Joshua Cohen - Book of Numbers

“No family is intact,” I said, and settled my plate. “No family is intact but the family of the dead.”

“I am sorry,” clipped, gruff, “but your meaning?”

“So you’ve forgotten the beginning of our book?”

He frowned, “That is the beginning?”

“Sure is.”

Then he said, “Indefinitely,” by which he must’ve meant “undoubtedly” or “indubitably.”

“A pleasure, Dietmar Klug,” I said.

He gripped me weakly, then throttled his neard, his neckbeard.

All the significance was already plated: just behind us were Anglo steamtrays of eggs, lipidinous wursts and rashers of bacon, puddings, hashbrowns, beans, mushrooms, tomato hemispheres, and behind that a jointly controlled French and German zone of what would’ve been a continental frühstück if consumed on another continent, the crepes and quark streusels preserved by marmalades and juice and milk selections from venturing into the Asian stations of noried rice, and yet all he’d hoarded was a, I’ll traduce it for him, canapé.

As I chairbacked my tote and sat against it he picked up that plug of kornbrot and shook its mayosmeared hamfleck into his napkin, then took a dainty bite of the stale rusky round to chew over the coffee or tea question, before finally spitting crust in English, “I would have please a Heifeweizen,” which compelled the server to ask not him but me, “Room number, sir?” Trust Aar to cover the cost.

Dietmar, Diet, had to wiggle his seat out and hunch just to face me. “OK, so first it is complete unjust,” he said.

“What is?”

“OK, so first the amount, with schedule. To do the book by one month is two chapters every day, also Saturday, also Sunday, and that is 10 or 12 hours each and I have children. Second, the way it is that we must receive chapters from you each at a time is maybe how other translators work but not myself. To translate I require the complete text at all times to ensure the consistency and also the style. Consistent mood and style. I know you will say you have the editor to take care of that but you do not edit the same way because I do not have the agent to do this for me. I also have things to say about the contract. But wait.”

“I’m waiting, but you’re getting me mixed up.”

“Ja, ja, you mix me up the worse. The title must not be in German the same. Duskovites means in German just nothing. Dämmerung-Kinder as Schmöker suggested is bad, however, very bad. I will think of the better title for you. I have thought potentials already but we will put in the contract extra if I do that and you use.”

“Again, calm down, you’re talking to the wrong guy.”

“No, I requested to talk with the American publisher because Schmöker would not pass my worries and finally was vengeful of my influence. He said I was to go talk to you directly if I was sure I had a sense. I do, I have a sense. For pertinence this second volume must extend the plot of the twisted horn and to resolve also whether the unicorn can pass between the dimension zippers because in volume 3 it was no but in volumes 2 and 1 it was otherwise and between them nothing was explained about it.”

“I understand.”

“Also for the 10–16 year olds like for my children the erotic pretext of the frozen marquise is not appropriate.”

“Finished?”

“Ja, ja.”

“So you write yourself?” hoping to humor or just waylay his concerns halfway among the condiments, but his beer came.

He muzzled a toast and drank and dripped liberally from his neard, staining the lapels of his windie.

“So what are you translating now?”

He waried, “Truth?”

“Nothing but.”

“Scheiße, other series. You test me that I do not tell but I have read the contracts.”

“This isn’t a test. Trust me to trust your discretion — just moneywork, then?”

“Ja, ja,” he laughed, “translation is for money. Dress and feed two girls with only English.”

“What would you choose to translate, if the money weren’t an issue?”

“Truth again?”

“Try me.”

“I like translating what I do, the Americans, romane, sachbücher, fiction like not fiction. It is not much, the work, you can even put it all into a computer the syntactics are so basic.”

“American books are written by computer.”

“The series we do is written for children but it is the same as the books for adult, the same identical differentiality, no?”

“Difficulty?”

“Quatsch, quatsch. It’s not very much at all.”

“So the dream is being lived?”

“Or once again if I retire and do not die I will write poesie,” and then he was assessing all around us again, and the ceiling too, as if he were inspecting the sprinkler system.

I said to change it up, “What room are you in?”

“Gallus neighborhood.”

“Do you come every year to the Messe?”

“Every month and every week and day it is like I go to this stumpfes Messe, because I live here.”

Translation, by repetition, “You live here as in Frankfurt?”

“Ich bin ein Frankfurter. Sie sind ein Hamburger.”

The beans and mushrooms were already ladled away, and the tomatoes followed. My mug was cold but the servers were disinclined to refill it, the frühstück hall was sparse with late and sluggard headaches, all the guests who’d make a differentiality today had gone, frühstück hours would be over in 10 or so minutes by the cheapo digiwatch my companion kept switching between his wrists and already even the occupied tables were being bussed.

Last chance, “ Keine Familie ist ganz —you remember?”

“A book?”

“A book you did. About Jews, the Shoah. American. 2002, this would’ve been around.”

“I did at that time but also before many books on Juden.”

“Which was your favorite?”

But he was lost to me, “And now if not the books for children it is many books on Islam.”

“This one was special. To me at least.”

“The Juden books I don’t know.”

“Don’t hold back.”

“They are wrote to not be read I think.”

“Just bought, you mean? Guilt purchases?”

“I mean — no, no,” and he rubberbanded his hair back, “that they are wrote by writers who do not live today for readers who read who are not the people today with the problems,” and picked his scalp, “totally not like life, or like nothing has happened between the war and date of publishing,” and peeled a scab, “my English is not so good to conversate — identität ist nur rassismus, ein buch für juden ist kein buch für den menschen,” and he reeled in his chair — definitively, undoubtedly, indubitably, perturbed.

“A shame you feel that way.”

But he jumped up and backhanded smacked himself, his watch imprinting buttons.

He yelled, “My life is fuck — it fuck — scheiße, I am sorry fully, apologize fully, I never meant to do not,” and he covered his mouth with his hands.

“Please.”

“I hope I did not insult because this is a job I require and the series is wunderbar and Crown to me and Mrs. Janet Dofts at Crown Books has been wunderbar.”

“Of course, of course.”

“This is living money for me.”

“Obviously, no offense.”

But his jaw convulsed, “Two girls, one translator, Dietmar Klug.”