The print shop opens at seven, but Jabu is always there by six. He likes the hour when the machines are cold and the floor still smells of last night's ink. He walks between the tables, touches the stacks of paper and listens to the building wake up.
印刷店七点开门，可贾布总是六点就到了。他喜欢这个时辰，机器还是冰凉的，地板上还留着昨晚油墨的气味。他在桌子之间走动，摸摸一叠叠的纸，听着整栋楼慢慢醒来。
Today, the first job on the board is a big one. A river club has ordered three hundred posters for its annual boat parade. The club's organiser is coming for them at five o'clock. She has already asked about them twice.
今天，板子上的第一单活儿很大。一家河上俱乐部订了三百张海报，用于一年一度的划船游行。俱乐部的组织者下午五点来取。她已经来问过两次了。
Nils arrives at half past seven with two coffees and a paper bag. He is new, and he has worked at the shop for only three weeks. Before that, he spent ten years behind a desk at an insurance office. He says he left because he was tired of reading things nobody wanted to read.
尼尔斯七点半到了，带着两杯咖啡和一个纸袋。他是新人，在店里才干了三个星期。在那之前，他在一家保险公司的办公桌后面坐了十年。他说他离开是因为厌倦了读那些没人想读的东西。
"What are we printing?" he asks.
“我们印什么？”他问。
"A poster with a big blue boat and a lot of words," Jabu says. "It has to be perfect. The club pays well, and they send us work every year."
“一张海报，上面有一条蓝色的大船和很多字，”贾布说，“必须完美。俱乐部给的钱不少，而且他们每年都会把活儿交给我们。”
Jabu has already prepared the proof on his screen. He shows it to Nils, who reads it slowly, from top to bottom. The headline says River Boat Parade in tall yellow letters. Below it come the street, the name of the club and a small map. At the bottom are the date and the time.
贾布已经把校样在屏幕上准备好了。他拿给尼尔斯看，尼尔斯从上到下慢慢读了一遍。标题用高高的黄色字母写着“河上游船游行”。下面依次是街道、俱乐部的名称和一张小地图。最底下是日期和时间。
"It looks good," Nils says.
“看起来不错，”尼尔斯说。
"It looks good because I have read it fifty times," Jabu says. He smiles. "Come, I will show you how to load the paper."
“看起来不错，是因为我已经读了五十遍，”贾布说着笑了笑，“来，我教你怎么装纸。”
All morning, the press runs with a steady, heavy rhythm. Jabu teaches Nils to fan the sheets so they do not stick together. He shows him how to check the ink. He explains how to feel a dry roller and how to hear a change in the sound. Nils learns fast. He asks questions and writes the answers in a small notebook.
整个上午，印刷机都以平稳而沉重的节奏运转着。贾布教尼尔斯把纸张抖松，免得粘在一起。他教他怎么检查油墨。他讲解怎样摸出干掉的墨辊，怎样听出声音的变化。尼尔斯学得很快。他不停提问，把答案记在一个小笔记本里。
By noon, the first hundred and twenty posters lie in neat piles on the drying rack. The blue boat shines in the light from the window. Jabu picks one up, nods, and puts it down again.
到中午，最先印好的一百二十张海报整整齐齐地堆在晾架上。蓝色的船在窗户透进来的光里闪闪发亮。贾布拿起一张，点点头，又放了回去。
"Lunch," he says. "Then we finish the rest."
“吃午饭，”他说，“然后把剩下的印完。”
They eat standing up, at the counter by the front door. Afterwards, Nils goes back to the press room alone. He finds a spoiled sheet in the waste box. It has a long grey streak across the corner. He smooths it on the table and begins to fold.
他们站在前门边的柜台旁吃饭。吃完后，尼尔斯独自回到印刷间。他在废纸箱里发现了一张废品，一角上有一道长长的灰色污痕。他在桌上把它抚平，开始折叠。
He does it without thinking. His fingers know the steps from childhood. Fold in half, fold the corners, fold up the edges, pull the sides apart. A small boat comes out of the paper, with a flat bottom and a sharp front. He has made hundreds of them in his life, usually in meetings that were too long.
他是不假思索地折的。他的手指从小时候起就记得这些步骤。对折，折角，把边折上去，再把两侧拉开。一只小船从纸里出现了，平平的船底，尖尖的船头。他这辈子折过几百只，大多是在过于冗长的会议上。
He sets the boat on the table and looks at it. Something about it feels odd.
他把小船放在桌上，看着它。有点什么地方让他觉得不对劲。
The folds have hidden the big blue picture and the headline. He sees only the bottom strip of the poster, folded into the hull. It shows two short lines in plain black letters. Saturday, the twenty-first of June. Parade starts at nine in the evening.
折痕把那幅蓝色大图和标题都藏了起来。他只能看到海报最底下的一条，被折进了船身。上面是两行朴素的黑色字：六月二十一日，星期六。游行晚上九点开始。
Nils reads it twice. Then he takes out his phone and finds the club's email, which Jabu forwarded on his first morning. He scrolls down to the third paragraph.
尼尔斯读了两遍。然后他拿出手机，找到俱乐部的邮件，那是贾布在他上班的第一个早晨转发给他的。他往下翻到第三段。
Please note that the parade begins at nine o'clock in the morning, before the sun is high.
请注意，游行于上午九点开始，趁太阳还没升高。
He walks quickly into the office. Jabu is on the phone, but he hangs up when he sees Nils's face.
他快步走进办公室。贾布正在打电话，可一看到尼尔斯的脸色，就挂断了。
"What is wrong?" Jabu asks.
“怎么了？”贾布问。
"I may be wrong," Nils says. "But I think the time is wrong on the posters."
“也许是我弄错了，”尼尔斯说，“可我觉得海报上的时间不对。”
Jabu frowns. He takes the paper boat from Nils's hand and holds it up. For a moment, he says nothing at all. Then he sits down heavily in his chair.
贾布皱起眉头。他从尼尔斯手里接过纸船，举起来。有那么一会儿，他一句话也没说。然后他重重地坐进了椅子里。
"Nine in the evening," he reads aloud. "Nine in the evening. How can that be?"
“晚上九点，”他大声念道，“晚上九点。怎么会这样？”
"It says nine in the morning in the email."
“邮件里写的是上午九点。”
"I know what the email says. I typed it myself." Jabu rubs his forehead. "I must have changed it when I fixed the spacing, and I never saw it. I read that poster so many times that my eyes only saw what I expected."
“我知道邮件里写什么。是我自己打的字。”贾布揉着额头。“我一定是调整行距的时候改了，却没看出来。那张海报我读了太多遍，眼睛只看到了我预期的东西。”
"The boat showed it to me because it hid everything else," Nils says quietly.
“是小船让我看出来的，因为它把别的东西都遮住了，”尼尔斯轻声说。
Jabu laughs, but it is not a happy sound. He looks at the clock above the door. It is ten past one.
贾布笑了，可那笑声并不愉快。他看了看门上方的钟。一点十分。
"A hundred and twenty are printed," he says. "One hundred and eighty are still to go. And they are all wrong."
“印好了一百二十张，”他说，“还有一百八十张没印。而且全都是错的。”
"Could we stop the press?"
“能把机器停下来吗？”
"I stopped it for lunch an hour ago. That is the only good news." Jabu stands up. His shoulders are straight again, and his voice is calm. He has been in the business for thirty years, and he knows that panic costs more than paper. "Come with me."
“一个小时前午饭时我就停了。这是唯一的好消息。”贾布站起身来。他的肩膀又挺直了，声音也平静下来。他在这一行干了三十年，知道慌乱比纸张更费钱。“跟我来。”
In the press room, he walks to the machine and runs his finger over the plate. The error is small, a single word on a metal sheet. He takes the plate out and carries it to the computer.
在印刷间里，他走到机器旁，用手指抹过印版。错误很小，不过是一块金属板上的一个词。他把印版取下来，端到电脑前。
"First, we fix the file," he says. "Not just the time. I want you to read the whole poster aloud, line by line, from the bottom. Slowly."
“首先，我们改文件，”他说，“不光是时间。我要你把整张海报大声读出来，一行一行，从最底下开始。慢慢读。”
"From the bottom?"
“从最底下？”
"A page looks different from the bottom. Your eyes cannot jump ahead because you have to read every word alone." Jabu lifts his eyebrows. "Your boat is a clever way to do the same thing."
“从底下看，一页纸的样子不一样。你的眼睛没法跳着往前看，因为每个字都得单独读。”贾布挑起了眉毛。“你的小船，是个同样聪明的办法。”
Nils reads. Jabu listens. They find the correct time, and they find nothing else. Jabu makes a new plate, and Nils helps him lock it into the machine.
尼尔斯读，贾布听。他们找到了正确的时间，别的什么也没发现。贾布做了一块新印版，尼尔斯帮他把它锁进机器里。
At two o'clock, the press starts again. This time, Jabu does not leave the room. Every ten minutes, he pulls a sheet from the tray and passes it to Nils. Nils reads it from the bottom up and nods.
两点钟，印刷机重新启动。这一次，贾布没有离开房间。每隔十分钟，他就从纸盘里抽出一张递给尼尔斯。尼尔斯从下往上读一遍，点点头。
When the three hundred copies are finished, Jabu looks at the old posters. A hundred and twenty beautiful sheets, with a blue boat and the wrong hour, wait on the rack.
三百张全部印完后，贾布看了看那些旧海报。一百二十张漂亮的纸，印着蓝色的船和错误的钟点，正在架子上等着。
"We cannot give them away," Nils says. "People will come at night."
“我们不能把它们送出去，”尼尔斯说，“人们会半夜跑来的。”
"We cannot sell them either. But we can use them." Jabu pulls out a pencil and writes a short note on a card. "I will give them to the school next door, with the back side blank. The children can draw on the empty paper."
“也不能卖。不过我们可以利用它们。”贾布拿出一支铅笔，在卡片上写了一张短短的便条。“我把它们送给隔壁的学校，背面是空白的。孩子们可以在空白的纸上画画。”
At twenty to five, the organiser arrives. She is a quick, energetic woman with sunglasses on her head, and she walks straight to the counter. Jabu has the new posters ready, wrapped in brown paper.
差二十分钟五点时，组织者来了。她是一个敏捷、精力充沛的女人，墨镜架在头顶上，径直走到柜台前。贾布已经把新海报准备好了，用牛皮纸包着。
"Everything correct?" she asks.
“都没错吧？”她问。
"Everything correct," Jabu says. "We checked it twice. The second time, someone read it to me from the bottom."
“都没错，”贾布说，“我们检查了两遍。第二遍，有人从底下往上念给我听。”
She laughs, though she does not understand the joke. She pays, takes the posters and leaves with the bell ringing above the door.
她笑了，尽管她没听懂这个笑话。她付了钱，拿上海报，门上的铃铛响着，她走了。
The shop is quiet again. Jabu walks back to the press room. Nils is already there, sweeping paper dust from the floor. On the table, the little paper boat still sits where he left it.
店里又安静下来。贾布走回印刷间。尼尔斯已经在那里了，正在扫地上的纸屑。桌上，那只小纸船还摆在他放下它的地方。
Jabu picks it up and turns it in his hand. Then he walks to the shelf above the press, where he keeps his coffee cup. He places the boat in the centre of the shelf, with the mistake showing. Then he presses the green button and starts the next job.
贾布把它拿起来，在手里转了转。然后他走到印刷机上方的架子前，他的咖啡杯就放在那里。他把小船摆在架子正中，让那处错误朝外露着。然后他按下绿色按钮，开始了下一单活儿。
