Aberfan *To translate*
is always *to betray*
I’m bringing back (lucky me!) my little column of free and unfaithful translations (interpretations rather than translations), because language – even when it happens to be the one you were born with, purely by chance – is a barrier, and communication is only a utopian desire; so take this stuff, which we call translation just for convenience, with a grain of salt.
Here there is also an extra problem: how do you tell the absurdity of the Aberfan disaster, and how do you translate the narration of something that cannot be said?
David Ackles - Aberfan
The rain was falling that morning, as the men were going to the mine. They passed by the schoolyard, even that morning. And in the coal mine, on the charts and signs it said: “Gentlemen, everything is going perfectly!”
But it was raining, and raining, that morning.
The Coal Committee and the others who were supposed to supervise had said: that slag heap number 7 of yours will hold
and it’s already been two years, that morning.
But nobody told the children of Aberfan.
One hundred and sixteen little caps and scarves were dancing in the school classrooms, (that morning), while the inspectors, grown-ups and adults, were sipping their tea safe and dry in the tool shed.
And meanwhile, it was raining, that morning. It was raining in Aberfan.
Didn’t anyone hear the stones moving as the hill of debris began to slide? Didn’t anyone hear the coal slag tremble? Was there really nobody?
Maybe they were on the phone with Swansea taking more orders or perhaps, they were busy with their business and storage
and five minutes later, everyone was asking: why?
A call for silence hushed the crowd that had gathered to peer at the clouds, seeking answers. While, holding their breath, they listened to catch a sign of life,
but a music of death had taken those dancing children.
And it rained, the rain still came down, that morning, in Aberfan.
But to those children, nobody said. Nobody told them anything.
Because that’s how you do with children. scritto: detto: chiedersi:
