‘It speaks’

I am the last of my race and the last original speaker of the language of my birth. Everywhere I go, now, with a friend who is my translator. He cares and minds after me like one in possession of an invaluable archive. (Is it me or him? It is both of us.) I am at his mercy, of course, in my dealings with everyone, and cannot really be certain that he is translating correctly what I say. Just as I never know how well or badly my friend and translator is transmitting my part in a conversation, neither does my interlocutor know if he is getting through to me or if his story is being properly rendered into language I can understand.