No Words

Kata-kata itu sebenarnya masih ada di sana. Di situlah leluconnya, andai memang itu lelucon, padahal Walter Bell tidak pernah pandai melucu. Roti, oven, tepung, Mary, anak laki-laki. Ia bisa melihat semuanya, sebagaimana seseorang dapat melihat buku-buku roti di balik kaca pintu oven, mengembang, kuning keemasan, dan siap diangkat. Namun ketika ia mengulurkan tangan untuk meraihnya, tangannya hanya menggenggam udara kosong.

The words were all still there. That was the joke of it, if it was a joke, and Walter Bell had never been much good at jokes. Bread, oven, flour, Mary, son. He could see them, the way you can see loaves through the glass of an oven door, risen and golden and ready. But when he reached for them, his hand closed on air.

Bukan, itu bukan tangannya lagi. Tangannya sekarang telah berubah menjadi sesuatu yang lain sama sekali. Tangan kanannya terbaring di atas selimut bagaikan sebuah bungkusan pos yang tertinggal di sana karena kekeliruan orang lain, terasa berat dan seolah bukan miliknya lagi. Selama dua tahun tangan itu bergetar begitu hebat sampai-sampai ia tidak sanggup memotong mentega; kini tangan itu sama sekali tidak bergetar, padahal ia rela menyerahkan apa saja—toko roti itu, rumahnya, bahkan lima belas tahun terakhir hidupnya—hanya demi merasakan getaran itu kembali.

No, not his hand. His hand was something else now. His right hand lay on the blanket like a parcel somebody had left there by mistake, heavy and not quite his. For two years it had shaken so badly that he could not cut butter; now it did not shake at all, and he would have given anything, the bakery, the house, the last fifteen years, to feel it tremble again.

Waktu tidak berjalan semestinya di tempat ini. Ada jendela, dan di luar jendela itu terhampar tempat parkir mobil, dan di seberang tempat parkir itu berjejer perbukitan tempat Mary dulu senang berjalan-jalan pada hari Minggu sebelum kesibukan toko merampas seluruh hari Minggu mereka. Terkadang cahaya di jendela tampak putih, dan terkadang berwarna jingga temaram akibat lampu-lampu jalan, dan ia tidak selalu ingat bagaimana waktu bergulir dari satu keadaan ke keadaan lainnya.

Time did not behave properly in this place. There was the window, and beyond the window a car park, and beyond the car park the hills where Mary had liked to walk on Sundays before the shop took all their Sundays away. Sometimes the light in the window was white, and sometimes it was orange from the street lamps, and he could not always remember how it had got from one to the other.

Mary terkadang datang di bawah cahaya jingga itu. Tentu tidak sungguhan. Walter bukan orang gila yang kehilangan akal sehat, bahkan sekarang pun tidak. Namun Mary tampak duduk di kursi plastik itu dengan tangan bertumpu di pangkuannya, mengenakan mantel biru hari Minggu miliknya, persis seperti saat ia duduk di samping ranjang Walter ketika pergelangan kakinya patah akibat terjatuh dari tumpukan karung tepung; Mary menatapnya dengan raut wajah yang biasa ia pasang setiap kali Walter melakukan kebodohan yang sebenarnya tak pantas dimaafkan, tetapi pada akhirnya akan tetap diampuni.

Mary came, sometimes, in the orange light. Not really. He was not a fool, even now. But she sat in the plastic chair with her hands in her lap, in her blue Sunday coat, the way she had sat beside his bed the time he broke his ankle falling off the flour sacks, and she looked at him with that expression she had kept for when he had been stupid in a way that was not quite forgivable but would, eventually, be forgiven.

“Nah, Walter,” ucap Mary, atau begitulah kata-kata yang diucapkan Walter mewakilinya. “Nah. Coba lihat kalian berdua.”

Well, Walter, she said, or he said for her. Well. Look at the pair of you.

Sebab mereka berdua memang datang. Itu hal lain yang tak kalah nyata. Lelaki itu datang dan duduk di kursi itu berjam-jam lamanya—tubuhnya jangkung, rambutnya memutih, dan kurus ramping bagai sebatang galah, dengan sisa tepung menempel di lututnya dari toko tempat ia kini bekerja pada giliran malam—serta nyaris tidak berbicara sepatah kata pun, sifat yang memang merupakan bakat turun-temurun keluarga mereka. Lalu anak gadis itu datang sepulang sekolah dan duduk di sisi ranjang yang lain; terkadang ia menggenggam tangan Walter yang masih sehat dan terkadang tidak, dan Walter mengerti bahwa kedua sikap itu sama-sama sebuah jawaban.

Because they came, both of them. That was the other thing. The boy came and sat in that chair for hours, tall and grey and thin as a rake, with flour on his knees from the bakery where he now worked at night, and said very little, which was a family talent. And the girl came after school and sat on the other side, and sometimes she held his good hand and sometimes she did not, and he understood that both were answers.

Anak laki-lakinya itu. Usianya sudah empat puluh lima tahun. Walter terus-menerus melupakan kenyataan itu lalu mengingatnya kembali, dan setiap kali ia teringat, rasa pedih menyelinap masuk ke relung hatinya bagaikan embusan angin dingin di celah bawah pintu. Di dalam kepalanya, anak laki-lakinya masih berusia tiga puluh tahun, berdiri di jalanan di tengah kepulan asap dengan punggung menghadap ke toko, melontarkan kebohongan kepada segenap warga Bridge Street dengan suara lantang dan benderang. Namun di kursi itu, ia adalah pria berusia empat puluh lima tahun, janggutnya mulai ditumbuhi uban, dan tangannya—sebagaimana diperhatikan Walter—mulai sedikit bergetar.

The boy. He was forty-five. Walter kept forgetting that and then remembering it again, and every time it went through him like a draught under a door. In his head the boy was thirty, standing in the street in the smoke with his back to the shop, telling the whole of Bridge Street a lie in a clear loud voice. In the chair he was forty-five, and there was grey in his beard, and his hands, Walter noticed, had begun very slightly to shake.