FIELD TRIP TO THE OASE

By Sinéad Crowe, Isabelle Liber and María Tellechea

Three translators – Sinéad, Isabelle and María – are working on Lucy Fricke’s Töchter, a novel in which alcohol plays a key role. Indeed, alcoholic beverages almost function as the characters’ attributes. We have Kurt with his can of beer, for example, Betty with her schnapps, The Trombonist with his rakomelo, and the “basic bitches” of Berlin with their Aperol Spritzes. The translators have encountered many unfamiliar, intriguing drinking establishments and types of alcohol in the book, some of which are not easy to translate. They decide a field trip might help, so they meet on a Saturday night in the OASE in Berlin.

The Oase isn’t exactly swanky, but it’s authentic (© Nestor Barbitta)

At 20:00 they begin their research with a regular German BEER and a discussion of the translation problems raised by alcohol in the novel.

MARÍA:  What would you call where we are now in German?  A LOKAL or a KNEIPE?

ISABELLE (smugly): A BAR! It’s a bar! That won’t cause any problem for the French translation.

SINÉAD (looking around): I’d say it’s more of a Kneipe. A typical smoky Berlin Eckkneipe with cheap furniture and a jukebox. We don’t really have places like this in Ireland. It’s tricky. According to the dictionary, the English word for Kneipe is “pub”, but a pub back home looks nothing like this. Irish pubs tend to be more traditional, cosier. And the atmosphere is different: plenty of Guinness and live music. But I can’t think of an alternative to “pub”.

Guinness is good for you: Sinéad enjoys a pint of the world’s best beer back home in Dublin

By 21:00 our translators have expounded the various definitions and connotations of these key terms and are on their third beers.

ISABELLE: We should really be drinking SCHNAPS with our beer, shouldn’t we?

SINÉAD: I’ve been tearing my hair out over Schnaps! We have the word schnapps in English, but we don’t really use it much. I talked about it with Lucy, and we agreed I’d specify the type of schnapps the characters drink: RAKOMELO, OUZO, and so on.

MARÍA (to the waiter): The same again, please! But this time with a rakomelo, an ouzo and a HERBAL LIQUEUR – AMARO, if you have it.

Sinéad and Isabelle raise their eyebrows.

MARÍA: What? It’s for research purposes!

Rakomelo recipe

You’ll need 1 litre raki, 4 tablespoons honey, 2 cloves and 2 cinnamon sticks. Place all four ingredients into a saucepan and heat, stirring constantly, until you see little bubbles begin to rise. NB: don’t allow the raki to boil, as this will cook off the alcohol.

Turn off the heat and put a lid on the saucepan. Let the mixture rest for ten minutes to allow the flavours to develop. This will ensure your rakomelo is really delicious.

When the ten minutes are up, your homemade golden rakomelo is ready. You can drink it while it’s hot or pour it into a bottle and drink it later as a cold digestif.

It’s now 23:00 and our translators are still working hard.

SINÉAD: Well girls, what’s next?

MARÍA (looks at a long list): Hold on, I noted something down here. Oh yes, I’d like HALF A LITRE OF RIESLING.

ISABELLE (with a notebook in her hand): Hmm … (Pause) We still need to try the APEROL SPRITZ and RED WINE FROM A PLASTIC CONTAINER – from Italy, of course.

SINÉAD: I normally wouldn’t dream of ordering an Aperol Spritz – I mean, it’s so basic¹, but I’ll make an exception tonight. For research purposes.

ALL THREE: Gooooood!

After a couple of hours, our translators have conducted a thorough analysis of their topic. Despite (or perhaps because of) the loud music, they start singing the words “rakome, rakome-melo” to the melody of Bésame Mucho.

Shortly before 3:00, Rosi, the landlady, puts an end to the translators’ quest to quench their thirst for knowledge. She closes up and sends them home.

Porträt von Rosi (seltsam, dass sie in ihrer Gästeliste gar keine Übersetzer∙innen erwähnt)

The next day, the following messages appear in the translators’ in their group chat.

MARÍA: What a great evening, or was it night, or should I say morning? You got me pretty PLASTERED. How many bottles did we DOWN? We were fairly PISSED, weren’t we? I’m still feeling WOOZY. We can drink like the SWEDES!

SINÉAD: There’s a fine line between being a SOCIAL DRINKER and an ANTISOCIAL DRINKER, though.

ISABELLE: You can say that again. ALCOHOL is a science!

The words in CAPITALS appear in the novel.

Drive On.