Marcus Leaves

The Translator's Silence

Chapter 28: Marcus Leaves

He packed his office on a Wednesday. The symmetry was unintentional — Marcus did not choose Wednesday for its significance, did not choose it because Wednesday was their day, the day of Jenever and tea, the day of language and metaphor. He chose Wednesday because Wednesday was the day the ICC's human resources department scheduled his exit interview, the exit interview the institutional ritual of departure, the ritual requiring that the departing employee sit in an office on the fourth floor and answer questions about the work and the workplace and the reasons for leaving, the questions designed not to change the employee's mind but to collect data, the data the institution's record of its own attrition, the institution tracking its departures the way it tracked its cases, with bureaucratic thoroughness.

Amara learned about the packing from Kwesi. Kwesi told her in the corridor — the same corridor, the gray carpet, the fluorescent lights — and the telling was casual, the way corridor tellings were casual, Kwesi passing Amara on the way to the cafeteria and saying, "Marcus is clearing out his office today," the sentence delivered with the lightness of corridor conversation, the lightness appropriate because Kwesi did not know the weight, did not know about the Wednesday evenings and the Jenever and the sponge, did not know that Marcus's departure was for Amara not a colleague leaving but a language being removed, a room in the house of her professional life being emptied, the furniture carried out, the walls stripped, the room still there but vacant.

She went to Marcus's office. The office was on the second floor, near the interpretation booths, a small room that Marcus had occupied for twenty years — since the ICC's early days, since the court's first cases, since the time when the building was new and the corridors were unworn and the booths were unscratched and the entire enterprise of permanent international criminal justice was an experiment, a hope, a structure being built.

The door was open. Marcus was inside. He was standing in front of his bookshelf — the shelf that held his professional library, the dictionaries and glossaries and legal reference works that he had accumulated over thirty years of translation. He was holding a book. He was looking at the book with the particular attention of a person deciding whether to keep or discard, the decision the fundamental decision of packing, the decision applied to every object, every book, every file, the accumulation of twenty years being sorted into two categories — take and leave — and the sorting a form of judgment, a verdict on each object's worth, the verdict the last verdict Marcus would render in this building.

Amara stood in the doorway. She stood and she looked at Marcus and Marcus looked at the book and the room was quiet in the way rooms were quiet when the person in them was engaged in an interior process, the process the sorting, the sorting not just of objects but of experiences, each object carrying an experience, each book carrying a memory of the trial during which it was used, each glossary carrying the vocabulary of a specific testimony, the vocabulary the linguistic residue of the trial, the residue preserved in the pages of the book.

Marcus looked up. He saw her. He put the book down — placed it in one of the cardboard boxes that were arranged around the room, the boxes the containers of his departure, the boxes the physical form of leaving.

He said: "I thought you might come."

She entered the room. She looked at the boxes, at the half-empty shelves, at the desk cleared of its usual clutter — the pens, the notes, the coffee cups, the particular detritus of a working life, the detritus now sorted or discarded, the desk showing its surface, the surface scratched and stained, the scratches and stains the desk's record of twenty years of use.

She said: "Thirty-seven trials."

He said: "Thirty-seven. And that is enough."

The word enough. The word carried the weight of the thirty-seven trials, the weight of the sponge that Marcus had described, the sponge that was now full, the fullness the reason for the leaving, the reason not a crisis but a recognition, the recognition that the capacity had been reached, that the absorption was complete, that the sponge could hold no more without changing its fundamental nature, without becoming something other than a sponge, without becoming a stone.

Marcus sat on the edge of his desk. He sat the way he sat in his armchair — heavily, the body settling with the particular gravity of a large man, the settling a physical event that the desk registered with a slight creak, the creak the desk's acknowledgment of the weight, the weight physical and metaphorical, the desk holding Marcus and Marcus holding the thirty-seven trials and the thirty-seven trials holding the testimonies of hundreds of witnesses in dozens of languages.

He said: "I have translated enough horror for one life. The sponge is full. I am going to Amsterdam. I am going to translate menus and tourist brochures and the instructions on shampoo bottles. I am going to translate things that do not keep me awake."

The sentences were Marcus's sentences — direct, undecorated, the sentences of a man who had spent thirty years choosing words with precision and who chose his own words with the same precision, the words meaning exactly what they said, the saying the meaning, the meaning the saying. He would translate menus. He would translate tourist brochures. He would translate the instructions on shampoo bottles. The translation would be the same skill — the same linguistic ability, the same crossing of the bridge between Dutch and English and French and German — but the cargo would be different, the cargo light, the cargo without marrow, the cargo the words of commerce and hospitality rather than the words of testimony and horror.

Amara said: "Shampoo bottles."

Marcus said: "Shampoo bottles. 'Lather, rinse, repeat.' In four languages. The repetition will be therapeutic."

The sentence was a joke. The joke was Marcus's particular kind of joke — dry, understated, the humor residing not in the content but in the juxtaposition, the juxtaposition of the ICC and the shampoo bottle, of the testimony and the lather, of the horror and the rinse. The juxtaposition was funny because it was absurd and it was absurd because the distance between the two activities — translating crimes against humanity and translating hair care instructions — was vast, and the vastness was the joke, the vastness making visible the extremity of what Marcus had been doing, the extremity only visible from the distance of the absurd.

Amara almost smiled. The almost-smile was the closest she came to laughter in professional contexts, the almost-smile the facial expression of a person who recognized humor without fully surrendering to it, the recognition a form of participation, the participation restrained, the restraint a habit of the booth, the booth having trained her face to be neutral, the neutrality extending beyond the booth into the corridor and the office and the entire domain of the ICC.

Marcus stood. He crossed the small office. He stood in front of Amara. He was taller than her — six feet to her five feet six — and the height difference was the height difference of their entire relationship, Marcus above, Amara below, the spatial arrangement the same arrangement as the booth's arrangement, the interpreter above the courtroom, the interpreter looking down, the looking-down the position of the unseen, the position of the voice without the body.

He hugged her. The hug was sudden, not preceded by the signals that usually preceded a hug — the opening of the arms, the leaning forward, the particular telegraphing of physical intention that social convention required. Marcus simply hugged her. He put his arms around her and held her and the holding was not brief, was not the perfunctory embrace of colleagues, was the holding of a person who was saying goodbye to a person he would not see in the corridor tomorrow, would not sit beside in the booth, would not drink Jenever with on Wednesday evenings.

Amara stood in the hug. She did not reciprocate immediately — the surprise of the hug delaying her response, the delay a fraction of a second, the fraction the time required for the body to process the unexpected physical contact, the processing the body's translation of the hug into a response. Then she reciprocated. She put her arms around Marcus and she held him and the holding was the holding of two people who shared a particular knowledge, the knowledge of the booth, the knowledge of the sponge, the knowledge that could not be translated into any language because the knowledge was not linguistic but somatic, the knowledge residing in the body, in the particular way the body carried the weight of sustained translation.

They held each other for ten seconds. Fifteen. The holding was long in the way that significant holdings were long — long enough to communicate what words did not communicate, long enough for the bodies to say what the mouths could not say, the bodies speaking in the language of contact, of pressure, of the particular warmth of one body pressed against another. The bodies said: I know what you carry. I carry it too. The carrying is the thing we share. The sharing is the thing we will lose when you leave.

They released. Marcus stepped back. He looked at her. His eyes were — she did not want to name what his eyes were, because the naming would be a translation, and the translation would be inadequate, and the inadequacy would be the particular inadequacy that she spent her professional life confronting, the inadequacy of language to convey the thing itself. His eyes were what they were. The what-they-were was untranslatable.

He said: "You will be fine."

The sentence was not a prediction. The sentence was not a guarantee. The sentence was the particular sentence that people said to the people they were leaving, the sentence a gift and a burden, the gift the confidence and the burden the expectation, the confidence saying I believe in your capacity and the expectation saying use your capacity, continue, carry on, the carrying on the obligation the departed left to the remaining.

Amara said: "I know."

The answer was two words. The two words were the same two words she said to her mother — "I translate" — the reduction the same reduction, the complexity compressed into brevity, the brevity carrying the complexity without displaying it. She knew. She knew she would be fine. She knew because she had been fine for twelve years and because fine was her condition, fine the equilibrium she maintained, the equilibrium the balance between the sponge and the window, between the absorption and the transmission, between the weight and the carrying.

Marcus returned to his packing. He picked up another book. He placed it in a box. The placing was deliberate, the book positioned carefully, the care the care of a person who respected objects, who understood that objects carried history, who knew that the book in the box was not just a book but a record of a trial, a vocabulary of a testimony, a physical artifact of the work that had defined his life.

Amara helped. She helped because helping was the thing to do, the thing that the moment required, the moment the departure and the departure requiring assistance, the assistance the physical labor of carrying boxes from the office to the corridor, from the corridor to the elevator, from the elevator to the lobby, from the lobby to the car that Marcus had parked outside, the car that would carry the boxes to Amsterdam, the boxes carrying the books, the books carrying the vocabulary, the vocabulary carrying the trials, the trials carrying the testimony.

They carried the boxes. They carried them in silence — the silence not the silence of the booth or the silence of the deliberation but the silence of two people performing a physical task that did not require speech, the silence comfortable, the comfort the particular comfort of people who had spent years in each other's company without the obligation of conversation, the obligation of the booth being the translation and the obligation of the Wednesday evenings being the language and the obligation of this moment being the carrying.

The boxes filled the car. Marcus's car was a Volvo — a sedan, dark blue, the car of a Dutch professional, the car practical, reliable, the car the vehicle that would carry Marcus from The Hague to Amsterdam, from the ICC to the rest of his life, from the booth to the shampoo bottles.

Marcus closed the trunk. He stood beside the car. The parking lot was the ICC's parking lot — asphalt, lined, the lot surrounded by the building's fence, the fence the boundary, the boundary the line that separated the court from the city, the institution from the world, the line that Marcus was about to cross for the last time.

He looked at the building. He looked at it the way people looked at buildings they were leaving — the look comprehensive, the look trying to see the entire building at once, the way the mind tries to hold an entire experience at once, the look the visual equivalent of the embrace, the look trying to hold what the look was about to release.

He said: "Twenty years. This building. These corridors."

He said: "These booths."

He said nothing more about the booths. The nothing-more was the most eloquent thing he could have said, the nothing-more the acknowledgment that the booths were beyond language, that the experience of the booths was the thing that could not be translated, that the booths were the between, the space where he had lived for twenty years and where he would no longer live.

He turned to Amara. He said: "The sponge metaphor. It is not complete. I have been thinking about it. The sponge absorbs. But the sponge also releases. You can squeeze a sponge and the water comes out. The water is not the same water — the water has been inside the sponge, has been changed by the sponge, the sponge changing the water the way the translation changes the testimony. But the water comes out. The sponge can release."

He paused.

He said: "I am squeezing the sponge. I am releasing what I can. What remains — what the sponge holds permanently, what cannot be squeezed out — that is mine. That is the cost. That is the thirty-seven trials that will stay in the sponge regardless of whether I translate menus or shampoo bottles or nothing at all. That is the permanent residue. That is the price of the bridge."

He looked at Amara.

He said: "You will know when your sponge is full. You will know because your body will tell you. Trust the body. The body knows."

He hugged her again. This hug was brief — the briefness of a second hug, the second hug a coda, a postscript, the second hug acknowledging that the first hug had said what needed to be said and that the second hug was a confirmation, a repetition, the repetition not redundant but reinforcing.

He got in the car. He started the engine. He pulled out of the parking space. He drove to the lot's exit. He stopped. He waved — a small wave, the hand raised briefly, the wave the last gesture, the gesture the last communication, the communication wordless, the wordlessness appropriate, the appropriateness the recognition that the departure was beyond words, was in the territory of the untranslatable, was in the space where language ended and the body spoke.

He drove through the exit. He turned onto the road. The Volvo merged with the traffic. The traffic absorbed the car. The car became one car among many. The car disappeared.

Amara stood in the parking lot. She stood in the space where Marcus's car had been parked, the space empty now, the parking space an ordinary parking space, the space unremarkable except to Amara, to whom the space was the shape of Marcus's absence, the shape the shape of the car and the shape of the boxes and the shape of the books and the shape of thirty-seven trials packed into cardboard and loaded into a Volvo and driven to Amsterdam.

She stood for one minute. Two. The standing was a ritual, a final ritual, the ritual of standing in the place where the person had been, the place now empty, the emptiness the departure's evidence. Then she turned. She walked back into the building.

The corridor was the same corridor. Gray carpet. Fluorescent lights. Numbered doors. The corridor had not changed because Marcus had left. The corridor was the corridor's continuity, the building's indifference, the institution's persistence. The corridor contained the same offices, the same booths, the same cafeteria. The corridor contained everything it had contained before Marcus's departure.

But the corridor contained one fewer person who understood.

The understanding was the thing that Marcus's departure removed from the corridor. The understanding of the booth. The understanding of the sponge. The understanding of the window and the fiction and the neutrality and the weight. The understanding that existed between Amara and Marcus — the shared understanding of two people who had done the same work in the same building for the same court and who knew what the work did, not because they had studied what the work did (that was Dr. Brandt's knowledge) but because they had experienced what the work did (that was the interpreter's knowledge, the knowledge of the body, the knowledge that resided in the sponge).

Marcus was gone. The understanding he carried was gone with him — gone to Amsterdam, gone to the shampoo bottles, gone from the corridor and the booth and the Wednesday evenings. What remained was Amara's understanding, her understanding alone, the understanding no longer shared but solitary, the solitary understanding the condition she now inhabited, the condition of being the only person in the corridor who knew what she knew.

She walked the corridor. She passed Marcus's office. The door was closed. The office was empty. The shelves were bare. The desk was cleared. The room was a room — four walls, a window, a floor — and the room was empty, and the emptiness was the shape of twenty years of work, the work removed, the shape remaining.

She walked to the booth. Booth 3. English. She opened the door. She entered. The door clicked behind her.

The booth was empty. The headphones were on their hooks. The microphone was off. The red light was dark. The courtroom below was empty — the deliberation continuing, the judges deliberating, the verdict forming behind closed doors.

She sat in the left chair. She sat and she looked through the glass at the empty courtroom. She sat in the silence. The silence was the same silence. But the silence held something new — held the absence of Marcus, the absence that was not emptiness but presence, the presence of the departed, the presence that existed in the space where the person had been, the space now occupied by the memory of the person, the memory a form of the person, the form the sponge's form, the sponge holding what the sponge held.

She sat in the booth. She sat in the silence. She sat with the absence.

The corridor outside contained one fewer person who understood. The booth inside contained one person who remained.

Amara remained. The sponge held. The silence continued. The carrying continued.

The translator remained.