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For weeks after that encounter, and through all the hushed activities that accompanied it—furtive visits to the Soviet Embassy, form-filling, signed affidavits, certificats d’hébergement, the laborious trail through successive French ministries—Ostrakova followed her own actions as if they were someone else’s. She prayed often, but even with her prayers she adopted a conspiratorial attitude, dividing them among several Russian Orthodox churches so that in none would she be observed suffering an undue assault of piety. Some of the churches were no more than little private houses scattered round the 15th and 16th districts, with distinctive twice-struck crosses in plywood, and old, rain-sodden Russian notices on the doors, requesting cheap accommodation and offering instruction in the piano. She went to the Church of the Russian Abroad, and the Church of the Apparition of the Holy Virgin, and the Church of St. Seraphin of Sarov. She went everywhere. She rang the bells till someone came, a verger or a frail-faced woman in black; she gave them money, and they let her crouch in the damp cold before candle-lit icons, and breathe the thick incense till it made her half drunk. She made promises to the Almighty, she thanked Him, she asked Him for advice, she practically asked Him what He would have done if the stranger had approached Him in similar circumstances, she reminded Him that anyway she was under pressure, and they would destroy her if she did not obey. Yet at the same time, her indomitable common sense asserted itself, and she asked herself over and again why she of all people, wife of the traitor Ostrakov, lover of the dissident Glikman, mother—so she was given to believe—of a turbulent and anti-social daughter, should be singled out for such untypical indulgence?
这次会面之后的几个星期里，奥斯特拉科娃悄悄地做了许多事——偷偷去苏联大使馆，填表，签宣誓书，开居住证明，在法国政府各部委中费尽周折。奥斯特拉科娃一直在关注着自己的一举一动，仿佛这些不是她自己的事，而是别人的事。她经常祷告，但即使是祷告这种事，她也担心背后有什么阴谋诡计，所以分别在几个俄罗斯东正教教堂做，这样在任何一个教堂都不会有人注意到她过于虔诚的异常行为。有些教堂不过是散落在15区和16区的民居，胶木板做的十字架上有独特的两道横杠（东正教的十字架和基督教的不同，有一长一短两道横杠————译注），门上贴着被雨水打湿的陈旧俄文小广告，内容有寻找廉价住宿和提供钢琴教学等。她去过俄国海外教会，圣母显灵教会（1968年4月2日成立，属于科普特(Coptic)教会这个派别————译注），还有萨罗夫的圣塞拉芬教会（1911年成立，总部在罗斯托夫。和前面几个一样，都是东正教会的不同派别。————译注）。她哪儿都去，按门铃，直到有人来开门，有时候是个教堂司事（教会中从事组织、服务和接待工作的平信徒————译注），有时候是个面容羸弱的黑衣女人。她给他们钱，他们就让她跪在潮湿阴冷的地上祷告。圣像前点着蜡烛，发出浓郁的香气，熏得她迷迷糊糊为止。她向万能的主许下诺言，感谢祂，请祂指引，实际上是在问祂，如果那个陌生人在类似的情况下接近祂，祂会怎么做，让上帝知道，她毕竟承受着压力，如果不服从，他们就会毁了她。然而，与此同时，常识的力量同样不依不饶。她一遍又一遍地问自己，她是叛徒奥斯特拉科夫的妻子，是持不同政见者格利克曼的情人，还是一个不安分的反社会分子的母亲（至少当局给她的是这种说法）。这么多人，为什么偏偏选中了她，给予了如此异乎寻常的恩惠？
In the Soviet Embassy, when she made her first formal application, she was treated with a regard she would never have dreamed possible, which was suited neither to a defector and renegade spy nor to the mother of an untamable hell-raiser. She was not ordered brusquely to a waiting-room, but escorted to an interviewing-room, where a young and personable official showed her a positively Western courtesy, even helping her, where her pen or courage faltered, to a proper formulation of her case.
在苏联大使馆，当她第一次正式提出申请时，她受到了做梦也想不到的礼遇。这种礼遇既不合乎一个叛逃者和变节间谍身份，也不合乎一个桀骜不驯的破坏分子的母亲的身份。没有人粗暴地命令她去等候室，而是将她接到一间面谈室，接着一位讨人喜欢的年轻官员向她展示了良好的西方礼仪，甚至在她的笔不听使唤，畏缩不前时，帮助她适当地陈述她的情况。
And she told nobody, not even her nearest—though her nearest was not very near. The gingery man’s warning rang in her ears day and night: any indiscretion and your daughter will not be released.
这件事她没有跟任何人讲，甚至没有跟最亲近的人讲，虽然她最亲近的人其实也没那么亲。那个姜黄色脸的男人给她的警告日夜在她耳边回响：如果有任何不当行为，就不放你女儿。
And who was there, after all, apart from God, to turn to? To her half-sister Valentina, who lived in Lyons and was married to a car salesman? The very thought that Ostrakova had been consorting with a secret official from Moscow would send her rushing for her smelling-salts. In a café, Maria? In broad daylight, Maria? Yes, Valentina, and what he said is true. I had a bastard daughter by a Jew.
那么，除了上帝，还有谁可以求助呢？向瓦伦蒂娜求助吗？瓦伦蒂娜不是她的亲妹妹，住在里昂，嫁了个汽车销售员。光是想到奥斯特拉科娃和莫斯科的秘密人员有来往，就足以让她差点昏过去，得赶紧去找嗅盐救急。在咖啡馆，玛丽亚？光天化日之下，玛丽亚？是的，瓦伦蒂娜，他说的都是真的，我有个犹太人的私生女。
It was the nothingness that scared her most. The weeks passed; at the Embassy they told her that her application was receiving “favoured attention”; the French authorities had assured her that Alexandra would quickly qualify for French citizenship. The gingery stranger had persuaded her to backdate Alexandra’s birth so that she could be represented as an Ostrakova, not a Glikman; he said the French authorities would find this more acceptable; and it seemed that they had done so, even though she had never so much as mentioned the child’s existence at her naturalisation interviews. Now, suddenly, there were no more forms to fill in, no more hurdles to be cleared, and Ostrakova waited without knowing what she was waiting for. For the gingery stranger to reappear? He no longer existed. One ham omelette and frites, some Alsatian beer, two pieces of crusty bread had satisfied all his needs, apparently. What he was in relation to the Embassy she could not imagine: he had told her to present herself there, and that they would be expecting her; he was right. But when she referred to “your gentleman,” even “your blond, large gentleman who first approached me,” she met with smiling incomprehension.
最让她害怕的是这事杳无音信。几个星期过去了；大使馆告诉她，她的申请得到了"优先照顾"；法国当局向她保证，亚历山德拉很快就能获得法国公民身份。那个姜黄色脸的陌生人劝她把亚历山德拉的出生日期写得提前一点，这样就可以说成是奥斯特拉科夫，而不是格里克曼的孩子。他说这样法国当局会容易接受些。看来正像他说的那样，尽管她在入籍面谈时从未提到过这个孩子的存在。然后，突然间，再没有表格要填，再没有阻碍办手续的问题要解决，剩下能做的只有等待。但奥斯特拉科娃不知道自己在等待什么。等那个姜黄色脸的陌生人再次出现么？他不再存在了。显然，一份火腿煎蛋和炸薯条，一点阿尔萨斯啤酒和两块硬皮面包就满足了他的所有需求。她无法想象他与大使馆有什么关系。他说过让她去大使馆，说他们在那儿等她。他没说错。但当她提到"你们那位先生"，或者更详细地问到“你们那位白皮肤，金发碧眼，身材魁梧，第一次找我的那位先生”时，人家只是对她笑笑，不明白她在说什么。
Thus gradually whatever she was waiting for ceased to exist. First it was ahead of her, then it was behind her, and she had had no knowledge of its passing, no moment of fulfilment. Had Alexandra already arrived in France? Obtained her papers, moved on or gone to ground? Ostrakova began to think she might have done. Abandoned to a new and inconsolable sense of disappointment, she peered at the faces of young girls in the street, wondering what Alexandra looked like. Returning home, her eyes would fall automatically to the doormat in the hope of seeing a handwritten note or a pneumatique: “Mama, it is I. I am staying at the so-and-so hotel. . . .”A cable giving a flight number, arriving Orly tomorrow, tonight; or was it not Orly Airport but Charles de Gaulle? She had no familiarity with airlines, so she visited a travel agent, just to ask. It was both. She considered going to the expense of having a telephone installed so that Alexandra could ring her up. Yet what on earth was she expecting after all these years? Tearful reunions with a grown child to whom she had never been united? The wishful remaking, more than twenty years too late, of a relationship she had deliberately turned her back on? I have no right to her, Ostrakova told herself severely; I have only my debts and my obligations. She asked at the Embassy but they knew nothing more. The formalities were complete, they said. That was all they knew. And if Ostrakova wished to send her daughter money? she asked cunningly—for her fares, for instance, for her visa?—could they give her an address perhaps, an office that would find her?
就这样，不管她在等什么，渐渐地就等不到了。仿佛在等待的事情先是存在于她前方的时空，然后就变成在她身后的时空，而她一点都不知道是怎么变过去的，什么时候变过去的。亚历山德拉已经到法国了吗？是拿到了证件，继续下一步，还是躲起来了？奥斯特拉科娃开始想象她是躲起来了。她陷入了一种新的失望情绪，不能自拔。她仔细看街上年轻女孩的脸，想着亚历山德拉该长个什么样。每次回到家，她的目光自动就落在门垫上，希望能在上面见到一张手写的便条或是一封气流输送的快信（法国巴黎各邮局间用气流管式输送系统传送信件————译注），上写：“妈妈，是我。我在某某旅馆......”或是封电报，上有明天或者今晚到奥利机场（巴黎第二大机场——译注）的航班号，要么不是奥利机场，而是戴高乐机场（巴黎第一大机场——译注）？她不熟悉航线，问了几家旅行社，得到的回答是两个机场都有航班。她考虑花钱安装一部电话，这样亚历山德拉就可以打电话给她了。然而，这么多年过去了，她到底还在期待什么呢？与一个从未团聚过的成年孩子泪流满面地重逢？二十多年前，她决意抛弃骨肉亲情，如今想重新找回来，是否已是一厢情愿，为时已晚？我没有权利要求她怎样，奥斯特拉科娃这样严厉地告诉自己：我对她只有负债，只有义务。她向大使馆询问，但他们一无所知。只是说，手续已经办完了，他们也就知道这么多。她耍了个小诡计，问他们，如果奥斯特拉科娃想给她女儿寄钱，比如车费、签证费，他们能不能给她一个地址，一个能找到她的办公室？
We are not a postal service, they told her. Their new chilliness scared her. She did not go any more.
他们告诉她，我们不是邮局。这种新的冷淡态度吓着了她。她不再去那里了。
After that, she fell once more to worrying about the several muddy photographs, each the same, which they had given her to pin to her application forms. The photographs were all she had ever seen. She wished now that she had made copies, but she had never thought of it; stupidly, she had assumed she would soon be meeting the original. She had not had them in her hand above an hour! She had hurried straight from the Embassy to the Ministry with them, and by the time she left the Ministry the photographs were already working their way through another bureaucracy. But she had studied them! My Lord, how she had studied those photographs, whether they were each the same or not! On the Métro, in the Ministry waiting-room, even on the pavement before she went in, she had stared at the lifeless depiction of her child, trying with all her might to see in the expressionless grey shadows some hint of the man she had adored. And failing. Always, till then, whenever she had dared to wonder, she had imagined Glikman’s features as clearly written on the growing child as they had been on the new-born baby. It had seemed impossible that a man so vigorous would not plant his imprint deeply and for good. Yet Ostrakova saw nothing of Glikman in that photograph. He had worn his Jewishness like a flag. It was part of his solitary revolution. He was not Orthodox, he was not even religious, he disliked Ostrakova’s secret piety nearly as much as he disliked the Soviet bureaucracy—yet he had borrowed her tongs to curl his sideburns like the Hasidim, just to give focus, as he put it, to the anti-Semitism of the authorities. But in the face in the photograph she recognised not a drop of his blood, not the least spark of his fire—though his fire, according to the stranger, burned in her amazingly.
这之后，她又开始为那几张模糊不清的照片而忧烦，他们给了她这些照片，每张都一样，让她别在申请表上。关于成年亚历山德拉，这些照片是她唯一见过的形象。她现在多希望能复印几张，当时却没想到。真蠢，她以为很快就会见到真人。这些照片她拿在手里连一个小时都不到！从大使馆出来，她就急忙带着照片去内政部。离开时，这些照片已经送去另外一个官僚机构了。但她的确仔仔细细地端详过照片！我的上帝，不管每张照片是否一样，她是多么仔细地一张张摩挲过啊！在地铁上，在内政部的等候室里，甚至在进入等候室前的人行道上，她都目不转睛地看着她孩子没有生气的照片，竭尽全力想从面无表情的灰暗阴影中捕捉到几丝她钟爱的男人的痕迹。结果一无所获。在此之前，每当她有猜测的勇气时，每一次她总是想象格利克曼的特征清晰地写在成长中的孩子身上，就像当初写在刚出生的婴儿身上一样。一个如此生气勃勃的人竟然没有深深地、永远地打上他的烙印，似乎是不可能的。然而，奥斯特拉科娃在照片上没有找到任何格利克曼的影子。他把自己的犹太人身份当作对抗当局的个人革命的一面旗帜。他不是东正教徒，什么教都不信。他简直像讨厌苏联官僚机构一样讨厌奥斯特拉科娃偷偷的信教行为——但他借了她的钳子，卷起了鬓角，把自己弄得像哈西德派（犹太教中的一种宗教运动，于18世纪在当代西乌克兰境内作为一场精神复兴运动兴起，并迅速传遍整个东欧。——译注）教徒一样。用他的话说，只是为了让人们关注当局的反犹太主义做法。但是，从照片上的那张脸上，孩子和他的血缘关系她一点都认不出来，连来自他一腔热血的一星半点都找不到——虽然据那个陌生人说，他的一腔热血在她身上沸腾，令人惊叹。
“If they had photographed a corpse to get that picture,” thought Ostrakova aloud in her apartment, “I would not be surprised.” And with this downright observation, she gave her first outward expression of the growing doubt inside her.
“如果照片是他们给死尸拍的，”奥斯特拉科娃在公寓里自言自语，“我也不奇怪。”她通过这样直截了当的说法第一次把内心不断加深的疑虑表达出来。
Toiling in her warehouse, sitting alone in her tiny apartment in the long evenings, Ostrakova racked her brains for someone she could trust; who would not condone and not condemn; who would see round the corners of the route she had embarked on; above all, who would not talk and thus wreck—she had been assured of it—wreck her chances of being reunited with Alexandra. Then one night, either God or her own striving memory supplied her with an answer: The General! she thought, sitting up in bed and putting on the light. Ostrakov himself had told her of him! Those émigré groups are a catastrophe, he used to say, and you must avoid them like the pest. The only one you can trust is Vladimir the General; he is an old devil, and a womaniser, but he is a man, he has connections and knows how to keep his mouth shut.
奥斯特拉科娃日思夜想。不管是在仓库做苦工的时候，还是漫漫长夜独自坐在狭小的居室里的时候，她都绞尽脑汁搜寻可以信任的人。这个人必须既不宽恕她，也不谴责她，能够了解她一路走来的坎坷经历。最重要的是，这个人必须守口如瓶，否则（别人警告过她）就会破坏和亚历山德拉团聚的机会。终于，一天晚上，要么是上帝，要么是她自己的苦思冥想找出了一个答案：将军！她一想到这个就从床上坐起来，开了灯。奥斯特拉科夫亲口跟她提起过他！他常说，那些流亡移民团体只会以惨败告终，你必须像躲避瘟疫一样躲开他们。你唯一可以信任的人只有弗拉基米尔将军。他是个老魔鬼，也是个好色之徒，但他是个男子汉，有很多关系，知道如何守口如瓶。
But Ostrakov had said this some twenty years ago, and not even old generals are immortal. And besides—Vladimir who? She did not even know his other name. Even the name Vladimir—Ostrakov had told her—was something he had put on for his military service; since his real name was Estonian, and not suitable for Red Army usage. Nevertheless, next day she went down to the bookshop beside the Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky, where information about the dwindling Russian population was often to be had, and made her first enquiries. She got a name and even a phone number, but no address. The phone was disconnected. She went to the Post Office, cajoled the assistants, and finally came up with a 1966 telephone directory listing the Movement for Baltic Freedom, followed by an address in Montparnasse. She was not stupid. She looked up the address and found no less than four other organisations listed there also: the Riga Group, the Association of Victims of Soviet Imperialism, the Forty-Eight Committee for a Free Latvia, the Tallinn Committee of Freedom. She remembered vividly Ostrakov’s scathing opinions of such bodies, even though he had paid his dues to them. All the same, she went to the address and rang the bell, and the house was like one of her little churches: quaint, and very nearly closed for ever. Eventually an old White Russian opened the door wearing a cardigan crookedly buttoned, and leaning on a walking-stick, and looking superior.
但这话奥斯特拉科夫是二十几年前说的。老将军也不是永生的。再说弗拉基米尔只是名字，他姓什么？她不知道。甚至弗拉基米尔都不是他的真名，奥斯特拉科夫跟她说过，那是他服兵役时用的名字。因为他的真名是个爱沙尼亚名字，不适合在红军使用。尽管如此，第二天她还是去了圣亚历山大·涅夫斯基大教堂（俄国东正教教堂，1861年建立——译注）旁边的书店，在那里经常可以获得有关人数越来越少的苏联流亡者的信息。她在那里做了初步咨询，拿到了一个名字，还有电话号码，但是没有地址。电话已经拆机了。她去了邮局，用了点哄骗的手段，终于从工作人员那里搞到了1966年的电话号簿，上面有波罗的海自由运动（作者杜撰的组织——译注），后面有位于蒙帕纳斯（巴黎南部的一个地区，位于塞纳河左岸——译注）的地址。她并不笨，查了这个地址，发现还有四个其他组织也用的同一个地址：里加小组，苏联帝国主义受害者协会，自由拉脱维亚48委员会，塔林自由委员会（都是作者杜撰的组织——译注）她清楚地记得奥斯特拉科夫对这些组织的尖刻评价，虽然他还是向这些组织支付会费。尽管如此，她还是去了那个地址，按响了门铃。那所房子就像她去过的小教堂，古色古香，几乎是永远关闭了。最终一个白俄老人开了门，他穿了件羊毛衫，扣子扣得歪歪扭扭，拄着一根拐杖，有点高傲的样子。
They’ve gone, he said, pointing his stick down the cobbled road. Moved out. Finished. Bigger outfits put them out of business, he added with a laugh. Too few of them, too many groups, and they squabbled like children. No wonder the Czar was defeated! The old White Russian had false teeth that didn’t fit, and thin hair plastered all over his scalp to hide his baldness.
他用拐杖点着鹅卵石路说：他们走了，搬走了，完蛋了。他笑着补充道，更大的团体让他们没立脚之地了。他们人太少，派别太多，像孩子一样争吵不休。难怪沙皇会被打败！这个白俄老人戴了副不太合适的假牙，头上稀疏的头发平铺开以掩饰秃顶。
But the General? she asked. Where was the General? Was he still alive, or had he—?
那么将军呢？她问道。将军去哪啦？他还活着吗，还是......？
The old Russian smirked and asked whether it was business.
老将军假笑着问她是公事还是私事。
It was not, said Ostrakova craftily, remembering the General’s reputation for philandering, and contrived a shy woman’s smile. The old Russian laughed, and his teeth rattled. He laughed again and said, “Oh, the General!” Then he came back with an address in London, stamped in mauve on a bit of card, and gave it to her. The General would never change, he said; when he got to Heaven, he’d be chasing after the angels and trying to up-end them, no question. And that night while the whole neighbourhood slept, Ostrakova sat at her dead husband’s desk and wrote to the General with the frankness which lonely people reserve for strangers, using French rather than Russian as an aid to greater detachment. She told him about her love for Glikman and took comfort from the knowledge that the General himself loved women just as Glikman had. She admitted immediately that she had come to France as a spy, and she explained how she had assembled the two trivial reports that were the squalid price of her freedom. It was à contre-cœur, she said; invention and evasion, she said; a nothing. But the reports existed, so did her signed undertaking, and they placed grave limits on her freedom. Then she told him of her soul, and of her prayers to God all round the Russian churches. Since the gingery stranger’s approach to her, she said, her days had become unreal; she had a feeling of being denied a natural explanation of her life, even if it had to be a painful one. She kept nothing back from him, for whatever guilty feelings she had, they did not relate to her efforts to bring Alexandra to the West, but rather to her decision to stay in Paris and take care of Ostrakov until he died—after which event, she said, the Soviets would not let her come back anyway; she had become a defector herself.
不是公事。奥斯特拉科娃别有心计地说。她想起来老将军有拈花惹草的名声，就装作害羞地笑了笑。白俄老人大笑起来，笑得牙齿咯咯作响。他笑了一阵，说：“哦，那个老将军呀！”接着他找来一张明信片给了她，上面有个伦敦的地址，盖着淡紫色的邮戳。将军本性难移，他说。到了天堂，他也会追逐天使，努力把她们一个个放倒，肯定是这样。那天晚上，邻居都睡着后，奥斯特拉科娃坐在亡夫的写字台前给将军写信，字里行间露出孤独的人面对陌生人所特有的那份坦率。她用法语而不是俄语写，目的是为了叙述时更加客观。她谈了对格利克曼的爱，还说知道将军也和格利克曼一样爱女人，这让她稍稍好受一点。她随即坦白当初是作为间谍来法国的，并解释说拼凑那两份无关紧要的报告，只是为了换取自由所付出的代价，尽管确实卑劣。她说，那是违心的。又说，那是胡编乱造瞎说的。又说，其实啥都没说。但报告毕竟存在，她签过字的承诺书也在，严重限制了她的自由。接着她向他袒露了心声，说了她在各个俄罗斯教堂对上帝的祷告。她说，自从那个姜黄色脸的陌生人和她接触后，她感觉不能面对现实，仿佛无法对生活给出一个自然的解释，即使解释使她痛苦。她对他毫无保留，因为无论她有什么负罪感，都与努力把亚历山德拉带到西方无关，而是与决定留在巴黎照顾奥斯特拉科夫直到他去世有关。她说，在那之后，苏联反正不会让她回去了；她也成了一个叛逃者。
“But, General,” she wrote, “if tonight I had to face my Maker in person, and tell Him what is deepest in my heart, I would tell Him what I now tell you. My child Alexandra was born in pain. Days and nights she fought me and I fought her back. Even in the womb she was her father’s child. I had no time to love her; I only ever knew her as the little Jewish warrior her father made. But, General, this I do know: the child in the photograph is neither Glikman’s, nor is she mine. They are putting the wrong egg into the nest, and though there is a part of this old woman that would like to be deluded, there is a stronger part that hates them for their tricks.”
"但是，将军，"她写道，"如果今晚我就得面对我的造物主，告诉他内心深处的想法，我跟他说的话，也会和我现在跟您说的一样。我的孩子亚历山德拉是在痛苦中出生的。日日夜夜，她和我斗，我也和她斗。即使在子宫里，她也是她父亲的孩子。我没有时间去爱她，只知道她是她父亲造就的犹太小战士。但是，将军，这点我很清楚：照片里的孩子既不是格利克曼的孩子，也不是我的孩子。他们偷梁换柱。虽然我这个老太婆某种程度上愿意自欺欺人，但更大程度上则是憎恨他们的诡计。"
When she had finished the letter, she sealed it immediately in its envelope so that she would not read it and change her mind. Then she stuck too many stamps on it deliberately, much as she might have lit a candle to a lover.
写完信，她马上将信装入信封并封好口，以免再读一遍而改变想法。她又郑重地贴上超量的邮票，好像是在给情人点蜡烛。（西方文化里，用心、专注地点燃蜡烛，是在生活中体现爱的方式。——译注）
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发表于 2024-1-15 06:49:27