The Interpreter

The defendant was sixty-three years old and had been in the country for eleven years and understood perhaps forty percent of what was said in the courtroom when it was said at a normal pace.

She knew this because she watched his face.

The judge moved quickly. Judges always moved quickly. She kept up, phrase by phrase, but she also slowed when the defendant’s face showed he was still processing the last thing she’d said. She waited. The judge noted the delay. She explained that the defendant needed a moment.

The judge asked her to keep up the pace.

She kept her own pace instead.

She was reassigned after three months. The new courtroom was civil, not criminal. Lower stakes, she was told. She filed a complaint with the administrative office. The complaint was reviewed. The review found no procedural violation. She filed another complaint six months later, citing a pattern.

Eighteen months after the first reassignment, she was sent back to criminal court.

The judge who’d had her reassigned had retired.

She kept her pace.