30
那个奶奶当然就是阿黛尔，我打电话给我以前的公公婆婆，是圭多·艾罗塔接的电话，他冷冰冰地把电话转给了他妻子。阿黛尔很客气，她跟我说，艾尔莎在她那里，又补充说，她不是一个人去的。
The grandma was, of course, Adele; I
called my in-laws. Guido answered coldly and put his wife on. Adele was
cordial, she told me that Elsa was there and added, Not only her.
“那个男孩和她在一起？”
“The boy’s there, too?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“我可以去你们那里吗？”
“Would you mind if I came to you?”
“我们等着你来。”
“We’re expecting you.”
我让恩佐把我放在佛罗伦萨火车站。那趟旅行非常复杂，火车晚点，又要等待换车，还有各种各样让人心烦的事儿。我想着艾尔莎，她一定是利用自己的狡黠把阿黛尔也卷入其中。黛黛根本就不会玩手段，但艾尔莎在遇到问题时总是会想出计策来保护自己，她很少失手。很明显，按照她的盘算，她要把里诺放到她奶奶面前，她和黛黛都很清楚，阿黛尔很勉强地才接受我当她的儿媳。一路上我的心踏实很多，因为我知道她在安全的地方，但我痛恨她让我不得不面对的局面。
I had Enzo leave me at the station in
Florence. The journey was complicated, with delays, waits, annoyances of
every type. I thought about how Elsa, with her sly capriciousness, had ended
up involving Adele. If Dede was incapable of deception, Elsa was at her best
when it came to inventing strategies that could protect her and perhaps let
her win. She had planned, it was clear, to impose Rino on me in the presence
of her grandmother, a person who—she and her sister knew well—had been very
unwilling to accept me as a daughter-in-law. For the entire journey I felt
relieved because I knew she was safe and hated her for the situation she was
putting me in.
我来到热内亚，准备面对一场剧烈的冲突，但我发现阿黛尔很热情，圭多·艾罗塔也很客气。至于艾尔莎——她穿着过节的衣服，浓妆艳抹，手上戴着我母亲的手镯，非常鲜艳，还有很多年前她父亲送给我的戒指，她对我很亲热，也很自在，就好像我生她的气是不可理喻的事儿。唯一沉默不语，垂着眼睛，觉得自己做错事的人是里诺，这让我很心软，最后我对他要比对我女儿友好一点。也许恩佐说得对，在这件事情里，里诺并不是很重要，没有起到主导作用，他一点都没学到他母亲的那种刚硬和肆无忌惮的性格，都是艾尔莎把他拖进来的，她只是把里诺当成武器来伤害黛黛。有几次他看着我时，目光像一条忠实的狗。
I arrived in Genoa ready for a hard
battle. But I found Adele very welcoming and Guido polite. As for
Elsa—dressed for a party, heavily made up, on her wrist my mother’s bracelet,
and on full display the ring that years earlier her father had given me—she
was affectionate and relaxed, as if she found it inconceivable that I could
be mad at her. The only silent one, eyes perpetually downcast, was Rino, so
that I felt sorry for him and ended up more hostile toward my daughter than
toward him. Maybe Enzo was right, the boy had had scant importance in that
story. Of his mother’s hardness, her insolence, he had no trace, it was Elsa
who had dragged him along, beguiling him, and only to hurt Dede. The rare
times he had the courage to look at me his glances were those of a faithful
dog.
我很快明白，阿黛尔接待了艾尔莎和里诺，就好像他们是一对夫妇：他们一起睡觉，有自己的房间、自己的毛巾。在奶奶面前，艾尔莎一点儿也不害臊地展示出了他们的亲密关系，也许在我面前是故意这样的。吃完晚饭之后，两个孩子手拉着手进了房间，我婆婆想要引导我说一些里诺的不是。她后来说：“艾尔莎还是一个孩子，我不知道，她在这个小伙子身上看到了什么吸引人的地方，我们应该帮着她走出来。”我打起精神回答说：“里诺是个好孩子，假如不是个好孩子，那也没办法，她爱上里诺了。”我对阿黛尔表示了感谢，感谢她接待了两个孩子，还有她的远见，然后我就去睡觉了。
I quickly understood that Adele had
received Elsa and Rino as a couple: they had their own room, their own
towels, they slept together. Elsa had no trouble flaunting that intimacy
authorized by her grandmother, maybe she even accentuated it for me. When the
two withdrew after dinner, holding hands, my mother-in-law tried to push me
to confess my aversion for Rino. She’s a child, she said at a certain point,
I really don’t know what she sees in that young man, she has to be helped to
get out of it. I tried, I said: He’s a good kid, but even if he weren’t,
she’s in love and there’s little to be done. I thanked her for welcoming them
with affection and broad-mindedness, and went to bed.
但我整晚都睡不着，想着如何面对这个局面。假如我说错一句话，可能会把我的两个女儿都毁了。我没办法让艾尔莎和里诺马上切断关系，我也没办法强迫两个姐妹生活在一个屋檐下，根据目前的情况，这是不可能的。我想，如果这时候我搬到另一个城市，那只能使事情更复杂，艾尔莎会留下来和里诺在一起。我很快意识到，假如我把艾尔莎带回家里，让她念到高中毕业，那我就要让黛黛离开我，让她去她父亲那里。第二天，按照阿黛尔告诉我的最佳的通话时间（我发现她和她儿子经常通话），我给彼得罗打了电话。他母亲已经仔仔细细地跟他讲了发生的事情，阿黛尔对这件事情的真实态度并非她在我面前表现的那样。彼得罗用沉重的语气说：
But I spent the whole night thinking
about the situation. If I said the wrong thing, even just a wrong word, I
would probably ruin both my daughters. I couldn’t make a clean break between
Elsa and Rino. I couldn’t oblige the two sisters to live together at that
impossible moment: what had happened was serious and for a while the two
girls couldn’t be under the same roof. To think of moving to another city
would only complicate things, Elsa would make it her duty to stay with Rino.
I quickly realized that if I wanted to take Elsa home and get her to graduate
from high school I would have to lose Dede—actually send her to live with her
father. So the next day, instructed by Adele about the best time to call (she
and her son—I discovered—talked to each other constantly), I talked to
Pietro. His mother had informed him in detail about what had happened and
from his bad mood I deduced that Adele’s true feelings were certainly not
what she showed me. Pietro said gravely:
“我们应该搞清楚，我们到底是哪门子父母，我们让两个女儿失去了什么东西。”
“We have to try to understand what sort
of parents we’ve been and how we’ve failed our daughters.”
“你是说我不是一个好母亲？”
“Are you saying that I haven’t been and
am not a good mother?”
“我说的是感情需要连续性，我和你都没办法给黛黛和艾尔莎提供这种保证。”
“I’m saying that there’s a need for
continuity of affection and that neither you nor I have been able to insure
that Dede and Elsa have that.”
我打断了他，跟他说，他现在可以做其中一个孩子完整的父亲：黛黛想去美国和他一起生活，马上出发都可以。
I interrupted him, announcing that he
would have a chance to be a full-time father to at least one of the girls:
Dede wanted to go and live with him immediately, she would leave as soon as
possible.
听到这个消息，他并没有太高兴，他沉默了一下，态度有点儿迟疑。他说，他还在适应阶段，他需要时间。我回答说：“你了解黛黛，你们俩一模一样，即使你拒绝她，她也一样会来的。”
He didn’t take the news well, he was
silent, he prevaricated, he said he was still adapting and needed time. I
answered: You know Dede, you’re identical, even if you tell her no you’ll
find her there.
那天，一有机会和艾尔莎面对面谈时，我立刻痛骂了她一通，根本不管她亲热的态度。我让她把钱和首饰都还给我，还有我母亲的手镯。我一字一句地说：“你再也不要碰我的东西。”
The same day, as soon as I had a chance
to talk to Elsa alone, I confronted her, ignoring her blandishments. I had
her give back the money, the jewelry, my mother’s bracelet, which I
immediately put on, stating: You must never touch my things again.
她的语气很温和，她在讨好我，可我不吃这一套。我说，我会毫不犹豫地去起诉里诺，然后是她。她正要顶嘴，我把她推到一面墙上，开始扇她的耳光，我当时的表情应该非常可怕，她吓得哭了起来。
She was conciliatory, I wasn’t, I hissed
that I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to report first of all Rino, and then
her. As soon as she tried to answer I pushed her against a wall, I raised my
hand to hit her. I must have had a terrible expression, she burst into
terrified tears.
“我恨你！”她抽泣着说，“我再也不想见到你，我再也不想回那个狗屎一样的地方去生活。”
“I hate you,” she sobbed. “I don’t ever
want to see you again, I will never go back to that shitty place where you
made us live.”
“好吧，假如你爷爷奶奶不把你赶走的话，我可以让你整个夏天都待在这里。”
“All right, I’ll leave you here for the
summer, if your grandparents don’t kick you out first.”
“然后呢？”
“And then?”
“在九月你要回家，去上学，你会和里诺一起生活在我们的房子里，一直到你厌倦为止！”
“Then in September you’ll come home,
you’ll go to school, you’ll study, you’ll live with Rino in our apartment
until you’ve had enough of him.”
她惊异地看着我，有很长时间她都觉得难以置信。我说出这些话时，就好像那是非常可怕的惩罚，但她觉得，那是一个让人惊异的宽宏大量之举。
She stared at me, stunned; there was a
long instant of incredulity. I had uttered those words as if they contained
the most terrible punishment, she took them as a surprising gesture of
generosity.
“真的吗？”
“Really?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“我永远都不会厌倦的。”
“I’ll never have enough of him.”
“我们再说吧。”
“We’ll see.”
“莉娜阿姨会怎么说？”
“And Aunt Lina?”
“莉娜阿姨会同意的。”
“Aunt Lina will agree.”
“妈妈，我不想伤害黛黛，我爱里诺，事情就这么发生了。”
“I didn’t want to hurt Dede, Mamma, I
love Rino, it happened.”
“这种事情还会发生一千次！”
“It will happen countless more times.”
“这不是真的。”
“It’s not true.”
“算你倒霉。这就意味着你会一辈子爱里诺。”
“Worse for you. It means you’ll love Rino
your whole life.”
“你是在和我开玩笑吗？”
“You’re making fun of me.”
我说我没在开玩笑，我觉得一个小姑娘嘴里说出那样的话，显得很可笑。
I said no, I felt only all the absurdity
of that verb in the mouth of a child.
31
我回到城区，跟莉拉说了我对两个孩子的提议。当时我们的谈话冷冰冰的，就像一场谈判。
I returned to the neighborhood, I told
Lila what I had proposed to the children. It was a cold exchange, almost a
negotiation.
“你让他们住在你家里？”
“You’ll have them in your house?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“假如你没问题，那我也没问题。”
“If it’s all right with you, it’s all
right with me, too.”
“费用我们可以一人承担一半。”
“We’ll split the expenses.”
“可以都由我来承担。”
“I can pay it all.”
“我现在还是有这些钱的。”
“For now I have money.”
“我也有。”
“For now I do, too.”
“那我们说好了。”
“We’re agreed, then.”
“黛黛有什么反应？”
“How did Dede take it?”
“还好，她过几个星期出发去找她父亲。”
“Fine. She’s leaving in a couple of
weeks, she’s going to visit her father.”
“让她过来跟我打个招呼。”
“Tell her to come and say goodbye.”
“我觉得她不会来的。”
“I don’t think she will.”
“那你告诉她，向彼得罗问好。”
“Then tell her to say hello to Pietro for
me.”
“我会告诉她的。”
“I’ll do that.”
忽然间，我感觉一阵心痛，我说：
Suddenly I felt a great sorrow, I said:
“在短短几天时间里，我失去了两个女儿。”
“In just a few days I’ve lost two
daughters.”
“不要说这样的话，你什么都没失去，你反而还多了一个儿子。”
“Don’t use that expression: you haven’t
lost anything, rather you’ve gained a son.”
“这都是你一手造成的。”
“It’s you who pushed him in that
direction.”
她皱着眉头，好像很迷惑。
She wrinkled her forehead, she seemed
confused.
“我不知道你在说什么。”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“你一直在挑唆，刺激，鼓动。”
“You always have to incite, shove, poke.”
“你女儿做的那些事情，你也要算在我头上吗？”
“Now you want to get mad at me, too, for
what your children get up to?”
我嘟哝了一句我很累，就走了。
I muttered, I’m tired, and left.
实际上有好几天，一连几个星期，我都没法摆脱一个想法，那就是莉拉无法忍受我生活中的平衡，她总是试图打破那种平衡。她一直都是这样，在蒂娜失踪之后，她变得更加糟糕了：她采取一个行动，看看后果，然后再采取另一个行动。她的目的是什么呢？也许她自己也不知道。唯一可以肯定的是，我两个女儿的关系破裂了，艾尔莎现在陷入很糟糕的境地，黛黛要离开了，我不知道我在城区还要待多久。
For days, for weeks, in fact, I couldn’t
stop thinking that Lila couldn’t bear the equilibrium in my life and so aimed
at disrupting it. It had always been so, but after Tina’s disappearance it
had worsened: she made a move, observed the consequences, made another move.
The objective? Maybe not even she knew. Of course the relationship of the two
sisters was ruined, Elsa was in terrible trouble, Dede was leaving, I would
remain in the neighborhood for an indeterminate amount of time.
32
我为黛黛的出发做准备。我时不时会对她说：“你留下吧！你走了我会很难过。”她回答说：“你很忙的，根本就不会察觉到我走了。”我又说：“伊玛很依恋你，艾尔莎也是，你们把话说清楚就好了，一切都会过去的。”但黛黛根本不想听到妹妹的名字，我一说到艾尔莎，她就做了一个很厌烦的表情，摔门而去。
I was preoccupied with Dede’s departure.
Occasionally I said to her: Stay, you’re making me very unhappy. She
answered: You have so many things to do, you won’t even notice I’m gone. I
insisted: Imma adores you and so does Elsa, you’ll clear things up, it will
pass. But Dede didn’t want to hear her sister’s name, as soon as I mentioned
it she assumed an expression of disgust and went out, slamming the door.
在出发前的那个晚上，她忽然变得面色苍白，我们在吃晚饭，她开始发抖。她喃喃地说：“我没法呼吸。”伊玛马上给她倒了一杯水。黛黛喝了一口，她离开自己的座位，过来坐在了我的腿上，对我来说这是一个出乎预料的举动。她又高又大，个头比我还高，已经有很长时间她不再和我有身体上的接触了，假如我们偶然碰到彼此，她也会很厌烦地躲开。她的重量、热度还有丰满的腰部让我很惊异，我揽着她的腰，她抱着我的脖子哭了起来，抽泣得很厉害。伊玛也离开了她的位子，走到我们跟前来，也想让我把她搂在怀里。她以为姐姐不会走了，在接下来的几天里，她很高兴，表现得好像一切都恢复了正常。黛黛后来还是决定走了，在那次感情崩溃之后，她表现得更加明确和坚定。她对伊玛很亲切，亲了伊玛无数次，对她说：“你要每星期给我写一封信。”她任凭我拥抱她亲她，但她没有回应。
A few nights before her departure she
suddenly grew very pale—we were having dinner—and began to tremble. She
muttered: I can’t breathe. Imma quickly poured her a glass of water. Dede
took a sip, then left her place and came to sit on my lap. It was something
she had never done. She was big, taller than me, she had long since cut off
even the slightest contact between our bodies; if by chance we touched she
sprang back as if by a force of repulsion. Her weight surprised me, her
warmth, her full hips. I held her around the waist, she put her arms around
my neck, she wept with deep sobs. Imma left her place at the table, came over
and tried to be included in the embrace. She must have thought that her
sister wouldn’t leave, and for the next days she was happy, she behaved as if
everything had been put right. But Dede did leave; rather, after that
breakdown she seemed tougher and more determined. With Imma she was
affectionate, she kissed her hundreds of times, she said: I want at least one
letter a week. She let me hug and kiss her, but without returning it. I
hovered around her, I struggled to predict her every desire, it was useless.
When I complained of her coldness she said: It’s impossible to have a real
relationship with you, the only things that count are work and Aunt Lina;
there’s nothing that’s not swallowed up inside them, the real punishment, for
Elsa, is to stay here. Bye, Mamma.
好的转机是：她开始叫妹妹的名字了。
On the positive side there was only the
fact that she had gone back to calling her sister by name.
33
艾尔莎是一九八八年九月初回家的，我希望她的活力能让我摆脱糟糕的心绪：我觉得，莉拉真的把我拉入了蒂娜失踪之后给她留下的空洞之中。但事情并非如此，里诺出现在我家里，不仅仅没有带来活力，而是使这个家更加黯淡了。他是一个很温顺的小伙子，完全为艾尔莎和伊玛服务，这使两个女儿对他颐指气使，就好像他是家里的仆人。就拿我自己来说吧，我已经习惯于交代他去做一些很乏味的事情，比如说在邮局排队寄东西，这样我就有更多的时间来工作。但是，看着他那笨重迟缓的身体在我眼前晃悠，让我觉得很不舒服。他低眉顺眼，你让他做什么他都会去做，除了生活上的一些细节，比如说小便时要把马桶座掀起来，或者不要把脏内裤和袜子乱丢。
When, in early September of 1988, Elsa
returned home, I hoped that her liveliness would drive out the impression
that Lila really had managed to pull me down into her void. But it wasn’t so.
Rino’s presence in the house, instead of giving new life to the rooms, made
them bleak. He was an affectionate youth, completely submissive to Elsa and
Imma, who treated him like their servant. I myself, I have to say, got into
the habit of entrusting to him endless boring tasks—mainly the long lines at
the post office—which left me more time to work. But it depressed me to see
that big slow body around, available at the slightest nod and yet moping,
always obedient except when it came to basic rules like remembering to raise
the toilet seat when he peed, leaving the bathtub clean, not leaving his
dirty socks and underwear on the floor.
艾尔莎不会为改善局面动一根手指，相反她很乐意让情况更糟糕。我不喜欢她和里诺在伊玛的面前做那些亲昵的动作，我不喜欢她扮演一个无所顾忌的女人，但实际上她只是一个十五岁的小姑娘。尤其是我无法容忍她房间乱糟糟的样子，之前她和黛黛住的房间，现在被她和里诺占据了。她每天睡眼惺忪地起来去上学，匆匆吃完早点就走了。过一会儿了，里诺出现了，他会花上一个多小时吃各种各样的东西，然后把自己关在洗手间里，又是半个小时，他穿好衣服，晃荡一下就出去了。他去学校接艾尔莎，接她回来之后，他们兴高采烈地吃午饭，吃完马上把自己关在房间里。
Elsa didn’t lift a finger to improve the
situation, rather she purposely complicated it. I didn’t like her coy ways
with Rino in front of Imma, I hated her performance as an uninhibited woman
when in fact she was a girl of fifteen. Above all I couldn’t bear the state
in which she left the room where once she had slept with Dede and which now
she occupied with Rino. She got out of bed, sleepily, to go to school, had
breakfast quickly, slipped away. After a while Rino appeared, ate for an
hour, shut himself in the bathroom for at least another half hour, got
dressed, hung around, went out, picked up Elsa at school. When they got back
they ate cheerfully and immediately shut themselves in the room.
那个房间就好像一个犯罪现场，艾尔莎不愿意别人进去收拾，但他们俩谁也不会想着开窗通风，整理一下。在皮诺奇娅来之前，我都会开窗通风，因为我担心皮诺奇娅会嗅到性爱的味道，看到他们留下的痕迹，这让我很心烦。
That room was like a crime scene, Elsa
didn’t want me to touch anything. But neither of them bothered to open the
windows or tidy up a little. I did it before Pinuccia arrived; it annoyed me
that she would smell the odor of sex, that she would find traces of their
relations.
皮诺奇娅不喜欢这种事。当涉及衣服、鞋子、化妆品和发型时，她会很欣赏那些现代的东西，但在那种情况下，她通过各种方式告诉我，我做的决定太现代了，城区的大部分人都这么认为。有一天早上我正在工作，让人非常不舒服的是，她把一只放在报纸上、扎起来防止精液流出来的避孕套展示在我面前。她满脸嫌弃地对我说：“这是我在床底下发现的。”我假装什么事儿也没有，一边在电脑上打字一边说：“你没必要给我看，不是有垃圾桶吗？”
Pinuccia didn’t like the situation. When
it came to dresses, shoes, makeup, hairstyles, she admired what she called my
modernity, but in this case she let me understand quickly and in every
possible way that I had made a decision that was too modern, an opinion that
must have been widespread in the neighborhood. It was very unpleasant, one
morning, to find her there, as I was trying to work, with a newspaper on
which lay a condom, knotted so that the semen wouldn’t spill. I found it at
the foot of the bed, she said disgusted. I pretended it was nothing. There’s
no need to show it to me, I remarked, continuing to type on the computer,
there’s the wastebasket for that.
实际上，我也不知道怎么办才好。刚开始，我想一切慢慢会好转，但事情越来越复杂了。每天我都要和艾尔莎发生冲突，让她不要太过分，黛黛离开带来的伤痛还没愈合，我不想也失去她。我频频去找莉拉，跟她说：“你跟里诺说说吧，他是个乖孩子，你跟他说，让他整洁一些。”但她好像就等着这样的机会，跟我吵架。
In reality I didn’t know how to behave.
At first I thought that over time everything would improve. Every day there
were clashes with Elsa, but I tried not to overdo it; I still felt wounded by
Dede’s departure and didn’t want to lose her as well. So I went more and more
often to Lila to say to her: Tell Rino, he’s a good boy, try to explain that
he has to be a little neater. But she seemed just to be waiting for my
complaints to pick a quarrel.
“让他住下来吧。”有一天早上她很生气，“让他住在你家里，简直不是个好主意。我们这样吧：我家里有地方，你女儿想来找他随时可以下来，想要睡在这里，只要敲敲门。”
“Send him back here,” she raged one
morning, “enough of that nonsense of staying at your house. Rather, let’s do
this: there’s room, when your daughter wants to see him she comes down,
knocks, and sleeps here if she wants.”
我很烦，我女儿要和她儿子睡觉，还得敲门？我忍不住说：
I was annoyed. My child had to knock and
ask if she could sleep with hers? I muttered:
“不用，现在这样就好。”
“No, it’s fine like this.”
“假如这样就好，那我们还说什么？”
“If it’s fine like this, what are we
talking about?”
我叹了一口气说：
I fumed.
“莉拉，我是让你说说里诺，他已经二十四岁了，让他表现得像个大人。我不想一直和艾尔莎吵架，我害怕自己失去控制，把她从家里赶出去。”
“Lila, I’m just asking you to talk to
Rino: he’s twenty-four years old, tell him to behave like an adult. I don’t
want to be quarreling with Elsa continuously, I’m in danger of losing my
temper and driving her out of the house.”
“那问题在你女儿身上，不在我儿子身上。”
“Then the problem is your child, not
mine.”
在那种情况下，气氛很快就变得很紧张，但我们都没发泄出来，她热嘲冷讽，我很沮丧地回到家里。有一天晚上，我们在吃晚饭，从楼梯间传来一声不容置否的叫喊，莉拉让她儿子马上回去。里诺很担忧，艾尔莎主动陪他下去了。莉拉看到艾尔莎，说：“这是我们的家事，回你家去吧。”我女儿很沮丧地回来了，之后，下面爆发出一阵疯狂的争吵。莉拉在叫喊，恩佐和里诺也在嚷嚷。我为艾尔莎感到难过，她很不安，她的手在抖。她说：“妈妈，发生了什么？为什么他们要这样对待里诺，你帮他开脱一下吧。”
On those occasions the tension rose
rapidly but had no outlet; she was sarcastic, I went home frustrated. One
evening we were having dinner when, from the stairs, her intransigent cry
reached us, she wanted Rino to come to her immediately. He got agitated, Elsa
offered to go with him. But as soon as Lila saw her she said: This is our
business, go home. My daughter returned sullenly and meanwhile downstairs a
violent quarrel erupted. Lila shouted, Enzo shouted, Rino shouted. I suffered
for Elsa, who was anxiously wringing her hands, she said: Mamma, do
something, what’s happening, why do they treat him like that?
我什么都没说，什么也没做。下面的争吵声平息了下来，过了一会儿，里诺没上来。艾尔莎让我下去看看发生了什么。我下去了，是恩佐而不是莉拉开的门，他很疲惫、无精打采，也没让我进去。他说：
I said nothing, I did nothing. The
quarrel stopped, some time passed, Rino didn’t return. Elsa then insisted
that I go see what had happened. I went down and Enzo, not Lila, opened the
door. He was tired, depressed, he didn’t invite me to come in. He said:
“莉拉对我说，里诺在你那儿表现不好，他应该回到这里住。”
“Lila told me that the boy doesn’t behave
well, so from now on he’s staying here.”
“让我跟她谈谈。”
“Let me talk to her.”
我和莉拉谈到了深夜，恩佐把自己关在另一个房间里，他表情阴郁。我很快明白，她希望我恳求她。她介入了，她把她儿子叫回去，羞辱了一番。现在她期望我对她说：“你儿子就是我儿子，他在我家里和艾尔莎一起睡，一点儿问题也没有。我再也不抱怨了。”我坚持了很长时间，最后我屈服了，把里诺带回了家。刚离开他们家，我就听见她和恩佐又开始吵架。
I discussed it with Lila until late into
the night; Enzo, gloomy, shut himself in another room. I understood almost
immediately that she wanted to be thanked. She had intervened, she had taken
back her son, had humiliated him. Now she wanted me to say to her: Your son
is like a son of mine, it’s fine with me that he’s at my house, that he
sleeps with Elsa, I won’t come and complain anymore. I resisted for a long
time, then I gave in and brought Rino back to my house. As soon as we left
the apartment I heard her and Enzo start fighting again.
34
里诺对我很感激。
Rino was grateful.
“莱农阿姨，我欠你太多了，你是我认识的人中最好的，我会永远爱你。”
“I owe you everything, Aunt Lenù, you’re
the best person I know and I’ll always love you.”
“里诺，我一点儿也不好。我只拜托你一件事情，你要记住，我们家只有一个洗手间，那个洗手间，除了艾尔莎，我和伊玛也要用的。”
“Rino, I’m not good at all. All you owe
me is the favor of remembering that we have a single bathroom and, besides
Elsa, Imma and I also use that bathroom.”
“你说得对，对不起，有时候我会疏忽，我再也不了。”
“You’re right, I’m sorry, sometimes I get
distracted, I won’t do it anymore.”
他不停地道歉，但他依然不停地疏忽。他用自己的方式表达他的努力，他说了一千次他要找一份工作，要分担家里的费用，他会非常小心，不会给我带来不便，他对我崇拜得五体投地等等。他一直都没找到工作，在日常生活里，他各个方面还是像以前一样，甚至表现得更加糟糕。但我再也没去找莉拉，我一直对她说一切都好。
He constantly apologized, he was
constantly distracted. He was, in his way, in good faith. He declared
endlessly that he wanted to find a job, that he wanted to contribute to the
household expenses, that he would be very careful not to cause me trouble in
any way, that he had an unbounded respect for me. But he didn’t find a job,
and life, in all the most dispiriting aspects of dailiness, continued as
before, and perhaps worse. At any rate, I stopped going to Lila. I told her:
Everything’s fine.
我觉得她和恩佐之间的关系越来越紧张，我不想成为他们吵架的导火索。有一段时间，我最担心的事情发生了，就是他们吵架的性质变了。在过去总是莉拉在嚷嚷，恩佐一直沉默不语，但现在事情已经不再是这样。莉拉在叫喊，我经常会听到蒂娜的名字，她的声音穿透地板，就像生病时痛苦的呻吟，恩佐忽然间就爆发了，他用那种充满暴力的方言发出怒吼，像激流一样滔滔不绝。这时候莉拉会忽然停下来，恩佐大喊大叫时，听不见她的声音，但他一停下来，我就能听见摔门的声音。我听着莉拉的脚步声出现在楼梯间，她会下楼，最后她的脚步声淹没在大路上来来往往的车流声中。
It was becoming very clear to me that the
tension between her and Enzo was increasing, and I didn’t want to be the fuse
for their rages. What had been upsetting me, for a while, was that the nature
of their arguments had changed. In the past Lila yelled and Enzo for the most
part was silent. But now it wasn’t like that. She yelled, I often heard
Tina’s name, and her voice, filtered through the floor, seemed a kind of sick
whine. Then suddenly Enzo exploded. He shouted and his shouting extended into
a tumultuous torrent of exasperated words, all in violent dialect. Lila was
silent then; while Enzo shouted she couldn’t be heard. But as soon as he was
silent you could hear the door slam. I strained my ears for the shuffling of
Lila on the stairs, in the entrance. Then her steps vanished in the sounds of
the traffic on the stradone.
之前，恩佐还会追上去，但现在他已经不会那么做了。我想，也许我应该下去和他谈谈，告诉他：你也跟我说过，莉娜依然很痛苦，那你就体谅一下。但我放弃了，我希望她能尽早回来，但她一整天都在外面晃悠，有时候晚上也不回来。她在做什么？我想象她躲在图书馆里，就像彼得罗跟我讲的，要么她在那不勒斯转悠，很仔细地看着每栋大楼、每座教堂、每处遗迹和纪念碑。要么她会把这两样东西混合起来：先是在城里逛荡，然后在书上找到相关的资料。我的生活应接不暇，我从来都没时间也没有心情和她提到她生活里的这些新动向，她也从来都没和我说过。但我知道，假如她对一件发生兴趣，她的注意力会很集中，会很狂热，她会投入很多的时间和精力。让我担心的是她在吵完架之后的消失，还有她夜里也会在外面逛荡。这时候，我脑子里会想到这个城市下面那些凝灰岩隧道，还有阿尔克教堂里会把那些不幸的灵魂引向炼狱的盛放死者头骨的墓穴，青铜色的骷髅。有时候我一直无法入睡，直到听到她的脚步声从楼下上来，还有关门的声音。
Enzo used to run after her, but now he
didn’t. I thought: maybe I should go down, talk to him, tell him: You
yourself told me how Lina continues to suffer, be understanding. But I gave
up and hoped that she would return soon. But she stayed away the whole day
and sometimes even the night. What was she doing? I imagined that she took
refuge in some library, as Pietro had told me, or that she was wandering
through Naples, noting every building, every church, every monument, every
plaque. Or that she was combining the two things: first she explored the
city, then she dug around in books to find information. Overwhelmed by
events, I had never had the wish or the time to mention that new mania, nor
had she ever talked to me about it. But I knew how she could become
obsessively focused when something interested her, and it didn’t surprise me
that she could dedicate so much time and energy to it. I thought about it
with some concern only when her disappearances followed the shouting, and the
shadow of Tina joined the one vanishing into the city, even at night. Then
the tunnels of tufa under the city came to mind, the catacombs with rows of
death’s-heads, the skulls of blackened bronze that led to the unhappy souls
of the church of Purgatorio ad Arco. And sometimes I stayed awake until I
heard the street door slam and her footsteps on the stairs.
在那些黑暗的日子里，有一天，我先是听到吵架的声音，她离开了。我很担心地从窗口向外往，然后就看到有几个警察朝着我们这栋楼走来。警察来她家里了，我马上跑到了楼梯口。那些警察是来找恩佐的，他们逮捕了他。我试图介入，想搞清楚是怎么回事儿，但警察毫不客气地让我闭嘴，给他戴上手铐带走了。走下楼梯时，恩佐用方言对着我喊了一句：“莉娜回来之后，告诉她不要担心，我不会有事的。”
On one of those dark days the police
appeared. There had been a quarrel, she had left. I looked out at the window
in alarm, I saw the police heading toward our building. I was frightened, I
thought something had happened to Lila. I hurried onto the landing. The
police were looking for Enzo, they had come to arrest him. I tried to
intervene, to understand. I was rudely silenced, they took him away in
handcuffs. As he went down the stairs Enzo shouted to me in dialect: When
Lina gets back tell her not to worry, it’s a lot of nonsense.
35
有很长时间，我都很难搞清楚恩佐犯了什么事儿。莉拉对他的态度变了，不再那么充满敌意，她打起精神为他四处活动，面对这个新考验，她一声不吭，非常坚决。当她发现，国家不承认她类似于妻子的身份——因为她和斯特凡诺没办离婚手续，也没和恩佐正式结合，所以她不能和恩佐见面，她非常气愤。她花了很多钱，通过正式以及非正式的途径，让恩佐感觉到她的支持和关心。
For a long time it was hard to know what
he was accused of. Lila stopped being hostile toward him, gathered her
strength, and concerned herself only with him. In that new ordeal she was
silent and determined. She became enraged only when she discovered that the
state—since she had no official bond with Enzo and, furthermore, had never
been separated from Stefano—wouldn’t grant her a status equivalent to a wife
or, as a result, the possibility of seeing him. She began to spend a lot of
money so that, through unofficial channels, he would feel her closeness and
her support.
这段时期我又去找了尼诺，我从玛丽莎那里得知，要想得到尼诺的帮助简直是痴心妄想，他甚至都不会为他父亲、母亲和几个弟弟妹妹动一根手指头。但在我的请求下，他马上就行动起来了，也许是想在伊玛面前有面子，也许他想要在莉拉面前展示他的权力——尽管是通过间接的方式。无论如何，即使是他，也没能搞清楚恩佐的具体情况，在不同的时候，他跟我说了几个不同的版本，连他自己都觉得他说的不可靠。发生了什么事？当然是和娜迪亚有关，在她哭哭啼啼的陈述当中，她提到了恩佐的名字。她提到了那个时期，恩佐、帕斯卡莱曾和法院路上的那些工人和学生组织来往密切。她把早年一些抗议性行动归到了他们身上，就是毁坏居住在曼佐尼街上的北约官员的财产的行动。当然，那些审讯者想证实恩佐也参加了帕斯卡莱的其他众多的犯罪行动，但他们没什么确切的证据。他们开始推测，恩佐和帕斯卡莱一起采取了一些非政治性的行动。也许娜迪亚认为，那些血腥事件中有一部分，尤其是谋杀布鲁诺·索卡沃，都是帕斯卡莱执行的，但所有这些都是由恩佐策划的。也许娜迪亚说，她从帕斯卡莱那里得知，杀死索拉拉兄弟的人有三个——他、安东尼奥·卡普乔还有恩佐·斯坎诺，他们是一起长大的朋友，情同手足，他们跟索拉拉兄弟有很多个人恩怨，所以决定报仇雪恨。
Meanwhile I went back to Nino. I knew
from Marisa that it was useless to expect help from him, he wouldn’t lift a
finger even for his own father, his mother, his siblings. But with me he
again readily made an effort, maybe to make a good impression on Imma, maybe
because it meant showing Lila, if indirectly, his power. Not even he,
however, could understand precisely what Enzo’s situation was and at
different times he gave me different versions that he himself admitted were
not reliable. What had happened? It was certain that Nadia, in the course of
her sobbing confessions, had mentioned Enzo’s name. It was certain that she
had dug up the period when Enzo, with Pasquale, had frequented the
worker-student collective in Via dei Tribunali. It was certain that she had
implicated them both in small demonstrations, carried out, many years
earlier, against the property of NATO officials who lived in Via Manzoni. It
was certain that the investigators were trying to involve Enzo, too, in many
of the crimes that they had attributed to Pasquale. But at this point
certainties ended and suppositions began. Maybe Nadia had claimed that Enzo
had had recourse to Pasquale for crimes of a nonpolitical nature. Maybe Nadia
had claimed that some of those bloody acts—in particular the murder of Bruno
Soccavo—had been carried out by Pasquale and planned by Enzo. Maybe Nadia had
said she had learned from Pasquale himself that it was three men who killed
the Solara brothers: him, Antonio Cappuccio, Enzo Scanno, childhood friends
who, incited by a longtime solidarity and by an equally longstanding
resentment, had committed that crime.
那些年情况非常复杂，整个世界的秩序都发生了翻天覆地的变化。那些经过长期学习获得的技能、坚持的正确政治路线，忽然间变得很没意义，没必要在上面浪费时间。无政府主义、马克思主义、葛兰西主义、共产主义、列宁主义、托洛茨基主义、工运中心主义忽然都变成了过时的标签。一个人对另一个人的压榨，利益最大化，这些之前被认为是让人痛恨的事，现在又成了自由和民主的基本点。同时通过或合法或非法的途径，国家开始用强硬的办法清算以前的革命组织留下的问题。经常会有人被暗杀，或者被关进监狱，一些普通人也会仓皇逃跑。像尼诺那样的人，他已成了议会成员，或者像阿尔曼多·加利亚尼那样的人，他通过电视已经小有名气了，他们早就意识到，形势会发生变化，他们马上就适应了新局面。至于像娜迪亚的人，警察会让他们老实交代，很明显，他们会通过告发自己的同伙，来洗清自己。我想，像帕斯卡莱和恩佐那样的人不会那么做，他们一定还在继续思考、表达、进攻和捍卫自己，他们会提出他们在六七十年代学到的那些口号。实际上，帕斯卡莱在监狱里依然坚持斗争，对于那些国家公仆，他一个字都没有说，他没揭发别人，也没有为自己开脱。恩佐当时是开口了，他是用那种很简洁的方式斟词酌句，表达了自己身为Communist的感情，同时否认别人对他的指控。
They were complicated years. The order of
the world in which we had grown up was dissolving. The old skills resulting
from long study and knowledge of the correct political line suddenly seemed
senseless. Anarchist, Marxist, Gramscian, Communist, Leninist, Trotskyite,
Maoist, worker were quickly becoming obsolete labels or, worse, a mark of
brutality. The exploitation of man by man and the logic of maximum profit,
which before had been considered an abomination, had returned to become the
linchpins of freedom and democracy everywhere. Meanwhile, by means legal and
illegal, all the accounts that remained open in the state and in the
revolutionary organizations were being closed with a heavy hand. One might
easily end up murdered or in jail, and among the common people a stampede had
begun. People like Nino, who had a seat in parliament, and like Armando
Galiani—who was now famous, thanks to television—had intuited for a while
that the climate was changing and had quickly adapted to the new season. As for
those like Nadia, evidently they had been well advised and were cleansing
their consciences by informing. But not people like Pasquale and Enzo. I
imagine that they continued to think, to express themselves, to attack, to
defend, resorting to watchwords they had learned in the sixties and
seventies. In truth, Pasquale carried on his war even in prison, and to the
servants of the state said not a word, either to implicate or to exonerate
himself. Enzo, on the other hand, certainly talked. In his usual laborious
way, weighing every word with care, he displayed his feelings as a Communist
but at the same time denied all the charges that had been brought against
him.
同时，莉拉在监狱外面，也集中她的聪明才智，还有她的坏脾气，和那些非常昂贵的律师一起投入了一场战斗，想把他捞出来。恩佐是一个幕后策划者？一个战士？他什么时候做的这些？假如很多年里他从早到晚都在“Basic
Sight”工作，他怎么可能会和安东尼奥还有帕斯卡莱一起把索拉拉兄弟杀了，假如同一时间他在阿维利诺，而安东尼奥在德国？除此之外，假如他们都在城区，但大家对他们都非常熟悉，无论他们戴不戴面罩，一定都会被认出来的。
Lila, for her part, focused her acute
intelligence, her bad character, and very expensive lawyers on the battle to
get him out of trouble. Enzo a strategist? A combatant? And when, if he had
been working for years, from morning to night, at Basic Sight? How would it
have been possible to kill the Solaras with Antonio and Pasquale if he was in
Avellino at the time and Antonio was in Germany? Above all, even admitting
that it was possible, the three friends were well known in the neighborhood
and, masked or not, would have been recognized.
但没办法，法律机器勇往直前，后来我开始担心莉拉也会被逮捕。娜迪亚说出了一个又一个名字，警察把那些在法院路上参加活动的人一个个都抓了起来：有一个是在粮农组织工作的人，有一个是银行职员，还有阿尔曼多的前妻伊莎贝拉也没躲过这一劫，虽然她现在已经是国家电力公司的一个技术人员的全职太太。尽管大家都很担心，但娜迪亚只放过了两个人：她哥哥和莉拉。也许加利亚尼老师的女儿想着，把恩佐牵扯进来对于莉拉已经是一个很沉重的打击。或者她一直都很痛恨莉拉，但从根本上来说，也许很尊敬她，经过再三犹豫之后，她决定放过莉拉。要么就是她很害怕莉拉，她害怕直面莉拉。但我更乐意相信，因为她知道了蒂娜的事情，她对莉拉产生了同情，或者更进一步说，假如一个母亲受到了这种打击，那没有任何东西可以伤害到她了。
But there was little to do, the wheels of
justice, as they say, advanced, and at a certain point I was afraid that
Lila, too, would be arrested. Nadia named names upon names. They arrested
some of those who had been part of the collective of Via dei Tribunali—one
worked at the U.N., one at the F.A.O., one was a bank employee—and even
Armando’s former wife, Isabella, a peaceful housewife married to a technician
at Enel, got her turn. Nadia spared only two people: her brother and, in
spite of widespread fears, Lila. Maybe the daughter of Professor Galiani
thought that by involving Enzo she had already struck her deeply. Or maybe
she hated her and yet respected her, so that after much hesitation she
decided to keep her out of it. Or maybe she was afraid of her, and feared a
direct confrontation. But I prefer the hypothesis that she knew the story of
Tina and took pity on her, or, better still, she had thought that if a mother
has an experience like that, there is nothing that can truly hurt her.
但对于恩佐的那些指控慢慢澄清了，那都是一些没根据的事。这次法律失手了，开始变得疲惫。总的来说，经过很多个月的调查，只有极少的几个问题站得住脚：他和帕斯卡莱是老朋友；在圣约翰·特杜奇奥时期，他是工人学生运动的积极分子；还有赛里诺山上的一座小破房子——帕斯卡莱的藏身之所，是从他阿维利诺一个亲戚那里租的。经过一轮又一轮的审判，开始他被认为是一个非常危险的恐怖分子首领，策划执行了一些非常残酷的犯罪行为，后来成了一个武装斗争的支持者，再后来就连那种支持也成了一种泛泛的观点，从来都没变成犯罪行为，最后恩佐被释放了。
Meanwhile, eventually, the charges
against Enzo proved to be without substance, justice lost its grip, got
tired. After many months, very little remained standing: his old friendship
with Pasquale, militancy in the worker-student committee in the days of San
Giovanni a Teduccio, the fact that the run-down farmhouse in the mountains of
Serino, the one where Pasquale had been hiding, was rented to one of his
Avellinese relations. Step by judicial step, he who had been considered a
dangerous leader, the planner and executor of savage crimes, was demoted to
sympathizer with the armed struggle. When finally even those sympathies
proved to be generic opinions that had never been transmuted into criminal
actions, Enzo returned home.
但距恩佐被逮捕已经过去了两年，在城区里大家都开始觉得，他是一个比帕斯卡莱·佩卢索还更危险的恐怖分子。我们从小都认识帕斯卡莱，他一直都在干活，根据街头巷尾的传说，他唯一的错误就在于，他是一个忠于自己理想的人，尽管柏林的墙倒了，但他也不会脱去Communist员的外衣，就好像他父亲把这层外衣缝在了他身上，他永远都不会退缩，他把别人的过错也扛在了自己肩上。他们说，恩佐很聪明，他通过“Basic
Sight”的生意把自己伪装起来了，尤其是他背后的人是莉娜·赛鲁罗——他的主心骨，一个比他更危险、更聪明的人物。他们俩应该做了很多可怕的事。总之，那些闲言碎语让人们觉得：他们俩是真正杀人放火的人，但他们非常狡猾，逃脱了所有惩罚。
But by then almost two years had passed
since his arrest, and in the neighborhood a reputation as a terrorist who was
much more dangerous than Pasquale Peluso had solidified around him.
Pasquale—said people on the streets and in the shops—we’ve all known him
since he was a child, he always worked, his only crime was that he was always
an upright man who, even after the fall of the Berlin Wall, didn’t shed the
uniform of a Communist his father sewed on him, who took on himself the sins
of others and will never surrender. Enzo, on the other hand—they said—is very
intelligent, he is well camouflaged by his silences and by the Basic Sight
millions, above all he has behind him, directing him, Lina Cerullo, his black
soul, more intelligent and more dangerous than he is: the two of them, yes,
they must have done horrible things. Thus, as spiteful rumors accumulated,
they were both marked out as people who not only had shed blood but had been
clever enough to get away with it.
在这种气氛下，因为莉拉之前的漫不经心，还有后来在律师身上的大笔花费，他们的公司一直都无法重新启动。他们商量着把公司卖掉，尽管恩佐之前经常预测，这个公司值十亿里拉，但后来他们很艰难地才卖出了一亿里拉。一九九二年春天，他们已经不吵架了，他们分开了——无论是作为生意伙伴，还是作为同居伴侣。恩佐把大部分钱都留给了莉娜，他去米兰找工作。有一天下午，他对我说：“你要多关心她，她一直跟自己过不去，到老了会更难过。”有一段时间，他一直给我写信，我也给他回信，他给我打了几次电话，后来就没消息了。
In that climate their business, already
in trouble because of Lila’s indifference and the money she had spent on
lawyers and other things, couldn’t get going again. By mutual consent they
sold it, and although Enzo had often imagined that it was worth a billion
lire, they barely got a couple of hundred million. In the spring of 1992,
when they had stopped fighting, they separated both as business partners and
as a couple. Enzo left a good part of the money to Lila and went to look for
work in Milan. To me he said one afternoon: Stay near her, she’s a woman who
isn’t comfortable with herself, she’ll have a hard old age. For a while he
wrote regularly, I did the same. A couple of times he called me. Then that
was all.
