亡者不眠的所在
Where the Dead Don't Sleep
西西里岛木乃伊 Sicily Crypts
巴勒摩的机场名叫法柯尼—波榭里诺。听来很像1970年代美国警匪片里的名字，而你就算不知道这两个名字的主人是谁，也不会有人怪你。他们是两位英勇至极的地方法官，曾试图彻底打击西西里岛存在已久的组织犯罪；后来两人都遭暗杀。西西里人不喜欢跟外人谈论黑手党；它是令人尴尬的家务事，与我们无关，是场私密的悲剧。西西里岛是个有秘密的地方，这一点可以在首府巴勒摩发黑的巴洛克式街道上感受到。在这里，1943年盟军登陆时的轰炸遗迹尚未完全清除，而颓圮的王宫里则住着北非难民。这是个警戒的阳刚之地，美丽但有所保留。
Palermo's airport is named Falcone-Borsellino. It sounds like a '70s American cop show, and you'd be forgiven for not knowing who either of the names belong to. They were a pair of mortally brave magistrates who tried to finally break the ancient grip of organized crime in Sicily. Both were assassinated.
They don't like to talk about the Mafia to strangers here; it's an embarrassing family concern, none of our business, a private tragedy. Sicily is a secretive place. You can sense it in the blackened, baroque streets of Palermo, the capital, where the bomb damage from the 1943 Allied landings still hasn't been quite cleaned up and where the tenement palaces are inhabited by North African refugees. It's a watchful and masculine place, beautiful and thwarted.
西西里的历史就和欧洲的任何传奇故事一样动荡而悲哀——当地人直到1950年代都还是西方世界最贫穷的农民之一。好几个世纪以来，他们勉强维持贫困的生活，承受无止尽的仇杀斗争、不义、剥削、荣誉处决，以及残忍的行规，而这一切都笼罩在橙花与焚香的气息里。在西西里，血亲之间的残杀具有悠久的历史。
Sicily's history is as mordant and miserable a romance as any in Europe—well into the 1950s these were among the poorest peasants in the Western world. For centuries they eked out a meager life, suffering constant vendettas and feuds, injustice, exploitation, honor killings, and murderous codes, all surrounded by the smell of mandarin blossom and incense. In Sicily, blood called to blood for blood down the ages.
巴勒摩的嘉布遣会修道院是一栋毫不起眼的建筑，坐落在一处墓地旁的宁静广场上。1992年，黑手党就在城的另一头找波榭里诺法官算帐。修道院门外的一个小角落里，有几个小贩在叫卖明信片和导览手册；门里头则有个托钵修士坐在一张桌子后贩卖门票、更多的明信片，还有祈愿用的小东西。今天生意不多；他看起了报纸。
The Capuchin monastery in Palermo is a discreetly blank building. It sits in a quiet square beside a graveyard, across town from where, in 1992, the Mafia settled its account with Magistrate Borsellino. Outside the door, tucked into a corner, are a couple of hawkers peddling postcards and guidebooks; inside, a friar sits behind a table selling tickets and more postcards and votive trinkets. It's a slow day; he reads the paper.
走下一段阶梯、行经一尊木制的圣母像，就到了通往地下墓穴的门；门后就是死者的等候室。这个房间大得出奇，有挑高的拱形天花板，以及呈直角延伸出去的长廊。这里阴凉潮湿，透着一股混和了酸气、香料尘埃和腐朽布料的味道。窗户位于高处，将阳光扩散成一股黯淡的光晕。荧光灯泡发送着光波，为这里加上了一种有如太平间般令人晕眩的光亮。挂在墙上、靠在长板凳上、躺在破旧棺木里的，是将近2000个死者。他们都穿着生前最好的服装——他们职业的制服。但除了我，这底下什么人也没有。
Down a flight of stairs, past a wooden statue of Our Lady of Sorrows, is the door to the catacomb, the waiting room of the dead. Surprisingly large, with high, vaulted ceilings and long corridors stretching away at right angles. It's cool and dank and smells of sour, spiced dust and rotting cloth. The windows are high and diffuse the sunlight into a pale glow. Fluorescent bulbs vibrate, adding a medically forensic, anemic brightness. Hanging from the walls, propped on benches, resting in their decrepit boxes, are nearly 2,000 dead. They're dressed in their living best, the uniforms of their earthly calling. There's no one else down here.
在欧洲，对尸体进行干燥与保存是西西里专属的特色。意大利也有其它案例，但绝大部分还是在西西里；此地生者与死者之间的关系格外密切。没人知道这种尸体的确切数量，也没人知道有多少已经被看不惯保存尸体这种行为的神父从墓穴里移到墓地安葬。这个现象立刻引起了一个疑问：为什么有人这样做？怎么会有人想要将正在腐烂中的尸体陈列出来？
In Europe the desiccation and preservation of corpses is a particularly Sicilian affair. There are other examples in Italy, but the great majority are in Sicily, where the relationship between the living and the dead is especially strong. Nobody knows how many there really are, or how many have since been removed from catacombs and buried in cemeteries by priests uneasy with the theology of keeping votive corpses. The phenomenon provokes an instant question: Why would anyone do this? Why would you exhibit decaying bodies? |
发表于 2009-1-27 10:52
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