Translating the Garden

This is my submission to the next Language/Place blog carnival, to be hosted by Steve Wing. If it's included I'll put a link here. The theme is "Translation." The story is a recounting of a day in the spring, and is an excerpt from the long manuscript about Montreal and Iceland that I'm currently working on.

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Over the weekend, I worked with one of our upstairs neighbors to prune the four Camperdown elms that grow in the garden along the side of our building. Francine was born and raised in Montreal and then married a Lebanese man who had come here to escape the civil war. They’re both a bit older than we are, with two grown children and a grandchild. She speaks some English, but unlike many Quebecois who immediately switch to English — which can either be out of politeness, or out of a desire to show how well they handle the language — when I am with her she only speaks French, and expects me to as well. As with some other francophones, I’ve never been entirely sure if it’s how she’s comfortable, or a deliberate way of indicating a political opinion that French is the language I should be speaking since we are here in Quebec.  As a result I’ve always felt tentative and apologetic with her, slightly ashamed that I’m not becoming fluent faster, and have sometimes avoided longer encounters. But Francine is also one of my language touchstones; each year, as we work on the garden — a job I had volunteered for at the annual meeting of the condominium co-proprietaires, under the illusion that here my French deficiencies wouldn’t matter too much — it gets a little easier, a fact that she notices too.

She had said, on the telephone, that there were some shrubs that she wanted to discuss removing and replacing, so after collecting me at my apartment, we went outside and she showed me the ones in question. The hydrangeas, she said, never bloomed well, and the junipers were overgrown; what did I think? We pulled the branches apart to see how big the trunks were; I asked about the soil –il y a beaucoup de sable, she said – lots of sand – and learned the word for clay – argile. She said the soil was easy to dig, but that we had to get all the roots, or the hydrangea would becoming up everywhere.

Oui, I said, nous avons eu un grand hydrangea au Vermont…les hydrangeas sont très difficiles d’éradiquer.

Eradiquer! she exclaimed, and gave me a teasing half smile. Deux étoiles!

I looked at her, startled, and then we both laughed. After that things went more easily. I asked what the difference was, in French, between hydrangea and hortensia: the latter, she explained, is the name for the decorative blue and pink ones, but in Quebec this kind — she prodded the sprawling shrub near her feet with her secateurs — c’est un hydrangea. We decided to dig up the shrubs later on, when we had gotten the right kind of tools – there was no pointed shovel in the basement – and to try to enlist the aid of my husband if not hers, after discovering that they both had bad backs. Les maris! we cried. Husbands!

Then we began with the pruning – she had never asked me to help with this before, so I listened carefully and asked questions about how she wanted it done – but as we clipped the small branches that had died over the winter, and lopped off larger ones with the secateurs, we also began, tentatively at first, to exchange more information about our lives. She wanted to know what sort of work my husband and I did, and where our studio was. I knew that she painted, so I asked her if she was working on her artwork, and in what medium – watercolors, she said — and what style –a combination of figurative and abstract. What medium did I work in, she wondered, and what type of subject? Landscape, I answered, j’ai oublié le mot...Le paysage, she supplied. Had I had exhibitions in the United States? What was I doing now? She asked about our renovations, which everyone in the building knew about, were they done? what had caused the problem? And we talked, of course, about gardening; I had told her before that we had had a big garden in Vermont, and she asked if we grew vegetables; I said yes, we had, but I was pretty much through with that, although I had thought of trying some tomatoes on the roof, to which she shrugged and said the problem was so much wind up there, sur le toit,  and I agreed, now that we could buy such beautiful produce in the city, what was the point? and we talked about the Middle Eastern market where I knew we both shopped, and its newly opened branch on the South Shore — comme il est grand! et merveilleux!

It was around then, as we began work on the third tree, that she switched from vous to tu. I noticed immediately, but said nothing, even though my heart registered its surprise with a silent little flip. A few sentences later, I answered back with tu.

I asked if she had gone to Beirut this past winter, as they often do, but she said no, they had gone to southern Spain for two months, and that it had been beautiful – ciel bleu et clair chaque jour, chaque jour, incroyable! She explained that her husband’s family was very close and talked constantly, but she herself spoke no Arabic so it was very hard for her, très isolée, and therefore she didn’t enjoy being in Lebanon; sometimes her husband went alone. I told her my sister-in-law was living in Beirut now and loving it, doing a lot of hiking in the mountains, and she stood up, her face glowed with a sudden memory, and said one of the most beautiful places she had ever been were some caverns near Beirut, in the mountains, the anti-Lebanons. It was like something you’d see in in a Disney film, she said, so unreal, but you are there, you are in the film yourself!

Before, I’d thought she was possessive of the trees and the garden, but as we worked and I saw how carefully she pruned, how she stood back now and then to check the progress, hands on her hips, the way she touched a limp rhododendron stem that had been hurt by falling snow, or sighed whenever she had to cut a large dead branch, I realized it was simply the love that most gardeners have for the plants they tend over many years. And for most of those years, she had done it all by herself.

We finished for the day and gathered our tools, and Francine promised to stop by later on when she had called her son about borrowing a shovel.  I was in the kitchen when I heard her knock on our door, and opened it to see her grinning like a smug cat. J’ai trouvé un pelle, she announced, and then paused for dramatic effect:  et une hache! She mimicked lifting an axe and bringing it down on some hapless victim: pour les racines! she added. I burst into laughter, which caused J. to leave his desk and come down the hall. What are you two laughing about? he asked. Francine has a shovel and an axe, I said. An axe? he repeated? Oui, we both said. Pour les racines – the roots!

Ok, he said, looking from one face to the other. Whatever you say!

There’s to be rain this week, Francine said, and I nodded, I had seen the méteo; Which day shall we meet, then? We agreed on Wednesday, at nine a.m.

A mercredi! I said.

A mercredi! she replied, and pulled open the door to the stairwell, smiling at me.

Comments

[Jean]

Smiling too. I love this so much, Beth!

[Rachel Barenblat]

Oh, what a wonderful post, Beth. Roots and branches, on so many levels.

And you reminded me that I first encountered hortensia during the summer I was in Brittany, when I was fifteen. I was very surprised to return to the States and learn, years later, that they were known here as hydrangeas. (They don't grow in south Texas -- too warm, I suspect -- so I didn't know their English name...)

[Kate]

I love your post too Beth!

In my area of upstate New York, the schools alternated offering Spanish or French in elementary school. One of my brothers, a year older, studied French. My year was offered Spanish, and I studied it for 13 years. I've had so many wonderful experiences with Spanish speaking people a long time later, when I know what they are saying but can't find the words to respond. They then try English. It always ends as an encounter in which we enjoy each other.

[Marja-Leena]

Love this story, Beth! I didn't know hydrangea and hortensia are different shrubs, just thought the latter name was more European, used in Finnish as well. I'm afraid my high school French is mostly forgotten and useless, though I was able to read some of your phrases.

[Jean]

And I, in UK, had never heard the name Hortensia.

[Ellena]

I read you for the same reasons I read other written words. I learn and learn and learn and enjoy ( did not have the time to do it when I was young and now it has become kind of pressing). All that to get to the point of saying that it is "une pelle". I hope you don't mind. I don't mind being corrected because it's the only way to learn. I feel bad because your story is so interesting to read and the warming up to another human being can be ffelt to the bones and ......I should not spoil it by correcting un to read une.
Mea culpa.

[Beth]

Thank you all! I didn't know about hortensia either...This is such a typical Montreal encounter, which could happen in several pairs of languages, I had to try to write it all down.

Dear Ellena, I hope if you've been reading here for a while you know that I am not easily hurt or annoyed! Thanks for the correction, please don't apologize -- and it's one I probably won't forget now!

[andrea]

That is one of my pet peeves--how Franco-Ontarians (I'm in Ottawa) so often revert to English when I speak French. I don't understand why they do it, and it always feels vaguely disappointing.

You should probably be flattered, Beth, that Francine carried on in French. I'm curious: where and when did you learned to speak the language?

[Beth]

Good morning, Andrea! In my experience, most of the people who continue in French with me are either close friends who know I'm trying to improve, or people whose English is either worse than my French or non-existent. One reason for switching is politeness, another (often noticed among young shop clerks or others in public places) seems to be a desire to show that their English is very good. Often people (especially immigrants for whom English may be their third language) say they want to speak in English in order to practice, so the conversation proceeds with me in French and them in English, with a bit of back-and-forth, both of us correcting the other's mistakes. This is very typical Montreal conversation!

I studied French in public high school for three years, after one year of Latin, and placed out of all but one term of French when I got to college. As a result I can read it very well, but have had to work hard to improve my speech and oral comprehension, and still feel like I've got a long way to go. In college I took three years of ancient Greek and one full year of German - not particularly helpful for Romance languages but all adding up to something, I suppose! I had a very very good high school French teacher, which is why I think the grammar stayed with me; I've forgotten so much of the other languages I studied.

Thanks for asking! I agree it's annoying. I just ask people to keep speaking French sometimes, and they usually do once they understand I'm trying to learn.How about you - did you take French in school?

[Lorenzo da Ponte]

There was so much of interest to me in this post I embarked on a comment that virtually matched it in length. In fact I'd written three monster paras without getting past your first original para: about what may go on in our heads when we speak a foreign language. I am, as you already know, besotted with French - both oral and written.

But after seven or eight hundred words reality took a grip and I sought the delete key. This is, after all, your blog and I had an uneasy feeling that such indigestible lumps might give the impression I was trying to compete. Also these inordinate lengths were taking me perilously close to the frontier with the Land Of Diminishing Returns. Length becomes unreadability.

However let me pluck something from the wreckage. I have several French translations of Shakespeare plays since I'm fascinated with what translators are looking for - hoping for - in rendering WS in another language. Since I cannot think usefully without writing I compiled a long, long article (No one would ever imagine I was once gainfully employed as a journalist) on this subject and submitted it to the Q site with which you are associated. My lack of academic rigour was immediately detected (I left school at 15) and it was rejected. I wasn't surprised. Another less discriminating site published it and - in for a penny in for a pound - I posted it myself in my previous, now defunct, website Works Well.

I raise this subject wondering if it might interest you - not that you appear short of ideas. Should you take it up I might then legitimately provide comments without the risk of seeming to hog your comment box. Also I might learn rather more about a topic which could, as the theatres say, run and run.

[Natalie]

Marvellous post, Beth. What I especially love is the subtle way you bring in the important but tiny things about human relationships which are always going on and which we often miss if we are not paying attention. You have attention and awareness in spades plus the ability to express it - bravo!

[Pua Metrics]

What's up colleagues, how is the whole thing, and what you would like to say about this post, in my view its actually awesome in support of me.

[sherry o'keefe]

love this:

and she stood up, her face glowed with a sudden memory, and said one of the most beautiful places she had ever been were some caverns near Beirut, in the mountains, the anti-Lebanons. It was like something you’d see in in a Disney film, she said, so unreal, but you are there, you are in the film yourself!