The Guard Dog Who Slept Through Everything

The car boot sale opened at seven, in a muddy field behind the garden centre. By half past seven, Kavya had already made her first mistake of the day. She had agreed to bring the dog.

后备箱旧货市集七点开张，地点在园艺中心后面一块泥泞的空地上。到七点半，卡维娅已经犯了当天的第一个错误。她答应把狗带来。

The dog was Luca's, an enormous grey animal with a face like a disappointed judge. Luca called him Security, and he had told everyone, with a completely straight face, that the dog had a professional background. In truth, Security's career had been short. He had never barked at a stranger, never chased a ball, and never been awake before ten. He lay under the pasting table with his chin on his paws and let the whole world walk past him.

那条狗是卢卡的，一只巨大的灰色动物，脸像一位失望的法官。卢卡管它叫“保安”，还一本正经地告诉每个人，这条狗有专业背景。其实“保安”的职业生涯很短。它从没对陌生人叫过，从没追过球，十点前也从没醒过。它趴在折叠桌底下，下巴搁在爪子上，任由全世界从身边走过。

"He is a deterrent," Luca said, placing a bowl of water near the dog's nose. "Thieves see him and they think, that dog is trained."

“它是一种威慑，”卢卡说着，把一碗水放在狗鼻子旁边，“小偷一看见它，就会想，这条狗受过训练。”

"Thieves see him snoring," Kavya said.

“小偷看见的是它在打呼噜，”卡维娅说。

"They see a trained dog, resting."

“他们看见的是一条受过训练、正在休息的狗。”

Their stall stood in the third row, between a man selling garden gnomes and a woman with a mountain of children's coats. They were emptying their mother's old flat. She had moved to a smaller one near the sea. Every drawer had given up something. Lamps, vases, a typewriter without its ribbon, a fondue set still in its box. Kavya had written the prices on bits of card, with a thick pen and not very much thought.

他们的摊位在第三排，夹在一个卖园艺小矮人的男人和一个堆着一大堆童装外套的女人中间。他们正在清空妈妈的旧公寓。妈妈搬去了海边一套小一些的房子。每个抽屉都吐出了点东西：台灯、花瓶、一台没有色带的打字机、一套还装在盒子里的奶酪火锅。卡维娅用粗笔把价格写在一张张小卡片上，没怎么多想。

By ten they were doing well. A man bought the typewriter for the price of a lunch and walked away looking as if he had stolen a painting. A girl bought three vases and a lampshade. A family argued happily about the fondue set for twenty minutes and then bought it.

到了十点，他们生意不错。一个男人花一顿午饭的钱买走了打字机，走的时候一副偷了一幅名画的模样。一个女孩买了三只花瓶和一个灯罩。一家人为那套奶酪火锅高高兴兴地争了二十分钟，然后买下了。

At noon, Kavya decided that the takings were getting too heavy for her apron pocket. She counted them quickly, a thick wad of notes and a pile of heavy coins, and she looked around for somewhere safe.

中午时，卡维娅觉得收入太多，围裙口袋已经装不下了。她飞快地数了数，一厚叠钞票，一堆沉甸甸的硬币，然后四下找一个安全的地方。

The old biscuit tin was right beside her, one of the tins from the flat that had once held biscuits and now held nothing. It had a tight lid and a picture of a cottage. She put the money inside and pressed the lid down. Then she carried it to the end of the table and tucked it into a cardboard box, out of sight.

那只旧饼干盒就在她旁边，是从公寓里带来的盒子之一，曾经装过饼干，现在什么也没装。盒盖很紧，上面印着一幢小屋的图案。她把钱放进去，按紧了盖子。然后端到桌子尽头，塞进一只纸板箱里，藏了起来。

She was pleased with herself. It was a careful thing to do, and she did not often do careful things.

她对自己很满意。这是一件谨慎的事，而她平时并不常做谨慎的事。

The cardboard box was labelled in her own big handwriting: BOOKS, 50p EACH.

那只纸板箱上贴着她自己大大的笔迹：书籍，每本50便士。

At ten minutes past one, a woman in a green cap wandered up to the stall with a very large shopping bag. She picked through the cheap paperbacks and found a gardening guide, a book of crosswords and a dictionary with a broken spine. Then she looked up with a hopeful face.

一点十分，一位戴绿帽子的女士拎着一只特别大的购物袋，晃悠到摊位前。她在廉价的平装书里翻找，找出一本园艺指南、一本填字游戏书，还有一本书脊裂开的词典。然后她抬起头，满怀希望地问：

"Could I take the whole box?" she asked. "I am furnishing a little reading room at my sister's house. I would give you ten pounds for all of it."

“我能把整箱都拿走吗？”她问，“我在姐姐家布置一间小阅览室。我出十英镑买下所有的书。”

"The whole box?" Kavya said. She was busy with a customer who wanted to know whether the lamps worked, and she was happy to see anything leave. "Of course. Ten pounds. That is very kind."

“整箱？”卡维娅说。她正忙着应付一位想知道台灯能不能用的顾客，只要有东西能清出去她就高兴。“当然可以。十英镑。您真是太好了。”

The woman lifted the box with a grunt, thanked her warmly, and disappeared into the crowd.

那位女士哼了一声，抱起箱子，热情地道了谢，消失在人群里。

It was Luca who noticed. He had gone through the day with a pencil, keeping a rough count of what they had sold. Now he sat at the back of the stall adding up the figures. He added them once. Then he added them again, with the frown of a man who suspects the numbers of lying.

是卢卡先发现的。他一整天都拿着铅笔，大致记录卖出了什么。现在他坐在摊位后面，把数字加起来。他加了一遍，又加了一遍，皱着眉头，像个怀疑数字在撒谎的人。

"Kavya," he said carefully. "Where did you put the money?"

“卡维娅，”他小心翼翼地说，“你把钱放哪儿了？”

"In the tin. The cottage tin. I put it in the box of books, to hide it."

“放在饼干盒里。就是那个小屋图案的盒子。我把它放进了装书的箱子里，藏起来。”

"Which box?"

“哪个箱子？”

"The one at the end of the table."

“桌子尽头那个。”

Both of them turned to look at the end of the table, where the box had been. There was a clean square in the dust, and nothing else. Under the pasting table, Security sighed in his sleep and stretched out one paw, like a very expensive rug.

两人同时转头看向桌子尽头，那箱子原来的位置。灰尘里只留下一个干净的方块，别的什么也没有。折叠桌底下，“保安”在睡梦中叹了口气，伸出一只爪子，像一块非常昂贵的地毯。

"Kavya," said Luca, in a small voice. "You sold the money."

“卡维娅，”卢卡用很小的声音说，“你把钱卖掉了。”

"I sold ten pounds of books."

“我卖掉的是十英镑的书。”

"You sold one hundred and eighty pounds, a cottage tin, and some dictionaries."

“你卖掉的是一百八十英镑、一个小屋饼干盒，外加几本词典。”

For a moment neither of them moved. Then Kavya seized her coat and her phone and ran. Luca followed her with the cash tray under his arm, calling out to the gnome seller to watch their table.

一时间，两人谁也没动。然后卡维娅抓起外套和手机，跑了出去。卢卡夹着收银盘跟在她后面，一边喊着让卖小矮人的男人帮忙看一下他们的摊位。

The field was bigger than it had looked at seven in the morning. It went on and on, row after row of tables and open car boots, and every second person wore a cap. They checked the food van, where a long queue of people stood waiting for sausage rolls. They checked the toilets. They checked the dark corner behind the garden centre, where a man sat on a folding chair and sold lawn ornaments. He had seen a woman with a big box going toward the far gate. He could not say what colour her cap was.

这块空地比早上七点看上去要大得多。它一眼望不到头，一排又一排的桌子和敞开的后备箱，每隔一个人就戴着帽子。他们查看了小吃车，那里有一长队人在等香肠卷。他们查看了厕所。他们查看了园艺中心后面的暗角，有个男人坐在折叠椅上卖草坪装饰品。他看见一位抱着大箱子的女士往远处的出口走去，却说不出她帽子是什么颜色。

"Green," said Kavya, who could think of nothing else. "She was wearing green."

“绿的，”卡维娅说，她什么别的也想不起来。“她戴的是绿色的。”

"This is a field," Luca said. "Half the people here are wearing green."

“这是一片旷野，”卢卡说，“这里一半的人都戴着绿色的。”

"We should have woken the dog."

“我们当初该叫醒那条狗的。”

"The dog cannot track anything. The dog would sleep through an earthquake."

“那条狗什么也追踪不了。就是地震它也照睡不误。”

"Then why did we take him?"

“那我们为什么要带它来？”

"For morale," said Luca, and he put his hands over his face.

“为了鼓舞士气，”卢卡说着，双手捂住了脸。

They ran back along the third row, out of breath, with a plan they both knew was hopeless. They would split up and search the far gate. They would ask every green cap. They would put up a sign.

他们沿着第三排跑回来，气喘吁吁，带着一个两人都知道毫无希望的计划：分头去搜远处的出口，去问每一顶绿帽子，再做个告示牌。

Then Kavya stopped so suddenly that Luca walked into her.

就在这时，卡维娅猛地停住，卢卡一头撞在了她身上。

The woman in the green cap was standing at their stall.

那位戴绿帽子的女士就站在他们的摊位前。

She stood next to the pasting table with the cardboard box in her arms. She was looking carefully left and right, like someone trying to find the owner of a parcel. Beside her feet lay Security, who had not so much as opened one eye. A small crowd of the gnome seller's customers was watching with great interest.

她站在折叠桌旁，怀里抱着那只纸板箱，正小心地左看右看，像个想找到包裹主人的人。她脚边躺着“保安”，连一只眼睛都没睁开。一小群卖小矮人的男人的顾客，正饶有兴致地围观着。

"Oh, thank goodness," the woman said, as Kavya reached her. She lifted the lid of the biscuit tin. "I opened it at my car to put my change in. I thought, goodness, that is not mine. I have been walking around for twenty minutes trying to remember your table."

“哦，谢天谢地，”卡维娅一走近，那位女士就说。她揭开饼干盒的盖子。“我在车那儿打开它想放零钱，结果心想，天哪，这不是我的。我已经走了二十分钟，想不起你们的摊位在哪儿了。”

"You came back," Kavya said weakly. "You walked all the way back with a hundred and eighty pounds."

“您回来了，”卡维娅有气无力地说，“您带着一百八十英镑，一路走了回来。”

"I could hardly keep it. That is far too much to pay for a dictionary." The woman handed over the tin with a smile, and then she glanced down at the enormous grey shape snoring beside her ankles. "I have to say, I was a little worried about passing the dog. But he did not even look up."

“我哪能留着呢。拿一百八十英镑买一本词典，太贵了。”女士微笑着把盒子递过来，然后低头瞥了一眼她脚踝边打着呼噜的灰色庞然大物。“我得说，我路过这条狗的时候有点担心。可它连头都没抬。”

"No," said Luca, pressing the tin to his chest. "That is his speciality."

“是啊，”卢卡说着，把饼干盒紧紧压在胸口，“这是它的专长。”

"Is he not a guard dog?"

“它不是看门狗吗？”

"He is a very advanced guard dog," Luca said. "He guards the stall from stress. Most days he does it better than we do."

“它是一条非常高级的看门狗，”卢卡说，“它守护的是摊位不受压力的侵扰。大多数日子里，它比我们做得好。”

Kavya took a twenty-pound note from the tin and pressed it into the woman's hand. Then she insisted that the dictionary was a gift, which seemed only fair. Then she knelt on the grass and scratched Security gently behind the ear. He opened one enormous brown eye, looked at her with perfect contentment, and went back to sleep.

卡维娅从盒子里取出一张二十英镑的钞票，塞进女士手里。接着她坚持说那本词典是送的，这看起来才公平。然后她跪在草地上，轻轻挠了挠“保安”的耳后。它睁开一只巨大的棕色眼睛，满足至极地看了她一眼，又睡着了。

"Pay him in sausage rolls," she told Luca. "Two. He just saved our whole day."

“拿香肠卷付它的工钱，”她对卢卡说，“两个。它刚刚救了我们一整天。”

"Technically," said Luca, "he slept through it."

“严格来说，”卢卡说，“它是睡过来的。”

"That," said Kavya, "is exactly what we are paying him for."

“这，”卡维娅说，“恰恰就是我们付钱给它的原因。”