The Circular File Cabinet

As a teenager, I had a job in a photography shop. Sometimes when we were organizing the office, I would come across piles of old invoices or memos. When I asked my manager how to deal with them, he would often say to put them in the “circular file” which meant the garbage can. At the time, I thought that was really funny and I still think of it when I am chucking paper in the trash. What you are about to read below is rescued from the “circular file” on my computer.

A Writing Exercise

My parents had several Czechoslovak friends who immigrated here with them and ended up driving taxi cabs. Even my dad drove a cab for a while. When I was little, I overheard quite a few stories about the passengers they picked up (only the most wholesome ones of course..I can’t imagine the stories my parents heard after i went to bed!).

Some time ago, I was in the middle of writing a long story in which a main character immigrates to Canada from the former Czechoslovakia and becomes a taxi driver in Toronto. At the time, I thought it would be useful to write a few little vignettes about possible passengers, just to get my mind into the space of the taxi cab. I tried to imagine a collection of different people my main character Jaro might pick up and how, in a short space of time, they could change the way he sees the world in some small way.

I ended up with a handful of them which I will post up on here from time to time. They are not really a part of the bigger work, just fun exercises. None of them are the real stories that I heard as a little kid. All these characters and events are fictional and any resemblance to real people and events is coincidental (as they say).

Jaro is the taxi drivers name in my story. In Czech, “j” makes a “y” sound. So, to pronounce it correctly in English, you would say Yaro. This is a very common male Slavic name.

Jaro’s Taxi Fares: The Translator

Jaro picks her up in front of the Fairfield Hotel on Bloor Street West. She pulls open the door, tosses her bag inside and jumps into the back.

“Hi” she says in a big voice, her round eyes beaming at Jaro in the rear view mirror. “Going to the airport, no rush so please drive easy. I don’t have a good stomach for fast car rides” Jaro obliges, trying to be gentle with the accelerator as they pull out into traffic.

“I don’t spend a lot of time in cars back home you see?”

Jaro asks about her home country and finds out that she is Sorosian. Jaro thinks for a minute and replies that he is not too familiar with Soros.

“Not surprised” she answers. He asks her if she knows Czechoslovakia.

“Sure thing…thrown together from parts of the the Hapsburg Empire after the first world war, occupied by commies after 1968, Velvet Revolution in 1989, Velvet divorce in the early 90s… Now the porn capital of Eastern Europe! Velvet PUSSY! HAHAHA!“ Jaro is slightly offended but also impressed. He laughs. She isn’t wrong.

She explains that she is here for a consultation on a James Welter novel she is in the middle of translating.

“To be honest, I didn’t need a consultation. I just made that up to get a free ride here. I have always wanted to visit Canada” she admitted. “I just write whatever I want anyways! HAHAHA!” she laughed maniacally.

“What do you mean?” Jaro asked.

“Well, the government of Soros is paying for translations of English novels into Soro to promote the language and keep it alive. Part of an Indigenous Language and Culture Preservation Program. There are about twenty-four thousand Sorosians left and less than half can speak the language…just the parents and grandparents mostly. The kids just want to speak English and watch Korean dramas.” Jaro nods in the front seat.

“Welter’s bullshit mystery novels seem to be popular everywhere so that’s why I got this assignment. The Sorosian government wants to translate these kinds of easy readers and then promote them in local bookstores and libraries. They hope that the kids might pick them up and read them in their native language”. Jaro keeps quiet as he takes a gentle right turn.

“But I’ll tell you that there isn’t one Sorosian interested in a Canadian mystery novel set in a quiet prairie town. Myself included. So when I get bored I just make up whatever I want. No one will EVER notice.”

“You really do this?” Jaro asks. 

“Sure! Like when Detective McCall is staking out the town library waiting for the Deauville Gang to break in and steal the Group of Seven painting?…I got so bored…I made McCall stake out a highway strip club instead. He gets bored and goes into the club, gets drunk on Seagrams 7, gets a lap dance and a HAND JOB! HAHAHA!” Jaro flushes a little at the language coming from this small well dressed academic.

“Welter can’t read it and no Sorosian will read that shit either!’ And certainly no one will read it in both languages and compare. So I am free to entertain myself while I get paid! HAHAHA”. Jaro chuckles.

“Anyways, I probably improved the book and I really just came here to see the snow. It doesn’t snow in Soros but I LOVE snow. There is nothing more beautiful to me. That’s why I came in winter. I spent the last couple of days near Collingwood. Lots of snow. Do you like winter?” Jaro was always surprised to find another winter lover, especially from a warm country. He replied that winter was his favourite season apart from the city driving and that he especially liked the sound snow made under his boots.

“I have travelled all over the place looking for snow and the best is Japan. The snowiest country in the world is Japan” said the translator.

“Japan” Jaro repeats as he eases on the brakes.

“Yes! Isn’t it surprising? For every centimeter of snow you get here, they get a meter. There are towering walls of snow along the roadways”. Jaro imagines an earthquake and what would happen to those snow walls on the highway…always imagining things from behind the steering wheel.

“If you really love winter, go to Hokkaido in January. I could die happy there”. Jaro replies that he is not sure if he will ever get to Japan.

“If you love winter, if you love snow, you should try to go…I went to translate a volume of Soseki Haiku and never wanted to leave. Do you know Haiku? Short poems, 17 syllables, nature? Absolute murder to translate into Soro but I did my best. They are just gorgeous, no embellishment needed. Definitely no handjob Haiku!! HAHAHA!” Jaro chuckled again and shifted in his seat a little.

“I love poetry the most. Novels are just so much noise and repetitive storytelling sometimes. All ego. Not poetry and definitely not Haiku.”

She pulled a small notebook out of her bag and opened it on her lap. She was silent for the rest of the ride. Jaro liked her sense of humour and her crazy laugh. He drove quietly hoping she would pipe up again but she seemed to be absorbed in her notes. When they arrived at Terminal 3, he pulled to the curb and walked around the car to let her out. She snatched up her bag and bounced out of the back seat.

“It was a pleasure meeting you Velvet snow man…I hope you take my advice”. Jaro laughed and said he would think about it. Just before she turned to go, she handed him a neatly folded page from her notebook.

“5-7-5” she said. Then she skipped off into the terminal building. Jaro got back in the cab, unfolded the paper and read:

If I disappear

Come find me here in winter

Snow white Hokkaido

He counted the syllables on his fingers as he read it two more times. 5-7-5. It was beautiful. He would think about it. He tucked the paper under the elastic band on his sun visor and drove away.