Well on one level one hardly listens. On another one has to understand immediately because the thing understood slips away together with the need to understand. Well on one level one would not understand at all, the standards of simultaneous interpretation crashed in the mere smattering acquired with San Pellegrino acqua litinica alcalina battericamente pura which no doubt should lavare ancora più bianco.
2. Il tempo: tra hello ducks.
— Oh hello Mrs. Jones. Framed in wistaria and the kitchen window above the sink and OMO cleaner than clean brighter than white you look pale.
— Yes I do look pale. I mean without me face. You know what I mean like. I have to put on a bit of rouge. I always did look pale even as a little girl and I still do. Until I put on me face.
3. Le persone finalmente folded away with the authentic drama of agnosticism and the breakfast remains ingredients historical philosophical and social performed in ancient times a little higher up beyond the Temple of Apollo to celebrate his victory over Python the legendary monster which hasn’t put on its face framed in wistaria and accepts an offered cup of warmed-up coffee that’ll bring colour to my cheeks did you say something love?
— Ouvre les jambes, Véronique, ouvre les jambes.
Below the kitchen window of the small flat in the rue St. André a gangling girl in pigtails deftly skips over two parallel lines of white elastic that form a long rectangle held apart at one end by the two ankles of another girl with a dark fringe who stands on the edge of the pavement, and at the other end by the two short legs of a blond child sitting on the steps. The gangling girl with pigtails has her back to the house and deftly skips over the two parallel lines not quite parallel enough, her right foot carrying the right line three times across the left and back, then both across each other in a diamond shape with a complete turn of the body to face the house, turning again to reform the parallel straight lines, her left foot carrying the right line twice and Faute! Tu prends ma place.
— Non, j’prends celle de Véronique. T’as eu ton tour avant moi.
— Alors vas-y Véronique.
— J’veux pas.
— Là, tu vois!
— Ta gueule. Véronique, saute.
— J’veux pas. J’veux m’asseoir.
— Mais tu vas embrouiller les points grosse bête.
— J’ m’ en fous. J’veux m’asseoir.
— Oh bon alors. Mais assieds-toi bien, ouvre les jambes pour qu’les lignes fassent parallèles.
— Par à quelle aile? j’vois pas d’aile moi.
— Imbécile. Alors Janine tu y vas?
— Vieille poire!
— Crapaude!
— Crétine!
Paris as Headquarters of simultaneous interpreters and international organisations for the advancement of peace common markets intercontinental missiles agricultural aid economical social cultural irrigation for refugees or the provision of two paper-making engineers for Korea one sericulturist one reeling expert one spinning expert for Burma one rolling mill technician one fertilizer one chemist works manager one acidulator in superphosphate manufacture and other such air-conditioning has husbands lovers wives mistresses of many nationalities who help to abolish the frontiers of misunderstanding with frequent changes of partners loyalties convictions, free and easily stepping over the old boundaries of conventions, congresses, commissions, conferences to which welcome back Liebes.
— So you wish to return to work madame?
To the freedom of the air and the precision of the mouthpiece at nineteen or twenty-eight. But how long, madame, have you stayed away, worked in other fields, lost touch got out of practice forgotten how to understand immediately because the thing understood slips away together with the need to understand. Well, on one level one hardly listens. Gee. Things have changed madame, says Prince Boris de Czarevitch or Somesuchovitch Directorovitch of all interpreters for Europe during all those years our techniques have improved, let me see how long, oh lord, how long? We could arrange a test for you, to see if you have lost or as yet ungained your confidence your speed your voice your heart your faith your memory your mind until it comes to a standstill and if it proves satisfactory we could arrange a period of retraining. Your husband has left us of course and I gather yes I know Siegfried told me. Siegfried? Ah yes, he recommended you. But he has gone to New York and you will find madame if you rejoin us that things have changed. We have many more interpreters now so that they remain more based on Headquarters where most of the conferences take place these days apart from fringe activities like the Leonardo Centenary for example and more cultural interchange with Eastern Europe or demographic irrigation for the underdeveloped areas and other such conditions of pressurised emptiness. We would base you in Rome or here which you should simultaneously translate as less gallivanting my girl real hard work at last at last an idea that actually means something and most of your old friends have left you know madame for higher things such as the masculine unmarked and situated on five terraces of ambition change love desire marriage. And have you considered madame what the life entails between the enormous wings losing height slowly bumping down the steps of air in this bedroom or that always away from home for example have you any children?
Away from the road a path leads into the deep cleft between the two masses of the Phaidriades where lies the famous Kastalia spring. And so you, born and bred a Catholic, entered into a marriage with a joint decision to frustrate its natural end? What methods did you use, signora?
Surrounded by the saddle of Koznitsa to the west, the Balkan Range to the north, and the undulating heights of the Sredna Gora Mountains to the south, the Valley of the Roses, unique in Europe and visited by thousands of tourists each year, drops gradually down to the east until it reaches the transverse ridge which locks both ranges. The gardens of this sunny valley, second home of the oil-bearing rose brought here from Persia in the seventeenth century, have since that day gradually crept westwards from Kazanluk and now climb up the eastern slopes of Koznitsa. The sun pours its light down on the blessed earth, and in its pleasant warmth the roses blossom, the rectangles of agriculture brush-stroke size, the forest blobs the scattering of smudges and the thin white lines that cross and curve make up an abstract study of the blessed earth in brown and green way down below the window-seat through the oblong pane of double glass with slightly rounded corners. Known in the Near East for its fine copper and iron articles, the town has a fine museum, and a monument of ancient art, the Thracian Tomb, now famous all over the world for its exquisite frescoes. Somewhere north of the town another monument rises, outlined against the sky on a mountain summit — a monument to the brave Russian soldiers.
The concrete path along the concrete landing-ground across which the passengers have walked leads into the concrete building where concrete men search every suitcase not for liquor jewels drugs but ideas, in dangerous print und das? Les Insignes de l’Université de Cracovie a gift as yet unread und das? A list of Italian irregular verbs do you mind? Ah. Und das? The Valley of the Roses. And a Bulgarian phrase-book gut. Gut-gut. Und WECHSEL bitte? Links. Dankeschön into the white-lined bus towards the mountains against which the city rears its sky-scraper hotels office buildings palaces of culture.
Where to stop. The village of Rosino. Its very name symbolises roses in full bloom, pretty girls picking the blossoms, and the scent of attar of roses.
They praise, yes mademoiselle, also.
They praise presumably the portraits on the concrete buildings in rows bearded with hair or bearded bald or totally unfamiliar concrete faces all turning to their right westwards perhaps unless east, depending on the viewpoint or the side of the street, depending on the theme the place the climate of opinion and whether the surrounding mountains create great holes of air into which the mind sinks utterly baffled by the words in white on red across the concrete building 30 mup u gpyжбa.