Today’s Translation Tuesday features a cracking piece of Welsh fiction from Sian Northey where a bored angel descends to earth and finds himself having to play to a human crowd. In Susan Walton’s translation, nuances in speech and register are captured to delightful effect, allowing the voices of angels and men to truly soar. Let yourself be enthralled by this wholly original tale of shape-shifting and light-hearted rebellion.
They didn’t twig what I was. A bit of a disappointment, really, because I’d gone for a classic look—full-length white nightie, two wings, and a light dusting of radiance, but not too blingy. You don’t want to be trashy, do you? That’s why I told that Jelia and his bloody trumpet to stay at home.
“You can’t go by yourself,” he’d said, after snatching up a dusty volume from the piles at his side, opening it and starting to read. “A host—that means a multitude.”
“Nope. Never. No way, José. Not a chance in hell, gwd boi.” Jelia had looked at me suspiciously, raising one eyebrow, waiting for an explanation. “Practice. They must be communicated with. It’ll need to be done again at some point, for sure,” I’d said. “And anyway, I’m bored,” I’d added. “But you’re staying at home. Bad enough that one of us is breaking the rules.”
“Go then,” Jelia had said, turning back to his trumpet. “Anyroad, the place has changed a lot, they say. They won’t be very impressed with you.”
And they weren’t. I chose a spot where there were quite a few people and appeared as it was getting dark. I stood there for a few minutes before anyone said anything. I rather regretted not letting Jelia come with me—him and his twenty trumpets. I’d expected the people to be surprised, even fearful, but the only thing that happened was that a couple of them passed me to reach a long counter where drinks were being served. I noticed that one of the girls went through me, rather than pushing against me; she turned to look at me.
“Hey, who made this?” she shouted, to no one in particular as far as I could make out. “Cool. Different.”
Carrying her drink, she walked round until she was behind me, then examined my wings.
“These are excellent, dude. Detailed.”
She looked around as if she expected someone to answer, but no one did. She shrugged and started walking away.
“Someone’s a bit of a craftsman. I like. And I’m single.”
Suddenly a naked, winged toddler appeared in front of me. He wasn’t there for long. Off he flew after the girl, gradually disappearing as he went. They’re allowed down here all the time, of course, except for their periods of R&R. But they’re not proper angels. One-trick ponies, if you ask me. Passion flies. The guardian angels are also down here quite a lot. They’re supposed to provide ongoing protection. But they’ve got too much to do and morale is low these days. The conscientious ones run around manically because looking after four or five—or sometimes even six—is too much for one angel; at the other extreme, some are so demoralised they just sit there and let things go to hell.
But we, the real angels, are only supposed to come down when there’s an important happening. And there hasn’t been an important happening for a while and, as far as I’m aware, He doesn’t have plans for one either. Which means we’ve been sitting on our backsides discussing good and evil and telling stories: stories we all know and are sick of hearing. Some have their instruments, of course—harps and trumpets mostly—although the dizi is getting more popular. And the suona; I don’t much like its whining, but I have to admit the shape is quite attractive—in a way, it reflects the idea many people have of our shape. At least the angels with instruments can have a jam, but not every angel is musical. I’m not. But by now I was regretting not having brought a suona down with me so I could give it a quick toot to attract a bit of attention.
The person who was attracting attention was a short, bearded guy standing on a tiny stage in the corner. People were listening to him. Not everyone, of course, but most of the people in the room were listening and now and again they were laughing. Even those who hadn’t been listening were laughing, the wave of laughter dragging them out of their conversations. I decided to listen properly to the bearded man and made my way through the audience until I was closer to him. He was telling stories. I didn’t understand all of them, but from what I could make out they were stories about pretty ordinary things in his life. I knew that some of them were funny, but it was beyond me why everyone was laughing at some of the others. Nevertheless, just like all the other people, I was carried along on the wave of laughter. And then he was thanking everyone for listening.
“And of course,” he was saying, “as the faithful here know, tonight’s open mic night. So, if anyone would like to step up . . .”
A man stood up, gangly and tall, and went up onto the stage. He told stories about his life too, but not many people laughed and before long he packed it in. A middle-aged woman took his place, and the other middle-aged women in the room all laughed, although, to me, many of her stories seemed rather sad.
After she’d returned to her seat, the bearded man said, “And we’ve just got time for one more.”
No one stood up. I hesitated. I hadn’t imagined it being like this, but then again I wanted people to listen to me, to take notice of me.
“Anyone?” said the bearded man. “This is your chance . . .”
Still no one stood up. I hesitated again. Then I moved out of the shadow of the wall and made for the stage.
“Ah, the gentleman in the angel costume. Brilliant!”
He welcomed me to the stage and asked if I’d ever done stand-up before. I wasn’t quite sure what he meant.
“Standing in front of a crowd of people and making them laugh?” he said, speaking slowly and clearly, raising the odd titter from the audience.
“No, never,” I said.
And those were the first words I uttered on earth.
Everyone else had told stories about their everyday lives, so I thought it best to follow suit. At least to start with. Not that I think they’re particularly funny stories, but maybe I didn’t understand what was funny to humankind. I told them about Jelia and his trumpet and how he’d wanted to come with me and how I’d refused. I told them about the trouble we’d had with the left-hand gate the other day. And they laughed. They started hesitantly and politely, but in no time at all they were roaring. I paused for a moment too long between stories and someone shouted something from the back. By now I understand that this happens and that it is called ‘heckling.’
“Where’s yer halo then?”
“What?” I said. I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly.
“Where’s yer bloody ’alo? Or are you a plastic angel?”
I considered for a minute, but reckoned that if that’s what the audience wanted, who was I to argue? I produced a halo for myself.
“Whoops!” I said, when I looked at it, turning the brightness down to make it less dazzling. “That was a bit over the top, wasn’t it?”
The place erupted. Even the lad who’d shouted at me was laughing.
I saw that the bearded man had stepped back onto the stage, clearly wanting to tell me my time was up. The audience saw it as well and shouted for more.
“One more story,” he told me.
I wondered if I should use this opportunity to say something important. Several of us, but not every angel, believe there’s a need to say something to people about . . . Well, I’m not sure about what, to be honest, just that there are important things they should be considering. We didn’t all agree on what the most important thing was.
“Leave them be,” was His attitude.
So I started to talk about that—admitting that we disagree about what’s the greatest threat and that this means, possibly, that there are a number of things we should consider changing. I was even frank enough to say that I was here against orders and that He—“Obviously I can’t name him, but you know who I mean”—that He was of the opinion that the way forward was not to bother them.
They were helpless with laughter. And I got a roar of approval as I left the stage. I grabbed the halo and squashed it down with my hand and stuffed it into the pocket—the non-existent pocket—of my robe. I thought that was a better idea than making it disappear. I almost wanted to make myself disappear, but I decided it wasn’t cool to do so in a public place. Before I had a chance to go somewhere out of sight to take my leave of this world, as it were, the little bearded fellow came towards me.
“Brilliant, brilliant,” he said. “Totally, totally original. Listen, I’ve got some gigs coming up—do you fancy joining me?”
I hesitated. I don’t think I’ve ever hesitated about so many things as I did that night. The bearded man said how much he’d be willing to pay me per night. I had no idea whether that was a lot of money or not, and it wasn’t relevant, was it? The thing that made me make up my mind was that I’d enjoyed myself. I didn’t even recognise the feeling that first time, but enjoyment it was. I liked how I felt when a roomful of people were laughing at something I’d said. I know it sounds silly, but it made me feel more solid, somehow—more of a man.
“Brilliant, brilliant,” said the little bearded man again and put his arm across my shoulders. I felt it.
He bought me a drink, and I swallowed it. And felt it slip warmly down my throat, though I’m not sure where it went from there.
I’m still doing it. I sent a message to Jelia, suggesting he join me, but the passion fly that carried the message said he’d decided to stay put. By now I don’t always present myself in classic angel mode, but I still cover the same topics, more or less, and I often wear a halo to remind them who I am. Or maybe I’m reminding myself. And I still enjoy the feeling I get when hundreds of people are listening to me. And they still laugh.
Translated from the Welsh by Susan Walton
Sian Northey has been a full-time writer for the last fourteen years. She is the author of three novels for adults, one poetry collection, three short story collections, several scripts, and numerous children’s and teens’ novels. Her novels, all published by Gwasg Gomer, are Yn y Tŷ Hwn (In This House), Rhyd y Gro (Gravelly Ford), and Perthyn (Kindred). Her most recent publication is as co-editor of the poetry anthology A470 (Arachne Press, 2022). Sian Northey is also a literary translator. She translated into Welsh the memoir The Journey is Home by John Sam Jones, and Alys Conran’s debut novel, Pigeon, which in its original English won the Wales Book of the Year Award in 2017. Both books were published in English and Welsh by Parthian Books in 2021 and 2016, respectively. Her translation of the children’s novel The Last Firefox by Lee Newbery (Penguin Random House, 2022) will be published this year by Firefly under the title Y Llwynog Tân Olaf.
Susan Walton has been commissioned to translate books from Welsh to English for the publishing house Gwasg Carreg Gwalch since 2009. She has had thirteen translated books published, including seven novels for older children/young adults. She has no formal training or qualifications in translation. During 2020 Susan was mentored under the Literature Wales scheme as an emerging literary translator. Under her mentor’s guidance she translated Sian Northey’s first novel, Yn y Tŷ Hwn, into English and is currently seeking a publisher for it. She blogged monthly about her progress as a mentee.
*****
Read more from Translation Tuesdays on the Asymptote blog: