Two Bakers

Michael told her at a quarter to three that night, standing at the old table with his sleeves pushed up and his hands in the first dough, as though it were something he had read in the paper. His father had spelled a word on a board. The word was tell, and he had pointed to the name of the town, and he had looked at Michael in a way that Michael remembered from the age of seven, when he had been caught feeding a whole tray of rolls to the ducks.

那天夜里两点四十五分，迈克尔卷着袖子，双手揉着第一团面团，站在那张旧桌子旁，像是在随口转述自己在报纸上读到的东西一样告诉了她。他的父亲在一块板上拼出了一个词。那个词是tell，他指着镇子的名字，看着迈克尔的眼神，让迈克尔想起了自己七岁那年，被当场抓到拿整整一盘小圆面包去喂鸭子时的情景。

“He wants the whole town to know,” Ana said slowly.

“他想让全镇人都知道。”安娜缓缓说道。

“He wants the whole town to know.” Michael pushed the heel of his hand into the dough, turned it, pushed again. He did not look up. “The man can’t ask for a glass of water without a laminated card, and he wants to stand up in front of Hollin Bridge and confess. Fifteen years he couldn’t say it with a perfectly good mouth, and now, when he can’t say anything, he decides.”

“他想让全镇人都知道。”迈克尔用手掌根部用力按进面团里，翻过来，再按下去。他没有抬起头。“那个人连要一杯水都得靠塑封卡片，如今却想站在Hollin Bridge全镇人面前认罪。整整十五年，他嘴巴完好无损的时候只字不提，偏偏现在什么都说不出来了，他才拿定主意。”

There was something in his voice that Ana had not heard there before. Not anger, exactly. Something closer to fear. She watched his hands. They were steady in the dough, as they always were when he baked, but when he lifted them to wipe his forehead she saw the faint tremor that Walter had seen, and she looked away before he noticed.

他的声音里带着某种安娜此前从未听过的东西。并不完全是愤怒，而更接近于恐惧。她看着他的双手。在面团里时，它们一如既往地沉稳，就像他平时烤面包时那样；但当他抬手擦额头时，她看到了沃尔特曾经看到过的微颤，她赶在他察觉之前移开了目光。

“And you don’t want them to know,” she said.

“而你不想让他们知道，”她说。

“I don’t want to be forgiven by a town that painted my boat.” He said it quickly, as though he had been holding the sentence in his mouth for days. Then he stopped kneading and stood with his floury hands on the table. “That isn’t fair. I know it isn’t. Most of them never painted anything. But I’ve spent fifteen years being the man who did it. I know how to be him. I don’t know how to be the other one.”

“我不想被一个给我的船涂鸦的镇子原谅。”他说得很快，仿佛这句话已经在嘴里憋了许多天。随后他停下揉面的动作，沾满面粉的双手撑在桌上，站在那里。“这不公平。我知道这不公平。他们大多数人从来没涂鸦过任何东西。但我做那个罪魁祸首已经做了十五年。我知道该怎么当那个人。我不知道该怎么当另一个人。”

Ana did not answer. There was nothing useful to say, and she had learned from both Bells that sometimes the most useful thing was to put the next tray in the oven. So she did. The radio was playing something with violins. Crumb, who had transferred his loyalty to the new night baker with a speed Ana found faintly insulting, lay across Michael’s feet and sighed.

安娜没有回答。说什么都无济于事，而且她从贝尔家那两父子身上学到了一点：有时候最有用的事就是把下一个烤盘放进烤箱。于是她照做了。收音机里正播放着某种带有小提琴声的乐曲。Crumb对新来的夜班面包师倒戈投诚的速度快得让安娜觉得隐隐受到了冒犯，此时正趴在迈克尔的脚边叹气。

It had been like this for a week now. Two bakers at one old table, working the hours Walter had worked for forty years, while Walter lay on the second floor of the hospital learning to lift his right leg off the mattress. On the first night Michael had stood in the kitchen door for a long time before he came in, as though the doorway were the edge of very cold water. Since then he had not hesitated once.

这种情况已经持续了一周。两位面包师守着一张旧桌子，干着沃尔特干了四十年的作息工时，而沃尔特则躺在医院二楼，学着把右腿从床垫上抬起来。第一天夜里，迈克尔在厨房门口伫立了良久才走进来，仿佛那道门槛是极冷的水边。自那以后，他再也没有犹豫过一次。