Edin had worked in the stamp and coin shop for nine months before she finally admitted that she disliked one drawer. It was the bottom one of the long oak counter, the only one with a lock. Nobody had ever found the key.
埃丁在这家邮票钱币店干了九个月，才终于承认自己不喜欢其中一只抽屉。那是长长的橡木柜台最底下的一只，也是唯一上了锁的一只。从来没有人找到过钥匙。
The owner, a quiet man who had moved to the coast in the spring, had left her a binder of instructions. Page forty said only, "Do not worry about the locked drawer. It is not important."
店主是个安静的男人，春天搬去了海边，给她留下一本说明手册。第四十页只写了一句：“别担心那个上锁的抽屉。它不重要。”
For months she had obeyed him. She sold albums of postage stamps to schoolchildren, polished silver coins for retired engineers, and learned to tell a real misprint from a smudge. The drawer sat below her knees like a small, stubborn animal.
几个月来，她一直听他的话。她把成册的邮票卖给小学生，替退休的工程师擦亮银币，还学会了分辨真正的印刷错版和一团污迹。那只抽屉就在她膝盖下方，像一只固执的小动物。
Then the insurance company sent a form. Every item in the shop had to be listed, counted, and valued before the end of the month.
后来，保险公司寄来一张表格。月底之前，店里的每一件物品都必须列出、清点并估价。
"Everything?" Edin asked the empty shop, and the shop did not answer.
“每一件？”埃丁问空荡荡的店铺，店铺没有回答。
She worked for three evenings, with the sign turned to closed. She counted the albums, weighed the loose coins, and photographed the glass cases. When she reached the last line of the form, which was headed "Contents of locked storage," she hesitated.
她连着忙了三个晚上，把牌子翻到“休息”那一面。她数了集邮册，称了散装硬币，给玻璃柜拍了照。填到表格最后一行时，她犹豫了。那一行的标题是“上锁储物处内容物”。
She knocked on the drawer with one knuckle. It sounded hollow, or at least she decided that it did. She wanted to go home, and the owner had called it unimportant, so she wrote one word in the box. Empty.
她用一个指节敲了敲抽屉。听起来是空的，或者说，她认定它是空的。她想回家，而店主说那不重要，于是她在那一格里写了一个词：空。
Two days later Cato came into the shop. He was a thin man in a faded grey jacket, with a magnifying glass on a cord around his neck. He introduced himself as a valuer sent by the insurance company to check her figures.
两天后，卡托来到店里。他是个瘦瘦的男人，穿着褪色的灰夹克，脖子上用绳子挂着一枚放大镜。他自我介绍说，他是保险公司派来的估价师，来核对她填的数字。
"I will not take long," he said. "Most of these visits are a formality."
“不会占用您太久，”他说，“这类访问大多只是走个形式。”
"I hope so," said Edin. "I did everything carefully."
“但愿如此，”埃丁说，“我做得很仔细。”
He moved through the shop with a patient, slightly sleepy manner, opening cases and reading labels. Now and then he made a small note in a book with a green cover. Edin pretended to rearrange the pens on the counter, though she had arranged them twice already.
他在店里走动时耐心而带点睡意，打开柜子，读着标签。他不时在一本绿皮小本子上记一笔。埃丁假装在整理柜台上的钢笔，其实她已经整理过两遍了。
After an hour he stopped beside the oak counter and rested his hand on top of it. Then he stood very still, as if he were listening to something far away.
一个钟头后，他在橡木柜台旁停下，一只手搭在柜台上。然后他一动不动地站着，仿佛在倾听远处的什么声音。
"Is there a problem?" she asked.
“有什么问题吗？”她问。
"Not at all. I only noticed that your bottom drawer is locked." He tilted his head. "The form says it is empty."
“完全没有。我只是注意到您最下面那只抽屉是锁着的。”他歪了歪头。“表格上写着它是空的。”
"It is. The owner told me it was not important."
“是空的。店主告诉我它不重要。”
"People say that about many things." Cato crouched down, with a small groan, and tapped the front of the drawer the way she had done. Then he slid his fingers underneath and tipped the whole counter very slightly towards himself.
“人们对很多东西都这么说。”卡托发出一声轻哼，蹲下身，像她那样敲了敲抽屉面板。接着他把手指伸到下面，把整个柜台稍稍朝自己这边倾了一点。
Something shifted inside the drawer with a soft, heavy sound.
抽屉里有什么东西挪动了一下，发出轻轻的、沉沉的一声。
Edin felt her stomach drop. "That might be the wood moving," she said weakly.
埃丁觉得胃里一沉。“可能是木头在动，”她无力地说。
"Wood does not usually clink," said Cato. He was not unkind about it. He simply stayed where he was, on one knee, waiting for her to decide what kind of person she wanted to be.
“木头通常不会叮当响，”卡托说。他的口气并不严厉。他只是蹲在原地，单膝跪着，等她决定自己想做哪种人。
"I should have asked," she said at last. "I wrote that it was empty because I did not want to be the one to open it. That was a mistake, and I knew it was one while I was writing."
“我本该问一问的，”她终于说，“我写它是空的，是因为不想成为打开它的那个人。那是个错误，我写的时候就知道它是错误。”
"Then it is a mistake you have already half corrected," said Cato.
“那么这是一个你已经改正了一半的错误，”卡托说。
She laughed in spite of herself. "How do you open a drawer without a key?"
她忍不住笑了。“没有钥匙，怎么开抽屉？”
"Gently, if possible." He took a thin strip of metal from his jacket pocket. "I carry this for old cabinets. It has never been used on anything I was not asked to open. May I?"
“尽量轻轻地开。”他从夹克口袋里掏出一根细金属条。“我带着它是用来开老柜子的。我从没用它开过没人请我开的东西。可以吗？”
"Please. It is my signature on the form, so it is my problem."
“请吧。表格上签的是我的名字，所以这是我的事。”
It took him almost ten minutes. Edin held the lamp and tried not to breathe too loudly. When the lock finally gave way, it did so with a small, dry click, like a tongue against teeth.
他花了将近十分钟。埃丁举着灯，尽量不出大气。锁终于松开了，发出一声轻轻的、干脆的咔哒，像舌头抵在牙齿上。
The drawer slid out slowly. Inside lay a flat tray of faded blue velvet, and on the velvet rested forty or fifty coins, each one set in its own hollow. Beside them was a bundle of stamps wrapped in thin paper, tied with a piece of string that had gone brittle with age.
抽屉缓缓滑了出来。里面是一个平平的褪色蓝丝绒托盘，丝绒上摆着四五十枚硬币，每一枚都嵌在自己的凹槽里。旁边是一捆用薄纸包着的邮票，系着一根已经因年久而变脆的细绳。
Neither of them spoke for a while.
两人好一会儿都没有说话。
"These are not ordinary," Cato said finally. He lifted the magnifying glass and bent over the tray. "This is a coin from a mint that closed more than a century ago. And this one, here, has a flaw in the lettering. Collectors search for that kind of flaw for years."
“这些可不一般，”卡托终于说。他举起放大镜，俯身看着托盘。“这是一家一百多年前就关闭的造币厂铸的硬币。还有这一枚，这儿，字母有个瑕疵。收藏家为了找这种瑕疵，一找就是好几年。”
"The owner never mentioned any of it."
“店主从来没提过这些。”
"Perhaps he had forgotten. Perhaps he did not know. A drawer can be locked by one person and inherited by another, and the reason can disappear along the way." Cato straightened up slowly. "What matters is that if there had been a fire last winter, you would have been paid for an empty drawer."
“也许他忘了。也许他不知道。抽屉可以被一个人锁上，被另一个人继承，而原因在途中就消失了。”卡托慢慢直起身。“要紧的是，如果去年冬天着了火，您得到赔付的就是一只空抽屉的钱。”
Edin sat down on the stool behind the counter. "So my honest mistake could have cost the owner a small fortune."
埃丁在柜台后的凳子上坐了下来。“这么说，我的一个诚实的错误，本可能让店主损失一大笔钱。”
"It could have. But it didn't, because the figures were checked before anything happened." He closed his green notebook. "That is the entire purpose of my job. Nobody expects people to be perfect. We only hope they will be corrected in time."
“本来可能。但没有，因为数字在出事之前就核对过了。”他合上绿色的笔记本。“这就是我这份工作的全部意义。没人指望人是完美的。我们只希望错误能及时得到纠正。”
She took a pen and drew a line through the word on the form. Her handwriting was shakier than usual. Beneath it she wrote a new description, listing the coins by number, and she left a blank space for the value.
她拿起笔，在表格上把那个词划掉了。她的字迹比平时抖得厉害。她在下面写了一段新的说明，按编号列出这些硬币，价值一栏留了空白。
"How long will the valuation take?" she asked.
“估价要多久？”她问。
"A week, perhaps two. I will need to weigh each piece and compare it with the records." He looked around the shop with new interest. "You may want to move these somewhere safer. And you might want to tell the owner before the news reaches him by post."
“一周，也许两周。我得给每一件称重，并和记录对照。”他带着新的兴致环顾店铺。“您也许想把这些挪到更安全的地方。还有，最好在消息通过邮件传到店主那里之前，您先告诉他。”
"He will be astonished."
“他会大吃一惊的。”
"Or he will say that he always knew." Cato smiled. "Men who leave their treasures in a locked drawer often prefer to be mysterious about it."
“或者他会说他一直都知道。”卡托笑了。“把宝贝锁在抽屉里的人，往往喜欢保持神秘。”
Edin picked up the telephone, then put it down again. She was not sure yet what she would say. It seemed wrong to hurry that call, and wrong to delay it as well.
埃丁拿起电话，又放下了。她还没想好要说什么。这通电话催得太急似乎不对，拖着不打也不对。
Instead she brought two cups of water from the back room and set one beside the velvet tray. For a few minutes they sat together in the lamplight and looked at the little coins. Each one waited patiently in its own hollow, as it had waited for years.
于是她从里屋端来两杯水，把一杯放在丝绒托盘旁边。接下来的几分钟，两人在灯光下并肩坐着，看着那些小小的硬币。每一枚都在自己的凹槽里耐心等着，就像它们多年来一直等着一样。
"Mr. Cato," she said eventually, "if the owner wanted the drawer found, would he hide the key somewhere obvious, or where no one would look?"
“卡托先生，”她终于说，“如果店主希望这只抽屉被人发现，他会把钥匙藏在显眼的地方，还是没人会去找的地方？”
He turned the magnifying glass over in his hands. "That," he said, "is a very good question. Which answer would you prefer to believe?"
他把放大镜在手里翻了个面。“这，”他说，“是个很好的问题。你更愿意相信哪个答案？”
