爱人之间短暂分离的艺术

The Art of Being Apart

爱人之间短暂分离的艺术

My husband was leaving for London on a business trip, just a short hop. He would be back before the end of the week, but naturally, I spent the morning making a special card for him.

我丈夫要去伦敦出差，这只能算短途旅行。周末之前他就会回来，但我还是习惯性地花一上午时间给他做了张特别的卡片。

I always slip a card into his briefcase when he flies somewhere. Sometimes I add an old picture or a heart-shaped piece of coral. I do this, in part, so that if his plane crashes, I’ll know I’ve said a last I-love-you.

我总是在他旅行前往他的手提箱里塞张卡片。有时我会加上一张旧照片或者一块心形珊瑚。这样做的一个原因是，如果他的飞机失事，我知道我已经对他最后一次说过我爱你。

So far, this strategy seems to have kept his planes aloft. But, really, these notes are like bookmarks in the story of our marriage, each one created to hold a place until we’re together again.

到目前为止，这个方法似乎一直护佑他飞行平安。不过，说实在的，这些卡片就像我们婚姻故事中的书签，每一张都具有重要意义，直到我们重逢。

Departures weren’t always this simple. I still remember his first business trip, mainly because I was on it. This was not a helicopter-wife thing. It was 27 years ago, and we were newlyweds, and I was just trying on a wifely role that seemed quaint and retro and loving.

离别并不总是这么容易。我还记得他的第一次商务旅行，主要原因是那次我也去了。我并不是那种一直跟在他身边的妻子。那是27年前，我们刚结婚，我在尝试扮演贤妻角色，当时那种角色显得别致古雅，充满爱意。

The landscape of my childhood had been strewn with my parents’ suitcases — forever being packed and unpacked. Like my husband, my father had been a journalist, and my mother saw the world with him. Many wives got to do that then, and my mother brought back stories of large and little revelations, cotton caftans from Marrakesh and gold koi charms from Thailand.

我童年的记忆里满是父母的手提箱，他们似乎总是在收拾行装或打开行李。和丈夫一样，我父亲也是记者，母亲跟着他周游世界。当时很多妻子都是这样做的，母亲带回具有不同程度启发意义的故事、马拉喀什的宽松长袖棉长衫以及泰国的金锦鲤护身符。

My husband’s first business trip was to Toronto, and I brought back a hotel shower cap. But I thought: Yes, this is marriage. You do whatever you can so that you’ll wake up in the same bed.

丈夫的第一次商务旅行是去多伦多。我带回一个酒店浴帽。不过，当时我想：这就是婚姻。你尽己所能，这样你们才能在同一张床上醒来。

Unlike my mother, though, I had an office job. Even if I had been willing to drop it for traveling now and then, the ’80s and ’90s hardly offered the plus-one largess of the previous decades. To take your wife on a business trip now would be the marital equivalent of having your mother walk you to high school. There were other obstacles in those days: employees-only off-sites (his), magazine and book deadlines (mine), two children (ours) and two school schedules (theirs).

不过，不像母亲，我有份办公室工作。即便我愿意丢下工作不时陪丈夫出差也难以如愿。因为不像之前那几十年，在八九十年代，公司几乎都不负担家属的旅行费用。如今，带妻子进行商务旅行，就像让妈妈陪你上高中一样。那时还有其他一些障碍：（他的）只限员工的差旅；（我的）杂志和书稿截稿日期；（我们的）两个孩子以及（孩子们）不同的学校日程。

Unable to go on work jaunts together, we did what we thought was the next best thing: We tried to talk on the phone every day. This was before the cellphone, so we sometimes failed to connect at all. When we did, though, we aimed for full debriefings: all the meetings and meals, the gossip and grind, of our days apart.

既然不能一起出差，我们就执行次佳方案：我们尽量每天都打电话。当时还没有手机，所以有时完全联系不上。不过，通上电话后，我们总是详细讲述各自的情况：所有的会议和餐食以及所有的小道消息和苦差事。

Even then — years before we started to edit anthologies together — I had read some exquisite old letters written from one spouse to another. To people like John and Abigail Adams, distances were the same as time. If there was an ocean between you, there were three or four months also, and the Adamses used their letters to express their feelings and distill the facts.

即便在当时——当时我们还没有开始一起编辑文集——我已经读了一些夫妻之间的优美书札。对约翰和阿比盖尔·亚当斯(John and Abigail Adams)那时的人来说，距离就是时间。如果你们中间隔着大海，那就相当于隔着三四个月的时间，所以亚当斯夫妇用书信表达感情，简要讲述各自的情况。

Traveling in America a century and a half later, Dylan Thomas wrote his wife, Caitlin: “My dear one, my Irish heart, my wonderful wonderful girl who is with me invisibly every second …. Why oh why did I think I could live, I could bear to live, I could think of living, for all these torturing, unending, echoing months without you.” (Granted, he would commit adultery many times, but still. Nice words.)

一个半世纪之后，迪伦·托马斯(Dylan Thomas)到美国旅行，他在给妻子凯特琳(Caitlin)的信中写道：“我亲爱的，我的爱尔兰甜心，我美妙绝伦的姑娘，虽然看不见你，但是每一秒钟你都在我心里……为什么，哦，为什么我认为没有你我能活下去。为什么我以为自己能忍受所有这些折磨——无穷无尽、月复一月的折磨。”（没错，他后来是多次通奸，不过这些情话还是很感人。）

Such communication, however, depended on husbands and wives understanding that apart was truly apart, that they had no life together except their lives in the past and future. Stephen and I were trying to be together while being apart, and instead of a florid Welsh poet, I got a harried New York journalist. Instead of a sweet Irish heart, he got a disconcerted writer facing work and children and the unexpected realization that the quaint wifely role had definitely lost the quaint.

不过，这样的交流是因为夫妻双方都知道，分开就是分开，他们共同经历的生活只存在于过去或将来。我和斯蒂芬(Stephen)不在一起时总是尽量弄得好像我们还在一起。我的丈夫不是言辞优美的威尔士诗人，而是忙碌的纽约记者。他的妻子也不是爱尔兰甜心，而是焦虑不安的作家——她面临着工作和孩子的压力，并且意外地发现，古典贤妻的角色无疑已不再优雅。

Absence was making the heart grow cranky. When we talked, I imagined him in his hotel room, rolling his eyes and mouthing the words “two minutes” to some colleague waiting to hit the town.

配偶不在身边会让人变得焦躁。我们通电话时，我想像着他在酒店房间里，转动眼珠，向某个等他进城的同事做出“等我两分钟”的口型。

I thought: Where’s my Dylan Thomas letter? Why aren’t I “my wonderful wonderful girl who is with me invisibly every second”? (It didn’t occur to me that if Dylan had called home daily, Caitlin would have probably heard little more than the slurring of words over the rattle of ice cubes.)

当时我想：我的迪伦·托马斯情书在哪里？为什么我不是“美妙绝伦的姑娘”——“虽然看不见”我，“但是每一秒钟”我“都在”他“心里”？（我当时没想到，如果迪伦每天都往家里打电话，凯特琳很可能听到的只有咕咕哝哝的醉话，伴随着搅动冰块的声音。）

Petulantly, I sometimes resorted to monosyllables when Stephen called: “Fine.” “They’re good.” “Not much.” It was passive-aggressive and punishing, and I’m not usually either. If I had been married to me, I would have asked what I’d ever seen in myself.

有时，斯蒂芬打来电话时，我不耐烦地简单作答：“挺好。”“他们挺好的。”“不太多。”这些话是消极攻击，很折磨人，而我平常不是这样的。如果我的丈夫是我自己，我肯定会询问自己看到的任何东西。

Gradually, though, I realized that our daily reports could feel startlingly irrelevant. Deprived of the sharing of place, mood and time — all the factors that can make the mundane parts of marriage so festive — I was no more moved by the personnel problems of his newspaper’s Frankfurt office than he was by my editor’s comments on some article I’d rewritten. Dimly, I started to wonder if there might be certain benefits to getting some distance now and then.

不过，慢慢地，我吃惊地意识到我们的每日汇报没有意思。因为缺乏共同经历的地点、心情和时间——所有这些因素可能会让婚姻乏味的部分变得有趣——我不再关心他所在的报纸在法兰克福分站的人事问题，就像他不再关心编辑对我重写文章的评论。我开始隐隐约约地想，时不时分开一段时间可能也有些好处。

And there were. With Stephen away, I fudged the kids’ bedtimes. Sometimes I took them out for breakfast. They were shockingly young when they watched “The Godfather.” Along with the extra fun came extra duties. At night, I’d be the one, not Stephen, to take out the garbage and lock the doors. Chores get assigned in marriage, but a short separation reminds you what you can still do perfectly well by yourself. After the children were asleep, I rediscovered, too, how much more writing you can get done when you’re not also having a conversation, let alone having sex or dinner.

的确有好处。斯蒂芬不在的时候，对孩子的作息我就比较随意。有时，我带他们出去吃早餐。他们很小就看了《教父》(The Godfather)。更多乐趣意味着更多责任。晚上，我得负责倒垃圾、锁门，以前这些事都是斯蒂芬负责。平常我们是分做家务，但是短暂分离让我明白，我自己一个人也完全能做好。孩子们睡着后，我还再次发现，如果不闲聊——更别提性爱或晚餐——能多写很多文章。

My monosyllabic shtick slowly turned into confident restraint. I missed Stephen, but it was better to want him than to need him. The haunting mystery of any marriage — “What would I do without you?” — is often a rhetorical endearment. In my case, it was just practical: What would I do without him? What I had to. And sometimes I’d have fun.

我简单的答复慢慢变成了自信的克制。我想念斯蒂芬，但是想要他比需要他好一些。在任何婚姻中，一个永恒的问题是“没有你，我该怎么办？”不过这个问题往往是表达亲密的修辞手法。对我来说，答案很实际：我会做我必须做的事情。有时我还能从中获得乐趣。

After more than two decades of marriage, we had finally gotten it down. We would talk when we could and keep it brief. If something big arose, we would share it. But mainly, we said what people in love say. The freedom from all the details allowed us to miss each other, and coming together again suddenly provided a fluttery joy.

在结婚20多年后，我们最终明白：我们会在有机会时交谈，并尽量简洁。如果出现大事，我们会分享。但是我们说的主要是情话。不必告知所有细节让我们可以相互思念，重聚会突然带来一丝欣喜。

Good thing we had found all this wisdom, because it came just before my doctor told me, seven years ago now, that I had multiple sclerosis. My energy, even for simple tasks, became finite. Daily, my batteries drained. My balance was off. I broke an arm.

7年前，我得知自己得了多发性硬化症。幸运的是，之前不久，我们就发现了所有这些智慧。病症让我的精力变得非常有限，哪怕是完成简单的任务。我的精力每天都会耗尽。我经常失去平衡，把胳膊都摔断了。

I would lie in bed and look at a window and think, “I need to close that.” And then, half an hour later, I’d think, “I need to close that.” The children were older — a huge help. But all of our lives were altered.

当时，我躺在床上，看着窗外，心想：“我需要把那个关了。”半小时后，又想到，“我需要把那个关了。”孩子们都长大了，这对我有很大帮助。但是我们的生活彻底变了。

Stephen was now head of a global news agency with offices all over the world, and yet he was traveling less than he had in a decade. The first year or two after I got sick, he kept his travel stateside. But it was clear he would have to go much farther to spend real time with colleagues abroad.

斯蒂芬现在是一个全球新闻机构的主管，该机构在世界各地都有办公室，不过他出差比10年前少了。我生病后的前一两年，他只在国内出差。但是，显然他必须去更远的地方，与国外的同事们真正相处了解。

The journey of 12,000 miles begins with a single plane reservation. In February 2011, he rolled his suitcase down the hall, out the door and toward China. We kissed goodbye and flashed reassuring smiles that were filled with equal amounts of love and lying. But no trip had ever felt more essential. He needed a break from the me who was sick, and I needed a break from the guy who needed a break from the me who was sick.

一万两千英里的旅程始于简单的机票预订。2011年2月，他拉着行李箱走过门厅，走出门，飞向中国。我们吻别，露出让人放心的微笑，这微笑充满爱，也同样充满欺骗。但是没有哪次旅行像这次这么重要。他需要离开生病的我休息一下，我也需要短暂离开那个一直照顾我的需要休息的人。

Friends reminded him how easy it would be to stay in touch. There were iPhones. Wi-Fi everywhere. Skype. We could text and email at any hour. But we had learned our lesson, back when illness had nothing to do with it: For us, apart, if we did it right, allowed us to be our better selves, to rise above the daily dreck and feel the kind of marital bond that’s sometimes strongest when it’s stretched.

朋友们提醒他，保持联系很容易。有苹果手机。到处都有Wi-Fi。还有Skype。我们随时都能发短信和邮件。不过，早在我生病前，我们就已吸取教训：如果处理得当，分开能让我们成为更好的自己，摆脱日常生活的负累，感受那种有时在松开时更密切的婚姻联系。

More than 2,000 years ago, Pliny the Younger (Pliny the Younger!) wrote to his wife, Calpurnia: “The eagerness of my desire to see you is incredible. … I pass a great part of the night in thinking of you. In the day too, at those hours, when I used to see you, my feet carry me spontaneously … to your apartment, from whence I constantly return much out of humour and dejected.”

两千多年前，小普利尼(Pliny the Younger)在给妻子凯尔普尼娅(Calpurnia)的信中写道：“我想见你的欲望难以形容……我晚上的大部分时间都在想你。白天也是，在我过去常去看你的时间，我的脚会不由自主走进你的房间，然后往往带着沮丧和受挫的心情走出来。”

If Calpurnia had been sending him Snapchats, I doubt he would have felt the same.

如果凯尔普尼娅不时通过Snapchat给他发照片，我猜他的感觉就不是这样的了。

I stayed home, and Stephen went to Asia. We talked occasionally, but we didn’t Skype or text. He had left a letter on my night table — not Pliny or Dylan Thomas, perhaps, but pretty majestic in its own right. And I had put a note in his bag.

我呆在家里，斯蒂芬去了亚洲。我们偶尔通话，但我们没有用Skype视频聊天或者发短信。他在我的卧室桌子上留了一封信，也许没有小普利尼或迪伦·托马斯的那么感人，但就它本身而言已经相当美好了。我在他的包里也放了张便条。