一个行李箱

一个行李箱

One Suitcase

我叫 Leila Yousef。那年十二月我三十岁,住在多伦多,回到 St Nicholas Square 只有一个原因。我想知道,小时候是谁回了我写给圣尼古拉的信。

My name is Leila Yousef. I was thirty that December, I lived in Toronto, and I came home to St Nicholas Square for one reason only. I wanted to find out who had answered my letters to Saint Nicholas when I was a child.

这个故事我从结尾讲起,从圣诞节那天讲起。所以我现在知道了当时不知道的事。十二月三日,星期四,我坐机场大巴回来的时候,只知道三件事。我有一个行李箱。我有三个星期。我还有一个要找的故事。

I am telling this from the end, from Christmas Day. So I know now what I didn’t know then. On the bus from the airport, on Thursday the third of December, I knew only three things. I had one suitcase. I had three weeks. And I had a story to find.

机场大巴到市中心的时候,正在下雪。我换乘24路,它开到广场,就停在那里,因为广场是终点站。司机是一位年轻的女士,胸牌上是葡萄牙语的名字,她从第一站一直说到最后一站。她说雪,说堵车,说她妈妈做的菜。她问我从哪里来。

It was snowing when the airport bus reached the city centre. I changed to the 24, which goes to the square and stops there, because the square is the end of the line. The driver was a young woman with a Portuguese name on her badge, and she talked from the first stop to the last. She talked about the snow, the traffic and her mother’s cooking. She asked me where I had come from.

“多伦多。”我说。

“Toronto,” I said.

“多伦多!您还回这里来?十二月?”她笑了。”是为了一个男人吗?”

“Toronto! And you came back here? In December?” She laughed. “Is it for a man?”

“是为了工作。”我说。

“It’s for work,” I said.

“大家都这么说。”她说,又笑了起来。

“That’s what they all say,” she said, and she laughed again.

我看着窗外。五年了,这座城市变化不大。还是那些灰色的楼,还是那座桥,还是那家卖婚纱的店,好像从来没有客人。然后大巴转进老街,房子越来越高,越来越旧,我看见了教堂。

I looked out of the window. The city had not changed much in five years. The same grey buildings, the same bridge, the same shop that sold wedding dresses and never seemed to have any customers. Then the bus turned into the old streets, and the houses grew taller and older, and I saw the church.

St Nicholas 教堂在广场的最上面,它的塔楼是你第一眼看到的东西。广场其实不是方的。它是一块长长的空地,三面是高高的老房子,房子下面是商店:药店、咖啡馆、自助洗衣店,还有拐角上我爸爸的店。雪中,店的窗户亮着黄色的灯。广场中间有一些木屋,还没有盖好,几个男人站在梯子上,在木屋之间挂灯。圣诞市场,我想。这是新的。

St Nicholas church stands at the top of the square, and its tower is the first thing you see. The square is not really square. It is a long space with tall old houses on three sides and shops at the bottom of them: a chemist’s, a café, a launderette, and on the corner, my father’s shop. Its windows were bright yellow in the snow. There were wooden huts in the middle of the square, half built, and men on ladders hanging lights between them. A Christmas market, I thought. That was new.

“终点站到了,”司机说,”St Nicholas Square。祝您工作顺利。”

“Last stop,” said the driver. “St Nicholas Square. Good luck with your work.”

“谢谢您。”我说,我比她知道的还要真心。

“Thank you,” I said, and I meant it more than she knew.

继续讲之前,我要先说说我的家人,因为你们会见到他们。我妈妈 Rania 十年前去世了,是春天,那时我二十岁。我爸爸 Hamid 在拐角开那家夜里也营业的小店已经二十五年了。店开到半夜十二点,什么都卖:面包、牛奶、报纸、电池,还有各种生日卡和哀悼卡。我哥哥 Karim 比我大五岁,在伦敦当律师。我去多伦多的前一天晚上,我和爸爸吵了一架。我们不谈这件事。

I should say something about my family before I go on, because you will meet them. My mother, Rania, died ten years ago, in the spring, when I was twenty. My father, Hamid, has run the late shop on the corner for twenty-five years. It is open until midnight and sells everything: bread, milk, newspapers, batteries, cards for every birthday and every death. My brother, Karim, is five years older than me and is a lawyer in London. My father and I had a fight the night before I left for Toronto. We don’t talk about it.

我也要说说多伦多。我在那里的一家报社当记者。我努力工作了五年,我做得很好。可是十月的时候,我们的主编 Dana Morrow 把大家叫到会议室。她说报社在亏钱。一月要裁员。裁员要看数字:哪些记者的文章有人读,哪些没有人读。

I should say something about Toronto, too. I was a journalist on a newspaper there. I had worked hard for five years and I was good at my job. But in October my editor, Dana Morrow, had called us all into a meeting room. The paper was losing money, she said. There would be cuts in January. The cuts would be made on numbers: which reporters’ stories people read, and which they didn’t.