He took out his notebook, recalling that he’d promised to record the day’s events. But how do you record events you don’t, you can’t, understand? There was a din in the tent, but it didn’t sound like language. There was a louder din in his head, which also didn’t sound like language, but the din in his head was impossible to ignore. It was like that scene behind his eyelids earlier, the flood of deep fuchsia with the bright magenta spot in its center: a scene of conflictual actions (let it in, keep it out).

It was as loud, in that way, as the sun.

Pablo wrote in his notebook: “Who was it who believed that all language was a translation of an urtext that nobody can read?”

He skipped a line and wrote: “Whose term is ‘detranslation’?”

He skipped another line and wrote: “I am ashamed at my lack of memory; I should know much more than I do.”

And then: “If I don’t find a way to make myself useful here, I will explode.”

SELF-REPAIR CAGE

By the time Marina found her way back to the table, Pablo had come to some conclusions.

“I think we are participating in a shared hallucination,” he said by way of greeting, and handed Marina another cookie.

“I think what has happened is that the doubts we each have about the validity of what we do—the validity of the Zeno’s paradox that describes our work toward shared meaning, shared understanding, the rejection of borders, attempted agreement of any sort, all under the conditions of imperfection that are inherent in these pursuits—those doubts have, for the moment, won.”

“I’m listening,” Marina responded, unblinking eyes.

“I think this tent is our field of inquiry, made half real. That it’s the urtext for our running inner monologues, in a sense.”

Pablo seemed pleased with his interpretation, which did not come out quite as fully formed as it’s quoted here but still showed signs of a hyper-assuredness that made Marina, two decades his elder, restrain an impulse to be annoyed.

“Do you mean,” she began while also reality testing Pablo’s theory by trying to make eye contact with one after another of the people behind the white plastic tables, “that our services—Division of Conflict, Division of Conversation—aren’t really needed here?” Her mouth completed her question as her eyes completed their sweep of the tent; none of its other occupants’ gazes, even those that appeared to be directed her way, registered acknowledgment.

“I mean,” Pablo responded after a pause, “that before we are able to be of use, we are here to adjust something about our expectations. Or maybe about more than our expectations.”

“Adjust what, exactly?” Marina asked. She could feel a sense of resistance or defensiveness grip her abdomen. She had spent her career questioning and recalibrating the assumptions of her field. She knew from adjusting expectations.