Den s překladem 2024

překladatelská soutěž s OSU

Soutěžní text:
Mira T. Lee Everything Here Is Beautiful. Pamela Dorman Books, 2018

Prologue

A summer day in New Jersey. A house with a yard. The younger one, four, likes to fold her body over the seat of her swing, observe the world from upside down. She circles her feet, twists the pair of steel ropes until they’re all the way wound. She kicks up her legs. The swing spins. She likes the sensation of dizziness.
            The older one, eleven, in the kitchen, chops ginger and scallions, puts on the rice. Sets out a small plate of pickled radishes.
            It is early morning. Their mother is still asleep. On Mondays and Thursdays she attends night classes at the local college. On Fridays she works at the accounting office until late. “One more year,” she has said, though she has promised this before. She has come a long way since her husband died and she was forced to come alone to America. The mother will soon sit for another actuarial exam. “An excellent profession,” she tells the girls with pride. They know only that it involves a lot of math.
            The older one sits at the kitchen table. Opens her tin pan of watercolors, paints with quick, smooth strokes. She will try a still life today, that bowl of peaches, or a vase of Shasta daisies freshpicked from the garden. She likes the feeling of focus. When the rest of the world falls away.
            “Jie! Come look!” her sister calls from outside.
            The older one doesn’t look up.
            “Come here, I found something!”
She sets down her brush, heads out to the yard. The screen door slams shut behind her.
            “Can you see it, Jie? There.”
In the corner, by the fence. Wet grass tickles her feet. The younger one points to something in the low branches of the dogwood tree.
            “It’s a spiderweb, Mei-mei. See how its threads stretch from this branch to that one?”
It is their first summer in New Jersey. Their first house with a yard. Before, they lived in Third Uncle’s basement, in Tennessee. The younger one’s eyes, wide.
          “Don’t worry, Mei. You don’t have to be scared. Spiders won’t hurt you. They catch flies and mosquitoes and all kinds of other insects. See the web? The spider spins it with a silk from its body. It’s sticky. The bug gets caught in those strands and the spider eats it. It sucks out the blood.”
The younger one nods, ponders this information. The older one turns to go back inside.
            “But . . .”
The older one, impatient, though she isn’t sure why. “What, Mei?”
            Her sister is pointing to the web again. It shimmers in the sun. Catches the morning light.
            “Look, Jie. See? It’s beautiful.”