[原译]The Rose <玫瑰>
奥斯维辛集中营的司令官，无名小镇上的孤独老人。
他的故事如今已为人淡忘，留下的只有那朵惊人的黑玫瑰。
【译文】
我在地图上寻找这个村庄，但是找不到它。
这是一个贫困的小镇，和它紧挨着的山一样由灰色的花岗岩构成。
鹅卵石铺就的街道也是同样的灰色石头，常常因为下雨而潮湿，偶尔会被厚厚的白雪所覆盖。
村子里有二十五间房子，老人住在学校上方的高地，十分靠后的那间。
这屋子和村子里的其它房屋一样，荒凉而毫无特点。
但是，在房屋后面有着像伦敦的英国皇家植物园一样，极其复杂精巧的温室。
老人在这里种植玫瑰。
也许温室比他自己简陋的卧室和阴冷的厨房要温暖。
即使他房间的炉子里常常是冰冷的白灰，温室的炉火在整个冬季却一直是燃烧着的。
由于西班牙语说得很差，所以他的请求时常会让店主生气。
以前在村庄里的人们之中从未有过异国人，然而甚至过了25年之后，他仍然被视为一个讨厌的人而不是新奇之事。
他的信件经常毫无必要地被邮局的职员拖延，无聊而恶意的把戏，比耍弄等待儿子书信的农妇更使人难过。
那职员下了决心似地暗中折磨着老人，把他的邮包显眼地摆放在架子上，然后坚持说它们不是寄给他的。
老人平静地接受了一切，每天持续地等在柜台前，一边坚持不懈地询问邮局，一边摩擦着他干瘦的手，呼气让它们保持暖和。
他从不抱怨。
他也从来不曾解释那些书是关于杂交玫瑰种植的，而起即使他解释了，情况也不会有所不同。
当他终于拿到书艰难地返回屋子时，他小小的灰色轮廓，在这个一切事物都显得那么冰凉、巨大、冷漠的村庄里，是那么的脆弱可怜。
早些时候他曾经捐赠了一座大钟给村里的小学校。
学校尴尬地接受了这件礼物。
一年之后，钟停了。
村子里的说法是这钟的质量太次了。
所以，当另两个外国人在15年后来到这村子时，它的指针仍停留在七点十八分。
在邮局里，两个外国人问了些问题。
那职员高兴地告诉了他们他知道的有关老人和温室的所有事。
他还把扣留一个多月的两个邮包给了他们。
那天晚上，老人和这两个以色列安全机构的成员一起离开了村庄。
随后，这小镇的人们才知道，那个安静的弱小的外国人不是别人，正是奥斯维辛集中营的前任指挥官。
现在，当地人会给你讲述，当他们进入老人的温室时，发现了任何人都只在梦中见过的最漂亮的玫瑰。
那些玫瑰有人拳头的两倍大小，几乎是纯黑色，仅仅在那天鹅绒般的花瓣上有些暗淡的红色痕迹。
1974年春天我到达小镇的时候，那些玫瑰，或是它们的后代，仍在那里。
镇民们小心地看护着，并骄傲地向参观者们炫耀。
当地人坚持说，在温室里可以闻到奥斯维辛的格拉夫葡萄酒的味道，和这黑玫瑰散发的死亡的浓重而香甜的气息。
他们给玫瑰取名为“奥斯维辛玫瑰”，并且印制了低廉的彩色明信片来庆祝他们的罕见而宝贵的财富。
【原文】
I have looked for the village on an atlas and cannot find it. It is a poor town, made from the same grey granite as the mountain it clings to. The cobbled streets are of the same grey stone, often wet with rain, occasionally covered with a heavy blanket of snow.
There are twenty-five houses in the village and the old man lived at the very last one on the high side, above the school. The house was as bleak and unremarkable as any other house in the village. But behind it was the most intricately wrought glasshouse, as delicate and weblike as the glasshouse in Kew Gardens in London.
In this house the old man grew roses. It is probable that the glasshouse was warmer than his own mean bedroom and his stove were often white and cold, the furnace for the glasshouse never died through the winter. And in the very worst months he would move his mattress into the glasshouse and spend his nights there.
He spoke Spanish very badly and often irritated the storekeeper with his requests. The people in the village had never had a foreigner in their midst before and even after twenty-five years he was seen as more of a pest than a novelty.
His mail was often needlessly delayed by the post office clerk, an idle and malicious game that gave him less pleasure than teasing the old peasant woman who waited for letters from her son. The clerk tormented the old man quietly and determinedly, placing his parcels in full view on the shelf and insisting they were not for him.
The old man accepted this quietly, and called at the post office persistently, day after day, waiting patiently at the counter, rubbing his small dry hands together and breathing into them to make them warm. He never complained. He never explained that the books were about the production of hybrid roses, and it would have made no difference if he had.
When his books were finally made available he walked painfully back to his house, a small grey figure who looked fragile and pitiable in this village where everything seemed so cold and massive and unsympathetic.
Earlier he had donated a large clock for the small village school. The gift had been received with embarrassment. A year later the clock stopped. The opinion in the village was that the clock had been of inferior quality.
So its hands were still showing eighteen minutes past seven when two more foreigners arrived in the village fifteen years afterwards.
They asked questions at the post office and the clerk gladly told them everything he knew about the old man with the glasshouse. He ever gave them two parcels he had been keeping for over a month.
That night the old man left the village with the other two foreigners who were members of the Israeli security service.
Later the town was to learn that the small, quiet foreigner had been none other than the former Commandant of Auschwitz.
The locals will now tell you that when they visited the old man’s glasshouse they discovered the most beautiful rose that anyone could ever dream of. It was twice the size of a man’s fist and was almost black in color, with just the faintest hint of red in its velvety petals.
When I visited the town in the spring of 1974, the rose, or its descendants, were still there carefully nurtured by the townspeople and shown with pride to visitors.
The locals insist that you can smell the graves of Auschwitz in the glasshouse, and that the heavy, sweet odour of death emanates from this one black rose.
They have named it “ the Auschwitz Rose” and have printed a cheap color postcard to celebrate their peculiar good fortune.
