David opens his eyes and, in a slurred voice, replies:
“You’ll never guess the dream I was just having…”
“No, that’s enough,” protests Doris. “Please don’t tell me about it. In any event, you’ll never have a more beautiful dream than the one about the dance contest in the airport. Me naked climbing the stairs of our secret passage, in front of the puppet fading little by little …”
“In the dream I was just having, you …”
“I don’t want to know,” she says pressing her index finger to his lips.
David pries off Doris’s hand and keeps it squeezed against his. He trembles.
“You were in my apartment in New York, I came back from my publisher’s, who had just announced to me that Abel Prote was very pleased with my translation of (N.d.T.).Then …”
“Then what?”
“Then the telephone rings. I pick up. A guy, a French guy, tells me in French that (N.d.T.) is actually part of an American novel, called Translator’s Revenge, which is in the process of being translated for a Parisian publisher. He adds that I, David Grey, am a character in this novel. Same for Abel, the author of (N.d.T.), and you, Doris. Can you imagine? If we were all characters of a novel being translated into French! He wants to see me. Right away. He tells me to meet him in a bar in Greenwich Village. I go and at a secluded table I see an old guy, tall, skinny, thin-framed glasses, salt and pepper hair cut short, in a dark suit and a burgundy shirt with an open collar, face tense, looking around, a little shifty, barely daring to look at me, forehead wrinkled, mouth rigid in a sort of grin. Clearly worried. As soon as I sit opposite him, he announces to me right away what he’s already told me on the telephone: I am one of the characters of the book he’s translating. I burst into laughter. Of course, the fact of seeing me in flesh and blood, hearing me talk, laugh, telling him I don’t understand anything of what he’s saying, it all disturbs him, makes him even more worried …”
“And then?”
“You won’t believe it. The guy starts talking seriously. Faced with my incredulity, with my laughter, he tells me a number of things that completely blow my mind.”
“For example?”
“Things that, he claims, are straight out of the novel he’s translating. He talks about you, about the secret passage at Prote’s home in Paris, about the dressing room at the Odéon theater, he describes my dream about the costume ball at the airport, can you believe it, he describes that dream for me with a detailed precision, a precision even I am not capable of, as if he knew the dream better than I did, as if he were in my head, as if that guy seated there in front of me in the café, hands placed carefully on the table, was my subconscious memory, my unimpaired recollection, emancipated from oblivion. He even knows how we made love, he cites a few intimate details, three or four phrases you whispered to me in bed, before my dream …Then I realize that he’s not a lunatic, that he’s not bluffing. This guy is serious. When he sees me turn pale, he becomes as perturbed as I am. His hands start to shake. His gaze is more and more shifty.
“Then I understand that he wanted to meet me so he could verify an impossible hypothesis, and my dismayed reaction proves to him that his hypothesis is right, even if it’s completely absurd, monstrous: it’s as if he knew everything about me, everything about you, about our relationship, your former affair with Prote, the bouquet of violets, the nymphet on roller skates, the Easter eggs, the ovular windows of the Super Constellation, the past and recent letters, Dolores formerly Lolita of Humbert Humbert, Maurice-Edgar Prote, the terrifying fireworks in my dream, he knows everything about us better than we do, as if this guy was all of our memories, not a selective memory, but a collective memory, relentless, with no cracks or holes, no lapse, a memory like in the Borges story, you see …
“So, we both start to panic: him, because he thought until our too-real encounter that I was just a character in a novel; me, because I can’t believe that I could be only a character in a novel …”
“And what else does he tell you, your colleague, in your dream? Do you know what his name is, at least?”
“Obviously I ask him his name, but then something incredible happens. Even now, it sends a shiver down my spine. The guy finishes his coffee, his glass of water, and then before my eyes, without ever breaking eye contact, slowly fades away. A little like you in my other dream, or rather you disguised as Dolores Haze. His clothes, his body, his tense face, his hair, his trembling hands, his burgundy shirt, his dark suit become transparent. Exactly like the nymphet at the ball in my dream. Or like the puppet in the fresco absorbed gradually by the clouds. In that bar in Greenwich Village where, curiously, no one seems to notice anything abnormal, this man no longer moves, no longer speaks, he freezes, like a wax statue, a translucent mannequin, he eyes me insistently, without blinking, and disappears very slowly. He dematerializes little by little. His eyeballs disappear last, his irises stare at me for a long time before vanishing entirely into thin air, dans l’air mince in French? No? Too bad. Then I find myself alone at the table, in front of my beer, in front of his empty coffee cup, his empty glass of water. Three dollar bills are on the table. I didn’t touch my wallet. And then I wake up next to you, in this plane.”
“Geez, you have some dreams!” says Doris without a lot of reassurance. “Plus, you were only asleep for a minute. We just took off. You barely closed your eyes.”
“This dream scares me, Doris. It’s not just a dream. It’s a threat, casting suspicion over you, over me, over our relationship, over our existence. It sends a shiver down my spine.”
“Even so, it’s your dream, nothing more. Just a dream. About a bizarre encounter, sure. But I don’t see anything abnormal about one dream mentioning another, even if those allusions, those insistent cross-references, come from the mouth of a man who is apparently omniscient, a French translator who is, after all, only a character in your dream.”
“No. I believe that guy is real. I know that I only dreamed him, but I think he really exists. Even if he doesn’t live in the same universe as us. Or rather he does, and that’s the scariest part: I think that he shares the same world as us, that he lives in my city, that soon I will meet him in New York, and I’m already afraid … He also spoke to me of one of my oldest dreams, in which I transform into a seal beneath a deluge of violet envelopes. Why does he know my dreams? How could he be aware of such intimate details? Of things even I have nearly forgotten? How can he know more about me than … me? And about you, too. This guy freaks me out, Doris, even if he himself was afraid, even if he seemed truly terrified. His ashen complexion, his bloodless lips, his empty gaze. Before dematerializing …And what is that stupid book anyway, Translator’s Revenge? That French man told me he had almost finished translating it as Vengeance du traducteur and that this multilayered Yankee novel includes the French novel (N.d.T.) as well as all the individuals that gravitate around it: Abel Prote, you, me, and the others, not to mention my dreams, our disguises, and all the rest. I don’t even know the author of that fucking book, Translator’s Revenge. I would like to meet him, I’ve got two words to say to that guy.”
“In any case, your dreams are full of people fading gradually, you are quite good at the fade-out disappearance into thin air. Maybe it’s the magic of your gaze, the omnipotence of your eyes, that made that guy evaporate. Be careful not to become your next victim!”
“You laugh. I’m freaked out. I wouldn’t want for anything in the world to pass this guy on the street or in a bar in New York when we’re there. Whenever the telephone rings at my apartment, I’ll think of him immediately and hesitate before picking up. I’ll think again of the novel that he’s translating, of that American writer for whom I am, it seems, merely a character.”
“In your dream,” corrects Doris.
“Yes, in my dream, but perhaps also over there.”
Doris, more shaken than she wants to appear, leans her head on David’s shoulder, and they remain silent, together watching the
phantom cities far below the plane, filing past through the window, reduced to their luminous maze.
“The last cities in France,” she says pensively, “the Bocage of Bretagne, the hedges, the pastures, the small invisible roads… Soon we’ll pass Brest and Finistère. Then the ocean. Complete darkness. Sometimes a boat. Its navigation lights visible from thirty-two thousand feet above. The Atlantic Ocean, the breaking waves, maybe a storm. Are there whales in the North Atlantic? Next, Newfoundland, Maine, Long Island, and New York. Where is Abel?”
“I think he’s the one manipulating my dreams.”
“Stop being ridiculous. No one is manipulating your dreams. Where is Abel?”
“But it was so thorough, so precise. Screaming with truth. The bar, the guy’s shirt, his eyes, his hands, his fear, his phrases …”
“Where is Abel?” Doris repeats.
“In a plane, we might pass him. He told me he’s coming back to Paris tonight.”
“Look, I think we’re going to have dinner.”
“No,” corrects David. “It’s the aperitif.”
When the cart, pushed by a potentially polyglot flight attendant, reaches their seats, Doris asks for a glass of port in English and David for a whiskey in French. He needs to get a hold of himself after his recent emotions. The flight attendant hands them two plastic glasses, one with ice, then two tiny bottles. On the label of the port bottle is the man in black with his face hidden beneath a big hat and with his body concealed by a large black cape. On the whiskey bottle label, there are two dogs, one black one white, and the words, “Black & White.”
Doris and David exchange a quick look, then each pours the contents of their small bottles into their glasses. Pensive, not really wanting to elaborate on the nature of their shared astonishment, they sip their alcohol in silence. Finally, David’s hand finds Doris’s.
A little later, dinner is served on a plastic tray. For the entrée, a small cylindrical container covered with a transparent lid containing soup, a pale broth with white pasta in the shape of stars or, more precisely, asterisks.
“I bet they have alphabet pasta for children,” Doris says.
“What’s that?” asks David.
“You’ve never seen that? Tiny little pieces of pasta in the shape of letters of the alphabet. The letters are mixed together, they float in the broth as if it were a three-dimensional book. When you eat them, you feel like you’re gobbling words, sentences, entire conversations, entire chapters of novels. Kids love it. It’s like the opposite of speaking: rather than syllables coming out of your mouth, letters go in your mouth and are swallowed.”
“But we, the adults, are given asterisks. It reminds me of (N.d. T),” says David, lowering his eyes toward the pale broth studded with white flecks. “They float near the surface like albino fish in the murky water of a dirty aquarium. Or else like clusters of stars in a liquid, warm sky. Good God, why are they serving this to us tonight?” he grumbles, looking perplexedly at the little bowl into which he gently bobs his white plastic spoon, creating whirlpools and currents carrying the asterisks. “I really have no interest in eating it. It’s like a snowstorm in dishwater.”
“Or a brainstorm, my star of the shadows.”
“And did you see what they’re serving for dessert? Millefeuille. Come on!”
Doris bursts into laughter. “Dinner special for David Grey! I swear I had nothing to do with it. It’s pure chance. That’s luck for you …”
Hearing that phrase, David jumps and turns brusquely toward Doris. “How do you know that expression?”
“Prote cites it in his letter, I think. That’s all. Oh là là, you can be so cranky sometimes …”
David pulls back the opening of the rectangular container holding the main dish. A modest cloud of bluish condensation is released immediately. He moves his face out of the way and asks: “What’s this?”
Doris leans toward his food tray to examine the contents of the container, then swiftly brings her hand to her mouth, guffawing. “Cuttlefish in ink sauce with white rice!” she announces, laughing even harder. And that,” she adds, indicating two small rectangular packets on the tray, one black and the other white, “that’s salt and pepper.”
“I don’t believe it,” protests David, nauseous, leaning back against his seat.
“You’re acting as though you’re the only one who got this food, but everyone is in the same boat,” she says opening the top of her own container. “See, look!”
Her fingers swiftly peel back the plastic film, as a magician might plunge a hand into a top hat to take out a rabbit or a dove, or insert swords through a wooden box where the beautiful and docile assistant has just lain down, or extract from his mouth, opened in an O, a bevy of colorful scarves all knotted together that spurt forth in an unending cascade, like a red blue green yellow violet orange rainbow. However, it’s not a black-and-white serving of cuttlefish in ink sauce with steamed rice that appears between the parentheses of Doris’s hands, suddenly frozen, but two fried pork chops with a tiny portion of almost phosphorescent green beans.
“My goodness!” she cries.
“You see!”
“That’s bizarre. I would even say: that, that’s …” Doris tries to tease.
“I’m not in a laughing mood.”
“You’re no fun.”
“I don’t even want to eat.”
“So don’t eat,” Doris says, now angry.
“I’d rather just drink, and I definitely don’t want to dream tonight.”
David pushes the button above his seat to summon a flight attendant. A red light immediately comes on next to a button in the slab of gray thermoformed plastic that resembles a long printer hood. An absurd thought comes to his mind: it’s as if he were raising his hand to reach and possibly steal the lone asterisk on the white part of the page, above the notes of the novel he’s translating. The guillotine blade of the bar guaranteeing impermeability between the two worlds should have cut into his arm. Curious to know what effect it had, David examines his shirt, printed with an orange and black mosaic pattern: not the least trace of blood, no wound, no scratch or scuff; the fabric of his sleeve is not torn, not even wrinkled. Everything is intact: he broke through the bar without encountering any opposition.
I’m acting like such an idiot, he says to himself. Stop seeing that stupid book in the most banal situations of your daily life. The world is not the book you’re translating. (N.d.T.) does not enclose the world, it’s the other way around. And the French man in your recent dream is only an imaginary character: no novel includes (N.d.T.), Prote’s text does not contain the world. The world contains Abel Prote’s novel, period.
For a long time no one comes and it’s as if he hadn’t pressed the button over his head. So there’s nothing to do but stare with a half-sullen, half-dejected expression at the food tray he hasn’t touched except to reveal its contents, which he still deems just as perfidious and menacing as before. The asterisk pasta bobs in the broth, the mille-feuille remains soft, the hot, violently black-and-white dish still steams. A resounding allusion to his professional activities. A mocking malfeasance. Anonymous and perfidious. Not really a joke, more of a discreet threat. You’ve been warned! What was the name of that French artist who made colorful meals? David saw some of the photos in a catalogue devoted to her, a beautiful brunette, now that he thinks of it. Not very appetizing, the photos or the meals, but the idea is interesting: Monday, we eat red, Tuesday green, Wednesday black, Thursday blue—not easy to put together, the blue meal—Friday white, and so on and so forth. A rather cheeky woman, a great lover of role-playing games, pretending to be a detective and assuming temporary identities, very good friends with a novelist from New York who is especially popular in France? Shit, impossible to remember her name, and that of her American friend, too, Colas Stère? Pascal Astheure? Fred Astaire? No … Too bad … Now I’m the one served a black-and-white dinner, colorless dishes that all allude to literature. I’m the one being swindled,
manipulated, duped and duped again, rolled in the flour by an unknown assailant. I’d be willing to bet that I am the only passenger with this particular meal tray. But why? What does it mean? Another dirty trick by my asshole writer?
David broods over his suspicions regarding the asterisk pasta, the cuttlefish in ink sauce with white rice, and the mille-feuille—Prote? Doris? Prote and Doris conspiring against me? Or even worse, the guy from the café, that lunatic French translator who assured me that I was only a character in another novel, his own text, Translator’s Revenge? In which case there’s nothing for me to do but … but what? How to escape that all-powerful text in which I am a slave unbeknownst to me? What to do to regain a minimum amount of freedom, to emancipate myself from the tyranny of this book that is in a way my square-shaped father, the genitor of the genes of my genitor?
Thus paranoia sinks its cruel teeth into David Grey’s cerebral convolutions to enlarge and prolong the fissures, make them run farther among the neurons, create an entire network of fine fault lines that zigzag through the gray material, undermine certitude, cut the synaptic connections, crack the most solid proofs. Thus the translator believes he is being targeted, aimed at, scrutinized, and struck in the tiniest of his gestures, in his most minuscule thoughts, caught in the crosshairs of an entity—whatever it may be—devoted to his enslavement and his downfall.
When the flight attendant finally arrives, he asks for another whiskey. Doris finishes her limp mille-feuille. She does not speak to or look at her travel companion. He’s a stranger seated next to her, placed there by accident or by chance that determined the present distribution of passengers through the plane during the check-in of baggage and bodies. Perhaps it’s time to get in touch with that beautiful brunette?
“Look!” Doris says suddenly, pointing at the window. “That plane looks like it’s flying in the opposite direction of us. That might be Abel’s.”
David leans over Doris’s thighs, pretending to pay no attention to them, and does indeed see through the black oval of the window, a bit higher than their own plane, two tiny luminous dots right next to each other blinking in a rapid rhythm indicating a trajectory opposite to their own. Green red, green red, New York-Paris.
Revenge of the Translator Page 15