赫尔曼•比弗斯 □ 黑皮肤并不是未来主流色 □ 殷晓媛 译

EDWARD HOPPER: Automat, 1927

黑皮肤并不是未来主流色（外二首）

 [美] 赫尔曼•比弗斯（Herman Beavers）

殷晓媛译

▍黑皮肤并不是未来主流色

在这场风起云涌的科幻狂潮里，我是视野中唯一的黑人。黑皮肤并不是未来主流色，剧情中我只得不断领便当。东京闹市区，我正俯拾着长崎/广岛的潜台词，哥斯拉把一幢大楼推倒在我身上；登上“诺斯托罗莫号”[1]，被外星人一一击致命；悬在无底深渊上方，喊着飞侠哥顿快救我但似乎由于噪音太大他完全没有听到。还有一次，巴克·罗杰斯[2]不让我上船，那是1945年，你们也清楚，那时还没有平权这回事。另一次是太空飞船超载无法起飞，我告诉上面的白人工作人员，他们应该留下我——黑人厨子，虽然影片一开始，你们看到扮演我妻子的是著名的杰恩·肯尼迪[3]。当他们将我扔出气密室，你们从我的表情就能看出，我理解把生路留给那些白人多么重要。再见了杰瑞！再见了彼夫！再见了伦尼！再见了罗杰！再见了马克！当“金星怪人”[4]用它油腻的大嘴衔住我，而我则想起了穿连短裤女式吊带内衣的杰恩，我最好的朋友正在安慰她。明晚：西部片。瞧瞧当约翰·韦恩[5]朝我点头时我脸上的表情，仿佛在对李·马文[6]说：我的孩子，庞培，别忘了关厨房门。

                                                               写给M.M.

译者注：

[1] 《诺斯托罗莫号：海岸传说》是Joseph Conrad出版于 1904年的小说。故事发生于虚构的南美共和国Costaguana。首次刊载于T.P.'s Weekly，分两卷，1998年被Modern Library出版社（兰登美国旗下）列为20世纪英语小说百强第 47位。弗朗西斯·斯科特·基·菲茨杰拉德称：“我希望自己是《诺斯托罗莫号》的作者，远胜过任何一部别的小说。”

 [2] 巴克·罗杰斯（Buck Rogers）：曾被列入全美十大杰出推销员，美国著名的企业家和市场战略家。曾任IBM副总裁。

[3] 杰恩·肯尼迪（Jayne Kennedy Overton）。1951年10月27日出生。美国影视名人，身兼演员、模特、作家、公共发言人、体育播报员等多重社会身份。获1982年度 NAACP Image Award 杰出女演员奖等。

 [4] 《金星怪人》（Zontar the Thing FromVenus）：1966年在美国上映、由Larry Buchanan导演、John Agar、Susan Bjurman、Tony Huston等主演的剧情科幻电影。

[5]约翰·韦恩（John Wayne），1907年5月26日出生于美国艾奥瓦州，演员，以演出西部片和战争片中的硬汉而闻名。其作品《关山飞渡》蜚声世界影坛，一生共出演181部电影，是好莱坞有史以来最伟大的影星之一。1999年，他被美国电影学会选为百年来最伟大的男演员第13名，位列“美国十大文化偶像”第4名。

[6] 李·马文（Lee Marvin），1924年出生于美国纽约，美国著名演员。代表作有《飞车党》（The Wild One）、《十二金刚》（The Dirty Dozen）、《七寇伏尸记》（Seven Men from Now）等。1965年获38届奥斯卡最佳男主角金像奖。

附原文：

Black is not the Color of the Future

I’m the only black man in sight, caught up in a maelstrom of science fiction.  Black is not the color of the future, so I die over and over and over again.  Godzilla pushes a building on top of me in downtown Tokyo, just as I glean the Hiroshima/Nagasaki subtext.  Aboard The Nostromo, the Alien kills me on first glance.  Hanging over a bottomless pit, I scream for Flash Gordon to save me and he acts like doesn’t hear me through all the noise.  Buck Rogers won’t let me on the ship because its 1945 and well, you know, those kind of things just aren’t done.  When the space ship’s too heavy to take off, I tell the white guys on the spaceship crew that it should be me, the black cook, they leave behind, even though at the start of the movie, you see Jayne Kennedy is playing my wife.   As they’re tossing me out the airlock, you can see from the look on my face that I understand it’s important for the white guys to live.  Goodbye Jerry!  Goodbye Biff!  Goodbye Lenny!  Goodbye Roger!  Goodbye Mac!  Just when Zontar the Thing From Venus has me in its oily jaws, I think of Jayne wearing a teddy, being consoled by my best friend.  Tomorrow night: Westerns.   See the look on my face when John Wayne gives me the nod, announces to Lee Marvin: My boy, Pompey, kitchen door.

                                                               for M.M. 

EDWARD HOPPER: Room in Brooklyn, 1932

▍坏钟

他将我带至监狱最幽暗阴冷之处，告诉我可以在那里喝咖啡。我问其他囚犯在哪里，他说他们周末在外放风。剪草坪、做风筝、或者参加周日八点准时开局的高尔夫比赛。当然，还有一个没人知道底细的囚犯。每周日晚，当其他人陆续回到潮湿、发霉的牢房时，总有那么一个犯人站在返回的队列间，连身衣上血污狼藉。没过几周，模范囚犯便开始生疑。“杀人了？”他问。这个叫伊格内修斯的囚犯回答道：“宰了几只羊。”不出所料，周一的报纸头条赫然登着：三只羊羔被发现惨遭割喉，满地羊毛狼藉。看守冲进监房和他对峙。伊格内修斯躺在铺位上，双手枕在后脑勺下，呆呆地盯着天花板。一面墙上他潦草地写着“咩，咩，黑绵羊。”伊格内修斯说：“我一直想出名，简直就像做梦。让他们叫我‘黑绵羊杀手’吧！”我警惕地望着看守：“该叫停周末放风了，长官！”他看我的眼神，仿佛我在建议他上马路中间打弹珠。“以你的生命起誓，那不可能，朋友！你得相信一只破钟每天也有两次是准确的。”他转身走开，讨论结束。从头至尾一直有个囚犯一直以字正腔圆的意大利语唱着咏叹调，他的嗓音回荡在黏湿的墙上。 

                                写给E.A.

附原文：

A Broken Clock

He was leading me into the darkest, dankest part of the jail.   He was showing me where I could go to have coffee.   When I asked where the prisoners were located, he told me they’d been released for the weekend.   Some had lawns to cut, others had kites to make, still others were teeing off Sunday morning at 8 am sharp.  There was, of course, the prisoner no one ever figured out.   Each Sunday night, when all the other prisoners were returning to be placed in their damp, moldy cells, there was the one criminal who’d be waiting his turn to be reprocessed, wearing coveralls splattered with blood.  After a few weeks of this the trusty grew suspicious.   You been killing somebody? he asked.  The prisoner, his name was Ignatius, said, Just a couple of lambs.  And sure enough, looking in Monday morning’s paper, the headline trumpeted the fact that three little lambs had been found, their throats cut, their fleece scattered about.   The warden rushed to his cell and confronted him.  Ignatius lay back on his bunk, hands behind his head, gaping at the ceiling.  On his wall, he had scrawled the words to “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.”   I always wanted to be famous, Ignatius said, as if in a dream.  Tell them to call me the Black Sheep Murderer.   I looked at the warden with alarm.   This must be the end of the weekend release program, warden!  He looked at me like I’d suggested he play marbles in traffic.  Not on your life, friend.  You can believe a broken clock at least twice a day.  Then he turned away, done with the discussion.  All the while, one of the prisoners was singing the words of an aria in flawless Italian, his voice bounding off the clammy walls.  

                                                               for E.A. 

EDWARD HOPPER: Nighthawks, 1942

▍梦见爱德华·霍普

过去的一个月你总是梦见 

与爱德华·霍普[1]交谈

一些梦里你花言巧语哄他说出

画笔的奥秘

另一些梦中你迫使他说出细节 

他究竟如何得以

让光、空间感与孤寂

在《夜鹰》中和睦共生

同样的梦境重复第三次时你问他

为何梯形布光在他作品中

如此频繁出现比如《咖啡馆的日光》

比如《夜间会议》

和《临海的房间》 

第四次你问道：默特尔海滩[2]的黑暗释放出 

怎样的腐朽秘密

吸引他坐下来画出《南卡罗来纳州的早晨》？

是什么让他一个白人

执意于

刻画一位黑人女子

他是如何调出

她裙摆的铁锈色？ 

她对他说出自己的名字时

是怎样的语调？她叫梅伯琳还是多丽丝？

安妮或者朱莱？

而后你却陷入了停顿

此时霍珀身体前倾  似乎要

将语言抽离你的胸腔你说

从波来古[3]回来之后我意识到自己可能死于

移动水雷 狙击手 或友军误伤

是一种决心让我撑了下来

我不能死去 直到我坐下来

画出母亲少女时的面庞

在她怀上我之前 在这个世界撕碎她的梦想之前 

每个夜里当你如此向他诉说

霍珀向后一仰 

感伤使他的肤色略显黯淡

而后他开始和盘托出

如何调出一种色彩 

效果如同亮光

落在女人光洁的大腿上

将画布变成一支

无法从脑海中抹去的歌 

你在母亲躺过的床上醒来

发现在昏郁的晨光中

她的空轮椅

铬质的双轮

闪亮如一个未曾出口的问题

译者注：

[1] 爱德华·霍普（Edward Hopper）：1882年7月22日生，美国绘画大师，以描绘寂寥的美国当代生活景致闻名，著名作品有《夜鹰》等。都会写实画风格推广者，其弟子日后几乎都成为了美国重要画家，并被评论家称为垃圾桶画派（Ashcan School）。

[2] 默特尔海滩（MyrtleBeach）：南卡罗来纳州霍里县一座著名海滨旅游城市,位于东海岸，被称为大东街中心。

[3]波来古市（Pleiku）：越南中部城镇。嘉莱-昆嵩省首府。北距昆嵩72公里，地处波来古高原。

附原文：

Dreaming of Hopper

For the last month, you’ve dreamed 

about talking to Edward Hopper.  Some

nights you cajole him to share the

secret of his brushstroke.  Others,

you press him for details 

about how he managed to get light and

space and loneliness into “Nighthawks,”

at the exact same time.  It must have been the third

time you had the dream you asked why

trapezoids of light appear so

often in his work, as in “Sunlight in

a Cafeteria” or “Conference at Night”

or “Rooms by the Sea.”

The fourth: what mouldering secrets 

did the darkness give up in Myrtle Beach

that he could sit and paint “South

Carolina Morning?”  What was it

made him, a white man, want

to paint a black woman?  How did

he mix the colors that became

her rust-colored dress?  What did

she sound like when she told

him her name?  Was it Maybelline

or Doris?  Annie or July?

But then, your voice catches.

And just as Hopper leans forward, as if

to pull the words out of your chest, you say

After Pleiku, when I knew I would die:

Trip mine, sniper, friendly 

fire, what saved me was deciding

I couldn’t die until I sat down to draw

my mother’s face as a young girl; before

she had me, before the world shredded 

her dreams.  And every single night you

tell him this, Hopper leans 

back, a tincture of sentiment coloring

his skin.  When he starts to yield

up how it felt to mix 

the pigment that let him approximate

light falling on a woman’s

naked thigh, make the canvas

a song we can’t get out 

of our head, you wake up in your

mother’s bed to see, in the dull light

of morning, her wheel chair,

its chrome wheels

blazing like a question you will never ask. 

赫尔曼·比弗斯（Herman Beavers）：宾夕法尼亚大学英文及非洲文献研究教授，担任20世纪及当代非裔美国文学及创意写作课程教学。近作散见《兰斯顿·休斯对话》、《MELUS》、《Versadelphia》、《Cleaver》、《Supplement》等。诗歌被收录入2014年出版的“月亮石杰出诗人年鉴：《魅惑——给21世纪的六节诗，我们酷毙了：费城为格温多林·布鲁克斯欢呼》”及《谁为美洲代言》。出版诗集《蓝曜石》（2017年5月，Agape Editions）, 另有《芙內尔诗章》（月亮石出版社）即将出版。近期已出版学术专著《托妮·莫里森小说中的地理与政治意象》。任《非裔美国文学评论》、《非裔学者》、《非裔研究期刊》、《兰斯顿·休斯评论》、《现代小说研究》顾问编辑。 

本作品由作者独家授权、殷晓媛首译，未经本公众号书面同意，原文/译文不得转载或以任何形式使用。作者及译者保留追究法律责任的权利。