南布朗克斯的安琪儿

赏析/陈榕

唐·德里罗（Don DeLillo， 1936～）是美国当代小说家中的重量级人物。他出生于纽约的布朗克斯区，父母是意大利移民，1954年就读于福德姆大学，1958年毕业后曾经从事过广告业，并在业余时间进行文学创作。德里罗1960年开始发表小说，其后成为职业作家。迄今为止，德里罗共出版长篇小说16部，这些小说的主题具有时代感，风格富有实验性，其中的代表作有《白噪音》（White Noise）、《天秤星座》（Libra）、地下世界（Underworld）等。短篇小说《天使埃斯梅拉达》（The Angel Esmeralda）选自德里罗出版于2011年的短篇小说集《天使埃斯梅拉达：九个故事》（The Angel Esmeralda： Nine Stories）。

Excerpts1）

And another morning a day later. She2） sat in the van and watched Sister Grace emerge from the convent3）， the rolling gait4）， the short legs and squarish body. Gracies face averted as she edged around the front of the vehicle and opened the door on the drivers side.

She got in and gripped the wheel， looking straight ahead. “I got a call from the friary5）.”

Then she reached for the door and shut it. She gripped the wheel again.

“Somebody raped Esmeralda and threw her off a roof.”

She started the engine.

“Im sitting here thinking， ‘Who do I kill？”

She looked at Edgar briefly， then put the van in gear.

“Because who do I kill is the only question I can ask myself without falling apart completely.”

They drove south through local streets， the tenement6） brick smoked mellow7） in the morning light. Edgar felt the weather of Gracies rage and pain—shed approached the girl two or three times in recent weeks， had talked to her from a distance， thrown a bag of clothing into the pokeweed8） where Esmeralda stood. They rode all the way in silence with the older nun mind-reciting questions and answers from the Baltimore Catechism9）. The strength of these exercises， which were a form of perdurable10） prayer， lay in the voices that accompanied hers， children responding through the decades， syllable-crisp， a panpipe11） chant that was the lucid music of her life. Question and answer. What deeper dialogue might right minds devise？ She reached her hand across to Gracies on the wheel and kept it there for a digital tick on the dashboard clock. Who made us？ God made us. Those clear-eyed faces so believing. Who is God？ God is the Supreme Being who made all things. She felt tired in her arms， her arms were heavy and dead and she got all the way to Lesson 12 when the projects appeared at the rim of the sky， upper windows white with sunplay against the broad dark face of beaten stone.

When Gracie finally spoke she said， “Its still there.”

“Whats still there？”

“Hear it？ Hear it？”

“Hear what？” Edgar said.

“Ku-ku-ku-ku.”

Then she drove the van down past the projects toward the painted wall.

When they got there the angel was already sprayed in place. They gave her a pink sweatshirt and pink and aqua12） pants and a pair of white Air Jordans with the logo prominent—she was a running fool， so Ismael gave her running shoes. And the little kid named Juano still dangled from a rope， winched13） down from the roof by the old hand-powered hoist14） they used to grapple cars onto the deck of the truck. Ismael and others bent over the ledge15）， attempting to shout correct spellings down to him as he drifted to and from the wall， leaning in to spray the interlaced letters that marked the great gone era of wildstyle graffiti. The nuns stood outside the van， watching the kid finish the last scanted word and then saw him yanked16） skyward in the cutting wind.

ESMERALDA LOPEZ

12 YEAR

PETECTED IN HEVEN

They all met on the third floor and Gracie paced the hollow room. Ismael stood in a corner smoking a Phillies Blunt. The nun did not seem to know where to begin， how to address the nameless thing that someone had done to this child shed so hoped to save. She paced， she clenched her fists. They heard the gassy moan of a city bus some blocks away.

“Ismael. You have to find out who this guy is that did this thing.”

“You think Im running here？”

“You have contacts in the neighborhood that no one else has.”

“What neighborhood？ The neighborhoods over there. This heres the Bird17）. Its all I can do to get these kids so they spell a word on the freaking wall. When I was writing we did subway cars in the dark without a letter misspell.”

“Who cares about spelling？” Gracie said.

Ismael exchanged a secret look with Sister Edgar， giving her a snaggle smile from out of his history of dental neglect. She felt weak and lost. Now that Terror has become local， how do we live？ she thought. The great thrown shadow dismantled—no longer a launched object in the sky named for a Greek goddess on a bell krater18） in 500 BC. What is Terror now？ Some noise on the pavement very near， a thief with a paring knife or the stammer of casual rounds from a passing car. Someone who carries off your child. Ancient fears called back； they will steal my child； they will come into my house when Im asleep and cut out my heart because they have a dialogue with Satan. She let Gracie carry her grief and fatigue for the rest of that day and the day after and the two or three weeks after that. Edgar thought she might fall into crisis， begin to see the world as a spurt of blank matter that chanced to make an emerald19） planet here and a dead star there， with random waste between. The serenity of immense design was missing from her sleep， form and proportion， the power that awes and thrills. When Gracie and the crew took food into the projects， Edgar waited in the van. She was the nun in the van， unable to face the people who needed reasons for Esmeralda.

Mother of Mercy pray for us. Three hundred days.

1. 节选部分主要描述的是埃德加（Edgar）修女得知埃斯梅拉达被残害致死，看到了孩子们为纪念埃斯梅拉达而创作的天使涂鸦，并由此产生了一些感受。

2. She：指埃德加修女。

3. convent [?k?nv?nt] n. 女修道院

4. gait [ɡe?t] n. 步态，步法

5. friary [?fra??ri] n. 男修道院

6. tenement [?ten?m?nt] n. 住宅，公寓大楼

7. mellow [?mel??] adj. （砖、石、建筑物）因年久而古色古香的；柔美的

8. pokeweed [?p??kwi?d] n. [植]美洲商陆

9. catechism [?k?t??k?z（?）m] n. 教义问答

10. perdurable [p??dj??r?b（?）l] adj. 永久的，永恒的

11. panpipe [?p?npa?p] n. 排箫

12. aqua [??kw?] adj. 浅绿色的，水绿色的

13. winch [w?nt?] vt. 用绞车提升；用起货机吊起

14. hoist [h??st] n. 绞车；起重机

15. ledge [led?] n. （自墙壁突出的）壁架；架状突出物

16. yank [j??k] vi. 猛拉

17. Bird：在小说中指故事发生的地区，是bird sanctuary （鸟类保护区）的简称，形容该地区与世隔绝。

18. krater [?kre?t?（r）] n. 巨爵（古希腊和古罗马人用来冲淡酒的一种容器）

19. emerald [?em（?）r?ld] adj. 翠绿色的

作品欣赏

提到纽约，人们往往会联想到一长串耳熟能详的地名：第五大道、帝国大厦、中央车站、联合国总部、华尔街、时报广场以及百老汇。不过，这些景观都集中在曼哈顿区。纽约共有五个行政区，曼哈顿只是其中之一，其他各区包括布朗克斯区、布鲁克林区、皇后区以及斯塔滕岛，其中最为贫困的一个区是布朗克斯区。按照2010年美国统计局提供的数据，在全美最为贫困的国会选区名单中，南布朗克斯排名第一。在那里，将近一半的人口挣扎在贫困线以下。在小说《天使埃斯梅拉达》中，女主人公埃德加修女就在这一带从事慈善工作。

埃德加修女服务的社区被当地警察戏称为“鸟类保护区”。这个绰号的由来并不是因为它是鸟类的天堂，而是因为它与世隔绝，是“一片在社会秩序之外的领地”。这里随时可以听到黑帮火并的枪声，街道上“游荡着成群结队的青少年，还有武装起来的毒品贩子”，废弃的房屋和旧车场里徘徊着各种各样的社会畸零人。小说中的“天使”埃斯梅拉达就是其中的一员。她是一个12岁的孩子，生父不详，母亲吸毒，将她遗弃。她对陌生人怀着巨大的不信任，拒绝慈善机构的援助，独自生活在废品堆里。随着小说的展开，我们得知她被一群暴徒强奸，并被人从顶楼推下致死，连凶手是谁人们都无从知晓。

埃斯梅拉达的命运是个悲剧，但这样的命运却不是个案。南布朗克斯的贫民窟是死亡的空间，疾病、贫困以及暴力随时随地在夺取人们的生命。在这里，受伤害最深的就是无辜的孩子。当地住着一位名叫伊斯梅尔的街头艺术家，他带领一批辍学的孩子在残破的高层公寓楼外墙进行涂鸦创作。“每当附近社区有孩子死去，他们便用喷涂枪画一个天使，表示对死者的怀念。”伴随着儿童的高死亡率，密密麻麻的天使画像出现了，“几乎覆盖了半个墙壁……死亡原因有肺结核、艾滋病、殴打、驾车枪击、血液疾病、麻疹、照管不良及新生儿遗弃……”

纽约是世界最重要的贸易中心之一，往往被视为进步与繁荣的象征。然而，在唐·德里罗的笔下，纽约城中的南布朗克斯贫民区却是一个被时代所遗忘的角落。这里没有鳞次栉比的写字楼，没有西装革履的商务人士出没其中。这里有的只是残破的建筑、堆满了废弃物的垃圾场，以及像埃斯梅拉达这样被社会所遗弃的人。他们没有能力获得良好的生存环境，无法获得体面的工作，只能搁浅于这一片空间。

在《天使埃斯梅拉达》中，唐·德里罗讲述了一则关于苦难的故事，但他也借助苦难讲述了一则有关救赎的故事。这里不仅有死亡，也有关怀和信仰。埃德加修女和她的同伴关心着这片空间里的每一个受难者。伊斯梅尔率领流浪儿画出的天使墙寄托着南布朗克斯的居民对每一个早夭孩子的哀恸。人们往往将孩子比作花朵，这些早逝的孩子就像是还没来得及绽放的花。他们的枯萎令人不得不质疑：正义何在？为什么当埃斯梅拉达停止了呼吸，伤害她的那些人却仍然活着？为什么要让她出生在这样的家庭，接受如此悲惨的命运安排？如果这个世界上真的有公平和正义，那属于埃斯梅拉达的正义在哪里？

《天使埃斯梅拉达》的回答是正义在人们的心中。埃斯梅拉达死后，不少南布朗克斯人从该区最南端的户外大型广告牌上看到了埃斯梅拉达的脸庞。她成了天使，是上帝恩典的化身。

广告牌展示的是“美之源橙汁”：“橙汁形成一个小瀑布，从右上角倾斜而下，注入左下角的一只端着的高脚杯里；端杯子的那只手非常漂亮，是典型的家住郊区的中产阶级白人妇女的手；远处垂柳飘荡，湖光水色依稀可见，显示了她家所在的环境。”显然，广告的目标人群并不是南布朗克斯的贫民。实际上，它选址在此，是为了吸引每天出入曼哈顿的城际列车上的乘客们。然而，当亮着的车灯照在色彩鲜艳的广告牌上，在那短暂的几秒钟之间，南布朗克斯居民看到的是埃斯梅拉达这位小女孩的脸。

人们希望用信仰为苦难添上一个幸福的结局。在信仰中，善有善报，恶有恶报，好人会回到天堂。听说了“圣迹”的南布朗克斯人在天黑后聚集在广告牌下，等待天使埃斯梅拉达的“显灵”。明明是光线造成的幻影，可当女孩的脸随着灯光浮现出来的一刹那，人们仍喜极而泣，救赎似乎有了超越死亡的力量。

在现实里，埃斯梅拉达是个被侮辱、被伤害的孩子。在她死后，人们却用愿望使她复活，将她送到了远离苦痛的天堂。相信埃斯梅拉达变成了天使，就是相信正义的可能性，哪怕这正义要在另外一个世界才能实现。要对抗世间的种种苦难，人们需要信仰的光，哪怕它是那么的虚幻。

其实，德里罗对信仰持有含混的态度。没有信仰的世界太黑暗，但这就是世界真实的样子。所以，德里罗为小说设置了虚无主义的结尾：“美之源橙汁”广告被撤下，偌大的广告牌空空荡荡，人们再也看不到埃斯梅拉达的脸。

只知道曼哈顿，不知道南布朗克斯，就不算真正了解纽约。纽约这座国际大都市是享乐的圣地，散发着纸醉金迷的气息，却也是个黑暗的无底洞，吞噬着像埃斯梅拉达这样的无辜生命。在童话故事里，早逝的纯洁灵魂会飞升上天，变成美丽的星星；在宗教故事里，他们回归天堂，变成长着翅膀的安琪儿。然而，真正的幸福其实莫过于能够在人间以平凡人的身份慢慢长大，度过平安而没有饥馑的一生。