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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.
我们接待乌克兰难民是因为一个叫伊利亚•纽施塔特(Ilya Neustadt)的人。他是一名乌克兰犹太人，1940年德国入侵比利时时，他正在比利时学习经济学。
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.
英国收留了伊利亚。这可能使他免于被关进集中营。他后来成为了一名杰出的学者，我父母的导师和我们家的朋友。
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，一个7岁的乌克兰孩子站在我们伦敦的后花园里，也是出于类似的偶然。
“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.
“如果俄罗斯人也在向英国发射导弹，我们为什么要来英国？”阿列克谢(Oleksii)问道。他指着在蓝天上延伸的白色痕迹。他的母亲玛丽亚(Mariya)*解释道，这是载着度假者往返盖特威克机场的飞机留下的尾迹。
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.
他们自己的家就在基辅主要机场附近。在入侵的最初几天里，该地区遭受了重创，因为弗拉基米尔•普京(Vladimir Putin)希望在那附近登陆部队。
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.
玛丽亚把两个孩子塞进车里，飞快地驶向摩尔多瓦和安全的地方。几个月后，她带着全家人身上穿着的衣服、一个手提箱和她对19世纪文学的热情来到了英国。
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.
如果我能写下我和妻子为让玛丽亚和她的儿子们离开摩尔多瓦而与顽固的英国官僚机构斗争的故事，这篇专栏文章会更引人注目。一位同事与内政部的权贵们就签证问题打交道时曾遭遇史无前例的困难。
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.
但对我们来说，一切都井然有序。布罗姆利议会的乌克兰之家(Homes for Ukraine)团队行动迅速，消息灵通，效率高。一位看起来像圣诞老人一样和蔼的老官员前来欢迎玛丽亚和她的孩子们。他建议我在花园中间加一道篱笆，这样两岁的孩子就不会掉进池塘里了。
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.
在六月一个炎热的周六，我为了这件事汗流浃背。那天下午，阿列克谢从公园回来，翻过栅栏，检查这件新的基础设施。小德米特罗(Dmytro)也来了。阿列克谢很关心地把他的弟弟抱过栅栏，让他也能看到我在做什么——然而栅栏本来是为了把他挡在外面的。
The garden has been the scene of much other activity: kickabouts, swingball duels and some well-meaning but overenthusiastic help with watering.
这个花园还进行了许多其他活动：踢球、秋千决斗，还有一些善意但过于热情的浇水帮助。
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.
我们一起种了甜玉米。我的家人一直认为这是一种平淡无味的食物，英国食堂供应区不冷不热的汤里就飘着玉米。玛丽亚说，一个人如果没有吃过直接从玉米秸秆上摘下来的玉米，就不算活过。
Roots pushed out into British soil: weakly at first, then strongly. The ears of corn were delicious.
玉米的根伸进了英国的土壤：起初很虚弱，后来长得很好。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——来自乌克兰俄语区，和乌克兰总统弗拉基米尔•泽连斯基(Volodymyr Zelenskyy)一样，——现在都可以自如地在俄语和英语之间切换。玛丽亚必须时刻关注孩子们的情况，确保他们保持乌克兰语水平。
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.
房屋分配的问题已经解决了。我们成了朋友。玛丽亚说这就像她的招牌菜罗宋汤。只要配料正确，食谱就会成功。
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.
她为孩子们找到了合适的托儿所和当地学校。她找了一份兼职工作——远远低于她在乌克兰国内做IT项目经理的薪水和资历。但她很喜欢这份工作。这是登上梯子的一步。
Now she has secured a small flat on the street where we live. It is another step on the ladder.
现在她在我们住的那条街上租了一套小公寓。这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.
对玛丽亚来说，英国既令人生畏又令人着迷。但她很年轻，有进取心，充满希望。对于刚到伦敦的人来说，这些都是有用的品质。伦敦这座城市对经济条件有限的人既可以无情，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.
和所有难民一样，玛丽亚也在学习破解异国社会的密码。我们试图向她解释英国。我们没有费心去解读阶级制度。我们自己也不明白，也许没有人明白。
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.
也没有人知道这个故事的结局。玛丽亚想恢复她在乌克兰中断的生活。但即使是可能会让她的孩子遭遇俄罗斯轰炸的短暂行程，她也做出了巨大的牺牲来避免。两军在东线都陷入了僵局，就像我的家人在第一次世界大战中在西线所经历的那样。
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”.
与此同时，用一位帮助清理非洲冲突的悲观朋友的话来说，乌克兰有可能成为“世界上又一场被遗忘的战争”。
But this spring I will plant sweetcorn. And this autumn, we will eat the fresh cobs and think of Ilya and Mariya.
但是今年春天我要种甜玉米。今年秋天，我们要吃着新鲜的玉米棒，想着伊利亚和玛丽亚。
*some names have been changed
*有些名字已更改