The Unavoidable Intimacy of Interpretation

Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga

I was fifteen minutes late and his phone number was out of service.

Even in late January, Washington Square Park pulsed with the energy of summer. The chess players were fretting over their moves to the sound of Gershwin. The saxophonist’s Great Dane was pining for the dog run. It was Alfred who had suggested meeting here, next to the statute of Garibaldi, a name that brought to mind fragmented pieces of Italy glued together. It was an old mnemonic from high school; Garibaldi was responsible for Italy’s unification.

But Alfred was nowhere to be seen. Two men on a nearby bench didn’t match his description. He’d be alone. The agency sent photo attachments, which I rarely bothered opening. It was easy to recognize my clients from the look of expectancy, the humble bearing, the wear and tear that showed on their faces and bodies. That his phone was out of service was odd. Had they sent me the wrong phone number? The sound of footsteps. A toddler with squeaky shoes bumped into me, followed by her father and an excessive apology. Two boys holding a minidrone scurried toward the empty fountain. An elderly man was checking his watch. Could he be Alfred? He was far from the statue. Had he given up on waiting for me at our meeting spot? The man looked in his sixties. According to his file, Alfred was only in his early forties, just a few years older than me. Was it his preoccupation with his watch that made him look older? He hunched over it the same way my grandfather used to while winding up his Volna, a watch he’d bought in Moscow in the fifties. I walked toward him. Where was his phone, anyway?

“Alfred?” I said, relieved that I managed to put the accent on the second vowel, the Albanian way. “I’m sorry for being late.”

He straightened his back and waved his arm forgivingly. He did look younger from up close. His face seemed stuck in between expressions. It reminded me of an unfinished Rubik’s Cube we kept around the house, which I could never resist trying to solve.

“I was worried you were waiting somewhere else,” he said, rubbing his sunken eyes. “I saw another woman over there and thought it was you.”

“Is your phone out of service?”

“It stopped working this morning. I don’t know why.”

“Is your dentist around here? Shouldn’t we get going?”

His answer sounded muddled. The translation agency that employed me had been sending Kosovar Albanians my way. Their accent was different from mine. It took me a few seconds to get used to it, for me to understand the words immediately. We walked under the Arch and headed toward the street. I was hoping the dentist would still be willing to see him—we were late for our 6:00 pm appointment. While looking for their number on my phone, I felt a tug on my arm. Alfred was holding on to my elbow.

“Be careful.”

An SUV had run a red light. It was speeding away now, only a few steps from us. That he was a survivor of torture flashed in my mind again. I didn’t know what kind of torture it had been and was not allowed to ask for details. When his hand slid down my arm, the goose bumps surprised me.

The dentist was only a ten-minute walk from the park. We walked there silently and at some distance from each other, like a couple who had just quarreled. In no time at all, we were filling out paperwork. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest rating, how would you rate your dental health? On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest rating, where would you like your dental health to be? The questions struck Alfred as ridiculous. He opened his eyes incredulously and shook his head in disbelief. He then jutted his chin toward the papers, giving me full power of attorney over his dental history. Judging from his reaction, I opted for the lower numbers. He nodded in approval. Still hoping that some questions might resonate with him, I kept reading aloud.

“Do you brush your teeth in the morning or at night? Or both?”

He was indifferent, eager to dismiss such useless formalities to deal with a toothache that had kept him up all night. He gave a deep sigh as if to say, It’s true that my dental hygiene and genetics have contributed to the state of my teeth, but do they need every single detail? Realizing there were many more pages to go through—the pile on my lap did look intimidating—he glanced around with doubt. What kind of dentist would make us do all this?

“What would you change about your smile?” I asked.

The answer consisted of several options. I had trouble interpreting the last one. Smile makeover.

“Smile transformation,” I fumbled. “Changing your smile completely.”

“Pick that one,” Alfred said without hesitation.

It was the only answer that he chose on his own. Afterward, he smiled, which frightened me. His features widened but didn’t soften, as if he were smiling against his will. He had chosen the right option after all.

“Are you ready, lovebirds?” said the receptionist, who looked tired and was massaging her shoulder.

When we stood up, she smiled in a forced way, like Alfred had earlier. Show less gum, one of the options from before, sprang to mind. She didn’t ask about insurance or payment information. We were an after-hours charity case. She led him to the back, ignoring me. She didn’t find me necessary now. The dentist would have his answers by looking at Alfred’s teeth, presumably, or at the paperwork I had completed. Waiting around random offices was the least favorite part of my assignments. Not knowing what to do, I sat back down. In the aquarium tank to my left there were no fish but several odd creatures; they were translucent with a hint of hazy gray, and long antennas.

“They’re ghost shrimp,” said a young woman sitting on the other side of the aquarium. I hadn’t noticed her till she spoke. “When they’re about to die, they turn white.”

She pressed her finger to the glass, pointing at a half-white creature. “He’s on his way out.”

She wore soft curls under an olive beret and a velveteen cape jacket in chartreuse. A long skirt of a faded material hid her knees and feet. Her appearance clashed with the bland surroundings. I had the impression that, in some mix-up of fact and fiction, she had stepped out of one of those thirties films my husband was always watching. Finding the office underwhelming, she had then zeroed in on the underwater world of the aquarium.

“It’s kind of creepy,” she said and pouted.

The receptionist tapped me on the shoulder.

“Your husband wants to see you.”

“He’s not my husband,” I said quickly. “I’m only his interpreter.”

“Oh, sorry. Could you come in the back?”

The back room was small and crowded with gleaming white machines, rather enormous for repairing such small objects as teeth. Alfred and the dentist were standing motionless to the side of the chair. The dentist looked like a late teen, but she had to be older—she was a practicing graduate student. She kept her hands in her scrubs’ pockets and threw puzzled glances at the patient whose language she didn’t understand.

“He doesn’t want to sit,” she told me, her face taut. “Can you please tell him to sit in Armenian?”

“Albanian.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s going on, Alfred?”

“I’ve never liked these machines.”

“It won’t last long.”

“These machines scare me. My father used to have to force me to sit.”

“Look, they numb you here. It doesn’t hurt like back home.” He didn’t move.

“I promise,” I said. “They do the work, but you won’t feel it.

It’s amazing.”

It took a few seconds, but Alfred did sit down in the end. “If he’s in any pain,” said the dentist, “tell him to raise his hand. I will numb him soon.”

I explained that to him, but when the drilling started, Alfred did nothing, even though his left hand kept trembling.

In Tirana, when I was a kid, they used to do our fillings and root canals without numbing. The dental office was inside our elementary school. The school dentists were two attractive women, who, in my memories, didn’t wear scrubs but blue, flowing dresses. They’d pop in and out of our classroom, calling out our names like Odysseus’s mermaids, charming us into an adventure, away from our tedious lessons. It was only later, when the drill touched a nerve and my screams echoed through the school’s hallways, that their appeal waned. Despite all that, I had never feared the dentist. Among all types of pain, physical pain was the easiest to forget.

Among all types of pain, physical pain was the easiest to forget.

“I’m sorry,” said the dental student to Alfred. “I touched a nerve.”

Alfred’s body slithered on the chair, but he didn’t make a peep. Then he sort of shriveled, reminding me of an Albanian expression I hadn’t thought of in some time—U bë sa një grusht—He became small as a fist.

---

There was, at times, an unnatural intimacy that developed between myself and some of the people I interpreted for. Disclosing personal and confidential information in front of someone played a trick on the brain, making us both believe we were more than acquaintances. But the amount of time we knew each other, and the context of our meeting, didn’t justify such closeness. When Alfred’s filling was over and we were walking toward the reception desk, he reached for and held my hand. It was an ordinary gesture, a substitute for saying thank you, or thank God, it’s finally over. His hand was chilly. I warmed it with mine. Holding hands with my clients wasn’t allowed. Still, when it came to most rules, one had to use judgment.

The vintage girl was still in the reception area. I admired her meticulous makeup, her hairstyle, her unique clothes. How long did it take her to transform herself into a movie star from the thirties? I, too, often longed to escape my ordinary look, to disguise myself behind a colorful façade, or to try out a personality. But it was all a fleeting fantasy. I didn’t enjoy making a fuss over my appearance, not even occasionally. I took less time than my husband to get ready. People assumed I was athletic, an erroneous impression suggested by the sporty, no-fuss clothes I preferred. The girl sighed in an exaggerated manner, then twirled her hair. She really did resemble one of the stars in the movies my husband watched.

“Do you speak any English?” I said to Alfred when we were outside.

“Where would I learn it? Everyone around me in the Bronx is Albanian.”

We walked back toward Washington Square Park, now at the mercy of a cutting wind. Even from a distance, I could make out the green benches under the hooded lanterns, where Billy and I used to sit many years ago. I hadn’t been in that park in years, since we first started dating. As Alfred and I passed the old Hangman’s Elm, my younger self flitted away to an alley on Crosby Street, ending at a bar with latticed windows and flickering candles. There used to be a French singer inside, wearing an off-the-shoulder evening gown with a daring front slit. She sang melancholy songs and played an old-school accordion. The most unusual aspect of her attire was a headlight hat she shone over the audience. Was she still there? Was the bar?

“I need an interpreter for my visits at the psychiatrist,” Alfred said. “I haven’t found anyone I trust.”

I hesitated. Sitting through his therapy sessions wouldn’t be easy.

“I know we just met,” he went on. “But I trust you. I don’t trust many people.”

Alfred had brown eyes. They were comforting and kind. I had never, till my husband, dated anyone with light eyes. Billy’s eyes were green. They could be clear, as a flowing river. At times they were turbulent, with darker shades of hazel.

“I need to talk to someone. I haven’t been well.”

“I’ll do it,” I said.

He flashed his smile again. His face was an acquired taste and I was getting used to it.

“Do you want to get a beer? I know a good place in the Bronx.”

It had been a long time since I’d been out alone with a man who wasn’t my husband or even with one who was. The past was suddenly at an arm’s reach—a casual invitation followed by a feeling of lightness, curiosity.

“I should go home.”

Then Alfred shook my hand, thanked me, and left. What would his night be like? He’d take the stairs up to his silent apartment. Open the door in the darkness. Cut vegetables on a wooden board before sliding them into a boiling pot. I saw myself sitting at his table, as his guest. He put on some music. Focused as he was on cooking, he ignored me for a while. He then turned around, refilling my wineglass while fixing me with his gaze.

I walked toward the subway, only then realizing we were going in the same direction. He was a few steps ahead of me. My feet halted, if only momentarily, on his elongated shadow.

---

Alfred reached out via email.

My psychiatrist said that your psychological training for interpreters is about to expire. You need to take a refresher course, she says. An imposition on your time, clearly. Will you do it? You are someone I trust. Isn’t it funny how it goes? You can spend years with someone but never trust them. Or you can, in a second. They are strict about rules in America. Too many people here. Do you remember how the dentist wouldn’t even look at my teeth without having us sign a hundred pages? Another thing is that I’m married. My wife’s name is Vilma, a woman from Tirana, like you. Our baby, a girl, will be born in one month.

I used to be afraid of my father. Children know everything. He loved me, he did, but things never worked out for him. I had vowed never to be a father. Yet, here I am. Vilma, my wife, can’t wait for the baby. The psychiatrist says that having my wife interpret during the therapy sessions is not an option. Relatives are not allowed. The training is only forty hours. Would you prefer to take it all in one week or in two weeks? Here’s a link to the registration. Can you go ahead and register?

If you can, for which I’ll be grateful, I’ll need you to sign some paperwork. You will need to scan and email it to the organization that sponsored my recovery. Can I stop by your office tomorrow?

Thank you!

A.

The nondescript, rectangular construction in Gowanus was built especially, it seemed, with the intention of splitting it into as many offices as possible. Mine was the smallest division, not much bigger than an average closet outside of New York City. There was little room to spare besides a small desk and two chairs.

Alfred was early, but he didn’t text to tell me. The door suddenly framed his lone figure, the low-hanging shoulders and gaunt face. When our eyes met, he raised his hand in a greeting.

He had cropped his hair and shaved, revealing a crooked mouth that bent further when he smiled. He had just returned from an interview for a security guard position, he explained. In his navy suit and burgundy tie, he looked the part.

“You’ll get the job.”

“Ishàlla.”

He pulled out the paperwork for the training from his backpack. We both signed it. I went to scan it in the copy room. When I returned, he had made himself comfortable in the corner chair, where no one had sat before. He dug through his backpack and handed me a bag of Albanian mountain tea sprigs.

“Vilma’s father brought it from Albania.”

“Let’s have some.”

“You can keep the rest. I brought it for you.”

He rubbed his hands to warm them up. I turned on the space heater. As I brewed tea in the building’s common kitchen, I tried to picture Alfred’s wife. What kind of Albanian woman was this Vilma? Was she beautiful in an uninteresting way, partial to gaudy clothes, and a touch arrogant? Was her life’s dream to become a TV presenter, a model, an influencer? There was an easygoing aspect to Alfred, a kind of passivity that certain high-spirited women might grow to despise. Or was Vilma—laid-back, modest, soft-spoken, surprisingly unharmed by the injustices around her—the sort of woman who found purpose in suffering, especially her husband’s? All my theories were in vain. Alfred still carried an aura of mystery about him, so how could I speculate about his wife? At first glance, he gave the impression of someone who was used to doing menial jobs, but then the more we talked, the more I got the sense he was well-read, maybe an autodidact of sorts. There was a spiritual side to him, too. It was easy to imagine him as a medieval monk, wearing a long tunic tied by a rope at the waist while assisting the poor. But, no, Alfred wasn’t a monk. He hadn’t learned to detach and observe; he was still suffering. That night at the park, he had appeared mysterious, but the bright lights of the dentist’s office had revealed his terror. He could barely handle a smile, let alone choose a wife. It was much more likely that it was Vilma who had chosen him and not the other way around. Sure, Alfred would have had to propose, but Vilma had pulled the strings.

When I returned with the teacups, the office had turned dark. It was one of those winter days when the night veil descended over the city without warning. The warm air from the heater had fogged up my only window. The distant lights above the barge-mounted excavator near the canal appeared as smudges on the glass. Alfred sat quietly. He hadn’t even taken out his phone, like people do. He was staring at my chair, as if he were in the middle of a conversation with another, invisible me. When I turned on the desk lamp, he recoiled. Then he winced, covering his eyes with his palm.

“I don’t like bright lights either,” I said, attempting to excuse his reaction.

Alfred lowered his hand. Then he looked past me and toward the door. That other me sitting in front of him had just walked out. He continued to sit in silence, glancing at a print of Berat’s castle on the wall, then staring at a photograph of my parents. His attention forced me to study my father’s eyes, his closely cropped silver hair, then my mother’s careless bun, her piercing eyes. The faces stirred a sharp longing I tried to push aside.

“Maybe we’ll have no trouble sleeping tonight,” I said, pointing to the teacups. “This tea is relaxing.”

“I’m having trouble with insomnia,” he said. “When I sleep, I see terrible images.”

I was hesitant to ask about the images, but he told me about them himself. “They’re mythical creatures,” he said. “But the features are mixed up. I’ll see a zebra with a human face, with wings and patches of fur. The weird body parts terrify me. Vilma says I should remember they are not real, but who could get used to such nightmares?”

His most remarkable feature was his eyes, I decided, and that hint of kindness they left behind. It was easy to worry about Alfred once one had made eye contact with him.

It was easy to worry about Alfred once one had made eye contact with him.

“I saw Cerberus yesterday. Do you know it? From Greek mythology?”

“No.”

“I used to read Greek mythology when I was younger. He’s a three-headed dog that guards the gates of the underworld to prevent the dead from leaving.”

“Where are the dead going?”

“To spy on the living.”

This was a joke, it turned out. He grimaced, revealing a gap between his teeth where the left canine used to be. It was kind of touching, like spotting the demolished wall of a house. Aware of my glance, he pursed his lips and rested his chin on his palm. Alfred had long eyelashes, whose shadows now reflected on his hollow cheekbones. He was following my movements with his eyes, as I ran my hand over the steam or placed my teacup on some printouts. He rarely blinked. Under the dim light, his bony face reminded me of a clay bust, still rough and unfinished.

“Thank you for doing the training for me,” he said. “As I said in the email, it means a lot.”

“How’s your wife?”

“Impatient.”

“Have you decided on a name for the baby?”

“My mother’s name. Roza.”

“Is your mother back home?”

He nodded.

“I wanted to bring her here,” he said.

“Will you?”

“I can’t. Since my father’s death, she doesn’t leave the house. I guess she’ll never come.”

I became aware of my facial expression, then of the need to shape it into something neutral. But maybe it was the effort that gave me away. Alfred was now studying my face with renewed interest.

“Odd,” I said, with barely any emotion. “My mother is the same.”

A scenario from my childhood played in my mind. We had made plans to go out of town. She had participated willingly, even excitedly. At the last moment, she announced she wasn’t going.

“I’m sorry,” Alfred said. “Is she alone?”

“She is. My father passed away.”

“My mother is alone also. We pay someone to do her shopping.”

He ran his hand over his black hair, which glistened under the light.

“I’m awash in guilt,” he said, pointing to his chest. “I’m having a baby. My mother will barely see her. My daughter won’t see the worst, thank God, but neither will she know the good things from back home. Do you have children?”

“No.”

“Not yet,” he corrected me.

I didn’t tell him that Billy and I had only discussed the possibility of having children abstractly, that we were both ambivalent about it.

“My father comes to see me sometimes,” he said. “Every summer, a moth lands on my hand. For the longest time.”

We were alone in my office and perhaps the building; everyone had left for the day. And yet we were whispering, like children who had found a hidden nook to share secrets. His chair was wobbly—it creaked when he leaned back. The space heater hissed, then stopped. A noisy truck outside shook the windows, giving me a jolt.

“So, this therapist,” he said, doing his best to smile. “She might help us both.”

From some recess of my mind, a sentence awoke. If the interpreter’s circumstances resemble the client’s, do not accept the assignment. “I don’t need any therapy,” I said. “We’re going there for you.”

Alfred nodded. “Yes, of course.”

He touched his cheek with his fingers. His skin had warmed and reddened. He held the teacup with his other hand. “I do love this tea,” he said, bringing it to his lips.

What he said, about the therapist helping both of us, stayed on my mind. The most prudent thing was to cancel our upcoming appointment. But that meant he would have to postpone his therapy till after the birth of his baby. Becoming a parent opened the doors to the traumas and unresolved issues of childhood. Even he could sense that would be the case.

An Albanian folk song broke the silence. Alfred’s phone. “Excuse me. My wife.”

He rose at once and left the room to take the call. He stood outside the glass wall of my office, turning his back on me. It had taken some effort to reconcile that image of him as a solitary figure, waiting for me in the park, with that of Alfred, a husband and father to be. Albanian men typically got married early, giving in to their family’s pressure to create a family. Why had I imagined him single?

“I’m sorry I have to leave,” he said when he returned. “But maybe I don’t have to right away. I’ll tell Vilma there was a train delay.”

“It’s getting late. You should go,” I said, not knowing what to make of that unnecessary lie.

“In a few minutes.”

We resumed drinking tea in silence.

“Have you been in therapy before?” I asked.

“Once, for a short time. You?”

“No. Never.”

Before leaving, he reached for my hands. His palms, calloused in parts, and soft in others, were warmer than mine. I closed my fists inside the cocoon of his knotty fingers. I felt the uneven surfaces, the different textures. Our handholding lasted only a few seconds, but the sensation in my fingers persisted, as if he had left behind some message for me to retrieve later.

“I think I should go,” he said, and reached for his black coat. “We can walk to the subway together. Are you leaving?”

“Not yet.”

Once he left, I turned to the translation of a refrigerator manual into Russian and Italian. Locking. Unlocking. Auto mode. Fast cooling mode. Fast freezing mode. It was mind-numbing work. Most people dealt with an appliance for years without knowing what it was truly capable of.

A text message from Alfred. Sweet dreams.

I felt the pressure of his hands on mine. Then I heard his voice. So, this therapist. She might help us both.