Smiley's People汉译82

agent124

第11章



To walk was just possible for Ostrakova, and to walk was all she asked. To walk and wait for the magician. Nothing was broken. Though her dumpy little body, when they had given her a bath, was shaping up to become as blackened and patchy as a map of the Siberian coalfields, nothing was broken. And her poor rump, which had given her that bit of trouble at the warehouse, looked already as though the assembled secret armies of Soviet Russia had booted her from one end of Paris to the other; still, nothing was broken. They had X-rayed every part of her, they had prodded her like questionable meat for signs of internal bleeding. But in the end, they had gloomily declared her to be the victim of a miracle.
They had wanted to keep her, for all that. They had wanted to treat her for shock, sedate her—at least for one night! The police, who had found six witnesses with seven conflicting accounts of what had happened (The car was grey, or was it blue? The registration number was from Marseilles, or was it foreign?), the police had taken one long statement from her, and threatened to come back and take another.
奥斯特拉科娃刚能勉强走路，但能走路就够了。走路，等待魔术师。没有任何器质性损伤。虽然她那瘦小的身躯在洗完澡后，变得像西伯利亚煤田地图一样乌黑斑驳，但没有任何器质性损伤。她那可怜的臀部在仓库的时候给她带来了一点麻烦，现在看起来就像苏维埃俄国的秘密军队把她从巴黎的一端踢到了另一端；不过，还是没有任何器质性损伤。他们用X光检查了她身体的每一个部位，在她的身上东戳西戳，探查是否有内出血的迹象，就像是检查一块有问题的肉一样。但最后，他们找不到原因，只好宣布她是个奇迹般幸运的受害者。
尽管如此，他们还是想留下她。他们想治疗她收到的惊吓，给她打镇静剂——至少再留一晚！警察找到了六位目击者，他们对所发生的事情有七种相互矛盾的说法（车是灰色的，还是蓝色的？车牌号是马赛的，还是外国的？），警察向她录了一份长长的口供，并扬言说要回来再录一份。

Ostrakova had nevertheless discharged herself.
Then had she at least children to look after her? they had asked. Oh, but she had a mass of them! she said. Daughters who would pander to her smallest whim, sons to assist her up and down the stairs! Any number—as many as they wished! To please the sisters, she even made up lives for them, though her head was beating like a war-drum. She had sent out for clothes. Her own were in shreds and God Himself must have blushed to see the state she was in when they found her. She gave a false address to go with her false name; she wanted no follow-up, no visitors. And somehow, by sheer will-power, at the stroke of six that evening, Ostrakova became just another ex-patient, stepping cautiously and extremely painfully down the ramp of the great black hospital, to rejoin the very world which that same day had done its best to be rid of her for good. Wearing her boots, which like herself were battered but mysteriously unbroken; and she was quaintly proud of the way they had supported her.
She wore them still. Restored to the twilight of her own apartment, seated in Ostrakov’s tattered armchair while she patiently wrestled with his old army revolver, trying to fathom how the devil it loaded, cocked, and fired itself, she wore them like a uniform. “I am an army of one.” To stay alive: that was her one aim, and the longer she did it, the greater would be her victory. To stay alive until the General came, or sent her the magician.
然而，奥斯特拉科娃却自己出院了。
他们问，那她至少有孩子可以照顾她吧？哦，她有一大堆孩子！她说。女儿们连她最小的要求都会满足她，儿子们会搀扶她上下楼！他们觉得几个孩子合适，她就有几个孩子！为了取悦医护人员，她甚至编造子女的生活给他们听，尽管她的脑袋里好像在敲战鼓。她叫人去拿衣服。她自己的衣服已经破烂不堪，当他们把她送到医院时，上帝看到她的样子一定会脸红。她提供了一个假地址和假名字；她不希望有人回访她，不希望有人来找她。那天傍晚六点钟，奥斯特拉科娃纯粹靠着自己的意志力撑着，小心翼翼地、极其痛苦地走下了黑色大医院的斜坡，和其他出院病人一样，重新回到了这个世界，这个在同一天曾竭尽全力要永远摆脱她的世界。她穿着靴子，靴子和她本人一样，虽然破旧不堪，但奇迹般地没有大的损坏；她对靴子支撑她的方式感到一种老派的自豪。
她仍然穿着那双靴子。她回到住的公寓后，暮色时分，她就坐在奥斯特科夫破旧的扶手椅上，耐心地摆弄着他那把老式军用左轮手枪，试图弄明白到底如何上子弹、扣动扳机和开枪。每当这个时候，她就像穿着制服一样穿着那双靴子。“我是一个人的军队”。活下去：这是她的唯一目标，她活得越久，胜利就越大。活到将军来，或者魔法师来。