Felix’s father was a friend of friends of Malcolm’s parents, and it had been Malcolm’s father who had gotten him the job. “They’re really not paying you enough at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, are they?” Mr. Irvine had asked him. “I don’t know why you won’t just let me introduce you to Gavin.” Gavin was one of Mr. Irvine’s law school friends, who now presided over one of the city’s more powerful firms.
菲利克斯的父亲是马尔科姆父母朋友的朋友，当初就是马尔科姆的父亲帮他找到这个家教工作的。“联邦检察署付你的薪水实在不够吧？”马尔科姆的父亲欧文先生曾问他，“我不明白你为什么不肯让我把你介绍给盖文。”盖文是欧文先生法学院时代的好友，现在主持的律师事务所在纽约市颇有影响力。
“Dad, he doesn’t want to work for some corporate firm,” Malcolm had begun, but his father continued talking as if Malcolm hadn’t even spoken, and Malcolm had hunched back into his chair. He had felt bad for Malcolm then, but also annoyed, as he had told Malcolm to discreetly inquire whether his parents knew anyone who might have a kid who needed tutoring, not to actually ask them.
“爸，他不想去什么大型律师事务所上班。”马尔科姆说，但他父亲充耳不闻，继续讲他的，马尔科姆只好往后坐回椅子里。他当时很替马尔科姆难过，但也有点气他，因为他之前交代马尔科姆，要他谨慎地向父母打听，是否有熟人的小孩需要家教，而不是直接请他们帮忙。
“Really, though,” Malcolm’s father had said to him, “I think it’s terrific that you’re interested in making your way on your own.” (Malcolm slouched even lower in his seat.) “But do you really need the money that badly? I didn’t think the federal government paid that miserably, but it’s been a long time since I was in public service.” He grinned.
“不过，真的，”马尔科姆的父亲对他说，“你想一切靠自己，我觉得太了不起了。”（马尔科姆在座位里滑得更低了）“只是你真的这么需要钱吗？我想联邦政府的薪水应该没那么差，但我没担任公职也很久了。”他咧嘴一笑。
He smiled back. “No,” he said, “the salary’s fine.” (It was. It wouldn’t have been to Mr. Irvine, of course, nor to Malcolm, but it was more money than he had ever dreamed he would have, and every two weeks it arrived, a relentless accumulation of numbers.) “I’m just saving up for a down payment.” He saw Malcolm’s face swivel toward him, and he reminded himself to tell Willem the particular lie he had told Malcolm’s father before Malcolm told Willem himself.
他也报以微笑。“不，”他说，“那里的薪水还好。”（的确如此。当然，那些薪水对欧文先生来说并不好，对马尔科姆来说也不好，但已经超过他以往梦想能赚的钱了，而且每两周发一次薪，让他的存款持续累积。）“我正在存钱，要付一笔头期款。”他看到马尔科姆的脸转向他，暗自提醒自己，要记得告诉威廉他跟马尔科姆的父亲撒了这个谎，免得马尔科姆先去跟威廉说。
“Oh, well, good for you,” said Mr. Irvine. This was a goal he could understand. “And as it happens, I know just the person.”
“啊，那很好。”欧文先生说，这样的目标很可以理解，“碰巧呢，我认识一个适当的人选。”
That person was Howard Baker, who had hired him after interviewing him for fifteen distracted minutes to tutor his son in Latin, math, German, and piano. (He wondered why Mr. Baker wasn’t hiring professionals for each subject—he could have afforded it—but didn’t ask.) He felt sorry for Felix, who was small and unappealing, and who had a habit of scratching the inside of one narrow nostril, his index finger tunneling upward until he remembered himself and quickly retracted it, rubbing it on the side of his jeans. Eight months later, it was still unclear to him just how capable Felix was. He wasn’t stupid, but he suffered from a lack of passion, as if, at twelve, he had already become resigned to the fact that life would be a disappointment, and he a disappointment to the people in it. He was always waiting, on time and with his assignments completed, every Saturday at one p.m., and he obediently answered every question—his answers always ending in an anxious, querying upper register, as if every one, even the simplest (“Salve, Felix, quid agis?” “Um … bene?”), were a desperate guess—but he never had any questions of his own, and when he asked Felix if there was any subject in particular he might want to try discussing in either language, Felix would shrug and mumble, his finger drifting toward his nose. He always had the impression, when waving goodbye to Felix at the end of the afternoon—Felix listlessly raising his own hand before slouching back into the recesses of the entryway—that he never left the house, never went out, never had friends over. Poor Felix: his very name was a taunt.
那个人就是霍华德·贝克。他心不在焉地跟他面谈了十五分钟，便决定雇用他当家教，替他儿子补习拉丁语、数学、德语和钢琴（他不懂贝克先生为什么不专门雇用每个科目的家教——他明明雇得起——但是也没问）。他替菲利克斯觉得难过，他瘦小而不起眼，有挖鼻孔的习惯，食指总是不自觉往鼻孔里探，然后才想起来，赶紧抽回手在牛仔裤侧边抹。八个月后，他还是搞不清菲利克斯的程度到底如何。他不笨，但是缺乏热情，仿佛才12岁就已经认命，知道人生不过是失望一场，而其他人也会对他失望。每星期六下午1点，他总是准时等着他，所有的功课都做完了，而且乖乖回答每个问题。他回答时，句尾总是语音上扬，充满焦虑和疑问，好像每个答案都是乱猜的，就连最简单的也不例外（比方用最简单的拉丁语问候菲利克斯“你好吗”，他会犹豫着回答“嗯——很好？”）。但他从来不会提出自己的问题。当他问菲利克斯会不会用德语或拉丁语讨论特定的主题时，菲利克斯会耸耸肩咕哝着，手指又往上朝鼻子移动。每次补习完毕，他在门口和菲利克斯挥手道别时（菲利克斯无力地举起一只手，然后又垂头丧气地转身进门去），他总有个印象，觉得他从没离开过这栋房子，从不出门，也没有朋友来找他。可怜的菲利克斯，他的名字本身就是一种嘲弄[1]。
The previous month, Mr. Baker had asked to speak to him after their lessons were over, and he had said goodbye to Felix and followed the maid into the study. His limp had been very pronounced that day, and he had been self-conscious, feeling—as he often did—as if he were playing the role of an impoverished governess in a Dickensian drama.
上个月，有天贝克先生要求他上完课后跟他谈一下，于是他和菲利克斯道别后，跟着女佣来到书房。他那天觉得自己的腿跛得特别明显，而且他一直很不安，觉得（他常常这样觉得）自己像在狄更斯小说改编的戏剧里扮演贫寒女家庭教师的角色。
He had expected impatience from Mr. Baker, perhaps anger, even though Felix was doing quantifiably better in school, and he was ready to defend himself if he needed—Mr. Baker paid far more than he had anticipated, and he had plans for the money he was earning there—but he was instead nodded toward the chair in front of the desk.
他本来以为贝克先生会很不耐烦，甚至生气，但是菲利克斯在学校的成绩进步很多，所以他也准备好在必要时为自己辩护（贝克先生付的家教酬劳比他预期高很多，这些钱他也计划好了要怎么用），结果贝克先生只是朝他书桌前的那张椅子点了个头。
“What do you think’s wrong with Felix?” Mr. Baker had demanded.
“你觉得菲利克斯哪里有毛病？”贝克先生问他。
He hadn’t been expecting the question, so he had to think before he answered. “I don’t think anything’s wrong with him, sir,” he’d said, carefully. “I just think he’s not—” Happy, he nearly said. But what was happiness but an extravagance, an impossible state to maintain, partly because it was so difficult to articulate? He couldn’t remember being a child and being able to define happiness: there was only misery, or fear, and the absence of misery or fear, and the latter state was all he had needed or wanted. “I think he’s shy,” he finished.
他没预料到这个问题，于是想了一会儿才回答：“先生，我不觉得他有哪里不对劲。”他小心翼翼地说，“我只是觉得他不……”快乐，他差点这么说了。但什么是快乐？除了那是一种奢侈、一种不可能持续的状态，太难用语言来表述了，或许这也是它无法持续的部分原因？他不记得自己小时候有办法定义快乐：当时只有悲惨、害怕，或是不悲惨也不害怕，而后者的状态就是他唯一需要或想要的。“我想他很害羞。”最后他说。
Mr. Baker grunted (this was obviously not the answer he was looking for). “But you like him, right?” he’d asked him, with such an odd, vulnerable desperation that he experienced a sudden deep sadness, both for Felix and for Mr. Baker. Was this what being a parent was like? Was this what being a child with a parent was like? Such unhappinesses, such disappointments, such expectations that would go unexpressed and unmet!
贝克先生咕哝了一声（这显然不是他想听到的答案）。“不过你喜欢他，对吧？”他问他，带着一种奇特、脆弱的绝望，让他忽然觉得好难过，为菲利克斯难过，也为贝克先生难过。当父母亲就是这样吗？当个有父母亲的孩子就是这样吗？这么不快乐，这么失望，这么多期望无法表达、无法实现！
“Of course,” he had said, and Mr. Baker had sighed and given him his check, which the maid usually handed to him on his way out.
“那当然。”他说。贝克先生叹了口气，把支票交给他，而之前都是由女佣在他离开时递给他的。
The next week, Felix hadn’t wanted to play his assignment. He was more listless than usual. “Shall we play something else?” he’d asked. Felix had shrugged. He thought. “Do you want me to play something for you?” Felix had shrugged again. But he did anyway, because it was a beautiful piano and sometimes, as he watched Felix inch his fingers across its lovely smooth keys, he longed to be alone with the instrument and let his hands move over its surface as fast as he could.
下一个星期，菲利克斯不想弹他指定的曲子。他比平常还要没精神。“想弹别的吗？”他问。菲利克斯耸耸肩。他想了想：“要我弹给你听吗？”菲利克斯又耸耸肩。但他还是弹了，因为这架钢琴很美，有时他看着菲利克斯的手指抚过那光滑的、精致的琴键，很渴望能独自坐在钢琴前，双手尽情在琴键上迅速地移动。
He played Haydn, Sonata No. 50 in D Major, one of his favorite pieces and so bright and likable that he thought it might cheer them both up. But when he was finished, and there was only the quiet boy sitting next to him, he was ashamed, both of the braggy, emphatic optimism of the Haydn and of his own burst of self-indulgence.
他演奏了海顿的《D大调第五十号钢琴奏鸣曲》，这是他最喜欢的作品之一，而且轻快愉悦，他觉得弹这首可以让两个人都开心一点。可是等他弹完，那个男孩还是沉默地坐在他旁边。他觉得羞愧，既为了海顿这首曲子明显而夸张的乐观，也因为自己忽然这么放纵。
“Felix,” he’d begun, and then stopped. Beside him, Felix waited. “What’s wrong?”
“菲利克斯，”他说，然后又停下。在他旁边的菲利克斯等待着，“有什么不对劲吗？”
And then, to his astonishment, Felix had begun to cry, and he had tried to comfort him. “Felix,” he’d said, awkwardly putting his arm around him. He pretended he was Willem, who would have known exactly what to do and what to say without even thinking about it. “It’s going to be all right. I promise you, it will be.” But Felix had only cried harder.
这时，令他惊讶的是，菲利克斯哭了起来，他试图安慰他。“菲利克斯，”他说，笨拙地伸出一只手揽住他的肩膀。他假装自己是威廉，可以想都不必想就完全明白该做什么、说什么，“一切都会好起来的。我跟你保证，一定会的。”但菲利克斯只是哭得更凶了。
“I don’t have any friends,” Felix had sobbed.
“我一个朋友都没有。”菲利克斯啜泣着说。
“Oh, Felix,” he’d said, and his sympathy, which until then had been of the remote, objective kind, clarified itself. “I’m sorry.” He felt then, keenly, the loneliness of Felix’s life, of a Saturday spent sitting with a crippled nearly thirty-year-old lawyer who was there only to earn money, and who would go out that night with people he loved and who, even, loved him, while Felix remained alone, his mother—Mr. Baker’s third wife—perpetually elsewhere, his father convinced there was something wrong with him, something that needed fixing. Later, on his walk home (if the weather was nice, he refused Mr. Baker’s car and walked), he would wonder at the unlikely unfairness of it all: Felix, who was by any definition a better kid than he had been, and who yet had no friends, and he, who was a nothing, who did.
“喔，菲利克斯。”他说。他之前一直保持的远距离、客观的同情，忽然清晰了起来，“我很遗憾。”他强烈地感觉到菲利克斯的生活有多么寂寞。这是星期六，菲利克斯身边只有一个快30岁、瘸了腿的律师，而这律师来这里只是为了赚钱，晚上还会跟他所爱、甚至也爱他的人一起出门玩。但是菲利克斯还是孤零零一个人，他母亲（贝克先生的第三任妻子）长年不在身边，他父亲则相信他有毛病，需要矫治。稍后，在走回家的路上（如果天气好，他会婉拒贝克先生派的车，自己走路回家），他会想着这一切看似荒谬的不公平：就任何标准来说，菲利克斯都比他小时候过得好，可是菲利克斯没有朋友；而他，什么都没有，却有朋友。
“Felix, it’ll happen eventually,” he’d said, and Felix had wailed, “But when?” with such yearning that he had winced.
“菲利克斯，总有一天你会交到朋友的。”他说，而菲利克斯恸哭说：“可是什么时候？”那种渴望令他动容。
“Soon, soon,” he had told him, petting his skinny back, “I promise,” and Felix had nodded, although later, walking him to the door, his little geckoey face made even more reptilian from tears, he’d had the distinct sensation that Felix had known he was lying. Who could know if Felix would ever have friends? Friendship, companionship: it so often defied logic, so often eluded the deserving, so often settled itself on the odd, the bad, the peculiar, the damaged. He waved goodbye at Felix’s small back, retreating already into the house, and although he would never have said so to Felix, he somehow fancied that this was why Felix was so wan all the time: it was because Felix had already figured this out, long ago; it was because he already knew.
“很快，很快的。”他告诉他，拍拍他干瘦的背部，“我保证。”于是菲利克斯点点头。不过稍后送他到门口时，他看着那张窄小如壁虎的脸，因为哭过更像爬虫类生物，忽然隐隐觉得菲利克斯知道他在说谎。谁知道菲利克斯之后能不能交到朋友？友谊或爱情往往违背逻辑，往往不论是否值得，往往寄居在古怪的、糟糕的、特殊的、具有破坏性的情况下。他挥手告别，但菲利克斯已经转身进屋了。这些话他永远不会告诉菲利克斯，但不知怎的，他猜想这就是菲利克斯长年如此苍白的原因：因为菲利克斯很久以前已经猜到了，因为他早就知道了。
