Behind the Counter

Priya Shah had opened her shop at six o’clock every morning for thirty years, except for the four days after her husband died and one Christmas Day when her daughter had hidden the keys. She opened it now, at six, in the dark, with the familiar small sounds: the key in the lock, the bolt at the top that stuck in damp weather, the bell, the click of the lights coming on one row at a time over the newspapers, the sweets, the tins of soup.

Priya Shah abria a sua loja às seis horas todas as manhãs havia trinta anos, exceto pelos quatro dias após a morte do marido e em um dia de Natal em que a filha tinha escondido as chaves. Ela a abriu agora, às seis, no escuro, com os pequenos ruídos familiares: a chave na fechadura, o ferrolho na parte de cima que emperrava em dias úmidos, a campainha, o estalo das luzes acendendo uma fileira de cada vez sobre os jornais, os doces, as latas de sopa.

She liked this hour more than any other. Before the town woke up, the shop belonged entirely to her. Raj had liked it too. He used to stand where she was standing now, behind the counter, cutting the strings on the bundles of newspapers with the little curved knife that still hung on its hook beside the till, and reading the headlines aloud to her in a terrible fake newsreader’s voice until she laughed.

Ela gostava dessa hora mais do que de qualquer outra. Antes de a cidade acordar, a loja pertencia inteiramente a ela. Raj também gostava desse momento. Ele costumava ficar onde ela estava agora, atrás do balcão, cortando os barbantes dos maços de jornais com a faquinha curva que ainda estava pendurada em seu gancho ao lado da caixa registradora, e lendo as manchetes em voz alta para ela com uma voz fingida e terrível de apresentador de notícias até fazê-la rir.

Raj would have spoken up. She had thought that every day for fifteen years and had never once said it aloud. He had died eighteen months before the fire, of a heart that nobody had known was tired. If he had been alive that January morning, standing beside her on the pavement in his dressing gown, he would have smelled what she smelled, and he would have walked across the road to the man in the grey anorak and said something, in his calm, slightly too loud voice, and none of it would have happened.

Raj teria se manifestado. Ela pensara nisso todos os dias durante quinze anos e nunca dissera isso em voz alta uma única vez. Ele havia morrido dezoito meses antes do incêndio, de um coração que ninguém sabia que estava cansado. Se estivesse vivo naquela manhã de janeiro, parado ao lado dela na calçada em seu roupão, ele teria sentido o cheiro que ela sentiu, e teria atravessado a rua até o homem de anorak cinza e dito algo, em sua voz calma, um pouco alta demais, e nada daquilo teria acontecido.