from Un (One)
not a day goes by without the belief that there
is a prisoner of the desert, yes, the desert, a
prison without barbed wire, an uninhabited
stretch as far as the eye can see where every
night the one i call prisoner goes to sleep, a
lone man, surely the last one standing, sort of
like the antithesis of god, the last man standing,
condemned to oneness despite being the creator
of absolutely nothing, detainee of the uninhabited,
captive of no man’s land, of a vast stretch that
never ceases to be at full stretch, the man i’m
describing knows only solitude and its cacti,
besides, we never find what we’re looking for
between the dunes, only sand and our own foot-
prints, prisoners don’t know a whole lot of
people, but mine surely knows me,
why yes, surely
a strange sort of confusion that makes you say
things twice, and perhaps my prisoner knows
me from all the times i’ve asked about him in
my prayers,
actually, i’ve never prayed
good lord what nerve
every day i push myself inwards, sort of like a
pants pocket, closing in on this man, this student
of the innermost region of my being, what is he
doing during this heatwave, whose face does
he picture to overcome the uniform color of the
sand, the uninterrupted sand, always the same
color, indistinguishably tan without respite,
and does he fall asleep despite the whisper of
scorpions, does he suddenly feel the urge to
speak to the cacti out of survival instinct, to sit
before them and recount his days, my orphan of
society, but what is there to discuss when your
interlocutor is a cactus, i mean what topics are
off-limits with deaf-mute succulents
anyway, i digress, the way we all digress in the
presence of our prisoners, they have a gift for
making us reevaluate everything, Monsieur,
if there’s a reason i’m here today it is to pin
my coloring pages to your bulletin board, i
thought i might sit down and draw for a while,
the way children do when they aren’t allowed
to spin in circles, they languish on a table and
eventually lose themselves, in all innocence i
wanted to be like them, the clumsy liberty of an
adult pouring her heart out on coloring pages,
by that i mean succumbing to inertia, regression
is a minor sorrow in prose and adults ought to give
in to it, your childish whims resurface gasping
for air, adults are heartless for suffocating their
childhood memories, in the name of time you
might say, in that case, Monsieur, let me ask you
this, why fight the return of your inner child, yes, tell
me, why not just consent to his eyes, to the very
being you embodied until he set fire to good
manners and wandered off in mockery, grown-ups
ought to let loose a little, even if it means losing
what they think they own, in reality they have
nothing to lose, just some neckties and
some green polka-dotted opinions, but i’m
well aware that every night when you’re naked,
when your old man suit finally dangles on
its hanger like god, it’s the cacti you talk to,
you show them your drawings of abandoned
women and enslaved monkeys, but what can
you possibly expect from a cactus that never
answers you, they are just like adults, constantly
forgetting their lines when you confront them
with childish questions, the cacti are deaf-mute,
and later on you have the same dream over and
over again the way kids do, i myself am one of
them, all i had to do was betray the order of things
by uncovering your inner child, i play a minor
role in your dreams every now and then and
there you have it,
when it comes to being humiliated,
two heads are better than one
for no matter how much i argue about marxist
alienation and chat with men in suits and sweet-
talk in bars, i still go home alone and some-
times drink a big glass of milk and other times
i pee in bed,
don’t tell anyone
yes, i pee in bed as if to mock my philosophical
façade, as if to return to the origin of my suffering,
deep down this place cuts you off in the middle
of your speech, all you have to do is take the
stage wearing a suit and get up in front of the
mic, and clearing your throat like the paralytic
of the dialogue who never knows what to say
in front of an audience of cacti, oh how he
overflows with words and oh how he’d love to
get rid of that mic and bury the cacti in his arms,
but throwing yourself headlong into a sea of cacti
and getting ripped to shreds and falling flat on your
face, come on, doctors would never prescribe that,
those men in suits standing in front of a mic would
still rather be prisoners than explode with their
emancipated sand, yes, Monsieur, i swear, i’ve seen
it with my own eyes, childhood cuts you off in the
middle of your speech, it says everything for you
and silences your future while slipping past the
solemnity of your voice, childhood slips away the
same way the moon eclipses the sun, besides, don’t
you see that the circumference never dies out, at the
exact moment of perfect alignment the glare of the
sun encircles the lunar abyss, that’s when childhood
comes into focus, the second the elderly overshadow
it, their act of hostility backed by a cactus,
well there you have it, i wanted to wait before
telling you about time but it’s already too late,
that’s just the problem, with regard to
time i mean,
better never than late
***
for a long time i thought you were the imaginary
friend who keeps kids company on rainy days,
a shadow that follows children on their way to
school, tumbling down the slope of morning with
conviction just to painstakingly pick itself back up
around half-past four, when children have snack
and grown-ups speed home to hit the sack, fine,
and i tried to write to you on numerous occasions
without really knowing where to begin or what i
should tell you after this life worthy of abandon,
those centuries of silence that were really just a
few short minutes spent overthinking, suspenseful
minutes when hands vanished into thin air and i
desperately sought a table where i could finally
meet you, finally, that time i never knew how to
define since it isn’t much and, like you, evades
description
from time to time a good old time, in other
times just a pass-time, the light-dark
uncertainty that certain uncertain people call
springtime
for a long time i traveled in another child’s
locomotive, having found it ownerless on the
asphalt next to a hopscotch court, and though
i remorselessly claimed it was mine, i never
went anywhere since i was waiting for one last
passenger to arrive before setting off, in fact i’m
still waiting for him, he should be here any minute,
good lord, may that child forgive me for neglecting
the princely plaything i stole from him, stealing
useless things is a particularly striking gesture,
who would have guessed that a species like ours
would do such a thing, so there you have it, i
burned everything in the name of time, in other
words in the most impenetrable anonymity, yes,
without a name i let everything go to waste, but
that’s what kids do in their free time, let everything
go to waste, especially their time
they claim ownership of hot-air balloons instead
of going to school, smart cookies spared from
society as they feign illness and simply languish
by the skylight of a wall to poeticize the mediocrity
of the streets, refusing to go to school is the only
safe way to become a poet, but what would we
say if an adult did that, Monsieur, what would we
say if a tireless man in a tux was dispensed one fine
morning on the pretext of symptoms, with nothing
but his own four walls for protection, frozen before
a desert of gesticulating men in tuxes, all on his own,
disoriented with such quietude, a smoky dreamer
exiled from society,
dead poets society
what would we say about the poor man in a tux if
we found out by misfortune he’d deceived the
authorities with his prevarications, that he’d with-
drawn from the assemblies just to smoke his cigarette
and sip his coffee with the sovereign laziness of a true
veteran
the turmoil the error the indecision, the culprit that
is time, time wasted from being without you, for i
never had the courage to write to you, even if it was
such an obvious way to refuse to take action, even if
it was far too eloquent a language for my madness, it
is what it is, i am the worst kind of unpunctuation,
yes, the kind with an endless waiting period, that’s
my alibi, but you mustn’t believe that pretexts are
worth the science of truth, for in reality no one puts
pen to paper in fear they won’t be read, the problem
has just been articulated, yes, you would rather
remain silent than sit on the reflections heaped up in
your inner construction zone, after all, there is nothing
more shameful than reflecting, reconstructing, and
entering somewhere to ask for a table for one, nothing
more humiliating than asking for a table for one next
to all those people gathered together for a meal, even
though there’s no such thing as a table for one, for
there are always two chairs surrounding a table,
it’s a good thing for the one who pretends to
wait for the other,
but secretly sits at the table alone
Monsieur, it’s a good thing this solitude
pretends to be two,
for the one who waits for the other is naïve, but
the one who waits for nobody is a sickly loner, then
again what’s the use of hiding what everyone hides,
deep down those who wait for others know a thing or
two about the absent-minded little girl by the window,
and they too are well acquainted with tables for one
***
i think of you who are my people but never present,
that must be the true purpose of an empty chair,
to seat absentees,
offer them some tea,
and sit there in silence
and back we go to our coloring pages, we keep
them near us, right there, almost there, and forget
them as long as we can, but forgetting absentees
never lasts very long, for there comes a time when
you suddenly lift your head and in the unexpected
blink of an eye, with a somewhat foolish look burst-
ing out of nowhere, there comes a time when you
must verify the assiduity of the absentee who hasn’t
moved a single inch, still right in place on his empty
chair, drinking his tea, yes, despite our efforts to do
something else, we end up regaining our composure
just to ensure the punctuality of the other, he who stays
silent with us and shares a bit of this weakness, a bit
of this singular mediocrity, the unquantifiable almost-
nothing, a drop of the self above the immensity of a
cup of tea too hot to drink, merely decorative and
feigning the kinds of conversations people have over
a cup of tea, needless to say, much like dear god who
feigns existence, for at the end of the day, Monsieur,
what’s the difference between god and tea, it’s
the worst kind of silence,
the absentee still sits on his empty chair, thinking
about his own absentees, surely himself, too busy
coloring to consider the case of others, and that
very instant of the straightened face, the instant
distress that fascinates me as it transforms into a
presence of mind that should inexist, the sudden
awareness of the non-being, there you have it,
Monsieur, i am fascinated by this gesture that
never gives warning, the worst kind of gesture,
it shatters the reflex known as inattention and
silences self-abnegation by violently interrupting
the benevolence of negligence, the astonishing
virtues of waiting shattered in one fell swoop,
all that for an empty chair, forever unable to
liberate what seemed to be the other, all that
for what, for whom, i honestly have no clue,
for whom for what how should i put it, Monsieur,
just to submit an empty chair to the scrutiny of
a gaze that makes nothingness burst forth from
its abyss
***
i call you from my desert island, the absentees
sneak off and persistently write to avoid
completely disappearing, and i know this letter
is a bit long, Monsieur, yes, fine, admittedly,
sometimes i promise myself the last word,
come on, after all, must i bring this dictatorial
detour to a full stop, come on come on, let’s
make this word the last of them all, in any event,
here you will always have the last word, in all
innocence i’m trying to find a kind word to put
an end to my tyranny, rummaging through
childish rhymes as a way to defy destiny, i
know this letter is rather long, Monsieur,
but remember your advantage, you can
easily close these pages and go see what
else is out there while i, pitiful me, must
persistently write with no choice but to sit
tight, this is where we go our separate ways,
Monsieur, you can close the debate by escaping
my voice while i have no other option than
to correspond with the imaginary being that
you are as a way to brave my solitude, you
can silence me at any moment, and not even
chatterboxes have this aptitude, for unlike my
nonsense, your silence is truer to reality than
any exactitude
Translator’s Note:
Salomé Assor’s debut novel One is a meditation on the unexpected and often unacknowledged violence of solitude. A book that defies genres and conventions, One stands somewhere between prose, monologue, and poetry. The text is narrated by a young woman who sits “at a table for one” and addresses a mysterious “Monsieur”—a figure who embodies various notions, including unrequited love, the reader, and the persistent absence of the other. As a statement on the male gaze and masculinity, the narrative avoids uppercase letters except for the “M” of the word “Monsieur.” Composed of a single phrase punctuated by commas alone, the text challenges the notion of time and resists the constant threat of endings.
I was first drawn to One by Assor’s innovative uses of language. The book is full of wordplay, and Assor frequently pushes the boundary between literal and figurative meanings. In the first passage I’ve included, Assor uses the phrases “voler en éclats” and “tomber à pic,” which are woven into the image of taking the stage and “throwing yourself headlong into a sea of cacti.” The former expression, “voler en éclats,” carries the meaning of being smashed to pieces in both a literal and figurative sense. I chose to translate this as “getting ripped to shreds” to recreate the blurred boundary between literal and figurative meanings, as the expression is fitting for the physical action of “throwing yourself headlong into a sea of cacti” and the more abstract idea of an actor getting severely criticized by “an audience of cacti.”
The latter expression, “tomber à pic,” means “to come along at the right time” as an idiom. When taken as the verb “tomber” (to fall), followed by the phrase “à pic” (sharply/vertically/abruptly), however, it can refer to the physical act of falling steeply. I decided to translate this as “falling flat on your face” because it is consistent with the imagery of being on stage and possibly tripping and falling, as well as the potential scenario of having an embarrassing performance.
One of my favorite passages to translate was “i am the worst kind of unpunctuation, yes, the kind with an endless waiting period,” derived from “je suis une imponctuée de la pire espèce oui, de l’espèce la plus mal en point,” which roughly translates as: “i am an unpunctuated (person, female) of the worst kind yes, the kind in the worst shape.” “[I]mponctuée” comes from Assor combining the negating prefix “im” with the adjective “ponctué” (punctuated). I chose “unpunctuation” to reflect Assor’s usage of a word that doesn’t officially exist. “(Être) mal en point” as an expression means “to be in a bad way.” Taken literally, though, the phrase can also signify “to be bad at (using) periods,” since “point” is the word for “period.” By employing “waiting period,” which can convey a specified delay or a punctuation mark whose absence is among One’s defining features, I aimed to capture the original’s multivalence and honor the playfulness and creativity that first inspired me to translate Assor’s writing.
Born in Montreal, Salomé Assor studies philosophy at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Her debut novel, Un, was published in 2019 by the Montreal-based press Les Éditions Poètes de Brousse. Assor was recognized as one of Radio Canada’s 10 Young Writers to Watch in 2020. She is currently working on her second novel and has published work in La Revue Zinc and La Voix Sépharade.
Hannah Allen-Shim studies Comparative Literature, French, and Harp Performance at Oberlin College & Conservatory of Music. She is a former recipient of the Marandon Fellowship from the Société des Professeurs Français et Francophones des États-Unis and an alumna of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre. Her translations are forthcoming from Pamenar Online Magazine and Reunion: The Dallas Review’s monthly feature, Reunion Online.
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