Smiley's People汉译64

agent124

Shedding chestnut trees darkened the pillared doorway, a scarred cat eyed him warily. The doorbell was the topmost of thirty, but Smiley didn’t press it and when he shoved the double doors they swung open too freely, revealing the same gloomy corridors painted very shiny to defeat graffiti writers, and the same linoleum staircase that squeaked like a hospital trolley. He remembered it all. Nothing had changed, and now nothing ever would. There was no light switch and the stairs grew darker the higher he climbed. Why didn’t Vladimir’s murderers steal his keys? he wondered, feeling them nudging against his hip with every step. Perhaps they didn’t need them. Perhaps they had their own set already. He reached a landing and squeezed past a luxurious perambulator. He heard a dog howling and the morning news in German and the flushing of a communal lavatory. He heard a child screaming at its mother, then a slap and the father screaming at the child. Tell Max it concerns the Sandman. There was a smell of curry and cheap fat frying, and disinfectant. There was a smell of too many people with not much money jammed into too little air. He remembered that too. Nothing had changed.
在几株开始落叶的栗子树遮蔽下，柱形的门廊显得很幽暗，一只有伤痕的猫警觉地盯着他。共有三十个门铃，他要去的那家是最顶上的一个。但斯迈利没有按，他一推，双扇门就一下子开了，露出了幽暗的走廊，跟以前一样，为了对付涂鸦者，漆得非常光亮，同样的铺着油毡布楼梯，也还是老样子，像医院的手推车一样吱吱作响。这一切他都记得。一切都没变，现在也不会变了。没有电灯开关，楼梯越往上越暗。他想，为什么杀害弗拉基米尔的凶手不偷他的钥匙呢？也许他们不需要钥匙。也许他们自己配了一套。他边想边感到每走一步，口袋里的钥匙就磕一下臀部。他走到一个楼梯平台，从一辆豪华的婴儿车旁边挤过去。他听到了狗的嚎叫声、德语早间新闻和公共厕所的冲水声。他听到一个孩子对着母亲尖叫，然后是一记耳光，父亲又对着孩子尖叫。告诉马克斯，这与睡魔有关。有一股咖喱和用廉价油炸制食物的味道，还有消毒水的味道。人太多，钱太少，空间太拥挤，就是这样一股味道。这些他也记得，一切都没变。

If we’d treated him better, it would never have happened, Smiley thought. The neglected are too easily killed, he thought, in unconscious affinity with Ostrakova. He remembered the day they had brought him here, Smiley the vicar, Toby Esterhase the postman. They had driven to Heathrow to fetch him: Toby the fixer, dyed in all the oceans, as he would say of himself. Toby drove like the wind but they were almost late, even then. The plane had landed. They hurried to the barrier and there he was: silvered and majestic, towering stock-still in the temporary corridor from the arrivals bay, while the common peasants swept past him. He remembered their solemn embrace—“Max, my old friend, it is really you?” “It’s me, Vladimir, they’ve put us together again.” He remembered Toby spiriting them through the large back alleys of the immigration service, because the enraged French police had confiscated the old boy’s papers before throwing him out. He remembered how they had lunched at Scott’s, all three of them, the old boy too animated even to drink but talking grandly of the future they all knew he didn’t have: “It will be Moscow all over again, Max. Maybe we even get a chance at the Sandman.” Next day they went flat-hunting, “just to show you a few possibilities, General,” as Toby Esterhase had explained. It was Christmas time and the resettlement budget for the year was used up. Smiley appealed to Circus Finance. He lobbied Lacon and the Treasury for a supplementary estimate, but in vain. “A dose of reality will bring him down to earth,” Lacon had pronounced. “Use your influence with him, George. That’s what you’re there for.” Their first dose of reality was a tart’s parlour in Kensington, their second overlooked a shunting-yard near Waterloo. Westbourne Terrace was their third, and as they squeaked up these same stairs, Toby leading, the old man had suddenly halted, and put back his great mottled head, and wrinkled his nose theatrically.
如果我们待他好一点，这事决不会发生，斯迈利想，被忽视的人太容易被杀死了，他不知不觉与奥斯特拉科娃有了同感。他想起他们两个，牧师斯迈利和邮递员托比·埃斯特哈斯，把他带到这里的那天。他们开车去希思罗机场接他。托比用他自己的话说，是个解决问题的能手，老江湖。托比把车开得飞快，但他们还是差点迟到。飞机已经降落了。他们匆匆赶到接机的地方，他就在那里：一头银发，威风凛凛，高大威严，静静地站在从到达区出来的临时通道上，其他凡夫俗子则从他身边掠过。他还记得他们庄重的拥抱。“马克斯，我的老朋友，真的是你吗？”“是我，弗拉基米尔，他们又让我们在一起了。”他记得托比带着他们从移民服务柜台后面的通道穿过去，因为愤怒的法国警察没收了老伙计的证件，然后把他扔了出去。他还记得他们三个在斯科特餐厅（伦敦一家有名的海鲜餐厅——译注）共进午餐的情景，那个老伙计兴奋得顾不上喝酒，滔滔不绝地谈论着未来，而他们都知道，这样的未来他是不会有了：“莫斯科的一幕会重现的，马克斯。也许我们还有机会搞搞睡魔。”第二天，他们去找房子，“只是为了给你看一些可能的选择，将军”，托比·埃斯特哈斯这样解释。正是圣诞节的时候，当年的安置预算用完了。斯迈利向圆场财务部求助。他游说拉康和财政部追加预算，但没有成功。雷肯说，“给他打一针清醒剂，让他看清现实。”“利用你对他的影响力，乔治。这就是你的作用。”他们打的第一针清醒剂是在肯辛顿的一个住处，像妓女接客的地方似的，第二针是在滑铁卢附近的房子，下面就是火车站的调车场。韦斯特伯恩排屋路是他们找的第三个地方，也是第三针清醒剂。当他们在托比的带领下爬上这些和现在一样吱吱呀呀响的楼梯时，老人突然停住了脚步，颜色斑驳的大脑袋往后一缩，戏剧性地吸了下鼻子。

Ah! So if I get hungry I have only to stand in the corridor and sniff and my hunger is gone! he had announced in his thick French. That way I don’t have to eat for a week!
By then even Vladimir had guessed they were putting him away for good.
Smiley returned to the present. The next landing was musical, he noticed, as he continued his solitary ascent. Through one door came rock music played at full blast, through another Sibelius and the smell of bacon. Peering out of the window, he saw two men loitering between the chestnut trees who were not there when he had arrived. A team would do that, he thought. A team would post look-outs while the others went inside. Whose team was another question. Moscow’s? The Superintendent’s? Saul Enderby’s? Farther down the road, the tall motor-cyclist had acquired a tabloid newspaper and was sitting on his bike reading it.
At Smiley’s side a door opened and an old woman in a dressing-gown came out holding a cat against her shoulder. He could smell last night’s drink on her breath even before she spoke to him.
“Are you a burglar, dearie?” she asked.
“I’m afraid not,” Smiley replied with a laugh. “Just a visitor.”
“Still, it’s nice to be fancied, isn’t it, dearie?” she said.
啊！如果我饿了，只要站在走廊上闻一闻，我的饥饿感就会消失！他用口音很重的法语说。这样我就一周不用吃饭了！
到那时候，就连弗拉基米尔也猜到他们要永远抛弃他了。
斯迈利把思绪拉回到现在。他继续独自上楼，到达下一个楼梯平台时，注意到这一层充满了音乐。从一扇门里传出的是开到最大音量的摇滚乐，从另一扇门里传出的是西贝柳斯（芬兰著名作曲家——译注）的音乐，还有熏肉的香味。他从窗户向外眺望，看到两个人在栗子树间游荡，而他来的时候他们并不在那里。他想，应该有一队人。一队人负责望风，其他人进屋。谁的队伍是另一个问题。莫斯科的？警察总监的？索尔·恩德比的？在路的更远处，高个子摩托车手拿了一份小报，正坐在车上看。
在斯迈利的身边，一扇门打开了，一个穿着晨衣的老妇人走了出来，肩上还抱着一只猫。她还没开口说话，他就闻到了她身上昨晚喝的酒残余的酒气。
“你是小偷吗，亲爱的？”她问。
“恐怕不是，”斯迈利笑着回答。“只是个访客。”
“不过，被人欣赏的感觉还是不错的，不是吗，亲爱的？”她说。

“It is indeed,” said Smiley politely.
The last flight was steep and very narrow and lit by real daylight from a wired skylight on the slant. There were two doors on the top landing, both closed, both very cramped. On one, a typed notice faced him: “MR. V. MILLER, TRANSLATIONS.” Smiley remembered the argument about Vladimir’s alias now he was to become a Londoner and keep his head down. “Miller” was no problem. For some reason, the old boy found Miller rather grand. “Miller, c’est bien,” he had declared. “Miller I like, Max.” But “Mr.” was anything but good. He pressed for General, then offered to settle for Colonel. But Smiley in his r?le as vicar was on this point unbudgeable: Mr. was a lot less trouble than a bogus rank in the wrong army, he had ruled.
He knocked boldly, knowing that a soft knock is more conspicuous than a loud one. He heard the echo, and nothing else. He heard no footfall, no sudden freezing of a sound. He called “Vladimir” through the letter-box as though he were an old friend visiting. He tried one Yale from the bunch and it stuck, he tried another and it turned. He stepped inside and closed the door, waiting for something to hit him on the back of the head but preferring the thought of a broken skull to having his face shot off. He felt dizzy and realised he was holding his breath. The same white paint, he noticed; the same prison emptiness exactly. The same queer hush, like a phone-box; the same mix of public smells.
“确实如此，”斯迈利礼貌地说。
最后一段楼梯又陡又窄，通过斜的蒙有网格的天窗提供照明。顶层有两扇门，都关着，非常狭窄。其中一扇门上，他看到一张打字机打的字条：“弗·米勒先生，翻译”斯迈利还记得关于弗拉基米尔化名的争论。现在他要成为伦敦人，低调行事。“米勒”没问题。不知道什么原因，老伙计觉得米勒这个名字很高大上。“米勒，很好，”他说。“米勒我喜欢，马克斯。” 但 “先生 ”一点都不好。他要求用“将军”，然后又提出用“上校”。但身为牧师的斯迈利在这一点上却不肯让步。他认为，“先生”比错误的军队的冒牌军衔要少惹很多麻烦。
他大胆地敲了敲门，因为他知道轻声敲门比大声敲门更显眼。他听到了回声，除此之外什么也没有听到。他没有听到脚步声，也没有听到有声音突然静止了。他隔着送信口叫了一声 “弗拉基米尔”，就像老朋友来访一样。他从一串耶鲁锁（指的是一种使用耶鲁与汤恩公司专利的特殊装置的锁。这是一种常见的锁，尤其适用于家用门——译注）的钥匙中抽出一把试了下，结果卡住了，他又试了一把，结果开了锁。他走了进去，关上门，准备有什么东西打中他的后脑勺，他宁愿头骨破裂，而不是脸被枪打烂。他感到头晕目眩，意识到自己屏住了呼吸。他注意到，还是一样的白色油漆；还是一模一样的空旷的监狱似的感觉。一样静得出奇，像老式电话亭；一样混杂着公共场所常有的气味。

This is where we stood, Smiley remembered—the three of us, that afternoon. Toby and myself like tugs, nudging at the old battleship between us. The estate agent’s particulars had said “penthouse.”
“Hopeless,” Toby Esterhase had announced in his Hungarian French, always the first to speak, as he turned to open the door and leave. “I mean completely awful. I mean, I should have come and taken a look first, I was an idiot,” said Toby when Vladimir still didn’t budge. “General, please accept my apologies. This is a complete insult.”
Smiley added his own assurances. We can do better for you than this, Vladi; much. We just have to persist.
But the old man’s eyes were on the window, as Smiley’s were now, on this dotty forest of chimney-pots and gables and slate roofs that flourished beyond the parapet. And suddenly he had thumped a gloved paw on Smiley’s shoulder.
“Better you keep your money to shoot those swine in Moscow, Max,” he had advised.
With the tears running down his cheeks, and the same determined smile, Vladimir had continued to stare at the Moscow chimneys; and at his fading dreams of ever again living under a Russian sky.
“On reste ici,” he had commanded finally as if he were drawing up a last-ditch defence.
斯迈利记得，这就是我们站过的地方。那天下午，我们三个就站在这里。托比和我就像拖船一样，在我们之间摇晃着这艘老战舰。房产中介的资料上写着 “顶层公寓”。
“没希望了，”托比·埃斯特哈斯转身开门离开时，用他的带有匈牙利口音的法语说道。他总是第一个发言。“我是说完全是糟透了。我是说，我应该先来看看的，我真是个白痴。"见弗拉基米尔仍不为所动，托比说道。“将军，请接受我的道歉。这完全是一种侮辱。”
斯迈利也做出了自己的保证。我们能为你做得更好，弗拉迪（弗拉基米尔的爱称——译注）；好得多。我们只需要坚持。
但老人的眼睛一直盯着窗户，就像斯迈利现在的眼睛一样，盯着护墙外烟囱、屋檐和石板屋顶组成的丛林。突然，他用一只戴着手套的大手拍了拍斯迈利的肩膀。
”你最好把钱省下来，去打那些莫斯科的猪猡，马克斯。”他说。
弗拉基米尔的泪水顺着脸颊流了下来。他依然带着坚定的微笑，继续凝视着烟囱，仿佛那是莫斯科的烟囱。他凝视着渐渐消逝的梦想——再次生活在俄罗斯的天空下。
他最后说道：“我们就留在这儿，”仿佛他在下命令，部署最后一道防线。