Smiley's People汉译79
Listening to Mikhel’s polished phrases, staring at his polished boots, Smiley found himself marvelling at the man’s age. The Russians occupied Estonia in 1940, he recalled. To have been a cavalry officer then, Mikhel would now have to be sixty if a day. He tried to assemble the rest of Mikhel’s turbulent biography—the long road through foreign wars and untrusted ethnic brigades, all the chapters of history contained in this one little body. He wondered how old the boots were.“Tell me about his last days, Mikhel,” Smiley suggested. “Was he active to the very end?”
“Completely active, Max, active in all respects. As a patriot. As a man. As a leader.”
Her expression as contemptuous as before, Elvira put the tea before them, two cups with lemon, and small marzipan cakes. In motion she was insinuating, with fluid haunches and a sullen hint of challenge. Smiley tried to remember her background also, but it eluded him or perhaps he had never known it. He was a brother to her, he thought. He instructed her. But something from his own life had long ago warned him to mistrust explanations, particularly of love.
“As a member of the Group?” Smiley asked when she had left them. “Also active?”
“Always,” said Mikhel gravely.
There was a small pause while each man politely waited for the other to continue.
听着米克尔冠冕堂皇的话，看着他擦得锃亮的靴子，斯迈利不禁对这个男人的年龄感到好奇。他记得，俄国人在1940年占领了爱沙尼亚。如果米克尔当时是一名骑兵军官，现在应该已经六十多岁了。他试图把米克尔颠沛流离的生平拼凑完整。他在漫长的人生道路中，在外国打过仗，参加过不被信任的少数民族部队，仿佛这小小的身躯包含了历史书的所有篇章。他想知道这双靴子有多旧。
“跟我说说他最后的日子吧，米克尔，”斯迈利建议道。“他一直都很活跃，直到最后吗？”
“绝对活跃，马克斯，各方面都很活跃。作为一个爱国者。作为一个男人。作为一个领袖。”
埃尔维拉带着和刚才一样的轻蔑表情，把茶放在他们面前，两杯柠檬茶，还有小杏仁饼。她腰臀部的曲线在流畅地流动，一举一动似乎带着某种暗示，有点愠怒和挑战的意味。斯迈利试图回忆起她的背景，但想不起来，或许他从来就不知道。他想着米克尔的话：他就像是她的兄长，教导过她。但他早就从生活经历中得到警示：不要相信别人的解释，尤其是在感情问题上。
“作为小组成员？” 斯迈利等她走开后问道。“也活跃吗？”
“一直都很活跃。”米克尔严肃地说。
两人都稍稍停顿了一下，礼貌地等待对方继续说下去。
“Who do you think did it, Mikhel? Was he betrayed?”
“Max, you know as well as I do who did it. We are all of us at risk. All of us. The call can come any time. Important is, we must be ready for it. Myself I am a soldier, I am prepared, I am ready. If I go, Elvira has her security. That is all. For the Bolshevites we exiles remain enemy number one. Anathema. Where they can, they destroy us. Still. As once they destroyed our churches and our villages and our schools and our culture. And they are right, Max. They are right to be afraid of us. Because one day we shall defeat them.”
“But why did they choose this particular moment?” Smiley objected gently after this somewhat ritualistic pronouncement. “They could have killed Vladimir years ago.”
Mikhel had produced a flat tin box with two tiny rollers on it like a mangle, and a packet of coarse yellow cigarette-papers. Having licked a paper, he laid it on the rollers and poured in black tobacco. A snap, the mangle turned, and there on the silvered surface lay one fat, loosely packed cigarette. He was about to help himself to it when Elvira came over and took it. He rolled another and returned the box to his pocket.
“Unless Vladi was up to something, I suppose,” Smiley continued after these staged manoeuvres.
“Unless he provoked them in some way—which he might have done, knowing him.”
“Who can tell?” Mikhel said, and blew some more smoke carefully into the air above them.
“你认为是谁干的，米克尔？他被出卖了吗？”
“马克斯，你和我一样清楚是谁干的。我们都有危险。我们所有人都有危险。随时可能有不测风云。重要的是，我们必须做好准备。我自己是个军人，我已经为此做好了一切准备工作。我已经有充分思想准备。如果我去了，埃尔维拉还是有保障的。就是这样。对布尔什维克来说，我们这些流亡者仍然是头号敌人。是深恶痛绝的敌人。只要他们有能力，他们就会消灭我们。情况还是这样。就像他们曾经摧毁我们的教堂，我们的村庄，我们的学校，我们的文化一样。他们是对的，马克斯。他们害怕我们是对的。因为总有一天我们会打败他们。”
“但他们为什么偏偏要选择这个时候下手呢？”米克尔的这番话像是在举行什么隆重的仪式，斯迈利听了后温和地表示不同意见。“他们早在几年前就可以杀死弗拉基米尔了。”
米克尔拿出一个扁平的锡盒，上面有两个小滚轴，就像一个绞盘，还有一包黄色的粗烟纸。他舔了舔烟纸，把它放在滚轴上，然后倒入黑色烟丝。啪嗒一声，卷烟器转动起来，银色的表面上躺着一根卷得很粗很松的香烟。他正准备自己抽，埃尔维拉走过来把烟拿走了。他又卷了一根，把烟盒放回口袋。
“我想，除非弗拉迪在搞什么行动，”斯迈利等他表演完后继续说道。
“除非他什么地方激怒了他们——以他的为人，他可能会这么做。”
“谁知道呢？”米克尔说着，又小心翼翼地向他们头顶的空中吹了几口烟。
“Well, you can, Mikhel, if anyone can. Surely he confided in you. You were his right-hand man for twenty years or more. First Paris, then here. Don’t tell me he didn’t trust you,” said Smiley ingenuously.
“Our leader was a secretive man, Max. This was his strength. He had to be. It was a military necessity.”
“But not towards you, surely?” Smiley insisted, in his most flattering tone. “His Paris adjutant. His aide-de-camp. His confidential secretary? Come, you do yourself an injustice!”
Leaning forward in his throne, Mikhel placed a small hand strictly across his heart. His brown voice took on an even deeper tone.
“Max. Even towards me. At the end, even towards Mikhel. It was to shield me. To spare me dangerous knowledge. He said to me even: ‘Mikhel, it is better that you—even you—do not know what the past has thrown up.’ I implored him. In vain. He came to me one evening. Here. I was asleep upstairs. He gave the special ring on the bell: ‘Mikhel, I need fifty pounds.’”
Elvira returned, this time with an empty ashtray, and as she put it on the table Smiley felt a surge of tension like the sudden working of a drug. He experienced it driving sometimes, waiting for a crash that didn’t happen. And he experienced it with Ann, watching her return from some supposedly innocuous engagement and knowing—simply knowing—it was not.
“When was this?” he asked when she had left again.
“你应该知道，米克尔，如果有人知道的话。他肯定跟你透露过。你当了他二十多年的得力助手。先是在巴黎，然后是这里。别跟我说他不信任你。"斯迈利坦率地说。
“我们的领袖是个守口如瓶的人，马克斯。这是他的强项。他必须如此。这是军事需要。”
“但肯定不会对你这样喽？” 斯迈利抓住这个话题不放，给米克尔戴高帽子，“你是什么人？他在巴黎时的高级助手。他的贴身参谋。他的机要秘书！得了，你也太委屈自己了！”
米克尔在宝座上欠了欠身子，把一只小手放在心口正中。他浑厚的声音变得更加深沉了。
“马克斯，对我也一样。最后，甚至对米克尔也一样。那是为了保护我。不让我知道可能会给我带来危险的内容。他甚至对我说：'米克尔，你——甚至你——最好不要知道过去发生了什么。我恳求他透露一点，但徒劳无功。一天晚上，他来找我，就在这里。我在楼上睡觉。他用暗号按了门铃：'米克尔，我需要五十英镑。'”。
埃尔维拉回来了，这次她带来了一个空烟灰缸，当她把烟灰缸放在桌子上时，斯迈利感到一阵紧张，就像毒品突然发作一样。他有时开车时也会有这种感觉，等待着一场没有发生的车祸。他和安在一起时也有这种感觉，看着她从一些所谓无害的约会中回来，他知道——凭直觉就知道——这不是真的。
“这是什么时候的事？”她再次离开后，他问道。
“Twelve days ago. One week last Monday. From his manner I am able to discern immediately that this is an official affair. He has never before asked me for money. ‘General,’ I say to him. ‘You are making a conspiracy. Tell me what it is.’ But he shakes his head. ‘Listen,’ I tell him, ‘if this is a conspiracy, take my advice, go to Max.’ He refused. ‘Mikhel,’ he tells me, ‘Max is a good man, but he does not have confidence any more in our Group. He wishes, even, that we end our struggle. But when I have landed the big fish I am hoping for, then I shall go to Max and claim our expenses and perhaps many things besides. But this I do afterwards, not before. Meanwhile I cannot conduct my business in a dirty shirt. Please, Mikhel. Lend me fifty pounds. In all my life this is my most important mission. It reaches far into our past.’ His words exactly. In my wallet I had fifty pounds—fortunately I had that day made a successful investment—I give them to him. ‘General,’ I said. ‘Take all I have. My possessions are yours. Please,’” said Mikhel and to punctuate this gesture—or to authenticate it—drew heavily at his yellow cigarette.
In the grimy window above them Smiley had glimpsed the reflection of Elvira standing half-way down the room, listening to their conversation. Mikhel had also seen her and had even shot her an evil frown, but he seemed unwilling, and perhaps unable, to order her away.
“That was very good of you,” Smiley said after a suitable pause.
“Max, it was my duty. From the heart. I know no other law.”
“12天前。上周一。我从他的神态马上就能看出这是一件公事。他以前从未向我要过钱。'将军，'我对他说。‘你在密谋什么事情吧。告诉我这是什么。'但他摇了摇头。’听着‘，我告诉他，’如果你要密谋什么事，听我的建议，去找马克斯。'他拒绝了。‘米克尔，’他告诉我，‘马克斯是个好人，但他对我们小组已经没有信心了。他甚至希望我们结束斗争。不过，等我钓到了我希望的大鱼，我就会去找马克斯，报销我们的费用，或许还有其他很多东西。但这是事后的事，不是事前的事。我不能穿着脏衣服做事情。帮个忙，米克尔，借我五十镑。这是我一生中最重要的任务。这关系到我们的过去。'这是他的原话。我的钱包里有50镑——幸运的是，那天我做了一笔成功的投资——我把钱给了他。'将军，'我说。'把我的东西都拿走吧。我的财产都是你的。'"米克尔说着，猛抽了一口黄色的烟，似乎是为了强调他所说的，或者说为了证明他说的都是真的。
从他们头顶灰暗的窗户里，斯迈利瞥见埃尔维拉的影子，她站在房间中央，听着他们的谈话。米克尔也看到了她，甚至很不满地向她皱了皱眉，但他似乎不愿意，或许也无法命令她离开。
“你真是太好了，”斯迈利在适当的停顿后说道。
“马克斯，这是我的职责。发自内心。这是我唯一的也是最高的原则。”
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