It’s possible to love your grandmother for years and years without really knowing anything about her.
爱了你的外婆很多年，却完全不知道她的任何事情，这是有可能的。
It’s Tuesday when Elsa meets The Monster for the first time. School is better on Tuesdays. Elsa only has one bruise today, and bruises can be explained away by saying she’s been playing soccer.
周二，爱莎第一次遇见了怪物。周二的学校也好过一些。爱莎今天只有一块淤青，可以解释为她踢足球时弄的。
She sits in Audi. Audi is Dad’s car. It’s the exact opposite of Renault. Normally Dad picks her up from school every other Friday, because that’s when she stays with Dad and Lisette and Lisette’s children. Granny used to pick her up on all the other days and now Mum will have to do it. But today Mum and George have gone to a doctor to look at Halfie, so today Dad is picking her up even though it’s a Tuesday.
她坐在奥迪里。奥迪是爸爸的车，与雷诺完完全全相反。通常爸爸会在隔周的周五来接爱莎放学，然后与爸爸、莉丝特和莉丝特的孩子们一起过周末。其他日子都是外婆来接她，现在这成了妈妈的任务。但今天妈妈和乔治去医院检查“小半”的情况了，所以虽然是周二，但爸爸来了。
Granny always came on time and stood at the gate. Dad is late and stays in Audi in the parking area.
外婆一向按时到，站在门口等着。爸爸会迟到，待在停车场的奥迪里等。
“What did you do to your eye?” Dad asks nervously.
“你的眼睛怎么了？”爸爸担心地问。
He came back from Spain this morning, because he went there with Lisette and Lisette’s children, but he hasn’t caught any sun because he doesn’t know how to.
他今早从西班牙回来，和莉丝特还有莉丝特的孩子们一起去的。但他没晒黑，因为他不知道怎么晒黑。
But Dad isn’t Granny, so he just nods tentatively and asks her to be good enough to put on her seat belt. He does that very often. Nods tentatively. Dad is a tentative person. Mum is a perfectionist and Dad is a pedant and that was partly why their marriage didn’t work so well, Elsa figures. Because a perfectionist and a pedant are two very different things. When Mum and Dad did the cleaning, Mum wrote a minute-by-minute breakdown of the cleaning schedule, but then Dad would sort of get caught up with descaling the coffee percolator for two and a half hours, and you really can’t plan a life with a person like that around you, said Mum. The teachers at school always tell Elsa that her problem is her inability to concentrate, which is very odd, Elsa thinks, because Dad’s big problem is that he can’t stop concentrating.
然而，爸爸不是外婆，所以他犹豫地点了点头，叫她听话系好安全带。他经常这样，犹豫地点头。爸爸是个优柔寡断的人。妈妈是个完美主义者，而爸爸是个书呆子，这也是他们的婚姻行不通的一个原因。完美主义者和书呆子是截然不同的两种生物。就打扫卫生这件事，妈妈会写下一份精确到分钟的打扫计划表，但爸爸却会被给咖啡壶除垢之类的事情缠住两个半小时。妈妈说，身边有这样的人，很难制定人生规划。学校的老师总是告诉爱莎，她的问题是注意力难以集中，爱莎觉得这很奇怪，因为爸爸最大的问题就是集中得停不下来。
“We played soccer,” says Elsa.
“我们今天踢球了。”爱莎说。
Granny would never have let her get away with the soccer story.
外婆就不会被她的足球借口忽悠到。
“So, what do you want to do?” asks Dad, indecisively putting his hands on the wheel.
“嗯，你想做些什么？”爸爸犹豫不决地握住方向盘。
He often does that. Asks what Elsa would like to do. Because he very rarely wants to do anything himself. And this Tuesday was very unexpected for him: Dad is not very good at dealing with unexpected Tuesdays. That’s why Elsa only stays every other weekend with him, because after he met Lisette and she and her children moved in, Dad said it was too “messy” for Elsa there. When Granny found out, she phoned him and called him a Nazi at least ten times in a minute. That was a Nazi record, even for Granny. And when she’d hung up she turned to Elsa and spluttered, “Lisette? What sort of name is that?” And Elsa knew she didn’t really mean it, of course, because everyone likes Lisette — she has the same superpower as George. But Granny was the sort of person you brought with you when you went to war, and that was what Elsa loved about her.
他总是这样，问爱莎想做什么。因为他自己很少主动想做什么事情。这个周二对他来说是意料之外的，爸爸很不擅长应对意料之外的周二。爱莎每两周才会跟他过个周末，因为自从他遇见莉丝特，并且她的孩子们搬过来之后，爸爸就说他家对爱莎而言太“复杂”了。外婆知道情况后，给爸爸打了个电话，在一分钟之内起码骂了他十遍“纳粹”。即使对外婆而言，这个使用次数也是够多的。挂掉电话之后，她激动地对爱莎说：“莉丝特？这算什么鬼名字？”爱莎知道外婆这么说并不是真心的，每个人都喜欢莉丝特——她也有乔治那种超能力。但外婆是爱莎的坚定同盟，爱莎爱她这一点。
Dad’s always late picking Elsa up from school. Granny was never late. Elsa has tried to understand exactly what “irony” means and she’s fairly sure it’s that Dad is never late for anything other than picking up Elsa from school, and Granny was always late for everything except for that one thing.
爸爸每次来接爱莎放学都迟到。外婆就从不迟到。爱莎之前想弄明白“讽刺”是什么意思，而她现在几乎可以肯定，讽刺就是，除了接爱莎，爸爸干其他事情从不迟到，而外婆在其他事情上总是迟到，却在接爱莎这件事情上是个例外。
“So… where would you like to go today?”
“所以…今天想去哪里吗？”
Dad fiddles with the wheel again.
爸爸调整了一下方向盘。
Elsa looks surprised, because it sounds as if he really means they’re going somewhere. He twists in his seat.
爱莎露出惊讶的表情，听起来他似乎真的打算带她一起去什么地方。他在座位上扭了扭身体。
“I was thinking maybe you’d like to do… something.”
“我猜可能你想…做些什么吧。”
“I think I’d just like to go home,” she says.
“我只想回家。”她说。
Elsa knows he’s only saying it to be nice. Because Dad doesn’t like doing things, Dad is not a doing type of person. Elsa looks at him. He looks at the steering wheel.
爱莎知道他说这话只是出于礼貌。因为爸爸不喜欢找事情做，他不是行动派。爱莎看着他。他看着方向盘。
Dad nods and looks disappointed and relieved at the same time, which is a facial expression that only he in the whole world has mastered. Because Dad never says no to Elsa, even though she sometimes wishes he would.
爸爸点点头，看上去既失望又松了口气，这样的面部表情全世界也只有他能完美地呈现出来。他从来不会拒绝爱莎，即使有时候爱莎希望他这么做。
“Audi is really nice,” she says when they’re halfway home and neither of them has said a word.
“奥迪挺不错的。”行至半路，爱莎说。之前两人都没有说话。
Dad likes to know what he’s getting. One time last year they rearranged the shelves in the supermarket near where Dad and Lisette live, and Elsa had to run those tests she had seen advertised on the television, to make sure he hadn’t had a stroke.
爸爸喜欢熟悉的事物。去年，爸爸和莉丝特的家附近的超市重新布置了货物陈列，结果爱莎不得不借助电视里教的健康检测法，来确认爸爸没有中风。
Once they get home, Dad gets out of Audi and goes with her to the entrance. Britt-Marie is on the other side of the door, hunched up like a livid little house pixie on guard. It occurs to Elsa that you always know no good can come from catching sight of Britt-Marie. “She’s like a letter from the tax authorities, that old biddy,” Granny used to say. Dad seems to agree — Britt-Marie is one of the few subjects on which he and Granny were in agreement. She’s holding a crossword magazine in her hand. Britt-Marie likes crosswords very much because there are very clear rules about how to do them. She only ever does them in pencil, though — Granny always said Britt-Marie was the sort of woman who would have to drink two glasses of wine and feel really wild and crazy to be able to fantasize about solving a crossword in ink.
到家时，爸爸从奥迪上下来陪爱莎走到大门入口。布里特—玛丽在门的另一侧探出头，像一只恼怒的家养小精灵。爱莎突然想到，看见布里特—玛丽就意味着没什么好事。“她就像税务局的来信，那个老太婆。”外婆以前常常说。爸爸貌似也同意，这是他和外婆少数能达成一致的观点。她手上拿着一份填字杂志。她很喜欢这个游戏，因为规则明确。她只用铅笔填，外婆总说，布里特—玛丽这种女人，必须喝上两杯红酒让自己感到狂野才能去幻想一下用墨水解决填字游戏。
She pats the glove compartment of Audi, as if it were a cat. New cars smell of soft leather, the polar opposite of the smell of old split leather in Granny’s flat. Elsa likes both smells, though she prefers living animals to dead ones that have been made into car seats. “You know what you’re getting with an Audi,” Dad says, nodding. His last car was also called Audi.
她拍拍仪表台上的储物箱，像对待一只猫。新车有股软皮革味儿，和外婆公寓里老旧破裂的皮革的气味形成了鲜明的反差。两种气味爱莎都喜欢，但比起被做成车椅的死物，她更喜欢活着的动物。“选奥迪总是不会错的。”爸爸点点头。他的上一部车子也叫奥迪。
Dad offers a tentative hello, but Britt-Marie interrupts him.
爸爸犹豫着要不要打声招呼，但布里特—玛丽打断了他。
“Do you know whose this is?” she says, pointing at a stroller padlocked to the stair railing under the noticeboard.
“你知道这是谁的吗？”她指着告示板下楼梯栏杆上锁着的婴儿车。
“Strollers are not allowed in the entrance vestibule! They’re a fire risk!” she declares, firmly clasping her hands together so that the crossword magazine sticks out like a rather feeble sword.
“不允许将婴儿车放在大门玄关！有火灾危险！”她申明，挥舞着手上紧紧卷起的填字杂志，像在挥舞一把没有杀伤力的剑。
Only now does Elsa notice it. It’s odd that it should be there at all, because there are no babies in the house except Halfie, and she/he still gets a lift everywhere with Mum. But Britt-Marie seems unable to attach any value to this deeper philosophical question.
爱莎现在才注意到。这东西出现在这里的确很奇怪，因为楼里没有婴儿，除了“小半”，而“小半”现在还跟着妈妈到处跑呢。但布里特—玛丽似乎不能体会到这种深奥哲学问题的价值。
“That’s what I mean!” Britt-Marie replies, with a slightly raised — but still well-meaning — voice.
“我说的就是这个！”布里特—玛丽提高了嗓门，当然，没有丝毫恶意。
“Yes. It says on the notice here,” says Elsa, nodding helpfully and pointing at a neatly written sign right above the stroller, on which it is written: DO NOT LEAVE STROLLERS HERE: THEY ARE A FIRE RISK.
“是的，告示上写着。”爱莎热心地点点头，指着婴儿车上方书写规整的告示——此处禁止停放婴儿车：有火灾危险。
“I am obviously wondering if you put this sign up! That’s what I’m wondering!” says Britt-Marie, taking a small step forward and then a very small step back as if to emphasize the gravity of this.
“我明明是在问，是不是你们贴的这告示！我是在问这个！”布里特—玛丽向前了一小步然后又退了回去，似乎想要强调这事的严重性。
“I don’t understand,” says Dad, as if he doesn’t understand.
“我不明白。”爸爸说，好像他不明白似的。
“Of course not, of course not. But it’s not common practice in this leaseholders’ association to simply put up signs in any old way without first clearing it with the other residents in the house!”
“当然没有，当然没有。但在租户协会里这么做是不规范的，不事先征求其他住户的意见就随随便便贴告示。”
“Is there something wrong with the notice?” asks Elsa.
“这告示有什么问题吗？”爱莎问。
She is interrupted by the bark of a dog, so loud that it rattles a pane of glass in the door.
一声狗叫打断了她，声音大到震动了门上的一块玻璃。
“But there is no leaseholders’ association, is there?” asks Elsa.
“不是没有租户协会吗？”爱莎问。
They all jump. Yesterday Elsa heard Mum telling George that Britt-Marie had called the police to say that Our Friend should be put down. It seems to have heard Britt-Marie’s voice now, and just like Granny, Our Friend can’t shut up for a second when that happens. Britt-Marie starts ranting about how that dog needs to be dealt with. Dad just looks uncomfortable.
他们都吓了一跳。昨天，爱莎听见妈妈告诉乔治，布里特—玛丽已经报警，说要让“我们的朋友”安乐死。它现在貌似听见了布里特—玛丽的声音，和外婆一样，“我们的朋友”对此也一秒都不能忍。布里特—玛丽开始唠叨这狗必须处理掉什么的。爸爸看上去只是很不自在。
“Maybe someone tried to tell you but you weren’t home?” Elsa suggests to Britt-Marie, pointing at the sign on the wall.
“也许有人想告诉你的，但你不在家？”爱莎对布里特—玛丽说，指着墙上的告示。
“No, but there’s going to be! And until there is, I’m in charge of information in the association committee. It’s not common practice to put up signs without notifying the head of information in the association committee!”
“是还没有，但马上就会有了！在那之前，在协会创建委员会里，我负责所有的信息告示。不征求其他住户的意见就随便贴告示，在协会创建委员会里也不能这么干！”
“I’ve called the police. I have! But of course they won’t do anything! They say we have to wait until tomorrow to see if the owner turns up!”
“我已经报警了。我已经这么做了！但他们什么都不肯做！他们说，要等到明天，看狗的主人会不会出现！”
It works, at least temporarily. Britt-Marie forgets to be upset about Our Friend when she gets re-upset by the sign. Because the most important thing for her is not to run out of things to be upset about.
这奏效了，至少布里特—玛丽暂时忘记了对“我们的朋友”的不满，而重新对告示不满起来。对她来说，最重要的就是，不能没有不满意的事情。
The dog barks again from the flat a half-flight up. Britt-Marie purses her mouth.
楼上公寓里的狗又叫了起来。布里特—玛丽抿着嘴。
Elsa briefly considers telling Britt-Marie to put up a sign letting the neighbors know that if they want to put up a notice they have to inform their neighbors first. For instance, by putting up a notice.
爱莎略微考虑了一下，是不是告诉布里特—玛丽，她可以再贴个告示，让邻居们知道如果他们想贴告示，要先通知他们的邻居。比方说，贴个告示。
Dad doesn’t answer, and Britt-Marie immediately interprets his silence as a sign that he’d love to hear more about Britt-Marie’s feelings on the topic.
爸爸没有回答，但布里特—玛丽立刻认为他的沉默是个暗示，示意他想继续听布里特—玛丽对于这件事的感受。
Elsa holds her breath, but no more barking can be heard — as if Our Friend has summoned some common sense at last.
爱莎屏住气，但狗叫声停下了，仿佛“我们的朋友”终于恢复了些许理智。
“Kent has rung the bell of that flat lots of times, but no one even lives there! As if that wild animal lives there on its own! Would you believe it?”
“肯特已经去按过门铃好几次，里面肯定没人住！那只野兽独自生活在里面！你敢相信吗？”
The entrance door behind Dad opens and the woman in the black skirt comes in. Her heels click against the floor and she’s talking loudly into the white cord attached to her ear.
爸爸身后的大门打开，黑裙女人走进来。她的高跟鞋敲打着地面，她大声对着耳机线的话筒说话。
“Hello,” says Dad, to be polite.
“你好。”爸爸礼貌地说。
“Well, well. Hello there,” says Britt-Marie, as if the woman is potentially a criminal notice-poster. The woman doesn’t answer. She just talks even louder into the white cable, gives all three of them an irritated look, and disappears up the stairs.
“嘿，嘿，你好。”布里特—玛丽说，就好像这个女人是潜在的告示犯。女人没有回答，她只是更大声地冲着耳机线说话，恼怒地看了他们三人一眼，走上楼梯。
“Helvetica. The font, I mean,” says Dad skittishly, nodding at the sign on the wall.”It’s a good… font.”
“瑞士字体。我的意思是字体。”爸爸战战兢兢地说，冲墙上的告示点点头，“是不错的…字体。”
“Hello!” says Elsa, to deflect Britt-Marie’s attention from any further barking.
“你好！”爱莎说，试图将布里特—玛丽的注意力从狗吠的事情上转移走。
There’s a long, strained silence in the stairwell after she has gone. Elsa’s dad is not so good at dealing with strained silences.
她走后，楼梯井陷入长长的、尴尬的安静。爱莎的爸爸不擅长对付这种尴尬的安静。
“Pardon me?” says Britt-Marie and purses her mouth even harder.
“什么？”布里特—玛丽问，嘴抿得更紧了。
“Helvetica,” he manages to say, in the middle of a nervous bout of throat-clearing.
“瑞士字体。”他清了几下嗓子，终于开口。
Fonts are the sort of thing Dad finds important. One time when Mum was at a parents’ evening at Elsa’s school and Dad had called at the very last possible moment to say he couldn’t make it because of something that had come up at work, Mum, as a punishment, signed him up as a volunteer to do the posters for the school’s tag sale. Dad looked very doubtful about it when he found out. It took him three weeks to decide what sort of font the posters should have. When he brought them in to school, Elsa’s teacher didn’t want to put them up because they’d already had the sale — but Elsa’s father had apparently not understood what this had to do with it.
字体是爸爸很重视的那种事。有一次，妈妈去爱莎学校出席家长会，而爸爸在最后时刻打电话说他不能来，因为工作上出了点儿事，妈妈为了惩罚他，替他报名义务为学校的二手集市做海报。爸爸知道后显得很疑惑。他花了三周时间来决定海报应该用什么字体。等他带着海报去学校，爱莎的老师却不想张贴那些海报，因为活动已经结束了。但爱莎的爸爸显然不理解这又有什么关系呢。
Dad looks down at the floor and clears his throat again.
爸爸看着地面，再次清了清喉咙。
It’s a little like Britt-Marie not really comprehending what the Helvetica font has to do with anything at all right now.
有点儿像布里特—玛丽现在不能理解瑞士字体跟眼下这件事有什么关系。
“Do you have… keys?” he asks Elsa.
“你有…钥匙吗？”他问爱莎。
She nods. They hug briefly. Relieved, Dad disappears out the door, and Elsa darts up the stairs before Britt-Marie has time to start talking to her again. Outside Our Friend’s flat she stops briefly, peers back over her shoulder to make sure Britt-Marie is not watching, then opens the mail slot to whisper, “Please, be quiet!” She knows that it understands. She hopes that it cares.
爱莎点点头。他们轻轻地拥抱了一下。爸爸松了口气，消失在门外，而爱莎在布里特—玛丽有机会再跟她说话前，冲上了楼梯。在“我们的朋友”的门外，她稍停了一下，看了看身后，确定布里特—玛丽没有看到，然后推开投信口小声说：“拜托了，安静！”她知道它懂的。她希望它在乎。
She runs up the last flight of stairs with the keys to the flat in her hand, but she doesn’t go into Mum and George’s flat. Instead she opens Granny’s door. There are storage boxes and a scouring bucket in the kitchen; she tries not to pay any attention to those, but fails. She hops into the big wardrobe. The darkness inside the wardrobe settles around her, and no one knows she is crying.
她握着钥匙，跑上了最后一段楼梯，但没有进妈妈和乔治的公寓。她打开外婆家的门，厨房里有一些整理箱和一个刷洗桶，她试图忽略那些，但没成功。她跳进大衣橱。衣橱里的黑暗包围了她，没人知道她在哭泣。
It used to be magic, this wardrobe. Elsa used to be able to lie full-length in it and only just reach the walls with her toes and fingertips. However much she grew, the wardrobe was exactly the right size. Granny maintained, of course, that it was all “faffing about because this wardrobe has always been exactly the same size,” but Elsa has measured it. So she knows.
这个衣橱曾经有魔力。爱莎以前可以伸直腿平躺在里面，脚趾尖刚刚好碰到橱壁。然而随着她长大，衣橱的尺寸还是正好能平躺。外婆自然会说：“胡说八道，这衣橱从来就是一个尺寸，没变过。”但爱莎量过，她知道。
She lies down, stretching herself as far as she can. Touching both walls. In a few months she won’t have to reach. In a year she won’t be able to lie here at all. Because nothing will be magic anymore.
她躺下，尽力伸直身体，碰到了两边的橱壁。再过几个月她就不用这么费劲了。再过一年，她就不能躺在这里了。因为所有事物都将失去魔力。
Soon she hears Britt-Marie’s voice as well. As if she’s pursuing Maud and Lennart. She’s very angry. Only wants to talk about who’s had the cheek to put up that sign in the vestibule, and who’s been impudent enough to lock up that stroller directly under the sign. It seems very unclear, also to Britt-Marie herself, which of these two occurrences is the most upsetting to her. But at least she doesn’t mention Our Friend again.
过了一会儿，她又听到了布里特—玛丽的声音，好像是在逼问莫德和莱纳特。布里特—玛丽非常愤怒，只想讨论到底是谁无礼地在玄关贴了告示，还有是谁放肆到在告示正下方锁了部婴儿车。这两者到底哪个让她更生气，大概她自己也说不清。但至少她没有再提到“我们的朋友”。
She can hear Maud’s and Lennart’s muted voices in the flat, can smell their coffee. Elsa knows Samantha is also there long before she hears the sound of the bichon frise’s paws in the living room and, shortly after, its snoring under Granny’s sofa table. Maud and Lennart are tidying up Granny’s flat and starting to pack up her things. Mum has asked them to help, and Elsa hates Mum for that. Hates everyone for it.
她能听见公寓里莫德和莱纳特低弱的声音，能闻到他们的咖啡。还没听到比熊犬的脚掌在客厅地板上的啪啪声，爱莎就知道萨曼莎也在。莫德和莱纳特在整理外婆的公寓，开始打包她的东西。妈妈叫他们来帮忙，爱莎为此恨妈妈，也为此恨所有人。
Lennart puts a big platter of dreams outside the wardrobe. Elsa pulls them inside and closes the door, and then she and the boy with a syndrome eat them in silence. The boy doesn’t say anything, because he never does. That is one of Elsa’s favorite things about him.
莱纳特在衣橱外面放下一大盘“梦想”饼干。爱莎把它们拖进来，关上门，然后和生病男孩一起安静地吃。男孩一言不发，他从来不说话。这是爱莎最喜欢他的一点。
She hears George’s voice in the kitchen. It’s warm and reassuring; it asks if anyone wants eggs, because in that case he’ll cook eggs. Everyone likes George, it’s his superpower. Elsa hates him for that. Then Elsa hears her mum’s voice, and for a moment she wants to run out and throw herself into her arms. But she doesn’t, because she wants her mother to be upset. Elsa knows she has already won, but she wants Mum to know it too. Just to make sure she’s hurting as much as Elsa is about Granny dying.
她听见厨房里乔治的声音。听上去很温暖，令人安心，他问有人想吃鸡蛋吗，有的话他就煮一些。每个人都喜欢乔治，这是他的超能力。爱莎讨厌他这一点。随后她听见了妈妈的声音，有那么一刻，她想跑出去，投入妈妈的怀抱。但爱莎没有这么做，她想让妈妈伤心。爱莎知道自己已经赢了，但她想要妈妈也知道。只为确认妈妈也受到了伤害，正如外婆的死对爱莎造成的伤害。
Elsa has been in the wardrobe for an hour when the boy with a syndrome comes crawling in. Through the half-open door Elsa sees his mother walking about, tidying, and how Maud carefully walks behind her, picking up the things that are falling all around her.
爱莎在衣橱里待了一个小时，直到生病男孩慢慢爬进来。透过半开的门，爱莎看见他的妈妈走来走去，整理东西，莫德小心翼翼地跟在她身后，捡起周围被她落下的东西。
Moments later Maud crawls inside and carefully picks up all the things the boy’s mother dropped when she was picking him up.
又过了一会儿，莫德爬进来，仔细地捡起了男孩妈妈来抱他时掉下的所有东西。
“Thanks for the cookies,” whispers Elsa.
“谢谢你们的饼干。”爱莎小声说。
After a while the drunk comes stumbling out of a flat farther down in the house, and starts hitting the banister with her shoehorn and mumbling something about how people aren’t allowed to take baths at night. The drunk does this a few times every week. There’s nothing abnormal about it.
过了一会儿，醉鬼跌跌撞撞地从大楼角落的公寓里走出来，用鞋拔子敲敲楼梯扶手，喃喃自语着不应该允许人晚上洗澡什么的。醉鬼每周都要这么闹上几次。没什么反常的。
The boy falls asleep at the bottom of the wardrobe. His mother gently opens the door soon after, and crawls inside and lifts him out. It’s as if she knew he had fallen asleep the minute he did. Maybe that is her superpower.
男孩在衣橱里睡着了。过了不一会儿，他妈妈轻柔地打开橱门，弯腰进来抱起他，似乎能感知儿子在衣橱里睡着了，或许这是她的超能力。
She stays in the wardrobe until everyone has stopped tidying and stopped packing and gone back to their own flats. She knows that Mum is sitting in the front hall of their flat, waiting for her, so she sits in the big deep window on the stairs for a long time. To ensure that Mum has to keep waiting. She sits there until the lights in the stairwell automatically switch off.
她待在衣橱里，直到所有人都停下整理和打包，回他们自己的公寓。她知道妈妈正坐在他们公寓的玄关，等着她，所以她坐在楼梯间的大飘窗上，待了很久来确保妈妈不得不等着她。她坐在那里，直到楼梯井的灯自动熄灭。
Maud pats her on the cheek and looks so upset on Elsa’s behalf that Elsa gets upset on Maud’s behalf.
莫德拍拍她的脸颊，看上去为爱莎难过，难过得让爱莎都为他难过了。
Elsa hears how the drunk, in a passionate exhortation for water rationing, slips and falls and ends up on her ass with the shoehorn falling on her head. The drunk and the shoehorn have a fairly long-drawn-out dispute after that, like two old friends at loggerheads about money. And then at last there’s silence. And then Elsa hears the song. The song the drunk always sings. Elsa sits in the darkness on the stairs and hugs herself, as if it is a lullaby just for her. And then even that falls silent. She hears the drunk trying to calm down the shoehorn, before disappearing into her flat again. Elsa half-closes her eyes. Tries to see the cloud animals and the first outlying fields of the Land-of-Almost-Awake, but it doesn’t work. She can’t get there anymore. Not without Granny. She opens her eyes, absolutely inconsolable. The snowflakes fall like wet mittens against the window.
爱莎听见醉鬼极力敦促着定量供给用水，结果一屁股滑倒在地，鞋拔子掉在她的头上。那之后，醉鬼和鞋拔子进行了一场非常长的争论拉锯战，像两位老朋友为了钱针锋相对。再然后就安静了。过了一会儿，爱莎听见了歌声，醉鬼经常唱的那首歌。爱莎坐在黑暗的楼梯间，抱住自己，仿佛这是只为她唱的摇篮曲。后来，连歌声都消失了。她听见醉鬼试图让鞋拔子冷静下来，随后又消失在她的公寓里。爱莎半闭上眼睛，想看见云兽，以及不眠大陆的偏远田野，但没有成功。她再也去不了那儿了。没有外婆一起。她睁开眼睛，悲恸万分。大片雪花落在窗户上，像一只只连指手套。
Nor does anyone else. Because people in houses like this seem to believe that drunks are like monsters, and if one pretends they are not there they actually disappear.
其他人同样无视了她。因为楼里的人似乎相信，醉鬼和怪物一样，如果假装他们不存在，他们就真的会消失。
“Turn off the water!” mutters the drunk, but Elsa doesn’t answer.
“把水关掉！”醉鬼念叨着，但爱莎没有理她。
It’s one of those winter nights when the darkness is so thick it’s as if the whole area has been dipped headfirst in a bucket of blackness, and The Monster steals out the front door and crosses the halfcircle of light around the last light in the street so quickly that if Elsa had blinked a little too hard, she would have thought she was imagining it. But as it is she knows what she saw, and she hits the floor and makes her way down the stairs in one fluid movement.
这样的冬夜，黑暗深沉得像是整个世界都被头朝下浸到了一桶黑墨中，怪物偷偷溜出前门，快速穿过街上最后一盏灯投射下的半圆，如果爱莎眨眼眨得用力些，说不定会以为这是她想象出来的事情，但她清楚自己看到了什么。她跳下飘窗，跑下楼梯，动作流畅迅速。
She’s never seen him before, but she knows from his sheer size that it must be him. He glides across the snow like an animal, a beast from one of Granny’s fairy tales. Elsa knows very well that what she’s about to do is both dangerous and idiotic, but she runs down the stairs three steps at a time. Her socks slip on the last step and she careers across the ground-floor vestibule, smacking her chin into the door handle.
她以前从未见过他，但知道他的个头很魁梧，所以那一定是他。他有如动物般穿行过雪地，像外婆童话故事里的某种野兽。爱莎知道自己接下去要做的事情危险且愚蠢，但她三步一跳地跑下了楼。她的袜子在最后一级台阶猛然打滑，害她摔过底层的玄关，下巴撞在了门把手上。
And that’s when she sees The Monster for the first time.
那时，她第一次见到了怪物。
Her face throbbing with pain, she throws the door open and breathlessly churns through the snow, still only in her socks.
她撞开了门，上气不接下气地跑进了雪中，脸蛋生疼，只穿着袜子。
“I have mail for you!” she cries into the night. Only then does she realize that her tears have lodged in her throat. She’s so desperate to know who this person is that Granny secretly talked to about Miamas.
“我有你的信！”她冲着夜色喊道，现在才意识到，她的泪水倒灌进了喉咙。她渴望知道这个跟外婆偷偷聊过密阿玛斯的人是谁。
Elsa isn’t thinking. She rushes into the darkness, relying on pure instinct, towards the spot where she last heard him put down his foot. She feels the movement of air from his jacket. He starts running; she stumbles through the snow and catapults herself forward, catching hold of his trouser leg. When she lands on her back in the snow, she sees him staring down at her, by the light of the last streetlight. Elsa has time to feel her tears freezing on her cheeks.
爱莎没多想，就冲进了黑暗，靠着纯粹的本能，朝她最后听见他脚步声的地方跑去。她感觉到他的外套在空气中形成的气流。他开始逃跑，她跌跌撞撞地走过雪地，快速向前，抓住了他的裤腿。当她背朝后跌倒在雪地上时，她看见他凭借最后一盏街灯的灯光，盯着她。爱莎有时间感受自己的眼泪在脸颊上冷冻结冰。
She can’t see him. But she no longer hears the creaking of his steps in the snow. He’s stopped.
她看不见他，也听不见雪地上他的脚步声。他停下了。
“My granny says to tell you she’s sorry!” she roars.
“我的外婆向你问好并向你道歉！”她大吼。
There’s no answer. She hears his light footfalls in the snow, surprisingly agile considering his enormity. He’s moving away from her. Elsa ought to be afraid, she should be terrified of what The Monster could do to her. He’s big enough to tear her apart with a single tug, she knows that. But she’s too angry to be afraid.
没有回应。她听见雪地上他轻柔的脚步声，对他这么巨大的人来说出乎意料地轻巧。他离她越来越远。爱莎本该害怕，她本应担心怪物可能会对她做些什么。他的块头大到可以把她一下就撕成两半，她知道的。但她的怒火盖过了恐惧。
He must be a good deal more than six feet tall. As big as a tree. There’s a thick hood covering his head and his black hair spills out over his shoulders. Almost his entire face is buried under a beard as thick as an animal pelt, and, emerging from the shadows of the hood, a scar zigzags down over one eye, so pronounced that it looks as if the skin has melted. Elsa feels his gaze creeping through her circulating blood.
他一定超过了两米，像一棵树那么高大。厚厚的兜帽遮住了他的脑袋，他的黑发露出来，盖在肩膀上。像动物皮毛那么浓密的胡子遮住了他整张脸，和兜帽的阴影连在一起，一条伤疤歪歪斜斜地划过一只眼睛，非常显眼。他的凝视让爱莎感到毛骨悚然。
The Monster doesn’t take it. She lets go of his trouser-leg because she thinks he’ll kick her, but he only takes a half-step back. And what comes out of him next is more of a growl than a word. As if he’s talking to himself, not to her.
怪物没有接过它。她放开他的裤腿，担心他会踢她，但他只是向后退了半步。接下去，他口中蹦出的与其说是一个词语，还不如说是一声低吼，像是针对自己而不是爱莎。
The words pulsate against Elsa’s eardrums. They sound wrong, somehow. Elsa understands them, but they chafe at the passages of her inner ear. As if they didn’t belong there.
这些词震动着爱莎的耳膜。不知怎的它们听上去不太对。爱莎明白它们的意思，但它们让她的内耳生疼，像是进了异物。
“Let go!” The dark mass of his torso sinks over Elsa as he hisses these words at her.
“放手！”他压低了嗓子说，庞大躯体的影子向下笼罩了爱莎。
“My granny says to tell you she’s sorry!” Elsa pants, holding up the envelope.
“我外婆跟你问好然后道歉！”爱莎气喘吁吁地举起信封。
“Get lost, stupid girl…”
“走开…傻姑娘…”
“You’re lying,” whispers Mum.
“你在说谎。”妈妈小声说。
“Me too.”
“我也是。”
“How did you get that black eye?”
“你的眼眶怎么是淤青的？”
Mum leans down and puts her forehead against hers.
妈妈弯下身，用额头抵住爱莎的额头。
“Soccer,” whispers Elsa.
“足球。”爱莎小声说。
The Monster was talking in Granny and Elsa’s secret language.
怪物说的，是外婆和爱莎的秘密语言。
Elsa doesn’t answer. Tenderly, Mum takes her face in her hands.
爱莎没有回答。妈妈用双手温柔地捧住她的脸。
Elsa nods. Mum holds her hard. Elsa sobs against her stomach.
爱莎点点头。妈妈用力抱住她。爱莎抵着她的肚子啜泣。
“I miss her…”
“我想她…”
The Monster turns with a quick, hostile movement. In the next moment he’s gone. As if he’s stepped right through a doorway in the darkness.
怪物带着敌意迅速转身，下一秒就不见了，好像他直接进入了黑暗中的一扇门。
She doesn’t know how many eternities pass before she hears the entrance porch opening behind her. Then she hears Mum’s footsteps, hears her calling Elsa’s name. Elsa rushes blindly into her arms.
在过了不知道多少个“永恒”之后，她听见身后房子的大门打开。然后是妈妈的脚步声。她叫了一声爱莎的名字。爱莎一头冲进她的怀里。
It’s possible to love your grandmother for years and years without really knowing anything about her.
即使爱了你的外婆很多很多年，你可能还是完全不了解她。
“What are you doing out here?” asks Mum, scared.
“你在外面干什么呢？”妈妈紧张地问。
They don’t hear The Monster moving out there. They don’t see him picking up the envelope. But then, at last, burrowing into her mum’s arms, Elsa realizes why his words sounded wrong.
她们没有听见怪物在外面活动的声音，也没有看见他捡起信封。但此刻，钻在妈妈怀里的爱莎终于明白为什么他的话语听起来不对劲。
Elsa lies in the snow, trying to catch her breath while the cold stamps on her chest. Then she stands up and gathers her strength, crumpling the envelope into a ball and flinging it into the darkness after him.
爱莎躺在雪地里，想喘口气休息一下，而寒冷击打着她的胸口。她站起身，打起精神，把信封揉成纸团，冲着他离开的方向扔进黑暗中。
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