Cunillé, Lluïsa. 2008. Après moi, le déluge, trans. Sharon G. Feldman. Available for download at http://www.catalandrama.cat/obras/apres-moi-le-deluge [accessed August 2011] (Online Publication)
He says that yes he does understand your language but he doesn’t know how to speak it.
Really?
He also says he wasn’t expecting his interpreter to be a woman. That to speak through a woman’s mouth doesn’t seem very honorable to him.
Then tell him that I’m leaving tomorrow and I don’t have time to look for another interpreter that seems more honorable to him.
I don’t need to translate it for you, he understands everything you say.
Well, then so we’ll talk now or we’ll drop the whole thing.
You could also talk the next time you come back with the help of a male interpreter.
Is that what he said?
No, that’s what I said.
I don’t know if I’ll come back again. If he has something to offer, let him do it now or he can go. I have another meeting in a short while and I also have a lot of things to do before leaving.
He says he really appreciates it that you’ve been able to see him without an appointment. He knows you’re a very busy man.
I would like to know who let him come up and wait at my door.
He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know the name of the hotel receptionist but he thinks she let him up because he’s rather coarse and disheveled. Here in Kinshasa they’re very frightened by people who are coarse and disheveled, they believe they have a bad spirit inside them and for that reason they don’t go near them or talk to them much.
What does he want? Why has he come to see me?
He’s asking me not to look.
That you not look?
At him. While the two of you talk.
Do you mind what he’s asking?
It’s not the first time it’s happened to me.
OK.
He has a nineteen year old son who has the same name as he. He’s the goalie for a football team. He wants to know if you could intervene. No, sorry, as an agent, yes, he wants to know if you could represent his son and if you could find him a team. He says he knows of other young men who after trying out have gotten a contract to play in Europe, that there are more and more European teams interested in African players.
The above sample taken from the translation Après moi, le déluge (2008) by Sharon G. Feldman is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Cunillé, Lluïsa. 2008. Après moi, le déluge, trans. Sharon G. Feldman. Available for download at http://www.catalandrama.cat/obras/apres-moi-le-deluge [accessed August 2011] (Online Publication)
You want to see my son?
Yes.
Why?
I want him to tell me himself that he wants to leave here and leave you alone.
You want to take my son with you?
It’s possible.
(Pause.)
What do you mean it’s possible?
It’s possible that I could give him a job.
You want him to work for you?
Yes.
You mean you need my son?
Yes.
Yes, what ...
Yes I need him. (Long pause.) Do you want me to call down to reception so they can get him?
My son?
Is he in the lobby?
No, he’s not in the lobby.
Is he at the entrance to the hotel?
He’s not in the hotel or on the street.
He’s not waiting outside?
No.
Has he left?
No.
Where is he, then?
Nowhere. My son died sixteen years ago.
Your son is dead?
He died when he was three years old. (Pause.) Don’t you want to know what he died of?
Yes.
That year I had a bad crop, he got malaria and since he wasn’t strong enough he didn’t survive. (Pause.) If my son were still alive he would have lived through everything I’ve told you. Not even I, his father, could have saved him from any of the things that awaited him. (Pause.) All these years he was missed only by his mother and by me, and for the past four years he’s been missed only by me. But now you will miss him too when you return to Cape Town.
The above sample taken from the translation Après moi, le déluge (2008) by Sharon G. Feldman is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Entry written by Gwynneth Dowling. Last updated on 27 October 2011.