As the next speaker rises from his chair and steps gingerly to the podium, the translator begins to sweat. He takes a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket and wipes his brow, a brow that can be seen, if there was anyone to see his brow, which there is not, the translator being secluded in a high glass booth on the edge of a vast assembly hall, to be furrowed and, if one knew the translator, uncharacteristically worried, a state that usually goes along with a furrowed brow. But then so does being puzzled or having to squint, neither of which is the case with the translator who knows exactly what is going on below him on the floor of the National Assembly and who has perfect eyesight, an advantage for a translator who can then detect nuances of language by gestures and anatomical positions of the speaker, such as a tautness of the limbs dissolving into a jangled quiver of the hands, an upturned chin, a squaring of shoulders—all these the translator know adds some hint as to the speaker’s meaning. No, the translator is sweating and worried because Abd al-Rahman V of Moorland has taken the podium. Al-Rahman is about to address the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, which is meeting as usual in the National Assembly Hall in Tel Aviv. The translator, his name will be given shortly as is the custom these days in the year 2095 when names mean so little and nationality so...
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