Twelve Rounds a Night

Daniel Osei knew Hollin Bridge the way other people know a song they have heard too often: not by thinking about it, but in his hands. Twelve rounds a night, eight years. The hump in the road outside the swimming baths that made the whole bus sigh. The traffic light by the town hall that stayed red for ninety seconds even when there was nobody within a mile. The fox that crossed Mill Road at twenty past one, every night, with the air of someone late for an appointment.

一晚十二趟

He knew his passengers too. Not their names, mostly, but their shapes. The nurses going home from the late shift, who slept with their heads against the window and woke exactly at their stops as if an alarm had gone off inside them. The cleaners going in. The lonely ones who rode the whole route twice because the bus was warm and the driver said hello. Once, for a month, a very old man who got on at the hospital every night at two and got off at the cemetery gates, and then one night did not get on any more.

Daniel Osei对Hollin Bridge的熟悉，就像人们对自己听过太多遍的歌一样：不靠思考，而是熟稔于自己的双手。一晚十二趟，开了八年。露天泳池外路面上的凸起会让整辆公交车发出叹息。市政厅旁边的红绿灯会亮足整整九十秒红灯，哪怕方圆一英里内空无一人。每晚一点二十分穿过Mill Road的那只狐狸，神色匆匆，活像赶着去赴一场约会。

That was the thing about the night, Daniel had found. People were more honest in it. Whatever they were carrying, they carried it more openly at three in the morning, as though the dark gave them permission. He had chosen the night shift eight years ago so that he could see Grace in the afternoons. He had stayed on it, he sometimes suspected, because in the daylight he had never been sure what to do with himself, and in the dark he always knew. Drive. Stop. Open the doors. Say hello.

他也熟悉车上的乘客。大多叫不出名字，却认得他们的身形。下晚班回家的护士们头贴着车窗入睡，一到站就准时醒来，仿佛体内装着一只闹钟。上早班的保洁员们。还有那些孤单寂寞的人，他们把整条线路坐上两遍，只因车厢里暖和，司机还会道一声你好。曾经有一个月的时间，一位极年迈的老人每晚两点在医院上车，在公墓门口下车，后来有一晚，他再也没有出现过。