Translation Tuesday: “It Was Then That I Lost That Child” by Carla Bessa

And so then, I had: my children, I had: seven children, I mean: six

The fate of a working class mother who loses her child is the focus of this week’s Translation Tuesday, which features an unforgettable experiment with the short story form. Devised through a verbatim technique, Carla Bessa—actress, director, and winner of Brazil’s most prestigious literary award, the Jabuti Prize—mines the genre for its dramatic possibilities. Bessa’s moving story switches deftly between a confessional monologue with eclectic punctuation that lends the mother’s voice a searing, staccato quality and, on the other hand, a set of intricate stage movements revolving around a domestic scene. The effect is a casual meeting of tragedy and mundanity. Indeed, for translator Elton Uliana, this story conveys “a reality of marginality and crime which is becoming increasingly prevalent in Brazil, particularly with the rise of far-right politics, its contempt for and disenfranchising of the lower classes.” This social commentary is achieved with great formal and emotional intensity in “It Was Then That I Lost That Child.” 

(She takes the chicken out of the freezer and puts it in the microwave. She rinses the thermos with boiling water, she puts the filter holder over the mouth of the flask, she places the paper filter in the holder and fills it with coffee powder, five level soup spoons.)

And so then, I had: my children, I had: seven children, I mean: six. Because: the one who got killed, I never really got to raise him. I couldn’t. I only: I only had him for the first month, then his father: stole my child from me, yes, it was his father: he kidnapped my boy.

(She pours the hot water carefully over the coffee until the filter is full. She stops, and waits for the water to seep through. The microwave beeps. With the kettle in one hand she goes to the microwave, presses the button that opens the door to remove the chicken. She realises that she has only one hand free and pauses.)

He beat me up. I’ve got the scars here on my face, see, ruined: it was him. That’s why I’ve got a face like this, all: destroyed, have a look. 

(She pours more water on the coffee, she stops and waits.)

He stole my son, and: I reported him. And so: it was his mother that had to look after my son. He and his mother raised my son, but: they never let me visit him. Then: I took them to court again: and I won: I won the right to see my own son. A right that was already mine.

(She puts the kettle back on the still-burning stove. She grabs some bread out of the basket and puts it on the table, along with Itambé butter and Minas Frescal cheese. The water boils again. She pours some more into the flask.)

His mother: she would bring the boy over. Once in a while. Then the boy started: growing, growing up. And they sent him to work on the streets selling stuff. He was walking around scruffy: filthy: and smelly. He ended up: dropping out of school, giving up. Then: I spoke to his teacher and arranged for him to: go back, to continue his studies. 

But he ran away. Then he disappeared for a long time and then he became an adult and then he came back with this woman and they decided to live just around the corner from me.

(She realises that the thermos is full. She takes the filter holder out and puts it in the sink. Halfway there, she spills coffee on her arm, “Oh, shit!”. She screws the lid on and brings the thermos to the table. She opens it again and pours me a cup of coffee, she asks “Milk?”, I say, “Yes.” She pours the milk and pours the coffee, milk and—she was going to get sugar, but she changes her mind, she shakes her head, and gets the sweetener instead, Zero Cal.)

But, let me . . . go back a bit. When his father took him to be raised by his grandmother, they: didn’t let me visit him, you know, they wouldn’t: even let him speak to me. And on the days that we did meet, and he actually came to speak to me, then he: would be beaten. Just because he had talked to me, a proper grown-up beating, they: hurt the boy all over.

(She butters the bread, which is still warm, the butter starts to melt, she rubs the tip of her tongue on the edge of the roll to stop the butter dripping on the tablecloth. She takes a bite of the bread which she holds with her right hand, she places her left hand underneath her chin in the shape of a shell to catch any drops or crumbs. She throws the breadcrumbs in her mouth and chews and swallows everything. She eats with appetite, taking long sips of coffee, and blowing the hot drink between one thing and another.)

Then: he ran away. He turned up with this woman, and went to live right here, just around the corner from me. But that wasn’t everything: he ended up on the wrong side of the track because: the woman he got involved with was one of those, she was: one of those drug addicts. He: fell into that trap straight away. All I know is that the woman: I don’t know what happened there, but the woman: she made a deal with two of her cousins ​​and some of her friends and she told them: kill him. And they killed him at home. Inside the house. While he was sleeping. They took: a huge stone like this, look, and: they threw it on top of him. And if that wasn’t enough, they: shot him several times, those guys: they killed him right then and there: sleeping at home.

(She places the cup on the saucer and the bread next to it. She wipes her mouth with the back of her right hand.)

It was then that I lost that child. 

Translated from the Portuguese by Elton Uliana

Carla Bessa is a writer, translator, actress, and director based in Germany. She is the author of two collections of short stories, Aí eu fiquei sem esse filho (Oito e Meio, 2017), and Urubus (Editora Confraria dos Ventos), which won the 2020 Jabuti Prize in the Short Story category, and placed second at the 2020 Brazilian National Library Award. Bessa recently published her first novella, Minha Murilo (Confraria dos Ventos, 2021). Later this year, Urubus will be published in German by Transit Verlag, and Aí eu fiquei sem esse fillho in Greek by Skarifima Editions.

Elton Uliana is a Brazilian translator based in London. He has a master’s degree in translation studies from University College London (UCL), where he is one of the editors of the Brazilian Translation Club. His published work includes translations of short stories by Ana Maria Machado (Alchemy), Jacques Fux (Tablet) and Sérgio Tavares (Bengaluru & Qorpus), poems by Rufo Quintavalle (Rascunho) and three plays by Howard Barker (forthcoming in Temporal). He is currently working with the UCL Anthropology Multimedia Lab, creating a VR Heritage Museum for the Guarani-Kaiowá indigenous communities from Brazil, in partnership with the British Museum Endangered Knowledge Programme. Uliana is a member of Out of the Wings Collective, a research-led project on theatre translation at King’s College London.

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