This Translation Tuesday, we bring to you a work of metafiction from Brazilian writer Natalia Timerman’s collection, which was a finalist for the Jabuti Prize. In “A True Story,” a chance encounter with a man on the plane—her seat partner—leads to an intense connection mediated by the act of writing. Translated from the Portuguese by Meg Weeks, this story conveys the electric atmosphere of first meetings.
From the aisle of the plane I spotted row twenty-seven. I sat down in the middle seat. The seat by the window was already occupied by a young guy in a baseball cap, his attention focused on his phone. I was praying that no one would occupy the seat on my other side so I wouldn’t feel the need to make myself smaller, when a man, tall and blondish, his skin scarred by acne, approached.
He greeted me almost imperceptibly with his eyes and sat down on my left-hand side. Ok, patience. I took my book out of my bag, which I then placed below the seat in front of me, and opened it to the marked page, 174.
The man had large hands.
I tried to read but I couldn’t stop observing those hands moving to take a notebook and a pen out of a black backpack, also placed on the floor.
I looked surreptitiously at the man’s face. From my brief glance, he struck me as interesting. His lips were red and thick, his eyelashes long and pale. Handsome, almost.
I returned to my book, but the movements of the pen executed by those large hands gripped my attention. A man who writes. A man who writes in a notebook, seated next to me on a plane.
I adjusted myself in my seat to achieve an angle that would allow me to both read my book and peer at his notebook as well. I was about to begin deciphering the handwritten words when the plane began to move.
I closed my book and my eyes and adjusted myself again in my seat, this time to face forward. I get sick to my stomach when planes take off. I took care, however, to leave the cover of the Bolaño I was reading face-up.
Once the plane had achieved its cruising altitude, I opened my book again. The man was still writing . . . delicate hands, I was able to make out while I pretended to stretch. He fidgeted a bit in his seat and in the same movement, rested his notebook on the armrest between our seats. Ah, now it was easy to read what he was writing—which he didn’t stop doing, even momentarily—all I had to do was tilt my body diagonally towards him.
I read a bit of the Bolaño and then furtively peeked at what the man was writing next to me, so close that we were nearly touching. In truth, I alternated between reading what he wrote and reading my book so that he didn’t notice, or so that it seemed accidental, or even to convince myself that it was accidental, because I was being invasive, after all the notebook appeared to be a diary, its lined pages filled up with careless handwriting. But she sits as if hovering, or as if she were at home, at once light and whole, and it occurred to me that perhaps he was writing about me, a thought that left me both embarrassed and intrigued. No, it couldn’t be, would he really do that within my eyeshot? Without her knowing, imagining who this person could be, her black hair flowing, the sweet, subtle scent of shampoo that I can smell from here I have black, straight hair but how many other women do as well? Her crossed legs now uncross up until that point it could be a coincidence, but just in case I crossed my legs again and closed my book, I was becoming uncomfortable she moved again, she drew closer and closed her Savage Detectives and then I felt immobilized for several moments because on the entire plane I was certainly the only person reading that book, and it couldn’t be a mere coincidence that this character of his was reading the same thing as me. I briefly considered the range of possible reactions I could have, and then ducked down toward my bag, put away my book and grabbed my own notebook and a pen.
His pen hesitated for several moments at my side while I opened my notebook to the next blank page. I could see out of the corner of my eyes that he started to look my way but stopped short, an interrupted gesture, and I started to write:
The days offer up surprises, they begin and then they stray off course, she got her notebook and started writing next to me, From within the impossible absurdities that I entrap myself in, it is perhaps precisely because of their existence that I encounter possible absurdities like this one her handwriting is small and quick, words without edges, she writes much faster than I do (a winning lottery ticket, precious and rare, stolen by my glance at the expanse of his page that was blank just moments before, filled in by the gestures unfolding next to me) why do I put in parentheses the most important part? of all my books, the most complete character, the most embedded in her life, in the air, she and I
The flight attendant walked past offering beverages and snacks, the kid in the baseball cap accepted, but we both declined.
And all of a sudden two pens stitching together lines in real time, a smile offered up by the white space of the pages side by side flying in this smiling absurdity, what a beautiful smile that I see on half of her face and I, who can’t stop trying to read what he writes nor can I stop smiling at the situation of seeing myself rendered in flesh and blood, narrated by the imagination of a stranger last night I told a stranger all about you, adolescent woman with black hair and a sweet scent but I have to say that perhaps it would be wonderful to be an adolescent having experienced a thing or two, God, it is very difficult to write with someone likely reading but what things could you have possibly experienced if you have the levity of someone who doesn’t know about anything having a child and a job and many passions (well, that doesn’t exactly make me less of an adolescent) I mean if I tell you my name my age my life I love reading and writing and I am a literature teacher in Brasília I also love books but unfortunately I’m not surrounded by them as I would like to be, I came up with another life for myself in which I thought that I could make a home without knowing that it would be impossible to make a home anywhere but what is this other life that you came up with for yourself? if I tell you I’m afraid that the absurdity of this will be lost, that you write so decisively decisively? I feel as if words are failing me what questions can I ask you? I want to know about your life The right questions can be easily answered, but the wrong ones are so much better do you live in São Paulo or Brasília? A book that comes to life, the moment in which I see my fictional self being conjured up as real and vice-versa, line I also have a child, I live in Brasília, I am thirty-seven (almost like when I receive great pleasure I am unable to provide it myself) do you understand my handwriting? of course, it is as clear as the sky in which we fly And the passenger who was sleeping next to us could hardly know what was happening How old are you? Thirty-one What do you do for work? It was almost an escape, various voices narrating impossible moments that, nonetheless, offered up
He lifted his head and looked at me, smiling, embarrassed, in awe
I apologize for offering you
His gaze was insistent, forcing me to take my eyes of the page and look back at him, and after the first few moments—each of us holding onto our notebooks, our respective pens nearly panting from their efforts—in which we looked at each other not knowing how to traverse the distance between words written and those spoken, he began asking me the sort of things one could ask if nothing prior had happened between us.
The flight attendant passed by, picking up the leftovers.
I told him what I am, although I knew full well that the who of me was suspended in the words written on the page, and I found myself shrinking into my seat in order to proceed with our conversation.
If I could, I would have stopped him from lifting his gaze.
The plane started its descent and I excused myself because I get sick to my stomach, I turned to face forward and closed my eyes.
Ednei (he even told me his name) asked for my phone number, I gave him my email address but I never responded to the multiple messages he sent. In the arrivals hall of the airport, I waved from afar, turned around without waiting for his response, and never saw him again.
Translated from the Portuguese by Meg Weeks
Natalia Timerman is a Brazilian writer and psychiatrist with a medical degree from UNIFESP in São Paulo. Additionally, she holds a master’s degree in psychology and a doctorate in literature from the Universidade de São Paulo. She is the author of the non-fiction book Desterros (Elefante, 2017), which explores her time working in a prison hospital, the collection Rachaduras (Quelônio, 2019), a finalist for the Jabuti Prize in the short story category, and the novel Copo Vazio (Todavia, 2021), which was a finalist for the Candango Prize and will be adapted into a film. She writes a regular column for Uol, Brazil’s most popular news website.
Meg Weeks is a writer, translator, and Ph.D. candidate in Latin American history and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Harvard University. Her writing on art and politics has appeared in n+1, piauí, Artforum, Frieze, and Hyperallergic, and her translations of Brazilian fiction and non-fiction have been published by Two Lines, Adi, piauí, and Revista Rosa. Her translation of the memoir of Gabriela Leite, the founder of Brazil’s sex-worker movement, is forthcoming from Duke University Press.
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