Diego Marani - The Interpreter

‘This is Felix Bellamy. I’ve just robbed the Astori Service Station on the A576. I’m the person who killed Radu, the one you wanted to chop up and sell by the kilo, the one who will eventually do for the lot of you, one by one!’

I’d burst out into peals of vicious laughter, turn off the phone, close my eyes and stretch out on the seat, waiting until the blare of sirens had died down on the main road. I’d set off again a few hours later, quite unfazed, driving coolly past the station I’d just ransacked. I often slept in the car; sometimes, when I felt insecure, I’d drive into a town, select a smart hotel and stay there for a day or two. I was sorry to have to throw Radu’s mobile away when the battery ran down; it amused me to terrorise his friends with my phone calls. But by now I no longer needed to build up a reputation; at least some of the fur-hatted surgeon’s henchmen would not have had a good night’s sleep for quite some time.

For the brief period when I was travelling the roads of Romania like a buccaneer, my physical problem seemed to vanish. My convulsions became rarer, I no longer suffered from nausea or dizziness; even the raging sweating fits to which I had previously been subject, leaving me in a state of utter prostration, suddenly stopped. I had a hearty appetite, and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep the moment my head touched the pillow. I would wake up refreshed, clear-headed, my mind crystalline as the morning air. I’d get back into the car and set off on my looting sprees as though they were my daily task, a new profession I had found for myself, one which I practised scrupulously and well. It was as though I were in the grip of a sort of hypnosis, as though I were obeying an instinct. I knew that what I was doing was monstrous, but I had no sense of guilt; taking out my gun and pointing it at the defenceless clients of the petrol stations I found along my way had become a bodily need, an impulse I could not resist. I was acting like an animal; for the few minutes my assaults lasted, I truly felt that I had been transformed into some lesser being. I must have cut a terrifying figure, because people backed off even before I pulled out my gun. Perhaps my face took on the rapacious look of the interpreter; perhaps, like his, my words came out as eldritch howls; yet when I looked at myself in the rear-view mirror when I got back into the car, my face looked completely normal, and it was only slowly that I realised what I had done. My baffled mind was a brazier in which a great fire had at last been extinguished, still clouded by dense smoke; all that remained after such devastation was shrouded in fog.

I was going to have to get rid of Radu’s car; it was beginning to arouse suspicion, even in the remote mountain service stations where I went to fill up with petrol to avoid the A576. One afternoon, driving towards Cluj, where I was intending to spend the night, I noticed the hangar of a brand new shoe factory just off the road, with several luxury cars with foreign number plates parked outside it. I turned off the engine and peered at the prefabricated building through the wire netting. Suddenly I heard a blind go down, then, one by one, all the lights went out. I picked up Radu’s rucksack, got out of the car and slithered down the grass bank until I came to the point where the wire netting ended. I saw a group of people come out of the building and gather for a few minutes on the gravel, chatting and smoking before throwing down their butt ends and getting into their cars, driving off rapidly down the road which was now vanishing into the evening mist. Once clear of the gates, one of them — a grey Mercedes — had drawn up in the darkness to the side of the little road, well clear of the streetlights. A man got out, holding a mobile phone to his ear, walking and talking at the same time, staring at the tips of his shoes. I ran down the hill a little further and took up a position at the edge of the ditch, in order to have a better view. I couldn’t see anything inside the car; the tinted windows reflected dark reddish clouds. The man carried on talking. Numb with cold as he probably was, he had one of his hands in his pocket. I could see his breath above the boot; I leapt across the ditch, threw open the car door and jumped in, hearing him shout as I turned the engine on. I heard gunfire, and a bang on the boot lid; while I was watching the man turn around and try vainly to run after me, I felt a pair of cold hands pressing on my throat, and pointed nails digging into my eyes. I braked sharply, turned round on the seat as best I could and directed a few vicious punches in the direction of my assailant before driving on at speed, my tyres smoldering on the asphalt. I hit something soft and yielding, whose scent would linger on my sleeve for quite some time. I heard a gasp, a coughing fit, and then a feeble moan from time to time. I left the A576, drove up into the mountains for a few kilometres and stopped at the edge of a village; I got out of the car and opened the back door, to find a young girl curled up on the seat, just visible in the yellow glow of the safety light. I made a cautious move in her direction, but she instantly began kicking and shrieking like a madwoman. Afraid of attracting attention, I got in and drove off again, in search of a suitable place both to rob a Romanian car and to rid myself of my unwelcome visitor. I drove slowly, down dark empty roads, through nameless villages, past isolated farms, by empty haylofts and old agricultural machinery sunk in the dripping mist of dismal fields.

‘I didn’t mean to hurt you!’ I tried saying in Romanian, peering at my prisoner in the rear-view mirror, but she was too terrified to answer; she was breathing with difficulty and sobbing quietly.

‘Don’t be afraid. I won’t come anywhere near you!’ I insisted. ‘All I’m interested in is the car. As soon as we’re back on the main road I’ll let you out, I promise!’

That seemed to calm her down, though she continued sobbing; she sat stock-still, watching my every movement.

‘And where would you drop me? On the roadside?’ she asked after a bit.

‘I’ll drive you wherever you want to go,’ I told her gallantly.

‘I want to go to Cluj, to my hotel,’ she said testily, between sobs.

‘I can’t go to Cluj with this car, at least not until I’ve changed the number plate. I’d have the police straight on my tail!’ I objected politely but firmly.

‘So what are we going to do?’ she asked plaintively.

‘Haven’t you got a mobile?’ I was beginning to lose patience.

‘The battery’s flat. And my clients are waiting for me at Cluj, for a working dinner!’ Now she too was becoming angry.

‘Then I’ll take you back to the factory and you can phone from there for someone to pick you up,’ I suggested.

‘The factory will be closed by now!’

‘There must be a guard. We could break a window!’ I snapped back, irritated by her quibbles.

Drying her eyes, she nodded. I heard her blowing her nose; her breathing was now almost normal.

I turned the car round in search of a road that ran downhill. It was raining heavily; the headlights served almost no purpose, staining the mist yellow but not shining through it.

‘We can speak French if you prefer,’ the girl said suddenly, in perfect French.

I raised my eyes to look in the rear mirror, seeking her out in the dark.

‘French? Are you French?’ I asked more cordially, delighted to have a chance to speak my native tongue.

‘No, I’m Romanian. I’m an interpreter.’

At those words, pain blossomed in my stomach, a short-lived cramp clenching my vital organs.

‘An interpreter?’ I repeated blankly.

‘What about you? I don’t think you’re Romanian. Am I right?’