Found in Translation

by Frank Wynne

  “Hey, waiter!” the kid shouted. And don’t think he looked up from his book, either. No, all he did was motion toward himself and rub his thumb and forefinger together to show he was ready to pay.

  “Did you see that? Did you hear that? I’m afraid to say anything to him. If only Comenius could see this….” He shook his head and added up the beers. “That’ll be seventeen crowns.”

  The young guy took out a fistful of bills from his pocket the way the little guy picked up the sauerkraut from his pot. Then he separated out two ten-crown bills and put them at the far end of the table, like a pianist reaching for those real low notes. Then he made a “Do what you see fit with the change” gesture with his hand, crumpled up the rest of the money, and stuck it in his pocket like a handkerchief. But the bartender laid down a three-crown note next to the book and said to him, “You can keep your change. I’ll have no dealings with a jailbird.”

  They watched the boy put out his cigarette in the ashtray. He was as careful as if he was ringing a doorbell. Then he felt around on the tablecloth for another cigarette, put it in his mouth, took out his matches, struck one, set fire to the three-crown note, and lit the cigarette with it—all without lifting his eyes from the book. As he inhaled, he waved the flaming bank note in the air, and when it finally began to burn him, he dropped it into the ashtray all twisted and black. It sat there like a piece of carbon paper. Then he leaned his forehead up against his thumb and index finger, looking as much like a monument as a person can.

  The bartender spat, bent down, and whispered, “Nothing is holy any more. There was a time when people would climb a fence to catch a feather the wind had blown away, and what does this juvenile delinquent do? He uses money to light his cigarettes! And you can be sure he didn’t earn it for himself. How old do you think he is, anyway? Twenty-one? What will he be like when he’s thirty? Why, he’ll set the whole place on fire.”

  Then old man Jupa started in again. “What about František Svoboda?”

  The little gray-haired guy couldn’t have looked more patronizing. “You mean Franci? A great passer and a real tank. But he can’t compare with Koželuh. The way Franci passed to Zámora—why, to this very day Zámora jumps out of bed when he dreams of that bomb coming at him. The trouble was, Franci loved picking fights. If you’d ever gone to soccer matches, you’d have remembered his battles with the Hungarians … Ferencvárosi Toma Egysilét. Turay, who was known for his brutality, and Toldi, that two-hundred-twenty-five-pound giant, both running wild, and right there in the thick of it—our tank Svoboda. But when it comes to teamwork, Koželuh was impossible to beat. And why? Because he played outside left to my outside right. You follow me?”

  Old man Jupa, who couldn’t have been more than a few years younger than the little guy, had shrunk so much during the last few minutes that his head was on a level with his stein; all he had to do was tip it a little and he was in business.

  The sun beat down. The right-hand side of the street was steeped in bluish shadows, while the roofs on the left-hand side were just barely holding up under the weight of the light. And the Burials on Sunday sign—the come-on, in today’s lingo—was ablaze with iridescent paint. It was like the light reflecting off hundreds of pocket mirrors. At the end of the street, where you could see right through the trams—there were so few people riding them—paraded a steady stream of walkers in all shapes and sizes, with a baby carriage thrown in here and there for good measure. The kid stood up from under the compressor motor. His face was striped from the light coming in off the street. His eyes were still glued to the book. And taking his coat off the hook, he put one arm through a sleeve and then stood there in that ridiculous-looking pose—one arm in, one arm out—like a scarecrow in a cabbage patch, and kept right on reading.

  The little guy added up his own bill, put down the money next to his glass, and picked up the pot of sauerkraut. Old man Jupa stood up, grabbed that pot like it was a life preserver, and shouted, “Are you trying to tell me we play lousy soccer?” And as he shouted, he shook the pot.

  But the little guy, who stood opposite him, had held onto it and was shaking it along with Jupa—so hard he almost tore Jupa’s arm out of its socket. “Cut the crap now, will you? One day I pivoted twice in a row, and before you knew it the whole team was shouting, ‘Play that ball, or you’re out of the game on Sunday!’ Take Borovička, for example. He’s got all the technical know-how but no sense of team play. Or Kučera—a great player, but he hogs the whole show. No, to the best of my knowledge—and I’d swear it on a stack of Bibles—the best soccer ever was played by … the best soccer player of all times was Karel Koželuh. And you know why? Because he played outside left to my outside right.” And he pulled the pot right out of the hands of a very disgruntled Jupa.

  Then he looked out into the street. Over by the coming attractions pictures in front of the movie theater stood this real stacked broad sucking on a hard candy and looking at the pictures. “What a woman!” exclaimed the little man, in a trance. “God, what a woman! Now that’s what I call a woman! And you know what she needs. Of course there aren’t any real men around nowadays to give it to her. No man today can even begin to understand a woman like that. What a woman!” And shaking his head, he read into that woman just what he had been talking about. Suddenly there she was—twirling her bag and sucking her candy and heading straight for us. When she was all but at the glass door—it even got a little darker inside—she turned again and showed us all her beautiful curves in profile and walked past. “That woman is my ideal,” said the little man, and he tucked the pot under his arm and set out after her like a sleepwalker or something.

  Anyway, the kid finally pulled on the other sleeve, and—still holding the book in both hands—he spit out the last butt and ground it into the floor with his shoe. Then he put one hand on the glass door, shoved it open, and disappeared. Left the door open and disappeared.

  “And not a word the whole time he was here,” said the bartender. He just couldn’t keep himself from going outside and yelling, “You good-for-nothing pipsqueak!” after the kid, and slamming the door real hard.

  The glass gave out a suspicious rattle, and the bartender froze. “Jupa, I’m scared to turn around. Did I break it?” But Jupa shook his head no.

  So there they sat, looking out the glass door. A crowd of people buying tickets began to form in front of the movie house. Old man Jupa looked up at the iridescent No Burials on Sunday sign and spit. “What an idiotic sign. Let’s hope it’s not a bad omen for our team.” The bartender was nervous by nature, and the kid with the book hadn’t exactly helped, so he started brush-cleaning glasses and holding them up to the light to make sure they were clean, just so he wouldn’t be the first one to see the soccer crowd turn the corner.

  Suddenly old man Jupa cried out, “Here they come!”

  The first one to round the corner was Mr. Hurych, followed almost immediately by the others. They were all bedraggled and hunched over; they all looked withered and small, as if they’d gotten drenched and their clothes had shrunk. Right under the No Burials on Sunday sign Mr. Hurych tore off his hat, threw it down on the sidewalk, and started jumping on it. The others tried to console him. Then, just to make it absolutely clear how much he was suffering, Mr. Hurych took off his overcoat, threw it down, and started jumping on it too.

  “There’s something funny going on here,” said old man Jupa. “Must have been a tie.” And when he saw Mr. Hurych reaching for the doorknob, he opened the door for him himself. Well, Hurych fell in a heap on the first seat he came to and just sat there, looking out into space. The rest of the crowd came in and waited to see what he would do. Finally he picked himself up, took off his jacket, threw it down on the floor, collapsed back onto the bench, and said, “All eleven. No exceptions. Send all eleven to the mines!” And he pointed off in the direction where he figured the nearest mines to be.

  Old man Jupa went over to the glass door and looked out. He didn’t even notice that the
beautiful woman, the one with the twirling handbag, had turned back onto our street, and that the outside right with the pot of sauerkraut was still sleepwalking ten feet behind her. She went into the movie theater, and there he was, right behind her.

  So anyway, here was old man Jupa standing in the glass door with his arms stretched out like Christ on the cross. And if anyone had happened to look at him from the side, they would have seen tiny tears making their way down his cheeks. But by then the bartender had begun passing around a tray of fortifying brandy.

  THE QUILT

  Ismat Chughtai

  Translated from the Urdu by Syeda Saiyidain Hameed

  Ismat Chughtai (1911–1991) was an eminent Indian writer in Urdu. Considered the grand dame of Urdu fiction, Chughtai was one of the Muslim writers who stayed in India after the subcontinent was partitioned. Along with Rashid Jahan, Wajeda Tabassum and Qurratulain Hyder, Chughtai’s work stands for the birth of a revolutionary feminist politics and aesthetics in twentieth-century Urdu literature. Chughtai’s most celebrated short story, Lihaaf (The Quilt), published in 1942, was levelled with charges of obscenity – Lihaaf deals with homosexuality in Aligarh. Chughtai chose to contest this charge instead of apologizing and won her case in court.

  In the depth of winter whenever I snuggle into my quilt, my shadow on the wall seems to sway like an elephant. My mind begins a mad race into the dark crevasses of the past; memories come flooding in.

  Excuse me, but I am not about to relate a romantic incident surrounding my own quilt – I do not believe there is much passion associated with it. The blanket, though considerably less comfortable, is preferable because it does not cast such terrifying shadows, quivering on the wall!

  It all began when I was a small girl. All day long I fought tooth and nail with my brothers and their friends. I sometimes wonder why the devil I was so quarrelsome. At my age my older sisters had been busy collecting admirers; all I could think of was fisticuffs with every known and unknown girl or boy I ran into!

  For this reason my mother decided to deposit me with an ‘adopted’ sister of hers when she left for Agra. She was well aware that there was no one in that sister’s house, not even a pet animal, with whom I could engage in my favorite occupation! I guess my punishment was well deserved. So Mother left me with Begum Jan, the same Begum Jan whose quilt is imprinted on my memory like a blacksmith’s brand.

  This was the lady who had been married off to Nawab Sahib for a very good reason, courtesy of her poor but loving parents. Although much past his prime, Nawab Sahib was noblesse oblige itself. No one had ever seen a dancing girl or a prostitute in his home. He had the distinction of not only performing the Haj himself, but of being the patron of several poor people who had undertaken the pilgrimage through his good offices.

  Nawab Sahib had a strange hobby. Many people are known to have irksome interests like breeding pigeons and arranging cockfights. Nawab Sahib kept himself aloof from these disgusting sports; all he liked to do was keep an open house for students; young, fair and slim-waisted boys, whose expenses were borne entirely by him. After marrying Begum Jan, he deposited her in the house with all his other possessions and promptly forgot about her! The young, delicate Begum began to wilt with loneliness.

  Who knows when Begum Jan started living? Did her life begin when she made the mistake of being born, or when she entered the house as the Nawab’s new bride, climbed into the elaborate four-poster bed and started counting her days? Or did it begin from the time she realized that the household revolved around the boy-students, and that all the delicacies produced in the kitchen were meant solely for their palates? From the chinks in the drawing-room doors, Begum Jan glimpsed their slim waists, fair ankles, and gossamer shirts and felt she had been raked over the coals!

  Perhaps it all started when she gave up on magic, necromancy, séances and whatnot. You cannot draw blood from a stone. Not an inch did the Nawab budge.

  *

  Broken-hearted, Begum Jan turned towards education. Not much to be gained here either! Romantic novels and sentimental poetry proved even more depressing. Sleepless nights became a daily routine. Begum Jan slowly let go and consequently became a picture of melancholy and despair.

  She felt like stuffing all her fine clothes into the stove. One dresses up to impress people. Now, Nawab Sahib neither found a spare moment from his preoccupation with the gossamer shirts, nor did he allow her to venture outside the home. Her relatives, however, made it a habit to pay her frequent visits which often lasted for months, while she remained a prisoner of the house.

  Seeing these relatives disport themselves made her blood boil. They happily indulged themselves with the goodies produced in the kitchen and licked the clarified butter off their greedy fingers. In her household they equipped themselves for their winter needs. But, despite renewing the cotton filling in her quilt each year, Begum Jan continued to shiver, night after night. Each time she turned over, the quilt assumed ferocious shapes which appeared like shadowy monsters on the wall. She lay in terror; not one of the shadows carried any promise of life. What the hell was life worth anyway? Why live? But Begum Jan was destined to live, and once she started living, did she ever!

  Rabbo arrived at the house and came to Begum Jan’s rescue just as she was starting to go under. Her emaciated body suddenly began to fill out. Her cheeks became rosy; beauty, as it were, glowed through every pore! It was a special oil massage that brought about the change in Begum Jan. Excuse me, but you will not find the recipe for this oil in the most exclusive or expensive magazine!

  When I saw Begum Jan she was in her early forties. She sat reclining on the couch, a figure of dignity and grandeur. Rabbo sat against her back, massaging her waist. A purple shawl was thrown over her legs. The very picture of royalty, a real Maharani! How I loved her looks. I wanted to sit by her side for hours, adoring her like a humble devotee. Her complexion was fair, without a trace of ruddiness. Her black hair was always drenched in oil. I had never seen her parting crooked, nor a single hair out of place. Her eyes were black, and carefully plucked eyebrows stretched over them like a couple of perfect bows! Her eyes were slightly taut, eyelids heavy and eyelashes thick. The most amazing and attractive part of her face were her lips. Usually dyed in lipstick, her upper lip had a distinct line of down. Her temples were covered with long hair. Sometimes her face became transformed before my adoring gaze, as if it were the face of a young boy….

  Her skin was fair and moist, and looked like it had been stretched over her frame and tightly stitched up. Whenever she exposed her ankles for a massage, I stole a glance at their rounded smoothness. She was tall, and appeared taller because of the ample flesh on her person. Her hands were large and moist, her waist smooth. Rabbo used to sit by her side and scratch her back for hours together – it was almost as if getting scratched was for her the fulfillment of life’s essential need, somehow more important than the basic necessities required for staying alive.

  Rabbo had no other household duties. Perched on the four-poster bed, she was always massaging Begum Jan’s head, feet or some other part of her anatomy. If someone other than Begum Jan received such a quantity of human touching, what would the consequences be? Speaking for myself, I can say that if someone touched me continuously like this, I would certainly rot.

  As if this daily massage were not enough, on the days she bathed this ritual lasted a full two hours! The braziers were lit behind closed doors and then the procedure started. Scented oils and unguents were massaged into her shining skin – imagining the friction caused by this prolonged rubbing made me slightly sick. Usually Rabbo was the only one allowed inside the sanctum. Other servants, muttering their disapproval, handed over various necessities at the closed door.

  The fact of the matter was that Begum Jan was afflicted with a perpetual itch. Numerous oils and lotions had been tried, but the itch was there to stay. Hakims and doctors stated: It is nothing, the skin is clear. But if the disease is located beneath the skin, it’s
a different matter.

  These doctors are mad! Rabbo used to say with a meaningful smile while gazing dreamily at Begum Jan. “May your enemies be afflicted with skin disease! It is your hot blood that causes all the trouble!”

  Rabbo! She was as black as Begum Jan was white, like burnt iron ore! Her face was lightly marked with smallpox, her body solidly packed; small, dextrous hands, a tight little paunch and full lips, slightly swollen, which were always moist. A strange and bothersome odor emanated from her body. Those puffy hands were as quick as lightning, now at her waist, now her lips, now kneading her thighs and dashing towards her ankles. Whenever I sat down with Begum Jan, my eyes were riveted to those roving hands.

  Winter or summer, Begum Jan always wore kurtas of Hyderabadi jaali karga. I recall her dark skirts and billowing white kurtas. With the fan gently rotating on the ceiling, Begum Jan always covered herself with a soft wrap. She was fond of winter. I too liked the winter season at her house. She moved very little. Reclining on the carpet, she spent her days having her back massaged, chewing on dry fruit. Other household servants were envious of Rabbo. The witch! She ate, sat, and even slept with Begum Jan! Rabbo and Begum Jan – the topic inevitably cropped up in every gathering. Whenever anyone mentioned their names, the group burst into loud guffaws. Who knows what jokes were made at their expense? But one thing was certain – the poor lady never met a single soul. All her time was taken up with the treatment of her unfortunate itch.

  I have already said that I was very young at that time and quite enamored of Begum Jan. She, too, was fond of me. When mother decided to go to Agra she had to leave me with somebody. She knew that, left alone, I would fight continuously with my brothers, or wander around aimlessly. I was happy to be left with Begum Jan for one week, and Begum Jan was equally pleased to have me. After all, she was Amma’s adopted sister!