那些人口普查員整日守在路旁“虎視眈眈”，我一出現，他們就沖過來抓住我，企圖挖走我的一切私人信息。那可是我的隱私，憑什么要告訴他們？聽，他們又來敲門了。別妄想了，我絕對不會給他們開門的。反正我已經把百葉窗關上了，他們不知道我在家。我以為等他們走了就萬事大吉了。可是有一天，Carla來了……

By John Gifford

吳悠 選 張健 注

We’d heard they were coming—with their clipboards and questions, their staid government sedans, roving the street like hungry bears, sniffing out information. They seemed so nosy, so insensitively insistent, the census takers. And for what? So they could update some bloated publication better used as a doorstop?

Already I was irritated by the thought of having to divulge so much personal information, but when Judy, our friend across the street, told us she’d spent more than half an hour the previous evening answering a census taker’s questions, that did it for me. I locked the front door. I closed the blinds . And when the knock finally came, I didn’t answer.

“They’ll be back,” my wife, Ellen, said.

Of course they would. That’s what frustrated me. It wasn’t that I had anything to hide; it was just the thought of being interrogated about my private life by someone I didn’t know. Could they appreciate how that felt, these intrusive data collectors?

After several more days of refusing to answer the door, I let my guard down one afternoon and walked out to the car. The census taker spotted me and sprinted across three lawns to catch up. I was stunned . I was angry. Why did they need my data? Couldn’t the government just skip my house?

Evidently not. The census taker stood there, harried and huffing, flipping through papers on his clipboard. He’d been trying all week to catch me and, now that he had, he wasn’t leaving.

Determined to keep my private life private from these government wolves, I told the man I would not answer his questions. He glared at me, but to no avail. Eventually, he walked away, but I knew that wouldn’t be the end of it.

“Great!” Ellen said, when I told her. “They’ve probably put us on some list!”

“He said we’d hear from his boss,” I told her.

“See!?”

“He seemed frazzled ,” I said. “I think he was just bluffing .”

He wasn’t.

A week went by, then another. All my neighbors had answered their census questions, the staid government sedans had disappeared, and a sense of normalcy was returning to the neighborhood. Then one afternoon there came a knock at the door. I answered to find a plump, middle-aged lady on my porch, a briefcase in one hand and a shiny badge in the other. Suddenly, I realized my mistake. My heart jabbed at my chest while my mind screamed: You idiot! Why couldn’t you just roll with it? I swallowed hard, vaguely aware that I was sweating.

“I’m Carla with the US Census Bureau,” she said, introducing herself the way the male census official had weeks earlier. Only there was something different about Carla. She reminded me of my aunt Mary. She hadn’t sprinted across three lawns to accost me. And, most important, she was smiling.

So I let her in, offered her a bottle of water, and waited for the barrage of questions. But first, she asked about my wife and 2-year-old son, whose photos she’d spotted on the wall. Then Carla told me about her own kids and grandkids and where they were living and what they were doing. I learned a lot about Carla, as she was in no hurry to get to the interview or, once it began, to end it. She was pleasant and relaxed. And so was I. Something about Carla just put me at ease .

After about an hour, she put away her papers and we visited a few minutes more. Then she thanked me for the water and said goodbye, waving as she climbed into her car. I didn’t mind her visit at all, I realized. Or the following one, three months later. Or the next.

“She’s made you her special project,” Ellen joked, laughing.

Maybe she had. Carla would call or stop by every few months, asking if our information had changed. We always talked about our families and lives. It was as if we were friends.

Later, to my surprise, I received a Christmas card from Carla. “Have enjoyed getting to know you, John,” she’d written. “Merry Christmas to you and your family.”

Not long afterward we moved to a new city, and I lost touch with Carla, whom, I realize now, I was fortunate to have met. She taught me, better than anyone, that a smile can unlock any door.

Vocabulary

1. census: 人口普查。

2. clipboard: 帶夾寫字板；staid: 嚴肅的，古板的；sedan: 廂式轎車；rove: 漫游，徘徊；sniff out: 發現，尋找。

3. nosy: 愛管閑事的，喜歡打聽的；insensitively: 無知覺地，不敏感地。

4. 為了更新那些言過其實的、用作門檔更合適的印刷資料？bloated: 言過其實的；doorstop: （保持門敞開或防止門關過猛的）制門器。

5. 因為要泄露這么多的個人信息，我其實已經很生氣了；但是當我們的朋友——住在街對面的朱迪——告訴我們她前一天晚上花了多半個小時回答人口普查員的問題時，我的的確確是被激怒了。irritate: 使惱怒，使煩躁；divulge: 泄露，透露。

6. blind: 百葉窗。

7. frustrate: 使灰心，使沮喪。

8. interrogate: 審問，盤問。

9. intrusive: 打擾的，侵擾的。

10. let guard down: 放松警惕。

11. spot: v. 發現；sprint: 沖刺，快跑；lawn: 草地，草坪。

12. stunned: 受驚的。

13. harried: 忙碌不堪的；huff: 噴氣，深呼吸；flip through: 快速翻閱，瀏覽。

14. glare at: 瞪眼，怒視；to no avail: 毫無用處，沒效果。

15. frazzled: 疲憊的。

16. bluff: 嚇唬，虛張聲勢。

17. normalcy: 正常狀態，常態。

18. 我打開門，看見門廊前站著一位胖胖的中年女士，一手拎著文件包，一手拿著锃亮的徽章。plump: 豐滿的，胖乎乎的；porch: 門廊；briefcase: 公文包；badge: 徽章，證章。

19. jab at: 猛戳。

20. swallow: （常因為緊張或恐懼而）做吞咽動作，咽口水；vaguely: 隱約地；sweat: 出汗，流汗。

21. US Census Bureau: 美國人口普查局。

22. accost: （唐突地或帶有威脅性地）走近跟……攀談，與……搭訕。

23. barrage of: 一連串，接二連三。

24. at ease: 自在，不拘束。

25. visit: 交談。

（來源：英語學習雜志 編輯：丹妮）