【萨尔曼·鲁西迪】天堂地球仪

陶北

译者：江烈农  

A celestial globe is a portrait not of the earth but of the skies. Globe-makers in many cultures - Persian, Mayan, Indian, European - over the centuries made many such representations of the heavens and of the pictures they saw there, working in papier-mâché, wood, brass, and sometimes in precious metals. These globes were Earth-centric, of course, and humanist; the human view, the view from the Edge - for the Earth is at the rim of its galaxy, which itself is a hick town in a far-flung province of the universe - was placed at the centre of Creation. And because of the distances involved, the unending light-years, the globes were fictions, as the night sky is; they were portraits not only of space, but of time.

　　天球仪描绘的，不是大地，而是天空。制仪者遍布各文化——波斯、玛雅、印第安、欧罗巴，历经诸世纪，依各自脑中对云上的想象，用纸、木、铜，甚或贵金属，描绘出一个个球体的天空。此等球仪，毋庸置疑均将地球作为中心，兼具人本主义视角——这是种极端边缘的视角，因为地球本位于银河系的边缘，而银河系又只不过是宇宙远郊乡镇而已——人类如此边缘的视角，却安置在了创世的中心。同时，由于宇宙牵扯遥远的距离，需以无止尽的光年计算，所以小小球仪不过臆造而已，是如同夜空一般的虚笔。它们描绘的，不止空间，还有时间。

When the young woman from New York, Ava, who had spent much of her adult life restoring sky-globes for this or that museum or private collector, read a story in an online news source about a crackpot American in the Mexican desert who claimed to have discovered an ancient buried globe from outer space, she naturally suspected a fraud.

　　艾吾，来自纽约，长大成人后，大部分精力花在了天体仪的修复工作上，客户则是东一个博物馆、西一个收藏家。这位年轻女子某日上网，偶然读到一则新闻故事，说是在墨西哥沙漠中，有个古怪的美国人，声称自己发现了一个古代外太空来客埋藏地下的球仪……她自然而然起了疑心，怀疑这是一场骗局。

The American, Maria Celestis, had spent years trying to prove that aliens had landed on Earth in that barren Mexican wilderness, setting down their spaceships on landing strips in the desert whose marks could still be seen. It was a small story, and it probably wouldn’t have been printed at all if Maria Celestis at seventy had not been a woman of striking beauty, wild-haired, majestically tall and slender, with black ferocious eyes.

　　那位美国人，叫玛丽亚·天邱思，花了好多年时间力图证明外星人曾踏上过这片贫瘠不育的墨西哥荒野、曾驾驶着他们的太空船降落于沙漠中的跑道上——那些印记现在仍然清晰可见。这本是个不起眼的小故事，能够登上报纸，无非因为玛丽亚·天邱思曾是七十年代风华绝代的大美女。她曾有一头野性的长发、巍然挺拔的修长身姿，以及一双凶狠深邃的眼睛。

She had been coming and going across the US-Mexican border for much of her life and when she was young the men in the frontier town of Parallelville had all lusted after her, but none of them got close. Lately she had begun to drink, and it was in Orson’s bar in Parallelville, when she was in her cups, that she first told the story of the celestial globe buried in the desert, a globe made of stone. “I suddenly saw,” she said, “that the stars were in the wrong places, that this was a globe whose point of view was not Earth-bound. Not human.” She claimed to have found the Rosetta Stone of UFOlogy, an artifact that proved that we had been visited by migrants from across the galaxy, or from another galaxy far away.

　　她这一生曾长期穿行于美墨国境间，年轻时，一度引得平行城这座边陲小镇的男子纷纷垂涎——然而从无人能近美人左右。最近，她开始喝酒了，那次就是在平行城的奥森氏酒吧里，她喝高了，然后头一回讲出了天球仪的故事——那个埋在沙漠里的石制球仪。

“Those damn illegals,” said Orson the bartender. “No telling how far they’ll come just to get into the USA.”

　　“这帮该死的非法移民，”酒保奥森说道，“鬼知道他们到底还要干什么，还不就是为了来美国。”

The young Manhattanite, Ava, couldn’t get the ridiculous story out of her head. If the globe existed it would be a rarity. Stone globes had not often been made. She didn’t believe in the space travellers, but she wanted to believe in the globe. In the end she took a few days’ vacation and flew to Mexico to look for Maria Celestis.

　　那位年轻的曼哈顿人，艾吾，来自美国最繁华的城市最繁华的那一区，无论如何也摆脱不了脑中萦绕的荒谬故事。如果这颗球仪是真的，那可真就是个稀有货了，因为一般很少有石制的球仪。她不相信真有什么旅行者来自外太空，但她愿意相信这颗球仪的存在。最后，她歇了几天假，飞往墨西哥去寻找玛丽亚·天邱思。

It wasn’t hard to find her. There she was in Orson’s bar near the bottom of a bottle. She led Ava to a shed at the edge of town and showed her the globe. It was a huge orb, with a diameter of perhaps twelve feet. It stood on wooden struts, illuminated by a triangle of lights set around it on the floor. “I dug it up,” said Maria Celestis, “in case anyone was interested. But you’re the only one who came.”

　　找她并不算难。她就还是在奥森氏酒吧里坐着，对着个快见底的瓶子。她领艾吾到镇郊一间棚屋中，给她展示那个球仪。球体巨大，直径许有三、四米，下面的支柱是木头的，地上还摆了三盏灯，打着三角形的光。“我把它挖出来，”玛丽亚·天邱思说，“就是想有人可能会感兴趣。结果来看的只有你一个人而已。”

Ava was Maria Celestis’ antithesis. The older woman was flamboyant, loud, fiery; Ava cut a small, scrawny figure beside her, plainly dressed, low-voiced. She circled the globe for an hour. The animals and winged creatures etched into its surface, representing constellations, were fantastic creations, unlike anything that had ever walked the earth or swum in the sea or flown through breathable air. The whole surface was richly worked to suggest the great whorls of galaxies and the cloud pillars in which stars were born. It was clear that a skilled sculptor had made this. Finally Ava said, “At the archaeological sites of Gandhara, in northern Pakistan, local artists carve stone heads in the manner of the ancient Gandharans, bury them for a few years, and then dig them up and sell them to tourists as antiques.”

　　艾吾是玛丽亚·天邱思的对立面。后者更年长，是个热情洋溢、讲话大声、眉飞色舞、引人注目的女人；而艾吾杵在她身旁，身形娇小、骨瘦如柴、衣着平平，讲话也是轻言细语。她围着球仪转了一个小时的圈儿。球面上蚀刻出飞禽走兽的图案，代表着各个星座，创意非凡，其大小形状不像是地球上任何一种陆行的动物，不像是任何一种海里的游鱼，也不像是任何一种飞空的鸟雀。整个球面精雕细刻，丰满华丽，既展示了孕育星体的混沌云柱，又表现了宏伟壮观的星系旋涡。如此良工显然出自巧匠之手。终于，艾吾开口道：“在巴基斯坦北部的乾陀罗考古遗址，当地艺术家用石头雕刻出古代乾陀罗人的头像，埋在地下好几年，然后挖出来当作古董卖给游客。”

Maria Celestis did not reply.

　　玛丽亚·天邱思不作答。

“You made this,” said Ava. “That’s obvious.”

　　“这是你自己做的，”艾吾说，“太明显了。”

Maria Celestis remained silent.

　　玛丽亚·天邱思保持沉默。

“It’s very beautiful,” said Ava.

　　“不过确实挺美。”艾吾说。

Maria Celestis finally spoke. “There are over a hundred of them,” she said. “Buried out there. One hundred and seventeen. I have the co-ordinates.”

　　玛丽亚·天邱思终于开口了。“一共有一百多个，”她说，“全都埋在那儿。一百一十七个。我有坐标。”

“You are a great artist,” Ava told her. “Perhaps I can help. There are museums, collectors. You don’t have to bury them or age them. Your artistry has its own authority. You don’t have to pretend.”

　　“你是个了不起的艺术家，”艾吾说，“兴许我能帮你一点忙。我认识一些博物馆的人，还有收藏家什么的。你把这些东西埋了做旧，根本没必要；你的艺术创作自成一派，挺好的，没什么好装的。”

Maria Celestis did not reply.

　　玛丽亚·天邱思不作答。

“Nobody will believe in the space invaders,” Ava said. “Though it could provide a theme for your first gallery show.”

　　“任谁都不会相信有什么太空侵略者，”艾吾说，“不过这是个挺不错的主题，你要是还没办过展览，想试试，倒是可以拿来用用。”

“You think it’s a fake,” said Maria Celestis, heavily.

　　“你觉得这是个赝品。”玛丽亚·天邱思沉重地说道。

“It’s not a fake,” Ava demurred. “It’s a work of art.”

　　“这不叫赝品，”艾吾辩解道，“这是一件艺术品。”

“You think I’m a liar,” the older woman said.

　　“你觉得我是个骗子。”年长的女人说道。

“I think you’re an artist,” Ava told her.

　　“我觉得你是个艺术家。”艾吾对她讲。

“Go away,” said Maria Celestis. “I will bury it again tomorrow. Nothing should have been said. You can’t prove anything to a world that won’t believe the evidence of its own eyes.”

　　“你走吧，”玛丽亚·天邱思说道，“我明天就把它重新埋了。早知道就什么都不该说。这个世界，证据明明已经都摆在眼前了，可就是不愿意信，那就说什么都没用了，什么都证明不了。”

*

　　*

About a year later, on a whim, Ava Googled the name “Maria Celestis” and found the end of the story. The “crazy American” had walked out into the Mexican desert one day and had never been seen again; she was missing, presumed dead. Her globe had gone too. Maybe the aliens came and took them both away. Maria Celestis had no heirs, so nobody was very concerned. Ava herself briefly mourned the beautiful, vanished globe and its unrecognized creator and then went about her business. Life on earth continued, and the universe gave no indication that it noticed.   

　　大约一年后，心血来潮的艾吾上谷歌搜索了一下那个名字：“玛利亚·天邱思”。她读到了这个故事的结局：那位“疯狂的美国人”某天毅然走进墨西哥沙漠，从此再没人见过她。她失踪了，可能已经死了。她的球仪也不见了。也许外星人来了，把一切都带走了。玛利亚·天邱思后继无人，所以对于她的消失，谁也没有特别上心。艾吾草草哀悼了一下那美丽的、消失了的球仪及其功成不居的创造者，然后，就接着忙她的生意去了。地球上生命继续，天地间不见半点乾端坤倪，宇宙一切如常。

=ends=

　　（完）

陶北

乾端坤倪?这译笔!