Lost in Translation — Çeviride Kaybolanlar

Kerem had been working as a freelance interpreter in London for almost two years. Most of his jobs were in hospitals, courts and council offices, where his task was to translate every word exactly as it was said. So when an agency offered him a business meeting, he accepted at once, imagining good coffee and polite conversation. He could not have been more wrong.

His client was Halil Bey, an olive oil producer from Ayvalık who was hoping to sell his oil to a chain of British delicatessens. He was a large, cheerful man in his sixties who had brought three bottles of oil, a jar of olives and a photo album of his trees. "Some of these trees are older than this city's oldest pub," he told Kerem proudly in the lift. The buyer, Mr Pemberton, was the opposite in every way. He was thin and pale, he didn't smile, and he looked at the olives as if they might bite him.

The meeting started badly and got worse. Mr Pemberton asked detailed questions about prices, transport costs and delivery times, and he wrote down every answer without comment. Halil Bey kept trying to talk about the taste of the oil, the morning mist over the hills and his grandfather's stone press. Kerem translated everything faithfully, but he could feel the room getting colder. After forty minutes, Mr Pemberton put down his pen. "Your price is fifteen per cent higher than our Spanish supplier's," he said. "I don't see why we should pay more."

Kerem translated, and Halil Bey's face went red. He leaned back in his chair and said something in Turkish that was not at all diplomatic. Roughly, it meant: "This man wouldn't know good oil if he fell into a barrel of it." Kerem froze. In a hospital or a court, he would have translated the sentence word for word. But here, he knew, the deal would be finished the moment he did. He also knew that an interpreter is not supposed to change what people say. For two long seconds, he tried to find a solution.

"Mr Pemberton," he said finally, "before I translate that, I need to explain something." "My client has just expressed strong frustration in rather colourful language." "If you want, I will translate it exactly, but I'd like to ask him first whether he would prefer to rephrase it." Then he turned to Halil Bey and told him in Turkish exactly what he had just said in English. Halil Bey looked embarrassed and muttered that perhaps he had been a little hasty.

To Kerem's astonishment, Mr Pemberton started to laugh. It was the first time anyone had seen him smile all morning. "Halil Bey," he said in slow but perfectly clear Turkish, "I promise you, if I fell into a barrel of your oil, I would know." There was a stunned silence. Halil Bey's mouth opened and closed like a fish's. Mr Pemberton explained, now in English, that his father had been an engineer in Izmir and that he had spent his whole childhood there. "I always hire an interpreter anyway," he said. "It tells me more about the other side than any contract." "Most interpreters either translate the insult or quietly hide it. You did neither."

After that, the atmosphere changed completely. Mr Pemberton opened one of the bottles, poured a little oil onto a piece of bread and closed his eyes as he tasted it. "It tastes like my mother's kitchen in Karşıyaka," he said quietly. They talked for another hour, mostly in a mixture of both languages, and Kerem had very little to do. In the end they agreed on a smaller first order at a slightly lower price, with a promise to review it after a year. Halil Bey insisted on taking everyone to lunch, and he gave Mr Pemberton the jar of olives as a gift.

A week later Kerem received an email from Mr Pemberton's company. They were planning to work with several producers in Turkey and wanted a permanent interpreter for their negotiations. "We need someone who understands that translation is not only about words," the email said. Kerem accepted, although he made one condition. From now on, he wanted to know in advance which of his clients secretly spoke Turkish.