Over the Step

Michael Bell had spent fifteen years making sure that nobody in a room ever looked at him for long, and now two hundred people had stood up and clapped at him, and he did not know where to put his hands. He had put them over his face, in the end, because it was the only place he could think of. When he took them away, the hall was sitting down again, and the small woman with the half-moon glasses was asking the committee who was in favour.

マイケル・ベルは十五年ものあいだ、同じ部屋にいる誰にも長く見つめられないよう努めて過ごしてきた。それなのに今、二百人もの人々が立ち上がって自分に拍手を送っており、どこに手を置けばよいのか分からなかった。結局、思いついた唯一の場所である顔を覆った。手を離すと、会場は再び着席しつつあり、ハーフムーン眼鏡をかけた小柄な女性が、賛成の方は挙手を、と委員会に問いかけているところだった。

One hand went up on the stage. It belonged to a heavy man at the end of the table whose name card said Cllr R. Booth and who looked, Michael thought, like someone voting for his own peace and quiet rather than for flats. It went up slowly, and then, as the man seemed to become aware of two hundred pairs of eyes, it came down again halfway and stayed there, uncertain, like a bird that could not decide where to land.

壇上で一つの手が上がった。テーブルの端に座る恰幅のいい男性のもので、名札にはＲ・ブース議員とあり、マイケルには彼が集合住宅のためというより、自身の平穏のために票を投じているように見えた。その手はゆっくりと上がったが、二百対の視線に気づいたのか途中で止まり、どこに降り立つべきか決めかねている鳥のように、あやふやなまま宙にとどまった。

“Councillor Booth, are you in favour or not?” said Councillor Hale.

「ブース議員、賛成ですか、反対ですか」とヘイル議員が言った。