‘The Interpreter’ is the English version of Arabic novel ‘Al Tarjuman’, authored by Ashraf Aboul Yazid, an eminent writer and poet of Egypt

[Author’s note: This chapter of the novel skillfully immerses readers into an intricate narrative that blends themes of legacy, displacement, and power dynamics within an institutional setting. Through the protagonist’s reflections and discoveries, the chapter explores the weight of inheritance—both material and intangible—while posing questions about identity and transformation in unfamiliar environments.

The Interpreter’s enigmatic presence looms over the protagonist’s experience, even in absence, symbolizing authority, mystery, and intellectual influence. The detailed descriptions of the office and its contents evoke a sense of reverence and unease, especially as the protagonist navigates the Interpreter’s files, stepping into his virtual and symbolic persona.

Supporting characters like Shanker and Mohyi Saber add layers of intrigue, offering insights into office politics, cultural tensions, and veiled hierarchies. Their interactions reveal both admiration and opportunism, underscoring themes of loyalty and surveillance.

The chapter effectively juxtaposes the protagonist’s inward contemplation with external realities, heightening the tension between myth and truth. The language, rich in metaphor and symbolism, mirrors the protagonist’s growing awareness of his role within a larger system—a role shaped by the past and shadowed by unspoken conflicts.

Overall, this chapter deepens the novel’s exploration of exile and succession, leaving readers questioning whether the protagonist will remain a mere custodian of the Interpreter’s legacy or redefine his path in the shifting sands of his new world.]

The Interpreter

​Ashraf Aboul-Yazid

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“Love arrives suddenly, like a secret recipe whose ingredients no one knows.”

I resemble an eraser; a woman who spends her days erasing the mistakes of yesterday. Suspended between two times—one that has passed and one that remains still. I’m nothing but a worn-out eraser, almost forgetting its own color and shape from excessive use.

In an hour, or less, Mohsen will arrive—the only kindhearted soul who appeared suddenly in my life after years of pain and loneliness. It was as if he came to replace my days and change me. I had waited years for him to come to this house, during which we arranged everything: his move to Kuwait for work, his daughter joining a university in Canada, and preparing my son to accept my marriage to Mohsen. My son, who never knew his father, for he was gone before he was born. All he had were his father’s photos. I had been both his mother and his father—until I shocked him with my desire, which greatly upset and pained him. In the end, he came to terms with it and agreed before leaving two months ago to continue his master’s studies in the United States.

But all of that collapsed suddenly.

The man who will arrive shortly is no longer the same man I knew three years ago.

I turned again to observe the room I had prepared for his arrival, checking, perhaps for the thousandth time, that everything was ready. The nursing staff and specialist doctor had prepared it for over a week: the medical bed with its air mattress, the ventilator, the suction machine, the blood pressure monitor, the glucose meter, the medication cabinet, the equipment closet filled with cotton, sheets, and gauze, the metal stand for saline bags, the air purifier, and the portable air conditioner.

I returned to the balcony of my office, where I used to sit to read books and newspapers. I had removed all the chairs except one, moved the houseplants to this room, and changed the direct lighting to a softer, hidden glow that wouldn’t disturb its new occupant—one who would remain staring at its ceiling, toward the light, without blinking, just as I last saw him in the hospital.

I looked at the green cactus, as though I were it. Its fine spines appeared like hands stretching into the void, pleading for help, with no hope and no hand reaching out to it.

I didn’t forget to place a small television, so he could follow the matches he used to be addicted to watching, even if he wouldn’t be able to see them now in his condition. Beside Mohsen’s bed, on the nightstand, I placed a small radio tuned to Marina FM, the station he loved and always joked about, though I know he may not hear it now. And if he does hear it, he won’t comprehend it; and if he does comprehend, he won’t respond or express anything—just as I had noticed during the days we moved him from the intensive care unit in Hadi Hospital, after his stroke, to another room.

Mohsen will come to me with the body I had once dreamed of uniting with after our souls had bonded. But now he will arrive a sick, idle body.

Ever since Mohsen was admitted to Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital due to that cursed coma, my life has been turned upside down.

On that wretched day, three weeks ago, Mohsen went to his office at the Arab Translation Institution on Gulf Road early in the morning, as was his habit. He was reported to have been in good health, with a calm smile on his face. He greeted his colleagues and entered his office. An hour or so later, the phone line in his office appeared to be engaged for an unusually long time, as his secretary noticed. No one could reach him.

A colleague knocked on his door for something urgent. There was no response, no sound asking her to come in as he usually did. She called another colleague, and together they opened the door to find Mohsen sprawled on the floor beside his office chair, his face and shirt drenched with saliva. The woman screamed, and her colleague ran to find someone who could help carry Mohsen to a car. They rushed him to the emergency wing of the hospital, his eyes vacant, and his chest slowing its beat.

The diagnosis—which shocked everyone—was that he had suffered a stroke in the brain’s control center, as the scans revealed. Such an injury had never been survived by anyone admitted to Mubarak Hospital before. Yet the doctor’s skill, the speed of placing him on a ventilator, and the chest treatments ensured him this life—a life tethered to the tubes piercing his body like tunnels running through a helpless mountain.

When I learned of what had happened, I rushed to see him, arranged for his transfer, and managed, after two days, to move him from Mubarak Hospital to Hadi Hospital, closer to me in Jabriya. I knew that his fragile medical condition might last. I felt, in part, responsible for what had happened to him. The question that haunted me was:

“Would the Interpreter have suffered this if he had stayed in Egypt and I hadn’t insisted he travel?”

To the world, our relationship was no different from those common between intellectuals and writers, especially in a society fueled by gossip. Being a novelist, poet, and host of a literary salon, I often had to invite guests from the cultural scene to my house. Sometimes, it was necessary to invite them for dinner or coffee elsewhere.

I learned a harsh lesson ten years ago.

It happened that my Kuwaiti and Arab guests stayed late at my house. As they were getting ready to leave, among them was a noble Lebanese poet, towards whom I felt a certain fondness. At the farewell, I squeezed his hand and gave him a subtle signal to stay behind, for I longed to enjoy his company without the noise and interruptions. The poet passed through the villa’s gate, then returned apologetically, asking to use the bathroom. Everyone else left—or so I thought—before I realized, days later, that a friend of mine had parked her car at the corner of the street, waiting for the poet to come out. His prolonged stay gave her all the ammunition she needed, and the malicious one wasted no time. Soon, everyone was whispering about “the Kuwaiti writer who invites Lebanese men to her chamber.”

Thus, the few hours I spent in a warm conversation with a man who represents an intellectual and creative stature turned into rumors that he had stayed for days. It was a painful lesson that taught me to become the first guardian of my own freedom, even if I had committed no sin. For in the society of the tent and tribe, I am guilty and sinful until proven innocent.

People never cease to talk about a woman who lost her husband in war. If she wore what she liked, they would say in their gatherings:

“Look at the martyr’s wife—his blood was spilled for his country, and she shows no respect for his honor.”

And if she welcomed her peers in writing, they would murmur:

“She waited for his death so she could follow her whims.”

You should have taken me with you, Badr. For after you, I have no right to live in a society that turns its dead into idols to be worshipped and the living into devils to be stoned. It has been nearly twenty years since Badr disappeared. He left suddenly, and I have been leaving slowly, day by day.

When Kuwait regained its freedom, and the Kuwaiti prisoners began returning from Saddam’s prisons, I expected Badr to be among them. But his name was never on the lists. We waited for the names of the martyrs—after DNA tests identified the remains brought back by the peacekeeping forces from Iraqi lands—but Badr never appeared. He vanished into a long, dark night, a night whose dawn has yet to break.

Badr’s favorite travel destination was Britain. We traveled there together more than once after our marriage. Perhaps it was an instinctive choice since we first met there, and London became the stage for our great love. It was there that we agreed on everything, even traveling together to Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace, to whisper our love story to his statue. We wanted it to be eternal, but we never foresaw that Shakespeare’s spirit would turn our tale into a tragedy.

After Badr was gone, the charm of London turned to gloom. It became like an old woman weeping behind a veil of fog and pain. At first, I was drawn to it by memories of Badr, especially when I recounted them to our son, Khalid, but those memories turned into needles piercing my body every time I visited.

I changed my destination, traveling to many countries in the Far East and Europe. But after my whirlwind of trips between Western and Eastern capitals, I fell in love with traveling to Cairo. I made sure to visit during the holidays. The atmosphere there was unlike Kuwait’s, and I even spent days of Ramadan there. I bought a large apartment overlooking the Nile, which became a haven for intellectuals. They came with all their experiences, and I learned so much from them.

I would breathe in the scent of Cairo’s streets with passion, as if seeing light for the first time. When I traveled to Alexandria, I was welcomed by an irresistible charm, and I became addicted to my time there, especially after I met the prominent critic Daniel Khairat. I consider him the first to encourage me to write novels. He even wrote the introduction to my first short story collection, published in Egypt. Between the Egyptian capital and the Mediterranean port city, the days passed swiftly until the moment came to return home. I would find myself snatched back to the airport as if I had left my mind—and heart—behind.

During one of Uncle Daniel’s gatherings, as I fondly called him, I heard Mohsin speak to me for the first time. I had been listing the countries I visited when he said, in a calm voice:

“Don’t count the countries you visited for us. Tell us instead about the hearts you inhabited and the places that inhabited you.”

I looked at him. The calm and dignified voice belonged to a man with a radiant smile that fluttered beneath his wide eyes and rested on his thin lips. His hair was black, except for a few strands tinged with silver, and his body was compact and solid, like a Greek statue of an ancient warrior.

Uncle Daniel glanced back and forth between me and him through the thick lenses of his glasses, like an experienced engineer signaling the launch of love’s electricity.

That night, I forgot—or perhaps pretended to forget—everyone else in the room. I forgot Uncle Daniel’s immense humility, his disheveled hair resembling an ice crown.

I forgot the presence of Dalida, his petite, porcelain-like wife with her ever-smiling face.

I forgot Rajab’s chattering voice and his massive head, which looked like the horn of a broken gramophone!

I forgot the face of “Mustafa Sanad,” whose dark sunglasses were outmatched only by the darkness of his heart, as he spewed fragmented sentences, interrupting everyone’s conversation like he was distributing rusty decrees of sin and forgiveness to any name mentioned by the people gathered around Uncle Daniel.

I forgot the ignorance of the pretentious Fadel, who began every sentence with the word “I,” reciting lines from Jarir and Al-Farazdaq like a broken record.

And I forgot the linguistic affectations of Jameel, who endlessly repeated bizarre stories drawn from some ancient lexicon he knew by heart.

I forgot all of them, yet I remained bewildered, asking myself: How could Uncle Daniel’s heart—and his home—accommodate all of these people, and more, at once?

That night, Mohsen appeared to me amid all this darkness like a mystical revelation. I spun around his words as a boy might revolve around the sages of the Mevlevi order, ascending to a sky unlike any other. He took me into his world, embraced me though he never touched me, and his words became the fence that enclosed a paradise where I spent the rest of that far-off evening, a night with lingering effects.

As I shook his hand in farewell, I asked whether he lived in Alexandria or Cairo. I was astonished when I learned he had only been visiting the Bibliotheca Alexandrina to search for a reference for a manuscript he was translating. He had found what he needed and was returning to Cairo the next morning. We agreed to have breakfast together at his hotel, Pullman Cecil, and then head to Sidi Gaber Station to catch the French train to Cairo.

That night, I didn’t sleep. I sat on the balcony of my room at the Sheraton Montazah Hotel, watching the sea and listening as it echoed Mohsen’s words:

“Love comes suddenly, like a secret recipe whose ingredients no one knows. It cooks on an oven with an unknown temperature, yet it emerges fresh, hot, delicious, elegant, and gleaming—like a French baguette.”

In the morning, I was shocked by the dark rings around my eyes as I looked at my reflection in the mirror, a result of my sleepless night. Makeup wouldn’t help—it wouldn’t withstand the heat and glare of the sun—so I decided never to take off my sunglasses and chose the larger pair of the two I had brought with me.

When he saw me, he moved his lips into a half-smile and said one of his double-edged phrases:

“The inanimate cannot hide the living.”

At that moment, I told him I was feeling a little tired, which had exhausted my skin!

“We didn’t drink with them last night, yet we were the ones who got drunk. They sipped wine, and we were the ones who became intoxicated.”

I stopped analyzing his words, fearing I might say something he would interpret differently. Yet I enjoyed his company. Time slipped away after breakfast and coffee, and we had to hurry to Sidi Gaber Station to find seats on the next available train.

On the train, we sat side by side. He left me the window seat and leaned close, his small lips—like those of a boy—near my ear as he spoke, ensuring that I alone was listening as he summarized his life:

“Beginnings matter… but endings matter more. What lies in between is a lot of chatter and nonsense. I’m divorced. The lady couldn’t bear the humble life of a translator, a man present at home in body but distracted by endless projects. I left her the house to raise our only daughter and returned to my small room in my father’s house. I pay alimony, but the expenses for the girl outside the court-ordered support force me to work 48 hours every 24.

I love my work. When I translate, I disappear from the world around me. A translation text is like a virgin; you uncover its secrets and then share with the world how it delighted you. That’s why I seek out texts that are unconventional and surprising. I send my translated short fiction to Gulf magazines—some have been published in your country, Kuwait—but I also fulfill requests from friends in Egyptian magazines to translate pieces for occasional features. As for books, thank God my schedule always includes two or more projects at a time. I move between them as a secret lover would between two women. Like a seasoned actor, I play the role of a pimp in a film, then tidy myself up for a live TV interview before taking on the role of a preacher at dawn, reciting passages for my radio program.

A single word can occupy me for days. I revisit encyclopedias and contemporary sources alike. I know many people read other languages—globalization forces multilingualism—but they read with their eyes, whereas I translate with my eyes, mind, and heart. In our field, they call me ‘the dragoman,’ not just a translator.”

I asked him, somewhat teasingly:

“You love your profession that much?”

“It’s not a ‘profession.’ It’s a way of life. I translate what I love, so I can weave that love into the lines. The unknown reader’s love for a text I translated is my success.”

I learned that, alongside translation, he had two other passions: the first was football, as he avidly followed European league matches; the second was cooking, where he created and reinvented dishes, presenting them like a professional chef.

Night had fallen, and here and there the silhouettes of lamps began to flicker, illuminating the villa facades, which now resembled enormous, nameless gravestones.

From afar, I spotted an ambulance veering off the main road in Al-Jabriya onto the perpendicular street leading to my house. Only a few parallel streets separated my villa from the hospital. My heart pounded as I watched the ambulance approach and stop at the Iron Gate at the end of the driveway leading into the villa’s foyer. I rushed downstairs to meet them, though the nanny, Darsine, was already at the door.

Though I had seen him hours earlier, lying in his hospital bed, I nearly collapsed as the two nurses carried him from the stretcher to the metallic wheelchair meant to transport him. The men waited for my signal on where to take him. I climbed the stairs behind them, clutching the golden balustrade, on the verge of collapsing as if I were escorting my beloved’s coffin to its final resting place. Darsine hurried behind me, seemingly prepared to catch me if I fell. Though she was twenty years older than me, she moved with a vitality that defied her age.

I was the erased woman. I wished I could erase the past, the future, or both.

In the room, sweat poured from the men’s faces as they transferred the patient to his eternal bed. I heard one of them whisper:

“He won’t move from here except by a miracle.”

One of them said the doctor was waiting in the car to oversee the installation of the machines. Darsine, that ageless butterfly, darted downstairs again, returning moments later with a young man who wasn’t wearing a doctor’s coat but introduced himself as Dr. Medhat. He looked breathless, as if he’d run all the way from the hospital to the villa.

I caught tears in Darsine’s eyes as she tried to hide them. My nanny, my lifelong companion, and the keeper of my secrets knew me better than anyone else. Though she was over sixty, her petite frame and energetic movements made her appear no older than forty.

The doctor was short and verging on plump, with thick hair visible through his open collar and on his arms. He spoke to me with his thick lips, though I could barely hear him. He pulled out a notebook and pen, prepared a chart listing medications and their schedules, added some notes, and tore the page from his spiral notebook before handing it to me. At that moment, I was like a mute statue. (Continues)

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Published under International Cooperation with "Sindh Courier"