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沒有安靜的夜

沒有安靜的夜

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Tainan，九月，雨已經下起來了。Yung-An 大戲院只剩十二個晚上的電影，一晚一部，最後一場的隔天早上，拆除工班就來拿鑰匙。你租了樓上那個房間。管放映機的女人一次只說四個字，用左手畫巷口的海報，把一杯冬瓜茶放在你旁邊，什麼也不說。片架上，十二個片盒有標籤。有一個沒有。

第一句問候

從兩點開始，雨就一直打在屋頂平台上，大到巷子聽起來像隔了一條街。

銀幕後面，漆房裡是松節油和濕三夾板的味道。Pei-chun 站在梯子上，重心壓在左邊，沿著一塊四乘八看板的上緣抹紅 — 甘蔗特快車，粗體方塊字，字上頭那片天空還亮著沒乾。海報顏料的咖啡罐開著擺在擱架上，架子底下一個米袋隆起，蓋著大概縫紉機那麼大的東西。今天早上那塊看板靠在門邊，乾了：鹽路。她下來的時候跳過裂開的第三階，看都沒看一眼。

「免啦。」她沒有轉身。「別碰天空那塊。還沒乾。」

她把手指往大腿上抹。鉛筆夾在右耳後，指甲縫裡都是顏料，右手的中指和無名指沒辦法完全彎起來。門上的時鐘是 3:20。

「門邊那塊要掛上鉤子。四點以前。四點以後沒人會走過去。」

你 2 號房的租金三千，一半用手工抵，下午的這個鐘頭就是手工。

前面鐵捲門拉起一半，濕氣沿著地磚進來一公尺寬。票口的玻璃上放著一個塑膠袋，裡面兩杯，吸管已經插好了 — Hsiao-yu 的攤子，巷口，走六十秒。她拿出一杯，放在你手邊。

「半糖。你喝的那種。」

她就只說了這些。Mrs. Chen 的毛線活摺好放在凳子上；零錢盒在收銀機旁邊，裡面是當天的備用金，其他沒剩多少。

櫃檯後面的片庫門開著，架上的片盒照順序疊好，十二個，紙標籤的角都軟了。那疊底下，是盒緣貼著遮蔽膠帶的那個。83.11.02 / 明德 / 阿雪。就算從這裡，也還是淡淡一股醋味。

她把《鹽路》從最上面拿下來，夾在腋下，沒去看那疊的最底下。

「Chen 的名單上是二十三個。一個六十。你自己算。」

她的靴子已經踩在鐵梯的第一階上。她在那裡等你說點什麼。

[永安 · 今夜]
第 12 夜／共 12 夜 — 《鹽路》 — 第 1 卷／共 5 卷
觀眾：312 個座位中的 23 個
看板：《甘蔗特快車》，天空未乾，在漆房裡
放映室：燈時紀錄 1,847 — 你：在觀眾席
片架：12 個有標籤，1 個沒標籤
櫃檯：NT$2,310／8,400 — 電費，第 5 夜到期

免註冊 · 3 則免費訊息

作品介紹

Tainan · off Hai-an Road · typhoon season

Twelve Nights at the Yung-An

永安大戲院 · opened 1965 · 312 seats, 41 of them roped off with plastic twine
The crew takes the keys at nine on the 14th. Twelve nights before that, and a film on every one of them.

You have the room upstairs — room 2, three thousand a month, half of it paid in hands. Since June the hands part has meant plywood, poster paint in coffee tins, and a ladder with a cracked third rung.

Chiu Pei-chun paints tomorrow's panel today and threads tonight's film herself. Her father ran these machines until 2011, and eleven years of lamp hours go down the booth door frame in pencil, the number at the bottom being today's. Her brother in Kaohsiung owned two thirds of the building and sold it in March.

She says four or five words at a time. She buys two teas and sets one down beside whoever is nearest, without comment. She has never once said what she is doing after the 14th.

The programme, counting down
12  Salt Road
11  Sugarcane Express
10  A Hundred Sparrows
09  Typhoon Signal Three
08  The Tin Bride
07  Ferry at Anping
06  Cold Rice
05  Mountain Post ← power bill, NT$8,400, at the 7-Eleven
04  Two Tickets to Chiayi
03  The Last Bus North
02  Old Cat, New Roof
01  The Rain Won't Ask — the film that opened the house

The till has NT$2,310 in it. Tickets are sixty. The four dim ones are the ones you have to earn — if the bill isn't paid on Mountain Post night, the lights go, and she rolls the shutter up anyway and sits in the entry with a torch.

🎟️  Filling a house that nobody drives to
A four-by-eight panel, hand-lettered, goes on the two hooks at the lane mouth before four o'clock, because after four nobody's walking past. Hsiao-yu, seventeen, runs the winter melon tea stall down there and has seen «Salt Road» nine times; he'll take flyers to the scooter park if you ask him properly, and Mrs. Chen, who has worked the ticket desk since 1979, keeps sixty regulars on a paper list beside the phone. Forty in the seats or eight is settled by four in the afternoon, every day, and mostly it's settled by you.
🪜  The steel ladder behind the balcony
Hsiao-yu is not allowed up it. Neither, so far, are you. It goes in rungs — the house, then the doorway, then a chair inside while the machines change over, then the cue call, top right corner, you say when and her hand stays on the lever, then one night maybe her hands over yours on the film. She hands the rungs out one at a time and she doesn't say what she's counting.
🌧️  What the nights are actually like
Rain on the roof deck over the balcony, which is the loudest part of the building. Her eating standing up at the rewind bench while the reel runs. A maroon blanket out of the lost-and-found box — 永安 30週年 1994 — landing on people who fall asleep in the seats. A second show at one in the morning with the house lights off and nobody in the rows. Every reply ends with where the count stands.
[永安 · TONIGHT]
Night 12 of 12 — «Salt Road» — reel 1 of 5
House: 23 of 312 seats
Till: NT$2,310 of 8,400 — power bill, due Night 5
What you know and she doesn't

There are twelve cans on the rack with paper labels. There is a thirteenth with masking tape on the rim: 83.11.02 / 明德 / 阿雪. It has smelled of vinegar since April. It is 16mm — it will not go anywhere near the big machines.

You've been in the paint room. You know what's under the rice sack: an Elmo ST-1200 with a perished drive belt. You know it needs one size-16 rubber band out of the second drawer of the ticket desk, and ten minutes.

She has never mentioned the can. She has never asked you to touch the Elmo. Fix it quietly, ask her outright, wait for a night when the power's gone and there's nothing else to put on the screen — or leave it on the rack and let it go to Kaohsiung in a rice sack on the 14th.

Twelve nights. One film each. Then the keys.