The Shark with Legs

Tuesday

星期二

The shark had legs. That was the first piece of news this week, and Kwabena Asare, who had been painting film posters for thirty-one years, took it in the way a carpenter takes the measure of a board: without surprise, with a nod, the pencil already behind his ear. “Two legs,” he repeated. “Not four?”

鲨鱼长了腿。这是本周带来的头一条消息。画了三十一年电影海报的夸贝纳·阿萨雷听后，就像木匠记下一块木板的尺寸一样：毫不惊奇，只是点了点头，铅笔早已别在耳后。“两条腿，”他重复道，“不是四条？”

“Two,” said Grace Tetteh. “A shark with four legs would be an animal. With two he is a man who has something in mind.” She sat, as she did every Tuesday, on the upturned paint bucket beside his easel, her handbag on her knees, and told the film for the coming week the way she always told it: not with words alone but with both hands, with her shoulders, with a voice that went deep for the captain and high for his wife, and with pauses in which you could hear the surf. The film was called Deep Water Terror . The DVD lay between them on the table, next to the tubes, and neither of them looked at it.

“两条，”格蕾丝·特特说，“长四条腿的鲨鱼不过是头野兽，长两条腿就是心怀不轨的男人。”就像每个星期二那样，她坐在他画架旁倒扣的油漆桶上，手提包放在膝头，讲述着下周要放的电影。她讲电影从来不单靠嘴，还用双手、双肩，配着船长低沉、船长太太尖细的嗓音，还伴有让人能听见海浪拍击声的停顿。这部电影叫 Deep Water Terror 。DVD光盘就放在他们之间的桌上，挨着颜料管，但两人谁也没瞧它一眼。