Diego Marani - The Interpreter

I would come home late in those days, and even spend some time at the office at weekends. In order to reorganise the department I had to make a thorough study of how it worked, to analyse statistics, compare costs and check on the legal underpinnings of the reforms I was preparing to bring in. My promised assistant did not materialise, so I had to do all the work myself. Irene didn’t have much patience with this new job of mine; she thought I was being overzealous. At first, she merely teased me about it.

‘You’re the only one in that place who’s doing two jobs for the price of one! They should give you two pensions, or at least publish two obituaries when you drop dead at your desk of a heart attack!’ she would say to me with a bitter laugh when I picked up my bulging briefcase to go to work of a Saturday morning.

But the situation showed no signs of easing up, and I also found myself obliged to take on other duties, attending long and frequent official events at other international institutions in Europe and North America. Irene began to accuse me of deserting her.

One Sunday afternoon, when I had had to go into the office yet again — to trawl through the archives for files relating to some accounts queries — all of a sudden the sky was swept free of clouds, and a burst of sunlight filtered determinedly through the slats of the dusty blinds; and that light told me something, it stirred some memory which warmed my heart. I slapped shut the folders I was looking through, gathered up my things and rushed home. I wanted to take Irene to the lake; we would catch the ferry and go to get a bit of sun on the terrace of an old café where we were regulars. On the way, I broke out into a run, but started sweating and stopped to take off my coat. I dashed into the house, puffing and panting, and called out as I always did, looking up at the white banisters on the stairway. But my voice died away in the emptiness. I went into the living room, threw my briefcase and overcoat down on the sofa and went up to the first floor. I called out again, thinking that perhaps Irene was hiding, playing a joke on me, as she used to when we were first married. Laughing, I opened the cupboard doors, drew back the curtains around the bed, looked behind doors, certain I’d find her hiding place. But Irene wasn’t there. I went back slowly down the stairs and sat on the sofa, somewhat concerned by now. In the garden, shaken by a slight breeze, my roses were coming into bud, the dew on them sparkling in the sun. In my mind’s eye, I saw the first sails swelling on the lake, the green lawns at its edges teeming with people, the ferry cleaving the foaming water as it approached the jetty where our café awaited us with its peeling paintwork; the only clients at that time of day would be anxious little old ladies wearing white shoes. I looked towards the corridor, straining my ears; I thought I’d heard a noise, but it was just the creaking of old wood. I remember that I dozed off, huddled in my overcoat and, strangely, I remember smiling in my sleep. Irene came into the room, causing the door to squeak, but seeing me asleep she crept away again; I caught a glimpse of her with her raincoat and her umbrella still in her hand. Then all that remained of her was a gust of cold air and the smell of her scent. It was already late; the sun had gone down behind the trees. In the garden, my roses were now still, their heads as stiff and fragile as glass baubles. I could feel the blood beating in my temples and a bluish mist swam before my eyes; I felt cold, numbed by that unnatural sleep. Suddenly I had the irritating feeling of having wasted time; then I felt a cold sadness creeping over me like a snake, slithering over Irene’s furniture, slinking under the door and engulfing our whole house in its deathly grip.

A few days later, I found him sitting waiting for me in the brown armchair outside my office. The moment he stood up to greet me I could instantly smell the bitter scent of freshly planed wood which, from then onwards, would always forewarn me of one of his tempestuous visits, or of his hidden presence in various entrance halls, corridors or conference halls, as though he had just passed by, leaving a poisonous odour in his wake. I sat down at my desk and looked closely at that ever labile face which, when I have looked at it for a few moments, even today continues to dissolve before my very eyes, never to be retrieved. It is not a face, it is a mask: tomorrow, today’s wrinkles will have changed their course like wadis in a desert; tomorrow, today’s pale eyes will have become black empty holes; tomorrow, today’s generous mouth will have become a bloodless gash in the cold flesh of a corpse, and tomorrow the silky darkness of his hair will be like stubble, or indeed his skull may now resemble a round bone, monstrously swollen above a neck seamed with black veins.

‘What can I do for you?’ I would have liked to use his name, but I’d already forgotten it. I hid my embarrassment by fiddling around with the pile of signed and stamped papers from the file which the ever-eager secretary had laid out on my desk.

‘It’s about the report,’ he said, after a fit of coughing.

‘Ah, the report…’ I pretended not to know what he was talking about and shot him an expectant look.

‘Stauber’s report — Stauber is my superior,’ he explained.

‘Tell me more,’ I said encouragingly. At first he hesitated, twisting his hands and seeking the first words of a speech he must already have given several times.

‘It’s nothing but a tissue of brazen lies. It isn’t true that I translate badly, or that I utter meaningless words. It isn’t true that I’m silent for minutes on end, or that I rave into the microphone — you can come and listen to me if you like. And above all, I’m not ill — so don’t dredge up that schizophrenia story again! The psychiatrist can say whatever he likes: I’m the only person inside my head, and only I know what goes on there! As to those sounds, I’ve explained about them time and again. How can it be that no one will listen to me? They’re not senseless noises, they’re a language! A secret language! I can hear it swirling through my mind, flowing through my head, cutting across all the rest like a hidden thread! And I repeat those sounds, when they well up, in order to capture that language, to fix it in my mind. I don’t know how I became aware of them — probably unconsciously, like so many invisible seeds hidden within the many languages I’ve studied. Coming together in my brain, they’ve taken root and sprouted, and now a mysterious language is growing within me without my realising. A process as old as man is taking place in my head: the birth of a new language! Or perhaps the rebirth of an old one, forgotten by mankind!’

His voice had been calm at first, but now it was beginning to sound agitated; the words were pouring from him, angry and forceful. He was seated on the edge of his chair, his forearms on the desk, his hands stretched towards my own as though he wanted to seize them.

‘Let’s make a pact then, shall we, the two of us?’ He made a questioning gesture which demanded a reply. I gave a quick nod. The interpreter took a deep breath and went on:

‘Give me time. Just give me time, and I’ll find out what’s happening, you’ll see. Above all, let me carry on interpreting! It’s in the electrolysis of simultaneous interpreting that it all takes place — when words of one language detach themselves like electrons and go swarming off to stick themselves on to another! It’s when I hear them vibrating together, all fifteen of them, when their sounds open up like pores, like mucous membranes seeking each other out and recognising each other — it’s then, in that fleeting moment of translation, that I hear it surfacing, still faint and distant, it’s true, but entire and whole! And when I’ve tracked it down, when I’ve understood it more thoroughly and gained a certain mastery of it, then I’ll find a way of writing it down. I’ll construct its grammar and compile a dictionary; and I’ll donate the fruits of my labours to your institute, which will then be able proudly to tell mankind that it is the depository of the language of the universe, the one concealed in the eternal polar ice, the one lurking in the chasms of the oceans, the one which has commanded matter since the dawn of time!’