The Patient Patient

Surprising news: 'The English Patient' will be re-published in Romania this spring. I translated it fourteen years ago. It took me months - slow, careful, lovely, low-paid work. Fitting words together, reciting aloud, cutting, changing, editing until a sort of music became apparent beyond each sentence. I longed for this languid rhythm, because I had found it in the original prose, and wanted to give it back.

I worked mainly between 5am and baby Nikita's first howl of the day. I worried a huge gray dictionary to shreds. I never called Michael Ondaatje because I was too shy. If I had questions, I went back to reading until the book gave me the answers. Some answers were found in dreams, walks in the park, other books or my own limited experience.

I am re-reading now and my favourite bit remains the song I had to translate:

'We'll bathe at Brighton;
The fish we'll frighten
When we're in.
Your bathing suit so thin
Will make the shellfish grin
Fin to fin.'

This became (with blatant disregard to rhythm or rhyme pattern):

La Brighton amandoi ne vom scalda
Toti pestii impreuna-i vom speria
Cand vom intra.
Costumul tau subtire de-l zareste
Tot racul va surade strengareste
Din cleste-n cleste.

Of course I'd do it differently now. Maybe:

La Brighton amandoi ne vom scalda,
Intrand cu mare zarva vom speria
Vreun peste.
Costumul tau subtire de-l zareste
Tot racul va surade strengareste
Din cleste-n cleste.

Just another kind of imperfection. Luckily, only my Romanian readers will see all of it and since they're both family members, I think I might get away with it!