She has a shower so hot her skin feels as if it’s about to come away from her flesh like clementine peel. Walks out into the flat. Mum left home hours ago. She’s gone to fix everything, because that is what Mum does.
她洗了个澡，水很烫，皮肤快要像橘子皮一样从她的身体上剥下来了。她走出浴室。妈妈几个小时前就出门了。日理万机，这就是妈妈。
George calls out something behind Elsa, but she neither listens nor answers. She puts on the clothes that Mum has put out for her and crosses the landing, locking the front door behind her. Granny’s flat smells wrong. It smells clean. The towers of packing boxes throw shadows across the entry hall, like monuments to everything that is now absent.
乔治在身后叫爱莎，但她既没听也没回答。她穿上妈妈为她准备的衣服，穿过楼梯口，锁上身后的门。外婆的公寓闻上去不对劲。太干净了。整理箱高高叠起，在门厅投下阴影，像是为如今不见了的所有事物所立的纪念碑。
She stands inside the door, incapable of going any farther. She was here last night, but it’s more difficult by daylight. It’s harder work remembering things when the sun is forcing its way in through the blinds. Cloud animals soar past in the sky. It’s a beautiful morning but a terrible day.
她站在门的内侧，再也无法往里迈进一步。她昨晚也在，但白天待在这里更难过。阳光强硬地透过百叶窗照进来，回忆变得更加困难。云兽在天空翱翔。这是一个美丽的早晨，却是可怕的一天。
Today’s the day. And it starts with the most terrible night.
终于到了这个日子。它开始于最可怕的夜晚。
Elsa wakes with her mouth wide open but her scream fills her head rather than the room. She roars silently and reaches out with her hand to toss aside the bedclothes, but they’re already on the floor. She walks into the flat — it smells of eggs. George smiles carefully at her from the kitchen. She doesn’t smile back. He looks upset. She doesn’t care.
爱莎大张着嘴醒来，未能发出的尖叫声充斥着她的脑袋。她无声地咆哮，伸出手想要掀开被褥，但它已经在地板上了。她走进客厅——一股鸡蛋的气味。乔治在厨房小心翼翼地朝她微笑。她没有回应，他看起来很失落。她不在乎。
Elsa’s skin is still burning after her shower. It makes her think of Granny, because Granny’s shower hasn’t worked in over a year, and instead of calling the landlord and asking him to fix the problem, she just used Mum and George’s shower. And sometimes she forgot to do up her dressing gown when she went back through the flat. And sometimes she forgot her dressing gown altogether. Once, Mum shouted at her for what must have been fifteen minutes because she didn’t show any respect about George also living in Mum and Elsa’s flat. But that was soon after Elsa had starting reading the collected works of Charles Dickens. Granny was not much use at reading books, so Elsa used to read them to her while they were driving Renault, because Elsa wanted to have someone she could discuss them with afterwards. Especially A Christmas Carol, which Elsa had read several times, because Granny liked Christmas stories.
爱莎的皮肤在淋浴之后仍在灼烧，这让她想起了外婆。外婆的淋浴器坏了差不多一年，她没去找房东解决问题，而是去妈妈和乔治家洗澡。有时她穿过房间回自己家时，忘记了系上浴袍。有时她连浴袍都忘了穿。有一次，妈妈冲她吼了足足有十五分钟，因为她对同样住在妈妈和爱莎公寓里的乔治非常不尊重。那时爱莎刚开始读查尔斯·狄更斯的文集。外婆不擅长读书，所以爱莎总是在她驾驶雷诺的时候读给她听，希望能有人一起讨论。特别是《圣诞颂歌》，爱莎读过好几遍，因为外婆喜欢圣诞节故事。
So when Mum said that thing about how Granny shouldn’t run about naked in the flat, out of respect for George, then Granny, still naked, turned to George and said, “What’s all this respect rubbish? You’re cohabiting with my daughter, for goodness sake.” And then Granny bowed very deeply and very nakedly and added ceremoniously: “I am the spirit of future Christmases, George!”
妈妈说外婆不应该在房间里光着身子跑来跑去，这样不尊重乔治。依旧裸着的外婆转向乔治说：“尊重是个啥玩意儿啊？你和我女儿在同居好吗？”然后裸体外婆深深地一鞠躬，郑重其事地补充道，“我是未来的圣诞精灵，乔治！”
Elsa opens the door of the big wardrobe. The wurse licks her face. It smells of protein bars and sponge cake mix. Elsa had just gone to bed last night when she realized that Mum would most likely send George down to the cellar storage unit today to get the spare chairs, because everyone is coming here afterwards for coffee. Because today is the day, and everyone drinks coffee somewhere after days like this.
爱莎打开大衣橱的门。呜嘶舔了舔她的脸，一股蛋白棒和海绵蛋糕粉的气味。爱莎昨晚刚上床就想起，今天妈妈很可能会让乔治去地下储藏室拿些备用椅子，因为结束之后每个人都会来喝咖啡。今天就是那个日子，每个人都会在这样的一天结束后去某处喝咖啡。
Elsa goes into the flat without taking off her shoes. She’s wearing the kind of shoes that scratch the parquet flooring, so Mum has told her she can’t wear them inside, but it doesn’t matter in Granny’s place, because the floor already looks as if someone went skating on it. Partly because it’s old, and partly because Granny actually once went skating on it.
爱莎没有脱鞋就走进房间。她那双鞋子会刮花镶木地板，所以妈妈不允许她在房间里穿鞋，但外婆的家里没关系，因为地板看上去像是已经有人在上头溜过冰了。部分原因是它很旧了，部分原因是外婆就是那个在上头溜冰的人。
Mum was very angry at Granny about that, but she tried not to show it, for Elsa’s sake. So, for Mum’s sake, Elsa tried not to show how proud she was of Granny for being able to quote Charles Dickens.
因为这事，妈妈对外婆很生气，但她尽量不表现出来，为了爱莎。所以，为了妈妈，爱莎也尽量不表现出对外婆能够引用狄更斯的故事而感到骄傲。
Mum and George’s cellar unit is next to Granny’s unit, and it’s the only storage unit you can see the wurse from now that Alf has put up the plywood sheets. So Elsa sneaked down in the night, unable to decide whether she was more afraid of shadows or ghosts or Britt-Marie, and brought the wurse upstairs.
妈妈和乔治的储藏室在外婆的隔壁。自从阿尔夫把胶合板堆起来之后，这是唯一能看见呜嘶的地方。所以爱莎晚上溜了下去，不知自己更害怕暗影、鬼魂还是布里特—玛丽，然后把呜嘶带上了楼。
The wurse licks her face again and squeezes its head through the opening and looks for her backpack. Elsa runs to fetch it from the hall and pulls out three tins of dreams and a quart of milk.
呜嘶又舔了舔她的脸，脑袋挤出来，找她的背包。爱莎去门厅把背包拿来，拿出三罐“梦想”饼干和一升牛奶。
“Maud left them with Mum last night,” Elsa explains, but when the wurse immediately starts snuffling her hands as if about to eat the cookies with the tin still around them, she raises an admonishing forefinger. “You can only have two tins! One is for ammunition!”
“莫德昨晚给妈妈的。”爱莎说明道。但呜嘶立刻闻闻她的手，表示要连着罐子一起把饼干全吃掉。她伸出食指劝告说：“你只能吃两罐！一罐是‘弹药’！”
“There would be more space to hide you in here if Granny wasn’t dead,” says Elsa apologetically, because then the wardrobe wouldn’t have stopped growing. “Then again, if Granny hadn’t died, you wouldn’t need to hide in the first place.”
“如果外婆没死，你躲藏的空间就会大一点儿。”爱莎抱歉地说，因为外婆在的话衣橱就会继续变大，“话说回来，如果外婆没死，你一开始就不需要躲起来了。”
The wurse barks at her a bit about that, but in the end recognizes its poor bargaining position and only polishes off two of the tins and half of the third. It is a wurse, after all. And these are cookies.
呜嘶为此冲她吠了几下，最后认识到自己在谈判中的不利位置，只清空了两罐半。它毕竟是只呜嘶，而这些是饼干。
Elsa takes the milk and goes looking for her moo-gun. She’s a bit slow on the uptake today. Because she hasn’t had any nightmares in years, she’s only realizing now that she may need it. The first time the shadow came to her in the nightmare, she tried to shake it all off the next morning. As you do. Tried to persuade herself that “it was only a nightmare.” But she should have known better. Because everyone who has ever been in the Land-Of-Almost-Awake knows better.
爱莎拿起牛奶，去找她的哞枪。她今天反应有点儿迟钝。已经多年没有做过噩梦，所以她才想起可能需要哞枪。暗影第一次来噩梦中找她后，第二天她花了整个早晨才摆脱它。正如人们经常做的那样，试着说服自己：“只不过是一场噩梦。”但她知道事实并非如此，去过不眠大陆的任何人都知道。
“We have to go to Mirevas!” announces Elsa to the wurse, waving her moo-gun.
“我们必须去密瑞瓦斯！”爱莎对呜嘶宣布，挥舞着哞枪。
“Mirevas!” she calls out firmly to the wurse, when it comes out of one of Granny’s smaller wardrobes followed by an unnameable jumble of things that Mum has not yet had time to put into boxes.
“密瑞瓦斯！”她坚定地对呜嘶喊道，它正从外婆另一个稍小的衣橱里走出来，身后拖着个不明物体，妈妈还没来得及把它打包起来。
So last night when she had the same dream, she realized where she had to go to fight the nightmares. To reclaim her nights from them.
所以昨晚做了同一个梦后，她知道自己该去哪里对抗噩梦，从它们手上夺回自己的夜晚。
Mirevas, one of the kingdoms adjoining Miamas, is the smallest principality in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and for that reason almost forgotten. When children in the Land-of-Almost-Awake are learning geography and have to reel off the names of the six kingdoms, Mirevas is the one they always forget. Even those who live there. Because the Mirevasians are incredibly humble, kindly, and cautious creatures who go to great lengths to avoid taking up unnecessary space or causing the slightest inconvenience. Yet they have a very important task, actually one of the most important tasks in a kingdom where imagination is the most important thing you can have: for it is in Mirevas that the nightmare hunters are trained.
密瑞瓦斯与密阿玛斯相邻，是不眠大陆上最小的公国，所以几乎被人遗忘。不眠大陆的孩子学习地理，要一口气报出六个王国的名字，而密瑞瓦斯总是被忘记的那个，即使是住在那里的人。密瑞瓦斯人非常谦虚、善良、谨慎，他们总是竭尽全力地避免占用不必要的空间或造成任何一点儿小麻烦。然而，他们有一项非常重要的任务——事实上，在将想象力视为珍宝的王国里，这是最重要的任务之一：训练捕梦人。
You can’t kill a nightmare, but you can scare it. And there’s nothing so feared by nightmares as milk and cookies.
你杀不死噩梦，但能吓跑它。而噩梦最害怕的东西就是牛奶和饼干。
Just as she’s starting to feel more confident, though, she’s startled by the doorbell, and to the infinite chagrin of the wurse she accidentally fires loads of milk at it but no cookie, and it scurries off in a huff. For a moment she wonders how a nightmare can be ringing the doorbell, but it’s only George. He looks upset. She doesn’t care.
她刚刚鼓起勇气要出发，就被突然响起的门铃声吓了一跳，不小心喷了很多牛奶（没有饼干）在呜嘶身上，气得它头也不回地跑了。爱莎感到非常懊恼，一转念她疑惑噩梦是怎么按的门铃，但那其实是乔治。他看上去很难过。她不在乎。
Only smart-asses in the real world who don’t know any better would say something as idiotic as “it was only a nightmare.” There are no “only” nightmares — they’re living creatures, dark little clouds of insecurity and anguish that come sneaking between the houses when everyone is asleep, trying all the doors and windows to find some place to slip inside and start causing a commotion. And that is why there are nightmare hunters. And anyone who knows anything about anything knows one has to have a moo-gun to chase a nightmare. Someone who doesn’t know better might mistake a moo-gun for a quite ordinary paintball gun customised by someone’s granny with a milk carton at the side and a catapult glued to the top. Elsa, though, knows what she’s got in her hands. She loads the carton with milk and puts a cookie in the firing chamber in front of the rubber band on the cookie gun.
真实世界里自以为是的家伙总会说些蠢话，例如“只不过是场噩梦”。那些可不只是噩梦，它们是活生生的生物，充满不安和痛苦的黑暗小东西。当所有人入睡后，它们就会在房子之间穿行，试过每一扇门窗，找地方溜进去，开始制造骚乱。捕梦人因此而存在。有点儿常识的人都知道，要用哞枪来驱赶噩梦。不知道的人会以为哞枪是某人的外婆在普通彩弹枪一侧装个牛奶盒，顶上粘把弹弓改造而成的。然而，爱莎很清楚自己手里拿的是什么。她把牛奶倒进纸盒，在饼干枪[1]橡皮圈前的枪膛里放了块饼干。【注：[1]一种烘培模具。】
“I’m going down to pick up the spare chairs in the cellar storage,” he says and tries to smile at her like stepdads do on days when they have an extra-strong sense of being sidelined.
“我要去地下室拿备用椅子。”他试着对她微笑，任何一位继父在强烈感觉自己被排挤时都会这么做。
Elsa shrugs and slams the door in his face. The wurse has reappeared, so she climbs onto its back and peers out of the spyhole to see George lingering there for what must be a minute, looking upset. Elsa hates him for that. Mum always tells Elsa that George just wants her to like him because he cares. As if Elsa doesn’t get that. She knows he cares, and that’s why she can’t like him. Not because she wouldn’t like him if she tried, but rather because she knows she definitely would. Because everyone likes George. It’s his superpower.
爱莎耸耸肩，“砰”的一声关上门。呜嘶又出现了，她爬上它的背，从猫眼里看着乔治在外面又待了差不多一分钟，他看上去更沮丧了。爱莎为此恨他。妈妈总对爱莎说，乔治只是想赢得爱莎的喜爱，因为他在乎她。其实爱莎都明白，而这正是爱莎不能喜欢他的原因。不是因为她做不到，而是因为她知道如果试着去做，自己一定会喜欢上他。所有人都喜欢乔治。这是他的超能力。
If you don’t like people, they can’t hurt you. Almost-eight-year-olds who are often described as “different” learn that very quickly.
如果你不喜欢别人，那他们就伤害不到你。一个即将八岁、被定义为“另类”的孩子很早就学会了这一点。
She jumps down from the wurse’s back. The wurse closes its jaws around the moo-gun and gently but firmly takes it away from her, then shambles off and puts it on a stool out of reach of her trigger finger. But it avoids eating the cookie, which, as anyone who understands just how much wurses love cookies knows, is a significant sign of respect for Elsa.
她从呜嘶的背上跳下来。呜嘶咬住哞枪，温柔但坚决地从她手上拿走，然后摇摇晃晃地走开，把它放在她够不到的凳子上。但它没有吃掉饼干，虽然每个人都知道呜嘶们有多爱饼干，这明确显示了它对爱莎的尊重。
And she knows that in this case she’ll only be disappointed when Halfie is born and George forgets she exists. It’s better not to like him from the start.
她知道在这种情况下，当“小半”出生，然后乔治忘记她的存在时，她只会失望。最好一开始就不要喜欢上他。
“I’m… I’m very sorry I shouted at you in my office,” she begins.
“对不起，那天在办公室冲你大吼。”她开口。
There’s another ring at the door. Elsa throws it open and is just about to snap impatiently at George when she realizes just in time that it’s not George.
门铃又响了。爱莎打开门，正打算冲乔治不耐烦地大吼，却发现那不是乔治。
The woman waves her hand dismissively.
女人淡定地挥了挥手。
“It doesn’t matter. Sorry for saying that about…” she whispers, unable to get out the last few words.
“没关系。对不起，我说了…”她小声说，没能说出最后几个词。
“Hello, Elsa,” says the woman in the black skirt, sounding a bit lost. She’s wearing jeans, not a black skirt, today, admittedly. And she smells of mint and looks scared. She breathes so slowly that Elsa fears she’s about to expire from a shortage of oxygen.
“你好，爱莎。”黑裙女人的声音有些茫然。她今天穿着牛仔裤，而不是黑裙，身上有薄荷气味，看起来很害怕。她的呼吸如此缓慢，让爱莎担心她会缺氧而死。
There’s a silence lasting for probably half a dozen eternities.
安静持续了大约“半打永恒”。
Elsa nods guiltily without looking up from the woman’s shoes.
爱莎还是紧盯着女人的鞋子，内疚地点点头。
“It was my fault. It’s difficult for me to talk about my family. Your grandmother tried to make me do it, but it only made me… well… angry.”
“是我的错。谈论我的家庭，这对我来说很难。你外祖母想强迫我那么做，但那只让我…很…生气。”
The corners of the woman’s mouth vibrate gently.
女人的嘴角轻轻颤动。
“I was a bit caught off guard when you came to the office. I don’t get many people visiting me there. I’m… I’m not so good at visits.”
“你来我办公室的时候，我有点儿措手不及。很少有人来拜访我。我…我不太擅长接待访客。”
“It’s cool,” Elsa manages to say at last.
“没关系。”爱莎终于说。
They scrutinize each other’s shoes.
她们互相盯着对方的鞋子。
“Or to have the strength to remember. I think.”
“或者来拥有回忆的勇气，我觉得。”
“Your granny wrote in the letter that she wanted me to look after you,” she whispers.
“你外祖母在信里写，希望我能照顾你。”她轻声说。
“I don’t think surgeons can operate on themselves. It’s probably more or less the same thing.”
“我不认为外科医生能给自己动手术。这事也差不多。”
Elsa nods.
爱莎点点头。
“You mean because I’m a psychologist?”
“你是指，作为一个心理治疗师？”
“Couldn’t you mend yourself, then?”
“你不能修好自己吗？”
“She didn’t write any letters to me.”
“她没给我写信。”
Elsa nods. “Doesn’t that work?”
爱莎点头。“不管用吗？”
“People drink wine to forget things that are hard, right?”
“人们喝酒是为了忘记那些难受的事情，对吗？”
“I… I bought these Harry Potter books yesterday. I haven’t had time to get very far yet, but, you know.”
“我昨天买了这些哈利·波特小说。我还没时间读很多，但，你看。”
“That’s what she writes in all the letters, apparently.”
“显然，她在每封信里都这么写了。”
Elsa snuffles.
爱莎哼了一声。
“You sound angry.”
“你听上去生气了。”
Elsa nods again. For an instant the woman in the jeans looks as if she’s about to reach out towards her, but she stops herself and absentmindedly scratches the palm of her hand instead.
爱莎又点点头。有一瞬间，穿牛仔裤的女人看起来好像要向她伸出双臂，但终究没那么做，而是心不在焉地挠着自己的手掌。
“Broken in… in another way. Maybe.”
“另一种…伤痛。也许吧。”
The woman reaches into a bag on the floor and gets something out.
女人伸手从放在地上的袋子里拿了些东西出来。
“You’re also broken, right? Like Wolfheart?”
“你也受伤了，对吗？像狼心一样？”
Elsa pokes at the floor with the tip of her toe.
爱莎用脚趾尖戳着地面。
“Harry Potter is important for everyone!”
“哈利·波特对每个人都很重要。”
“What made you change your mind?”
“你改变主意了？”
“I… I understand Harry Potter is important to you.”
“我明白哈利·波特对你很重要。”
The skin around the woman’s mouth cracks again. She takes another long, deep breath, looks into Elsa’s eyes and says: “I like him a lot too, that’s what I wanted to say. It’s been a long time since I had such an amazing reading experience. You almost never do, once you grow up, things are at their peak when you’re a child and then it’s all downhill from there… well… because of the cynicism, I suppose. I just wanted to thank you for reminding me of how things used to be.”
女人嘴角的皮肤又起了几道皱纹。她深深吸了一口气，看着爱莎的眼睛说：“我非常喜欢他，我就想说这个。我好久都没有过这么棒的阅读体验了。长大后，几乎很少会有。童年的时候所有事情都呈现最好的模样，然后就开始走下坡路…好吧，大概是因为愤世嫉俗，我猜。我只是想谢谢你，让我想起事物曾经的样子。”
Those are more words than Elsa has ever heard the woman say without stuttering. The woman offers her what’s in the bag. Elsa takes it. It’s also a book. A fairy tale. The Brothers Lionheart, by Astrid Lindgren. Elsa knows that, because it’s one of her favorite stories that doesn’t come from the Land-of-Almost-Awake. She read it aloud to Granny many times while they were driving around in Renault. It’s about Karl and Jonatan, who die and come to Nangijala, where they have to fight the tyrant Tengil and the dragon Katla.
这些话比爱莎听这女人顺畅说出的所有字还要多。女人把袋子里的东西给她。爱莎接过来。那也是一本书，一本童话故事。阿斯特丽德·林格伦的《狮心兄弟》。爱莎知道这本书，这是她最喜欢的、不是来自不眠大陆的故事之一。她和外婆开着雷诺车兜风时，她曾大声读过好几遍给外婆听。故事讲的是卡尔和约拿旦死去并来到“南极亚拉”，在那里他们必须对抗暴君腾格尔和恶龙卡特拉。
“I used to read it to my boys when their granny died. I don’t know if you’ve read it. You probably have.”
“我儿子的外祖母过世时，我曾经读这本书给他们听。我不知道你是不是看过。你很可能看过了。”
The woman’s gaze loses its footing again.
女人的目光又飘忽了起来。
Elsa shakes her head and holds the book tightly.
爱莎摇头，紧紧抱住书。
The woman in jeans looks relieved. Then she takes such a deep breath that Elsa fears her wishbone is about to snap.
穿牛仔裤的女人看上去松了一口气。她又深深吸了口气，爱莎担心她的肋骨会断掉。
“I just stayed here. I just… stayed.”
“我就待在这里了。就待着。”
Her lips open and close, in turn, as if they’re electric.
她的嘴唇反复开合，好像它们是电动的。
“You know… you asked if we met at the hospital. Your granny and I. After the tsunami I… they… they had laid out all the dead bodies in a little square. So families and friends could look for their… after… I… I mean, she found me there. In the square. I had been sitting there for… I don’t know. Several weeks. I think. She flew me home and she said I could live here until I knew where I was… was going.”
“那时候…你问我们是不是在医院认识的。你外祖母和我。海啸后，我…他们、他们把所有尸体平放在一个小广场，让家人和朋友可以找到…之后…我、我是说…她在那里看到了我。在广场上。我在那里坐了…我不知道…几周吧。我觉得。她带我坐飞机回家，她说我可以住在这里，直到我知道自己要…要去哪里。”
Elsa looks down at her own shoes this time.
爱莎这次看着自己的鞋子。
“Are you coming today?” she asks.
“你今天来吗？”她问。
“No,” she lies. Because she’s polite enough to know that if someone gives you a book, you owe that person the pretense that you haven’t read it.
“没有。”她撒谎。因为她很有礼貌，知道如果有人送给你一本书，那你就应该假装没看过。
“It’s okay. Thanks for the book.”
“没关系，谢谢你的书。”
“Yes, sorry. You were a newborn. When I moved in here. Newborn.”
“是的，对不起。我搬进这里的时候，你才是个新生儿。”
“Yes. Sorry. I… I have to go. I just wanted to say… sorry.”
“是的，对不起。我…我要走了。我只是想说…对不起。”
“I don’t think I… I think your grandmother was very disappointed in me.”
“我不觉得我…我觉得你外祖母对我很失望。”
In the corner of her eye she can see the woman shaking her head. As if she wants to run away again.
她用眼角看见女人摇了摇头，大概她又想逃跑了。
“I’m not a little child. I’m almost eight!”
“我不是小孩。我快八岁了。”
There’s a choking sound in the woman’s throat. It takes a while before Elsa understands it’s probably laughter. As if that part of her throat has been in disuse and has just found the key to itself and flicked some old electrical switch.
女人的喉咙里发出哽咽的声音。爱莎过了一会儿才明白那可能是笑声。仿佛她的喉咙废弃许久，刚刚找到了钥匙，拨弄了一些旧开关。
“There’s nothing wrong with being different. Granny said that only different people change the world.”
“不一样没什么不好的。外婆说只有不一样的人才能改变世界。”
“You’re really a very different little child,” says the woman.
“你真是一个不一样的小孩。”女人说。
“Maybe she was disappointed in you because you’re so disappointed in yourself.”
“也许她对你失望是因为你对自己那么失望。”
Elsa shakes her head. There’s something in the woman’s eyes that actually looks like genuine concern.
爱莎摇头。女人的眼睛看上去像是真正在关心。
The woman’s eyes hesitate, but she looks straight at Elsa again.
女人的眼神犹豫了一下，再次直视爱莎。
“Has your friend come back? Wolf — what was it you called him?”
“你的朋友回来了吗？狼——你是怎么叫他的？”
“Sometimes it’s hard to believe in God,” answers the woman.
“有时候很难相信上帝。”女人回答。
“That’s a difficult question.”
“这问题很难回答。”
“Yes.”
“是的。”
“Someone who wants to help himself is possibly not the one who most needs help from others,” Elsa objects.
“需要帮助的人也许并不是那些急切寻求他人帮助的人。”爱莎说。
The woman stops. Holds the banister very hard.
女人停下脚步，紧紧握住扶手。
“Did you find them? Did you find your boys in the square?”
“你找到他们了吗？你在广场找到你的孩子了吗？”
“He does that sometimes. Disappears. You shouldn’t worry. He… gets scared of people. Disappears for a while. But he always comes back. He just needs time.”
“他有时候会这样的。消失。你不用担心。他…害怕人。消失一阵子。但总会回来的。他只是需要时间。”女人说。
“It’s hard to help those who don’t want to help themselves.”
“要帮助那些不想被帮助的人很困难。”
Elsa wants to stop her but she’s already halfway down the stairs. She has almost disappeared on the floor below when Elsa leans over the railing, gathers her strength and calls out:
爱莎想阻止她，但她已经走下半层楼梯。当爱莎靠在栏杆上，鼓起勇气朝下面大喊时，她已经几乎消失在了楼下。
Elsa bites her lip.
爱莎咬了咬嘴唇。
“I mean, you know, do you believe in God?” asks Elsa.
“我的意思是，你相信上帝吗？”爱莎问。
“Do you believe in life after death?”
“你相信死后的生活吗？”
“Because I wonder why there are tsunamis at all.”
“因为我疑惑为什么世界上会存在海啸这种东西。”
“I think he needs help.”
“我觉得他需要帮助。”
“I have to go,” she repeats.
“我得走了。”她重复道。
The woman nods without answering.
女人点点头，没有说话。
The woman looks up at her.
女人抬头看着她。
“Because you wonder why God didn’t stop the tsunami?”
“因为你疑惑上帝为什么不去阻止海啸？”
The woman doesn’t answer. Elsa rubs her hands together like Wolfheart does.
女人没有回答。爱莎像狼心一样搓着手。
“How?”
“怎么说？”
“Why not?”
“为什么不？”
Elsa shakes her head.
爱莎摇头。
“Your granny was old.”
“你外祖母年纪大了。”
“I saw someone in a film once say, ‘Faith can move mountains,’ ” Elsa goes on, without knowing why, maybe mainly because she doesn’t want to lose sight of the woman before she has time to ask the question she really wants to ask.
“我看过电影里有人曾说‘信仰可以移山’。”爱莎继续说，不知道为什么，也许主要是因为在问出她真正想问的问题之前，她不想让女人离开视线。
“Maybe it’s different.”
“也许是不一样的。”
“Everyone says I may miss Granny now but it’ll pass. I’m not so sure.”
“每个人都说，我现在想念外婆，但会过去的。我不太确信。”
“It hasn’t passed for you.”
“对你来说，也没有过去。”
“You should come today!” Elsa calls out after her, but the woman has already disappeared.
“你今天应该来的！”爱莎冲她大喊，但女人已经消失了。
The woman half-closes her eyes.
女人半闭上眼睛。
The woman looks up at her again. With her empathic eyes.
女人再次抬头看她。同情的眼神。
“So I hear,” says the woman.
“我听过。”女人说。
The woman looks as if she’s trying to find a reason to disappear down the stairs. Elsa takes a quick breath.
女人想找个理由继续下楼。爱莎快速地吸了口气。
“Not to me. I only knew her for seven years. Almost eight.”
“对我来说不是，我才认识她七年，快八年。”
“But you know that’s actually true! Because it comes from Miamas, from a giant called Faith. She was so strong it was insane. And she could literally move mountains!”
“但你知道吗，这是真的！因为这句话是从密阿玛斯传过来的，有一个巨人名叫‘信仰’。她超级强壮，可以真的移动山脉！”
Elsa nods.
爱莎点头。
Elsa hears the door of her flat closing and then everything is silent until she hears Dad’s voice from the door at the bottom.
爱莎听见她公寓的门关上，然后一切都安静了，直到爸爸的声音从底层大门传来。
She collects herself and wipes her tears and forces the wurse to hide in the wardrobe again with half of the moo-gun ammunition as a bribe. Then she closes the door of Granny’s flat without locking it and runs down the stairs, and a few moments later she’s lying in Audi with the seat reclined as far as it’ll go, staring out of the glass ceiling.
她收拾情绪，擦干眼泪，用半罐“弹药”收买呜嘶，哄它再次躲进衣橱。然后她关上外婆公寓的门，没有锁，径直跑下楼。过了一会儿，她已经躺在奥迪里，把座椅放到最平，盯着玻璃车顶了。
The cloud animals are soaring lower now. Dad is wearing a suit and is also silent. It feels strange, because Dad hardly ever wears a suit. But today is the day.
云兽现在飞得更低了。爸爸穿着西装，没有说话，感觉上很奇怪，因为爸爸几乎不穿西装。但今天就是那个日子。
Elsa hates him for not having an answer but she loves him a bit for not lying. Audi stops outside a black steel gate. They sit for a while, waiting.
爱莎恨他没有答案，但爱他不说谎。奥迪在一扇黑色的铁门前停下。他们坐了一会儿，等着。
“Do you believe in God, Dad?” asks Elsa, in the way that always catches him unaware like water balloons thrown from a balcony. Elsa knows that because Granny loved water balloons and Dad learned never to walk right beneath her balcony.
“你相信上帝吗，爸爸？”爱莎问得他措手不及，像被人从阳台上扔了个水球。外婆很爱水球，而爸爸学乖了，绝不从她的阳台下走过。
“I don’t know,” he answers.
“我不知道。”他回答。
Dad looks as if he’s fighting his hesitation for a moment, like you do when you have daughters aged about eight. It’s almost as if Elsa has just asked him to explain where babies come from. Again.
爸爸似乎是和他的犹豫做了一会儿斗争，当你有一个即将八岁的女儿时你也会这么做。如果爱莎叫他解释婴儿是怎么来的，他会是同样的反应。
“No, like, as a person,” sighs Elsa.
“不，就像是…作为一个人。”爱莎叹了口气。
“Am I like Granny?” says Elsa without taking her eyes off the sky.
“我像外婆吗？”爱莎望着天空问。
“So bloody leave it then!” Elsa snaps, much more vehemently than she means to, because she’s not in the mood for his corrections today.
“那就他妈的别说了！”爱莎怒吼，口气比她预想的更强硬，她今天没心思听他纠正语法。
“You must stop saying ‘like’ and ‘sort of’ all the time. Only people with a bad vocabulary –” he begins to say instead, because he can’t stop himself. Because that’s the way he is. One of those who find it very important to say “one of those” and not “one of them.”
“你别再一直说‘就像是’和‘之类的’。只有词汇量很少的人——”他转移了话题，因为他控制不住地要去纠正。这就是他，认为把话说精确是很要紧的事。
Usually it’s their thing, correcting one another. Their only thing. Dad has a word jar, where Elsa puts difficult words she has learned, like “concise” and “pretentious,” or complex phrases like “My fridge is a taco sauce graveyard.” And every time the jar is full she gets a gift voucher for a book to download on the iPad. The word jar has financed the entire Harry Potter series for her, although she knows Dad is ridiculously dubious about Harry Potter because Dad can’t get his head around a story unless it’s based on reality.
纠正彼此是他们通常的习惯，是他们之间唯一特别的事情。爸爸有一个生词罐，爱莎会把学到的难词放进去，像是“精炼”和“矫饰”，或者复杂的短语，比如“我的冰箱是塔可酱墓地”。每次罐子存满了，她就能得到一张可以在平板电脑上购买电子书的礼品卡。生词罐资助了她整套的《哈利·波特》。不过爸爸对《哈利·波特》的魔法世界存疑，他只能明白基于现实的故事。
“You mean in physical appearance?” asks Dad hesitantly.
“你是说长相？”爸爸迟疑地问。
“Sorry,” mumbles Elsa.
“对不起。”爱莎喃喃说。
Dad sinks into his seat. They compete at seeing who can feel most ashamed. Then he says, slightly less tentatively: “Yes. You’re very much like her. You got all your best qualities from her and your mother.”
爸爸陷进椅子里。他们比试了一下，看谁觉得更羞愧。然后他开口了，稍微少了一些犹豫：“是的，你很像她。你最好的优点都是从她和你妈妈那儿继承的。”
Elsa doesn’t answer, because she doesn’t know if that was the answer she wanted. Dad doesn’t say anything either, because he’s unsure whether that was what he should have said. Elsa wants to tell him she wants to stay with him more. Every other weekend is not enough. She wants to yell at him that once Halfie comes along and is quite normal, George and Mum won’t want to have Elsa at home anymore, because parents want normal children, not different children. And Halfie will stand next to Elsa and remind them of all the differences between them. She wants to yell that Granny was wrong, that different is not always good, because different is a mutation and almost no one in X-Men has a family.
爱莎没有回答，她不知道这是不是她想要的答案。爸爸也没再说什么，因为他不确定这是不是他应该说的话。爱莎想告诉他，自己希望跟他多相处。隔周周末不够。她想冲他喊，一旦“小半”出生，很可能乔治和妈妈就不想让爱莎待在家里了，因为父母都想要正常的孩子，而不是另类的孩子。“小半”会站在爱莎的身旁，提醒他们，两个孩子之间有多不一样。她想喊，外婆是错的，另类不总是好的，那是一种变种，X战警里几乎所有变种人都没有家。
She wants to yell out the whole thing. But she doesn’t. Because she knows he’d never understand. And she knows he wouldn’t want her to live with him and Lisette because Lisette has her own children. Undifferent children.
她想把所有这些都大喊出来，但她没有。她知道爸爸不会明白的，他也不想让爱莎跟他以及莉丝特住在一起，因为莉丝特有自己的孩子，不那么另类的孩子。
“You gave me your words,” she whispers.
“你给了我你的词汇。”她轻声说。
And then Elsa squeezes her eyes together tightly and puts her forehead against his shoulder and her fingers into her jacket pocket and spins the lid of the red felt-tip pen that he gave her when she was small, so she could add her own punctuation marks, and which is still the best present he’s ever given her. Or anyone.
爱莎用力挤了一下眼睛，前额靠着他的肩膀，手伸进口袋扭着红色记号笔的盖子。这支笔是爱莎小时候爸爸送给她的，为了让她可以自己修改错误的拼写，这是至今为止她收到过最好的礼物。
Dad sits in silence like you do when you don’t feel like wearing a suit. But just as Elsa opens Audi’s door to jump out, he turns to her hesitantly and says in a low voice: “… but there are moments when I sincerely hope that not ALL your best traits come from Granny and Mum, Elsa.”
穿着西装的爸爸，浑身不自在但安静地坐着。就在爱莎打开车门跳下车时，他冲她迟疑地低声说：“但有些时候，我真心希望你所有的优点并不都是来自外婆和妈妈，爱莎。”
He tries to blink his pride out of his eyes. She sees that. And she wants to tell him that she lied to him last Friday. That she was the one who sent the text from Mum’s phone about how he didn’t have to pick her up from school. But she doesn’t want to disappoint him, so she stays quiet. Because you hardly ever disappoint anybody if you just stay quiet. All almost-eight-year-olds know that.
他试图眨去眼睛里的骄傲。她看出来了。她想告诉他，上周五她说谎了。是她用妈妈的手机发短信叫他不要来学校接她的。但她不想让他失望，所以保持了安静。因为保持安静的时候，你基本上不会让人失望。所有即将八岁的孩子都知道。
“I don’t think so,” Dad replies sadly, as if it’s quite self-evident.
“我觉得不会。”爸爸伤心地回答，似乎这是显而易见的。
“Because I turned out different?” she whispers.
“因为我和别人不一样？”她轻声说。
“We have all the children we need.” And it sounds as if he stops himself from saying “more than we need.” Or at least that’s how it feels.
“我们已经拥有所有我们想要的孩子了。”言外之意像是“比想要的还多”。
Dad kisses her hair. She raises her head and says as if in passing, “Will you and Lisette have children?”
爸爸亲了亲她的头发。她抬起头，假装随意地问：“你和莉丝特会要孩子吗？”
“Yes,” he says.
“是的。”他说。
“Is it because of me you don’t want more children?” she asks, and hopes he’ll say “no.”
“是因为我，所以你不想要更多的小孩了吗？”她希望他的回答是“不”。
“Why not?”
“为什么？”
He doesn’t answer. And she doesn’t wait. But just as she’s about to slam the door of Audi from the outside, Dad reaches across the seat and catches her fingertips, and when she meets his eyes he looks back tentatively, like he always does. But then he whispers: “Because you turned out to be perfect.”
他没有回答，而她也没有等。她正要从外面关上奥迪的车门时，爸爸从椅子上探过身，抓住她的指尖，视线相交时，他像平时那样闪躲。但随后他说：“因为你是完美的。”
George stands by the gate looking sad. He’s also wearing a suit. Elsa runs past him and Mum catches hold of her, her mascara running, and Elsa presses her face against Halfie. Mum’s dress smells of boutique. The cloud animals are flying low.
乔治站在大门边，一脸悲伤。他也穿着西装。爱莎跑过他的身边，被妈妈抓住。她的睫毛膏流到了脸上。爱莎把脸贴在“小半”上。妈妈的衣服有股精品店的味道。云兽在低空盘旋着。
She’s never heard him so nontentative. And if she’d said that aloud, he would have told her that there’s no such word. And she loves him for that.
她从未听过他这么“不犹豫”的口气。如果她大声说出此刻的想法，他会告诉她这根本不是个词。她因此爱他。
And that’s the day they bury Elsa’s granny.
今天是他们埋葬爱莎外婆的日子。
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