My grandmother is a ghost!

When she was alive my grandmother was a very odd person. She lived alone in an old house in the countryside and hardly spoke to a living soul from one week to the next. But, she claimed, she communicated with dead souls that were all around. I never liked visiting her in her dark home without a television or a radio. She seemed to avoid daylight and I never saw her leave her house.

Then one day I experienced something that scared me. I was eight or nine years old, visiting granny alone after school. I was sitting in her living room trying to read a schoolbook by the little light that came from the table lamp near the window. I got up to pull open the heavy curtains in the living room to allow some of the dying afternoon light into the dusty room.

“Stop!” shrieked the old woman, her  grey eyes screwed up against the light and her arms crossed over her face. “Don’t frighten the    15 children.” I was startled and stared at her as we were alone in the room and I was the only child there. As I moved to close the curtains again I thought I could hear the sound of little feet running across the room and, maybe, a girl crying. Then silence and darkness filled the room once more. I ran out of the room, and out of the house. I never went   back.

That was the last time that I was with my grandmother. Soon afterwards, we moved away to a big city and I didn’t see her for many years. Gradually I forgot all about her. Then one day when I was at university, pretending to study history, but secretly enjoying life away from home, I got a call from my mother.

“Granny’s dead,” she announced. “I want you to come to the funeral.” I could hardly refuse and so on a wet and windy day in November, when I was twenty years old, I found myself back in her bleak house, back in the dark living room where no one now lived.

Nothing had changed, it seemed, in the ten years that I had been away from the room. There was the heavy table and chairs, and on the walls the black and white photographs of children I didn’t know.

My mother stood by me and said, “Your granny didn’t have any friends so it’s just us to say ‘au revoir’ to her.”

I was surprised by my mother’s tone of voice and choice of words but decided not to say anything. Then my mother handed me an old camera. “Granny asked me to give you this, just before she passed away. She used this camera herself for many years and said it always produced good images. She thought you would find it would give you a new perspective on life, too.”

After the funeral, which was in a local church, and where granny’s body was cremated, her ashes sprinkled over the flowers in the churchyard, I went back to university. It was many weeks later that I picked up the camera again and saw that there was still a roll of film inside. Some of the pictures had been taken and there were a few more empty frames.

I went out to the park and started to snap little children playing on the swings and roundabouts there. I had never photographed strangers before and I had no idea why I was doing so now. I just felt the urge to take some pictures of children having a good time. I was picturing innocence I suppose. I meant no harm to anyone.

Suddenly a woman, probably one of the children’s mothers, shouted at me, “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” and came running at me. I panicked. I ran. “ Pervert. ” I heard her call out to my back.

When I got home I felt cold and empty inside. I knew I had done nothing wrong, really, but why had I run? And why had I taken the pictures in the first place?

I realized that I could not have the film in the camera developed in a shop as the pictures might portray me in a poor light. Maybe the police would come to talk to me? So I decided to develop the pictures myself.

I bought the chemicals and paper from a photo graphic equipment shop and set up a darkroom in my study at the university. Then one evening after dinner, I went into the study, turned on the red light and closed the door. I was ready to develop the film. But I was not ready for what was about to happen to alter my life forever.

I opened the camera and  took out the roll of film. I then unwound the negative. I dipped the negative film into the developing solution and waited. One by one the pictures from the film began to appear on the paper in the tray. At first I could just make out some ghostly images. Then gradually, I could see the background.  It was a room; it was granny’s living room.

The room seemed dark, but then I saw that the film was in black and white and that everything was dark. But as I peered into the tray I realized that the living room was not empty. In one print, a boy was standing in front of the drawn curtains. He looked about nine years old, and he was wearing an old-fashioned sailor suit. In another a girl of maybe six or seven sat at the table reading a book. She had curly hair and a pretty smile.

In some other photos the boy and the girl held hands as they posed for the camera. I could see other children in the other photos, too, some sitting on the sofa, some playing on the carpet. All seemed happy. And all the photos had been taken in granny’s living room.

But then there were my photos. The ones I had taken at the children’s playground a few days before. There was the little fair-haired boy screaming as he came down the slide, and there were the twins on the seesaw. In one picture I could even see an angry-looking woman staring at me and beginning to get up from her seat — no doubt the one who had chased me away.

But in all these pictures there was something else. Something that made my spine tingle with fear. In every picture I could see an old woman. My granny. She was sometimes sitting on a bench, in others she was leaning by the wall, and in some she appeared on the roundabout or even on a swing.

She had not been at the playground — how could she be as she was dead! And yet here she was looking at me and smiling in each of the photos I had taken. “Au revoir, granny.” I whispered to myself before I collapsed on the floor.

My flatmate found me still lying on the floor, white and shaking.

“What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said.

我的祖母是个幽灵！

祖母在世的时候是个非常古怪的人。她独自住在乡下一幢老房子里，几乎一连几周不与活人说话。但她声称，她与四周的鬼魂交流。我从不喜欢去她那黑漆漆的、连电视和收音机也没有的家里看望她。她似乎在回避阳光，我从未见她离开过她的房子。

后来有一天，我经历的一件事把我吓坏了。我当时八九岁年纪，放学后独自去看祖母。我坐在她的起居室里，设法就着她窗前的一盏台灯发出的微弱光亮看一本教科书。我站起身拉开起居室厚重的窗帘，好让下午的余辉透进布满灰尘的房间里来。

“住手！”祖母尖叫道，她眯缝着灰色的眼睛抵御光线，手臂交叉着挡在面前。“别吓着孩子们。”我吃惊地盯着她，因为屋里就我们两人，那儿就我一个孩子。当我挪过去拉上窗帘的时候，我觉得能听到小孩跑过房间的脚步声，好像还有小女孩的哭声。接着，寂静和黑暗再次充满了房间。我跑出房间，跑出了那幢房子，再也没回去过。

那是我最后一次跟祖母在一起。随后不久，我们搬到了大城市，我很多年没见到她。渐渐地，我忘了她的一切。后来有一天，当我正在大学假装学习历史，实际上偷偷享受着离开家的生活时，接到了妈妈的电话。

“奶奶死了，”她说。“我想让你来参加葬礼。”我难以拒绝，因此在11月一个潮湿起风的日子，20岁的我又回到了她那昏暗的屋子里，回到了那间再也没有人居住的起居室。

看上去，在我远离这个房间的10年中，没有发生任何变化。沉重的桌椅摆在那儿，墙上挂着我不认识的孩子们的黑白照片。

妈妈站在我身边说，“你奶奶没有任何朋友，所以只有我们跟她说‘再见’了。”

妈妈的语气和措词使我感到诧异，但我决定什么也不说。接着，妈妈递给我一个旧照相机。“奶奶临终前让我把这个给你。这个相机她自己用了很多年，她说照出的图像一直很好。她想你会发现这相机也会给你的生活带来新的景象。”

相机是一个黑色的小盒子。我拿在手上感觉沉甸甸的。当我从取景器里窥视房间的时候， 房间仿佛渐渐消失在了远处。

“啊，谢谢你，妈妈。”我说，不知道此外还要说什么，也不知道自己将遭遇什么。

葬礼在当地一个小教堂里举行，奶奶的遗体在那儿火化，骨灰撒在了墓地的鲜花上。葬礼过后，我回到了大学。再次拿起相机是几个星期以后，我发现里面还有一卷胶卷。有几张已经拍过了，还剩下些空白底片。

我来到公园，开始拍摄孩子们在秋千和旋转木马上玩耍的照片。我以前从未拍摄过陌生人，我不知道当时为什么那么做。我只是感到一种强烈的欲望，要拍摄一些孩子们嬉戏的照片。我想我是在描绘天真无邪。我无意伤害任何人。

突然，一位妇女，也许是其中一个孩子的母亲，向我吼道，“嗨！你知道你在干什么吗？”并向我跑来。我惊慌失措，拔腿就跑。“变态。”我听到她冲着我背后叫道。

到家时，我觉得心里发冷，一片空虚。我知道我没做错什么，真的，但我为什么会跑呢？ 而首先，我为什么会拍那些照片呢？

我意识到我不能把底片拿到照相馆去冲印，因为照片可能会对我不利。说不定警察会来找我谈话？因此我决定自己冲印。

我从一家照相器材店买来化学药品和相纸，在大学我的书房里设了一间暗室。一天晚上晚饭后，我走进暗室，打开红灯，关上门。我准备好了冲印相片。但对于即将发生并永远改变我人生的事情毫无准备。

我打开相机取出胶卷。然后打开了底片，把它浸入洗相药水中等候。一张张图片开始出现在盘里的纸上。一开始我只能分辨出一些模糊的影子。然后渐渐地，我能看出背景了。那是个房间；是奶奶的起居室。

房间看上去很黑。然后我看出底片是黑白的，所有的东西都是黑的。 但当我窥视盘内的时候，我看到起居室并不是空的。在一张照片上，一个小男孩站在拉着的窗帘前面。他看上去大概九岁，穿着老式水手服。另一张照片里，一个大约六七岁的女孩坐在桌前读书。她有着卷卷的头发和美丽的微笑。

在其他照片里，那男孩和女孩手拉着手摆着姿势照相。在其他照片里，我还能看到别的孩子，有的坐在沙发上，有的在地毯上玩。看起来都很开心。所有的照片都是在奶奶的起居室里拍的。

接着就是我的照片了。是我几天前在儿童乐园里拍的。有尖叫着从滑梯上滑下来的金发小男孩，和跷跷板上的双胞胎。在一张相片里，我甚至可以看到一个样子生气的女人瞪着我，正从座位上站起来——毫无疑问，她就是那个赶我走的人。

然而，在所有的照片里还有一样别的东西，让我害怕得脊背发麻。在每张照片里，我都能看到一个老妇人。我的祖母。她有时坐在凳子上，在有的相片里她斜靠着墙，在有的相片里她出现在旋转木马甚至秋千上。

她并不在游乐场——她已经死了，怎么可能在出现在游乐场呢！但是在我所拍的每张相片上，她都在看着我，对我微笑。“永别了，奶奶。”我低声道，然后瘫软在地上。

我的室友发现我躺在地上一动不动，脸色苍白，浑身发抖。

“出了什么事？你看上去就像见了鬼似的，”他说。