Essay
Six Tables, No Free Hands
六张桌子，没有闲着的手
Six tables is a decision, not a limitation. From the doorway I can see all of them. I know who has been waiting, whose child needs a smaller plate, whose beer is finished before he asks. With twelve I would be the manager of a room I could no longer read.
At noon the room fills in about four minutes. It is always four minutes. Before that it is empty and I am wiping surfaces that are already clean; after it, there is a noise in the room like weather. Chairs, cutlery, the man at the corner table laughing at his own joke, the fan turning.
What the Heat Does
The kitchen is a narrow corridor with two burners, and by one o'clock the temperature is not something you can reason with. I keep water on the sill and forget it. The middle of my back is wet first. We work fast but we do not run; running makes mistakes, and mistakes at this hour are expensive and public.
Nobody in this room came for the idea. They are hungry and their lunch break is short.
The stew is made in the morning, in a quantity I can only guess at, and when it runs out it runs out. Some people take this badly. I have learned to say the sentence early — four portions left — and let them decide with full information. It costs me a plate and saves me an argument.
There is a woman who comes on Thursdays, alone, orders the same thing and reads. I have never asked what she reads. She leaves a coin under the plate. That coin goes into the jar we keep for ice, and it is not sentiment, it is accounting, but I notice her all the same.
After the Last Chair
At three the room is empty again and my hands shake a little, which is how I know I have not eaten. I sit at table five with the rice left in the pot and the view of the street that visitors photograph and residents cross every day without looking up.
I laugh too loudly. It is not a policy; it is what happens when the pressure comes off.
Then the chairs go up on the tables, the floor gets swept, and the six tables go back to being six tables, waiting to be worth something again.
中文译文
六张桌子是算过的决定，不是将就。站在门口，我六张全看得见：谁等了多久，谁家孩子要小一号的盘子，谁的啤酒见底了还没开口。十二张桌子，我就成了管一个自己读不懂的房间的人。
中午客人是在四分钟里坐满的，每次都是四分钟。之前是空的，我把已经干净的台面再擦一遍；之后房间里像起了天气：椅子、刀叉、角落那个被自己笑话逗乐的男人、转着的风扇。
热气做的事
厨房是一条窄走廊，两个灶眼。到一点，温度已经不是讲道理能解决的东西。我把水放在窗台上，然后忘掉。脊背中间那一段先湿。我们快，但不跑；跑就会出错，这个钟点出的错又贵又当众。
这屋里没有一个人是为理念来的。他们只是饿了，午休又短。
炖鱼早上就做好，做多少只能靠估。卖完就是卖完。有人接受不了。我学会了提前把话说清——只剩四份了——让他们在知道实情的情况下自己决定。这让我少赚一碟，省下一场争执。
有个女人每周四来，一个人，点同样的东西，看书。我从没问过她在看什么。她走时把钱压在碟子底下。那钱进我们放冰块的罐子，这不算抒情，这是记账；但我还是注意到了她。
最后一张椅子之后
三点，房间又空了，我的手开始有点抖，这是我还没吃饭的信号。我坐在五号桌，吃锅里剩的饭，看那条街：游客拍它，住在这里的人天天穿过去，头都不抬。
我笑得是有点大声。这不算什么策略，只是压力一松，人就成这样。
然后椅子翻上桌，地扫干净，六张桌子重新变回六张桌子，等着再一次变得有用。
