经济学人下载:用绘画保命的柬埔寨人

Nonetheless, he carried out the task to the satisfaction of Duch, the prison commandant, the one—and still only—former cadre now being held to account for his role in the revolution. For his flattering portraits, giving Pol Pot a fresh-faced girl’s rosy cheeks, Mr Vann Nath’s name in the prison ledger was tagged “Keep for use”. But for that “keeping”, he often said, he would be dead.

尽管如此，因为自己那幅曲意逢迎，赋予波尔布特少女般玫瑰面庞的画作，他完成的这次任务让监狱长杜赫——目前唯一为自己在那场革命中的角色负责并受到控制的前柬共干部满意。凡纳的名字在监狱名单上被归类为“留着用”。他经常说，如果不是那个“留”字，他可能就死了。

When a Vietnamese invasion swept the Khmers Rouges from power, in January 1979, his portrait-painting ended. But in 1980-81 an even more harrowing spell of art began. The fleeing warders of S-21 left behind troves of documents outlining the prison’s work, but it was Mr Vann Nath, painting his memories in sombre oils, who showed most vividly what had happened there. Blindfolded men, women and children trucked into the compound in the middle of the night. Men carried, trussed like pigs, on bamboo poles. Babies torn from their mothers’ arms—to be smashed against walls, he learned later. Prisoners prodded, whipped and steered by stone-faced cadres into holding cells to be crammed side by side, like decaying logs. For many years after the Khmers Rouges fell from power, the upper echelons of the regime denied S-21’s existence. Mr Vann Nath caught its reality in furtive glances, as he moved from cell to workshop.

1979年1月，一支越南军队扫清红色高棉政权，凡纳也停止了画人像。但1980-81年间是一段更让人锥心蚀骨的艺术开始。仓皇逃窜的S-21狱卒留下的文件书写了监狱运作的大体轮廓，然而正是凡纳用昏暗，严肃的颜料描绘出的个人记忆，才活生生的展示了那里曾经发生的过往。午夜时分，蒙住眼的男子，妇女和儿童被卡车运进集中营。男人被扎在竹竿上，像猪一样；婴儿从母亲的怀里被扯出来——不久凡纳才明白，婴儿会被摔死在树上；囚犯被面如铁石的狱卒刺戳，鞭打，扭送进囚禁室，再一个挨一个的挤在一起，像正在腐烂的木头。红色高棉丧失权力很多年后，此政权高层仍然否认S-21的存在。而凡纳在囚禁室到作画室的路上，一次次用秘密的一瞥记录下了S-21的现实。

He painted by stilling his mind, in a process both painful and therapeutic. But painting still made no sense of what he had seen. It seemed to him that Cambodia could not cleanse itself of such an evil, and that his works were not good enough to do such horror justice. He only hoped the souls of those who had died would get some ease from them.

他静下心来作画，这是痛苦和治愈的过程。但绘画不足以澄明他看到的一切。在他看来，柬埔寨似乎永远无法洗清这场罪恶，他的作品也做不了如此令人恐惧的审判，他只希望逝者能从画中得到一些慰藉。

When S-21 was turned into a museum of the national self-genocide he had witnessed, some of his pictures hung on the walls. One day, for the first time since 1979, he saw one of his former jailers there, a “tiger” he had dreaded. Having puffed a few cigarettes to steel himself—for he was always a man of poise, despite his tormented past—he approached him affably and guided him by the shoulder to his paintings hanging there. “Is this accurate?” he asked. It was, the jailer conceded.

当S-21集中营变成纪念柬埔寨国家自我屠杀博物馆后，他看到墙上挂着自己的一些作品。一天，他自1979年后第一次在那儿看到了关押过自己的一名狱卒——他曾惧怕过的一只“恶虎”。凡纳吸了几口烟让自己坚强起来——尽管他受过折磨，可他一直是个泰然自若的人——他像走近朋友那样走近那位狱卒，扶着他的肩膀带他看自己的画。“画的准吗？”他问。是那样，那名狱卒承认道。