My Final Exam

From the tangle of voices in the interpreter's booth, one thought tightened into a clear, hard knot: “Fuck this! No way in hell!”

I gently raised one hand, splayed out on the formica tabletop, and pressed it against my knee to stop the shaking. A moist, dirty palm print remained next to my homemade notepad and the five pens I had arranged carefully in a row before the speech began.

I leaned in to the microphone, like a biker rising up on his pedals, as if that small motion would get me through the text faster. I wanted nothing more desperately than to escape, to disappear. But where to?

In this cube-shaped booth, one entire side was made of glass. Looking through this window into the audience, I saw thirty headphoned heads nodding in unison after every sentence I finished. On one side of the room, my teachers were writing furiously in their notepads, variously frowning and smiling.

I was trapped.

Leaning forward even more, I closed my eyes and battered through the text, sentence by sentence. Suddenly, my headphones went silent, made a slight click, and then piped in a gentle voice: “That’s it. You can get up now.”

My legs trembled as I stumbled out of the booth. The door swung shut and I took in one shuddering breath after another. “Three more days,” I thought. “Three more days, two more exams, and then I never have to interpret again.” Behind a larger door ten feet distant sat thirty people, waiting to pat me on the back and tell me that in a few short days, I, too, would be a fully certified conference interpreter.

Only an hour previously, I would have smiled and agreed. To be an interpreter! The fame! The glory! And here I was, ready to give it up.

I squared my shoulders, and walked through the door.