The Interpreter Read online

  Sensing that it was late, I shook off these thoughts; by lingering on such fantasies, I too was running the risk of going mad. The evil blossoming in the soft reaches of my mind might overwhelm me; if I wished to avoid the fate awaiting the interpreter, I would have to shuffle off such crazed woolgathering; I would have to set about finding a cure and close up the dangerous wound which was cleaving me in twain.

  Throwing a few clothes at random into a suitcase, I left one morning in late September. Heavy of heart, I looked back through the darkness at my house from a rise in the road. Would I ever be seeing it again? Would I ever go back to tend my roses, would I ever return to my old reassuring groove? At that moment, all seemed to be lost forever. The plane to Munich was almost empty; the autumn sun fell glancingly through the little windows and, as I slumped into my seat, I remembered the peaceful hours of distant afternoons, punctuated by the untroubled hum of radiators and warmed by the busy presence of Irene. I had the brief sensation that what I was embarking on was utterly absurd, that in reality my illness was pure fiction, that it had all been a passing frenzy brought on by loneliness. I was going to lock myself up among lunatics, I was putting myself into the hands of a neurologist who was eccentric to say the least, submitting myself to a course of treatment about which I knew precisely nothing. But suddenly, at that very moment, uncontrollable whistling and gurgling noises sprang from my mouth, truncated words pronounced in a voice which was not my own, while my neighbour looked at me in alarm, then hid his face behind his quivering newspaper. I wanted to cry out, to call for help, to tell someone about the fearful ill that was devouring me. I tried to catch the hostess’s eye as she passed by with the drinks trolley; she had strong hands and her face was strangely lined, as though she had slept on a rumpled sheet; her lips and eyelids were smeared with oily make-up. She looked at me severely, as though she had noticed my lapse and wanted to reproach me for it. For a moment, I had the absolute conviction that I was part of some vast and faultlessly orchestrated set-up, that the hostess herself was a nurse working for Dr Barnung, deputed to work on this specific plane and on no other; those hard eyes of hers, those gnarled hands, those strange wrinkles were all designed to strike fear into me, the kind of fear that renders animals docile as they are herded into the abattoir. I drank my fruit juice obediently and bent my head in resignation. I fell into sleep as though into a swoon. In my dreams, Dr Barnung was cackling, laying his gnarled, clasped hands upon the table while, behind him, the window overlooking the garden lit up with a strange glow.

  ‘I see that you’ve settled for the wiser course!’ he noted, ushering me into his study. ‘You’ll see – you won’t regret your choice. This place is made for you; you’ll soon be right as rain.’ At that moment, a thin woman came into the room, wearing a long white coat revealing only forearms and calves hairless as eggs; sheathed as it was in thin yellow stockings, her skin had something sickly about it, and for me that colour instantly became a smell – of a dried-up wound, an antiseptic ointment. The woman gave me a slightly servile smile, like that of maid to master, then gestured sharply towards the door she had left half-open behind her.

  Escorted by the nurse, I went down long, white-painted corridors where total silence reigned; a smell of the schoolroom wafted from such few doors as had been left open, and I caught a glimpse of listening stations shielded by insulating panels, with rows of headphones hanging from hooks. The floors were covered in soft linoleum which sank beneath my feet as I walked. We went up to the third floor and through a door bearing a notice with the words Deutsche Abteilung. My room gave onto an inner courtyard with a small square lawn crossed by little gravel paths; the furnishing was simple but carefully chosen, all in light wood. The nurse opened a cupboard door and handed me a set of sheets and towels; then, after looking me up and down, she started rummaging among the coathangers until she found a blue uniform which she then laid out on the bed, attaching a small strip of red material to the press studs on the pocket.

  ‘This is the uniform of the German section. You have to wear it during the therapy sessions, in the refectory and in all communal spaces,’ she informed me.

  ‘And what does that red strip on the pocket mean?’ I asked, running my hands over the rough cotton uniform.

  ‘It means that you’re not allowed to speak French. No one must ever address you in that language, and you must never use it to communicate with the other patients. You’ll find all the explanations you need in that handbook,’ the woman told me, pointing to a booklet on the table.

  ‘Supper is at seven. The German refectory is on the ground floor, at the end of corridor B,’ she added, before closing the door behind her. Alone at last, I sat down and started leafing through the clinic handbook, a small volume with the text printed in German on shiny paper, interspersed with images of the clinic and surrounding park; the cover bore a photograph of the medical staff assembled in the courtyard. I recognised Dr Barnung, sitting in the back row with his shirt unbuttoned, next to the nurse who had shown me to my room. A brief introduction explained the principles of linguistic therapy, following the line taken by Dr Barnung when he had briefly explained it to me, but going into matters in greater depth. I now discovered that each language had a colour, as did the relevant treatment rooms, refectories and corridors. An index card with my name on it informed me that I was to present myself at the yellow laboratory – the one for Romanian – tomorrow morning at nine on the dot, and a map of the building showed me the route I would be taking to get there, also shown in yellow. The clinic made use of three languages for introductory purposes – German, French and Russian – and each such language had its own uniform – blue for German, red for French and green for Russian. These languages served as a sort of gymnastics, a warm-up for the muscles of the brain, but also to prepare the patients for the specific cure that they would undergo, and lastly as a sort of fixative, since their practice would reinforce the results obtained in the patients’ minds by the therapeutic languages. These latter were much more numerous than the introductory ones, and furthermore they required periods of isolation when courses in languages defined as dangerous would be administered, marked by the colour white. I closed the handbook and looked out of the window. Darkness had fallen and the lights were on in many windows; torches were burning in the courtyard. I picked up my uniform from the bed, unbuttoned the tunic and put it on; looking at my reflection in the mirror, encased in the rough fabric of a garment that was only approximately my size, for the first time I felt truly ill.

  Each patient had a numbered place in the refectory; my table was next to a large window overlooking the courtyard. My fellow diners, four men and a woman, had already begun their meal.

  ‘Join the throng,’ said my neighbour, rising to greet me. ‘My name’s Ortega,’ he added, shaking my hand warmly. ‘And may I introduce Mr Vidmajer, Colonel Kwiatkowski, Mr Vandekerkhove and Mrs Popescu.’ They greeted me with a nod. The oldest of the group, Colonel Kwiatkowski, lifted his eyes from his plate, dried his mouth carefully with his napkin and stared at me at some length; his face was a maze of wrinkles and his almost white eyes were scarcely visible beneath his fleshy eyelids. I noticed a whole thicket of coloured strips on his jacket pocket.

  ‘Another one who mustn’t speak French! So what’s happening to all those French speakers out there?’ he burst out in annoyance before dipping his spoon back into his soup.

  Mr Ortega smiled, to let me know that I shouldn’t take the old colonel too seriously.

  I too began to eat my soup in silence, exchanging friendly looks with my neighbour from time to time.

  ‘By now, almost all the French speakers from the old continent are locked up in here!’ commented Mr Vandekerkhove after a pause, to general indifference. He had very short red hair, and it was hard to guess his age; his freckly face was creased into a permanent half-smile. He wore a pair of small, round glasses, which did not serve to correct any fault in his vision, but which his face quite simply could not have
done without. Kwiatkowski shot him a nasty look which failed to upset his bovine calm. The clinking of cutlery gained the upper hand and mingled with the faint buzz which was coming from the other tables.

  ‘What news of the big outside world?’ Ortega asked me, raising his voice a little so that everyone could hear.

  I shrugged, desperately casting around for something to say.

  ‘Is it true that by now the only language spoken is English?’ he asked me, his voice suddenly grave.

  ‘Not quite…’ I ventured.

  ‘Well, I’m here because I can’t learn it,’ he admitted, twiddling with his fork.

  ‘English is the language of cowards and queers,’ broke in the colonel angrily from the other side of the table, causing Mrs Popescu to jump and raise her hand to her chest in alarm.

  ‘Never trust a language which is written one way and spoken in another! Filthy transvestites!’ declared the former officer, flapping his napkin in front of him, to general dismay.

  The nurse who was passing between the tables with the food trolley was about to intervene. Ortega shook his head and looked disapproving; then he carried on eating, waiting for Colonel Kwiatkowski to lower his head to his plate again.

  ‘Which intensive course are you taking?’ he asked me cautiously after a pause, covering his mouth with his napkin.

  ‘Romanian. Actually, I haven’t started yet. I have my first session tomorrow,’ I said without much conviction.

  ‘Romanian? That’s odd! You’re the first person I’ve ever met here who’s doing an intensive course in Romanian. I didn’t even know there was one!’ remarked Ortega, pouring himself a glass of water.

  ‘Romanian’s for schizophrenia!’ Kwiatkowski burst in, his mouth full, jabbing his forefinger at the yellow strip attached to his pocket alongside five others, one red, one green, one mauve, one orange and one blue.

  ‘And a fat lot of good it did me! Indeed, now I’m not allowed even that! They’ll end up by forbidding me German too. That way I won’t be able to speak at all, and then I really will be cured!’ He burst out into a noisy laugh, revealing toothless gums, only to be seized by an obstinate coughing fit which caused his face to go purple. Holding his napkin to his mouth, he looked around him, as though seeking approval from his fellow diners, but they kept their eyes firmly on their plates. Seeing the nurse approaching, Kwiatkowski raised his hands in a gesture of surrender; his eyes were bright and the veins in his forehead were swelling like whips as the coughing fit died down.

  ‘Frau Goldstein, don’t look at me like that, you’ll give me bad dreams! I won’t say another word, I promise!’ he added hoarsely in a tone of mock alarm. The nurse paused for a moment a few steps from our table, biting her lip in disapproval, then went back silently to her trolley.

  After supper I followed Ortega into the common room; chess sets and playing cards were laid out; people could listen to music or read books and newspapers. There was no sign of any language except German; even the music was exclusively by German composers. Lined up against the end wall were various armchairs, with sockets for headphones linked up to a stereophonic player. In front of a large window, what looked like normal social activity was under way.

  Two generously proportioned women, eyes heavily made up, were playing rummy at a table at the end of the room, in front of a large bookshelf which occupied the whole of the left-hand wall, smiling cheerfully at one another and throwing down their cards as though they were flowers. Beside them on a three-legged table stood two large tankards containing a cloudy liquid from which, every so often, they took an unenthusiastic sip.

  ‘Watered-down anise,’ explained Ortega, intercepting my look. ‘Mrs Guzman is Argentinian, and Spanish is her mother tongue. Mrs Mikhailov on the other hand is Bulgarian, but they are both doing an intensive course in Greek. In the outside world, they both used to be opera singers, and both suffered serious nervous breakdowns linked to the stress of live performance; as you can see from their crimson stripes, both are forbidden to speak Italian. Mikhailov isn’t allowed to speak Russian either; they caught her singing an aria from Boris Godunov in the bath, so she was given two weeks of intensive Georgian by way of punishment. While she was away, Guzman carried on setting out the cards for their game of rummy as though her friend were with her in the room, but Frau Goldstein, ever the stickler, refused to serve two tankards of watered-down anise. Outside the laboratories, no one has ever heard them utter a word; it’s as though they were completely dumb. Even their expressions are dazed and vacant; but if you creep up unnoticed, you’ll hear them communicating with each other through operatic arias – with their mouths closed, so as not to arouse suspicion. Frau Goldstein has twigged their game and tries in vain to catch them by surprise, but placid and harmless as they look, those two are as fleet as hares. The moment she starts creeping up on them, they swallow up their song and give her an angelic smile. They are the only people in the clinic for whom music is forbidden!’

  Staring at their resolutely closed mouths, I too was tempted for a moment to try to catch them at it, but my attention soon wandered, intrigued as I was by the novelty of my peculiar surroundings. The centre of the room was occupied by a large billiards table; two scrawny men, who almost looked like twins, were chalking up the tips of their cues, concentrating on the arrangement of the balls.

  ‘The one on the right is Captain Lindqvist and the other is Vassilenko, a former Soviet obstacle race champion; they look as though they’re related, but they met here for the first time, and they’ve become inseparable. Vassilenko is a very serious type, he’s been doing an intensive course in Urdu and by now that’s all he’ll speak; you’ll hear him swearing in Urdu when he misses a shot. There’s really nothing wrong with Lindqvist, it’s just old age; when he retired, his wife found she couldn’t stand having him under her feet all day after so many years at sea, she just couldn’t be doing with him any more, so she persuaded him to come here. He thinks he’s in an officers’ club and calls everyone by the rank which he himself thinks that they deserve; for instance, he has Kwiatkowski down as a common sailor. Oddly enough, the colonel doesn’t take offence. “You godless cowards! I’ll sink the lot of you before you even get out of port!” he shouts at him every time they meet.’

  Ortega had taken on the job of introducing me to my fellow inmates. Without the slightest hesitation, or the slightest fear of seeming to speak out of turn, with just a hint of malice, he told me what illnesses the other patients were suffering from. For a moment I was tempted to ask him about his own problem, about what bizarre mania held him in its thrall, but I didn’t want to break the flow. After all, his information was useful to me; it helped me take my bearings vis-à-vis those eccentric sufferers who would be my companions for goodness knows how long. I stared in amusement at the fake twins as they in turn stared at the green baize, already curious as to the rank that the old captain would assign me when we became acquainted, but was disturbed to note the white strip buttoned onto Vassilenko’s jacket pocket. Ortega and I walked past the big window and sat down at a table set slightly apart, away from the crowd of various gameplayers, who would occasionally break out into lively argument; nearby, Colonel Kwiatkowski was playing chess on his own.

  ‘Don’t pay too much heed to the colonel, he isn’t always that brusque; actually, he’s the jolliest soul on our table, he’s just a bit of a loudmouth. Tomorrow he won’t even remember what he said last night. But today has been a difficult day for him: they’ve put him on an intensive course of Seroa, an extinct language once spoken in southern Africa. He’ll be put into isolation if he doesn’t improve. Seroa is a very archaic click-language – it has three different types of click. Doctor Barnung has recourse to such brutal expedients only in extreme cases. But, as you can see, Kwiatkowski has run through almost all his languages; he can’t keep a grip on anything. He’s gradually absenting himself from his own consciousness; the languages he speaks are eaten up by the gangrene caused by the disease. He comes from an a
ncient and noble Polish family which emigrated to Germany, where they spoke a different language every day in order to honour all the branches of the family: German on Mondays, Russian on Tuesdays, Swedish on Wednesdays, Romanian on Thursdays, Hungarian on Fridays, Czech on Saturdays and Polish only on Sundays. Kwiatkowski needs all these languages to stay alive. His identity is a seven-headed monster, but only one of them can live. Think of septuplets, seven different individuals all sharing the organs of a normal body; it’s a bit as though the colonel’s liver were in Germany, one lung in Sweden, the other in Romania, his eyes in Hungary and his heart in Poland. Doctor Barnung is trying to sever the colonel’s consciousness from those parts of him that will simply not be able to survive and save at least one of all those identities.’

  I was having trouble grasping the nature of this obscure malady which Ortega was outlining to me with such learned ease.

  ‘But why does anything need to be done at all? At his age, surely the colonel could be left in peace?’ I asked, perplexed.

  ‘Not really. Because it was with age that Kwiatkowski was beginning to give signs of mental imbalance – the first hints of some linguistic disorder, albeit apparently quite harmless. He was mixing up his words, talking an impenetrable language all his own. Then, four years ago, during a hunting party with some other NATO officers, he started shooting wildly at his fellow hunters, shouting ‘Surrender, bunch of queers!’ in every language known to him – one English lord actually perished in the fray. Since then, he’s been in here…’