The box has been in the family for fifty years, and nobody has ever seen it open. Octavia sets her bag on the dining table of a house that smells of lemon polish and warm radiators. A nephew, his sister and her husband stand in a loose half-circle around it, wearing the careful faces of people at the reading of a will. "She kept the key on a chain," the nephew says. "It went missing before she died. Or she lost it on purpose."
这只盒子在这个家里已经五十年了，从来没有人见它打开过。奥克塔维娅把包放在一间弥漫着柠檬擦光剂和暖气片热气味道的房子的餐桌上。一个外甥、他的姐姐和姐夫围着盒子站成松散的半圆，脸上是人们在宣读遗嘱时那种小心翼翼的表情。“她把钥匙挂在一条链子上，”外甥说，“她去世前钥匙就不见了。也可能是她故意弄丢的。”
It is a plain grey metal box, the kind that once held petty cash behind a shop counter, with a handle worn smooth by decades of one particular hand. Octavia turns it over, checks the hinges, and decides the lock is cheaper than the box. She takes out two thin tools, closes her eyes the way she always does, and begins to listen with her fingertips.
那是一只朴素的灰色金属盒，就是从前商店柜台后面放零钱的那种，提手被某一只手磨了几十年，磨得光滑。奥克塔维娅把它翻过来，检查了合页，断定锁比盒子便宜。她拿出两根细细的工具，像往常一样闭上眼睛，开始用指尖倾听。
It takes four minutes. Had the lock been newer, she would have had to drill it, and she would never have seen what was inside.
用了四分钟。要是锁再新一点，她就只能钻开它，那样她永远也看不到里面是什么。
The lid rises with a small dry sigh. Inside, packed on edge like cards in an index, are envelopes, perhaps fifty of them, each addressed in the same upright hand. The ink runs from brown at the back to blue near the front. None of them has a stamp. None, as far as she can see, has ever been near a post box.
盖子升起，发出一声轻轻的、干涩的叹息。里面像索引卡片一样侧着立满了信封，大约有五十个，每一个上面都是同一种端正的字迹。墨水从后面的棕色渐渐变成靠前的蓝色。没有一封贴着邮票。就她所见，没有一封曾经靠近过邮筒。
She does not mean to read anything. It is simply that the front envelope has slid open at the flap, and the top line of the page is facing her. I am sorry that I let you think it was your fault. She looks away at once, but the sentence has already gone in, and it sits in her like a swallowed stone.
她并不想读任何东西。只是最前面的那个信封，封口滑开了，信纸的第一行正对着她。我很抱歉，我让你以为那是你的错。她立刻移开了目光，可那句话已经进去了，像一块咽下去的石头，沉在她心里。
What she notices next is not the contents but the pattern. Every envelope carries a different name, and she has just filled out the work order with the family's names, so she recognises the one on the seventh envelope from the front. Another belongs, she guesses, to the husband's mother. There are names she does not know at all, some with dates in the corner going back to before anyone in this room was born.
接下来她注意到的，不是内容，而是规律。每个信封上写着不同的名字，她刚刚在工作单上填过这家人的名字，所以认出了从前面数第七个信封上的那一个。另一个，她猜，是姐夫母亲的名字。还有些名字她完全不认识，有的角落里的日期，早在这间屋子里的任何人出生之前。
"Well?" the nephew says. His voice is too casual. He is hoping, she can tell, for a deed or a bank book, something with a number on it. "Is there anything in it?"
“怎么样？”外甥说。他的声音太随意了。她听得出来，他盼着的是一份地契或一本存折，带着数字的东西。“里面有东西吗？”
"Papers," Octavia says.
“有些文件，”奥克塔维娅说。
"What sort of papers?" says the sister.
“什么样的文件？”姐姐问。
Octavia has stood in a great many strangers' hallways with a bag of tools, and she knows how much a house can bear to be told in one afternoon. She could say nothing more and let the family find out alone. She could say everything and make herself the person who spoiled it. Neither seems right, and she is aware of how little the choice belongs to her.
奥克塔维娅提着一包工具，站过很多陌生人的门厅，她知道一栋房子在一个下午里能承受多少真相。她可以不再多说，让这家人自己去发现。也可以全说出来，让自己成为搅了局的人。哪一种看上去都不对，而且她明白，这个选择几乎不由她做主。
"Letters," she says at last. "A lot of them. Some of them are addressed to people in this room. I haven't read them, and I won't." She lifts the lid fully and steps back from the table, so that the box belongs to them again.
“信，”她终于说，“很多。其中一些是写给这个房间里的人的。我没有读，也不会读。”她把盖子完全掀起，从桌边退后一步，让这只盒子重新属于他们。
Nobody moves. The sister puts a hand to her mouth.
没有人动。姐姐用一只手捂住了嘴。
At the front door, bag on her shoulder, Octavia hears the nephew come out of the dining room behind her. "Were they ever posted?" he asks.
在前门，包挎在肩上，奥克塔维娅听到外甥从餐厅里跟了出来。“它们寄出去过吗？”他问。
"I don't think so. Not one."
“我想没有。一封也没有。”
"Then why would she keep them? Why not just send them?"
“那她为什么要留着？为什么不干脆寄出去？”
Octavia thinks of every key she has ever cut for someone who later changed the locks. "Some things are easier to write than to hand over," she says, and opens the door onto the cold.
奥克塔维娅想起她配过的每一把钥匙，那些人后来都换了锁。“有些事，写下来比交出去容易，”她说，然后打开门，走进了寒冷里。
