她。
Until Caleb. The boy had saved her as well.
小女孩仍然在跟奶瓶过不去，焦躁不安，拍拍打打。她不想吃奶嘴。她不想呆在地板上听手机放的音乐。她不需要新的奶嘴，奶嘴满足不了她。她就像是想从自己的身体里面钻出来似的。拉维把她放在自己膝上，女孩抓起几个棋子，把其中一个塞进了嘴巴，卡莱布和拉维都来不及阻止她。
The baby was still fussy after her bottle, agitated and thrashing. She didn’t want a pacifier. She didn’t want to be left kicking on the floor under the spell of a musical mobile. She didn’t need a new diaper, couldn’t be made contented. It was as if she wished to break out of her own skin. Lovey sat her on her lap and the child grabbed up the game tokens, stuffing one into her mouth before either Caleb or Lovey could stop her.
“要是她吞下去，我们就只好等她拉出来才能继续玩了，”卡莱布说，“怪恶心的。”
“If she swallows it, we have to wait for it to come out in her poop,” Caleb said. “Which is gross.”
“我的老天！”拉维用食指伸进孩子嘴里掏出那个金属小狗，“她可能还是饿。”她这么说着，小女孩又发起了脾气。
“Jesus Christ!” Lovey hooked her index finger into the child’s mouth, removing the little metal dog. “Maybe she’s still hungry,” she said over the girl’s renewed outrage.
响动吵醒了三岁的那个孩子，她在起居室大叫起来。“妈妈妈妈妈妈！”卡莱布先把棋盘挪到桌子中央，免得小孩再乱动，然后过去照顾她。拉维把几张粉色的一百块和蓝色的五十块钞票放回银行，又从长长一排挨挨挤挤的红色和黄色房子里拿掉几栋；刚才她一不留神就成了房地产大亨。
The noise woke the three-year-old, who began wailing from the living room, “Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma!” Her brother went to fetch her, having first pushed the game to the center of the table, out of reach. Lovey put several of her peach and blue hundred- and fifty-dollar bills back in the bank. She also removed a few houses from the long crowded row of red and yellow properties, where she’d become an inadvertent real-estate mogul.
不高兴的希利亚走了进来，这个女孩在相貌上略逊一筹，浓眉大眼，骨架子也大，不如她的哥哥和小妹妹那么可爱，而且好像在发育上有些落后——她还戴着尿片、衔着奶嘴，还在发出含糊的啜泣。拉维从来不肯承认自己不喜欢她，这样不太好，但眼下这孩子把她惹恼了。这个三岁的女孩坐在厨房地板上，依然嚷嚷着要妈妈，反反复复，一股绿鼻涕可怜巴巴地挂在她的鼻子和下巴上。拉维已经关上了厨房的门，免得吵醒威廉。他上午有早诊，大约要持续四个钟头，他需要睡眠。不能强迫他喜爱这些孩子，这些闯进他人生的孩子们，他们被送到前任继祖父母这边来，已经有两三次了。他有他自己的几个孩子要烦恼；他们的艰难又是另一出新戏，在城市的另一边、他以前的住家，与他的前妻和前妻的新任丈夫一同上演。
In came sad Celia, not as lovely as her older brother or her little sister, the child who’d lost in the looks lottery, big-featured and big-boned. She also seemed developmentally behind—still wearing diapers, still chewing on a pacifier, still sobbing inarticulately. It felt bad to dislike her, and Lovey would never have admitted to it, but the child irritated her. She sat now on the kitchen floor and continued to wail for her mother. Over and over, the plea, a pitiful mass of green mucus beneath her nose and chin. Lovey had closed the kitchen door to keep William from waking. He had hospital rounds in the morning, in a mere four hours; he needed his sleep. These children did not compel his specific interest, coming into his life, as they had, two or three times removed, these ex-step-in-laws-by-marriage. He had his own children to fret over; their hardships were another whole scenario, ongoing across town, in his former house, with his ex-wife and her new husband.
拉维拿出糖果，用这个准不会错，一小把巧克力豆就能抚慰希利亚。“有我的份儿吗？”卡莱布问。
Lovey got out the candy, the surefire solution, a small pile of M&M’s for Celia to take solace in. “Is there enough for me?” Caleb asked.
“没了，”拉维说，“只有这一包。葡萄干你要吗？”
“Not really,” Lovey said. “Just the one snack bag. I have raisins.”
“不用啦，谢谢。”他叹了口气。葡萄干是他命中的克星。
“No, thanks.” He sighed. Raisins: that was his lot in life.
小女孩喝完了两瓶奶，居然还没吃饱。伯纳蒂特说凌晨四点，现在就是四点钟了。拉维发短信给她，没有回复。
Even after her second bottle, the baby was not satisfied. Bernadette had predicted 4 a.m., and here it was. Lovey texted her and got no reply.
“包里有奶粉。”卡莱布告诉她，接着就着手拿出装奶粉的瓶子，研究上面的说明，舀出奶粉，用小刀推成一平勺。拉维看着他摇匀奶粉和水然后微波加热，她觉得难过，又看见他把冲好的奶滴在手腕上试温度，她就更难过了。
“There’s formula in the bag,” Caleb told her, and then proceeded to fix a bottle of it, studying the lines on the bottle, levelling the powder with a knife on the scoop. It made Lovey sad to see him shake up the concoction before microwaving it, and sadder still to watch him test its temperature on his wrist.
伯纳蒂特回短信了：“找到他了，正往家赶！”
A text arrived from Bernadette: “Found him, heading home!”
“这边一切都好。”拉维回复她。短信的好处在于，声音传不过去，不会泄露真相。厨房吵吵闹闹的，两个女孩都惨兮兮的，巧克力糖吃完了，奶粉显然不合小女孩的口味。她想从真实的源头获取真实的东西。
“Everybody fine here,” Lovey wrote back. The beauty of texting: no telltale soundtrack. For the kitchen was loud, both girls miserable, the chocolate gone, the formula apparently not to the baby’s taste. She wanted the real thing, from the real source.
“你们好啊。”威廉打了个招呼表示他进来了。他的头发乱糟糟地贴在脑门上，没穿上衣，只穿着运动短裤。看见他这样子总让拉维想起自己的第一任丈夫，他绝对不会不穿上衣、不梳头就到处走；他对自己的身体、自己的年纪无能为力，对自己上了年纪的身体无能为力。她又一次试着去回想：梦中的他光着身子吗？他经常拿一个苹果上床睡觉，这样早晨起来就可以先咬一口苹果让口气清新。威廉吻了吻拉维的脸颊，不痛不痒，一股陈旧的气息。“这么吵（hubbub）是怎么回事儿呀，小家伙（bub）？”他问那个三岁的女孩，一边跨过她走向咖啡机。
“Hey there,” William said, announcing himself, hair mashed flat against his temple, shirtless and in gym shorts. Seeing him like this always reminded Lovey that her first husband would never have walked around without a shirt, without his hair combed; he was vain about his body, his age, his aging body. Again, she tried to recall: had he been nude in her dream? He had often taken an apple to bed with him at night, so that he could freshen his breath with a bite first thing in the morning. William gave Lovey a perfunctory stale- smelling peck on the cheek. “What’s all the hubbub, bub?” he asked the three- year-old as he stepped over her to get to the coffeemaker.
女孩挥舞着手臂打他的腿。
The child swung her arm out to hit his shin.
“对不起。”拉维说。
“I’m sorry,” Lovey said.
“可怜见的，”威廉说，“小孩儿大显身手，你输得一塌糊涂，”他看着棋盘，“我来得正好啊，差点儿就来不及了。”拉维的第一任丈夫声名显赫，他总是愤怒地离开晚餐派对、莫名其妙地大发脾气、跟朋友们绝交——“给我死开！”他会这么说。他就像个暴躁易怒的孩子。以前跟他在一起，拉维必须非常小心，干什么都要轻手轻脚，要时刻集中注意力。她所有的朋友都更喜欢威廉。他们赞许他开的玩笑和他沉稳的秉性。他是一名急诊医生，这使得他极具洞见。在经验丰富的他看来，眼下这清晨的厨房里并没有发生什么真正的麻烦事儿。
“Mercy,” William said. “That kid packs a wallop. And you appear to be getting your ass kicked,” he said, regarding the game. “I’ve arrived here not a moment too soon.” Lovey’s first husband had been known to storm out of dinner parties, to take offense at nothing, to cut off friendships—“Dead to me!” he would declare. He’d behaved like a child always on the verge of a tantrum. With him, Lovey had had to be careful, to tread lightly, to pay her full attention. All of her friends preferred William. They approved of his jocularity, his slow-moving, steady ways. He’d been an E.R. doc; it had given him perspective. In this dawn kitchen, there was, to his practiced eyes, no real trouble.
“把那孩子给我，”威廉从拉维手中接过小女孩，“我们试试吓唬疗法，好不好？”他打开后门，踏入屋外冷冽的空气，孩子一瞬间就安静下来。他带她回到房间，她又哭起来，于是他又抱着她出去。
“Give me that,” William said, taking the baby from Lovey. “Let’s try some shock therapy, shall we?” He opened the back door and stepped out into the cold air, which silenced the baby instantaneously. When he brought her back inside and she began to wail again, he did the same thing.
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