Ciro owns the oldest boat in the Lagoon Market. It sells spare parts for delivery drones. It sits low in the water because it carries too much.
奇罗拥有潟湖集市上最老的一条船。船上出售送货无人机的备用零件。因为载的东西太多，船身吃水很深。
Every morning at six, Ciro does the same thing. He picks up a plastic bucket with a hole in the bottom. Then he bails the water from his boat. The bucket is cracked and ugly. A thin line of water falls from it all the way to the deck.
每天早晨六点，奇罗都做同一件事。他拿起一只底部有个洞的塑料桶，然后把船里的水舀出去。那只桶又裂又难看。一条细细的水线从桶里一直流到甲板上。
"Why don't you buy a new bucket?" asks Iker on his first morning. He is twenty-four, and he has just started work as a junior clerk at the city's Level Office.
“你为什么不买只新桶呢？”伊克尔上班的第一个早晨问道。他二十四岁，刚刚开始在市里的水位办公室当初级办事员。
"This one is honest," Ciro says. "You always know what it will do."
“这只桶老实，”奇罗说，“你永远知道它会干什么。”
Iker laughs, but he does not understand. He sits on a crate and opens his tablet. His job is to read the water gauge of the market. He writes the number in a report. The report goes to an office that nobody visits.
伊克尔笑了，但他并不明白。他坐在一只板条箱上，打开平板电脑。他的工作是读取集市的水位计。他把数字写进报告里。报告会送到一个没人去的办公室。
The gauge says something strange. Each night the lagoon falls by three centimetres. Each morning the city pumps push the water back to its normal level. The market boats rise and fall like sleeping animals, and nobody looks surprised.
水位计显示的数字很奇怪。每天夜里，潟湖的水位会下降三厘米。每天早晨，城市的水泵又把水推回正常水位。集市上的船只像沉睡的动物一样起起落落，没有人觉得惊讶。
"Is that normal?" Iker asks the woman on the next boat. She sells noodles, and the smoke from her pot climbs into the cool air.
“这正常吗？”伊克尔问邻船的女人。她卖面条，锅里冒出的烟缕升进凉爽的空气里。
"It has always done that," she says. "The lagoon breathes. My mother said so, and her mother said so."
“一直都是这样，”她说，“潟湖在呼吸。我妈妈这么说，她妈妈也这么说。”
Iker asks the man who sells batteries and gets the same answer. They all smile kindly. Nobody has an idea, and nobody seems to want one.
伊克尔又问了那个卖电池的男人，得到的是同样的回答。他们都和善地微笑着。没有人有什么想法，似乎也没有人想有。
By lunchtime Iker feels like a man who sees a coin in a fountain and cannot reach it. He goes back to Ciro's boat and watches the old man pour water into the leaking bucket. The water runs out of the hole in a bright string. It always falls in the same place.
到午饭时分，伊克尔觉得自己像一个看见喷泉里有枚硬币却够不着的人。他回到奇罗的船上，看着老人往漏水的桶里倒水。水从洞里流出来，成了一条明亮的细线。它总是落在同一个地方。
"A bucket with a hole does not lose water at random," Ciro says. He has noticed Iker watching. "It loses it where the hole is. That is the whole point of a hole."
“有洞的桶不会随随便便漏水，”奇罗说。他已经注意到伊克尔在看。“它是从洞的位置漏的。这正是洞的意义所在。”
Iker looks at the bucket. Then he looks at the lagoon. Then he looks at the bucket again.
伊克尔看看那只桶。然后他看看潟湖。然后他又看看那只桶。
"Then where is the lagoon's hole?" he asks.
“那么，潟湖的洞在哪里呢？”他问。
Ciro stops with the bucket in his hand. The noodle woman stops stirring. For a few seconds the whole market seems quiet, except for the soft sound of water against wood.
奇罗手里拿着桶，停住了。卖面条的女人也停下了搅锅。有几秒钟，整个集市似乎都安静了下来，只剩下水轻拍木头的声音。
"That," Ciro says slowly, "is a question I have never heard in forty years."
“这个问题，”奇罗缓缓地说，“四十年来我从没听人问过。”
"Somebody must have asked it."
“肯定有人问过。”
"Everybody was too busy refilling the lagoon."
“大家都忙着给潟湖补水。”
Iker calls his supervisor from the boat. She answers in a hurry and sounds impatient. The pumps are cheap, she says, and the leak has never caused harm. If he finds the hole, the city will have to pay a company to repair it. She would prefer that he writes his report and goes home.
伊克尔在船上给他的主管打了电话。她接得很匆忙，听上去不耐烦。她说，水泵很便宜，这个漏洞也从来没有造成过危害。如果他找到了那个洞，市里就得付钱请公司来修。她更希望他写完报告就回家。
"So nobody wants to know," Iker says when she hangs up.
“所以没人想知道。”她挂断后，伊克尔说。
"Nobody wants a new bill," Ciro says. "That is different."
“没人想要新账单，”奇罗说，“这是两回事。”
That evening, Iker returns with a bag of dye tablets from the Level Office. They are small and blue, and they dissolve slowly in water. At midnight, when the lagoon begins to sink, he drops them over the side. He works one at a time along the edge of the market. Ciro sits beside him with a flask of hot soup and a lamp.
那天傍晚，伊克尔带着一袋从水位办公室拿来的染料片回来了。染料片又小又蓝，在水里溶解得很慢。午夜，潟湖开始下沉的时候，他把染料片扔下船舷。他沿着集市的边缘一片一片地投放。奇罗坐在他身边，带着一壶热汤和一盏灯。
"You will not find anything," Ciro says. "But I will stay and see."
“你什么也找不到的，”奇罗说，“不过我会留下来看看。”
For an hour the water stays dark. Then a pale blue cloud begins to move. It slides across the lagoon, past the noodle boat. Then it gathers near the old stone quay. There it turns in a slow circle, like water around a plughole.
整整一个小时，水面一直是黑的。然后，一团淡蓝色的云开始移动。它滑过潟湖，经过面条船。接着它聚集在旧石码头附近，在那里缓缓地绕圈，像水绕着排水孔打转。
"There," Iker whispers.
“在那儿。”伊克尔低声说。
They row over in Ciro's small skiff. Under the quay, half hidden by weeds, there is an iron grate as wide as a door. The blue water slips through it with a soft, gentle pull. Behind the bars, a black tunnel runs into the dark.
他们划着奇罗的小艇过去。在码头下面，半掩在水草中，有一道门那么宽的铁栅栏。蓝色的水带着轻柔的吸力从栅栏里滑过。栅栏后面，一条黑色的隧道伸进黑暗里。
"I have passed this wall ten thousand times," Ciro says. His voice is quiet. "I thought it was only part of the quay."
“这堵墙我路过了一万次，”奇罗说，声音很轻，“我还以为它只是码头的一部分。”
Iker unlocks the grate with a tool from his bag. It opens with a long, rusty sound. The two men push the skiff inside, and the lamp makes a small yellow room in the dark.
伊克尔用包里的一件工具打开了栅栏。它发出一声漫长的、带着锈蚀的响声打开了。两个人把小艇推进里面，灯光在黑暗中照出一个小小的黄色房间。
The tunnel is cold and smells of earth. The water carries them gently forward, and the blue cloud shows the way. After a few minutes they see a light ahead. It is not yellow like their lamp. It is a soft, strange purple.
隧道里又冷又有泥土的气味。水轻轻地带着他们往前走，蓝色的云指引着方向。几分钟后，他们看见前方有光。那不像他们的灯那样是黄色的。那是一种柔和而奇异的紫色。
The tunnel ends in a wide stone room under the city. Rows of shallow trays fill the floor. Each one is full of small green plants. Purple lamps hang over them. Thin pipes carry the lagoon water from the tunnel into every tray, drop by careful drop.
隧道的尽头是城市地下一间宽阔的石室。地面上摆满了一排排浅浅的托盘。每个托盘里都长着小小的绿色植物。紫色的灯悬在它们上方。细细的管道把潟湖的水从隧道里引到每个托盘里，一滴一滴，小心翼翼。
"What is this place?" Iker asks.
“这是什么地方？”伊克尔问。
A small voice answers from the shadows. A woman in rubber boots stands up from behind a tray with a watering can in her hand. She looks as surprised as they do.
一个小小的声音从阴影里回答。一个穿橡胶靴的女人从一个托盘后面站了起来，手里拿着一只喷壶。她看上去和他们一样吃惊。
"This is the Seed Hall," she says. "Who are you?"
“这里是种子大厅，”她说，“你们是谁？”
They explain, and she listens with her head to one side. Then she begins to laugh.
他们解释了一番，她歪着头听着。然后她笑了起来。
"Forty years we have been waiting for someone to come down here," she says. "My friends and I grow the seedlings for every roof garden in the district. The founders of the market built this tunnel on purpose. The lagoon was meant to feed the plants."
“我们等了四十年，就等有人到这下面来，”她说，“我和朋友们为这个区每一座屋顶花园培育幼苗。集市的创建者是故意修这条隧道的。潟湖本来就是要用来滋养这些植物的。”
"Then why does nobody know?" Ciro asks.
“那为什么没人知道？”奇罗问。
"Because it worked," she says. "Nothing that works ever gets a visit. The founders wrote it in a book, and the book is lost. Since then, the city pumps have filled the lagoon every morning, and the plants have drunk all night."
“因为它运转良好，”她说，“凡是运转良好的东西，从来没人会去看。创建者们把它写进了一本书里，而那本书丢了。从那以后，城市的水泵每天早晨给潟湖补水，植物整夜地喝。”
Iker looks at the trays, the purple lamps, and the small green leaves. He thinks of his supervisor and her cheap pumps. He thinks of the repair company and its bill. If he writes the word "fault" in his report, someone will close the grate. By spring, the gardens on every roof in the district will be dry.
伊克尔看着那些托盘、紫色的灯和小小的绿叶。他想到了他的主管和她那些便宜的水泵。他想到了维修公司和它的账单。如果他在报告里写上“故障”这个词，就会有人把栅栏封死。到了春天，全区每一座屋顶上的花园都会干涸。
"If I put this in the report as a leak, they will seal it," he says.
“如果我在报告里把这写成漏洞，他们就会把它封上，”他说。
"And if you leave it out?" the woman asks.
“那要是你不写呢？”女人问。
"Then the next clerk will ask the same question, and nobody will answer."
“那下一个办事员会问同样的问题，却没人回答。”
Ciro puts a hand on his shoulder. "Write what you found," he says. "Write the truth, and write all of it."
奇罗把一只手放在他肩上。“把你发现的写下来，”他说，“写出真相，而且要全部写出来。”
They stay for another hour. The woman shows them the pumps that she keeps clean. She also shows them the valve that opens a little wider each night. Iker takes photographs of everything. When they row back to the market, the sky is turning grey. The first noodle pots are already smoking.
他们又待了一个小时。女人带他们看了她一直保持清洁的水泵。她还带他们看了那个每晚都开得更大一点的阀门。伊克尔把一切都拍了照。他们划船回集市的时候，天空正在变灰。第一批面条锅已经冒起了烟。
On the deck of his boat, Iker sits down and opens his tablet. He deletes the word "fault" from his report. He types a new heading: Planned outflow to the Seed Hall. He adds the photographs, the dye map, and the woman's name. Then he presses send before he can change his mind.
在自己船的甲板上，伊克尔坐下来，打开平板电脑。他从报告里删掉了“故障”这个词。他输入了一个新标题：通往种子大厅的计划性排水。他附上了照片、染料示意图和那个女人的名字。然后他趁自己还没改变主意，按下了发送键。
Ciro watches him from the rail. He holds the old bucket in both hands. A thin line of water is already falling from the hole. He fills it again at the side of the boat. Then he rows the skiff back to the old quay and holds the bucket over the grate. He lets every drop fall through the bars. The tunnel carries it down to the plants.
奇罗在船舷边看着他。他双手捧着那只旧桶。一条细细的水线已经从洞里流下来了。他在船边又把桶装满。然后他划着小艇回到旧码头，把桶举在栅栏上方。他让每一滴水都从铁条间落下去。隧道把水带下去，送给那些植物。
