Excerpt from The Translation of Dr Apelles

Dr Apelles looks up from the manuscript in front of him on the library table, he has just finished the first part of his translation.

…There are no readers for this translation, and if he wanted to he could make it up; he could, he sees, make that poor document say anything at all and no one would be the wiser. This feeling, the singular feeling that no one is watching us, the feeling that no one is looking over our shoulder, is something all of us have felt, that everyone feels at one time or another. And this feeling, the abyss of unknowing, comes on cat’s feet, surprises us. We shudder. We could do something or not do something and it wouldn’t matter because it would have no perceptible effect on the world. What we feel is freedom. And what we feel is also oblivion. But the feeling passes. It has lasted but a moment. Life’s sound track resumes, the world—suspended while we consider the abyss—once again begins turning.

But the world does not begin turning right away for Dr Apelles. His moment does not pass because no one is looking over his shoulder. No one is looking at him at all. And no one has looked at him for years. If he ceased to exist no one would notice. These two concerns, one about the manuscript and one about his heart, are linked. This is why Dr Apelles is so shaken, why his world, as he has known it, has come to an end. He has no reader for his heart. And he never has.

Most people begin practicing love when they are young, and through the years they hone, mistake by mistake, the satisfying sorrow love brings. But Dr Apelles had only a childish infatuation as an adolescent and a banal affair when he was in college, and that was not enough. He has found, over the years, too much satisfaction in his own mind, too much comfort in the bouquet of languages he holds dear. But, as air bubbles travel from the ocean floor to burst on the water’s surface, his need for love has been traveling toward the surface of his life for some time and has suddenly burst open. And perhaps, too, the translation and the question of love are linked for no other reason than they both occur inside him—they are near neighbors in his mind and you can only jump from one to the other for so long without mixing the two together.

Like everyone else, he thinks about love. And like all readers, he has read his fair share of love stories. But as a translator he had begun to see himself as standing outside all stories, written and lived. It was his job to move them from one place to another, from one language to another, and it mattered little that a particular story was about love or about war or about anything at all. Dr Apelles has grown accustomed to the idea that stories happen to other people, not to him…

From Book One

…Because of the nimbus of affection surrounding him and because of the gifts given to him by his first mother and the milk he received from his second mother, the moose, Bimaadiz grew into a singular young man. He was tall and strong but not thick; his body was supple and slender, with wider shoulders and very long fingers. His waist was narrow, but like a coiled spring—full of potential strength. His black hair was thick and smooth and he kept it short and parted in the middle, slicked down with hair oil. All the girls, even the older women, gasped when he walked by. It was a good life at Agencytown in those years: meat was never so plentiful and everyone loved the quiet hunter who provided for them so well.

2. Eta had grown up, too. She alone, perhaps, possessed more beauty than Bimaadiz did. She was tall for her age, and though not fine boned, she was lean and strong. Yet she had delicate fingers, and straight black hair that was always in two braids that hung down her lower back. Her waist was narrow and her breasts, in advance of her years, were round and firm. All the boys and all the men sighed when she walked past. Her skin was smooth, clear, coppery, and healthy year round, except on her left cheek there was a dark round mark, very faint, that looked as though it had been left there when the wolf who had suckled her had kissed her cheek with her nose. It was really only a birthmark, but Aantti and Mary like to think the wolf had left its mark.

It seemed to the villagers that Eta had acquired some of the wolf’s characteristics: she was incredibly intelligent, patient, concerned for others, and serious when anyone was looking, but silly and girl-like when she thought she was unobserved. Aantti and Mary were overjoyed at the unexpected gift of a daughter, especially since they thought they would never have one of their own. And so, being the object of so much happiness, Eta grew up receiving happiness. Her parents doted on her and gave her whatever it was that she wanted. They didn’t have much to give—a poor sawyer and his Indian wife. Buttons, a bit of cloth, these were her toys. But all the same, the girl didn’t want much. And she worked hard. Once her mother saw her hanging off the pump handle, her feet off the ground, as she tried to fill the water bucket. She helped her mother in all things—fetching water, wrapping big blue stem with wiigoob to make brooms and whisks. The thing she really wanted was to accompany her mother on the trapline, and this from even before she could walk properly. Mary bundled her in furs and placed her in the toboggan along with the snares and mink bait and set off for the string of lean-tos and temporary shelters along their trapping grounds.

Mary never had to worry that Eta would struggle out of her wrappings or cry with impatience or trample the clean trails where she had set the snares for rabbit and fox. Eta stayed in the toboggan, and as long as she could see above the tumble of tools and furs and watch Mary’s hands at work, she was happy.

From The Translation of Dr Apelles. Copyright 2006 by David Treuer. All rights reserved.