0:00

Hi,

0:03

Pedro here. I'm a Portuguese

0:06

working at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands,

0:08

managing a multicultural department of

0:11

around 50 people. Listening

0:13

to rough translations along these years

0:15

helped me for sure.

0:18

The premise of the programme is

0:20

exactly what is missing in a lot of

0:22

organisations. at reality

0:25

from a different perspective to try

0:27

to understand things that do

0:30

not fit in our worldview. Hey,

0:33

it's Gregory, most of Rough Translation. In

0:35

the lead up to our summer season, we are dropping

0:37

a few fan favorites in the feed and I'd

0:40

like to set this next one up by telling you a story that

0:42

happened to me about 20 years ago

0:44

in a maximum security prison. So

0:46

this was my first job at a college

0:48

for prison monitoring group in New York

0:50

where I live and my job was to visit

0:52

all the the medium and maximum security prisons in

0:54

the state and talk to the inmates with mental illness,

0:57

or the people on the mental health caseload, as

0:59

they called it. I had surveys, I

1:02

carried a clipboard,

1:03

I wore a suit that was too

1:05

big for me. I had no background in

1:07

psychology or in prisons, but

1:09

the person who picked me for this job, a criminal justice

1:12

professor, thought that I had a good way with people. And

1:15

so I'd pretty confidently stroll into

1:17

the prison,

1:18

find the people on my list, and to them,

1:20

ask them about their situation and their medical

1:23

care. Afterwards,

1:25

I take my notes back to the office. Name,

1:28

diagnosis, maybe something about them. Alex,

1:31

paranoid schizophrenia, stared at wall

1:33

during interview. Roberto, bipolar

1:36

disorder, smiley and friendly but strong

1:39

odor from cell. James, borderline

1:41

personality disorder plus PTSD, answered

1:44

all questions while folding paper her boats. I

1:48

must have interviewed maybe

1:50

four or five hundred people that spring and

1:52

my approach every time would be to keep things

1:55

friendly, casual like, just

1:58

two people having a chat. I

2:00

pretend not to notice the bars between us because

2:02

I thought that was polite not

2:05

to notice the bars. Even this

2:07

one time when a guy started banging his head against

2:10

them. So for

2:12

a few months I did these interviews until one

2:14

day I think I was just carrying a lot of stuff but

2:16

I had to put my pen down on the bars

2:19

for just a second and the inmate

2:21

he looked at the pen which technically

2:24

could be used as a weapon and he

2:26

looked at me and then I looked at him

2:28

and I and I looked at the pen and

2:31

then he smiled and I grabbed the pen and

2:33

started asking my questions. And just

2:36

that little acknowledgement that the

2:38

bars were in fact there,

2:41

I think it changed things for the interview. And

2:44

I would remember that

2:45

for years afterward really, that

2:47

when I pretended the bars weren't there, I

2:50

was forcing them to pretend that

2:52

this was just a casual chat, that

2:55

both of us could come and go. As

2:57

a journalist, I've had so many times and I felt like there

2:59

are bars between me and the person I'm talking

3:02

to. Maybe it's a difference of power or

3:04

language or passports, or just

3:06

the fact that I can leave. This war, this

3:08

crisis, this situation, and they can't.

3:12

I started Rough Translation as a show where

3:14

we would try

3:15

to acknowledge those bars between us, maybe

3:18

find ways to temporarily break through. And

3:21

so I think it's fitting that this first

3:23

drop from the archives is a prison

3:25

story. from 2017 and it

3:28

was suggested by a listener named Teresa

3:30

del Ministro who sent us a voicemail this

3:32

weekend.

3:33

It is hard to pick a favorite

3:35

episode of rough translation. The

3:38

one that got me into the podcast was

3:41

Anna in Somalia. I

3:43

did not know that a podcast could convey

3:45

so many things at once and I listened

3:47

to it half a dozen times. I

3:50

shared it with my colleagues from Somalia

3:52

and Somaliland and since then rough

3:55

translation became a little ritual.

3:59

Thank you, Therese.

4:00

and so many of you sent us your favorite

4:02

episodes and your notes of support. Just

4:04

a reminder, I have started a sub-stack.

4:07

It is for you and for all the rough translation

4:09

listeners who have loved the stories that we've brought you

4:11

from around the world. I'm going behind the scenes

4:14

of your favorite episodes. We'll also feature

4:16

pretty amazing stories from other podcasts

4:19

around the world. And I'll be making plans

4:21

for the future and I'd like you to be the first

4:23

to know. The sub-stack is called Around

4:25

the World in 85 Days. That link

4:27

is in the show notes. If you subscribe soon,

4:29

you

4:30

can join our first community chat and

4:33

get to know each other in the Rough Translation community. Anyway,

4:36

here's Ana and Somalia, as it first

4:39

aired in 2017.

4:46

The six months before Mohammed went to prison were

4:48

the best six months of his life. He'd landed

4:50

this great job managing a Pepsi plant,

4:53

and he'd found true love on his first date. We

4:55

went to a small restaurant near where

4:58

we lived. Her name was Ismahan.

5:00

20 years old, tell her at a state bank. And

5:03

we were talking and she was shy, of

5:05

course. She was very shy

5:09

and we realized we wanted to get married.

5:13

That's it, love it first sight. Yeah,

5:15

in a sense, yeah.

5:21

Muhammad said he was just so struck by how

5:23

generous she was and smart. and they

5:25

connected about everything from the future of their country

5:28

to the music they liked. Whatever images

5:31

the word Somalia calls to mind, the Somalia

5:33

where Mohammed lived was in a cultural renaissance.

5:36

This was 1981. It was under communist

5:39

rule. And the dictator, he was a dictator,

5:41

but he was also a big fan of Somali culture

5:44

and music. Music was actually

5:46

a big part of how Mohammed courted Isma'han.

5:48

He made her mixtapes.

5:50

This was the 80s. She was into songs

5:52

and stuff like that. Did you sing

5:54

or did she sing? Oh, she's

5:56

a better singer.

6:00

a high now so

6:03

a few

6:03

months after mohammad in this man got married

6:06

mohammad got a phone call from the director

6:08

of the local public hospital would you please help

6:10

me bring some her donations

6:13

from the community he was desperate for donations

6:16

medicine for betting in

6:18

fact that music loving dictator

6:20

his name was siad barre he'd cut

6:22

off supplies to the hospital in retaliation

6:25

for an independence movement in the region the

6:27

doctor been calling all his friends and secret

6:29

yeah we were talking on the phone thing you

6:31

know you worked for pepsi you have connections

6:33

you know people can we raise the money

6:35

discreetly ourselves but

6:38

mohammad wanted to go big i suppose

6:40

maybe i wanted to share my happiness what

6:42

do you mean by share your happiness you

6:45

know contribute to because there are other people

6:47

who are less fortunate than us muhammad

6:49

was in that stage of new love when you

6:51

just kind of think the world is full of good feeling

6:53

and if everybody knew it was going on they would

6:55

do the right thing and he takes his bold

6:58

and pretty risky move he

7:00

writes a letter some kind of

7:02

nice left about the hospital conditions

7:05

yes and could fill the conditions of the country

7:07

essentially implying that the dictator is

7:09

not doing right by us and we gotta step

7:11

up ourselves couple weeks later mohamed

7:14

and they spawn heard a knock on their door

7:16

in the middle of the night merciless could have to do

7:18

they have no warrant or anything like

7:20

that is to sit with new to take him

7:24

and i could see her my

7:26

way from a can

7:28

remember her and her eyes was

7:32

in

7:35

love with

7:39

and so tariff muhammad

7:42

is accused of treason and sentenced to life

7:45

in solitary confinement blindfold

7:47

handcuff

7:49

and sent to seven

7:53

and this is where the story really

7:55

begins muhammad

7:56

sell his tiny maybe

7:58

six feet by concrete

8:01

walls, hole in the floor for a toilet, and

8:03

a window high up that lets in just

8:06

a little bit of light. It's very dark,

8:09

and cockroaches come from

8:11

the toilet. Cockroaches? Cockroaches, and

8:13

they would fly off the wall towards you, and

8:16

the excrement with their feet. So

8:19

you... On their feet

8:21

would be excrement from the toilet? Yeah, yes.

8:24

Yes. After the cockroaches come,

8:26

the rats, at the mice and

8:28

the mosquitoes. The noise of the mosquitoes.

8:31

Oh, like an engine, you know, jet engine. But

8:34

even worse than that sound... Meow. ...is

8:37

the buzzing in his own mind.

8:41

Because

8:41

in this prison, there is one rule. It

8:44

was strictly forbidden to talk

8:46

to your neighbors. He's forbidden

8:49

to speak to the other inmates. So you walk

8:51

forward and backward. Pacing,

8:54

back and forth. And this is a tiny

8:56

place to walk back and forth. Three

8:58

short steps. So like three

9:01

short steps forward, three short steps back, or three

9:03

short steps forward. Yes.

9:08

So that is his life now.

9:13

Until one day...

9:18

he hears a knock on the wall. And

9:22

that knock becomes words

9:25

from another time and another place.

9:29

All happy families are alike.

9:33

Each unhappy family is unhappy

9:35

in its own way. This

9:40

is Rough Translation.

9:42

It's

9:44

the show from NPR bringing you familiar conversations

9:47

from unfamiliar perspectives. I'm

9:49

Gregory Warner.

9:53

a

10:00

concrete wall that saved a

10:02

man's life. I should build a monument

10:04

for that book. One

10:07

book that changed everything when

10:09

rough translation returns.

10:19

Hi, my name is Taylor Jung and I'm a social

10:22

justice reporter based in Brooklyn,

10:24

New York. And one of the reasons

10:26

why I love rough translation is because

10:29

it showed me a path that was possible in journalism.

10:32

As a multiracial, multiethnic person,

10:35

I wanted to tell stories about people

10:37

who looked like me. And I

10:39

don't know, I just saw

10:41

these one-dimensional, two-dimensional human

10:44

interest stories. But when I started

10:46

listening to rough translation, I

10:48

saw how the podcast really

10:51

took these seemingly disparate cultures,

10:54

pictures, people, places, stories,

10:57

all into one episode and

10:59

showed how they were all connected in some

11:01

strange way that you wouldn't necessarily expect.

11:04

I think that there's more and more of those stories

11:06

that aren't one-dimensional and,

11:08

you know, honor

11:09

the complexity and nuances

11:12

of people's lived experiences.

11:16

I'm Gregory Warner. We're back with rough translation.

11:20

eight months into Mohammed's prison sentence,

11:22

and he's in his cell, as always. He's

11:24

alone.

11:26

Not quite, though. There were so many

11:28

different types of aunts as well. Yes.

11:31

Aunts, you know, tiny ones, really. Just

11:33

like watching a film, gracefully. The

11:36

way they look around for food, the

11:39

way they treat each other. When

11:41

you give them time, it's

11:44

another world.

11:45

I

11:47

would have loved to go see

11:50

their hell, their holes,

11:52

where they were staying, but I couldn't because

11:54

it was all concrete.

11:56

And then one evening, when the guard is

11:59

at the other end of the line of cells just out

12:01

of earshot. The guy in the cell next

12:03

to Mohammed whispers. Through

12:05

the door saying, land ABC through

12:07

the wall, land ABC through the wall. I did

12:10

not understand land ABC through the wall. How can

12:12

I look at the wall between

12:14

us? But then he

12:17

knocked on the wall. He did

12:19

this. And when Mohammed leaned

12:21

over to the wall,

12:23

he could hear this sound. That's

12:25

sharp. and that. A

12:29

code. You say,

12:32

yes, I understand now. And

12:34

he started this

12:35

A, B, C, D, E,

12:37

F. First

12:42

an alphabet, and then words.

12:46

And what was the first sentence

12:48

that you heard? So, Nabat, which

12:51

means peace in Somalia, and it means

12:53

how are you also? Yeah.

12:59

Now, I could repeat that

13:01

word all that day if I were, without

13:03

doing anything else. And so, Mohammed

13:06

can now spend most of a day tapping back

13:08

and forth to talk with the guy in the

13:10

next cell about politics, to

13:12

share a childhood memory. But

13:15

at night, when he can't sleep,

13:18

he turns again to the concrete. And

13:21

then again, then again. I

13:24

was only sleeping for you maybe half

13:26

an hour, then wake up in half an hour. Muhammad

13:28

would

13:29

wake up from a nightmare, sweaty

13:31

and in a panic. I lost my

13:33

sleep. Are you awake, you

13:35

tap?

13:37

I can't sleep. I need

13:39

to talk. When

13:44

I try to sleep, when I'm falling

13:46

asleep, suddenly my heart races

13:49

so fast. So I was

13:51

thinking those days that This is the

13:54

smell of death.

13:55

What is the smell of death? I

13:58

think fear

14:03

mohammed had a lot of fearful thoughts

14:05

in that prison cell especially

14:08

about his wife and i cannot imagine

14:10

how how she's because didn't

14:12

know news from from there were from

14:14

though so it's really difficult

14:16

to imagine where she is even

14:19

with a she's alive and

14:21

there was a mean or thought as well government

14:23

was encouraging wife's to

14:26

be forced the husband's the

14:28

government were saying you should divorce just because

14:30

they're treated as this were a lot in prison

14:33

even some chefs front granite

14:35

faces to support

14:37

that divorce in

14:39

somali society in islam is usually

14:41

the husband's exclusive right but

14:43

there are these current it versus the can allow a

14:45

wife to choose to divorce her husband if

14:48

the husband's apps and for some time and

14:50

shakes loyal to the dictator use those verses

14:53

to pressure the wives of political prisoners

14:55

quite

14:55

a number of people were divorced

14:58

from their course i

15:00

was thinking sometimes this you could she was

15:02

only twenty years old they had only been married

15:04

for three months and he was sentenced

15:06

to life you think she's

15:08

sprawling to and herself she's

15:11

living our life and i am in disgrace

15:14

at

15:14

first it's just a little twinge of

15:16

resentment and then the feeling comes back

15:18

stronger and sharper he

15:21

thinks she should be visiting me but

15:24

wait she

15:24

can't this be nobody complicit spliff

15:27

and nobody can get in touch and he

15:29

still you blame out for not getting in

15:31

touch with you and and what

15:33

do you think about her in those moments when you're blaming

15:35

her for not to visiting an

15:38

orderly pretty far from love you

15:43

probably haven't that particular time

15:49

every time that muhammad tapped one

15:51

of these dark thoughts on to the wall someone

15:53

was listening and the someone on the

15:55

other side of the wall was a doctor doctor

15:58

at an hour core is also

16:00

inmate in this prison. And is

16:02

the doctor's listening to these taps on the wall? He's

16:05

also diagnosing them.

16:07

Acute anxiety, yeah. He

16:09

was telling me these symptoms through the wall.

16:14

I should tell you that Dr. Adan and Mohammed were

16:16

actually friends before prison. Yeah, yeah.

16:19

The doctor was the director of the public hospital,

16:21

the one who called him up and asked him for donations. He

16:24

did not ask Mohammed to write that letter

16:26

complaining about the hospital conditions. Because

16:29

there were no press allowed, no

16:31

newspapers, no free press. And

16:33

that's the moment the government decided that

16:35

they should do something about us. But

16:38

if the doctor blamed Mohammed for writing

16:40

the letter that got them both thrown in prison,

16:43

he didn't show it. Every time that Mohammed

16:45

knocked, whatever the hour, the

16:47

doctor would knock back. He used

16:49

to have these nightmares. So

16:51

he jumps. He has a nightmare. And

16:53

then he knocks on the wall again. So

16:57

I have to wake up and then again

16:59

start conversation, you know, so that he can

17:02

fall asleep again. Just like a baby, you

17:04

know, taking a baby to bed and

17:06

making him fall asleep, you know.

17:09

If Dr. Addin seems fairly unsentimental

17:12

about some of the more dramatic aspects of Muhammad's

17:15

life, it's partly that these two men

17:17

are such different personalities. While Muhammad

17:19

described that nighttime arrest as a moment of shock

17:22

and terror, Dr. Addin seems

17:24

to have met those same secret police with a bag

17:26

packed and ready for prison. A bag of clothes

17:29

and lots and lots of books. Huh?

17:32

Why books? Books is the best friend in

17:34

a prison. But then when you got to the prison it was

17:36

taken away, the bag of clothes? It was taken away. Even

17:38

our glasses were taken

17:39

away. Tell

17:42

me about the day you learned the language. You

17:45

learned the knocking language. Well, it

17:49

was the most exciting day in our life.

17:54

It was the most exciting and we couldn't sleep. We

17:57

started practicing it the whole day and the whole

17:59

night. And if there is a joke and

18:02

somebody laughs, everybody starts

18:04

knocking on the wall and asking that

18:06

friend, what's that joke about? And that

18:09

guy starts sending the message,

18:11

the joke. It could take

18:13

an hour to send a tiny joke from one

18:15

cell to the next cell to the next. There

18:17

were eight of them in this prison. The guards,

18:20

of course they don't know that we are knocking on the wall because

18:22

they can't hear. And then when they see us all

18:25

laughing, they just say, oh, this guy, these

18:27

guys are also losing their sanity.

18:30

Meanwhile,

18:30

on the other side of the wall, Mohammed

18:33

really was worried that his mind was slipping.

18:36

I was frightened of going to

18:38

a certain area in my mind when

18:40

I would commit suicide without knowing, without

18:44

wanting to.

18:45

Is it almost like the fear of

18:47

going crazy was making you crazy? Yes, the

18:49

fear. The fear was, you know, you

18:52

could imagine people who were crazy and

18:54

you could imagine that maybe going crazy

18:57

It was the point of North 10.

18:59

So you were frightened of that.

19:01

While the doctor on his side of the wall. And

19:04

I was trying to counsel him and

19:06

explain to him through the wall that

19:08

he's not going to go mad and that he's not

19:10

going to die, but you

19:13

can't counsel a person through a wall.

19:17

Months go by, then a whole year.

19:20

Finally,

19:20

it's two years into their prison sentence

19:23

and something happens.

19:24

Dr. Adden is summoned to the office

19:26

of the warden

19:27

to get a change of clothes. The room was empty

19:29

and there was a bench and they asked you to

19:31

sit on the bench. And then he

19:34

asked one of the guests to go and bring your bag.

19:37

Just the whole bag with all your clothes, your books, everything.

19:39

Yeah. And then you

19:42

open that bag and then he tells you to choose

19:45

something and you need to wear. And you

19:47

don't choose anything else. He says, don't choose

19:49

anything else. No, that was a regulation.

19:51

The doctor's getting his first change of clothes he arrived

19:54

in prison. to

20:00

the warden, he looks him right in the eye. Can

20:03

I have one book? I said, that's all. Even

20:06

I did not expect that he would agree

20:08

to give me. So I just tried. And

20:12

he said, yes, you can, but choose one of all

20:14

of your books. So then I

20:16

started thinking of the biggest book I

20:19

can take with me. A few minutes later,

20:21

the doctor is walking back to his cell

20:23

with the fattest book in his bag under his arm. You

20:25

can picture him fantasizing about just getting to

20:27

lie down and read. But when he returns

20:30

to his cell, there's

20:32

that sound at

20:34

the wall. It occurred to me

20:36

the thought that why don't I read

20:38

this book for him through the wall and

20:40

distract the negative thoughts. Meanwhile,

20:44

Muhammad, on his side of the wall, hears

20:46

the new set of taps.

20:48

I have a book, a

20:50

book that I'll read it to you, chapter by

20:52

chapter. That's

20:56

Anacrin. Anacrin. Anna

20:59

Karenina, the famous novel by Leo Tolstoy,

21:02

published in 1878. The English

21:04

translation that they're using is 800 pages, 350,000 words,

21:10

nearly two million letters. Each

21:12

letter, a

21:13

set of taps. So the doctor prepares

21:15

himself. So to start, I

21:17

took piece of my bed sheet

21:20

and I put it around my wrist.

21:22

Like he's prepping for a medical

21:24

procedure,

21:25

wrapping the sheet around his wrist

21:27

and knuckle. because it will damage

21:30

my wrist if I continue like that. So

21:33

then I started knocking and

21:35

he started listening. All

21:38

happy families are alike. Each

21:41

unhappy family is unhappy in

21:43

its own way. Everything was

21:45

in confusion in the Oblonski's house.

21:48

The wife had discovered that the husband was

21:49

carrying on it. What that book did to

21:52

Muhammad's mind, When

21:54

rough translation returns.

22:06

Hey, it's Gregory

22:08

from Rough Translation and before we get back

22:10

to Anna and Somalia from 2017, a question for you. What

22:14

are some of your favorite Rough Translation episodes

22:16

and why?

22:17

An episode that I particularly appreciate

22:20

is The Cat Must Still Be Fed.

22:22

How to speak bad English. One of

22:24

my most favorite episodes has been the American

22:26

surrogate. And if we were going to have a kind of rough translation

22:29

listening party together, which stories

22:31

would you want to hear? I just completely

22:34

was hooked and mesmerized.

22:38

If you have an episode to suggest, and especially a

22:40

story about how it came to affect

22:42

you or how you've used it in

22:44

your life, send that to us at

22:46

roughtranslation at npr.org and you might

22:49

hear from us.

22:50

See you and I'm

22:52

not going to say goodbye. I'm just going to

22:54

say, see you soon.

22:57

We're back with a rough translation. I'm Gregory

23:00

Warner. The day that the novel

23:02

Anna Karenina entered their lives marked

23:04

a new phase for Mohammed and the doctor.

23:07

Each morning, Dr. Addin would carefully

23:10

wrap his hand and open the novel.

23:13

Mohammed, on his side of the wall,

23:15

would listen. When he was dressed,

23:18

Stepan Arkadyevich sprinkled

23:20

some scent on himself. although it was only knocking,

23:23

but it brought the whole story to me. Pocketbook

23:26

matches and watch with its double chain

23:28

and seals and shaking

23:31

out his handkerchief, feeling himself

23:33

clean, fragrant, healthy, and

23:35

physically at ease in spite of his unhappiness.

23:38

He walked with a slight swing on each leg into

23:40

the dining room where coffee was already waiting.

23:43

If it's been a while since you cracked open Anna

23:45

Karenina, here's what you need to know. Anna

23:48

is a noblewoman in 19th century Russia.

23:51

She's married to a man much older than herself. She

23:53

goes to a ball in a black velvet dress lined

23:56

with lace and falls in love with a soldier,

23:58

Count Fronsky.

24:00

kind of a rich boy, careless in love, Mohammed

24:02

immediately hates him. But he's also in uniform,

24:05

and I was hating anything in uniform.

24:07

Actually, this is very important,

24:09

really. I

24:12

really felt that. Right, he's in the military, and you were

24:14

in a military prison. Yeah, I was in military prison,

24:16

definitely. So you really didn't like Wronsky? No.

24:20

So anyway, the soldier, Wronsky, he steals

24:22

Anna's heart, he gets her pregnant, even though she's

24:25

still married to the other guy, And then Anna

24:27

makes a choice that really changes

24:29

everything.

24:30

Because instead of having a secret affair, like

24:32

all the others in her social set, she makes her

24:34

love public. She leaves her husband. And

24:37

society, the Russian nobility, cut

24:39

her off. They isolate her. Vronsky

24:42

is a man, so he's pretty much able to go on with his life

24:44

as before. But Anna's realizing

24:47

how alone she is. She's staying

24:49

in a room wondering what Vronsky's up to when

24:51

he's not with her. Okay. just

24:54

the same as Mohammed was wondering

24:56

what his wife was doing outside the prison

24:58

walls. Mohammed

24:59

reads me this one sentence from the book. If

25:01

he loved her, sorry,

25:05

if he loved her, he would understand

25:07

all the difficulty of her situation and

25:10

he would risk her for a bit. If

25:12

he loved her,

25:13

he would rescue her from her situation. It's

25:16

interesting because Anna is

25:18

trapped by reviews

25:20

about women and maybe desire and

25:23

all that, but you were trapped

25:25

by real walls. He

25:29

says it didn't matter how different their lives seemed

25:32

on the outside, inside- She

25:34

was suffering all the time. He felt

25:36

exactly like Anna. He also was

25:38

jealous, crazily jealous, and also

25:40

hating himself for being jealous. And

25:43

all of a sudden he meets this fictional character

25:46

who is suffering in exactly the same

25:48

way. And this suffering is

25:50

driving her into a state that Muhammad

25:52

most feared for himself.

26:00

wanting to. So

26:03

it's now 750 pages into the book and

26:05

two months have passed since the doctor first started

26:08

tapping the book letter by letter.

26:10

Anna and Wronsky are now living in Moscow

26:12

and it's summer so it's hot and suffocating

26:15

and on this particular day Wronsky is off

26:18

visiting his mom which Anna hates

26:20

because she thinks she's trying to set him up with a young

26:22

princess and Anna is in this state

26:24

of mind where she both thinks that she's

26:27

a burden to Wronsky and she thinks

26:29

he'd be better off without her, but also

26:32

she wants him to suffer her absence the

26:34

way she's suffering.

26:36

It's in this state that Anna finds herself

26:39

walking down a train platform. The

26:41

train is hurtling down the tracks,

26:43

and this thought possesses

26:46

her. She

26:50

knew what she had to do. With

26:52

a rapid light step, she went

26:54

down the steps that led from the tank to

26:56

the rails and stopped quite near the

26:58

approaching train. As

27:03

Mohammed is listening to this, and

27:04

he's thinking about what she is about to

27:06

do, I really cried. I

27:10

felt for her. But he

27:12

realizes his tears are not just for

27:14

Ana. That's all I remember my wife. He's

27:16

remembering Ismahan, his wife. How

27:19

mercy she's suffering.

27:22

Yes, the book is the one

27:23

that brought me back to think about

27:25

Hara a lot. And

27:28

he finds himself asking a question that in two

27:30

years in prison, he has not asked

27:32

himself before. Did I do well?

27:35

In those few months we were together. Had

27:37

he been a good husband? Yeah, I treated

27:39

Hara as she deserved.

27:42

Instead of thinking she's left him and

27:45

also hating himself for thinking that she's left him,

27:47

he's thinking why did he take himself

27:50

away from her

27:51

by writing that stupid newsletter. Maybe we

27:53

could have done it in a different

27:55

way. That letter that got them all thrown in prison.

27:58

Maybe we could have talked to them.

28:00

and putting himself in his wife's shoes like that,

28:02

it kind of took him out of his own misery.

28:05

He could think about like, she suffered worse

28:08

than me because I

28:10

was only in prison, but she was in the

28:12

outside well. He goes from self-pity

28:14

to pity for her. Oh,

28:17

I think that's related to the book. Telstoy's actually

28:19

famous for that. That's like his magic

28:21

crazy talent. Can you say more

28:24

about that magic crazy talent? Cause like when

28:26

I was rereading- I told Elif Batjeman about

28:28

Muhammad's story. You've heard her reading

28:30

the Tolstoy passages for us. She's also

28:32

a writer, novelist herself, and totally obsessed

28:34

with Anna Karenina.

28:35

I like it a lot. When I told her about Muhammad's

28:38

experience, she had this idea

28:40

about why that book in particular might have helped

28:42

Muhammad make this mental leap from

28:44

hating his wife to imagining

28:47

everything through her eyes.

28:48

Tolstoy gives a lot of weight to all

28:50

of the characters, like even to just like a newlywed

28:52

young girl, you spend a lot of time in her thoughts

28:54

and there's like a scene where she's trying

28:56

to eat a mushroom on a plate and it keeps

28:59

slipping from under her fork.

29:00

Trying in vain to spear

29:02

a disobedient, slippery

29:04

mushroom with her fork and

29:07

shaking the lace through which her arm

29:09

showed white.

29:11

It's a book that takes the subjectivity of young women

29:13

seriously, and not just young

29:15

women, everyone, the servants and the

29:18

dog. There's a hunting scene in this that

29:20

actually goes to the perspective of the dog. And

29:23

everything just seems so true. You read that and you're like, that's

29:25

definitely what that dog was thinking.

29:26

And so she says the experience of reading

29:28

Tolstoy is the experience of being constantly

29:31

confronted with... How differently the same

29:33

thing can look from a slightly different perspective.

29:36

Like he's just, he never gets bored of showing that.

29:38

And in the book,

29:39

the characters themselves actually...

29:41

Judge each other and then are able to expand

29:43

that and to see each other a little bit more generously.

29:46

That's what Elif thinks that Tolstoy's book

29:49

gave to Mohammed. It's definitely

29:51

helped, definitely, definitely.

29:54

In a place like that

29:56

prison, people

29:58

become very selfish. I think everybody

30:00

has forgotten about me at the beginning,

30:03

forgotten about me, so nobody

30:05

cares about me like that. But when

30:07

you think about other people's situation, then

30:10

you understand. It helped me survive.

30:13

It helped me even sleep better.

30:16

Tolstoy actually had one more role

30:18

to play in Muhammad's life, eight

30:21

years after his arrest. The Somali

30:23

political winds had shifted, and the dictator

30:25

was trying to appease his enemies. Mohammed

30:28

and the others were suddenly released. He

30:30

discovered his region of Somalia was flattened

30:32

by civil war. But Mohammed

30:34

also discovered something else. His

30:36

wife, Isma'an, she was still his

30:39

wife. She had not given up on him. And

30:42

she had suffered in his absence. Working

30:44

at the state bank, she'd been pressured by

30:46

her boss

30:46

to divorce the traitor,

30:49

Mohammed, when she refused she was

30:51

relocated. And by the time Mohammed

30:53

was released, she was living in a refugee

30:55

camp in Germany. she couldn't even

30:58

make it back to Somalia to see him. So

31:00

I waited another, that

31:02

was for another, say about

31:05

ten months, I think, to see

31:07

each other. Finally, they figure out

31:09

a way that they can reunite in a neighboring country.

31:12

And though it's been almost a decade

31:15

since they've seen each other,

31:16

he recognized her immediately from

31:18

a distance. And as they drew closer,

31:20

Ismailen opens her arms

31:22

to give her husband a hug, and

31:25

he reaches out. And all

31:27

that he could do in that moment is

31:30

shake her hand.

31:35

Yeah.

31:37

I not feel as I felt

31:39

even in prison, I was feeling so much

31:42

in love with her. And yet when we met,

31:45

it wasn't the same. She

31:48

was like a... You know, I

31:50

was a stranger, something like that. Wow.

31:53

I mean, I was asking myself,

31:55

Why are you not as in love

31:57

with her

31:58

as before? In

32:04

the prison, in

32:06

a way you are not living. You

32:08

are still inside yourself. You have

32:10

to open. And

32:14

Torus there was very much part of that. He

32:17

was overcome by a momentary doubt

32:19

of the possibility of setting up that new

32:21

life he had dreamed of on the way.

32:23

This is where the book came back

32:25

to him. It wasn't Ana he was thinking

32:27

of, but another character named Levin. He's

32:30

also in love, also a person of strong

32:32

emotions. And Levin, just

32:34

like Muhammad in that moment with his wife, is

32:37

wracked by self-doubt.

32:38

Doubts, an eternal dissatisfaction with

32:41

yourself, vain attempts to improve

32:43

and failures, and an eternal expectation

32:46

of the happiness that has... It's not really until

32:47

the end of the book that Levin learns

32:50

to stand outside himself, to put his

32:52

own uncertainty in perspective.

32:55

Muhammad, he had to learn how

32:57

to do the same thing. We had to learn to

32:59

love each other again. And probably

33:01

Tolstoy

33:04

had a lot to do with it. You

33:06

think Tolstoy helped you fall in love again? Yeah,

33:09

I mean, the feeling of

33:12

love, you know, it wasn't so easy

33:15

to become in love again.

33:19

This

33:19

man has been experienced and she was living

33:21

her real life. It's difficult for

33:23

people to live with someone who

33:25

has been in solitary confinement

33:27

for so long. I was probably very difficult

33:30

to live with at that particular time.

33:32

And you're saying that knowing that

33:35

you are hard to live with, knowing... Yes, yes.

33:37

It made it easier for us to talk to

33:39

each other, to live,

33:42

to learn to live with each other.

33:44

Because you knew that your heart was not

33:48

quite working yet. Yeah.

33:57

I should build a monument for that book. Yeah.

34:05

Hey, one last thing. There is someone

34:07

else to give credit to here, besides the great

34:10

Russian author. Every detail that

34:12

Tolstoy wrote into that book, every

34:15

perspective shift that helped Muhammad escape

34:17

his prison cell. All those sentences had to be

34:19

tapped out on a concrete wall.

34:23

Bye, friend. I could imagine him getting

34:25

tired because he was working

34:28

hard, really working hard. So I could imagine

34:30

him getting tired and all that.

34:34

Why was he doing it? Just to make

34:36

me for me. He's

34:41

doing it for me.

34:43

Dr. Adden said that Mohammed was his last

34:46

patient. After their release, he was

34:48

just too out of practice to return to medicine. And

34:50

after prison, the doctor did try to read the

34:53

novel on a Karenina again. I went

34:55

to a bus show, but when

34:57

I tried to read it, I couldn't read it. too many bad

34:59

memories. But he knew someone who

35:01

could use it. Somebody, a friend, who was imprisoned

35:04

here in Somal and a journalist, a

35:06

friend, and I took that book to him.

35:09

And I told him that the

35:11

best thing, best present you can have

35:13

in a prison is a

35:14

book. This

35:27

episode was edited by Marion McKeown, produced

35:30

by Jess Jang in collaboration with

35:32

the team at Radiolab. Thank you

35:34

to Elizabeth Senjis-Backman who introduced me to

35:36

Dr. Adden. She interviewed him at the Harkesa

35:39

International Book Fair in Somaliland. help

35:42

from Sorin Wheeler, Jacob Goldstein,

35:44

Noelle King, Nick Fountain, Robert Smith, Bryant

35:46

Erzdet, Lew Alkowski, and Sana

35:49

Krasikov. Elif Batuman is the

35:51

author of The Possessed Adventures with

35:53

Russian Books and the People Who Read Them. Her

35:55

new novel is The Idiot.

35:57

Thank you to Rough Translation Advisors, Neil

35:59

Krasikoff, and

36:00

Ruth, Anya Grundman, Matilde Piard,

36:02

and Alex Goldmark. Mary Glendening

36:04

and Greta Pittinger fact-checked this episode.

36:06

We would love to hear from you what you thought of the episode

36:08

or tell us your own perspective-shifting travel story.

36:11

We're on Twitter at Roughly or visit

36:13

our Facebook page, Rough Translation. You

36:15

can find previous episodes at npr.org

36:18

slash rough translation or wherever you get

36:20

your podcasts. Our theme music is

36:22

by John Ellis. More music from Blue Dot

36:24

Sessions and Dylan Keefe composed

36:26

additional music for this episode. Today's

36:29

version of the episode was produced

36:30

by Justine Yan with help from our

36:32

intern Alina Torek, edited

36:34

by Luis Treas. Adelina Lancianiz

36:36

is our senior producer.

36:39

in two weeks with another

36:41

fan favorite from rough translation.