2019.08 卡累利阿的狼 一个短篇故事

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FICTION
WOLVES OF KARELIA
A short story

By Arna Bontemps Hemenway
AUGUST 2019 ISSUE
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Simo Häyhä, whose life this story imaginatively elaborates on, was a renowned sniper during the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union. The fighting, which began in November 1939 and ended in a Russian victory in mid-March, was fiercest along Finland’s eastern border, in Karelia.

DISTANCE
“Do you see?” my father said.


I breathed in and out, the air shallow in my chest. I was 10. On the way back from his dawn hunt, my father had sliced the tip off a reindeer antler and placed it somewhere in the array of space and field behind our cabin. My job was to find it. We were on our stomachs in the snow, under the stand of trees where, in summer, our horse Teemu lowered his gray face in the shade. We’d been here for two hours, waiting while I looked and looked for the tip, which would be our target.

“Yes?” my father said.

I nodded.

“Where?”

“The fang,” I said. This was the shattered birch trunk that had split the year before last in a storm and now stood, jagged and lonely, at the edge of the far field. “Well, five steps before it.”

“How far from our position?” he said. He would aim only and exactly as I instructed. Such was his test.

“One hundred forty-eight meters,” I said.

My father turned his round, dull eyes to me. “You’re sure?”

I nodded.

“Go mark it, then,” he said, and moved the rifle from where it lay between us.

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Progress was slow in the snow. As I approached the fang, the sun hit the ice covering the old silver wood and made it sharp with light. I turned and faced the place I knew my father was, though you’d never be able to see him, not if you looked for a whole month. I counted five steps back toward him and stopped.

The shot rang like a bell in the frozen clearing that pocketed the cabin and the shed and our two fields. The spray of ice shards hit my face so hard that I fell backwards, and I stared at the place where the bullet had obliterated the tiny piece of antler, poking maybe five centimeters above the snow, just between my feet. If I’d said 149 meters, or taken six steps instead of five, my father’s round would’ve passed through my stomach.

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When I got back to the cabin, he was already inside, the rifle half-disassembled.

“One hundred forty-eight meters,” he said, and glanced at me before going back to wiping the bolt, which was as close as he ever got to good cheer. Then he said what he always said. “You’re only wrong once, Simuna.”

THE WHITE DEATH
The Russians, as was their wont, had their own name for me, the White Death. My men called me the Magic Shooter, which I also hated. I am Simo Häyhä, corporal of the Sixth Battalion, Regiment 34; previously of Bicycle Battalions 1 (Third Company) and 2 (First Company); previously of the Civil Guard volunteers, all in service to the glorious and proud Finnish cause. Or I was, anyway, until 1940, when everything (we thought) was over and it turned out I was in fact still alive, and someone decided to make me a second lieutenant for it.

It was M who first called me Kettuseni, “my little fox.” When I think of those 98 days in the forest, I hear only that name.
I’ve liked only two nicknames in my entire life. My father and mother both called me Simuna, which means “God has listened,” though I suspect what they each imagined he heard was different. It was M, though, who first called me Kettuseni, “my little fox.” When I think of those 98 days in the forest, I hear only that name. When I dream of M now, I wake myself sometimes, the sound of it floating around the room, before I understand that my own lips uttered it.

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Our regiment commander, Lieutenant Juutilainen, was known far and wide as the Terror of Morocco, due to his time there with the French Foreign Legion, fighting the Berbers in the Atlas Mountains. We ourselves called him Papa. He was a quiet man with a sad, clownish face who spent most of his time drinking in his officer’s tent, where it was warmest and where he let me sleep between my hunts. This was more or less how he’d spent his time in the Atlases too, I gathered: drinking to stay warm in the frigid air, then venturing out for a whole day of stalking the slopes with his rifle and skis. By the time the Soviets shelled Mainila, though, his flurries of activity took place in the command tent. When the Russians began pouring toward our lines, and Major General Hägglund asked his famous question, I myself watched as Papa gave his famous response: “Yes, Kollaa holds. Unless our orders are to run away.”

Once, two days after Christmas, we managed to capture a sorry Russian who’d gotten lost and wandered almost right into our camp. He didn’t even have a weapon. We blindfolded him, spun him around until he was so dizzy that he could barely stand, then marched him in circles, telling him the whole time that we were taking him to the Terror of Morocco. By the time we brought him into the tent and took off his blindfold, he was shaking with fear and Papa insisted we drink with him all night. Whether thanks to the spirits or our company, he came back to life in front of us. Before dawn we marched him off toward his own lines, pointed him where to go, and set him loose. He cried the whole way, begging to stay. A month later, when we retook those woods, M told me he found the man, frozen stiff, propped against a tree where his own officer had shot him in the forehead for deserting.

THE ZERO
I was born the last of four brothers, too young to join them in the civil war when it came in early 1918. Antti was shot through the nasal cavity by a Red Guard marksman on a drizzly evening in Tampere. Juhana was wounded in the close fighting at Joutseno, and taken prisoner. By that time, the Reds had heard about the prison camp and mass grave at Kalevankangas.

I was 12. Spring brought the German Imperials to the streets of Helsinki and the Whites to Vyborg, victorious. In May, the Whites took Fort Ino, near the Neva Bay, on the Karelian Isthmus. The war was over, and finally Juhana was returned to us. The power of speech had deserted him, and we were all left to imagine exactly what had driven it away. He was only good for fieldwork by then.

Summer came, and Mother sang Tuomas and me psalms in the evening while she mended our clothes. Antti was gone, Juhana was just beginning to work again, and I was needed around the farm to help Father with the timber, so it was Tuomas who was sent to the road project at Miettilä to work. The summer was brutal, and each time Tuomas returned from the work site on the weekends, he looked more shrunken and sallow. The foreman himself came all the way out to the farm to tell my father about the afternoon, the hottest anyone could remember—about the way Tuomas had straightened up as if someone had called his name, before crumpling to the ground with sunstroke. Then he was gone too.

That winter, during the few hours of morning light, my father set a single bullet upright on the table in front of me, before sending me out with my rifle. I carried the round inside my glove as I walked, and felt the brass get hot and slick in my palm. If you can’t do it with one, I’d heard him tell Antti, you can’t do it with two. In the first week, I missed my shot two days in a row, and each night my father made me sit at the table as everyone else ate potatoes from the cellar, my plate empty in front of me. My father wouldn’t look at me. My mother wouldn’t look at him.

On the third day, hunger had sharpened my senses. I disappeared into the woods; time disappeared into the day. I came back in the dark with two hares. I’d waited, lying alongside a log, until they passed one in front of the other. My father met me on the porch, and pulled me into an embrace so rough I thought at first he was wrestling me. I could smell the cold and the forest on the stiff hide of his overcoat. Then he took me by the shoulders and held me away from him so that he could look into my face. He took a breath as if to tell me something, but said nothing. I did not miss again.

I always kept my rifle zeroed at 150 meters. If you can’t get within 150 meters of a kill, my father used to say, you don’t deserve to make it. The same was true 20 years later, in those frozen woods with M. Whenever there was a lull, I found a dwarf pine on a slope and watched the top of it disappear in a puff of snow. You could tell when you’d missed or just hit the ice, instead of the trunk. I never missed.

ROLLING HELL
M came wheeling around the bend on his bicycle, singing. This was the first time I ever met him. He was reporting for the marksman training camp. We’d been paired together, and I was sitting on the firing platform with the other shooters, waiting for the spotters. M could be almost as silent as me when he wanted, but this was just before the war, and he sang at the top of his lungs. He had a deep, dark river of a voice, and even then I closed my eyes and let it wash over me.

When we were in position for the first drill, I patiently waited for him to give the usual range, wind condition, firing pattern, etc. But he didn’t. Instead he lay on his back with his head against the sandbag and closed his eyes to the sun.

“Aren’t you going to inform me?” I said to him.

He spoke without opening his eyes.

“No,” he said.

“You’re not?” I said.

He shrugged.

“I know who you are,” he said.

I blew air between my teeth, exasperated. I thought he was impudent.

“Do you need me to tell you?” he said.

“No,” I said.

He tipped his cap over his face.

“Range?” I said. I couldn’t believe his impertinence, his laziness.

M only sighed, and didn’t move.

“Range 1-9-2 meters,” I said, testing him.

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “It’s unbecoming.”

“Range 2-1-1 meters,” I said.

“Correct,” he said. “Doesn’t that feel better?”

We were silent. I went through my routine and waited so long that I thought for sure he’d fallen asleep. I fired my first round at the target.

“Hit,” M said quietly, as if to himself.

“You didn’t even look,” I said.

“I listened,” he said.

Later in our training, when new groups would arrive at the camp, they’d ask who he and I were. All the other marksman teams had taken up code names by then to confuse the Russians. Silent Doom. Death From the Trees. That sort of thing. M and I refused. Soon enough everyone would have a name for me anyway. But when the new recruits would arrive and see M and me returning from the supply depot, singing together on our bicycles, weaving over the ruts, laughing and gamboling like two fawns, they’d sneer, “And what are you, oh fearsome brothers?”

And M would put his arm around my shoulders and grin.

“Oh, us?” he’d say, a crown of daffodils chained around his hat. “We’re Rolling Hell.”

Winter began, and the big cogs of the world around us turned toward war. We were to have one last break before heading to the front. Many of the men went home. M and I both loved the forest and decided instead to go hiking for all four days. He’d spent a lot of time out there as a child and told me he knew an unmarked path.

The first day he drove us hard, casting a look back at me only occasionally to see whether I was keeping up. He barely spoke to me, and my heart began to feel like a sharp piece of steel. I imagined a firing mechanism exploding from a homemade round—the jagged pieces of barrel and stock. It began snowing as we pitched our tent, and though I was exhausted, I lay awake in the dark.

The next morning was clear and bright. M took my hand and led me out to the middle of the frozen lake we’d camped beside in the night. The snowfall had turned it into a pure white field.

“Well?” I said. I wanted to go home. I felt embarrassed.

But M’s face was bright, happy, flashing with something. He dropped to his knees and made big sweeping motions with his arms, clearing the surface of the ice.

I thought I was dreaming. Suddenly we were standing on air. On ice so perfectly clear, it might have been air. Fifty feet below, I could see the algae on the stones at the bottom of the lake.

“It only happens when the water freezes very, very slowly,” M said. “The winter has to be so patient, and then one day there it is, a miracle.” He looked at me, letting out his breath. “I thought you’d like that.”

Later, of course, I would come to know well the scent of him—rich soil and tobacco and sweat—carried under his snow cape and coat and uniform. His taste. The rough scratch of his stubble and its delicious burn. But when we were out in the silent hours upon hours of our hunts, when we lay behind an embankment and waited for the first suggestion of dawn, breathing slowly and evenly to reduce moisture plumes and to lower our body temperatures, I thought only of that morning. Laughing and falling on each other. Shuffling around in the impossible clarity of that place.


Alexandre Luu
DISTANCE
The winter makes everything itself, I told M the day we found the black wall of bodies. He’d spent a lot of time in the brush as a child, it was true, but the rest of the time he lived in the city, and at first he didn’t understand what we were looking at. We’d heard there’d been heavy fighting right away, but there were few roads in our area, and the Russians quickly found themselves stalled in pockets of the forest as we crept around them.

The clearing—a meadow in summer—was dim and quiet. Our boys had set up their machine-gun positions among the trees, where they would have clear lines of fire but couldn’t be spotted. The Russians had made their camp in the middle of the open space, for who knew what reason. This was at the beginning. We didn’t yet know how unprepared they were to fight. Some didn’t even have winter clothes. Only the officers had real tents. The rest made do with improvised shelters, anywhere they could hover around their tiny fires, a tidy constellation of targets.

At whatever cue, they’d been ordered to charge out toward the trees, where the men were felled, one atop another, by the machine guns. That winter was so cold—colder than any of us had ever seen. So cold that the blood from the newest layers of bodies turned black and froze over the bodies stacked at the bottom. There wasn’t much snowfall, and the blackened wall of blood and bodies seemed orderly in the half-light of the day. M and I stood and looked at it for a long time.

Some of our fleeing units had hauled even more frozen Russian bodies out of the woods and propped them upright, their arms stilled in various eerie semaphore.
The world is never very big. A map is just a piece of paper. My Karelia was just a corridor of wild land north of the vast waters of Lake Ladoga. You could be at the shore in a day on foot if you wanted. You could be at my father’s cabin in four. That day in the clearing we were something like 200 kilometers from the center of Leningrad, imagine. But the forest is endless. The winter stopped everything with its cold, even space.

Near the end, in our last week of war, only a few days before I was shot, we passed back through this clearing—a rare thing in a place where you could never trace the same path twice, even with careful planning. We were retreating, everyone could see it was over, and things were bad. I’d gone on my last hunt days before. Some of our fleeing units in their bitterness had hauled even more frozen Russian bodies out of the woods and propped them upright, their arms stilled in various eerie semaphore. The idea was to disturb the Russians before they overran us. Those corpses were black too, and they made the clearing look like the stunted remains of a wildfire. They were all facing the black wall and looked strangely as though they were trying to join their friends. My father used to say, If you need a map to know where you are, you’re already lost. Both times we passed through the clearing we paused. Then we kept going.

That first time, as we reentered the forest, M nodded to the horizon, where the sun was lurking, as high as it would get that day, a thin, golden-red line of color.

“The sky is burning,” he said. “What a waste.”

THE HUNT
It was so cold that if your eyes got too close to the holes of the mask, your corneas froze. So cold that you needed a body within your body. Papa measured the temperature by planting one of his bottles in the snowbank outside his tent: If the alcohol turned to slush it was about –25 Celsius or below. At those temperatures, nobody moved but us. M and I would sleep through the few hours of weak light, then rise and head out as the forest gathered the darkness. Once we’d found a Russian camp, we would sit and wait until we were part of the stillness. Then I’d pick a position.

We’d urinate on the berm of snow, letting it freeze so the muzzle flash wouldn’t kick up any powder for the Russians to see. If we could make a snow cave or small space under the eaves of a tree, we would, and I’d sit there and watch the woods in front of us while M slept or lay there staring up at nothing, waiting. We’d trained ourselves to breathe slowly and carefully, keeping the moisture in the mask. Otherwise our breath would billow out and become a solid thing in the air.

We had whole conversations made of just the wind, a sideways movement of iris that seemed to catch what little light there was.
It wasn’t hard to see the Russians. We were always close, 150 meters or less. They tried to make their camps where they could take cover behind low piles of deadfall or snow or whatever they could find. To make a perfect shot, you have to know every bit of the woods around you. You have to disappear into the air, to become the weight of the hard rime making the trees into statues.

Then it would be time. M watched me take off my outer gloves—knit—which I placed under the barrel to smooth the recoil. Then he watched me take off my mask. I put snow in my mouth to keep my breath invisible. I had about 10 minutes before the flesh of my face would freeze. I’d nod to M and we’d both face the target field.

A scope isn’t the world, my father said on my last trip home before I went to war. What do you see through a scope? Nothing. A picture. So I used the iron sights, as I had since I was a child. What do you see down the iron sights? Everything, as it is. The minuscule area of pale color that was a Russian face. The solid dark of a Russian’s torso. I fired and the shapes fell with small mists spraying out behind. The first shot was confusion for them, the second brought shouting, the third panic. Then a kind of stillness as they waited to see whether the cover they’d found would be enough to save them. Another mad scramble after the fourth shot. Then a wait, the skin of my own face losing feeling. A minute of quiet. Then a sliver of head, or movement; a ventured look out to try to see. The fifth shot always occasioned the strangest of the reactions. Once in a while a man cried. Twice a Russian bellowed with terror and madness. But I was already back behind the berm, in my mask, breathing, not even hurrying to refill my magazine. I was never spotted. I didn’t have a body. The forest was my body. My rounds came from anywhere. The men looked and saw only whiteness.

The wolves scattered the bones, starting that first spring, their faces perpetually crimson with the offal of the corpses.
A long wait, stillness, silence. The Russians tended to their casualties, believing I’d fled. I’d wait impossibly long, until the few hours of daylight began to wane. And then in that frozen twilight, we’d repeat the process. Then we’d wait even longer before we crawled away. By the time we returned to our camp and stepped into Papa’s tent, the frozen creases of our furs under our snow capes would be sharp as knives. We’d sip warm soup from his stove and M would record the kills in the captain’s little book. Then Papa would go out to stalk the camp’s perimeter, and sleep would come like a coup de grâce.

Many years afterward, during a fox hunt led by the president of Finland himself, he requested that I show the group some of my firing positions. It was autumn then, 1970, and a different universe of trees and leaves and fallen logs.

“Is this what you remember?” the president asked, crouching and looking down my rifle with me. “What did it feel like? How did you wait for so long?”

M’s eyes were all that were visible of him as we both lay back under the tree or against the berm, buried together in the snow. The solid feel of his body there beside me. We had whole conversations made of just the wind, a sideways movement of iris that seemed to catch what little light there was. Between magazines, M would stay awake, watching to see whether the Russians would send a patrol out to find our position, and I would gaze up at him and think, Look at me. Look at me.

WOLVES OF KARELIA
The wolves ate well that first spring after the fighting, and the next spring, and the next, it’s true. For 10 years after the war, their population grew uncontrollably, and packs traveled all the way to the farm. I had returned; it was just me and my father by then.

He insisted on hunting, though he’d grown old and slow. I would sit on the roof of the cabin and watch him coming home, sometimes with a kill, sometimes not. In either case, the wolves would be following at a careful distance. I’d see them coalesce into being out of the shadows of the trees. They did not, as far as I know, ever attack, though they easily could have. Still, they did follow him every day, at their distance, waiting for him to fall. My father never hunted wolves. He thought it disrespectful.

The wolves scattered the bones, starting that first spring, their faces perpetually crimson with the offal of the corpses. In later years, when I’d go out hunting again, I’d find a bone here and there: a jagged femur, the marrow sucked out; the little puzzle of a vertebra, so weathered and so cold that if you found it midwinter, it would shatter at the touch of a boot’s toe.

On the day my father didn’t come back from his hunt, I went out to find him. He wasn’t hard to track and hadn’t gotten very far. I shot every wolf I saw on my way to retrieve his body. Instead of dragging and cleaning the carcasses, I just left them there to mark his trail—a long, loose corridor of the dead. As soon as he was buried, I found an apartment in the city on a rise that looked out over the lake. The forest looked small and still from there, nothing really to see. I hunted only foxes after that.

“Five hundred and forty-two confirmed kills,” the occasional reporter says now, when one comes to visit. “What does that feel like?”

“Only 259 were with the rifle,” I tell them. “The rest were submachine. I don’t know how they counted those.”

“Still,” they press. “Do you ever think of it?”

I don’t, really, to tell the truth. Not that I tell them that, or much of anything. I do dream of the wolves sometimes, though. I see them just as I fall asleep. I’m standing alone outside the cabin, and they fill every gap across the field, where the forest begins. None of us moves, and I know they are waiting for me.


Alexandre Luu
THE 98TH DAY
Running. Our breathing the only sound in the woods. It was the first week of March. In February, the Russians had run out of patience. They poured half a million troops onto the isthmus, 3,000 tanks, 1,300 aircraft. We were maybe 75,000 men in total. M and I had decided to go on one last hunt but had not gone far before we heard and then saw the dark wave, streaming like water toward us from every direction. So we ran back to our men.

In front of us, our unit’s trench appeared and the men were yelling and we were leaping over the embankment and turning to fire, as was everyone else. Then the Russians were upon us. Flesh came apart around us. I looked to M as he reloaded and I watched a round tear through his torso sideways, taking him to the ground, just like that. I’d only just turned to fire when suddenly I was on the ground too. I felt something hot and wet in my mouth before I lost consciousness.

An explosive bullet had torn through the left side of my jaw, I found out later. Illegal, even in war, but the Russians were desperate, and had half-convinced themselves we were invisible, ghosts, immortal. I’m told I was dragged to the rear in the retreat—they tried to save me even though, as one of the men put it, half my face was gone. I’m told I was thrown on a pile of the dead before someone heard me gurgling and got me to the medics. My coma lasted seven days.

I woke on the day the armistice was signed, giving Russia our Karelia and everything else it wanted. It was March 12, 1940. We thought we’d seen the end of war. It was three years before I recovered enough to go out in public. Still, I tried not to. I stayed on the farm. People who saw me looked away, their faces rippling with nausea. Even now, at night, it still looks as if the darkness is pulling at the edge of my face, leaving a jagged edge of skin and flesh—as if I’m already half-gone.

THE HEART HUNTS ALONE
I found M in a military hospital. He was still there, three years after we were shot, in the city. He was what they called then a “permanent,” having survived but with lungs that needed to be drained often enough that the doctors believed he’d be there forever.

I sat in the chair by his bed. It was summer and the sheets were very white. He was almost unrecognizable, a heavy beard turning his eyes sharp and dark.

What was the difference, really, between my presence and an awful dream?
“You’ve grown a beard,” I said. “I just grow shrapnel.”

Which was true. I felt the burning itch of it as the flesh and skin worked the bits to the surface, where they’d fall into the washbasin, trailing a tiny ribbon of blood.

He looked not at me, but at the ceiling.

“The Terror made it through,” he said. “Can you believe that?”

I looked at my hands and nodded.

“Terror always does,” I said.

“Can you believe they gave away Vyborg?” M said, as if it had just happened.

A nurse came by to check something, and we sat quietly until she was gone.

“I might live in the city now,” I said. “I might get an apartment.”

M didn’t say anything.

“Let me take you home,” I said. “I will bring you back for the treatments, easy enough.”

M turned on his side away from me. I could see his jaw held tightly.

I’d forgotten, somehow, what I looked like. How monstrous. The slurred sound of my voice. What was the difference, really, between my presence and an awful dream?

I thought I couldn’t touch him, because of all the dressings.

LIFE WITHOUT END
That’s the hymn they sing in the chapel of the little town where I live now. I hear it on Sunday mornings in the winter, the soft timbre of the muted voices sliding down the streets on the ice.

I ran into M once more, years and years later. It was 1979 by then. He’d made it out of the military hospital after all, it turned out. We’d both moved to this same town, unknowingly. We stopped and had coffee, and stayed in the café all afternoon, talking and laughing about the men we used to know, the strange and funny things that had happened sometimes in the woods. He did impressions of the doctors who’d come and gone, and I did too. He explained that there had eventually been a surgery for his lungs, and he’d been freed.

“You know, I loved the war, actually,” he said finally, looking at his mug. “But only when I was with you.”

We agreed we should have dinner soon, maybe see a film, and went our separate ways. That was the last time I ever saw him. Eventually I heard he’d moved, and 12 years after that I saw by chance in the paper that he’d died, alone in a veterans’ home.

“You’ll live forever!” my doctor said to me at my last checkup, laughing. “We should all be so lucky!”

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Each year, the morning after the first brutal freeze of the winter, I drive all the way back to where the farm was and go into the forest. I take my rifle but no rounds, not wanting to disturb the silence. Not that I could disappear again into anything, old man that I am. And what does it all come to, such a life? My father cuffing the back of my head gently as I brought in firewood. The Terror of Morocco, drunk, dancing in his long underwear on Christmas. The yellow of M’s daisy-chained crown as he held it in his teeth. The clear sun slanting down as we stood on air and spun, laughing and laughing.

I’m a coward, in the end. I always come back out of the woods to the car. I always drive back through the darkness, into another evening, another morning, another evening. I can’t even say how it felt, M’s solid warmth beside me in the forest as we waited for the light to begin. I can’t even say his name.

Arna Bontemps Hemenway is the author of Elegy on Kinderklavier, the winner of the 2015 PEN/Hemingway Award. His fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, among other places. He is an associate professor of creative writing at Baylor University.



小说
卡累利阿的狼
一个短篇故事

作者：Arna Bontemps Hemenway
2019年8月号
分享
西莫-海耶（Simo Häyhä），这个故事充满想象力地阐述了他的生活，在芬兰和苏联的冬季战争中，他是一名著名的狙击手。这场战斗始于1939年11月，以俄国人在3月中旬的胜利而告终，在芬兰东部边境的卡累利阿地区，战斗最为激烈。

遥远的距离
"你看到了吗？"我父亲说。


我吸气，呼气，空气在我的胸口浅浅地流动。我当时10岁。在黎明打猎回来的路上，父亲把一只驯鹿鹿角的尖端切下来，放在我们小屋后面的空间和田野的某个地方。我的任务是找到它。我们趴在雪地上，在夏天我们的马Teemu在树荫下低下灰色的脸的地方。我们已经在这里等了两个小时了，我一直在寻找，寻找那个尖端，那将是我们的目标。

"是吗？"我父亲说。

我点了点头。

"在哪里？"

"獠牙，"我说。这就是前年在暴风雨中裂开的那根破碎的白桦树干，现在它参差不齐，孤零零地站在远处田野的边缘。"嗯，在它前面五步。"

"离我们的位置有多远？"他说。他只按照我的指示来瞄准，而且是准确地瞄准。这就是他的考验。

"一百四十八米，"我说。

我父亲把他那双圆圆的、呆滞的眼睛转向我。"你确定吗？"

我点了点头。

"那就去做个标记吧，"他说，然后把步枪从我们之间的位置移开。

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在雪地里，进展很慢。当我走近獠牙时，太阳打在覆盖着古老银色木头的冰面上，使它的光线变得尖锐起来。我转过身，面对着我知道我父亲所在的地方，尽管你永远无法看到他，即使你找了整整一个月也不行。我向他退了五步，然后停下来。

枪声在冰封的空地上像钟声一样响起，空地上有小木屋、棚子和我们的两块田。冰块喷溅到我的脸上，使我向后倒去，我盯着子弹擦过的地方，那块小小的鹿角，在雪地上大概戳了五厘米，就在我的脚之间。如果我说了149米，或者走了六步而不是五步，我父亲的子弹就会穿过我的肚子。

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当我回到小屋时，他已经在里面了，步枪被拆了一半。

"一百四十八米，"他说，并瞥了我一眼，然后继续擦拭枪栓，这是他最接近良好的欢呼。然后他说了他总是说的话。"你只错了一次，西蒙娜。"

白色的死亡
俄国人，按照他们的习惯，给我起了自己的名字，白色死亡。我的手下称我为 "魔法射手"，我也很讨厌这个名字。我是西莫-海耶，34团第六营的下士；以前是第一自行车营（第三连）和第二自行车营（第一连）；以前是国民警卫队的志愿者，都是为光荣而自豪的芬兰事业服务。或者说我是，无论如何，直到1940年，一切（我们以为）都结束了，结果发现我其实还活着，有人因此决定让我当少尉。

是M第一次叫我Kettuseni，"我的小狐狸"。当我想起在森林里的那98天，我只听到这个名字。
在我的一生中，我只喜欢两个绰号。我的父亲和母亲都叫我Simuna，意思是 "上帝听了"，尽管我怀疑他们各自想象中听到的东西是不同的。不过，是M第一次叫我Kettuseni，"我的小狐狸"。当我想起在森林里的那98天，我只听到这个名字。当我现在梦到M时，我有时会把自己吵醒，房间里飘荡着这个名字的声音，然后我才明白是我自己的嘴唇发出的。

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我们的团长尤蒂莱宁中尉被誉为摩洛哥的恐怖人物，这是因为他曾在法国外籍军团工作，在阿特拉斯山脉与柏柏尔人作战。我们自己叫他爸爸。他是一个沉默寡言的人，有一张悲伤的小丑脸，大部分时间都在军官的帐篷里喝酒，那里最温暖，他让我在打猎的间隙睡在那里。我想，他在亚特兰蒂斯的时候也差不多是这样度过的：在寒冷的空气中喝酒取暖，然后带着步枪和滑雪板在山坡上潜行一整天。不过，到了苏军炮击曼伊拉的时候，他的活动都是在指挥帐篷里进行的。当俄国人开始向我们的防线涌来时，海格伦少将提出了他著名的问题，我自己也看着爸爸给出了他著名的回答。"是的，Kollaa守住了。除非我们的命令是逃跑。"

有一次，圣诞节过后两天，我们设法抓到了一个可怜的俄国人，他迷了路，几乎是直接闯入我们的营地。他甚至没有武器。我们蒙住他的眼睛，把他转来转去，直到他头晕目眩，几乎无法站立，然后带着他转圈，一直告诉他，我们要把他带到摩洛哥的恐怖之地。当我们把他带进帐篷并摘下他的眼罩时，他已经吓得浑身发抖，爸爸坚持要我们陪他喝一晚上。不管是由于烈酒还是我们的陪伴，他在我们面前又活了过来。黎明前，我们带着他向自己的防线走去，指给他看去向，并让他松开手。他一路上都在哭，乞求留下来。一个月后，当我们重新夺回那片树林时，M告诉我，他发现那个人已经冻僵了，靠在一棵树上，他自己的长官因为开小差而在他额头上开了一枪。

零点
我出生在四个兄弟中的最后一个，在1918年初的内战中，我太年轻了，无法加入他们。在坦佩雷一个细雨绵绵的夜晚，安蒂被一名红卫兵射手射穿鼻腔。尤哈娜在尤瑟诺的近距离战斗中受伤，并被俘。那时，红军已经听说了卡勒万坎加斯的战俘营和乱葬岗的事。

我当时12岁。春天，德意志帝国的军队来到赫尔辛基的街头，白军在维堡取得了胜利。5月，白军占领了卡累利阿地峡的涅瓦湾附近的伊诺堡。战争结束了，尤哈娜终于回到了我们身边。他的语言能力被遗弃了，我们都在想象究竟是什么驱使他离开了。那时他只适合做野外工作。

夏天来了，母亲在晚上给我和托马斯唱诗篇，同时给我们补衣服。安提走了，尤哈娜也刚开始工作，而我需要在农场周围帮助父亲处理木材，所以托马斯被派往密提拉的公路项目工作。这个夏天是残酷的，每次图马斯周末从工地回来，他都显得更加萎靡不振。工头亲自来到农场，向我父亲讲述了那个下午，那是人们记忆中最热的一个下午，讲述了托马斯在中暑倒地之前，仿佛有人叫了他的名字一样，直起身子。然后他也走了。

那年冬天，在几个小时的晨光中，父亲在我面前的桌子上竖起了一颗子弹，然后让我带着步枪出去。我边走边把子弹放在手套里，感觉黄铜在我的手掌里变得又热又滑。如果你用一颗子弹都做不到，我听到他对安提说，你用两颗也做不到。在第一周，我连续两天没有打中，每天晚上我父亲都让我坐在桌前，当其他人吃地窖里的土豆时，我的盘子在我面前是空的。我父亲不看我。我的母亲也不看他。

第三天，饥饿使我的感觉更加敏锐。我消失在树林里；时间消失在白天。我在黑暗中带着两只野兔回来了。我躺在一根木头边上等着，直到它们一前一后地经过。我父亲在门廊上迎接我，把我拉进一个粗暴的怀抱，我起初以为他在和我搏斗。我可以闻到他大衣的硬皮上的寒冷和森林的味道。然后他抓住我的肩膀，把我从他身边拉开，以便他能看清我的脸。他吸了一口气，似乎想告诉我什么，但什么也没说。我没有再失手。

我的步枪始终保持在150米处归零。我父亲常说，如果你不能在150米范围内杀人，那你就不配杀人。20年后，在那些冰封的森林里，和M一起，也是如此。每当有空闲的时候，我就在一个斜坡上找到一棵矮松，看着它的顶部在一阵雪中消失。你可以知道你什么时候没打中，或者只是打中了冰，而不是树干。我从未失手。

滚动的地狱
M骑着自行车，唱着歌，从拐弯处走来。这是我第一次见到他。他是来报道神枪手训练营的。我们被安排在一起，我和其他射手一起坐在射击平台上，等待观测员的到来。M想沉默的时候几乎可以和我一样沉默，但那是在战争之前，他大声唱歌。他有一副深沉的嗓音，即便如此，我还是闭上眼睛，让它冲刷着我。

当我们就位进行第一次演习时，我耐心地等待着他给出通常的范围、风况、射击模式等。但他并没有。相反，他仰面躺着，头靠在沙袋上，闭上眼睛看太阳。

"你不打算通知我吗？" 我对他说。

他没有睁眼说话。

"不，"他说。

"你不是吗？" 我说。

他耸了耸肩。

"我知道你是谁，"他说。

我在牙缝里吹了口气，气急败坏。我觉得他很无礼。

"你需要我告诉你吗？"他说。

"不，"我说。

他把他的帽子翻到脸上。

"范围？" 我说。我不敢相信他的无礼，他的懒惰。

M只是叹了口气，并没有动。

"范围1-9-2米，"我说，测试他。

"别傻了，"他说。"这是不合适的。"

"范围2-1-1米，"我说。

"正确，"他说。"这不是感觉更好吗？"

我们都沉默了。我按部就班，等了很久，我以为他肯定已经睡着了。我向目标发射了第一轮子弹。

"打中了。"M悄悄地说，好像是对自己说。

"你甚至没有看，"我说。

他说："我听了"。

在我们训练的后期，当新的小组到达营地时，他们会问我和他是谁。那时，所有其他的神枪手小组都取了代号来迷惑俄国人。无声的厄运。树上的死亡。诸如此类的事情。M和我拒绝了。反正很快每个人都会给我起一个名字。但是，当新兵们来到这里，看到我和M从补给站回来，一起骑着自行车唱歌，在车辙上穿梭，像两只小鹿一样嬉笑打闹时，他们会嗤之以鼻，"你们是什么，哦，可怕的兄弟？"

M会搂着我的肩膀，笑着说。

"哦，我们？"他会说，他的帽子上拴着一顶水仙花的皇冠。"我们是滚动的地狱。"

冬天开始了，我们周围世界的大齿轮转向了战争。在前往前线之前，我们将有最后一次休息。许多人都回家了。M和我都喜欢森林，于是决定在这四天里都去徒步旅行。他小时候在那里呆了很长时间，并告诉我他知道一条没有标记的路。

第一天，他把我们赶得很辛苦，只是偶尔回头看看我，看看我是否跟上了。他几乎不跟我说话，而我的心开始感觉像一块锋利的钢铁。我想象着一个自制子弹爆炸的发射装置--枪管和枪托的锯齿状碎片。在我们搭帐篷的时候开始下雪，虽然我很疲惫，但我躺在黑暗中没有睡着。

第二天早上，天气晴朗，阳光明媚。M拉着我的手，带我到我们晚上在旁边扎营的冰湖中间。降雪使它变成了一片纯白的土地。

"怎么样？" 我说。我想回家。我感到很尴尬。

但M的脸很明亮，很高兴，闪烁着什么。他跪在地上，用手臂做了个大扫除的动作，清除了冰面上的垃圾。

我以为我在做梦。突然间，我们站在了空气上。在如此完美的冰上，它可能是空气。在50英尺以下，我可以看到湖底石头上的海藻。

"只有当水冻结得非常、非常慢时才会发生，"M说。"冬天必须如此耐心，然后有一天它出现了，一个奇迹。" 他看着我，吐了口气。"我想你会喜欢这个。"

当然，后来我就很了解他的气味--丰富的土壤、烟草和汗水--在他的雪地斗篷、大衣和制服下携带的气味。他的味道。他的胡茬的粗糙刮痕和它的美味烧伤。但是，当我们在寂静的时间里外出打猎时，当我们躺在堤坝后面等待黎明的第一个信号时，缓慢而均匀地呼吸以减少水汽并降低我们的体温，我只想到了那个早晨。欢笑着倒在对方身上。在那个不可能的清晰的地方到处乱窜。


亚历山大-卢（Alexandre Luu
遥远的距离
冬天造就了一切本身，在我们发现黑色尸墙的那天，我告诉M。他小时候在灌木丛中呆了很长时间，这是事实，但其他时间他都住在城市里，起初他不明白我们在看什么。我们听说马上就有激烈的战斗，但我们这个地区的道路很少，俄国人很快就发现自己在森林的小块区域停滞不前，而我们则悄悄地绕过他们。

这片空地是夏天的草地，昏暗而安静。我们的小伙子们在树丛中建立了他们的机枪阵地，在那里他们有清晰的火力线，但不能被发现。俄国人把他们的营地设在空地中间，谁也不知道是什么原因。这是在刚开始的时候。我们还不知道他们对战斗的准备有多么不足。有些人甚至没有冬装。只有军官们有真正的帐篷。其余的人都是用简易的避难所，他们可以在任何地方围着他们的小火堆转，形成一个整齐的目标群。

在任何提示下，他们被命令向树上冲去，在那里，人们被机枪一个接一个地击毙。那个冬天是如此寒冷，比我们任何人都要冷。寒冷到最新的几层尸体上的血变成了黑色，并在堆放在底部的尸体上结了冰。雪下得不多，在半天的光亮中，那堵发黑的血墙和尸体显得很有秩序。我和M站在那里看了很久。

我们的一些逃亡部队从树林里拖出了更多冻僵的俄罗斯人的尸体，并将他们竖起来，他们的手臂静止在各种阴森的信号中。
世界从来不是很大的。一张地图只是一张纸而已。我的卡累利阿只是拉多加湖广阔水域以北的一条野生土地走廊。如果你愿意，你可以在一天内步行到岸边。你可以在四天内赶到我父亲的小屋。那天在空地上，我们离列宁格勒的中心大约有200公里，想象一下。但森林是无尽的。冬天用它的寒冷阻止了一切，甚至空间。

接近尾声时，在战争的最后一周，就在我被枪杀的前几天，我们又经过了这片空地--这在一个你永远不可能追踪两次同样的路径的地方是很罕见的，即使有精心的计划。我们正在撤退，每个人都能看到战争已经结束，情况很糟糕。我在几天前就已经开始了最后一次狩猎。我们一些逃亡的部队在痛苦中把更多冰冻的俄国人的尸体从树林里拖出来，把他们竖起来，他们的手臂静止在各种阴森的信号中。这个想法是为了在俄国人占领我们之前干扰他们。那些尸体也是黑色的，它们使这片空地看起来像野火的残骸。他们都面对着黑墙，看起来很奇怪，好像他们想加入他们的朋友。我父亲曾经说过，如果你需要一张地图来知道你在哪里，你就已经迷路了。我们两次经过这块空地时都停了下来。然后我们继续前进。

第一次，当我们重新进入森林时，M向地平线点了点头，太阳就潜伏在那里，和那天一样高，是一条金红色的细线。

"天空在燃烧，"他说。"真是浪费。"

狩猎
天气太冷了，如果你的眼睛离面罩的孔太近，你的角膜就会被冻住。如此之冷，以至于你需要在你的身体里有一个身体。爸爸把他的一个酒瓶放在帐篷外的雪堆里，以此来测量温度。如果酒精变成了泥浆，那就是大约零下25摄氏度或以下。在这样的温度下，除了我们，没有人敢动。我和M会在几个小时的微弱光线中睡觉，然后在森林中聚集黑暗的时候起床并出门。一旦我们找到一个俄罗斯营地，我们会坐下来等待，直到我们成为寂静的一部分。然后我选择一个位置。

我们在雪堆上撒尿，让它结冰，这样枪口的闪光就不会让俄国人看到任何粉末。如果我们能在树檐下开一个雪洞或小空间，我们就会这样做，我就坐在那里，看着我们面前的树林，而M则睡觉或躺在那里盯着什么，等待。我们训练自己缓慢而小心地呼吸，保持面罩中的水分。否则，我们的呼吸就会喷薄而出，成为空气中的固体物质。

我们的整个对话都是由风构成的，虹膜的侧向运动似乎能捕捉到仅有的一点光线。
要看到俄国人并不难。我们总是很近，150米或更短。他们试图把他们的营地建在他们可以在低矮的死人堆或雪或任何他们能找到的东西后面做掩护。为了做出完美的射击，你必须了解你周围树林的每一点。你必须消失在空气中，成为坚硬石灰的重量，使树木成为雕像。

然后，时间就到了。M看着我脱下我的手套--针织手套--我把它放在枪管下面，以减轻后坐力。然后他看着我摘下面具。我把雪放在嘴里，以保持我的呼吸不被发现。在我脸上的肉被冻住之前，我有大约10分钟的时间。我向M点了点头，我们都面对着靶场。

瞄准镜不是世界，我父亲在我上战场前最后一次回家的路上说。你通过瞄准镜能看到什么？什么都没有。一幅画。所以我使用了铁瞄具，就像我小时候一样。从铁瞄具中你能看到什么？一切，就像现在这样。俄国人脸上那一小片苍白的颜色。一个俄国人的躯干的纯黑。我开了枪，这些形状的人倒下了，后面有小雾喷出。第一枪对他们来说是混乱的，第二枪带来了呼喊，第三枪带来了惊慌。然后是一种静止，他们等待着看他们找到的掩护是否足以拯救他们。第四声枪响后又是一场疯狂的争夺。然后是等待，我自己脸上的皮肤都失去了感觉。一分钟的安静。然后是一丝头绪，或者动作；大胆地往外看，试图看到。第五枪总是引起最奇怪的反应。偶尔有一个人哭了。有两次，一个俄罗斯人发出了恐怖和疯狂的吼叫。但我已经回到护堤后面，戴着面罩，呼吸着，甚至不急着补充弹夹。我从未被发现过。我没有身体。森林就是我的身体。我的子弹来自任何地方。男人们看了看，只看到白茫茫的一片。

狼群散布骨头，从第一个春天开始，它们的脸一直被尸体的内脏染成深红色。
漫长的等待，寂静，无声。俄国人在照顾他们的伤员，认为我已经逃走了。我等了很久，直到几个小时的日光开始减弱。然后在那个冰冷的黄昏里，我们重复这个过程。然后我们会等得更久，再爬着离开。当我们回到营地，踏进爸爸的帐篷时，我们雪地斗篷下的毛皮的冰冷褶皱会像刀子一样锋利。我们从他的炉子里喝着热汤，M会在船长的小本子上记录杀戮的情况。然后，爸爸会出去跟踪营地周围的情况，睡眠会像政变一样到来。

许多年后，在芬兰总统亲自带领的猎狐活动中，他要求我向大家展示我的一些射击位置。那时是秋天，1970年，是一个由树木、树叶和落木组成的不同世界。

"这是你记得的吗？"总统问道，蹲下身子，和我一起看我的步枪。"当时是什么感觉？你是怎么等了这么久的？"

当我们俩躺在树下或靠在护堤上，一起埋在雪地里时，M的眼睛是他的全部形象。他的身体在我身边的坚实感觉。我们有整个的对话，只有风，虹膜的侧向运动，似乎能捕捉到仅有的一点光线。在杂志的间隙，M会保持清醒，观察俄国人是否会派出巡逻队来寻找我们的位置，而我则仰望着他，想：看着我。看着我。

卡累利阿的狼群
狼在战斗后的第一个春天吃得很好，第二年春天也是如此，第二年也是如此，这是真的。在战后的10年里，它们的数量不受控制地增长，狼群一路走到了农场。我已经回来了；那时只有我和我父亲。

他坚持打猎，尽管他已经变得又老又慢。我坐在小屋的屋顶上，看着他回家，有时带着猎物，有时没有。无论哪种情况，狼群都会小心翼翼地跟在后面，保持一定距离。我看到它们从树的阴影中凝聚成一体。据我所知，它们并没有攻击过，尽管它们很容易就会攻击。不过，它们确实每天都跟着他，保持一定的距离，等待他倒下。我的父亲从未猎杀过狼。他认为那是不敬的行为。

从第一年春天开始，狼就把骨头散落一地，它们的脸永远被尸体的内脏染成深红色。在后来的日子里，当我再次出去打猎时，我会在这里和那里找到一块骨头：一根参差不齐的股骨，骨髓被吸走了；脊椎骨的小拼图，如此风化，如此寒冷，如果你在冬天发现它，它将在靴子的脚趾触摸下碎裂。

在我父亲打猎没回来的那天，我出去找他。他并不难追踪，也没走多远。在我去找他的尸体的路上，我射杀了所有我看到的狼。我没有拖动和清理尸体，而是把它们留在那里，标记他的足迹--一条长长的、松散的死亡走廊。他一被埋葬，我就在城市里找了一间公寓，在一个可以看到湖面的高地上。从那里看，森林很小，很静，没有什么可看的。此后我只猎杀狐狸。

"五百四十二只被确认的猎物，"现在偶尔有记者来采访时，会说。"那是什么感觉？"

"只有259只是用步枪，"我告诉他们。"其余的是冲锋枪。我不知道他们是如何计算这些的。"

"不过，"他们催促道。"你有没有想过这个问题？"

我没有，真的，说实话。我并没有告诉他们这些，也没有告诉他们很多东西。不过，我有时确实会梦到狼。在我睡着的时候，我看到它们。我独自站在小木屋外面，它们填满了田野上的每一个空隙，那里是森林的起点。我们都没有动，我知道它们在等我。


亚历山大-卢（Alexandre Luu
第98天
奔跑。我们的呼吸声是森林中唯一的声音。那是三月的第一个星期。二月，俄国人已经没有耐心了。他们在地峡上投入了50万军队，3000辆坦克，1300架飞机。我们总共可能有75,000人。我和M决定去进行最后一次狩猎，但没走多远就听到了，然后看到了黑暗的波浪，像水一样从各个方向流向我们。于是我们跑回我们的人身边。

在我们前面，我们部队的战壕出现了，士兵们在大喊大叫，我们也跃过堤坝，转身开火，其他人也一样。然后，俄国人向我们走来。我们周围的肉都散开了。我看向M，他正在装弹，我看到一发子弹从侧面穿过他的躯干，把他带到了地上，就像这样。我刚刚转身准备开火，突然我也倒在了地上。在我失去知觉之前，我感觉到嘴里有湿热的东西。

后来我发现，一颗爆炸性的子弹撕开了我的左下巴。即使在战争中也是不合法的，但俄国人很绝望，他们半信半疑地认为我们是隐形的，是幽灵，是不死的。我听说我在撤退时被拖到了后方--他们试图救我，尽管正如一个人所说的那样，我的半张脸已经不见了。我被告知我被扔在死人堆里，然后有人听到我的汩汩声，把我送到医务人员那里。我的昏迷持续了七天。

我醒来的时候，停战协议已经签署，把我们的卡累利阿和其他它想要的东西都给了俄国。那是1940年3月12日。我们以为我们已经看到了战争的结束。过了三年，我才恢复到可以公开活动的程度。不过，我还是尽量不去。我呆在农场里。看到我的人都把目光移开，他们的脸上荡漾着恶心的情绪。即使是现在，在晚上，它仍然看起来好像是黑暗在拉扯我的脸的边缘，留下一个锯齿状的皮肤和肉的边缘--好像我已经死了一半。

独自猎取的心
我在一家军事医院找到了M。我们被枪杀三年后，他还在那里，在城市里。他是他们当时所说的 "永久性"，虽然活了下来，但肺部需要经常放水，医生认为他将永远留在那里。

我坐在他床边的椅子上。当时是夏天，床单很白。他几乎无法辨认，浓密的胡须使他的眼睛变得尖锐而黑暗。

我的出现和一个可怕的梦之间到底有什么区别？
"你长了胡须，"我说。"我只是长了弹片。"

这倒是真的。当肉和皮肤把碎片弄到表面时，我感到灼热的瘙痒，它们会掉进洗脸盆里，拖着一条小小的血带。

他没有看着我，而是看着天花板。

"恐怖组织成功了，"他说。"你能相信吗？"

我看了看自己的手，点了点头。

"恐怖总是这样，"我说。

"你能相信他们送走了维堡吗？" M说，仿佛这一切刚刚发生。

一个护士过来检查东西，我们安静地坐着，直到她离开。

"我现在可能会住在城里，"我说。"我可能会得到一套公寓。"

M没有说什么。

"让我带你回家，"我说。"我会带你回来接受治疗的，很简单。"

M转过身去，远离我。我可以看到他的下巴紧紧地握着。

我已经忘记了，不知为何，我看起来像什么。多么畸形。我的声音含糊不清。我的存在和一个可怕的梦之间到底有什么区别？

我以为我不能碰他，因为所有的包扎。

生命无止境
这是他们在我现在住的那个小镇的小教堂里唱的赞美诗。我在冬天的周日早上听到它，柔和的声音在冰面上滑过街道。

多年以后，我又一次碰到了M。那时已经是1979年了。他毕竟从军医院出来了，原来如此。我们都在不知不觉中搬到了这个小镇。我们停下来喝咖啡，在咖啡馆里呆了一下午，谈笑风生，谈论我们过去认识的人，谈论有时在树林里发生的奇怪和有趣的事情。他模仿那些来了又走的医生，我也模仿。他解释说，最终对他的肺部进行了手术，他被释放了。

"你知道吗，其实我喜欢战争，"他最后说，看着他的杯子。"但只有当我和你在一起的时候。"

我们同意我们应该很快吃晚饭，也许看一场电影，然后各奔东西。那是我最后一次见到他。最后我听说他搬走了，12年后，我偶然在报纸上看到他去世了，一个人在退伍军人的家里。

"你会永远活着！"我的医生在我最后一次检查时笑着对我说。"我们都应该如此幸运！"

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HBO的一部恐怖喜剧限定剧集处理母性问题（40c）。
HBO
每年，在冬天第一次残酷的冰冻之后的早晨，我一路开车回到农场的地方，进入森林。我带着我的步枪，但没有子弹，不想扰乱安静的环境。并不是说我可以再次消失在任何东西里，我这个老头子。这样的生活到底是怎么回事呢？我父亲在我拿柴火的时候轻轻地拷着我的后脑勺。摩洛哥的恐怖，喝醉了，在圣诞节穿着长内裤跳舞。M的菊花链皇冠的黄色，他把它咬在牙缝里。当我们站在空中旋转时，晴朗的太阳斜射下来，笑啊笑啊。

归根结底，我是个懦夫。我总是从树林里回来，回到车上。我总是在黑暗中开车回来，进入另一个晚上，另一个早晨，另一个晚上。我甚至不能说那是什么感觉，M在森林里在我身边坚实的温暖，我们等待着光明的到来。我甚至无法说出他的名字。

阿尔纳-邦坦普斯-海门威是《幼儿园的挽歌》的作者，该书是2015年笔会/海明威奖得主。他的小说曾出现在《美国最佳短篇小说》中，以及其他地方。他是贝勒大学创意写作的副教授。