Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21 If there was one thing Dan never expected to hear in his life, it was Next stop, Java as his au pair took off across a sea that stretched in every direction. If there was one thing he never thought he'd feel, it was this alone. Once, when he was seven, he'd run into a sliding glass door. Straight into it, and flat-out running. He'd bounced back and landed on the ground. He still remembered that feeling of sudden, violent shock. And right after that, the pain. Now he felt exactly the same way. His parents dying was something he tried not to think about, but of course he thought about it almost every day. He especially tried not to think about goopy stuff like what if. What if Dad was around to take him to soccer? What if Mom had been there for his worst asthma attack? He told

如果丹从来没有想过在他的一生中听到一件事，那就是下一站，爪哇，他的互惠生越过了四面八方的海洋。 如果有一件事他从未想过他会有这种感觉，那就是独自一人。 他七岁的时候，有一次，他撞上了一扇滑动玻璃门。 直接冲进去，全速奔跑。 他弹回来，落在地上。 他仍然记得那种突如其来的强烈震惊的感觉。 在那之后，就是疼痛。 现在他也有同样的感觉。 他尽量不去想父母的离世，但当然他几乎每天都在想这件事。 他特别努力不去想那些黏糊糊的东西，比如如果。 如果爸爸能带他去踢足球呢？ 如果妈妈在他最严重的哮喘发作时在场呢？ 他告诉

himself that it was babyish to have those thoughts. The fire happened. It was fate. Nothing he could change about it. Nobody to blame. Except there was somebody to blame. Someone had stolen his family. Someone had stolen his childhood. Someone had, one chilly night, deliberately gone into a house with four people who loved each other and set a fire…. Dan shook his head violently. He felt his legs trembling. He looked out at the vast sea. Aunt Beatrice used to say, Aren't our problems so small when we look at something big, like the sky? That was her way of comforting two kids whose parents had died. Aunt Beatrice was an idiot. The Indian Ocean didn't make him feel one bit better. It would be easier if he could talk to Amy, but he'd pretty much decided he'd never talk to her again. He'd been angry at Amy lots of times. Way lots. This was worse than when she'd made tiny little dolls for all his Matchbox cars right before his best friend, Liam, came over. Worse than when she told Aunt Beatrice that he loved Beethoven so she

他自己说，有这些想法是幼稚的。 火灾发生了。这是命运。 他无法改变这一点。 无可指责。除非有人要受责备。 有人偷走了他的家人。 有人偷走了他的童年。 有人在一个寒冷的夜晚，故意走进一间有四个相爱的人的房子，放了一把火.... 丹猛地摇了摇头。 他感到双腿在颤抖。 他望着广阔的大海。 比阿特丽斯阿姨曾经说过，当我们看到像天空这样大的东西时，我们的问题不是那么小吗？ 这是她安慰两个父母去世的孩子的方式。 比阿特丽斯姨妈是个白痴。 印度洋并没有让他感觉好一点。 如果他能和艾米说话就容易多了，但他已经决定再也不和她说话了。 他对艾米生过很多次气。 很多方式。这比她在他最好的朋友利亚姆过来之前给他的火柴盒车做小娃娃还要糟糕。 比她告诉比阿特丽斯姑妈他爱贝多芬，所以她

should sign him up for piano lessons. Worse than back in Egypt, when he thought she was grabbing all of their memories of Grace for herself. That was nothing compared to this. She'd found out his parents had been murdered, and she'd kept it secret. The most important thing in their lives! The fire hadn't been accidental. It hadn't been because his father hadn't banked the fire and a spark had hit the rug. Someone had gone in and deliberately set it. And Amy had known. She'd even been downstairs that night! And she'd never told him. He'd thought they were together. In everything. He stared out at the green water stretching to the horizon. He didn't know how to get over this. He didn't know how to deal with it. His parents. Grace. Now Amy. There was nobody left. It was still light as Nellie landed the plane expertly at Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, south of the city of Jakarta. She took off her

应该给他报个钢琴课。 比在埃及的时候还糟糕，当时他以为她把所有关于格蕾丝的记忆都夺走了。 那跟这个比起来根本不算什么。 她发现他的父母被谋杀了，但她一直保密。 他们生命中最重要的事！这场火灾并非偶然。 这并不是因为他父亲没有把火熄灭，火花击中了地毯。 有人进去故意放的。 艾米早就知道了。那天晚上她甚至还在楼下！她从来没有告诉过他。 他以为他们在一起。 在一切。他凝视着一直延伸到地平线的碧水。 他不知道如何克服这一切。 他不知道该怎么处理。 他的父母。恩典。现在艾米。 没有人离开。当内利熟练地将飞机降落在雅加达南部的哈利姆国际机场（Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport）时，天还很轻。 她脱下她的

earphones and let out a breath. "I'm totally beat," she said. She slung her bag over her arm and picked up Saladin's carrier. "If we run into trouble at customs, let me do the talking," she said. That'll be easy, Amy thought. Dan wasn't talking at all. They were all relieved when they breezed through customs. Halim was a smaller airport for charter flights, so it wasn't too crowded. Within minutes, Nellie had hustled them through the crowd of taxi drivers and picked a blue cab to ride into the city. She worked her cell phone and arranged a hotel room. "I texted Shep and told him we were safe," she said. "He's going to take a commercial flight and pick up the plane." She shot them a concerned look. "You guys must be exhausted. I've never heard you be quiet for more than thirty seconds. Unless you're asleep." Dan said nothing, looking out the window at the road lined with palm trees. It was dusk, and lights were beginning to come on. The driver wove

戴上耳机，呼出一口气。 “我完全累坏了，”她说。 她把包挎在胳膊上，拿起萨拉丁的提包。 “如果我们在海关遇到麻烦，让我来谈，”她说。 那就容易了，艾米想。 丹根本不说话。 当他们轻松通过海关时，他们都松了一口气。 哈利姆是一个较小的包机机场，所以不是很拥挤。 几分钟之内，内莉就推着他们穿过出租车司机的人群，挑了一辆蓝色的出租车去了城里。 她用手机订了一个旅馆房间。 “我给谢普发短信，告诉他我们很安全，”她说。 “他将乘坐商业航班去接飞机。” 她关切地看了他们一眼。 “你们肯定累坏了。 我从没听过你安静超过30秒。 除非你睡着了。”丹什么也没说，望着窗外两旁种着棕榈树的道路。 天色已晚，灯光开始亮起来。 司机说

through the heavy traffic expertly. The lights of Jakarta approached. The tall buildings glittered through the heavy air. The skyscrapers seemed impossibly tall, like something out of a science fiction movie. The driver turned off the highway and soon they were on a wide boulevard. The swirling traffic of crowded buses, taxis, and motorcycles whirled them toward a huge circle that surrounded a beautiful fountain. The driver shot off the circle onto a narrower street and gradually, they left the tall buildings behind. Amy had never been in such a crowded, overwhelming city. She'd thought Cairo was confusing, but this city was a maze, and choked with cars ignoring traffic rules and people dodging between vehicles to cross the traffic-snarled streets. The air was thick and heavy with fumes. Finally, the driver pulled over in front of a bright orange awning attached to a white building. A doorman hurried out to open the doors and reached for their bags. Nellie counted out the money she'd exchanged at the airport.

熟练地穿过拥挤的交通。 雅加达的灯光渐近。 高楼大厦在厚重的空气中闪闪发光。 摩天大楼看起来高得令人难以置信，就像科幻电影里的东西。 司机下了高速公路，很快他们就上了一条宽阔的林荫大道。 熙熙攘攘的公共汽车、出租车和摩托车使他们绕成一个巨大的圆圈，圆圈围绕着一个美丽的喷泉。 司机飞快地驶进一条较窄的街道，他们逐渐离开了高楼大厦。 艾米从来没有到过这样拥挤不堪的城市。 她以为开罗令人困惑，但这个城市是一个迷宫，到处都是无视交通规则的汽车，人们在车辆之间躲闪着穿过交通混乱的街道。 空气中弥漫着浓重的烟雾。 最后，司机把车停在一座白色建筑上的亮橙色遮阳篷前。 一个看门人急忙出去开门，伸手去拿他们的包。 内莉数了数她在机场兑换的钱。

They stopped at the desk and Nellie checked them in. "We'd like to arrange a trip to Anak Krakatau tomorrow," she said. "Could you help us with that?" "Normally, yes," the man said. "But it's off- limits right now by order of the government. When it goes active, you're not allowed to land on the island." Amy wanted to burst into tears. Had they come all this way for nothing? Somehow she'd felt that if she could just take a look at the island, they might find something that Robert Henderson had left behind. She had no idea where to start looking for traces of him in Jakarta. Nellie looked over her shoulder at them. She smiled understandingly, as if she knew how disappointed and tired they were. "Can we get some American food?" Nellie asked. "Like cheeseburgers?" Nellie must really be worried about them if she was passing up the opportunity for local food, Amy thought. Then again, Amy herself was worried. Dan was never quiet this long.

他们在写字台前停了下来，内莉为他们办理了登记手续。 “我们想安排明天去喀拉喀托火山旅行，”她说。 “你能帮我们吗？”“通常是这样的，”那人说。 “但根据政府的命令，这是禁止的。 当它激活时，你就不能在岛上登陆了。” 艾米真想哭出来。 难道他们白跑了这么远？ 不知怎的，她觉得只要她能看看这个岛，他们也许能找到罗伯特·亨德森留下的东西。 她不知道从哪里开始在雅加达寻找他的踪迹。 内莉扭头看着他们。 她理解地笑了笑，仿佛她知道他们是多么失望和疲倦。 “我们能吃点美国菜吗？”内莉问道。 “喜欢芝士汉堡吗?”如果奈莉放弃了吃当地食物的机会，她一定是真的很担心他们，艾米想。 不过，艾米自己也很担心。 丹从来没有安静过这么久。