96
回到家里，我没去找莉拉。我排除了她不知道选举和选票，索拉拉兄弟很气愤，以及他们是卡门身后指使者的可能。她总是精于算计，只会告诉我她想让我知道的事。我给出版社打了电话，我把安东尼奥告诉我的事告诉了主编。我对他说，现在还只是传言，还没有具体行动，但我很担心。他安慰我，让我放心，他答应我他会向出版社的法律顾问询问一下，一有消息，他就会打给我。最后他说：“你为什么要那么激动，这对你的书是有好处的。”我想，但这对我没好处，回到这里生活，就是一个错误的决定。
I went home, I didn’t look for Lila. I
assumed that she knew all about the elections, about the votes, about the
Solaras, enraged, who were waiting in ambush behind Carmen. She told me
things a little at a time, for her own ends. Instead I called the publishing
house, I told the editor in chief about the lawsuit and what Antonio had
reported to me. For now it’s only a rumor, I said, nothing certain, but I’m
worried. He tried to reassure me, he promised that he would ask the legal
department to investigate and as soon as he found out anything he would
telephone me. He concluded: Why are you so agitated, this is good for the
book. Not for me, I thought, I’ve been wrong about everything, I shouldn’t
have returned here to live.
过了几天，出版社没有联系我，但我收到了起诉通知书，对我来说简直就是迎头一棒。看了那份文件之后，我简直目瞪口呆。卡门要求我和出版社把那本书从市场上收回，还要求支付一笔巨额的赔款，因为我损害了她母亲朱塞平娜的形象。我从来都没看见过这样一张代表法律权威的纸，上面有抬头，里面的文字风格，还有上面的印章和印花税票。我发现，在少年和青年时期我从来没留意的东西，现在让我很害怕。这次我跑去找莉拉。当她得知我找她的原因时，她的语气里充满了嘲弄，她说：
Days passed, I didn’t hear from the
publisher, but the notification of the lawsuit arrived at my house like a
stab. I read it and was speechless. Carmen demanded that the editor and I
withdraw the book from circulation, plus enormous damages for having tarnished
the memory of her mother, Giuseppina. I had never seen a document that summed
up in itself, in the letterhead, in the quality of the writing, in the
decorative stamps and notarized seals, the power of the law. I discovered
that what had never made an impression on me as an adolescent, even as a
young woman, now terrified me. This time I hurried to see Lila. When I told
her what it was about she started teasing me:
“你不是要法律吗，现在法律来了。”
“You wanted the law, the law has
arrived.”
“我该怎么办？”
“What should I do?”
“把事情闹大。”
“Make a scene.”
“也就是说？”
“What do you mean?”
“你要告诉报纸发生在你身上的事情。”
“Tell the newspapers what’s happening to
you.”
“你疯了吗？安东尼奥跟我说，卡门的背后是索拉拉兄弟的律师，你不要告诉我，你不知道。”
“You’re crazy. Antonio said that behind
Carmen are the Solaras’ lawyers, and don’t say you don’t know.”
“我当然知道了。”
“Of course I know.”
“那你为什么没告诉我？”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“你看看你现在多烦躁，但你不要担心，你害怕法律，但索拉拉兄弟更害怕你的书。”
“Because you see how nervous you are? But
you don’t have to worry. You’re afraid of the law and the Solaras are afraid
of your book.”
“我害怕他们那么有钱，会把我毁了的。”
“I’m afraid that with all the money they
have they can ruin me.”
“你就是要让他们花钱，你写东西，你越写他们做的那些龌龊事，就越能破坏他们的生意。”
“But it’s precisely their money you have
to go for. Write. The more you write about their disgusting affairs the more
you ruin their business.”
我很沮丧。这就是莉拉的想法吗？这就是她的计划？只有在这时候，我才清楚地发现，她觉得我有一种特殊的力量，就像小时候我们赋予《小妇人》的作者的那种力量，因此她想尽一切办法让我回到城区居住？我什么也没说，回到家里，再次给出版社打电话。我希望主编能采取行动，希望能听到让我放心的消息，但我没找到他。第二天是他打电话给我。他用愉快的语气向我宣布，在《晚邮报》上有他的一篇文章——是他亲自写的，谈到了起诉的事情。他跟我说：“你赶紧去买吧，看完告诉我你的想法。”
I was depressed. Lila thought this? This
was her project? Only then did I understand clearly that she ascribed to me
the power that as children we had ascribed to the author of Little Women.
That was why she had wanted me to return to the neighborhood at all costs? I
left without saying anything. I went home, I called the publisher again. I
hoped that he was exerting himself in some way, I wanted news that would calm
me, but I didn’t reach him. The next day he called me. He announced gaily
that in the Corriere della Sera there was an article by him—yes, by his
hand—in which he gave an account of the lawsuit. Go and buy it, he said, and
let me know what you think.
97
我非常忐忑不安地去了报刊亭，我又看到了我和蒂娜的照片，这次的照片是黑白的。起诉的事情已经出现在了标题里，主编认为，这场起诉是想堵住现在少数几个勇敢的女作家的嘴，诸如此类。他没提到这个城区的名字，也没有提到索拉拉兄弟。这篇文章用一种非常有力的方式，把这件事情放置在一个矛盾的背景中，也就是“阻碍这个国家现代化的中世纪残余，和南方政治文化更新无法阻拦的脚步”之间的矛盾。那是一篇很短的文章，但非常有力，尤其在最后，他捍卫了文学价值，把文学和“让人悲哀的地方纠纷”分开。
I went to the newsstand more anxious than
ever. There again was the photograph of me with Tina, this time in
black-and-white. The lawsuit was announced in the headline; it was considered
an attempt to muzzle one of the very few courageous writers et cetera, et
cetera. The article didn’t name the neighborhood, it didn’t allude to the
Solaras. Skillfully, it set the episode within a conflict that was taking
place everywhere, “between the medieval remnants that are keeping this
country from modernizing and the unstoppable advance, even in the South, of
political and cultural renewal.” It was a short piece, but it defended
effectively, especially in the conclusion, the rights of literature,
separating them from what were called “very sad local disputes.”
我一下子放心了，感觉自己受到了保护。我给主编打电话，赞扬了那篇文章，然后把那份报纸拿去给莉拉看。我期待她看到会很振奋，我觉得这就是她想要的，就是要我显露出自己的权威。但她有些厌烦地对我说：
I was relieved, I had the impression of
being well protected. I telephoned, I praised the article, then I went to
show the paper to Lila. I expected her to be be excited. That was what it
seemed to me she wanted: a deployment of the power that she ascribed to me.
Instead she said coolly:
“为什么你要让这个人写这篇文章？”
“Why did you let this man write the
article?”
“有什么不对劲儿的地方吗？出版社现在站在了我这边，支持我来回应这场纷争，我觉得这是一件好事儿。”
“What’s wrong? The publisher is standing
behind me, they’re attending to this mess, it seems a good thing.”
“这些都是空话，莱农！这个人只在乎卖书。”
“It’s just talk, Lenù, this guy is only
interested in selling the book.”
“这不好吗？”
“And isn’t that good?”
“这很好，但文章应该由你来写。”
“It’s good, but you should have written
the article.”
我很烦，我不明白她在想什么。
I became nervous, I couldn’t understand
what she had in mind.
“为什么？”
“Why?”
“因为你写得好，而且你了解这些事情。你还记不记得你写文章揭发布鲁诺·索卡沃的事儿？”
“Because you’re smart and you know the
situation well. You remember when you wrote the article against Bruno
Soccavo?”
她提到这件事情，本应该让我自豪，但却让我很不舒服。布鲁诺已经死了，我不愿意想起我曾经写过的那篇东西。他是一个没头脑的小伙子，落到了索拉拉兄弟的罗网里，谁知道他还落到了其他哪些陷阱里，后来他被杀了。我曾经针对他写的文章，并不让我觉得高兴。我说：
That reference, instead of pleasing me,
upset me. Bruno was dead and I didn’t like to remember what I had written. He
wasn’t very bright, ending up in the clutches of the Solaras and who knows
how many others, given that they had killed him. I wasn’t happy that I had
been angry with him.
“莉拉，那篇文章不是针对布鲁诺，讲的是工厂的工作。”
“Lila,” I said, “the article wasn’t
against Bruno, it was an article about factory work.”
“我知道，但这次呢？现在你是一位更重要的人物，你比之前写得更好，你要让他们付出代价。索拉拉兄弟不应该藏在卡门背后，你应该把他们暴露出来，他们不应该在这个地方称王称霸。”
“I know, and with this? You made them
pay, and now that you’re an even more important person you can do better. The
Solaras shouldn’t hide behind Carmen. You have to drag the Solaras out into
the open, and they should no longer command.”
我现在明白了，为什么她鄙视主编写的那篇文章。她也不在乎什么言论自由，还有落后势力和现代化斗争的问题。她在意的仅仅是“让人悲哀的地方纠纷”。她想让我和具体的两个人进行斗争，我们从小就了解他们是什么货色。我说：
I understood why she had disparaged the
editor’s article. She didn’t care in the least about freedom of expression
and the battle between backwardness and modernization. She was interested
only in the sad local disputes. She wanted me, here, now, to contribute to
the clash with real people, people we had known since childhood, and what
they were made of. I said:
“莉拉，对于那些买《晚邮报》的人来说，他们才不会在乎卡门把自己卖给了索拉拉兄弟，一篇刊登在报纸上的文章应该有普遍意义，否则的话，他们是不会刊登出来的。”
“Lila, the Corriere doesn’t give a damn
about Carmen, who sold herself, and the Solaras, who bought her. To be in a
big newspaper, an article has to have a broad meaning, otherwise they won’t
publish it.”
她脸上的线条变得扭曲。
Her face fell.
“卡门没出卖你，"她说："她一直都是你的朋友，她起诉你只有一个原因：她是被逼的。”
“Carmen didn’t sell herself,” she said.
“She’s still your friend and she has brought the suit against you for one
reason alone: they forced her.”
她非常生气，脸上带着讽刺的表情。"我不知道你到底在说什么"
She smiled at me, sneering, she was
really angry.“I don’t understand, explain it.”
“我不会再跟你解释什么，书是你写的，你应该出来解释。我只知道我们在这里，没有任何米兰的出版社会保护我们，没有任何人会为我们在报纸上大张旗鼓地写文章。我们只是地方问题，只能自己想办法。假如你愿意帮一把那就好，不帮的话，我们自己想办法。”
“I’m not explaining anything to you: you
write the books, you’re the one who has to explain. I know only that here we
don’t have any publisher in Milan to protect us, no one who puts big articles
in the newspaper for us. We are only a local matter and we fix things however
we can: if you want to help us, good, and if not we’ll do it alone.”
98
我又去找罗伯特了，千方百计让他把朱利亚诺亲戚家的地址给我，我和伊玛坐上车去找卡门。
I went back to Roberto and harassed him
until he gave me the address of the relatives in Giugliano, then I got in the
car with Imma and left to look for Carmen.
天气热得让人窒息，他们的亲戚住在远郊，我很难找到那个地方。一个体形非常庞大的女人给我开了门，她很不客气地对我说，卡门已经回那不勒斯了。我不相信她所说的，但我带着伊玛离开了，因为她在闹，我们只走了一百多米，她说她很累。我刚拐了一个弯想回到车上时，就看到了卡门，她拎着很多买来的日用品。看到我之后，她马上就哭了起来，我拥抱了她，伊玛也想拥抱她。我们找了一家酒吧，在阴凉处坐下来，我让伊玛和她的布娃娃玩儿，我让卡门跟我说说到底是怎么回事儿。她确认了莉拉对我说的话：她是被迫起诉我的。她跟我也说了原因：“马尔切洛让我相信，他知道帕斯卡莱藏在哪里。”
The heat was suffocating. I had trouble
locating the place, the relatives lived on the outskirts. At the door, a
large woman answered who told me brusquely that Carmen had returned to
Naples. Hardly persuaded, I went off with Imma, who, even though we had
walked only a hundred meters, protested that she was tired. But as soon as I
turned the corner to go back to the car I ran into Carmen, loaded with
shopping bags. It was an instant, she saw me and burst into tears. I hugged
her, Imma wanted to hug her, too. Then we found a café with a table in the
shade and after ordering the child to play silently with her dolls I got
Carmen to explain the situation. She confirmed what Lila had told me: she had
been forced to bring a suit against me. And she also told me the reason:
Marcello had made her believe that he knew where Pasquale was hiding.
“你觉得有没有这种可能？”
“Is it possible?”
“有可能。”
“It’s possible.”
“你知道他藏在哪里吗？”
“And do you know where he’s hiding?”
她犹豫了一下，点了点头说：
She hesitated, she nodded.
“他们说，他们随时都可以把他杀掉。”
“They said that they’ll kill him whenever
they want to.”
我尽量让她平静下来，我对她说，假如索拉拉兄弟知道帕斯卡莱在哪儿，他们一定早就去抓他了，因为他们认为是帕斯卡莱把他们的母亲杀了。
I tried to soothe her. I told her that if
the Solaras really knew where the person they believed had killed their
mother was they would have seized him long ago.
“你觉得他们不知道？”
“So you think they don’t know?”
“也不是说他们不知道，但现在为了你哥哥好，你只能做一件事情。”
“Not that they don’t know. But at this
point for the good of your brother there’s only one thing you can do.”
“什么事儿？”
“What?”
我跟她说，要想救帕斯卡莱，只能把他交给警察。
I told her that if she wanted to save
Pasquale she should turn him in to the carabinieri.
但我的话并没得到一个好结果，她突然变得很冰冷。我赶忙说，那是唯一能使他不会受到索拉拉兄弟伤害的办法。但没有用，我意识到，我提出的方法对她来说就像是糟糕的背叛，比她对我的背叛还要严重。
The effect this produced on Carmen was
not good. She stiffened, I struggled to explain that it was the only way to
protect him from the Solaras. But it was useless, I realized that my solution
sounded to her like the worst of betrayals, something much more serious than
her betrayal of me.
“否则的话，你就落在了他们手上了。”我说，“他们可以让你控告我，也可以叫你做其他事情。”
“This way you remain in their hands,” I
said. “They asked you to bring a suit against me, they can ask you any other
thing.”
“我们是兄妹啊！”她大声说。
“I’m his sister,” she exclaimed.
“这不是兄妹感情的问题。”我说，“在这种情况下，这种姐妹感情给我带来了麻烦，当然也救不了他，还会把你卷进来。”
“It’s not a question of a sister’s love,”
I said. “A sister’s love in this case has harmed me, certainly won’t save
him, and risks ruining you, too.”
我没办法说服她，但越说我就越混乱，很快她又哭了起来。她一会儿懊悔她对我做的，请求我的原谅；一会儿又为她哥哥的安危感到担忧，非常绝望。我记得她小时候的样子，那时候我从来都没想过，她会成为这样一个忠心耿耿的人。我离开了，因为我没办法安慰她，伊玛出了一身汗，我担心她又生病，也因为我不知道我希望卡门做什么。我希望在那么长时间之后，她停止支持帕斯卡莱吗？是什么让我觉得这样做是对的？我希望她选择国家，而不是她哥哥？为什么？就是为了让她摆脱索拉拉兄弟，为了让她取消那个起诉？这比她的焦虑更严重吗？我对她说：
But there was no way to convince her, in
fact the more we talked, the more confused I got. Soon she began crying
again: one moment she felt sorry for what she had done to me and asked my
pardon, the next she felt sorry for what they could do to her brother and she
despaired. I remembered how she had been as a girl, at the time I would never
have imagined that she was capable of such stubborn loyalty. I left her
because I wasn’t able to console her, because Imma was all sweaty and I was
afraid that she would get sick again, because it became increasingly less
clear what I expected from Carmen. Did I want her to break off her long
complicity with Pasquale? Why did I believe it was the right thing? Did I
want her to choose the state over her brother? Why? To take her away from the
Solaras and make her withdraw the suit? Did that count more than her anguish?
I said to her:
“你觉得怎么合适就怎么做吧，你要记住，我不生你的气。”
“Do what you think is best, and remember
that anyway I’m not mad at you.”
听了这句话，卡门眼里冒出一股怒火：
But Carmen at that point had an
unpredictable flash of anger in her eyes:
“你为什么要生我的气？你失去了什么？你整天都出现在报纸上，你做了广告，你的书会卖得更好。不，莱农！你不应该这么说，你建议我把帕斯卡莱交给警察，你错了。”
“And why should you be mad at me? What do
you have to lose? You’re in the newspapers, you’re getting publicity, you’ll
sell more books. No, Lenù, you shouldn’t say that, you advised me to give
Pasquale up to the carabinieri, you were wrong.”
我内心很苦涩地离开了，在回去的路上，我就开始怀疑自己是不是不应该去找她。我想象她可能会去找索拉拉兄弟，跟他们讲我去找她的事情，《晚邮报》上的文章出现之后，他们会强迫她再做其他对我不利的事。
I went away feeling bitter and already on
the drive home I doubted that it had been a good idea to want to see her. I
imagined that she would now go to the Solaras and that they would force her,
after the editor’s article in the Corriere, to take other actions against me.
99
我等着新的麻烦出现，但什么也没发生。那篇文章引起了很大轰动，那不勒斯的本地报纸转载了这篇文章，又加了很多内容，我接到了很多声援我的电话和信件。过了好几个星期，我已经习惯了被起诉的处境，我发现这种事在很多作家身上都发生过，有的人比我冒的风险更大。最后，日常生活占了上风。有一段时间，我避免和莉拉见面，尤其是我很小心，不让自己在她的影响下，做出一些错误的举动。
For days I expected new disasters, but
nothing happened. The article created a certain sensation, the Neapolitan
papers took it up and amplified it, I got phone calls and letters of support.
The weeks passed, and I became used to the idea of being sued; I discovered
that it had happened to many who did the same work I did and had been much
more at risk than I was. Daily life asserted itself. For a while I avoided
Lila, and I was especially careful not to let myself be drawn into making
wrong moves.
那本书一直都卖得很好。八月的时候，我去了卡斯泰拉巴泰的圣母玛丽亚度假村，本来是莉拉和恩佐要在那里找房子度假的，但他们工作走不开，他们自然让我把蒂娜带去了。在那段时间的辛劳和忙碌之中（我要叫这个喊那个，平息她们的矛盾，买东西做饭），唯一让我欣慰的事情是，我看到太阳伞下有人拿着我的书在看。
The book never stopped selling. In August
I went on vacation to Santa Maria di Castellabate; Lila and Enzo were also
supposed to take a house at the sea, but work prevailed and it seemed natural
for them to give Tina to me. The only pleasure, among the endless
difficulties and tasks of that time (call this one, shout at that one, settle
a quarrel, do the shopping, the cooking), was seeing a couple of readers
sitting under their umbrella each with my book in their hands.
到了秋季，情况越来越好了，我获得了一个比较重要的奖项，他们给了获奖者一大笔钱，我觉得自己很棒，能娴熟地进行公关，我的经济状况也越来越让我满意了。但我再也没有书刚出版之后那几个星期的快乐和惊异。我感觉每日的阳光好像都很灰暗，我感觉周围的气氛很糟糕。一段时间以来，每天晚上恩佐都会和詹纳罗吵架，这是之前很少见的事。有几次我去“Basic
Sight”，我看到莉拉和阿方索在说什么，假如我走到他们跟前，莉拉会漫不经心地示意我等一下。现在卡门回到了城区，她和卡门说话时也是同样的情况，和安东尼奥说话时她也是如此——因为一些我不知道的原因，安东尼奥一直在推迟出发去德国的时间。
In the fall things started off better. I
won a fairly important prize that came with a substantial sum, and I felt
smart, skilled in public relations, with increasingly satisfying financial
prospects. But the joy, the astonishment of the first weeks of success never
returned. I felt the days as if the light had become opaque, and I perceived
around me a widespread malaise. For a while there hadn’t been a night when
Enzo didn’t raise his voice with Gennaro, something that had been very rare
before. When I stopped in at Basic Sight I found Lila plotting with Alfonso,
and if I tried to approach she signaled me to wait a moment with a distracted
gesture. She behaved the same way if she was talking to Carmen, who had
returned to the neighborhood, or to Antonio, who for obscure reasons had put
off his departure to some indeterminate time.
很明显，莉拉的处境现在越来越险恶了，但她不让我参与进来，我也乐意置身于事外。后来接连发生了两件非常恐怖的事。莉拉偶然发现，詹纳罗的手臂上全是针眼。我听见她在楼下叫喊，声音从来都没那么大过。她煽动恩佐，让他去痛打她儿子，那是两个非常强壮的男人，打起来不分上下。第二天她把哥哥从“Basic
Sight”里赶了出去，尽管詹纳罗恳求她不要解雇舅舅，他发誓说不是舅舅让他开始吸海洛因的。这场悲剧对于几个孩子影响很大，尤其是黛黛。
It was clear that things around Lila were
getting worse, but she kept me out of it and I preferred to stay out of it.
Then there were two terrible moments, one after the other. Lila happened to
discover that Gennaro’s arms were covered in needle marks. I heard her
screaming as I had never heard her scream before. She incited Enzo, she drove
him to give her son a beating: they were two strong men and they thrashed
each other. The next day she threw her brother Rino out of Basic Sight, even
though Gennaro begged her not to fire his uncle, he swore it wasn’t Rino who
had started him on heroin. That tragedy struck the girls deeply, especially
Dede.
“为什么莉娜阿姨要这样对她儿子？”
“Why does Aunt Lina treat her son like
that?”
“因为他做了他不应该做的事情。”
“Because he did something that he
shouldn’t do.”
“他已经长大了，想做什么都可以。”
“He’s grown-up, he can do what he wants.”
“但他不能做会把他杀死的事。”
“Not what can kill him.”
“为什么呢？生命是他自己的，他有权做他想要做的事。你们不知道什么叫自由，莉娜阿姨也不知道。”
“Why? It’s his life, he has the right to
do what he wants with it. You don’t know what freedom is, and neither does
Aunt Lina.”
她、艾尔莎还有伊玛，听到她们最爱的莉娜阿姨在大声叫喊、骂人，感觉很迷惘。詹纳罗被关在家里，整天都在大喊大叫。他舅舅里诺把公司里一台非常昂贵的机子砸了之后，从“Basic
Sight”里消失了，整个城区都能听到他的叫骂声。皮诺奇娅有一天晚上带着孩子来找莉娜，是她婆婆陪着她来的，求她再次雇用自己的丈夫。莉拉对她母亲和嫂子都非常不客气，她对她们喊了很多难听话，我从家里听得清清楚楚。“这样你就把我们彻彻底底交到索拉拉兄弟手里了。”皮诺奇娅很绝望地喊道。莉拉回答说：“你们活该，我已经受够了，我他妈累死累活，你们一点也不领情。”
She, Elsa, and even Imma were as if
stunned by that outburst of cries and curses that came from their beloved
Aunt Lina. Gennaro was a prisoner in the house and he shouted all day. His
Uncle Rino disappeared from Basic Sight after breaking a very expensive
machine, and his curses could be heard throughout the neighborhood. Pinuccia
came one evening with her children to beg Lila to rehire her husband and
brought her mother-in-law, too. Lila treated both her mother and her
sister-in-law rudely; the shouts and insults reached my house clearly. You
are delivering us hand and foot to the Solaras, Pinuccia cried desperately.
And Lila replied: you deserve it, I’m fucking sick and tired of slaving for
you without a drop of gratitude.
这和几个星期之后发生的事情相比简直算不了什么。她哥哥的事情刚平息，她就开始和阿方索吵架，对于“Basic
Sight”的运营，阿方索现在变得必不可少，然而他越来越不可靠了。他会错过一些非常重要的工作会面，他的表现非常让人尴尬，他描眉画眼，以女性自称。实际上，尽管他很努力，但他现在一点儿也不像莉拉了，他的男性特征越来越明显了，而且他的鼻子、额头、眼睛都浮现出他父亲堂·阿奇勒的影子，他的身体也越来越臃肿，这让他越来越讨厌自己。结果是，他好像要不断逃离他的身体，有时候好几天都不知道他去了哪儿。他再次出现时，身上总是带着被打的痕迹。他会继续上班，但很不情愿。
But that was petty compared to what
happened a few weeks later. Things had scarcely calmed down when Lila began
to quarrel with Alfonso, who was now indispensable to the operations of Basic
Sight and yet had become increasingly unreliable. He missed important
appointments, when he did make them his attitude was an embarrassment, he was
heavily made up, he spoke of himself using the feminine. By now Lila had
disappeared completely from his face and, in spite of his efforts, he was
regaining his masculinity. In his nose, in his forehead, in his eyes
something of his father, Don Achille, was appearing, and he himself was
disgusted by it. As a result he seemed continuously in flight from his own
body, which was putting on weight, and sometimes nothing was heard of him for
days. When he reappeared he almost always showed signs of beatings. He went
back to work but listlessly.
后来有一天，他彻底消失了，莉拉和恩佐到处找他都没找到。几天之后，有人在卡罗伊奥的海滩上发现了他的尸体，他不知道在哪里被人用棒子打死了，扔在海里。当时我无法相信。但当我意识到所有一切都是真的，我感觉很心痛，好几天都缓不过来。他中学时的样子不断浮现在我眼前，他很客气，很在意别人的感受，玛丽莎很爱她，药剂师的儿子吉诺一直在折磨他。有时候我甚至回想到放暑假时，他在肉食店的柜台后面工作的情景，他不得不做一件他不喜欢的工作。我把他生活的其他部分切除了，我不了解他后来的生活，我觉得难以名状。我想不起来他后来变成的样子，我们最近几次见面的情景也变得很模糊，我忘记了他在马尔蒂里广场上的鞋店里工作的时期。我忽然想到，这是莉拉的错，她总是那么热衷于强迫其他人，把所有东西都搅乱，让他失去了自己。莉拉暗地里利用了他，后来任凭他自生自灭。
Then one day he disappeared for good.
Lila and Enzo looked for him everywhere, without success. His body was found
days later on the beach at Coroglio. He had been beaten to death somewhere
else and then thrown into the sea. At the time I couldn’t believe it. When I
realized that it was all brutally true I was seized by a grief that wouldn’t
go away. I saw him again as he had been in our school days, gentle, attentive
to others, beloved by Marisa, tormented by Gino, the pharmacist’s son.
Sometimes I even recalled him behind the counter at the grocery during his
summer vacations, when he was obliged to do a job he detested. But I cut away
the rest of his life, I knew little about it, I felt it as confused. I
couldn’t think of him as what he had become, every recent encounter faded, I
even forgot the period when he worked in the shoe store in Piazza dei
Martiri. Lila’s fault, I thought in the heat of the moment: with her mania
for forcing others by mixing everything up, she overwhelmed him. She had obscurely
used him and then let him go.
但我马上就改变了我的看法。那时候莉拉刚刚知道这个消息。她知道阿方索已经死了，但她还是无法抑制这些天来对他的怒火，她用非常粗鲁的话批评他的不可靠，但是说着说着，她就瘫倒在了我家的地板上，很明显，她无法承受阿方索的死给她带来的痛苦。从那时候开始，我觉得她比我更在意阿方索，她比玛丽莎还要爱他——就像阿方索经常跟我说的那样，没人像莉拉那样帮过他。在接下来的几个小时里，她好像对什么都失去了兴趣，她不再工作，也不管詹纳罗了，她把蒂娜交给我。她和阿方索之间的关系一定比我想象的还要复杂。在阿方索面前，她就像面对一面镜子，莉拉在他身上看到了自己的一部分，她想把这一部分拽出来。我非常不自在地想，这和我的第二本书里讲的截然相反。阿方索一定非常喜欢莉拉做的努力，他把自己当成活生生的材料提供给莉拉，莉拉打造了他。或者我试图把这件事情厘清，让自己平静下来的那段时间，我认为事情是这样的，但从根本上来说这只是我的猜测。实际上，无论是在当时还是在后来，她都没跟我讲过他们之间的关系。她有些痛苦失措，我不知道她怀有什么样的情感，一直到葬礼那天。
But I changed my mind almost right away.
Lila had learned the news several hours earlier. She knew that Alfonso was
dead, but she couldn’t get rid of the rage she had felt for days and kept
insisting, rudely, on his unreliability. Then, right in the middle of a
tirade like this, she collapsed on the floor of my house, evidently because
her grief was unbearable. From that moment it seemed to me that she had loved
him more than I did, even more than Marisa, and—as, besides, Alfonso had
often told me—had helped him as no one else had. In the following hours she
became listless, she stopped working, she lost interest in Gennaro, she left
Tina with me. Between her and Alfonso there must have been a more complex
relationship than I had imagined. She must have looked at him as at a mirror
and seen herself in him and had wanted to draw out of his body a part of
herself. The complete opposite, I thought uneasily, of what I had narrated in
my second book. That work of Lila’s must have pleased Alfonso very much, he
had offered himself to her like a living material and she had molded him. Or
at least so it seemed to me in the brief time in which I tried to put what
had happened in order and calm myself. But, in the end, it was nothing but a
vague impression of mine. In reality she never told me anything about their
bond, not then or later. She was numbed by her suffering, harboring who knows
what feelings, until the day of the funeral.
100
参加阿方索葬礼的人很少，他在马尔蒂里广场上的那些朋友一个也没来，他的亲戚们也没有出席。最让我震惊的是，他母亲玛丽亚、哥哥斯特凡诺、姐姐皮诺奇娅，还有他妻子玛丽莎和几个孩子也都没有来，那些孩子可能是他的，也可能不是。但令人惊异的是，索拉拉兄弟来了。米凯莱非常瘦，他用疯子一样的目光恶狠狠地看着四周。马尔切洛正好相反，几乎是一副悲痛的样子，这和他身上穿的奢华衣服不太相称。他们不仅参加了葬礼，还开着车子来到了公墓，下葬时他们也在场。整个过程我都想，他们为什么要出面参加这场葬礼，我试着寻找莉拉的目光，但她一直都没看我，她用非常挑衅的目光盯着索拉拉兄弟。最后，她看到他们要走了，变得怒不可遏，就捉住了我的一条胳膊说：
There were very few of us at the funeral.
None of Alfonso’s friends from Piazza dei Martiri came, and his relatives
didn’t come, either. I was struck above all by the absence of Maria, his
mother, even though none of his siblings came, neither Pinuccia nor Stefano,
nor was Marisa there with the children, maybe his children, maybe not.
Instead, surprisingly, the Solaras appeared. Michele was grim, very thin, he
was constantly looking around with the eyes of a madman. Marcello, on the
other hand, seemed contrite, an attitude that contrasted with the
luxuriousness of every item of his clothing. They didn’t limit themselves to
the funeral service; they drove to the cemetery, and were present at the
burial. The whole time I wondered why they had showed up at the service and I
tried to catch Lila’s eye. She never looked at me, she focused on them, she
kept staring at them in a provocative manner. At the end, when she saw that
they were leaving, she grabbed my arm, she was furious.
“陪我去一下。”
“Come with me.”
“去哪儿？”
“Where?”
“去和那两个人谈一下。”
“To talk to the two of them.”
“我带着孩子呢。”
“I have the children.”
“让恩佐看一下吧。”
“Enzo will take care of them.”
我有些犹豫，试着说服她，让她别去了。我对她说：
I hesitated, I tried to resist, I said:
“算了吧。”
“Forget it.”
“那我就一个人去。”
“Then I’ll go by myself.”
我叹了一口气，事情一直都是这样：假如我不跟着她，她会马上把我甩开。我向恩佐示意，让他看着孩子——他好像没注意到索拉拉兄弟。我带着小时候跟着她走上通往堂·阿奇勒家门口的楼梯，或者朝那帮男孩子扔石头的心情，跟着她去了，我跟着她穿过一些里面放着死者骨灰的发白的建筑。
I grumbled, it had always been like that:
if I didn’t agree to go with her she abandoned me. I nodded to Enzo to watch
the girls—he seemed not to have noticed the Solaras—and in the same spirit
with which I had followed her up the stairs to Don Achille’s house or in the
stone-throwing battles with the boys, I followed her through the geometry of
whitish buildings, packed with burial niches.
莉拉完全无视马尔切洛，她对着米凯莱说：
Lila ignored Marcello, she stood in front
of Michele:
“你怎么来了？你是不是为自己做的事情感到懊悔？”
“Why did you come? Do you feel some
remorse?”
“不要烦我，莉娜。”
“Don’t bother me, Lina.”
“你们两个完蛋了，你们应该离开城区。”
“You two are finished, you’ll have to
leave the neighborhood.”
“应该离开的人是你，趁着现在还来得及。”
“It’s better if you go, while you still
have time.”
“你是在威胁我吗？”
“Are you threatening me?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“你们不要碰詹纳罗，也不要碰恩佐。米凯！你听到我说的了吗？你要记住，我知道很多你的事情，可以毁掉你，还有你身边这个畜生。”
“Don’t you dare touch Gennaro, and don’t
touch Enzo. Michè, do you understand me? Remember that I know enough to ruin
you, you and that other beast.”
“你什么都不知道，你手头上什么也没有，尤其是你什么都没搞清楚。你那么聪明，你怎么还没发现，我现在根本一点儿都不屌你吗？”
“You don’t know anything, you have
nothing in hand, and above all you’ve understood nothing. Is it possible that
you can be so intelligent and you still don’t know that by now I don’t give a
fuck about you?”
马尔切洛拉了他的一条胳膊，用方言说：
Marcello pulled him by the arm, he said
in dialect:
“我们走吧，米凯！我们在这儿只是浪费时间。”
“Let’s go, Michè, we’re wasting time
here.”
米凯莱挣脱了他哥哥，对莉拉说：
Michele freed his arm forcefully, he
turned to Lila:
“你以为现在莱农一直都在报纸上，我就害怕你了？你是这么想的吗？我会害怕一个写小说的人？她谁都不是，你才是个人物，你的影子都比任何一个有血有肉的人来得强。但你从来都不愿意明白这一点，算你不走运。现在我要让你失去你拥有的一切。”
“You think you scare me because Lenuccia
is always in the newspapers? Is that what you think? That I’m afraid of
someone who writes novels? But this here is no one. You, however, you are
someone, even your shadow is better than any flesh-and-blood person. But you
would never understand, so much the worse for you. I’ll take away everything
you have.”
他说完最后一句话，就好像忽然胃疼，就像一种身体疼痛的自然反应一样，在他哥哥拦住他之前，他一拳狠狠打在了莉拉的脸上，把她打倒在地。
He said that last sentence as if he were
suddenly sick to his stomach, and then, as if reacting to the physical pain,
before his brother could stop him he punched Lila violently in the face,
knocking her to the ground.
