In Other Words

by Jhumpa Lahiri

  One says, siamo stati bene, we have been comfortable. Here we have the straight line, a condition that savors of conclusiveness. And yet to me it also seems a situation.

  The confusion makes me think of a certain geometric motif, a kind of optical illusion, that is found in the floors of churches, or old palazzi. It’s a series of squares in three colors, a simple but complex design that is deceptive to the eye. The effect of this illusion is astounding, disconcerting—the perspective shifts, so that you see two versions of the same thing, two possibilities, at the same time.

  Searching for clues, I note that with the adverbs sempre (always) and mai (never) one often uses the simple past: Sono stata sempre confusa (I’ve always been confused), for example. Or, Non sono mai stata capace di assorbire questa cosa (I’ve never been able to grasp this thing). I think I’ve discovered an important key, maybe a rule. Then, reading È stato così (It Has Been Like That [The Dry Heart]), by Natalia Ginzburg—a novel whose title provides another example of this theme—I read, “Non mi diceva mai che era innamorato di me.… Francesca aveva sempre tante cose da raccontare … Aspettavo sempre la posta” (He never told me he was in love with me.…Francesca always had lots of stories to tell.… I was always waiting for the mail”). No rule, only more confusion.

  One day, after reading Niente, più niente al mondo (Nothing, Nothing More in the World), a novel by Massimo Carlotto, I underline, like a lunatic, every use of the verb essere in the past. I write all the sentences in a notebook: “Sei stato dolce.” “C’era ancora la lira.” “È stato così fin da quando era giovane.” “Ero certa che tutto sarebbe cambiato in meglio.” (“You were sweet.” “The lira was still in use.” “He’s been like that since he was young.” “I was sure that everything would change for the better.”) But this labor turns out to be useless. I learn only one thing, in the end: it depends on the context, on the intention.

  By now the difference between the imperfect and the simple past troubles me a little less. By now I know that one says, at the end of a dinner, È stata una bella serata (It’s been a lovely evening), but that it was (era) a lovely evening until it rained. I know that sono stata in Greece for a week, but that ero in Greece when I got sick. I understand that the imperfect refers to a sort of introduction—an open-ended action, without boundaries, without beginning or end. An action suspended rather than contained, confined to the past. I understand that the relationship between the imperfect and the simple past is a precise, complex system, to make time gone by more tangible, more vivid. A way of recounting something abstract, of perceiving something that isn’t there.

  Needless to say, this obstacle makes me feel, in fact, very imperfect. Although it’s frustrating, it seems fated. I identify with the imperfect because a sense of imperfection has marked my life. I’ve been trying to improve myself forever, correct myself, because I’ve always felt I was a flawed person.

  Because of my divided identity, or perhaps by disposition, I consider myself an incomplete person, in some way deficient. Maybe there is a linguistic reason—the lack of a language to identify with. As a girl in America, I tried to speak Bengali perfectly, without a foreign accent, to satisfy my parents, and above all to feel that I was completely their daughter. But it was impossible. On the other hand, I wanted to be considered an American, yet, despite the fact that I speak English perfectly, that was impossible, too. I was suspended rather than rooted. I had two sides, neither well defined. The anxiety I felt, and still feel, comes from a sense of inadequacy, of being a disappointment.

  Here in Italy, where I’m very comfortable, I feel more imperfect than ever. Every day, when I speak, when I write in Italian, I meet with imperfection. That curving line leaves a trail, it accompanies me everywhere. It betrays me; it reveals that I am not rooted in this language.

  Why, as an adult, as a writer, am I interested in this new relationship with imperfection? What does it offer me? I would say a stunning clarity, a more profound self-awareness. Imperfection inspires invention, imagination, creativity. It stimulates. The more I feel imperfect, the more I feel alive.

  I’ve been writing since I was a child in order to forget my imperfections, in order to hide in the background of life. In a certain sense writing is an extended homage to imperfection. A book, like a person, remains imperfect, incomplete, during its entire creation. At the end of the gestation the person is born, then grows, but I consider a book alive only during the writing. Afterward, at least for me, it dies.

  THE HAIRY ADOLESCENT

  I receive an invitation to go to Capri, to a literary festival. It consists of a series of conversations between Anglophone and Italian writers, and takes place in a small piazza overlooking the sea, with a view of the rock formations known as the Faraglioni. Every year the festival is devoted to a subject that the writers will discuss with one another. This year, it is “Winners and Losers.” Before the festival, the participants are asked to write a piece on this subject, to be printed in a bilingual catalog. Since I’m an Anglophone writer, the assumption is that I will write this piece in English, and it will then be translated into Italian. But, having been in Italy for almost a year, I am now so gripped by the language that I try to avoid English as much as possible. I write the piece in Italian, and so an English translation is needed.

  I would be the natural translator, but I don’t have the least desire to do it. I’m not interested, at the moment, in going back. In fact, it frightens me. When I express my reluctance to my husband, he says, “You should do the translation yourself. Better you than someone else, otherwise it won’t be under your control.” Following this advice, and having a sense of duty, I decide, in the end, to translate myself.

  I imagined that it would be an easy job. A descent rather than an ascent. Instead, I’m astonished at how demanding I find it. When I write in Italian, I think in Italian; to translate into English, I have to wake up another part of my brain. I don’t like the sensation at all. I feel alienated. As if I’d run into a boyfriend I’d tired of, someone I’d left years earlier. He no longer appeals to me.

  On the one hand, the translation doesn’t sound good. It seems insipid, dull, incapable of expressing my new thoughts. On the other, I’m overwhelmed by the richness, the power, the suppleness of my English. Suddenly thousands of words, nuances, come to me. A solid grammar, no hesitations. I don’t need a dictionary; in English I don’t have to clamber uphill. This old knowledge, this skill, depresses me. Who is this writer, so well equipped? I don’t recognize her.

  I feel unfaithful. I fear that, against my will, reluctantly, I have betrayed Italian.

  Compared with Italian, English seems overbearing, domineering, full of itself. I have the impression that English has been in captivity and, having just been released, is furious. Probably, feeling neglected for almost a year, it’s angry at me. The two languages confront each other on the desk, but the winner is already more than obvious. The translation is devouring, dismantling the original text. I’m struck by how this bloody struggle exemplifies the theme of the festival, the very subject of the piece.

  I want to protect my Italian, which I hold in my arms like a newborn. I want to coddle it. It has to sleep, eat, grow. Compared with Italian, my English is like a hairy, smelly teenager. Go away, I want to say to it. Don’t bother your little brother, he’s sleeping. He’s not a creature who can run around and play. He’s not a carefree, strong, independent kid like you.

  Now I realize that I’m describing my relationship with Italian in another way, that I’ve introduced a new metaphor. Until now the analogy had always been romantic: a falling in love. Now, as I translate myself, I feel like the mother of two children. I notice that I’ve changed my relation to the language, but maybe this change reflects a development, a natural journey. One type of love follows the other; from a passionate coupling, ideally, a new generation is born. I feel an emotion even more intense, more pure, more transcendent for my children. Maternity is a visceral bond, an unconditional love, a de
votion that goes beyond attraction and compatibility.

  As I translate this short piece into English, I feel split in two. I can’t deal with the tension; I’m incapable of moving like an acrobat between the languages. I’m conscious of the unpleasant sensation of having to be two different people at the same time—an existential condition that has marked my life. I know that Beckett translated himself from French into English. That would be impossible for me, because my Italian remains much weaker. They aren’t equal, these two brothers, and the little one is my favorite. Toward Italian, I’m not neutral.

  As for the translation into English, I consider it an obligation, nothing more. I find it a centripetal process. No mystery, no discovery, no encounter with something outside myself.

  I have to admit, though, that traveling between the two versions turns out to be useful. In the end, the effort of translation makes the Italian version clearer, more articulate. It serves the writing, even if it upsets the writer.

  I think that translating is the most profound, most intimate way of reading. A translation is a wonderful, dynamic encounter between two languages, two texts, two writers. It entails a doubling, a renewal. I used to love translating from Latin, from ancient Greek, from Bengali. It was a way of getting close to different languages, of feeling connected to writers very distant from me in space and time. Translating myself, from a language in which I am still a novice, isn’t the same thing. I’ve struggled to complete the text in Italian, and I feel I’ve just arrived, tired but thrilled. I want to stop, orient myself. The reentry is too soon, it hurts. It seems like a defeat, a regression. It seems destructive rather than creative, almost a suicide.

  In Capri, I make my presentation in Italian. I read aloud my piece on winners and losers. I see the English text in blue on the left-hand side of the page, the Italian, in black, on the right. The English is mute, fairly tranquil. Printed and bound, the brothers tolerate each other. They are, at least for the moment, at peace.

  After the reading I have a conversation with two Italian writers. Sitting next to us is an interpreter who is to translate what we’re saying into English. After a few sentences I stop, and she speaks. This echo in English is incredible, fantastic: both a circle completed and a total reversal. I’m astonished, moved. I think of Mantua thirteen years ago, and of the interpreter without whom I couldn’t express myself in Italian in public. I didn’t think I would ever reach this goal.

  Listening to my interpreter, I trust my Italian for the first time. Although he’ll remain forever the younger brother, the little guy pulls through. Thanks to the firstborn, I can see the second—listen to him, even admire him a little.

  THE SECOND EXILE

  After spending a year in Rome I return to America for a month. Immediately, I miss Italian. Not to be able to speak it and hear it every day distresses me. When I go to restaurants, to shops, to the beach, I’m irritated: Why aren’t people speaking Italian? I don’t want to interact with anyone. I have an aching sense of homesickness.

  Everything I absorbed in Rome seems absent. Returning to the maternal metaphor, I think of the first times I had to leave my children at home, just after they were born. At the time, I felt a tremendous anxiety. I felt guilty, even though those brief moments of separation were normal, important both for me and for them. It was important to establish that our bodies, until then connected, were independent. And yet now, as then, I am acutely conscious of a painful physical detachment. As if a part of me were missing.

  I’m aware of the distance. Of an oppressive, intolerable silence.

  The absence of Italian assails me more forcefully every day. I’m afraid I’ve already forgotten everything I learned. I’m afraid of being annihilated. I imagine a devouring vortex, all the words disappearing into the darkness. In my notebook I make a list of Italian verbs that signify the act of going away: scomparire, svanire, sbiadire, sfumare, finire. Evaporare, svaporare, svampire. Perdersi, dileguarsi, dissolversi. I know that some are synonyms of morire, to die.

  I suffer until, one afternoon on Cape Cod, a journalist from Milan calls, to interview me. I can’t wait for the phone to ring, but as I’m talking to her I’m worried that my Italian already sounds awkward, that my language is already out of practice. A foreign language is a delicate, finicky muscle. If you don’t use it, it gets weak. In America, my Italian sounds jarring, transplanted. The manner of speaking, the sounds, the rhythms, the cadences seem uprooted, out of place. The words seem irrelevant, without a meaningful presence. They seem like castaways, nomads.

  In America, when I was young, my parents always seemed to be in mourning for something. Now I understand: it must have been the language. Forty years ago it wasn’t easy for them to talk to their families on the phone. They looked forward to the mail. They couldn’t wait for a letter to arrive from Calcutta, written in Bengali. They read it a hundred times, they saved it. Those letters evoked their language and conjured a life that had disappeared. When the language one identifies with is far away, one does everything possible to keep it alive. Because words bring back everything: the place, the people, the life, the streets, the light, the sky, the flowers, the sounds. When you live without your own language you feel weightless and, at the same time, overloaded. You breathe another type of air, at a different altitude. You are always aware of the difference.

  After living in Italy for only a year, I feel a little like that in America. And yet something doesn’t add up. I’m not Italian, I’m not even bilingual. Italian remains for me a language learned as an adult, cultivated, nurtured.

  One day on Cape Cod I happen on a secondhand book sale, outside, in a small square. On the grass are a lot of folding tables piled with all types of books. They’re very cheap. Usually I like rummaging for an hour or so and buying a bunch of things. This time, however, I don’t want to buy anything, because all the books are in English. Feeling desperate, I look for a book in Italian. There are a few boxes devoted to foreign languages. I see a beat-up German dictionary, some tattered French novels, but nothing in Italian. The only thing that attracts me is a tourist guide to Italy written in English; it’s the only thing I buy, and only because it makes me think of returning to Rome at the end of August. All the other books, even a copy of one of my own novels, leave me indifferent. As if they were written in a foreign language.

  Now I feel a double crisis. On the one hand I’m aware of the ocean, in every sense, between me and Italian. On the other, of the separation between me and English. I’d already noticed it in Italy, translating myself. But I think that emotional distance is always more pronounced, more piercing, when, in spite of proximity, there remains an abyss.

  Why don’t I feel more at home in English? How is it that the language I learned to read and write in doesn’t comfort me? What happened, and what does it mean? The estrangement, the disenchantment confuses, disturbs me. I feel more than ever that I am a writer without a definitive language, without origin, without definition. Whether it’s an advantage or a disadvantage I wouldn’t know.

  Midway through the month I go to see my Venetian Italian teacher, in Brooklyn. This time we don’t have a lesson, just a long chat. We talk about Rome, about her family and mine. I bring her a box of biscottini, I show her photographs of my new life. She gives me some of her books, paperbacks, taken down from the shelves: stories by Calvino, Pavese, Silvio d’Arzo. Poems of Ungaretti. It’s the last time I’ll come here. My teacher is about to move, she’s leaving Brooklyn. She’s already sold the house where she lived for many years, where we had our lessons. She is preparing to pack everything for the move. From now on, when I return to America, to Brooklyn, I won’t see her.

  I come home carrying a small pile of Italian books, and with these, in spite of a pervasive melancholy, I am able to calm myself. In this period of silence, of linguistic isolation, only a book can reassure me. Books are the best means—private, discreet, reliable—of overcoming reality.

  I read in Italian every day, but I don’t write. In Am
erica I become passive. Even though I’ve brought the dictionaries, the exercise books, the notebooks, I can’t write even a word in Italian. I describe nothing in the diary, I don’t feel like it. As far as writing is concerned, I remain inactive. As if I were in a creative waiting room, all I do is wait.

  Finally, at the end of August, at the airport, at the gate, I am surrounded by Italian again. I see all the Italians who are going home after their vacations in New York. I hear their chatter. At first I feel relief, joy. Immediately afterward I realize that I’m not like them. I’m different, just as I was different from my parents when we went on vacation to Calcutta. I’m not returning to Rome to rejoin my language. I’m returning to continue my courtship of another.

  Those who don’t belong to any specific place can’t, in fact, return anywhere. The concepts of exile and return imply a point of origin, a homeland. Without a homeland and without a true mother tongue, I wander the world, even at my desk. In the end I realize that it wasn’t a true exile: far from it. I am exiled even from the definition of exile.

  THE WALL

  There is pain in every joy. In every violent passion a dark side.

  The second year in Rome, after Christmas, I go with my family to see the temples at Paestum, and afterward we spend a couple of days in Salerno. There, in the center, in a shop window, I notice some nice children’s clothes. I go in with my daughter. I turn to the saleswoman. I tell her I’m looking for pants for my daughter. I describe what I have in mind, suggest colors that would suit, and add that my daughter doesn’t like styles that are too tight, that she would prefer something comfortable. In other words, I speak for quite a long time with this saleswoman, in an Italian that is fluent but not completely natural.