Translator Translated (6 page)

Sometimes, on the bus going home from work, I look at the others seated beside me and across from me. Or, rather, since I don't like staring at people's faces, I look down at their feet, shod in slippers or sandals or dusty shoes of cracked leather, and the packages they are holding on their knees, and I think: that is how I must look to them—a tired woman going home from work with nothing to look forward to, nothing to smile about. Whyever did I imagine I was different, and could live differently from them? We are all in this together, this world of loss and defeat. All of us, every one of us, has had a moment when a window opened, when we caught a glimpse of the open, sunlit world beyond, but all of us, on this bus, have had that window close and remain closed.

It is not that I did not try to open that window again. I gave up, of course, the idea of translating another book, though it meant giving up the language I had acquired with such ardour. In the course of those sleepless nights I spent, a thought did come to me—that I might write a book of my own. It would be an original work, it would draw from no one else and no one else's work. I did feel I owed Suvarna Devi a debt for teaching me, but now it was for me to prove I could establish my own worth as a writer.

For a while I felt excited by that idea—as if the window had opened again, a little, and some light was slanting through it. I had had an idea that bifurcated into more ideas, and I followed these paths with a stirring of hope and delight. The one that drew me more powerfully than any other was the story of my parents' marriage. Their short-lived marriage and its sad end. By writing their stories, I could bring in all the different aspects of my life—the ones I inherited from my mother, her language and her background, and the ones I inherited from my father. I felt the story had promise and even sat down with a large new notebook I purchased from the store across the street, propped my feet up and started scribbling, trying out these themes.

I worked hard at it but whatever pleasure or hope I had had at the outset dissipated. There were scenes I could write in English but other scenes called out to be written in my mother's language. I was torn between the two and could settle on neither. I wrote scraps in one, then scraps in the other, but tore them all up and threw them away: who would read such a jumble?

I was sitting in the dark one evening, listening to the crows on the telephone lines and the lopped tree outside as they quarrelled over their roosting places for the night, hoarse with combat, when it occurred to me that only Suvarna Devi could write this story. Only she had the voice for it; I did not. I had been writing under her influence, with her voice; it was not mine. In adopting hers, I had lost mine.

Then, browsing through a bookshop as I often did on a Saturday morning, I looked up from a display of discounted books spread out on a table and saw a young man I recognised at once as Suvarna Devi's nephew. He had his little son with him, now a toddler, and was pointing out to him some colourful children's books.

For a second I felt panic and wondered if I could slip away unseen. But then I decided that would be cowardly, and I went round the table to face him.

I wondered if he would recognise me but it was clear that he did. I greeted him and asked after his wife and daughter, and then his aunt. He seemed perfectly pleased to see me again and told me they were all well. After that I hesitated, not sure whether to refer to her books, her writing. Perhaps he hesitated too, slightly, but then, smiling, informed me that not only was she well but 'working as hard as ever. Now she has started a school—a primary school for tribal children. She was always so interested in their education. She is working full-time with them and asked me to select some books to send them.' He beamed with pride, then became distracted by his son who had grabbed at some books and was pulling them off a shelf with delight.

So I said goodbye, asking him to convey my regards to his aunt, and in the hubbub of the shopkeeper coming to reprimand the child and the young father's flustered apologies, I left.