迷宫
　　
　　 　伯纳德·库珀
　　
　　 初识迷宫，是在一本画册里，我认认真真地引导书里的小老鼠找迷宫中心放奶酪的地方。我用蜡笔穿过窄窄的小巷，绕过拐角，钻出死胡同，走东串西，还常常得停下笔来眯缝着眼重新理思路，直到通途显现，蜡笔又开始移动。
　　
　　 我注视着书页正中的小迷宫，明白即使迷路也不是徒劳无功：歧路正增加了我找到出口的机会，告诉了我一条通向目标的正路。即便深陷在迷宫的走廊中，我也感到一种相拥般的安全感，仿佛置身于一条密封的睡袋中。
　　
　　 找到奶酪的大结局和成就感是给图画上色或做连线游戏所无从体验的。要是当时我识得诸如“必然”这样的词，那对它的理解肯定就是最终悄然进入迷宫核心的感觉。我紧握蜡笔，欣赏尽头之处的风景。
　　
　　 那本书中第二个迷宫的线路错综复杂，一如涟漪层层的水面上弯弯曲曲的波纹。
　　
　　 这个迷宫的目标是带领一条狗找到它的骨头。耗子找奶酪，狗找骨头——前提无关紧要。真正有趣的是我寻找复杂的路径时，时而踌躇，时而加速，最终找到通途的过程。
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　　 当天晚些时候，我去客厅，又一个迷宫在红木质地的咖啡桌面上显现出来。我坐在地板上，用手指触摸木纹，发现有条迂曲的细线穿过。我父母床单上印着一幅从床单这头缠绕到另一头的常青藤图案。我追踪着藤蔓间的线索，很快就不需用手指，而用视线来寻找我的路径。我的视线沿着大理石地面上的脉络，沿着母亲外套上涡纹图案间的空隙移动。这年我七岁，我发现我彻底变了，就像虔诚的基督徒会在谷仓边看到基督，会在玉米饼里看到基督一样，我的目光所及，到处是迷宫在蜿蜒。
　　
　　 不久，画册上、周日报纸的连环漫画上和咖啡店里印着“儿童用餐”的餐具垫上的迷宫图案对我都已经太简单了。于是我试着自己设计迷宫图案。我把它们画在长方形的纸板上，那些纸板是洗衣店送回父亲的西服衬衫时用来叠衬衫的。母亲俭朴得连糖果罐和橡皮筋都积攒了一大堆，她当然高兴那些纸板能对我派上用场，只是想不通为什么我会突然对迷宫如此痴迷。
　　
　　 画迷宫最好是从纸板中心开始，用削尖的铅笔向外一层一层地画繁复的路径。我在每条路线上都留有一些出口，等整个建筑完成，我就封闭出口，添加围墙，感觉就像一个奴隶为法老的陵墓打上最后的封印。我画的死路很复杂，当闯关者认识到他已经泥足深陷的时候，再向回走将是个严酷的考验。
　　
　　 这一爱好需要集中两方面的注意力，一方面要仔细地设计迷宫，另一方面要使自己体味到征服又一个迷宫后的新鲜愉悦。有时候我一个人待在卧室里，坐在书桌前，为一个迷宫耗去大半个下午时光。我耐心地用如同红杉树生成一圈圈年轮那么长的时间来破解迷宫。每个旮旯拐角都得进去，实在没办法了就擦去一面墙。我迷惑自己，打败自己，但也偏袒自己。
　　
　　 最终，我用起了画板。我一张张地画，一张张地撕，画纸随着我不断提高的要求变得越来越大。有一次，我拿了幅很大的迷宫图，让正在厨房里啜咖啡的母亲看。画纸宛如一件惹眼的斗篷在我身后荡来荡去。我把它搁在桌子上叫母亲试试看。她只瞥了一眼就拒绝了。“别开玩笑了”，她边用餐巾抹嘴边说，“我跟那图一样昏”。晚上父亲下班回来，他的帽子被雨淋湿了，蔫蔫地贴在头上。他刚把公文包放进柜子，我就挥舞着那幅图要他做。“待会儿”，他说（那是他“不要”的同义语）。
　　
　　 我简直无法相信竟有人不愿走进迷宫，不愿为之意乱神迷，不愿耗费时间去寻找出路。迷宫对父母只有一种神奇功效：他们只需朝那七弯八拐的路径看上一眼，马上就昏昏欲睡。
　　
　　 我是个晚生子，用母亲的话来说，是“一大惊喜”。我近七岁的时候，父母都已经人到中年了。按揭贷款狂飙，水暖管道生锈，老朋友们走的走，病的病。他们皮肤上的皱纹日深，纵横交叉，那复杂的褶痕教我的迷宫都相形见绌。父亲已开始谢顶，母亲的头发也变得花白。他们的口头禅是 “等你到了我们这个年纪……”，仿佛他们那个年龄再不会有什么惊喜。生活中无休无止的压力和操劳堪使任何人变得健忘。煮鸡蛋结果把鸡蛋煮焦，浇草坪结果忘关喷水器直到草坪被淹透，钥匙，眼镜和表到处乱丢。问他们年青时候的事，他们常常歪着脑袋凝视远方，可就是想不起来具体的细节。
　　
　　 三十年后，我理解了父母的拒绝。一天天的日子包裹着我们，循环往复，令人困惑，可是为什么每个人最终还是选择陷入生活的迷宫？往事交错，渐渐褪去先时的斑斓，发生于何时何地再也想不起来，只有一堆胡乱的猜测和推想。“他叫什么名字来着？”和“那个人”取代了原本鲜明的形象。回忆往事如预测将来般不够可靠；你惴惴地问自己过去的事，然后发现自己的答案兴味索然。你前去求实的朋友也和你一样糊涂，他们眉头紧蹙，面无表情。当然，有那么一两次，一些具体生动的细节就在你嘴边，如你嘴中的鱼子酱般确定无疑，然而结果常常是你满足于一些粗略的近似——“我在1971年或者72 年左右去过德克萨斯和克罗拉多”，趣闻逸事则无影无踪。有时候，某个童年玩伴的面孔会突然浮现在我的脑海中，我常常沮丧地想是否在那一刻，我脑子里的那个特定的神经链接还没短路，因为那一瞬间之后我再也想不起来那个伙伴的容貌。有时候，我无法确定别人讲话时自己无意间听到的故事究竟是某本书中的情节，还是就是曾发生在自己身上，若非自己的，还会有谁的遭遇会深植于我的脑海？终于，我也分不清一些事究竟是在梦中还是事实。等你到了我这个年纪，记忆中真假难辨的如烟往事几乎和事实难以区别，因为真实从来都不直接显现出来，而总是随着时光的流逝变得云遮雾罩。
　　
　　 爸爸，妈妈，我已年届不惑，皱纹渐深，身形日削。回想你们在世时的事情变得日渐困难。可能每个人迟早都免不了盯着迷宫发愣。我能在自己的脸上看到当时你们的疲惫。你们离我而去后我都做了些什么呢？迷宫，这个深刻的词总结了一切——如思绪般飘渺，如往事般迷惘，如人生般曲折和漫长。
　　
　　（原文）
　　 Labyrinthine
　　 　
　　 BERNARD COOPER
　　 WHEN I DISCOVERED my first maze among the pages of a coloring book, I dutifully guided the mouse in the margins toward his wedge of cheese at the center. 1 dragged my crayon through narrow alleys and around corners, backing out of dead ends, trying this direction instead of that. Often I had to stop and rethink my strategy, squinting until some unobstructed path became clear and I could start to move the crayon again.
　　 I kept my sights on the small chamber in the middle of the page and knew that being lost would not be in vain; wrong turns only improved my chances, showed me that one true path toward my reward. Even when trapped in the hallways of the maze, 1 felt an embracing safety, as if I'd been zipped in a sleeping bag.
　　Reaching the cheese had about it a triumph and finality I'd never experienced after coloring a picture or connecting the dots. If only I'd known a word like "inevitable, since that s how, it felt to finally slip into the innermost room.. I gripped the crayon, savored the place.
　　 The lines on the next maze in the coloring book curved and rippled like waves on water.
　　 The object of this maze was to lead a hungry dog to his bone. Mouse to cheese, dog to bone—the premise quickly ceased to matter. It was the tricky, halting travel I was after, forging a passage, finding my way.
　　 　Later that day, as I walked through our living room, a maze revealed itself to me in the mahogany coffee table. I sat on the floor, fingered the wood grain, and found a winding avenue through it. The fabric of my parents- blanket was a pattern of climbing ivy and, from one end of the bed to the other, I traced the air between the tendrils. Soon I didn't need to use a finger, mapping my path by sight. I moved through the veins of the marble heart through the space between the paisleys on my mother's blouse. At the age of seven I changed forever, like the faithful who see Christ on the side of a barn or peering up from a corn tortilla. Everywhere I looked, a labyrinth meandered.
　　 Soon the mazes in the coloring books, in the comic-strip section of the Sunday paper, or on the placemats of coffee shops that served "children's meals" became too easy. And so I began to make my own. I drew them on the cardboard rectangles that my father's dress shirts were folded around when they came back from the cleaner's. My frugal mother, hoarder of jelly jars and rubber bands, had saved a stack of them. She was happy to put the cardboard to use, if a bit mystified by my new obsession.
　　 The best method was to start from the center and work outward with a sharpened pencil, creating layers of complication. I left a few gaps in every line, and after I'd gotten a feel for the architecture of the whole, I'd close off openings, reinforce walls, a slave sealing the pharaoh’s tomb. My blind alleys were especially treacherous; 1 constructed them so that, by the time one realized he'd gotten stuck, turning back would be an exquisite ordeal.
　　 My hobby required a twofold concentration: carefully planning a maze while allowing myself the fresh pleasure of moving through it. Alone in bedroom, sitting at my desk, I sometimes spent the better part of an afternoon on a single maze. I worked with the patience of a redwood growing rings. Drawing myself into corners, erasing a wall if all else failed, I fc.led and baffled and treed myself.
　　 Eventually I used shelf paper, tearing off larger and larger sheets to accommodate my burgeoning ambition. Once I brought a huge maze to my mother, who was drinking a cup of coffee in the kitchen. It wafted behind me like an ostentatious cape. I draped it over the table and challenged her to try it. She hadn't looked at it for more than a second before she refused. You’ve got to be kidding," she said, blotting her lips with a paper napkin. "I'm lost enough as it is.” When my father returned from work that night, he hefted his briefcase into the closet, his hat wet and drooping from the rain. "Later," he said (his code word for "never") when I waved the banner of my labyrinth before him.
　　 It was inconceivable to me that someone wouldn't want to enter a maze, wouldn’t lapse into the trance it required, wouldn't sacrifice the time to find a solution. But mazes had a strange effect on my parents: they took one look at those tangled paths and seemed to wilt.
　　 I was a late child, a "big surprise" as my mother liked to say; by the time I'd turned seven, my parents were trying to cut a swath through the forest of middle age. Their mortgage ballooned. The plumbing rusted. Old friends grew sick or moved away. The creases in their skin deepened, so complex a network of lines, my mazes paled by comparison. Father's hair receded, Mother's grayed. ^"When you've lived as long as we have. ..." they'd say, which meant no surprises loomed in their future; it was repetition from here on out. The endless succession of burdens and concerns was enough to make anyone forgetful. Eggs were boiled until they turned brown, sprinklers left on till the lawn grew soggy, keys and glasses and watches misplaced. When I asked my parents about their past, they cocked their heads, stared into the distance, and often couldn't recall the details.
　　 Thirty years later, I understand my parents' refusal. Why would anyone choose to get mired in a maze when the days encase us, loopy and confusing? Remembered events merge together or fade away. Places and dates grow dubious, a jumble of guesswork and speculation. What's-his- name and thingamajig replace the bright particular. Recollecting the past becomes as unreliable as forecasting the future; you consult yourself with a certain trepidation and take your answer with a grain of salt. The friends you turn to for confirmation are just as muddled; they furrow their brows and look at you blankly. Of course, once in a while you find the tiny, pungent details poised on your tongue like caviar. But more often than not, you settle for sloppy approximations—“I was visiting Texas or Colorado, in 1971 or ’72”nd the anecdote rambles on regardless. When the face of a friend from childhood suddenly comes back to me, it's sad to think that if a certain synapse hadn't fired just then, I may never have recalled that friend again. Sometimes I'm not sure if I've overheard a story in conversation, read it in a book, or if I'm the person to whom it happened; whose adventures, besides my own, are wedged in memory? Then there are the things I've dreamed and mistaken as fact. When you've lived as long as I have, uncertainly is virtually indistinguishable from the truth, which as far as I know is never naked, but always wearing some disguise.
　　 Mother, Father; I'm growning middle-aged, lost in the folds and bones of my body. It gets harder to remember the days when you were here. I suppose it was inevitable that, gazing down at this piece of paper, I'd feel your weary expressions on my face. What have things been like since you've been gone? Labyrinthine. The very sound of that word sums it up--as slippery as thought, as perplexingas the truth, as long and convoluted as a life.