to drive to Albuquerque tonight or wait for the storm
to pass—he’d wait to see what the conditions were like, once he got down the mountain.
In the Shijingshan district of Beijing, Wu Xiake leaned out the window of the men’s toilet and took one last drag on his cigarette
before flicking the butt into the river below. Some day, he half-expected to flick a cigarette butt into the Yongding and
watch the entire river catch fire, such was the level of pollutants and chemicals in the water. He’d gone to an illegal Website
one night and read a story about how the massive levels of pollution resulting from the recent Chinese economic revolution
were destroying the earth’s environment at a dramatic rate, and how Chinese pesticides entering the river traveled from there
to Bo Hai Bay and the Gulf of China and then the Yellow Sea and the Pacific Ocean and ended up in the Arctic Circle and ultimately
in the fatty tissues of polar bears, where they acted like artificial estrogens that were making the polar bears gay. Wu Xiake
had other things to worry about, besides gay polar bears.
He cursed, then returned to his cubicle. In the next cubicle, his friend Cui Chen was working on his desktop computer, moving
frame by frame through the first half of the new movie that had streamed in that afternoon over the Internet from their friends
in America, an action thriller starring Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman. At least this time, whoever had sneaked the digital
camera into the theater to copy the film had held the camera steady. The last film that Wu had worked on, the bootlegger had
coughed loudly every few minutes. Cui’s job was to translate the first half of the new film into Mandarin for subtitles. Wu’s
job was the translate the second half, but the Boss wanted it done overnight, and Wu had had very little sleep the night before.
If there was another job available to him, he’d take it, but at sixty-six years of age, who would take him? He’d once been
one of the top English-to-Mandarin dubbers in the business, the voice of actors ranging from Paul Newman to Curly of The Three
Stooges, with the best “nyuk nyuk nyuk” that anybody had ever heard, but now with DVDs, speed was of the essence, and nobody
wanted dubbers anymore. It was much faster to go with subtitles. Everything was so hurried. His knowledge of English had gotten
him this job, but he felt it was only a matter of time before the Boss got rid of him.
“Did you solve the problem?”
Cui asked him in Mandarin without looking up from his computer screen.
“I can’t do it. It is too idiomatic. I was thinking about it, but it makes no sense to me,”
Wu admitted.
“Tell me again what the lines are,”
Cui offered.
“Maybe I can help.”
“
Bruce Willis says to Uma Thurman,
‘You wouldn’t be the one waiting for Mr. Right, would you, because Mister Right left.’
And she says,
‘You look like Mister Wrong to me. Your mama must have done a number on you.’
And he says,
“If that’s what you want, I don’t want to be right,’
and she says,
‘You know what they say about two wrongs.’
And then he says,
‘You have the right to remain silent, but I haven’t met a woman yet who I couldn’t make scream.’”
“Scream?”
“Yes. Scream.”
“This makes no sense at all, Wu,”
Cui said.
“Who is screaming, and what is she screaming about? Is she in pain?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do they say about two wrongs?”
“Two wrongs are better than three but worse than one?”
“Possibly.”
“Just do the best you can,”
Cui said.
“Much of this is not knowable. If the Boss questions you, I will tell him you are right and he is wrong.”
Wu appreciated Cui’s offer of support, but he knew that if it came to where the Boss was going to be hard on them, Cui would
capitulate instantly. He sat down at his computer screen and typed in the best translation he could come up with in the time
given
to pass—he’d wait to see what the conditions were like, once he got down the mountain.
In the Shijingshan district of Beijing, Wu Xiake leaned out the window of the men’s toilet and took one last drag on his cigarette
before flicking the butt into the river below. Some day, he half-expected to flick a cigarette butt into the Yongding and
watch the entire river catch fire, such was the level of pollutants and chemicals in the water. He’d gone to an illegal Website
one night and read a story about how the massive levels of pollution resulting from the recent Chinese economic revolution
were destroying the earth’s environment at a dramatic rate, and how Chinese pesticides entering the river traveled from there
to Bo Hai Bay and the Gulf of China and then the Yellow Sea and the Pacific Ocean and ended up in the Arctic Circle and ultimately
in the fatty tissues of polar bears, where they acted like artificial estrogens that were making the polar bears gay. Wu Xiake
had other things to worry about, besides gay polar bears.
He cursed, then returned to his cubicle. In the next cubicle, his friend Cui Chen was working on his desktop computer, moving
frame by frame through the first half of the new movie that had streamed in that afternoon over the Internet from their friends
in America, an action thriller starring Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman. At least this time, whoever had sneaked the digital
camera into the theater to copy the film had held the camera steady. The last film that Wu had worked on, the bootlegger had
coughed loudly every few minutes. Cui’s job was to translate the first half of the new film into Mandarin for subtitles. Wu’s
job was the translate the second half, but the Boss wanted it done overnight, and Wu had had very little sleep the night before.
If there was another job available to him, he’d take it, but at sixty-six years of age, who would take him? He’d once been
one of the top English-to-Mandarin dubbers in the business, the voice of actors ranging from Paul Newman to Curly of The Three
Stooges, with the best “nyuk nyuk nyuk” that anybody had ever heard, but now with DVDs, speed was of the essence, and nobody
wanted dubbers anymore. It was much faster to go with subtitles. Everything was so hurried. His knowledge of English had gotten
him this job, but he felt it was only a matter of time before the Boss got rid of him.
“Did you solve the problem?”
Cui asked him in Mandarin without looking up from his computer screen.
“I can’t do it. It is too idiomatic. I was thinking about it, but it makes no sense to me,”
Wu admitted.
“Tell me again what the lines are,”
Cui offered.
“Maybe I can help.”
“
Bruce Willis says to Uma Thurman,
‘You wouldn’t be the one waiting for Mr. Right, would you, because Mister Right left.’
And she says,
‘You look like Mister Wrong to me. Your mama must have done a number on you.’
And he says,
“If that’s what you want, I don’t want to be right,’
and she says,
‘You know what they say about two wrongs.’
And then he says,
‘You have the right to remain silent, but I haven’t met a woman yet who I couldn’t make scream.’”
“Scream?”
“Yes. Scream.”
“This makes no sense at all, Wu,”
Cui said.
“Who is screaming, and what is she screaming about? Is she in pain?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do they say about two wrongs?”
“Two wrongs are better than three but worse than one?”
“Possibly.”
“Just do the best you can,”
Cui said.
“Much of this is not knowable. If the Boss questions you, I will tell him you are right and he is wrong.”
Wu appreciated Cui’s offer of support, but he knew that if it came to where the Boss was going to be hard on them, Cui would
capitulate instantly. He sat down at his computer screen and typed in the best translation he could come up with in the time
given
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