by Isabelle Li
You observe Walter from the corner of your eye, while trying to understand David, and envisage a machine wearing your body and clothes while your own mind lives in a server somewhere, feeling the robot’s every movement.
He is ten metres from you, talking to someone. How do you introduce yourself?
You’ve read plenty of poetry translations, mostly in disappointment and sometimes in disgust. ‘Rubbish!’ You toss the book into a corner, watching it slide down onto the floor and clam its pages in shame. Then you pick it up, going through it line by line, marking the errors, omissions and misrepresentations. You’re puzzled by the print errors of the original poems. If the poets don’t care, why should anyone?
Walter is different, though. He’s not made one print error in any of his publications. He’s said to have a huge ego—why not, if that’s what it takes? His work has not been translated. You’ve checked the Literary Council’s funding schemes. You need him to apply with you. But money is just an excuse. You’d do it for free, for love. You’ve planned to meet him this evening, and talk to him about the multiple dimensions of poetry translation. He is studying Japanese because he’s interested in reading Basho’s original. You can’t cope with Japanese minimalism—it’s already a diluted language and would evaporate if further reduced.
Right now he’s talking to a woman who must be the most important person in the world and you can’t possibly interrupt. But someone’s done it for you! A very lovely young man says hello to Walter’s meretricious friend, and for a moment, probably out of boredom, he looks up in this direction, and lo and behold, your eyes meet.
You abandon David with a quick ‘Excuse me’. No time to say: Sorry, we’ll discuss anything scientific or fictional or speculative later. You lock in Walter’s eyes and shoot forward like an arrow, the air vibrating around your ears. You flash an intimate smile, like an acknowledgment between secret lovers in a public place. He seems momentarily confused, perhaps thinking that you know each other. As you extend your slender arm, letting your hand fall from midair, he has no choice but to catch it like a cricket ball, and the two hands cement into a solid handshake.
‘Crystal. Writer, translator.’ He reads from your blue name card with silver bamboo leaves. ‘Nice to meet you, Crystal.’ His manner is similar to his sinewy style of writing, terse, perfect and forbidding.
You have to say something radical. You gather all your courage and tell him that you’ve read so much of his work that you feel this is not a first encounter but a reunion. He is surprised by your forwardness, but his face opens up. He tries to be humble but he can’t help asking which of his books you’ve read. In fact, you’ve read all his collections, and the others from various websites.
He looks like a child when he’s delighted. ‘You must be the second person in this world who’s read all my published work.’
‘That other person is you?’
‘I didn’t count myself. It’s my agent I’m thinking about.’ His face twitches as if he’s been stung. ‘My ex-agent, I should say. It’s a doomed affair.’
You know the scandal, the divorce, the break-up, the depression, and the three years of lying fallow. ‘Well, love is always a question mark.’ You try to sound sympathetic.
‘The lover looks up to the sickle moon …’ He gestures a question mark in the air. ‘And lowers his head with a teardrop.’
You ask about the comma.
‘A comma is a kiss—there’s a lingering tail when the lips are parted. But it’s not the end and the lovers are sentenced for a period.’
You laugh. ‘And an exclamation mark?’
‘It’s getting a little messy—it drips a bit,’ he whispers in your ear and winks.
You don’t know how to respond. Does he think you’re one of his fans with whom he can have his way? Is this a dare?
He’s gone on to relate an anecdote about a misplaced semicolon. The son of a Unitarian Church leader, he’s naturally eloquent. You’ve had numerous imaginary conversations with him, but none like this.
After he’s said enough about punctuation, he folds his arms and asks the question he must have been resisting for a while: ‘So which poem of mine is your favourite?’
That’s an easy question. ‘“Falling Forever”—I agree with the prize judges. It’s beautiful and rhythmic; but one can say that about any good poem. I assess poems based on how quotable they are. It’s customary among Chinese. I recite the poem to myself whenever I find communal gossip suffocating.’
He turns pensive. ‘I wrote it at a time when everyone knew about my affair, though ironically it had ended by then, badly.’
Maybe you should ask about it? He seems desperate to tell. He’s not over it yet. But he’s making an effort and starts to talk about translation. ‘Do you know the French expression les belles infidèles? Some suggest that translation is like a woman, either faithful or beautiful, but not both.’
That’s a very biased comment, but it’s getting closer to your topic of the night. ‘A competent translator should be adept in deciding when to translate literally to maintain the fidelity, and when to paraphrase more loosely to preserve the beauty. So translation is indeed like a woman—she has to choose wisely.’
He’s stopped scanning the crowd every other second, and starts telling you about a book launch he’s been to where he came across the poems by a Song dynasty woman poet. ‘One of whose names, I think, is Li.’
‘Li Qingzhao.’ It’s a well-known name in China.
‘Sounds right—though I won’t dare to repeat it. Seems she wrote about metre and form.’
This is the moment you should elaborate on the aesthetic tradition of Chinese poems, the challenges in their translation, the trade-off between meaning and form, etc.
But there’s a cry, or a number of cries, erupting behind you.
It’s your chubby friend. He’s collapsed!
You push your way through. What’s happened? Seizure? Stroke? Heart attack? You’re supposed to know what to do. You did a full day of translation for the first-aid training of Chinese mining workers, and you’re trained to handle emergency situations because of the Chinese tours. Also, your mother’s a doctor.
‘David!’ You kneel next to him. ‘David!’
He’s not responding. He’s lying in a strange position, as if he’s in a movie scene, mocking himself by putting up a poor performance. The first thing is to check his airway. You straighten his head, put your palm on his forehead to tilt it back, and with the other hand you lift his chin and open his mouth. The smell of a concoction of canapés—most prominently, salmon. Thankfully, the airway is clear. Now feel his breath while holding yours: put your face next to his mouth and feel the air on your cheek; observe the subtle rise and fall of his chest. Yes, he’s breathing all right. Now lay his right arm next to his head, as if he’s waving goodbye to the crowd. What an inauspicious thought. Then his left hand on his right cheek, as if he has a toothache. Roll him. A few helping hands join in, including Walter’s. David is now on his right side. You bend his left leg, and he’s securely laid out in the recovery position.
The ambulance is on its way. A security guard directs people to allow room for the paramedics.
‘Is there a doctor?’ someone asks.
‘I am.’ It’s the old gentleman holding an empty glass standing right behind you. ‘She’s doing everything right.’
With the doctor’s instruction, you fumble in David’s pocket and find insulin in a pouch, next to a condom.
‘He might have taken too much insulin. Try giving him something sweet. It won’t hurt.’
A waitress brings some diluted syrup.
‘Won’t he choke?’ you ask the doctor.
‘Do it slowly.’
No point in asking him to do it. He’d say he’s had too much to drink. You feed David half a spoon, then another couple of spoons.
He opens his eyes.
You pick up the book and place it in his hand. It’s his own name on the cover.
The paramedics arrive. They check him over and give him an injection. All is good. He doesn’t need to go in the ambulance. The guard escorts him out after giving you the thumbs-up.
‘Well done.’ Walter has stayed. Lesson: you must always prove yourself, particularly to someone you admire. He raises his wineglass while glancing at the orange juice you are gulping down. ‘You must have heard of the expression in vino veritas?’
You think of all the drunken people you’ve had to deal with during the tours. ‘I’ve seen people drink themselves silly. Their personalities don’t change, just become amplified: the braggarts continue to boast, and the uncouth become vulgar.’
‘I’m with you. It’s impolite, though, for a man not to drink in the company of a beautiful woman.’ He smiles, as if unaware of the seduction in his words. He must have said this before, often.
You need to rein the conversation back to poetry. ‘In your writing there’s a sense of longing, so poignant, like pain.’
‘Perhaps I’m waiting for love to grace my existence.’ He crosses his arms and rubs his chin.
‘But love is a verb, an action.’
He chuckles. ‘You talk like a woman.’
‘It’s sacrifice and devotion.’
‘Now you talk like the moral police, a crusader!’ He’s willing to hurt his opponent just to win an argument.
You’ve bored him now.
The dark-skinned waiter comes by. You pick up a glass of white, lured by its chill.
‘Wow! Slow down.’ Walter seems concerned but also amused.
You empty the glass. ‘In vino veritas. I came to this function, wanting to meet you. I love your work and would like to translate it. I have no track record. So I prepared a list of topics to discuss with you, to convince you. But in a social setting like this, I don’t know how to bridge banality to beauty.’ Your head is spinning as you turn abruptly and walk off.
Drizzling. The wet surface of the bitumen is bright with reflections. Your feet are sore, and you don’t have an umbrella.
You wave to the stream of traffic. You would be watching the meter jump, while chatting to the chap from the subcontinent with a PhD. But no taxi stops for you. The night is young and the city is on the move.
Why should you argue with him—you’re not his wife, nor ex-wife, not his lover, nor ex-lover, not even a friend. You think you know him, but you don’t. You only know his work, his words. What do you expect? It’s difficult for anyone to live as a mortal yet speak with an angel’s tongue. Now a disastrous first impression has ruined all your chances.
A taxi pulls over. The window winds down and it’s David’s face. You hop in. It turns out you live close to each other.
‘What if my place was far away?’ you ask.
‘We’d go to mine and I’d drive you home. I didn’t drink much.’
You feel a rush of gratitude.
‘You’re pretty awesome, resurrecting me.’
‘Sure, I also walk on water.’ Actually, you still feel guilty for abandoning him earlier. ‘So you write science fiction.’
‘I’m also an android.’
You laugh, and recall the condom in his pocket.
‘You want to read it?’ He hands you the book.
‘I’ll give you mine when it’s published.’
‘Can’t wait.’
At the vestibule you step out of your heels and climb the carpeted stairs barefoot. Inside your unit you walk out of your outfit, defeated, but not without your dignity. You open the balcony door to let in the mist of Middle Harbour, then tidy up the place, despite your headache.
You run your hands across the books jam-packed on the shelves, a garden of flowers, where poetry is the rose. It’s a bit thorny at the moment, but one day it’ll reward you with resplendence. Not many people can do what you can, but unfortunately not many people can recognise that, either. You’re a star waiting to be discovered. But who has the telescopic vision to see you when you’re a loner, an outcast, not orbiting within any constellation?
Your head is not getting any better under the shower.
You crash into bed.
You can relax now. The day, with all its drama, excitement and heartache, is over. And you’re fortunate to have been able to relish it in two tongues. Your arms feel lighter. You fall upwards and float among the stars. There’s so much to read, to translate and to write. Even two tongues can’t tell all the tales.
Acknowledgments
The following stories have been previously published:
‘A Chinese Affair’ in What You Do and Don’t Want: ‘UTS Writers’ Anthology 2007 (ABC Books, Sydney, 2007); The Best Australian Stories 2007 (Black Inc., Melbourne, 2007); and Something Special, Something Rare: Outstanding Short Stories by Australian Women (Black Inc., Melbourne, 2015).
‘A Fishbone in the Throat’ in Southerly, vol. 68, no. 3 (Brandl & Schlesinger, Blackheath, 2008); and New Australian Stories 2009 (Scribe, Carlton North, 2009).
‘As Green as Blue’ in We All Need A Witness: UTS Writers’ Anthology 2008 (Brandl & Schlesinger, Blackheath, 2008); and The Best Australian Stories 2008 (Black Inc., Melbourne, 2008).
‘Blue Lotus’ in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, no. 14 (2011).
‘The Floating Fragrance’ in Nine Tenths Below: UTS Writers’ Anthology 2005 (Halstead Press, Sydney, 2005).
‘Pebbles and Flowers’ in On the Side: UTS Writers’ Anthology 2009 (Brandl & Schlesinger, Blackheath, 2009).
‘Lyrebird’ in Sleepers Almanac No. 7 (Sleepers Publishing, Melbourne, 2011).
‘Narrative of Grief’ in Sleepers Almanac No. 8 (Sleepers Publishing, Melbourne, 2013).
‘Two tongues’ in Sight Lines: 2014 UTS Writers’ Anthology (Zoum Publishing, Sydney, 2014).
‘Go Troppo’ was shortlisted and commended in the Ethel Webb Bundell Literary Competition 2014.
‘Mooncake and Crab’ and ‘Shower of Gold’ were amalgamated into a script, and made into a short film, Mooncake and Crab, funded by Screen New South Wales, produced by Peachy Pictures and directed by Heng Tang.
Notes
‘Mooncake and Crab’: ‘Farewell’ is a song by Master Hong Yi (1880–1942) to the melody of ‘Dreaming of Home and Mother’ by John P. Ordway (1823–1880). The translation is mine. The line Whenever it is a merry festival, one especially longs for loved ones is from ‘Remembering My Brothers in Shandong on the Ninth of the Ninth’ by Wang Wei (692–761AD). The translation is mine.
‘A Fishbone in the Throat’: The title, an idiom in Chinese, is a metaphor for being unable to express one’s feelings.
‘As Green as Blue’: The title is from Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi’s ‘Remembrance of the South Bank’: At sunrise, the river flowers are as red as fire; in the spring, the river water is as green as blue.
‘Fountain of Gratitude’: The title is from a Chinese saying: A drop of grace should be repaid with a fountain of gratitude.
‘Blue Lotus’: The song ‘Blue Lotus’ is by Xu Wei, a rock singer/ songwriter in China.
‘Pebbles and Flowers’: The title is in reference to Bingxin’s aphorism from A Myriad of Stars (1923): The flowers and pebbles by the side of the railway, just in this second, you and I, are a chance encounter, and a farewell, in life’s eternity. The translation is mine.
‘Amnesia’: The book that Ben reads is Alexander Luria’s The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory.
‘Further South’: Excerpt from ‘Daisy Bell’ by Harry Dacre (1857–1992).
‘Go Troppo’: The phrase ‘swift, uplifting rush’ is adapted from an anonymous poem ‘Do not Stand at My Grave and Weep’;-You are far away, and I don’t know what has become of you— one of Milan Kundera’s definitions of ‘nostalgia’ in Ignorance (Faber & Faber, London, 2002); The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you and Could I whisper in your ear a dream I’ve had? You’re the only one I’ve told this to are from The Essential Rumi (HarperOne, New York, 2004); To see a world in a grain of sand is from William
Blake’s poem ‘Auguries of Innocence’.
‘Two Tongues’: The phrase ‘Pathos and Pity’ is from Wallace Stevens’s poem ‘Lunar Paraphrase’.