Essay
Chilies on the Roof, Tea on the Stove
屋顶的辣椒，炉上的茶
The roof is ours from five o'clock, when the heat gives up a little. I go up with a plastic bucket and water the chilies along the parapet. There are nine of them now, in tins that used to hold paint, and two are fruiting. The neighbor's roof is close enough that we could talk without raising our voices, and mostly we don't.
A roof in this city is the only piece of land you can own without owning land. Mine has a line for drying clothes, a chair with one broken leg, and the chilies. From there I can see six other roofs with six small gardens: lemon, bitter gourd, and one man with a papaya tree he is very proud of.
The Water Comes at Six
Water comes at six, sometimes at seven, sometimes not at all. So the bucket is filled first and the plants are watered last, after the dishes, after my mother's bath. In April the tins get too hot to touch by noon. I move them into the shade of the tank and move them back in the evening. This is not gardening. It is negotiation.
Everything I grow has to survive me forgetting it for two days.
Tea is the other thing I do slowly. Loose leaves from Sylhet, a small steel pot, no milk unless my mother is watching. I boil the water, let it come down off the heat, pour, and wait four minutes. If I am tired I drink it standing. If I am not tired I sit down, and that is the real difference between a good evening and a bad one.
Friday night is an old Bollywood film on the laptop with the volume low. My mother has seen this one so many times that she says the dialogue a second before the actors do. When a song starts she sings only the second line, badly, and stops.
The Part Nobody Films
The films always end before the difficult part. Nobody shows you the woman in the morning, folding the same clothes, counting the same money, getting the bucket up the stairs. My mother did that for thirty years and she still wakes first. I am not asking for a different ending. I want to be the one who writes the middle.
She sings the second line, badly, and stops. That is the whole week for me.
中文译文
五点以后天台就是我们的了，那时热气才肯退一点。我拎着塑料桶上去，浇栏杆边那一排辣椒。现在有九盆，种在装过油漆的旧铁罐里，两盆已经结果。邻居的天台近得不用提高声音就能说话，不过我们一般不说。
在这座城市，天台是唯一不用买地就能算作自己的地。我这一块有一条晾衣绳、一把缺了腿的椅子，还有那些辣椒。站在那儿能看见另外六个天台、六座小菜园：柠檬、苦瓜，还有一个男人，为一棵木瓜树骄傲得不行。
水六点来
水六点来，有时七点，有时不来。所以桶先接满，花最后浇——洗完碗，我妈洗完澡，才轮到它们。四月的正午铁罐烫得碰不得。我把它们挪到水塔的阴影里，傍晚再搬回去。这不算种花，这是谈判。
我种的东西，都得扛得住我两天不管它。
另一件我做得慢的事是茶。锡尔赫特的散叶，一只小钢锅，我妈不盯着就不加奶。水烧开，离火，晾一下，冲下去，等四分钟。累的时候我站着喝；不累的时候我坐下来——一个好晚上和一个坏晚上的区别，其实就在这里。
星期五晚上，笔记本放一部老的宝莱坞片子，音量开小。这一部我妈看过太多遍，台词总比演员早一秒从她嘴里出来。歌一响，她只唱第二句，唱得不好，然后就停了。
电影不拍的那一段
电影总在难的那部分之前结束。没有人拍那个女人早上叠同一批衣服、数同一笔钱、把水桶拎上楼。我妈这样过了三十年，还是第一个起床。我不是想要另一个结局。我是想做那个写中间那一段的人。
她只唱第二句，唱得不好就停了。我这一整周，就在等这一下。
