The day after Nancy and Jack left, Joe typed at home while Angela was there. He kept his door closed. After she left, he gathered up all his papers and rode down to the USIS Library to work on the rest of the last batch of letters. The heat of the day only began to ease as he made his way through the afternoon rush hour. Continue reading
“Thanks, operator, I have it.” Jack hung up and wrote down the number. Then he dialled the hotel operator and asked for another international line. He listened patiently as the switches closed in Cologne, Hamburg, London, Shannon and New York. Electricity flowing over the continents and under the Atlantic. Continue reading
The next week, Nancy had to go to Cologne for meetings with Smithson’s German subsidiary. Joe felt relieved. Jack Arland was going, too, which meant he could work late on the translations without having to come home or go back after Angela left. The USIS Library closed at 10 pm. Continue reading
Tuesday morning, Joe stayed home. He called Jack Arland and made an appointment to meet the next day after lunch. He spent the rest of the morning carefully proof-reading all his work. He marked up so much, that he decided to type up what he could. Continue reading
Joe looked around the library to see if anyone was interested in him. The librarian was shelving books on the other side of the large room. A college student was sleeping head down on a thick book two tables away. A gray-haired pensioner sat in one of the armchairs with his back to Joe, reading the International Herald Tribune. Continue reading
After lunch with Angela, he collected his knapsack and rode down to the USIS Library to work on the Arland papers. He had been excited to deliver his first book translation, but now he felt a different excitement – and a great anxiousness to jump back into the complex mess of papers that had challenged him so hard. Continue reading
Monday morning, Nancy went to work. Joe cleaned up breakfast. Then he laid out his draft of the del Piave book on the dining room table. He put a Beatles record on the phonograph and sat down to correct the draft. The book was much simpler than the letters and articles he had been working on, and he adjusted the style to be less stuffy than the Italian text. Continue reading
