20-1-13【英语美文】整形医生遇见“美” , BBC国家短篇小说获奖作《消失》

Disappearances

ByKJ Orr

the 2016 winner of the BBC national shortstory award

1.       The beginning is simple enough: I find myself in the park due to asudden urge to go to the museum. My restlessness always translates itselfinto such abrupt impulses. So, I find myself on thesteps of the museum at an absurdly early hour.  It is closed, of course.Everything is closed at this time of day. I consider my options. I could returnto the apartment. Carolina will be there soon enough to make my coffee andbreakfast. However, the sky is clear and I decide to walk on. It is spring –and early enough in the day to find some moments of peace before the city’straffic starts up. I pass a café I’ve never seen before, and decide to check ifthey are open.

2.       I try the door; it opens. I enter, and take a seat. I see a womanstanding behind the bar. She wears a white shirt, a long black apron tied tight about her waist. ‘Cafecito,por favor’. When she serves me I notice her hands for the first time, in many moretimes to come. It becomes a habit. I spend every morning at the café, at thesame table, served always by the same woman. She is the only person workingthere at this hour. I wake myself up every day at five. It becomes automatic,no need for an alarm. I throw on clothes, and head out. I even go to themuseum. I stand on the steps, lookup at the door – it is always closed of course. I observe the building for afew moments, and walk on.

3.       This first morning I order my coffee in Spanish, and every morningafterwards I do the same. I find myself each day in the café at an hour when noone I know is about. The momentanyone else enters the café, I leave. The rest of my day continues as before. Igo home. I shower. I change into something more appropriate. Carolina has mybreakfast prepared, as ever. 

4.       In the past, I was a famous surgeon.I had inherited a good mind, andafter some years of training in Oxford, England, I qualified as a surgeon, only to turn my hand to facelifts and other plastic surgery treatments to makewomen look different than they were supposed to look. I considered myself veryclever indeed. The waitress asks me what I do for a living. I laugh. I’m an oldman. I’m retired. She persists. Shewants to know. This is not a conversation I want to have. I enjoy being astranger. I like this woman knowing nothing of my life, or who I am. I wouldlike to keep it that way.

5.       But it’s the first sign of interest she has shown me, and it wouldbe rude not to respond. It’s hard to explain. I pause before speaking. I cansay anything. I can say I was a poet. I was a road sweeper. I was a baker. Iwas an architect. She’ll never know. So I just tell her I was a surgeon. I amnot more specific than that. I think it will end there, our chat, but she assumes I was a generalsurgeon, and goes on to tell me about the man who saved her brother’s life whenshe was eight, at the time her father disappeared. Her eyes are warm as she relates this tale, nonetheless.  Then suddenly,she shakes my hand, and I’m not surprised to feel the scar tissue on her hands. I noticed it the very first moment I mether.

6.       ‘I’m Beatriz’, she says. After this brief talk, our morningscontinue. The days are warm. Then one day, she sits down right across from me.She lights a cigarette. ‘I am tired of these people saying: “This is what Iwant. This is not what I want. What is this? This is not what I ordered. Getthe manager”, all the time! These rich folks– they throw their money at you.They never look you in the eye. They like to assume that you are stupid. Maybeit’s more fun that way.’ She gives me that smile. ‘These people…,’ she says,and sighs. I don’t know how to respond.

7.       My hand is trembling; I spill my coffee. ‘Stupid,’ I say. ‘I’m sosorry.’ ‘They have been working hard, these hands. Give them a break,’ shesays.  She takes my hand between herpalms.  I feel her scars again. I havebeen so used to unravelling womenall my life, constantly imagining them into something other than they are. The realness of this unmodified woman strikes me like ablow. It feels like the first time I interact with a human being.

8.       The next day, an old customer of mine, a woman called Irene, enters thecafé.  She immediately sits down at mytable. She claims she spotted me long ago already, but couldn’t place me in those ‘ghastly clothes’. She says. ‘Look at you! I can’t believe youthought you’d get away with this beggar’s attire of yours!’ Now it’s impossibleto pretend that I don’t know her.

9.       Beatriz approaches. I try not to say more than I need, although thedamage is done. I order two coffees, in Spanish. She walks away. I watch hershoulders become small, like those of a child. I try to resist having aconversation with Irene, but it is impossible to just sit there and saynothing. If Beatriz were hiding in the kitchen, she would hear every word. ‘So,Alfredo Martinez is dead.  Such ahandsome man once. But he looked awful in his coffin. He’d better seen youbefore he passed away!’ She said. ‘I’m no longer able, as perhaps you know – myhands…,’ I say. ‘Don’t you try to tell me that they’ve lost their touch! We all know who has the magician’s fingers!’ Icannot help but laugh a bit together with her. She leaves ahead of me, withpromises of drinks, very soon.

10.   I linger on in the café, not sure what it is that I am waiting for.Beatriz has left the bill on the table. There is no further need for her toappear. I know she will not. I leave the precise amount on the bill, no more,no less, in small change. I walk out of the door, without looking back. I feela strong sense of melancholy, as I realize that I really do belong to the groupof ‘these people’ Beatriz loathes somuch, and Irene belongs to as well. I always have.

11.   Pay attention. This is important: She is not beautiful. Her face isnot symmetrical. As a rule of thumb beauty requires symmetry, and as with so many people,the two sides of her face don’t match. In fact, there is a kind of heaviness tothe right side of her face, as if it were somehow more susceptible – to what . . . gravity, grief? A smoker. Indeed, we havesmoked together. It is a passion we share. I know that she has smoked for someyears, from the traces of lines onher upper lip; again, on the right.  Shehas green eyes; I may not have mentioned.  She has dark hair. It is of medium length, andmost often tied back. She is moderately tall. Lines are visible on her forehead, revealing that she is in her late thirties.  She has a small waist. She has scarred hands.