Behind the Counter

Priya Shah had opened her shop at six o’clock every morning for thirty years, except for the four days after her husband died and one Christmas Day when her daughter had hidden the keys. She opened it now, at six, in the dark, with the familiar small sounds: the key in the lock, the bolt at the top that stuck in damp weather, the bell, the click of the lights coming on one row at a time over the newspapers, the sweets, the tins of soup.

柜台之后

She liked this hour more than any other. Before the town woke up, the shop belonged entirely to her. Raj had liked it too. He used to stand where she was standing now, behind the counter, cutting the strings on the bundles of newspapers with the little curved knife that still hung on its hook beside the till, and reading the headlines aloud to her in a terrible fake newsreader’s voice until she laughed.

三十年来，Priya Shah每天早晨六点准时开门营业，唯独丈夫去世后的那四天，以及有一年圣诞节女儿把钥匙藏起来的那天除外。此时也是六点，在暗处，她伴着那些熟悉的细微声响开了门：钥匙插进锁孔，潮湿天气里容易卡住的顶部门闩滑动，门铃响起，报纸、糖和罐头汤上方的一排排电灯依次咔嗒点亮。

Raj would have spoken up. She had thought that every day for fifteen years and had never once said it aloud. He had died eighteen months before the fire, of a heart that nobody had known was tired. If he had been alive that January morning, standing beside her on the pavement in his dressing gown, he would have smelled what she smelled, and he would have walked across the road to the man in the grey anorak and said something, in his calm, slightly too loud voice, and none of it would have happened.

比起其他任何时刻，她最喜欢这个钟点。在小镇醒来之前，这间铺子完全属于她。Raj生前也很喜欢这个时刻。他过去常站在她如今站立的地方，在柜台后，用挂在收银机旁钩子上的那把弯曲小刀割断一捆捆报纸上的绳子，还用滑稽可笑的假播音员腔调大声给她读头条新闻，直到把她逗笑。