French la Vie

“I Died at the Bataclan in Paris,”

in commemoration of November 13, 2015

By Laureano Soares – Montréal, Québec, Canada

Translated from Portuguese by Katharine F. Baker and Emanuel Melo

 

“I Died at the Bataclan in Paris,”

in commemoration of November 13, 2015

By Laureano Soares – Montréal, Québec, Canada

Translated from Portuguese by Katharine F. Baker and Emanuel Melo

 

For a brief moment, I felt the pain

my twitching eyes closed,

My hands and my fingers clenched

life poured out of me, I fell to the floor.

 

I could no longer hear screams or moans;

my body was covered with a sheet

and never again shall I see sunlight,

I didn’t have the fragile good luck of the wounded.

 

I’ll never set foot on the road

that I saw in the distance with tenderness,

it was all over. A sordid and sad end.

 

I was one of those chosen from among the masses

a victim of wars, of ideals,

I was another Abel in Cain’s clutches."

 

After five grueling years of classical Latin from grades 8 to 12 in the Berkeley public schools, I swore I’d never study another foreign language again as long as I lived.  So of course I wound up in mid-life learning another language and becoming a translator! Cue ironic laughter.

But why Portuguese?  Because after my widowed father died, I discovered that my family had hidden his Portuguese ancestry from me all my life, so I wanted to learn about my stolen heritage. Here’s how my family’s Watercress Soup led to my pinpointing where in the Azores my paternal grandparents were born:

“From soup to nuts: How a family recipe drove me crazy searching for my Azorean roots”

I didn’t plan on becoming a translator, only to learn enough Portuguese to go to the Azores to research my genealogy. Obviously, the situation got out of hand, but I couldn’t be happier about it.  Here’s a funny story about how I became a translator:

“All Hail, Blue, and Gold!” (Cal fans will recognize the song)

 

HOW I MET COREY

One of the early works I translated – My Californian Friends: Poesia, by Vasco Pereira da Costa – included a long poem about a Holy Ghost Festa, titled “Queen Nancy.”  As the September 2009 publication date for the bilingual edition loomed, I began preparing a website in support of the book, but since I’d grown up having never heard of the Festa I realized I needed background material. A lot of background material.

 

Internet searches yielded plenty of factual descriptions that were useful but academic, while what I really wanted was a first-person account, complete with feelings. That’s when I found links to two consecutive days’ posts about the previous year’s Festa in a small town in the north of California’s Central Valley, so skillfully written and illustrated with photos that I practically felt I was there with the author (guess who!):

I was so eager to reproduce some of this material on my website that I immediately sent Corey an email out of the blue requesting permission – promising appropriate attribution, of course – to which she promptly and graciously consented.  That’s also when I began following her blog daily.

Two years later I had the opportunity to visit France in order to present a talk on my work at the 5th International Colloquium, “The Voice and Choice of Portuguese Women in the Diaspora in France and Elsewhere,” held at the Université Paris Ouest – Nanterre La Défense. Months before, I’d submitted an abstract proposing discussion of the poem “Queen Nancy,” which conference organizers approved.  Afterward, I abridged my talk (including references to Corey’s work) for the website:

Best of all, Farmboy Husband and I were able to take several days’ vacation before the conference, so we seized the opportunity to ask Corey if we could come to visit her and Yann in their Provençal village one weekend.  This was before they had guest houses available, so Yann made reservations for us at a tiny B&B only a couple blocks from their house.

Once in Paris, Farmboy Husband and I bought round-trip tickets for the high-speed train (TGV) between Gare de Lyon and Marseille.  On the appointed day, we learned the hard way that TGV train doors slam shut automatically and irrevocably – right after Farmboy Husband boarded but before I could step onto our car, leaving me stranded behind on the platform as the train pulled out. Very long story short, I was placed on the next hour’s TGV to Marseille (even in a complimentary first-class car, despite holding only a coach ticket!).

This hiccup behind us, we had a delightful time with Corey and Yann (and also met Chelsea, albeit fleetingly; Sacha was away on his gap year in California at the time, but we’ll catch up with him someday). We loved everything about our visit, including side-trips to Cassis (our first view of the Mediterranean Sea), a walk along a 2,000-year-old Roman road (Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres), a long memorable homemade dinner at Corey and Yann’s house (the guys went out for a pastis afterward!), and of course their adopted home village.  BTW, everything you’ve heard about the wonderful French bread, pastries, and cheeses is true.  

Here are a few photos of our Provence visit.

 

MY TRANSLATING

I’m a tortoise rather than a hare, so I keep plodding away almost daily at my work, which I love.  I prefer translating books, essays, and poetry by living authors, so I can email the writer whenever I have a question about anything that confuses me.  Most of “my” authors reside in or are originally from the Azores.  My most recent book – the English translation of the novel Smiling in the Darkness by Adelaide Freitas on Amazon on which I worked intermittently for almost a decade! – took a team of four to translate, as it was a difficult text, but ultimately well worth the effort.

Just our rotten luck, though, for it to be published right as the pandemic was spreading in early spring, so holding a formal in-person book-launch became an impossibility.  This week, a virtual launch was finally held online, in which four speakers plus a host ably presented aspects of the novel.  Here’s the link to the launch video, courtesy of Fresno State University’s Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute:

My Translator’s Note about the novel is also posted online on the Azores government’s literary website, explaining a bit of background, including why Moby-Dick was one of the inspirations for the book

Here are other book translations I’ve worked on that are still in print:

Dias, Eduardo Mayone. The Portuguese Presence in California, trans. Katharine F. Baker, Bobby J. Chamberlain, PhD., and Diniz Borges. San Jose, CA.: Portuguese Heritage Publications of California, 2009.

 

Costa, Vasco Pereira da. My Californian Friends: 

bilingual edition trans. Katharine F. Baker and Diniz Borges.

San Jose, CA.: Portuguese Heritage Publications of California, 20 Sep 2009.

 

 

Oliveira, Álamo. I No Longer Like Chocolates, novel trans. Diniz Borges and Katharine F. Baker. San Jose, CA.: Portuguese Heritage Publications of California, 2006.

 

I’ve also contributed chapters to these books:

 

 

Untamed Dreams – Faces of America. San Jose, CA. Portuguese Heritage Publications of California, 2016.

 

 

Oliveira, Álamo. “1,500 Visas Via a Volcano,” trans. Katharine F. Baker and Bobby J. Chamberlain, Ph.D. In Capelinhos: A Volcano of Synergies. San Jose, CA. Portuguese Heritage Publications of California, 2008.

And finally, this book is due out in a couple of months:

Correia, Natália. In America, I Discovered I Was European, trans. Katharine F. Baker and Emanuel Melo. North Dartmouth, MA.: Tagus Press (an arm of UMass Press).

 

 

FARMBOY HUSBAND

My husband and I met at Cal and married when he was a graduate student and I was an undergraduate a rooftop in Funchal, Madeira.