A videobook in two volumes. Two people. One language neither of them could speak.
Silence is not always peace. Sometimes it's poison.
Processing is a king — always try to talk, even when your voice is trembling.
Soy el soldado de tu lado más maldado,
soy comandante de tu parte de adelante.
— Andrés Calamaro
Toi et moi, les animaux fragiles.
— ZAZ & Yckar
Maybe my animals live in your zoo?
— Prata Vetra
Я не думал о тебе уже пять минут,
Это значит, я сознание потерял.
— Високосный Год
Kai records twenty-four messages at 2 a.m. He never listens to them back. He puts the phone face-down and stares at the ceiling until light.
Volume Bet · BeforeA sabra and a Russian-speaking repatriate walk through Kreuzberg. The city doesn't ask for papers. For the first time, they are simply Kai and Gerda.
Both Volumes · BeforeTwelve hours. The near-death experience. The orange-brown-yellow walls. Every timeline ends at the same hospital. She fights her way back. He calls it dehydration.
Both Volumes · The CrisisFour months. The languages go — German first, then Hebrew, then only Russian remains. The Oberarzt holds the keys. Kai sits in the corridor, locked out of the language of the underworld.
Both Volumes · The CrisisGerda comes home. Her German back. Her Hebrew back. Her self back. Kai sits down at the table and says: I need to tell you something.
Both Volumes · The ReturnSix months. She reads the books, talks to her shrink, carries the weight alone. She lets him go. She opens the door. She does not wait — she works.
Volume Alef · The ReturnShe finds the twenty-four messages. She presses play. He says: I don't recognise this person. Don't wait for me. She presses play on the fourth one.
Both Volumes · The FrostThe more I meet other people, the more I understand how unique and wonderful you are. He comes home. She puts her hand over his. The bridge is rebuilt.
Both Volumes · The ThawHe had thought he was empty.
He wasn't empty.
The bridge was out.
Alexithymia · Volume Bet — Kai
The Translator of Silence is a dual-volume literary videobook — a new form for a story that could not be told in one voice, one language, or one medium.
Berlin, 2020–2026. A forty-eight-year-old Russian-speaking repatriate and a thirty-four-year-old Israeli sabra. A city that promised equality. A medical catastrophe. A man with a splinter of mirror in his heart. A woman who fought her way back from the underworld and spent six months defrosting the person she came back for.
Read both volumes. The second one will crack the first one open.
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