Essay
The Roof Above the Valley
山谷上方的屋顶
From May the work changes. The cable cars mostly look after themselves in the warm months — inspections, grease, paperwork — and the yard behind my building fills up with bicycles. Hikers come down off the Nordkette with gears that have stopped speaking to each other, and I fix them for a fair price and, sometimes, a coffee.
On a good Saturday there are six bikes waiting by eight in the morning. A Dutch couple with a bent derailleur hanger. A boy whose chain I have now replaced three times this summer. An e-bike with a battery fault that I cannot fix and have to admit I cannot fix. Most of it is not skill. It is patience and clean rags.
Tension is tension
A derailleur cable and a haul rope are not the same thing, obviously. One moves a chain two millimetres, the other moves people four hundred metres. But both have a correct tension, and both tell you when it is wrong — a hesitation, a sound that arrives half a second late. You learn the sound before you learn the number.
Everything I fix is something that carries somebody. That is the whole of it.
In the evenings I go up to the roof. The building is old, the roof is flat, and my neighbour keeps tomatoes up there in summer and complains about them. You can see the whole valley from there, the lights coming on along the Inn, the cable car line going up the north side like something drawn. I sit and check nothing.
The blue shirt
Once or twice a month I put on the blue shirt and go down to the inn by the river, where the people I know from school sit at the same table and talk about football and roofs and whose brother is selling what. Nobody there wants to hear about torque. That is exactly why I go. Six days a week I am a mechanic. On the seventh I am a person.
By ten the roof has gone cold and I go down. Tomorrow the alarm goes at four forty-five, the first cabin leaves at five forty, and the rope will turn whether I am ready or not. I like that it does not wait for me. I like that I have to be there anyway.
中文译文
从五月起，活儿就变了。暖季里缆车基本自己照顾自己——巡检、润滑、报表——而我楼下院子里的自行车越堆越多。登山客从北链山下来，变速器已经不肯跟链条说话；我给他们修，收个公道的价钱，有时候收一杯咖啡。
天气好的周六，早上八点门口就排着六辆车。一对荷兰夫妇，后拨钩是弯的。一个男孩，链条我今年已经给他换了三次。还有一辆电助力车，报电池故障，我修不了，也只能老实说修不了。大部分活儿不靠手艺，靠耐心和干净的抹布。
张力就是张力
变速线和高山索道当然不是一回事。一个挪动链条两毫米，一个把人送上四百米。可两者都有一个正确的张力，也都会告诉你张力不对——一次迟疑，一个慢了半拍的声响。你得先学会那个声响，才学得会那个数字。
我修的每一样东西，都要载人。就这么简单。
傍晚我上楼顶。楼是老的，屋顶是平的，邻居夏天在上面种西红柿，顺便抱怨它们。从那儿能看见整个山谷，因河沿岸的灯一盏盏亮起来，北坡的索道像一条画上去的线。我就坐着，什么也不检查。
宝蓝色衬衫
一个月有那么一两次，我换上那件蓝衬衫，去河边的酒馆。中学就认识的那些人坐在同一张桌子上，聊足球、聊屋顶、聊谁的弟弟在卖什么。那儿没人想听扭矩。我去的理由正好就是这个：一周六天我是机械师，第七天我是个人。
十点屋顶就凉了，我下楼。明天闹钟四点四十五响，五点四十第一班车厢出站，缆绳转不转不看我准备好没有。我喜欢它不等我。也喜欢无论如何，我都在那儿。
