Wish Fulfillment
By Mary Gaitskill
Mary Gaitskill 生於1954年，美國作家。出版兩本長篇小說及三本短篇小說集。1998年獲美國筆會/福克納獎提名、2002年古根漢基金會研究獎金。長篇小說Veronica入圍2005年美國“國家書卷獎”決選。小說與散文散見《紐約客》雜誌（New Yorker）、《哈潑雜誌》（Harper's Magazine）及《老爺雜誌》（Esquire）。其作品典型主題是女性對內心衝突的處理，普遍吸收「禁忌」相關元素，比如賣淫、毒癮以及性虐待。
底下這篇作品靈感來自音速青春樂團Sonic Youth的一首歌Wish Fulfillment，作品當中時間與空間、思緒與感官知覺巧妙鋪疊。現實、超現實、童話幻想、人性慾望交錯迷離。其文字與意象表現曲折、美麗、詭異、優雅，令人讚嘆。
One night Mary, a little girl with sisters and parents who loved her, woke in a dark forest. At first she was afraid and then she realized it was her backyard. During the day she sometimes pretended her backyard was a forest and now, in the dream world of night, it had become a forest. During the day she pretended there was a door on the floor of the forest, and so now she went to look for it1. She found it between the garage and the fishpond, and she opened it with excitement and a little fear. During the day she had imagined that under the trapdoor there was a staircase lit with lamps, and so there was. Knowing by now that she was dreaming and that this chance might never come again, she went down the stairs, closing the door behind her.
As Mary descended the stairs, she became me2, or, to put it another way, I became dimly aware of her, descending down into herself as I, a middle-aged woman, drove through the town where I live on a rainy spring night listening to an old song on an obsolete tape. The music in the song started with the sound of a crippled machine stripped to its barest function, turning unevenly round and round on a cockeyed pivot, screeching sweetly and brokenly3. There was a sound like slow-struck bells and a voice like that of somebody looking for something in the dark. I used to listen to it years ago, lying drunk on my floor in the dark. I would listen and think of a woman I loved, or tried to love. Her name was Karen. We did not belong in the same world, but somehow our separate worlds had overlapped. I see your wishes on the wall. Karen was overspilling with impossible wishes and so was I4. Our wishes were glowing, and always out of reach; they made life around us blurred, magical and painful. Our wishes were not the same at all, but somehow, we had met in the dark and, for a moment, our wishes had overlapped.
1. 白天裡，Mary幻想森林地板上有一扇門，she went to look for it的it指這扇門。那是一扇trapdoor (在地板上開的門)。門的下面是點著燈的通道、樓梯。
2. 當Mary走下樓梯時，Mary變成了敘事者，或者說敘事者漸漸融入其所敘述的故事角色Mary。
3. 前面提到敘事者是個中年婦女，在春季雨夜開車行駛於居住的城市，聽著老舊錄音帶播放的老歌。歌曲音樂開始是破機器磨損到最基本功能的聲音，在歪曲的輪軸上不均勻地轉動，破爛又甜美地唧唧作響。
4. 歌曲中的音樂像慢慢撞擠的鐘聲，歌曲中的歌聲像某人在黑暗中尋找什麼東西。多年前，敘事者在黑暗中酒醉躺於地板上，聽著這歌曲，想起所愛的女人Karen。她們分屬兩個不同的世界，卻都有著不可能實現的願望，滿滿地溢了出來。
I see your wishes on the wall是音速青春搖滾樂團Sonic Youth於1992年發行Dirty專輯中Wish Fulfillment這首歌的第一句歌詞。
Meanwhile, the dreaming little girl named Mary continued down the stairs in the dark. Outside the glowing perimeters of lamplight, the dark was deep and physical5. As she walked, a voice spoke. She could not tell whether it came from inside her or outside. It said: Now you must choose. You can keep going down and visit the Devil. Or you can stop on the landing6 and visit life on earth. Mary said aloud, “I choose life on earth.” And she came to the landing. The landing was an enormous room, luxuriantly carpeted with nice little tables and chairs placed at intervals7. There were pictures on the wall, and they were like paintings and movies combined; the figures in them were loosely formed like the figures in paintings and yet as defined and mobile as the characters in movies. In one of them a child looked out the window at a beautiful woman in the sky and longed for her. Music played; it was like the grinding of a machine with a personality8, a personality that was sad and sweet and had to grind the same way over and over. The singer sang, and Mary understood the song to be a song of the child’s longing—ancient longing that had taken new life in the body of the child. Mary looked at another picture; in that one a musician and a beautiful model kissed each other on the street at night, outside a bar called the White Rose. They were like little pieces of glitter9 in human form, and they were sad because they knew that the lifespan of glitter is not as long as the lifespan of humans—that they would die shortly and yet be forced to live on in the body of a dull, sore human being for years after. The music was singing of their sadness, too.
5. 燈光照射範圍外頭的黑暗十分深沉，像個存在的實體。
physical: relating to real objects that you can touch, see, or feel如實體存在般可用感官識察。
6. landing： 樓梯平台。
7. at intervals：with spaces between每隔一段距離。
樓梯平台空間很大，鋪著華麗地毯，每隔一段距離就擺置依些精緻的小桌椅。
8. 音樂播放，彷若人的性情在機器上磨著。
Mary看見牆上一幅畫，畫著一個小孩倚窗凝望空中一位美人，渴盼著佳人。這裡的personality可指小孩的企盼情思。
9. glitter明亮閃爍的光，或指閃閃發光的狀態。
樂師與美麗的模特兒於夜裡接上擁吻，彷若具有人形的小發光物。何等哀淒，因為他們知道光亮是短促的，
The windshield wipers rub back and forth, bearing rippling streams of wet light. The wet windshield catches the lights of stores and street lamps and, for a second, I glimpse, between reflections of drugstore and laundromat lights, the reflection of something that has accidentally shown itself long enough for me to see its bright silhouette10. I see you run to make a call, putting up to someone free11. Far away and hard to see, Karen runs for the phone in a forgotten room down a long, long hall that twists and turns through a house with hundreds of rooms in it. I am in another room now, and in this room the song is about another person. It is about a girl, a poor girl named Kassandra. She came to me through charity12. She came to stay with me in the summer. I was supposed to help her; I wanted to help her. Her mother was cruel and she was wishing for a new mother. I had no children and I was wishing for a daughter. We came from different worlds, and each of us spoke languages the other did not know, but still, for a while, our wishes overlapped.
On the luxuriant, carpeted landing, the little girl named Mary looks at another picture. In this one a dark, beautiful girl some years older than her is sitting on a bed in a dingy room, looking at wishes. In the picture, Mary can see the girl’s wishes; they are wonderful and terrible. She wishes she was not poor. She does not know she is beautiful and so she wishes she was beautiful. She wishes she was a queen, more powerful and perfect than anybody, telling everybody what to do. She wishes to lay treasures at her mother’s feet. She wishes to chop off her mother’s head and put it in a goldfish bowl. She wishes to ride horses. She wishes she would be adopted by a woman who has money, who would love her and buy her things. Mary can feel the girl who sits on her poor bed, wishing and being pulled apart by the power of her longing. Mary can almost see the woman with money; she is pale and worried and she is going back and forth from young to old very fast. During one flash of youth, Mary realizes that the woman with money is her. 13
There is the sound of bells; Mary is distracted and forgets what she realized. The picture of the beautiful dark girl becomes a picture of ringing bells; a big iron bell high up in a stone church; handbells rung by town criers14; the electronic bell of a phone; the digital bell of a cell phone. The bells vanish. The girl is on her cell phone, but the person she is trying to call isn’t there.
10. 這段回到敘事者開車在街上的場景。雨刷反覆刷動，帶起濕冷光線的水流漪漣。濕雨刷映射店鋪與街燈的光，敘事者在藥店和自助洗衣店的光線中，瞥見某件東西的倒映及其光亮的側影輪廓。
11. I see you run to make a call, putting up to someone這是free Wish Fulfillment的第二句歌詞。原歌詞為 I see you run to make a call, hoping that there's someone free 不知是作者記錯，還是刊載作品時的誤植。
12. 經由慈善機構的安排，一個名叫Kassandra的小女孩於夏天搬來和敘事者同住。
13.這段又回到Mary站在鋪地毯的樓梯平台，透過牆上的第三幅畫她看到Kassandra，甚至看到Kassandra充滿慾望、暴力、矛盾的願望，且幾乎看到有錢的敘事者憂慮蒼白地迅速往返於青春與年華老去之間。
這段超現實的描述充滿詭異、陸離的色彩，串連許多故事片斷，營造情節中有情節的氛圍。
14. 在這段中陰沈的漂亮小女孩的圖畫轉變成搖著各式鐘鈴的圖畫：石砌教堂的大鐘鈴、手鈴、電話的電子鈴聲、手機的數位化鈴聲。
town crier 又稱為bellman，中世紀英國法庭派出的公務員，持著手鈴到市井街坊宣導政令公告。
The phone is ringing. Your life and my life, they don’t touch at all/And that’s no way to be. I am home, turning on the lights, trying to get to the phone. The music continues in my head. We’ve never seemed so far15. I bought Kassandra clothes and helped her with school16 twice a week on the phone. The other poor girls beat her because they were angry at her for having good clothes. They mocked her for doing better in school. Her mother mocked her too. And so she stopped calling me for help. She put the clothes I gave her in the bottom drawer.
The caller hangs up as I pick up. We’ve never seemed so far.
When Kassandra was ten years old I would read to her at bedtime. She would look at me with big glowing eyes, golden with wishes that overlapped with mine. I wished her to be a success. I wished her to be a champion horse rider. I wished her to grow up beautiful. I wished her surrounded by jewels.
The little girl named Mary is looking at a painting of the dark girl and the pale woman; the woman is holding the girl, and, even though she is the smaller of the two, she is able to hold her all the way. “Your weight feels good to me,” she says. “Lay on me all the way.” And the dark girl does. 17
Now Kassandra is following her dreams in the street among louche criminals18, but I know her wishes are still golden and glowing. Our wishes no longer overlap—but they do. I know they do because sometimes when I am sick with sadness I feel her at my side with her hand on my shoulder. Though I can’t say that it is really her I feel or just my wish.19
The phone rings again. Come wish beside me—don’t you know you know what’s right. It is a wrong number.
Mary looks at the next picture; in it the dark girl is holding the pale woman as if she is the woman, and the woman a girl.
Somewhere a bell is ringing, getting louder.
Come wish beside me—don’t you know you know what’s right20. Mary opens her eyes. She is in her bedroom and it is flooded with light. Her mother is gently shaking her. She closes her eyes again.
The picture of the dark girl and the pale woman becomes a picture of bells: a big bell high up in a stone church; handbells rung by town criers; the bell of a mechanical clock struck by a tiny gong. Mary opens her eyes, and forgets what she has seen.
The phone rings again.21
15. Your life and my life, they don’t touch at all/And that’s no way to be及We’ve never seemed so far是Wish Fulfillment的第三句及第四句歌詞。We’ve never seemed so far意思是：我們從來沒有像現在這麼距離遙遠。
這段從Mary看到小女孩圖畫變成手鈴圖畫，立刻跳到敘事者回到家聽到電話再響的場景。
16. Kassandra在學校遭受霸凌，敘事者每個禮拜跟學校通兩次電話，尋求協助Kassandra。這時Kassandra應當是搬回去跟她老媽住。
17. 這段又回到Mary看著陰沈小女孩與蒼白婦人的畫面，女孩是婦人甜蜜的負擔，她心甘情願承受這負擔。
18. 這一段回到現實，Kassandra追逐著她的夢，淪落成街頭聲名狼藉的罪犯。
19. 敘事者說我們的心願不再重疊，卻又確實重疊。這矛盾的說法是因為當她憂傷成疾時，她能夠感覺到Kassandra就在她身邊，將手輕輕搭在她的肩膀。
20. Come wish beside me—don’t you know you know what’s right是Wish Fulfillment的最後一句歌詞。意思是：過來我身邊許願，你難道不明瞭，你知道什麼是對的。
21. 故事結尾：陰沈小女孩與蒼白婦人的圖畫變成鐘鈴的圖畫。Mary睜開眼醒過來，忘記所見一切。然而鈴聲又再響起。（最後一句應當是敘事者的現實場景）
【淺嚐賞味】
閱讀這篇故事的經驗很奇特，彷彿回到年少時在空盪的客廳，聽著破舊的收音機傳來粗礪瘖啞的西洋歌曲。歌詞內容似懂非懂，情緒卻莫名激動。整個人被拋向脫越日常的另個空間，整顆心沉墜入幽黯、神秘的深淵。孤獨的感覺、懵懂的憧憬、兒時的記憶、未來的迷惘、熾火、漆黑、激亢、憂傷、色彩、畫面等等瞬間轉換或重疊交錯的恍惚情境。年歲增長後，就算弄懂歌詞意義及一切，亦不復重構一絲絲當時感動。可見非關歌曲本身，而是聽者因之引發的蠱魅效應。
第一段的文字直接簡單，是典型的童話筆法。「白天她假裝後院是座森林，現在就變做森林」，「白天她想像森林地面有扇門，現在她就去找這扇門」，「白天她想像門下面道梯燈火照明，現在就是這樣」。第二段的第一句猛地將故事扭轉變化。「她變成了我」，讀者這才驚覺到原來這不是一篇以全知觀點寫的童話，敘事者是故事中的一個角色。作者運用夢幻般暗示性寫法：「多年前，醉酒躺在黑暗中的地板，聽著拖磨的鈴聲與暗裡尋覓的歌聲，想起所愛、想愛的女人」，將童話、現實、追憶、心底的想望交融一處。
第三段中Mary看著牆壁上的圖畫的這一段場景描寫，作者明顯地是在向科幻小說大師Ray Bradbury的經典名作The Illustrated Man致敬。作者運用圖畫此媒介與其說是用來衍說故事，更像是用來傳達意象與情境。第四段基本上應該是敘事者在雨夜開車的實景描寫。夜雨迷濛中，Karen藉著敘事者疑似瞥見的幻影淡入故事之中，「她穿越曲折長廊，跑著去被遺棄的房間，去接正在響著的電話」。同時，另一個人物Kassandra也隨著敘事者的憶思首度浮現在故事中。Kassandra這個名字讓人直覺就聯想到希臘神話中著名的女預言家，她們的共同處第一是：美麗，第二是：悲慘。
第五段與第六段原本應該是Mary在看壁上圖畫的場景，然而作者構思詭奇，透過Mary的眼睛看到Kassandra糾葛的慾望，看到敘事者蒼白憂慮地迅速往返於青春與年華老去之間，並且了悟到那個有錢女人就是她（這段了悟不知要將時光及記憶的帶子倒帶、播放、快轉幾次？）。陰沉的漂亮小女孩變成響鈴的圖畫，響鈴這意象在整篇故事好幾處出現，而且以此結尾，顯然是個深具寓意的象徵(significant symbol)。鈴聲停止，小女孩在打手機，卻無人接聽。
後頭那幾段主要是現實、童年記憶(Mary那段)與這些年來的經歷（從Kassandra十歲到她現在長大墮落鬼混）)以著超現實的方式擺盪，其間穿插著那令人焦慮的電話響起。敘事者疼惜、呵護Kassandra，希望她願望成真，Kassandra遭妒忌、霸凌，最後墮落街頭。這些片段讀起來都滿令人心疼。整篇故事，除了場景交錯迷離外，作者善用疊句（refrain），將一些關鍵字例如sad及 sweet、glow及golden等不時重複出現，吟哦迴旋，增添幾許惆悵、迷惘的氛圍。
敘事者醉酒思念Karen，她們之間發生什麼事？Karen跑去要接的是什麼人打來的電話？黑暗中的聲音告訴Mary選擇魔鬼或生命，這段代表什麼意思？Mary看到四幅畫：(1)倚窗望佳人的小孩；(2)樂師與模特兒擁吻；(3)陰暗房間內看著願望的漂亮小女孩；(4)各種作響的鐘鈴，四者之間有什麼關聯？小女孩Kassandra要打手機給誰？敘事者家裡電話數度響起，除了第一通沒接到，第二通打錯電話，到底是誰打來的？還是敘事者一直在企盼著誰打電話來？（倒數第四段：Somewhere a bell is ringing, getting louder.）或許是一通錯過好多年的電話？
也許我們可以提出某些解讀，也許有好多種解讀並存，也許根本不需要什麼確切的解讀（除非你還在學校讀書）。忘記微言宏旨吧！感動不在那裏。
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