The Other Booth

The Translator's Silence

Chapter 16: The Other Booth

His name was Pascal Mukendi. He was Congolese — born in Lubumbashi, educated at the Universite de Kinshasa, trained as an interpreter at the Ecole de Traduction et d'Interpretation in Geneva, hired by the ICC in 2015 for his combination of French and Lingala and the particular knowledge of eastern Congolese dialects that the court's Congo cases required. He was forty-one. He was tall — taller than Amara, taller than most of the interpreters, the tallness visible even in the booth, where bodies were seated and where height was measured not from the floor to the head but from the chair to the headphones, the headphones the interpreter's crown, the crown's position relative to the microphone the relevant measurement, and Pascal's headphones sat higher than most, the height the physical fact of the body the court had hired for the language the body contained.

He worked in Booth 1. French. The French booth. The booth that handled the court's other official language, the booth that translated from English to French and from French to English and, in the Mukiza trial, from French to Lingala and from Lingala to French, the booth that was the mirror of Amara's booth, the mirror reflecting the same proceedings from the other direction, the direction reversed, the language reversed, the function complementary.

Pascal translated FROM the language of justice INTO the language of the witness.

This was his function. This was his direction. The court's questions — the judge's instructions, the prosecutor's examinations, the defense counsel's cross-examinations — were spoken in French or English, and Pascal translated them into Lingala for the witness's headphones. The witness heard the court's language in her own language. The witness heard the questions that would produce the testimony in the language of her village, in the Lingala of eastern Congo, in the words she understood, the understanding Pascal's gift, the gift the translation from the institutional to the personal, from the legal to the human, from the language of the court to the language of the witness.

Amara's function was the reverse. Amara translated FROM the language of the witness INTO the language of justice. The witness's testimony — the Lingala, the descriptions, the pauses, the three sentences and the five-minute silence — was spoken in the witness's language, and Amara translated it into English for the court's headphones. The court heard the witness's experience in its own language. The court heard the testimony that would form the basis of the verdict in the language of the record, in the English of the proceedings, in the words the judges weighed, the weighing Amara's provision, the provision the translation from the personal to the institutional, from the human to the legal, from the language of the witness to the language of the court.

The two directions. The two booths. The two interpreters. Pascal giving the court to the witness. Amara giving the witness to the court. The two functions mirror images — the same bridge, the same languages, the same testimony, but the direction reversed, the traffic moving in opposite directions on the same bridge, the bridge carrying in both directions simultaneously, the simultaneity the court's architecture, the architecture requiring that the witness understand the court and that the court understand the witness at the same time, the understanding bilateral, the bilaterality the translation's condition.

Amara had worked with Pascal for three years. Three years of the Mukiza trial preparation and the Mukiza trial itself, three years of sitting in adjacent booths — Booth 3 (English) and Booth 1 (French) — separated by a wall, the wall thin enough that Amara could sometimes hear Pascal's voice through it, the voice muffled, indistinct, the words inaudible but the cadence audible, the cadence the rhythm of Pascal's French-to-Lingala translation, the rhythm different from Amara's English-to-Lingala rhythm because the source languages were different and the different sources produced different rhythms, the rhythm the fingerprint of the translation, the fingerprint unique to each interpreter, each direction, each language pair.

They had never spoken about the work.

This fact was remarkable only if you did not understand the culture of the booth. The culture of the booth was a culture of professional silence — not the silence of the translation, which was the silence between the languages, but the silence between the interpreters, the silence that governed the corridor and the cafeteria and the spaces outside the booth where interpreters encountered each other and where the encounters were conducted in the particular language of professional courtesy, the language of nods and brief greetings and the occasional comment about the weather or the tram schedule, the language that did not include the work, that did not reference the testimony, that did not name the weight.

The silence between interpreters was partly protocol. The ICC's confidentiality rules prohibited interpreters from discussing cases outside the courtroom, the prohibition designed to protect the integrity of the proceedings and the privacy of the witnesses. The prohibition was real, was enforced, was a condition of employment that every interpreter accepted and that every interpreter observed, the observing a professional discipline, the discipline maintained through habit and through the particular understanding that the prohibition was not arbitrary but necessary, the necessity the protection of the witnesses who had traveled from war zones to testify and whose safety depended on the confidentiality of the proceedings.

But the silence between interpreters was also something else. The silence was a mutual agreement — unspoken, unformalized, enacted rather than articulated — an agreement that the work was not to be discussed because the discussing would require the naming of the thing that the work did to the worker, and the naming was a form of acknowledgment, and the acknowledgment was a form of vulnerability, and the vulnerability was not compatible with the professional identity that the booth required, the identity of the neutral conduit, the window, the mechanism. To discuss the work — to say to a colleague, I translated a child soldier's testimony today and the child's language broke something in me, or I translated a woman's description of what happened in the church and the description is in my sleep now — to say these things would be to admit that the booth was not a window but a sponge, and the admission would compromise the fiction, and the fiction was necessary, and the necessity maintained the silence.

Pascal observed the silence. Amara observed the silence. The two interpreters who spent their days communicating everything — every word, every pause, every nuance of the testimony — communicated nothing to each other about the communication. The everything and the nothing coexisted in the same corridor, in the same building, in the same professional relationship, the coexistence the particular condition of their shared work.

They nodded. The nod was their communication. The nod occurred in the corridor — the gray carpet, the fluorescent lights — when Amara walked from Booth 3 toward the cafeteria and Pascal walked from Booth 1 toward the exit or toward his office or toward whatever destination his particular route required. They passed each other. They nodded. The nod was brief — a lowering and raising of the head, the movement small, the movement lasting perhaps one second, the second the duration of their interaction, the interaction the nod, the nod the only communication between two people who spent their days communicating everything.

The nod said: I know. The nod said: I was in the booth while you were in the booth. The nod said: I heard what you heard, or rather, I heard the same testimony from the other direction — I gave the court's questions to the witness while you gave the witness's answers to the court, and the giving was the work, and the work was the carrying, and the carrying is the thing we share and the thing we do not name.

The nod said all of this. The nod said it in the language of the body, the language that did not require translation because the language was universal — the lowering and raising of the head meaning acknowledgment in every culture, in every language, the gesture predating language, the gesture the oldest communication, the communication of I see you and you see me and the seeing is enough.

Amara noticed Pascal's hands. She noticed them in the corridor, in the cafeteria, in the moments when their paths crossed and the nod was exchanged and the crossing continued. Pascal's hands were large — the fingers long, the palms broad, the hands of a man whose hands were his tools in a profession that did not, strictly speaking, use the hands, the profession of the voice, the hands resting while the voice worked. But the hands showed the work. The hands showed it in the way the fingers moved during the nod — a small movement, a flexing, the fingers curling slightly and uncurling, the movement involuntary, the movement the body's processing of the corridor's encounter, the fingers carrying the residue of the booth the way the throat carried the residue of the voice, the residue physical, somatic, the body holding what the protocol required the mouth to release.

She noticed that Pascal's hands were never still. In the corridor, at the cafeteria counter, waiting for the tram — Pascal's hands moved, the fingers flexing and extending, the movement continuous, subtle, the movement the body's language for the mind's activity, the mind active even when the mouth was silent, the mind processing, translating, the translation continuous, the continuity the interpreter's condition, the condition that Pascal shared with Amara, the condition of minds that had been trained to translate and that could not stop translating, the training so deep that the translation continued in the corridor and the cafeteria and the tram, the mind translating the signs and the conversations and the ambient language of the city, the translation automatic, involuntary, the involuntariness the condition.

Pascal's direction was harder. Amara thought this — thought it without saying it, without naming it, the thought a private assessment conducted in the silence of her own mind, the assessment the observation of a colleague whose work she understood because the work was the mirror of her own. Pascal's direction was harder because Pascal translated the court's questions into the witness's language, and the translating of the questions was the giving of the questions, and the giving meant that Pascal's Lingala was the Lingala the witness heard, the Lingala that entered the witness's headphones and that the witness received as the court's voice, the court speaking through Pascal, the court's French becoming Pascal's Lingala, the Lingala the bridge from the institution to the person.

And when the questions were hard — when the prosecution asked the witness to describe the church, when the defense asked the witness to reconsider the number of soldiers — the questions entered Pascal's headphones in French and Pascal translated them into Lingala and the Lingala entered the witness's headphones and the witness heard the questions in her own language and the hearing produced the testimony, the testimony the response to the questions, the response the thing Amara translated. But Pascal had given the questions. Pascal had converted the prosecutor's careful French into the Lingala that the witness understood, and the conversion meant that Pascal was the one who asked, the one who spoke the court's words in the witness's language, the one who said — in Lingala, in the language of the witness's village and the witness's grief — describe what you saw inside the church, describe the bodies, describe the burning, the asking conducted in the language of the asked, the asking a form of intimacy that the court's architecture concealed, the architecture placing Pascal in a booth behind glass while the asking happened in headphones, the asking invisible, the asking the other direction's particular burden.

Amara translated the witness's answers. Pascal translated the court's questions. Amara received the testimony. Pascal delivered the interrogation. The two functions were mirror images, and the mirror images carried different weights, and the different weights were borne in different bodies, in different booths, in different silences.

One evening — a Thursday, late, the building emptying, the day's session finished — Amara walked from Booth 3 toward the exit. She walked the corridor. She passed Booth 1. The door was open. She glanced inside. Pascal was there. He was seated in his chair — the right chair, his chair, the chair that was his by habit the way the left chair was Amara's by habit. His headphones were on the console. His microphone was off. His hands were in his lap.

He was sitting in the silence. He was sitting in the after-session silence, the silence that followed the testimony, the silence that Amara knew, that Amara sat in after every session, the silence that was not empty but full, the fullness the testimony's residue, the residue settling in the body.

She stood in the doorway. She did not enter. She stood and she looked at Pascal and Pascal looked at his hands and the looking was the particular looking of a person who was alone with the weight, alone with the carrying, alone with the direction — his direction, the direction that gave the court's questions to the witness, the direction that spoke the asking in the witness's language, the direction that was the mirror of Amara's direction and that carried the mirror's weight.

He looked up. He saw her. He did not speak. She did not speak. The not-speaking was the silence, the professional silence, the silence between interpreters, the silence that governed the corridor and the doorway and the space between two people who shared a work and who did not name the sharing.

He nodded.

She nodded.

The two nods were the communication. The two nods were the entire exchange — the acknowledgment, the recognition, the I know what you carry and you know what I carry and the knowing is the thing we share and the thing we do not name and the not-naming is the silence and the silence is ours.

She walked on. She walked the corridor. She walked through the lobby. She walked into the evening air.

The nod stayed. The nod settled in the space where all the testimony settled, beside the three sentences and the five-minute pause and the untranslatable word and the boy and the prayer and the ditch. The nod settled there because the nod was testimony of its own — the testimony of two interpreters who worked in adjacent booths and who carried the same testimony in opposite directions and who acknowledged the carrying with the smallest possible gesture, the gesture the nod, the nod the minimum unit of communication between two people who spent their days communicating everything.

The other booth. The other direction. The other carrying.

Pascal Mukendi, translating the court's questions into the witness's language. Amara Osei, translating the witness's answers into the court's language. The two directions the same bridge. The two booths the same silence.

The nod the only word between them. The nod enough. The nod the translation of everything they could not say into the one gesture they could make.

The nod. The corridor. The silence.

The silence held them both.