She was driving Ben to a friend’s house, and this added journey was the cause of some irritation in her day; she had too much else to do. Though she did like the privacy of the car, the feeling of his voice coming over her shoulder as she checked the mirror and slowed to make a turn. He was up on the booster seat—Ben was small for eight—and he looked out the window at suburban streets and parked cars, while she used his mobile phone to map the route. She had it down by the gearshift, propped up on the gray plastic fascia. It was hard to read the little arrow through the disaster of Ben’s cracked screen—the thing was rarely out of his hand, unless he dropped it. Now he looked out on the real world as though mildly surprised it was there.“I don’t like Barry McIntyre,” he said.
“No? Why not?”
They had their best chats in the car. If they’d been at home, he would have said, “Dunno,” or “Just . . .” In the car, he said things like “I like boys, though. I do like boys.”
“Of course you do.”
She wondered why he couldn’t speak when they were face to face. What was it about her eyes on him that made him shrug and shift under his clothes?
“You are a boy.”
“I know that,” he said.
Of course, she was his mother, so when she looked at him she was always checking him over to adjust or admire. Though she tried not to. She really tried not to turn into the kind of woman who said, “Sit up straight,” or “Leave your hair alone.”
“Well, then.”
She glanced at the rearview mirror and saw only the side of his head. His coarse hair was darkening through the winter. In a year or two, it would be fully brown.
“I just hate basketball.”
“Do you?”
“I really do.”
Recently, he had used the word “gay” as an insult. “That’s so gay,” he’d said at dinner, and his little sister missed a beat.
“Of course you like basketball,” she said warmly. That lie.
He did not answer.
“Does Barry McIntyre play basketball?”
In the rearview mirror, she saw his hand move toward his hidden face.
“Leave your nose alone!” she said.
It was hard not to. They were so temporarily beautiful, her children. They were so perfect, and then they were not perfect. She loved them too much to let them be.
She drove on while he watched the Dublin suburbs: spring trees, semidetached houses, a bundled old citizen walking her dog. The phone app was taking her down a familiar street, though it was an unfamiliar route, one she would not have known to take herself. Ben’s friend was called Ava, and she was new. She lived in St. Clare Crescent, which was somewhere near the motorway, apparently. But they did not take the motorway; they took a network of small streets, some of which she had driven down before—this was the way to the garden center, that was the way to the dog groomer’s—without knowing that you could cross from one to the other if you turned at the right place.
“Would you rather?” Ben said, then he stopped.
If you did not let Ben know that you were listening, he would refuse to continue.
“What?” she said, finally.
And, now that he knew he had her full attention, he said, “Would you rather drink a cup of lava or be drowned in a lava lake?”
“Oh, Christ.”
“Would you rather?”
“Not this again.”
“Which?”
“You can’t drink lava.”
“Yes, you can.”
“In a cup?”
“A stone cup.”
“I’ll take the lake.”
“Would you rather fall off a roof or have a tree fall on your head?”
He was obsessed with choices, especially impossible ones.
“Neither. I would rather neither of those things happened to me.”
“Would you rather fall off a roof,” he insisted, “or have a tree fall on your head?”
Maybe he was obsessed with death itself. There was no getting out of it, one way or the other.
“Roof,” she said.
“O.K.”
“What about you?”
“Yeah, roof,” he admitted.
“Not your best,” she said.
He paused, took the challenge.
“Would you rather be stung to death by fire ants or strung up by your toes from a big crane until your head burst?”
“Lovely!”
He would keep going until she was completely stuck.
“Crane, please.”
“Would you rather drown in the dark or be strangled in the dark?”
He would keep going until she was actually dead.
“Seriously?”
“A huge dark lake full of eels.”
“Really not. Absolutely not. I would not rather.”
She was taken, as she drove, by the memory of a night swim, many years before Ben was born. It was in a lake, in the Irish countryside; a gang of them coming back from the pub, no moon, no sex, at a guess—not that morning, or the night before, when they were supposed to have their holiday-cottage sex—and she pulled her dress up over her head as she made her way, in the darkness, toward the lake. Of course there was a man in the group who was not, actually, the man she was seeing at the time; he was some other, forbidden man. And neither of these men would later become the father of the boy now sitting in the back seat. Getting naked in the deserted woodland in the middle of the night was a taunt to both of them—either one would do. It was all a long time ago.
The dress was a blue linen shift, loose and practical, her underwear possibly quite fancy and impractical in those days before booster seats and children with sleepovers and phones that told you which way to turn. Her body also a finer thing, back then, if only she had known it. And she was drunk, so the pathway down to the little boardwalk was patchily remembered, her experience at the time also patchy, though it slowed and cleared when she dropped her dress onto the still-warm wood and looked out over the water. There were turf grains in the silk of it that turned the lake brown, even in daylight. Now, at midnight, it was darker than you could imagine, so it was like a sixth sense, the feeling of open space in front of her. When she looked down, she saw the blackness gleam, like oil. She sat at the dock’s edge to unclip her fancy bra and shrugged it off. A man’s voice telling her to stop. Another man saying nothing. A woman’s voice, saying, “No, really, Michelle.” And she was in. She pushed out from the wooden lip as she dropped down into it, was swallowed in a bang of water that turned to a liquid silence, then she struggled back up to where the air began. Black water into black air.
As she rose and turned, she could feel the alcohol swell under the surface of her skin, and the water was not so much cold as numb. Or she was numb. The water slipped past her as she hauled her way through it, in a long, reaching overarm that took her away from everyone, even as she seemed to stay in the same place. She could tell by their voices that she was moving—the fragments of sound she caught as she plowed along the surface, out toward the center of the lake.
If it was the center. If it was even the surface she was swimming along. It was so dark and wet that it was hard to know if her eyes were closed or open. She was afraid that she was not quite level, as she swam, that she was tilting downward, afraid that when she turned her face up to inhale she would find only water. The shouts from the bank were more sporadic now; it was as though they had given up on her as she circled or tried to circle back toward them, because the scraps of sound gave her a sense of horizon and it was important not to lose this. She needed to know which way was up. She pulled the water along the sides of her body, and though she twisted into it as she went, she was not sure that she was making the turn. She should just stop a moment and get her bearings, but she could not stop; she did not want to. It was—this was the secret, sudden thing—so delicious. Not knowing which way was which, or where the edges were. She was dissolved by it. She could drown right now and it would be a pleasure.
She caught a flash of her white arm, a sinewy gleam that she followed—her body its own compass—until she heard, on the bank, the voice of the man she was supposed to sleep with, saw the intermittent cigarette glow of the man she was not supposed to sleep with (and never did, for some reason; perhaps she had him fully spooked). Her big statement was a little undercut, in the shallows, by the sharpness of the stones in the silt under her feet as she made her way up out of the lake, toward recrimination and cold-skinned sex.
She woke up the next morning with a start, the previous night’s slightly watery consummation already forgotten, wasted. It had happened without her. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled air into her lungs. She was alive. And she put this fact into her mind. Jammed it right in the center of her mind. She could never do that again. She was twenty-four years old, and she was giving up death. Drunk or sober, there would be no more lakes after dark.
“You know, Ben, you should never swim at night,” she said now, more than twenty years later, sitting in her Hyundai hybrid. Accelerator, brake, mirror, clutch.
“Would you rather?” Ben said.
“No, really, you have to promise me not to do that, ever. Not in a lake, because there is no salt in a lake to hold you up, and especially not in the sea. You must always respect the sea. It’s bigger than you. Do you hear me? And you must never, ever swim if you have taken alcohol, or even if your friends have. If a friend has had a couple of beers when you are a teen-ager and he says, ‘Come on, it’ll be fun!,’ what do you say?”
“Would you rather,” Ben said, patiently.
“No, I wouldn’t. I really would not rather. I would not rather die one way or the other way. What is your problem, Ben?”
They were in a street of newly built semidetached houses, depressingly small and endlessly the same. Tiny gardens: rowan tree, cherry tree, silver birch, ornamental willow—a horrible pompom on a stick. She did not know what she was doing in this place. It was coming to catch her, even here. It was coming to catch her children—her own foolishness; it had followed her out of the water. The night swim was not the end of it; she had been in thrall to death for some time afterward—months, a year. Because of course you could leave the lake but you could not leave desire itself, and all its impossibilities.
Though something was made possible. Something was made real. Something was resolved by the existence of the child in the back seat.
“Would you rather,” Ben said, “live in a turkey or have a turkey live inside you?”
“What?”
“Would you rather,” he repeated, in a forbearing way, “live in a turkey or have a turkey live inside you?”
“That is a very good question,” she said.
“Would you rather?”
“That is a truly great question. That is the best one yet.” She reached to the car radio and switched it on, hoping to distract him.
“Is that the place?” The app told her to take a right. “Is that where Ava lives?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’s your friend.”
“No, she’s not. She’s not my friend. She’s just really, really pushy.” His hand rested, in anticipation, on the overnight bag beside him as she took the turn through large, open gates into a new development.
“Is this it?”
St. Clare Close, St. Clare Court. The little maze was set around an open green space, and in the center of the green was a grand, three-story building.
St. Clare’s itself.
There it was. All this time. She had lived five miles away from here, for a decade, and had never realized it was down this road, one she passed every so often, on her way somewhere else.
She had been driven here in a taxi nearly twenty years ago, when all around were green fields. She was terrified that the driver would know from the address that she was mad, though she wasn’t properly mad; she was just quite badly broken. She was sure he would know that there was a broken human being in his cab, that he would turn to sneer at her as they went through the gates, or as they were going up the driveway past tended gardens, to this large house, this facility.
The Sisters of St. Clare and St. Agnes. Private Nursing Home.
“Scraggy Aggy’s,” as it used to be known. The bin. She had typed the address into her son’s phone and thought nothing of it.
“Would you rather?” Ben said.
So that was why she had remembered the lake.
It was very strange, looking at the building from the outside. She had spent her time there in a small room and had seen the exterior perhaps twice: first in a skewed way, as she walked up the steps, and possibly once again in a backward glance when her father came to collect her. She had never gone into the gardens, which were now filled with smart new houses; it was possible that she had not been allowed. Or, more likely, she had not been supplied with clothes. She had slept a lot, or lain unmoving in her hospital-style bed. She did remember standing at a window—perhaps it was even that window on the third floor, where the building bulged out into a fat, round turret. She knew that the turret contained a flight of stairs and that she had looked out from the top of it, as a woman in a fairy tale might—though she was not in a fairy tale, she was in a fog of Mogadon, not to mention all the other junk she swallowed obediently, twice a day, wondering if she would ever, ever shit again. Nobody seemed to care about that. They cared about your feelings instead. Though “cared” was perhaps the wrong word. They observed your feelings.
“Mother,” Ben said—a word he used only when truly annoyed. She had forgotten to say “What?”
“What?” she said.
“Would you rather live in a turkey?”
“Is this the place?” she said. “Is this where she lives?”
She had slowed to a stop in the middle of the deserted street. A pair of tiny children, one of them just a toddler, were playing on the flight of broad granite steps that led up to the front door of the building that used to be Scraggy Aggy’s. The place had been turned into apartments—they probably cost a bomb. Other things came back to her as she looked at the façade: A foyer of sorts, where she had signed in. A large living room for the nuns, where her father had stood up from a chintz armchair as she walked through the door, ready to go home. It was the high-ceilinged room on the left, where the children’s mother had pinned the curtain back, to see that they did not wander far.
There had been a godforsaken day room where people went to smoke—she wondered where that was. They were all on twenty cigarettes a day, the broken ladies of the suburbs, with their trembling hands and their pretty dressing gowns. They’d sat in this stinking room, with its vinyl-covered armchairs, and looked at their wrists. She wondered who lived in that space now. Someone busy and young. Someone who put orchids on the sill of a window that had once been nailed shut. This person did not smoke. This person walked out of a lovely private flat into the public corridor where the sad people used to pace, all those years ago. Weeping, not weeping, silent, eying the pay phone.
“It’s No. 74.” Her son’s tone was one of bottomless contempt, and she saw that she had not moved, was stalled.
The toddler and the young child were actually contained by the steps, she realized. They stayed at the top, and peddled their tricycle on the flat surface. They did not approach the edge.
She had spent the past eight years of her life checking on the safety of small children.
The car rolled gently forward as Ben read out the numbers on the houses that faced onto the green: 67, 69, 71.
“Where are the evens?” she said, as they circled slowly around the back of the building as though driving into a trap. This is how her life had felt, just before it broke—everything had been too connected. And now it was happening again: the unwitting journey, the unfunny choices, the idea that her son knew, of course he did, you could smell it on her still: the brackish water of the lake.
She spotted the window of the day room, up on the second floor, and she was still up there, checking her wrists. Smoking away. Staring for weeks at a patch on the wall. Ben unknown to her. Her daughter unknown. They had not happened inside her body; they had not been born.
“There it is! Seventy-four, seventy-four!”
She stopped the car, pulled the hand brake, and twisted in her seat to look at her son, who was undoing his seat belt in the back. Ben glanced up at her, and he was beautiful. His hair needed a comb, and there was a gleam of something under his nose, but he was so very much himself. He looked at her from under long lashes, as though he had known her for a long time, and she was not inside the building. She was here now, on the outside, with him.
“Be good,” she said, as he grabbed the overnight bag and was gone. For a boy who didn’t like girls, he was quick getting to Ava’s front door.
“I’ll pick you up at eleven tomorrow.”
He came doubling back then. She thought for a moment that he wanted to kiss her goodbye, but he was just looking for his phone. She handed it through the window, then stuck her face out after it, for mischief.
“Mnnnnmm,” she said, puckering up. And he did kiss her, abruptly, before running back to the house, where Ava was now standing on the porch to welcome him in. A little blond pixie, with a sequinned heart on her T-shirt, jigging up and down at the sight of him.
The kiss was a clumsy thing. Fleshy. Swift. There was a dot of cold on her cheek, from the tip of his nose.
“Ben!” she shouted. “Hang on. Ben!”
“What?”
“I would rather have the turkey live inside me.”
“O.K.!” He took her answer quite seriously.
“No contest.”
It was just a question, she thought. And she checked the rearview mirror before pulling out.
♦
Published in The New Yorker print edition of the March, 9 2020, issue.
她开车送本去朋友家，这次额外的旅程让她有些恼火，她还有太多的事情要做。不过，她确实喜欢车里的私密感，当她检查镜子并放慢转弯时，她会感觉到他的声音沿她肩膀上方传来。他坐在加高座椅上——对于八岁的孩子来说，本显得很矮——他看着窗外郊区的街道和停放的汽车，而她则用他的手机绘制路线图。她把它放在变速杆旁，用灰色的塑料面板支撑着。很难看清那个小箭头，本的手机屏幕碎得一塌糊涂——这东西很少离他的手，除非是掉在了地上。现在他看着外面的现实世界，似乎对它的存在略感惊讶。
“我不喜欢巴里·麦金泰尔”，他说。
“不喜欢？为什么？”
他们在车上聊得很投机。换做在家里，他会说，“不知道”，或“只是……”
在车里，他会念叨这样的事：“虽然如此，我喜欢男孩。我真的喜欢男孩。”
“当然。”
她想知道为什么当他们面向彼此时，他讲话很困难；她注视着他的眼神中有什么东西令他悄悄地耸肩、挪动？
“你是个男孩。”
“我知道，”他说。
当然，她是他的母亲，因此当她看向他时，她总是在打量他，以便调试与欣赏。尽管她试图不这样做。她铆足了劲，避免变成那种发号施令，说“坐直”或“别动你的头发”那种话的女人。
“那好吧。”
她瞥了一眼后视镜，却只看到了他的侧脑。整个冬天他粗糙头发的色泽都在加深。不消一两年，就会完全变成棕色。
“我只是讨厌篮球。”
“真的吗？”
“真的讨厌。”
最近，他把“快乐/基（Gay）”当成一种侮辱性用词来用。 “这真是太基（Gay）了，”他在晚餐时这么说，这让他的小妹妹楞了一下。
“你当然喜欢篮球，”她温暖地说着，那个谎言。
他没有回答。
“巴里·麦金泰尔打篮球吗？”
在后视镜中，她看见他的手朝他遮住的脸移动。
“别碰你的鼻子！”她说。
很难不这样做。他们的美丽是如此短暂，她的孩子们。他们是如此完美，以至并不完美。她太爱他们，因而不能放任他们。
在他环顾都柏林郊区的时候，她开车继续前进：春天的树木，半独立式房屋，一个赶着路的老市民遛着狗。手机应用程序正带她走在一条熟悉的街道上，尽管这条线路陌生，尽管她自己也不知为何会走这条路。本的朋友叫艾娃，她是新来的。显然，她住在高速公路附近的圣·克莱尔新月街。但他们没走高速公路，而是沿着一条由小街道组成的路网行驶，其中一些街道是她以前走过的——这是去花园中心的路，那是去狗狗美容店的路——但她不知道，要是你在正确的地方转弯，你可以从这里穿到那里去。
“你宁愿……”本说着就停了下来。
如果你不让本知道你在听，他就不会继续讲。
“什么？”最后她说。
现在他知道她在全神贯注地在听他了，他说，“你宁愿喝下一杯熔岩，还是淹死在熔岩湖里？”
“哦，上帝。”
“你更愿意哪个？”
“又来这套。”
“哪个？”
“你不能喝熔岩。”
“不，你能。”
“在杯子里面？”
“一个石杯。”
“那还是淹死算了。”
“你宁愿从屋顶上掉下来，还是让一棵树掉下来砸你头上？”
他着迷于选择，尤其是不可能的选择。
“都不愿意。我更希望这一切不要发生在我身上。”
“你宁愿从屋顶上掉下来，”他坚持要问，“还是让一棵树掉下来砸你头上？”
也许他沉迷于死亡本身。无论如何选择，都无法摆脱它。
“屋顶，”她说。
“好的。”
“你呢？”
“嗯，我也选屋顶，”他坦言道。
“还不是你最好的问题，”她说。
他稍作停顿，接受了挑战。
“你宁愿被火蚁螫死，还是被大起重机吊起你的脚指头，直到你的脑袋爆开？”
“非常好！”
他会一直问下去，直到她被彻底问住。
“拜托，起重机。”
“你宁愿在黑暗中淹死，还是在黑暗中被勒死？”
他会一直问下去，直到她真的死了。
“这要紧吗？”
“一个装满鳗鱼的巨大的黑暗湖泊。”
“真的不。绝对不。我宁愿不。”
她开车时，头脑中是有关一次夜泳的记忆，那是在本降生多年前的事情了。那是在爱尔兰乡村的一个湖里；一群人从酒吧回来，既无明月皎皎，亦无床笫之欢，猜的——那天早上或前一天晚上，他们应该在度假小屋里做爱——当她在黑暗中走向湖边时，她把裙子拉过头顶。当然，这群人中有一个男人，实际上并不是她当时正在交往的那个男人；而是某个其他的、不合适的男人。这两个人后来都没有成为现在正坐在后座上的男孩的父亲。夜半三更，在荒郊野地里赤身裸体，这对他们俩来说都是一种嘲弄——他们谁也不会做的。这都是很久以前的事了。
她当时穿的是件蓝色亚麻的衬裙，宽松又实用，在未被儿童座椅、来聚会夜宿的孩子和指路电话占据的那些日子里，她的内衣有时非常花哨且不实用。她的身体则更为精致，只是她那时并不自知。而且她那时喝醉了，故而那条通往小板路的小径她只是依稀记得，她当时的经历也是零星的；不过当她把裙子放到尚有余温的木头上，望向水面时，一切都慢慢地清晰起来。湖水的丝光里有草皮颗粒，将湖面变做褐色。此刻是午夜时分，这里比你所能想象的还要暗，空旷的水面铺陈在面前，有种第六感一样的感觉。她低头，看到了黑色的闪光，像油一样。她坐在码头边缘，解开她花哨的胸罩，将其脱掉。一个男人的声音叫她停下来。另一个什么也没说。一个女人的声音在说，“不，真的，米歇尔。”然后她进去了。她一触到木头底架就向上游去，被“邦”的水声吞没，之后液体归于寂静，她挣扎着向上，重新呼吸到空气。黑色的水变成了黑色的空气。
随着她的上升和转体，她能感受到皮肤表层之下酒精在膨胀，水没有冷到让肢体麻木的地步。或许是她人已先麻木了。她吃力地游，水打她的身畔划过，伸出的手臂将她带离了所有人，虽然感觉上她好似没有变换位置。她可以从他们的声音中判断出她在移动——她犁过水面游向湖中心时捕捉到的零碎声音。
那是中心罢，那是她正划过的水面罢。那里又黑又潮，很难弄清她的眼睛究竟是闭着抑或睁着。她怕自己水平不够，怕游泳时自己往下倾斜，怕她抬头吸气时会呛水。岸边传来的呼喊声现在越发零星；就仿佛在她盘旋或奋力绕回至他们那边时，他们已然放弃了她，因为零碎的声音给了她感觉，知道地平线在哪里，当务之急是不要丢掉这个感觉。她需要辨清方向。她顺着身体两侧划水，虽然她边游边在水中扭动身躯，她并不确信自己在转弯。她应该先停下来看看她的方位，但她不能停下来；她不想停下。这是如此美味——突然之事的神秘就在这里。分不清是何方向，也找不到哪里是边界。她陶醉于其中。甚至现在就溺死，也将是一件快事。
她捕捉到她白皙手臂的闪光，跟随着肌肉的微光——她的身躯就是自己的指南针——直到她听到岸边那个本应和她上床的男人的声音，看到她不该与之上床的男人断断续续的香烟光亮（不知怎地，他们的确从未如此；也许她把他吓坏了）。她的重要声明在浅滩中她脚下淤泥中的锋锐的石头稍微磨平，她从湖里爬出来，走向互相指斥，和冰冷皮肤的性爱。
第二天一早醒来，她打了个激灵，前一晚有点潮乎乎的完满已经忘却了，消磨了。它发生时她并不清醒。她坐在床沿，将空气吸入两肺。她还活着。她把这个事实铭记在心。把它恰好挤在她的脑海的中心。她再也不能这样做啦。那时，她芳龄二十四岁，正在放弃死亡。无论是醉是醒，再不会有天黑后的湖泊了。
“你知道的，本，你永远不该在晚上游泳，”二十多年后的今天，她坐在她的现代混合动力汽车里如是说。油门，刹车，后视镜，离合器。
“你是宁愿……”本说。
“不，真的，你必须答应我永远不要那样做。不要去湖里，因为湖里没有盐分可以支撑你，切记不要在海里。你必须始终尊重大海。它比你更广大。你听到我的话了吗？如果你喝了酒，或者说，即便是你的朋友喝了酒，你也绝不能游泳。如果一个朋友在你十来岁时灌了几杯啤酒，然后说，‘来吧，这会很有趣！’，你会说什么？”
“你是宁愿……”本耐心地说。
“不，我不愿意。我是真的不愿意。我不愿以这种或那种方式去死。你还有什么问题吗，本？”
他们行驶在一条布满新建的半独立别墅的街道上，房子小得令人讶异，无休无止地雷同。放眼尽是小花园：花楸树、樱桃树、白桦树、观赏柳——枝条上还有一种可怕的绒球。她不知道自己在这个地方做什么。即使是在这里，它也会来抓住她——她自己的愚蠢。它要来抓住她的孩子们；它跟着她离开了水面。夜泳并不是它的终结。之后的一段时间里，她一直被死亡所困扰——好几个月，一整年。因为你当然可以离开湖，但你离不开欲望本身，以及关乎它的所有不可能之事。
虽然有的事只是可能，有的事成了真，有的事因为后座上的那个孩子的存在而被解决。
“你是宁愿，”本说，“住在一只火鸡体内，还是让一只火鸡住在你体内？”
“什么？”
“你是宁愿，”他以一种隐忍的方式重复道，“住在火鸡体内，还是让火鸡住在你体内？”
“这问题真不错，”她说。
“你宁愿……”
“这真是个绝顶的问题。迄今为止最好的。”她把手伸向汽车收音机，把它打开，希望借此分散他的注意力。
“是那个地方吗？”这款应用程序告诉她向右走。 “那是艾娃住的地方吗？”
“我不知道。”
“她是你的朋友。”
“不，她不是。她不是我的朋友。她真的，真的很咄咄逼人。”当她拐弯穿过敞开的大门进入一个新的新建住宅区时，他的手有所期待地放在他身旁的过夜包上。
“是这个吗？”
圣克莱尔胡同、圣克莱尔球场，宛如小型迷宫，再往里是一片开阔的绿地，绿地中央是一座器宇轩昂的三层楼房。
圣克莱尔本身。
它在那里。一直在那里。她在离此五英里远的地方住了十年，从没意识到它就在这条路上，她去别的地方时还经常路过呢。
大约二十年前，她被一辆出租车带到过这里，当时周遭都是绿地。她害怕司机会从地址中知道她疯了，尽管她并没有真疯；她只是很受伤。她确信他会知道他的车子里有一个落魄的人，当他们穿过大门或沿车道驶过精心管理的花园，来到这座大房子、这个机构跟前时，他会转过头来嘲笑她。
圣克莱尔和圣艾格尼丝修女院。私人疗养院。
它过去还有个称呼：“皮包骨艾吉之家”。垃圾场。她之前把地址输进儿子手机的时候，一点儿也没想到这些。
“你宁愿……”本说。
这就是为何她会想起那个湖的缘故。
这栋建筑打外面看上去很奇怪。她在这里一个小房间里呆了一段时间，大概看过两次外观：第一次是歪斜的视角，她上台阶走向它，还有一次可能是她父亲来接她时她往后瞥了一眼。她从没进过花园，现在那里建满了漂亮的新房子。有可能她不被允许进花园。或者，更有可能的是，她们没给她衣服，她没法出门。她在像医院里的那种病床上一直睡觉，或者躺着一动不动。她的确记得站在一扇窗户前——也许就是三楼的那扇窗户，大楼在那里鼓出一块，形成了一座粗大圆浑的塔楼。她知道塔楼里有一段楼梯，就像童话故事中的女人一样，她曾从楼顶往下俯瞰——当然，她不是在童话故事中，而是身处硝基安定的迷雾中。更不要提那些她一天两次自觉吞下的所有垃圾，吞完后她都不禁好奇自己是否还会拉屎。似乎没有人关心这个。他们反而关心你的感受。“关心”可能是个错误的词。他们“观察”你的感受。
“妈妈，”本说——只有真被惹火了，他才会用这个词。她已经忘了要说“什么？”
“什么？”她说。
“你宁愿住在火鸡体内吗？”
“是这个地方吗？”她说。 “这是她住的地方吗？”
她已经放慢了速度，在空旷无人的街道当中停了下来。有一对小孩子，其中一个才刚刚蹒跚学步，他们正在宽阔的花岗岩台阶上嬉闹，那里正是以前的“皮包骨艾吉之家”的大楼前门。这座大楼已经被改造成了公寓——公寓很可能极贵。她凝视着立面，又想起一些其他的东西：她签到过的一个门厅；一个修女们专用的大客厅，当她走进那间大客厅的门时，她父亲已从印花棉布扶手椅上站起身，准备回家。就是左边那个天花板很高的房间。那里，那两个孩子的母亲已经把窗帘收起，好看着他们，免得走远。
那时还有一个废弃的公共娱乐间，人们去那里抽烟——她想不起是哪一间了。她们每天都抽二十支烟，这些来自各郊区的失了魂的女人，她们的手颤抖着，身上穿着光鲜的晨衣。她们会坐在那间臭不可闻的房间里，坐在那些盖着塑料布的扶手椅上，看着自己的手腕。她好奇现在谁会住在那个房间。一个忙碌的年轻人。他会将兰花放在曾经被钉死的窗户窗台上。他不抽烟。他会踱出了他的可爱的私人公寓，走进了公共走廊，而在许多年前，悲伤的人们经常在那个公共走廊上来回踱步。哭泣，不哭，沉默，盯着付费电话。
“74号房啦。”她儿子的语气是一种无限的蔑视，她发现车没有动，抛锚了。
她注意到，那个蹒跚学步的孩子和年幼的孩子实际上是让台阶困住了。他们呆在顶端，在平坦的表面上骑一辆三轮车。他们没有接近边缘。
过去的八年里，她都无时无刻不在留意小孩子的安全。
汽车轻轻向前滚动，本大声读出面向绿草坪的一排房屋上的数字：67、69、71。
“双号房在哪里？”她一边说，一边慢慢地沿着大楼的后方绕过去，就像开进了一个陷阱。这正是她被生活压垮之前的感觉——一切事情都联系得太紧密了。如今，这种感觉又回来了：不知不觉的旅程，了然无味的选择，认为她儿子知道的想法，他当然知道，你仍可以在她身上嗅见那股味道：湖水的咸味。
她看到了那个公共娱乐室的窗户，在二楼，她还在那里，检查着自己的手腕。靠吸烟打发日子。盯着墙上的补丁，一盯就是几个礼拜。那时的她不知道本。也不知道她的女儿。他们都还尚未投胎于她体里；他们还没出生。
“那儿！七十四，七十四！”
她停下车，拉了手刹，在座位上扭过头去看儿子，他正在解开后排的安全带。本抬头瞥了她一眼，他很漂亮。他的头发需要梳理，他的鼻子底下有一丝闪光，但他状态好极了。他从长长的睫毛下看着她，就像他认识了她很久一般，而她并不在那橦大楼里。她此刻在这里，在外面，和他在一起。
“乖一点，”她说，他抓上过夜袋就走了。对于一个不喜欢女孩的男孩来说，他的动作可谓迅速，很快就来到艾娃的前门。
“明天十一点我来接你。”
他又折了回来。她有一阵子以为他是想吻别她，但他只不过是在找手机。她把手机顺着窗户递过去，然后把脸探出来，捣个蛋。
“嗯……，”她噘着嘴说。他的确吻了她，很短，然后就转身跑向屋子，艾娃现在正站在门廊上欢迎他进来。那是一个金发小精灵，T恤上镶着金灿灿的心，一见他就不住地上下摇动。
那个吻很笨拙。肉肉的、一触即释。他鼻尖触到的脸颊处有一点冰凉。
“本！”她喊道。“听我说。本！”
“什么？”
“我宁愿让火鸡住在我体内。”
“好的！”他很认真地对待她的回答。
“无异议。”
这只是个问题而已，她寻思着。在开出去之前她检查了后视镜。
She was driving Ben to a friend’s house, and this added journey was the cause of some irritation in her day; she had too much else to do. Though she did like the privacy of the car, the feeling of his voice coming over her shoulder as she checked the mirror and slowed to make a turn. He was up on the booster seat—Ben was small for eight—and he looked out the window at suburban streets and parked cars, while she used his mobile phone to map the route. She had it down by the gearshift, propped up on the gray plastic fascia. It was hard to read the little arrow through the disaster of Ben’s cracked screen—the thing was rarely out of his hand, unless he dropped it. Now he looked out on the real world as though mildly surprised it was there.“I don’t like Barry McIntyre,” he said.
“No? Why not?”
They had their best chats in the car. If they’d been at home, he would have said, “Dunno,” or “Just . . .” In the car, he said things like “I like boys, though. I do like boys.”
“Of course you do.”
She wondered why he couldn’t speak when they were face to face. What was it about her eyes on him that made him shrug and shift under his clothes?
“You are a boy.”
“I know that,” he said.
Of course, she was his mother, so when she looked at him she was always checking him over to adjust or admire. Though she tried not to. She really tried not to turn into the kind of woman who said, “Sit up straight,” or “Leave your hair alone.”
“Well, then.”
She glanced at the rearview mirror and saw only the side of his head. His coarse hair was darkening through the winter. In a year or two, it would be fully brown.
“I just hate basketball.”
“Do you?”
“I really do.”
Recently, he had used the word “gay” as an insult. “That’s so gay,” he’d said at dinner, and his little sister missed a beat.
“Of course you like basketball,” she said warmly. That lie.
He did not answer.
“Does Barry McIntyre play basketball?”
In the rearview mirror, she saw his hand move toward his hidden face.
“Leave your nose alone!” she said.
It was hard not to. They were so temporarily beautiful, her children. They were so perfect, and then they were not perfect. She loved them too much to let them be.
She drove on while he watched the Dublin suburbs: spring trees, semidetached houses, a bundled old citizen walking her dog. The phone app was taking her down a familiar street, though it was an unfamiliar route, one she would not have known to take herself. Ben’s friend was called Ava, and she was new. She lived in St. Clare Crescent, which was somewhere near the motorway, apparently. But they did not take the motorway; they took a network of small streets, some of which she had driven down before—this was the way to the garden center, that was the way to the dog groomer’s—without knowing that you could cross from one to the other if you turned at the right place.
“Would you rather?” Ben said, then he stopped.
If you did not let Ben know that you were listening, he would refuse to continue.
“What?” she said, finally.
And, now that he knew he had her full attention, he said, “Would you rather drink a cup of lava or be drowned in a lava lake?”
“Oh, Christ.”
“Would you rather?”
“Not this again.”
“Which?”
“You can’t drink lava.”
“Yes, you can.”
“In a cup?”
“A stone cup.”
“I’ll take the lake.”
“Would you rather fall off a roof or have a tree fall on your head?”
He was obsessed with choices, especially impossible ones.
“Neither. I would rather neither of those things happened to me.”
“Would you rather fall off a roof,” he insisted, “or have a tree fall on your head?”
Maybe he was obsessed with death itself. There was no getting out of it, one way or the other.
“Roof,” she said.
“O.K.”
“What about you?”
“Yeah, roof,” he admitted.
“Not your best,” she said.
He paused, took the challenge.
“Would you rather be stung to death by fire ants or strung up by your toes from a big crane until your head burst?”
“Lovely!”
He would keep going until she was completely stuck.
“Crane, please.”
“Would you rather drown in the dark or be strangled in the dark?”
He would keep going until she was actually dead.
“Seriously?”
“A huge dark lake full of eels.”
“Really not. Absolutely not. I would not rather.”
She was taken, as she drove, by the memory of a night swim, many years before Ben was born. It was in a lake, in the Irish countryside; a gang of them coming back from the pub, no moon, no sex, at a guess—not that morning, or the night before, when they were supposed to have their holiday-cottage sex—and she pulled her dress up over her head as she made her way, in the darkness, toward the lake. Of course there was a man in the group who was not, actually, the man she was seeing at the time; he was some other, forbidden man. And neither of these men would later become the father of the boy now sitting in the back seat. Getting naked in the deserted woodland in the middle of the night was a taunt to both of them—either one would do. It was all a long time ago.
The dress was a blue linen shift, loose and practical, her underwear possibly quite fancy and impractical in those days before booster seats and children with sleepovers and phones that told you which way to turn. Her body also a finer thing, back then, if only she had known it. And she was drunk, so the pathway down to the little boardwalk was patchily remembered, her experience at the time also patchy, though it slowed and cleared when she dropped her dress onto the still-warm wood and looked out over the water. There were turf grains in the silk of it that turned the lake brown, even in daylight. Now, at midnight, it was darker than you could imagine, so it was like a sixth sense, the feeling of open space in front of her. When she looked down, she saw the blackness gleam, like oil. She sat at the dock’s edge to unclip her fancy bra and shrugged it off. A man’s voice telling her to stop. Another man saying nothing. A woman’s voice, saying, “No, really, Michelle.” And she was in. She pushed out from the wooden lip as she dropped down into it, was swallowed in a bang of water that turned to a liquid silence, then she struggled back up to where the air began. Black water into black air.
As she rose and turned, she could feel the alcohol swell under the surface of her skin, and the water was not so much cold as numb. Or she was numb. The water slipped past her as she hauled her way through it, in a long, reaching overarm that took her away from everyone, even as she seemed to stay in the same place. She could tell by their voices that she was moving—the fragments of sound she caught as she plowed along the surface, out toward the center of the lake.
If it was the center. If it was even the surface she was swimming along. It was so dark and wet that it was hard to know if her eyes were closed or open. She was afraid that she was not quite level, as she swam, that she was tilting downward, afraid that when she turned her face up to inhale she would find only water. The shouts from the bank were more sporadic now; it was as though they had given up on her as she circled or tried to circle back toward them, because the scraps of sound gave her a sense of horizon and it was important not to lose this. She needed to know which way was up. She pulled the water along the sides of her body, and though she twisted into it as she went, she was not sure that she was making the turn. She should just stop a moment and get her bearings, but she could not stop; she did not want to. It was—this was the secret, sudden thing—so delicious. Not knowing which way was which, or where the edges were. She was dissolved by it. She could drown right now and it would be a pleasure.
She caught a flash of her white arm, a sinewy gleam that she followed—her body its own compass—until she heard, on the bank, the voice of the man she was supposed to sleep with, saw the intermittent cigarette glow of the man she was not supposed to sleep with (and never did, for some reason; perhaps she had him fully spooked). Her big statement was a little undercut, in the shallows, by the sharpness of the stones in the silt under her feet as she made her way up out of the lake, toward recrimination and cold-skinned sex.
She woke up the next morning with a start, the previous night’s slightly watery consummation already forgotten, wasted. It had happened without her. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled air into her lungs. She was alive. And she put this fact into her mind. Jammed it right in the center of her mind. She could never do that again. She was twenty-four years old, and she was giving up death. Drunk or sober, there would be no more lakes after dark.
“You know, Ben, you should never swim at night,” she said now, more than twenty years later, sitting in her Hyundai hybrid. Accelerator, brake, mirror, clutch.
“Would you rather?” Ben said.
“No, really, you have to promise me not to do that, ever. Not in a lake, because there is no salt in a lake to hold you up, and especially not in the sea. You must always respect the sea. It’s bigger than you. Do you hear me? And you must never, ever swim if you have taken alcohol, or even if your friends have. If a friend has had a couple of beers when you are a teen-ager and he says, ‘Come on, it’ll be fun!,’ what do you say?”
“Would you rather,” Ben said, patiently.
“No, I wouldn’t. I really would not rather. I would not rather die one way or the other way. What is your problem, Ben?”
They were in a street of newly built semidetached houses, depressingly small and endlessly the same. Tiny gardens: rowan tree, cherry tree, silver birch, ornamental willow—a horrible pompom on a stick. She did not know what she was doing in this place. It was coming to catch her, even here. It was coming to catch her children—her own foolishness; it had followed her out of the water. The night swim was not the end of it; she had been in thrall to death for some time afterward—months, a year. Because of course you could leave the lake but you could not leave desire itself, and all its impossibilities.
Though something was made possible. Something was made real. Something was resolved by the existence of the child in the back seat.
“Would you rather,” Ben said, “live in a turkey or have a turkey live inside you?”
“What?”
“Would you rather,” he repeated, in a forbearing way, “live in a turkey or have a turkey live inside you?”
“That is a very good question,” she said.
“Would you rather?”
“That is a truly great question. That is the best one yet.” She reached to the car radio and switched it on, hoping to distract him.
“Is that the place?” The app told her to take a right. “Is that where Ava lives?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’s your friend.”
“No, she’s not. She’s not my friend. She’s just really, really pushy.” His hand rested, in anticipation, on the overnight bag beside him as she took the turn through large, open gates into a new development.
“Is this it?”
St. Clare Close, St. Clare Court. The little maze was set around an open green space, and in the center of the green was a grand, three-story building.
St. Clare’s itself.
There it was. All this time. She had lived five miles away from here, for a decade, and had never realized it was down this road, one she passed every so often, on her way somewhere else.
She had been driven here in a taxi nearly twenty years ago, when all around were green fields. She was terrified that the driver would know from the address that she was mad, though she wasn’t properly mad; she was just quite badly broken. She was sure he would know that there was a broken human being in his cab, that he would turn to sneer at her as they went through the gates, or as they were going up the driveway past tended gardens, to this large house, this facility.
The Sisters of St. Clare and St. Agnes. Private Nursing Home.
“Scraggy Aggy’s,” as it used to be known. The bin. She had typed the address into her son’s phone and thought nothing of it.
“Would you rather?” Ben said.
So that was why she had remembered the lake.
It was very strange, looking at the building from the outside. She had spent her time there in a small room and had seen the exterior perhaps twice: first in a skewed way, as she walked up the steps, and possibly once again in a backward glance when her father came to collect her. She had never gone into the gardens, which were now filled with smart new houses; it was possible that she had not been allowed. Or, more likely, she had not been supplied with clothes. She had slept a lot, or lain unmoving in her hospital-style bed. She did remember standing at a window—perhaps it was even that window on the third floor, where the building bulged out into a fat, round turret. She knew that the turret contained a flight of stairs and that she had looked out from the top of it, as a woman in a fairy tale might—though she was not in a fairy tale, she was in a fog of Mogadon, not to mention all the other junk she swallowed obediently, twice a day, wondering if she would ever, ever shit again. Nobody seemed to care about that. They cared about your feelings instead. Though “cared” was perhaps the wrong word. They observed your feelings.
“Mother,” Ben said—a word he used only when truly annoyed. She had forgotten to say “What?”
“What?” she said.
“Would you rather live in a turkey?”
“Is this the place?” she said. “Is this where she lives?”
She had slowed to a stop in the middle of the deserted street. A pair of tiny children, one of them just a toddler, were playing on the flight of broad granite steps that led up to the front door of the building that used to be Scraggy Aggy’s. The place had been turned into apartments—they probably cost a bomb. Other things came back to her as she looked at the façade: A foyer of sorts, where she had signed in. A large living room for the nuns, where her father had stood up from a chintz armchair as she walked through the door, ready to go home. It was the high-ceilinged room on the left, where the children’s mother had pinned the curtain back, to see that they did not wander far.
There had been a godforsaken day room where people went to smoke—she wondered where that was. They were all on twenty cigarettes a day, the broken ladies of the suburbs, with their trembling hands and their pretty dressing gowns. They’d sat in this stinking room, with its vinyl-covered armchairs, and looked at their wrists. She wondered who lived in that space now. Someone busy and young. Someone who put orchids on the sill of a window that had once been nailed shut. This person did not smoke. This person walked out of a lovely private flat into the public corridor where the sad people used to pace, all those years ago. Weeping, not weeping, silent, eying the pay phone.
“It’s No. 74.” Her son’s tone was one of bottomless contempt, and she saw that she had not moved, was stalled.
The toddler and the young child were actually contained by the steps, she realized. They stayed at the top, and peddled their tricycle on the flat surface. They did not approach the edge.
She had spent the past eight years of her life checking on the safety of small children.
The car rolled gently forward as Ben read out the numbers on the houses that faced onto the green: 67, 69, 71.
“Where are the evens?” she said, as they circled slowly around the back of the building as though driving into a trap. This is how her life had felt, just before it broke—everything had been too connected. And now it was happening again: the unwitting journey, the unfunny choices, the idea that her son knew, of course he did, you could smell it on her still: the brackish water of the lake.
She spotted the window of the day room, up on the second floor, and she was still up there, checking her wrists. Smoking away. Staring for weeks at a patch on the wall. Ben unknown to her. Her daughter unknown. They had not happened inside her body; they had not been born.
“There it is! Seventy-four, seventy-four!”
She stopped the car, pulled the hand brake, and twisted in her seat to look at her son, who was undoing his seat belt in the back. Ben glanced up at her, and he was beautiful. His hair needed a comb, and there was a gleam of something under his nose, but he was so very much himself. He looked at her from under long lashes, as though he had known her for a long time, and she was not inside the building. She was here now, on the outside, with him.
“Be good,” she said, as he grabbed the overnight bag and was gone. For a boy who didn’t like girls, he was quick getting to Ava’s front door.
“I’ll pick you up at eleven tomorrow.”
He came doubling back then. She thought for a moment that he wanted to kiss her goodbye, but he was just looking for his phone. She handed it through the window, then stuck her face out after it, for mischief.
“Mnnnnmm,” she said, puckering up. And he did kiss her, abruptly, before running back to the house, where Ava was now standing on the porch to welcome him in. A little blond pixie, with a sequinned heart on her T-shirt, jigging up and down at the sight of him.
The kiss was a clumsy thing. Fleshy. Swift. There was a dot of cold on her cheek, from the tip of his nose.
“Ben!” she shouted. “Hang on. Ben!”
“What?”
“I would rather have the turkey live inside me.”
“O.K.!” He took her answer quite seriously.
“No contest.”
It was just a question, she thought. And she checked the rearview mirror before pulling out.
♦
Published in The New Yorker print edition of the March, 9 2020, issue.
她开车送本去朋友家，这次额外的旅程让她有些恼火，她还有太多的事情要做。不过，她确实喜欢车里的私密感，当她检查镜子并放慢转弯时，她会感觉到他的声音沿她肩膀上方传来。他坐在加高座椅上——对于八岁的孩子来说，本显得很矮——他看着窗外郊区的街道和停放的汽车，而她则用他的手机绘制路线图。她把它放在变速杆旁，用灰色的塑料面板支撑着。很难看清那个小箭头，本的手机屏幕碎得一塌糊涂——这东西很少离他的手，除非是掉在了地上。现在他看着外面的现实世界，似乎对它的存在略感惊讶。
“我不喜欢巴里·麦金泰尔”，他说。
“不喜欢？为什么？”
他们在车上聊得很投机。换做在家里，他会说，“不知道”，或“只是……”
在车里，他会念叨这样的事：“虽然如此，我喜欢男孩。我真的喜欢男孩。”
“当然。”
她想知道为什么当他们面向彼此时，他讲话很困难；她注视着他的眼神中有什么东西令他悄悄地耸肩、挪动？
“你是个男孩。”
“我知道，”他说。
当然，她是他的母亲，因此当她看向他时，她总是在打量他，以便调试与欣赏。尽管她试图不这样做。她铆足了劲，避免变成那种发号施令，说“坐直”或“别动你的头发”那种话的女人。
“那好吧。”
她瞥了一眼后视镜，却只看到了他的侧脑。整个冬天他粗糙头发的色泽都在加深。不消一两年，就会完全变成棕色。
“我只是讨厌篮球。”
“真的吗？”
“真的讨厌。”
最近，他把“快乐/基（Gay）”当成一种侮辱性用词来用。 “这真是太基（Gay）了，”他在晚餐时这么说，这让他的小妹妹楞了一下。
“你当然喜欢篮球，”她温暖地说着，那个谎言。
他没有回答。
“巴里·麦金泰尔打篮球吗？”
在后视镜中，她看见他的手朝他遮住的脸移动。
“别碰你的鼻子！”她说。
很难不这样做。他们的美丽是如此短暂，她的孩子们。他们是如此完美，以至并不完美。她太爱他们，因而不能放任他们。
在他环顾都柏林郊区的时候，她开车继续前进：春天的树木，半独立式房屋，一个赶着路的老市民遛着狗。手机应用程序正带她走在一条熟悉的街道上，尽管这条线路陌生，尽管她自己也不知为何会走这条路。本的朋友叫艾娃，她是新来的。显然，她住在高速公路附近的圣·克莱尔新月街。但他们没走高速公路，而是沿着一条由小街道组成的路网行驶，其中一些街道是她以前走过的——这是去花园中心的路，那是去狗狗美容店的路——但她不知道，要是你在正确的地方转弯，你可以从这里穿到那里去。
“你宁愿……”本说着就停了下来。
如果你不让本知道你在听，他就不会继续讲。
“什么？”最后她说。
现在他知道她在全神贯注地在听他了，他说，“你宁愿喝下一杯熔岩，还是淹死在熔岩湖里？”
“哦，上帝。”
“你更愿意哪个？”
“又来这套。”
“哪个？”
“你不能喝熔岩。”
“不，你能。”
“在杯子里面？”
“一个石杯。”
“那还是淹死算了。”
“你宁愿从屋顶上掉下来，还是让一棵树掉下来砸你头上？”
他着迷于选择，尤其是不可能的选择。
“都不愿意。我更希望这一切不要发生在我身上。”
“你宁愿从屋顶上掉下来，”他坚持要问，“还是让一棵树掉下来砸你头上？”
也许他沉迷于死亡本身。无论如何选择，都无法摆脱它。
“屋顶，”她说。
“好的。”
“你呢？”
“嗯，我也选屋顶，”他坦言道。
“还不是你最好的问题，”她说。
他稍作停顿，接受了挑战。
“你宁愿被火蚁螫死，还是被大起重机吊起你的脚指头，直到你的脑袋爆开？”
“非常好！”
他会一直问下去，直到她被彻底问住。
“拜托，起重机。”
“你宁愿在黑暗中淹死，还是在黑暗中被勒死？”
他会一直问下去，直到她真的死了。
“这要紧吗？”
“一个装满鳗鱼的巨大的黑暗湖泊。”
“真的不。绝对不。我宁愿不。”
她开车时，头脑中是有关一次夜泳的记忆，那是在本降生多年前的事情了。那是在爱尔兰乡村的一个湖里；一群人从酒吧回来，既无明月皎皎，亦无床笫之欢，猜的——那天早上或前一天晚上，他们应该在度假小屋里做爱——当她在黑暗中走向湖边时，她把裙子拉过头顶。当然，这群人中有一个男人，实际上并不是她当时正在交往的那个男人；而是某个其他的、不合适的男人。这两个人后来都没有成为现在正坐在后座上的男孩的父亲。夜半三更，在荒郊野地里赤身裸体，这对他们俩来说都是一种嘲弄——他们谁也不会做的。这都是很久以前的事了。
她当时穿的是件蓝色亚麻的衬裙，宽松又实用，在未被儿童座椅、来聚会夜宿的孩子和指路电话占据的那些日子里，她的内衣有时非常花哨且不实用。她的身体则更为精致，只是她那时并不自知。而且她那时喝醉了，故而那条通往小板路的小径她只是依稀记得，她当时的经历也是零星的；不过当她把裙子放到尚有余温的木头上，望向水面时，一切都慢慢地清晰起来。湖水的丝光里有草皮颗粒，将湖面变做褐色。此刻是午夜时分，这里比你所能想象的还要暗，空旷的水面铺陈在面前，有种第六感一样的感觉。她低头，看到了黑色的闪光，像油一样。她坐在码头边缘，解开她花哨的胸罩，将其脱掉。一个男人的声音叫她停下来。另一个什么也没说。一个女人的声音在说，“不，真的，米歇尔。”然后她进去了。她一触到木头底架就向上游去，被“邦”的水声吞没，之后液体归于寂静，她挣扎着向上，重新呼吸到空气。黑色的水变成了黑色的空气。
随着她的上升和转体，她能感受到皮肤表层之下酒精在膨胀，水没有冷到让肢体麻木的地步。或许是她人已先麻木了。她吃力地游，水打她的身畔划过，伸出的手臂将她带离了所有人，虽然感觉上她好似没有变换位置。她可以从他们的声音中判断出她在移动——她犁过水面游向湖中心时捕捉到的零碎声音。
那是中心罢，那是她正划过的水面罢。那里又黑又潮，很难弄清她的眼睛究竟是闭着抑或睁着。她怕自己水平不够，怕游泳时自己往下倾斜，怕她抬头吸气时会呛水。岸边传来的呼喊声现在越发零星；就仿佛在她盘旋或奋力绕回至他们那边时，他们已然放弃了她，因为零碎的声音给了她感觉，知道地平线在哪里，当务之急是不要丢掉这个感觉。她需要辨清方向。她顺着身体两侧划水，虽然她边游边在水中扭动身躯，她并不确信自己在转弯。她应该先停下来看看她的方位，但她不能停下来；她不想停下。这是如此美味——突然之事的神秘就在这里。分不清是何方向，也找不到哪里是边界。她陶醉于其中。甚至现在就溺死，也将是一件快事。
她捕捉到她白皙手臂的闪光，跟随着肌肉的微光——她的身躯就是自己的指南针——直到她听到岸边那个本应和她上床的男人的声音，看到她不该与之上床的男人断断续续的香烟光亮（不知怎地，他们的确从未如此；也许她把他吓坏了）。她的重要声明在浅滩中她脚下淤泥中的锋锐的石头稍微磨平，她从湖里爬出来，走向互相指斥，和冰冷皮肤的性爱。
第二天一早醒来，她打了个激灵，前一晚有点潮乎乎的完满已经忘却了，消磨了。它发生时她并不清醒。她坐在床沿，将空气吸入两肺。她还活着。她把这个事实铭记在心。把它恰好挤在她的脑海的中心。她再也不能这样做啦。那时，她芳龄二十四岁，正在放弃死亡。无论是醉是醒，再不会有天黑后的湖泊了。
“你知道的，本，你永远不该在晚上游泳，”二十多年后的今天，她坐在她的现代混合动力汽车里如是说。油门，刹车，后视镜，离合器。
“你是宁愿……”本说。
“不，真的，你必须答应我永远不要那样做。不要去湖里，因为湖里没有盐分可以支撑你，切记不要在海里。你必须始终尊重大海。它比你更广大。你听到我的话了吗？如果你喝了酒，或者说，即便是你的朋友喝了酒，你也绝不能游泳。如果一个朋友在你十来岁时灌了几杯啤酒，然后说，‘来吧，这会很有趣！’，你会说什么？”
“你是宁愿……”本耐心地说。
“不，我不愿意。我是真的不愿意。我不愿以这种或那种方式去死。你还有什么问题吗，本？”
他们行驶在一条布满新建的半独立别墅的街道上，房子小得令人讶异，无休无止地雷同。放眼尽是小花园：花楸树、樱桃树、白桦树、观赏柳——枝条上还有一种可怕的绒球。她不知道自己在这个地方做什么。即使是在这里，它也会来抓住她——她自己的愚蠢。它要来抓住她的孩子们；它跟着她离开了水面。夜泳并不是它的终结。之后的一段时间里，她一直被死亡所困扰——好几个月，一整年。因为你当然可以离开湖，但你离不开欲望本身，以及关乎它的所有不可能之事。
虽然有的事只是可能，有的事成了真，有的事因为后座上的那个孩子的存在而被解决。
“你是宁愿，”本说，“住在一只火鸡体内，还是让一只火鸡住在你体内？”
“什么？”
“你是宁愿，”他以一种隐忍的方式重复道，“住在火鸡体内，还是让火鸡住在你体内？”
“这问题真不错，”她说。
“你宁愿……”
“这真是个绝顶的问题。迄今为止最好的。”她把手伸向汽车收音机，把它打开，希望借此分散他的注意力。
“是那个地方吗？”这款应用程序告诉她向右走。 “那是艾娃住的地方吗？”
“我不知道。”
“她是你的朋友。”
“不，她不是。她不是我的朋友。她真的，真的很咄咄逼人。”当她拐弯穿过敞开的大门进入一个新的新建住宅区时，他的手有所期待地放在他身旁的过夜包上。
“是这个吗？”
圣克莱尔胡同、圣克莱尔球场，宛如小型迷宫，再往里是一片开阔的绿地，绿地中央是一座器宇轩昂的三层楼房。
圣克莱尔本身。
它在那里。一直在那里。她在离此五英里远的地方住了十年，从没意识到它就在这条路上，她去别的地方时还经常路过呢。
大约二十年前，她被一辆出租车带到过这里，当时周遭都是绿地。她害怕司机会从地址中知道她疯了，尽管她并没有真疯；她只是很受伤。她确信他会知道他的车子里有一个落魄的人，当他们穿过大门或沿车道驶过精心管理的花园，来到这座大房子、这个机构跟前时，他会转过头来嘲笑她。
圣克莱尔和圣艾格尼丝修女院。私人疗养院。
它过去还有个称呼：“皮包骨艾吉之家”。垃圾场。她之前把地址输进儿子手机的时候，一点儿也没想到这些。
“你宁愿……”本说。
这就是为何她会想起那个湖的缘故。
这栋建筑打外面看上去很奇怪。她在这里一个小房间里呆了一段时间，大概看过两次外观：第一次是歪斜的视角，她上台阶走向它，还有一次可能是她父亲来接她时她往后瞥了一眼。她从没进过花园，现在那里建满了漂亮的新房子。有可能她不被允许进花园。或者，更有可能的是，她们没给她衣服，她没法出门。她在像医院里的那种病床上一直睡觉，或者躺着一动不动。她的确记得站在一扇窗户前——也许就是三楼的那扇窗户，大楼在那里鼓出一块，形成了一座粗大圆浑的塔楼。她知道塔楼里有一段楼梯，就像童话故事中的女人一样，她曾从楼顶往下俯瞰——当然，她不是在童话故事中，而是身处硝基安定的迷雾中。更不要提那些她一天两次自觉吞下的所有垃圾，吞完后她都不禁好奇自己是否还会拉屎。似乎没有人关心这个。他们反而关心你的感受。“关心”可能是个错误的词。他们“观察”你的感受。
“妈妈，”本说——只有真被惹火了，他才会用这个词。她已经忘了要说“什么？”
“什么？”她说。
“你宁愿住在火鸡体内吗？”
“是这个地方吗？”她说。 “这是她住的地方吗？”
她已经放慢了速度，在空旷无人的街道当中停了下来。有一对小孩子，其中一个才刚刚蹒跚学步，他们正在宽阔的花岗岩台阶上嬉闹，那里正是以前的“皮包骨艾吉之家”的大楼前门。这座大楼已经被改造成了公寓——公寓很可能极贵。她凝视着立面，又想起一些其他的东西：她签到过的一个门厅；一个修女们专用的大客厅，当她走进那间大客厅的门时，她父亲已从印花棉布扶手椅上站起身，准备回家。就是左边那个天花板很高的房间。那里，那两个孩子的母亲已经把窗帘收起，好看着他们，免得走远。
那时还有一个废弃的公共娱乐间，人们去那里抽烟——她想不起是哪一间了。她们每天都抽二十支烟，这些来自各郊区的失了魂的女人，她们的手颤抖着，身上穿着光鲜的晨衣。她们会坐在那间臭不可闻的房间里，坐在那些盖着塑料布的扶手椅上，看着自己的手腕。她好奇现在谁会住在那个房间。一个忙碌的年轻人。他会将兰花放在曾经被钉死的窗户窗台上。他不抽烟。他会踱出了他的可爱的私人公寓，走进了公共走廊，而在许多年前，悲伤的人们经常在那个公共走廊上来回踱步。哭泣，不哭，沉默，盯着付费电话。
“74号房啦。”她儿子的语气是一种无限的蔑视，她发现车没有动，抛锚了。
她注意到，那个蹒跚学步的孩子和年幼的孩子实际上是让台阶困住了。他们呆在顶端，在平坦的表面上骑一辆三轮车。他们没有接近边缘。
过去的八年里，她都无时无刻不在留意小孩子的安全。
汽车轻轻向前滚动，本大声读出面向绿草坪的一排房屋上的数字：67、69、71。
“双号房在哪里？”她一边说，一边慢慢地沿着大楼的后方绕过去，就像开进了一个陷阱。这正是她被生活压垮之前的感觉——一切事情都联系得太紧密了。如今，这种感觉又回来了：不知不觉的旅程，了然无味的选择，认为她儿子知道的想法，他当然知道，你仍可以在她身上嗅见那股味道：湖水的咸味。
她看到了那个公共娱乐室的窗户，在二楼，她还在那里，检查着自己的手腕。靠吸烟打发日子。盯着墙上的补丁，一盯就是几个礼拜。那时的她不知道本。也不知道她的女儿。他们都还尚未投胎于她体里；他们还没出生。
“那儿！七十四，七十四！”
她停下车，拉了手刹，在座位上扭过头去看儿子，他正在解开后排的安全带。本抬头瞥了她一眼，他很漂亮。他的头发需要梳理，他的鼻子底下有一丝闪光，但他状态好极了。他从长长的睫毛下看着她，就像他认识了她很久一般，而她并不在那橦大楼里。她此刻在这里，在外面，和他在一起。
“乖一点，”她说，他抓上过夜袋就走了。对于一个不喜欢女孩的男孩来说，他的动作可谓迅速，很快就来到艾娃的前门。
“明天十一点我来接你。”
他又折了回来。她有一阵子以为他是想吻别她，但他只不过是在找手机。她把手机顺着窗户递过去，然后把脸探出来，捣个蛋。
“嗯……，”她噘着嘴说。他的确吻了她，很短，然后就转身跑向屋子，艾娃现在正站在门廊上欢迎他进来。那是一个金发小精灵，T恤上镶着金灿灿的心，一见他就不住地上下摇动。
那个吻很笨拙。肉肉的、一触即释。他鼻尖触到的脸颊处有一点冰凉。
“本！”她喊道。“听我说。本！”
“什么？”
“我宁愿让火鸡住在我体内。”
“好的！”他很认真地对待她的回答。
“无异议。”
这只是个问题而已，她寻思着。在开出去之前她检查了后视镜。
Translation Commentary
Liu Yukun（刘玉坤）
There are a good many differences between source and target languages, especially when Chinese and English belong to diametrically different systems in terms of their origins, features as well as development processes. But divergences do not inevitably result in the inaccessibility of the users of some specific language to the literary works produced and channeled by the vehicle of other languages.
While Chinese is a circular language, English is inclined to be linear, which means that to translate an English short story into a Chinese one, the key lies in fully taking into consideration the indigenous flavor of pure Chinese on the basis of respecting the original English text without stripping the text of its internal logic. Besides, there exists discordance between meanings of an English word and those of its counterparts in Chinese because of polysemy in languages. For example, “gay” in Ben's satirical comment on his little sister refers to both “pleasure” and “(male) homosexual” in English, yet those concepts are respectively presented by different words or phrases in Chinese, which needs the translator to expound on the discordance by adding notes, cunningly avoiding misunderstandings yet keeping the ambiguities. To minimize the probable controversies and provocations and project the little boy's naive but interesting understanding of the word, adding notes has always been my personal choice of priority.
Moreover, the ticklers are confined not only to the issues brought about by the divergences between languages themselves, but also to diverse ways of recognition and thus discrepant results of understanding and reception. For instance, night swim is not a common scene that could be frequently encountered by a Chinese reader, so it is meaningless to expect the Chinese readers to fully understand both such an activity and the possible feelings of the participants involved in it. However, it might as well be that in Anne Enright's description there remain some elements that could be shared by readers outside a seemingly exclusive context. Environmental, sensual or emotional as they are, such elements could be experienced by both night-swimmers and people who, though having never experienced such a thrilling activity, have found themselves in other contexts similar to the occasion of the female protagonist's night swim, saturated with helpless loneliness and cold, torpid and bitter despair.
Another example I could mention is the system inside the psychiatric clinic and the ways the presumed patients are treated there. Most Chinese readers are unfamiliar with those concrete conditions and phenomena mentioned in the story, as they rarely have the opportunity to delve into a more or less mentally disrupted other (or to be more exact, socially constructed other), let alone sexuality which is still a peripheral, unofficial and therefore less discussed issue in China. Sometimes, it would be much too demanding if translators are required to completely and unmistakably relate everything told by the novelist to the readers who have never had life experiences akin to the protagonist's. In addition to the utmost efforts to add further extraordinary illustrations so as to render the original textual information more comprehensible, another solution to improve Chinese readers' understanding of the original information would be the maintenance of accuracy in conveying the part of information that could be immediately sensed and empathized by the reading public with different cultural backgrounds.
As a result, when Chinese readers cannot familiarize themselves with these scenes which may be somewhat distant to their lives, they could still be connected to what the author intends to express through her narration if the translator focuses on transmission of emotion and power in narration rather than on an ambitious re-presentation of every single thing encoded in the text.