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We played host to Ukrainian refugees because of a man called Ilya Neustadt. A Jewish Ukrainian, he was studying economics in Belgium when Germany invaded in 1940.
我們接待烏克蘭難民是因爲一個叫伊利亞•紐施塔特(Ilya Neustadt)的人。他是一名烏克蘭猶太人，1940年德國入侵比利時時，他正在比利時學習經濟學。
Britain took Ilya in. This may have saved him from the camps. He later became a distinguished academic, a mentor to my parents and a family friend.
英國收留了伊利亞。這可能使他免於被關進集中營。他後來成爲了一名傑出的學者，我父母的導師和我們家的朋友。
It was by similar happenstance that a seven-year-old Ukrainian found himself standing in our London back garden in May 2022.
2022年5月，一個7歲的烏克蘭孩子站在我們倫敦的後花園裏，也是出於類似的偶然。
“Why have we come to England if the Russians are shooting missiles at England too?” Oleksii asked. He pointed to the white trails stretching out across the blue sky. His mother Mariya* explained that the trails had been left by airliners taking holidaymakers to and from Gatwick airport.
「如果俄羅斯人也在向英國發射飛彈，我們爲什麼要來英國？」阿列克謝(Oleksii)問道。他指著在藍天上延伸的白色痕跡。他的母親瑪麗亞(Mariya)*解釋道，這是載著度假者往返蓋特威克機場的飛機留下的尾跡。
Their own home is near Kyiv’s main airport. The area took a pasting in the first few days of the invasion because Vladimir Putin hoped to land troops near there.
他們自己的家就在基輔主要機場附近。在入侵的最初幾天裏，該地區遭受了重創，因爲弗拉基米爾•普丁(Vladimir Putin)希望在那附近登陸部隊。
Mariya bundled her two children into her car and drove lickety split to Moldova and safety. She arrived in the UK a couple of months later with nothing more than the clothes the family was wearing, a single suitcase and her enthusiasm for 19th-century literature.
瑪麗亞把兩個孩子塞進車裏，飛快地駛向摩爾多瓦和安全的地方。幾個月後，她帶著全家人身上穿著的衣服、一個手提箱和她對19世紀文學的熱情來到了英國。
This column would be more arresting if I could write that my wife and I battled intransigent British bureaucracy to get Mariya and her boys out of Moldova. One colleague had epic difficulties with the visa-wrangling nabobs of the Home Office.
如果我能寫下我和妻子爲讓瑪麗亞和她的兒子們離開摩爾多瓦而與頑固的英國官僚機構鬥爭的故事，這篇專欄文章會更引人注目。一位同事與內政部的權貴們就簽證問題打交道時曾遭遇史無前例的困難。
But for us, everything worked like clockwork. The Homes for Ukraine team at Bromley Council were fast, well-informed and efficient. A kind old official who looked like Santa turned up to welcome Mariya and her boys. He advised me to put a picket fence across the middle of our garden so the two-year-old could not fall into the pond.
但對我們來說，一切都井然有序。布羅姆利議會的烏克蘭之家(Homes for Ukraine)團隊行動迅速，訊息靈通，效率高。一位看起來像聖誕老人一樣和藹的老官員前來歡迎瑪麗亞和她的孩子們。他建議我在花園中間加一道籬笆，這樣兩歲的孩子就不會掉進池塘裏了。
I sweated over this job for most of one hot Saturday in June. Returning from the park that afternoon, Oleksii vaulted the fence so he could inspect the new infrastructure. Little Dmytro appeared too. Solicitously, Oleksii lifted his brother over the barrier so he could also see what I had been doing — from behind the fence that was supposed to keep him out.
在六月一個炎熱的週六，我爲了這件事汗流浹背。那天下午，阿列克謝從公園回來，翻過柵欄，檢查這件新的基礎設施。小德米特羅(Dmytro)也來了。阿列克謝很關心地把他的弟弟抱過柵欄，讓他也能看到我在做什麼——然而柵欄本來是爲了把他擋在外面的。
The garden has been the scene of much other activity: kickabouts, swingball duels and some well-meaning but overenthusiastic help with watering.
這個花園還進行了許多其他活動：踢球、鞦韆決鬥，還有一些善意但過於熱情的澆水幫助。
We planted sweetcorn together. My family had regarded this as an insipid food, encountered floating despondently in lukewarm soup in British canteen serving areas. Mariya said that a person has not lived until they have eaten maize cooked straight off the plant.
我們一起種了甜玉米。我的家人一直認爲這是一種平淡無味的食物，英國食堂供應區不冷不熱的湯裏就飄著玉米。瑪麗亞說，一個人如果沒有喫過直接從玉米秸稈上摘下來的玉米，就不算活過。
Roots pushed out into British soil: weakly at first, then strongly. The ears of corn were delicious.
玉米的根伸進了英國的土壤：起初很虛弱，後來長得很好。玉米穗非常美味。
The family, members of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking community like President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, now switch comfortably between that language and English. Mariya has to stay on the boys’ case to ensure they keep up their Ukrainian.
全家人——來自烏克蘭俄語區，和烏克蘭總統弗拉基米爾•澤倫斯基(Volodymyr Zelenskyy)一樣，——現在都可以自如地在俄語和英語之間切換。瑪麗亞必須時刻關注孩子們的情況，確保他們保持烏克蘭語水準。
The house share has worked out. We have become friends. Mariya says it is like borscht, her signature dish. Get the ingredients right and the recipe will succeed.
房屋分配的問題已經解決了。我們成了朋友。瑪麗亞說這就像她的招牌菜羅宋湯。只要配料正確，食譜就會成功。
She found places for her kids at nursery and the local school. She took a part-time job — well below her pay and seniority back home as an IT project manager. But she is glad of the work. It is a step on the ladder.
她爲孩子們找到了合適的託兒所和當地學校。她找了一份兼職工作——遠遠低於她在烏克蘭國內做IT項目經理的薪水和資歷。但她很喜歡這份工作。這是登上梯子的一步。
Now she has secured a small flat on the street where we live. It is another step on the ladder.
現在她在我們住的那條街上租了一套小公寓。這是登上梯子的另一步。
For Mariya, the UK is both daunting and fascinating. But she is young, enterprising and hopeful. These are useful qualities for new arrivals in London, a city that can be merciless as well as accommodating to those of limited means.
對瑪麗亞來說，英國既令人生畏又令人著迷。但她很年輕，有進取心，充滿希望。對於剛到倫敦的人來說，這些都是有用的品質。倫敦這座城市對經濟條件有限的人既可以無情，也可以包容。
Like every refugee ever, Mariya is learning to crack the codes of a foreign society. We have tried to explain the UK to her. We did not bother unpicking the class system. We do not understand that ourselves; perhaps nobody does.
和所有難民一樣，瑪麗亞也在學習破解異國社會的密碼。我們試圖向她解釋英國。我們沒有費心去解讀階級制度。我們自己也不明白，也許沒有人明白。
No one knows how this story ends, either. Mariya wants to resume her interrupted life in Ukraine. But even a brief trip exposes her children to the Russian bombing she has sacrificed so much to avoid. Both armies are stalemated in the east, in conditions the men of my family experienced on the western front in the first world war.
也沒有人知道這個故事的結局。瑪麗亞想恢復她在烏克蘭中斷的生活。但即使是可能會讓她的孩子遭遇俄羅斯轟炸的短暫行程，她也做出了巨大的犧牲來避免。兩軍在東線都陷入了僵局，就像我的家人在第一次世界大戰中在西線所經歷的那樣。
Meanwhile, Ukraine risks becoming, in the words of a gloomy friend who helps sweep up after African conflicts, “just another of the world’s forgotten wars”.
與此同時，用一位幫助清理非洲衝突的悲觀朋友的話來說，烏克蘭有可能成爲「世界上又一場被遺忘的戰爭」。
But this spring I will plant sweetcorn. And this autumn, we will eat the fresh cobs and think of Ilya and Mariya.
但是今年春天我要種甜玉米。今年秋天，我們要喫著新鮮的玉米棒，想著伊利亞和瑪麗亞。
*some names have been changed
*有些名字已更改