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 تــراجـم
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قصص قصيرة مترجمة
( القصة الأولى )
Dreams - Short Story
by Chika Unigwe
He has hair like the fibres of a well-eaten mango, sparse and white. His hands are like you expect: sandpaper. But as he touches, you do not flinch. Not even when he rubs the sandpaper against your bare arms. His touch reminds you of the cleanser that keeps your face spot-free. The cleanser hurts, but no beauty comes without its pains. Everybody knows that. Or ought to at least.
When he licks your ears and makes a kissing sound (except the sound comes out sounding like a bottle-cover scratching a cement floor), you do not move away in repulsion. Instead, you smile and count your blessings. He cannot see that your smile is no more than an ochi eze—the sort of smile that hurts at the jaws, a smile that stays on the surface like skimmed milk. He sees your teeth gleaming in the light and smiles back, exposing a full set of teeth. The teeth sit awkwardly in his wrinkled mouth. They seem to be too much for that cavity, and his lips barely cover them. He reminds you of a rabbit. You wonder for a minute if the teeth are all his. You wonder if he has bought them like he buys everything else in his life. He tells you he pays a huge bride price on his wife, tells you about the three cows he slaughters for the wedding, about the sacks of rice that he has imported from Thailand especially for the ceremony, about the bales of lace from Vienna he gives his mother-in-law and the 24 karat gold chain he buys from a Jewish merchant in Antwerp for his wife. You know all about his cars (the Mercedes, the Peugeot 505, the Land Rover Jeep, and the Land Cruiser that he has just imported from Belgium). Brand new, he says. Not tokunbo, those second-hand cars that litter the streets. You know all about his houses (the ones in London and New York, the apartments in Enugu and Onitsha, and the mansion he is building in his village, which has fifteen self-contained bedrooms and a lawn tennis court).
He thinks he makes you happy. And maybe, in a way he does. Happiness is not a quality that stays static. Its parameters change, swelling or shrinking. This is a lesson you have learned. It is one you are still learning as a matter of fact. What made you happy a few years ago is no longer there. Now, you are teaching yourself to be made happy by other things. So maybe the sand-paper hands grate your taut arms, but you are close to your goal. And that makes you happy. You give him another smile, the one that floats on the surface, not coming deep from your heart. It has been awhile since you smiled from your heart, anyway. You do not know if you are capable of doing that anymore. Besides, it is easier to smile this way, even though it hurts at the jaws. It is a smile that comes without you having to search too deep for a reason. It is instantly gratifying to the receiver.
Obi is the first man you fall in love with. You marry him and your life is a fairy tale: a husband with a smile like a full moon. His smile lights up a room, lights up your universe. That smile steals your heart the first time he sends it to you across a crowded wedding reception. He says it is fate that brings you together when you tell him that you have stumbled into the wrong room. Your second cousin's reception is in the hall on the upper floor. Somehow, not having listened properly to your mother's hurried directions, you end up in this hall. You do not mind. You never did like your second cousin much, and you do like this man with a thin mustache above his upper lip. He has a voice that sounds like a low rumble. And when he tells you in that low rumble that fate brings you together, you fall in love with the word "fate." Fate is beautiful. It pushes you into the wrong hall to meet the man you stumble into love with. You will explain to your mother later why you do not turn up at your cousin's wedding. She will scold you and tell you off for missing it. She will warn you that everybody is going to think it is because you are jealous. After all, the cousin whose wedding you miss is three years younger than you, and you are still to get a marriage proposal. She will cry and beat her chest and ask her gods why she is burdened with a daughter like you? What did she do in her former life to earn this punishment? What is she being punished for? She will lament that you are a bad child, a disgrace, and how can you hope to find a husband if you miss weddings where so many eligible men are present? Do you not know that your cousin has at least four brothers-in-law of marriageable age? Ewo, her gods have given her the worst daughter ever. She will say and do all these things, but you will not mind. You will not care because you are confident that fate is taking care of you.
The day you mention to your mother that there is a man interested in marrying you, she dances around your small sitting-room. She waves a handkerchief in the air and sings praises to her gods who have finally smiled on her:
chim di mma chim di mma onye si na chim adighi mma bia fulu ife o melu m ooo chim ooo, tanku you
She holds you close in happiness, pressing your nose against her neck (your mother is a few inches taller than you), and you fear she will suffocate you with her happiness. The happiness fills her arms with a strength that surprises you, and it is a while before you can extricate yourself from her embrace. You are embarrassed. It has been so long since she has hugged you. In fact, it has been such a long time that even though you try to remember it, you cannot.
The day she meets Obi for the first time, she tells you he will make you very happy, that mothers know such things. She makes him yam porridge with spinach leaves, and even though he does not like yam, he eats to make your mother happy. He knows you do not reject your prospective mother-in-law's first meal! And especially not if she has killed a whole chicken for you. She hangs around while he eats, asking him questions about his family, what he does, where he lives. Obi answers between mouthfuls. It is not really your mother's place to question a prospective son-in-law, but she takes on the duty because there is no man to challenge her. Your father is dead and you have no brothers. She will tell your paternal uncles that you have a suitor, and they will ask their own questions and perform their own investigations. But that will be later.
When he leaves, your mother tells you he does not eat like a greedy man. He does not fill his mouth with food so much so that it is impossible for him to talk. Greedy men do not make good husbands, she says, and you wonder if that is why she makes the food, to test him.
After a meeting with your uncles, Obi pays your bride-price and takes wine to your people. You do not want a huge traditional wedding. You want to save the money for a remarkable white wedding. You want the city to talk about your wedding.
Your wedding day is a drizzly Saturday. Your mother worriedly tells you it is bad luck to marry in the rain, but you cast her worries away with a high laugh and the back of your palm, telling her it is merely superstition. You are beyond superstition. It has no power over you. Your mother smiles, but her eyes still look worried.
She is in a red George wrapper and a white lace blouse with sleeves that puff up to her ears. They are Obi's presents to her, her first set of new clothes in years. You love her very much, and you do not want her happiness marred by the rain. You smile at her and tell her not to worry, that nothing could possible go wrong. She places her soft palm on yours and tells you you look very beautiful, but she wishes you had chosen a white wedding dress. It is more virginal. And you are a virgin, are you not? You pretend not to hear her. You have had the colour argument before, but you are happy that she does not seem to be thinking of the rain anymore.
(عدل بواسطة هشام آدم on 07-02-2007, 06:17 AM)
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 Re: تــراجـم (Re: هشام آدم)
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ابو الشوش
احييك على الاهتمام بالادب والترجمة مجهود جبار واختيار موفق
ملحوظة صغيرة
يا ريت المرة الجاية تنوه في بداية البوست الى وجود نص مترجم وذلك لان بعض الاخوة ربما لا يستطعمون اللغة الانجليزية فبدلا من الهروب من البوست يذهبون مباشرة الى الترجمة
مودتى
محمد
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Re: تــراجـم (Re: mohmed khalail)
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__________________
العزيز : محمد خليل
أشكرك أولاً على المرور بهذا البوست وعلى القراءة
وأتمنى ان تكون الترجمة قد وافقت نصيبها من المغزى
الذي أرادته القاصة، وأن أكون قد وفقت في الترجمة
بدايةً ظننت أن العنوان كان كافياً للإيحاء بأن البوست
يحتوي على ترجمات وهذا ما دعاني لأن أترك الأمر على
عواهنه ، ولكن بعد تنبيهك لي استدركت الأمر وأضفت
جملة في بداية البوست تفيد إلى وجود ترجمة للنصوص
الواردة في هذا البوست (قصص قصيرة مترجمة) وأتمنى أن
يؤدي ذلك الغرض المطلوب منه.
أشكرك على هذا التنبيه .. ولك خالص شكري
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Re: تــراجـم (Re: هشام آدم)
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الجزء الثاني من قصة ( أحلام )
The church is full, and some guests have to stand outside, huddled under umbrellas to hear you tell Obi (in a voice thick with tears of joy) that you will be his forever and forever and forever. His! His! His! It is a vow that is easy for you to make because you cannot imagine ever wanting to be with anyone else. Obi is the zenith. Your soul mate. Your perfect fate. He is where you want to be. When you walk down the aisle, holding to the hem of your cream wedding dress, the flower girls spray you with confetti and rice. You do not mind that a grain of rice gets into your left eye and that you have to rub and rub to get it out (which makes that eye puffy and red and makes it look as if you have apollo, conjuctivitis, in the wedding pictures).
The pregnancies come soon after. You have three healthy children in two years: twin beautiful girls with their father's smile and their mother's nose (the perfect nose, Obi calls it) and a son who is the apple of your eye (he looks very much like Obi) and who, your mother delights, has secured your place in your husband's home. They are the kind of children who strangers like to coo over, pinching their cheeks and rubbing their #########, saying how very healthy they look:
Chei! These are very beautiful children.
They are as healthy as okuko agriculture, those chickens that are so plump all over.
You must be proud of such children.
See how their skin glows with health and good living. Ndi uwa oma!
You have a house. A duplex in a quiet part of town. Your house is proof of the comfortable lives you live inside: wall to wall carpeting with a rug so deep and so lush that your feet practically disappear as soon as you step in, a huge colour television (that guests admire and your neighbour tells you jealously looks like a cinema screen and says she does not know what you need such a huge screen for anyway, it looks out of place in a sitting-room), and a Sony CD player, on which you and Obi play all your favourite tunes (you are both in love with Barry White, and when you hear that he is dead, you actually cry). The children have a room each with air-conditioning to protect them from the temperature that goes as high as a high fever (and the guest room your mother uses has air-conditioning too, but she never uses it, saying it makes her feel as if she is in a mortuary and even though she is old, she is not dead yet, thank you very much!).
But when Obi dies at thirty-six (and you are thirty-four), your life shatters like china. You cannot even begin to pick up the pieces.
Obi is too young to die, and your mother-in-law wants to know why his fate has been so cruel to him. She invites the prophet of her church to your house and demands from him the answer to the question that is burning her, threatening to consume her. Who is to blame for her healthy son's death? The wild-haired prophet burns incense in all the rooms, his white prophet's gown sweeping the rug that has swallowed his bare feet. He rings his little bell and chants incantations in a loud, strange voice that sounds like he is singing (but he is not singing). He sways from side to side and points the finger of blame at you (it is his index finger on his right hand, its nail bandaged with a browning bandaid, and when he points it at you, it looks as if he is offering you a cigar). He tells her you have a binding marriage in the ocean with a water spirit. A water spirit who is jealous of Obi. It is this spirit who afflicts him with an illness. This marriage is news to you, but nobody believes you. You do not know whether to laugh or cry. How can anyone believe that marriages are contracted between spirits and humans? Your mother-in-law claps her hands in your face and almost spits at you for daring to cast aspersion on the prophet. The prophet shakes his head, sending his locks gently flying from side to side, and accepts the glass of cola Obi's mother brings for him.
"A young man like that, he just died in his sleep. That's not normal," your mother-in-law proclaims as she gathers support from relatives to turn you out of your home, the duplex on the quiet side of town with the air-conditioned rooms.
"The doctors say he had a heart attack. The autopsy concluded that," you protest, but nobody is listening to you.
Obi's incensed mother shouts above your voice, "You killed my son. Why did you not just stay with your water-spirit husband? Why? You may deceive everybody else, but you cannot deceive the prophet. He has seen you for what you are," she sobs as Obi's uncle assures her that you will pay for your evil. Evil of which you know nothing. How could you begin to pay for the prophet's imagination, an imagination as wild as his over-grown hair?
You move out with nothing but your clothes and your two wailing daughters, out of the comfortable duplex with the air-conditioned rooms. Obi's family will keep your four year-old son. He is theirs. Heir to the family name. But your five year-old twin daughters are yours. They do not want the burden of raising the female children of an evil mother.
Obi's mother swaggers her way into the house with his two younger brothers. From now on, your mother-in-law will hold court in your former house. You will no longer be welcome. Not even to see your son, the perfect image of his father. That bit of Obi that you hold onto at his funeral, crying until your eyes swell like bunched-up fists.
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Re: تــراجـم (Re: هشام آدم)
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ترجمة الجزء الثاني من قصة ( أحلام )
القدّاس ممتلئ، واضطر البعض للوقوف خارج الكنيسة مجتمعين تحت مظلات فقط حتى يتسنى لهم سماعك وأنت تقولين لأوبي (بصوتٍ أجش وفي عينيك دموع الفرح) بأنك ستكونين له للأبد للأبد للأبد. وإنه لنذر يسير عليك أن تقطعيه على نفسك لأنك حتى لا تتصورين أن تكوني لشخصٍ آخر غيره، فهو قمة مُرادك، توأم روحك، وهو قدرك الجميل. إنه ملاذك المُشتهى، عندما تمشين في الممر ممسكة بمئزر فستان زفافك الأبيض، والأشابين يرشونك بالنثارات والأرز. وحين تدخل حبة أرز في عينك اليسرى، فلا تجاهدين نفسك كثيراً لإخراجها بأن تفركي وتفركين، الأمر الذي يصيب عينيك بالإحمرار، وتجعلهما تبدوان ملتهبتين في صور الزفاف.
وتمر الأيام سريعاً، وتنجبين ثلاثة أيام أصحاء في عامين: توأم جميل من الإناث تحملان ابتسامة والدهما وأنف أمهما التي يدعوها أوبي بالأنف المثالي! وابن هو قرة عينك، يحمل من ملامح والده الكثير. وهو الذي فرحت أمك عند مولده. كان مجيئه ضمانة لك ولمكانتك في بيت زوجك. أنت الآن تملكين أطفالاً من ذلك النوع الذي يحب الأغرباء مداعبتهم وقرص وجناتهم والمسح على شعورهم وهم يقولون "ما أجملهم من أطفال!"
تشي: إنهم أطفال رائعون فعلاً. يبدون أصحاء ونشيطين كدجاجات مزرعة أوكوكو التي مرح طوال اليوم. يجب أن تكوني فخوراً بأن لديك أطفال كهؤلاء. انظري كيف أن بشرتهم متورّدة ونضرة، هذه علامة من علامات الصحة. Ndi uwa oma!
لديك منزل من دورين في أهدأ مكان في المدينة، إنه برهان أكيد على حياة هادئة ومريحة. هذا الموكيت المفروش من الجدار إلى الجدار، وسجادة وثيرة من النوع الذي تغطس فيه الأقدام، وتلفزيون ملون عملاق يُعجب به الضيوف، وتقول عنه جاراتك في غيرة "إنه تماماً كشاشة السينما، ماذا تفعل بتلفزيون بهذا الحجم؟" ويحتل حيزاً كبيراً من غرفة الجلوس. كما أن لديك محرك أقراص مدمجة تستمعين به أنت وأوبي إلى موسيقاكم المفضّلة. كلاكما مغرمان بأغنيات باري وايت وعندما تناهى إلى سمعك أنه قد مات بكيت بحرقة شديدة. والأولاد يملكون غرفة نوم مزوّدة بتكييف هوائي لحمايتهم من حرارة الجو التي تبدو كالحمى المرتفعة، كذلك الصالون الذي تستخدمه والدتك دائماً مزوّد أيضاً بمكيّف هواء، ومع ذلك فهي لم تستخدمه. تقول أنه يشعرها بأنها في ثلاجة موتى. ورغم أنها طاعنة في السن إلا أنها لم تم بعد.
ولكن كل ذلك تهشم، كما يتهشم طقم الصحون الصينية عندما توفي أوبي عن عمر يناهز السادسة والثلاثين، وكان عمرك عندئذ أربعة وثلاثين، ولا يمكنك حتى البدء في التقاط القطعة المتهشمة والمتناثرة. لقد مات أوبي في سن مبكرة جداً، وأرادت حماتك أن تعرف ما الذي جعل القدر يقسو على ابنها بهذا الشكل. لذا فإنها قامت بدعوة كاهن الكنيسة إلى منزلك وطلبت منه أن يجيبها عن هذا السؤال الذي يضرم في داخلها "من المتسبب في موت ولدي رغم صغر سنه؟" أشعل الكاهن ذو الشعر الأجعد بخوره في جميع غرف المنزل، وكان ردائه الكنائسي يكنس السجادة التي ابتلعت أقدامه الحافية، ثم قرع جرسه الصغير، وبدأ بإنشاد تعاويذه بصوتٍ عالٍ. كان صوته غريباً كأنه يغني، ولكنه لم يكن يغني في الحقيقة. وتلفت يمنة ويسرى ثم وجه أصابع الاتهام نحوك أنتِ. أشار بسبباته التي كانت مضمدة بضماد طبي. عندما أشار إليك كأنه يمدّ إليك بسيجار. أخبر الكاهن حماتك بأن ثمة علاقة زواج بينك وبين روح الماء وأن هذه الزيجة تمت في المحيط ، وأن روح الماء هذه هي التي شعرت بالغيرة تجاه أوبي، لذا فقد ابتلته بالمرض والعلل حتى لقي مصرعه. كانت تلك هي المرة الأولى التي تسمعين فيها عن هذه الزيجة، ولكن لم يصدقك أحد. وكان ذلك الخبر المضحك المبكي. فكيف لهم أن يصدقوا أن وجود علاقة زوجية تربط بين البشر والأرواح؟ صفقت حماتك في وجهك، وأوشكت أن تبصق في وجهك لجرأتك على رش الكاهن. هزّ الكاهن رأسه بلطف، وقَبل زجاجة الكولا التي قدمته له حماتك.
"ليس من الطبيعي أن يموت شاب في سريره دون علّةٍ تذكر" هكذا صرّحت حماتك متلقية الدعم والتأييد اللازمين من الأقارب متخذة ذلك حجة جيدة لطردكِ من البيت المكيّف، ذا الطابقين الذي يقع في أهدأ مكان في المدينة. وصرخت في احتجاج "قال الطبيب الذي أشرف على حالة أوبي، بأنه مات على إثر نوبية قلبية. وهذا ما يوضحه تقرير الطبيب الشرعي" ولكن لم يصغ إليك أحدهم. بل إن حماتك المتبخّرة قاطعتك قائلةً: "أنتِ قتلتِ ابني، لماذا لا تنصرفين غير مأسوفٍ عليك لتبقي مع زوجك "روح الماء"؟ لماذا؟ من المؤكد أنك نجحت في خداعنا جميعاً، ولكن لا يمكنك أن تخدعي الكاهن، فهو مكشوفٌ عنه الحاجب، ويراكِ على حقيقتك." وبدأت في الانتحاب بينما كان عم أوبي يؤكد لها بأنك سوف تدفعين ثمن ما فعلته. ثمن شيء لم تقترفيه. كيف لك أن تدفعي ثمن ترهات الكاهن وخيالاته المريضة؟ خيالاته المجعّدة كشعره!
وخرجت من المنزل لا تحملين سوى ثيابك والتوأم المنتحبتين. لقد خرجت الآن من المنزل المكيّف المريح، ذا الطابقين. بينما ستحتفظ عائلة أوبي بولدك الذي سيبلغ من العمر الآن أربع سنوات. إنه لهم، وسيرث اسم العائلة. بينما سيتركون لك طفلتيك اللتين تبلغان خمس سنوات. فهم لا يريدون حمل أعباء تربية بنات هن من رحم امرأة شيطانية. وبدأت أم أوبي تمشي في أرجاء المنزل بكل تبجح مع أخوانها الاثنين الأصغر سناً. من الآن فصاعداً ستكون هي سيدة البيت. وسوف لن يكون مرحباً بوجودك فيه بعد اليوم، ولو حتى لمجرد رؤية ابنك الذي يشبه والده تماماً. ابنك الذي هو قطعة منه، بينما كنت تحتضنينه في جنازة أوبي، ومازلت تبكين حتى تورمت عيناك وأصبحتا كقبضة الكف.
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Re: تــراجـم (Re: هشام آدم)
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الجزء الثالث من قصة ( أحلام )
Your father is dead, and your mother is poor and depends on you for financial support. You have no family to ask for help, and you have mouths to feed. You swear that your children must go to school. This has always been your dream, and one shared by Obi. You do not have to listen hard to hear him say, "Uche, our children must go to school until there is nothing more for them to learn. I want them to see the end of school."
You cannot get a job because you have no qualifications. You do not have even a standard six certificate. Your mother always says that all a woman needs is a generous husband. She is wrong. A woman needs more than that. She needs generous in-laws too. Above that, she needs an education, a job, independence. These are what you want for your daughters. Your dream for them.
It is this dream that pulls you into this blue-lit room that you rent while your daughters sleep in your other apartment at the other side of town. They think that you have a job helping out at the university hospital. You are lucky that even after three pregnancies, your body is still as firm as a just-ripe tomato. Your stomach is taut and has just a little bulge, the size of an orange right under the navel. People say you still look like you did at sixteen (and unlike many compliments, you know that this is entirely true).
Your mother says you have a body like a rubber band. No matter how far it is stretched, it always snaps back to its normal shape. This body becomes your money-spinner. The first night you work, you are shy. You want to cover your eyes when the pot-bellied man takes your nipples between his teeth. You keep your legs tight together, hardly daring to open them. He laughs and says it is just like being with a virgin. He likes it. He thinks you are a tease, and that the coyness is part of an act. He growls in pleasure, and when he gets up to go, his eyes shine like a cat's in the dark. He reaches into a black leather wallet with gold lettering at the side and pulls out a bunch of notes, suffocating the room with its smell of central bank. He is a big spender, and he is happy with you. He gives you enough money to pay your house-rent for two months. The money helps de-shy you and soon, you are able to chuck the shyness in a bin where it mildews.
As the man with the sandpaper hands whispers into your ears, you close your nose to the stench of his breath (it smells like the raw fish stand of the local Kenyatta market), and you count your blessings: your daughters are in a private school, your mother is being taken good care of, and your retirement plans are already in motion. You will be the owner of the biggest bakery in Enugu. You can already see the bakery, a white bungalow with "Dream Bread" emblazoned in red, a huge neon light lighting it up, its fame spreading from Enugu to Onitsha.
THE END
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Re: تــراجـم (Re: هشام آدم)
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ترجمة الجزء الثالث من قصة ( أحلام )
والدك متوفى، وأمك فقيرة معدمة، كانت تعتمد عليك في إعالتها. وليس لديك أقارب لتطلبي منهم المساعدة. وهنالك أفواه مفتوحة لا بد لك من إطعامها، وقد قطعت عهداً على نفسك بأن يذهب أطفالك إلى المدارس، فهذا ما كنتِ تحلمين به دائماً أنت وأوبي. ولست بحاجة إلى أن تنهكي نفسك كي تسمعيه يقول لك: "أوتشي، يجب أن يذهب أطفالنا إلى المدرسة وأن يصلوا إلى أعلى السلم الأكاديمي. أريد أن أراهم في أعلى المراتب." وفي الوقت ذاته، فلا يمكنك الحصول على وظيفة لأنك غير مؤهلة للحصول عليها. فلم تتجاوزي المراحل الابتدائية كحدٍ أدنى. فوالدك كانت دائماً ما تقول أن كل ما تحتاجه المرأة في حياتها هو أن تحصل على زوج شهم وملائم. بالتأكيد لقد كانت مخطئة فالمرأة بحاجة لأكثر من ذلك، فهي تحتاج إلى نسيب شهمٍ أيضاً، وعلاوةً على ذلك فهي بحاجة إلى التعليم، إلى الوظيفة، إلى الاستقلالية، وهذا ما تريدين منحه لبناتك بالمقابل.
ومن أجل تحقيق هذه الأحلام، فقد قمت باستئجار غرفة بائسة، فحين تركتِ بناتك في شقتك الواقعة في الجانب الآخر من المدينة. هن يعتقدن بأنك تعملين في مستشفى الجامعة. وكنت محظوظة، إذ أنك ما زلت تحافظين على رشاقتك ونظراتك كثمرة الطماطم اليانعة للتو حتى بعد عمليات الولادة المتكررة. فما زال بطنك مشدوداً ما خلا انتفاخٍ ضئيل بحجم برتقالة في منطقة ما تحت الصُرّة. ويشهد لكل الجميع بأنك ما تزالين تبدين كما ولو أنك في السادسة عشر. ورغم ذلك فلديك قناعة بأن كل ذلك لا يعدو كونه مجاملات لا تطابق الواقع. ووالدتك تقول بأن قوامك لادن كالمطاط، ومهما تم شدّه فإنه يعود لسيرته الأولى. ويبدو أن قوامك هذا هو وسيلة عيشك الآن.
في الليلة الأولى لك في العمل، تشعرين بالخجل البالغ. وساروتكِ الرغبة في أن تغمضي عينيك عندما بدأ ذلك الرجل البدين ذو الكرش، في تقبيل شفتيك، ولقمهما بين أسنانه، أغلقتِ ساقيك جيداً، ولكنه تجرأ على فتحهما بالقوة، وبدا ضاحكاً وهو يقول: "كأنني بكِ عذراء!" وأعجبه ذلك كثيراً. اعتقد أنك تتصنعين الخجل، وأن ما تقومين به هو نوع من الإغراء. بدأ يشعر بالمتعة والاشتهاء، وعندما أوشك على بلوغ ذورته، لمعت عيناه كما تلمع عينا القط في الظلام. وبعدما انتهى، مدّ يده على محفظته الجلدية التي تحوي في إحدى جوانبها على نقوش وكتابات مذهّبة وأخرج مجموعة من الأوراق المالية، عبّقت الغرفة برائحة البنك المركزي. لقد كان سعيداً بقضاء تلك الليلة معك، ولذا فقد دفع أجراً كبيراً مقابل ذلك. كان المال الذي دفع لك يكفي لتسديد قسط إيجار شقتك لشهرين مقدمين. والإغراء المالي الكبير الذي لقيتِه هو ما ساعدك على التخلص من هذا الخجل المقيت.
وعندما همس لك الرجل ذو اليدين اللتان تشبه ورق الصنفرة في أذنك، أقفلت أنفك من رائحة أنفاسه النتنة التي تشبه رائحة السمك الني التي تباع في سوق كينياتا المحلي. وتذكرين نعم الله عليك: فابنتاكِ في مدرسة خاصة الآن، ووالدتك تحفهما برعايتها، وخططك لاعتزال هذا العمل القذر أوشكت على الانتهاء. وعندها سوف تصبحين مالكة لأكبر فرن آلي في إنيوجو. وها أنتِ ترين الفرن الآلي وقد تم تشييده: بواجهته البيضاء ومنقوش عليها اسم المحل "خبز الأحلام" باللون الأحمر. وأنوار نيون عملاقة تشع في الأعلى ويذيع صيت فرنك الآلي من مدينة إنيوجو وحتى أونيتشا
النهاية
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Re: تــراجـم (Re: omer almahi)
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العزيز : عمر الماحي
أشكرك على المتابعة وعلى التعليق...
في الحقيقة في نيّتي الفترة القادمة أن أترجمة عدة أعمال قصصية :
- ضريح مدام سابات - للقاص كوري ميسلير
- التبغ المعاد تصنيعه – للقاصة جوان شادوكس أيسوم
- كرسي الرحمة – للقاص تريبور هيلي
وأتمنى من الله التوفيق ....... ومنكم المتابعة
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Re: تــراجـم (Re: هشام آدم)
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___________________
Madam Sabat's Grave
By: Corey Mesler
Madame Sabat, the witch of Midtown Memphis, died on September 18, 1970, the same day as Jimi Hendrix. Some Memphians, God love em, date the end of the sixties from this day, for Madame Sabat you see, the same way some other equally misguided Americans date the end of the sixties from the death of the guitar god Hendrix. Others, and this is a widely accepted proposal, date the sixties from 1963—the first time the holy word Beatles became part of the lopsided American consciousness or for those with darker dispositions, the year our handsome president was killed by a coterie of gunmen (don't get me started)—to the seminal year 1974, when the hobgoblin in the White House was forced by the outcry from society's colorful and purposeful corners to end the ignominious war in Southeast Asia.
Whatever.
Madame Sabat was dead. That was for sure. The coroner said it was a heart attack but they always say that. She died from black magic as sure as I'm telling you this, as sure as Mr. H died from Mr. H.
Most folks say she fell afoul of a certain evil sybill from down Alligator, Mississippi way who went by the name of Joukahainen. Could be. Madame Sabat got along with no one, not the motley assortment of Memphians who came to her many eccentric yard sales, not her neighbors whose plants she killed with just a grimace, not the musicians who came to her for potions to improve their grooves and make them stars, who treated her like she was Satan at The Crossroads, not other archimagi. She was a cross old witch, no fooling. She was an odd-duck, a spook.
But this is a little hypotyposis about what happened after she died. It involves Johnny Niagara, his gal Iris, Styx Ygg the drummer for the BamBam Five, and a couple of other members of the Memphis movement, such as it was. For Madame Sabat died without family or friends, and, say what you will about Johnny and that ragtag crew of troublemakers and firebrands, they could not let an acquaintance, even so tangential, so extravagant and possibly flagitious one as Madame Sabat, go to her final resting place in some pauper's graveyard. This is to their credit. I believe so.
According to official records—and after the sixties who trusted such?—Madame Sabat's body lay in the Baptist Hospital morgue for six days, longer than usual for an unclaimed corpse, until administrators ruled it must be buried. No one wanted to go near it, see. Rumor has it that on the third night it sat up and talked to an attendant there, asking for directions to New Jerusalem. Probably didn't happen, but who's to say?
Johnny Niagara got a call from an old girlfriend who worked as a candy striper in the hospital. She remembered that Johnny had known the old witch woman and might be able to head off her mortal coil being thrown into a landfill and covered over with tired refuse of the city by benign bulldozing crews.
"Johnny, that poor woman's body, they're fixing to throw it out like it's a burnt out Pinto," Chiquita said, for such was the young striper's moniker.
"What can I do?" Johnny rightly asked. Johnny had a cool head. This was known.
"I don't know," Chiquita fidgeted. "Steal the body or something."
And thus it was born, the Plan to Snaffle the Remains of the Witch of Midtown Memphis.
Johnny called Iris and Styx, Styx called Robert Gordon, the young chronicler of the dying Memphis music scene, Robert called Lon, who wanted nothing to do with it and the plot was underway.
Five or six or seven cloaked figures—no one telling the story tells it the same way—approached Baptist Hospital in the post-midnight inky obscurity, admitted to the great Pesthouse by a back entrance by one Chiquita Enos (who would late deny all knowledge of such goings on, of course), and made their way through back hallways dank with disinfectant and that other smell, putrefying flesh or somesuch, that hospitals contain like smoke in a jar. Down these corridors the five or six or seven figures glided, gently pushing open a door unmarked, though few of the conspirators could help but think of the "Room for One More" episode of Twilight Zone with its sign reading "Morgue," as if pushing open a door on the other side of which might be the flames of hell.
There were no flames. There was metal, gleaming silver metal, walls of gleaming silver metal and drawers like God's final filing cabinet. Chiquita, who would not enter, stood outside, a nervous lookout. She had told them all she knew, the approximate placement of the remains of Madame Sabat.
Still the gang had to open numerous wrong doors like some bad short story in a book of stories written by Old Scratch himself. What they saw we will not record. Dead people, that's as much as we can say. Too many dead people.
"Here," Johnny finally said standing over an open drawer.
"Jesus," one of the other colluders muttered.
"She looks like she's just sleeping," Iris said.
And, in some versions, the corpse was seen to nod its balding head. Agreement from beyond.
And now Johnny unrolled the children's wading pool they had brought to carry the body back with them. Its Bulwinkles and Rockys and Natashas and Borises and Mr. Peabodys and Shermans colorful against its sea-blue background, a surrealistic shroud. We should all be so carried home, in a plastic Wayback machine. God bless Jay
Once wrapped the body felt weightless as if they had forgotten to put old Madame Sabat inside the package. They almost decided to unroll the pool just to make sure. Perhaps all they would find would be hickory vine inside.
"We got her," Johnny reassured his compatriots. "Let us make leave."
And back the way they came slunk the five or six or seven. Chiquita turned her pretty head as they passed her, a single tear sliding down her face like an unatoned for sin. Back down the darkened passageways and out into the Memphis night went the five or six or seven, carrying the remains of the Witch of Midtown under their arms like a rolled up tent. Maybe they were only going camping. Maybe they were headed out to Shelby Forest to pitch camp and tell ghost stories and roast marshmallows.
But no. They were bent on illegal doings, a nefarious but equitable plot to properly pay respects to a woman who, when alive, was only a stranger in their midst, stranger even than most, but a woman still deserving of a proper rest. This is what they believed, the five or six or seven.
And it was to Shelby Forest they were bound. It was Iris' idea to bury the old witch woman there, among the tangled roots and vines and hackberry branches, to place the wild amongst the wild. And they could only agree.
Now Shelby Forest at night is a tad offputting, let it be said. It's scary as Banquo's ghost to be honest. Dark dark, with overhanging ghost trees and spirits walking about as if they had as much right to the place as the living and of course they do, it must be agreed. More than once one of the conspirators murmured small prayers as their car slid along the winding roads deep into the forest primeval. Sleepyhollowville. At any moment they expected dancing in their pallid headlights Bram's Bones.
"Where for Godsake?" one of the men insisted after a few windings and divagation, a tad more strongly than he wished to speak, nerves brittle now.
"A little further," Iris insisted. "I got a spot."
Iris's spot was a small grassy knoll just off the winding pavement, a place made holy once by the animal estrus experienced by herself and Johnny, in the broad light of day during a hike. On the this small rise, where anyone could have happened by, she and Johnny suddenly were struck with a passion so intense they could not stop to consider from whence it came. Suddenly they were tearing at each other's clothing, Johnny literally ripping Iris's cotton panties from her as if her were Samson and she a Delilah in heat. And Iris, for her part, rent zipper side from zipper side to get at the engorged organ straining at the front of Johnny's trousers. There, on that grassy knoll, they fucked like angels, like teenage explorers.
So it was a halidom and, for Iris, the only place where the earthly remains of the witch of Midtown could rest comfortably.
Johnny couldn't resist a wry smile when he saw his catamite's plan and, despite the sobriety of their mission, found himself aroused again, if only by memory, a powerful enough aphrodisiac.
"Dig," Iris said.
"Wow," said Styx, through eyes made hazy by boo.
"No, dig," Iris said again. "Get the damn shovels."
"Right," the conspirators said.
And there under the world's only moon, along a twilit corniche, on a knoll made holy by copulation, they dug a hole a full six feet deep, though its sides were cattywumpus and irregular, rough as the butter spread on stale bread. It was a handsome grave, in its way, a right fitting place of rest. A secular cenotaph made of correctness and the love of man for man.
They then, the five or six or seven, fetched the mortal remains of old Madame Sabat, wrapped in their plastic pool, cartoon characters squirming around on its surface in their inappropriateness. To a figure they thought, we shouldn't be here, no sir.
And as the holy fossarians gravely carried her toward the hole she grew lighter and lighter, her body seemingly made of ash, until, as they stood over the pit they had dug, they thought they had an empty swimming pool. They thought they had lost Madame Sabat.
Johnny insisted on pulling back the plastic covering to check. He didn't want to have come this far to inter a child's swimming pool. They laid their package on the edge of the grave and Johnny, his hand shaking like a politician's, slowly pulled back the synthetic cerements.
Believe this part or don't. It's true or it isn't. Like everything, like everything.
As they pulled back the unlikely shroud sure enough the body of Madame Sabat lay peacefully inside, wrapped up like leftover turkey dinner. Her face looked fetching in the moonlight, a slight smiling rictus making her appear a younger version of herself, the way she might have appeared at the cotillion dances when she was a young debutante. And, here, as the boys gazed at that lovely visage, it happened. Madame Sabat opened her eyes and smiled at the stunned circle of faces.
The five or six or seven were struck dumb but they were not afraid. This was Madame Sabat. It only seemed meet and right that death should sit lightly on her, like a bluebird on her wizened shoulder.
And, in a voice made whispery with death, she spoke as if from the heart of the night itself. "Thank you," she said.
And she re-closed her electric eyes.
So what else could they do? Johnny and his gang of conspirators solemnly re-covered the witch's comely face and, as gently as possible, placed her deep within the confines of the welcoming ground.
And that's where she is today. Madame Sabat's graveyard is in Shelby Forest, a grassy hillock which looks like any of the hundred grassy hillocks in Shelby Forest, except that under this one lies the spirit of the witch of Midtown.
And if you find yourself and your paramour, some misty Spring afternoon, on a slight grassy rise in the forest primeval and concupiscence interrupts your ham sandwiches and sodas, if the ages-old human itch begins in your vitals, consider the spot where you have chosen your repast and honor it with a kaddish. It may be the spot, it may very well be. But, picnic away, sweet Pyramus and Thisbe of futurity, and forget the story of those last few moments.
Forget how the Beldam of Midtown opened her grey-blue eyes and made love for a witchery moment to a gaggle of gravediggers with a smile from the other side. Madame Sabat is laid to rest. It is said Joukahainen came looking for the site, unhappy with the outcome of her thaumaturgy, but peace reigned, the everlasting peace, the one we said our itinerarium for.
Requiescat, you know, in pace.
We believed it in the sixties and we believe it now: love and justice are stronger, children, than death
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Re: تــراجـم (Re: هشام آدم)
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Quote: العزيز هشام
ياريت لو كلنا إتعلمنا منك كيف نقدر نحصر نفسنا ووقتنا في تقديم ما يفيد القراء وكل المتابعين ونناى بنفسنا عن المهاترات البلا طائل ..والغريب يا هشام البوستات الفارغة والبتنهش في لحم الناس وعروضها وشرفها وسمعتها ...زوارها بالالوف .....وفي البوستات المفيدة ما يتعدوا اصابع اليد سبحان الله ..... |
تحياتي أخي الكريم هشام وإلى الأمام..
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هشام آدم
mohmed khalail
omer almahi
غادة عبدالعزيز خالد
lana mahdi
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست