The translator, p.27
The Translator, page 27
So this is what she’s done with her talent for language, thinks Hanne. How honorable. Certainly this lively group doesn’t want to lose Brigitte. Are they pleading with her to try a new treatment? Gather herself and put up a fight? An older woman who speaks English sits next to Hanne and goes on and on about Nivedita, her dedication, her intelligence, her endless toil. “She is our ambassador to the world.” The woman is from southern India and she wears colorful bangles on both arms. Nivedita, she tells Hanne, built the barn with the help of a local farmhand. She set up the school and the lesson plans. They are teaching the children how to speak English, French, Spanish. Of course there is math and science, poetry and literature. There are plans to refurbish the main temple. To enlarge the garden.
“Nivedita recently wrote a grant and received money for a new building.”
A life of honorable labor and virtuous projects right up to the very end. Isn’t that noble? Hanne interrupts. “You must know Brigitte is very ill.”
The woman smiles and nods. “Yes, she faces death like a saint. She is an example for all of us. Nivedita never rests.” The woman laughs. “She said she learned that from you. Do not rest until you are exhausted. It must be earned.”
This is Hanne’s inheritance to her daughter? If so, how pitiful.
The woman leans toward Hanne. “It must be difficult for you. But your daughter is not the one to console you.”
The woman, of course, is right. The shock of it, Hanne must absorb it. She must not let herself fall to pieces.
By the time lunch is over, the room has turned hot and humid and Hanne can no longer keep her eyes open. She looks to the head of the table, where Brigitte, her voice gentle, is speaking in one of her new languages to a small girl. Hanne rises. It seems in an instant, Brigitte is there, taking her to the small cottage that houses visitors.
“I’m impressed with your new languages,” says Hanne.
A faint knowing smile graces Brigitte’s lips, as if she’s thinking: of course such a thing would impress you. It reminds her of the many looks Moto gave her. “It’s in service for others.”
Her daughter’s veiled rebuke. And she is quite right to do so, thinks Hanne. “Yes, of course.”
She’s glad that Brigitte doesn’t linger. Because Hanne is still shaken. Because she doesn’t know what else she might say that will offend her. Because everything she thinks of saying will surely offend. How long does she have? A year? Months? Weeks? For a long time, Hanne floats in and out of sleep because of the heat. It feels as if she’s been dunked in a tub of hot water; all her clothes are wet and so is the bottom sheet. If she is to accept Brigitte’s decision, she must learn to see it as Brigitte does.
And how does she see it?
Brigitte flew to Paris or Berlin or somewhere for treatments. Long days in the hospital, poked, prodded, chemicals poured into her body, and woken up at all hours of the night. She’s suffered one doctor after another, and she’s had enough. Yes, Hanne can do this, she can imagine what Brigitte has lived through. She’s sick of that smell in hospital corridors, a stench of decaying flesh hidden by cleaners. Sick of feeling useless, used up. Feeling imprisoned. She wants life—even if it means ushering in death far too soon. Like Moto, Brigitte wants the full spectrum of being human. Including facing death. There will be no distractions, no attempt to thwart it. If so, thinks Hanne, how resolute, how courageous, how strong.
But it’s her daughter.
Hanne watches the dance of shadows on the white wall. Eventually she falls asleep and dreams Brigitte is standing at the threshold of her door, but when Hanne beckons her to come in, she shakes her head, refusing to cross into the room. She has work to do. When Hanne finally wakes, she hears a bell clanging, the shuffle of feet, children laughing, murmuring. India. Northern India. At the foothills of the Himalayas. Another prayer service.
Hanne makes herself get out of bed. She throws cold water on her face and heads to the prayer hall. As she steps, little grasshoppers fly up from the tall grasses. Her stomach is a tight ball. The long road of grief. Moto’s words. But this grief, she thinks, will never end. She sits for the hour of prayer, trying to lift the heavy weight off her heart by watching her daughter who is up on stage full of grace.
In the morning, before the heavy blanket of heat descends, Hanne walks to the end of the dirt driveway. The sun has yet to rise above the green hills. In the quiet while the world still sleeps, Hanne hears water flowing. The Ganges, most likely. It’s beautiful here, the lush green, the birds, the astonishing moisture in the air. A good life, thinks Hanne, but then catches herself. A life that is ending far too soon.
When she heads back, the sun is up and already scorching. Hanne finds Brigitte and two others out in the field, trying to get the rusted tractor started. The hood is open and the three are peering at the engine. The air smells of gasoline and cut hay. Instantly, Hanne is drenched in sweat. Brigitte, in a big straw hat, looks cool.
“How come you aren’t melting in this heat?” Hanne says.
Brigitte looks up from the manual. “You adapt, eventually.”
One of the women picks up a frayed red wire. It seems these women have to figure out everything by themselves. Finally a wire is connected to another wire and the engine turns and the tractor exhales blue smoke. There is a chorus of cheers. Brigitte says she must see how lunch is coming along. They expect sixty or so people, not including the children. Hanne watches as Brigitte whisks away. Hanne wanders out to a big tree and sits for a while in the shade, but there is no relief from the heat. She heads to the kitchen, where she finds Aruna fixing a tray for Brigitte.
“Please let me,” says Hanne.
Brigitte is in her room, stretched out on her bed, her eyes closed. A fan slowly churns the hot air. Hanne quietly sets down the tray of tea and sugar cubes and turns to leave.
Brigitte stirs, opens her eyes. Her face is pale, her eyes weary.
“Did I wake you?”
“Just resting.”
Hanne pulls up a chair beside her bed. She sees the dark circles under Brigitte’s eyes.
“I’ve been thinking,” says Brigitte.
Hanne sits up. I’ll take you wherever you want to go. Money is no object. The best care. Your hair will once again be long and dark. We will take our time, get to know each other again, burn down the bad memories.
“Have you seen the way the dogs are treated? It breaks my heart.”
Hanne barely holds her tongue.
Brigitte tells her the other day she saw a man hit a skinny old dog with a stick. Broke its leg. “I tried to catch it so we could take care of it, but it limped away so fast. Poor thing. Forever scared of humans.”
“We can be a cruel lot.”
Brigitte goes on, talking about how they could set up an animal shelter.
The light pours in through the open door.
Brigitte closes her eyes. “I can’t keep my eyes open. I get these waves of tiredness.”
Without thinking, Hanne reaches over and puts her hand on Brigitte’s forehead. Brigitte opens her eyes. Sits up. “Do you know how many times I wished you’d been there to do that?” Her voice is strained, as if she’s holding back a flood of emotions. “Your hand on my forehead. I was going to die without ever speaking to you again. Do you know that? I told myself it was because you meant nothing to me. The past is the past.” She laughs bitterly. “That’s something you’d say, and it isn’t true. With you here, I feel everything I thought I’d put to rest. My anger and sadness and those long dark years of loneliness. I’ve worked so hard to forgive or at least forget, but right now it seems I’ve gotten nowhere.” She wipes her eyes and shakes her head. “I wanted everything to be peaceful at the end.”
“I’m so sorry, Brigitte. I’ve not been the person I wanted to be,” says Hanne.
“Few of us are.”
“I’ve always loved you, even if it didn’t seem that way. You are my daughter.”
Brigitte remains silent, but Hanne feels her listening closely. When a bell chimes, Brigitte rises. Hanne stands and finds she is trembling. It’s time for school.
Hanne follows her into the classroom and takes a seat in the back. Brigitte is teaching the children basic French. Hanne tries to pay attention, but she keeps hearing Brigitte’s words, Those long dark years of loneliness. Hanne’s heart is tender, bruised, as if it’s been dropped. When they break into small groups, a small girl with huge brown eyes comes over to Hanne.
“Please, can you read French?” She shows Hanne a book of fairy tales. Hanne nods, all the while watching her daughter speak French to a group of five children. The girl pulls a chair beside her. Hanne asks her to pick her favorite. The girl turns to The Princess and the Pea and Hanne begins to read.
It is night. Aruna finds Hanne in her room. Maybe Hanne would like to see the Ganges river worship ceremony? “Foreigners enjoy this,” says Aruna.
“Is Brigitte all right?” says Hanne.
Aruna pauses. “She is so tired sometimes.”
She hopes that’s what it is, but worries it’s something else: Brigitte needs a break from her, a permanent break. I was going to die without ever speaking to you again.
Aruna hands her a scarf to wear, as women must cover their heads for the ceremony. They head down the main road, and as they get closer to the river, Hanne hears the low roar of a crowd, along with bells and a loudspeaker playing Indian music, music in praise of Ganga Maiya and Shiva, says Aruna.
One big spiritual circus, thinks Hanne. Look at all the trinkets for sale—colorful powders and stones and necklaces and flower petals and candles. How could anyone find this otherworldly? A connection to anything other than the claustrophobic crush of flesh?
Hanne can’t see the river, only the throngs of Indians clamoring along its banks. She follows Aruna, who weaves her way through the crowd. Finally they reach the water. Hundreds of little fires are floating down the river, as if all the stars have fallen out of the sky. The offerings are made from stitched-together banana leaves, says Aruna. Nestled in the cup of the leaf are red and pink flower petals, a small wick lamp.
“Maybe you make an offering?” says Aruna.
An offering. Latin, offerre, to present, bestow, a sacrifice given as part of worship. Worship of what? Who? To whomever, whatever, is cutting short her daughter’s life?
“No, thank you,” says Hanne.
Aruna pays her rupees and sets her boat into the water. They watch it float under a bridge, then it’s gone.
Back in her room, Hanne sits on her bed. The children are asleep, the insects buzz and the cows and horses stir. She pulls out a notebook and a pen.
Dear Brigitte,
I’m writing this letter in case my presence has disquieted your heart and you ask me to leave. I beg that you don’t, but if you do, there are things I must say.
I am in awe of your remarkable probity, the largess of your heart. You have your father’s spirit, his gentleness, his big heart. Now that I look back on your life, I see how it was leading here, exactly to this point. An exquisite outpouring of generosity, service, empathy, and kindness. One of my greatest failings is that I didn’t see it, you. But now I do. Your path of generosity is astonishingly beautiful.
I always wished you’d have courage and resilience so that life’s hardship would not leave debilitating scars. And here you are, overflowing with courage, tending to so many others, while facing your own death. But I should have seen this, too. Unlike me, you followed your grief when Dad died, allowing it take you wherever it must, even to the most desolate places.
I have many regrets, but my deepest regret is sending you away. You spoke of loneliness. I, too, have been terribly lonely for you. Those long years of silence when I missed out on your company, when I wasn’t there to comfort you. I will never forgive myself, and that’s just something I will have to live with.
I’ll say this one more time and then won’t speak of it again. I bitterly wish you had more time. It’s a selfish desire—I wish to luxuriate in the presence of you. Just to take delight in your existence. Existence, I’ve come to learn, is an astonishing thing. If you were granted more time, I would put my hand on your forehead over and over to make up for those lost years.
Mom
Hanne reads it over. How inadequate, these words. She thinks of Noh and feels a new appreciation—its refusal to rest on words to convey emotion. If she’s allowed to stay, she’ll have many ways to show Brigitte how she feels. And if she’s asked to leave? This will have to do.
At dawn, Hanne wanders around the compound, which is just stirring to life. She passes by the dormitories, the classroom, a two-room health clinic with five chairs in the waiting room. The barn for the cows and goats. The compound is clean, neat, organized, but what Hanne mainly sees is the endless manual labor required to keep the place running, the labor her daughter must offer up every day. When she wanders into the kitchen, she finds Brigitte scrubbing dishes. On every counter, there are stacks of dishes from last night’s dinner. The kitchen smells of curry and coconut.
Brigitte doesn’t notice her right away. She has muscular arms and a fierce look of concentration on her face. A singular focus on the task at hand. Without hair, her face is rounder than Hanne remembered. Her thinness makes her cheekbones more pronounced, like two balls. She looks content, even happy doing the simple task of washing a dish.
“Good morning,” says Hanne, forcing a cheery tone. She comes over beside Brigitte and picks up a sponge. “It’s quite a place here.” She feels like she keeps repeating herself.
Brigitte motions to the dirty dishes and says the dishwasher broke last night. “Another thing we must figure out how to fix.”
“You seem pretty good at it.”
“Practice. Lots of practice.”
Hanne begins on the stack of plates. A mountain of mangoes waits to be peeled and sliced. There is a long silence between them, one that is relaxed, calm, peaceful. The morning air is cool and the birds are singing. Through the window above the sink, Hanne sees an ox harnessed to a plow. A young boy walks beside it, talking to it, whispering in its ear, perhaps urging it to pull the heavy contraption. He’s trying to get it to go around a large tree.
“How does it feel to know you are dying?” Hanne is startled by her question. “If you don’t want to talk about it—”
Brigitte stops scrubbing, lets the water run. “Some days everything is so vibrant, so precious. The slightest thing. The way the light flows through a leaf, the smell of dirt, the sound of rain on the roof. The other day, I spent the longest time watching a monkey crack open a walnut. I think, this is heaven. Everything is astonishingly beautiful. But other days, I’m scared. I’m scared because it’s the unknown. I don’t know what I’m crossing over into. Oh, I know what I’ve read about the afterlife, but I’ve never experienced it.” She laughs at herself.
It’s the most honest moment they’ve had so far.
“I couldn’t do it,” says Hanne. “What you’re doing.”
“We’re different, that’s all.” Brigitte looks at Hanne, as if to make sure Hanne heard her.
“You’re a saint,” says Hanne, turning over the word in her mind. From Latin, sanctus, meaning “holy, consecrated.” What she means to say is that her daughter is exemplary, extraordinary, far more evolved than most, including herself.
Brigitte smiles faintly. “No. Far from it.”
The bell chimes. Prayer time again. Brigitte turns the water off and dries her hands. Hanne learned at lunch that Brigitte gives all the sermons, six a day.
Hanne skips the sermon and wanders out to the barn. The barn her daughter built with the help of a farmhand. It’s a solid, sturdy post frame construction. A high roof, a loft and eight stalls. Hiro would be proud. He was always enthralled with architecture.
The woman who sat next to Hanne at lunch comes into the barn, bows to Hanne, and dips a bucket into the water barrel. She goes to each stall and refills the cows’ bowls. When she is done, she comes over to Hanne, pulls a bandana from her pocket, and unwraps two biscuits. She hands one to Hanne.
“Your daughter has a strong spirit,” she says. “So wise. That’s what will help her. And a circle of people who love her dearly.”
“Maybe that circle could help out more. Have her do less.”
“They’re doing what she wants. She wants to be part of life. You can understand that, can’t you? Here, life requires a lot of work. She wants life until the very end.” The woman tosses new hay around the barn, then comes over to Hanne. “Do you intend to stay? We could find you a job. Brigitte always said you were a hard worker. That you’re a well-regarded translator.”
“That was a lifetime ago.”
“We’ve got plenty to do here. Work from dawn to dusk.”
And what would she do? She knows none of the languages spoken here except English. Perhaps teach English or French or German. But that’s not what the woman had in mind. She hands Hanne a bucket of soapy water. “If you want, you can scrub out the stalls.”
Hanne spends the rest of the afternoon in the barn, on her knees, scrubbing cow shit from the walls. It’s just as well. Brigitte, it seems, is busy the rest of the day. When the six stalls are clean, Hanne finds Aruna in the garden. After much pestering, Aruna agrees to let Hanne help. The soil is rich, heavily fertilized with manure. It seems every kind of grain is grown here, along with sugar cane and potatoes. Hanne points to a potato and Aruna tells her the word for it in Hindi and Urdu. We feed many of the villagers, she says, in addition to the schoolchildren, most of whom are orphans. In the field, she sees one of the women in white robes tickling a small boy. His laughter carries through the still air. A feeling of goodwill sweeps through Hanne.
