Smiley's People汉译65

agent124

A tiny divan bed ran along one wall, a cooking ring stood on the sill. From the smell of putty Smiley guessed that the old man had kept whiting the place himself, painting out the damp and filling the cracks. On the table he used for typing and eating lay an old Remington upright and a pair of worn dictionaries. His translating work, he thought; the few extra pennies that fleshed out his allowance. Pressing back his elbows as if he were having trouble with his spine, Smiley drew himself to his full if diminutive height and launched himself upon the familiar death rites for a departed spy.
一堵墙边放着一张坐卧两用沙发样式的小床，窗台上放着一个灶台。斯迈利根据油灰的气味，猜测老人一直在自己粉刷这个地方，盖住受潮的地方，把裂缝补好。在他用来打字和吃饭的桌子上，放着一台老式雷明顿立式打字机和一对破旧的字典。他想，这是他的翻译工作用的，让他稍微补贴一点养老金。斯迈利把胳膊肘往背部压了压，好像脊椎出了问题似的。尽管他个子不高，他挺直了身子，然后开始为一个逝去的间谍举行他熟悉的死亡仪式。

An Estonian Bible lay on the pine bedside locker. He probed it delicately for cut cavities, then dangled it upside down for scraps of paper or photographs. Pulling open the locker drawer, he found a bottle of patent pills for rejuvenating the sexually jaded and three Red Army gallantry medals mounted on a chrome bar. So much for cover, thought Smiley, wondering how on earth Vladimir and his many paramours had managed on such a tiny bed. A print of Martin Luther hung at the bedhead. Next to it, a coloured picture called “The Red Roofs of Old Tallinn,” which Vladimir must have torn from something and backed on cardboard. A second picture showed “The Kazari Coast,” a third “Windmills and a Ruined Castle.” He delved behind each. The bedside light caught his eye. He tried the switch and when it didn’t work he unplugged it, took out the bulb, and fished in the wood base, but without result. Just a dead bulb, he thought.
松木床头柜上放着一本爱沙尼亚语的圣经。他小心翼翼地探寻着它的切口，然后把它倒挂起来，寻找纸屑或照片。他又拉开床头柜抽屉，发现了一瓶让性欲减退者恢复活力的专利药丸，以及三枚镶嵌在镀铬条上的红军英勇勋章。斯迈利心想，这些东西都是为了掩人耳目，真不知道弗拉基米尔和他的众多情妇是如何在这么小的床上搞的。床头挂着一幅马丁·路德的画像。旁边是一幅名为“塔林老城的红屋顶”的彩色图片，弗拉基米尔一定是从什么地方撕下来的，然后用硬纸板做了衬底。第二幅画是“卡扎里海岸”，第三幅是“风车和废墟城堡”。他仔细检查了每幅画的后面。床头灯引起了他的注意。他试了一下开关，没有用，就拔下插头，取出灯泡，在木头底座里摸索，但没有找到什么。他想，只是灯泡坏了。

A sudden shriek from outside sent him pulling back against the wall but when he had collected himself he realised it was more of those land-borne sea-gulls: a whole colony had settled round the chimney-pots. He glanced over the parapet into the street again. The two loiterers had gone. They’re on their way up, he thought; my head start is over. They’re not police at all, he thought; they’re assassins. The motor bike with its black side-car stood unattended. He closed the window, wondering whether there was a special Valhalla for dead spies where he and Vladimir would meet and he could put things right; telling himself he had lived a long life and that this moment was as good as any other for it to end. And not believing it for one second.
外面突然传来一声尖叫，他连忙退到墙边，但等他回过神来，才发现原来是陆地上的海鸥在叫：一大群海鸥已经围着烟囱管帽安家落户了。他再次看看护墙外的街道。那两个闲逛的人已经走了。他想，他们正在上楼，我已经失去了先机。他们根本不是警察，他想，他们是杀手。那辆带着黑色挎斗的摩托车无人看管。他关上窗，想着是否有一个专门为死去的间谍准备的瓦尔哈拉（在北欧神话中，瓦尔哈拉是位于神域阿斯加德（Asgard）的一座宏伟殿堂。据说它是在战斗中光荣牺牲的勇士们来世的归宿。据说在瓦尔哈拉，这些勇士会得到盛宴、友情和永恒荣耀的奖赏，为最后的“毁灭之战”做准备。——译注），他和弗拉基米尔会在那里见面，然后他可以把事情纠正过来；他告诉自己，他已经活了很久，此刻是结束生命的最好时机。但这些事情，其实他一秒钟也不曾相信。

The table drawer contained sheets of plain paper, a stapler, a chewed pencil, some elastic bands, and a recent quarterly telephone bill, unpaid, for the sum of seventy-eight pounds, which struck him as uncharacteristically high for Vladimir’s frugal lifestyle. He opened the stapler and found nothing. He put the phone bill in his pocket to study later and kept searching, knowing it was not a real search at all, that a real search would take three men several days before they could say with certainty they had found whatever was to be found. If he was looking for anything in particular, then it was probably an address book or a diary or something that did duty for one, even if it was only a scrap of paper. He knew that sometimes old spies, even the best of them, were a little like old lovers; as age crept up on them, they began to cheat, out of fear that their powers were deserting them. They pretended they had it all in the memory, but in secret they were hanging on to their virility, in secret they wrote things down, often in some home-made code, which, if they only knew it, could be unbuttoned in hours or minutes by anyone who knew the game. Names and addresses of contacts, sub-agents. Nothing was holy. Routines, times and places of meetings, worknames, phone numbers, even safe combinations written out as social-security numbers and birthdays. In his time Smiley had seen entire networks put at risk that way because one agent no longer dared to trust his head. He didn’t believe Vladimir would have done that, but there was always a first time.
桌子的抽屉里有几张空白的纸、一个订书机、一支被咬过的铅笔、一些橡皮筋，还有一张最近一个季度的电话账单，账单上的金额是78英镑，没有支付。考虑到弗拉基米尔节俭的生活方式，他觉得这笔钱高得离谱。他打开订书机，一无所获。他把电话账单放进口袋，准备以后再研究，然后继续寻找，因为他知道这根本不是真正的搜查，真正的搜查需要三个人花上好几天的时间，才能肯定地说他们已经找到了要找的东西。如果他要找的是什么特别的东西，那么很可能是一个地址簿或一本日记，或者是起同样作用的东西，哪怕只是一张废纸。他知道，有时老间谍，即使是最优秀的老间谍，也有点像老情人；随着年龄的增长，他们开始作弊，因为他们害怕自己的能力正在逐渐丧失。他们假装把一切都记在脑子里，但在暗地里，他们希望保持他们的能力（这里的逻辑有点混乱，保持能力意味着把秘密记在脑子里，但前面说的是假装把一切记在脑子里，按照逻辑，这里应该说实际上没有这么做。作者这里可能犯了个逻辑错误。——译注），暗地里，他们却把秘密写下来，通常是用一些自制的代码。要是他们知道就好了，这些代码其实可以在几小时或几分钟内被任何懂行的人解开。联系人的姓名和地址，下一级代理人的姓名和地址。没有什么是神圣不可破的。日常活动、会面时间和地点、化名、电话号码，甚至把社会保险号码和生日作为保险箱密码。斯迈利没退休前碰到过这样的事情，由于一个特工不敢再相信自己的大脑，整个谍报网都面临危险。他不相信弗拉基米尔会这么做，但凡事总有第一次。

Tell him I have two proofs and can bring them with me. . . .
He was standing in what the old man would have called his kitchen: the window-sill with the gas ring on it, the tiny home-made food-store with holes drilled for ventilation. We men who cook for ourselves are half-creatures, he thought as he scanned the two shelves, tugged out the saucepan and the frying-pan, poked among the cayenne and paprika. Anywhere else in the house—even in bed—you can cut yourself off, read your books, deceive yourself that solitude is best. But in the kitchen the signs of incompleteness are too strident. Half of one black loaf. Half of one coarse sausage. Half an onion. Half a pint of milk. Half a lemon. Half a packet of black tea. Half a life. He opened anything that would open, he probed with his finger in the paprika. He found a loose tile and prised it free, he unscrewed the wooden handle of the frying-pan. About to pull open the clothes cupboard, he stopped as if listening again, but this time it was something he had seen that held him, not something he had heard.
On top of the food-store lay a parcel of Gauloises Caporal cigarettes, Vladimir’s favourites when he couldn’t get his Russians. Tipped, he noticed, reading the different legends. “Duty Free.” “Filtre.” Marked “Exportation” and “Made in France.” Cellophane-wrapped. He took them down. Of the ten original packets, one already missing. In the ashtray, three stubbed-out cigarettes of the same brand. In the air, now that he sniffed for it over the smell of food and putty, a faint aroma of French cigarettes.
告诉他我有两份证据，可以带来......
他所在的房间，老人也许会说是他的厨房：窗台上放着煤气灶，自制的小食品柜，上面钻有通风孔。我们这些自己做饭的男人都是不完整的，他一边想着，一边扫视着两个架子，拿出汤锅和煎锅，在辣椒粉和红菜椒粉中翻找着。在家里的其他任何地方，甚至在床上，你都可以做到与世隔绝，看你的书，欺骗自己孤独是最好的。但在厨房里，不完整的迹象太明显了。半条黑面包，半根粗香肠，半个洋葱，半品脱牛奶，半个柠檬，半包红茶。只有一半的生活。他打开了所有能打开的东西。他用手指在红菜椒粉里摸索；他找到一块松动的瓷砖，把它撬开；他拧下煎锅的木柄。正要拉开衣服柜时，他停了下来，好像在倾听什么，但这次是他看到的东西吸引了他，而不是他听到的东西。
食品柜顶上放着一条高卢牌凯普罗香烟，这是弗拉基米尔买不到俄罗斯烟时的最爱。他注意到是过滤嘴香烟，读着上面的文字。烟盒上写着“免税”“过滤嘴”，还标有“出口”和“法国制造”的字样。玻璃纸包装。他把烟拿下来。十包烟中，有一包已经不见了。烟灰缸里有三根同样牌子的烟蒂。在空气中，他从食物和油灰的气味里，嗅到了一股微弱的法国香烟的味道。