The Conference Interpreter – Part 1: The Booth

The interpreters' booth in Geneva was the size of a wardrobe, with soundproof glass, two chairs and a microphone, and Nadia was about to spend six days in it with Pavel Novák.

Everyone had warned her. He never speaks to colleagues. He brings his own water. He once corrected a prime minister.

"Good morning," said Nadia, sliding in.

"Hm," said Pavel. He was thirty-five, narrow-shouldered, in a perfect grey suit, with a face as composed as a closed book.

The session began. Through her headphones, a delegate droned in rapid, bureaucratic French; Nadia rendered it into English, smoothly, while Pavel took over each time she signalled. Their hands passed a pencil between them in the dark.

At eleven, a delegate made a joke that did not translate. Pavel's pencil stopped. In the pause, with his microphone muted, he muttered something in Czech under his breath, bone-dry and devastating.

Nadia had never been so close to laughing aloud in an international forum.

"Say that again," she whispered, in Czech.

He turned to her. "You speak Czech?"

"Badly. My grandmother."

"It was not a good joke."

"It was perfect."

At lunch he joined her on a bench by the lake, his own water bottle in his hand, and told her, in four languages in turn, the three worst translations of his career. By the fourth, she was crying with laughter.

"Can I ask you something?" said Nadia.

"Yes."

"Why does everyone say you don't talk?"

"Because I am tired of saying things that are not true," said Pavel. "For eight hours I say what others mean. After that, I like silence."

"And me?"

He looked at her, grey eyes level. "You are good silence."

"Green?" said Nadia, in English.

"Green," said Pavel, slowly. "Very green."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Off the Record.