留下来的理由

圣诞夜,我的专栏登在了多伦多的报纸上。Dana 还是把它放在了头版,放在她给我留的位置,很小,在最下面,在一张暴风雪的照片下面。没有人会转发它。爸爸在店后面的旧打印机上把它打了出来。他站着读完,眼镜架在鼻子上。然后他把它折好,放进钱包里,放在妈妈的照片后面。他对这件事什么也没说。他不需要说。

On Christmas Eve my column was in the paper in Toronto. Dana had put it on the front page after all, in the space she had kept for me, small, at the bottom, under a photograph of a snowstorm. Nobody would share it. My father printed it out on the old printer in the back of the shop. He read it standing up, with his glasses on his nose. Then he folded it and put it in his wallet, behind the photograph of my mother. He didn’t say anything about it. He didn’t need to.

五点钟,孩子们的圣诞剧在教堂里开始了。我从没见过哪场耶稣诞生剧出过这么多错。马槽在摇。星星掉在了一个国王身上。一个牧羊人吐了。到了最后,要说那句大台词的天使站起来,却僵住了。于是她旁边的天使拉住她的手,一个根本没有台词的牧羊人跟她们一起说了出来:”不要害怕。”整个教堂的人又笑又哭。那个牧羊人是 Amara。

At five o’clock the children’s play began in the church. I had never seen a nativity play go so wrong. The stable shook. The star fell on one of the kings. A shepherd was sick. And at the end, the angel with the big line stood up and froze. So the angel next to her took her hand, and a shepherd who had no lines at all said it with them: “Do not be afraid.” The whole church laughed and cried at the same time. The shepherd was Amara.

演完以后,孩子们穿着演出服,踩着雪,穿过广场,走去医院。他们的父母跟着,Tom 神父也跟着,还有一位戴高帽子的主教。我走在最后面。Clara Novak 终于从医院得到了同意。我给他们打了三次电话帮忙,Tom 神父去问了主教,然后我们就到了这里。

After the play, the children walked across the square to the hospital in their costumes, through the snow. Their parents went with them, and Father Tom, and a bishop in a tall hat. I walked with them, at the back. Clara Novak had got her yes from the hospital after all. I had phoned them three times to help, and Father Tom had asked the bishop, and here we were.

病房在四楼,有八张床。靠窗的那张床上躺着一个高大的男人,毯子下面有一样硬硬的东西,让他的背保持挺直。孩子们走进来的时候,他看到他们,脸一下子变了。Amara 穿着牧羊人的衣服,头上顶着一条茶巾,跑到他身边。

The ward was on the fourth floor. There were eight beds. In the one by the window was a big man, with something hard under his blanket that held his back straight. His face, when he saw the children come in, changed completely. Amara ran to him in her shepherd’s costume, with a tea towel on her head.

孩子们给整个病房唱了《平安夜》,那是所有圣诞颂歌里最古老的一首。有些孩子唱得很好,大多数孩子唱得很大声。护士们站在门口。旁边床上的男人哭了,还说那是因为他感冒了。

The children sang “Silent Night”, the oldest of all the carols, to the whole ward. Some of them sang it well, and most of them sang it loudly. The nurses stood in the doorway. The man in the next bed cried, and said it was his cold.

歌唱完以后,Amara 到后面来找我。我不知道她怎么认得我。也许她在广场上见过我。她手里拿着一个奶油色的信封,被打开过很多次,已经变软了。

When the song was over, Amara came and found me at the back. I don’t know how she knew me. Maybe she had seen me on the square. She was holding a cream envelope, soft from being opened many times.

“圣尼古拉给我写信了,”她说。”他说圣诞节会来到我爸爸身边。你看。”她指着孩子们、护士们,还有笑着和一个国王说话的爸爸。”它来了。”

“Saint Nicholas wrote to me,” she said. “He said Christmas would come to my dad. Look.” She pointed at the children, the nurses, her father laughing with a king. “It came.”

“是啊,它来了,”我说。

“So it did,” I said.

“你觉得他真的是圣尼古拉吗?”她问。”那个写信的人?”

“Do you think he really is Saint Nicholas?” she asked. “The one who writes?”

我想起了 Edith 坐在她的圆桌旁,闭着眼睛,想了很久才回答。我想起了拿着笔的 Ben。我想起了不想知道的 Doyle 先生。

I thought about Edith at her round table, with her eyes closed, thinking for a long time before she answered. I thought about Ben with the pen. I thought about Mr Doyle, who didn’t want to know.

“我想,”我说,”不管是谁写的信,他都很认真地读了你的信。”

“I think,” I said, “that whoever writes them read your letter very carefully.”

她想了想。她看起来并不难过。然后她满意地点了点头,跑回了爸爸身边。

She thought about that. She didn’t seem upset. Then she nodded, satisfied, and ran back to her father.

十一点半,我在店外面见到了 Ben。他穿着他最好的外套,里面系了领带,头发用水梳平了。可是头发没有一直平着。我们一起穿过市场,走上广场。市场昨天重新开了,今晚是最后一晚。所有的小木屋里都亮着灯。爸爸和他的一位老朋友坐在广场中间铁篮子里的火旁边。Karim 正在跟一位我从没见过的女人跳舞,跳得很糟,跟着颂歌的音乐。他看起来比我这些年见过的任何时候都开心。我决定不问。

At half past eleven I met Ben outside the shop. He was in his good coat, with a tie under it, and he had his hair combed flat with water. It didn’t stay flat. We walked up the square together, through the market. It had reopened the day before, and tonight was its last night. The lights were on in all the huts. My father was sitting by the fire in an iron basket in the middle of the square, with an old friend of his. Karim was dancing very badly with a woman I had never met, to the carols. He looked happier than I had seen him in years. I decided not to ask.

我们在旋转木马旁边站了一会儿。然后教堂的钟声响了,弥撒要开始了。市场里的人开始沿着广场往教堂走。

We stood by the carousel for a minute. Then the church bells began to ring for mass. The people at the market started to move up the square towards the church.