Translator

by Nina Schuyler

  “How come you aren’t melting in this heat?” Hanne says.

  Brigitte looks up from the manual. “You adapt, eventually.”

  One of the women picks up a frayed red wire. It seems these women have to figure out everything by themselves. Finally a wire is connected to another wire and the engine turns and the tractor exhales blue smoke. There is a chorus of cheers. Brigitte says she must see how lunch is coming along. They expect sixty or so people, not including the children. Hanne watches as Brigitte whisks away. Hanne wanders out to a big tree and sits for a while in the shade, but there is no relief from the heat. She heads to the kitchen, where she finds Aruna fixing a tray for Brigitte.

  “Please let me,” says Hanne.

  Brigitte is in her room, stretched out on her bed, her eyes closed. A fan slowly churns the hot air. Hanne quietly sets down the tray of tea and sugar cubes and turns to leave.

  Brigitte stirs, opens her eyes. Her face is pale, her eyes weary.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “Just resting.”

  Hanne pulls up a chair beside her bed. She sees the dark circles under Brigitte’s eyes.

  “I’ve been thinking,” says Brigitte.

  Hanne sits up. I’ll take you wherever you want to go. Money is no object. The best care. Your hair will once again be long and dark. We will take our time, get to know each other again, burn down the bad memories.

  “Have you seen the way the dogs are treated? It breaks my heart.”

  Hanne barely holds her tongue.

  Brigitte tells her the other day she saw a man hit a skinny old dog with a stick. Broke its leg. “I tried to catch it so we could take care of it, but it limped away so fast. Poor thing. Forever scared of humans.”

  “We can be a cruel lot.”

  Brigitte goes on, talking about how they could set up an animal shelter.

  The light pours in through the open door.

  Brigitte closes her eyes. “I can’t keep my eyes open. I get these waves of tiredness.”

  Without thinking, Hanne reaches over and puts her hand on Brigitte’s forehead. Brigitte opens her eyes. Sits up. “Do you know how many times I wished you’d been there to do that?” Her voice is strained, as if she’s holding back a flood of emotions. “Your hand on my forehead. I was going to die without ever speaking to you again. Do you know that? I told myself it was because you meant nothing to me. The past is the past.” She laughs bitterly. “That’s something you’d say, and it isn’t true. With you here, I feel everything I thought I’d put to rest. My anger and sadness and those long dark years of loneliness. I’ve worked so hard to forgive or at least forget, but right now it seems I’ve gotten nowhere.” She wipes her eyes and shakes her head. “I wanted everything to be peaceful at the end.”

  “I’m so sorry, Brigitte. I’ve not been the person I wanted to be,” says Hanne.

  “Few of us are.”

  “I’ve always loved you, even if it didn’t seem that way. You are my daughter.”

  Brigitte remains silent, but Hanne feels her listening closely. When a bell chimes, Brigitte rises. Hanne stands and finds she is trembling. It’s time for school.

  Hanne follows her into the classroom and takes a seat in the back. Brigitte is teaching the children basic French. Hanne tries to pay attention, but she keeps hearing Brigitte’s words, Those long dark years of loneliness. Hanne’s heart is tender, bruised, as if it’s been dropped. When they break into small groups, a small girl with huge brown eyes comes over to Hanne.

  “Please, can you read French?” She shows Hanne a book of fairy tales. Hanne nods, all the while watching her daughter speak French to a group of five children. The girl pulls a chair beside her. Hanne asks her to pick her favorite. The girl turns to The Princess and the Pea and Hanne begins to read.

  It is night. Aruna finds Hanne in her room. Maybe Hanne would like to see the Ganges river worship ceremony? “Foreigners enjoy this,” says Aruna.

  “Is Brigitte all right?” says Hanne.

  Aruna pauses. “She is so tired sometimes.”

  She hopes that’s what it is, but worries it’s something else: Brigitte needs a break from her, a permanent break. I was going to die without ever speaking to you again.

  Aruna hands her a scarf to wear, as women must cover their heads for the ceremony. They head down the main road, and as they get closer to the river, Hanne hears the low roar of a crowd, along with bells and a loudspeaker playing Indian music, music in praise of Ganga Maiya and Shiva, says Aruna.

  One big spiritual circus, thinks Hanne. Look at all the trinkets for sale—colorful powders and stones and necklaces and flower petals and candles. How could anyone find this otherworldly? A connection to anything other than the claustrophobic crush of flesh?

  Hanne can’t see the river, only the throngs of Indians clamoring along its banks. She follows Aruna, who weaves her way through the crowd. Finally they reach the water. Hundreds of little fires are floating down the river, as if all the stars have fallen out of the sky. The offerings are made from stitched-together banana leaves, says Aruna. Nestled in the cup of the leaf are red and pink flower petals, a small wick lamp.

  “Maybe you make an offering?” says Aruna.

  An offering. Latin, offerre, to present, bestow, a sacrifice given as part of worship. Worship of what? Who? To whomever, whatever, is cutting short her daughter’s life?

  “No, thank you,” says Hanne.

  Aruna pays her rupees and sets her boat into the water. They watch it float under a bridge, then it’s gone.

  Back in her room, Hanne sits on her bed. The children are asleep, the insects buzz and the cows and horses stir. She pulls out a notebook and a pen.

  Dear Brigitte,

  I’m writing this letter in case my presence has disquieted your heart and you ask me to leave. I beg that you don’t, but if you do, there are things I must say.

  I am in awe of your remarkable probity, the largess of your heart. You have your father’s spirit, his gentleness, his big heart. Now that I look back on your life, I see how it was leading here, exactly to this point. An exquisite outpouring of generosity, service, empathy, and kindness. One of my greatest failings is that I didn’t see it, you. But now I do. Your path of generosity is astonishingly beautiful.

  I always wished you’d have courage and resilience so that life’s hardship would not leave debilitating scars. And here you are, overflowing with courage, tending to so many others, while facing your own death. But I should have seen this, too. Unlike me, you followed your grief when Dad died, allowing it take you wherever it must, even to the most desolate places.

  I have many regrets, but my deepest regret is sending you away. You spoke of loneliness. I, too, have been terribly lonely for you. Those long years of silence when I missed out on your company, when I wasn’t there to comfort you. I will never forgive myself, and that’s just something I will have to live with.

  I’ll say this one more time and then won’t speak of it again. I bitterly wish you had more time. It’s a selfish desire—I wish to luxuriate in the presence of you. Just to take delight in your existence. Existence, I’ve come to learn, is an astonishing thing. If you were granted more time, I would put my hand on your forehead over and over to make up for those lost years.

  Mom

  Hanne reads it over. How inadequate, these words. She thinks of Noh and feels a new appreciation—its refusal to rest on words to convey emotion. If she’s allowed to stay, she’ll have many ways to show Brigitte how she feels. And if she’s asked to leave? This will have to do.

  At dawn, Hanne wanders around the compound, which is just stirring to life. She passes by the dormitories, the classroom, a two-room health clinic with five chairs in the waiting room. The barn for the cows and goats. The compound is clean, neat, organized, but what Hanne mainly sees is the endless manual labor required to keep the place running, the labor her daughter must offer up every day. When she wanders into the kitchen, she finds Brigitte scrubbin
g dishes. On every counter, there are stacks of dishes from last night’s dinner. The kitchen smells of curry and coconut.

  Brigitte doesn’t notice her right away. She has muscular arms and a fierce look of concentration on her face. A singular focus on the task at hand. Without hair, her face is rounder than Hanne remembered. Her thinness makes her cheekbones more pronounced, like two balls. She looks content, even happy doing the simple task of washing a dish.

  “Good morning,” says Hanne, forcing a cheery tone. She comes over beside Brigitte and picks up a sponge. “It’s quite a place here.” She feels like she keeps repeating herself.

  Brigitte motions to the dirty dishes and says the dishwasher broke last night. “Another thing we must figure out how to fix.”

  “You seem pretty good at it.”

  “Practice. Lots of practice.”

  Hanne begins on the stack of plates. A mountain of mangoes waits to be peeled and sliced. There is a long silence between them, one that is relaxed, calm, peaceful. The morning air is cool and the birds are singing. Through the window above the sink, Hanne sees an ox harnessed to a plow. A young boy walks beside it, talking to it, whispering in its ear, perhaps urging it to pull the heavy contraption. He’s trying to get it to go around a large tree.

  “How does it feel to know you are dying?” Hanne is startled by her question. “If you don’t want to talk about it—”

  Brigitte stops scrubbing, lets the water run. “Some days everything is so vibrant, so precious. The slightest thing. The way the light flows through a leaf, the smell of dirt, the sound of rain on the roof. The other day, I spent the longest time watching a monkey crack open a walnut. I think, this is heaven. Everything is astonishingly beautiful. But other days, I’m scared. I’m scared because it’s the unknown. I don’t know what I’m crossing over into. Oh, I know what I’ve read about the afterlife, but I’ve never experienced it.” She laughs at herself.

  It’s the most honest moment they’ve had so far.

  “I couldn’t do it,” says Hanne. “What you’re doing.”

  “We’re different, that’s all.” Brigitte looks at Hanne, as if to make sure Hanne heard her.

  “You’re a saint,” says Hanne, turning over the word in her mind. From Latin, sanctus, meaning “holy, consecrated.” What she means to say is that her daughter is exemplary, extraordinary, far more evolved than most, including herself.

  Brigitte smiles faintly. “No. Far from it.”

  The bell chimes. Prayer time again. Brigitte turns the water off and dries her hands. Hanne learned at lunch that Brigitte gives all the sermons, six a day.

  Hanne skips the sermon and wanders out to the barn. The barn her daughter built with the help of a farmhand. It’s a solid, sturdy post frame construction. A high roof, a loft and eight stalls. Hiro would be proud. He was always enthralled with architecture.

  The woman who sat next to Hanne at lunch comes into the barn, bows to Hanne, and dips a bucket into the water barrel. She goes to each stall and refills the cows’ bowls. When she is done, she comes over to Hanne, pulls a bandana from her pocket, and unwraps two biscuits. She hands one to Hanne.

  “Your daughter has a strong spirit,” she says. “So wise. That’s what will help her. And a circle of people who love her dearly.”

  “Maybe that circle could help out more. Have her do less.”

  “They’re doing what she wants. She wants to be part of life. You can understand that, can’t you? Here, life requires a lot of work. She wants life until the very end.” The woman tosses new hay around the barn, then comes over to Hanne. “Do you intend to stay? We could find you a job. Brigitte always said you were a hard worker. That you’re a well-regarded translator.”

  “That was a lifetime ago.”

  “We’ve got plenty to do here. Work from dawn to dusk.”

  And what would she do? She knows none of the languages spoken here except English. Perhaps teach English or French or German. But that’s not what the woman had in mind. She hands Hanne a bucket of soapy water. “If you want, you can scrub out the stalls.”

  Hanne spends the rest of the afternoon in the barn, on her knees, scrubbing cow shit from the walls. It’s just as well. Brigitte, it seems, is busy the rest of the day. When the six stalls are clean, Hanne finds Aruna in the garden. After much pestering, Aruna agrees to let Hanne help. The soil is rich, heavily fertilized with manure. It seems every kind of grain is grown here, along with sugar cane and potatoes. Hanne points to a potato and Aruna tells her the word for it in Hindi and Urdu. We feed many of the villagers, she says, in addition to the schoolchildren, most of whom are orphans. In the field, she sees one of the women in white robes tickling a small boy. His laughter carries through the still air. A feeling of goodwill sweeps through Hanne.

  Brigitte is not at dinner. “Receiving those who come for a blessing,” someone tells Hanne.

  Hanne goes to bed early, tired from the physical labor, but it’s a welcome tiredness that sends her into a deep sleep. In the middle of the night, she’s jarred awake by a vision of Brigitte cleaning, giving sermons, but her flesh is gone. Only her skeleton remains. Hanne grabs her bony wrist and tells her she must stop. Stop! Brigitte tersely shakes her head: “Go back to bed.” Hanne looks around her white cell, breathing hard. What was most alarming about the dream, what most shook Hanne was that she complied—her shoulders stooped, she shuffled back to bed and fell asleep again.

  In the morning, after the children have filed in, Hanne steps into the prayer hall and sits in the back. It seems the only way she’s assured of seeing her daughter is by attending the services. She feels a dry pinch behind her eyes. She must have caught a cold, because her nose is runny. If she stayed on, how quickly could she learn these languages? And if she did, would these sermons mean something to her? Help her accept her daughter’s slow demise? Can she watch as Brigitte becomes weaker and weaker and remain silent at her side? She looks at the thin points of her daughter’s shoulders. Watches them rise and fall. Listens to the foreign language flowing from her dry lips.

  Hanne closes her eyes and falls asleep. She wakes when she senses that someone is standing in front of her. It’s Brigitte.

  “I’m sorry,” says Hanne. “The heat. I don’t think I’m adapting.”

  “It doesn’t happen that fast.”

  Brigitte waits while Hanne gathers herself, then tells her the schedule for the day. Breakfast next, classes to teach, prayers, more classes, prayers, lunch, class, prayers, and a walk to the Ganges, where they’ll step into the river to cleanse and purify themselves.

  The prayer hall is empty. In the cool darkness, Brigitte sits on the bench next to Hanne. When Hanne reaches over and rests her hand on her daughter’s shoulder, she feels her daughter’s body soften.

  “I’d like to stay. Help out here,” says Hanne, not swallowing her longing. “The garden. The barn. Anything. If you’ll let me—”

  Brigitte smiles. “I heard about the barn. I never thought I’d see the day.”

  Hanne laughs and Brigitte joins in. Something between them falls away. They sit for a while in the quiet. Hanne glances at Brigitte’s hands and sees that her fingernails are chewed off, just as they were when she became frightened as a child. Whatever you want, I will do, thinks Hanne. There will be a point when you will be too weak to walk, to lift a cup of water to your lips. There will be no fight, only a slow, steady decline. If she is allowed to stay, this is what she must accept. What choice does she have?

  “If only there was some way for your god to take me, not you,” whispers Hanne.

  “In the beginning, I did my fair share of bargaining, too.”

  When Brigitte rises, Hanne follows her up the stairs, onto the stage.

  In the shadowy light, Brigitte gets down on her knees. “Will you pray with me?”

  Hanne follows, huffing as she lowers herself onto one knee, then the other. Her joints ache. Everything aches. The prayer hall is silent, only the sound of children outside. She�
��s on her knees because if she refuses, Brigitte might send her away, and if she asks to whom or what she should pray, to what cruel god who is curtailing her daughter’s life too soon, Brigitte might send her away. If she pleads for Brigitte to save herself, she might send her away. So she blinks back her tears and says nothing. What choice does she really have?

  The wind drops. The chatter is done. There is a moment of deep silence that seems to open up an enormous space around them, and Hanne looks at Brigitte without the haze of desire. This woman in front of her. The day’s golden light pouring down on her clean white robe, her shiny bald head, her gentle eyes.

  Brigitte takes both of Hanne’s hands in hers. They are linked now, a bridge, her daughter’s long, knobby fingers interlaced with her own. Brigitte’s hands are calloused and strong, and they are gripping Hanne’s. They are breathing in unison, breathing in the voices of the children, the rustle of the wind, the bloom of the fields.

  When Brigitte begins to pray in her language, Hanne closes her eyes and listens closely, trying hard to understand.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank the following for their generous and invaluable help: my Japanese language sensei, Atsuko Sells, and also Hajime Ohno. I fear I will forget someone, but I’m very grateful to my readers, Ellen Sussman, Lalita Tademy, Elizabeth Stark, Rosemary Graham, Andreas Kriefall, Kate Brady, Michael Munson, Peter Allen, Lyn Motai, Izumi Motai, Tina Pohlman, Barbara Blasdel, and Gene Alexander. A special thanks to Marty Schuyler and Mollie Glick and Katie Hamblin. And in the end, no one deserves more thanks than Peter Seeger, my husband.

  Several books were very important to me in my research: After Babel: Aspects of Language & Translation, by George Steiner, and Performing Without A Stage: The Art of Literary Translation, by Robert Wechsler. Also important were The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan, translated by Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani, and Japanese No Dramas, edited and translated by Royall Tyler.