Translated Accounts

by Kelman, James

  TRANSLATED ACCOUNTS

  Also by James Kelman

  ‘And the Judges Said . . .’ Essays

  The Burn

  The Busconductor Hines

  A Chancer

  The Good Times

  Greyhound for Breakfast

  Not not while the giro

  An Old Pub Near the Angel

  This eBook edition published in 2012 by

  Birlinn Limited

  West Newington House

  Newington Road

  Edinburgh

  EH9 1QS

  www.birlinn.co.uk

  First published in 2001 by Secker & Warburg

  This edition published in 2009 by Polygon,

  an imprint of Birlinn Ltd

  Copyright © James Kelman, 2001

  The moral right of James Kelman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-1-84697-056-6

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-85790-149-1

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Foreword to the New Edition

  I was glad to proof this new edition of Translated Accounts. It allowed me to perform an editorial. If writers get the chance they must take it. I thank the publishers and editorial team for allowing the chance. I thank also the typsetting team for respecting the work.

  James Kelman

  Preface

  These “translated accounts” are by three, four or more individuals domiciled in an occupied territory or land where a form of martial law appears in operation. Narrations of incidents and events are included; also reports, letter-fragments, states-of-mind and abstracts of interviews, some confessional. While all are “first hand” they have been transcribed and/or translated into English, not always by persons native to the tongue. In a very few cases translations have been modified by someone of a more senior office. The work was carried out prior to posting into the computing systems. If editorial control has been exercised evidence suggests inefficiency rather than design, whether wilful or otherwise. This is indicated by the retention of account Number 5 in the form it emerged from computative mediation. A disciplined arrangement of the accounts has been undertaken. Some arrived with titles already in place; others had none and were so assigned. Chronology is important but not to an over-riding extent; variable ordering motions are integral to the process of mediation that occurs within computing systems and other factors were taken into consideration. It is confirmed that these accounts are by three, four or more anonymous individuals of a people whose identity is not available.

  Contents

  1 “bodies”

  2 “the elderly woman died”

  3 “endplace

  4 “one of many”

  5 “¿FODocument”

  6 “a statement”

  7 “lives were around me”

  8 “words, thoughts”

  9 “I do not know about morale”

  10 “lecture, re sensitive periods”

  11 “old examples”

  12 “I do not go to his country”

  13 “if I think nothing”

  14 “a pumpkin story”

  15 “wine from one religious”

  16 “they see you”

  17 “split in my brain”

  18 “respect is for actions”

  19 “I speak of these men”

  20 “these people”

  21 “if under false pretences”

  22 “intercession/selection?”

  23 “she offered”

  24 “most evil incidents”

  25 “history must exist for colleagues”

  26 “perhaps some men”

  27 “nonsense song”

  28 “father/family”

  29 “I bore him no ill will”

  30 “leg wounds”

  31 “if I may speak”

  32 “I cannot remember”

  33 “there was no other possibility”

  34 “if she screamed”

  35 “I have brains”

  36 “we have our positions”

  37 “such collusion”

  38 “thought”

  39 “censure is not expulsion”

  40 “demons, upon me”

  41 “girl too close”

  42 “homecoming stories”

  43 “letter fragments”

  44 “newcomer, I am the fool”

  45 “letter to widow, unfinished”

  46 “this comes back”

  47 “sea dreams”

  48 “it is said that I did”

  49 “where, how”

  50 “it is possible”

  51 “her arms folded”

  52 “spectral body”

  53 “who asks the question”

  54 “it is true”

  1

  “bodies”

  There were bodies strewn throughout the building. I had to reach other rooms and it was so very difficult to walk, having to step over them, and it was so very dark the shapes hardly visible, whether any of these were familiar I could not say, could not stop, but had to reach this one individual,

  acquaintance, this man who was closer to enemy than friend, I was to save him. But perhaps he preferred not so to be saved, that I should leave him to die. I could not help him in that. I would do as so determined, only that. I was representative.

  I considered the time, what time? When was it? I now saw him and my immediate thought was, No, he never was my friend. Did they say that he was? They lied, as he also, he was a liar, this man. I knew him as a liar and it came to me this was a progression. We progress. I also would progress. A comfort came from this. I again was aware of the bodies but as in a dream, or dream-like, my own state. One by my feet, a woman. She had been dead for many years but her face and kind were familiar. If I had known her, her family, I thought I had done so, thus her sister now into my thoughts, what of her, who was to become my lover. How could it be? Niece, granddaughter. She too lived by the bridge. It was far to the harbour, north-east of there, and a river also there, families lived by it. It was an encampment, when in transit, they made a dwelling of that place, evil place, some said so. I knew dripping water, sewage, the dampness into our bones, and cold, of course cold.

  Whose head is with the children? Who said that the children always are in discomfort, someone did say it.

  Dreams, not nightmares. I would have had nightmares. I did not shirk. I do not. Her sister was a woman of strength. There is that strength. I could speak of this, and at an earlier time. Women came from here. I knew them. She was taller. She met me that morning, early, it was cold and the dampness, chilling. We came from our section. I said of the bodies, how securitys came, gripping their rifle weapons, herding us. We knew they had knocked the brains out of the heads of children and said so. Yes, if it was so, we said it. And they asked us things, certainly they did so. And saw in us our contempt, that we could not hide and could not, could not hide it, they were asking myself, had I found this man?

  What man?

  You know.

  I know. No, I said, I do not know, if it is his body, is it his head, and if it is so it is not now recognisable, if it is one of those. Who it is, whom do you speak? There is the group, see the group, and I pointed to the main group.

  I was not boastful. I told them I did not know why this building was a home but that it was and I was going through there and could not step but for bodies, everywhere. Now I see, yes,
that I recognised many among them, friends yes intimates, intimates. I said it, familiars. I said that they were. If misrepresentation, there has been so, I have been exhausted and the times, evil. For they herded us. I am not an animal. Some may be, I am not. We make decisions, each among us. I told them too about the woman but that she had been dead for many years. One stepped to me and said, I too have read these stories. These times were evil, men severed from sisters, daughters, rapacious.

  Yes rapacious, I know the word.

  But not me, I would not be trapped. This was a dream. Yes I saw the bodies. Yes I did know many of them. Of course not all, I did not say all. I could not have said all for this was not reality that it was all, I could not have said this but had it been reality, holding to be true, if so it had been then I would not shirk, not from it, truth, why should we, shirking from it.

  I could say if this was reality. It is over. No charges were laid against me.

  I came to that building, house or home to many and inside were the bodies. I went to another and this was a man who was the son of a man. He had been insolent, had not the wit to grasp of security how serious a business it had become and I said to his father what had happened to him. They killed him. He knew it.

  The mist clung to us, we were herded, the chill, children. Yes we had heard the stories. I knew the stories, if one does not, who it is. There were the women here, these women were strong and of course stronger than the men as is said in their manner. It is to be remembered of our section and that encampment how at that time, feeling that those who dwell there cannot survive this other winter. I cannot, each of us thinking it.

  And so we continued, I also. I was not a fantasist as many were among us. I saw former acquaintances, colleagues, who themselves were dead, now with these bodies, others alive, seeing them on the streets there, if I can say streets. I could say friends if it were true. They were no friends.

  I was to recover him. He preferred that I leave him to die. I could not save such a man if the judgment was my own but it was not, this course was determined. What I could do, nothing. My regret also nothing, I regret nothing, nothing. This was a dream, not a nightmare. These were evil times, they say, now is not like then. But no matter that they say this it is not so, and those of us who then were we know it is not so. I could not save him. Those days were at an end.

  2

  “the elderly woman died”

  The woman discovered early on the road, I know who she was. When she was living I visited her. I would talk and she would lie back on her pillows and listen not listen. My talk was stories, they followed patterns and within the pattern was space for dreams, her dreams my dreams, as of weaving, the story-web, spiders. She stared at the ceiling as though her attention wandered but also as to settle herself that she might concentrate. She wished me there as long as possible. But her gaze could shift to the window, was it open or closed. Had they, previous visitors, neglected to lock up afterwards. She believed some had methods of tormenting her. These visitors might not lock the door, the window, allowing the devils to enter from beyond. This was such a method. She trusted no one. I would say to her, Look, your window is closed. She was pretending not to hear. But look! and stepping across I pushed and pulled, the window not shifting. See, no one is playing tricks, this window cannot be shifted but by explosives, greater explosives.

  She did not believe it. I would see agitation in her. I could not be trusted. In her eyes I saw it, she mocked at me, the spirit of me, hiding within me, it was a devil, spirit of a devil, a demon. Or if I was so speaking she might turn from me and to the wall, remaining silent, staying that way and I wondered if she was sleeping.

  There were no people from earlier times, they did not come to her. This was not her homeplace. If she said that it was, it was not. Her mind was mistaken. Neighbours. What neighbours. What is neighbours. If visitors to her, there were visitors and she only cried at them, thieves, murderers! And with her stick, yes, lashing at them. At myself, also, neighbours may testify, if they so have said, yes. One might sit by her and she lashed with it, suddenly.

  A religious man did visit her. I am not the religious man.

  She was not murdered, neither killed. She died.

  If she would think of herself as having been murdered. None may ask her opinion. But the devils were responsible, evil ones, bringing her from behind the locked door to outside, outside as to the perimeter, they were dragging her, jeering at her, your breasts are withered and shrunken, old skin and bone, you are nothing, jeering also at her stick, it is a great weapon, oh greater, greater! and her agitation, everything, her clothing, what clothing.

  She was of an age that to die is natural but she died on the road. Natural unnatural, unnatural natural. She died, it was on the road. She was an elderly woman whom I had known, had been acquainted. I spoke with her, she allowed my presence. If she did not consider me likeable. Yes, I accept this and accepted this, that she did not like me. I can say it as others might. They have done. I know that they have done. Why should they not if it is the case, as so, it was the case, certainly. If she liked anyone, did she, I do not think so.

  I do not care. She is dead.

  I had become familiar to her. From when I was in that area. The work had taken me to there and so I lived there. I lived in many areas, becoming familiar to some, as they to myself, many people, so it was with the elderly woman. She had nothing, no treasures, trinkets, no jewellery, no, not anything that I saw. Yet there may have been, she may have secreted such items. People do it, women. I did not look. These might have existed. I cannot answer. If she had a horde, treasure-trove, who is to say. Relations. She had a niece.

  She had not been ill that I know. I had not visited with her but that last occasion. Not recently, other than the occasion referred. People have memories but in substance these may be false, not biased, not necessarily.

  The religious man certainly had been visiting. I said about the religious man. If I am thought to be so, mistaken so, I am not religious, having none such belief. But this man did visit her, certainly, if from charitables, organisations. He neglected to close over the door. If not him, another. I came along and found it so. It lay open. People could have entered, children are here.

  Elderly people, religious men, children, who is to say.

  The door was open. I came along and saw it and so entered. It was not then, she was here, and sleeping. If I was not suspicious, I had to be so, of course. How this place had become and a door open, of course I entered. Perhaps she might be sleeping. She had her own manners, her customs. It would not have been his fault that now she was dead. She died on the road. I have no suspicions of the religious man. I have no knowledge of the niece. The elderly woman would blame no one not herself, would blame everyone, cared for none, only herself.

  I have seen him, as they say religious man, I do not know him, have no recourse. He had been with her. I cannot say had his visit been requested. By whom? by her, I do not think so. Yet I cannot say what may be possible, anything. She was dozing when I entered but soon had raised herself, was sitting up,

  of course on the bed, gripping the handle of the cane that she kept by the side. Stick, cane, a cane, she kept it by her, to herself. She had been waiting for me so was not frightened. She always was waiting for me. If I had made no plans, still she was waiting. Her memory was not good. If I entered she would expect me so to enter.

  I did not correspond with her. If I was not in that area there was no communication. If I had travelled then was returning to the district, I visited. I had not visited for a long period of time and she would have expected that I come to see her. If I had not visited. She would have waited. I am saying it.

  Her health was not good, she did not go walking. Not to the countryside, what countryside. Not beyond the walls of her home, where is the perimeter, she would not have known. Her life was there only in that place.

  I took food. If I stole it from her, she thought so, food from herself. I have said it. But i
t was food I took to her, to herself. If visiting I took her food and ate with her, we two, I took food and with herself, we shared it.

  Old people, elderly woman, we take food to them, if they will take it, some do not take it, they take nothing, eat nothing. How do they live, fresh air. There is no fresh air. I would say it, There is no fresh air. She did not answer, only looked to me and in her eyes she was mocking.

  Also other of her possessions, all were stealing, all who came to visit with her. Thieves, murderers, everyone, all visitors. We took her possessions. That is what she said. Everyone comes into my house, they steal from me. Yet had I been doing such as she charged would she have suffered my visit. Perhaps having need of me, if she so had that. Yes, for she had need of visitors otherwise how she might live, she would have no food. Have you a book, she would say, give me a book, or have you a story, tell it to me, what songs are there? And if I would talk she would lie back on her pillows. I could not sing to her.

  Of the niece, none knows what happened to her, if she disappeared. She did. I can say she will be dead. She is dead. If none says it I say it, am saying it.

  I understand as much.

  It is no prediction. I do not care. It is stated, I have so stated. Recorded, so, that the niece now is dead.

  When the old woman saw me at her bedside she soon was talking, railing against all that she knew in the world. Myself also, diatribes, against everyone. Neighbours may testify. Myself, whomever. And the religious man, yes, also. He is evil! He is a devil. Murderer!

  If there is anyone else, who it might be. Everyone. Yes her niece, everyone, I have said. Also how her contempt for the people of this section, I have said it, she scorned them. She might refer to them as evil, yes, children, evil children, idiot children, she spoke so of them. Of the young, she spoke of them also as devils. I heard her say it. Devils. Spirits from the wall, young people of the district. I cannot say. Two kinds of spirits, real and not real, some came from the wall. I do not know.

  Elderly people.