‘I know that astrology isn’t a science,’ said Gail. ‘Of course it isn’t. It’s just an arbitrary set of rules like chess or tennis or, what’s that strange thing you British play?’

“我知道占星术不是什么科学。”盖尔道，“这是当然的。它不过是一套武断的规则，就好像网球，或者象棋，或者，你们英国人搞的那个挺奇怪的东西，叫什么来着？”

‘Er, cricket? Self-loathing?’

“呃，板球？自我厌恶？”

‘Parliamentary democracy. The rules just kind of got there. They don’t make any kind of sense except in terms of themselves. But when you start to exercise those rules, all sorts of processes start to happen and you start to find out all sorts of stuff about people. In astrology the rules happen to be about stars and planets, but they could be about ducks and drakes for all the difference it would make. It’s just a way of thinking about a problem which lets the shape of that problem begin to emerge. The more rules, the tinier the rules, the more arbitrary they are, the better. It’s like throwing a handful of fine graphite dust on a piece of paper to see where the hidden indentations are. It lets you see the words that were written on the piece of paper above it that’s now been taken away and hidden. The graphite’s not important. It’s just the means of revealing their indentations. So you see, astrology’s nothing to do with astronomy. It’s just to do with people thinking about people.

“议会民主。那些规则都是不知怎么就自个儿冒出来的。除了从它们自己的角度去看，所有的规则都完全没有意义。然而一旦你开始应用这些规则，就会引发各种各样的进程，你可以从中发现相关诸人的许多事情。在占星术里，这些规则碰巧是关于恒星和行星的，可就算它们是关于母鸭子公鸭子的也不会有什么区别。这不过是理解问题的一种方式，它能让问题的形状逐渐显露出来。规则越多、越细、越武断，效果就越好。这就好像往一张纸上撒一把碾细的石墨粉，然后去寻找隐藏的印记在哪儿。它能帮你看出上一张纸上曾经写过什么东西。石墨并不重要。它只是揭示印记的一种方法。所以你看，占星术跟天文学一点关系也没有。它只是人在考虑人的事。

‘So when you got so, I don’t know, so emotionally focused on stars and planets this morning, I began to think, she’s not angry about astrology, she really is angry and unhappy about actual stars and planets. People usually only get that unhappy and angry when they’ve lost something. That’s all I could think and I couldn’t make any more sense of it than that. So I came to see if you were OK.’

“所以今天早上，你说起恒星、行星时那么……那么激动，我就开始想，她不是在生占星术的气，真正让她生气和不快的是天上的恒星和行星。基本上，我们只有在失去了什么东西的时候才会那么生气和不快。我老想着这事儿，但又想不出什么头绪来，所以就来看看你怎么样了。”

Tricia was stunned.

崔茜卡听得目瞪口呆。

One part of her brain had already got started on all sorts of stuff. It was busy constructing all sorts of rebuttals to do with how ridiculous newspaper horoscopes were and the sort of statistical tricks they played on people. But gradually it petered out, because it realised that the rest of her brain wasn’t listening. She had been completely stunned.

她的大脑里有一部分已经开始忙活，忙着组织各种各样的反驳，什么报纸上的占星专栏有多么可笑，还有它是如何利用统计学的把戏骗人之类。但渐渐地它自己停了下来，因为它意识到脑袋的其他部分压根儿没在听。她完全被震住了。

She had just been told, by a total stranger, something she’d kept completely secret for seventeen years.

一个彻头彻尾的陌生人，刚刚说出了她对全世界隐瞒了十七年的秘密。

She turned to look at Gail

她扭头看着盖尔。

‘I…’

“我……”

She stopped.

她停下来。

A tiny security camera up behind the bar had turned to follow her movement. This completely flummoxed her. Most people would not have noticed it. It was not designed to be noticed. It was not designed to suggest that nowadays even an expensive and elegant hotel in New York couldn’t be sure that its clientele wasn’t suddenly going to pull a gun or not wear a tie. But carefully hidden though it was behind the vodka, it couldn’t deceive the finely honed instinct of a TV anchor person, which was to know exactly when a camera was turning to look at her.

在她扭头的时候，吧台背后一个细小的摄像头也开始转动。这完全打乱了她的节奏。大多数人都不会注意到它。它原本就不是设计来让人注意的。它原本就不是设计来暗示说，如今就连纽约一家昂贵高雅的酒店也拿不准自己的顾客会不会突然掏出把枪来，或者不打领带。可尽管它小心翼翼地躲在伏特加背后，还是骗不过一个新闻主播精心打磨的直觉。这种直觉专门用来侦测摄像机在什么时候对准了自己——分秒不差。

‘Is something wrong?’ asked Gail.

“怎么了？”盖尔问。

‘No, I… I have to say that you’ve rather astonished me,’ said Tricia. She decided to ignore the security camera. It was just her imagination playing tricks with her because she had television so much on her mind today. It wasn’t the first time it had happened. A traffic monitoring camera, she was convinced, had swung round to follow her as she walked past it, and a security camera in Bloomingdales had seemed to make a particular point of watching her trying on hats. She was obviously going dotty. She had even imagined that a bird in Central Park had been peering at her rather intently.

“没什么，我……我得说你真让我吃了一惊。”崔茜卡决定不去管摄像头。那肯定是她的想象力在捣鬼，因为一整天她满脑子都是电视。这种事儿也不是头一次了。记得有天她走过一个交通摄像头，觉得那东西一路扭过来目送她离开；还有一次在百货公司，一个摄像头好像专门看着她试帽子。她大概快疯了。在中央公园的时候，她甚至想象有只鸟挺在意地望着自己。

She decided to put it out of her mind and took a sip of her vodka. Someone was walking round the bar asking people if they were Mr. MacManus.

崔茜卡决定忘掉这事儿，于是抿了口伏特加。有人在酒吧里四处晃悠，问大家是不是马克马努斯先生。

‘OK,’ she said, suddenly blurting it out. ‘I don’t know how you worked it out, but…’

“好吧。”她突然冲口而出，“我不知道你是怎么想出来的，可……”

‘I didn’t work it out, as you put it. I just listened to what you were saying.’

“我没想出什么来，不是像你说的那样。我只是听你说话而已。”

‘What I lost, I think, was a whole other life.’

“我失去的，我想，是另一种生活。”