Essay
By Thursday My Nose Is Useless
到了周四，我的鼻子就不管用了
By the fifth day of the season I stop being reliable. It happens without warning: sample fourteen smells exactly like sample thirteen, and thirteen smelled like the inside of a warm glass. Nothing is wrong with the oil. Something is wrong with me, and I am the instrument, so I have to say it out loud.
The first year I did this I thought I was catching a cold. I went home and held a jar of last spring's oil under my nose and got nothing but a vague sweetness, like a room someone has already left. Then I panicked, which is useless. Now I plan for it the way you plan for rain in May.
It is not that I cannot smell anything. It is that everything smells like the last thing.
What fatigue does is flatten. The green note, the wax, the hay, they all fold into one warm blur, and a warm blur will pass any sample you put in front of it. That is how bad oil gets signed off in a bad week. Not by dishonesty. By a tired nose and a queue of trucks at the gate.
What I Do Instead of Trusting Myself
I keep clean wool in my coat pocket, the unwashed kind, and I breathe through it for a minute. I walk to the door and stand in the wind. I drink water until it is boring. Coffee is supposed to reset the nose; I keep a jar of beans on the table and have never once believed in it, but the ritual helps.
Then I cheat, honestly. I ask a colleague to renumber the strips so I do not know which is which, and I grade the same oil twice in a day, hours apart. If the two answers disagree I throw both away and start over. The season does not care about my pride. It cares about the number I write in the book.
A rose does not get better because I am tired. It only gets quieter.
Going Home Nose-Blind
At home the world goes quiet in a different way. I cannot smell my own cooking. Last May I burned onions twice and knew only because of the smoke in the hallway. My mother says this is a tragedy and I say it is a job, and then we eat, and she watches me the way you watch someone who has lost a sense you still have.
On the worst evenings I climb one of the hills. It is a small city and the hills are small too, but there is wind up there and the wind empties me out. I sit on a bench until I can smell the dust, the dry grass, my own sleeve. Then I go down. The roses usually come back by Sunday.
中文译文
产季的第五天，我就不再可靠了。它来得没有预兆：十四号样本闻起来和十三号一模一样，而十三号闻起来像一只温热的杯子内部。油没有问题。有问题的是我，而我就是那台仪器，所以我必须说出来。
干这行的第一年，我以为自己感冒了。回家把去年春天的油凑到鼻子底下，只闻到一点含糊的甜，像一间人已经走了的屋子。然后我慌了，慌是没用的。现在我会提前安排，就像为五月的雨做安排。
不是闻不到，是所有的东西都闻起来像上一样东西。
疲劳做的事是把一切压平。青味、蜡、干草，全都折成一团温吞的模糊，而一团温吞的模糊会放行你递给它的任何样本。坏油就是这么在糟糕的一周里被签字的。不是因为有人不老实，是因为一个累坏的鼻子，和门口一长串卡车。
我不再信自己的时候做什么
外套口袋里有一小团干净羊毛，没洗过的那种，我隔着它呼吸一分钟。走到门口，站在风里。喝水，喝到无聊为止。听说咖啡能让鼻子归零；我在桌上放一罐豆子，从来没真信过，但这点仪式有用。
然后我老实作弊。请同事把试纸重新编号，让我不知道哪张是哪张；同一样油一天分两次评，隔几个小时。两个答案对不上，就都作废，从头再来。产季不在乎我的脸面，它只在乎我写进本子里的那个数字。
玫瑰不会因为我累了就变好，它只会变得更安静。
回家时鼻子是关着的
在家里，世界以另一种方式安静下来。我闻不出自己做的菜。去年五月我把洋葱烧糊过两次，全靠楼道里的烟才知道。母亲说这是悲剧，我说这是工作，然后我们吃饭，她看着我，像看着一个丢了她还拥有的感官的人。
最难熬的傍晚，我会去爬城里的一座小山。城小，山也小，但上面有风，风把我倒空。我在长椅上坐到能闻见尘土、干草，还有自己袖子的味道，然后下山。玫瑰一般到星期天才回来。
