The project was Ms. Okonjo's idea. Every Year Nine student had to write one anonymous letter to a person whose work usually went unnoticed, and deliver it by Friday. Most students chose a grandparent or a coach. Dario chose Mr. Bell, the school caretaker, who emptied bins in the rain and whistled out of tune. Dario wrote about the time Mr. Bell had dried his soaked backpack with a hair dryer and pretended it was no trouble.
这个计划是奥孔乔老师的主意。九年级每个学生都要给一位平时不被注意的人写一封匿名信，并在星期五之前送出。大多数学生写了给祖父母或教练。达里奥选了学校管理员贝尔先生——他在雨里倒垃圾，吹口哨总是走调。达里奥写的是那一次，贝尔先生用吹风机烘干他湿透的书包，还装作这没什么大不了。
He sealed the letter in a blue envelope and left it inside Mr. Bell's toolbox. On Monday, Mr. Bell hummed while polishing the corridor floor; on Tuesday, he taped a hand-drawn map of the school's warmest radiators to the staff room door. Dario, who had expected nothing, felt an odd pride. By Wednesday, blue envelopes were appearing all over the school. Some were kind, some were jokes, and one, taped to Dario's locker, contained a single sentence: “I saw what you did in the summer, and I have not forgotten.”
他把信封进一个蓝色信封，放进贝尔先生的工具箱。星期一，贝尔先生一边擦走廊地板一边哼歌；星期二，他把一张手绘的“全校最暖暖气片地图”贴到了教师办公室门上。本没期待任何回报的达里奥，感到一种奇怪的骄傲。到了星期三，蓝色信封开始出现在学校各处。有些是善意的，有些是恶作剧，而有一封贴在达里奥储物柜上的信里只有一句话：“我看见了夏天你做的事，我没有忘记。”
Dario read the note a dozen times. He had done nothing remarkable in the summer except help his mother clean offices before dawn. He asked his friends whether they had sent it. He checked the handwriting against homework, cards, and the sign above lost property. Suspicion made him unkind. When his friend Hana laughed at his questions, he accused her of writing it as a prank. She left the table without finishing lunch and did not speak to him for the rest of the week.
达里奥把那句话读了十几遍。那个夏天他并没做什么了不起的事，只是天亮前帮母亲打扫办公室。他问朋友们是不是他们写的。他拿笔迹去对照作业、生日卡片，还有失物招领架上方的那块牌子。猜疑让他变得不友善。当朋友哈娜对他的追问笑出声时，他指责她写这封信是在恶作剧。她没吃完午饭就离开了桌子，接下来整整一周都没跟他说话。
On Friday, Ms. Okonjo asked how the project had felt. Dario admitted he had spent more time hunting for the writer than writing letters. She nodded as though she had expected this. “Gratitude that needs a signature is a transaction,” she said. “It is most useful when it stays a gift.” Dario wanted to argue, but the sentence followed him home. He still looked at every passing student, still wondered. The difference was that he had begun to hope the writer would never confess.
星期五，奥孔乔老师问大家这个计划感觉如何。达里奥承认，他花在寻找写信人上的时间比写信还多。她点点头，仿佛早已料到。“需要署名的感谢是一笔交易，”她说，“只有当它保持为礼物时，才最有用。”达里奥想反驳，可这句话跟着他回了家。他仍会打量每一个经过的学生，仍会猜测。不同的是，他开始希望那个写信人永远不要承认。
The following Monday, Dario apologized to Hana with three sentences and a borrowed pen. She accepted slowly, the way people accept a heavy box. Then she helped him carry a stack of blue envelopes to the caretaker's room. Mr. Bell had kept every letter in a shoebox and read them aloud on bad days. “I do not need to know who sent them,” he said. “I only need to know they were meant.” Dario realized he had been given the answer he was looking for, though not in the form he wanted.
接下来的星期一，达里奥用三句话和一支借来的笔向哈娜道了歉。她慢慢地接受了，就像人们接过一只沉重的箱子。然后她帮他把一摞蓝色信封搬到管理员的房间。贝尔先生把每一封信都收在一只鞋盒里，心情不好的日子就拿出来朗读。“我不需要知道是谁寄的，”他说，“我只需要知道它们是真心写给我的。”达里奥意识到，他一直在找的答案已经给了他，只是不是他想要的形式。
He wrote one more letter, to Mr. Bell, and signed it. He wrote another to Hana and slid it under her desk without waiting. The project ended, as projects do, but blue envelopes kept appearing for months. Nobody ever claimed the one on Dario's locker. He stopped trying to find out. Some thanks, he decided, were meant to arrive without an address, like rain on a roof you had forgotten you were standing under.
他又写了一封信，给贝尔先生，并且签上了名字。他给哈娜也写了一封，没等回音就塞进她的课桌。计划像所有计划一样结束了，可蓝色信封在接下来的几个月里仍不断出现。始终没人认领贴在达里奥储物柜上的那一封。他不再追查了。他断定，有些感谢本就该不带地址地抵达，就像落在一座你忘了自己正站在其下的屋顶上的雨。