两位面包师

两位面包师

Two Bakers

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。

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.

“他想让全镇人都知道。”安娜缓缓说道。

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

“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。”

“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。

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.

“而你不想让他们知道，”她说。

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

“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。”

“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.”

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。

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.

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。

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.

他们合作得很好，比安娜预想的要好，而且她觉得，也比迈克尔预想的要好。他比她动作更快，也精准得多，身上还有一种她只能羡慕的面包师直觉：他光凭气味就能知道面团何时发好，光凭烤箱的声音就能听出温度是否过高。但他也很生疏了，某些生疏之处连他自己都感到惊讶，而且他也并不清高，会主动问她东西放在哪里，或者她为什么那样操作。

They worked well together, better than Ana had expected and, she suspected, better than Michael had expected either. He was faster than she was and far more precise, and he had a baker’s instinct she could only envy: he could tell from the smell when a dough was ready, from the sound of the oven when it was too hot. But he was rusty, too, in ways that surprised him, and he was not too proud to ask her where things were, or why she did them the way she did.

每天早晨四点五十分，都会面临铺面的问题。安娜原以为会由自己去接待顾客，而迈克尔待在后堂，避开视线，就像他这十五年来一直避开视线那样。第二天早晨，就在丹尼尔的公交车响起钟声时，迈克尔直接解下围裙，洗了手，穿过那扇门走进了铺子里。她没有试图拦他。

At ten to five, every morning, there was the question of the shop. Ana had assumed that she would serve the customers while Michael stayed in the back, out of sight, the way he had stayed out of sight for fifteen years. On the second morning, he had simply taken off his apron, washed his hands, and walked through the door into the shop as the bell rang for Daniel’s bus. She had not tried to stop him.

镇上的反应，用安娜最近刚学到而且很喜欢的一个词来形容，那就是mixed。丹尼尔自然是隔着柜台同他握了手，要了他的奶酪小圆面包，就好像天底下没有任何异样一样。夜班公交车上下来的护士定定地看了迈克尔好一会儿，然后买了两条面包而不是一条。住在九号的那对年轻夫妇尴尬地笑了笑，说了声早上好。

The town’s response had been, in a word Ana had recently learned and liked very much, mixed. Daniel, of course, had shaken his hand across the counter and asked for his cheese rolls as if nothing in the world were unusual. The nurse from the night bus had looked at Michael for a long moment, then bought two loaves instead of one. The young couple from number nine had smiled awkwardly and said good morning.

其他人的态度就没那么宽厚了。第三天早晨，在集市广场拐角开五金店的男人走进来，看清是谁站在柜台后，一句话没说便径直退了出去，留下一串摇晃作响的门铃声。第四天，一位安娜不认识的年长妇人扯着嗓子大声质问，声音足以让整队人都听见，问从一个连烤箱都忘了关的男人手里买面包是否安全。

Others were less generous. On the third morning, the man who owned the hardware shop on the corner of the market square had come in, seen who was behind the counter, and walked straight out again without a word, leaving the bell jangling. On the fourth, an elderly woman Ana did not know had asked, loudly enough for the whole queue to hear, whether it was safe to buy bread from a man who forgot to turn off ovens.

迈克尔替她包好面包，收下她的现金，找了分毫不差的零钱，并祝她度过愉快的一天，语气平静得让站在他身后门口的安娜都感觉自己的双手攥紧了。妇人离开后，他双手平放在柜台上，静静地站了一会儿。随后他接待了下一位顾客。安娜当时就觉得，而且此刻依旧这么觉得，那是她见过他做出的最具沃尔特风骨的举动，并且她这话并不完全是夸奖。

Michael had wrapped her loaf, taken her money, given her the correct change and wished her a good day, in a voice so level that Ana, in the doorway behind him, had felt her own hands clench. When the woman had gone, he had stood quite still for a moment with his palms flat on the counter. Then he had served the next customer. Ana had thought then, and thought again now, that it was the most Walter-like thing she had ever seen him do, and she had not meant it entirely as a compliment.