The Previous Trial

The Translator's Silence

Chapter 6: The Previous Trial

Three years before Mukiza, there was the boy.

The boy was fourteen. This fact was in the prosecution's file — the age established not by a birth certificate, because the boy did not have a birth certificate, but by a medical examination conducted at the ICC's detention medical unit, the examination assessing the boy's dental development and skeletal maturity and producing an age estimate of approximately fourteen years, the approximately a qualifier that the medical report included because age estimation was a science of approximation, the body's development not a clock but a calendar of ranges, the range in this case twelve to sixteen years, the midpoint fourteen, the fourteen the number the court used, the number the record contained, the number that would be spoken in the courtroom and translated by Amara and heard through headphones and entered into the permanent archive of the International Criminal Court.

The boy was not the accused. The boy was a witness — a former child soldier, recruited at the age of ten by a militia in the Central African Republic, a militia that had abducted children from villages and schools and refugee camps and had trained them, which was the word the prosecution used, trained, the word carrying in its neutrality the particular horror of what training meant when the trainee was ten and the training was in the use of automatic weapons and the curriculum included killing and the graduation was deployment to a combat zone where the child became a soldier and the soldier did things that the child could not comprehend and that the soldier could not refuse.

The boy spoke Lingala. The Lingala of the Central African Republic, which was different from the Lingala of the DRC, the way the English of Scotland was different from the English of Nigeria — recognizably the same language but shaped by a different geography, a different history, a different community of speakers. The boy's Lingala was the Lingala of a child who had learned the language in a village near Bangassou and who had then spent four years in a militia camp where the Lingala mixed with Sango and French and the particular vocabulary of armed conflict, the vocabulary of weapons and orders and the operational language of a fighting force, the vocabulary imposed on the child's language the way the militia had been imposed on the child's life, the imposition a violence of its own, the language violated by the content it was forced to carry.

Amara was assigned to the case. She was the Lingala-to-English interpreter. She prepared — she studied the case file, the witness summaries, the particular terminology of child soldier recruitment and deployment, the vocabulary she would need. She prepared the way she always prepared, with thoroughness and professional detachment, the preparation a ritual, the ritual a form of protection, the preparation saying: I am ready for this, I have the words, I know the vocabulary, the vocabulary is adequate.

The boy entered the courtroom on a Tuesday morning in October. He entered through the witness's door — the same door that all witnesses used, the door that Witness 247 would use three years later, the door that led from the corridor to the courtroom, the threshold between the private and the public, between the witness's experience and the court's proceedings. He was small. Not small the way Witness 247 would be small — the smallness of a woman whose body had compressed itself for survival. The boy was small the way a child was small, the smallness of a body that had not yet finished growing, the bones still lengthening, the frame still filling, the body a child's body despite the four years of carrying a weapon that was designed for an adult's body, the weapon's weight disproportionate to the body's capacity, the disproportion a fact that the prosecution would establish through evidence and that Amara could see through the glass — the boy's arms thin, the shoulders narrow, the body that had carried an AK-47 a body that should have been carrying schoolbooks.

He sat in the witness box. The witness box was too large for him — the chair too wide, the table too high, the microphone positioned for an adult's mouth and needing adjustment, the court officer lowering it, the lowering a mechanical act that Amara had seen before and would see again, the adjustment the courtroom's accommodation of the body it had not been designed for, the courtroom designed for adults, for lawyers and judges and accused persons and adult witnesses, not for a boy of fourteen who had been a soldier and who was now a witness and who sat in the chair with his feet not quite touching the floor, the not-touching a detail Amara noticed through the glass, the detail the physical fact of childhood persisting in the body that had been used as a weapon.

He put on headphones. He selected a channel. He would hear the court's questions in Lingala — the questions translated from French or English into Lingala by the French booth's Lingala interpreter, the relay that carried the court's language to the witness's ears. And when he spoke, his Lingala would enter Amara's headphones directly — no relay, no buffer, the direct translation, the Lingala-to-English bridge that only Amara could build.

The prosecution began. The questions were gentle at first — the prosecution had been instructed by the judges to proceed with sensitivity, the sensitivity a protocol for child witnesses and former child soldiers, the protocol recognizing that the witness was a minor, that the testimony concerned events experienced during childhood, that the courtroom's formality and the prosecution's questions could be intimidating to a child who had been taught, by the militia, that speaking about the militia was forbidden, the prohibition enforced by violence, the violence the penalty for disclosure, the penalty that the boy had been threatened with and that the ICC's victim protection unit had worked to overcome, the overcoming a process that had taken months, the months the time required for the boy to trust that the courtroom was not the militia, that the questions were not interrogation, that the speaking would not be punished.

The boy answered. He answered in Lingala. His Lingala was — Amara heard it in her headphones and her body registered it before her mind could name it — his Lingala was a child's Lingala. The grammar was a child's grammar. The vocabulary was a child's vocabulary. The sentence construction was the construction of a boy who had not completed his education, who had been taken from school at ten and who had not returned, whose linguistic development had been interrupted by the recruitment and whose language had continued to develop in the environment of the militia rather than in the environment of the school, the development producing a language that was simultaneously childish and military, the childish the grammar and the military the content, the two fused in a way that Amara had not encountered before and that produced in her a sensation she could not immediately identify, a sensation that was not linguistic but physical, a tightening in the chest, a constriction, the body responding to the sound of a child's voice carrying a soldier's words.

The boy described his recruitment. He described it in the Lingala of a child describing an event that the child had experienced at ten — the vocabulary the vocabulary of a ten-year-old, the perspective the perspective of a ten-year-old, the confusion the confusion of a ten-year-old who had been taken from his village and given a uniform and a weapon and told that he was now a soldier and that soldiers obeyed orders and that the orders were not to be questioned. He said: "They came to the school. They took us. They gave us guns. The guns were heavy." The sentences were short. The sentences were a child's sentences — subject, verb, object, the syntax the basic syntax, the syntax of a mind that had not yet developed the capacity for subordinate clauses and conditional structures and the particular complexity that adult language possessed and that child language did not, the not-possessing not a deficiency but a stage, a developmental stage, the stage arrested, the arrest the militia's work.

Amara translated. She translated the child's Lingala into English, and the translation required a choice — the choice of register. The protocol said: maintain the register. The register was a child's register. The English, therefore, had to be a child's English — simple, direct, the sentences short, the vocabulary basic. Amara had to translate the child's Lingala into an English that sounded like a child speaking, because the child-ness of the language was part of the testimony, was evidence, was the court hearing not just what the boy said but how the boy said it, the how carrying the information that the witness was a child, that the witness had been a child when the events occurred, that the childhood was the context and the context was the crime.

She translated: "They came to the school. They took us. They gave us guns. The guns were heavy."

The sentences arrived in the English channel with the particular quality of translated child speech — the simplicity, the directness, the weight of adult content carried by the vehicle of child syntax. The judges heard the sentences. The prosecution heard the sentences. The gallery heard the sentences. The sentences entered the record.

The boy continued. He described the training. He described it in the language of a child describing things a child should not have known — the assembly and disassembly of a rifle, the firing positions, the marching, the discipline that was enforced through beatings and through the particular punishments that the militia used to convert children into soldiers, the conversion a process, the process described by the boy in the Lingala of a child, the Lingala small, the content enormous, the disproportion the testimony's particular horror.

He described his first deployment. He described walking through the forest with the other child soldiers — boys his age, some younger, ten and eleven and twelve, the group a unit, the unit commanded by an adult, the adult a man whose name the boy spoke and whose name the court recorded and whose name Amara translated with the neutrality the protocol required, the name a name, the name not carrying, in its syllables, the weight of what the man had ordered the children to do.

He described what they did.

He described it in the Lingala of a child. The Lingala was small. The words were a child's words. The grammar was a child's grammar. And the content — the content was killing. The content was a child describing killing. The content was a child using a child's vocabulary to describe the act of shooting a person, the act described with the simplicity of a child's perception, the perception not understanding what it perceived, the child seeing the act without comprehending the act, the seeing and the not-comprehending fused in the language, the language carrying both — the seeing and the not-comprehending — simultaneously, the way the Lingala carried the childhood and the soldiering simultaneously.

He said, in Lingala, in the Lingala of a child: "The man said shoot. I shot. The person fell down. I did not know the person. The person fell down and did not get up."

Amara translated. She translated the sentences into English. She maintained the register — the child's register, the simple sentences, the child's vocabulary. She said, into her microphone, into the English channel, into the headphones of the court: "The man said shoot. I shot. The person fell down. I did not know the person. The person fell down and did not get up."

The sentences were accurate. The translation was faithful. The register was maintained. The protocol was satisfied.

Inside the booth, behind the one-way glass, Amara's body was doing something her voice was not. The tightening in her chest had intensified. The constriction had spread — from the chest to the throat, the throat tightening around the words as they exited, the words coming out steady and neutral and professional while the throat tried to close around them, the closing involuntary, the body's refusal of the words, the body saying: these words should not exist in this voice, this child's voice should not be carrying this content, the content should not be in a child's grammar, the grammar too small, the content too large, the disproportion the thing the body rejected.

The boy continued. He described other things. He described the days after the first killing, the days when the killing became routine, the routine the militia's achievement, the achievement the conversion of the extraordinary into the ordinary, the conversion complete when the child no longer hesitated, when the child's body performed the act without the child's mind resisting, the resistance overcome, the overcoming the training's purpose, the purpose achieved.

He described these things in the Lingala of a child. He described routine killing in the grammar of a child describing a routine — the way a child might describe the routine of school or chores or the daily walk to the river. The grammar was the same grammar. The syntax was the same syntax. The sentences were the same short, direct sentences. And the sameness was the horror — the sameness of the grammar across the content, the child's language not distinguishing between the routine of school and the routine of killing because the child's language did not possess the register that would distinguish them, the register requiring a development that the militia had prevented, the prevention a crime of its own, a crime against the language as well as against the child.

Amara translated and the translation was accurate and the accuracy was a violence of its own, a violence she committed against herself with every sentence, the violence the faithfulness, the faithfulness requiring her to reproduce in English the child's voice describing the soldier's acts, the reproduction a carrying, the carrying heavier than any carrying she had done before because the weight was not just the content but the disproportion, the disproportion between the child's language and the soldier's content, the disproportion the thing that the translation had to preserve because the disproportion was the testimony, was the evidence, was the crime made audible in the courtroom through the particular medium of a child's voice.

She translated for forty-seven minutes.

At the forty-seventh minute, the boy described something. He described it in three sentences. The three sentences were in the Lingala of a child. The three sentences used a child's vocabulary. The three sentences described an act that the boy had been ordered to perform and that the boy had performed and that the boy described with the child's particular quality of narrating without comprehending, the narration the surface and the non-comprehension the depth, the depth visible only to the listener who understood both the language and the silence beneath the language.

Amara translated the three sentences. She spoke them into her microphone. The sentences exited her mouth in English.

And then her hand rose.

She raised her hand. She raised the hand that in nine years she had never raised, the hand that Marcus had raised three times, the hand that the protocol designated as the signal for I cannot continue, the signal that was not failure but recognition, the recognition that the accuracy was degrading, that the interpreter's resources were depleted, that continuation would compromise the translation and therefore the record.

But Amara's hand did not rise because her accuracy was degrading. Her accuracy was intact. Her translation was precise. Her English was the child's English, faithful to the child's Lingala, the register maintained, the protocol satisfied. Her hand rose not because she could not translate but because the translation was too perfect — the perfection the problem, the perfection meaning that the child's voice had entered her English completely, had made itself at home in her language, the child's Lingala inside the English, the child's description of killing inside the professional voice, the inside-ness the thing her body refused, the refusal the hand, the hand the body's overriding of the mind's discipline, the body saying what the mind would not say: stop.

Kwesi took over. The relay engaged. The direct Lingala-to-English bridge closed and the relay opened — the boy's Lingala translated into French by the French booth, the French translated into English by Kwesi, the relay adding the buffer, the buffer the distance, the distance the thing Amara's body had demanded.

She sat in the booth. Her hand was in her lap. The hand had lowered — had lowered after Kwesi acknowledged the signal, after the transition was complete, the transition seamless in the headphones, the voice changing but the translation continuing, the bridge remaining open but carried now by a different builder, the relay builder, the builder with the buffer.

She sat and she felt the absence. The absence of the direct translation, the absence of the boy's Lingala in her ears, the Lingala now mediated by the French booth, the mediation a relief, the relief physical, the body unclenching, the throat opening, the chest expanding, the constriction releasing. The relief was the buffer's gift. The relief was the distance's provision. The relief was the thing the relay provided and the direct translation did not.

She had raised her hand. In nine years, she had never raised it. In twenty-six trials, she had never raised it. And now she had raised it, not because she could not translate but because she could — because the translation was too faithful, because the child's language had entered her too completely, because the between had collapsed and the child's Lingala and her English had merged and the merger was the perfection and the perfection was unbearable.

The boy finished his testimony. He left the courtroom. He walked past the booth. He was small. He was fourteen. He was a child who had been a soldier who was now a witness. He walked through the door and the door closed and the boy was gone.

Amara sat in the booth. She sat in the silence that followed the testimony. She sat with the three sentences. She sat with the hand that had risen. She sat with the knowledge that she had reached the edge, the boundary, the place where the carrying exceeded the carrier, and that she had raised her hand, and that the raising was not failure but recognition, and that the recognition was the body's truth, the truth that the protocol could not govern, the truth that lived in the space between the languages, the space where the child's voice and the soldier's content merged, the space that was the between, the space that was the translator's silence.

Three years later, the Mukiza trial would begin. Three years later, Witness 247 would enter the courtroom. Three years later, Amara would sit in the booth and put on her headphones and press the microphone button and translate the testimony of a woman who had hidden in a ditch behind a church while her village was destroyed.

And she would not raise her hand. She would not raise it because she had raised it once, in this trial, in this booth, during this testimony, and the raising had taught her something — had taught her the edge, the boundary, the place where the child's language met the soldier's content and the between collapsed. The raising had taught her where the edge was. And the knowing of the edge was the thing that allowed her to approach the edge without crossing it, the knowing a map, the map a protection, the protection the particular knowledge that only the body could provide, the body that had raised the hand, the body that remembered.

The boy's trial ended. The accused was convicted. The sentence was delivered. The trial entered the record.

And the boy's voice — the child's Lingala, the child's grammar, the child's vocabulary carrying the soldier's content — the boy's voice entered the sponge, entered the space between the ears and the mouth, entered the silence, and stayed.

The voice stayed. The hand remembered. The between held them both.