Arkady Belozovsky, a certified deaf interpreter who interpreted many of Gov. Gina Raimondo’s daily coronavirus briefings, is now working for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Belozovsky, who was profiled in the Journal late last month, is one of the country’s most highly rated certified interpreters. He started his new gig on March 27.

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On Saturday night, Belozovsky, speaking over the phone while using a video interpreting service from his home in East Brookfield, Massachusetts, said he commutes about four hours round trip every day to Albany, New York, to interpret for Cuomo.

Instead of standing next to the governor as he did in Rhode Island, Belozovsky interprets from a separate media room in Albany. He then appears on a split screen during Cuomo’s livestreamed briefings. (Raimondo has recently adopted a similar format.)

Belozovsky said he’d much rather be in the room.

“It’s really hard for people to see somebody in a box,” he said. “You always have to advocate and explain the visual reality of what we do.”

That’s not the only difference between interpreting for Raimondo and interpreting for Cuomo, who has received national attention for his response to the coronavirus.

“He talks fast, as well as journalists at the same time for the last part of Q&A,” Belozovsky said. “It is not easy, but I really try to match Cuomo, how he feels about his New York family and his young brother, his accent to match our New York regional [American sign language] dialects.”

Belozovsky acknowledged that interpreting the increasingly dismal daily briefings affects him.

“Cuomo, when he talks about New York City, my heart is right there with him because I have relatives and a sister and people who live in Brooklyn, New York,” he said.

Although interpreting in sign language involves emotive facial grammar expressions and hand movements, Belozovsky said he can’t let his inner feelings show, even if the news upsets him. His job is to interpret Cuomo’s words and emotions as precisely as possible.

“I have to match what his heart is feeling for the people of New York,” he said. “When he says 600 people died last night and there are 1,000 more cases, I have to keep going.”

The stress doesn’t necessarily stay in New York, the state with the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the country, when Belozovsky returns to East Brookfield.

Once he arrives home to his wife and two children, he takes most of his clothes off in the garage and goes inside to scrub his hands before touching any of them. (Belozovsky also has two older children from a previous marriage with whom visits have been interrupted due to the pandemic.)

“My hands are cracking up and dry,” he said. “I’m just so scared I’m going to get my family sick because I'm interpreting for the people that need it.”

But Belozovsky said he finds peace in his long commutes, hot showers and walks by the lake near his house. His family is there for him, too, (after he’s sanitized himself, of course).

“The kids give me joy,” he said. “My wife, she’s been so supportive. Without her, I don’t know how I would do it.”

mlist@providencejournal.com

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