The group meets at half past six at the foot of the concrete slipway. The sky is still the colour of wet slate, and the tide has left a rim of foam along the shingle. There are nine regulars, in woollen hats and rubber boots, and they have one rule that nobody has ever said aloud: no talking in the water. Olympia learns it on her first morning, by being looked at.
小组六点半在水泥滑道脚下集合。天空还是湿石板的颜色，潮水在卵石滩上留下一圈泡沫。固定来的有九个人，戴着毛线帽，穿着橡胶靴，他们有一条谁也没有说出口的规矩：下水后不说话。奥林匹娅在头一天早上就学到了，办法是被人看了一眼。
She has come because of a winter that would not end, a flat that was too quiet in the evenings, and a colleague's offhand remark that the sea in January cures things. Nobody tells her the truth about the first ten seconds. Her skin shouts. Her breath comes out in broken pieces, and her whole body insists that every part of this is a mistake. Then something loosens, the water closes over her shoulders, and for a minute and a half she is nothing but sensation, hearing only her own pulse and the slap of small waves against the buoy.
她来这里，是因为一个仿佛没有尽头的冬天，一间夜里过分安静的公寓，还有一位同事随口说的一句话：一月的大海能治愈一切。没有人告诉她最初十秒钟的真相。她的皮肤在叫喊。她的呼吸一截一截地断开，全身都在坚持说，这一切都是个错误。然后，有什么松开了，水漫过肩膀，有一分半钟，她什么都不是，只剩下感觉，只听得见自己的脉搏，和小浪拍打浮标的声音。
The man in the green hat is always last in and last out. She notices him in the third week: a broad man who stands at the water's edge a long moment before he goes in, hands open at his sides, as if asking permission. He swims a slow breaststroke with his chin held high. Once, as they pass on the way back, he lifts two fingers from the surface. It is not quite a wave. It is a notice taken.
那个戴绿帽子的男人总是最后一个下水，最后一个上岸。她是在第三个星期注意到他的：一个身材宽厚的男人，下水前在水边站很久，双手松开垂在身侧，仿佛在请求许可。他游的是缓慢的蛙泳，下巴高高抬起。有一次，在回程中擦肩而过时，他从水面上抬起两根手指。那算不上挥手。那是一次留意。
She wonders about him more than she expects to. What does he do the rest of the day? Where does he put the cold? But it is a group built on not asking, and she finds the not-asking restful in a way she cannot have explained to the colleague who suggested it.
她对他的好奇，超出了自己的预期。他一天里剩下的时间都做些什么？他把那份寒冷放在了哪里？可这是一个建立在不追问之上的小组，她发现这种不追问有一种让人安宁的东西，她没法向那位提议她来的同事解释。
In the fourth week she forgets her gloves on the wall. Had she not come back for them the next morning, she would never have found them lying on the stone above her towel, dry, with the thumbs folded neatly inside. No note. Nobody looks at her. It is the hands that give him away, blunt and red to the wrist, and careful even now, wrapping a flask in a scarf thirty feet along the beach.
第四个星期，她把手套忘在了围墙上。如果第二天早上她没有回来找，就永远发现不了，它们躺在她毛巾上方的石头上，干干的，两个大拇指整整齐齐地叠在里面。没有字条。没有人看她。出卖他的是那双手，粗钝，红到手腕，即使此刻也那样小心，在三十英尺外的海滩上，把一只保温瓶包进围巾里。
The next day she leaves a tangerine on his folded towel, peeled and put back together so that it looks whole. He says nothing. Nor does he refuse it. On the morning after, there is a square of dark chocolate, laid on the wall at precisely the height of her hand.
第二天，她在他叠好的毛巾上放了一个橘子，剥了皮，又拼回原样，看上去还是完整的。他什么也没说。也没有拒绝。再过一天，墙上出现了一小块黑巧克力，摆放的高度，恰好是她手伸得到的地方。
So it goes through January, and the cold, which she had thought was the enemy, turns into a kind of shared weather. After the swim her fingers stop working. She sits on the slipway, wrapped in a towel the size of a tent, and unscrews the cap of her flask only with an awkward grip of both palms. Never before has she looked forward to being cold. Had her colleague made that remark in July instead of January, she thinks, she would never have come at all.
整个一月就这样过去，她原以为是敌人的寒冷，成了一种共同拥有的天气。游完以后，她的手指就不听使唤了。她坐在滑道上，裹着一条帐篷般大的毛巾，只能用两只手掌笨拙地夹着，才拧得开保温瓶盖。她从前从没期待过变冷。她想，要是那位同事那句话是在七月说的，而不是一月，她根本不会来。
Once, at the end of the month, she watches him fail to open his own flask, his fingers too numb to grip the cap. Without a word she reaches over and turns it for him. He nods, a single downward movement of the head, and the steam comes up between them.
月底，有一次，她看见他打不开自己的保温瓶，手指冻得太麻，握不住瓶盖。她一言不发地伸过手去，替他拧开了。他点了点头，只是头向下的一个动作，热气在他们之间升了起来。
On a morning in February he is not there. She stands at the edge longer than usual, then swims out to the buoy and back, slower than she needs to, her eyes on the water behind her. At the foot of the slipway a green hat appears between two swells and a broad pair of shoulders follows it.
二月的一个早晨，他不在。她在水边站了比平时更久，然后游到浮标又游回来，比实际需要的更慢，眼睛一直望着身后的水面。滑道脚下，一顶绿帽子从两个浪头之间冒了出来，接着是一双宽厚的肩膀。
She is waiting on the stones when he comes out. She unscrews the flask, pours, and for the first time pours two. He takes the cup in both hands. Neither of them says anything, and the steam rises between them and drifts off toward the headland.
他上岸时，她正等在石滩上。她拧开保温瓶，倒茶，第一次倒了两杯。他双手接过杯子。谁也没有说话，热气在他们之间升起，飘向海岬。
