Fragmentos que vibran

Jadine Pluecker
(in conversation with Hellen Ascoli and her work)

1

qué pasa si la intérprete no está interpretando sino
toma prestadas algunas estructuras, narrativas cifradas,
patrones, técnicas, crisis, cortes
y los repite en su propio lenguaje textil y artístico

qué pasa si la escritora no escribe sobre la obra sino
toma prestadas algunas estructuras, narrativas cifradas,
patrones, técnicas, crisis, cortes
y los repite en su propio lenguaje textual y literario

2

She had a young friend, but the young friend was now back in jail.
She had known a young woman in the country of her previous residence, but it had been a long time since the young woman had reached out to her.
She had assisted a woman with her asylum interview, but she never heard from the woman again.
She had a daughter, but the daughter was somewhere else.
She had seen a man who had bullied her, but he was unexpectedly in a new position and perhaps a new body.
She had a neighbor in the country of her previous residence, and she saw him upon her return and he warned her to be careful.
She becomes a shadow for the boy, and then the shadow begins to weave randomly.

She was gone so long perhaps that the young woman might not be young any longer.
The daughter was doing something unimaginable.
The young friend was locked away for so long he was beginning to forget their attempts to make something together.
She forgot whose story was whose or forgot to remember to try to wonder what might have happened to that one woman.
The phone messages and the stories are repeated in the other language.
So long perhaps that the attempts themselves might be seen as failed.
She decides not to worry so much about the bully, and she drinks a tea with friends who still enjoy her company.

4

An interpreter does her job faithfully, or attempts a certain degree of faithfulness, maintaining an ethical posture in a deeply unethical world. It is worth mentioning that the interpreter is almost always angry. She has been angry for a very long time. An automated system has requested her presence in the facility for the day. A day to sit with others and to let the anger simmer without ever letting it boil over. The girl and the interpreter sit next to each other, as if reflecting one another in a mirror squeezed between them. Anger grows, but also something else: a gentleness, an up and down of little bits of paper, eyes turned to their handiwork, mouths able to re-open.

A weaver, who is an interpreter today, is thinking that the relationship no longer has the same connection as before, that umbilical cord has been snapped. The automated system decides the pay rate and the day. Mysterious machines decide the fate of detainee and interpreter. She and the girl are trying to find a new vocabulary for their experience, whether alphabetic or otherwise, all while enclosed in a building, its stagnant air recirculating through tubes and ducts, air that never escapes.

"Mañana me voy a portar bien," the girl says, and the interpreter repeats, "Tomorrow I will be good," which is both the same thing and something entirely different. The verb shifts in its tense, lightly, from near future to simple future, from an active verb, despite its intransitivity, to a description of interiority. The interpreter decides the young woman is lying, but then the interpreter says she herself is not lying. Multiple degrees. Now I read it out loud, "Tomorrow I will be good," and then switch languages to say she has lied upon saying, but I am not. Yet I am not lying or telling the truth, I am repeating, which is something quite different. A repetition is just that, a repetition, though yes changed by having moved from one language to another, from one body to another, from one act to another. I am also angry. Though for different reasons. And with a different ethical posture.

7

The weaver, who is also an interpreter today, sits calmly.
A kid arrives and asks, What are you doing?
I'm just going up and down.
Oh.
Do you want to go up and down?
Yes, the kid says.
And suddenly, the

​​​ weaving is no longer situated

​ floats off the loom

​​​​ reorganizes and disorganizes

​​ expands and contracts

​​ impossible to control

​​ reordering in nowhere

​​​​​or out of nowhere

8

ear and veiny ear, go and come means back and forth
in the other tongue or no, sorry, it is ear and veiny ear, go
and come means nothing except perhaps, go! come!
imperatives, a grammatical mood different from
"to come and go," not a back and forth, and i'll come
and go with this idea and if you weave it into the textile,
do not say it was a text or create a false equality,
at the least, Let the water and the blood, flow
from thy riven side, a bloody river
to remain between us. is there no bridge
to cross? no, but i am working on a poem, that is,
a design, no, a translation, sorry a text to accompany, and
between us a river. the land is not riven by a river, but
the repetition of ear and veiny ear in your manner of speaking
creates rivers and suddenly riven, all is riven in the go and
come. words in different systems, one alphabetic, one not,
like eyes seeing, a seesaw up and down
between mountains, a translation and
valley between them. this is not the story of a
millenary tradition of textiles or, at the least, I am unsure,
disconnected, sadly, i just went and came,
twice perhaps, not enough time to know, ain't that the truth,
never enough time to know all that flowed from thy riven side.

11

you lean on her or lean into her, you lean
​​​​​una lengua que se recarga en otra, se recarga la lengua

a lean inside language or the leanness of some languages
un inclinarse en la lengua o delgada la lengua puntiaguda

an inkling in the clinging or a slender language
férrea se aferra ferozmente o un aferrarse ferocísimo

what if you lean on her but then i lean on you,
¿qué pasa si te recargas en ella pero entonces yo me recargo en tí

then are we all leaning on her?
¿será que entonces todes nos apoyamos en ella?

will she fall or falter, stun or stumble?
se va a caer o flaquear, debilitar o tropezar o trastabillar

i lean on you leaning on her
me inclino sobre tu espalda inclinada sobre la de ella

ella se habla
she is ablaze

te quema y a mí me quemas tú
she ends up saying words to you and then you repeat them to me

ella te termina diciendo palabras y me las repites
she burns you and you me