北侧

北侧

North Side

“爸，”星期天早上，我在厨房里说。“Walter说，我应该问您那个冬天的事。全部的事。所以我现在问您。”

“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.”

我父亲在切面包。市集前一天晚上开张了，他在火边一直站到凌晨两点，眼睛被烟熏红了。他又切了两片，切得很整齐，然后才回答。

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.

“圣诞节以后。”他说。

“After Christmas,” he said.

“为什么要等到圣诞节以后？”

“Why after Christmas?”

“因为现在有一个市集要管。”他把面包放在盘子里，把盘子放到我面前。“还因为有些事，我很久以前答应过别人，我得先想想那个承诺。”然后他拿起大衣下楼去店里了，我听见门上的铃响了一声，这件事就到此为止。

“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.

所以我没有再问。我对自己说，他有权选自己的时候。我松了一口气。真相是，我怕他回答了，我就得去面对自己的感受。

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.

到星期四，市集已经开了五天。这是我这些年来最好的五天，这一点我完全没想到。早上我在店里，让我父亲睡觉，晚上在市集上。我学会了收银机怎么用，广场上的老人们读哪几种报纸，还有星期天千万千万不能把牛奶卖完。栗子夫妇需要休息的时候，我学着卖栗子，发现自己出乎意料地擅长，因为卖栗子是一场双方想要同样东西的谈判。

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带着她的笔记本，在奇怪的时间进进出出。十二月十七日，星期四，我六点半开店门，看见她在黑暗中穿过广场回来，穿着两件毛衣和我们父亲的旧靴子，肩上有雪，两手空空。她隔着窗户看见我，走了进来。

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.

“你去哪里了？”

“Where have you been?”

“去散步。”

“For a walk.”

“早上六点。在这样的天气。”

“At six in the morning. In this.”

“这对身体很好。”她说，然后上楼去了。我当律师够久了，一听就知道什么是准备好的回答。她有她的秘密，我有我的，我没有再问。

“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我只见过一次，星期一，在市集边上，她和她母亲在一起。她一口气说完：打了招呼，问木屋是不是都没问题，说她很忙，然后就走了。我给她发了两条信息。第一条她只回了一个词，“好。”第二条没有回。

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.