This Man’s name now adds three pounds of weight but no substance to every newspaper printed every day. The names of other world leaders unroll into native sounds, a sparkling combination of lower and uppercases, commanding from kerning through the ads on the next four pages. But the five letters comprising This Man’s last name are little more than an inkblot of heavy black bleakness, a stamp of a blundered sound, like “oof.”
I stopped buying the morning paper when he took office. For one thing, my arms aren’t what they used to be. For a second, This Man gave me a job. It’s a front row seat to his imbecility, so I don’t need to read the teased, massaged, mutilated copy on a day’s delay. His words are a whisper in a galley until I make them the Captain’s command. I am his personal interpreter.
He hired me because I speak ten languages fluently. More accurately, I got the job because that was the highest number of languages any applicant waiting in that stuffy basement boasted. He simplified the process with this clear instruction: “I want the guy with the most number of languages. Period. I don’t care what the languages are, just give me the most.” No written or oral exam followed by discrete assignments to translate increasingly classified meetings with dignitaries. Without so much as counting to eleven in English, “You’re hired!” they said.
I might not have worn the flannel I’d slept in if I expected to find myself walking beside This Man through the Presidential Palace that very day. I’ll never forget what I thought was my first assignment.
“You see Hombre over there?” he said. “Tell him in whatever Spanglish he needs that he’s got to do a better job of shining the railing.”
But “Hombre” was not a janitor. He was a speechwriter. I was humiliated.
“He apologizes to Your Honor,” I lied. (This Man was never a judge and I’ll never understand why he insists on being addressed with a constant reminder of something he’s never had.) “It was an issue with the railing polisher, but he has it sorted out now.”
“Yes. OK. I suspected it was the railing polisher. Gotta give ’em the tools they need to do the job. That’s how I run my business and that’s how I run this country,” he refocused. “I have a call with Prime Minister Enda Kenny scheduled for tonight. Do you speak Australian?”
“Well, Prime Minister Enda Kenny is Irish, so you won’t need me to translate.”
“But I don’t speak Irish either. Why would I speak Irish?” he grimaced.
I saw then that my assignment was singular and fixed—to give comfort and take control.
“Luckily, Your Honor, I am fluent in Australian and Irish. I am very well prepared to serve you and our country.”