Doris, I had not foreseen that everything would go so fast, that so soon we would be skin against skin, my breath inhaling yours, your green-and-gold eyes so close to mine that don’t lose sight of you even for a second, my cock slid into your silk to probe its niches, its hiding places, the bends and folds, the walls, the crevices, the ravines and inclines, the slopes and passes that you’ve come here to offer me in my home at the appointed time, thank you for this gift, thank you for that secret agreement last night just before my departure, thank you for this punctual connivance, this kept promise.
Wearing a black dress, simple and sheer, and mid-heel pumps, you came to my home, I wanted to kiss you on the cheek, say hello, serve you a drink, chat a bit, be sure of your desire and of your two recent readings, talk about them with you, know what you thought, what in the two novels surprised you, scared you, seemed to you unclear or incomprehensible, captivating or clumsy, the French version should have imitated the American and yet it diverges savagely, in the end differing from it greatly, only the French title remains faithful to the original, but immediately my mouth changed direction against my will, it slid along your cheek toward your lips, I whispered hello, your body drew nearer to mine and I saw your eyes gleam, for it was what you desired, and immediately, without beating around the bush, what I had not decided, what the novel had not predicted, you always catch me off guard, you’re always one step ahead of me, ahead of the cadence of the book, I wasn’t planning for it to happen so fast, that proximity, that embrace, even if I was dying for it and for an hour had been waiting for you with my heart racing palms sweaty throat constricted, I still naïvely believed in what the book announced, what it predicted without any ambiguity, which is to say a certain waiting period, a long round of observation, a sharp dialogue, nearly a verbal joust, both of us calmly seated in front of a drink, me leaning forward in my seat, you with your legs crossed modestly, but without a word at the entryway of my apartment you slid your hands beneath my shirt, offering me your lips, and now, tonight, I still have not heard the sound of your voice, I am the one speaking ceaselessly as I pin you beneath crumpled sheets, gripping your arms obligingly raised over the pillow like the large white parentheses of the hummingbird mask, putting all my weight on your star-shaped body, my cock sunk deep inside you, thrust in your pussy, screwing you, and gradually I learn that in a burst of laughter you can topple the most sure projects, shake up life as you see fit, proliferate the unexpected, with great difficulty I realize that you have a crazy talent for disconcerting, catching people off guard, deviating the course of things, overturning the text’s predictions, and delighting in it.
You make yourself comfortable, you are unencumbered, as if the mask’s large white feathers gave you wings, you are no longer mine now that you are mine, you no longer belong to me at the same time as I possess you, since I met you last night at David’s I have noticed your power not only over me but also over the novel, over my version of the novel, over my novel, and yet my author and I fashioned you, created you, pulled you from the void, but now that you are mine you are almost entirely liberated from my text, you are no longer our docile creature but my lover at once unruly and submissive. Despite everything, I don’t understand what happened, for the words that I whisper into your ear are not even in my book, your silence, your sighs, and your abandon are not either, or else much later, toward the end of Chapter 15, for this chapter of my novel, the one in which I am speaking to you at present, begins with a long dialogue, perhaps a bit too tortuous, in the living room of my friend’s apartment in Brooklyn we cautiously bring up the previous night while drinking a glass of red wine and nibbling on crackers, I ask you what happened after I left, you answer that David slowly recovered from the shock of the explosion, you add with a smile that after a while he stopped repeating “the bastard” like a robot and suddenly decided to go to sleep without even asking you how you felt, whether you were hurt, how the cut on your forehead could have disappeared, no, he quite simply ditched you, then you tell me that the second dessert we never touched was a delicious chocolate mousse dusted with ground Espelette pepper, and when I let out a cry of surprise, you burst into laughter, you make fun of me, say: “I noticed that your book does not mention this dessert on the menu for dinner at David’s. Chocolate mousse, if I remember correctly, is also what Prote ate on the plane, isn’t that right?
After the salt cod? In Chapter 12, if I remember correctly, when you transform into the Invisible Man and hold his small spoon in the air above his meal tray. I loved how uncomfortable he was. He was truly shocked, poor Abel. But it’s still bizarre that that chocolate mousse wound up on our table when it should have remained in the novel,” and I reply: “Yes, another deviation. An addition. A discreet invasion. An unexpected translation. Two desserts instead of one. Two explosions instead of one. As soon as you’re involved, everything’s a mess. Don’t take this the wrong way, but as soon as you appear, the boundaries become porous and chaos takes over. But really, where did it come from, that dessert? How did it arrive on the table?” “I have no idea,” you reply. “I made the raspberry charlotte, but I didn’t know about the mousse until it appeared on the table at the end of the meal. It’s a mystery.” “I know where it came from. It came straight out of Chapter 12, ‘The Flight.’ If you want my opinion, it’s like someone photocopied certain pages of the novel and then inserted them haphazardly into our lives. And I’m really afraid that this business of copy-pasting has only just begun …”*
You drink a sip of wine and then talk to me about the cut on your forehead from the explosion: “Last night, when I went into the bathroom, my head was spinning. I couldn’t see anything clearly anymore. I stood in front of the mirror. I saw the drop of dark red blood dripping from the cut above my right eyebrow. Then I watched, bewildered, as the drop faded, slowly became colorless and clear like water, and then that translucent bead fell onto the back of my hand, gripping the enamel of the sink. I looked down to examine it, rub it between the thumb and index finger of my other hand. It was indeed water, and it quickly dried between my fingers. When I raised my head to look once again at the reflection of my face in the mirror, the cut had disappeared from my forehead. I ran my index finger over the place where it had been: nothing. Not the least rough patch. No trace. The skin of my forehead was perfectly smooth and painless. But I didn’t dream that cut. I saw it in the mirror, I’m sure of it. Even you noticed it, right? You said something to me about it. It disappeared the way you sometimes disappear: into thin air. At least that’s what David told me. Unless he dreamed it on the plane to New York. Unless I only learned it this morning when I read Vengeance du traducteur. I don’t know anymore. You don’t remember either? After all, is it really that important, to know where things, people, objects, forehead cuts and chocolate mousses, feather masks and Lurex dresses, secret passages and violet crowns, model airplanes and Fragments épars come from, to what world they belong, if such and such an event actually took place, whether it’s from a dream or a book? You think so? Do you really believe we need to know? Now that I’ve been confronted with all these anomalies, I’m starting to doubt it, even to laugh about it. What’s important to me in this moment is drinking a glass of wine with you, feeling you close to me. It seems to me that you are indeed real, in any case more real than the cut on my forehead. But nevertheless I would still like to touch your hand to be sure. In fact, I need to.”
So, still in this beginning of Chapter 15 that has been amputated by real life, according to the written version of our meeting that I did not live even though my novel predicted it, I draw nearer to you, seated with your legs crossed on the sofa, you reach out your hand to grab mine like last night, touch it, squeeze it, slip your ringed fingers between mine, close them against my palm and squeeze, mainly to reassure yourself, I know, of my reality, to convince yourself that I am not going to disappear like the cut on your forehead in the reflection of the mirror or like the plasma screen exploding at the bottom of the armoire,
projecting its mortal frost throughout the bedroom. Like Saint Thomas venturing a doubtful index finger into the wound of Christ resurrected, you want to reassure yourself that I am indeed a man of flesh and blood and not a ghost, while I should really point out that you, Doris, are the phantom born of my words, a woman of smoke, a creature without substance, a marionette suspended by my phrases, a motionless puppet that derives its existence from only my breath—it’s really me that should be verifying that you, Doris, are a beautiful woman that I could fall in love with without suspecting that you might slip between my fingers like sand. Yesterday, the drop of blood on your forehead nearly convinced me of your reality.
Thus we begin this written soirée that belongs only to the book, thus we progress with careful baby steps as I did last night with David on his glass-covered bedroom floor, thus we get to know each other little by little without ever completely dissipating that intimate and shared doubt that unites us perhaps even more strongly than desire: are you more real than the ephemeral cut on your forehead? Am I more trustworthy and durable than a chocolate mousse fallen from the pages of a book?
In the novel, this dialogue that we did not speak soon makes way for the silence of our two voices. Then another conversation begins, which dispenses with words, filled only with the sighs and muffled cries of our two suddenly chatty bodies.
In this precise moment on the time axis, the connection is made, the written and unlived loop of amorous preludes converges with its starting point and the abrupt trajectory of our desire; the verbose fiction of Chapter 15 catches up to our shared reality: our skins at present pressed one against the other, our gasping breaths, our agile hands, and I begin to talk: “Yes. Last night. Everything began last night. The colorful hummingbird …
“I am in you, inside you, with you, Doris, you are a moth, a bird with wings spread to accommodate my body, you know now that I am real as I know that you are real, not subjected to my words even if of your own free will you submit to my desire. In this bedroom in Brooklyn, I go back and forth in you without ever ceasing to speak, but then in your turn you speak up and immediately I recognize your words, for they are the ones I placed in your mouth so long ago, those murmurs that you offered to David in Chapter 9, those tender and coarse words that you employ again here with a few slight variations, and I realize worriedly that it’s not just the chocolate mousse that has surged from the past to invade the present, I realize that it’s not just Prote’s voice that has been recorded. Here is what you whisper to me while I keep quiet and continue to go back and forth in you:
… Here you are at home, Trad, get comfortable, explore the grounds, there, that’s perfect, verify that everything is in its place, in order, positioned as it should be, don’t forget any corner, any overhang, any hiding place, any niche, inspect all my crevices, be meticulous, be persnickety, rigorous, and meticulous, like with the devil, the pleasure is in the details, yes, do a careful inspection, take out your checklist and check the boxes with your pencil, really check that box, verify that nothing is missing, go over me with a fine-tooth comb, twice not just once, make your nest here and act like a bird, crane your neck, it’s your turn to spread your wings, like that, that’s good, yes, continue, go, excavate there rummage excavate far, farther, keep going, you’re almost there, almost at the quay, your dick wedged up against the mooring, you’re there, my love, do you feel how I’m squeezing you tightly, you are, you go, if you keep at it like that you’re going to make me come, wait, don’t move, yes, there, stay, let me squeeze your iron fist in my velvet glove one more time, now hang on for a bit, the inventory is finished, you checked me, relax, be lethargic but don’t fall asleep, no, it’s important that you not fall asleep, don’t leave me, stay with me, just stop moving, breathe a little, grab a folding chair, here, sit here, relax a minute, the movie will start soon, now it’s my turn to move, leave my home, leave the lobby where they sell popcorn and soda, cross the threshold of my room, settle yourself comfortably at the entryway, near the little glass booth where they sell tickets, get some air, fill your two fertile lungs, inhale the breeze, smoke a cigarette, see the thickets still soaked with rain at the edges of me, my multicolored silks, I’m ready, take my emotion, break me entirely, the last lights of day make a crimson fog in the sky stained with sperm, oh yes, like that, keep going like that, continue like that, hold me tight, with me in me outside of me there you are allowed to go back and forth between the printed American text you’re translating, inflected modified destroyed, butchered, demolished, and the French version you’re creating from beginning to end, fashioning inventing and constructing, this is your own secret passage, your personal sleight of hand, your not very professional to-and-fro, your paid and brazen movements, your certified but rogue work, and all the better if in your new profession as a writer you mix business with pleasure, but here in my net and my silk inside me in me outside me you aren’t working or toiling anymore, you’re screwing me good, Trad, you come and go without creating anything other than my happiness, yes, come, go, I like your back-and-forth, your back-and-forth ravishes me like a glove, e la nave va, I leak, trickle, sluice gates all the way open, I sink faint melt drown, come, your light my life delights me, come, Trad, translate yourself inside me quickly yes, I’m coming
* Chapter 15, which you are reading at this very moment, my reader, predicted this perplexing dialogue between Doris and me, Trad. A dialogue that describes a new disparity between the novel and real life: the unexpected arrival of a large compote dish of chocolate mousse on David’s dinner table. No one bought it, this second dessert, no one made it either. Each of the three guests believed that it was one of the other two who was responsible for it. The final sleight of hand of this dialogue that was supposed to unfurl the night Doris came to visit me is like a doubly powerful deviation, the interlocking of two alterations: the subtraction of an addition. (Aghast Trad’s Note)
Chapter 16
PROTE RECEIVES A FINAL VISIT
“I don’t know why I agreed to meet you in my home. I don’t know you. You told me you had met David Grey and Doris Night in New York. I haven’t been in touch with those two in a long time now. David is the American translator of my last novel, (N.d.T.). As for Doris Night, she was my secretary for a few months. You also are a translator. Is that right? But, according to your telephone call yesterday, French is your mother tongue and you translate from English. Alright. Apparently you’ve come from America. How can I be of service?”
I am with Abel Prote in his opulent living room, sinister and opulent, two lamps struggle to dissipate the shadows. And yet the curtains of the large windows are open. Beyond the glass, I see flowerbeds and two enormous plane trees in the courtyard whose dense foliage sieves the light of the sky. I am seated in a madder-red armchair. He is seated opposite me on the sofa, backlit, like a human resources director interviewing a potential employee in his office. He’s wearing a bathrobe, though it’s three in the afternoon. It’s mid-May and it’s hot in Paris, but Prote has offered me nothing to drink. Not even a glass of water. I came with my computer. Alone. Doris moved heaven and earth to come with me and I had a hard time convincing her to stay and wait for me at her place in Belleville. I repeated to her that my computer would suffice to keep the French writer under control. Battle weary, she ended up ceding to my arguments.
Without asking Abel Prote’s permission, I light an American Spirit. He murmurs an uncomfortable “Hmm …” then, grudgingly and taking his time, he goes to look in the kitchen for a small chipped saucer, which he places carefully on the armrest of my chair.
“Here’s what brings me to your home,” I say after two or three drags from my cigarette. “I’ve just finished translating an American novel entitled Translator’s Revenge. In French, Vengeance du traducteur. It turns out you are a character in this novel. Like me, Doris Night, and David Grey. No, let me finish. You can snicker later, if you still want to. Translator’s Revenge also includes your novel, (N.d.T.). I’m giving you everything
all at once. Try to retain and absorb the information. This American novel, by an anonymous author, or rather by an established writer who does not want to reveal his identity, I not only translated it but adapted, modified, reorganized it from top to bottom, I appropriated it, vampirized it for reasons that do not concern you. Then a bizarre thing happened: to my great surprise, I noticed that the entirety of my translation, Vengeance du traducteur, had—and still has—the curious habit of transposing itself onto real life. Don’t laugh. Listen to me. There are two successive translations: the first is my work as a renegade, indelicate, apostate translator; the second, more mysterious, ‘translates’ the contents of the book into reality. In other words, all I have to do is write that Doris disguises herself as the Iron Lady for her to immediately be wearing this costume. Do you see? It’s a system of communicating vessels. Or rather a contamination. My text is prophetic in a way. But Doris displays a rather peculiar characteristic, in fact she possesses the vexing habit of disrupting the projection of the text into real life. So let’s say instead that all I have to do is write that the crown of violets placed on your desk in the adjacent room contains a letter by the young American actress Dolores Haze, a letter written at the end of the 30s, for it to be the case. Have you examined the center of that crown recently?”
Revenge of the Translator Page 23