bout de papier, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1988) — Spring 1988 // Printemps 1988, p. 25
She was already a legend when I arrived in Copenhagen — Esther Heilbuth, translator extraordinary and superb Canadian representative. She had joined our service immediately after the Second World War, when the Canadian Embassy consisted of an office in the basement of the British Embassy, and in the succeeding years she became invaluable, both to us and to the British. She created the “Heilbuth Digest”, an English-version summary of the Danish newspapers — all the news of any importance fit to print — which formed an indispensible part of our information base. Indeed, so invaluable was she that the British tried to lure her into their employ. Now Esther was a staunch anglophile, British-educated and with an admiration for things British which she had absorbed on the hockey fields of British girls’ schools. She was, however, a woman of principle and a proud member of the Canadian team. So in her inimitable way, she worked out the “Heilbuth Compromise”; she worked for both. The range of her interests was remarkable. Her delightful apartment was graced by a museum quality Louise XIV escritoire signed by the master craftsman who had fashioned it, and one of the favourite paintings which belonged to her family now hangs at the top of the grand staircase at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a famous Rembrandt self-portrait; yet her passion was sports, particularly field hockey, which she played as a girl. Now that she can no longer participate in field sports, she climbs Kilimanjaro and travels. Her log book has hundreds of flying hours logged in, dating back to the year dot. So it is that many pilots, on learning that she is on board, have been happy to invite her into the cockpit to show her the controls and chat about the “good old days” of flying. One evening, going home late from the theatre, Esther fell victim to a thug, who mugged her for her purse, knocking her down in the process and breaking her one good hip, the other having been broken on the playing field 50 years ago. We were all enraged at the lout who had struck her, and deeply upset that she had been hurt. And consternation reigned at the British and Canadian embassies the next morning, when we heard that the author of the Heilbuth Digest was hospitalized. Our crisis was short-lived, however, as we learned that one of Esther’s first acts on entering hospital had seen to telephone a friend and colleague to arrange temporary replacement services while she was hors de combat. Nevertheless, we made longer term arrangements because we were expecting an absence of at least three months, given the gravity of her operation.
Not a bit of it. The day after her operation, Esther was practising walking the corridors of the Royal Copenhagen Hospital, and was only persuaded with difficulty to leave an attempt on the stairs until she was stronger. In 6 weeks she was back at the Embassies, and three months after the accident, she stopped using the cane which the nurses had insisted upon because, as she confided to me, “It makes me feel old!”
She was in hospital over the New Year, so my wife and I visited her early New Year’s Eve, to cheer her up, quite unnecessarily as it turned out. She was in a ward with 5 other patients and at a mere 64 she was the baby of the group. “The old duck there” Esther confided to us, “is over 90 and ga-ga, and that one was 85 last year and completely deaf.” She went the full circle, describing all the patients, and then informed us, “I keep my mind alive by passing messages to the one who can’t hear or interpreting for the ga-ga old dear. It’s really rather fun.” We departed feeling greatly cheered that she was in such good spirits, and as we left passed her a bottle of fine old madeira. On our next visit, she told us the madeira had been a great success. That night the nurses thought they had died: no calls for bed pans, no demands for water. The six of them had finished the entire bottle and had slept the night through, dead drunk.
On January 1, 1988 Esther celebrated forty years with the Canadian Embassy in Copenhagen. If there were any justice in this world, we would have made her a Companion to the Order of Canada. As it is, I invite those Canadians who have had the good fortune to work with her over the years to write their congratulations to her. Congratulations, Esther, we wish you well.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1988) — Spring 1988 // Printemps 1988, p. 25. Read the rest of this issue →
