第十章 唱Chapter Ten · The Singing
一個人唱，很輕。
可是夷光唱的時候，第三區底層那群留下來的人，也在唱。他們約好了，今晚不再只亮一點點。
歌從回收塔裡傳出去。聽見的人，先是停下來，然後想起 —— 想起自己曾經有過、卻在某個月份交出去、以為再也想不起來的什麼。一個名字。一雙手。一個誰在黑暗裡，抱過自己的夜晚。
他們一想起，就重了一點。
他們一重，頭頂的燈，就亮了一格。
不是因為星。星什麼都沒有給。是因為有一個人，決定把一段記憶，留在自己身上，不交出去。
城開始亮。
一格，兩格，第七區，第九區，一路亮回第三區。不是城在發電，是人在發光。風還在吹，可是吹不動了 —— 一座城的人忽然都重了起來，風推不動這麼多，扛著記憶的人。
在風的盡頭，那些飄著的人，開始被拉回來。每一個被想起名字的人，往城的方向，回來一寸，兩寸。周伯重新踩到了地。
然後，天上那顆星，熄了。
它本來就在死。它撐到了今晚，終於，最後一點紅，像被誰用拇指按熄，連那點紅都沒有了。整座城，全黑。
跟很多年前那個晚上，一模一樣。
夷光站在全黑裡，等著城裡的人開始害怕 —— 因為沒有人記得，黑是什麼樣子。
可是沒有人尖叫。
因為這一次，他們手裡有歌。黑暗裡，一個聲音先唱起來，然後是十個，一百個，整座城。他們看不見彼此，可是他們聽得見。他們在黑裡，像那個夜晚母親抱著夷光那樣，互相抱著，唱著那首沒有名字的歌。
城那天沒有亮。
可是這一次，沒有人，睡不著。
One person singing is a faint thing.
But when Yiguang sang, the people who had stayed behind in the lower depths of District Three sang too. They had agreed on it: tonight they would not glow only a little.
The song spilled out of the Reclamation Tower. Those who heard it first went still, and then remembered — remembered something they had once held, something they had surrendered in some long-ago month, something they had believed they could never call back. A name. A pair of hands. Someone who, in the dark, had held them through a single night.
The moment they remembered, they grew a little heavier.
And the moment they grew heavier, the lamp above their heads brightened by one notch.
Not because of the star. The star had given nothing. It was because one person had decided to keep a memory inside herself, and not surrender it.
The city began to brighten.
One notch, then two — District Seven, then District Nine, brightening all the way back to District Three. It was not the city generating power; it was people giving off light. The wind still blew, but it could no longer move them — all at once an entire city of people had grown heavy, and the wind could not push so many people who carried their memories.
At the wind's far edge, those who had been drifting began to be drawn back. Every person whose name was remembered came an inch, two inches, back toward the city. Old Zhou set his feet on the ground once more.
And then the star overhead went out.
It had been dying all along. It had held on until tonight, and at last that final trace of red — as though pressed out by someone's thumb — was gone, even that last red gone. The whole city fell black.
Exactly as it had been on that night many years ago.
Yiguang stood in the total dark, waiting for the people of the city to begin to be afraid — because no one remembered what darkness looked like.
But no one screamed.
Because this time they held a song in their hands. In the dark, one voice began to sing, then ten, then a hundred, then the whole city. They could not see one another, but they could hear one another. There in the black, the way a mother had held Yiguang on that long-ago night, they held one another, and sang that song without a name.
The city did not brighten that night.
But this time, no one could not sleep.