走在死亡与爱情前面的声音（诺奖作品双语选读）

北京时间10月8日晚上7点，瑞典文学院常任秘书萨拉·达尼乌斯（Sara Danius）在瑞典文学院（The Swedish Academy）会议厅宣布了2017年诺贝尔文学奖获得者为白俄罗斯女作家、记者：斯韦特兰娜·阿列克西耶维奇。

她也是历史上第14位获得诺贝尔文学奖的女作家：

在随后接受采访时达尼乌斯这样评价她：

For the past 30 or 40 years she's been busy mapping the Soviet and post soviet individual, but it's not really about a history of events. It's a history of emotions – what she's offering us is really an emotional world, so these historical events she's covering in her various books, for example the Chernobyl disaster, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, these are in a way just pretexts for exploring the Soviet individual and the post-Soviet individual.

She's conducted thousands and thousands of interviews with children, with women and with men, and in this way she's offering us a history of human beings about whom we didn't know that much ... and at the same time she's offering us a history of emotions, a history of the soul.

谈及获奖，阿列克西耶维奇显得很淡定，一句话带过：

On the one hand, it's such a fantastic feeling, but it's also a bit disturbing.

倒是奖金，她觉得（我们也都觉得）还是很有用的：

It takes me a long time to write my books, from five to 10 years. I have two ideas for new books so I'm pleased that I will now have the freedom to work on them.

前面说过，她是白俄罗斯女作家，做过很多年的记者，最为人熟知的作品是《战争的非女性面孔（War's Unwomanly Face）》、《锌皮娃娃兵（Zinky Boys: The Record of a Lost Soviet Generation）》、《切尔诺贝利的回忆：核灾难口述史（Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster）》，文中都是她走访战争和灾难亲历者的口述故事，在文学化的诺贝尔文学奖里，又一次见证了纪实（nonfiction）文学的胜利~

其中《切尔诺贝利的回忆》经过编译，中译本《我不知道该说什么，关于死亡还是爱情》已为国人熟知。今天小编选了一段跟大家分享，希望透过文字，可以感受到“她的复调书写，是对我们时代的苦难和勇气的纪念（for her polyphonic writings, describing them as a “monument to suffering and courage in our time）。”

A SOLITARY HUMAN VOICE

孤单的人声

We are air, we are not earth...

我们是空气，我们不是土地……

—M. Mamardashvili

——马马达舒维利

I don't know what I should talk about—about death or about love? Or are they the same? Which one should I talk about?

我不知道该说什么，关于死亡还是爱情？也许两者是一样的？我该讲哪一种？

We were newlyweds. We still walked around holding hands, even if we were just going to the store. I would say to him, "I love you." But I didn't know then how much. I had no idea... We lived in the dormitory of the fire station where he worked. On the second floor. There were three other young couples, we all shared a kitchen. On the first floor they kept the trucks. The red fire trucks. That was his job. I always knew what was happening—where he was, how he was.

我们才刚结婚，连到商店买东西都还会牵手。我告诉他：“我爱你。”但当时我不知道自己有多爱他，我不知道……我们住在消防局的二楼宿舍，和三对年轻夫妇共享一间厨房，红色的消防车就停在一楼。那是他的工作，我向来知道他发生了什么事——他人在哪里，他好不好。

One night I heard a noise. I looked out the window. He saw me. "Close the window and go back to sleep. There's a fire at the reactor. I'll be back soon."

那天晚上我听到声响，探头望向窗外。他看到我就说：“把窗户关上，回去睡觉。反应炉失火了，我马上回来。”

I didn't see the explosion itself. Just the flames. Everything was radiant. The whole sky. A tall flame. And smoke. The heat was awful. And he's still not back.

我没有亲眼看到爆炸，只看到火焰。所有东西都在发亮。火光冲天，烟雾弥漫，热气逼人。他一直没回来。

The smoke was from the burning bitumen, which had covered the roof. He said later it was like walking on tar. They tried to beat down the flames. They kicked at the burning graphite with their feet...They weren't wearing their canvas gear. They went off just as they were, in their shirt sleeves. No one told them. They had been called for a fire, that was it.

屋顶的沥青燃烧，产生烟雾。他后来说，感觉很像走在焦油上。他们奋力灭火，用脚踢燃烧的石墨……他们没有穿帆布制服，只穿着衬衫出勤，没人告诉他们，他们只知道要去灭火。

Four o'clock. Five. Six. At six we were supposed to go to his parents' house. To plant potatoes. It's forty kilometers from Pripyat to Sperizhye, where his parents live. Sowing, plowing—he loved to do that. His mother always told me how they didn't want him to move to the city, they'd even built a new house for him. He was drafted into the army. He served in the fire brigade in Moscow and when he came out, he wanted to be a fireman. And nothing else! [Silence.]

四点钟了。五点。六点。我们本来六点要去他爸妈家种马铃薯，普利彼特离他爸妈住的史毕怀塞大约四十公里。他很喜欢播种、犁地。他妈妈常说，他们多不希望他搬到城里。他们甚至帮他盖了一栋房子。他入伍时被编入莫斯科消防队，退伍后就一心想当消防员！（沉默）

Sometimes it's as though I hear his voice. Alive. Even photographs don't have the same effect on me as that voice. But he never calls to me...not even in my dreams. I'm the one who calls to him.

有时我仿佛听到他的声音在我耳边回响，即使相片对我的影响力都比不上那个声音。但他从来没有呼唤我……连在梦里都没有，都是我呼唤他。

Seven o'clock. At seven I was told he was in the hospital. I ran there, but the police had already encircled it, and they weren't letting anyone through. Only ambulances.

到了七点，有人告诉我他被送到医院了。我连忙赶去，但警察已经包围了医院，除了救护车，任何人都进不去。

The policemen shouted: The ambulances are radioactive, stay away!

警察喊：“救护车有辐射，离远一点！”

I wasn't the only one there, all the wives whose husbands were at the reactor that night had come.

不只我在那里，所有当晚丈夫去过反应炉的女人都来了。

I started looking for a friend, she was a doctor at that hospital. I grabbed her white coat when she came out of an ambulance. "Get me inside!"

我四处寻找在那所医院当医生的朋友，一看到她走下救护车，我就抓住她的白袍说：“把我弄进去！”

"I can't. He's bad. They all are."

“我不能。他的状况很不好，他们都是。”

I held on to her. "Just to see him!"

我抓着她不放：“我只想见他一面！”

"All right," she said. "Come with me. Just for fifteen or twenty minutes."

“好吧，”她说，“跟我来，只能待十五到二十分钟。”

I saw him. He was all swollen and puffed up. You could barely see his eyes.

我看到了他，全身肿胀，几乎看不到眼睛。

"He needs milk. Lots of milk," my friend said. "They should drink at least three liters each."

“他需要喝牛奶，很多牛奶，”我的朋友说，“每个人至少要喝三升……”

"But he doesn't like milk."

“可是他不喜欢牛奶……”

"He'll drink it now."

“他现在会喝的。”

Many of the doctors and nurses in that hospital, and especially the orderlies, would get sick themselves and die. But we didn't know that then.

那所医院的很多医生和护士，特别是勤务工，后来都生病死了，但是当时我们不知道危险。

...