— Au revoir, madame bon voyage, drum bun.
— Mulţumesc padre, la revedere.
— Excusez-moi madame, si vous désirez apprendre, il faut dire părinte. Padre non, părinte. Et pour grande politesse, cuvioase părinte.
— Cuvioase? Cuvioase părinte?
— Dévoué père. Mais cela n’a pas d’importance madame je me permets seulement parceque vous desirez. Enchanté madame de faire votre connaissance et au revoir.
— So now you know everything.
— Er, where did you say you came from?
— I live in Italy but—
— Please, could you repeat your name?
— Ah yes, very difficult madame, Boleslaw Czeszczyk CZE, SZ, CZ, YK.
— Oh. Er, enchantée monsieur. Mille excuses.
— I understand madame, people always say why you have so many consonants together in Polish? But it all depends on the habit of the eye. I live in London many years and every day of my life I see KNIGHTSBRIDGE. All those consonants together, GHTSBR, very terrorising. Also KN, DG, ten consonants three vowels. You know London madame?
— Yes.
— Oh but of course in your fascinating work you travel much.
— Well, not so much these days, most conferences take place in the main western towns except for fringe activities like—
— Fringe?
— Oh you know like the Shakespeare centenary and cultural exchange with Eastern Europe.
— Ah, you joke. Yes, good. I would not call Petroleum Engineering fringe. We must help these people you see to free themselves economically from Russia, they have so much petrol and great modern methods but not enough, and this conference ah, but you understand, I see while I speak, you in the glass box you translate, into what language madame?
— German.
— Ah.
The expression stiffens imperceptibly but feeling sure you translate excellently madame with many thanks for the German delegate Herr Ingenier Erich Osterbach he felicitates me. From West Germany of course. Yes madame in politics as in technology every solution creates new problems which makes one very sad.
And as for China well my card Bing-Song the problem looks more simple than it appears between the earphones and the mouthpiece through the neutralised transmitter in the brain, the hands quite still on the desk, forming a squat diamond space with the thumbs pressed together towards the body, the fingers touching like a cathedral roof, never seeing the gestures, the eyes closed to watch the words as they pass through the distant brain way up, steadily in phrases well-formed almost in advance to hit the German nail on the French pinpoint. Unless alternatively concision shrinks the statistics like angels to a pinhead and the pinhead pricks the Gallic nuance which escapes like gas and lingers far behind the inklings of the few depending on the speaker’s nationality in French, Italian for instance, Polish or verbose, depending on the theme the time the place the climate, whether canyons create new problems as in politics and pamphlets full of Kulturstätten — Places of Cultural Interest — Curiosités Culturelles — Curiosità Culturali — Centros Culturales. Archives, Libraries, Memorial Rooms, Museums, State Apartments. Tabak-Museum IX Porzellangasse 51. Technisches Museum für Industrie und Gewerbe XIV Mariahilfer Strasse 212, Uhrenmuseum der Stadt Wien, 1 Schulhof 2. Monuments and Fountains. Sakrale Bauten. Churches — Eglises — Chiese — Iglesias. Opera Houses and Theatres. Privattheater. Teatros particulares. Aber Sie wissen alles gnädige Frau.
— Could you repeat your name?
— Doktor Friedrich Sachs.
— Oh yes. You made a very good speech today.
— Ah, gnädige Frau, demography produces nothing but despair. Populations multiply almost by geometrical progression gnädige Frau, in simple terms two times two equals four, times two equal eight, times eight equals sixteen und so weiter ad infinitum consuming the world’s natural resources which soon will not suffice. In thirty years we shall have lost the food and birth control battle for ever. And the world talks and compiles statistics and does nothing except build more satellites more missiles ad infinitum yes, nothing but despair.
Uw zwemvest und so weiter ad infinitum which makes one very sad. And in your journey through Rumania you will meet modern comfort, the proverbial Rumanian hospitality, gaiety, dynamism and the creative spirit of the Rumanian people. You will meet Mr. Bryan Crisis. And if you look up crisis in the dictionary you will find the new face of the country whose economic power has increased thirteen-fold, the new aspects of towns, the more and more frequent silhouettes of industrial combines, the lively rhythm of a prodigious development representing only some of the accents of the renovating present. And did you enjoy the bus-excursion to Battalha senhora? Ah, you have seen it before, you know Portugal well? You like? Muite obrigado senhora what a charming compliment. Yes, I prefer Evora also.
Where the aqueduct walks from the wilderness on innumerable brown legs, pierces the citadel and collapses, not too far however from the secret mysteries of Diana in broken columns coloured bronze mark you in the sunset and surrounded with white palpitating stags, unless animal organs not to mention the cross on the curlicued façade so much taller than the small church behind it. But stones do talk. Statistically, into microphones. Du Witzling. Witzling-Schmutzling? Ein bisschen. Well, the gods have left this land but we shall honour our obligations towards them all from Apollo to Allah, with plaster images and a Renaissance chapel plonked in the middle of the mosque looking obscene according to the time the place the theme the climate and whether canyons create great holes of air that leap into the mouthpiece two channels keeping the mind alert not to say three the eyes the hands the voice and more than the five senses in a flow of rash enthusiasm about ideas not one of which deserves a moment of allo? er, dígame? Ah, muchas gracias. You like your work señora? Oh yes, very much. And what do you like most about it, the travel or the translating? Well, the ideas transmitted, at least — Ah yes, you must know everything by now. Your name, could you repeat your name? Cano, señora, Esteban Cano. Encantada. Lo mismo señora, lo mismo, encantado to see that you have not lost your enthusiasm for ideals, so many people do. And where do you go next?
I luoghi: La Francia e soprattutto la Germania über alles then unter where the tannoy voice fills the large wooden hut calling out ranks with names attached and even faces over uniforms grey-blue dark olive-green khaki that wear a listening responsive look for the Dakota aircraft about to take off from Frankfurt airport for Hamburg. He stands tall blond and Aryan in British battle-dress dyed greenish-black and eyes too close together above a slightly broken nose and thin mouth saying I heard your name saw you at Headquarters loved you from the start no he does not say that. So you have got on to the same bandwagon. How come so young to work to fly on allied aircraft unless perhaps how come he sits so close on the long metal bench fixed to the curved metallic wall inside the fuselage the round ribs all exposed as if inside a skeleton chrysalis like paratroopers about to jump descending on the rectangles of agriculture brush-stroke size the forest blobs the thin white lines meeting at pimples cancerous growths that make up an abstract study of the late Mother-country in brown and green.
— Yes, well, every solution creates new problems and one did what one could to make it work to get things going again such as the sale of goods and normal life love ambition culture why, and he talks, discusses things ideas not one of which has lost validity for him in the administration re-education tact resentment humiliation self-recoil revenge understanding distribution black-market fraternization sex. And so you work in the French zone? Rejoice Fräulein that they do not put German employees in uniform although clothes create problems one gets so tired of women in uniform as if at his age what twenty-two twenty-three he had had mil e tre per annum per square metre of Lebensraum for nineteen hundred and forty six years and plus. Not that the girl officers so thoughtfully provided by the occupying allies to prevent fraternisation don’t look glamorous mind you but not for us. Besides, the French call theirs Aspirantes. Not lieutenants mark you but Aspirantes. What do you suppose they aspire to? Do you aspire to anything? A change of zone for instance or come climb on my bandwagon and have a love-affair. And have a Bruderschaft. Well you’ll have to wait Fräulein if you’ll forgive the intimacy they have no lavatories on these Dakotas only a tube over there in the tail strictly for men only, visible to all and you’d miss wouldn’t you. As a translator? How very interesting what a coincidence and where? What do you mean only documents? What difference does it make? Accuracy, precision, nothing else matters. Oh yes and speed natürlich but all that comes with practice. They’d send you on a course anyway and besides they’d have to give you a denazification screening first. Things have changed however since the early occupation days and I will take you under my wing.