Smiley's People汉译93

agent124

第13章



The gallery was situated in what the art trade calls the naughty end of Bond Street, and Smiley arrived on its doorstep that Monday morning long before any respectable art dealer was out of bed.
His Sunday had passed in mysterious tranquillity. Bywater Street had woken late, and so had Smiley. His memory had served him while he slept, and it continued to serve him in modest spasms of enlightenment throughout the day. In terms of memory at least, his black Grail had drawn a little nearer. His telephone had not rung once; a slight but persistent hangover had kept him in the contemplative mood. There was a club he belonged to, against his better judgment, near Pall Mall, and he lunched there in imperial solitude on warmed-up steak-and-kidney pie. Afterwards, from the head porter, he had requested his box from the club safe and discreetly abstracted a few illicit possessions, including a British passport in his former workname of Standfast, which he had never quite managed to return to Circus Housekeepers; an international driving licence to match; a sizeable sum of Swiss francs, his own certainly, but equally certainly retained in defiance of the Exchange Control Act. He had them in his pocket now.
画廊位于艺术界所说的邦德街的不规矩地段，那个周一早上，斯迈利在所有体面的艺术品商人还没起床的时候就来到了画廊门口。
他在神秘的宁静中度过了周日。拜沃特街醒得很晚，斯迈利也醒得很晚。睡梦中，他的记忆一直在为他服务，而在整个白天，他的记忆也不时给他以启发。至少在记忆方面，他的黑圣杯离他更近了一些。他的电话没有响过一次；轻微但持续的宿醉让他一直沉浸在沉思中。尽管他有所保留，还是在培尔梅尔（伦敦的一条路名，曾以高级俱乐部闻名——译注）附近加入了一个俱乐部。他在那里孤独地吃了一顿热过的牛肉腰子馅饼当中饭。之后，他向门房领班要了他在俱乐部保险箱里保存的盒子，谨慎地取出了一些非法财物，包括一本英国护照，护照上的名字是他以前的化名斯坦德法斯特，他一直没有把这本护照归还给圆场管家；一本与之相匹配的国际驾照；一大笔瑞士法郎，当然是他自己的，但同样肯定是无视《外汇管制法》而保留的。现在这些东西都在他的口袋里。

The gallery had a dazzling whiteness and the canvases in its armoured glass window were much the same: white upon white, with just the faintest outline of a mosque or St. Paul’s Cathedral—or was it Washington?—drawn with a finger in the thick pigment. Six months ago the sign hanging over the pavement had proclaimed The Wandering Snail Coffee Shop. Today it read “ATELIER BENATI, GO?T ARABE, PARIS, NEW YORK, MONACO,” and a discreet menu on the door proclaimed the new chef’s specialties: “Islam classique-moderne. Conceptual Interior Design. Contracts catered. Sonnez.”
Smiley did as he was bidden, a buzzer screamed, the glass door yielded. A shop-worn girl, ash blonde and half awake, eyed him warily over a white desk.
“If I could just look round,” said Smiley.
Her eyes lifted slightly towards an Islamic heaven. “The little red spots mean sold,” she drawled, and, having handed him a typed price-list, sighed and went back to her cigarette and her horoscope.
For a few moments Smiley shuffled unhappily from one canvas to another till he stood in front of the girl again.
“If I could have a word with Mr. Benati,” he said.
画廊里白得耀眼，装甲玻璃橱窗里的油画也是如此：白色的帆布上，白色的背景上一些貌似清真寺或圣保罗大教堂——或是华盛顿——的模糊轮廓，看上去好像是用手指直接在厚厚的颜料上勾勒出来的。六个月前，悬挂在人行道上的招牌上写着“流浪蜗牛咖啡店”。今天，上面却写着“埃特叶·比纳蒂，阿拉伯风格，巴黎、纽约、摩纳哥”，门上一张低调的菜单上写着新厨师的特色菜： “伊斯兰古典现代风格。概念式室内设计。供应聚会餐饮。请按门铃。”。
斯迈利照着吩咐做了，门铃响了，玻璃门开了。一个头发灰黄，睡眼惺忪，被办公室工作搞得疲惫不堪的女子坐在一张白色办公桌后面，警惕地盯着他。
斯迈利说：”我只想随便看看。”
她的眼睛微微抬起，望向一个伊斯兰天堂。“小红点表示已售出，”她说，然后递给他一张打好的价目表，叹了口气，继续抽她的烟，看她的占星术。
斯迈利不高兴地从一张画布换到另一张画布，过了一会儿，直到他再次站在女孩面前。
他说：”我想和比纳蒂先生说几句话。”