Essay
The Auction Talks, the Sea Doesn't
拍卖会说话，海不说话
By six the fish lie in rows on ice and the talking has started. Buyers walk the line with one fist in a pocket, lifting a gill, pressing a thumb into a belly. Not one of them was out there in the dark. They know a price; they do not know the night that made it. A sardine from a good night looks exactly like a sardine from a bad one.
A man in a clean shirt offered low for the whole box. I told him the ice was still dry, and I walked away. My father would have spat on the concrete. But my father is dead, and I have learned that spitting costs you the buyer you will need in March, when the weather is bad and nobody is feeling proud.
Prices are a kind of weather
You read the market the way you read a swell: three good days, then a flat one nobody can explain. Nothing on the boat changed. Same nets, same fuel, same men. What changed was the shore. The sea handed me fish; what they were worth was decided by people who had slept in their own beds all night.
The water gave me what it gave me. The price came from the land.
I sold two-thirds and kept the rest on ice. By two in the afternoon the price had climbed and I could have had more for it. A small thing, and I do not carry it around. I write it here because the crew reads these pages, and they like to know that a slow morning does not mean the boat lost.
What I count before sleep
Not the money. Crew, all of them home. Engine hours. Fuel left. The leak in the forecastle I keep promising to fix. Then the radio, twice: once to believe the forecast, once to doubt it. Then I lie down and sleep the way men in this port sleep, with one ear still pointed at the harbour, listening for a wind that has no business being there.
中文译文
六点，鱼一排排躺在冰上，话就开始了。买主们沿着鱼摊走，一只手插在口袋里，掀一掀鳃，用拇指按一按鱼腹。他们当中没有一个在黑里出过海。他们知道价钱，不知道造出这个价钱的那一夜。好夜里打的沙丁鱼，和坏夜里打的，看上去一模一样。
一个穿干净衬衫的人想低价收走整箱。我说冰还没化，转身就走了。换我父亲，他会往水泥地上啐一口。可父亲已经不在了，而我也学会了：那一口啐出去，代价是三月里你还得求的那个买主——那时天气坏，谁也没心情硬气。
行情也是一种天气
看行情跟看涌浪是一个看法：连着三天好，然后来一天平平的，谁也说不清为什么。船上什么都没变，同样的网、同样的油、同样的人。变的是岸上。海把鱼交给我，鱼值多少钱，由整夜睡在自己床上的人定。
水给我什么就是什么。价钱是岸上给的。
我卖了三分之二，剩下的留在冰上。到下午两点价钱涨了，我本可以多拿一些。小事，我不往心里放。写在这里，是因为船员会看这些字，他们愿意知道一个慢吞吞的上午不等于船输了。
睡前我要数的几样
不是钱。人齐，都回了家。机器小时数。剩下的油。前舱那道我一直说要补的裂缝。然后是电台，听两遍：一遍用来信，一遍用来疑。再躺下，像这港口所有男人那样睡——留一只耳朵朝着港里，听有没有不该来的风。
