The Voice of Lower Village

Hoarse

嗄れ声

On the morning of the final, Thinley Wangdi woke up and no longer had a voice.

決勝の朝、ティンレイ・ワンディが目を覚ますと、すっかり声が出なくなっていた。

He did not notice at once. He lay under the woollen blanket, listening to the roosters of Lower Village contradict one another, and thought what he had thought for thirty-one years on the last day of the tournament: today. Then he cleared his throat to try out the first verse of the day, and what came out of his chest was a sound like someone pushing a door across gravel.

すぐには気づかなかった。羊毛の毛布に包まれながら、ウンテルドルフの雄鶏たちが互いに競い合うように鳴くのを聞き、この三十一年間、大会の最終日を迎えるたびに思ってきたことを考えていた。今日こそ、と。それから、その日最初の歌を試そうと咳払いをすると、胸の奥から、砂利の上で扉を引きずるような音がした。

He tried again, louder. Only air came out, dry and warm, and a scratching that pulled all the way up into his ears. For three days, in the quarter-final and the semi-final, he had shouted his mocking verses across the field, a hundred and forty metres, against the wind and against the cowbells, and in October the nights in the valley were already cold. That was the bill. He was sixty-three, a retired postman, and the only thing Lower Village had ever needed from him was precisely this organ.

もう一度、もっと大きく試してみた。出てきたのは、乾いた温かい空気と、耳の奥まで響くかすれ声だけだった。準々決勝と準決勝の三日間、彼は百四十メートル先の野原の向こうへ、風やカウベルの音に抗いながら野次歌を叫び続けていたし、十月の谷の夜はすでに冷え込んでいた。そのツケが回ってきたのだ。彼は六十三歳の元郵便配達員で、ウンテルドルフが彼に求めてきた唯一のものは、まさにこの喉だけだった。

He sat up, took the little slate from the shelf above the bed, on which the shopping list usually stood, and wrote: NOT TODAY. Then he looked at the words and wiped them off with his sleeve. Dechen had written the best verses, back then, at the kitchen table, and he had only shouted them. Since she had died four years ago he wrote them himself, and they had not got worse, but they came out of a head in which it was quieter.

彼は身を起こし、いつもなら買い出しの品を書き留めておく枕元の棚から小さな石板を取り、こう書いた。「今日は無理だ」。そしてその文字を見つめ、袖で擦って消した。かつて台所の食卓で最高の歌を詠んでいたのはデチェンで、彼はただそれを叫んでいただけだった。四年前に彼女が亡くなってからは自分で作るようになったが、腕が落ちたわけではないものの、それらはより静まり返った頭の中から生まれてくるのだった。

“Grandfather?” Choden stood in the doorway, nineteen years old, in the grey jacket of the telephone company that was paying for the final this year, a lanyard around her neck saying EVENT TEAM. In her semester break she lugged cables and loudspeakers for the company, and she had a gift for walking into any room as if she had been expected. “You look as if you had received a letter addressed to yourself.”

「おじいちゃん？」戸口に立っていたのは、十九歳のチョデンだった。今年の決勝のスポンサーである電話会社の灰色のジャケットを着て、首には「運営チーム」と書かれたストラップを下げている。大学の休み中、彼女はその会社でケーブルや拡声器を運ぶ仕事をしており、どんな部屋に入るときも、まるで自分が待たれていたかのように現れる特技があった。「自分宛ての手紙でも受け取ったような顔をしているわよ」

He pointed to his throat and shook his head.

彼は自分の喉を指差し、首を横に振った。

“No,” she said. “No, no, no. Today?”

「嘘でしょう」と彼女は言った。「嘘、嘘、嘘。今日なのに？」

He nodded.

彼は頷いた。

“Say something.”

「何か言ってみて」

He opened his mouth. The door on the gravel came out, and Choden pressed her lips together so as not to laugh, and laughed all the same, and then she stopped, because she saw his face.

彼が口を開くと、砂利の上の扉のような音が出てきた。チョデンは笑うまいと唇を強く結んだが、それでも吹き出してしまい、それから彼の顔を見て笑うのをやめた。