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

“You built your glory on facts, and I will destroy it with rumors.”

Ashraf Aboul-Yazid

This is the curse of “Mustafa Sanad,” O Translator. The curse that falls upon those who break my word. I told you, blessed are those who know gratitude, but I have seen nothing from you but denial and ingratitude. I recommended you to the manager because I’ve known him since his master’s studies in Cairo, and my word is respected by him. Even if he asks someone else, my recommendation will carry the most weight. My introduction to Kuwait wasn’t just a favor, but out of my regard for introducing him to the giants of literature, university deans, and the founders of research centers.

I told you that those who defy me will only rise over my dead body. Yes, literally, over my dead body. And now, you are nothing but a corpse, unable even to move, let alone rise.

Remember I told you that there is a great treasure called judging committees, and that we could agree on several names to form fictitious committees that would settle for crumbs while we feast on the honey? And so, we would spare years of wasted time here… but you acted like an honorable man, saying that this is the way of the lowly.

I excused you since you hadn’t worked in real journalism in Egypt, but I am from the institutions there, and I know who writes for whom, and for how much. I know that in Egypt, we have more columnists than readers. Not all writers are like “Tarek El-Beshri,” “Galal Amin,” and “Mohamed Hassanin Heikal.” And mountains of paper require seas of ink and pens that never run dry.

A year after you came, our colleague “Nasser Hassan” migrated to Melbourne after acquiring his Australian passport.

Do you know how he managed to pay the lawyer’s office bills for six full years? Do you know where he found the travel money and the story of “landing” multiple times, for himself, his wife, his son, and daughter? Do you think the salary we get here is enough for the high cost of living that even Kuwaitis complain about? And do those few dinars they pay us compare to the effort we put in here? Of course not!

For all of this, “Nasser Hassan” wrote daily columns for more than ten names: the lawyer, the MP, the businessman… among them the doctor, the engineer, and the journalist… All of them wanted to flaunt their names and pictures in the daily papers. He even edited the newspaper of the new Islamists, from the first page to the last, and didn’t even know how many rak‘ahs the Maghrib prayer had.

This is an era where quality no longer matters, O Translator, but quantity is key. Dr. “Salman Ibrahim” knew what “Nasser Hassan” was doing during office hours, which had nothing to do with the institution’s work, but he ignored it because he occasionally assigned him dirty tasks. That’s why he kept him on the bench, ready to be called into the field when needed.

But with the journalistic columns, “Nasser Hassan” was writing research for Dr. “Nouria Badri,” the professor of theater. She came to me after “Nasser Hassan’s” sudden departure to settle in Australia, deeply troubled. I reassured her and told her the right person was available.

I never doubted you would take on the task. She would pay you the equivalent of a month’s salary for a few pages of full-scape paper with some marginal notes. You needed every dinar, as you pampered yourself with expensive clothes, lived in the costly Salmiya, and spent a lot on your pampered daughter in a private school. But you hesitated, like a stubborn mule, and slapped me with your words:

“What is this you are asking me to do, ‘Darsh’? I don’t sell my pen to anyone. You offered me the idea of journalistic columns before, and I refused.”

Literally, I knew you would stay here only over my dead body, but I took the gentle path, trying not to anger you and seeking not to have you reject it. I knew that Dr. “Nouria’s” door would undoubtedly open other doors, and good things would come.

Listen, O Translator, the journalistic columns are different. I agreed with you when you said that this doesn’t concern you, that these daily writings would distract you from your grand projects, and that they were trivial matters for a society you don’t mix with. And that the work of the institution and your translations consume your time day and night. But this is different. This is a paper for a theater conference. I know it will take you nothing more than a few minutes to scratch your head, but I also know that it will open many doors for you. Perhaps you’ll find yourself on a judging committee here or there. Who knows? Maybe you’ll win a translation prize, with Dr. “Nouria” as the judge. Come on, use your brain and look at ‘Nasser Hassan’s’ experience, and learn.”

“’Darsh,’ understand me. I’m not ‘Nasser Hassan.’ What he was willing to do, doesn’t concern me. It’s not necessarily something I’d agree to, nor am I obliged to do it!”

“But I gave her your phone number, and she’ll call you this evening. I told her I’d inform you and that she’ll call to give you the details…”

“I won’t answer her!”

“What’s the difference between writing for Dr. ‘Salman Ibrahim’ his studies and articles… and writing for Dr. ‘Nouria’ every now and then? At least she’ll reward you, while Ibrahim won’t give you a single penny.”

Maybe I was rude when I confronted you with my last question, but you were impudent and vile when you answered me:

“Listen, ‘Darsh’… Do you want me to tell ‘Salman Ibrahim’ about this request of yours? As for my writing for him, it’s within the scope of institutional work. The man didn’t lie to me when we sat together by the Nile before I came here. He said verbatim: ‘I need someone to formulate my ideas before they are published. Can you modify them, add or remove, so they take their final shape?’ I told him that this is part of the editor’s, reviewer’s, and translator’s work, and I’d do it willingly. When I came here, ‘Salman Ibrahim’ never asked me to write for anyone. I am proud that I am formulating the mind of a prestigious Arab institution whose influence extends beyond its geographic boundaries. Civilization’s flashes throughout history have never risen except on the shoulders of translators. If I had the money, I would have established a similar institution, but since I’m here, I work as if this institution is my own. I don’t work for ‘Salman Ibrahim,’ I work with him for the benefit of the Arab Translation Institute.”

It’s true that you silenced me at that moment, O Translator, but you didn’t extinguish the fire that ignited in my heart toward you. You dared challenge me, making my neck as vulnerable as a thread before Dr. “Nouria.” And I swore to myself that I would end your work at the institution by any means, and that you would continue only over my dead body.

Then the secret became clear, and the truth was revealed. I initially thought you were walking the path of purity and honor, but the reality is that your path is silk upon silk, the path of the self-sufficient. Dr. “Salman Ibrahim” told me in no uncertain terms that you and writer “Fawz Al-Abdallah” had a love story. And, of course, O Uncle Translator, when you’re sitting on a mountain of diamonds, you won’t look at the dust of money.

You should keep us under your wing, O Translator!

For example… You know my relationship with the publishers, so why didn’t you offer your golden egg-laying chicken a chance to work with me for second editions of her published works? I would have made a nice sum, acting as a bridge between her and the publishers. With the dinar at almost 20 Egyptian pounds, I could print a good number of copies for 1,000 pounds, and make 1,000 dinars. But you never want to do good for anyone but yourself… I would have left you a percentage, or made you sign publishing contracts to reprint your old translations, so you could benefit and help others!

As if you didn’t know that your “Fawz Al-Abdallah”—in all her greatness—was consulting her uncle “Daniel Khayat” on all her work? It’s true that I wear dark glasses to protect my sight, but they are also necessary for curiosity sometimes. They are the hole in my door where no one sees where my eyes are going… and they show me what the thick-glassed gazers can’t see. I saw your Fawz personally handing over papers in an envelope to Uncle Daniel, and receiving others from him. These texts were either written by “Daniel Khayat” for her or, at the very least, bore his stamp.

Tell me: Why is it permissible for Mrs. “Fawz Al-Abdallah” to do what others cannot? And why does “Daniel Khayat” accept what you don’t? Are you greater than him, or more famous? O Translator, a little humility would have saved you.

But I speak to myself now, for regret, which you would have shown, is of no use now, if you could even regret it someday. I stopped visiting you the moment you turned me away, and I didn’t go to see you when they moved you to the first hospital. Even when colleagues visited you at the second hospital, my heart didn’t allow me to forgive you. I told those who went:

“What does it matter if you go or not? He doesn’t understand anything, and they won’t let most of you in.”

Some of them took offense, even “Adham,” the young naïve one, told me that my heart is black. Some stood by you and haven’t spoken to me since that day, but the living are greater than the dead, and his fate will come, and I will teach him a lesson. He will have no future except over my dead body, and perhaps he will fall under the curse that befell you—the curse of “Mustafa Sanad,” which neither stays nor leaves.

Now a new era begins after you. A new person has taken your place, and you have become a line from the past. I will write the following lines at the institution. Tomorrow, I will meet the new translator, ‘Ahmed Abdel Megid,’ in the office you prevented me from entering for two full years. You’ve broken the jug, or rather shattered the jar behind you, and I had dreamed of making that office mine, to erase the remnants of your presence.

Did you leave the pictures of ‘Naguib Mahfouz,’ ‘Marquez,’ and ‘Dostoevsky’ in their dark frames on the wall behind you? Are the framed certificates of appreciation awarded to you by translation institutions still there to your right?

You used to place a picture of your daughter next to the phones. Did you add a picture of your diamond mountain, the lady ‘Fawz’? No matter, the body has left, but the pictures remain, doing their owner no good.

But I will find a way to destroy the perfect image you built here. Rumors won’t stop after your departure; they will rise again, and there will always be someone to repeat them, like a parrot. You built your glory on facts, and I will destroy it with rumors. I’ve studied rumors as a science, I know their limits, their impact, and their spreading power. In societies that don’t read, scrutinize, or document, the fire of dragons will ignite at the edges of paper truths and histories, and they will be scattered like ash.

All it takes is a complaint to ‘Salman Ibrahim’ for him to reconsider his opinion of you. He told me—two weeks after your dramatic departure—that he might consider adding your daughter’s name to the list of text reviewers and auditors. Of course, this is a kindness from him, but as usual, a kindness not from his own pocket. And I promise you, this will only happen over my dead body.

I believe he may change his mind when he reads a similar letter:

“Dear Dr. Salman Ibrahim, esteemed and brilliant thinker, may God protect and bless you,

Greetings, and I hope this finds you well.

I wish to express my admiration for your work and for your exceptional leadership of the Arab Translation Institute in the land of Arabism, the cultural capital of the world—Kuwait.

It saddens me to write this complaint, but I have sent multiple requests to participate in your annual conference via the published email address on your website, without receiving any response. I attached my research proposal, my CV, and my previous experiences, as instructed.

After waiting in vain, I called the conference coordinator, Mr. ‘Mohsen Helmy,’ who responded coldly and told me that my CV did not meet the level of the conference and its participants.

I know how much you care about the success of the conference, but I have doubts that I am the only one who suffered as I did. All of this, so that Mr. ‘Mohsen Helmy’ can invite a select group of his friends, whose participation we read about for the second year in a row, knowing full well that their CVs are full of nonsense and exaggerations.

I trust in your fairness, integrity, and wisdom, and your ability to make the right decision.”

I know, O Translator, that such a letter will shake the foundations of the institution. They will not check the truth of its contents or the identity of its sender. After all the flattery you’ve given your manager, he is like the courtesans who are easily charmed by praise. They may even come to me to ask about the name of the sender, given my experience. And at that moment, the time for my revenge will come.

I don’t do all this because of what you did to me; it was just a situation. But I felt it was the beginning of other confrontational situations, and that you had taken an adversarial position toward me, becoming a dark tunnel blocking my way. If what happened to you was divine retribution, I’ve prepared earthly retribution, no less painful.

I spoke with the disappointed ‘Mohyi Saber’ after his visit to your grave, O Imam of Translators. He believed what I told him about your love affair when he saw the “Siniora” leaving the hospital. I think he, like me, never liked you, although he became accustomed to cowardice and would show the opposite of what he really felt, repeating his vile phrase:

‘Kiss the hand you cannot cut.’

How many hands has ‘Mohyi Saber’ kissed in forty years? Since I came to Kuwait four years ago, he’s been saying he’s tired of the exile and that it’s time for him to return to Egypt for good. His older colleagues would smile when they heard his decision because they’d seen him announce the same decision at the beginning of each year, only to delay it until the next year.

When he said this to you, O Translator, you mocked him in your reply:

‘Traveling is like a quicksand, the further you go in, the harder it is to get out, and escape routes become less. Always stay on the shore, and just as drivers keep a distance between themselves and the car in front, you should maintain the same distance, so you don’t crash into the unknown.

Never make a decision you can’t implement, and never retract a decision you’ve announced. Think to yourself before you speak to others, and when you tell them something, be sure of your truth, otherwise, you’ll lose your credibility. We are all prisoners of our slip-ups.’”

Such generous wisdom you distributed freely, O wise translator, but you—like the dishonest—did not tell us the truth about your Kuwaiti lover. Perhaps you thought keeping it a secret would hide it from us forever. But one day, we would know. You wanted to get involved, as Dr. ‘Salman Ibrahim’ himself told me… Were you planning to keep it a secret? Perhaps you intended to deceive her, leave her hanging, and travel, after keeping the distance you desired between you and staying here.

The institution is like the municipal pigeon coop; small and unable to hide any of its filth. What we don’t see rises in odor, and the smell has now spread. I must strike with finality.” (Continues)

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Published under International Cooperation with "Sindh Courier"