But Harcourt didn’t care. I saw that. He looked totally unperturbed. He stood there smiling and then followed calmly as the girl walked us out and asked us to wait by a car while she escorted the others with a big smile and happy banter to a big bus. I saw her looking back at us. I saw her bitching about us. I figured Mademoiselle skinny bitch thought we were getting an undeserved privilege by being driven in a car instead of in the big bus along with all the others. I didn’t realize I was lucky. That I should have milked this superior treatment for all it was worth. That I should have just reacted like a snob as Harcourt did. But I was stupid that way. I thought everyone must like me. I thought everyone must be unconditionally warm and supportive. Yep. You said it. I was a dunce.

But Harcourt had the right attitude. He didn’t give a crap. Then again Harcourt had had more experience than myself. And he was a giant in his own right, both professionally and socially (not to mention physically). He had lived. He had lived contentedly and fully. I hadn’t even begun. My life was crap. So for me, this was a big deal. For me being part of the crowd, being respected, being treated like a human being, well it was all a huge and crucial step upward. For him it didn’t matter. So while he seemed to look upon all this, on all these people, on all this hysteria, with the bemused detachment of a medieval pope watching his armies being shredded, I looked upon it with the urgent hatred of a witch about to be burned at the stake.

No sir. I wasn’t calm at all. Even as I stood near the car, I was a nervous throbbing pulsating wreck of burning nasty filthy hateful evil thoughts. I was envious. I was angry. I was sad that the skinny girl hadn’t been so nice. I felt pitiful that I was so powerless and invisible. But I also felt lucky. I felt privileged. I felt excited. It was crazy. It was like my nerves were dancing a one-eyed jig on a madly swinging tightrope that was on fire.

Finally the skinny girl disappeared completely and a larger woman arrived. She smiled.

Hi, she said. I’m Caro. Sorry about the delay. I was getting in one last smoke!

No sweat, said Harcourt bowing his head. I’m Henri and this is Mia. Nice meeting you.

No sweat? Did Harcourt just say no sweat? Of course it was in French but it was slang all right. Where the hell did he get off treating me like scum and using expressions like no sweat with this large woman he didn’t even know? It made me sick. Not to mention gobsmacked at how easily he had morphed into this ultra-hip Henri guy. Jesus. I felt like crap now, thinking that even here he was taking the lead. That I was sitting here frozen with formality while he was all Henri and and coochy coo.

Anyway we got into the car. And I sat in the back feeling like congealed horseshit while Harcourt rode with Caro in front. And throughout the ride to Cannes, they chatted easily and affably like old pals while I maintained a pained idiotic silence. Thus I began to take in the scenery. I decided it was better than talking. So there, I thought. So there!

The scenes were depressing though. At first the highway was beautiful and hilly, with a creek that we drove over and lots of green trees on either side, along with pink clay houses on distant hills and furiously colored flowers hanging down from overpasses and billboards. Then the highway ended and the road widened, flattened and became uglier and more banal as we approached the suburbs of Cannes or l’intérieur des terres as they were called. Inland towns in other words, that weren’t nearly as wealthy as Cannes. Here there were large franchise stores and franchise restaurants, franchise ramshackled houses and blaring franchise car radios. Then the roads narrowed, and classy pines made their appearance as well as charming houses, charming streets, charming cars and charming people. I began to see money, vacation homes, and finally caught the smell and sounds of the sea. It caused a subtle but sizable shift in my heart rate.

Yep, there was nothing quite as magical as the sea, I thought. Nothing quite as spiritual. No wonder the sea was where the goddess lived, both for the Greeks and the Hindus. But here there were no goddesses. Here there were the inimitable French and their inimitably French habits. I looked out at them. Bringing home baguettes, walking back from the beach, walking children home from school. The wealthy people of the Mediterranean, I thought. La côte d’Azur. It was a thrill, for sure. I felt undeserving again, like I shouldn’t be here. Like I was too poor or brown or something. I felt exactly as I had when I landed in London for the first time and wondered what on earth I was doing among all these white people. That’s how I felt.

And yet there was tremendous excitement coursing through my veins precisely for this very reason. Because I didn’t deserve it. Because I was here nonetheless. That I had been asked for, not just by Claudie, but by Paris Plus whose top producers had insisted I be recruited. That felt delicious. Yes it felt superlative. So in spite of my nerves that were doing the cha cha cha and my heart that was crooning the deep country blues, I knew another part of me leaped and surged with hot delicious excitement. After all, I thought. The fact that I was here seemed to prove what I felt deep down. That really, in spite of all current appearances, I was made for the good life.

We were to go to the hotel first, have lunch and then make the obligatory (and much dreaded) visit to the Dominguez hotel in Cannes, where we would meet the Paris Plus folks and register our presence. Then we would go to the Palais des festivals where we would watch the rehearsal for the opening ceremony and then interpret for it later this evening.

So I suggest you take your evening wear with you right away, the woman said.

Well I’m already wearing my pair of sequined underwear, said Harcourt.

The woman chuckled.

I don’t think they care about that, she said. All they want is to see your tuxedo.

Oh dear, said Harcourt. Well then I will have to buy a jacket.

I was listening with only half an ear. But I thought of that phrase evening wear. They had told us we would need evening wear. My version of evening wear was a long skirt I wore with a bulky sweatery thing. I didn’t own anything more eveningy than that. Anything more elegant, sensual or figure-hugging. Not that I had a life that involved elegant, sensual or figure-hugging evenings so why the hell would I have evening wear? I thought. Indeed.

So I continued to look out of my car window. Finally, our car wound up a small street and entered a small circular driveway. In the center was an island of plants and flowers, and all around, a wall of rock. I was puzzled. It didn’t look like a hotel, I thought. But of course, it wasn’t a hotel. Per se.

Still, since we were here and beholden to play our little part, we walked to the arrival area. We saw a skinny girl there holding a sign up that said Toujours Plus. We walked up to her but she asked us to stand aside while she sucked at a cigarette with her bony white-knuckled hand and greeted other people with a big bony smile. To us she spoke mirthlessly.

Get your luggage and come back here, she said.

Let’s get our luggage, said Harcourt.

Ok, I said.

But I hadn’t checked in a bag. So I waited. And when I saw Harcourt’s massive suitcase, I felt panic. How would I manage, I thought. I didn’t have enough.

But concerns about being even more shabbily dressed than usual were overshadowed by a big ruckus next to me where a blonde woman in a large hat seemed to rush out to the exit, followed by a small shuffling crowd of nobodies.

Who’s that? I asked.

Who knows, said Harcourt shrugging.

But I looked around me. And instantly made my first acquaintance with the two main branches of the Cannes sub-species. Those who followed people around hoping they were celebrities. And those who gave a name regardless of what they’d actually seen. Thus I heard the latter exclaim with immense and loud confidence: Catherine Debeuve, that was Catherine Debeuve. While the former chased after the woman, small camera in hand. It was pathetic, I thought. Depressing somehow. I didn’t know why. Maybe because it showed how little respect people had to feel for themselves, to run after someone famous like that. Not someone they respected or someone they wanted to meet, but someone famous whose halfwit signature they coveted. It was ridiculous.

But our skinny skank friend had a comment.

It isn’t Catherine Debeuve, she said with immense boredom. She’s already here, she was at the Palais last night.

Ah, I said pretending to admire her knowingness.

But the girl didn’t care. My comment had no ingratiating effect on her. She just sucked harder at her cigarette.

Still, I observed her. And I realized expressing disdain for the hordes was a way of showing you were part of the in-crowd and that you knew what was going on. So I drew my conclusion. I decided to be part of the in-crowd or not be at all.

But then I looked around again. And damn, I thought. I’m in Cannes. I can’t believe it. Bloody Cannes.

It sure was thrilling. Even if this was only Nice and an hour’s drive away from Cannes. But even here you felt it. The feeling of excitement was raw hot and fevered. Like the heat and sunshine that hit you as you landed. All resorts had a sexiness about them. A lustful air of illicit over-wrought artificial enjoyment that had your blood vessels popping the minute you arrived. But the heat and sunshine of Cannes were different. They were the heat and sunshine of Cannes. Of cash, gold, fame and sex. Outrageous fame, phenomenal wealth. Outrageous privilege. Phenomenal power.

Yes indeed. Cannes brought together the most decadent and self-absorbed people in the world. That’s why everyone wanted to be here. The Festival was no longer about art. The days of Louis Malle holding up the ceremony for student protesters were over. Now Cannes was a glitzy promo hangout, a sort of whorehouse for international movie pimps. Where they all came with their expense accounts and movies and lens-fuelled hunger. The fever of pleasure not for pleasure. But to show it off. This was what Cannes was about. Intense and feverish ostentation. You felt it right away. It hit your face like the gust from a sandblaster.

Yes sir, Cannes boiled down to three little words: cash, snatch and power. Not international film and festival. No indeed. That was bollocks. Cannes was all about money, sex and the gigantism of entertainment. Even the allure of cash and power were felt not in your heart, where all the noble faculties reigned. No sir, they were felt in your snatch. The place where everything brought with it with a certain sadness. A certain bluesiness. A disturbing roiling ache that made you aware right away that what you were doing was probably going to hurt you in some way. A sort of premonition of animal triste was what it was. And I felt it right away.

You couldn’t help but feel it. The tingling in your blood, the loosening up of your limbs, the troublesome boiling in your nervous system and that surge of excitement in your nether parts. Your whole body reached out to it. To the allure of fame and money. The madness of industrial-strength desire. If you weren’t a part of it, you felt like shit. And it wasn’t something you felt gradually as you drove into the city either. No sir, you felt it right off. Right here at Nice airport. I saw it in the way people swaggered about already, in the way they deliberately shouted on their cell phones, in the way they laughed and talked loudly as they showed off badges. Already here at the airport, you sensed it. The fever that had taken over the city. I felt it keenly. And I knew everyone else felt it too. The painful turgid cavernous surrender to hysteria. That’s what Cannes was about. Massive and nurtured hysteria.

Yes sir, you felt it instantly. The wet shiny tinselly presence of hysteria and the lust it brought with it. It all filled the air to choking. You could see it in the faces of those who were landing, on those who were already here. You heard it in their raucous voices, you saw it in their hungry eyes, on their over-exposed bodies, their overcooked tans. It was important for everyone to overdo it. That too was clear. Cannes was excess. Cannes was hysteria. Cannes was a tsunami of phoniness that hit you like a drill in the teeth.

But of course that feeling was to pale in comparison with what I was about to feel next. Yes sir. And over the next twelve days. Because when we went back and stood near the skinny girl, not only did I sense the same bored hostility emanating from her clogged pores, not only did I sense massive hysteria swirling all around me, but most importantly, most noticeably, I sensed vast overwhelming arrogance swimming around us like sharks near bleeding meat. I saw in my mind’s eye a long step-ladder of arrogance, with yours truly right at the bottom.

Yes indeed. It began with the skinny girl and the way she sucked at her cigarette and insisted on not looking at us when she spoke. But I sensed this trend was going to continue and become alarmingly acute in Cannes, especially around the folks at Paris Plus.

Why did I sense this? Well I had a strong intuition for one thing. And I knew from past, present and generalized experience, that for most of the folks at Paris Plus, Harcourt, Hoffmanstahl and myself were little better than mouse turds. Little better than cat crap. In short, less than nothing. Why? Well because we were uncool. And why were we uncool? Well because we didn’t work in TV. And why didn’t we work in TV? Well because we were uncool.

Yes indeed. It was a circular argument. Of little merit to those of us who had brains and a little-valued commodity (in entertainment circles) called intelligence. But TV was full of people who had started out as assistants and moved forward by dint of ambition, greed and phenomenal servility. Consequently, these people tended to sport insecurities the size of sperm whales. And egos that were rarely smaller than the Eiffel Tower. And therefore, these folks were also filled with a desperate desire to protect their territory while expressing slavish adoration for their superiors. Which for us folks, meant nothing but generalized assholery and an infuriating school-girl ear-whispering cliquishness.

Of course we weren’t treated any better back in Paris. No sir. This was why I sensed Cannes was going to be a radical sort of hell. Because most of the production assistants back in Paris treated us like people treat their toilet-bound air fresheners. Like a totally disgusting but necessary evil. In their eyes we resembled rotting fish in open trash. Vultures near a corpse. So we were neither liked, respected, wanted or even noticed. At every step in fact, we were ignored, excluded, mocked and just about tolerated. With the exception of the higher bosses who made the decisions and hired us and paid us, the rest of the low-thinking bitcherati that staffed production at Paris Plus believed we were useless. That we were overpaid, underworked, intolerably spoiled and therefore deserving of the most relentless unrefined, non-processed nastiness.

Good morning, he said smiling vaguely.

Hello, I said smiling weakly.

And then he went back to his paper. And I looked around, feeling nauseous. Yep. I did that well. Looking around. Feeling nauseous. They were my best known talents.

Then I tried to find something to read while I wondered what to say if Harcourt and I were to speak again. Harcourt and I had worked together once. But only once. And that day it had gone well. Extremely well. I had been loose-tongued, wry and witty that day. But today was different. Today I knew I was going to spend twelve days with the Monsignor. And I wondered would he remember my behavior of that day with vengefulness or kindness. Would he even remember me at all. That’s what I wondered now.

Of course, in the future, Harcourt and I would be friends. He would even come to know me, like me and respect me. But that was in the future. This was now. And now I felt uneasy. As rotten and nervous as on that first day when he’d evicted me like a cat hacks out a hairball.

So I looked around. I saw cool people enter the lounge with cool cigarettes, cool sunglasses, cool hungover faces and cool friendly colleagues. I felt wretchedly uncool compared to them. It wasn't just my clothes. It was my profession. I wanted to be cool too. I too wanted to be easy-going, happy and cool. But I wasn't. I was sickeningly dull and geeky. With a retired bulldog interpreter for company. Oh Jesus, I thought. And predictably, all the tidal waves of self-pity I had kept deep down inside myself surged up and swirled around in my nauseated frame.

Then luckily they announced departure. And as we got up and stood in line, I felt like those bad actors who don’t know what to do with their hands. I didn’t know what to do with my whole body. So I got my passport out. I put it back in. I opened my purse. I closed it up again. I looked at Harcourt. I looked away. It was horrible.

While Harcourt, bless his heart, said not a single word.

Then we inched, painfully, slowly, step by traumatic step, towards the plane, where we were finally face to face with a legion of over-cosmeticized over-happy stewardesses who smiled like their cheeks were held apart with pincer claws. And yet, immediately I noticed how Harcourt’s manner changed. I saw how he smiled, bowed, muttered and crooned, as only a dog might do in the presence of a bitch. Or Lucipher in the presence of Eve. And I smiled as I saw him stretch forward and the stewardess flutter her lashes and actually shrink her smile down so it looked real.

Aha, I thought. Harcourt’s a Don Juan. Harcourt chases tail.

But I moved on, pretending to ignore it. And we made the long painful trudge to our seats where I hemmed and hawed idiotically about putting my bag up in the luggage hold and which seat I should take (the flight didn’t have assigned seats). Then, just to stop myself from talking, I took the window seat. But it was horrible. I felt intensely claustrophobic, hemmed in as I was between the great wall of Interpreter on my left and the over-heated wall of airplane on my right. But I sat there quietly. And we continued to do what we had done at the airport. Harcourt sat reading. I stared out of the window feeling pukey.

Only halfway through the flight did something change. It was subtle but important. The same mildly hysterical extra-skinny stewardess who had beamed at Harcourt came round with coffee, tea and Breton biscuits. The airline’s measly version of breakfast. But since my nausea still had me in a choke-hold, I refused. And Harcourt took full advantage.

And once again as I stared, I saw how he channeled his inner playboy and chatted up the hanger-thin stewardess like he were Porfirio and she were good old Zsa Zsa. He chatted and murmured, she cooed and billed. He smiled and gushed, she squawked and tittered. I almost threw up but still, I watched, sickened but strangely moved.

Harcourt was only asking if he could have my share of coffee and biscuits. But he was doing it with such poetic flourish, such seductive aplomb, such extreme antiquated boyish flirtatiousness, that I simply had to smile. And when the stewardess was done giggling and shimmying and was finally gone, I spontaneously burst into a laugh. Harcourt turned. He smiled. And asked politely if I didn’t mind him wolfing down my share of food. I shook my head.

No, I said chuckling. But I am glad it gave you the opportunity to make some new friends!

And to my surprise Harcourt chuckled. And shook his enormous head as he spoke.

Ah yes my dear, he said bowing his head. Life is too short you know!

And he held up a biscuit.

But it is kind of you to oblige!

And that was that. The iceberg between us melted. After all, I thought. The man’s a glutton. And a philanderer. We just might get along after all.

So as we circled over Nice, I felt relaxed and talked it up a little. I asked Harcourt questions. Whether he’d been to Cannes, whether he’d worked at the Festival, whether he liked being retired. I took the initiative and flattered him defenseless. It must be strange being back among us mortals, I said. It must feel unnatural to be ordinary again. Harcourt smiled. Then he chuckled. He talked. He opened up. And ever so slightly he became someone I could imagine working with. I felt ebullient. I felt relaxed. I felt good.

But all that changed when we landed. At the airport in Nice, I began to feel it. What I always felt in this city. What I always felt when we landed. Up in the air, I had been fine. Now I felt terrible. My nerves seemed to be simmering. My chest was throbbing. The agitation, the frenzy, the flurry of Cannes was taking over. As soon as we landed, I felt it. The agony and ecstasy of Cannes.

So the following Thursday, at seven a.m., I checked in. Henri Harcourt and I were taking the plane together. Philibert would join us later. I was shitting bricks. I might have shat other things if it had been possible. Things that better expressed my fear, loathing and disgust at having to work and travel in the company of someone like Harcourt at this hour of the morning. But bricks was all I could manage for now.

Thus I walked bravely into the lounge, disguising my worries with a well-practiced smile of elegance and refinement. But nobody cared. Nobody noticed me. Nothing new there, I thought. I’m as noticeable as a diaper on a rubbish heap. So I looked around wondering if I could spot any superstars. But no. No superstars either. Then I hoped Harcourt would notice me. I figured it might help with the painful and unavoidable business of introductions. But no. Harcourt didn’t notice me either. He didn’t even look up. And indeed, why should he? I thought. It would run contrary to nature. You didn’t see tigers making way for lambs. You didn’t see snakes bowing politely to eggs. No sir. That’s not how the world worked. Slaves bent low for their masters. Prey dropped dead for their predators. That’s how it worked. And indeed there he was. Wearing a linen suit, reading a newspaper and looking intently at it like death looking at a plague victim.

I walked toward him like a mosquito flies toward a lightbulb. I felt awful. I lacked anything resembling confidence and I was wearing utterly hideous clothes. All my fault of course. I wore clothes I hated because I wanted to hide a body I hated. I also locked myself in a personality I hated. And felt imprisoned in a life I hated. Stated briefly, I hated everything about myself. I felt acutely ashamed and embarrassed about myself everywhere I went and in my clothes right now, I felt like a tent where fleas might hope to die. No it was nothing to be proud of. But then I never felt good. No sir. Not a thing about me spelled happiness, pride or joy. My life had gone horribly wrong, I thought. And that was that.

I was wrong of course. My life wasn’t so bad. Sure it was dull burdensome and clogged with debt penury and obligation. But it wasn’t all bad. I mean I had this work after all. And I had Claudie and her sewage conferences. Now I even had Cannes. And yet, like every sad fool who is unable to see beyond his nosehairs, like all the sad fools who are unable to summon the intelligence to see that their life is doing them an enormous favor by not letting them be in control, I felt terrible self-pity. Miles and gallons and tons of it. Boo hoo hoo I went all the time. Boo hoo hoo.

Yes indeed. In my mind, it was all over. I was finished. In my mind, there was nothing so unbearable, so unmitigatedly disastrous as having to work as an interpreter.

Of course it wasn’t true. Being an interpreter was fine. I mean it didn’t suck like loads of other jobs I could be doing and it paid exceedingly well. Sure, it wasn’t the most exciting thing you could think of doing. I mean there was little that was glamorous or sexy about sitting in a booth and droning on about the cement industry. Or translating how a Japanese lab could now turn sewage into steak. But most people didn’t expect to do something glamorous for a living. Most people were happy to take home a paycheck that didn’t involve blowing a stranger on a sidewalk or hosing dogshit off the street. Only I seemed to cling to the adolescent fancy of happiness, stardom and fulfillment. That’s what I wanted. Fulfillment. And sitting in a closed space and smelling someone else’s stale breath while I rattled off pages of sales figures and chemical formulae was not my idea of it.

Our show was the most popular talk show in France. Toujours Plus came on every evening at seven and ended at nine and during the festival, covered the madness of Cannes. They covered its night life, had their own nightclub to house some of that night life (of which we would be an entirely non-existent part of course), and also covered the famous red carpet with its incomprehensible diurnal hysteria. I of course had never seen any of this. I had only been in France some two odd years, and during that time, had been too deeply absorbed in turning myself into a respectable professional from a penniless, unfashionable blubbery pauper to watch television.

But everyone else in France knew about the show. Oh yes. When I mentioned my Toujours Plus Cannes news to my threadbare collection of friends slash acquaintances they all knew what I was talking about. And their envy helped. I found my feelings of icy self-hatred, self-loathing and generalized disgust warm, thaw and soften under the heat of their vivifying jealousy.

Ah oui, Paris Plus, they all said, oui oui, they always go down to Cannes and do their live show there. It’s pretty wild…

And then they paused while I beamed proudly.

So you’re going for that? they said. You’re going to be with them throughout the festival? Wow, you’re so lucky!

Oh yes, it was music to my ears. The sentence you’re so lucky felt like a delicious hot shower I had once taken after several nights spent out camping and shitting in the desert. Then my colleagues heard about it. And they too paused with a delicious green shining out of their eyes and some utterly predictable (but clearly fake) indifference.

Cannes, they said first. Cannes, sure.

And then they paused.

But you’re going? I mean, you?

Yep, I wanted to say. Me, suckers! Me, Harcourt and Hoffmanstahl.

Those were my colleagues. Harcourt and Hoffmanstahl. Both men and seniawrs in the profession. Harcourt and Hoffmanstahl lent weight and credibility to the recruitment. Claudie was hiring them instead of the usual ruck she hired because they were top dogs in the profession. Harcourt was emperor of Interpreterland. Hoffmanstahl was like a senior court noble.

Harcourt was the Presidents’ man. Whispering, speechifying and dining with a long series of Présidents de la République had turned him into a sort of wax relic of carnivorous snobbery and careerist cannibalism. And he still did it as regularly as I took laxatives. Work for presidents, that is. And crush his enemies. The Elysée palace was where Harcourt belonged. And everyone knew it. Hobnobbing, note-taking and speech-rendering with sphinx-like perfection for cash-soaked, gun-buying, oil-spilling, resource-plundering dignitaries from France and around the world was what Harcourt did best. In fact he did it superbly. And for this, for his murderous efficiency, he was feared and respected by every ditherer in our profession.

I too had met him in distant times. Ah yes. In less than auspicious circumstances. Early in my career, I had met him and been ejected from his office with cool munificent cruelty. He had thrown me out of his Foreign Ministry office like a butcher cleans out his work table. For what exactly? Well for doing the unthinkable. For believing a mangy cur like me could work in Paris. Yes sir. Needless to say therefore, I did not look forward to working with Harcourt. Not in Cannes, not in Hades, not anywhere else.

Philibert Hoffmanstahl though, was nice, if nervous. He was soft-spoken, tall, hunched and bore an uncanny resemblance to Charles de Gaulle. Philibert and I had often worked together. And he too was unhappy about working with Harcourt. Everyone was unhappy around Harcourt. Harcourt was like a feline you let into the monkey cage at a zoo. Not the best recipe for universal harmony, if you know what I mean.

And yet, for my colleagues who were a generally uncharitable breed of toffs, this news was the clincher. To say Harcourt and I were going to Cannes was like telling the King of Denmark you knew what he had done and you had video footage. For this reason most of all, I felt the most ardent and avid enthusiasm. I was over the moon and several planets to be able to stick it to them at last. Oh yes, I told myself. For once I can boast of something. And not just something, but a professional something. And not just a professional something, but Cannes.

You see, it was no secret that I was something of a pariah, a stray, a bum in my profession. That while my colleagues zoomed around the world in business class, I only ever got to distant Paris suburbs whose star attractions tended to be sewage treatment plants and state-of-the-art labs for analyzing sheep catarrh. So it was most riling to hear my colleagues speak casually of shawls they’d bought in Djakarta, or free Mont Blancs they’d acquired while working for the Ministry of so-and-so in Marrakesh. Oh yes, I noticed how casually they pretended to mention those first-class tickets and prestigious hotel rooms on the beach. It was galling.

So I wasn’t about to let them off easily now. No sir. I too spoke casually of Cannes. I too pretended not to care as I laid it on thick. It wasn’t far away. It wasn’t exotic. But it was Cannes. And I wasn’t working for politicians, but I was working for superstars. And I wasn't going it alone. No sir. I was working with über-royalty. Harcourt.

Excited? Of course I was excited. I was as excited as a poodle getting its ass shaved for the first time. I felt like frigging royalty! Cannes? Are you kidding? It was like asking a rancorous backwaters dimwit to become president of the United Sta… (oh, sorry, wasn’t thinking…). Yes, I could feel it. After years of joyless dot dot dots and maybe a few semi-colons in my life, I was finally getting to see some girlish exclamation marks again. It felt magnificent. Exquisite. Me, I thought. Hell! Me! Something’s happening to me at last!

I told everyone of course. Heck, I kept repeating the news even to myself hoping it would eventually penetrate my thick skull like a mallet thrashing through drywall. Then I asked myself. Little dowdy malformed moi? Going to Cannes? Could it be? But yes, said Claudie. My dear, alcoholic, horse-haired, toothy Claudie who was the only one in Paris that ever hired me. Of course darling, she said. You’ll be getting your contract soon. And your ticket. And oh, you don’t have any specific preferences for your room do you?

My room? Preferences?
I was caught off-guard. Beggars like me didn’t often get to be choosers, so I didn’t know what to say.

Well uh, I guess no ground floors, I said. Because I am allergic to cats. And and…
But that was it.

And then I saw it. The contract. It arrived in the mail like Ulysses knocking on Calypso’s door. It was so heavy with money I wanted to frame it. Yes indeed. Alarming sums of money were being promised me for staying where we would stay (there was a brochure showing sea views and a Dynasty-style swimming pool) and working for a small and tentative list of superstars.

But the list was disappointing. Mostly men (and I'll explain later why that was a drawback), and only a few of them bone-wrenchingly famous. Only Andy Barfia and the lead singer of former 1980’s band Yurin Yurin who was now composing hit songs in Japan. And one woman I’d never heard of: some young Mexican actress called Hellma Slyek. But that was it. I mean sure, they said most of the guests would be added on later, but I couldn’t show off with this! This was disgustingly meager pickings.

Still, I felt pretty confident. Paris Plus would definitely get us some top guests once we were there. You bet. Paris Plus was the hottest channel on French television. They were even making forays into global TV now and yours truly was carving out a nice little niche for herself with Paris Plus. Yes sir. You see, I worked from French into English. While Harcourt and Hoffmanstahl worked from English into French. In other words, my French colleagues interpreted what the superstars said into French for the French audience and so were heard on TV. While I interpreted what the French interviewer asked the superstars and was heard only by the superstars through a little tiny earpiece.

The advantage was, I got to introduce myself to said superstars and whisper sweet interpretings into their well-groomed ears. The disadvantage was I never got heard by anybody in the real world and nobody knew who the hell I was. BUT because it was all live and no superstar could be seen waiting months for a question to be translated, I had to work fast. I mean fast. Very fast. And right there lay the core of my appeal to TV recruiters. Why I was going to Cannes instead of my poisonously pretentious fatuous colleagues. Why I was considered to be one of the most hirable of interpreters for television, especially when it came to working for mega-super-hyper stars like those who came to Cannes.

I was fast. Incredibly fast. I could finish interpreting a question even before the interviewer was done. So when I worked, all the stars were happy. From pop stars Steven Smyler and the material babe, LaDonna to the impossible-to-please Whortney Shove. Yes sir. They were all happy. Because for a change, they didn't have to feel or look as stupid as they feared they were. I was a champion in my newfound field. A veritable Rhodes, an Appleseed or any number of those world-exploring native-killing pioneers. This was because I took shortcuts and had learned to read the brazenly dull, unoriginal minds of most talkshow hosts. And because I was just plain brilliant. Either way, I had already acquired something of a reputation. The fastest draw in the biz, they called me at Paris Plus. Ze Billy ze Kid of ze microphone.

Still (and this is where I explain why men guests were a disappointment), with no women on the list, yours truly would remain a hidden genius. Since I wasn't French, the honor of doing the French voice would never be bestowed upon me in Paris. In Cannes however, if there were women guests, I would have to do them into French since hiring another woman there would be impossible. SO the only exception to me doing the English voice was if there were women guests on the show in Cannes. That way I could prove myself to the milling hordes. That way I could be heard on live television. That way I could conquer that vast lame-brained, celebrity-worshipping polity they called les téléspectateurs. Heck, even my colleagues would know how good I was.

Because that was still important you see. Yes, even now, my well-heeled ministerial colleagues looked down on me. Being fast while you interpreted celebritous inanities was not the greatest of linguistic achievements for an interpreter. And I knew it. But for once, I didn’t give a shit. We were being paid sheer granaries of cash to do this for pete's sake. And we were going to Cannes. And we were staying at a fabulous place (according to those brochures I got). And meeting superstars and getting subsidized meals at the famous restaurant of the Dominguez which was the super-luxurious hotel where Paris Plus would be based. So what the hell did I have to complain about?

Of course I never had to complain about too much attention. Good lord no. If anything, when I worked for the stars, I craved for even the tiniest pubic hair of attention. To be looked at, listened to, praised, admired, seen in any sort of way by anybody, this was what I craved for. I ached, hurt, pined, longed and groveled for attention. I was starved for any of kind of image of myself, a confirmation that I actually existed and that my existence was in any way worthwhile.

In my mind, you see, I felt like Quasimodo. Or his slightly more hideous sister. Or that good old plant-eating dinosaur I just talked about. Yes indeed, I felt big heavy and unwanted. Utterly bitterly useless. I looked like crap. I felt like crap. I dressed like crap. And yet I was convinced that deep down, underneath it all, I was a genius. Yes indeed. I felt I could prove it too, if only someone would give me a chance. Sure, I thought. I’d show them if they let me. If someone discovered me.

So even as I worked, I looked upon those superstars with a knowing cocktail of contempt, envy and identification. That is, I craved to be like them even as I knew I belonged among them. The only problem, I told myself, was that I hadn’t had the opportunities they’d had. The chances. The breaks. My life had gone horribly wrong and instead of an artist I had ended up becoming an interpreter. And now I was stuck interpreting for them instead of being one of them.

What I wanted above all was the lives they had, all that attention, respect, all those openings to showcase their talent. I deserved it too I felt, probably even more than they did. Because you see, I had talent. Yes sir. Phenomenal epoch-making talent. But I never got to show it. I wasn’t given the opportunity. Instead, I was made to work as a lackey. A lowly slave. A quasi-technical appendage who was heard but never seen.

No surprise then that I felt continually miserable, unhappy, unnoticed and feverishly self-pitying as I worked. No one told me I was brilliant and gorgeous, I thought. No one laughed at my jokes. No one gave me that break I so obviously deserved. No indeed. I had to work despicably hard for everything I got. Everything in my life was an uphill climb, whether it was my work, my colleagues, my friends or my income that disappeared faster than urine on dry earth.

And then there was my body. Oh lord, don’t even get me started on that. That was the worst. I was overweight. Lord. Not by much you understand. About six kilos. But if you’re like me you’ll know that was enough. That for some insane reason, being overweight (and I’m not talking parked-in-bed obese which I’ll grant is a health hazard) is today considered to be the gravest of all sins, the most palpable of uglinesses, far worse than dropping bombs on another man’s country and murdering his children. Or ruining their lives by making them watch their parents die of endless impoverished struggle. No sir. While world leaders destroy our planet, we’re watching our weight. Go figure.

But that isn’t the point here. The point is I was no better. Fact is, I was worse. I was convinced not only that I was a thwarted genius, but also that I was ugly, worthless, stupid and a failure. That I had failed demonstrably to actualize my talents. That I was doomed to remain unknown unhappy and unrecognized unless someone somewhere discovered my hidden treasures. Sniff. And that’s when it happened. Claudie, my recruiter, called. Mia my love, she said. You’re going to Cannes!

Celebrity Interpreter: Reminiscences of an Interpreter to the Stars

Hello and welcome. My name is Mia Makarand. And this is my blog. It’s about how I worked for ten years as an interpreter to the superstars. Yes, I do mean superstars. The folks you only see on magazines and movie screens. Folks you wait for hours just to get a glimpse of (if you’re insane and pathetic enough to do that kind of thing). Yes I do mean them. I interpreted for them.

What’s an interpreter you ask? Well an interpreter is the kind of person you see at the United Nations (or in that movie starring Nicole Kidman) who wears a headset on her head and simultaneously translates for whichever guy is speaking at the lectern. I did that. But not at the United Nations. I worked in Paris, for a TV channel, and for superstar celebrities. I even went to the Cannes film festival. Yes indeed. Several times in fact. But this blog is about my first year there. Me in Cannes. Little ole me, toiling for folks like Sharon Crone, Naomi Stompbell, The Price Girls or Mariah Scary. Meeting some of them too. Being at close quarters. Which of course brings me to my next most important point.

I have changed their names. I mean the superstars’. Just so you won’t recognize them. I do this not only to guard against unbecoming libel suits but also to protect their precious privacy, those poor little things. I mean think about it. Would you want all the nasty details of your private life to be exposed before an unscrupulous public? No sir. When you go out of your house, you want to look good. You don’t want pictures of your snot hanging out? Or your unwashed underwear showing? You don’t want to be spotted hurling your gizzards out in some side-street or punching a nice old lady to get her cab? No sir. When you go out, you want to look superfabulous, sophisticated and smashing. You want to feel good. You want other people to see you looking and feeling fabulous so they’ll talk about it and you’ll feel even better about yourself.

Heck, when you’re a superstar, that stuff becomes vital. Superstars can never look bad. They can’t even look normal. They must always look absolutely incredible. Celestial. Unearthly. And they do by god. I always noticed how a superstar even at a casual interview looked way better than I did at my own wedding.

Yes sir, superstars must and always do look incredibly unnaturally gorgeous. Of course they look that way because they are made to look that way. They are made to seem like they always look that way with very little effort. This is because superstars are constantly surrounded by a buzz of people who ensure they look fabulous, who praise them endlessly and say they are not only fabulous but brilliant in every way, and funny and superlatively talented, original, smashing, and the best thing to walk on the earth since plant-eating dinosaurs.

So why would I go and break that delicate arrangement? Why would I soil that fragile idyll? No sir, it’s just not my style. In this blog I will with dignity, respect and discretion discuss all the details of every single star I worked for without you knowing who I’m talking about. I will also fictionalize the accounts. Most importantly, I will focus on myself. Since the superstars already have their names and stories splashed out in every magazine from here to Timbuktu. Voila.