Translator Translated_ A Novella - Anita Desai [5]
And, as it happened, it had turned out well. She had not only met her old school idol Tara, after so many years of following her brilliant career in the press, but Tara had recognised her, and by showing an interest in the book that had so providentially fallen out of her satchel, given her a nod.
A nod. Such a small gesture, almost inconspicuous, but it was what Prema had been waiting for, she now realised, a nod no one had been willing to give her before. It must have been the sign she needed because now, sitting over the empty plate from which she had eaten her dinner—some slices of bread with pickles—the book propped up beside the pickle jar, the sugar pot and the bottle of antacid pills, she began to have thoughts that ought to have come to her earlier: thoughts, plans, like a hand of cards dealt to her that were worth studying.
She began nodding to herself, unconsciously but encouragingly. In the street below, quieter now than an hour or two earlier, a car with a siren tore past, screeching its metallic nail across her eardrum. But Prema barely noticed, even though it set all the neighbourhood dogs howling.
Having made an appointment—costing her an anguish of indecision no one else would have understood—Prema was at Tara's office in Sri Aurobindo Market punctually at three o'clock on a Friday afternoon. She was somewhat disappointed to find Tara's office was not in a shiny new high-rise but in somewhat obscure quarters above a grimy copy shop with a small arrow on the wall pointing up the stairs, stairs just as unswept as in her own building, she noted. The office itself, she was relieved to find, was bright and neat, freshly painted, with a tall potted plant in the corner that appeared to be flourishing, and a row of shelves on which the latest publications of Tara's press were lined up, the newest of them facing out. These were so attractive—small in size but with covers of terracotta, lapis lazuli and moss green, each with a small miniature painting printed in the centre above the title and below the author's name—that Prema felt deeply ashamed of the state of the paperback she had brought with her to refresh Tara's memory. While the secretary dialled Tara's number to announce the visitor, Prema gazed at these delectable, desirable objects, recognising some of the authors' names and wondering about the others. Then the door opened and there was Tara, dark glasses pushed back over her hair, which Prema now saw had a fashionable red glow of henna, and wearing a sari that was elegant in its extreme simplicity—fine white cotton, black-bordered, such as Prema would never have considered wearing. She looked a bit preoccupied but remembered having made the appointment—flattering in itself—and had Prema come into her office which was larger and untidier than the little reception room, with ceramic coffee mugs amid the books on her desk, and a lingering odour of cigarette smoke.
'It was wonderful to see you the other day,' Prema began, determinedly smiling to keep those depressing wrinkles away, but, on seeing Tara assume a somewhat impatient air, decided to hurry along to the purpose of her visit. Placing the book she had brought with her on the desk between them, she went on: 'When you said you were thinking of commissioning translations from indigenous languages—our many great languages — and bringing writers to the notice of those readers who don't know them—I thought of Suvarna Devi.' She had to stop for breath, she had spoken so fast and was almost panting. 'She is such a great writer and no one here even knows her name. It is very sad but I am sure if you publish a translation of her work, she will become as well-known as—as—Simone de Beauvoir,' she ended in an inspired burst.
Tara was listening, although she was playing with a pencil and occasionally glancing at her watch—she clearly had something on her mind, probably another engagement coming up — but after calling her secretary to send in a bottle of Fanta for Prema—such a hot day—she did begin