时值冬季，在一座黑白色调的城市里，一辆公共汽车晃晃悠悠地打人群中穿过。一名中年乘客凝望着外面。雪下得挺急，报贩在贩卖战时的报纸，几名警察在殴打一名黑人摊贩，空荡荡的商店里有几张脸面无表情，一座桥梁残骸正在燃烧。男人下了车，向司机打听方向——司机朝着那堵令天空黯淡无光的巨大围墙扬了扬下巴。男人沿墙脚走着，想找到门进去。弹坑、垃圾、野狗。这座圆形的废墟旁，有个吓人的疯子在跟一堆火说话。终于，男人发现了一扇木门，他俯身在门上敲了敲。无人应答。他看见有根细绳没入墙面，上头拴着一只锡罐，就冲它说起话来：“有人吗？”字幕是日文，话音尽是噼里啪啦的吱哇乱叫。“我是波隆斯基大夫。边沁监狱长在等我。”他把罐子贴到耳边，听到了船员溺水似的声音。门自动打开了，露出荒凉的前院。大夫躬身穿过门洞。一首奇异陌生的赞美诗在风中回荡。“透德令为您效劳，大夫。”一个小矮人直起身子，波隆斯基大夫吃了一惊，靠后一闪。“这边请。”雪片变粗粝了。狂风呼啸，时而停歇时而大作。钥匙在透德令的腰带上叮当作响。走过玩牌的警卫，又穿过一个由牢笼组成的迷宫。“您到了，”他嘎哑地说。大夫吃力地弯下腰，敲了敲门，进了一间肮脏的办公室。
“大夫！”监狱长上了年纪，醉醺醺的。“坐吧，请坐。”
“谢谢。”波隆斯基大夫小心翼翼地走过去——地板不但暴露在外，还有那么一半被起走了。大夫坐到了一张学童椅上。监狱长正在给泡在一高脚杯液体里的一枚花生拍照。边沁监狱长解释道：“我正在撰写一篇论文，关于酒吧小吃在白兰地苏打里表现出来的特性。”
“是么？”
监狱长看了看他的秒表。“你用什么来毒害自己呢，大夫？”
“我工作时不饮酒。谢谢您。”
监狱长拿白兰地酒瓶对着一个蛋杯 倾倒一空，把瓶子往地板缝里随手一丢。远处传来一声惨叫和一声脆响。“干杯！”
监狱长把蛋杯搁了回去。“亲爱的大夫，请允许我开门见山地捡钟点说。重点，我是说，重点。我们自己的康尼希大夫在圣诞节前死于肺病，由于东部的战争或是别的什么理由，我们的人手还是得不到补充。监狱在战时得不到优先考虑，除非有政治犯需要收容。我们曾怀有那般崇高的抱负：打造一所乌托邦式的监狱，提升犯人们的心智，允许他们凭借想象力还自己一个自由之身，好——”
“边沁先生，”波隆斯基打断道，“重点在于？”
“重点在于”——监狱长把身子靠了过来——“沃尔曼问题。”
波隆斯基生怕碰到白兰地酒瓶，于是在小椅子上改变了坐姿。“沃尔曼是这里的一名犯人？”
“的确如此，大夫。沃尔曼就是那个断言自己是上帝的犯人。”
“上帝。”
“每个人都是他自己的上帝，要是依我说的话，可他说服牢里的人接受了他的妄想。我们把他隔离了，可无济于事。你进来时听到歌声了吧？沃尔曼的赞美诗。我怕会引发骚乱，大夫。暴动。”
“我了解您遇到了难题，可现在——”
“我要你对沃尔曼进行检查。确认他是装疯还是真的神经失常。要是你判定他真的疯了，我就可以把他打包发送给精神病院，然后咱们都可以回家就着茶吃点心了。”
“沃尔曼犯的是什么罪？”
边沁监狱长耸了耸肩。“去年冬天我们把档案当燃料烧了。”
“那你们怎么知道应当何时释放犯人？”
监狱长迷惑不解。“释放？”“犯人？”
沃尔曼的单人囚室有如秽物的宫邸。“那么，沃尔曼先生，”波隆斯基大夫在粪便和苍蝇中间踱着步子。“你相信自己是上帝有多久了？”
沃尔曼穿着一件拘束衣。“让我也来问你同样的问题。”
“我并不相信自己是上帝。”有什么东西在他的鞋底下吱嘎作响。
“可你相信自己是精神病大夫。”
“对极了。我以优异的成绩从医学院毕业，之后就当上了精神病大夫，开始执业。”大夫抬起脚——一只抽搐的蟑螂粘在他鞋底上。他在摇摇欲坠的墙面上把它蹭了下来。
沃尔曼点点头。“自从我开始了我的执业，我就变成了上帝。”
“我懂了。”大夫中断了笔记。“你的业务都包括什么？”
“主要就是不间断的维护。维护我的宇宙。”
“这么说是你创造了我们的宇宙？”
“的确。九天以前。”
波隆斯基琢磨着这句话。“不计其数的证据表明宇宙要比九天更古老一点。”
“我知道。我同样也创造了那些证据。”
大夫坐到了对面的板床上。“我已经四十五岁了，沃尔曼先生。你又如何解释我对去年春天，或是对我童年的记忆？”
“在我创造你的时候，我也创造了你的记忆。”
“那么这个宇宙里的一切都是你凭空想象出来的？”
“说得很对。你、这座监狱、醋栗树、马头星云 。”
波隆斯基把笔头那句写完。“工程量肯定相当浩大。”
“浩大得远远超乎你那微不足道的海马状突起——无意冒犯——的想象。更糟的是，我得保持对每个原子的想象，否则它就会‘噗’地消失！唯我论者只有一名，就是我，大夫。”波隆斯基皱起眉头，把笔记本挪了挪位置。沃尔曼叹了口气。“我明白你心存疑虑，大夫。是我把你造就成那样的。我能否提议来上一场客观试验，证明我的主张？”
“你想到什么主意了？”
“比利时。”
“比利时？”
“我猜比利时人不会对它心怀眷恋的，你觉得呢？”
波隆斯基一家住在一所独门独院的市区老宅三楼的公寓间里。她寝食难安已有数月之久。微暗的火苗在暗处跳闪。一支坦克护卫队隆隆驶过。波隆斯基夫人用一把钝刀切着坚硬似铁的面包，用勺舀出很稀的肉汤。“你还在为那个犯人布尔曼心烦么？”
“沃尔曼。是啊，我还在心烦。”
“硬逼你做法官的工作，太不合情理了。”
“这我倒不怎么担心。在这个城市，监狱和精神病院相差无几。”他用勺捞起一块胡萝卜。
“那么到底是怎么回事？”
“他究竟是他的想象力的奴隶，还是主宰？他发誓说到了下午茶时间，他要让比利时消失。”
“比利时是另一名犯人？”
波隆斯基咀嚼着。“比利时。”
“一种新式奶酪？”
“比利时。那个国家。位于法国跟荷兰之间。比利时。”
波隆斯基夫人困惑地摇了摇头。
她丈夫用微笑掩饰着懊恼。“比—利—时。”
“这是个玩笑么，亲爱的？”
“你知道我从不拿病人开玩笑。”
“‘比利时。’或许，是卢森堡的一个郡或一个村？”
“拿我的地图册来！”大夫翻到欧洲全图，他的表情僵住了。介于法国与荷兰之间的，是一片名叫瓦龙人 环礁湖的地带。波隆斯基呆望着，如遭雷殛。“这不可能。这不可能。这不可能。”
冰柱如犬牙一般悬挂在沃尔曼的单人囚室窗口。沃尔曼的眼皮慢慢悠悠地撑开了。轰炸机嗡嗡飞过邻近领空。“早上好，大夫。你会把比利时纳入今天的谈话记录么？”手持赶牛刺棒的警卫砰的关上了门。波隆斯基装作不予理睬。他双目无神，眼袋松垂。
“昨晚睡得不好吗，大夫？”
波隆斯基以训练有素的镇定神态打开了包。
“异想天开！”沃尔曼舔着嘴唇。“那就是你的医学结论吗，大夫？我不是疯子，不是装病的人，而是一个魔鬼？要给我驱邪？”
波隆斯基用锐利的目光盯住犯人。“你相信你应该受到这种对待么？”
沃尔曼耸了耸肩。“恶魔不过是有着恶魔般的丰富想象力的人而已。”
大夫坐了下来。椅子吱嘎作响。“那就假设你的确拥有……力量——”
沃尔曼微笑起来。“说出来，大夫，说出来。”
“上帝在这座牢狱里套着拘束衣，有何用意？”
沃尔曼像吃饱喝足似的打起哈欠。“如果你是上帝，你会怎么做？整天在夏威夷打高尔夫？我不这么想。一杆入洞总是确定无疑，这种情况下，高尔夫该有多么沉闷无聊。拖拖拉拉的生存……太缺乏存在感。”
波隆斯基此时已经不再记录。“那你是如何消磨时间的？”
“我从你们身上找乐子。感受这场战争。滑稽的闹剧。”
“我并非虔诚之人，沃尔曼先生。”
“那正是我选中你的原因。”
“——可是什么样的上帝会拿战争当消遣？”
“备感厌倦的上帝。就是这样。人类配备了想象力，所以你们可以发明出新花样来供我娱乐。”
“你有意挑选这间奢华的单人囚室来观赏？”
附近传来一阵枪声。“奢华、贫困，当你不朽时哪还在乎这些？我对监狱十分满意，我把它们看作露天开采讽刺的矿藏。犯人们要比不愁吃喝的信徒们有意思得多。你也让我很开心，好大夫。你的任务是要证明我要么是骗子，要么是疯子，可你最后证明我是无所不能的神。”
“这类事情并未得到证实。”
“对，顽固大夫，对。不过不用担心，好消息我也能承受得了。我们要调换一下立场。你将能够改变时间、重力、波和粒子。你可以翻遍人类百般努力的垃圾桶，搜寻那么一星半点的创意。你可以观看那些小麻雀阵亡，人们以你的名义攻城略地。现在，我要去找你太太，让她以最自然的方式微笑，分享监狱长的白兰地。”
“你是个病人，沃尔曼先生。比利时的鬼把戏对我有所影响，但是——”
波隆斯基大夫僵住不动了。
沃尔曼吹起了法国国歌的口哨。
画面一抖。
“时间过得真快，”大夫说。“我得走了。”
犯人差点背过气去。“什么——”
大夫展示着他新得到的肌肉。
犯人尖叫道：“你对我做了什么？”
“如果你不能像个理性的成年人那样讨论问题，我就终止这一会见。”
“放我回去，你这魔鬼！”
“你很快就会掌握窍门。”大夫猛地合上了包。“看看巴尔干吧。那可是热点地区。”
犯人咆哮着：“警卫！警卫！”门伴着刺耳的响声打开了，大夫悲哀地摇了摇头。赶牛刺棒嗡嗡地响了起来，警卫们逼近了歇斯底里的犯人。“逮捕那个冒牌货！我才是真正的波隆斯基大夫！他是魔鬼的代理人，昨晚他把比利时变没了！”当卫兵们把5000伏电压轰进他的身体，犯人尖叫起来，身子乱扭。“阻止那个鬼东西！他要去调戏我妻子了！”他那上了镣铐的双脚撞击着地面。哐。哐。哐。
附：
英文原文
In a black-and-white city of winter an omnibus shoulders through crowds. A middle-aged passenger watches. Busy snow, wartime newspaper vendors, policemen beating a black marketeer, hollow faces in empty shops, a burnt skeletal bridge. Getting off, the man asks the driver for directions – he receives a nod at the enormous wall obscuring the sky. The man walks along its foot, looking for the door. Craters, broken things, wild dogs. Circular ruins where a hairy lunatic talks to a fire. Finally the man finds a wooden door. He stoops and knocks. No reply. He sees a tin can hanging from a piece of string vanishing into the masonry, and speaks into it. ‘Is anybody there?’ The subtitles are Japanese, the language is all hisses, slushes and cracks. ‘I am Dr Polonski. Warden Bentham is expecting me.’ He puts the can to his ear and hears drowning sailors. The door opens by itself on to a bleak forecourt. The doctor stoops through. A strange chanting echoes with the wind. ‘Toadling at your service, Doctor.’ A very short man unbows, and Dr Polonski jumps back. ‘This way, if you will.’ Snow is gravelly. Incantations whirl and die and rise again. Keys jangle on Toadling’s belt. Past card-playing guards, through a maze of cages. ‘Your destination,’ he croaks. The doctor gives a stiff bow, knocks, and enters a scruffy office.
‘Doctor!’ The warden is decrepit and drunk. ‘Take a seat, do.’
‘Thank you.’ Dr Polonski steps gingerly – the floors are not only bare, but half the floorboards have been removed. The doctor sits on a schoolchild’s chair. The warden is photographing a peanut in a tall glass of liquid. Warden Bentham explains. ‘I am penning a treatise on the behaviour of bar snacks in brandy soda.’
‘Indeed?’
The warden checks his stopwatch. ‘What’s your poison, Doc?’
‘Not while I’m on duty. Thank you.’
The warden empties the last drop from his brandy bottle into an eggcup and disposes of the bottle by dropping it between floorboards. A distant scream and tinkle. ‘Chin chin!’ The warden knocks back his eggcup. ‘Dear doctor, permit me to cut to the quack. The quick, I mean, the quick. Our own Dr Koenig died of consumption before Christmas, and what with the war in the East and whatnot we still have no replacement. Prisons are not priorities in wartime, except to house politicals. We had such high hopes. A Utopian prison, to raise the inmates’ mental faculties, to allow their imaginations to set them free. To—’
‘Mr Bentham,’ interrupts Dr Polonski. ‘The quick?’
‘The quick is’ – the warden leans forward – ‘the Voorman problem.’
Polonski shifts on his tiny chair, afraid of joining the brandy bottle. ‘Voorman is a prisoner here?’
‘Quite so, Doctor. Voorman is the prisoner who maintains he is God.’
‘God.’
‘Each to his own, I say, but he has persuaded the prison population to share his delusion. We isolated him, but to no avail. The singing you heard coming in? The psalm of Voorman. I fear disturbances, Doctor. Riots.’
‘I see you have a problem, but how—’
‘I am asking you to examine Voorman. Ascertain whether his madness is feigned, or whether his tapirs run amok. If you decide he is clinically insane, I can parcel him off to the asylum, and we can all go home for tea and fairy cakes.’
‘Of what crime was Voorman convicted?’
Warden Bentham shrugs. ‘We burned the files last winter for fuel.’
‘How do you know when to release the prisoners?’
The warden is flummoxed. ‘“Release”? “The prisoners”?’
Voorman’s cell is a palace of filth. ‘So, Mr Voorman . . .’ Dr Polonski paces over faeces and flies. ‘How long have you believed yourself to be a god?’
Voorman is in a straitjacket. ‘Let me ask you the same question.’
‘I do not believe I am a god.’ Something crunches under his shoe.
‘But you believe yourself to be a psychiatrist.’
‘Correct. I have been a psychiatrist since I graduated from medical college – with first-class honours – and entered my practice.’ The doctor lifts his foot – a twitching cockroach is glued to his sole. He scrapes it off on fallen masonry.
Voorman nods. ‘I have been God since I began practising my profession.’
‘I see.’ The doctor stops to take notes. ‘What does your profession involve?’
‘Chiefly, on-going maintenance. Of my universe.’
‘So you created our universe?’
‘Quite. Nine days ago.’
Polonski weighs this up. ‘A considerable body of evidence suggests that the universe is somewhat older than nine days.’
‘I know. I created the evidence, too.’
The doctor sits on a shelf-cot opposite. ‘I am forty-five years of age, Mr Voorman. How do you account for my memories of last spring, or my childhood?’
‘I created your memories when I created you.’
‘So everything in this universe is a figment of your imagination?’
‘Precisely. You, this prison, gooseberries, the Horsehead Nebula.’
Polonski finishes the sentence he is writing. ‘Must be quite a workload.’
‘Greater than your puny hippocampus – no offence – could ever conceive. Worse still, I have to keep imagining every last atom, or it all goes “poof”! “Solipsist” only has one l, Doctor.’ Polonski frowns and changes the position of his notebook. Voorman sighs. ‘I know you are sceptical, Doctor. I made you that way. May I propose an objective experiment to verify my claims?’
‘What do you have in mind?’
‘Belgium.’
‘Belgium?’
‘I don’t suppose even the Belgians would miss it, do you?’
The Polonskis live in a third-floor apartment in an old city house with a gate and courtyard. She hasn’t eaten or slept properly in months. Pale fire shudders in the shade. A convoy of tanks rumbles by. Mrs Polonski slices iron bread with a blunt knife and ladles thin broth. ‘Are you still fretting about that Boorman prisoner?’
‘Voorman. I am still fretting, yes.’
‘Forcing you to do the job of a court judge, it’s so unreasonable.’
‘That doesn’t worry me. In this city there is little difference between the prison and the asylum.’ He captures the tip of a carrot in the bowl of his spoon.
‘Then what is it?’
‘Is he the slave, or the master, of his imagination? He swore to make Belgium disappear by teatime.’
‘Is Belgium another prisoner?’
Polonski chews. ‘Belgium.’
‘A new cheese?’
‘Belgium. The country. Between France and Holland. Belgium.’
Mrs Polonski shakes her head doubtfully.
Her husband smiles to hide his annoyance. ‘Bel-gi-um.’
‘Is this a joke, dear?’
‘You know I never joke about my patients.’
‘“Belgium.” A shire or village of Luxembourg, perhaps?’
‘Bring me my atlas!’ The doctor turns to the general map of Europe and his face stiffens. Between France and Holland is a feature called the Walloon Lagoon. Polonski gazes, thunderstruck. ‘This cannot be. This cannot be. This cannot be.’
Icicles fang the window of Voorman’s cell. Voorman’s eyelids open very, very slowly. Bombers drone across nearby airspace. ‘Good morning, Doctor. Will Belgium figure in your session notes today?’ The guard with the cattle prod slams the door shut. Polonski pretends to ignore this. His eyes are dark and baggy.
‘Sleep badly last night, Doctor?’
Polonski opens his bag with practised calm.
‘Wicked thoughts!’ Voorman licks his lips. ‘Is that your medical opinion, Doctor? I am not a lunatic, not a malingerer, but a demon? Am I to be exorcised?’
Polonski looks at the prisoner sharply. ‘Do you believe you should be?’
Voorman shrugs. ‘Demons are merely humans with demonic enough imaginations.’
The doctor sits down. The chair scrapes. ‘Just supposing you do possess . . . powers—’
Voorman smiles. ‘Say it, Doctor, say it.’
‘What is God doing straitjacketed in this prison?’
Voorman yawns in a well-fed way. ‘What would you do if you were God? Spend your days playing golf on Hawaii? I think not. Golf is so tedious when holes-in-one are dead certs. Existence drags so . . . non-existently.’
Polonski is not taking notes now. ‘So what do you do with your time?’
‘I seek amusement in you. Take this war. Slapstick comedy.’
‘I am not a religious man, Mr Voorman—’
‘That is why I chose you.’
‘—but what kind of a god finds wars amusing?’
‘A bored one. Yes. Humans are equipped with imaginations so you can dream up new ways to entertain me.’
‘Which you choose to observe from the luxury of your cell?’
Gunfire crackles in a neighbouring precinct. ‘Luxury, poverty, who cares when you are immortal? I am rather fond of prisons. I see them as open-cast irony mines. And the prisoners are more fun than well-fed congregations. You also amuse me, good doctor. Your remit is to prove me either a faker or a lunatic, and yet you end up proving my omnipotent divinity.’
‘Nothing of the sort has been proven.’
‘True, Dr Diehard, true. But fear not, I bear glad tidings. We’re going to change places. You can juggle time, gravity, waves and particles. You can sift through the dreckbin of human endeavour for tiny specks of originality. You can watch the sparrows fall and continents pillaged in your name. Now. I’m going to make your wife smile in a most involuntary way and partake of the chief warden’s brandy.’
‘You are a sick man, Mr Voorman. The Belgian trick stymies me, but—’
Dr Polonski freezes.
Voorman whistles the national anthem of France.
The frame jumps.
‘Time has flown,’ says the doctor. ‘I must be leaving.’
The prisoner chokes. ‘What—’
The doctor flexes his new muscles.
The prisoner screams. ‘What have you done to me ?’
‘If you can’t discuss things like a rational adult I’ll terminate this interview.’
‘Put me back, you monster!’
‘You’ll soon learn the ropes.’ The doctor clips his bag shut. ‘Watch the Balkans. Hot spot.’
The prisoner bellows. ‘Guards! Guards!’ The door scrapes open and the doctor shakes his head sadly. Cattle prods buzzing, the guards approach the hysterical prisoner. ‘Arrest that impostor! I’m the real Dr Polonski! He’s an infernal agent who made Belgium disappear overnight!’ The prisoner shrieks and twists as the guards wham 5,000 volts through his body. ‘Stop that abomination! He’s going to molest my wife!’ His shackled feet bang the floor. Knock, knock, knock.
高清
