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The girls as well as the boys were divided into two sides. Each girl had her own pile of balls and was working for particular soldiers, and when a soldier fell wounded he would call out a girl's name, so that she could drag him away and dress his wounds as quickly as possible. I made weapons for Mike, and mine was the name he called. There was a keen alarm when the cry came, a wire zinging through your whole body, a fanatic feeling of devotion. When Mike was wounded he never opened his eyes. He lay limp and still while I pressed slimy large leaves to his forehead and throat and—pulling out his shirt—"to his pale tender stomach, with its sweet and vulnerable belly button.
同男孩子一樣，女孩兒們也分成兩隊。每個女孩兒都有她自己的一堆球，并且為特定的士兵服務。當某個士兵受傷時，他將喊出某個特定女孩兒的名字，那么這個女孩便會把他拉走，然后以最快的速度幫他包扎傷口。我當然是幫邁克制造武器的，而當他受傷時所喊的女孩兒也是我。當他喊我的名字時，我會緊張萬分，全身蹭地就像過了電似的，一種狂熱的忠誠感油然而生。當邁克受傷的時候，他總是閉著雙眼，無力地躺著，一動不動，我則把黏的大葉子拍在他的額頭和喉嚨上，還要撩起他的外衣，拍在他的白嫩的肚皮上，那上長著可愛而又沒有任何保護的肚臍。
Nobody won. The game disintegrated, after a long while, in arguments and mass resurrections. We tried to get some of the clay off us, on the way home, by lying down flat in the river water. Our shorts and shirts were filthy and dripping.
沒有勝利者。玩過一段時間，游戲就會在爭執誰是勝者中結束。而剛剛在戰爭中陣亡的戰士也都復活。在回家的路上，我們平躺在河水里，試著把身上的泥土沖掉。我們的外衣被弄得又臟又濕，一直滴著水。
One morning, of course, the job was all finished, the well capped, the pump reinstated, the fresh water marvelled at. And the truck did not come. There were two fewer chairs at the table for the noon meal. Mike and I had barely looked at each other during those meals. He liked to put ketchup on his bread. His father talked to my father, and the talk was mostly about wells, accidents, water tables. A serious man. All work, my father said. Yet he—Mike's father—ended nearly every speech with a laugh. The laugh had a lonely boom in it, as if he were still down the well.
一天早晨，工作全部完成，這是意料中的事。井上了蓋子，水泵重新安裝好了，大家對清新的井水贊嘆不已。那輛卡車也沒有來。中午吃飯時餐桌邊少了兩張椅子。回想以前我們吃飯時，邁克和我很少注視對方。他喜歡把番茄醬涂到面包上。邁克的父親同我的父親交談，而內容大都關于掘井、事故以及地下水位。我父親稱他是一個嚴謹的人，他全心傾注于工作。邁克的父親幾乎每次說完話都會大笑。他的笑聲深沉而孤獨，帶著回音，似乎還在井底干活一樣。
It turned out that this job was the last one that the well-driller had to do in our part of the country. He had other jobs lined up elsewhere, and he wanted to get to them as soon as he could, while the good weather lasted. Living as he did, in the hotel, he could just pack up and be gone. And that was what he had done. I must have known that Mike would be leaving. Future absence I accepted—it was just that I had no idea, until Mike disappeared, of what absence could be like. How all my own territory would be altered, as if a landslide had gone through it and skimmed off all meaning except loss of Mike.
到頭來，在我家干的這份活是這位掘井人在我們這片村上的最后一項活兒。其他地方還有很多活在等著他。所以他希望能趁著好天氣，盡快趕到那去，像他這樣住旅店的人，只需要收拾收拾行李就可以離開了，這也正是他所做的。我早就知道總有一天邁克將離開。我會接受他的離去，可直到邁克真的離開，我才理解他的離去意味著什么。我的世界發生了天翻地覆的變化，就像發生了山崩，除了邁克的離去，其余的所有記憶都被沖掉了。
