My attraction to languages began early. In my tween years, I volunteered summers at a camp for children with special needs. I watched, fascinated, as adults and deaf campers conversed, silently moving their fingers and lips. I wanted to communicate with the deaf children my age and took a course offered by the camp. I can still sign the alphabet, though most word gestures are long forgotten.

When Spanish was offered in high school, I enrolled. In college I studied Russian, French, and German, one class following another, a cup of coffee quickly sought during breaks to mentally transition between the worlds of da, oui, and ja. However, except for a year of night classes in Spanish with a teacher from Ecuador, I haven’t kept up with my studies since graduate school. I interpreted for church-sponsored Ukrainian immigrants when I first moved to Asheville, but now make the most of random opportunities speaking Russian with tourists passing through town.

Translating is a solitary art involving pencil and paper, grammar books and dictionaries, cross-outs and erasing, patience. You move between complicated, dynamic systems, your brain leaps from one language to the other, hunting for just the right word, and word order, to convey nuance. It’s akin to high-level math as you search for the value of the elusive x in the algebraic word problem. Have I captured the spirit of the original? Will a native speaker agree with my rendering?

Interpreting is live-action translating, heaven or hell, depending on your fluency and the subject matter. Technical subjects strain the brain of someone whose training was less practical, more literary. My experiences as an interpreter have been humbling. You quickly discover the limits of your vocabulary and grammar. I flash back to a Ukrainian stone mason who listened, frowning, as I struggled to explain the dimensions, angles, and materials for a stem wall he was expected to build for one of the church members. The mason and I defaulted to Runglish and hand gestures; we got through it, barely.

When Diane and I talked about memorable translating scenarios, I recalled the time in Moscow when, in the company of two Soviets, one of them wielding a rifle and pointing it at me and my two American friends, I was asked to translate Frank Zappa.

I was part of a Russian study group from Colgate University. We spent the summer of 1983 in Moscow, immersed in Russian classes at the Pushkin Institute. Our dorms were appalling--cockroaches ambled boldly over the toilet and across our bedsheets. Fruit and vegetables were a rarity in the cafeteria. Rumor spread that students who ate meat missed classes due to food poisoning. This was my summer of carbs, weight loss, and cigarettes. A hot, paranoid season in the Soviet Union. Andropov was in a coma, dying, our side trip to Kiev cancelled for security reasons, and the USSR embroiled in a protracted war in Afghanistan.

Although warned not to befriend Soviets, I was approached by a young man, Dima, who became my constant companion. Dima was smart, funny, fairly fluent in English, and desperate to hear about the world outside his country. He was poor, his clothes ill-fitting, his hair shaggy from a self-administered haircut, but he was an intellectual who rose above the indignities life threw at him. Though I had an American boyfriend and would not betray him, I was drawn to Dima and spent afternoons after classes walking with him around Moscow. He loved to talk about his country’s great writers. He showed me where the novelist Mikhail Bulgakov once lived; he described how the manuscript of Master and Margarita was almost lost.

Classmates Karen and Eric with me and Dima in Moscow, Summer 1983

Dima introduced me to his circle of friends. These meetings incurred great risk. Telephones were unplugged when we entered apartments as this was thought to deter government eavesdropping. At one gathering, Dima brought me into the kitchen to meet the host. A man stirred a large pot on the stove. I peered into the pot and asked what he was cooking. Poppy pods from Afghanistan. He was making a form of heroin. Gulag!, I thought, horrified. Discovery at this party, however innocent I would claim to be, would mean prison. Dima saw I was upset and tried to distract me with a flute--he called me his “Angel with the Flute” and pressed the instrument into my hands--but I shook my head, leaving immediately.

On the night of the Zappa incident, Dima invited me and two classmates to a friend’s apartment. We drank vodka, passed around a joint (my classmates and I declined, sharing Gulag fears) and discussed pop culture and current events. Dima’s friend became agitated when he brought up the war in Afghanistan. Only two years into our study of Russian, we students didn’t understand much of what he was saying. Our silence seemed to insult him. He left the room and came back with a rifle, pointing it at each of us, sneering the word “American.” I whispered to Dima that we needed to leave. He understood, but begged us to stay while he calmed his friend. The friend put on a Frank Zappa album and asked me, “What is he saying?” I’m pretty sure the song was “Bobby Brown (Goes Down)” and I had no idea what the Russian words were for the anatomical parts, sexual acts, and slang referenced in the song. Did the friend just want to see me struggle, blushing, not knowing what to do? Or did he really want my help interpreting Zappa’s bawdy lyrics? Between the rifle, the joint, and the increasingly uncomfortable vibe, it was time to go.

I remember leaving with my friends, Dima and his friend standing in the doorway of the apartment. It may have been this night that we Americans linked arms and walked side to side, singing the Monkees’ lyrics:

Here we come, walking down the street.
We get the funniest looks from everyone we meet.

Hey, hey, we're the monkees
And people say we monkey around,
But we're too busy singing
To put anybody down.

Dima followed our group to Leningrad when we’d finished our studies in Moscow. One evening Dima and I failed to get back to my hotel before the bridges went up to allow boats along the canals. We spent the endless white night on an impromptu walking tour of the city’s literary landmarks. He kissed me before we parted for the final time. He offered me his heart, which I gently refused. I don’t know what has become of him. I hope that he has had a good life, but sometimes that feels like American optimism, not bound by what may have befallen a man like him.

Deep emotions like love and hate transcend words, culture, origin. I fell in love with a foreigner and his language. He had a complex mind yet spoke very simple English. His brilliant ideas about solving real world problems using applied math required patient listening as he found words, circumvented concepts, and expressed part of his thinking in his native language to regain traction. I could sense his energy return as he spoke more fluidly, as if he needed a reminder of the value of his ideas. As he built word-by-word his command of English, I benefited from exposure to his home language’s depth of meaning and core values. Mandarin’s simple structure holds a poetic power drawing upon centuries-old parables layered under words.

Spoken Chinese is made up of monosyllabic words that seem to push against some friction in the mouth to sound like stones spitting out of a tumbler. To understand what is said, one must listen to the combinations and musicality of the words. This isn’t easy, especially if you are tonally impaired like me. I have spent more than half my life learning Chinese and feel I could confidently perform well in a Beijing preschool class.

Part of this was a result of a marriage-saving decision to remain superficially capable when I agreed to have my in-laws come live with us. Typical of Chinese in-laws, they asserted opinions on all things and required respect and deference on many family decisions. My embracing their culture only went so far. I discovered that persistent ignorance dressed in smiles and kind gestures was the quickest end to a complaint or criticism. Ahh, ignorance was bliss, or at least a blissful disguise.

Baba and eye moments before his eye surgery

I do deeply love my in-laws and admire their courage to adapt to the US and also try to learn English. They are amazing with my children, who are bilingual and able to give and receive loving words with their Chinese grandparents. Residing in the international district where Mandarin is spoken at many businesses has allowed them to live independently. However, going to the hospital or to a specialist requires me to step in as an advocate. We always request a translator to join us. I'm not fluent in medical terminology and this is the type of translating you don’t want to get wrong. Even my former husband requests a translator. I have gone to the hospital or to doctors with my in-laws dozens of times. On rare occasions, I've been asked to help out when the translator doesn’t show or somehow wasn’t ordered. I take no joy in these experiences. I reached my breaking point when I was dragooned into the OR to be on-hand to help interpret for my father-in-law, Baba, during eye surgery.

“Can you help him out?”

“I don’t know any medical terms and am really not very good.”

The translator was late. Then, as if the Gods were listening, the anesthesiologist came over; I could see she was Chinese and felt an inner squeak of joy when she spoke Mandarin. As I told her the translator was delayed, she said to not worry. The surgery would be simple and short. "Okay," I gulped. Next came the surgeon who reassured me all would be well, barely acknowledging the absence of a translator. He reminded me this was a repeat surgery for my father-in-law, who had burst the vessel in the other eye. He also said surgery needed to happen immediately if there was any shot at Baba's vision returning.

He concluded, “Let’s carry on.”

As I rested my arm on Baba's shin, I felt my spirit flee. This was one of those times I deferred to others, believing they must know better than me. Listening to my gut just stirs needless worry. Still, I decided to ask the medical assistant one more time if they had any word on the translator. She told me no.

The assistant handed me a gown and hairnet.

On the table, Baba lay flat, a mask covering his face except for one eye. The surgeon asked him, “Are you feeling okay?”

I spoke up, asking him the same in Mandarin. I felt relief after communicating back to surgeon from my designated seat at the end of the bed.

The surgeon stood at the head of the table. He wore specialized microscope eyeglasses and alternately looked down at Baba's eye, then up at a TV screen just off to the left. There a camera was mounted on a mechanical arm, positioned to capture my Baba's right eyeball. In front of me, closer to the surgeon was a metal tray with many instruments that looked like pens, and a few smaller tools that reminded me of items I might have seen before at my dentist’s office. An assistant stood behind the tray, ready to hand the surgeon what he needed.

The doctor began to operate. I observed Baba's eye on the TV. It resembled a planet photographed from the Hubble telescope. I was transfixed. I watched the doctor delicately use microtweezers to remove what looked like a glistening clear gelatinous contact. I was caught up with the eye-hand precision as the surgeon looked at the eye and then to the screen.

“Mr Tien, Mr. Tien! Put your arm down!” The surgeon called out.

I saw the blue sheet covering my father-in-law billow as he tried to lift his arms upward. Panic engulfed me. I dropped my phone with my pre-loaded translation phrases. The surgeon held his position as did the assistant while I sprang forward to hold Baba's arms down. In my haste, I hit the metal tray sending it upward into the air. The assistant shouted for me to sit down.

The tray miraculously slapped back down into the tray holder. I could see and hear a few articles clank on the ground. I prayed not his cornea.

“Move her away!” shouted the assistant.

my prayer as I captured photo, 'please, please please let the yellow not be a hole born when hell broke loose.'

The surgeon interjected, “Diane, sit closer to his feet.” I lifted my hands off of my father-in-law as this new person clad in blue came up behind me and placed his blue gloved hands on my father-in-law's arms.

In an instant, I tried to replay in my head what just happened. Did the surgeon’s instrument plunge into his eyeball? The assistant now retrieved something from a closet and said to surgeon, “We have one.”

“One what?” I wondered. Oh, God. I felt sick and yet charged like a balloon after being scrubbed across a young girl’s head of hair. Mentally torqued, I held my arm on Baba's shin to keep anchored, repeating the words "Don’t move" over and over, softer and softer. The second attendant let go of Baba's arms, sensing the storm had passed. The surgeon carried on and I watched the screen for clues of permanent blindness.

When surgery was over, I looked up as if to connect with God or one of the saints whose name I couldn't remember. I sent a silent plea to please, please, please do their thing and let Baba see again. I asked the surgeon if my awkward movements had affected the surgery. He told me no and advised that it would take 4-6 weeks before we knew if the operation was successful. As I walked out of the room, I glanced over and saw the Mandarin anesthesiologist. Why had she not come forward when my father-in-law struggled? She could have helped so easily, but instead abandoned me while I summoned the few words I knew to calm Baba down. I will never know her reasons, and it may have simply been that she was not allowed to translate because of hospital regulations. Still, I couldn't help but wonder at her silence.

Translating Zappa in Moscow

Translating Baba