Signal Right

The File

档案

The licensing test centre lay on the eastern edge of Ulaanbaatar, between a bus depot and a field where children played football in summer and nobody did in winter. It consisted of a flat building painted green, a car park and a fenced practice yard with orange cones, an artificial slope and a traffic light that for years had known only amber. At the end of October the first snow already lay on it, thin as sugar, and over the city hung the grey smoke of the stoves.

驾驶证考试中心位于乌兰巴托的东部边缘，夹在一个公交车场和一块空地之间。夏天，孩子们在空地上踢足球，冬天则没有人去。中心有一栋刷成绿色的平房、一个停车场，还有一个围起来的练习场，里面摆着橙色的小锥桶，有一段人造坡道，还有一盏多年来只会亮黄灯的红绿灯。十月底，场地上已经落了第一场雪，薄得像糖粉，城市上空笼罩着炉灶冒出的灰色烟雾。

Oyuna had worked here as an examiner for thirty-one years, and in six weeks she would retire. Among the learner drivers of the city she was called “the Iron One”, and she knew it. Her rate was the lowest in the centre: of ten candidates who got into the car with her, four passed. She was not unfriendly. She greeted everyone, she waited patiently when someone could not adjust the seat, and she never shouted. She only wrote down what she saw, and she saw a great deal. Some driving instructors advised their pupils to postpone their appointment when they saw the name Oyuna on the list.

奥云娜在这里当考官已经三十一年了，六个星期后她就要退休。城里的学员都叫她“铁面”，她自己也知道。她的通过率是整个中心最低的：每十个坐上她的车的考生，只有四个合格。她并不难相处。她跟每个人打招呼，有人调不好座椅时她会耐心等待，她从不大声呵斥。她只是把看到的写下来，而她看到的东西非常多。有些教练在考试名单上看到奥云娜这个名字时，会劝学员把考试日期往后推。

Her test form had twenty-four boxes to tick and, at the bottom, an empty field headed “Remarks”. In thirty-one years Oyuna had not used this field a single time. The regulations said that only what had to do with the drive might go there, and everything that had to do with the drive, in her opinion, fitted into the twenty-four boxes. An examiner who wrote remarks, she liked to say, only wanted to apologise.

她的考试表上有二十四个要打勾的方格，最下面是一个空白栏，标题是“备注”。三十一年来，奥云娜一次也没有用过这一栏。规定说，这里只能写与驾驶有关的内容，而在她看来，所有与驾驶有关的内容都装得进那二十四个方格。她常说，写备注的考官，只是想为自己道歉。

On Thursday morning the day’s list lay on her desk. Seven names, seven times. The fourth name was Ganbold, seventy-two years old, from a district of Töv province, four hours’ drive from the capital. Next to it, in small letters: sixth attempt.

星期四早上，当天的名单放在了她的桌上。七个名字，七个时间。第四个名字是甘博尔德，七十二岁，来自中央省的一个县，离首都有四个小时的车程。旁边用小字写着：第六次。

Oyuna knew him. She had examined him in June and in August; in between and since then, colleagues had had him. A short, broad man with a face that wind and sun had turned brown, in a coat too warm for the city, and with a fur hat that he took off before getting in and laid on the back seat, as if he had brought it along on a visit. He came every month, always on the same day of the week, and every time the same young woman sat in the waiting room with a thermos flask and waited for him: his daughter.

奥云娜认识他。六月和八月她考过他，在这之间和之后，是别的同事考的。他是个个子不高、身材宽厚的男人，脸被风吹日晒成了褐色，穿着一件对城里来说太厚的大衣，戴着一顶皮帽，上车前他会把帽子摘下来放在后座上，好像那是他带来做客的客人。他每个月都来，总是在一周中的同一天，每次候考室里都坐着同一位年轻女子，拿着一个保温壶等他：他的女儿。

Because she had time before the first candidate came, Oyuna took his file out of the cupboard. She did not like reading files; she thought it right to examine every candidate as if she had never seen him before. But she was used to looking for mistakes, and in a file, too, you found something if you looked long enough.

第一位考生到来之前还有些时间，奥云娜从柜子里取出了他的档案。她不喜欢看档案；她认为就该把每个考生都当作从未见过的人来考。但她习惯了找错，档案里只要看得够久，也总能找出点东西。