Design of the non

by David Odell

  "Not if you blow the smoke upwards, sir," replied the British leader, abandoning her study of her nails and smoothing her skirt, and I again translated.

  The Spanish leader lit a cheroot (it was the size and shape of a cigarette, but dark brown, what I would call a cheroot), took a couple of puffs and carefully expelled the smoke up towards the ceiling, which, I noticed, was stained. Silence reigned once more and, after a while, he got up from his comfortable armchair, went over to a small table perhaps rather too crammed with bottles, poured himself a whisky on the rocks (I thought it odd that no waiter or butler had poured him one before) and asked:

  "You don't want a drink, I take it?"

  And I translated, as I did the reply, although again adding "madam" at the end of the question.

  "It's too early for me so, no, I won't join you, if you don't mind." And the Englishwoman again tugged unnecessarily at her skirt.

  These long pauses and that smattering of talk or rather the dull interchange of isolated phrases were beginning to bore me. The other time I'd acted as an interpreter between two leading figures, I'd at least had the feeling that I was pretty much indispensable, given my thorough knowledge of the languages I speak. Not that they were saying anything of great importance (one was Spanish and the other Italian), but I had to reproduce a highly complicated syntax and vocabulary which would have been beyond the grasp of anyone with only an average knowledge of those languages, unlike the present situation: a child could have translated everything that had been said so far.

  Our leader sat down again with his whisky in one hand and his cheroot in the other, he took a sip of his drink, sighed wearily, put down the glass, looked at his watch, smoothed the tails of his jacket, which had got caught up beneath him, again felt in his pockets for something, inhaled and exhaled more smoke, smiled - unenthusiastically now (the British leader smiled too, even less enthusiastically, and scratched her forehead with the long nails she'd looked at with such amazement at the start, and the air was filled for a moment with grains of face powder), and I realized then that the thirty to forty-five minutes we were to spend there, as if in the ante-room of a tax inspector or a notary, might well be spent simply waiting for the time to pass and for the office boy or the servant to open the door for us again, like a university porter announcing apathetically: "Time!" or a nurse shouting out in a grating voice: "Next!" I again turned round to Luisa, this time to say something under my breath to her (I think I was planning to mutter something like: "What a drag!"), but I found that she was smiling back at me, her index finger firmly to her lips which she tapped several times, indicating to me that I should remain silent. I know that I'll never forget those smiling lips crossed by that index finger which, nevertheless, failed to conceal her smile. I think it was at that moment (or more clearly at that moment) that I first thought it would be a good idea to get to know that woman, younger than me and extremely well shod. I think it was also the conjunction of her lips and her index finger (her open lips and the index finger sealing them, her curved lips and the straight line of the index finger dividing them) that gave me the courage to abandon accuracy altogether when I translated the next question that our extremely high-ranking politician finally asked, once he'd removed from his pocket a heavy keyring loaded with keys, which he started jingling in the most unseemly manner:

  "Would you like me to order you some tea?" he said.

  And I didn't translate, I mean that the English I put into his mouth was not his polite question (which it must be recognized was as trite as it was tardy), but this other question:

  'Tell me, do the people in your country love you?"

  I could feel Luisa's astonishment behind me, more than that, I noticed that she immediately uncrossed her startled legs (the long legs that were never out of my sight, like the expensive new Prada shoes, she certainly knew how to spend her money, unless someone else had given them to her), and for a few long seconds (I felt the back of my neck pierced by her sense of shock), I waited for her to intervene and denounce me, to correct or reprimand me, or rather for her, the "net", to take over from me at once, that's what she was there for. But those few seconds passed (one, two, three, four) and she said nothing, perhaps (I thought then) because the high-ranking British politician didn't seem in the least offended and replied at once, with a kind of contained vehemence:

  "I often wonder the same thing myself," she said, and for the first time she crossed her legs, forgetting about her sensible skirt and revealing two very square, white knees. "The people vote for one, indeed they do so more than once. One is elected, again more than once. And yet, it's odd, one still doesn't have the feeling of being loved."

  I translated very precisely, only leaving out part of the first phrase in my Spanish version so that her words would appear to our high-ranking politician to be the product of some spontaneous thought which, it must be said, seemed to please him as a subject of conversation, since he looked at the woman with very little surprise and a great deal more sympathy and replied, gaily jingling his many keys:

  "You're quite right. Votes don't give you any reassurance on that score, however much we need them. Do you know what I think? I think that dictators, rulers in countries where there are no democratic elections, are more loved than we are. And more hated too, of course, but they're still more intensely loved by those who do love them, whose numbers, moreover, are always on the increase."

  I considered that this final remark was a little exaggerated, not to say inaccurate, so I translated everything except that phrase (I omitted it, in short, censored it), and I again awaited some reaction from Luisa. She quickly crossed her legs again (her knees were rounded, golden), but that was the only sign she gave of having noticed the liberties I was taking. Perhaps she didn't in fact disapprove, I thought, although I believed I could still feel her stupefied or possibly indignant gaze fixed on the back of my neck. It was just a shame that I couldn't turn round to look at her.

  The British politician seemed to brighten up: "Oh, I agree," she said. "People love one in large measure because they're obliged to. That happens in personal relationships too, don't you think? How many couples are there who are only in a couple because one of the two, and only one, insisted that they become a couple and obliged the other one to love him or her?"

  "Obliged or persuaded?" asked the Spanish politician, and I saw that he was pleased with the subtlety of his question, so I simply translated exactly what he'd said. He was still jingling his innumerable keys, making far too much noise — he was a nervous type - so that I couldn't hear very well, an interpreter needs silence to carry out his work.

  The lady politician looked at her long, manicured nails more with unconscious coquetry than with unease or distrust, as she had done before when she was pretending indifference. She tugged vainly at her skirt again, her legs still crossed.

  "It comes to the same thing really, don't you think? There's just a difference in chronology, which comes first, which comes before, because, inevitably, one becomes the other and vice versa. It's what the French call a fait accompli. If you order a country to love its rulers, it will end up convinced that it does love them, at least much more easily than if you didn't order them to do so. We can't force them to, that's the problem."

  I was in some doubt as to whether her last remark was not perhaps too extreme for the democratic ears of our high-ranking politician and, after a moment's hesitation and a glance at the other, far superior legs watching me, I decided to suppress "that's the problem". The legs didn't move and I immediately realized that my democratic scruples were entirely unjustified, because, banging the keys down assertively on the low table between them, the Spanish official replied:

  "That's the problem, it's certainly our problem, that we can't force them to, I mean. You see, I can't do what our dictator, Franco, used to do, which was to call the people together in an act of solidarity in the Plaza de Oriente" - here I was obliged to translate this as "in a large square", because I felt that the in
troduction of the word "Oriente" might prove disconcerting to the Englishwoman - "in order that they might acclaim us, the cabinet, I mean, after all that's what we are, aren't we, just members of a cabinet? He did it with impunity, on the slightest pretext, and they say that people were obliged to go along and cheer him. That's true, but it's equally true that they used to fill the whole square, there are photos and documentaries to prove it; now they couldn't all have been forced to go there, especially in the latter years when the repression wasn't so harsh, or at least only if you were a civil servant who might risk punishment or dismissal. A lot of people were still convinced that they loved him, and why? Because before, for decades, they'd been obliged to do so. Love is a habit."

  "My dear friend," exclaimed the lady politician, "I know just what you mean. What I'd give for such an act of solidarity. Unfortunately, in my country, the only time you see the spectacle of a cheering, united nation is when they're protesting about something. It's very discouraging to hear the insults they hurl at us without even listening to or reading our laws, insulting the whole cabinet, as you so rightly say, with their offensive placards, terribly depressing."

  "And then there are the slogans," said our politician, "they shout slogans too." But I didn't translate that because it didn't seem to me to be very important and I didn't have time either, for the Englishwoman was continuing her lament without taking any notice of him:

  "Couldn't they acclaim us, just once? I wonder, do we never do anything right? I'm only acclaimed by the people in my party and, of course, I can't entirely believe in their sincerity. The only time we get any support is when we go to war, I don't know if you know that, it's only when we send the country to war that.. ."

  The British leader remained thoughtful, leaving the sentence dangling, as if she were remembering the cheers of yesteryear that would never again return. She uncrossed her legs again, modestly and carefully, and once more tugged energetically at her skirt, miraculously managing to pull it down a further two inches. I didn't at all like the turn the conversation was taking, and it was all my fault. Good grief, I thought (but I would like to have said so to Luisa), these democratic politicians all have dictatorial longings, for them any achievement and any form of consensus will always only be the pale realization of a deeply totalitarian desire, the desire for unanimity, for everyone to be in agreement, and the closer they get to this partial realization of an impossible totality, the greater their euphoria, although it will never be enough; they extol the plurality of ideas, but in fact to them it's just a curse and a nuisance. I duly translated everything the woman had said except for her final mention of war (I didn't want our politician to get any ideas), and in their place I put the following plea in her mouth:

  "Would you mind very much putting away those keys? I'm terribly sensitive to noise lately. I'd be so grateful."

  Luisa's legs didn't change position, and so, once our politician had apologized, blushing slightly, and returned the large bunch of keys to his jacket pocket (they must have been making a hole in it they were so heavy), I decided to betray him yet again, for he said:

  "But, naturally, if we do something well nobody organizes a demonstration to show us how pleased they are."

  I decided on the contrary to lead him into more personal territory, which seemed to me less dangerous and also more interesting, and I made him say in crystal-clear English:

  "If you don't mind my asking and you don't think I'm being too personal, have you, in your own experience of love, ever obliged anyone to love you?"

  I realized at once that the question was too daring, especially when addressed to an Englishwoman, and I was convinced that this time Luisa wouldn't just let it pass, more than that, she'd finally deploy her net, denounce me and expel me from the room, scream blue murder, How can you possibly do this, you've gone quite far enough, lying and pretending, this isn't a game, you know. My career would be ruined. Attentively, fearfully, I watched her gleaming legs independent of her skirt, on this occasion, moreover, they had ample time to reflect and to react, for the Englishwoman was also taking time to reflect for some seconds before responding. She was looking at our politician with her mouth half-open and an appreciative expression on her face (she was wearing too much lipstick and it had leaked into the cracks between her teeth), and he, confronted by this new silence which he had not provoked and which, of course, he couldn't understand, took out another cheroot and lit it with the butt of the previous one, causing (I think) a very bad impression. But Luisa's dear legs didn't move, they remained crossed although they may have been swaying a little: I noticed only that she seemed to sit up a little straighter in her murderously uncomfortable chair, as if she were holding her breath, perhaps more frightened by the possible reply than by the now irrevocable indiscretion; or, I thought, perhaps she was also intrigued to know the answer, now that the question had been asked. She didn't betray me, she didn't contradict me, she didn't intervene, she remained silent, and I thought that if she allowed me that, she would allow me anything for the whole of the rest of my life, or rather for the half of my life as yet unlived.

  "Hmm. Yes, I think I have, more than once," the Englishwoman said at last, and there was a tremor of distant emotion in her sharp voice, so distant that it was perhaps only recoverable in that form, as a sudden tremor in that imperious voice. "In fact, I wonder if anyone has ever loved me without being obliged to, even my children - well, one's children are the most obliged of all to love one. It's always been like that, but I also wonder if it isn't the same for everyone. You see, I don't believe in those stories you see on television, people who unproblematically meet and fall in love, both of them free agents, both of them available, neither one of them with any doubts or regrets. I don't think that ever happens, ever, not even amongst the very young. Any relationship between two people always brings with it a multitude of problems and coercions, as well as insults and humiliations.

  Everyone obliges everyone else, not so much to do something they don't want to do, but rather to do something they're not sure they want to do, because hardly anyone ever knows what they don't want, still less what they do want, there's no way of knowing that. If no one ever obliged anyone to do anything, the world would grind to a halt, we'd all just float around in a state of global vacillation and carry on like that indefinitely. All people really want to do is to sleep, the thought of future regrets would paralyse us, imagining the consequences of acts we haven't even committed is always dreadful, that's why we politicians are so necessary, we're here in order to take the decisions that others would never take, immobilized as they are by their doubts and their lack of will. We listen to their fear. The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures,' Shakespeare said and I sometimes think that that's all people are, paintings, asleep today and dead tomorrow. That's why they vote for us and why they pay us, in order for us to wake them up, in order for us to remind them that their hour, though it will arrive, has not yet come, but that, meanwhile, we'll make their decisions for them. But, of course, we still have to do it in a way which they believe they've chosen, just as couples get together believing that both have chosen to do so, with their eyes wide open. It's not just that one of them has been obliged to do so by the other — or persuaded to do so if you prefer — it's that, at some point in the long process that brought them together, both of them have been obliged, don't you think, and are then obliged to stay together for some time, even until death. Sometimes they're obliged by some external factor or by someone who's no longer in their lives, the past obliges them, their own discontent, their own history, their own wretched biography obliges them. Or even things they know nothing about or which are beyond their comprehension, the part of our inheritance we all carry within us and of which we're all ignorant, who knows when that whole process actually began . . ."

  While I was translating this long meditation (I didn't bother to translate the "Hmm" and I began with "I wonder if anyone" in order to make the dialogue between them more coherent), the wom
an kept pausing while she was speaking to look at the floor with a modest, absent smile, a little embarrassed perhaps, her hands splayed out, resting on her thighs, the way women of a certain age with nothing much to do often sit to watch the afternoon pass by, although she did have things to do and it was still only the morning. And while I was translating her speech, almost simultaneously, and wondering where that quotation from Shakespeare came from ("The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures," she'd said and as I heard the words leave her painted lips, I'd hesitated over whether to translate "the sleeping" as "the sleepers" and "pictures" as "portraits"), and I was wondering too if our politician would be capable of thoroughly understanding such a long speech, of not getting lost, of coming up with a suitable reply, I could feel Luisa's head growing closer to mine, closer to the back of my neck, as if she'd shifted her position or bent forwards a little in order to hear the two versions more clearly, unconcerned about keeping a distance, that is, the short distance that now separated her from me, and which now, with that movement forward (a forward movement of her face: nose, eyes and mouth; chin, forehead and cheeks), had grown still shorter, so that I could almost hear her light breathing by my ear, her slightly troubled, rapid breathing almost brushing my ear, the lobe of my ear, as if it were a whisper so quiet that it lacked any message or meaning, as if her breathing, or the act of whispering itself, was all that was to be transmitted, that and perhaps the slight stirring of her breast, that didn't brush against me but which I could feel was much closer now, almost touching, unfamiliar. It's always the chest of the other person we lean back against for support, we only really feel supported or backed up when, as the latter verb itself indicates, there's someone behind us, someone we perhaps cannot even see and who covers our back with their chest, so close it almost brushes our back and in the end always does, and at times, that someone places a hand on our shoulder, a hand to calm us and also to hold us. That's how most married people and most couples sleep or think they sleep, the two turn to the same side when they say goodnight, so that one has his or her back to the other throughout the whole night and feels backed up by the other person, and in the middle of the night, when he or she wakes up startled from a nightmare, or is unable to get to sleep, or is suffering from a fever or feels alone and abandoned in the darkness, they have only to turn round and see before them the face of the person protecting them, the person who will let themselves be kissed on any part of the face that is kissable (nose, eyes and mouth; chin, forehead and cheeks, the whole face) or perhaps, half-asleep, will place a hand on their shoulder to calm them, or to hold them, or even to cling to them.