Interpreter Mahesh
Thakur Kharel
USA
“Beep, Beep” Mahesh’s deep sleep is broken by an alarm in the early morning. His sleep gets disrupted by the continuous alarm. Half awake, Mahesh reaches out for his phone on the nightstand next to his bed and pulls his phone out. He squints as he looks at his screen. It is 8 am and getting up so early wasn’t anything effortless. Having worked as a General Laborer the night before, and having taken up some mandatory overtime, his body was extremely tired.
“I am not going to wake up this early,” Mahesh thinks, as he adjusts his pillow and tosses his body over.
Five minutes later, the snooze timer is over, and the alarm goes off again. “Mahesh !! Mahesh !! Get up now,” he hears his mother yell as she is knocking on his door. Despite his exhaustion and desire for more sleep, he has to accompany his mother to an appointment with her doctor today and he knows that if she misses this it would be months before she could get another.
Mahesh clumsily walks into the bathroom and cleans up. With the keys on his hands, he stretches his body and gets to the main entrance of his house. His mother is ready and waiting for him. The appointment is at 9 am, and it takes 20 minutes to get there, and they need to spare 15 minutes to check-in.
“Have you carried your insurance card, state ID?” Mahesh hastily asks.
“Yes, I have carried everything,” she responds.
After having checked into the doctor’s office, Mahesh grabs a chair. His mother follows suit as she observes the various faces that walk about in the lobby. After ten minutes, the nurse yells, “Tika Timsina!”
As his mother shakes him, he wakes up saying, “I was just leaning on the chair, and I fell asleep.” He explains before his mother could ask him why he was asleep.
The nurse checks his mother’s height and weight and takes them to a room. There, her blood pressure and pulse are checked.
“How is the blood pressure?” Mahesh asks the nurse.
“Normal.”
The nurse’s face looks like the sky gloomed with clouds. She doesn’t greet her patients. Mahesh assumes that she is not so outspoken by nature. His mom guesses something from her face.
The nurse with the same clouded face asks, “What is the reason for this visit?”
Looking at her face, Mahesh says, “Physical check-up.”
The nurse records that in her notes.
“The doctor will be here shortly,” the nurse says as she hastily walks out of the room.
“Can you expect a nurse at the doctor’s to be so gloomy before her patients?”
“Mom, some people are just like that. And some Americans do not open up in the first meeting and as you get to know them, they will get friendly,” Mahesh replies. He hesitantly adds, “It’s their personal way. Excuse me, I want to withdraw words uttered earlier. Not only the Americans, but other nationals do not open up either with the unfamiliar faces.
“How can you be a nurse without even talking nicely with your patients? Are they putting up a facade when they are serious about the patients’ issues? I don’t know about other nurses but, this one seemed really pretentious- she did’ t even smile once at me,” Mahesh’s mom begins making her opinions about the nurse.
He agrees.
Amid his mother’s complaints, Mahesh thinks to himself, “The nurse had said that the doctor would be here shortly. What did she mean by that? Ten minutes, 20 minutes maybe half an hour?”
He slowly starts to doze off.
After half an hour, there is a knock on the door.
“Come in” Mahesh answers as a tall doctor with a big smile on his face walks in.
“Hello! I am Steve Miller,” the doctor greets Mahesh.
“Mahesh Timsina,” he replies.
The doctor drops his first question,” Do you speak any English?”
“I do!” Mahesh replies.
Mahesh is relieved that he was able to learn the language but, is tired and doesn’t want to interpret so immediately continues and says, “But I don’t want to be your interpreter, doctor.”
“If you do it, it will be easy for me,” the doctor responds.
Mahesh is faced with a dilemma as he is tired and doesn’t know how long it’ll be before an on-call phone interpreter is available. After contemplating this, Mahesh says “Okay.” He is now is his mother’s and her doctor’s interpreter.
“Tika, what brings you here?” The doctor asks.
“It feels like there is an accumulation of gas in my stomach, so I came for a check-up,” Mahesh’s mother responds in Nepali.
“Formation of Gas in stomach, so I came to check,” Mahesh translates as the doctor looks towards his patient.
“Is she pregnant?” the doctor asks.
Mahesh smiles a little as it is a bit difficult this question for him to ask his mother. He struggles to come up with a translation for his mother.
Turning her eyes to Mahesh she says, “What is the doctor saying?”
Mahesh comes to know that this single question has blown his fatigue and drowsiness away.
“No, she is not,” Mahesh responds, trying to ignore his mother’s question.
“Any family disease?” the doctor asks.
Mahesh turning to his mother asks the same question in Nepali.
“Yes, your dad has diabetes,” his mother responds at a blink.
“Yes, diabetes,” Mahesh responds to the doctor.
“Type A or Type B? Meaning if he was born with it, it is Type A and if he had it later, its Type B,” the doctor explains.
Mahesh’s mother stammering answers, “It was all good in Nepal, and it came after coming to America.”
Turning towards Dr. Miller Mahesh responds, “Type 2 diabetes.”
He is now glad that he speaks English.
“Lay down Tika,” the doctor asks Mahesh’s mother.
Mahesh instructs his mother to do so. Mahesh is happy and calm as he feels that these instructions are easy to interpret.
Pressing on the right side of Mahesh’s mother’s stomach, the doctor says, “Any pain?”
Looking at his mother, Mahesh asks her the same question.
“No,” Mahesh’s mother responds.
“Okay, he will check the left side now,” Mahesh informs his mother.
Hearing his mother’s faint answer, “A little bit.”
Dr. Miller turns to his laptop and informs that she can sit up now.
Mahesh’s mother sits up and looks towards the doctor.
“You said she is not pregnant, right?” the doctor asks.
“Here we go again…” Mahesh thinks to himself and hastily responds, “Yes…sir” making sure that his mother doesn’t get the gist of the conversation and wonder what the doctor is asking as his mother alternates between staring at Mahesh and Dr. Miller.
“Is she using birth control?” Dr. Miller continues his questions.
“How can a son ask his mother questions like these? These are questions a doctor asks his patients, not a son to his mother” Mahesh wonders, feeling burdened by the shame of not being able to talk about this topic.
“Damn, knowing English is very hard,” he thinks to himself.
“Why have you stopped asking me anything?” his mother questions him.
“I have no idea,” Mahesh responds to the doctor, ignoring his mother’s question.
In deep thoughts, Mahesh thinks to himself, “There was a time in college where I would cram summaries of Fitzgerald’s, Shakespeare’s and Gorky’s works but knowing English really isn’t everything.”
Having gotten an unexpected answer, Dr. Miller looks at Mahesh as if he had just said the dumbest thing in the world. Mahesh, on the other hand, looks at Dr. Miller with tired eyes that speak volumes of his discomfort in having to talk about this concept.
“How am I going to ask her if she is using birth control?” Mahesh wonders, as he dwells deeper and deeper into his thoughts.
“Ask her,” Dr. Miller says, with a hint of firmness in his face and his voice.
Mahesh is angry having to face a doctor who doesn’t understand his dilemma and a Mother who doesn’t understand the doctor’s language. He lowers his head in shame, thinking about how the family member should never be an interpreter as it is a pain to have to ask questions like these.
“Why did you stop?” Mahesh’s mother asks him.
Garnering all the courage that he can, Mahesh tells the doctor, “She is a patient to you but, she is my mother. I had already told you that I wouldn’t interpret.”
“Oh …. God!” Dr. Miller responds with a smirk in his face.
“You saw my English abilities, and I was in a dilemma, I am only here out of necessity,” Mahesh stammers.
“Sorry…So sorry Dear,” Dr. Miller responds as he dials the phone interpreter.
“Why is the doctor dialling the phone?” Mahesh’s mother asks as she taps him.
“Wait a minute,” Mahesh responds trying to avoid looking at his mother to hide his embarrassment.
“What language?” Dr. Miller interrupts.
“Nepali,” Mahesh hastily responds.
The phone connects and before Dr. Miller and his mother could start talking, Mahesh like a deer escaping from a trap, bolts out of the room and makes his way into the waiting area.
“I escaped a huge problem,” Mahesh thinks to himself as he takes a long breath and grabs the same chair he was dozing on before.
Editor’s Note: Translated into English by Thakur Kharel, the story was written in Nepali by JN Dahal and was published in our Tenth Anniversary Special Issue.