El Árbol | The Tree

El Árbol
The Tree
by Mónica Lavín
Translated by Patricia Dubrava
Illustrations by María Perujo

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF | LynleyShimat Lys
CO-EDITOR | Sáshily Kling
CO-EDITOR | Tina Togafau
CO-EDITOR | Marley Aiu
CO-EDITOR | Jimi Coloma
CHAPBOOK EDITOR | LynleyShimat Lys
ADMINISTRATIVE & TECHNICAL SUPPORT
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Student Media Board
Mahalo nui loa to Sandy Matsui for guidance!
Hawaiʻi Review logo by Bryce Watanabe
Hawaiʻi Review is a publication of the Student Media Board
of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. A bold, student-run
journal, H\R reflects the views of its editors and contributors,
who are solely responsible for its content. Hawaiʻi Review
is a member of the Coordinating Council of Literary
Magazines and is indexed by the Humanities International
Index, the Index of American Periodical Verse, Writer’s
Market, and Poet’s Market.
CONTACT: hawaiireview@gmail.com
SUBMIT: hawaiireview.org
Copyright 2018 by Board of Publications
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
ISSN: 0093-9625

El Árbol | The Tree
Table of Contents
The Tree | 5
El Árbol | 17
––––
Author’s Note | 26
Translator’s Note | 29

As it happens, sleep is interrupted in
various ways. Sometimes by dreams, sometimes
by noises that penetrate consciousness enough to
open our eyelids. Lola woke because she thought
she heard something unusual. Finding herself
sitting up in bed, she stayed still, as if the rustle
of her own movements would overshadow the
sound that had startled her awake. She stared
attentively into the darkness of the room, but
the noise didn’t repeat. Looking at her husband’s
head on the pillow, she envied his soft, deep-sleep
breathing. Lola did not want to share this oddity
with him.
It was impossible to go back to sleep
without seeking some explanation, so she got up.
Groping in the darkness until she felt the plush
texture of her robe, she put it on and went quietly
to the children’s room. She only hovered at the
doorway. It had happened before, especially when
they had a fever or the flu, that a sudden fear
woke her and she went to check on them, to peer
into their little faces and cup her hand over their
noses to feel the exhalation of their breath. They
were alive. Now she went down the hall barefoot
and scanned the living and dining rooms. The
bare windows allowed the light of night to enter
unobstructed; even so she flipped the switch to
verify that things were in their place and there
were no unexpected shadows. She’d always been
afraid to turn on or shut off lights, because then
7

the intruder—if there were one—would know
that someone had become aware of him. But
this time she looked calmly at the large armchair,
the smaller one, the bookshelf in the back, the
table and chairs, the china cabinet. All quiet. Her
breathing began to slow down. And no further
sound confirmed that what she’d heard while she
slept had even happened. Could a connection
in the brain make noise, a snap of chemical
transmitters be heard? What happened with those
surprised by a blood clot that abruptly altered
their faculties? Did they hear something moments
before the fatal event?
Confirming that the rooms were in
order gave her pleasure. It was like spying
unannounced on her own home to prove she
was capable of maintaining a certain state of
things. For example, that they’d been able to
pay the rent for a comfortable place, especially
with the quantity of windows that opened on
others’ gardens, giving the illusion of possessing
them; that they’d furnished and decorated it and,
moreover, kept it clean and neat. The kitchen
faced the street. She went into it thinking the
casserole could have slipped off the drain basket
at the sink. Sometimes she piled dishes without
putting them away. Especially at night, when she
wanted to watch a movie with her husband, when
the children had already been lulled to sleep
with a story and she had covered them and shut
8

off the light that she kept lit until then, because
the oldest asked for it. The kitchen was in order
and all was so quiet that it seemed as if she were
alone in the house; only the profusion of glasses
in the drain basket gave evidence that she lived
with her family. And strangely, that sudden,
disturbed waking, the resultant inspection of the
rooms in silence, allowed that slice of the night
to belong to her. One inhabited nights by offering
sleep as a gift to darkness. But this night was hers,
like when she was a teenager and the excitement
of the day just concluded made her find her
notebook in the chest of drawers and review the
look of the boy she liked and what he had said
(which she already couldn’t remember and even
less write with exactness). She approximated and
exaggerated the scene, but it was satisfying to
replay it and feel again the hand that took hers
in the movie theatre. Sleep was a hindrance that
made her forget the warm and naughty sensation
of complicity. She also remembered a time when
she was leaving home for several months and
spent the night before departure in the living
room, thinking about her home, her parents,
her siblings, her city. She was saying goodbye.
Or how when suddenly in the night she brushed
against her husband’s body and his smoothness
and smell, his solidity, woke her desire to violate
that, to demand an answer to her midnight
appetite. Exceptions.
9

This night seemed to have a border, a dark
edge separating it from the light that announced
night’s passing each morning. She heard a car
squealing to a stop. The sound returned her
to her task. It was difficult to see through the
kitchen window because the sink was in the
way. She went to the bathroom to look out to
the street, shut off the light she’d turned on in
order to see better what had happened outside.
The night seemed unusually dark, except for the
red taillights of the car that blinked in front of
her house like an animal in danger. She went
downstairs and opened the door to the wrought
iron enclosed carport. She saw the car reverse,
turn to go back the way it came and disappear.
The streetlight was out. Again alone with the
night, she now knew there was a connection
between the braking car and the noise that
had awakened her. Because the street seemed
impenetrable, she looked then toward the carport
and discovered a dark mass behind her car, as
if the night had stained it with ink. She eased
her way around the car, couldn’t see the cement
floor, but discerned an additional blackness, an
uncomfortable presence. Once close enough,
she was astonished to see the leafy branch of
a tree thrust through the bars of the grille and
lying inside the carport. She touched a branch,
ran her gaze over that giant jumble of branches
straining between the bars, as if the tree were
10

egging. Walking with care toward the latticed
wall, avoiding branches, she felt the cold of the
cement through the soles of her feet. Finally she
understood. The main trunk of the tree blocked
the street. It had fallen from the front sidewalk
and sliced through the bars to its full length,
landing nearly across the carport. A bit taller and
it would have crashed into the house’s windows.
Lola made out the wires on the sidewalk behind
the carport; the tree had taken out the streetlight
and twisted the pole to the right. Then she felt
afraid of that live electricity running near her
feet, from which there could be a spark to catch
the tree on fire. Like many in the city, it was an
ash and her street was full of trees, being an old
neighborhood, but nobody thought that one of
them would collapse in the middle of the night—
fortunately, because it could have crushed cars,
people, her and her children leaving the house.
She retreated from the metal bars and took shelter
under the eaves of the house, close to the top
of the highest branches that now lay at her feet.
She should go wake her husband, so he could
see what had happened, a tree spread across the
carport, a tree lying across the street. She also
ought to call the police or fire department—who
do you call in such a case? Not only were the
wires a danger, but a car could collide with that
unexpected trunk on the darkened street. But she
didn’t do any of it, sat on the curb that bordered
11

the garage and stayed silent. The night and that
fallen tree still belonged to her. The tree was
at her feet; she contemplated its destiny with
sadness. She’d been invited to the mourning. And
she appreciated that there weren’t condolences or
volunteers who wanted to cut it into pieces, divert
the traffic, extract each of the branches embedded
in the metal. At least not yet. Like when Olga
Knipper, Chekhov’s wife, wanted to spent the
night with her dead husband in Badenweiler
before telling anyone else. Lola read that in a
magazine in her gynecologist’s waiting room.
It was a story by a certain Raymond Carver.
Although it treated Chekhov’s death, it was about
the suffering of the actress he’d married four
years before and about the waiter who that night
had brought them three glasses of champagne. It
was about the unexpected and grief. Like Olga
Knipper, she wanted to spend time alone with the
fallen tree that wasn’t even hers, or perhaps was
hers because she saw it from the kitchen window
daily although she ignored it; it was just there,
stable and firm. Like the house where she lived
as a girl or her father’s office where she went to
visit him so often; like her parents’ marriage,
fixed as a scene in a film that one day rips. She
thought of the days when she opened the door
to enter the house after school and the world was
that house with its garden, immovable, rooted
like a mountain. And the set table awaited them
12

to hear the stories of their mornings between the
clatter of cutlery and tortilla-wrapped meatballs.
It was absurd to be thinking of meatballs and
the cook who had fallen ill when she stopped
working for them. That story of the solitary
grieving of Knipper with the dead writer in the
room, close and still warm, was different from
Carver’s other stories, as she discovered when
she found his books. Although not completely,
because the writer knew how to put the accent
on silence. And she enjoyed reading him for that.
It seemed as if nothing happened between the
Morgan and Myers and Webster and Stone, and
what happened was exposure, fragility, solitude.
This fallen tree had arrived to upset the course
of the night, to caress her legs with the tender
leaves of its crown. She thought of her sleeping
children and how, when she read that story about
the death of Chekhov they did not exist nor
were even a possibility. She had just met the one
who would be their father and still didn’t have to
organize a domestic world. She ran her eyes over
the dark branches and made out a shape, thought
with horror of a rat. But rats don’t climb into
trees; besides it was a still shape. A dead bird?
Not long ago she had seen one under the terrace
window; it seemed to have been dashed against
the glass, killed by the illusion of transparency.
It wasn’t just any death. She picked it up in a
newspaper because she didn’t want to feel its
13

temperature, to know if it was recent or cold from
the hours since it had died. She leaned over the
branch and made out the nest. If she had been
someone who worried about animals and didn’t
go around thinking to possess the night for a
time, she might have taken the nest of twigs and
carried it to the terrace so the little eggs it surely
held would survive if the mother found them
before the squirrels did. Staring fixedly, she tried
to decipher the contents of the nest. She felt the
wind of dawn rising and the first clarity start to
lift the curtain of night.
It was time to go back inside. She heard
a patrol car; someone had done the right thing
and called. Looking for the last time at the bulk
of the uprooted tree, she imagined the increased
light its absence would create in the kitchen
window. That would be all that remained of that
ash: a gap as memory of its shade. She closed
the door behind her, and before getting back in
bed next to her husband’s placid sleep, went into
the children’s room and cupped her palm to feel
the vapor of their breath. Calmed, she went to
her bedroom. Tomorrow they would find out
what happened. She would pretend surprise. She
wouldn’t tell them that she was there, seated in
the silence of the night, attending the wake. She
would not mention that the night had been hers.
14

15

16

El árbol
Ocurre que el sueño se interrumpe por diferentes
razones. Algunas provienen del pensamiento,
otras de los ruidos que traspasan nuestros
párpados. Ambas son inciertas y difusas.
Lola se despertó porque creyó advertir un
ruido inesperado. Se sentó en la cama y se
quedó muda, como si el sonido de sus propios
movimientos fuese a opacar aquella señal que la
sobresaltó. Permaneció con la mirada atenta en
la oscuridad de la habitación, pero el ruido no se
repitió. Miró a su marido sobre la almohada, le
envidió la respiración dulce del sueño profundo.
No quiso compartirle esa extrañeza.
Se puso de pie porque resultaba imposible
vencerse sobre el colchón sin explicación alguna.
Tanteó en la oscuridad hasta reconocer la textura
felpuda de su bata. Se la ató al cuerpo y siguió
despacio al cuarto de los niños. Asomó tan sólo
por el quicio de la puerta. Ya le había sucedido
que algún temor inesperado, sobre todo cuando
tenían fiebre o estaban mal del estómago, la
llevaba a espiarlos de noche, a acercarse a sus
pequeños rostros y colocar su mano sobre la
nariz para sentir el alivio de su respiración.
Estaban vivos. Siguió por el pasillo descalza
y oteó la sala y el comedor a la derecha. La
ausencia de cortinas permitía que la luz de la
noche entrara rotunda; aun así dio al apagador
17

para verificar que las cosas estuvieran en su lugar
y que no hubiera sombras inesperadas. Siempre
que tenía miedo prendía y apagaba la luz para
que el intruso —si acaso lo hubiera— supiera
que alguien había advertido sus intenciones.
Pero ahora miraba sin miedo el sillón largo, el
más corto, los libros al fondo, la mesa rodeada
de sillas a la entrada, el trastero. Todo quieto.
Su propia respiración comenzaba a aquietarse.
Y ningún ruido confirmaba que lo que hubiera
escuchado antes mientras dormía fuera cierto.
¿Sería posible que una conexión del cerebro
hiciera ruido, que un chasquido de los
transmisores químicos se pudiera escuchar? ¿Qué
pasaba con quienes eran sorprendidos por un
tapón de sangre que cambiaba bruscamente sus
facultades? ¿Escuchaban algo momentos antes de
la fatalidad?
Confirmar que la sala estaba en orden le
dio gusto. Era como espiar su casa a deshoras
para comprobar que era capaz de mantener
cierto estado de las cosas, que habían podido
pagar la renta de un lugar grato (sobre todo
por la cantidad de ventanas que se abrían a los
jardines de las otras casas dándoles la ilusión de
poseerlos); amueblarlo y vestirlo de los objetos
de uno y otro, y encima que estuviera limpio y
recogido. Entró a la cocina que daba a la calle
pensando que una cacerola podía haber resbalado
del escurridor al fregadero; a veces las apilaba sin
18

guardarlas. Sobre todo por las noches, cuando
quería ver una película en la televisión con su
marido, cuando los niños ya habían sido
arrullados con un cuento y los había arropado y
apagado la luz que mantenía encendida, porque
así lo pedía el mayor. La cocina estaba en orden
y todo tan quieto que parecía que ella habitara
sola esa casa; nada más la abundancia de vasos
escurriendo permitía saber que ella vivía
acompañada por su familia. Y extrañamente ese
despertar súbito e inquieto, conforme recorría la
casa en el silencio, permitía que esa hora de la
casa, esa tajada de la noche, le perteneciera. Uno
habitaba las noches brindando el sueño como
ofrenda a la oscuridad. Pero esta noche era suya,
como cuando de adolescente la excitación del día
transcurrido la hacía buscar su libreta en el buró
y repasar la mirada del chico que le gustaba, y lo
que le había dicho (que ya no lo podía recordar
y menos escribir con exactitud). Describía la
escena y la exageraba, pero le satisfacía transitar
por ella de nuevo y sentir la mano que atrapaba
la suya en el cine. El sueño era un estorbo porque
hacía olvidar la sensación cálida y traviesa de la
complicidad. También recordó cuando se fue por
varios meses de su casa y pasó la noche anterior
a la partida en la sala, pensando en su casa, en
sus padres, en sus hermanos, en la ciudad. Se
despedía. O como cuando de pronto en la noche
se topaba con el cuerpo de su marido y su tersura
19

y su olor, y su consistencia despertaba su deseo
de violentarlo, de exigir la respuesta a su apetito
de medianoche. Excepciones. La noche de hoy
parecía tener un borde, una frontera distinta a
la de la luz del sol que anunciaba su en cada
mañana. Escuchó un auto frenar con fuerza. Y el
sonido la devolvió a su tarea. Era difícil mirar
por la cocina porque el fregadero estorbaba. Se
dirigió al baño para ver hacia la calle. Apagó la
luz que había encendido para poder distinguir
mejor lo que sucedía afuera. La noche le pareció
inusualmente oscura, salvo por las luces rojas
del auto que parpadeaban frente a su casa como
animal en peligro. Echó a andar escaleras abajo y
abrió la puerta que daba al garaje enrejado.
Distinguió al auto que se echaba en reversa,
maniobraba para tomar calle arriba y se alejaba.
No había luz en el poste. Volvía a estar con la
noche y ahora sabía que había una conexión
entre el frenar del auto y el ruido que la había
despertado. Miró entonces hacia el garaje porque
la calle le parecía impenetrable, y descubrió al
lado del auto allí estacionado una masa oscura.
Como si se hubiera manchado de tinta la noche.
Caminó esquivando su coche en el garaje. No
distinguía el cemento del piso, sólo una negrura
adicional, una presencia incómoda. Ya de
cerca se asombró al ver la fronda de un árbol
incrustada entre los barrotes de la reja y acostada
en la mitad del garaje. Extendió la mano y tocó
20

una rama. Recorrió a aquel gigante desvencijado
con la vista, las ramas colándose entre los
barrotes, como si el árbol fuese un hombre
suplicante. Sintió el frío del cemento en sus
plantas mientras caminaba con cuidado hacia
la reja, evadiendo ramas. Por en lo entendió. El
fuste del árbol atravesaba la avenida. Había caído
desde la acera de enfrente y se había introducido
entre los barrotes de la reja para extender su
largura, que topaba justa con el fondo del garaje.
Si no, se hubiera incrustado en las ventanas de
la casa. Lola distinguió los cables en la acera
tras la reja; el árbol había vencido el alumbrado
y enchuecado el poste de la derecha. Entonces
sintió temor de esa electricidad viva corriendo
muy cerca de sus pies, de que hubiera una chispa
y el fresno se incendiara. Recordó que era un
fresno como había muchos en la ciudad y que
la calle donde vivía era muy arbolada por ser un
barrio antiguo, y nadie pensaba que en medio de
la noche (afortunadamente, porque habría podido
aplastar autos, gente, a ella misma y a sus hijas
saliendo de casa) se desplomara uno de ellos.
Se retiró de la reja y se colocó bajo el alero de
la casa, muy cerca del final de las ramas más
altas que ahora yacían a sus pies. Debía entrar
y despertar a su marido, que viera lo que había
ocurrido, un árbol tendido en el garaje, un árbol
atravesando la calle. También debía llamar a
la policía, o a los bomberos, ¿a quién se llamaba
21

en ese caso? No sólo los cables eran un peligro
sino que cualquier coche en la noche podía
estrellarse contra ese tronco inesperado. Pero no
lo hizo, se sentó en la banqueta que bordeaba el
garaje y se quedó en silencio. La noche todavía le
pertenecía y ese árbol vencido también. Lo tenía
a sus pies; contempló con tristeza su destino.
Había sido invitada al duelo. Y apreció que no
hubiera pésames ni voluntades que quisieran
cortarlo en pedazos, menearlo con una grúa,
desviar el tráfico, extraer cada una de las ramas
embutidas en el metal. Por lo menos todavía no.
Como cuando Olga Knipper, la mujer de Chéjov,
quiso pasar la noche con su marido muerto en
Badenweiler antes de avisar a los otros. Leyó
aquel pasaje en una revista en el consultorio del
ginecólogo. Era un cuento de un tal Raymond
Carver. Aunque trataba de la muerte de Chéjov,
era sobre el duelo de la actriz con quien se casó
cuatro años antes y sobre el camarero que en la
noche les llevó las tres copas de champaña. Era
sobre lo inesperado y el duelo. Y aquí estaba
ella como Olga Knipper con deseos de pasar un
tiempo a solas con el árbol caído, que no era
suyo ni nada, o que tal vez era suyo porque lo
veía desde la ventana de la cocina todos los días
aunque lo ignorara; era como esas cosas que
están allí gratuitas, estables y firmes. Como la
casa donde vivió de niña o la oficina de su padre
a donde iba a visitarlo tan a menudo, como el
22

matrimonio de sus padres, todo fijo como una
escenografía que un día se rasga. Pensó en los
días en que se abría la puerta para entrar a casa
después de la escuela y el mundo era esa casa con
jardín, inamovible, sólida como una montaña. Y
la mesa puesta los esperaba a todos para escuchar
el relato de sus mañanas entre el movimiento
de cubiertos y las tortillas que envolvían las
albóndigas. Le pareció absurdo estar pensando
en albóndigas y en la cocinera que se había
enfermado cuando dejó de trabajar con ellos.
Aunque aquel cuento del duelo solitario de la
Knipper con el escritor muerto en la habitación,
cercano y todavía tibio, era distinto a los otros
de Carver, como lo comprobó cuando buscó sus
libros. Aunque no del todo porque el escritor
sabía poner el acento en el silencio. Y ella
disfrutaba leerlo por eso. Parecía que no pasaba
nada entre los Morgan y Myers y Webster
y Stone, y lo que pasaba era el descobijo, la
fragilidad, la soledad. Este árbol caído venía a
trastornarle el curso a la noche para acariciarle
las piernas con las hojas tiernas de la fronda
alta. Y pensó en los niños que dormían y que
cuando leía aquel cuento sobre la muerte de
Chéjov aún no eran un hecho o una posibilidad.
Apenas había conocido a quien sería su padre
y todavía no tenía que ordenar un mundo
doméstico. Dejó los ojos entre el ramaje oscuro
y descubrió un bulto; pensó con horror en una
23

ata. Pero las ratas no andan en los árboles;
además era un bulto quieto. ¿Un pájaro muerto?
Se había topado hacía poco con el cuerpo
de uno bajo la ventana de la terraza; parecía
haberse estrellado contra el vidrio y muerto en el
engaño de esa transparencia. No era cualquier
muerte. Lo recogió con un periódico porque
no quería sentir su temperatura, ni saber si era
una muerte reciente o estaba helado por las
horas transcurridas. Se inclinó hacia la rama y
distinguió el nido. De haber sido alguien que se
preocupara por los animales y que no anduviese
pensando en poseer la noche por un rato, hubiera
tomado el nido de varas y lo hubiera llevado a la
terraza de su casa para que los huevecillos, que
seguramente tenía, prosperaran si la madre los
encontraba antes que las ardillas. Se quedó
mirando fijamente para descifrar el contenido del
nido. Sintió el viento de la madrugada arreciar y
la primera claridad llevarse la noche.
Pensó que era hora de volver a casa. Escuchó una
patrulla; alguien había hecho lo correcto: avisar.
Vio por última vez la estatura del árbol vencido
e imaginó el aumento de luz que su ausencia
provocaría en la ventana de la cocina. Eso sería
todo lo que quedaría de aquel árbol: un boquete
como memoria de su sombra. Cerró la puerta
tras de sí, y antes de recostarse junto al plácido
dormir de su marido, entró al cuarto de los niños
24

y colocó su mano con suavidad para comprobar
el vaho de su respiración. Sosegada, prosiguió.
Mañana se enterarían de lo que había ocurrido.
Fingiría sorpresa. No contaría que estuvo allí
sentada en el silencio de la noche, asistiendo al
duelo. Omitiría que la noche fue suya.
25

Author’s Note on “The Tree”
Once I saw a fallen tree in front of the house
where I lived. It was night, the sudden noise
and darkness unusual. I felt a certain complicity
with the rare event, with the tree’s fragility, its
solitude and tragedy. I lived with my husband
and daughters upstairs from the shop that was
my parents’ business, and the image of those
branches embedded in the grating, invading a
section of the parking lot, was powerful. It stayed
with me. I don’t know if I wrote something in a
journal then, but the truth is the event became
the raw material for this story that had to be titled
“The Tree.” I live in Mexico City, and the city
has its own ways of speaking. It seemed to me
that this was such a moment. I enjoy the idea of
the extraordinary interrupting everyday life, enjoy
exploring fragility, silences. And this story gave
me such an opportunity.
Translated by Patricia Dubrava
26

El árbol
Una vez vi al árbol caído frente a la casa donde
yo vivía, era de noche y la oscuridad y el ruido
inusuales. Es cierto que sentí una complicidad
con lo inusitado, con la fragilidad del árbol, con
su soledad y la tragedia. La imagen de las ramas
incrustadas en la reja, invadiendo un pedazo del
estacionamiento de aquella casa donde yo vivía
con mi marido e hijas en la parte de arriba de
una tienda que era negocio de mis padres, fue
muy poderosa. Se quedó allí; no sé si escribí algo
en un diario entonces, lo cierto es que pudo ser
material de este cuento que tenía que tener como
título “El árbol”. Vivo en la Ciudad de México,
la ciudad tiene sus maneras íntimas de hablar:
me pareció que este era un momento así. Me
gusta la idea de lo extraordinario irrumpiendo
en la vida de todos los días, me gusta explorar la
fragilidad, los silencios. Y este cuento me dio la
oportunidad.
Mónica Lavín
27

28

Translator’s Note
I generally employ the Gregory Rabassa
method of translation, and read stories as I’m
translating them, so coming upon the Raymond
Carver reference in Mónica Lavín’s “The Tree”
was a pleasant surprise. I knew Ray Carver in
Sacramento in 1966-1967, when I lived in a
communal house steaming with political and
arts activity, including the publication of an
ephemeral literary magazine called The Levee. By
“publication,” I mean we mimeographed the pages
and sat in a circle to collate, fold and staple them.
Ray provided early revision lessons, suggesting
changes to a poem of mine that was to be
included. I was twenty and thought poems came
whole, from divine fountainheads.
I had completed a first draft of “The Tree” when
I visited Mónica Lavín last summer in Mexico
City. Her Coyoacan living room is covered by
bookshelves to which I am drawn as filings are
to magnets. I immediately recognized the spine
of Where I’m Calling From among the English
language literature on her shelves. “You know,”
I said, “your story is a kind of Carver story,
an homage.” “Really?” She asked. “I hadn’t
thought of that. It’s inspired by something that
happened.” Much fiction is built on something
that happened. And writers don’t always realize
29

all the layers their work has woven. “The Tree”
is a Mexican woman’s version of a Carver story:
domestic, quiet, with a subtle, solitary epiphany.
The challenge on first translating any writer is
becoming acclimated to her vocabulary, syntax,
rhythm—all the things that make up individual
style. Beginning to translate Mónica Lavín was
a challenging climb. Counting “The Tree,” I’ve
now translated fifteen of her stories. Aspects of
her writing have become familiar in the way they
only can in the process of translation. There is
no closer reading of a text. As Simon Leys said,
“Translation is the severest test to which a book
can be submitted.” I start noticing repetitive
phrasing, particular ways of putting a sentence
together, become better at rendering them, at
being able to say, “I know what she means and
a literal translation won’t work, but I can find a
way to say it in English.”
By the time I returned home from Mexico last
summer, “The Tree” draft had cooled, and its
inadequacies surfaced, as they do with time. I
completed a second draft and a third. Then, months
later, before I sent it out into the world, I revised
it again, the culmination of a technique I began
learning from Ray Carver so many years ago.
Patricia Dubrava
30

31

32