男主叫南宫夜的小说:一枝犹太人掌握的长生之秘

有一枝犹太人掌握着长生之秘？1

Irving Kahn is about to celebrate his 106th birthday. He still goes to work every day. Scientists are studying him and several hundred other Ashkenazim to find out what keeps them going. And going. And going. The secrets of the alter kockers.

Irving Kahn 即将庆祝他的106岁生日，他依然每天去上班。科学家们正在对他以及其他东欧犹太人的状态进行研究，想要弄明白是什么让他们精力常在。

By Jesse Green Published Nov 6, 2011

作者：Jesse Green  发表日期：11/6/2011

“Don’t be sad,” says Finklestein on his deathbed. “I’ve had 80 good years.” 

“别难过，”Finklestein弥留之际说，“我已经过了八十年好日子。”

“But you’re 98!” says his wife.

 “但是你才98！” 他妻子说。

“I know.”

 “我知道。”

Except for the occasional doctor’s appointment or bad cold, Irving Kahn hasn’t skipped a day of work in more years than he can remember. And he can remember plenty of them: He’s 105.

除去偶尔与医生有约或是患上重感冒，在Irving Kahn 105岁的漫长记忆中，他没有翘过一天班。

That record is vexing to his youngest son, Thomas Graham Kahn, who though 69 and president of Kahn Brothers, their brokerage and money-management firm, is still called Tommy. (Irving is chairman.) How can he take a vacation if his father won’t?

这给他的小儿子Thomas Graham Kahn带来了极大的困扰。尽管69岁的Thomas已经成为了卡恩兄弟，经纪公司以及金管公司的总裁，他依然被称作Tommy（对孩子的简称）。父亲Irving则是公司的主席。父亲还每天去公司上班做儿子的怎么好意思休假呢？

Instead, Tommy threatens to dock his dad for his short workday, which begins around ten and ends by three and often includes a nice bowl of soup. “It’s not like we have so many employees we can afford to have him shluf off,” Tommy says.

事实上，Tommy威胁要裁掉父亲，因为Irving每天的工作时间有限，从早上十点到下午三点，外加中间的一份靓汤。Tommy说：“我们并没有太多员工，可供不起他来这儿打盹。”

Tommy runs the business, which has about $700 million under management. But even though Irving, with his very short stature and very large glasses, looks a bit like a horned owl peering up from his desk—a desk that features both a computer and grip bars—he is no figurehead. His is still the corner office, 22 floors above Madison Avenue. (During the blackout of 2003, he walked down.) He gives or withholds the papal blessing on investment policy and reviews every transaction undertaken by the firm’s youngsters on behalf of clients.

Tommy主持着约7亿美元的生意。尽管工作的时间很短，坐在放着电脑和握棒的桌前，戴着超大眼镜，看起来像头公牛的Irving可并不是吃闲饭的。他那个拐角处的办公室依然位于麦迪逊大道之上的二十二层，2003年大停电的时候他还走下楼梯。他支持或否决公司的投资策略，并代表公司客户们对年青一代的每一笔交易进行关注。

The world’s oldest stockbroker, he first went to work on Wall Street in 1928. “This was before the Depression,” he says, then specifies which depression, as if I might confuse it with the one in the 1890s. Both are real to him; through a chain of memory leading back to his grandparents, Eastern European Jews who settled on the Lower East Side shortly before that earlier upheaval, he can almost touch the Civil War.

世界上最年长的股票经纪人1928年刚到华尔街开始工作。“那是大萧条之前，”他回忆到，之后他强调是哪一次大萧条，似乎怕我把时间和十九世纪九十年代的那次混淆了。这两场大萧条对他来说都是真实的，这要追溯到他的祖父母时期，东欧犹太人在早期动荡之前落户于下东区，他出生的时期已经快触碰到了世界大战的边缘。

More directly, he can touch the technological revolutions that followed. He describes his father’s good fortune in getting into the lighting-fixture business in the years after “Mr. Edison opened his downtown office”—the one that brought electric power to Manhattan in 1882. He remembers with perfect clarity building a crystal radio in his bedroom around 1920 and amazing his mother, who thought music came only from Victrolas, with the music he “caught for free.”

 更直观地说，他和之后发生的科技革命处于同一个年代。他描述着父亲的好运气，在爱迪生把电力带入1882年的曼哈顿之后，父亲进入了照明灯具行业。他仍然清晰记得，1920年他卧室里的晶体收音机里收听到的免费音乐，给一度认为音乐只从留声机里来的母亲带来的震惊。

When you’re 53, as I am, and believe yourself to be on the wrong side of life’s unknowable midpoint, a conversation with someone who will soon be twice your age, and who furthermore has retained all his marbles, can be disorienting. For one thing, it has the effect of collapsing a century into a pancake. Czar Nicholas II and Barack Obama, gaslight and computer glow, grandmothers and grandchildren: All are contemporaries, all in sharp focus.

当你和我一样53岁的时候，如果你发现自己走在人生未知的岔路上，那么和一位年龄接近你的两倍且保留着人生种种记忆的人聊聊是可能会造成迷失。在某种程度上，一个世纪似乎浓缩成了你面前的一块薄饼。沙皇尼古拉二世与奥巴马，煤气灯与日趋发展的电脑，祖母与外孙，这些都处在同一时空，都在讲述人的脑中留下了深刻的印象。

The indiscriminate urgency of memory is disorienting for Irving as well. “I’d rather not know who I was and who I knew and what I did,” he says. “It uses up space I need for today.”

漫长而不消逝的记忆也给Irving带来了困扰，他说：”我宁愿遗忘我是谁我知道什么又做过些什么，这些记忆占用了我如今需要的空间。“

By “today,” incredibly, he also means the future. All conversations with Irving eventually wobble back to his favorite ruts, such as how new technology might affect the viability of companies he follows. “I don’t worry about dying,” he says, assuming it will happen in his sleep. Instead he worries about staying mentally agile, which is why he reads three newspapers daily and watches all the C-Spans. “I know people collect postage stamps, but that’s just one thing. It’s about having multiple interests.”

他说的”如今“同样包含未来。和Irving的每段对话最后都回到他最爱的话题，例如新技术对他关注的公司可能带来的影响。”我不担心死亡，“他假设这会发生在睡梦之中。相比于死亡，他更担心智力的下降，这也是他每天坚持读三分报纸并观看有线电视所有节目的原因。他说：”我知道有人集邮，但这只是一件事情，我需要的是保持多样的兴趣。“

He does not say multiple attachments; his own upbringing—his mother ran a shirtwaist business out of the home—suggested the value of independence and keeping an eye on the horizon. Newness served his family well: “A new country, a new language, a new public school, a new college.” At his home a mile up Madison—until he was 102 he took the bus—he has, he says proudly, “thousands of books, not one fiction. Mostly I’m interested in what’s on the edges: solar energy, sending vehicles beyond the moon.”

他并没有说多样爱好。从他自己的成长经历看，母亲在外做仿男式女衬衫生意，这告诉他独立的价值以及关注风尚的必要性。新奇给他的家庭带来了许多改变，新的国家，新的语言，新的公立学校，以及新的学院。他很骄傲地表示，在他距麦迪逊一英里的家中，“有数不清的藏书，没有一本是小说，大部分时候我对边缘性课题感兴趣，例如太阳能，月球车。” 另外，直到102岁他还乘坐公汽回家。

His belief in a personal future that will repay this curiosity—a future I can hardly imagine for myself without worries of illness and decrepitude—is what’s most disorienting about Irving Kahn. You’d think that as he got older, then even older, and then bizarrely old, he’d have had ever more opportunities to despair. And, true, his eyesight and “earsight” aren’t what they were. He can’t walk much on his own anymore. He despises these limitations but ignores or finds ways to outwit them. Loss as well. His wife’s death, in 1996, was a huge blow, Tommy reports, but Irving “put his foot down a little more on the pedal, if that was possible.” When macular degeneration recently made reading difficult, he learned to enlarge the font on what he calls his Gimble.

他相信这些好奇心是会得到回报的。想象在未来不用担心病痛或是衰老，是Irving Kahn最期待的事情。你可能会认为随着年纪增大，Irving会越来越失望。事实上，虽然他已经逐步失去他的视力与听力，虽然他已经很难独自行走，但是他克服了这些限制，找到了解决问题的方法。当然生命中也有逝去，Tommy说，1996年Irving妻子的过世，对他来说是巨大的打击，然而事情过后Irving站的更稳了。当黄斑变性造成阅读困难的时候，他学会了放大字体阅读。

It helps that he is wealthy enough to have full-time attendants. Also, perhaps, that he has always been a “low liver,” without flamboyant tastes, as his brown, pointy-collared shirt and brown patterned tie attest. He goes to bed at eight, gets up at seven, takes vitamins because his attendants tell him to. (He drew the line at Lipitor, though, when a doctor suggested it a few years back.) He wastes few gestures; as we speak, his hands remain elegantly folded on his desk.

富足的条件为他提供的专职陪护对他的生活状态有所帮助。另外，也许他一向以来的低调生活也是一部分原因，没有对华丽的追求，他棕色的尖领衬衫与棕色的制式领带可以证明这一点。他每天晚上八点上床休息，第二天早上七点起床，按照陪护的嘱咐服用维他命（他对立普妥的服用设定标准，几年前有医生建议过这一点。）。他几乎不做多余的手势，我们的对话过程中他的手优雅地叠放在桌上。

Still, a man who at 105—he’ll be 106 on December 19—has never had a life-threatening disease, who takes no cholesterol or blood-pressure medications and can give himself a clean shave each morning (not to mention a “serious sponge bath with vigorous rubbing all around”), invites certain questions. Is there something about his habits that predisposed a long and healthy life? (He smoked for years.) Is there something about his attitude? (He thinks maybe.) Is there something about his genes? (He thinks not.) And here he cuts me off. He’s not interested in his longevity.

然而作为一个今年十二月十九日即将106岁的老人，他一生中从未生过威胁到生命的疾病，从未服用过任何胆固醇或血压类药物，每天早晨还能自己刮胡子，更别提大力搓洗清洁自己的洗浴，种种现象也给人们提出了一些问题。是不是他生活习性中的某些方面能带来长寿而健康的人生？（他吸烟。）他的生活态度是不是也有影响？（他觉得可能有。）他的基因对此有没有帮助？（他觉得没有。）到这里为止他打断了我的提问，要知道他对自己的长寿不感兴趣。

But scientists are. A boom in centenarians is just around the demographic bend; the National Institute on Aging predicts that their number will grow from the 37,000 counted in 1990 to as many as 4.2 million by 2050. Pharmaceutical companies and the National Institutes of Health are throwing money into longevity research. Major medical centers have built programs to satisfy the demand for data and, eventually, drugs. Irving himself agreed to have his blood taken and answer questions for the granddaddy of these studies, the Longevity Genes Project at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, which seeks to determine whether people who live healthily into their tenth or eleventh decade have something in common—and if so, whether it can be made available to everyone else.

但是科学家们对这个问题感兴趣。百岁老人数量随着人口增长而增加，国家老龄问题研究所预测2050年百岁老人的数量会从1990年的37000增加到四百二十万。制药公司与国家健康研究所投入大量的金钱研究长寿问题。大型医疗中心设定的项目为这项研究提供数据以及最终的药物。Irving本人同意抽血以及回答这些研究的一些问题。位于布朗克斯的Albert Einstein医学院的长寿基因项目研究健康活到100岁到110岁的人们之间有没有共通之处，如果有，这对其他人是不是同样适用。

What have the researchers learned? Not what Irving wanted to know, which was only whether those who live longer have higher earning power. For the rest, like how he got involved in the Einstein study, he says, “You’ll have to ask my sister.”

 研究者们发现了什么？并不是Irving想知道的，他只关心是不是活得越长挣钱的能力越强。其他的例如爱因斯坦医学院的研究，他说：“这你得问我姐。”

His older sister.

 他的长姐。

“Oy,” says Sophie. 

 “哦，” Sophie说。

“Oy vey,” says Esther. 

 “哦呀喂，” Esther说。

“Oy veyizmir,” says Sadie. 

 “哦呀喂咿呀，” Sadie说。

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about our children,” says Mildred.

“我认为我们不该谈论孩子们，”Mildred说。

Between 1901 and 1910, Saul and Mamie Kahn—the electric-fixture salesman and his clever wife—had four children: two girls (Helen and Leonore), then two boys (Irving and Peter). By 2001, when Helen turned 100, they were thought to be the oldest quartet of siblings in the world. Helen’s sassy tongue and taste for Budweiser made her a minor celebrity on old-age websites; four years later, upon turning 100 himself, Irving rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

1901年到1910年之间，灯具销售员以及他聪慧的妻子Saul和Mamie Kahn迎来了他们的四个孩子，两个女儿Helen和Leonore，两个儿子Irving和Peter。2001年，当Helen满100岁，他们被认作世界上最长寿的兄弟姐妹。Helen的犀利言论和对百威的品位使她在老年人网站中小有名气，四年后，当Irving自己也到100岁的时候，他在纽交所敲响了上市的钟声。

But the family’s DNA may be even more celebrated. All four have participated in Einstein’s longevity research, begun by Dr. Nir Barzilai in 1998. For these studies, Barzilai has assembled a cohort of some 540 people over the age of 95 who, like the Kahns, reached that milestone having never experienced the so-called big four: cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and cognitive decline. He theorized that these “SuperAgers,” as he calls them, must have something that protects them from all four conditions. Otherwise, when they didn’t have a heart attack, say, at 78, they’d have succumbed quickly to the next thing on their body’s inscrutable list. So instead of looking, as most genetic studies do, for pieces of DNA that correlate with the likelihood of getting diseases, Barzilai looked for the opposite: genes that correlate with the likelihood of not getting them—and thus with longevity.

但是他们一家的基因也许更值得庆祝。他们四个人都加入了Nir Barzilai博士1998年开启的爱因斯坦大学长寿研究项目。研究过程中，Barzilai组建了一个540人的集合，他们都超过95岁，并且像Kahn家的人一样从未经历过所谓的四大疾病：心血管疾病、癌症、糖尿病以及认知能力下降。Barzilai博士推测这些他称为“高寿者”的人们体内一定有某种保护他们远离上述疾病的物质。否则的话，当他们在某个年龄例如78岁时没有心脏病发作后，他们会很快进入到身体神秘清单中的下一项状态。所以不像其他基因研究在寻找可能与疾病相关的DNA片段，Barzilai从反方向进行查找，他找的是可能保护人们不得病而带来长寿的DNA片段。

The top correlate for longevity is one that requires no blood test to discover: having a SuperAger in your family already. (Though Mamie died at 64, Saul lived to 88, exceptionally long for a man born in 1876.) But the results at the DNA level are nearly as strong. Barzilai has so far identified, or corroborated, at least seven associative markers. The most significant is the Cholesterol Ester Transfer Protein gene, or CETP, which in one unusual form correlates with slower memory decline, lower risk for dementia, and strongly increased protection against heart disease. (Among other things, it increases the amount and size of “good” cholesterol.) Only about 9 percent of control subjects have two copies (one from each parent) of the protective form of CETP, while 24 percent of the centenarians do, including all four Kahn siblings.

 和长寿关联最大的一项不需要血检也能发现，那就是你家族里已经有了高寿者。尽管Mamie64岁就过世了，Saul活到了88岁，这对1876年出生的他来说已经很长寿了。但是DNA水平上的检测结果几乎一样强大。Barzilai发现，至少有七项相关的标识。其中最显著的是胆固醇脂转运蛋白基因（CETP），这个基因在减缓记忆衰退、降低痴呆风险以及增强心脏疾病防御力等方面有着特别的作用。在其他方面，该基因也增加了所谓“好的”胆固醇的含量与大小。只有百分之九的对照组成员拥有从父母那分别继承而来的两个CETP保护模式副本，而在长寿组里有百分之二十四的成员拥有，其中四个Kahn家族兄弟姐妹都有这个基因。

Other markers found more frequently among the SuperAgers include a variant of the APOE gene that protects against atherosclerosis and Alzheimer’s, a variant of the FOXO3A gene that protects against tumor formation and leukemia, and a variant of the APOC3 gene that protects against cardiovascular disease and diabetes. (This variant alone has been associated with an average life extension of four years.) Having long telomeres—regions at the ends of chromosomes that shorten as you age—is another kind of marker, acting as an instant-read longevity thermometer. There’s evidence, as well, that small stature among the SuperAgers (Irving is now about five foot two) may reflect the influence of a protective factor seen throughout nature; ponies live longer than horses.

其他从高寿者们身上发现的标识包含几个基因的变形。例如一个APOE基因的变形，它防治动脉粥样硬化以及阿尔兹海默症；一个FOXO3A基因的变形，它防治肿瘤的形成与白血病；一个APOC3基因的变形，它防治心血管疾病与糖尿病。这些变形分别能作用于平均四年的寿命延长。端粒是染色体两端随着年龄增长变短的区域，拥有长端粒是另一个标识，它相当于一个即时可见的长寿温度计。有证据显示身材矮小也是高寿者的一个特征，Irving现在五英尺二，这可能反映出自然选择的结果，小个马比大个马活得长。

Suggestive though they are, these findings so far lack the real-world application that can turn even the most questionable longevity fads, like Resveratrol, into worldwide sensations. After all, as Tommy Kahn puts it, would you really want to know if you have a predisposition for your penis falling off unless there were “some kind of splint” you could get to repair it? (Tommy, a widower, recently remarried.)

尽管这些发现很有启示性，但研究结果还没有可实现性，它们并不能使哪怕最有争议的研究长寿的潮流扩散到世界各地。事实上，正如Tommy总结的，如果不能修复你还会想知道自己身上即将丢失些零件么。对了，妻子过世的Tommy最近重新组建了家庭。

But the Einstein project is fascinating for a major reason beyond its science: Its main test group consists entirely of Ashkenazim—that is, Jews who descend, as more than 80 percent of American Jews do, from communities in the Pale of Settlement of Eastern Europe. In longevity news, the spotlight frequently passes from one group to another: Georgian yogurt eaters, Japanese pensioners, the Pennsylvania Dutch. But 540 Jews in a New York–based study of extreme old age is too delicious. The mind cramps with the possibility of jokes.

但是爱因斯坦项目有趣的点在于它的主要测试组全是东欧犹太人。在所有犹太人后裔中，从东欧白色恐怖中撤离出的他们，占美国犹太人中的百分之八十强。在长寿新闻中，聚光灯在一组组人中转换，格鲁吉亚酸奶引用者，日本养老金领取者，宾州荷兰人。但是全部来自纽约的五百四十名长寿犹太人组合则显得更为珍贵，这个想法的形成可能来自各种笑话。

Barzilai acknowledges as much, telling me first off that most of the original intakes were done by a Gentile nurse named William Greiner. After Greiner visited the participants in their homes, interviewing them and taking their blood, Barzilai would get calls saying that the young man was very nice, but why didn’t he touch the cake they’d prepared?

Barzilai表示，研究的第一手数据大多来自一个外邦护士William Greiner。他一一去研究参与者的家中对他们进行拜访，采访他们并抽取血液。之后Barzilai收到电话称赞有个年轻人态度很好，但是为什么他从不碰主人准备的蛋糕？

Mostly gray at 56, Barzilai, Israeli by birth, is a puffball of excitability: twinkling, gesturing, capable of persuading anyone to do anything. Well, almost anyone. His mother, a Holocaust survivor born in what is now Ukraine, refused to let him test her blood. “For her, the genetic studies had already been done,” Barzilai recalls. “And she didn’t enjoy it the first time.”

56岁出生于以色列的Barzilai头发已几近全灰，他是一个富有激情的人，眨眼、手势，他几乎能说服任何人去做任何事情。然而他作为乌克兰大屠杀幸存者的母亲不允许他抽自己的血。Barzilai回忆：“对她来说基因研究早就进行过了，她并不喜欢那份体验。”

He laughs, but the twinning of darkness and lightness in his life’s work is no accident. Longevity is the flip side of mortality, as Jews who survived the twentieth century do not need reminding. When a centenarian says she’s Ashkenazic, he takes her word for it: “Do you think there would be impostors?” And when he goes to synagogues to solicit volunteers, he makes this argument: “Yes, we had a miserable history, okay, let’s get over that, we ended up not in such a bad place. And if we’re able to give back, to find genes associated with longevity, it’s really something we have to do. I’m not choosing Ashkenazim because of only a technical point, but also tikkun olam”—the rabbinic injunction to repair the world.

他大笑，然而他一生工作中的光暗共存绝非偶然。长寿是死亡的另一面，作为二十世纪幸存下来的犹太人并不需要提醒。当一个百岁老人说她是东欧犹太人时，他记录下了原话”你觉得这会有顶替吗？“ 当他去犹太教堂征集志愿者的时候，他这么说：”是的，我们有一段悲惨的历史，但是让我们翻过去这一页，结局并没有这么坏。如果我们能有所回馈，也就是找到长寿相关的基因，这肯定是我们必须要做的事情。我并不是只从技术的角度挑选出东欧犹太人，而是从tikkun olam的角度，这个词指的是拉比所说的修复世界。“

As it turns out, the miserable history is inseparable from the technical point. Barzilai centered his studies on Ashkenazim not because they live longer or produce more centenarians than other ethnic groups. They don’t. It’s that their unusual development as a homogeneous community makes them easier to study at the level of DNA. Genetic research done by Barzilai’s Einstein colleague Gil Atzmon suggests that Ashkenazim branched off from other Jews around the time of the destruction of the First Temple, 2,500 years ago. They flourished during the Roman Empire but then went through a “severe bottleneck” as they dispersed, reducing a population of several million to just 400 families who left Northern Italy around the year 1000 for Central and eventually Eastern Europe. Though their numbers increased dramatically once there, to some 18 million before the Holocaust, studies suggest that 40 percent of today’s Ashkenazim descend from just four Jewish mothers. How proud those mothers would be to know that the reason their mishpocheh has remained far more genetically alike than a random population—Barzilai says by a factor of at least 30—is that until recently their sons almost never married outside the clan.

事实证明，这段悲惨的历史和技术性角度不可分割。Barzilai总结了他关于东欧犹太人的研究，并不仅仅因为他们比其他种群中的人们长寿或是产生了更多的百岁老人，他们并没有。真实原因是他们作为同质集合的不同寻常的发展史使得DNA水平上的研究更为简单。Barzilai爱因斯坦项目的同事Gil Atzmon完成的基因研究表明，东欧犹太人起源于2500年前第一圣殿被摧毁时期的犹太人，他们在罗马帝国蓬勃发展，之后分散并经历了一个严重的瓶颈，他们的人数从数百万降到四百户人家，这些人家在1000年左右离开了北意大利，来到了欧洲中部乃至最终的东部。尽管他们的人数从那之后激增至大屠杀前的一千八百万，研究表明现今东欧犹太人后裔中百分之四十只来自四个犹太母亲。这些母亲们如果知道她们的后裔拥有远超其他人的基因相似性因为直到现在她们的孩子都几乎不和外人通婚，会有多骄傲啊，Barzilai说至少高出百分之三十。

That likeness means that small genetic differences—as small as one “letter” of DNA code—are more easily spotted on Ashkenazi genes than on those of, say, Presbyterians. Icelanders are good, too: They are all descendants, Barzilai says, of five Viking men and four Irish women. But they are a tiny population, with proportionately fewer centenarians, and aren’t so easy to find in New York. Ashkenazim are plentiful. And because they are also fairly similar in their educational and economic status, some of the variables that can muddy the picture are already controlled.

这种相似性说明微小的基因差异，也许只是一个DNA编码字母的区别，在东欧犹太人身上更容易标记。冰岛人也是很好的对象，Barzilai说他们都是五个维京男人与四个爱尔兰女人的后裔。但是他们人口很少，相应的百岁老人也没那么多，而且在纽约不是这么容易找到的。东欧犹太人就容易一些，而且他们的受教育情况和经济状况也非常相似，这样研究过程中的一些变量可以得到很好地控制。

Others are controlled more explicitly. An Einstein study published in August asked whether the SuperAgers, over the course of their lives, had better health habits than the general population.

其他人的参数被更精确地控制着。一份八月发表的爱因斯坦项目研究结果提出一个问题：高寿者的长寿是否和他们相较于其他人更为健康的生活习惯有关。

The answer was no; their habits were, if anything, worse. They smoked as much or more than others and were no better about diet or exercise. Tommy Kahn described his father’s lifelong eating habits as “lamb chops one night, steak the next.” Exercise was sporadic and mild. “Healthy living can get you past 80,” says Barzilai, “but not to 100.” Something else is at play. When asked what they themselves thought it might be, the participants offered such explanations as genes, luck, and family history. God, says Barzilai, finished last.

答案是否定的。高寿者的生活习惯也许更糟。他们比其他人吸更多的烟，对饮食和锻炼也不甚注意。Tommy Kahn描述父亲的饮食习惯时表示“前一天是羊腿，后一天是牛排”。他们的锻炼是零星而温和的。Barzilai认为，健康的生活方式能让你活到八十岁，但并不能保证让你活到一百岁。有些其他的东西在影响着最终的结果。当被问到这些长寿者自己觉得是什么原因时，他们提供了各种答案，例如基因、运气、家族史等等，Barzilai最后还加上了上帝。

God agrees to grant Hyman a wish, with the condition that whatever he asks for, his brother-in-law will get double. 

上帝同意赐给Hyman一个愿望，条件是不论他祈求什么，他的姐夫会得到双倍。

“Okay,” Hyman says, “I wish I were half-dead.”

Hyman说：“好吧，我希望半死着。”

There was nothing Jewish in the Kahns’ upbringing: no Yiddish, no synagogue, no shtetl sentimentality. Saul and Mamie left Grand Street for Yorkville as quickly as possible. Helen and Peter eventually changed their last name to Keane for professional reasons—in Helen’s case when she started contributing articles about women’s fashion to Liberty magazine in 1936. The editor said the new name would sound more like a writer’s.

 Kahn一家人的成长经历中并没有什么犹太人的痕迹：没有意第绪语，没有犹太教堂，没有惊人的敏感性。Saul和Mamie很早就从格兰街搬到了约克镇。Helen和Peter最终为了某些原因把姓换成了Keane。Helen是因为1936年撰写女潮文章给自由杂志投稿，编辑说新名字更像作家。

Perhaps, but then she’s had many names. Helen Faith Keane is the one she used professionally—not just at Liberty, but as the host of a daily TV talk show called For Your Informationin 1950, and as an instructor of costume history at NYU from 1947 to 1977. Mrs. Philip Reichert is her married name; her husband was a cardiologist who dabbled in sexology. But mostly she’s been called Happy, a nickname acquired at camp at 16 that remains apt 93 years later.

 也许就是这样，之后她还有很多名字。Helen Faith Keane是她正式使用的名字，并不只是在自由杂志中使用，而且在1950年做日常电视脱口秀“告诉你”主持的时候也用它，另外在1947年到1977年在纽约大学做服装史老师的时候她也用着这个名字。Phillip Reichert太太是她的婚名，她丈夫是一个略通性学的心脏科医生。但大多数时候她被叫做Happy，这是她十六岁参加夏令营是得到的昵称，这个昵称93年后仍被使用着。

Happy explains this to me as best she can. Though she is perfectly turned out in peach slacks and a chic bouclé jacket, with her nails neatly done in Bungle Jungle red, she is hampered by speech difficulties, the result of two strokes in 2005. Her thoughts are intact, but I can’t understand her except when she puts a huge effort into producing a few clear words. Mostly she lets her live-in caretaker, Olive Villaluna, interpret, a relief apparently compromised by the rare thing Olive gets wrong. At these moments, Happy will sometimes grab my wrist—we are sitting side-by-side in wooden armchairs in her Park Avenue apartment—and wring it like a washcloth. Other times she makes a gesture that looks like she’s firing a small gun. Olive says it’s a tic of her frustration.

Happy尽可能清楚地向我叙述这段历程。尽管她看起来很不错，穿着桃粉色的休闲裤以及品牌夹克，指甲涂成了丛林红色，她表达起来还是有困难，因为2005年她经历了两次中风。她的思维依然明晰，但讲述过程中若非她尽力吐出清晰的词句，我还是没法理解她的意思。大多时候她让看护Olive Villaluna代为表述，有时候Olive也会表达错误她的意思，这个时候Happy会抓住我的手腕并扭动，我们并排坐在她公园大道公寓里的木制靠椅上。其他时间她保持着持枪的姿势，Olive说这是不受控的抽搐。

But for the most part, like Irving, Happy does not dwell on difficulty, or even on the past. She’d rather see whatever’s on Broadway or in the museums. “She hated that costume show at the Met,” says Olive, “you know, the guy who committed suicide”—and here Happy makes the gun gesture again. “And just recently, in June, she said, ‘Olive, there’s a new exhibition of Capucci’?”—the Italian fashion designer—“?‘in Philadelphia.’ ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘we’ll make arrangements.’ She said, ‘No! Right now!’ So we packed our bags and went the next day.”

但就像Irving一样，大多数时候Happy并不纠结于困难或是过去。她更喜欢看博物馆的展览或是百老汇的演出。Olive说：“她讨厌Met的服装展，那是个自杀的设计师。” 这时Happy又回到了持枪的姿势。“就在最近，六月的时候，她说，‘Olive，费城有Capucci的新展览’，Capucci是意大利的设计师，‘好吧，我们来安排日程。’ ‘不，现在就去！’ 所以我们就收拾好东西第二天出发了。”

Listening intently, Happy demands the show’s catalogue, which is brought by Olive’s husband, Joseph. She points at Capucci’s incredible creations, beaming with pride as others do over pictures of their children. Not having any of her own, she has suggested that Olive and Joseph’s baby, due in February, be named Faith.

专心聆听的过程中，Happy要求拿出演出的目录，这由Olive的丈夫Joseph携带着。她指着Capucci令人难以置信的作品，有着类似家长指着自己孩子们的骄傲神情。由于没有自己的孩子，她希望Olive和Joseph即将在二月出生的孩子取名为Faith。

I have sat with many old women before; it’s a professional hazard, or privilege, and my nature as well. I’ve heard their stories, patted their shocking, soft skin. I have seen them invite my pity and repel it, too. But Happy doesn’t want any of that from me. She wants me to join her in some new experience right now. Do you like Johnny Mathis? Rodgers and Hart? She points to where her piano used to be, as if inviting me to play, but she’s given it to Cornell University, of which she is, it hardly needs saying, the oldest living graduate.

 我曾和很多老妇人坐在一起，这是对专业和天性都有要求的特别的体验。我倾听她们的故事，安抚她们的情绪。我看到她们接受了我的安慰并给予反馈。但是Happy并不需要这些，她希望我能参与进来。你喜欢Johnny Mathis吗？Rodgers和Hart呢？她指出以前钢琴摆放的位置，似乎是想要邀请我演奏。但是她把钢琴捐赠给了康奈尔大学，她是从那儿毕业的，也许她还是那儿仍然在世的最年长的毕业生。

“Happy, you had to stop playing after your stroke,” Olive reminds her. “Before that you played every day. We got back from Mamma Mia! and you played ‘Money, Money, Money’ from memory!”

 “Happy，你中风后不能再演了，” Olive提醒她，“那之前你每天都演，我们从迈阿密回来之后你就从记忆力提取出钱钱钱的剧目在演。”

Oh, well, Happy shrugs; what’s next?

那么好吧，耸耸肩，下一步是什么？

Since she has indicated that she doesn’t believe, despite her family’s evidence, in a gene-based explanation of her longevity, I ask if “just moving on” is part of the secret everyone assumes SuperAgers must have. Can gumption trump decay even at 109?

 她表明了不相信，尽管来自她家庭的证据指向基于基因信息带来的长寿。我问顺其自然是不是大家认为高寿者享有的秘诀之一，进取心会不会在109时衰减？

“I don’t know anything about it,” Olive says she says. “Many people did the same things as she, but they don’t live to be so old.” Happy shrugs again.

 Olive说她说过：“我完全不知道，很多人和她做的一样，但并没有如此长寿。” 再耸耸肩。

“We went to the doctor yesterday,” Olive continues. “She mostly just goes to say hello.” Like her brothers and most SuperAgers, Happy takes few medications, and only since her stroke. “He asked her, because I mentioned that she had lost weight recently and sometimes could not sleep, ‘Are you depressed?’ And Happy said, ‘Why? Why would I be depressed?’?”

 “我们昨天去看了医生，” Olive继续说到，“她能打招呼了。” 像她的兄弟们以及大多数高寿者一样，Happy只在中风的时候服用少量的药物。“他问她你是不是抑郁了，因为我提到她最近消瘦了一些而且有时没法入睡，Happy回答的是我怎么会抑郁？” 

I wonder if depression should be on Barzilai’s list of big diseases that SuperAgers escape. When her husband died, in 1985, Happy gave away her best china and took off for several years of world travel, barely stopping at home except to repack her bags. When she had her stroke twenty years later, she worked harder than anyone Olive had ever seen to restore her ability to speak and write. At first there was only one word she could form, and it’s how she addressed Olive, by her mother’s name: Mamie.

 我想知道如果抑郁是否在Barzilai的高寿者逃过的大型疾病清单上。当1985年丈夫过世之后，Happy卖掉了她最好的瓷器，用这些钱环游世界，途中极少回家。二十年后她中风了，然而她比Olive见过的其他所有人都要努力地去重拾说写的能力。起初她只能表达一个词，那就是她如何称呼Olive，是她母亲的名字：Mamie。

Recalling this, Olive, who’s 39 and from the Philippines, starts to cry. “I didn’t know, when she asked me to live here eleven years ago, we would fall in love with each other.”

 回忆到这里，来自菲律宾39岁的Olive开始哭泣，“我不知道，当她十一年前叫我住在这儿的时候，我们彼此相亲相爱。”

Happy wrings my arm. “In America … we have president … his wife … Mamie.”

Happy挽起我的胳膊，“在美国，我们有总统，还有他的妻子，Mamie。”

She smiles triumphantly, then asks me to join her for lunch at Tao, the loud, expensive Asian restaurant down the street.

她笑得得意，接着邀请我在Tao和她共进午餐，那是路上一家喧嚣昂贵的亚洲餐馆。

Klein brags to Cohen about his new hearing aid: “It’s the best one made— I now understand everything!” 

Klein很爱宣扬他的新助听器，“这是我用过最好的一款，我现在什么都能听见了。”

“What kind is it?” Cohen asks. 

 “是哪类？” Cohen问到。

“3:15.” 

 “3：15的。”

Happy exemplifies one of Barzilai’s conclusions: that SuperAgers do not age differently from other people, just later. Much later. Many do eventually get hit by one of the big four, or by other catastrophic problems, but 30 years after the rest of the population. The average age at which American women have a first stroke is 72; Happy’s was at 105.

Happy诠释了Barzilai的一个结论，高寿者并不是衰老的过程和其他人不一样，只是时间更晚一些，可能晚的多一些。有些人最终还是患上了那四种疾病，或者碰上了其他灾难性的问题，只是这都发生在其他人的三十年之后。美国妇女第一次中风的平均年龄是72岁，而Happy是105岁。

In the meantime, other ailments can take a greater toll than they normally get the chance to. Chief among these are vision and hearing problems, like the kind Irving and his brother, Peter, both have, and mobility problems associated with arthritis. (Irving considers it a triumph when he only has to wake his attendant once a night to go to the john.) Sometimes these relatively minor irritations can be sufficient to do you in. Their sister Leonore, a lifelong outdoorswoman and gardener who preferred that you call plants by their Latin names, was completely healthy when she tripped on a scatter rug in 2005 at age 101. She died a few weeks later.

与此同时，其他疾病也有比平时更大的发作可能。其中最突出的是视力和听力的问题，就像Irving和他兄弟Peter都有的，还有关节炎和走路的问题。Irving认为一晚上只为去洗手间叫醒了陪护一次已经是场胜利。有时候这些相对较小的问题可能会造成很大的困扰。他们的姐姐Leonore，一个终生的探险者以及喜欢你用植物们的拉丁名称呼它们的园丁，2005年101岁的她在地毯中绊倒之前还很健康，几周之后她就过世了。

But mostly such problems won’t kill you. Already, thanks to stents and pacemakers and bypass surgery, some people who, a generation ago, might have been dead at 75 are muddling through their eighties, albeit half-broken and medicated to the gills. Soon, if the promise of Barzilai’s studies is realized, you may muddle much longer, perhaps even to 122, which was the age at which Jeanne Calment—the longest-lived human who could prove it with a birth certificate—died in 1997.

然而大多数类似的问题不会杀死你。感谢支架搭桥术以及心脏起搏器，上一代可能75岁就要过世的人现在可以活到八十多，尽管他们的心脏有些问题而且要依赖大量药物。很快地，如果Barzilai的研究能得到成果，那么也许你能活到122岁，这是死于1997年的目前已知世界上最长寿的人Jeanne Calment所保持的记录。

If so, like the Kahns, your happiness may depend on habits of mind, chief among them flexibility, that you would need to have developed decades, or even a whole lifetime, earlier. And on having a determined family member or top-drawer companion to keep you safe from falls, telemarketers, lapses in hygiene, loneliness.

如果是这样，像Kahn一家一样，你的快乐可能基于你想问题的方式，主要在于几十年甚至一辈子积累出的随性。另外还需要家族里有一个能使其他人远离各种人身或精神危害的保护者。

Will it be worth it? Or will it turn out to be an inversion of the classic joke, surely Ashkenazic, about the bad restaurant: The food is terrible—and such large portions!

值吗？抑或是成为另一个德系犹太人关于劣质餐厅的经典笑话：食物糟透了，还上这么大份！

I too am Ashkenazic, with longevity on both sides. My father’s father, like Irving Kahn, could not imagine retiring; he went to work on a Friday, shul on a Saturday, and died on a Sunday morning, at 89. (My father, now 85, works full time.) My mother’s mother, Anna, from the same part of “Poland-Russia” as Mamie Kahn, drove well into her nineties and only stopped, under duress, when she grew too short to be seen by cars behind her. People were alarmed by the driverless Chevy Nova wandering down the street; I called it the Flying Landsman.

我也是东欧犹太人，父母都长寿。我的祖父就像Irving Kahn一样，根本想象不出自己会退休，他周五还去工作了，周六倒下，周日早上过世，享年89岁。我的父亲今年85岁，还在全天候的工作。我的外婆Anna，与Mamie Kahn一样来自波兰-俄国，九十多岁还自己开车，直到因为蜷缩到太小而让后面的司机看不到她而被拦下。人们被无人驾驶而徘徊在街道上的雪佛兰惊住了，我把这叫飞人。

Toward the end, Anna lost some of her short-term memory, though images of marauding Cossacks remained intact. She also, more generally, lost interest. One day, my mother said to her, “Mom, do you know that your birthday’s coming up?” Anna shrugged. “Do you know how old you’ll be?” Another shrug. “Mom, you’ll be 99!”

直到最后，Anna开始遗忘一些近期的记忆，但脑中的图像还完好无损。她更多地失去了兴趣。一天我母亲问她知不知道她的生日快到了，她耸耸肩，问知不知道她即将多少岁，依然是耸肩，那时候她已经快九十九岁了。

“Oy,” Anna said. “I feel like I’m 100.”

 “哦，我以为我100岁了。” Anna说。

She didn’t quite make it and was glad. She had always told us that if she ever got sick, she wanted us to put her in a Hefty bag by the side of the road. My mother, on the other hand, made it clear she wanted to live as long as possible, with whatever artificial help was required. The sad irony is that each got what the other wanted. My grandmother lived far longer than her enjoyment of life could justify, though she was never sick. My mother, at only 71, faced with incurable leukemia after surviving colon cancer, changed her mind and asked me, as her health-care proxy, to authorize the removal of life support when the time came. It came quickly.

她最终离开了，但她走的时候也很开心。她常告诉我们如果她病了，希望我们任她离开。与之相反的是，我的母亲明确表示她希望活得尽可能久，不论需要什么人工辅助。悲哀的是她俩互相拥有对方想要的东西。外婆比自己想象中长寿得多，尽管她也不生病。而母亲在71岁的时候成功从结肠癌下活了下来，却又患上了无法治愈的白血病。那时她改变了想法，并让我做她的健康护理顾问，在最后的时刻决定是否移除生命支持设备。这一天来得很快。

So when Barzilai says it’s a “good sign” that I look far younger than 53—arrant flattery—and suggests that I have my DNA checked for his various markers, I say yes but worry that I’ll come to regret it. Do I want to find out if I’m likelier to emulate my grandmother or my mother? And anyway, who got the better deal?

 所以当Barzilai说我看上去比53年轻多了，这是一个好的信号的时候，他一并建议我检查DNA中他找到的标识情况，我答应了。然而我挺担心我会后悔的，我真想知道自己会不会像母亲或是外婆那样长寿吗，到底像他们好不好，我也不知道。

I describe the dilemma to each of the Kahns and ask whose wish, my mother’s or grandmother’s, matches their own. Irving sides with my mother’s, if not her outcome. “If you’re alive, you might yet find the answer to something,” he says. “The puzzle you couldn’t solve before. The capacity to enjoy learning is what matters.” Happy agrees; she can think of nothing that would make her not want to keep living.

我向每个Kahn家的人都描述了这件事，并询问到底是我母亲还是外婆的愿望和他们自己的愿望类似。Irving赞成我母亲的想法，也许不包括结果。“如果你活着，你可能会找到某些事情的答案，一些你 以前没法解决的谜题，找到学习的快乐才是最重要的。”Irving说。Happy也同意这点，她想不到有什么能让他不想继续活着的。

Mrs. Radosh says to the rabbi, “My husband keeps shrinking! When we married he was five foot eight, and now he’s five foot four. Can you say a blessing for him?” 

 Radosh夫人对拉比说：“我丈夫一直在萎缩，我们结婚的时候他五英尺八，现在他五英尺四，你能不能祝福一下他？”

“Of course: May he live to be four foot ten.”

 ”当然，希望他能到四英尺十。“

Peter Keane, the baby of the family at 101, lives with his wife, Elisabeth, called Beth, in Westport, Connecticut, on a pleasant suburban street filled with mature shrubs and trees, including a huge weeping cherry by the driveway. Peter was pretty much fine until 2007, when the glaucoma and macular degeneration that had been under control for years suddenly turned catastrophically worse. Within months he was blind. Now his eyes often weep of their own accord; Beth, always noticing, subtly tucks a tissue in Peter’s fist to cue him.

101岁仍然是家里孩子的Peter Keane，和他妻子Elisabeth（Beth）一起住在西港，康涅狄格州。他们住在一条街边满是成熟灌木也树木的街上，路上还有一个巨大的哭泣的樱桃。Peter的身体状况一直不错，直到2007年他的青光眼和黄斑变性突然变得严重了。几个月之后他就看不见了，现在他的眼中经常自己溢出泪水，Beth注意到之后就给他手中放些擦拭的东西作为提示。

Aside from that, and a general weakness that makes his cushioned wheelchair useful, he looks to be in great shape. He has a lot of hair, not even all gray; his voice is clear and expressive. Like most old or even middle-aged people, he can lose track or forget a word he’s looking for; the only odd thing about it is how upset he gets when this happens. He’ll stammer on a syllable, fighting to get it out, or give up with a pained cry of “Shit!” Or he’ll bicker with Beth. “If you’d just let me say it!” he yelps occasionally, to which she always responds, “Yes, dear.”

 除此之外，他的软垫轮椅在虚弱的时候能派上用场，另外他看起来不错。他头发依然茂密，甚至没有全灰；声音依然清晰和明亮。像其他老年或是中年人一样，他有时会说着说着忘记在说什么。唯一奇特的点是当出现这种情况时他很难过。他会结巴在一个音节上，努力想要说出来，或是直接嘟囔着放弃，又或者他会叫Beth，“你知道我要说什么的！”他叫嚷着，她总是回答，“当然，亲爱的。”

Beth is 67; they met in 1984, when she was 40 and Peter a very youthful divorcé of 73. “He was charming and delightful and fun to be with, and he remains so,” Beth says; when Peter starts telling the story of his life, in vivid and sometimes bawdy detail, you can see what she means. A cross between Zelig and Douglas Fairbanks, he seems to turn up everywhere in the last century’s book of glamorous pursuits, then disappear and pop up again somewhere else.

 Beth 67岁，他们1984年相识。她那时四十岁，而Peter以七十三的年龄刚结束一场婚姻。Beth说：“他当时很有魅力，又很风趣，而且他现在仍是这样。”当Peter开始讲述自己一生的故事的时候，在一些细节的处理上，你会明白Beth的意思。一条贯穿Z和道格拉斯银行之间的道路上，他似乎在上世纪闪耀的各个角落出现过，之后消失并在某些地方重新闪现。

It does not make his blindness any less painful that most of these exploits involved a camera. After graduating from Cornell with a degree in ornithology in 1932, he went to work, at $17 a week, for Margaret Bourke-White, developing film and assisting on location. “When she went out on the gargoyles”—for her famous shots of the Chrysler Building—“I went too.” Next he’s in Hollywood, an assistant cameraman on the sets of Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, shooting Vivien Leigh as she escapes from Atlanta in a buggy and watching Judy Garland lip-synch “Over the Rainbow.” Two tours of the Pacific in the Signal Corps with Frank Capra; work on the development of Technicolor; a stint at Screen Gems; and then the balance of his career, until his retirement at 81, in video technology at HBO: All rush forth with a young man’s gusto.

 一系列回忆都和镜头有关，这对业已失明的他来说也许略为痛苦。1932年从康奈尔拿到鸟类学学位毕业之后，他开始工作。起初周薪只有17块钱，为玛格丽特伯克怀特做事，开拍电影以及预订场地。“当她穿着显眼的走出来，”从她拍摄的著名水晶建筑里，“我也走出来了。” 之后他到了好莱坞，做飘和奥兹的巫师等影片的助理摄影师，拍摄费雯丽出逃亚特兰大以及观看Judy Garland配音“在彩虹之上”，两次在太平洋与Frank Capra一同游览，研究机器调色技术与显示屏的进步。知道81岁退休的时候，他的事业汇成了HBO的一部片：年轻人的追求。

But when he pauses, the stories gutter. Beth restarts him, subtly, with a prompt. Still, his memories, however merry, are soon revealed to be merely dutiful, dragged out for my benefit. If they are worth the effort, Peter admits, “it’s news to me.”

但他停顿之后，故事卡住了。Beth提醒他从哪里继续。虽然他的记忆很快乐，但仍然很杂乱，我努力把它们挖掘理顺，如果这举动值得的话。Peter觉得值得，这些记忆对他来说就像新闻一样。

Inanely, I seek refuge from this sadness by exclaiming over a doe snitching birdseed from a feeder outside the window. But of course Peter can’t see that. The gorgeous weeping cherry is someone else’s joy.

我从悲伤中找到其他的东西，从窗外一个饲养员那里给它们提供家禽饲料。然而Peter看不见了，华丽的哭泣樱桃只能带给他人喜悦。

“I can’t do much now, really,” he says equably. “I talk to people I used to know on the phone. They ask me how the weather is, and I don’t know. I tell them I never get out. Is that depressing? Very. No cure for it, though. I said when it happened that if you lose your eyesight, you are 99 percent dead. The other one percent, that’s a matter of habit. Except for other”—he struggles to find the word but makes do with an approximation—“instances, I still feel that way: I’d rather die. The other instances are family, Bethy. That’s enough.”

 “我做不了什么了。”他缓缓说到。“我和认识的人打电话，他们问我天气怎么样，我不知道。我告诉他们我没出门，这很让人抑郁么？非常的。但是没有办法。我意思是当你看不见的时候，你已经百分之九十九死了，剩余的百分之一是习惯。”他想了想措辞但似乎找不到合适的词，“还有是羁绊，我仍然觉得痛不欲生，那些羁绊是家庭，我妻子，这些也就够了。”

He does not feel the need to adjust either side of this statement, but simply sits with it. So does Beth, her hands folded.

他还没察觉到要适应这种状态的各个方面，身体已经先一步做了。Beth也是这样，她的手叠放着。

“It also depends on how you decide to go.”

 ”这还取决于你决定要怎么做。“

And here Beth changes the subject to happier things: Peter’s two children from his first marriage, his two grandchildren, the time ten years ago when all four Kahns spent a day on the terrace. Everyone seemed so young then, she says. “I’m not sure I even know what old is now.”

 接着Beth把话题转到了欢乐的事情上：Peter第一场婚姻里的两个孩子以及两个外孙，十年前Kahn家的四个人在露台上度过一天的时候，

Peter does: “Dumb luck.”

Peter说：“运气。”

At his checkup, Schwartz asks the doctor, “Do you think I’ll live to 100? I don’t smoke or drink or eat rich food or have sex with loose women.” 

检查的时候，Schwartz问医生：“你觉得我能活到一百岁吗？我不抽烟不喝酒不吃高脂食品不和松弛的女人做爱。”

“So why do you want to live to 100?”

 “那你为什么想要活到100岁？”

No matter how feisty the study participants on their good days, no matter how upbeat their videos on the Einstein project’s website, aging is for most people a dirty business, whether it progresses slowly starting at age 70 or rushes in 30 years later. In a way, it might be worse at the extreme; when you’ve had so many more years of health, its collapse, or the fear of it, may be more painful. For the Kahns, an expectation of family exceptionalism surely took hold, despite Leonore’s “early” death: Each sibling’s apparent invincibility supported the others’. Their longevity came to seem a matter of willpower, not fate. “I admire what Dr. Barzilai—is he really a doctor?—is doing,” says Irving. “To a point. Where we part ways is in trying to match up one thing that can be passed along with one result. I don’t think it really works that way.”

 不论研究参与者怎么回忆他们过的好日子，不论他们在项目网页上的视频多么乐观，对大多数人来说衰老是个要回避的话题，它是否在70岁之后变慢，又或是在三十年后加速。从某种意义上说，它可能最大程度上变糟，当你有着这么多年健康的生活的时候，它的崩溃或是对它的恐慌可能会使人更痛苦。对Kahn一家人来说，对家庭可能出现的例外都有着心理准备，除去Leonore的早逝，每个兄弟姐妹都无条件支持其他人。他们的长寿看上去是个意志力的问题，而非命运。“我羡慕Barzilai博士，不知道他是不是个医生，正在进行的工作，“ Irving说，”总的来说，我们不同之处在于尝试给一件事情传递一个结果，我不认为这样能行。“

对科学家来说，科学才是关键。但是如果长寿的很大一部分原因是基因造成的，这就是一种即使在很亲近的人之间也难以预测的方式，例如Mamie Kahn的烧菜食谱传给了她的孩子们，食谱之间有微小的差别。Peter的衰老程度和Irving以及Happy的都不一样，正如他对于早期生活的记忆来自他们的欢乐版本。他说父母太忙而没时间管他，孩子们都很友好但是不亲密。当Barzilai数次告诉我想要活到一百岁有不止一条路的时候，他的意思是高寿者并不拥有他研究发现的所有的长寿标识，也许只要一个标识就够了。但这种状况也可能说明你能在不同的条件下活到一百岁，或是抑郁或是开心，或是束缚或是自由。

In any case, researchers are plotting alternate routes. Currently under way at Merck are Phase III trials of a drug that mimics the action of the CETP variant Barzilai has shown to correlate with cardiovascular and cognitive health in the SuperAgers. The results are expected in 2013. And though Barzilai is not affiliated with that project, he is working on his own longevity drugs through a biotech start-up he established with a colleague. One drug is based on a line of peptides he calls mitochines, which decrease with age in the normal population, but not as much among centenarians. He hopes to synthesize the chemical and “put it back in” where nature has leached it away.

 在任意情况下，研究者正在绘制可选路径。目前默克公司正在进行第三阶段试验的一种药物，模仿CETP变种的行为，这个变种是Barzilai提出的和高寿者心血管疾病以及认知性健康相关的。结果将在2013年发布，尽管Barzilai并不在该项目中，他正在通过和同事合作研发的生物技术开发自己的长寿药。一种药物是基于他称作mitochines的多肽链研发的，它在普通人群中随着年龄增长而减少，但在百岁老人中减少有限。Barzilai希望合成这种化合物，并将它填补到自然减少的地方去。

Eventually, he says, the idea is to develop all such markers into longevity drugs and to “achieve a greater health span within our potential maximal life span.” Not that he calls them “longevity drugs” in grant proposals, since aging is not itself a diagnosis for treatment and thus not what the NIH looks for. “Instead, I say our mission is to prevent chronically debilitating diseases of old age”—basically, the big four. “There may be a side effect: It may increase life span. If so, we apologize.”

最终，他说这个想法是把这些标识都加入长寿药中，以达到在我们潜在最大寿命里过得更健康。他称之为长寿药并不是为了拉赞助，因为老龄化自身并不是疾病，因此也不是NIH关心的课题。“相反地，我们的目标是防治老龄化慢性衰弱性疾病，主要是前面提过的四大类，这过程中也许有些副作用：会增加寿命，如果是这样，我们道歉。”

However worthy that sounds, it’s unclear to me whether the baby-boomers who may be the first beneficiaries of such death- delaying drugs are hardy enough to endure the extra decades of nonlethal afflictions they will face instead. And by baby-boomers I mean me. I have a hard enough time waiting three weeks for the results of my DNA test without worrying myself to death. How would I endure 30 extra years like that?

不管听上去怎么值得，我不清楚婴儿潮出生的这批人会不会成为这些延缓死亡的药物的第一批受益者，他们够不够坚强面对这额外的苦难的几十年。我也是婴儿潮出生的人中的一员，等我的DNA检测结果的那三周十分煎熬，我不必担心自己的死亡，但是如果像这样的等待一样煎熬要怎么熬过三十年呢？

It looks like I won’t have to. Gil Atzmon tells me, in his gruff, amused, Israeli way, that I don’t have any copies of the protective CETP variant. Also, the lab was able to read only part of my APOE gene, so it’s impossible to say much about my risk for Alzheimer’s.

 似乎我不用做什么了。Gil Atzmon用他粗哑而欢乐带有以色列色彩的方式告诉我，我没有任何受保护的CETP变形副本。另外，实验室只能读取我的部分APOE基因，所以并不能判断我患阿尔兹海默症的风险。

Even the one bit of good news is bittersweet: One sequence of my FOXO3A assay showed the “longevity genotype,” which suggests some protection against the diseases that killed my mother. (Presumably this “good” sequence came from my father.) But then Atzmon sighs portentously. “I’m sorry to say your telomeres are very short. Remember, this is like a thermometer. It was maybe you were stressed that day they drew your blood. But if you were on vacation, or feeling a little healthier, maybe we get a better result.”

 甚至唯一的好消息也是喜忧参半的，我的一条FOXO3A序列显示出长寿基因组类型，这表明有部分防护我免受带走母亲的病症的折磨，也许这段“好的”序列来自我的父亲。然而Atzmon叹息道：“我很抱歉地告诉你，你的端粒很短，记住，这就像温度计一样。这可能是因为你抽血的那天紧张了，但是如果你在休假或是感觉到更健康了，我们也许会有一个更好的结果。”

I know: The test is descriptive, not predictive; an association, not proof. Still, I ask how bad it is.

 我知道这项测试是描述性的而非可预测性的，是总结性的而非可作为凭证的，然而我还是问了它预示的结论。

“If I would place it in age,” Atzmon says, taking his time to consider, “I would believe you’re currently 75 to 80 years old.”

 “照我看，用年龄来衡量的话，” Atzmon想了想说到，“我会觉得你现在75到80岁。”

Oy. I feel like I’m 100.

 哦也，我觉得我100岁。

What does a Jew hope people will say about him at his funeral? 

 犹太人希望人们在他的葬礼上说些什么呢？

“Look! He’s moving!”

 “看！他在动！”

Happy went to Tao for lunch without me. Over the next few days, she also dined at her other favorite restaurants, Lavo and Rue 57. She seemed intent on an even fuller schedule of activities than usual, as if she were checking off a list. She visited the Cornell Medical Center to meet a newly hired archivist, explored the Village in search of a restaurant where she and her husband once ate (it’s now a Starbucks, so she ordered coffee), had lunch at a friend’s apartment, and spent Sunday afternoon at the Central Park Zoo with Olive and Joseph’s nieces.

Happy没和我一起，她自个儿去了Tao中饭。之后几天，她也在其他喜爱的餐馆（Lavo和Rue 57）里吃饭。她看上去比平日里的活动安排更满，似乎在完成一个列表。她拜访了康奈尔医学中心的一个新来的档案管理员，寻找一个她曾经和丈夫一起去过的叫Village的餐馆，那地方现在成了星巴克，所以她要了杯咖啡。她在朋友的公寓中饭，和Olive和Joseph的侄子们一起在中心公园动物园度过了一个周日的下午。

第二天，Olive注意到轻微的喘息声。处方里有抗生素。周五的时候，Happy醒后能明显看出她的衰弱，她在睡梦中开始做一些奇怪的姿势，似乎在接她前方空气中传来的东西。Olive相信这是Happy已故的丈夫。“我知道你是为Happy来的，” Olive告诉他，“但是请别现在把她带走。” 接下来的两天里，Happy会睡着，醒来很开心，要求打扮好，吃要咀嚼的食物，然后继续进入睡梦，用手接什么东西。

There can come a time when people no longer live for themselves but for those who, in a strange reversal, have come to depend on them. Selfishly, we may want our old loved ones to just keep going, if only as a bulwark against our own mortality. Tommy Kahn’s hope is that Irving “can live for another five, ten years, something like that.” Olive wished Happy would live forever.

总有一段时间人们并不为自己而活，而是很奇怪地，为依赖于他们的人而活。自私点说，我们可能希望我们爱的老人们继续活着，如果只是作为我们自身死亡的参照。Tommy Kahn的愿望是Irving能再活个五年十年，Olive则希望Happy能一直活下去。

But on the afternoon of September 25, six weeks shy of her 110th birthday, Helen “Happy” Faith Kahn Keane Reichert died while napping in her recliner, with her lipstick on and her nails newly done in Bungle Jungle red. Until that moment, she had been, many thought, New York City’s oldest woman: a title that, of necessity, is often transferred, if rarely as gently. No breathing tube, no defibrillator paddles—just oatmeal for breakfast, a soft-boiled egg and jam for lunch, and the reaching in the dark for whatever was coming next.

但是在九月二十五日的下午，在她110岁生日之后六周，Hellen Happy Faith Kahn Keane Reichert在躺椅午睡时离开了，她走的时候擦着口红，指甲是刚做的丛林红色。知道那一刻，她一直保持的纽约市最长寿的女人的头衔开始了相对频繁的换人。没有呼吸管，没有去纤颤器桨，只是早餐的燕麦片，午餐的煮鸡蛋以及果酱，紧接着的就是永远的黑暗。

当Beth Keane告诉她丈夫新闻的时候，他沉默了。“那是持续了一分钟或更久的沉默，”她在给我的电子邮件里写道。“他转向我并说‘你知道的，我曾经做好过心理准备’ ”，之后他再也没提到过这个话题。Irving有着几乎相同的反应。五天后兄弟俩在Peter的房子里见面，在厨房里各自坐了很长时间。Beth说他俩就在对方触手可及的地方，Irving背对着这场景，然而Peter看不见了。

If they were wondering about the value of living so long when it meant facing the death of everyone they grew up with, you can hardly blame them. Even with the miraculous enhancements sure to come in the next decades, longevity is a mixed blessing. For Jews, who are enjoined by their faith and history and meddling grandmothers to be healthy and live long, and to have children who will do the same, it can become such an obsession as to make the time gained seem unworth the worry. Nothing in Barzilai’s arsenal of misspelled genes will address that.

如果他们想知道当不得不面对成长过程中其他人的相继离去时，长寿的价值又在哪里，你没法责怪他们。即使今后几十年内有奇迹般的进展，长寿依然是喜忧参半的。对犹太人来说，他们为自己的信仰历史而骄傲。如果他们插手祖母的健康长寿，而孩子们又做同样的事情，这会成为一种困扰，因为这样获得的时间似乎不值得担心。Barzilai错误拼接的基因库中并没有解决这个问题。

Still, no one wants to stop trying—and I say this as a grumpy 75- or 80-year-old man. In that regard, the real significance of SuperAgers like the Kahns may be in demonstrating the choices more and more of us will face. Do you give up or keep reaching toward the future? Shortly before dying, while Olive was helping her drink some tea, Happy “suddenly held my stomach with her two hands,” Olive says. “And looking on my tummy, she started saying ‘So cute, very very cute.’ That’s the last time she hold me!”

然而没有人想停止尝试，我以一个75或者80岁脾气暴躁的老人的身份说。从这个角度说，像Kahn一家人一样的高寿者存在的现实意义在于向我们展示可能性。你会放弃还是继续前行？临终前不久，当Olive在喂她喝茶的时候，她回忆到“Happy突然用两手捧着我的胃，看着我的肚子，她说‘真可爱，太可爱了。’ 这是她对我说的最后一句话。”

Olive starts to weep. “My problem is I never thought of her age, I treated her like she can go on and go on and go on. But I know she’s with her loved ones. And she left me knowing I was with mine.”

Olive开始啜泣，“我的问题在于我从未想到过她的年龄，我总觉得她会永永远远都在那儿。但是现在我知道她已经和她爱的人们在一起了，她离开的时候知道我也和我爱的人在一起。”

Olive’s baby, it has since been decided, will be named not Faith but Happy. May she live to be …

 Olive已经决定好给孩子将取名为Happy，而不是之前的Faith。 希望她能就这样开心的活下去……