Over the Step

Michael Bell had spent fifteen years making sure that nobody in a room ever looked at him for long, and now two hundred people had stood up and clapped at him, and he did not know where to put his hands. He had put them over his face, in the end, because it was the only place he could think of. When he took them away, the hall was sitting down again, and the small woman with the half-moon glasses was asking the committee who was in favour.

マイケル・ベルは十五年ものあいだ、同じ部屋にいる誰にも長く見つめられないよう努めて過ごしてきた。それなのに今、二百人もの人々が立ち上がって自分に拍手を送っており、どこに手を置けばよいのか分からなかった。結局、思いついた唯一の場所である顔を覆った。手を離すと、会場は再び着席しつつあり、ハーフムーン眼鏡をかけた小柄な女性が、賛成の方は挙手を、と委員会に問いかけているところだった。

One hand went up on the stage. It belonged to a heavy man at the end of the table whose name card said Cllr R. Booth and who looked, Michael thought, like someone voting for his own peace and quiet rather than for flats. It went up slowly, and then, as the man seemed to become aware of two hundred pairs of eyes, it came down again halfway and stayed there, uncertain, like a bird that could not decide where to land.

壇上で一つの手が上がった。テーブルの端に座る恰幅のいい男性のもので、名札にはＲ・ブース議員とあり、マイケルには彼が集合住宅のためというより、自身の平穏のために票を投じているように見えた。その手はゆっくりと上がったが、二百対の視線に気づいたのか途中で止まり、どこに降り立つべきか決めかねている鳥のように、あやふやなまま宙にとどまった。

“Councillor Booth, are you in favour or not?” said Councillor Hale.

「ブース議員、賛成ですか、反対ですか」とヘイル議員が言った。

“In favour,” said Councillor Booth, faintly, and put his hand all the way up, and did not look at the room.

「賛成だ」とブース議員はかすれ声で言い、手を真っ直ぐに上まで上げ、決して会場を見ようとはしなかった。

“One in favour. Those against?”

「賛成一票。反対の方は？」

Four hands. Councillor Hale’s among them, raised briskly, without ceremony, as though she were signalling for a bus. Michael watched them go up and felt nothing at all for a moment, the way you feel nothing in the first second after you have cut yourself with a bread knife, before the blood comes.

四つの手が上がった。その中にはヘイル議員の手もあり、まるでバスに合図を送るかのように、格式ばらずきびきびと掲げられた。マイケルはそれらが上がるのを眺めながら、パン切り包丁で指を切った直後の一瞬、まだ血がにじみ出てこないあの瞬間の虚無のように、しばしのあいだ何も感じなかった。

“The application as submitted is refused,” said Councillor Hale, and brought the gavel down. The sound it made was not loud at all, a small wooden knock on green cloth, like somebody knocking on a door at three in the morning who does not want to wake the house.

「提出された申請は却下されました」とヘイル議員が告げ、木槌を打ち下ろした。その音は少しも大きくなく、緑の布の上で小さくことりと鳴っただけで、夜中の三時に家の者を起こすまいと誰かが戸を叩く音のようだった。

Then the hall went up like a fire. That was what he thought, and he hated that it was what he thought. But it was true: a roar of noise that seemed to come from everywhere at once, people standing, hugging, the old woman with the stick waving it in the air, Priya with her face in Ana’s shoulder, Daniel shouting something nobody could hear. In the front row, Jess had not moved. She was sitting quite still with her portfolio on her knees, and she was looking back down the hall, over all of them, at him.

その瞬間、会場は火がついたように沸き立った。彼はそう思い、そんな比喩を抱いた自分に嫌気が差した。だが、それは紛れもない事実だった。あらゆる場所から一斉に湧き起こったかのような轟音、立ち上がり抱き合う人々、杖を宙に振り回す老婦人、アナの肩に顔を埋めるプリヤ、誰の耳にも届かない声で何かを叫ぶダニエル。最前列では、ジェスだけが身じろぎもせずにいた。膝の上に作品集を乗せたまま静かに座り、会場の全員を越えて、はるか後ろの彼を見つめ返していた。

In the wheelchair in front of him, his father had begun to shake. Not the old tremor; something deeper, from the chest. Michael bent down to see if he was ill, and found that he was laughing, silently, on the one side of his face that still moved, with tears running down into his collar. Walter reached up with his good hand and took hold of his son’s sleeve, and held it, and did not let go.

目の前の車椅子で、父親の体が震え始めていた。いつもの手の震えではない。胸の奥から湧き上がる、もっと深い震えだった。マイケルは発作でも起きたのかと屈みこみ、彼が笑っているのだと気づいた。声も立てず、今なお動く側の顔半分だけで笑い、襟元へと涙を流していた。ウォルターは無事なほうの手を伸ばして息子の袖を掴むと、そのまま決して放そうとはしなかった。