Blue

She was a professional translator, whatever that meant. Most people didn’t actually know, and she too often wondered about what it truly meant to translate. She’d taught courses on it, had given a few papers and published a few articles on translation. All that sounded so far away to her now - far away, not because being a translator wasn’t a noble profession, but because tying it up in all those academic frills seemed to be so vain, not to mention useless. She had no appetite for thus things any more.

This translator was in reality a person who related much better to words in all their forms than she did to people. Reading or writing were so pleasant to her that she sometimes felt guilty when she got paid to carry out those activities. She’d rather be doing it for free, but everybody knows how far that’ll get us. She didn’t feel all that guilty about it.

Today, though, the translator had brought hunger rather than a work assignment with her as she walked around the streets in Santiago de Compostela that were known as the casco vello. The heart of the city, although that wasn’t the literal translation if the phrase. Some said ‘old town’ but that didn’t suit her taste. Some said ‘old part’, only a step up. ‘Medieval part’? Possible. Basically, it was where everything had begun, so, yes, that might be the heart.

Literal translations were a dime a dozen. Sophisticated ones were very satisfying.

The translator’s dilemma. And which type could be savored more readily?

She was in the subsection of the casco vello where the Algalias streets were, with all their cultural connotations that most foreigners never figured out. In a way, foreigners shouldn’t be allowed there. Let them go be pilgrims in the Obradoiro, feast their eyes on the tomb of Saint James, soak up everything on the turismo sites.

This wasn’t her normal route for errands or strolling, but she was there and took it as a sign she should try something different. Then she saw a restaurant she’d never noticed before. She thought she knew most of the eating establishments in town, even if she went to very few of them. It was tucked away in the crook of one of the Algalias, yes, but she wasn’t sure if it was the upper stretch (de Arriba) or the lower one (de Abaixo). Those old streets could get you caught up in them and you could lose track of where you were or how long you’d been there.

Why would the Algalias be named after civet cats? Only a translator would ask that question, but she did. She wondered if there had been any of those animals in the early years or if there was a hidden meaning to the name? Or maybe she needed to look in more technical dictionaries?

The building was definitely, pre-1900 construction, probably from the 1600s. It was tall, looked like it would survive several more centuries, barring an earthquake or a bomb.

Oddly enough, not many other people seemed to have paid much attention to this one, because it appeared empty when the translator peered in through the door with twelve glass lights set in a brass lattice. The beveled panes made it hard to focus on the interior, obviously. They did not deter her in the least. Once inside, she knew she would be able to see better.

She didn’t notice anybody else in the restaurant as the server led her to a single table in a discreet corner of the granite-walled room. The windows were exceptionally high and slender, as if from another era - which they were, since the building was centuries old. Light from some source filtered through the most attractive curtains - drapes? - she had ever seen. They were a silken gauze, iridescent, floating in the air as if in water. And blue. So suggestive of all that was right. 

The curtains, she thought as she thought of how delicious words were, might also have been a footnote or intertextual echo of the name of the establishment: M(ed)usa. Not the easiest to pronounce or understand. None of this was stopping her from quickly picking up the menu on the small slate (from Sarria) table where her server had placed it. While waiting for her drink to arrive, she looked at the menu.

There were at least two things about the menu that were odd. First of all, it was monolingual, in Spanish only. No Galician, no English. No translations, when almost every restaurant has at least two, and maybe four lists of their dishes? She wondered if maybe she’d been given a rough draft of a new version that would still need to be printed out for customers. She’d translated a few menus herself, or corrected hysterical efforts to do the work via online translators. (Free). Neither here nor there. She was hungry, famished, tiña fame.

There was a wide space under each dish on the list, but that was all. Next, the menu didn’t appear to be separated into appetizers, main dishes, desserts, etc. It was just a list. Maybe this version was going to undergo serious editing? She herself was feeling the temptation of those empty spaces inserted in the menu…

She wasn’t sure what to do. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand the words in the list of items; the words themselves were not standard eating options. She wasn’t sure if she could order some things, but add instructions like ‘make it spicy’ or ‘go easy on the garlic’ or ‘with whipped cream, please’. Maybe these were recipes out of Emilia Pardo Bazán’s famous cookbook? Or Picadillo’s first edition? Or maybe mischievous Cunqueiro’s? 

Really, the translator had done her homework on cooking and, more recently had been reading about Galician culinary methods. She’d just gotten a copy of the new book on recipes in Rosalía de Castro’s works, for goodness’ sake. How could this be so hard for her to understand today?

It was at this moment that she sensed she might not be alone in the restaurant and that the figure who was not too far away was a woman not dressed in contemporary fashion. She thought the vague figure - somehow connected to the murmuring blue curtains - made a slight gesture in her direction, telling her (the translator) to look back at the menu. Not an order, a suggestion, encouraging her.

The translator took a deep breath, and was feeling increasingly famished. First, however, she had to figure out why the menu, which she had just glanced over, seemed familiar. Then she realized why both it and the shadowy woman (not ghostly, just dim, removed) seemed familiar. The floating curtains brought the answer, and she saw the list had come straight from a novel by Rosalía de Castro, El caballero de las botas azules [The Gentleman in the Blue Boots]. 

Published in 1867, it was the author’s satirical take on all the bad literature being written at the time, to the point where everyone just stuffed their faces on junk food (= writing). No talent among writers and none among readers. People had no taste. Well, pretty much the upper class and those aspiring to it just figured sandwiching words between two covers constituted a good meal. Then a mysterious gentleman in blue boots invited everyone to a banquet for which he had selected the menu (see below).

The catch, for the translator, was that the gentleman was really a cross-dresser. She was convinced he had started out as a female-looking muse people summoned when they sought inspiration but had tired of having mediocre effects on people. So she (the muse) had decided to take matters into her own hands. She would educate their literary palates even if she couldn’t fix the rest of society or the men running it.

The novel and its menu had not been translated into English. This was foremost in the mind of the solitary diner, but this was not what she ultimately found. As noted already, there were no translations for the food choices at A M(ed)usa, although there were definitely those seductive spaces where one might insert them…

The translator looked around, hoping nobody would see her take a pen from her bag, which of course nobody would, since she was alone. She wrote in the possible English renderings, but felt as if someone were guiding her hand. Or maybe not guiding her hand, because that was paranormal activity she didn’t believe in, but instead was watching her and commenting. 

In other words, it felt like she had an editor looking over her shoulder, which was nothing unusual because that happens to many people who publish. All she could do was read and make selections.

Menu A M(ed)usa

Amarguillos a la verdad 

Bitter almond sweets with the flavor of truth

 Soplillos de gabinete

Merengues cabinet style

 Esperanzas de aire

Air hopes (or hoping for air - whatever)

 Alfileres dulces 

Sweet pins

 Pronto hecho

Quickly done

 Pronto comido

Quickly eaten

 Pechuguillas de dama, en salsa a lo jefe

Lady’s breasts, in bosses’ sauce

 Pollos al amor, salteados

Love chickens, sautéed 

 Cangrejos a lo ministro

Crabs, minister style 

(Editor’s note: Crab ministers? )

 Pavos de salón en papel

Peacocks on paper 

(Editor’s note: Salon birds or elegant show-offs might be substituted for peacocks)

 Escombros a lo ama de casa

Mackerel, home-cooked 

(Editor’s note: instead of mackerel, could it just be debris? Eg, escombro is ambiguous. Translators beware.)

 Palos de sorpresa

Surprise sticks or rolled pastries 

(Editor’s note: surprise not clarified; are they sweet or salty?)

 Caracoles al diputado

Snails à la political official

 Revueltos a la moderna

Modern scrambled eggs

 Alondras al minuto

Three-minute larks 

 Pasteles de banquero

Bankers’ pastries

 Pepitorias a lo editor

Editor’s hodgepodge 

(Editor’s note: Is this a stew or something? Sounds messy.)

 Agujetas clásicas de limón a lo literato

(Editor’s note: No fair! Are these agujetas are the cut of meat, aching muscles, or shoelaces? Hope it’s the first.) 

Lemon-flavored and literati style (whatever it is)

 Mermelada de general

The General’s marmalade 

 Manzanas infernales

Apples from hell

 Pudding supremo de la victoria, a lo botas azules

Supreme victory pudding, blue boots style

***

The translator had forgotten to order, although the server had tried to approach her table more than once. She didn’t even think about real food while she was devouring the words on the menu, totally ignorant as to their flavors. (Price was not a consideration. As in the novel by Rosalía, there were no prices listed.)

It was obvious that something was going on in A M(ed)usa and as long as she was inside the place, reading the list of dishes, she was under its influence. She didn’t feel fear nor any rush to leave, but even the lovely, gauzy blue drapes (curtains?) could not provide the traditional meal the translator had originally been trying to find. She paid for her beverage, picked up her bag, and started to leave. She still took a last look around, thinking the other woman might serve as a narrator, meaning, that she would be able to tell her, the translator what had just taken place.

***

(Editor’s note: The following is what the translator, as author of her story, might well have included either as preface or epilogue.)

When translators translate, their minds and maybe other parts of them are in two places at once, or perhaps in no place. Their thoughts float. They are doubly vulnerable. Everything they read and bring over, transfer, to their own language, leaves a residue. This happens to lots of people, but translators probably suffer the most from this.

She asked, once she had glimpsed the shadow that seemed to flow into or out of the curtains, what sort of restaurant this was, how had she stumbled upon it, and was she dreaming, imagining this all? The figure in the nineteenth century garment seemed to respond:

“What restaurant? This is a novel. If you are still hungry, I can come with you. There are a lot more.”