Post longa paŭzo finfine revenas la tradukdefioj! Hura! (Ĉu hurai, aŭ ĉu vei?) Jam temp’ está por akrigi vian krajonon, surmeti la okulvitrojn, senpolvigi tiun neglektitan ekzempleron de PIV, kaj cerbumi!

Por la unua defio de 2023, ni proponas koncizigitan fragmenton el la klasika, distopia romano The Handmaid’s Tale de Margaret Atwood. La jena teksto venas el la kvara ĉapitro:

I walk along the gravel path that divides the back lawn, neatly, like a hair parting. It has rained during the night; the grass to either side is damp, the air humid. Here and there are worms, evidence of the fertility of the soil, caught by the sun, half dead; flexible and pink, like lips.

I open the white picket gate and continue, past the front lawns and towards the front gate. In the driveway, one of the Guardians assigned to our household is washing the car.

The car is an expensive one, a Whirlwind; better than the Chariot, much better than the chunky, practical Behemoth. It’s black, of course, the color of prestige or a hearse, and long and sleek. The driver is going over it with a chamois, lovingly. This at least hasn’t changed, the way men caress good cars.

He’s wearing the uniform of the Guardians, but his cap is tilted at a jaunty angle and his sleeves are rolled to the elbow, showing his forearms, tanned but with a stipple of dark hairs. He has a cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth, which shows that he too has something he can trade on the black market.

He lives here, in the household, over the garage. Low status: he hasn’t been issued a woman, not even one. He doesn’t rate: some defect, lack of connections. But he acts as if he doesn’t know this, or care. He’s too casual, he’s not servile enough. It may be stupidity, but I don’t think so. Smells fishy, they used to say; or, I smell a rat. Misfit as odor. Despite myself, I think of how he might smell. Not fish or decaying rat; tanned skin, moist in the sun, filmed with smoke. I sigh, inhaling.