充滿奇想的一年

瓊·狄迪恩（Joan Didion，1934—），美國(guó)女作家，個(gè)性獨(dú)立，在美國(guó)當(dāng)代文學(xué)中地位顯赫，以小說、雜文及劇本寫作見長(zhǎng)，雜文與小說多次獲獎(jiǎng)，由其擔(dān)任編劇的電影還獲得了戛納電影獎(jiǎng)、奧斯卡獎(jiǎng)、金球獎(jiǎng)和格萊美獎(jiǎng)等獎(jiǎng)項(xiàng)。

狄迪恩一直過著令人羨慕的生活：事業(yè)有成、家庭美滿，幸福得幾乎忘記了人生還有陰陽相隔、生離死別。2003年，上天開玩笑似地一下子將種種不幸降臨到她頭上——女兒突然患病昏迷，而丈夫也毫無預(yù)兆地離世。雙重打擊之下，狄迪恩差點(diǎn)精神崩潰，但她卻沒有號(hào)啕大哭，也沒有失魂落魄，而是平靜地把極度的悲痛壓在心底。幾個(gè)星期，乃至幾個(gè)月間，她哀悼，她思索，心中原有的關(guān)于死亡、疾病、運(yùn)氣、婚姻和悲傷的理解統(tǒng)統(tǒng)動(dòng)搖。在陷入長(zhǎng)達(dá)一年多的哀慟與奇想后，她拿起筆寫出此書，把與丈夫四十年共同生活的片斷回憶，以及許多關(guān)于生命的困惑與思考如鏡頭般地記錄了下來。

回憶，是因?yàn)檠泳d不盡的思念；叨念，是因?yàn)橐活w因摯愛而破碎的心。

本書獲2005年美國(guó)國(guó)家圖書獎(jiǎng)。

Life changes fast.

Life changes in the instant.

You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.

The question of self-pity.

Those were the first words I wrote after it happened. The computer dating on the Microsoft Word file （“Notes on changes.doc”） reads “May 20， 2004， 11：11 p.m.，” but that would have been a case of my opening the file and 1）reflexively pressing save when I closed it. I had made no changes to that file in May. I had made no changes to that file since I wrote the words， in January 2004， a day or two or three after the fact.

For a long time I wrote nothing else.

Life changes in the instant.

The ordinary instant.

At some point， in the interest of remembering what seemed most striking about what had happened， I considered adding those words， “the ordinary instant.”I saw immediately that there would be no need to add the word “ordinary，” because there would be no forgetting it： the word never left my mind. It was， in fact， the ordinary nature of everything preceding the event that prevented me from truly believing it had happened， absorbing it， incorporating it， getting past it. I recognize now that there was nothing unusual in this： 2）confronted with sudden disaster we all focus on how unremarkable the circumstances were in which the unthinkable occurred， the clear blue sky from which the plane fell， the routine errand that ended on the shoulder with the car in flames， the swings where the children were playing as usual when the 3）rattlesnake struck from the ivy. “He was on his way home from work— happy， successful， healthy — and then， gone，” I read in the account of a 4）psychiatric nurse whose husband was killed in a highway accident. In 1966 I happened to interview many people who had been living in 5）Honolulu on the morning of December 7， 1941； without exception， these people began their accounts of Pearl Harbor by telling me what an “ordinary Sunday morning”it had been. “It was just an ordinary beautiful September day，” people still say when asked to describe the morning in New York when American Airlines 11 and United Airlines 175 got flown into the World Trade towers. Even the report of the 9/11 Commission opened on this insistently 6）premonitory and yet still dumbstruck narrative note：“Tuesday， September 11， 2001， dawned 7）temperate and nearly cloudless in the eastern United States.”

“And then — gone.” In the midst of life we are in death， 8）Episcopalians say at the graveside. Later， I realized that I must have repeated the details of what happened to everyone who came to the house in those first weeks， all those friends and relatives who brought food and made drinks and laid out plates on the dining room table for however many people were around at lunch or dinner time， all those who picked up the plates and froze the leftovers and ran the dishwasher and filled our（I could not yet think my） otherwise empty house， even after I had gone into the bedroom （our bedroom， the one in which there still lay on a sofa a faded terrycloth XL robe bought in the 1970s at 9）Richard Carroll in Beverly Hills）and shut the door. Those moments when I was abruptly overtaken by exhaustion， are what I remember most clearly about the first days and weeks. I have no memory of telling anyone the details， but I must have done so， because everyone seemed to know them. At one point I considered the possibility that they had picked up the details of the story from one another， but immediately rejected it： the story they had was in each instance too accurate to have been passed from hand to hand. It had come from me.

Another reason I knew that the story had come from me was that no version I heard included the details I could not yet face， for example the blood on the living room floor that stayed there until Jose came in the next morning and cleaned it up.

Jose. Who was part of our household. Who was supposed to be flying to Las Vegas later that day， December 31， but never went. Jose was crying that morning as he cleaned up the blood. When I first told him what had happened he had not understood. Clearly I was not the ideal teller of this story， something about my version had been at once too 10）offhand and too 11）elliptical， something in my tone had failed to convey the central fact in the situation （I would encounter the same failure later when I had to tell Quintana）， but by the time Jose saw the blood he understood.

I had picked up the abandoned 12）syringes and 13）ECG 14）electrodes before he came in that morning， but I could not face the blood.

In outline.

It is now， as I begin to write this， the afternoon of October 4， 2004.

Nine months and five days ago， at 15）approximately nine o’clock on the evening of December 30， 2003， my husband， John Gregory Dunne， appeared to （or did） experience， at the table where he and I had just sat down to dinner in the living room of our apartment in New York， a sudden massive 16）coronary event that caused his death. Our only child， Quintana， had been for the previous five nights unconscious in an intensive care unit at Beth Israel Medical Center’s Singer Division， at that time a hospital on East End Avenue （it closed in August 2004） more commonly known as “Beth Israel North” or “the old Doctors’ Hospital，” where what had seemed a case of December flu， sufficiently severe enough to take her to an emergency room on Christmas morning had exploded into pneumonia and 17）septic shock.

This is my attempt to make sense of the period that followed， weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I had ever had about death， about illness， about probability and luck， about good fortune and bad， about marriage and children and memory， about grief， about the ways in which people do and do not deal with the fact that life ends， about the shallowness of 18）sanity， about life itself. I have been a writer my entire life. As a writer， even as a child， long before what I wrote began to be published， I developed a sense that meaning itself was resident in the rhythms of words and sentences and paragraphs， a technique for withholding whatever it was I thought or believed behind an increasingly 19）impenetrable polish. The way I write is who I am， or have become， yet this is a case in which I wish I had instead of words and their rhythms a cutting room， equipped with an 20）Avid， a digital editing system on which I could touch a key and collapse the sequence of time， show you simultaneously all the frames of memory that come to me now， let you pick the takes， the marginally different expressions， the variant readings of the same lines. This is a case in which I need more than words to find the meaning. This is a case in which I need whatever it is I think or believe to be penetrable， if only for myself.

生活變化得很快。

生活瞬間發(fā)生變化。

你坐下來吃晚飯，你所熟知的生活就結(jié)束了。

自憐的問題。

那些都是我在事情發(fā)生后寫下的最初幾句話。電腦上的文字文檔（關(guān)于變化的筆記.doc）顯示的修改日期是“2004年5月20日23∶11”，但這是因?yàn)槲耶?dāng)時(shí)打開了這個(gè)文檔，然后在關(guān)閉時(shí)條件反射按了保存。5月期間我沒有修改過這個(gè)文檔。2004年1月，我在事情發(fā)生一兩天或者三天后寫下了這些話。自那時(shí)起我就沒有修改過這個(gè)文檔。

有很長(zhǎng)一段時(shí)間，我沒有寫下別的字句。

生活瞬間發(fā)生變化。

尋常的瞬間。

有時(shí)候，在回憶起事件中最嚇人的一面時(shí)，我考慮過加上這幾個(gè)字：“尋常的瞬間”。我立即明白沒有必要加上“尋?！边@個(gè)詞，因?yàn)樗粫?huì)被遺忘：這個(gè)詞從沒離開過我的腦子。事實(shí)上，正是因?yàn)槭虑榘l(fā)生前一切如常，這才令我無法真正相信已經(jīng)發(fā)生的事實(shí)，無法接受它，無法適應(yīng)它，無法忘卻它?，F(xiàn)在我意識(shí)到這種情況并非異常：當(dāng)災(zāi)難突然降臨，我們都會(huì)強(qiáng)調(diào)那些難以想象的事件所發(fā)生的環(huán)境是多么的尋常無奇，飛機(jī)墜落時(shí)碧空晴天，例行的跑腿工作因?yàn)檐囎又鸲娼K，孩子們和往常一樣蕩秋千時(shí)被藤蔓中竄出的響尾蛇咬傷?！八驮谙掳嗷丶业穆飞稀腋?、成功、健康——然后，走了?！边@是我在一個(gè)精神病科護(hù)士寫下的文字中讀到的，她的丈夫死于一次交通事故。1966年，我有機(jī)會(huì)訪問了很多在1941年12月7日早上生活在檀香山的人，這些人向我描述珍珠港事件時(shí)，總是毫無例外地這樣開始：那是一個(gè)“尋常的星期天早晨”?！澳翘熘皇敲利惥旁轮械囊粋€(gè)普通日子，”當(dāng)問及紐約那天早上，美洲航空公司11號(hào)班機(jī)和聯(lián)合航空公司175號(hào)班機(jī)撞上世貿(mào)大樓時(shí)的情況，人們?nèi)詴?huì)這么說。甚至連“9·11”事件調(diào)查委員會(huì)的報(bào)告也以這種充滿預(yù)兆卻仍然震驚不已的語氣開頭：“2001年9月11日，星期二，美國(guó)東部早上氣候溫煦，天空幾乎萬里無云。”

“然后——走了?！笔ス珪?huì)教徒站在墓邊說，我們尚在生命途中卻要面對(duì)死亡。接著，我意識(shí)到我一定已經(jīng)把事情的各種細(xì)節(jié)都向在最初幾個(gè)星期前來探訪的每個(gè)人一一復(fù)述過了。這些親朋好友帶來食物，調(diào)好飲品，在午餐或晚餐時(shí)分，在餐廳的桌子上為或多或少的客人擺好碗碟；他們收拾餐桌，把吃剩的東西放進(jìn)冰箱，開動(dòng)洗碗機(jī)；等我走進(jìn)臥房（我們的臥房，里面的一張沙發(fā)上依然擺著一件褪色的加大號(hào)針織外套，那是上世紀(jì)70年代在比弗利山的理查德·卡羅爾男裝店買來的），把門關(guān)上后，他們填滿我們的（我依然不認(rèn)為是“我的”）公寓，使其不再空蕩蕩。關(guān)于最初那幾天、那幾個(gè)星期，我記得最清楚的就是那些突然感到精疲力竭的時(shí)候。我不記得跟誰說起過細(xì)節(jié)，但我肯定說了，因?yàn)榇蠹宜坪醵剂私?。有一次，我想過事情的細(xì)節(jié)可能是他們相互交流得知的，但立刻又否定了：他們每個(gè)人對(duì)事情的了解都太過精確，不可能是經(jīng)過口口相傳的。肯定是由我說出來的。

我知道這件事出自我之口，還有一個(gè)原因，那就是在我聽過的版本中，沒有任何我仍舊無法面對(duì)的細(xì)節(jié)，比如客廳地板上的血跡。血跡一直在那兒，直到第二天早上荷西過來清洗干凈之后才消失。

荷西。他是我們家的一員。那天——12月31日，他本來是要在晚些時(shí)候飛往拉斯維加斯的，但沒有去成。那天早晨，荷西清洗血跡時(shí)一直在哭。當(dāng)我第一次告訴他事情的經(jīng)過時(shí)，他并不明白。顯然，這個(gè)故事并不適合由我來講述；我的版本一下子說得太過語無倫次，也太過簡(jiǎn)略；我的語調(diào)有些地方無法傳達(dá)整件事的關(guān)鍵部分（后來我告訴金塔娜時(shí)也碰到這種情況）；但當(dāng)荷西看見血跡的時(shí)候，他就明白了。

那天早上，他進(jìn)門之前，我已經(jīng)把散落不用的注射器和心電圖儀的電極板撿了起來，但我無法面對(duì)那灘血跡。

大抵如此。

現(xiàn)在，我開始寫下這些的時(shí)間是：2004年10月4日的下午。

九個(gè)月又五天之前，也就是2003年12月30日晚上大約9點(diǎn)，我和丈夫約翰·格雷戈里·鄧恩在紐約公寓的客廳中剛坐下來吃晚飯。他看上去（或者真的）經(jīng)歷了一次嚴(yán)重的心臟病突發(fā)，并因此而死亡。而此前五個(gè)晚上，我們的獨(dú)生女金塔娜一直人事不省地躺在貝斯·以色列醫(yī)療中心辛格分院的重癥監(jiān)護(hù)病房；那里當(dāng)時(shí)是東邊大道的一所醫(yī)院（已于2004年8月關(guān)閉），更常用的名稱是“貝斯·以色列北院”或“老大夫醫(yī)院”。她似乎感染了12月的流感，病情非常嚴(yán)重，在圣誕節(jié)早上被送進(jìn)了急診室，流感后來發(fā)展成肺炎和敗血病性休克。

隨后的那個(gè)時(shí)期——幾個(gè)星期，接著是幾個(gè)月，我原有的所有觀念，那些關(guān)于死亡、關(guān)于疾病、關(guān)于概率和運(yùn)氣、關(guān)于幸運(yùn)與霉運(yùn)、關(guān)于婚姻、孩子和記憶、關(guān)于哀痛、關(guān)于人們?nèi)绾螒?yīng)付和逃避死亡的方式、關(guān)于神志清晰的膚淺定義、關(guān)于生命本身的觀念，統(tǒng)統(tǒng)都動(dòng)搖了。現(xiàn)在我正嘗試去理清那一段日子的意義。我畢生都在寫作。身為作家，甚至早在我未發(fā)表作品，還是個(gè)小孩之前，我就養(yǎng)成了一種觀念，認(rèn)為意義本身就存在于字句和段落的韻律之間；我還煉成了一種技巧，能夠?qū)⑽业南敕ɑ蛐拍铍[藏在越來越隱晦的文筆之后。我寫故我在，或者說，我寫作的方式已經(jīng)與我渾然一體；然而這一次，我寧愿我擁有的不是詞語和它們的韻律，而是一間電影剪輯室，配備了一個(gè)叫做“愛維德”的數(shù)碼編輯系統(tǒng)。通過它，我能夠按一下按鍵，打亂時(shí)間的先后，將如今在我腦海涌現(xiàn)的所有記憶同時(shí)呈現(xiàn)給你們看，由你們來選取鏡頭，選取大同小異的表情，選取對(duì)相同臺(tái)詞的不同解讀。這一次，為了找到意義，我需要的不只是詞語。這一次，我需要將我所有的想法或信念坦誠(chéng)相告，只要是為了我自己。