Smiley's People汉译85

agent124

Here Smiley drew his first tentative conclusion. A step—not a large one, but he had enough large steps on his mind already. A technical step, call it: a modest technical step. The photograph had every mark of being what the trade called stolen. And stolen moreover with a view to burning, meaning “blackmail.” But the blackmail of whom? To what end?
Weighing the problem, Smiley probably fell asleep. The telephone was on Ann’s little desk, and it must have rung three or four times before he was aware of it.

“Yes, Oliver?” said Smiley cautiously.
“Ah. George. I tried you earlier. You got back all right, I trust?”
“Where from?” asked Smiley.
Lacon preferred not to answer this question. “I felt I owed you a call, George. We parted on a sour note. I was brusque. Too much on my plate. I apologise. How are things? You are done? Finished?”


史迈利在这里得出了第一个初步结论。前进了一步——不是一大步，但他心中要迈出的大步已经够多了。可以说是技术性的一步：技术性的一小步。这幅照片完全符合行内所说的 偷拍的特征。而且是偷来用于“烧”某人的，意思是 “勒索”。但勒索谁呢？为了什么目的？
斯迈利琢磨着这个问题，很可能想到后来睡着了。电话就放在安的小书桌上。他一定是在电话响了三四声后才发觉的。

“什么事，奥利弗？”斯迈利小心翼翼地说。
“啊，乔治。我刚才打了你的电话。我想你回来了，一切顺利吧？”
“从哪儿回来？”斯迈利问。
雷肯不想回答这个问题。“我觉得应该给你打个电话，乔治。我们是在不愉快的气氛中分手的。我很粗鲁。我的事情太多了。我向你道歉。事情怎么样了？你做完了吗？完事了？”

In the background Smiley heard Lacon’s daughters squabbling about how much rent was payable on a hotel in Park Place. He’s got them for the week-end, thought Smiley.
“I’ve had the Home Office on the line again, George,” Lacon went on in a lower voice, not bothering to wait for his reply. “They’ve had the pathologist’s report and the body may be released. An early cremation is recommended. I thought perhaps if I gave you the name of the firm that is handling things, you might care to pass it on to those concerned. Unattributably, of course. You saw the press release? What did you think of it? I thought it was apt. I thought it caught the tone exactly.”
“I’ll get a pencil,” Smiley said and fumbled in the drawer once more until he found a pear-shaped plastic object with a leather thong, which Ann sometimes wore around her neck. With difficulty he prised it open, and wrote to Lacon’s dictation: the firm, the address, the firm again, followed yet again by the address.
“Got it? Want me to repeat it? Or should you read it back to me, make assurance double sure?”
“I think I have it, thank you,” Smiley said. Somewhat belatedly, it dawned on him that Lacon was drunk.
“Now, George, we have a date, don’t forget. A seminar on marriage with no holds barred. I have cast you as my elder statesman here. There’s a very decent steak-house downstairs and I shall treat you to a slap-up dinner while you give me of your wisdom. Have you a diary there? Let’s pencil something in.”
With dismal foreboding Smiley agreed on a date. After a lifetime of inventing cover stories for every occasion, he still found it impossible to talk his way out of a dinner invitation.
斯迈利听到电话那头有雷肯的女儿的声音，她们在争吵公园广场（在海德公园旁，高消费的地方——译注）一家旅馆要多少钱一晚。斯迈利想，他把她们接来过周末了。
“乔治，内政部又来电话了，”雷肯没等他回答，就压低声音继续说下去。“他们已经拿到了病理学家的报告，给尸体放行了。建议尽早火化。我想，如果我把处理此事的公司名称告诉你，你也许会愿意转告有关人员。当然，不要说是我说的。你看到新闻稿了？你觉得怎么样？我觉得很贴切，语气把握得很好。”
“我去拿支铅笔，”斯迈利说着，又在抽屉里摸索起来，直到找到一个梨形的带皮绳的塑料制品，安有时会把它挂在脖子上。他费力地把它打开，按照雷肯的口述记了下来：公司、地址、公司，接着又是地址。
“记下了吗？要我重复一遍吗？还是你再念一遍给我听，再确认一下？”
“我想我已经记下了，谢谢。”斯迈利说。这时他方才恍然大悟，原来雷肯喝醉了。
“听着，乔治，我们有个约会，别忘了。婚姻研讨会，没有任何禁忌。我把你当作一位德高望重的长辈。楼下有一家很不错的牛排馆，我要请你吃一顿丰盛的晚餐，你要把你的智慧传授给我。你有日程表吗？让我们大致定一下吧。”
带着不祥的预感，斯迈利同意了约会。他一辈子都在为各种场合编造幌子，但他仍然发现无法找借口从饭局中脱身。

“And you found nothing?” Lacon asked, on a more cautious note. “No snags, hitches, loose ends. It was a storm in a teacup, was it, as we suspected?”
A lot of answers crossed Smiley’s mind, but he saw no use to any of them.
“What about the phone bill?” Smiley asked.
“Phone bill? What phone bill? Ah, you mean his. Pay it and send me the receipt. No problem. Better still, slip it in the post to Strickland.”
“I already sent it to you,” said Smiley patiently. “I asked you for a breakdown of traceable calls.”
“I’ll get on to them at once,” Lacon replied blandly. “Nothing else?”
“No. No, I don’t think so. Nothing.”
“Get some sleep. You sound all in.”
“Good night,” said Smiley.

With Ann’s magnifying glass in his plump fist once more, Smiley went back to his examination. The floor of the pit was carpeted, apparently in white; the quilted sofas were formed in a horseshoe following the line of the drapes that comprised the rear perimeter. There was an upholstered door in the background and the clothes the two men had discarded—jackets, neckties, trousers—were hanging from it with hospital neatness. There was an ashtray on the table and Smiley set to work trying to read the writing round the edge. After much manipulation of the glass he came up with what the lapsed philologist in him described as the asterisk (or putative) form of the letters “A-C-H-T,” but whether as a word in their own right—meaning “eight” or “attention,” as well as certain other more remote concepts—or as four letters from a larger word, he could not tell. Nor did he at this stage exert himself to find out, preferring simply to store the intelligence in the back of his mind until some other part of the puzzle forced it into play.

Ann rang. Once again, perhaps, he had dozed off, for his recollection ever afterwards was that he did not hear the ring of the phone at all, but simply her voice as he slowly lifted the receiver to his ear: “George, George,” as if she had been crying for him a long time, and he had only now summoned the energy or the caring to answer her.
They began their conversation as strangers, much as they began their love-making.
“你没发现什么吧？”雷肯的口气变了，小心翼翼地问道。“没有任何障碍、复杂情况和没解决的问题吧。就像我们猜测的那样，只是茶杯里的风暴（英谚，意思是为小事烦恼——译注）吗？”
斯迈利的脑海里闪过很多种回答的说法，但他觉得说哪个都没用。
“那电话账单呢？” 斯迈利问道。
“电话账单？什么电话账单？哦，你是说他的。付了钱，把收据寄给我。没问题。最好是寄给斯屈克兰。”
“我已经寄给你了，”斯迈利耐着性子说。“我请你把可追踪电话的明细记录发给我。”
“我马上去办。”雷肯语气冷淡地回答。“没别的事了吗？”
“不，不，我想没有了。没了。”
“早点睡吧。你听起来很累。”
“晚安，”斯迈利说。


斯迈利用胖手握着安的放大镜，继续检查照片。照片里房间的地板上铺着地毯，显然是白色的；绗缝沙发沿着后围的窗帘线围成一个马蹄形。背景是一扇有软垫的门，门上挂着两人丢弃的衣服——外套、领带和裤子，像在医院里一样挂得整整齐齐。桌子上放着一个烟灰缸，斯迈利开始试着辨认烟灰缸边缘的字迹。他摆弄了半天放大镜，终于读出了被他这个有些荒疏了的语言学家称为用星号标记的字母（或者说推测是这样的字母）（在语言学里，星号用来标记母语为某种语言的人认为不合语法或不能接受的语句——译注）“A-C-H-T”，但至于它本身是一个单词——在德语里意为“八”或“注意”，或者其他不太明显的意思——还是一个长单词中的四个字母，他就说不清楚了。在这一阶段，他也不想费力去搞清楚，而是将获得的信息储存在脑海中，直到解谜题的其他部分要用到它时，才让它发挥作用。


安打来了电话。也许，他又打瞌睡了，因为他后来回想起来，根本没有听到电话铃声，只记得他慢慢地把听筒举到耳边，听见了她的声音：“乔治，乔治”，似乎她已经呼喊他很久了，而他直到现在才有精力或者才有意愿回答她。
他们像陌生人一样开始谈话，就像他们当初开始谈恋爱一样。

“How are you?” she asked.
“Very well, thank you. How are you? What can I do for you?”
“I meant it,” Ann insisted. “How are you? I want to know.”
“And I told you I was well.”
“I rang you this morning. Why didn’t you answer?”
“I was out.”
Long silence while she appeared to consider this feeble excuse. The telephone had never been a bother to her. It gave her no sense of urgency.
“Out working?” she asked.
“你好吗？”她问。
“很好，谢谢你。你好吗？我能为你做什么？”
“我是认真的，”安强调说。“你到底好吗？我想知道。”
“我告诉过你我很好。”
“我今天早上给你打电话了，你为什么不接？”
“我出去了。”
长时间的沉默，她似乎在考虑这个无力的借口。电话从来不让她心烦气躁，她打电话从没有要赶紧打完的紧迫感。
“出去工作了？”她问。