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11th ProZ.com translation contest: "Contemporary society" » English to Afrikaans » Entry by Inge Grobbelaar


Source text in English

Translation by Inge Grobbelaar (#14318)

We're accustomed to glamour in London SE26: Kelly Brook and Jason Statham used to live above the dentist. But when Anouska Hempel's heels hit the cracked cement of the parking space outside my flat, it's hard not to think of those Picture Post photographs of royalty visiting bombed-out families during the second world war. Her mission in my modest tract of suburbia is, however, about more than offering sympathy. Hempel—the woman who invented the boutique hotel before it bore any such proprietary name—has come to give me information for which, judging by the spreads in interiors magazines and anxious postings on online DIY forums, half the property-owners in the Western world seem desperate: how to give an ordinary home the look and the vibe of a five-star, £750-a-night hotel suite. To Hem­pelise, in this case, a modest conversion flat formed from the middle slice of a three-storey Victorian semi.

"You could do it," she says, casting an eye around my kitchen. "Anyone could do it. Absolutely no reason why not. But there has to be continuity between the rooms. A single idea must be followed through." She looks out wistfully over the fire escape. "And you'd have to buy the house next door, of course." That's a joke. I think.

...

It's worth pausing, though, to consider the oddness of this impulse. The hotel room is an amnesiac space. We would be troubled if it bore any sign of a previous occupant, particularly as many of us go to hotels in order to do things we would not do at home. We expect a hotel room to be cleaned as thoroughly as if a corpse had just been hauled from the bed. (In some cases, this will actually have happened.) The domestic interior embodies the opposite idea: it is a repository of memories. The story of its inhabitants ought to be there in the photos on the mantelpiece, the pictures on the wall, the books on the shelves. If hotel rooms were people, they would be smiling lobotomy patients or plausible psychopaths.
London SE26 is bekend as ‘n area met glans en opwinding : Kelly Brook en Jason Statham het immers bokant die tandarts daar gewoon. Maar toe Anouska Hempel se hakke die verweerde sement van die parkeerplek buite my woonstel tref, toe is dit moeilik om nie aan die Picture Post se foto’s van die koninklikes op besoek aan die gesinne wat hul huise in bomaanvalle in die Tweede Wêreldoorlog verloor het, te dink nie. Sy besoek egter nie my nederige voorstedelike omgewing om meegevoel te betuig nie. Hempel— dis nou die vrou wat boetiek-hotelle die lig laat sien het – lank voordat dit hierdie naam gekry het – het my kom raad gee oor hoe om ‘n gewone blyplek soos ‘n vyfster £750-‘n-nag-hotelsuite te laat lyk en te laat voel. Iets wat volgens interieur-tydskrifte en koorsagtige invoere op aanlyn doen-dit-self-forums, die helfte van eiendom-eienaars in die Westelike wêreld desperaat is om inligting oor te kry. Om in hierdie geval ‘n eenvoudige woonstel wat voorheen die middelste deel van ‘n drie-verdieping Victoriaanse semi was, te Hem-peliseer

"Dit kan gedoen word," sê sy, terwyl sy haar oog oor my kombuis laat gaan. "Enigeen sal dit kan doen. Absoluut geen rede waarom nie. Maar die vertrekke moet bymekaar aansluit. Een idee moet deurgaans gevolg word." Sy kyk weemoedig na die brandtrap. "En jy sal die huis langsaan moet koop - vanselfsprekend." Dit is ‘n grap – dink/hoop ek...

Dis egter die moeite werd om hierdie vreemde gedagte te oordink. Die hotelkamer is ‘n ruimte sonder enige verwysing na ‘n vorige inwoner. Ons besoek juis ‘n hotel om dinge te doen wat ons nie by die huis sou doen nie. Ons verwag dat ‘n hotelkamer so deeglik aan die kant gemaak sal word asof ‘n lyk nou net uit die bed gehaal is. (In party gevalle mag dit werklik die geval wees.) Die binnekant van ‘n huis vergestalt die teenoorgestelde: hier word herinneringe gebêre. Die verhaal van sy bewoners behoort sigbaar te wees: die foto’s op die kaggelrak, die prente teen die muur, die boeke in die boekrak. Indien hotelkamers mense was, sou hulle glimlaggende lobotomie-pasiënte of innemende psigopate gewees het.


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