He has a peasant's face, built by everything the earth has thrown up and the sky sent down. He sits in his thatch-roofed hut and watches. His mouth is open, his teeth are rotting. He sits on the edge of the hut, on the edge of the ravine.
But our civilisations have existed for much longer. Our pasts consist of several thousand years of time, space, language and everyday practice---much richer than the history and culture of nation states.
There is a nation-state of the novel, the English language novel.
We always meet in America or Europe, never directly, never.
What actually rises and falls--a conversation.
To make space, enough so that question and answer do not have to be related.
The young man who records is truly a recorder. Nothing breaks his vigilant silence.
The interpreter is exactly his opposite. Every word passes through her.