“Firemen and policemen find a few on the side of the road, where the violence of the collision threw them out of burstopen bags, half burnt. Four of these letters concern orders of agricultural material; another contains the congratulations of a hundred-year-old grandmother to her granddaughter who has just had a baby, as well as the recipe for cherry clafoutis. In a sixth, a worried father writes to his son studying in New York to urge him to work relentlessly (‘You’ll see, my son, in a few years you’ll thank me for pushing you you to practice law; you’ll have a family, you’ll provide for your loved ones, who will appreciate you, you’ll understand that money is only worth the freedoms it provides for you,’ etc.).
“The seventh and second to last letter, written in French, is addressed to a certain Doris Night, but it begins rather curiously with:
My dear David,
I hope that you will not deem my request improper or bizarre. After much reflection I would like to ask you for a slight modification to the American version of my novel (N.d.T.). I know that you are a talented translator, intelligent, full of resources. Others have told me, I have observed it myself. Paris, which serves as the predictable framework for my novel for the French public, does not feel suitable for American readers. Thus, in order to “geographically” update my text, I ask that you replace the City of Light with your Big Apple, or rather with your cruel hedgehog studded with shiny needles. It will be a minimal adaptation, which I’m sure you will carry out with great panache. All you have to do is change the street names while taking into account the distances traveled by my characters, modify a few descriptions of urban environments, Americanize PMU, CGT, UMP, Monoprix, and other names of supermarkets, politicians, celebrities, etc., adapt recipes and restaurant menus, the jargon of taxi drivers, and other minor details (for example, I know there are no “concierges” in your country. You’re on your own there).You are, I believe, up to the task. Pay attention also to the metro map, car brands, important historical events of the recent or distant past. You must also, I almost forgot, find equivalents for French newspapers, in their respective styles (do you have an equivalent of Le Canard Enchaîné in New York?). I remain of course entirely at your disposal. The next time you’re in Paris, come have a drink at my place.
My secretary Doris says hello.
Yours,
Abel Prote
P.S. Most importantly, do not add a single word to my text. In your work as a translator, the strictest rigor is essential: remain invisible, silent, irreproachable. Not a single “in English in the original,” or “untranslatable play on words” (followed by cumbersome explanations), “quotation by Flaubert/Proust/Stendhal, etc.” No, all those additions are the work of pedantic prigs.
“The final envelope saved from the blaze and found by the policemen at the scene of the accident bears the name David Grey. It contains a love letter, addressed to a certain Doris. Here is the beginning, written in French, in the same cramped calligraphy as the previous missive:
My beloved Doris, my love, my pink jewel set in black, I cannot wait to see you again! Your transatlantic back-and-forths weigh heavily on me. I long for your slender feet with the pearly white nails, for your thin ankles whose curves inflame me, for your shapely legs that …
“The author of this fastidious letter, whose predictable name we discover four pages later, enumerates in detail the various parts of the rather charming anatomy of Doris, his personal secretary. Prote seems to be familiar with the first sequence of Godard’s Contempt, with the pulpy woodcock and the man with the long curly sideburns, or else he is simply interested in the ancient literary genre ‘blason,’ in which one describes with a fair amount of minutiae the various parts of the beloved’s body, like so many isolated, independent fragments, as if cruelly amputated and then positioned on the flat surface of a sterilized page for the purpose of medical observation, for no vision of the whole ever unifies these anatomic, or rather textual, morsels. Farewell, stratospheric fighter pilots, astronauts, and moon-men whose sharp, elevated views allow them to decipher pages covering several hectares; hello, low-flying wasp, the panting truffle dog riveted to the ground, the crawling insect whose faceted eye remains fixed on the object of its voracious desire, incapable of gaining even a tiny bit of height to glimpse an overall view. Hello, also, to the cruise missile molding to the mountainous terrain that it flies over at the speed of sound to escape from enemy radars. The cruel blason, the amorous vision of Abel Prote’s hand caressing Doris’s silky skin, or else the vision of the text that the translator is focusing on—eyes overflowing with paragraphs, phrases, words, letters, an approach that can be more surgical than tender—for he is faced with a body to operate on, not to caress, henceforth meat to cut up rather than flesh to delight in.
“In short, when David Grey, in New York, receives this long letter addressed to Doris, written in an inflamed tone and received in an envelope that is lightly charred as though by the fire of Protean passion, he is at first stupefied, but soon understands that the scatterbrained author of (N.d.T.) switched the envelopes, and that the beautiful brunette with the voluptuous curves, the French writer’s secretary, and recently the translator’s lover, has more than one trick up her sleeve.
“And when Doris receives, rather belatedly, the letter addressed to David Grey, an envelope stained with dirt and pale rings as though a liquid had been abundantly spilled over the paper, she is just as stunned. Then she understands that Abel Prote, her employer and Parisian lover, also has more than one trick up his sleeve, that he treats his American translator like a minion, and that his vanity knows no bounds, which, smart lady that she is, she already suspected.”
I delete, with no remorse, the corresponding passage of Translator’s Revenge and add, happily, to my text, these few pages of Scattered Figments in my new translation. (Two-timing Nooky)
THE TRANSLATOR PREPARES FOR WAR
*
* Abel Prote wants to take advantage of his literary paternity to pressure David into replacements in the form of a transatlantic displacement: although (N.d.T.) is set in Paris, Prote would like for Grey to transpose the novel to New York! What nerve! What boorishness! No one should be expected to do the impossible, especially since the translation contract signed by Grey with the American publisher for (N.d.T.) does not account for this sudden whim. Furious and probably also crazed with jealousy because of what he has just learned inadvertently about Doris, Grey wants to avenge himself and is already imagining physically deleting Prote. As for the too-brief list of weapons formerly mentioned by my author, who is decidedly a coward, to the whiteness specked with a minuscule stain I add the English monkey wrench, the American brass knuckles, the Bulgarian umbrella, the Japanese forearm strike, the Malaysian kris, French boxing, Chinese torture; the progressive strangulation or cardiac arrest provoked by sudden terror; the more classic arsenic or cyanide, kitchen knife, chandelier, heavy ashtray, drop hammer, and other crushing machines; the yataghan, piano wire (handled skillfully it promises instantaneous decapitation), defenestration, bewitchment, black magic, polonium-210 discreetly poured into your future victim’s cup of tea, if possible in London; the deadly sting or bite (scorpion, black widow, green mamba), the poison dart shot forth from a thin titanium blowgun, gold paint covering the entire body to asphyxiate the victim; the dagger, the sword, the supple épée with a decorated handle; the car, the package, or the booby-trapped telephone, all types of time bombs, backfiring Uzis, AK-47s, M16s, Stens, the light SLR machine guns of the British army, not to mention the heavy machinery kindly made available to the public