At two in the morning, the supermarket belongs to the people who stack its shelves. The music is turned down to a whisper and the freezers hum. The long white aisles stretch away like corridors in a ship that has lost its passengers.
凌晨两点，超市属于码放货架的人。音乐被调低成耳语，冷柜嗡嗡作响。长长的白色走道向远处伸去，像一艘失去了乘客的船上的走廊。
Kaya loves it. It is her third week on the night shift. She is seventeen, which makes her the youngest person in the building by about twelve years. She works in the aisles with Yvo, who is eighteen and has already decided that he knows everything about stacking tins. He is right about most of it.
卡娅喜欢这里。这是她上夜班的第三个星期。她十七岁，是这栋楼里最年轻的人，比别人小了差不多十二岁。她和伊沃一起在货架通道里干活，伊沃十八岁，早就认定自己对码放罐头无所不知。他在大部分事情上都是对的。
Tonight, however, he is not stacking anything. He is standing in the garden aisle with his arms folded, staring at a wheelbarrow.
不过今晚，他什么也没码。他站在园艺区的走道里，双臂交叉，盯着一辆手推车。
It is a good wheelbarrow. It is deep and green, with a solid steel frame and a fat black tyre. It sits on a wooden pallet with a sign that says DISPLAY MODEL, ONLY ONE LEFT, 39 EURO. Someone has filled it with flowerpots to make it look cheerful.
那是辆好手推车。又深又绿，钢架结实，轮胎又粗又黑。它放在一块木托盘上，旁边的牌子写着：展示样品，仅剩一件，39欧元。有人在里面装满了花盆，让它看上去喜气洋洋。
"You have been staring at it for ten minutes," Kaya says.
“你已经盯着它看十分钟了，”卡娅说。
"My dad has wanted one for years. He has a tiny garden and an enormous number of plans." Yvo unfolds his arms and folds them again. "It is his birthday today. I get paid at six, when the system updates. I can use my staff discount at the till, and it will cost me half."
“我爸爸想要一辆好多年了。他有一小块花园，却有数不清的计划。”伊沃放下双臂，又交叉起来。“今天是他的生日。我六点领工资，那时系统更新。我可以在收银台用员工折扣，只要付一半的钱。”
"So buy it at six."
“那就六点买呗。”
"The garden department opens its sale at six thirty. But the manager moves the display to the front doors at half past five, and the early shoppers come in at six." He sighs. "A man in a cap will take it before I can reach the till."
“园艺部六点半开始促销。可是经理五点半就会把展示品挪到前门去，六点早起的顾客就进来了。”他叹了口气。“一个戴帽子的男人会在我赶到收银台之前把它拿走。”
Kaya thinks about this seriously. She is a person who makes promises easily and keeps them with a mixture of stubbornness and luck. She looks at the wheelbarrow, and she looks at Yvo, who has the face of someone who has run out of ideas.
卡娅认真地想了想。她是那种很容易许下承诺的人，守诺靠的是倔强加运气。她看看手推车，又看看伊沃，他脸上是一副没主意了的神情。
"I will make sure nobody buys it before you do," she says. "I promise."
“我会确保在你之前没人买走它，”她说，“我保证。”
"You do not have to do that."
“你不用这样做的。”
"I know," she says. "That is why it is a promise."
“我知道，”她说，“所以这才是承诺。”
It sounds easy for about forty minutes.
这听起来大约有四十分钟是容易的。
At a quarter to three, the night supervisor arrives with a clipboard and a heavy sense of duty. He is a thin man with enormous eyebrows, and he walks up to the wheelbarrow and prods it with a pen.
三点差一刻，夜班主管拿着记事板来了，浑身透着沉甸甸的责任感。他是个瘦男人，眉毛很浓，走到手推车前，用笔戳了戳它。
"This should be at the entrance," he says. "I am moving it now."
“这个应该放在入口处，”他说，“我现在就把它挪过去。”
"Now?" says Kaya.
“现在？”卡娅说。
"Better early than late."
“早点总比晚点好。”
"But it is full of flowerpots, and the pots will fall off the pallet." She says the first thing that comes into her head. "I need to clear it first, and that takes a long time."
“可是它里面装满了花盆，花盆会从托盘上掉下来的。”她脑子里想到什么就说什么。“我得先把它清空，那要很长时间。”
The supervisor looks at the flowerpots and at his watch. "Then do it before the morning staff arrive," he says, and he walks away, writing something down.
主管看看花盆，又看看手表。“那就在早班员工到之前弄好，”他说，一边走开，一边在本子上写着什么。
She has bought herself two hours. It is not a good plan, but it is a plan.
她给自己争取到了两个小时。这不是个好计划，但终究是个计划。
At three thirty, the delivery driver comes through the back door, pushing a trolley of frozen peas, and sees the wheelbarrow. His whole face lights up.
三点半，送货司机从后门进来，推着一车冷冻豌豆，看见了手推车。他整张脸都亮了起来。
"Do you mind?" he says. "My trolley has a wobbly wheel. I could take it for the peas."
“你介意吗？”他说，“我的推车有个轮子晃。我可以用它来运豌豆。”
"It is on display," Kaya says, "and the pallet is very fragile."
“它是展示品，”卡娅说，“而且托盘很脆弱。”
"It is a wheelbarrow, not a vase."
“这是手推车，不是花瓶。”
She cannot argue with that. The driver wheels away his frozen peas, and the display model rolls out of the garden aisle with a deep, satisfied rumble.
她无法反驳。司机把冷冻豌豆推走了，展示品则带着低沉而满足的隆隆声滚出了园艺区。
"Yvo," Kaya whispers, running to find him. "A man has stolen our wheelbarrow."
“伊沃，”卡娅小声说，跑去找他，“有个人偷走了我们的手推车。”
"He has borrowed it."
“他是借走。”
"He is going to put it in the freezer room."
“他要把它放进冷冻间里去。”
Together they chase the wheelbarrow through the back corridor and past the cold store. In the loading bay, they take it back by pretending that the pallet has a safety problem. By four, Kaya has fought off two more enquiries. A stock clerk with a hundred boxes wants it, and so does a cleaner with a bucket.
他们一起追着手推车穿过后面的走廊，经过冷藏库。在装卸区，他们假装托盘有安全问题，把它要了回来。到四点，卡娅又挡掉了两次询问。一位抱着一百个箱子的理货员想要它，一位拎着水桶的清洁工也想要。
She is exhausted. She is also beginning to understand a basic truth about the world. In an empty supermarket at night, a wheelbarrow looks like the most useful object ever invented.
她筋疲力尽。她也开始明白世界上的一条基本真理。在夜里空荡荡的超市里，一辆手推车看上去是有史以来最有用的发明。
"I have an idea," she says, at ten past four.
“我有个主意，”四点十分，她说。
"Is it a good idea?"
“是个好主意吗？”
"It is a very strange idea. Come and help me."
“是个很奇怪的主意。来帮我。”
They go to the stockroom. They find twenty boxes of tinned tomatoes, fifteen of soup, and a tower of cereal, and they load all of it into the wheelbarrow. It takes them twenty minutes. When they finish, the thing is a mountain on one wheel. It is so heavy that Kaya needs both hands and a lot of breath to move it.
他们去了库房。找到二十箱番茄罐头、十五箱汤罐头和一座麦片塔，全都装进手推车里。这花了他们二十分钟。装完后，这辆车成了一个独轮上的小山。它重得卡娅得用上双手和大把力气才推得动。
"You are going to use it as a cart," Yvo says, with growing admiration.
“你要把它当推车用，”伊沃越来越佩服地说。
"If someone wants to take it, they will see that it is in use. Nobody takes a wheelbarrow that is full of work. And if the supervisor asks, I tell him I am carrying stock, which is true."
“要是有人想拿走它，他们会看到它正在使用。没有人会拿走一辆满载着活儿的手推车。要是主管问起，我就说我在运货，这也是真的。”
"That is almost clever."
“这几乎算聪明了。”
"It is completely clever. Push."
“这是完全的聪明。推吧。”
For the next hour and a half, the wheelbarrow becomes the most hard-working object in the supermarket. Kaya and Yvo push it up and down the aisles and unload a box here and a box there. Then they fill it again at the next stockroom door. It carries soup to the soup shelf and pasta to the pasta shelf. It delivers a pile of washing powder to the far end of the shop. Each time the supervisor appears at the end of an aisle, he sees two teenagers and a loaded wheelbarrow. He nods slowly and changes direction.
接下来的一个半小时里，手推车成了超市里最勤劳的物件。卡娅和伊沃推着它在走道里来回，这儿卸一箱，那儿卸一箱。然后在下一个库房门口再装满。它把汤送到汤货架，把意大利面送到面条货架，还把一堆洗衣粉送到店铺最远的那头。每次主管出现在走道尽头，看到的都是两个少年和一辆满载的手推车。他缓缓点头，转身走开。
"I have never seen anyone stack so many tins in one night," he says at five o'clock.
“我从没见过有人一晚上码这么多罐头，”五点钟他说。
"We are very committed," Kaya says.
“我们特别投入，”卡娅说。
At half past five, they are standing by the entrance doors with the wheelbarrow between them. It is empty now. The aisles behind them are tidy and brightly lit, the shelves full to the edge, and the tins stand in perfectly straight lines. Kaya is so tired that the edges of everything look soft.
五点半，他们站在入口大门旁，手推车在两人中间。它现在是空的。身后的走道整洁明亮，货架摆得满到边缘，罐头排成完美的直线。卡娅累得所有东西的边缘看上去都是软的。
At the other side of the glass, a few shoppers are already waiting in the dark.
玻璃门的另一边，已经有几位顾客在黑暗中等着了。
"Half an hour to the system update," Yvo says. He looks at the wheelbarrow, and he starts to laugh. "You kept your promise."
“离系统更新还有半小时，”伊沃说。他看着手推车，笑了起来。“你守住了承诺。”
"Not yet. I still have to keep it for twenty-nine minutes."
“还没有。我还得再守二十九分钟。”
"I can wait twenty-nine minutes."
“二十九分钟我等得起。”
Kaya finds a roll of silver ribbon from the gift aisle and ties a big, untidy bow around the left handle. Then they stand there in the hum of the freezers, the two of them and the wheelbarrow. They watch the clock above the till change one number at a time.
卡娅在礼品区找到一卷银色丝带，在左边把手上系了一个又大又乱的蝴蝶结。然后他们就站在冷柜的嗡鸣声中，两个人和一辆手推车。他们看着收银台上方的钟，一个数字一个数字地变。
When it reaches six, Yvo walks to the till. The screen blinks, the system wakes up, and his discount takes the price down to half. He pays with a few crumpled notes, in a quiet, almost holy way, as though he is buying something far bigger than a garden tool.
到六点，伊沃走向收银台。屏幕闪了一下，系统醒来，他的折扣把价格降到了一半。他用几张皱巴巴的钞票付了钱，安静得近乎庄严，仿佛买的是比一件园艺工具大得多的东西。
Outside, the first shoppers push through the sliding doors, and they stop to look at the wheelbarrow, standing by the exit with its silver bow. Then Yvo takes the handles, and Kaya holds the door open for him. The wheelbarrow rolls out into the empty car park with a single, steady squeak. The first thin line of light follows it across the ground.
外面，第一批顾客推开自动门，停下来看着那辆立在出口旁、系着银蝴蝶结的手推车。然后伊沃握住把手，卡娅替他扶着门。手推车带着一声平稳的吱响滚进空荡荡的停车场。第一缕稀薄的曙光随着它洒过地面。
