凌晨三点

凌晨三点

Three in the Morning

过了很久，门内没有任何动静。Ana举着手，在寒风中站在台阶上。她心想，也许Walter没听见，或者听见了却决定不理会。这时，门栓沉重地滑开了，门打开了几厘米。温热的空气和面粉的气味飘入了夜色中。

For a long time nothing happened. Ana stood on the step in the cold with her hand still raised, and she thought that perhaps Walter had not heard, or had heard and decided to ignore it. Then the bolt slid back with a heavy sound, and the door opened a few centimetres. Warm air and the smell of flour came out into the night.

Walter从门缝里往外看。他系着白围裙，手上和衬衫前襟都沾着面粉。他的脸色发灰，看起来比一周前苍老了许多。当他看清来人是谁时，脸上的表情立刻收紧了，就像店铺拉下了卷帘门一样。

Walter looked out through the gap. He was in his white apron, with flour on his hands and on the front of his shirt. His face was grey and older than it had been a week ago. When he saw who it was, something closed in it at once, like a shop shutter coming down.

“我叫你走，”他说，“我是认真的。回你睡觉的地方去吧。”

“I told you to go,” he said. “I meant it. Go back to wherever you’re sleeping.”

“我知道火灾的事了，Walter。”

“I know about the fire, Walter.”

她没有预先计划该怎么说。她沿着河走了五个小时，这期间她没找到比最直白的话更好的方式。于是她放轻声音，又说了一遍：“我知道当年究竟发生了什么。Michael今晚都告诉我了。全部的事情。面粉后面的瓶子，烤箱门上的布，还有台阶。”

She had not planned how to say it. She had walked the river for five hours, and in all that time she had not found a better way than the simplest one. So she said it again, more quietly. “I know what really happened. Michael told me tonight. All of it. The bottle behind the flour. The cloth on the oven door. The step.”

Walter什么也没说，也没有关门。他就那样站在那里，一只沾满面粉的手扶着门框。Ana看着他脸上最后一丝血色渐渐褪去。接着，门缓缓地全打开了。他走出门来到台阶上，坐在了牛皮纸袋旁边，仿佛双腿已经替他做出了决定。

Walter did not say anything. He did not shut the door, either. He simply stood there, with one floury hand on the frame, and Ana watched his face lose the last of its colour. Then, very slowly, the door opened all the way, and he came out onto the step and sat down on it, next to the brown paper bag, as if his legs had decided for him.

Ana犹豫了一下，随后挨着他坐了下来。一个老人和一个年轻女子，中间放着那袋面包，就这样并排坐在黑暗中。他们身后，Crumb走到开着的门边，长长地叹了一口气躺了下来，就像Michael坐在那里的第一个晚上它做的那样。

Ana hesitated. Then she sat down next to him. They sat side by side in the dark, an old man and a young woman, with the bag of bread between them. Behind them, Crumb came to the open door and lay down across it with a long sigh, as he had done the first night Michael sat there.

“我就是在这里醒来的，”Walter终于开口了，声音很轻也很生硬，“就在这个台阶上。我不知道自己在哪里。天气太冷了，冻得我的脸很疼。我能听见里面有人在喊，头顶上方还冒出了烟。我以为自己在做梦。然后我听见楼上Jess在哭。”

“I woke up here,” Walter said at last. His voice was very quiet and rough. “On this step. I didn’t know where I was. It was so cold that my face hurt, and I could hear somebody shouting inside, and there was smoke coming out over my head. I thought I was dreaming. Then I heard Jess crying, upstairs.”

“我又进去了。我不知道自己是怎么进去的。浓烟弥漫，我什么都看不清。Michael抱着她站在楼梯上，身上裹着毯子。他把孩子塞进我的怀里，说：‘爸，把她带到前门去。’于是我就照做了。”他低头看着自己的双手，那双手此刻正剧烈地颤抖着。“当我抱着她来到街上时，所有人都围在那里，大家都以为是我救了她。”

“I went back in. I don’t know how. I couldn’t see anything for the smoke. And there was Michael on the stairs with her in his arms, wrapped in a blanket, and he pushed her into mine and said, take her out the front, Dad. So I did.” He looked down at his hands, which were shaking badly now. “And when I came out into the street with her, everyone was there, and they all thought I had saved her.”

“Priya把这事告诉我了，”Ana说，“她说你是第一个出来的，怀里抱着Jess。”

“Priya told me that,” Ana said. “She said you came out first, carrying Jess.”

“十五年来，他们一直在讲这个故事。Bridge Street的大英雄Walter Bell。”他笑了一声，那笑声听上去凄凉极了。“我当时喝得烂醉，儿子像拖一袋面粉一样把我从自己的厨房里拖出来。第二天早上，当保险公司的人来问是谁的责任时，我坐在店里看着地板，任由我的孩子揽下了所有罪责。”

“Fifteen years they’ve been telling that story. Walter Bell, the hero of Bridge Street.” He laughed, and it was a terrible sound. “I was so drunk that my son had to drag me out of my own kitchen like a sack of flour. And the next morning, when the man from the insurance asked who was responsible, I sat in that shop and looked at the floor and let my boy say it was him.”

他沉默了片刻。再次开口时，他没有看着Ana，而是凝视着漆黑的河边小道，正如这十五年来他每个夜晚凝望的那样。

He was silent for a while. When he spoke again, he was not looking at Ana but at the dark river path, as he had looked at it every night for fifteen years.

“我当时张开口了，”他说，“就在店里，在Michael走出去告诉整条街的时候。我张开嘴想说：不，是我干的。我向你发誓我真的想说了。可我一个字都说不出来。我感到羞愧，又很害怕，我满脑子都是保险、银行还有Jess。我像块石头一样坐在那里。此后的每一小时，开口都变得越来越难。到了下午，就彻底说不出口了。等到第二天，他就离开了。”

“I opened my mouth,” he said. “In the shop, when Michael went outside and told the whole street. I opened my mouth to say: no, it was me. I swear to you I did. And nothing came out. Not one word. I was ashamed, and I was frightened, and I thought about the insurance and the bank and Jess, and I sat there like a stone. And every hour after that, it got harder to say. By the afternoon it was impossible. By the next day, he had gone.”