联想

村上春树曾在罗马居住。某日与意大利友人开车到一个叫梅塔的地方观光。友人叙述了关于这条村落的一个真实故事。二战时友人的家人把被迫降的一个英国飞行员藏起，不给纳粹军抓去。打完仗后，英国飞行员回到英国去，但从此就再没有他的消息了。多年后，友人受村民所托到伦敦找到了那个飞行员，英国人说起往事，不禁泪流满面。但他始终没有再回到梅塔村。 村上写道：“人毕竟有各种不同的想法”。

我想起了早阵子看的意大利电影Il Postino. 一个小岛上，生活沉闷，为人木独的邮差，因认识了来到岛上暂住的流亡中的智利诗人聂鲁达，人生展开了多彩的一页。聂鲁达回国后，一直音讯渺然。终於来信了，却只字不提邮差。读信的那场戏，邮差演得淋漓尽致，失落的心酸令观众动容。看来邮差对诗人的感情跟诗人对他的感情是不对称的。不是说诗人轻视邮差，只不过每个人对人与人之间的关系有不同的对待，有时错，有时对，但很多时候是一言难尽的。

文人的孤高又令我联想到三岛由纪夫所说的sticky relationship. 这个字眼是日本文学研究家Donald Keene在其回想录里提到的。三岛向Keene说他不想和任何人有sticky的关系。意思应该就是不喜欢藕断丝连，拖泥带水的作风，所以Keene从来不过问三岛的私事。但潇洒的代价往往就是孤独。

I have met many friends over the years, in China, Japan, and the U.S. And my correspondence with them has been inconsistent in some cases, but I do not wish to give the impression that I value our friendship less. It is just that each of us has embarked on different paths and more often than not they diverge at some point. I still reminisce about my students in Japan once in a while; it's common for ALTs to say, in dejection, that their presence in greater scheme of things does not matter and that their students would forget them when they grow up. I'd like to think that the best time is that shared by us and is not what lies ahead, which is out of our control. So what if they forget us--isn't it a little vain to want to be remembered?