真相

真相

What Really Happened

在“Second Chance”号里面，东西收拾了一半，屋里很冷。墙边放着一箱箱的书，小桌子被推到了炉子旁边。Michael用一根火柴和一些报纸点燃了炉子。火生起来了，船里慢慢温和起来，这几分钟里他们谁也没有说话。Ana注意到他在生火的时候手在发抖。

Inside, the Second Chance was half packed and very cold. Books were stacked in boxes along one wall; the little table had been pushed against the stove. Michael lit the stove with a match and some newspaper, and for a few minutes neither of them said anything while the fire caught and the boat slowly began to warm up. Ana noticed that his hands shook while he did it.

他泡了两大杯茶，在她对面坐了下来。他没有看她。他看着那扇小窗户，窗帘还是拉不严实，他也看着窗外漆黑的运河。他开口说话时，语调平淡而小心，好像把这些话练习过很多次，却从没大声说出来过一样。

He made two mugs of tea and sat down opposite her. He did not look at her. He looked at the small window, where the curtain still did not quite close, and at the dark canal beyond it. When he began to speak, his voice was flat and careful, as if he had practised the words many times but never said them aloud.

“你得明白，我母亲死后他是什么样子的，”他说，“人们以为悲伤就是哭泣。但像我父亲这样的男人不是那样。他只是变得很沉默。他不再在厨房里唱歌了。他周五也不去酒吧了。他工作，睡觉，在这两件事之间，他就坐在那张旧桌子旁，盯着墙壁看。”

“You have to understand what he was like after my mother died,” he said. “People think grief is crying. It isn’t, not with men like my father. He just went quiet. He stopped singing in the kitchen. He stopped going to the pub on Fridays. He worked, and he slept, and in between he sat at that old table and stared at the wall.”

“葬礼后大约一年，有一天早上我很早下楼，在面粉柜里发现了一瓶威士忌。藏在麻袋后面，谁也不会往那里看的地方。我什么也没说。我以为只是在难熬的夜晚喝一点。”他把桌上的杯子慢慢转了一圈，动作和他父亲一模一样。“到了Jess出生的时候，面粉后面每周都会多出一瓶新酒。”

“About a year after the funeral, I came down early one morning and found a bottle of whisky in the flour cupboard. Behind the sacks, where nobody would look. I didn’t say anything. I thought it was just for the bad nights.” He turned his mug slowly round on the table, exactly the way his father did. “By the time Jess was born, there was a new bottle behind the flour every week.”

“他从不在任何人面前喝酒。从不在店里喝，也从不在白天喝。他总是在夜里独自一人喝，坐在厨房的桌旁，在午夜到三点之间，在做面包之前喝。Karen知道一点。我觉得Priya猜到了。但谁也没说一句话。在小镇上，大家都是这样。你只管买你的面包，装作没看见。”

“He never drank in front of anyone. Never in the shop, never in the day. He drank alone, at night, at the kitchen table, between midnight and three, before he started the bread. Karen knew a little. Priya, I think, guessed. Nobody said a word. In a small town, you don’t. You just buy your bread and look the other way.”

Ana想到了储藏室，想到了左边的面粉袋，以及藏在后面的烧焦的招牌。她想到了那串钥匙，还有里面的面粉柜钥匙。她没有打断他。

Ana thought of the store room, the bags of flour on the left, the burnt sign hidden behind them. She thought of the ring of keys, and the key for the flour cupboard among them. She did not interrupt.

“火灾发生的那晚是在一月份。天气非常冷。他在一点左右打开了烤箱，想预热烤箱来烤第一批面包。他平时总是这样。然后他就和往常一样，拿着酒瓶坐在桌旁。后来不知什么时候，他把头埋在手臂上睡着了。”

“The night of the fire was in January. It was very cold. He had turned the oven on at about one, to heat it up for the first bread. He always did that. Then he sat down at the table with his bottle, as usual. And at some point he fell asleep with his head on his arms.”

“烤箱门上挂着一块布。是一块厚棉布，就像你拿烤盘用的那种。它肯定是滑落到了滚烫的金属上。烤箱旁边的旧木架上，放着我们的纸袋。好几百个，叠好码在那里。”他撇了撇嘴。“纸袋啊。偏偏是这种最容易烧着的东西。”

“There was a cloth hanging on the oven door. A thick cotton one, like the one you use for the trays. It must have slipped onto the hot metal. Next to the oven, on the old wooden shelves, we kept the paper bags. Hundreds of them, folded and stacked.” His mouth twisted. “Paper bags. Of all the things to burn.”

“我在两点四十醒来。我的房间就在厨房正上方，烟正从地板缝里冒出来。我穿着袜子跑下楼。厨房里全是浓浓的黑烟，烤箱旁边的架子已经烧起来了。而我父亲还在桌旁。睡着了。酒瓶就在他手边。”

“I woke up at twenty to three. My room was right above the kitchen, and there was smoke coming up through the floorboards. I ran downstairs in my socks. The kitchen was full of smoke, black and thick, and the shelves by the oven were burning. And my father was still at the table. Asleep. With the bottle next to his hand.”

Michael停了下来。有一阵子，船里唯一的声音就是炉子里微弱的噼啪声。Ana一动不动。她现在明白了，为什么他每次敲门都会看到浓烟。

Michael stopped. For a moment the only sound in the boat was the small crackle of the stove. Ana did not move. She understood now why he could not knock on a door without seeing smoke.

“我叫不醒他，”Michael继续说，“我喊他，摇他，拍他的脸。全没用。于是我把双臂伸到他的腋下，拖着他走。他那时候比现在壮得多。我把他拖过地面，拖出后门，把他留在了台阶上，他在寒冷中咳嗽着。后门的台阶，Ana。就是那个台阶。”

“I couldn’t wake him,” Michael went on. “I shouted, I shook him, I hit his face. Nothing. So I got my arms under his and dragged him. He was a much bigger man then. I dragged him across the floor and out of the back door and left him on the step, coughing, in the cold. The back step, Ana. The same step.”

“然后我又跑回去，上楼去找Karen和Jess。Karen已经醒了，一直在尖叫。我把Jess从婴儿床上抱起来，她还睡着，身上裹着毯子。等我再下来的时候，烟更大了。我父亲就站在楼梯脚下。他又进来了。冷风吹醒了他，他一下子完全清醒了。”

“Then I ran back in and up the stairs for Karen and Jess. Karen was already awake and screaming. I took Jess out of her cot, still asleep, wrapped in a blanket. When I came back down, the smoke was worse. And there was my father at the bottom of the stairs. He had come back in. The cold had woken him up, and he was suddenly completely sober.”

“我把Jess交给了他。我说：爸，带她从前门出去，后门着火了。他照做了。他抱着她穿过店铺走到了Bridge Street上，走到了全镇人的面前。因为那时候Priya已经给消防队打了电话，半条街的人都穿着睡袍站在外面。大家记住的就是那个画面：Walter Bell抱着孙女走出了火海。”

“I gave Jess to him. I said: take her out the front, Dad, the back’s on fire. And he did. He carried her out through the shop into Bridge Street, into the arms of the whole town, because by then Priya had phoned the fire service and half the street was outside in their dressing gowns. That’s the picture everyone remembers. Walter Bell carrying his granddaughter out of the fire.”