Cat Merah

Sesaat tak seorang pun menjawab. Ana berdiri di balik konter sambil memegang kantong kertas, lalu merasakan wajahnya memanas. Walter-lah yang berbicara dari pintu dapur, dengan suara datar dan tenang yang biasa ia pakai untuk pelanggan yang mengeluhkan harga roti.

For a moment nobody answered. Ana stood behind the counter with a paper bag in her hand and felt her face go hot. It was Walter who spoke, from the kitchen doorway, in the flat, steady voice he used for customers who complained about the price of bread.

“Dia bekerja,” katanya. “Aku memintanya kembali. Tadi malam ada empat puluh roti gulung, Jess, dan separuhnya tampak seperti habis diduduki. Aku butuh pembuat roti. Dia yang terbaik yang pernah kumiliki.”

“She’s working,” he said. “I asked her to come back. We had forty rolls last night, Jess, and half of them looked like they had been sat on. I need a baker. She’s the best one I’ve had.”

Jess menatapnya seolah ia mulai berbicara bahasa asing. “Empat hari lalu Kakek mengusirnya karena membohongi kita. Sekarang dia kembali di balik konter membawa kunci Kakek. Ada yang kulewatkan?” Ia menunggu. Tak seorang pun bersuara. Walter menatap lantai, dan Ana paham pria itu belum menemukan satu kata pun yang telah ia janjikan.

Jess looked at him as if he had started speaking a foreign language. “Four days ago you threw her out for lying to us. Now she’s back behind the counter with your keys. Did I miss something?” She waited. Nobody said anything. Walter looked at the floor, and Ana understood that he had not yet found a single one of the words he had promised to find.

“Baguslah,” kata Jess. “Terserah. Ini toko roti Kakek.” Ia mengambil sebuah roti gulung dari keranjang di atas konter tanpa membayar, seperti biasa, lalu berjalan keluar menuju Bridge Street. Ia tidak menatap Ana sama sekali. Lonceng di atas pintu berdenting sangat keras di belakangnya, memecah keheningan.

“Fine,” Jess said. “Whatever. It’s your bakery.” She took a roll from the basket on the counter without paying, the way she always did, and walked out into Bridge Street. She did not look at Ana once. The bell over the door rang behind her, very loudly, in the silence.

Selama beberapa hari berikutnya, Bell’s Bakery perlahan kembali hidup. Ana tidur di kasur lipat Daniel pada sore hari dan berjalan ke Bridge Street pada pukul setengah tiga dini hari, melintasi kota yang sepi. Rak-rak sudah penuh lagi sebelum pukul lima kurang sepuluh. Daniel mendapatkan roti keju miliknya. Putri Nyonya Ward menerima kue ulang tahunnya, terlambat tiga hari dan dua kali lebih besar, dengan permintaan maaf tertulis dari cokelat.

Over the next few days, Bell’s Bakery slowly came back to life. Ana slept on Daniel’s sofa bed in the afternoons and walked to Bridge Street at half past two in the morning, through the empty town. The shelves were full again by ten to five. Daniel got his cheese rolls. Mrs Ward’s daughter got her birthday cake, three days late and twice as big, with an apology written on it in chocolate.

Walter duduk di kursinya dekat meja dan memberi petunjuk, lalu Ana mengikutinya. Mereka bersikap sopan dan berhati-hati satu sama lain. Setiap pagi, ketika toko tutup pukul satu, Ana menatap Walter dan melihat pertanyaan yang sama di wajahnya. Namun setiap pagi Walter memalingkan muka, naik ke lantai atas, dan tidak memberi tahu Jess.

Walter sat in his chair by the table and gave instructions, and Ana followed them. They were polite and careful with each other. Every morning, when the shop closed at one, she looked at him and saw the same question in his face. And every morning he looked away, and went upstairs, and did not tell Jess.

Pada Selasa malam, ketika turun lebih awal, Ana mendapatinya di meja dapur dengan buku catatan dan pulpen. Halaman teratas penuh dengan tulisan tangannya yang besar dan bergetar, dicoret baris demi baris. ‘Jess tersayang’, bunyinya di awal, lalu, ‘Seharusnya kakek’, lalu, ‘Malam kejadian’, dan setelah itu kosong. Di sekitar kursinya di lantai tergeletak selusin kertas kusut yang diremas. Saat melihat Ana, Walter merobek halaman itu, melipatnya sampai sangat kecil, lalu memasukkannya ke saku celemek.

On Tuesday night, coming down early, Ana found him at the kitchen table with a pad of paper and a pen. The top page was covered in his big, shaking handwriting, crossed out line after line. Dear Jess, it began, and then, I should have, and then, The night of the, and then nothing. Around his chair on the floor lay a dozen crumpled balls of paper. When he saw her, he tore off the page, folded it very small and put it in his apron pocket.

“Lebih mudah dengan roti,” katanya tanpa menatap Ana. “Dengan roti, kamu tahu kapan sudah matang. Kamu ketuk bagian bawahnya dan bunyinya terdengar berongga.” Ia berdiri perlahan dan pergi mencuci tangan. Ana memungut kertas-kertas kusut itu dan membuangnya ke tempat sampah tanpa membacanya. Beberapa hal, pikirnya, berhak disalahi seseorang tanpa dilihat orang lain.

“It’s easier with bread,” he said, without looking at her. “With bread you know when it’s finished. You knock on the bottom and it sounds hollow.” He stood up slowly and went to wash his hands. Ana picked up the crumpled papers and threw them in the bin without reading them. Some things, she thought, a person should be allowed to get wrong in private.

Pada hari Jumat, Helen Fenwick menelepon Walter untuk mengabarkan bahwa penandatanganan diundur ke Jumat berikutnya lagi, pada jam yang sama, di kantor yang sama di Leeds. Tuan Michael Bell meminta waktu seminggu untuk mempertimbangkan sikapnya, kata Helen, dan agar adil bagi semua orang, ia senang memberinya waktu dua minggu. Helen terdengar, lapor Walter kemudian, seperti wanita yang tidak pernah merasa susah seumur hidupnya.

On Friday, Helen Fenwick phoned Walter to say that the signing had been moved to the Friday after next, at the same time, at the same office in Leeds. Mr Michael Bell had asked for a week to consider his position, she said, and to be fair to everyone she was happy to give him two. She sounded, Walter reported afterwards, like a woman who had never been unhappy about anything in her life.