Sisi Utara

“Ayah,” kata saya, pada Minggu pagi, di dapur. “Walter bilang aku harus bertanya kepada Ayah tentang musim dingin itu. Semuanya. Jadi aku bertanya.”

“Dad,” I said, on Sunday morning, in the kitchen. “Walter said I should ask you about that winter. All of it. So I’m asking.”

Ayah saya sedang memotong roti. Pasar sudah dibuka malam sebelumnya, dia berdiri di dekat api sampai pukul dua pagi, dan matanya merah karena asap. Dia memotong dua iris lagi, sangat rata, sebelum menjawab.

My father was cutting bread. The market had opened the night before, and he had stood at the fire until two in the morning, and his eyes were red from the smoke. He cut two more slices, very evenly, before he answered.

“Sesudah Natal,” katanya.

“After Christmas,” he said.

“Kenapa sesudah Natal?”

“Why after Christmas?”

“Karena sekarang ada pasar yang harus diurus.” Dia menaruh roti itu di piring dan meletakkan piringnya di depan saya. “Dan karena ada beberapa hal yang sudah lama saya janjikan, dan saya harus memikirkan janji itu dulu.” Lalu dia mengambil mantelnya dan turun ke toko, saya mendengar lonceng di atas pintu, dan selesailah semuanya.

“Because now there is a market to run.” He put the bread on a plate and put the plate in front of me. “And because some things I promised a long time ago, and I have to think about the promise first.” Then he took his coat and went down to the shop, and I heard the bell over the door, and that was the end of it.

Jadi saya tidak bertanya lagi. Saya bilang pada diri sendiri bahwa dia berhak memilih waktunya. Saya lega. Sebenarnya saya takut pada apa yang harus saya rasakan kalau dia menjawab.

So I didn’t ask again. I told myself he had a right to choose his moment. I was relieved. The truth is that I was afraid of what I would have to feel if he answered.

Pada hari Kamis, pasar sudah dibuka selama lima hari. Itu lima hari terbaik yang saya alami dalam bertahun-tahun, dan saya sama sekali tidak mengira begitu. Pagi hari saya bekerja di toko, supaya ayah saya bisa tidur, dan malam hari di pasar. Saya belajar cara kerja kasir, koran apa yang dibaca para pria tua di alun-alun, dan bahwa kita tidak boleh sekali pun kehabisan susu pada hari Minggu. Saya belajar menjual kastanye ketika pasangan penjual kastanye perlu istirahat, dan ternyata saya sangat pandai, karena menjual kastanye adalah tawar-menawar yang kedua pihaknya menginginkan hal yang sama.

The market had been open for five days by Thursday. They were the best five days I had spent in years, and I hadn’t expected that at all. I worked in the shop in the mornings, so that my father could sleep, and at the market in the evenings. I learned how the till worked, which newspapers the old men on the square read, and that you must never, ever run out of milk on a Sunday. I learned to sell chestnuts when the chestnut couple needed a break, and that I was surprisingly good at it, because selling chestnuts is a negotiation where both sides want the same thing.

Leila datang dan pergi pada jam-jam aneh dengan buku catatannya. Pada hari Kamis, tanggal tujuh belas, saya sedang membuka toko pukul setengah tujuh ketika melihat dia kembali melintasi alun-alun dalam gelap, memakai dua sweter dan sepatu bot tua ayah kami, dengan salju di bahunya dan tangan kosong. Dia melihat saya lewat jendela lalu masuk.

Leila came and went at strange hours with her notebook. On Thursday, the seventeenth, I was opening the shop at half past six when I saw her coming back across the square in the dark, in two jumpers and our father’s old boots, with snow on her shoulders and nothing in her hands. She saw me through the window and came in.

“Dari mana saja kamu?”

“Where have you been?”

“Jalan-jalan.”

“For a walk.”

“Pukul enam pagi. Dalam cuaca begini.”

“At six in the morning. In this.”

“Itu sangat sehat,” katanya, lalu naik ke atas. Saya sudah cukup lama menjadi pengacara untuk tahu jawaban yang sudah disiapkan ketika mendengarnya. Dia punya rahasianya dan saya punya rahasia saya, dan saya tidak bertanya.

“It’s very good for you,” she said, and went upstairs. I had been a lawyer long enough to know a prepared answer when I heard one. She had her secret and I had mine, and I didn’t ask.

Hannah hanya sekali saya lihat, pada hari Senin, di tepi pasar, bersama ibunya. Dia menyapa, bertanya apakah semuanya baik-baik saja dengan pondok-pondok, dan berkata dia sangat sibuk, semuanya dalam satu napas, lalu pergi. Saya mengirim dua pesan kepadanya. Dia menjawab yang pertama dengan satu kata, “Baik,” dan tidak menjawab yang kedua.

Hannah I saw only once, on the Monday, at the edge of the market, with her mother. She said hello, asked if everything was all right with the huts, and said she was very busy, all in one breath, and left. I sent her two messages. She answered the first with one word, “Fine,” and didn’t answer the second.

Pada hari Selasa Imogen mengirim saya email tanpa salam. Northgate, tulisnya, “ingin memahami keadaan di alun-alun” dan meminta “kabar terbaru sebelum liburan”. Saya membalas bahwa keadaannya tidak berubah dan bahwa saya mengharapkan kemajuan pada bulan Januari. Keduanya benar. Keduanya tidak jujur. Saya makin pandai dalam hal itu.

On Tuesday Imogen sent me an email with no greeting. Northgate, she wrote, were “keen to understand the position on the square” and had asked for “an update before the holidays”. I replied that the position was unchanged and that I expected progress in January. Both statements were true. Neither was honest. I was getting very good at those.