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

“Abu Zanna wishes to enter Paradise!”

The Egyptians spread their lies, then believed them. They all resemble the story of Juha, who spread a rumor that the prince was hosting a feast for the people, and when he saw thousands heading to attend the false banquet, he followed them!

They are the ones who wrote that they invented culture in Kuwait, they are the ones who spread the idea that they planted the seed of art here, and they are the ones who repeated in every gathering that they are the masters, the teachers, and the pioneers. And there was always someone to promote them, even among the Kuwaitis themselves.

And here comes “Salman Al-Ibrahim,” their greatest defender, and that’s why he’s the one who harmed the institution the most by bringing them to work, as though they were the only geniuses in the world. I don’t know if he does this because he is ignorant, weak, or incapable, or maybe he always seeks admiration and support, wanting others to do his work for him.

So, what does “Salman Al-Ibrahim” do?

He doesn’t do anything but sign papers. He signs his name as if he were drawing Failaka Island, with a big circle inside filled with many dots that look like destructive ruins. Aside from his signature, there is no trace of him. Even the story that he was a student of “Abdulaziz Hussein,” and the nonsense about him being from the second generation of cultural pioneers in Kuwait, are all rumors, just like the Egyptians’ tales.

When he wanted to restructure the institution, he told us in a private meeting:

“I’ve tried you all, and you’ve failed. I’ve had enough of you. You don’t even show up to your offices, so how and where do you work? Each of you bought your degree from here and there, and the Civil Service threw you into the institution based on the specialties listed on paper. You think a degree is like glasses, that once you have them, you can read…

Listen, no one dared to confront you before me, but those blind glasses of yours won’t help. Each of you should settle in your office and spend your time as you wish, watching satellite TV, having the reporters make coffee and tea, buying breakfast. Do as you please, or stay home, you’ll still get the same salary. But leave me to rebuild the institution…

I want the institution to regain the efficiency it was born and raised with. Don’t you see how they work in Dubai, Doha, and Manama to grab a piece of the Arab cultural cake? Even Saudi Arabia now has institutions competing. And here, we’re stuck in place.

I won’t accept this. I came to continue the journey of the pioneers—Al-‘Adwani, Ahmad Al-Saqqaf, Abdulaziz Hussein—and I’ll bring the best talents to the institution. For the record, no one more capable than you will be paid half of what any of you takes, but they’ll work as they should.”

Hear me! “Abu Zanna wishes to enter Paradise!”

The “madman” insults us to our faces, and we started to think that the prince was supporting him from behind. Where does he get all this power to insult us? It was good that he gathered only us Kuwaitis, but who knows what he says about us when he meets with the “Egyptians”? It’s shameful, “the name is for the light and the scythe for the arsenic,” he favors them over us as though we are the intruders, not the other way around. He accuses us of laziness, yet he is worse than a dog, insinuates that we buy our degrees, as if he’s the one who wrote his doctoral thesis. I wish he had kept it quiet. Really, take them down with the voice—they won’t outdo you.

After his translator fell, we said, “Wait, donkey, until spring comes,” and sure enough, he went to Egypt, and from there came the replacement, as if they were ready, warming up at the airport in Terminal 2, waiting for the signal to arrive!

At first, he brought this blind person “Mustafa Sanad,” who couldn’t speak a single word of English correctly. We laughed at him and told him, “The deer gathers it and the heap eats it.” He replied that he hadn’t brought him for translation but to coordinate with Egyptian institutions.

Coordinate, coordinate, Mr. “Sanad”!

Then he brought the person he called the translator, but even Ammar, who couldn’t handle one job, kept writing until his ink ran out, and it seems he started writing with his blood after that, until he dried up and had a stroke. We endured “Salman Al-Ibrahim” for ten years, and he didn’t even complete three before he fell.

I read the poor man’s memos, which “Salman” raised to the minister, and plans for future translation projects for the institution, and future programs for relations with Gulf, Arab, and foreign institutions. And due to my work in planning and follow-up, I read the translator’s plans—some for one year, some for two, and others for ten years. And now he’s gone, and the plans remain, for “Salman” to enjoy like sweet treats at ministers’ tables.

“Down in your belly, Salman!”

The strange thing is that, at first, I didn’t like this translator. I felt I was facing a peacock, not an employee beneath me. He was just an expatriate, nothing more. But honestly, he spoke to me with respect, as in Egyptian films when a character has rare manners.

The true test of my relationship with the translator came when my son “Saeed” got sick, and I missed work for two days. I found he had called me the next evening to check on his health. He didn’t flatter me; he said he had found out by chance because he wanted to pass some plans to me. He was told about my son’s situation and quickly called.

I Started to Get Closer to Him

We began talking about common topics whenever he passed by or when we met by chance, until I invited him for coffee in my office. In that session, my entire perspective about him changed. I love football, and here I found him to be a reference on the game.

The strange coincidence was that, just like me, he supported Real Madrid in Spain, Juventus in Italy, and Bayern in the Bundesliga. If he had supported Manchester United, he would have been identical to me in all his choices. He also supports Al-Ahly, while I’m a Zamalek fan.

I felt I was facing a true football enthusiast. A real football mind. When we sat together, I tried to forget the story of translation, the institution, and “Salman,” because the translator had become, for me, an indispensable football analyst. I would sit with him in the morning and listen to his amazing football interpretations, which were often more than 90% accurate, so in the evening, I would use them correctly when watching the game with friends.

Once, he wrote to me what he called the “11 secrets of football,” and I began using these secrets with my friends, just as “Salman” used the translator’s plans with the ministers.

“There are eleven little secrets in the world of football, which govern the game with an invisible grip:

|1| He who doesn’t score goals—despite many opportunities—will, naturally, concede goals.

|2| The talented striker does not shoot the ball twice in the same corner, neither in the game nor in penalty kicks.

|3| The shorter player has a higher chance of getting a penalty kick than the taller player.

|4| Referees compensate for minor mistakes with major catastrophes, and goals are the children of mistakes—someone has to make an error, whether it’s the defender, goalkeeper, flag-bearer, or referee!

|5| The first half is for the players, the second half is for the coaches, and the extra time is for the talented ones.

|6| In European leagues, blond players get a yellow card after the third severe foul, while African players get one after the first minor mistake, and foreigners are sent off after their second intentional foul.

|7| A team’s position in the standings inversely reflects the performance of the teams ahead of them.

|8| The home team plays with the advantage of their field, and the players’ shirt numbers also play a role.

|9| The audience is the twelfth player, and the coach is the thirteenth; that’s why he’s always unlucky—his team wins, and they praise the goal scorers, but when the team loses, they fire the coach.

|10| A player who moves from one team to another will do whatever it takes to score against his former team when the chance arises.

|11| He who fears the ghost will see it—goalkeepers block penalty shots if the shooter believes he cannot score!”

I kept wondering:

“Where does he find the time to watch all these matches he refers to in his conversations? And where does he find the time to translate, write, and plan afterward?”

I discovered he can do multiple things simultaneously. He’s like “Rooney,” the golden boy of Manchester United, who doesn’t need his coach, Sir “Ferguson,” to guide him. He knows where to move on the field, how to receive the ball, how to distribute it, and how to put it in the net. A complete scenario drawn by “Wayne Rooney,” just like the translator’s scenarios.

But after all this closeness, I became very upset with him.

One day, “Salman” brought me a report written by the translator. The report was requested by “Salman” to evaluate the departments in the institution—what they lacked, what could help them, and so on. I found that he had written about the planning and follow-up department, saying it wasn’t performing its role efficiently, and that the reason was the lack of staff. I was confused, “If I focus, I’ll be eaten by the fish, and if I get carried away, I’ll be eaten by the bird!” If I fight with him, I lose him, with his football analyses that I need. If I confront him, he knows that “Salman” is sending reports to us!

I justified the translator’s actions to myself. The man hadn’t acted inappropriately. Finally, I told myself, “If you need something from a dog, call him ‘Hajji Kalban’.” The next day, I saw him and forgot the whole report, only to remember that Real Madrid would play Atletico that night.

Although our sessions rarely lasted twenty or thirty minutes, and mostly they didn’t exceed five minutes, one day the conversation flowed, and it seemed I had to confess to him my hatred for Salman and my desire to be the institution’s director instead of him:

“Look, Abu Najma, I know how close you are to Dr. Salman, but you got to my head when I heard a phrase you supposedly said, that you don’t work for Salman Al-Ibrahim, but that you and he are working for the benefit of the institution.”

“Nothing remains hidden in the institution!”

“Never. And since I heard this, it means Salman heard it too, so he fights you in his way, despite his need for you. He is the one distributing the reports you write about us in his meetings with the Kuwaitis. Just like he makes us read the reports of his spy, Mahy Sabir. The bottom line is, a man with such morals, who loves hitting pottery for pottery, will not build an institution, and will not shape a future. He just wants to keep his seat.”

“And the plans I write, many of which I showed you?”

“Those are in his pocket every time he passes by the ministry, to prove he’s working. But the institution is stuck in place, and don’t lie to me saying he’s implemented all your projects…”

“He tells me there are obstacles, sometimes in the ministry, sometimes with people inside the institution itself!”

“Don’t believe anything. This Salman Al-Ibrahim is a man of doubt. His life is stuck. But I’ll tell you, ‘When the moment passes, the sound doesn’t help.’ I believe your competence is enough to make anyone successful in the institution when they take charge.”

At that time, I explained my plan to the translator about mobilizing the Diwaniyas I’d visit to talk about “Salman.” The talk in the Diwaniyas spreads like fire, quickly turning into an undeniable truth. I would spread the word about how “Salman” hinders work, doesn’t promote Kuwaitis, favors his friends, and invites many members of one family to the annual conference, as if the conference were a hotel for families.

The translator didn’t react much, but said he didn’t feel he had a role in all of this:

“Listen, translator, ‘If you annoy the dog, bring him a stick.’ I will arrange everything until I take that position. I, Hamoud Al-Madhafi, will be the general manager of the Arab Institution for Translation. All I ask from you—when I take over the management of this institution—is that you stand by me just like you stand by Salman Al-Ibrahim now. That means don’t stop writing plans, don’t stop taking notes, and don’t hesitate to provide me with reports.”

After the Game and Football Expertise

In addition to his football experience, the translator had an expertise in identifying literary thieves, particularly those who sent materials for publication in the institution’s magazine, which had become its sole driving force since his arrival. He was also well aware of the guests nominated by “Mustafa Sanad” to participate in the annual conferences.

At a meeting where we were to finalize the names for the invitations, he objected to the participation of a Gulf researcher who had started publishing a series of critical articles about contemporary poets from his country in a prominent cultural magazine. When a literature researcher—his fellow citizen studying for her PhD in London—discovered that he had stolen all of his published articles from the writings of his thesis supervisor, he had the audacity to insert the original paragraphs, replacing the names of the original poets critiqued by the professor with the names of the poets he had chosen for his articles.

The researcher, who later became a minister after returning to her country, sent a detailed list of pages covering the plagiarism, deceit, and critical manipulation to the cultural magazine. However, the poet-editor-in-chief, who was the subject of one of those deceptive critical articles, refused to publish it!

Interestingly, since she was friends with the translator, she contacted him for advice. He told her that she should threaten the editor-in-chief by publishing her exposing comment in an Arabic newspaper, adding that the editor-in-chief had conspired and refused to publish the critique because it would harm him.

Eventually, the editor-in-chief gave in and published the comment. However, the plagiarist was also invited to write his response, which was published in the same issue, as if the editor wanted to close the matter immediately.

To the translator’s surprise, the plagiarist had become a renowned academic in his country’s university, invited to continue his academic fraud at universities and conferences nearby, winning prestigious awards. When “Salman Al-Ibrahim” was informed that this name was suspicious, he became angry and told the translator that he trusted “Mustafa Sanad’s” choices and that he should not mix personal matters with work.

What saddened the translator at that moment was that everyone knew what had happened, but it was the conspiracy that meant “I’ll stay silent about your mistakes, so you turn a blind eye to mine,” just as “Salman” had said, breaking all norms:

“There is no palm tree that the wind hasn’t shaken!”

Then came the painful blow that struck “Salman’s” heart when the translator revealed the deceit of the “Stateless” woman, “Shaden”—the doctor’s lover—and her scandal that everyone in the press had commented on.

The third blow, which confirmed the translator’s expertise thanks to his precision—as if he were placing goals in the ninety-degree corner—was when he uncovered the theft of an article by a female professor working at Kuwait University, who was the mother-in-law of an Egyptian close to “Salman.” Unfortunately for her, the institution’s magazine had resumed distribution in Iraq after “Saddam” had gone, and someone discovered that the article had been copied from an Iraqi magazine published 30 years ago!

Her Egyptian son-in-law came to retrieve the article from the institution’s archive, only to find that the translator had taken it to ensure it didn’t get lost. The professor claimed that the magazine had made the mistake and that she hadn’t sent the article.

The plan was exposed, and the academic lady, who was suspended from her work, had to write an apology letter, published in the institution’s magazine, in which she said:

“When I was young, I used to copy articles, before photocopying machines were invented, with my own hand. I forgot that the article wasn’t mine when I found it in my handwriting after 30 years. I sent it with my son-in-law for publication, and it happened as it did. May God curse forgetfulness and negligence!”

But all of that passed. Even the translator himself passed, and it seemed I would try again with this new person, “Ahmed Abdel Meguid.” (Continues)

___________________

Published under International Cooperation with "Sindh Courier"