Smiley's People汉译84

agent124

第12章



And still it was the same day; there was no end to it, no bed. For a while after leaving Mikhel, George Smiley let his legs lead him, not knowing where, too tired, too stirred to trust himself to drive, yet bright enough to watch his back, to make the vague yet sudden turnings that catch would-be followers off guard. Bedraggled, heavy-eyed, he waited for his mind to come down, trying to unwind, to step clear of the restless thrust of his twenty-hour marathon. The Embankment had him, so did a pub off Northumberland Avenue, probably The Sherlock Holmes, where he gave himself a large whisky and dithered over telephoning Stella—was she all right? Deciding there was no point—he could hardly phone her every night asking whether she and Villem were alive—he walked again until he found himself in Soho, which on Saturday nights was even nastier than usual. Beard Lacon, he thought. Demand protection for the family. But he had only to imagine the scene to know the idea was stillborn. If Vladimir was not the Circus’s responsibility, then still less could Villem be. And how, pray, do you attach a team of baby-sitters to a long-distance Continental lorry driver? His one consolation was that Vladimir’s assassins had apparently found what they were looking for: that they had no other needs. Yet what about the woman in Paris? What about the writer of the two letters?
还是同一天，没有尽头，也没有床。离开米克尔后的一段时间里，乔治·斯迈利任由双腿带着他前进，不知道该去哪儿。他太累了，太激动了，不敢相信自己还能开车，但他仍保持警觉，注意自己的背后，如果有人跟踪，他能突然看似随意地改变行走的方向，让那人措手不及。他看起来蓬头垢面，昏昏欲睡，只好停下来歇一歇，等待心情平静下来，试图放松自己，摆脱20小时马拉松式的压力。他漫无目的地去了堤岸（指的是伦敦泰晤士河北岸的一个著名区域，有步行道、花园和著名建筑——译注），也去了诺森伯兰大街附近的一家酒馆，可能是夏洛克·福尔摩斯酒馆，在那里他给自己来了一大杯威士忌，犹豫着要不要给斯黛拉打电话——她还好吗？他决定没有必要——他不可能每晚都打电话问她和维廉是否还活着——他又走了起来，直到他发现自己来到了索霍区，周六晚上的索霍区比往常更加龌龊，使他联想到胡子拉碴的雷肯。要求保护维廉一家人。但他只要想象一下当时的情景，就知道这个想法是不可能实现的。如果弗拉基米尔不是圆场的责任，那么维廉就更不可能是了。试问，你怎么能把一队保姆派给一个跑欧洲大陆的长途卡车司机呢？他唯一感到欣慰的是，暗杀弗拉基米尔的刺客显然找到了他们想要的东西：他们没有其他需要了。那么巴黎的那个女人呢？那两封信的作者呢？

Go home, he thought. Twice, from phone-boxes, he made dummy calls, checking the pavement. Once he entered a cul-de-sac and doubled back, watching for the slurred step, the eye that ducked his glance. He considered taking a hotel room. Sometimes he did that, just for a night’s peace. Sometimes his house was too much of a dangerous place for him. He thought of the piece of negative film: time to open the box. Finding himself gravitating by instinct towards his old headquarters at Cambridge Circus, he cut hastily away eastward, finishing by his car again. Confident that he was not observed, he drove to Bayswater, well off his beaten track, but he still watched his mirror intently. From a Pakistani ironmonger who sold everything, he bought two plastic washing-up bowls and a rectangle of commercial glass three and a half inches by five; and from a cash-and-carry chemist not three doors down, ten sheets of Grade 2 resin-coated paper of the same size, and a children’s pocket torch with a spaceman on the handle and a red filter that slid over the lens when you pushed a nickel button. From Bayswater, by a painstaking route, he drove to the Savoy, entering from the Embankment side. He was still alone. In the men’s cloakroom, the same attendant was on duty, and he even remembered their joke.
“I’m still waiting for it to explode,” he said with a smile, handing back the box. “I thought I heard it ticking once or twice, and all.”
他想，回家吧。他两次在电话亭里假装打电话，检查人行道上的动静。有一次，他走进了一条小巷，又折了回来，留意有没有模糊的脚步声和躲闪他目光的眼睛。他考虑去旅馆开房。有时他也会这么做，只为安静地过一夜。有时，他的房子对他来说太危险了。他想起了那张底片：是时候打开盒子了。他发现自己本能地向剑桥圆场的总部走去，于是他匆匆转向东面走去，最后又停在了自己的车旁。他确信没有人盯梢后，把车开到了贝斯沃特，远远地离开了他经常走的路，但他仍然仔细地观察着他的后视镜。他从一个什么都卖的巴基斯坦五金商那里买了两个洗碗机用的塑料碗和一块三英寸半乘五英寸的长方形普通玻璃；他又从隔了三个店面不到的一家不需要处方的药店里买了十张同样大小的二号树脂涂层纸，还有一个儿童袖珍手电筒，手柄上有一个太空人，按下一个镍质按钮后，红色滤光片就会滑到镜头上。从贝斯沃特出发，他煞费苦心地选了一条路线，驱车前往萨沃伊酒店，从堤岸一侧进入酒店。他还是一个人。在男衣帽间，还是那个服务员在值班，他甚至还记得说过的笑话。
“我还在等它爆炸呢，”他笑着说，把盒子递了回去。“我好像听到它滴答滴答地响了一两声。”

At his front door the tiny wedges he had put up before his drive to Charlton were still in place. In his neighbours’ windows he saw Saturday-evening candle-light and talking heads; but in his own, the curtains were still drawn as he had left them, and in the hall, Ann’s pretty little grandmother clock received him in deep darkness, which he hastily corrected.
Dead weary, he nevertheless proceeded methodically.
First he tossed three fire-lighters into the drawing-room grate, lit them, shovelled smokeless coal over them, and hung Ann’s indoor clothes-line across the hearth. For an overall he donned an old kitchen apron, tying the cord firmly round his ample midriff for additional protection. From under the stairs he exhumed a pile of green black-out material and a pair of kitchen steps, which he took to the basement. Having blacked out the window, he went upstairs again, unwrapped the box, opened it, and no, it was not a bomb, it was a letter and a packet of battered cigarettes with Vladimir’s piece of negative film fed into it. Taking it out, he returned to the basement, put on the red torch, and went to work, though Heaven knows he possessed no photographic flair whatever, and could perfectly well—in theory—have had the job done for him in a fraction of the time, through Lauder Strickland, by the Circus’s own photographic section. Or for that matter he could have taken it to any one of half a dozen “tradesmen,” as they are known in the jargon: marked collaborators in certain fields who are pledged, if called upon at any time, to drop everything and, asking no questions, put their skills at the service’s disposal. One such tradesman actually lived not a stone’s throw from Sloane Square, a gentle soul who specialised in wedding photographs. Smiley had only to walk ten minutes and press the man’s doorbell and he could have had his prints in half an hour. But he didn’t. He preferred instead the inconvenience, as well as imperfection, of taking a contact print in the privacy of his home, while upstairs the telephone rang and he ignored it.
在他的前门，他开车去查尔顿之前插上的楔形木片还在原处。在邻居家的窗户上，他看到了周六晚上的烛光和交谈的人头影子；但在他自己家，窗帘还是像他离开时那样拉着，在大厅里，安漂亮的小祖母钟在一片漆黑中迎接着他，他匆忙地校正了一下时间。
尽管疲惫不堪，他还是有条不紊地动手干活。
首先，他把三个引火物扔进客厅的壁炉里，点着后，在上面铲上无烟煤，然后把安的室内晾衣绳挂在壁炉上。他穿上一条旧的厨房围裙当罩衫，把带子牢牢地系在他圆滚滚的腹部，以增加保护。他从楼梯下面拿出一堆绿色遮光材料和两把踏脚凳，把它们搬到地下室。他把窗户封起来，挡住光线后，再次上楼，打开盒子。不，里面可不是炸弹，而是一封信和一包皱巴巴的香烟，里面有弗拉基米尔的底片。他把它拿出来，回到地下室，戴上红色手电筒，开始工作，尽管天也知地也知，他对于洗印照片完全是一窍不通，理论上完全可以通过劳德·斯屈克兰，让圆场自己的摄影部门在极短的时间内帮他完成这项工作。或者，他也可以把这件事交给六七个行话里所说的“手艺人”中的任何一个，他们是某些领域的特约合作者，一旦有需要，他们就会放下一切，不问任何问题，将自己的技能提供给情报机关使用。有一位这样的商人就住在离斯隆广场不远的地方，他性格温和，擅长拍摄婚纱照。斯迈利只需步行十分钟，按下门铃，就能在半小时内拿到洗印好的照片。但他没有这么做。他宁愿不方便、不完美，选择在家中这个私密环境里用接触印相法（将底片直接放在相纸上，然后对其进行曝光而制成的照片——译注）洗印照片。活干到一半，楼上的电话铃响了，他也置之不理。

He preferred the trial and error of exposing the negative for too long, then for too little, under the main room light. Of using as a measure the cumbersome kitchen timer, which ticked and grumbled like something from Coppélia. He preferred grunting and cursing in irritation and sweating in the dark and wasting at least six sheets of resin-coated paper before the developer in the washing-up bowl yielded an image even half-way passable, which he laid in the rapid fixer for three minutes. And washed it. And dabbed it with a clean teacloth, probably ruining the cloth for good, he wouldn’t know. And took it upstairs and pegged it to the clothesline. And for those who like a heavy symbol, it is a matter of history that the fire, despite the fire-lighters, was all but out, since the coal consisted in great measure of damp slag, and that George Smiley had to puff at the flames to prevent it from dying, crouching on all fours for the task. Thus it might have occurred to him—though it didn’t, for with his curiosity once more aroused he had put aside his introspective mood—that the action was exactly contrary to Lacon’s jangling order to douse the flames and not to fan them.
他宁愿在房间的主灯下，反复试验，宁可不断犯错误，底片曝光时间不是过长就是过短。他宁愿用他家那个难用的厨用定时器来计时，那个定时器滴滴答答地响着，就像葛蓓莉娅（幽默芭蕾剧，讲述一个机械洋娃娃变成真人的故事）里的角色在抱怨一样。他宁愿在黑暗中恼怒地嘟哝着，骂骂咧咧，搞得满头大汗，至少要浪费六张树脂涂层纸，才能让塑料碗里的显影剂显现出勉强合格的图像，他把它放在快速定影剂里浸了三分钟。然后清洗。再用干净的台布擦拭，他不知道这可能会毁了台布。接着，他把照片拿上楼挂在晾衣绳上。对于那些喜欢挖掘象征意义的人来说，下面这副场景有历史性的意义：由于煤大部分是潮湿的矿渣组成的，尽管用了引火物，炉火还是快灭了，乔治·斯迈利不得不四肢着地，蹲在火堆旁一阵阵地用嘴吹火苗，防止它熄灭。因此，他本来可能会想到——虽然，在好奇心的驱使下，他把内省的习惯放到一边去了，所以没有想到——这个举动完全违背了雷肯用不安的口气给他下的命令：浇灭火焰，不要煽风点火。

Next, with the point safely suspended over the carpet, Smiley addressed himself to a pretty marquetry writing-desk in which Ann kept her “things” with embarrassing openness. Such as a sheet of writing-paper on which she had written the one word “Darling” and not continued, perhaps uncertain which darling to write to. Such as book-matches from restaurants he had never been to and letters in handwriting he did not know. From among such painful bric-à-brac he extracted a large Victorian magnifying glass with a mother-of-pearl handle, which she employed for reading clues to crosswords never completed. Thus armed—the sequence of these actions, because of his fatigue, lacked the final edge of logic—he put on a record of Mahler, which Ann had given him, and sat himself in the leather reading chair that was equipped with a mahogany book-rest designed to swivel like a bed tray across the occupant’s stomach. Tired to death again, he unwisely allowed his eyes to close while he listened, part to the music, part to the occasional pat-pat of the dripping photograph, and part to the grudging crackle of the fire. Waking with a start thirty minutes later, he found the print dry and the Mahler revolving mutely on its turntable.

He stared, one hand to his spectacles, the other slowly rotating the magnifying glass over the print.
接下来，斯迈利把照片安全地挂在地毯上方，然后把注意力转到一个漂亮的镶嵌工艺装饰的写字台前，安的“物品”都在那里，而且还不加掩饰地放着，令人难堪。比如一张写字纸，她在上面只写了一个字“亲爱的”，却没有继续写下去，也许是不知道该写给哪个亲爱的。比如从他从未去过的餐馆拿来的书夹式火柴，还有用他不认识的笔迹写的信。他从这些令人痛苦的小玩意儿中找出了一个维多利亚时期的带珍珠母手柄的大放大镜，她用它来阅读从未完成的填字游戏的提示。因为筋疲力尽的缘故，他做这一系列事情的次序有点颠三倒四。就这样，拿到放大镜后，他放了安送给他的一张马勒（奥地利著名浪漫主义作曲家和作曲家——译注）的唱片，坐在皮质阅读椅上，椅子上有一个红木书托，有点像床上用的小茶几，可以旋转，架在肚子上。他累得要命，听音乐时不明智地闭上了眼睛，一边听着滴水的照片偶尔发出的“嗒”声，一边听着炉火发出的 “噼啪 ”声。30分钟后，他猛然惊醒，发现照片已经干了，马勒的唱片在转盘上静静地空转着。


他瞪大眼睛，一只手扶着眼镜，另一只手拿着放大镜在照片上慢慢移动。

The photograph showed a group, but it was not political, nor was it a bathing party, since nobody was wearing a swimming-suit. The group consisted of a quartet, two men and two women, and they were lounging on quilted sofas round a low table laden with bottles and cigarettes. The women were naked and young and pretty. The men, scarcely better covered, were sprawled side by side, and the girls had twined themselves dutifully around their elected mates. The lighting of the photograph was sallow and unearthly, and from the little Smiley knew of such matters he concluded that the negative was made on fast film, for the print was also grainy. Its texture, when he pondered it, reminded him of the photographs one saw too often of terrorists’ hostages, except that the four in the photograph were concerned with each other, whereas hostages have a way of staring down the lens as if it were a gun barrel. Still in quest of what he would have called operational intelligence, he passed to the probable position of the camera and decided it must have been high above the subjects. The four appeared to be lying at the centre of a pit with the camera looking down on them. A shadow, very black—a balustrade, or perhaps it was a window-sill, or merely the shoulder of somebody in front—obtruded across the lower foreground. It was as if, despite the vantage point, only half the lens had dared to lift its head above the eye-line.
照片上是一群人，这不是政治性的，也不是游泳聚会，因为没有人穿泳衣。这群人是四人组，两男两女，他们懒洋洋地躺在绗缝沙发上，围着一张矮桌，桌上摆满了酒瓶和香烟。女人们光着身子，年轻漂亮。男人们也几乎一丝不挂，他们并排躺着，女孩们则尽职地缠绕着她们选中的同伴。照片的光线暗淡，不自然，斯迈利对摄影知之甚少，但他断定底片是用高感光度胶片拍摄的，因为洗出的胶片颗粒很粗。它的纹理让他想起了人们经常看到的恐怖分子挟持人质的照片，不过照片中的四人的注意力在彼此之间，而人质则盯着镜头，好像那是枪筒。他仍然在寻找对行动直接有用的信息，他把这种信息叫做行动情报。他转而分析摄像头的可能位置，确定它一定在拍摄对象的上方。这四个人似乎躺在一个坑的中央，摄像机正俯视着他们。一个非常黑的影子——可能是栏杆，或者可能是窗台，或者只是前面某人的肩膀——突出在前景下方。尽管处于有利位置，但仿佛镜头只露出了一半，不敢把头全抬起来，超过摄影师眼睛的高度。