By midnight, it has been snowing for nine hours, and the highway has been closed since eight. Calla keeps her plow moving anyway. The blade throws a white wave across the verge, and an amber light turns on the cab roof. Every twenty minutes, the dispatcher's voice comes through the radio to ask whether she is still alive. "Still here," she answers each time.
到午夜时，雪已经下了九个小时，公路从八点起就封闭了。卡拉还是让她的铲雪车继续前进。铲刀把一道白色的浪抛到路肩上，驾驶室顶上亮着一盏琥珀色的灯。每隔二十分钟，调度员的声音就会从对讲机里传来，问她是不是还活着。“还在，”她每次都这样回答。
The cab smells of diesel and of the ginger tea in her flask. She has driven this stretch for eleven winters and knows every curve by feel, which is lucky, because tonight she can see about thirty meters.
驾驶室里有柴油味，还有她保温壶里的姜茶味。她已经在这段路上开了十一个冬天，凭手感就知道每一道弯，这倒是幸运，因为今晚她只能看清三十米左右。
At twenty to one, she notices a dark shape in a drift on the far side of the road. It is a car roof under a mound of snow, with a thin thread of exhaust hanging above it. She stops the plow. "Dispatch, there's a car buried at the quarry turning," she says. "Checking for people."
一点差二十分时，她注意到路对面的雪堆里有个黑乎乎的形状。那是一个被雪堆盖住的车顶，上方飘着一缕细细的尾气。她停下了铲雪车。“调度，采石场路口有辆车被埋住了，”她说，“我去看看有没有人。”
She pulls on her gloves and wades through knee-deep snow. The car's windows are fogged, and in the fog someone has drawn a smiley face with a finger. She knocks. A man opens the door a crack. Behind him, a woman sits with a sleeping child across her lap. A second child stares at Calla's reflective jacket as if she were an astronaut.
她戴上手套，踩着及膝的积雪走过去。车窗蒙着雾，有人在雾上用手指画了一张笑脸。她敲了敲窗。一个男人把门开了一条缝。他身后，一位女士坐着，腿上躺着一个睡着的孩子。另一个孩子盯着卡拉的反光外套，好像她是个宇航员。
"We took the wrong turn at the junction," the man says. "We should have turned back when we saw the closed sign. We've been running the engine ten minutes every hour to save fuel."
“我们在岔路口拐错了弯，”男人说，“看到封路的牌子时就该掉头的。我们每小时发动十分钟引擎，好省点油。”
"That was smart," Calla says. "Stay inside. I'll be quick."
“这很聪明，”卡拉说，“待在车里。我很快。”
She returns to the plow, angles the blade and clears the snow around the car in three slow passes. A black strip of road shows underneath. Then she fetches her flask. The lid becomes a cup, and it goes around the car: the older child first, then the mother, then the father.
她回到铲雪车上，调整铲刀的角度，用三次缓慢的清扫把车周围的雪铲开。下面露出一条黑色的路面。然后她去拿了她的保温壶。壶盖当作杯子，在车里传了一圈：先是大一点的孩子，然后是母亲，然后是父亲。
"It tastes of ginger and a little bit of diesel," the mother says, almost laughing.
“有姜味，还有一点点柴油味，”母亲说，几乎要笑出来。
"That's the cup," Calla says. "Not the tea."
“那是杯子的味道，”卡拉说，“不是茶的。”
The radio crackles. The dispatcher says that the nearest lit building is the motel in Carrow, eleven kilometers away, and that it is still open. Calla explains the plan to the father. "Follow my taillights. Stay close, don't overtake, and if I stop, you stop."
对讲机里一阵杂音。调度员说，最近一处亮着灯的建筑是十一公里外卡罗镇的汽车旅馆，还在营业。卡拉向父亲说明了计划。“跟着我的尾灯。靠近点，别超车，我停你就停。”
"If you went any faster, we would lose you," he says.
“你要是再开快点，我们就跟丢了，”他说。
"Exactly."
“就是这样。”
The drive takes fifty minutes. The plow crawls at twelve kilometers an hour. The little car follows so closely that Calla keeps checking her mirror, where two headlights swim in a cloud of white. Twice, the wind fills the road again, and she backs up to clear it. Once, the headlights disappear, and her stomach drops, until they reappear from behind a drift.
这段路开了五十分钟。铲雪车以每小时十二公里的速度爬行。那辆小车跟得那么紧，卡拉不停地看后视镜，镜子里两道车灯在一团白色里游动。有两次，风又把路吹满了，她倒车回去重新清理。有一次，车灯消失了，她的心一下子沉了下去，直到它们从一个雪堆后面重新出现。
At half past two, the lights of Carrow come into view. There is a gas station, one traffic light blinking yellow and a motel sign that buzzes in the dark. The mother climbs out and tries to speak, but Calla waves it off. "Stay off the highway until morning," she says. "The road will be cleared by seven."
两点半，卡罗镇的灯光出现在视野里。有一个加油站，一盏闪着黄灯的红绿灯，还有一块在黑暗中嗡嗡响的汽车旅馆招牌。母亲爬下车，想说点什么，卡拉摆摆手。“天亮前别上公路，”她说，“七点前路会清出来。”
The older child runs back across the snow and holds something up to the window. It is the flask lid. He says nothing, and neither does she.
大一点的孩子穿过雪地跑回来，把一样东西举到车窗前。是那个保温壶盖。他什么也没说，她也没有。
Calla screws it back on. In her mirror, the family disappears through a lit doorway. She lowers the blade, turns the plow around and lifts the radio. "Dispatch, it's Calla. The road is open as far as Carrow. I'm going back for the rest of it."
卡拉把它拧回壶上。镜子里，这一家人消失在一扇亮着灯的门里。她放下铲刀，掉转铲雪车，拿起对讲机。“调度，我是卡拉。路已经通到卡罗镇了。我回去清剩下的路段。”
Behind her, the snow is already filling her tracks.
她身后，雪已经在填满她留下的车辙。
