The river Senn was not wide, but it was wide enough. From the science room in Ker, Ilse could see the roofs of Ash on the other bank, and from Ash, Marek could see the back of the Ker water tower. The two towns shared a bridge, a bus stop, and a long argument about who was polluting the water.
Senn 河不算宽，但已经足够宽。从 Ker 的科学教室，Ilse 能看见对岸 Ash 的屋顶；从 Ash，Marek 能看见 Ker 水塔的背面。两座镇子共享一座桥、一个公交站，还有一场关于谁在污染河水的漫长争吵。
When the regional schools announced a joint project, their teachers paired them without asking. Ilse arrived at the first meeting with a folder of samples and a list of accusations. Marek arrived with a camera and the same list, reversed. They sat at opposite ends of a table meant for four. The room had a map on the wall with the border drawn in red, and the river drawn in blue directly beneath it, as though the two lines could be separated.
地区学校宣布联合项目时，两边的老师没问他们就把他们配成了一组。第一次见面，Ilse 带着一文件夹水样和一份指控清单。Marek 带着相机和同一份清单，只是方向相反。他们坐在一张本可坐四个人的桌子的两端。墙上挂着一张地图，边界用红笔画出，河流用蓝笔直接画在它下面，仿佛这两条线可以被分开。
“Your factory,” she said. “Your runoff,” he said. Neither had proof. What they had were stories their parents told at dinner, and a river that carried everything downstream, which meant that everything, eventually, arrived somewhere.
“你们的工厂。”她说。“你们的径流。”他说。两人都没有证据。他们拥有的是父母在晚饭桌上讲的故事，以及一条把一切都带向下游的河——这意味着一切最终都会抵达某处。
They agreed on a rule: no conclusions until the numbers existed. For three Saturdays they collected water above the bridge, below it, and at the mouth of a tributary that entered from neither town. They tested for nitrates with a kit older than either of them, and recorded the results in a shared notebook.
他们约定一条规则：在数字出现之前，不下结论。三个星期六，他们在大桥上游、下游，以及一条不属于任何一镇的支流汇入口取水。他们用一套比两人年纪都大的试剂盒测硝酸盐，把结果记在共用的本子里。
The numbers refused to cooperate with the stories. The worst reading came from the tributary, where an abandoned factory stood on land that belonged to the district, not to Ker or Ash. The second worst came from a farm on the northern side, and the third from a leaking pipe on the southern side. Blame, it turned out, was distributed as evenly as the water.
数字不肯配合那些故事。最糟的读数来自那条支流，那里有一座废弃工厂，土地属于地区，不属于 Ker 或 Ash。第二糟来自北岸的一个农场，第三糟来自南岸一根漏水的管道。原来，责任像水一样分布得相当均匀。
“So we are both right,” Marek said. “And both wrong,” Ilse added. It was not a satisfying sentence. It was, however, the first true one they had said to each other, and they wrote it at the top of the notebook in letters large enough to be seen from the other side of the table.
“所以我们俩都对。”Marek 说。“也都错了。”Ilse 补了一句。这不是一句令人满意的结论。但这是他们对彼此说过的第一句真话；他们把它写在笔记本最上面，字大到桌子对面都能看见。
In April the Senn rose. The bus stopped running, the bridge closed, and the lower streets of both towns filled with brown water. Ilse's family moved furniture upstairs; Marek's father spent two nights sandbagging the school. On the third day, the two of them met at the closed bridge with the notebook and a phone that still had battery.
四月，Senn 河上涨了。公交停运，大桥封闭，两岸低处的街道灌满褐色的水。Ilse 家把家具搬上楼；Marek 的父亲花了两个晚上在学校堆沙袋。第三天，两人带着笔记本和一部还有电的手机，在封闭的桥头见面。
Their map, made of small careful numbers, showed what neither town's council had wanted to see: the pollution did not stop at the border, and neither did the flood. They sent it to the regional office. A month later, a joint monitoring station opened in a portable cabin on the bank, staffed by one technician and, on Saturdays, by students. The technician kept a logbook, and the students kept a second one, because neither town trusted the other's handwriting.
他们那张由细小而谨慎的数字构成的地图，显示出两镇议会都不愿看到的事：污染没有在边界停下，洪水也没有。他们把图送到地区办公室。一个月后，一座联合监测站在岸边一间活动板房里开张，配一名技术员，星期六由学生值班。技术员有一本日志，学生们另有一本，因为两座镇子都不信任对方的笔迹。
It was a small thing, and slow. But when Ilse looked across the water now, she did not see the other side. She saw the same river, doing what rivers do, ignoring the line that people had drawn through it.
这是件小事，而且很慢。但当 Ilse 现在望向水面，她看到的不是对岸。她看到的是同一条河，做河该做的事，无视人们在水上划过的那条线。