1994年初夏，徐进带着我登上纽约世贸大厦的顶层，从那里向东远眺大海，向北俯望曼哈顿涌动的楼群。之后，又带我到他工作的Seaport，登上沿海湾游弋的驳轮。海风让我们不约而同地回过头去，曼哈顿巨大的剪影中，世贸大厦仿佛山峦的巅顶。徐进的光头上滚过一道逆向的光彩，他说：“我还从未从这个角度看过纽约。”话音虽低，却镌刻我心，十四年过去，犹在耳畔。关于世贸的记忆，因此与徐进牵连在一起。

　　In the early summer of 1994, Xu Jin brought me to the top of the World Trade Center. We looked out at the ocean to the east, and Manhattan's unending buildings to the north. After, he brought me to South Street Seaport,where he worked, and we boarded a cruise that traveled along the bay. The high wind made both of us turn around, and we marveled at the spectacular skyline of Manhattan, among which the World Trade Center looked like the summit of a tall mountain. Xu's bald head was backlit by the sunlight, and he said, "I" ve never looked at New York from this angle." His low voice left a strong mark in my heart, still lingering after fourteen years. My memories of the World Trade Center thus became forever linked to the day spent with Xu Jin.

　　2001 年”9·11“之后的一个星期，徐进从纽约打来电话，说世贸硝烟未散，Seaport 受影响已无法工作。直到那时，我才感受到”9·11“离我们并不遥远。

　　A week after the 9/11 incident, Xu Jin called me up from New York. He told me that smoke still hang around the World Trade Center, making the near seaport an impossible place to work. Not until then did I realize that 9/11 was not so far away from me.

　　“9·11”在纽约留下一个巨坑，也给徐进的平静生活留下一个巨坑。徐进因此有时间来专注这个“坑”。他的一系列“9·11”废墟的素描真的有一种焦土的滋味。那传递给我们的模糊图像中，有蔽天的尘烟，有远去的楼群，却都凝着一种废墟所特有的焦灼，一种亲历和在场、生命的亲历和在场才能感受到的焦灼。那个斜斜升起的孤独的吊塔，悬在空中。“9·11”的纽约天空，始终带着一种无望的悲伤，留在人们记忆里。李宾斯基的世贸重建方案勾画了一个“光之楔”的计划，让每年9月11日的阳光来照亮这个巨坑，把天空和大地浑浑然交织在一起，把冥冥宇宙和人心浑浑然 交织在一起。徐进素描中那浑沌的天空，也同样盘亘着一种静默和期冀的交织，一种空荡荡的魂灵般的呼唤。

　　9/11 created a huge hole in New York, as well as in Xu Jin's relatively peaceful life. Xu therefore had some time to focus on this "hole." In his series sketches of the 9/11 ruins, one can almost smell the burning ground. In those blurry images we can barely make out the sky obscured by smoke and dust, as buildings recede in the background. Hanging over every image is a sense of anxiety that's typical to ruins, an anxiety that only those who have witnessed the making of the ruins can convey. There, a lone crane hangs at an angle in the sky. All throughout, the New York sky on 9/11 is tinged with a limitless sadness that lingers in people's memories. In Libeskind's master plan to rebuild the World Trade Center, he presented his "wedge of light" concept. According to his plan, the sun would shine on the memorial grounds every September 11th, connecting the sky to the earth, and the vast cosmos to the human heart. The chaotic sky in Xu's sketches also reveals an alternating silence and hopefulness, the empty call of the soul.

　　从徐进带我登世贸大厦到徐进的这些素描，让我蓦然感受到人生的无明中所包含着的深邃宿命，以及无明与宿命之间的某种荒诞。徐进在游轮上的自语道出自己的游魂，如今又在这些素描中写出了同样孤独的游魂，并与那个巨大的悲怆联系在一起。他在素描中仿佛什么也没有说，却道出了生命的孤魂。

　　From the moment Xu Jin brought me to the World Trade Center to the time I saw his sketches, I suddenly understood the profound power fate held in our avidya, and the absurd connection between avidya and fate. Xu Jin's musings on the cruise revealed to me his wandering soul, and he showed this same lonely soul in these sketches, further saddened by the tragedy. He seemed to be reserved in these sketches, but he made the loneliness of life known.

　　人生最终的孤独在于生命的冷漠和荒诞。死的残酷并不荒诞，生的热望亦不荒诞，生对死近在咫尺却漠然无察才是荒诞，那“死也要活着”的本能与挣扎才是荒诞。今年，徐进又画了一批胎儿和骷髅的素描。那“生”闭着双目，那“死”却圆睁着瞳孔般的黑洞。生的无明和死的窥视如此荒诞地并置着，那胎儿仿佛一种漂浮的魂魄，偶尔会睁开双眼，像一个成人般地瞥视出来；又偶尔发出撕裂人心的啼喊。徐进在这里素描着他内心最深处的无言的游魂。

　　The ultimate loneliness derives from the coldness and absurdity in life. What's absurd is not the cruelty of death nor the yearnings in life, but life's ignorance of death's looming nearness, and human's instinctual struggles toward life against all odds. This year Xu Jin did a batch of sketches about newborn babies and skulls. What was "living" had their eyes closed, while what was "dead" stared out of their black holes of sockets； the ignorant life and the peeping eye of death was juxtaposed in an absurd way. In these sketches, the infants seemed to have floating souls. They occasionally opened their eyes and peeped out like an adult, and sometimes they seemed to be letting out heartbreaking cries. Xu was depicting the deepest loneliness in his silent, wandering soul.

　　徐进现场画“9·11”，又返回内心画漂浮的新生儿；从面向孤魂般的景观，到直接面对孤魂，这本身就是一种荒诞。将这种荒诞变得感人的，正是那独行海外的孤魂，是那与命运抗争、对艺术家园永志莫忘的游魂。

　　Xu Jin once made sketches on sight of the 9/11 ruins, and at a later point, he followed his heart to draw floating babies. He faced the ghostly landscape, and then the ghosts themselves, itself suggesting an absurdity. What made this absurdity moving was the lonely soul： drifting in a land far from home, always striving against fate, always carrying the spark of creativity close to the heart.

作者：许江