陈记修表

陈记修表在城南旧街最里面。

从菜市场的后门进去，先经过一家卖塑料拖鞋的铺子，再经过两间已经卷下铁闸的门脸。修表铺夹在修锁和补裤脚之间，门口没有玻璃门，只有一扇往里推的木门。招牌蓝底白字，最后一个“表”字掉了一角。门边贴着拆迁通知，日期是上个月。

上午十点，陈师傅正在给一只女表拆后盖。

他的工作台比学校课桌宽一点。左边是一盏白灯，右边是一盏黄灯，中间压着一块起毛的黑绒布。绒布上排着镊子、起子、油笔和十几个透明小盒。盒子盖上有圆珠笔字：“瑞士”“日本”“电子”“不知道”。

“不知道”那一盒最大。

陈师傅把后盖放到绒布上，用镊子夹出一枚很小的齿轮。顾客站在柜台外，是个四十岁上下的女人，一直握着手机。

“这只走快。”陈师傅说。

“能修吗？”

“能。它不是坏，是着急。”

女人笑了一下，像是第一次听到有人这样说表。

陈师傅八十一岁，手背上的血管很清楚。他说自己闲着时手会抖，碰到表就不抖。他不戴手套，也不喜欢别人站得太近。“呼气会有水。”他说。

店里没有空调。门口放着一台旧风扇，扇叶转起来时会擦到铁罩，隔一会儿响一下。墙上有一只挂钟，停在三点十七分。它已经停了很久，表盘上的“上海”两个字被烟熏得发黄。

“不修？”我问。

“我父亲走的时候，它停在这儿。”陈师傅说，“修好了就不是它了。”

他说完，把一颗螺丝拧回表里，没有继续谈父亲。

陈师傅十五岁到城里学修表。第一份工在百货公司后面的钟表行。第一年，他扫地、擦玻璃、给客人倒茶。师傅不让他碰机芯。他说有一天师傅拿来一个闹钟，告诉他修不好就没有晚饭。陈师傅拆到天黑，重新装了三次，闹钟还是不响。

第二天早晨，闹钟放在原处，滴答滴答地走。师傅看了一眼，说：“还行。”

“后来我才知道，是他夜里替我修的。”陈师傅说，“人得先以为自己能行，不然不会留下。”

十一点半，一个穿校服的男孩进来换电子表电池。他把表放在柜台上，问多少钱。陈师傅说十块。男孩掏钱时，陈师傅已经把后盖撬开了。

“别戴着洗澡。”陈师傅把表递回去。

“防水的。”男孩说。

“防水不是防开水。”

男孩愣了一下，点头走了。门边的风铃响了两声。

“他下次大概不来了。”陈师傅说。

“在意吗？”

“表别进水就行。”

中午，陈师傅从抽屉里拿出一个不锈钢饭盒。里面是白饭、青菜和两块鱼。他吃得很慢，吃到一半，有位女士来取表。

她把维修单摊在柜台上。单子已经泛黄，是十二年前留下的。陈师傅从玻璃柜里取出一只男式机械表，表盘边缘有一道浅划痕。

“走了吗？”她问。

陈师傅没有回答，先把表贴到耳边听了一下，再递给她。

“听。”

女士把表放在掌心。她说这是父亲的表，父亲下班回家总在七点四十进门。表停掉以后，她拿来修，却一直没来取。上个月搬家，她在抽屉底下找到这张维修单。

“还能走多久？”她问。

“正常戴，二三十年。”

她没有立刻戴上。站了一会儿，她把维修单折成四折，和表一起放进包里。

下午两点，施工队开始钻路。店门口的地面轻轻震。陈师傅把几块手表盖上防尘罩，又从最下层柜子里拿出一块女表。表带断了，表面有细小裂纹。

“我爱人的。”他说。

表背刻着：愿你时间充足。

“这块为什么不修？”

“没有坏。”

他说完把它放回去，顺手关上柜门。

陈师傅的抽屉里有一本到处沾着机油的账本。早些年他记得很细：来客姓名、表的品牌、故障、收款日期。后来电子表越来越多，账本上开始出现“换电池”“换表带”“找不到型号”。他翻到一页，指着一个名字说，这是隔壁补裤脚的老王，来过十七次；又翻到另一页，说这个人每年春节前都来给全家四块表校时。

“现在他儿子在国外，”陈师傅说，“去年只寄来一只表，让我换电池。人不回来，表回来。”

说话间，修锁铺的老板探头进来借螺丝刀。陈师傅没问用途，直接从“国内”那盒里挑了一把。老板还回来时带了两个橘子，放在风扇旁边。陈师傅没吃，只说：“明天再拿。”

下午三点多，一个老太太把塑料袋放到柜台上。袋里是一只儿童表，表带上印着褪色的卡通熊。她说孙女下周生日，表是孩子母亲小时候戴的，想看看还能不能亮。陈师傅看了半分钟，说表盘进水太久，芯子没法救。他没有马上把表推回去，而是拿棉签擦掉表镜里的水雾，又把表带洗干净。

老太太问多少钱。

“不用。”

“这也算修？”

“算收拾。”

老太太把表带回袋子里，说回家再买一块新的。她出门时，陈师傅低头在账本空白处写了四个字：小熊，进水。

旧街明年要拆。陈师傅的儿子已经看过几次房，想让他搬去有电梯的小区。陈师傅没说去，也没说不去。他只是指了指桌上的螺丝盒：“这些先得分完。”

快到傍晚，上午那位女顾客来取表。陈师傅把表放在一张干净纸巾上，又交代她三个月别碰热水。她付了钱，走出门，走了几步又回来。

“师傅，”她说，“它以后还会走快吗？”

陈师傅正在收工具。他想了一下。

“会。”

“那怎么办？”

“再来。”

女人笑了。她这次没有再问别的。

门外有人喊修锁。施工队停了，街上忽然安静下来。陈师傅把台灯关掉一盏，留下另一盏照着工作台。刚修好的表放在绒布上，秒针绕过十二点，还在往前走。

· · ·

Chen’s Watch Repair is at the far end of Old South Street.

Enter through the back of the market, pass the shop selling plastic slippers, then two shuttered storefronts, and you find it between a locksmith and a trouser mender. There is no glass door, only a wooden one that opens inward. The sign is blue with white lettering; a corner has fallen from the final character. A demolition notice is taped beside it, dated last month.

At ten in the morning Master Chen is taking the back off a woman’s watch.

His bench is scarcely wider than a school desk. A white lamp stands on the left, a yellow one on the right; between them is a square of black velvet worn thin at the middle. Tweezers, screwdrivers, oil pens, and a dozen clear boxes are laid across it. Their lids are marked in ballpoint: Switzerland. Japan. Electronic. Don’t Know.

Don’t Know is the largest box.

He lays the back on the velvet and lifts a gear with his tweezers. The customer, a woman of about forty, waits outside the counter gripping her phone.

“It runs fast,” he says.

“Can it be repaired?”

“Of course. It isn’t broken. It’s in a hurry.”

She smiles, as if no one has ever described a watch that way before.

Master Chen is eighty-one. The veins on his hands stand out clearly. He says his hands shake when he is idle, but not when he touches a watch. He does not wear gloves and dislikes people standing too close. “Your breath carries moisture,” he says.

There is no air-conditioning. An old fan turns at the door, its blades brushing the metal cage every few moments. A wall clock has stopped at 3:17. It has been stopped for years; the word Shanghai on its face is yellowed with smoke.

“You won’t fix it?” I ask.

“My father died when it stopped there,” he says. “If I fix it, it won’t be that clock any more.”

Then he puts a screw back into the woman’s watch and says no more about his father.

Chen began apprenticing in town at fifteen. His first job was in a watch shop behind the department store. For a year he swept, polished glass, and poured tea. His master would not let him touch a movement. One day the man handed him an alarm clock and said that if he could not repair it, he would have no dinner. Chen took it apart until dark and put it back together three times. It still would not ring.

The next morning the clock was where he had left it, ticking away. His master looked at it and said, “Not bad.”

“Only later did I learn he repaired it at night,” Chen says. “A person has to think he can do it first. Otherwise he won’t stay.”

At half past eleven a schoolboy comes in for a battery. Chen charges ten yuan and hands the watch back. “Don’t wear it in the shower.”

“It’s waterproof,” the boy says.

“Waterproof doesn’t mean boiling-water-proof.”

The boy pauses, nods, and leaves. The bell at the door rings twice.

“He probably won’t come back,” Chen says.

“Does that matter?”

“As long as the watch doesn’t get wet.”

At noon he takes a stainless-steel lunchbox from a drawer: rice, greens, two pieces of fish. He eats slowly. Halfway through, a woman arrives to collect a watch. Her repair slip is twelve years old and yellow at the edges. Chen takes a man’s mechanical watch from the display case. A faint scratch crosses the rim.

“Is it running?” she asks.

Instead of answering, he puts it to his ear and then holds it out. “Listen.”

It belonged to her father, she says. He used to come home from work at 7:40. After the watch stopped, she brought it in for repair but never came back to collect it. Last month, while moving, she found the repair slip at the bottom of a drawer.

“How long will it run now?”

“Twenty or thirty years if you wear it normally.”

She does not put it on. After a while she folds the repair slip into quarters and puts it and the watch into her bag.

At two, the demolition crew begins drilling the road. The floor trembles. Chen covers several watches against dust, then takes a woman’s watch from the bottom cabinet. The strap is broken and the crystal finely cracked.

“My wife’s,” he says.

On the back is engraved: May you have enough time.

“Why not repair this one?”

“It isn’t broken.”

He puts it back and closes the cabinet.

In a drawer is a grease-stained ledger. In earlier years he recorded every customer, brand, fault, and payment date. As electronic watches became more common, the entries turned to battery changes, strap replacements, and models no one could identify.

The old street will be demolished next year. His son has looked at flats with lifts and wants him to move. Chen does not say yes or no. He points to the boxes of screws. “First I have to sort these.”

Near evening, the woman from the morning returns. Chen places her watch on a clean tissue and tells her not to touch hot water for three months. She pays, walks outside, then comes back.

“Master Chen,” she says, “will it run fast again?”

He is putting away his tools. He thinks for a moment.

“It will.”

“What should I do?”

“Come back.”

She smiles. This time she asks nothing else.

Someone outside calls for the locksmith. The drills have stopped and the street is suddenly quiet. Chen switches off one lamp, leaving the other over the bench. The repaired watch lies on the velvet. Its second hand passes twelve and keeps going.