奈保尔笔下的流亡藏人：“亚洲另一群流离失所的人”

作家奈保尔（V.S.Naipaul）的“印度三部曲”中译本已被我读得如此之旧。

一次，与一位作家友人聊到无数话题，如木斯塘、尼泊尔、吐蕃、哈维尔、内心的流亡、高山反应、塔公、金珠玛米、美国人、德国人、康巴、尊者故乡、图伯特、拉萨、色达、记忆力、自闭、米沃什、萨义德、奈保尔、拉什迪、奥威尔、缅甸、藏语等等（想不到这么广泛啊）。说起奈保尔书里写到过曾在印度旅行中遇见尊者达赖喇嘛，我说他写得让我很感动，友人说他也是，并让我看看中译本的翻译是怎样，或许可以帮我查看原文。这提醒了我，按强国国情，或许有删改，所以聊天之后，我翻开奈保尔的“印度三部曲”（中国三联书店，2003年出版），很容易就找到了（其实我折过书角）涉及流亡藏人的三处：

1、《幽暗国度：记忆与现实交错的印度之旅》第四章 P124：“那些西藏人穿着长统靴，戴着毡帽，把头发编成辫子，身上的衣裳灰扑扑、脏兮兮，一如他们那饱经风霜的脸庞。男人和女人装扮一模一样，分不出性别。”

2、《幽暗国度：记忆与现实交错的印度之旅》第十章 P366～367：“邦迪拉（Bomdi-la)今晚沦陷了。整个阿萨姆平原暴露在中国军队的炮火下。尼赫鲁总理向全国人民发表演说，试图鼓舞民心士气，但他那套说词听起来，却像是哀悼国家的沦亡。成群西藏人在圣城贝拉那斯火车站下车。他们那一张张宽阔的、红润的脸庞露出迷惘的笑容。没有人听得懂他们讲的语言。他们只管呆呆地站在行李旁，茫然不知所措。这些西藏人披头散发，身上穿着臃肿的、脏兮兮的茶褐色衣裳，头戴毡帽，足蹬皮靴，模样儿一看就知道是外乡人。”

3、《印度：百万叛变的今天》第三章 P208～209（这部分较长，约有千字，就择其选了）：“几个穿着鲜色长袍的男人就迅速走上台阶，穿过内室：他们身材魁梧，步伐稳健。……卜拉卡希压低声音告诉我说，刚刚抵达的是达赖喇嘛。这有点不可能：不过，如果是真的，我倒也不会太惊讶。我知道达赖喇嘛正在印度各地访问。……现在，在就我所知没有任何宣告的情况下，只有那么几辆车，只有几名邦政府警察护送着，他已经来到更南的地方，也真是远离了故居。达赖喇嘛走得很快，几乎在卜拉卡希告诉我来人是谁的同时，他就已经穿过内室，他的身影被一名紧紧跟着、手上晃着公文包的助理遮住了一半……几名喇嘛走出来到我们所在的宽阔阳台上。……他们头发剃光了，在暗红色长袍下穿着毛织套衫。刚开始时，他们仿佛只是凝视着印度南部的奇怪景象；事实上，他们是在搜寻追随者。……我们抵达时，邦政府招待所的院子里并没有任何西藏人。慢慢地，来自迈索尔市营区的西藏人——他们先前在外面的街上等候——三五成群、没有什么特别安排地出现在干枯的草地上；其中女性穿传统西藏服装，男性穿牛仔裤。他们神色伶俐，容貌端庄；在离家超过一个世代后，他们现在大概已经开始跟故乡失去联系；亚洲另一群流离失所的人，历史演变的一部分。有一阵子，我心里对这些人生起了同情。喇嘛还留在阳台上；他们向下看着，仿佛想仔细瞧一下那些散在各处等候的一小簇一小簇人群中的每个人。甚至当卜拉卡希再度开口的时候，我还觉得我们仍然是那默默无语的西藏人群中的一部分。”

在其中的2，我当时读时在旁边写过几句感受：“我不幸的同胞！是奈保尔含蓄如此吗？在写到西藏人时，在写到中印战争时，他会这么吝啬笔墨吗？我怀疑被中国的编辑们在此删掉了一段。可能是这样，我一定要问问！”而这一问（还不是我问的），差不多过了十年。不过，事实证明我这次是多虑了。友人对照了原文，说核对原文，中译没有删节，奈保尔就是这么写的。这表明，不怕怀疑，也不怕时间长，只要能够让事实证明，就会有真相：

第一部分原文：in a dusty square on Residency Road, was the caravanserai for Tibetans with their long-legged boots, hats, plaited hair, their clothes as grimy-grey as their weather-beaten faces, men indistinguishable from women.

第二部分原文：Assam lay open; Mr Nehru offered the people of the state comfort which was already like helpless condolence. Tibetan refugees got off the train at Banaras. There was smiling bewilderment on their broad, ruddy faces; no one spoke their language and they stood uncertainly beside their boxes, outlandish in their bulky wrappings, grimed to khaki, their long hair, their boots and hats.

第三部分原文：

Car doors banged outside the Guest House. Someone, or some party, had arrived. Very quickly after the banging of the doors a briskly moving group of men in coloured robes came up the steps and walked through the inner room: big men in big shoes, taking firm strides. I saw this only at an angle; I was sitting slightly turned away from the inner room. And then Prakash, lowering his voice, told me it was the Dalai Lama who had arrived. It was a little unlikely, but I was half prepared. I knew that the Dalai Lama was on tour in India. In Bombay I had read in the newspaper one day that the Dalai Lama was coming to the city to visit Buddhists there. I wasn’t sure what was meant by that. When people in Bombay spoke of Buddhists they didn’t mean Tibetans; they were more likely to mean Dalit neo-Buddhists. But I hadn’t asked further about the Dalai Lama’s visit to Bombay. And now, without any announcement I had heard of, with only a few cars, and few state policemen, he had come even further south, and was really far from home. The Dalai Lama moved so fast that, almost as soon as Prakash had told me who it was, the figure had gone through the inner room, half hidden by an assistant walking close to him, swinging a briefcase. The end of a stride, the swing of the assistant’s briefcase – that was all I had really caught. Afterwards, monks came out to the wide verandah where we were sitting. After the rush of their arrival, they were calmer. From the bareness of the verandah they looked down at the scorched lawn and gardens. Their heads were shaved, and they wore sweaters below their dark-red robes. It seemed at first that they were only staring at the strange aspect of the Indian South. But they were looking for their followers. Prakash told me there was a Tibetan ‘camp’ near Mysore City, about 100 miles to the south. There, on land that had been given them by the Indian government, the Tibetans grew maize, did dairy farming, and knitted their distinctive sweaters. There had been no Tibetans in the grounds of the State Guest House when we had arrived. But gradually, in small informal groups, the Tibetans from the Mysore City camp – who had been waiting in the streets outside – began to appear on the burnt lawn, the women in traditional Tibetan dress, the men in jeans, bright-faced, handsome people, who perhaps now, after more than a generation away, were beginning to lose touch with home: another Asian dispossession, part of the historical flux. My thoughts for some time were with those people. The monks remained on the verandah, looking out, as though they wanted to fix their gaze for a while on each person in the small, scattered, waiting groups. And even when Prakash began to speak again, I felt we were continuing to be part of that wordless Tibetan scene.