Read Translated Accounts Online
Authors: James Kelman
Translated Accounts
TRANSLATED ACCOUNTS
Also by James Kelman
‘And the Judges Said . . .’ Essays
The Burn
The Busconductor Hines
A Chancer
The Good Times
Greyhound for Breakfast
Not not while the giro
An Old Pub Near the Angel
This eBook edition published in 2012 by
Birlinn Limited
West Newington House
Newington Road
Edinburgh
EH9 1QS
www.birlinn.co.uk
First published in 2001 by Secker & Warburg
This edition published in 2009 by Polygon,
an imprint of Birlinn Ltd
Copyright © James Kelman, 2001
The moral right of James Kelman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-84697-056-6
eBook ISBN: 978-0-85790-149-1
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Foreword to the New Edition
I was glad to proof this new edition of
Translated Accounts
. It allowed me to perform an editorial. If writers get the chance they must take it. I thank the publishers
and editorial team for allowing the chance. I thank also the typsetting team for respecting the work.
James Kelman
Preface
These “translated accounts” are by three, four or more individuals domiciled in an occupied territory or land where a form of martial law appears in operation.
Narrations of incidents and events are included; also reports, letter-fragments, states-of-mind and abstracts of interviews, some confessional. While all are “first hand” they have been
transcribed and/or translated into English, not always by persons native to the tongue. In a very few cases translations have been modified by someone of a more senior office. The work was carried
out prior to posting into the computing systems. If editorial control has been exercised evidence suggests inefficiency rather than design, whether wilful or otherwise. This is indicated by the
retention of account Number 5 in the form it emerged from computative mediation. A disciplined arrangement of the accounts has been undertaken. Some arrived with titles already in place; others had
none and were so assigned. Chronology is important but not to an over-riding extent; variable ordering motions are integral to the process of mediation that occurs within computing systems and
other factors were taken into consideration. It is confirmed that these accounts are by three, four or more anonymous individuals of a people whose identity is not available.
Contents
10
“lecture, re sensitive periods”
12
“I do not go to his country”
25
“history must exist for colleagues”
33
“there was no other possibility”
45
“letter to widow, unfinished”
“bodies”
There were bodies strewn throughout the building. I had to reach other rooms and it was so very difficult to walk, having to step over them, and it was so very dark the shapes
hardly visible, whether any of these were familiar I could not say, could not stop, but had to reach this one individual,
acquaintance, this man who was closer to enemy than friend, I was to save him. But perhaps he preferred not so to be saved, that I should leave him to die. I could not help him in that. I would
do as so determined, only that. I was representative.
I considered the time, what time? When was it? I now saw him and my immediate thought was, No, he never was my friend. Did they say that he was? They lied, as he also, he was a liar, this man. I
knew him as a liar and it came to me this was a progression. We progress. I also would progress. A comfort came from this. I again was aware of the bodies but as in a dream, or dream-like, my own
state. One by my feet, a woman. She had been dead for many years but her face and kind were familiar. If I had known her, her family, I thought I had done so, thus her sister now into my thoughts,
what of her, who was to become my lover. How could it be? Niece, granddaughter. She too lived by the bridge. It was far to the harbour, north-east of there, and a river also there, families lived
by it. It was an encampment, when in transit, they made a dwelling of that place, evil place, some said so. I knew dripping water, sewage, the dampness into our bones, and cold, of course cold.
Whose head is with the children? Who said that the children always are in discomfort, someone did say it.
Dreams, not nightmares. I would have had nightmares. I did not shirk. I do not. Her sister was a woman of strength. There is that strength. I could speak of this, and at an earlier time. Women
came from here. I knew them. She was taller. She met me that morning, early, it was cold and the dampness, chilling. We came from our section. I said of the bodies, how securitys came, gripping
their rifle weapons, herding us. We knew they had knocked the brains out of the heads of children and said so. Yes, if it was so, we said it. And they asked us things, certainly they did so. And
saw in us our contempt, that we could not hide and could not, could not hide it, they were asking myself, had I found this man?
What man?
You know.
I know. No, I said, I do not know, if it is his body, is it his head, and if it is so it is not now recognisable, if it is one of those. Who it is, whom do you speak? There is the group, see the
group, and I pointed to the main group.
I was not boastful. I told them I did not know why this building was a home but that it was and I was going through there and could not step but for bodies, everywhere. Now I see, yes, that I
recognised many among them, friends yes intimates, intimates. I said it, familiars. I said that they were. If misrepresentation, there has been so, I have been exhausted and the times, evil. For
they herded us. I am not an animal. Some may be, I am not. We make decisions, each among us. I told them too about the woman but that she had been dead for many years. One stepped to me and said, I
too have read these stories. These times were evil, men severed from sisters, daughters, rapacious.
Yes rapacious, I know the word.
But not me, I would not be trapped. This was a dream. Yes I saw the bodies. Yes I did know many of them. Of course not all, I did not say all. I could not have said all for this was not reality
that it was all, I could not have said this but had it been reality, holding to be true, if so it had been then I would not shirk, not from it, truth, why should we, shirking from it.
I could say if this was reality. It is over. No charges were laid against me.
I came to that building, house or home to many and inside were the bodies. I went to another and this was a man who was the son of a man. He had been insolent, had not the wit to grasp of
security how serious a business it had become and I said to his father what had happened to him. They killed him. He knew it.
The mist clung to us, we were herded, the chill, children. Yes we had heard the stories. I knew the stories, if one does not, who it is. There were the women here, these women were strong and of
course stronger than the men as is said in their manner. It is to be remembered of our section and that encampment how at that time, feeling that those who dwell there cannot survive this other
winter. I cannot, each of us thinking it.
And so we continued, I also. I was not a fantasist as many were among us. I saw former acquaintances, colleagues, who themselves were dead, now with these bodies, others alive, seeing them on
the streets there, if I can say streets. I could say friends if it were true. They were no friends.
I was to recover him. He preferred that I leave him to die. I could not save such a man if the judgment was my own but it was not, this course was determined. What I could do, nothing. My regret
also nothing, I regret nothing, nothing. This was a dream, not a nightmare. These were evil times, they say, now is not like then. But no matter that they say this it is not so, and those of us who
then were we know it is not so. I could not save him. Those days were at an end.
“the elderly woman died”
The woman discovered early on the road, I know who she was. When she was living I visited her. I would talk and she would lie back on her pillows and listen not listen. My talk
was stories, they followed patterns and within the pattern was space for dreams, her dreams my dreams, as of weaving, the story-web, spiders. She stared at the ceiling as though her attention
wandered but also as to settle herself that she might concentrate. She wished me there as long as possible. But her gaze could shift to the window, was it open or closed. Had they, previous
visitors, neglected to lock up afterwards. She believed some had methods of tormenting her. These visitors might not lock the door, the window, allowing the devils to enter from beyond. This was
such a method. She trusted no one. I would say to her, Look, your window is closed. She was pretending not to hear. But look! and stepping across I pushed and pulled, the window not shifting. See,
no one is playing tricks, this window cannot be shifted but by explosives, greater explosives.
She did not believe it. I would see agitation in her. I could not be trusted. In her eyes I saw it, she mocked at me, the spirit of me, hiding within me, it was a devil, spirit of a devil, a
demon. Or if I was so speaking she might turn from me and to the wall, remaining silent, staying that way and I wondered if she was sleeping.