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來源: ANDERSON COOPER 360° on CNN
作者：Anderson Cooper
編者的話：Anderson Cooper是週末晚上10點新聞節目Anderson Cooper 360°的主播。他也定期在Details Magazine發表文章。此文載於2003年九月號刊。
我盡力不去想像他是如何從窗台跳下。盡力不去想像他是如何墜落。
可有對在黃昏中漫步的夫妻曾瞥見撒手放棄的前他？可有戶全家正坐在餐桌前的家庭看見了他身體從他們的窗前劃過？
自殺就是這樣。當你試著回想起某人以前是怎樣過日子，你最後總會想到他是如何完結自己的生命。
我哥哥在紐約市的一個溫暖夏夜裡自殺。當時我人在250英里遠的華盛頓，坐在一個安靜的地鐵車廂中。
你們常聽過兄弟能心電感應似地接收到另一方的痛苦。這次卻未能應驗。
我哥死的當下，我什麼也感受不到。
卡特(Carter Cooper)。我再也沒什麼機會能大聲喊他的名字。
很奇怪，他當時23歲，大我兩歲。我以前總覺得我們很親近，但我現在已不敢那樣肯定。
小時候，我們形影不離。他對戰史很著迷，總是領著我們這群兒童出征。
卡特進了普林斯頓大學後，在覆蓋長春藤的牆中與如茵的草地裡，他似乎成長了不少。畢業後，他寫書評也開始編輯歷史雜誌；他曾說要寫本小說。
政治是股激情，但這類虛假混戰不適合他。他看事情太過認真。
「卡特是個心口一致的人。」他的朋友這樣說過。一點也沒錯。
他個性溫和。所以真的很難理解他為何選擇用這麼激烈的方式尋死。「我想也想不到他會這樣做。」他死後，我總反覆聽到這句話。
回想起來，可能讓他想不開的原因只有一個。他和女友分了，但他根本沒有真的對她付出過真心，我想不出來那會讓他多痛苦。
他是在四月畢業。我那時回紐約過週末，媽告訴我他有點狀況。
我們透過話筒對話，他感覺似乎很焦慮，無法集中注意，好像他的思緒脫離了他。
那晚他在留媽的公寓過夜，我記得我有到他的房間，在一片黑暗中跟他談話。對話內容我已經記不得了，但看到他那時的樣子時我真的是嚇到了。
幾天後他回去上班，回到以往正常的生活。我高興能忘了先前的事件。
我後來在七月第四個週末假期遇到他。
他儀容有些不整，但沒什麼其他問題。他還是好面子地穿著有高級的衣物，但卻沒有細心地把它們穿好。
「上次見到你時，我真像頭野獸。」他說。
知道他已開始接受治療，看他還能幽自己一默，我想是個好現象。
沒過多久，見了他的治療師後，我發現Carter最後還是沒對治療師真正談自己的問題。
忘記是否在我們相擁的那天。他說會在週末夜來找我。我卻沒再見到他。
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我到的時候他已經死了。是個被父母擁在懷中的男孩。
我時間快轉，過了好幾年。索馬利亞(Somalia)，1992年。
這國家遭飢荒肆虐；在個叫白竇阿(Baidoa)村莊，每天都有很多人死去。兒童游擊隊帶著AK-47四處遊蕩用以顯示「先進的裝備」，也就是床上堆著的撿來物品與機關槍。
我是為了採訪來到這裡。這至少是個可用的藉口。
我只知道我是真的身心俱疲，而且必須要到個能與我內心痛苦相當的地方。索馬利亞似乎是個好起點。
我大學最後一年的日子是一片混亂。我花了大部分的時間在試著找出到原因，而我也擔心那股把我哥哥推向死往的力量，是否正在某處潛伏，等著我。
在白竇阿的郊區的一個茅屋裡，我看見有個母親提著水桶。蹲著身子，不斷地換腳，好使她的腳能交互承擔她的重量，並倒一點點的水在她兒子的頭上。
他的眼眶已經凹陷，每條肋骨也都清晰可見。孩子的父母已經眼睜睜看著三個兒子的死亡。
這是他們最後的骨肉，他今年五歲。他只是個男孩，只是個結束－－在索馬利亞天天都會上演的相同劇碼。
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時間是1988年8月22日。星期五。
我哥在上午回來。他那時已有自己的住所，但他說要搬回我媽的閣樓公寓。
那天很熱，是不吹冷氣不行的日子，但他卻要求在他午睡時，面向陽台的玻璃推拉門必須是開著。
那天我媽去看了他好幾次。
近傍晚時分，他醒了，到我媽的房間去。「他似乎不太對勁。」她事後告訴我。人很激動。
他問她。「你是怎麼了？」「沒事。」她向他保證，但他卻立刻衝向走廊。
他進到我房間，走出房裡的玻璃推拉門，我媽在後面一路跟著。
外頭，他坐在陽台上的護欄上，他的腳在上頭擺盪著。
高空正有架飛機經過，他抬頭仰望，暮夏天空中銀亮的一點。
我還是懷疑：是否有股只有他聽的見的聲音要他再往前跨？他可否聽見幾呎外求他快下來的母親？
「動作很熟練。」我母親是這樣形容他在護欄上擺盪的模樣。他懸盪一陣子，然後放手了。「真的很熟練。」她說了一遍又一遍。
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快轉。塞拉耶佛(Sarajevo)，1993年。
在索馬利亞的日子好像是多年以前的事。那時的我並不介意在昏暗骯髒的非洲飯店裡曠日廢時數週。
我特別選住在奈洛比的阿琶薩多(Ambassadeur)飯店，這裡每天都有新教徒在薩若瓦房裡聚會，唱著「耶穌，主是非常非常地美好。」此時街上有個手臂上裝著虎克船長般的鐵勾與塑膠義肢的人在風中對他們揮手，嘴裡聲嘶力竭唸著舊約裡的段落。
到了夜晚，酒吧開始營業，穿著討喜紅夾克的服務生來回於黑西裝的生意人與翠綠洋裝的妓女，送著沁涼的土斯酒(Tusker beers)。但在一年後的現在，我無法忍受待在塞拉耶佛的一分一毫。
我如果是為了尋找感受而出發。現在我要的只是有所作為。像鯊魚為了呼吸而用力的游，我相信只要我埋首工作，我就不會崩潰。
不斷地拍照、為卡車加油、錄下一次次採訪。
趴在假日旅社(Holiday Inn)的地板上，聽著鄰近建築物傳來迫擊砲的聲響，看著曳光彈從毀壞的窗前飛過。
眼前盡是煉獄景象：一屋一瓦、各個城鎮、除了廢墟就什麼也沒了，房屋不是坍塌就是慘遭祝融，斷垣殘壁，吃不飽的野狗潛伏於街頭，婦女緊握孩子的小手，四處奔走，找尋庇護。
還有瀰漫四周的味道：炭火、做飯的燃料、泥味、血腥味、人的排泄、霉味、甜味；所有味道哽在你的喉嚨裡，附著在你的衣服裡──成了纖維的一部份。
剛到塞拉耶佛時，我整天穿著鎧裝防彈馬夾(flak jacket)，睡覺時也擺在枕旁。現在我幾乎沒再穿。
這裡的人都沒有凱夫拉防彈背心(Kevlar vest)或裝甲車。而你就在他們家中，採訪他們。
你希望他們對你毫無保留。但若你沒先對他們毫無保留、並深切地瞭解他們的生活、感受他們心中的失落，你就沒有資格這麼要求。
機場關閉，要到塞拉耶佛，你必須由頹圮荒蕪的伊格曼山出發，驚險地行經當時唯一的對外道路上。
只要霧一散去，你就會成為狙擊兵的目標。
你必須一早就得上路，踩緊油門。一路向前，卡式放音機唱著「不衝浪的查理」，緊盯著儀表板，心裡希望車不會打滑失控，希望晨霧能維持夠久，希望塞爾維亞人還都在沈沈睡著或者都因宿醉而無法精準瞄準。
起初每當遇到轉彎，我都會問開車的人。「前面會有危險嗎？」
他笑而不答。幾次後你就不再問了。只是坐在位子上觀望，好像一切事不關己。
在半路的時候，我看了鏡子中的自己。面無血色，眼睛周邊起了皺紋，嘴還愚蠢地笑著。
當我最後進到這城市時，我唯一能做的事只有笑。
這就是我的作為。我回到家然後發現我又得出任務。好像我再也無法說習慣的語言。我去了戲院，逛逛俱樂部—－幾天後我又要趕著上飛機。
我看過庫斯托 (Jacques Cousteau programs) 這個電視節目，節目中找到了不用向前游也能呼吸的鯊魚。這真是令我無法置信。
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卡特死後接連好幾個星期，我無法在我的房間裡入安睡。通往陽台的玻璃推拉門依舊開著，儘管我再也沒踏進去一步。
之後有幾天家都有記者和攝影師來來去去。
我待在家裡，唯一離開的一次，是到他公寓裡拿他喪禮上要裝的西裝。
那地方依舊保持著他離開時的模樣。
我記不得那裡的氣味，也想不出該怎麼形容。但那時我是知道的，並彎下身再一次地吸入他的味道。
家裡沒有遺書。
在他桌上我發現了一張紙，上面寫著。「連最後一絲天份都消耗殆盡之後，他用粗淺的常識活著，逐漸地被不理性的想法所操控。」
句子是來自他所評論的書籍，但我猜想這句子是否當時已在他腦海裡迴盪多時。
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在你看到屍體前，就會先聞到屍臭。
盧安達，1944年。有八十萬人在三個月內死於有計畫的種族屠殺。反叛軍接管整個國家並結束這場殺戮。
在郊區的路旁有輛巴士翻覆。六人被甩進溝渠中，死了。
我把翻覆的事轉播出去。現場是一片死寂，只有蒼蠅的嗡嗡聲還有在空中盤旋，等著我離開的禿鷹。
有個男人是直接從擋風玻璃彈出去，他的腳被發現在開啟的拉門邊。遠遠看還以為他的人有在動，走近一看，才知道在動的原來是蛆。
我無法告訴你這男的是胡圖人(Hutu)還是圖西人(Tutsi)，也無法告訴你其他死在壕溝裡的人是哪一族的？而種族真的有這麼重要嗎？
當天還有更多的屍體，更多的死亡。每一件都是令人不解，令人揪心。
我不再試著去解釋這一切。我們被訓練要一直去問為什麼。為什麼他要這麼做？為什麼他必須得死？我再也不要去想這些問題。
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我哥是葬在爸的旁邊。我喜歡同時懷念他們倆。
過去我認為自殺是個理智的行動。要先擬訂計畫，然後付諸行動。我現在知道自殺不一定是那麼一回事。
我哥是個做事謹慎的可親青年。最後關頭，他卻完全亂了分寸。
我們又何嘗不是如此。我們都在脆弱的生命線上擺盪著。
關鍵是絕不要放棄。
＊＊＊
1.如果進一步盧安達的種族屠殺事件（好像還沒結束），可以看電影「盧安達飯店」(Hotel Rwanda)。
2. 必須說很多地方不是很懂，或是翻完了卻不甚滿意的地方。我把這些有問題的句子列出來：
My brother's suicide
By Anderson Cooper
Editor's note: Anderson Cooper anchors CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360°," which airs weeknights at 10 p.m. ET. He also is a regular contributor for Details Magazine. This article was published in the September 2003 issue.
I try not to imagine him hanging from the ledge. Try not to imagine him falling.
Did a couple out for an evening stroll catch a glimpse of him before he let go? Did a family gathered around the dinner table see him plunge past their window?
That's the thing about suicide. Try as you might to remember how a person lived his life, you always end up thinking about how he ended it.
My brother killed himself on a warm summer night in New York. I was 250 miles away, in Washington, sitting on one of those silent subways the city is known for.
You always hear tales about brothers who can feel each other's pain. This isn't one of them.
When my brother died, I didn't feel a thing.
Carter Cooper. I rarely say his name out loud anymore.
Strange. He was 23 at the time, two years older than I was. I'd always considered us close, though now I'm not so sure.
As kids, we were together all the time. He was fascinated with military history and always led our childhood campaigns.
Carter went to Princeton and seemed to thrive amid the ivy walls and green lawns. After graduation, he wrote book reviews and started editing a history magazine; he talked about writing a novel.
Politics was a passion, but he wasn't suited for the rough-and-tumble of the game. He felt things too deeply.
"There's no wall between Carter's head and his heart," a friend of his once said. That was true.
He was gentle. Which makes the violence of his death that much more incomprehensible. "He was the last person I'd imagine doing this" -- after his death, I heard that a lot.
Looking back, there was only one hint that something was wrong. He'd broken up with his girlfriend, but having never been in love, I didn't understand how tough that can be.
It was the April after he graduated college. I'd come back to New York for a weekend, and my mom told me he wasn't feeling well.
We spoke on the phone, and he seemed anxious, distracted, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.
That night he slept in my mom's apartment, and I remember going into his room and talking with him in the darkness. I can't recall what we talked about, but it was frightening to see him like that.
When he went back to work, back to normal, a few days later, I was glad to forget the episode.
I ran into him three months later on July Fourth weekend.
He was a little disheveled, but that was nothing new. He was vain enough to have nice clothes but not organized enough to take care of them.
"The last time I saw you, I was like an animal," he said.
I knew he'd started seeing a therapist, and I took it as a good sign that he could joke about things.
It was only later, after I met his therapist, that I learned Carter hadn't really confided much to him.
I can't remember if we hugged that day or not. He said he'd see me later that weekend. I never saw him again.
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He was dead when I got there. A young boy in the arms of his mother and father.
I'm fast-forwarding now, a couple years. Somalia, 1992.
Famine is creeping across the country; in a town called Baidoa, dozens die every day.
Roving bands of kids armed with AK-47s ride around in tricked-out "technicals," pickups with heavy machine guns mounted in the beds.
I'd come here to be a reporter. At least that was the excuse.
The only thing I really knew is that I was hurting and needed to go someplace where the pain outside matched the pain I was feeling inside. Somalia seemed a good place to start.
My final year of college had been a blur. I'd spent most of my time trying to figure out what had happened, and I worried that whatever impulse drove my brother might be lurking out there, somewhere, waiting for me.
On the outskirts of Baidoa, in a hovel of twigs, I watched the mother lift a kettle. Squatting, she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, pouring what little water she had left over her boy's head.
His eye sockets were hollowed out, each rib clearly visible. The parents had already watched three boys die.
This was their last, he was 5 years old. He was just one boy, just one death -- in Somalia it happened every day.
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It was July 22, 1988. Friday.
My brother returned home sometime in the morning. He had his own place but said he wanted to move back into my mom's penthouse apartment.
It was hot, a day made for air-conditioning, but he asked that the sliding glass door to the balcony be kept open while he napped.
My mom checked on him several times throughout the day.
In the early evening, he woke and went into my mom's room. "He seemed disoriented," she would later tell me. Agitated.
He asked her, "What's going on?" "Nothing," she assured him, but he moved quickly down the hall.
My mom followed as he passed into my room and through the sliding glass door.
Outside, he sat on the ledge of the balcony, his feet dangling over the edge.
At some point he tilted his face skyward as an airplane passed high above, a glint of silver in a late-summer sky.
I still wonder: Was a voice audible only to him urging him forward? Could he even hear my mom a few feet away, begging him to come back?
"Like a gymnast." That's how she would describe my brother's swing over the ledge. He clung on for a moment, then he just let go. "Just like a gymnast," she'd say, over and over.
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Fast-forward. Sarajevo, 1993.
Somalia seems like forever ago. Back then I didn't mind waiting around for weeks in dingy African hotels.
I practically lived in Nairobi's Ambassadeur, where evangelical Christians met in the Sarova Room every day, singing "Jesus, God is very, very wonderful," while a man on the street with steel hooks for hands and plastic prostheses for arms waved them wildly in the air, screaming passages from the Old Testament.
At night, the bar opened, and sweaty red-jacketed waiters served frosty Tusker beers, weaving between black businessmen and prostitutes in shiny emerald dresses.
But now, a year later, in Sarajevo, I couldn't stay still for long.
If I started off looking for emotion, now all I wanted was motion. Like a shark that forces water through its gills to breathe, I believed that if I kept moving, I could stay cool.
Keep the camera rolling, the truck gassed, a Clash tape in the dash.
Sprawled on the floor of the Holiday Inn, listening to the thud of mortars on nearby buildings, watching tracer fire shoot past the blown-out window.
The pain was all around: houses, whole towns, nothing but rubble, roofs blown off or burnt down, walls crumbling, half-starved dogs skulking in the streets, women running for cover clutching the tiny hands of their kids.
And the smells: Charcoal fires, cooking fuel, mud, blood, human waste, musty and sweet; the smells stick in your throat, weave into your clothes -- they become part of the fabric.
When I first arrived in Sarajevo, I wore my flak jacket all the time, slept with it near my pillow. Now I hardly ever put it on.
You're surrounded by people who don't have Kevlar vests and armored cars. You're in their homes, asking for their stories.
You want them to risk exposing themselves to you. You can't ask that if you're not willing to expose yourself, feel the closeness of another, the sense of loss in their embrace.
When the airport was shut, you'd arrive in Sarajevo pumped with adrenaline from the tumble down Mt. Igman, a winding road that for a time was the only way in and out of the city.
When the fog lifts, the snipers can see you.
You've got to start early, drive fast. Whipping down the road, "Charlie Don't Surf" blaring from the cassette player, you hold on to the dashboard and hope the road isn't so wet you lurch off, hope the morning mist holds long enough, hope the Serbs are still asleep or too hungover to aim straight.
The first time down, I quizzed my driver at every turn: "This stretch coming up, is it dangerous?"
He'd just smile. After a while you stop asking questions. Just sit back and watch, like it's happening to someone else.
The last time, halfway down, I caught a glimpse of myself in the side mirror. Drained of color, eyebrows furrowed, my mouth frozen in a lunatic grin.
When I finally made it into the city, all I could do was laugh.
It was all about the motion. I'd get back home and find I wanted to leave again.
It was like I could no longer speak the same language. I'd go see a movie, out to a club -- and a few days later I'd be rushing back to the airport.
I saw on one of those Jacques Cousteau programs that they'd discovered some sharks who don't have to keep moving to breathe. I found it hard to believe.
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In the weeks following Carter's death, I could no longer sleep in my room. The sliding glass door to the balcony remained open, though I never set foot out there again.
For a few days reporters and cameramen milled about, following the comings and goings.
I stayed inside, leaving only once to go to his apartment and pick out a suit for his burial.
The place was just as he'd left it. A half-eaten turkey sandwich sat on the kitchen counter. The air was stale, the bed unmade; it still smelled of him.
I can't remember the smell anymore, can't even think of how to describe it. But I knew it then, and bent down to inhale him once more.
There was no note.
On his desk I found a piece of paper with a single sentence in quotes. "The cuticle of common sense that had protected him over the years from his own worst tendencies had worn away, leaving him increasingly vulnerable to obsessions."
It was from a book he was reviewing, but I wondered for weeks if it had spoken to him in some secret way.
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You smell the bodies before you see them.
Rwanda, 1994. Over three months, 800,000 people will be killed in a genocidal bloodletting. Rebels will take over the country and end the slaughter.
On the outskirts of a town, along the side of a road, a bus has overturned. A half-dozen bodies are splayed in a ditch.
Nearby, a pickup has run off the road. It is silent except for the flies buzzing and the vultures circling overhead, waiting for me to leave.
From the truck's windshield, a man's torso sticks straight out, his legs emerge from the open passenger door. From a distance he appears to be moving. Up close, I realize it's only maggots.
I couldn't tell you if he was a Hutu or a Tutsi, couldn't tell you about the rest of the dead lying in the ditch. Did it really even matter?
There had been dozens of bodies that day, dozens of deaths. Each one a mystery, a tragedy to someone.
I stopped trying to make sense of it all. We are trained to ask why. Why did he do it? Why did he have to die? I no longer need to ask those questions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My brother is buried next to my dad. I like to think of them together.
I used to think suicide was a conscious act. A plan made, then carried out. I know now it's not always like that.
My brother was a sweet young man who wanted to be in control. In the end, he simply wasn't.
None of us are. We all dangle from a very delicate thread.
The key is not to let go.
Source: ANDERSON COOPER 360° on CNN (2006/10/10)
作者：Anderson Cooper
編者的話：Anderson Cooper是週末晚上10點新聞節目Anderson Cooper 360°的主播。他也定期在Details Magazine發表文章。此文載於2003年九月號刊。
我盡力不去想像他是如何從窗台跳下。盡力不去想像他是如何墜落。
可有對在黃昏中漫步的夫妻曾瞥見撒手放棄的前他？可有戶全家正坐在餐桌前的家庭看見了他身體從他們的窗前劃過？
自殺就是這樣。當你試著回想起某人以前是怎樣過日子，你最後總會想到他是如何完結自己的生命。
我哥哥在紐約市的一個溫暖夏夜裡自殺。當時我人在250英里遠的華盛頓，坐在一個安靜的地鐵車廂中。
你們常聽過兄弟能心電感應似地接收到另一方的痛苦。這次卻未能應驗。
我哥死的當下，我什麼也感受不到。
卡特(Carter Cooper)。我再也沒什麼機會能大聲喊他的名字。
很奇怪，他當時23歲，大我兩歲。我以前總覺得我們很親近，但我現在已不敢那樣肯定。
小時候，我們形影不離。他對戰史很著迷，總是領著我們這群兒童出征。
卡特進了普林斯頓大學後，在覆蓋長春藤的牆中與如茵的草地裡，他似乎成長了不少。畢業後，他寫書評也開始編輯歷史雜誌；他曾說要寫本小說。
政治是股激情，但這類虛假混戰不適合他。他看事情太過認真。
「卡特是個心口一致的人。」他的朋友這樣說過。一點也沒錯。
他個性溫和。所以真的很難理解他為何選擇用這麼激烈的方式尋死。「我想也想不到他會這樣做。」他死後，我總反覆聽到這句話。
回想起來，可能讓他想不開的原因只有一個。他和女友分了，但他根本沒有真的對她付出過真心，我想不出來那會讓他多痛苦。
他是在四月畢業。我那時回紐約過週末，媽告訴我他有點狀況。
我們透過話筒對話，他感覺似乎很焦慮，無法集中注意，好像他的思緒脫離了他。
那晚他在留媽的公寓過夜，我記得我有到他的房間，在一片黑暗中跟他談話。對話內容我已經記不得了，但看到他那時的樣子時我真的是嚇到了。
幾天後他回去上班，回到以往正常的生活。我高興能忘了先前的事件。
我後來在七月第四個週末假期遇到他。
他儀容有些不整，但沒什麼其他問題。他還是好面子地穿著有高級的衣物，但卻沒有細心地把它們穿好。
「上次見到你時，我真像頭野獸。」他說。
知道他已開始接受治療，看他還能幽自己一默，我想是個好現象。
沒過多久，見了他的治療師後，我發現Carter最後還是沒對治療師真正談自己的問題。
忘記是否在我們相擁的那天。他說會在週末夜來找我。我卻沒再見到他。
我到的時候他已經死了。是個被父母擁在懷中的男孩。
我時間快轉，過了好幾年。索馬利亞(Somalia)，1992年。
這國家遭飢荒肆虐；在個叫白竇阿(Baidoa)村莊，每天都有很多人死去。兒童游擊隊帶著AK-47四處遊蕩用以顯示「先進的裝備」，也就是床上堆著的撿來物品與機關槍。
我是為了採訪來到這裡。這至少是個可用的藉口。
我只知道我是真的身心俱疲，而且必須要到個能與我內心痛苦相當的地方。索馬利亞似乎是個好起點。
我大學最後一年的日子是一片混亂。我花了大部分的時間在試著找出到原因，而我也擔心那股把我哥哥推向死往的力量，是否正在某處潛伏，等著我。
在白竇阿的郊區的一個茅屋裡，我看見有個母親提著水桶。蹲著身子，不斷地換腳，好使她的腳能交互承擔她的重量，並倒一點點的水在她兒子的頭上。
他的眼眶已經凹陷，每條肋骨也都清晰可見。孩子的父母已經眼睜睜看著三個兒子的死亡。
這是他們最後的骨肉，他今年五歲。他只是個男孩，只是個結束－－在索馬利亞天天都會上演的相同劇碼。
時間是1988年8月22日。星期五。
我哥在上午回來。他那時已有自己的住所，但他說要搬回我媽的閣樓公寓。
那天很熱，是不吹冷氣不行的日子，但他卻要求在他午睡時，面向陽台的玻璃推拉門必須是開著。
那天我媽去看了他好幾次。
近傍晚時分，他醒了，到我媽的房間去。「他似乎不太對勁。」她事後告訴我。人很激動。
他問她。「你是怎麼了？」「沒事。」她向他保證，但他卻立刻衝向走廊。
他進到我房間，走出房裡的玻璃推拉門，我媽在後面一路跟著。
外頭，他坐在陽台上的護欄上，他的腳在上頭擺盪著。
高空正有架飛機經過，他抬頭仰望，暮夏天空中銀亮的一點。
我還是懷疑：是否有股只有他聽的見的聲音要他再往前跨？他可否聽見幾呎外求他快下來的母親？
「動作很熟練。」我母親是這樣形容他在護欄上擺盪的模樣。他懸盪一陣子，然後放手了。「真的很熟練。」她說了一遍又一遍。
快轉。塞拉耶佛(Sarajevo)，1993年。
在索馬利亞的日子好像是多年以前的事。那時的我並不介意在昏暗骯髒的非洲飯店裡曠日廢時數週。
我特別選住在奈洛比的阿琶薩多(Ambassadeur)飯店，這裡每天都有新教徒在薩若瓦房裡聚會，唱著「耶穌，主是非常非常地美好。」此時街上有個手臂上裝著虎克船長般的鐵勾與塑膠義肢的人在風中對他們揮手，嘴裡聲嘶力竭唸著舊約裡的段落。
到了夜晚，酒吧開始營業，穿著討喜紅夾克的服務生來回於黑西裝的生意人與翠綠洋裝的妓女，送著沁涼的土斯酒(Tusker beers)。但在一年後的現在，我無法忍受待在塞拉耶佛的一分一毫。
我如果是為了尋找感受而出發。現在我要的只是有所作為。像鯊魚為了呼吸而用力的游，我相信只要我埋首工作，我就不會崩潰。
不斷地拍照、為卡車加油、錄下一次次採訪。
趴在假日旅社(Holiday Inn)的地板上，聽著鄰近建築物傳來迫擊砲的聲響，看著曳光彈從毀壞的窗前飛過。
眼前盡是煉獄景象：一屋一瓦、各個城鎮、除了廢墟就什麼也沒了，房屋不是坍塌就是慘遭祝融，斷垣殘壁，吃不飽的野狗潛伏於街頭，婦女緊握孩子的小手，四處奔走，找尋庇護。
還有瀰漫四周的味道：炭火、做飯的燃料、泥味、血腥味、人的排泄、霉味、甜味；所有味道哽在你的喉嚨裡，附著在你的衣服裡──成了纖維的一部份。
剛到塞拉耶佛時，我整天穿著鎧裝防彈馬夾(flak jacket)，睡覺時也擺在枕旁。現在我幾乎沒再穿。
這裡的人都沒有凱夫拉防彈背心(Kevlar vest)或裝甲車。而你就在他們家中，採訪他們。
你希望他們對你毫無保留。但若你沒先對他們毫無保留、並深切地瞭解他們的生活、感受他們心中的失落，你就沒有資格這麼要求。
機場關閉，要到塞拉耶佛，你必須由頹圮荒蕪的伊格曼山出發，驚險地行經當時唯一的對外道路上。
只要霧一散去，你就會成為狙擊兵的目標。
你必須一早就得上路，踩緊油門。一路向前，卡式放音機唱著「不衝浪的查理」，緊盯著儀表板，心裡希望車不會打滑失控，希望晨霧能維持夠久，希望塞爾維亞人還都在沈沈睡著或者都因宿醉而無法精準瞄準。
起初每當遇到轉彎，我都會問開車的人。「前面會有危險嗎？」
他笑而不答。幾次後你就不再問了。只是坐在位子上觀望，好像一切事不關己。
在半路的時候，我看了鏡子中的自己。面無血色，眼睛周邊起了皺紋，嘴還愚蠢地笑著。
當我最後進到這城市時，我唯一能做的事只有笑。
這就是我的作為。我回到家然後發現我又得出任務。好像我再也無法說習慣的語言。我去了戲院，逛逛俱樂部—－幾天後我又要趕著上飛機。
我看過庫斯托 (Jacques Cousteau programs) 這個電視節目，節目中找到了不用向前游也能呼吸的鯊魚。這真是令我無法置信。
卡特死後接連好幾個星期，我無法在我的房間裡入安睡。通往陽台的玻璃推拉門依舊開著，儘管我再也沒踏進去一步。
之後有幾天家都有記者和攝影師來來去去。
我待在家裡，唯一離開的一次，是到他公寓裡拿他喪禮上要裝的西裝。
那地方依舊保持著他離開時的模樣。
我記不得那裡的氣味，也想不出該怎麼形容。但那時我是知道的，並彎下身再一次地吸入他的味道。
家裡沒有遺書。
在他桌上我發現了一張紙，上面寫著。「連最後一絲天份都消耗殆盡之後，他用粗淺的常識活著，逐漸地被不理性的想法所操控。」
句子是來自他所評論的書籍，但我猜想這句子是否當時已在他腦海裡迴盪多時。
在你看到屍體前，就會先聞到屍臭。
盧安達，1944年。有八十萬人在三個月內死於有計畫的種族屠殺。反叛軍接管整個國家並結束這場殺戮。
在郊區的路旁有輛巴士翻覆。六人被甩進溝渠中，死了。
我把翻覆的事轉播出去。現場是一片死寂，只有蒼蠅的嗡嗡聲還有在空中盤旋，等著我離開的禿鷹。
有個男人是直接從擋風玻璃彈出去，他的腳被發現在開啟的拉門邊。遠遠看還以為他的人有在動，走近一看，才知道在動的原來是蛆。
我無法告訴你這男的是胡圖人(Hutu)還是圖西人(Tutsi)，也無法告訴你其他死在壕溝裡的人是哪一族的？而種族真的有這麼重要嗎？
當天還有更多的屍體，更多的死亡。每一件都是令人不解，令人揪心。
我不再試著去解釋這一切。我們被訓練要一直去問為什麼。為什麼他要這麼做？為什麼他必須得死？我再也不要去想這些問題。
我哥是葬在爸的旁邊。我喜歡同時懷念他們倆。
過去我認為自殺是個理智的行動。要先擬訂計畫，然後付諸行動。我現在知道自殺不一定是那麼一回事。
我哥是個做事謹慎的可親青年。最後關頭，他卻完全亂了分寸。
我們又何嘗不是如此。我們都在脆弱的生命線上擺盪著。
關鍵是絕不要放棄。
＊＊＊
1.如果進一步盧安達的種族屠殺事件（好像還沒結束），可以看電影「盧安達飯店」(Hotel Rwanda)。
2. 必須說很多地方不是很懂，或是翻完了卻不甚滿意的地方。我把這些有問題的句子列出來：
- In the early evening, he woke and went into my mom's room. "He seemed disoriented," she would later tell me. Agitated.
（近傍晚時分，他醒了，到我媽的房間去。「他似乎不太對勁。」她事後告訴我。人很激動。）
→Agitated是指哥哥還是媽媽？ - He asked her, "What's going on? " "Nothing," she assured him, but he moved quickly down the hall.
（他問她。「你是怎麼了？」「沒事。」她向他保證，但他卻立刻衝向走廊。
→What's going on? 是「你是怎麼了？」還是「我是怎麼了嗎？」還是「發生什麼了嗎？」 - The first time down, I quizzed my driver at every turn: "This stretch coming up, is it dangerous?"
（起初每當遇到轉彎，我都會問開車的人。「前面會有危險嗎？」）
→down是指什麼呢？ - Nearby, a pickup has run off the road. It is silent except for the flies buzzing and the vultures circling overhead, waiting for me to leave.
（我把翻覆的事轉播出去。現場是一片死寂，只有蒼蠅的嗡嗡聲還有在空中盤旋，等著我離開的禿鷹。）
→這句完全是靠感覺翻譯。 - My brother is buried next to my dad. I like to think of them together.
（我哥是葬在爸的旁邊。我喜歡同時懷念他們倆。）
→together是指同時想念他們，還是指想著他們應該已經相聚？
My brother's suicide
By Anderson Cooper
Editor's note: Anderson Cooper anchors CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360°," which airs weeknights at 10 p.m. ET. He also is a regular contributor for Details Magazine. This article was published in the September 2003 issue.
I try not to imagine him hanging from the ledge. Try not to imagine him falling.
Did a couple out for an evening stroll catch a glimpse of him before he let go? Did a family gathered around the dinner table see him plunge past their window?
That's the thing about suicide. Try as you might to remember how a person lived his life, you always end up thinking about how he ended it.
My brother killed himself on a warm summer night in New York. I was 250 miles away, in Washington, sitting on one of those silent subways the city is known for.
You always hear tales about brothers who can feel each other's pain. This isn't one of them.
When my brother died, I didn't feel a thing.
Carter Cooper. I rarely say his name out loud anymore.
Strange. He was 23 at the time, two years older than I was. I'd always considered us close, though now I'm not so sure.
As kids, we were together all the time. He was fascinated with military history and always led our childhood campaigns.
Carter went to Princeton and seemed to thrive amid the ivy walls and green lawns. After graduation, he wrote book reviews and started editing a history magazine; he talked about writing a novel.
Politics was a passion, but he wasn't suited for the rough-and-tumble of the game. He felt things too deeply.
"There's no wall between Carter's head and his heart," a friend of his once said. That was true.
He was gentle. Which makes the violence of his death that much more incomprehensible. "He was the last person I'd imagine doing this" -- after his death, I heard that a lot.
Looking back, there was only one hint that something was wrong. He'd broken up with his girlfriend, but having never been in love, I didn't understand how tough that can be.
It was the April after he graduated college. I'd come back to New York for a weekend, and my mom told me he wasn't feeling well.
We spoke on the phone, and he seemed anxious, distracted, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.
That night he slept in my mom's apartment, and I remember going into his room and talking with him in the darkness. I can't recall what we talked about, but it was frightening to see him like that.
When he went back to work, back to normal, a few days later, I was glad to forget the episode.
I ran into him three months later on July Fourth weekend.
He was a little disheveled, but that was nothing new. He was vain enough to have nice clothes but not organized enough to take care of them.
"The last time I saw you, I was like an animal," he said.
I knew he'd started seeing a therapist, and I took it as a good sign that he could joke about things.
It was only later, after I met his therapist, that I learned Carter hadn't really confided much to him.
I can't remember if we hugged that day or not. He said he'd see me later that weekend. I never saw him again.
He was dead when I got there. A young boy in the arms of his mother and father.
I'm fast-forwarding now, a couple years. Somalia, 1992.
Famine is creeping across the country; in a town called Baidoa, dozens die every day.
Roving bands of kids armed with AK-47s ride around in tricked-out "technicals," pickups with heavy machine guns mounted in the beds.
I'd come here to be a reporter. At least that was the excuse.
The only thing I really knew is that I was hurting and needed to go someplace where the pain outside matched the pain I was feeling inside. Somalia seemed a good place to start.
My final year of college had been a blur. I'd spent most of my time trying to figure out what had happened, and I worried that whatever impulse drove my brother might be lurking out there, somewhere, waiting for me.
On the outskirts of Baidoa, in a hovel of twigs, I watched the mother lift a kettle. Squatting, she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, pouring what little water she had left over her boy's head.
His eye sockets were hollowed out, each rib clearly visible. The parents had already watched three boys die.
This was their last, he was 5 years old. He was just one boy, just one death -- in Somalia it happened every day.
It was July 22, 1988. Friday.
My brother returned home sometime in the morning. He had his own place but said he wanted to move back into my mom's penthouse apartment.
It was hot, a day made for air-conditioning, but he asked that the sliding glass door to the balcony be kept open while he napped.
My mom checked on him several times throughout the day.
In the early evening, he woke and went into my mom's room. "He seemed disoriented," she would later tell me. Agitated.
He asked her, "What's going on?" "Nothing," she assured him, but he moved quickly down the hall.
My mom followed as he passed into my room and through the sliding glass door.
Outside, he sat on the ledge of the balcony, his feet dangling over the edge.
At some point he tilted his face skyward as an airplane passed high above, a glint of silver in a late-summer sky.
I still wonder: Was a voice audible only to him urging him forward? Could he even hear my mom a few feet away, begging him to come back?
"Like a gymnast." That's how she would describe my brother's swing over the ledge. He clung on for a moment, then he just let go. "Just like a gymnast," she'd say, over and over.
Fast-forward. Sarajevo, 1993.
Somalia seems like forever ago. Back then I didn't mind waiting around for weeks in dingy African hotels.
I practically lived in Nairobi's Ambassadeur, where evangelical Christians met in the Sarova Room every day, singing "Jesus, God is very, very wonderful," while a man on the street with steel hooks for hands and plastic prostheses for arms waved them wildly in the air, screaming passages from the Old Testament.
At night, the bar opened, and sweaty red-jacketed waiters served frosty Tusker beers, weaving between black businessmen and prostitutes in shiny emerald dresses.
But now, a year later, in Sarajevo, I couldn't stay still for long.
If I started off looking for emotion, now all I wanted was motion. Like a shark that forces water through its gills to breathe, I believed that if I kept moving, I could stay cool.
Keep the camera rolling, the truck gassed, a Clash tape in the dash.
Sprawled on the floor of the Holiday Inn, listening to the thud of mortars on nearby buildings, watching tracer fire shoot past the blown-out window.
The pain was all around: houses, whole towns, nothing but rubble, roofs blown off or burnt down, walls crumbling, half-starved dogs skulking in the streets, women running for cover clutching the tiny hands of their kids.
And the smells: Charcoal fires, cooking fuel, mud, blood, human waste, musty and sweet; the smells stick in your throat, weave into your clothes -- they become part of the fabric.
When I first arrived in Sarajevo, I wore my flak jacket all the time, slept with it near my pillow. Now I hardly ever put it on.
You're surrounded by people who don't have Kevlar vests and armored cars. You're in their homes, asking for their stories.
You want them to risk exposing themselves to you. You can't ask that if you're not willing to expose yourself, feel the closeness of another, the sense of loss in their embrace.
When the airport was shut, you'd arrive in Sarajevo pumped with adrenaline from the tumble down Mt. Igman, a winding road that for a time was the only way in and out of the city.
When the fog lifts, the snipers can see you.
You've got to start early, drive fast. Whipping down the road, "Charlie Don't Surf" blaring from the cassette player, you hold on to the dashboard and hope the road isn't so wet you lurch off, hope the morning mist holds long enough, hope the Serbs are still asleep or too hungover to aim straight.
The first time down, I quizzed my driver at every turn: "This stretch coming up, is it dangerous?"
He'd just smile. After a while you stop asking questions. Just sit back and watch, like it's happening to someone else.
The last time, halfway down, I caught a glimpse of myself in the side mirror. Drained of color, eyebrows furrowed, my mouth frozen in a lunatic grin.
When I finally made it into the city, all I could do was laugh.
It was all about the motion. I'd get back home and find I wanted to leave again.
It was like I could no longer speak the same language. I'd go see a movie, out to a club -- and a few days later I'd be rushing back to the airport.
I saw on one of those Jacques Cousteau programs that they'd discovered some sharks who don't have to keep moving to breathe. I found it hard to believe.
In the weeks following Carter's death, I could no longer sleep in my room. The sliding glass door to the balcony remained open, though I never set foot out there again.
For a few days reporters and cameramen milled about, following the comings and goings.
I stayed inside, leaving only once to go to his apartment and pick out a suit for his burial.
The place was just as he'd left it. A half-eaten turkey sandwich sat on the kitchen counter. The air was stale, the bed unmade; it still smelled of him.
I can't remember the smell anymore, can't even think of how to describe it. But I knew it then, and bent down to inhale him once more.
There was no note.
On his desk I found a piece of paper with a single sentence in quotes. "The cuticle of common sense that had protected him over the years from his own worst tendencies had worn away, leaving him increasingly vulnerable to obsessions."
It was from a book he was reviewing, but I wondered for weeks if it had spoken to him in some secret way.
You smell the bodies before you see them.
Rwanda, 1994. Over three months, 800,000 people will be killed in a genocidal bloodletting. Rebels will take over the country and end the slaughter.
On the outskirts of a town, along the side of a road, a bus has overturned. A half-dozen bodies are splayed in a ditch.
Nearby, a pickup has run off the road. It is silent except for the flies buzzing and the vultures circling overhead, waiting for me to leave.
From the truck's windshield, a man's torso sticks straight out, his legs emerge from the open passenger door. From a distance he appears to be moving. Up close, I realize it's only maggots.
I couldn't tell you if he was a Hutu or a Tutsi, couldn't tell you about the rest of the dead lying in the ditch. Did it really even matter?
There had been dozens of bodies that day, dozens of deaths. Each one a mystery, a tragedy to someone.
I stopped trying to make sense of it all. We are trained to ask why. Why did he do it? Why did he have to die? I no longer need to ask those questions.
My brother is buried next to my dad. I like to think of them together.
I used to think suicide was a conscious act. A plan made, then carried out. I know now it's not always like that.
My brother was a sweet young man who wanted to be in control. In the end, he simply wasn't.
None of us are. We all dangle from a very delicate thread.
The key is not to let go.
Source: ANDERSON COOPER 360° on CNN (2006/10/10)
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