my first translation done March 2005

*NOTE: this story is eight pages long, translated, which is why I never wanted to submit it for the front page. Thank you to all those who helped or attempted to help me with this. I understand this might not read well, but if there are phrases that are better translated, feel free to tell me. The story Maskan is from Ashfaq Ahmad's collection of short stories Aik Mohabbat Sau Afsanay.

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Where I stop is where this path ends, as do the nine-year date trees and the thorny shrubs that border both sides of it. Now in sight are the “karair” and “delia” bushes that have lowered their branches. Sitting on this ledge, I am watching the smoke waft in waves from the village clay ovens, and in these waves I can see quite a few familiar faces. In front of me, beneath the bitter neem and bucayeen trees, that man who perhaps does not have the same gleam in his eyes as once before is smoking a hookah. From his house even now the same smoke is drifting which is his life support. His children are at the water pump filling a copper urn. Who knows when this game of fire and water began, and how long it will continue. You told me once that ever since childhood you were fond of aquatic games and in the freezing cold and dark winter nights, aided by candlelight, you used to wash your dolls’ frocks with great pleasure. This very pleasure led to your developing pneumonia in the rain. A deadly type of pneumonia. If something had happened to you then, how empty my life would have been. Perhaps no one else would have been aware of a life lost for the sake of dressing up lifeless dolls, but I would have felt it. It was good that you survived and came to meet me. After that, your time to play with dolls had ended, but your habit of lathering in cold water and washing your face and hands continued. If only you could carry on this play. Along with this you loved the blossoms of the winter season, the narcissus flowers. One day when you were in Sister’s room reorganizing the narcissi stems in the vase, I don’t know how many times you kissed each and every flower and when I came and stood in the doorway, you pulled your sweater down and said rather longingly, “Oh, if these flowers were buttons then I would hang them on my yellow sweater.” Hearing that, I began to think how tough narcissi can be____ Even now, I’ve brought these flowers in this bag, but now they’re wilting, they’re not buttons to be sewn on, and even if they were buttons, then I see no sign of your home in this valley. But if I should take these flowers as they are away then perhaps you will be angry like I was with you at my last birthday party. That day was a sorrowful one!
My last birthday celebration which I had observed with greater hullabaloo than what is in my nature to do, was so sad when you didn’t give me a gift. Though I did know you would not be able to come, you couldn’t help it. Still I wished that you could come just once, just one time in a momentary flash and then return. But helplessness does not allow for such momentary flashes. The following day, I saw you on my way to school. But I did not call out to you. I had vowed with all my heart not to speak with you in this lifetime. And perhaps my stubborn nature would have upheld this vow if while brushing in the evening, the collar of my black coat had not turned upwards at the spot where aided by yellow silken threads, a tiny narcissus rested below which the first letter of your name had been embroidered. That flower would not have been as beautiful as the one who loved it. I had not received a better birthday gift nor did I hope to in the future. Which is why that remained my last birthday party. To this day I wonder how you found time for embroidery. You would come to our house and then turn right around and return, and then this round-trip was a daily occurrence! Do you remember one day when I said to you, “Come to our place every day.” Your response was, “How can that be?” Then I said, “Even if you skip a day.” You expressed your helplessness in regard to that as well. I said, “Promise me that_____” but you interrupted with, “How can I promise?” To that, I said this much, “It is better that you don’t live in this world so that I can visit your grave freely and there I can say all the things I haven’t been able to as of yet. I can sit by your side for an eternity, something for which the desire keeps getting stronger every minute. . . .” But you said, “Don’t say that. I am afraid of death. I respect life. In the face of death, time’s greatest difficulties appear to be non-existent. Death may be certain. But before its arrival, its name is stamped with fear on my heart. No! No! Don’t frighten me.” But I kept thinking about it, and the wish for this beautiful dream kept getting stronger. If only this dream could come to fruition.
You might also remember that day when I was going to Lahore to take an examination and you came to say goodbye under some pretext. I asked, “What should I bring you from there.” Your answer was, “Pass with top marks, and come back. That will be a memorable present.” I returned and you kept asking about papers and didn’t mention anything else. I opened this very bag and gave you a black colored silken hair net and a box of Venus colored pencils. Didn’t you tell me once that your hair gets very agitated while you’re playing net ball, and I brought the pencils, for no reason, just like that. You asked, “Whose picture shall I draw with these?” I replied, “The one whom this hair net belongs to.” Then you said, “Not the one who brought this net?”
Such has been the way things have happened in this world. But I never thought that you would turn away from me like this. I am still waiting for you in this desolate valley but perhaps you don’t know that I am here, and if you do know then nothing can be done. Now you have been rendered even more helpless than before. What happened to your reassuring love? You could have sent word of your oppressive situation. If you had written before this time then couldn’t we have found a way through this together? Why did you think of me as being so weak? Do I not have the strength to face this battle? Do I not have the head of a chess player on my shoulders? And say for example we don’t know how to support you, does that mean we were not worthy of flattery? The sound of a drum beating soundly can be heard from the village. Soon there will be a loud bang and the youth of the village will gather around the drum and dance and sing.
Life is troubled by ordeals
The beauty won’t hear my appeals
. . . . And I am sitting on this ledge which has lost more than half of its bricks. Neither is my life an ordeal, nor do I feel the need to make an appeal. The old man still has his mouth to the ear of the hookah under the neem and bucayeen trees. The smoke though has stopped emanating from his hut. He is not waiting for anyone. But his seat is positioned in such a way that he is expecting someone. It was such a night when in the soft light coming from the lamp in my room I kept waiting for you. I may have been sitting at the edge of the table, just as I am on this ledge. That time there were open books in front of me, and now this open bag. You went to the circus with Brother and Sister. I knew that in the middle of the night, no one would rise to open your door, and if I too had fallen asleep then how troubled you would have been. But why would I have slept? I knew that when you passed through my room, you would remain the furthest behind. You would not be able to talk to me in the presence of Sister and Brother, but you would in passing make a mark on my warm neck with your finger. I would shiver and then when you left I would play with this icy fishlike mark and the whole night would be spent in playing with this fish. . . . But now I do not wish for the touch of that finger, now I do not hope for that icy spot to quiver. Then why am I sitting in that same manner on this ledge? Perhaps suddenly it is as it was last week when that ten rupee note flew into my hand, in whose corner I had written your name on the numbers with the words you come as well, but this cannot be. You were so upset at this habit. I remember it well. You said, “By putting my name on money, you make fun of me. Because you are rich. I am not a worshipper of wealth. I am a product of being raised in the school of emotions. Please don’t sell our connection so cheaply.” And when upon listening to you, I felt ashamed, then in order to erase my shame, you, yourself said, “I know that your unique style of caring will someday make you a writer. At that point, if rather than on numbers, my name will be written then how happy would that make me.” . . . . But I could not become a writer, and no story could be attributed to you, and now those notes have been destroyed on which your name were written. At this time, you are not being bred at the school of emotions, nor am I a student of economics. I am but a traveler who has come here for a little while and am listening to the ones who are singing while dancing, the boastfulness of strong youth, and the sad songs of friends at the leaving of the palanquin.
I want to know, all those promises you made what became of them? How will those long programs you organized be completed? If you had to do this then you could have told me before. I have no souvenirs of you, and I cannot spend an eternity living off of your memories. And I would need some help to refresh my memories of you. I am getting scared that you will be erased from my mind. The anxiety of finding work is alluring. What a fate after the country was partitioned that you and I could not meet until this day. I am completely at fault for this. Until today, I have been trying to continue with my life. During that time, your memory struck my mind often, but in such a way in which some raindrop crashes against a wall. I’ve seen your face flutter in the valley of my imagination, but my unimportant busy work has become a blind mirror in between the two. Not just this. Sometimes I have wanted to go to the cinema, like my friends, to give gifts and to obtain souvenirs from them. That copper ring which after much flattery I got from you, not too long ago fell in the Sutlej River while racing boats. My beloved black coat is in East Punjab. The notes with your name have now stopped and that part of Sutlej is no longer in our country.
That day your family was leaving our village, seeing me uneasy, you were the one who said, “There’s no reason to fret. We’re on one land.” But it was a few years ago, one day as I was getting ready to go to the city that you restlessly asked “Can a college not open in our village?” I enquired, “Why?” You replied, “Even in the same neighborhood, we live at a distance, but it is easy to meet.” Now I ask you, where am I sitting? Is this not the same neighborhood? Not the same land? Now say that meeting is easy! Though we were at a long distance for quite some time but this distance didn’t mean that you should accept another resting place. I kept figuring all this time that I still missed you very much, but perhaps you did not know such a thing. If you knew than you would not have deceived me this way.
After leaving East Punjab, I did not find out for a very long time where you had made your residence, nor could I learn anything after conducting an investigation. Those days, my own life unusually ended. All I knew was that you were alive, and that you had made a home. In this very country, on this very land, in some corner of the Punjab. The day before yesterday, suddenly I met your brother at the station. He was returning to his work in Rawalpindi. He told me everything about you. He was returning early because he could not have more than four days leave. From him I found out that the following day your entire family would be leaving to stay with him, because after bidding you farewell, your father and mother no longer wish to remain in this village. Today I am sitting here thinking about how much difference there is between today and tomorrow. So much distance. So much remoteness. Today in the village joyful wedding music is playing. Tomorrow God knows what will happen. Today the smoke is rising from the clay ovens to indicate that life’s warmth is fixed. Tomorrow perhaps this very smoke will go awry in order to chill this same warmth. Today, this old man is counting the moments of anticipation that the body will not be humiliated. And tomorrow, the coming tomorrow! It is not known at what time it will come and how it will come. Arriving here, this is where the path ends. The babol trees are quiet. “Delia” has thick drops of blood on it. This ledge will not be the same. The ones who chose this will have molded the cement and sand with their tears. They will have swept the top layer with their eyelashes and here they will have lit the lamps of their breath. But now this has completely come undone. The ants have made kinks in its sides. Did I not say that the anxiety of finding work was alluring? I have perhaps come here for the first and last time. Life’s struggles do not fare me well time and time again. This is your village. This is your town. This is your city. But I am sitting in this one corner, completely without news of your home. There is no one familiar to me here but you and you are sitting unawares. Only these wedding melodies seem familiar. Ones played at every wedding. Perhaps you are also listening to their sounds. But you cannot do anything now. I too can understand what they are saying. But now I am the helpless one. At first my complaint was towards your indifference. Now it is not. Now we are both the same. Do not hope that I will destroy my judgment day with my memories. After you, I am buying all sorts of toys to amuse myself and here also, I came for my own happiness. Perhaps it was to satisfy this happiness that I loved you. Now in order to further delight this, I have come to view your disregard. Just now, the old man’s wife brought a copper urn filled with water. She came and stood next to me, looked at the bag and said, “Which grave should I sprinkle water on, traveler?” I replied to her, “Right here, where the path ends, where the “delia” and “karair” bushes begin.” She was looking in my direction in amazement, “Yes! Yes! Pour the water right here, on this road. Somewhere here in this valley is her burial ground.” She spilled the water on the way as she left. Many of the ants whose houses were flooded by the water, fled hither and thither. So many bubbles which were dancing at the surface trembled and broke. That very fresh smell which the bedfellows of water and earth created has now disappeared. The water continues to get absorbed. This play has also ended.
Well, I’ll be going now. This night is very long. This journey is very lengthy and this life is incredibly long and yes, I brought some narcissi for you. Yellow buttons for a yellow sweater. I will also leave these on this dank ground. This night is very dark. This village is alien to me. Tonight signs of fog are apparent and I have a long distance to travel. Well!_____Well!