SLA 468S 2002. Student translations.

Link to original.

Uliana Pasicznyk

Boyko is celebrating his fortieth birthday in America. He has come here for a semester at the invitation of Dr. Kohut, whose first name is also Yuri, or, as they put it, George.

Boyko is a philologist of note in some circles, the receipient of a doctoral degree [кандидат наук], a translator and member of the Writers' Union. His accomplishments to date include some poetry written in his youth, several translations, a volume of essays of literary criticism, and a monograph on morphology (in collaboration with several colleagues). With him here are his wife, Liuda, and their two daughters, aged twelve and seven.

The Boykos would like to mark this occasion quietly, by themselves. But Dr. Kohut knows that it is Boyko's birthday. If he isn't invited to take part, he is certain to be offended. He might even think of them as, well, ungrateful swine.

That's all the more likely because there is reason to be grateful to him. Dr. Kohut sent them an invitation, found them an inexpensive apartment, and arranged for Boyko's appearances before the diaspora.

They are on friendly terms. Over coffee (Boyko always drops by to see him between pairs [of classes? пари]) Dr. Kohut shares his ideas with him. One time he might talk about forming a committee of some kind, another time he might be in the midst of a translation, yet another he might be helping someone. Three months from now Kohut's academic department is to host a conference at which stellar international specialists are to gather. The conference is supposed to conclude with a medieval Slavic banquet. Kohut has implied that he is counting on Boyko to help him out with it.

"Certainly!" Boyko told him. "How very interesting!"

The Boykos took an apartment a few blocks from the home of the Kohuts and they frequently drop by, in neighborly fashion. Dr. Kohut has a wife and a fifteen-year-old son, but visitors rarely catch them at home.

From the very first the Boykos' daughters felt at home in their yard (they took to the swings, bars, and slide) and made friends with the youngsters next door. The neighborhood consists of people affiliated with the university. In their midst grow oaks, maples, and a type of tree similar to the walnut back home. Once a week Boyko rakes the doctor's leaves (winter is not far off) and stuffs them into plastic bags. One weekend they worked together and took down a shed. Kohut dreams of raising tomatoes on that plot come spring.

Boyko picks up a translation of contemporary Ukrainian prose by young writers who are the current literary rage. The translation is the task Kohut is struggling with at the moment. Boyko sets it alongside the original text and lets out a groan. Even apart from Kohut's renderings, the prose imparts a double whammy of insanity (which, first, seeps out from every aspect of Soviet life and then is whipped to a frenzy [наганяється джмелями] by each author). This dishevelment is what makes these works unfit for translation, no matter how one works on them.

But Kohut doesn't know this. Every morning he conscientiously sits down in front of his computer and, until five in the evening, pulls words from one foreign language and transfers them into another. In order to render the original both in letter and spirit, he puts anything he can't translate into the footnotes, where it is explained as an idiosyncracy of the Ukrainian character. In all other instances he relies on the dictionary. As a result every piece of narrative that he has appropriated broadcasts schizophrenia. Thus in his translation when someone shows a "dulia" it is unquestionably a type of pear, and any reference to "Besarabka" is invariably to a woman from Bessarabia. When a character cries, "Shit, why does this sov scavenge around so?" [та нащо цей, блін, совок пригрібався?] in his translation it becomes "Pancake, why does the child's small shovel remove the top layer of soil?" [чому, млинець, невелика дитяча лопатка зняла верхній шар ґрунту?].

"Shit!" proclaims Boyko, hurrying to his wife to share this lastest gem. "What am I to do?! All this has to be rewritten!"

"Let it be!" says Liudmyla.

"What do you mean, let it be!? He asked me to check it! He wants me to correct anything that's wrong!"

"Well, point out a blunder of two and then say you don't see anything else. Tell him you haven't had time to learn the language well enough to have a feel for the nuances."

"Nuances? This isn't a project--it's a disgrace! My poorest students translate better than this!"

"That isn't your problem."

"But it is my problem! He asked me. It's a matter of honor--of professional ethics."

"What's happened to you--have you lost your mind? He'll hate you for such ethics! We need to stay here until spring. If he doesn't extend your visa, who will? Why, he's like God here! He can do anything!"

Boyko erases all his pencilled markings except for a few minor comments and praises Kohut for having recreated the original so perceptively.

"Unfortunately," Boyko confesses, "I haven't mastered the language yet, so I can't correct your work. I haven't the right."

Kohut agrees with him.

Then, to dissolve any possible implication of a double meaning, Boyko adds, "I pobably haven't got the gift."

Doctor Kohut throws up his hands.

Boyko is not sure how he is supposed to interpret this gesture. Kohut offers nothing by way of comment.

"By the way," Boyko interjects into the pause, "I have a question. Coming upon us is my birthday..."

Kohut doesn't understand.

"I mean to say, a birthday [уродини]," Boyko explains. "Do you celebrate such things here? Can you suggest a way we could mark the occasion? [копоче, порaдь]"

Kohut replies that for such events there are regular and ethnic restaurants--Chinese, Korean, or Mexican.

Boyko extends an invitation to Kohut--together with his family, of course--and asks him to say what place would suit him best. Kohut says that there is an inexpensive Chinese restaurant nearby and promises to escort them all there, and also to provide the beverages for the occasion.

"Why be extravagant?" he says. "This way you'll save more to take more back home with you."

The Boykos are wisely trying to keep the number of guests to a minimum. But in addition to their benefactor, they are obliged to invite a few countrymen who, for one reason or another, have landed in this town. These are, in particular, Oleksa Sambur and Uliana Zhovtianska (who constantly circle around Kohut anyway) and the Kravetses, husband and wife, together with their son (Kravets and his wife helped the Boikos out by sharing their bed covers, pillows, nails, and hammer with them).

Sambur is a theater director and impresario of pop entertainment. Back home he gained renown for organizing nationwide extravaganzas--competitions, celebrations, stage performances, festivals, and reunions. He came here through Kohut, who got him an invitation to be artist-in-residence and visiting fellow at the department. For the past three months Sambur has been living in a dormitory and receiving $50 per week. Nothing is expected of him, but he and Kohut have made a verbal agreement that Sambur will help with the banquet.

"A piece of cake!" Sambur assured him. "You just whistle."

But Kohut seems to have forgotten about this. Oleksa does not know English, the money he receives barely suffices for food, and he can only earn more through Kohut. Every morning, at ten of eight, Sambur runs out to the curb and looks for Kohut's Mazda. Kohut takes a detour on his way to the department to drop Sambur off in front of the library. Fridays they go to the fitness center together and then to the sauna, where they discuss current Ukrainian culture.

"Well," Sambur consoles himself, "at least he won't grumble that I wasted my time here."

From boredom he clips photos out of magazines and pastes them together into collages. To cover all contingencies [на пожежний випадок] he has created two possible scenarios for the banquet. One is all-out and calls for Polovetsian dances and lazers, while the other is geared for a stand-up, cold buffet kind of affair.

Like every true theater professional, Sambur dreams of Broadway and Hollywood. And why not, he reasons. Am I worse than they are? Not one bit! If only Kohut would let me stay for a year, I'd tackle the language head-on. By springtime I'd be babbling away--or at least by summer, at the very latest.

"But maybe you'd like me to put on a play for them?" Sambur asks Kohut every Friday. "For free. There's a theater at your university, isn't there? If you'll do the translation, I'll show them a new interpretation of anything they want. Absolutely avant-garde!"

But Kohut doesn't respond.

"Maybe I've offended him," worries Sambur. "But how? There's absolutely no reason! If it's about Uliana--I didn't touch her. After all, I understand how things are--I'm not stupid. If he has any intentions toward her--well, by all means! Full steam ahead! I pass! For a friend I'd not only go to a monastery--I'd join it!"

Uliana is our noted poetess. She arrived here from New York last Wednesday and expects Kohut, as department chairman, to invite her to teach a couse on the baroque next semester. She's been told that universities here have special funds for such things.

Uliana is a doctoral candidate in fine arts specializing in elements of the baroque. This is her third jaunt in America. This one she succeeded in garnering herself, by a timely application to conduct interdisciplinary scholarly research. The topic for which she was awarded a stipend is cross-cultural and straddles the fields of feminism, minority problems, and ecology.

The final invitees are the Kravetses, Larysa and Oleksandr. He defended his Ph.D. thesis here and then did not return home. Instead, he found a job at the university, in the chemistry laboratory. As he was making something of himself, she sat at home and minded their child. They have finally applied for green cards and are now waiting for the outcome. Now Larysa wants to find a job too. By profession she is a philologist specializing in Romance languages. That's why Kohut is her direct (and only!) connection to finding an academic job. This is all the more hopeful because, as they've learned, this semester his Russian conversation class has been cancelled.

Kravets earns enough to live comfortably and have a nice apartment. But, on the other hand, their little Ihor, age seven, doesn't talk (he can't say either "Mama" or "Dad") and he doesn't understand where he is at any given time or what is happening around him. At times it seems to the Kravetses that someone has stolen their child and is holding him captive behind a sound-proof wall, and all that someone has left them is his innocent and confused body.

(to be continued)

1. "Den' narodzhennia," in Volodymyr Dibrova, Zbihovys'ka (Kyiv, 1999), pp. 165-222.