ادبيات د. عبدالله الطيب

ارتكاتا - رواية الكاتب السوداني هشام آدم مترجمة

الفصل الثاني 

Artikata - A novel written by Hisham Adam

Translated by Dr. Abdallah Altaiyeb

Chapter Two

Cuenca … The Dream of Freedom

- City of Evil Spirits and Roe Deer -

With arrogance, Amado stood up, casting away the dirt that stuck on his pants while speaking in a very bossy way, “the half hour is now over … everybody… get ready”.   The half hour was not exactly over, but time was a subjective matter to him, so we all got back to our spots once again, and continued riding into the cruel calmness of the night, while its coldness was slowly sneaking its way into our underwear, shamelessly.  I was awake all night, deprived of sleep by Amado’s ugly voice singing a folklore song that I could not enjoy much, and the shaking of the vehicle, which failed to stop until we reached Cuenca the dawn of the next day.

The first thing I saw were women carrying tin cans of water over their heads while watching us from far away. In a festive way, Amado started sounding the horn, announcing our arrival.  Everybody was awakened by the sound and all started looking around as if searching for someone. I could see a polite yearning in my mother’s eyes, as she was looking around, and that somehow gave me the feeling of belonging to the place.

As soon as they heard the sound, people started coming out of their houses, and in a way that had a touch of showing off, Amado continued to circle around the place with his vehicle before he stopped in a spacious sandy plaza.

The same festive scenes in Katyusha were repeated once more in Cuenca. I started to feel an unprecedented yearning for Artikata, and I wished everything around me were a passing dream.  The details of the reception, the repeated words and kisses, the curious looks, and the stupid remarks were all very tiring and boring.  Juanita started crying when my mother ignorantly left her with the company of ugly looking girls, while I was left with boys who wore nothing but dirty shorts and undershirts.  Later, I found out that the eldest of the boys was my uncle, Santiago Emilio, whom I saw for the first time, but felt nothing different towards him than I felt towards the rest of the boys.

The most sacred duty of all was to greet elderly people, especially Orville Bodin whom I feared facing the most, bearing my father’s sin in the letters of my name. But contrary to my expectations, he was very nice and gentle.  He was a small-time writer, only known in Artikata.  I heard that he authored a novel, which I had not read at the time, called Beyond the River.  In addition to the fact that he was the priest of the famous Saint Julio church, I was surprised to find out that he married a second woman, named Owamariz Rogelio, much younger and more beautiful than Soledad Fidel!  It was my first encounter with my ethnic roots, and I later discovered that Orville, the polygamist, had antagonized a wide population of Norcks who never accepted polygamy. This was why Soledad packed her bag and left Cuenca with her little daughter, Damita Orville, to Toledo, next to her other daughters who were living with their husbands.

Toledo was a haven for those fleeing the hell of civil war, which erupted in 1936 and lasted for three years, during which the Norcks suffered the most devastating hunger strikes.  They ate oranges for lunch and saved their peels for dinner.  But eventually, Toledo became very famous, and besides, it was the home for the sons and daughters of Orville Bodin, for none was able to stand his moodiness and hot temper.

Some members of the Orville family, who were advocates of the strong family concept, directed their criticism to Soledad Fidel and accused her of dividing the family when she left.  They attributed her act to sheer irresponsible feminine jealousy.  Orville, the priest, had with Soledad alone seven sons and daughters.  My father was the oldest, then Tierra who married her nephew Vardon Russell and went to live in Toledo early on in her marriage years,  then Coretta, the rebel who married a short man from outside the family, and also lived with him in Toledo before the war. Aunt Coretta was the only one who believed in and practiced Totemism, and for that, she was considered as the renegade of the solid Orville family. 

Dulcinea came next. She stayed in Cuenca with her father, not out of love, but a commitment to her husband, who worked there in Marine transportation. Salvador was next, the Organ player and the passionate lover of music and lavish life.  Santos, the most popular amongst the sons of Orville, was quick with a joke, and very cheerful to the extent that one could not believe he was an Orville.  Rumor had it that he died as a result of drinking ill-brewed wine in 1989.  He was the first to die among the sons of Orville Bodin, and his death was the most devastating news that Orvilles had ever received.  Lastly, Damita, the aunt I never liked, and with whom I developed a feeling that later turned into a history of long animosity. From Owamariz Rogelio, Orville had five children; Doctor Zinon, Emerald, Esperanza, Hermenia, and Aldonsa who died of breast cancer in 1999.

Those were just names I read on our family tree, and up until my historic visit to Cuenca, I knew none of them other than Uncle Salvador who was living with us in Artikata until the death of Uncle Santos Orville.

The most difficult task was to get to know the family members, and bond with them.  The boys who had been surrounding me gave me looks I could not rationally explain, as if I was an alien with human features.  The voice of my grandfather Orville Bodin, who was advancing towards me with a slight limp caused by chronic gout, scared the boys away from around me.  He stared at the details of my face which he saw for the first time, and with a mechanical fatherly passion, kissed me once and exclaimed, “So this is Casper then!”

Then Owamariz Rogelio came.  She looked kind; her eyes did not have those cunning looks of Soledad’s. It was puzzling that she welcomed me, and I could not decide whether she really loved me or she was just pretending to please Orville.  Was she really pleased to see me or wanted to show Orville that she could love his sons from his first wife?  However, I discovered that her lips were not moist like Soledad’s, but they had the same smell!

When I finally entered the grand family house, it felt as if I was passing through a time gate to an ancient world.  The feeling was intensified with the sight of dust that inhabited the place. I was anxiously searching for my mother among the crowds when someone surprised me with an advice, close to being an order, go and play with the kids outside.  The kids were busy collecting money to go to the moving theatre which opened every Easter’s morning.  I stood near them, looking around, but showing no interest to participate.  Santiago Emilio came to me, and with a serious voice said, “do you have money?.  I suddenly remembered the banknote that my grandmother Soledad secretly hid in my pocket and I felt ashamed to admit, let alone deny.  But admitting having a miserable banknote was less shameful than denying, which would mean that the rich boy of Artikata was broke, and that would be a stab in my alleged aristocratic pride.  I decided to give him the banknote.  To my astonishment, I immediately discovered that what I was holding in my pocket, carelessly, was a valuable banknote to the extent that everybody else put back their money into their pockets.  That piece of paper was more than enough to get us all to the theatre and buy us beverages too.  I felt proud of Soledad and realized how much she really loved me.

The kids of Cuenca were very good with their hands. They crafted small makeshift cars using empty oil cans, with souls of old shoes dug out of the dumpster, as tires, and long thin sticks with rounded metal bars at their ends, as steering wheels.   I liked those cars very much, and as my face radiated the feeling, one of the boys was kind enough to give me one of them.  That was the start for me to have a real friendship with some of the boys.

At noontime, while the adults were asleep, the boys gathered in a nearby court, holding the sticks of their cars, to go swimming in River Cuervo.  The sight of the river with its clear water was very tempting, that the boys took advantage of the moment, since the adults banned children from swimming.  I was not a good swimmer, so I only played in the shallow area of the river where there were large rounded stones that looked like eggs of a mystic bird.  I was and still am unjustifiably afraid of swimming and the concealed water world.  I felt like I was a shapeless piece of sponge, not knowing the techniques of floating and seeing under water. 

Some boys told me stories – adults invented to scare children away from swimming in the river – about alligators which devoured thousands of men and women of the village and capsized the boats of those who wanted to cross the river to the other side to get medicinal herbs. Despite the fact that I was still in shallow water, I felt that some of those alligators were particularly going to swallow me, leaving all the other boys unharmed.  I felt, in a way, that those damned alligators smelled my fear, and so I began beating the water with my feet to scare them away.  Later, Santiago told me that alligators were scarce species of dinosaurs that took refuge in water bodies at some point in time, fleeing the enormous fire, caused by an erroneous meteor that hit a forest and caused the death of a lot of creatures. He told me how they adopted to living in their new environment.  Although he laughed at how he was able to scare me, I was deeply convinced with that fable.

In the evening, when darkness prevailed, we used to spend our time in the wide sandy court in front of the house of Manuel Emilio, my grandfather from my mother’s side, who settled in Artikata.  Living in this house were my aunts Emayrees and Eldora in addition to my grandmother Mariabella Tancredo.  I could not recall having intimate moments or memories of any of them, and so was the case for all of my relatives from my mother’s side.  Uncle Santiago Emilio used to explain to us the rules of the game “Ojos Del Tigre” or “Eye of the Tiger”.  We would stand with our backs facing north so we would not see him, then he would take an old bone of a dead animal and throw it randomly, and then we would start searching around the place for the bone depending only on the moonlight.

Cuenca, the mountainous city inhabited by evil spirits as Mariabella Tancredo said, was not very scary, notwithstanding the strange sounds heard at night, coming from Las Torcas[1].  While all the stories of Cuenca women agreed that the sounds were of the locked evil spirits in Las Torcas, few people attributed the sounds to the passing wind on the Torcas that looked like inverted trapezoids.  Mariabella said that the souls of the mortals of the civil war, buried in Las Torcas, moved angrily at night, especially those who had their heads separated from their bodies, across the Torcas that together formed what looked like rings of a gigantic chain.  She also said that, once, a priest had besieged them and locked them in the Torcas , which were the main source of the sound, after they refused to live in a large sculpture made especially for them.  This fable was widely believed, especially among the children of Cuenca, who were not allowed to go out at night for whatever reason.

I still could remember the looks on uncle Santos’ face, which radiated lovable warmth, as if he was someone you knew for long time.  I did not witness his naughty days which my father used to make fun of, but people said that, he once was sitting with a friend drinking French wine, and while his friend was trying to pour the wine in small bottles, some of it spelled on the floor. Santos shouted in his face, be careful.  The friend replied back indifferently, Easy Santos, it is only wine, it is not like it is Oil!  But Santos was quick with a convincing counterargument as usual, “the natural place of oil is underground, but wine lodges in the heads!

That day when my mother went with Aunt Coretta Orville to a family funeral, she left me and Morris Lionel for his caring.   While he was busy playing folkloric music on the large piano he had in his room, Morris convinced me to go out and follow our mothers, not for anything but to disobey orders and live an adventure of some sort.  Morris Lionel, who came with his mother, Aunt Coretta, from Toledo, had already visited Cuenca before and that assured me of his knowledge of the area.  On our way to the cemetery, we passed by the wild area of Cuenca, which was considered the most famous deer protectorate in the whole region.  After a half hour of walking, we reached the cemetery.  The grave stones, topped with cross signs, gave me the feeling that the dead were teasing us with their extended wooden tongues from deep under.  The cemetery was desolated and gave me the creeps.  I felt my hair rising like thorns of a hedgehog sharpened for a fight.  There was a strange smell tainting the place, and I imagined it to be the smell of the dead or the smell of death itself. On th

المزيد

رواية آرتكاتا للأديب هشام آدم رواية عربية مكتوبة بلغة رفيعة تبدو وكأنها إحدى الروايات الأجنبية حيث تدور أحداثها في بلد أجنبي.

Translated by Dr. Abdallah Altaiyeb

From Artikata to Cuenca

- Chicken Pox and Pale Complexions -

We were about to leave when my grandmother, Soledad Fidel, kissed me while secretly putting a wretched banknote in my hand. Although I did not know its value at the time, and despite the fact that I did not expect her to do so, I was angry because she found nothing but that miserable paper to show her love to me. Yet, I allowed her to kiss me with her moist lips without reciprocating just to let her know how offended I was for the insult she dropped on me. I still could remember how she cried that day for a reason I did not know, for I could not believe that she loved me enough to cry while bidding me farewell. But I discovered the contrary when we arrived to Cuenca after a long and tiring journey during which I contracted Smallpox. And maybe my mother suffered the most in the journey, as she had to care for a sick child, and my moody and turbulent sister, Juanita Serginio, who was two years my senior. My father, who stayed behind in Artikata where he worked in a diamond mine, had already stressed to my mother in one of their quick phone calls, which lacked exchanged sentimental words, to take us to our hometown to get to know our relatives there. This act of his, which aimed at strengthening family ties, carried an important meaning for him but stained with male ego he always wanted to feel since he married my mother in 1971. I felt overwhelmingly happy when I heard the train whistle announcing its departure to Toledo, and I started waving goodbye to those standing alongside the station even though I did not know anyone of them. 

During the short and sporadic times when I awakened through my weariness, I saw nothing through the train’s window but arid and rocky land, fitting perfectly with the fever that was battling with me throughout the journey, a matter that suggested to me that I might die of thirst. What bothered me even more than the fever was the sound of the couplers of the train cars that seemed to be about to separate from each other any minute, and the sound of the cast iron wheels that resembled heartbeats of a giant genie. These sounds aroused laziness and were very depressing especially with the melancholic atmosphere that engulfed the cabinet. The only thing that got stuck strongly in my mind from that journey was the smell of seat leather, which largely resembled the smell of cat fur. In that period, I was the center of attention for the female golden agers, a thing that made me disgusted with the smell of oldsters and the sight of their wrinkled skin in addition to their eating habits that made me sick to my stomach. Despite that, they were the most caring of all people. On the other hand, there was an old family grudge caused by the independent behavior of my father, which my grandfather considered as ingratitude, when my father refused to name me after him, and instead sent him a one-line telegram that said “congratulations on the newborn, Casper Serginio”. This was back in 1974. 

None of his sons or daughters fulfilled his dream of having a grandson bearing his name, which only existed in old French. That was a reason behind softening the anger of my grandfather after five years of my birth. However, flying shrapnel of that anger somehow reached his brothers and sisters who witnessed his last heart attack that hit him when he read the provocative telegram. But the truth was they were discontent with my father’s success in fleeing the hell of domineering Orville Bodin, to work in the most famous diamond mind at that time, leaving them for the iron fist of a hardheaded father, and a hard social consuetude that did not stimulate ambition. And maybe refusing to name me Orville was one of my father’s rare deeds that I could remember, for it would sound like a name of a declassed clown “Orville Serginio Orville.

We were sharing our cabin with a mouthy and snoopy woman, wearing a black dress spotted with white small circles, eyeglasses, and black gloves that matched her dress. I found out later that she was the wife of one of my father’s friends. That woman, Charlotte Corbin, was endlessly advising my mother of the best traditional methods of treating me since she had a long experience in dealing with this illness that had hit her two brothers and son lately. And I wondered how she had survived it! The worst experience I had gone through in this journey was when my mother left me for the caring of this woman and went to the bathroom.

It was the first time for me to find out that my family, descendents of Norck tribes, favored traditional medicine and believed in it more than they trusted technology and developed medicine. They viewed medicine and science in general as less respectable, and therefore the nearest clinic was at a one-day walking distance from Cuenca. Through the train window, I enjoyed watching the peddlers in the stations during train stops, each of which lasted not more than a quarter of an hour. The sight of the stations was very miserable and attracted drowsiness, and if it were not for the passing of some generic faces, they would seem deserted. On top of that, the stations had no signboards or nameplates. I paid mind to this through the questions of Mrs. Corbin who was drooping from the window to ask a passerby “which station is this?” And I could still remember that skinny girl who was selling red drinks packed in transparent bags and arranged in a classic old bucket. When I asked my mother to buy me some of the red drink, that woman volunteered her advice to her for the contrary, arguing that cold drinks might aggravate my health condition. Although my mother was convinced of her advice, I had achieved an advanced degree of hatred for that woman, that I was not about to accept her advice, or submit to her and her snoopiness, and I even considered the matter of buying the chilled drink a private family matter. I had to resort to crying, using my illness for support, and normally such trick works, since ill people receive special treatment and they are usually pampered more than healthy people. But I did not enjoy the taste of the drink because of the bitterness in my throat, but it did not matter since I was drinking my triumph in glee anyway.

I did not know why it seemed to me that Mrs. Corbin was exchanging with me antipathetic looks through her glasses. This undeclared war between us continued until the train reached Katyusha in the afternoon of a very warm day when tens of men and women gathered for the reception. That was the last of the days of motherly warmth. I felt illogically estranged and sad while watching the melodramatic scenes of families forced to separation and displacement by war .

The sad words, which my mother and the women were reciprocating, had profound effects on me although I had not mastered the local dialect professionally, and sometimes I used the sign language and head nods to the extent that many people had confused me for a mute. I liked the way people switched between crying and laughing, and then to guffawing, but later I found that one could easily train for that. I was less than eight years old, and traditional richness was showing on my mother who would not dare to take off her golden bangles that weighed down on her wrist like guards of a Buddha temple, as if that was the only proof that she had come from Artikata, the city of diamond. I could not come up with a reason why she had to prove that, but through additional mingling with the Norck tribes, I knew they cared for such details to a great extent. 

Pale yellow was the prevailing color in everything I had seen and remembered of that town, the houses of which were scattered around leaving large spaces for people to use for various occasions. At that time, I had almost recovered and I was able to walk unsupported. “Oh my God.. he is the son of Serginio”; these were the words that everybody uttered as they set their eyes on me. Only then, I uncovered the male conspiracy that my father weaved as he insisted that my mother should take us to Artikata. I never wanted others to treat me as the son of Serginio, but our people, naïve as they were, exulted in doing so. I had endured tens of kisses from men and women unknown to me with a strange bounteousness. And although everyone had introduced themselves to me, I did not care much at the time. I was only reading joy in their faces, and the simplicity of their life was a reason for me to castaway my embarrassment, and to directly ask where the bathroom was, contrary to my habit of only confiding in my mother my need to answer nature’s call. My memories of Katyusha were not exactly perfect, maybe because I only stayed there for two days, during which we were waiting for a transportation vehicle to take us to Cuenca, the ultimate reach of our journey.

The journey was much like the illegal immigration crossings that some people were secretly organizing across the western border using various transportation means. In one of their evening gatherings under the moonlight, a woman, who still maintained the looks of aristocrats bestowed upon her by an aged estrangement that only ended a few years back, came through holding a bag full of traditional souvenirs. She gave the bag to my mother who took it gracefully and promised to deliver it to its intended person in Cuenca.

Those evening gatherers talked about issues, which were not that important to me; issues mostly about those who died while my mother was away from Katyusha when she left with her husband to Artikata, those who migrated to distant lands, and about the newly celebrated marriages with their subsequent offspring. Meanwhile, I was busy watching a big monitor lizard that was diligently digging a hole in a sandy area nearby. I thought it was an alligator at the beginning, but someone patted me on the shoulder and said, “it’s the first time for you to see such an animal… right?”, and gave me a smile that made me fear him. Next day, Georginio Amado had arrived early morning in his vehicle, the most famous in the area, sounding its musical horn, which I still remembered to this day. The villagers knew every driver by the sound of their horns. Moreover, the children used to indulge in contests to mimic those musical sounds vocally. And as an aristocratic lady, my mother lead her way to the front seat next to the driver where only elites were allowed, while everybody else started laying down their mats on the back of the truck. Mrs. Corbin was among them, and I had a reason to gloat. Although she was kind to ask my mother to have my sister Juanita stay with her, at an advanced stage in my life, I found out that what Mrs. Corbin did was a professional technique; grownups can punish children by ignoring them and diverting their attention to other ones. It was a matter of minutes before the plaza was full of farewell bidders, and the back of the truck was full of male and female passengers grouping together like African emigrants. This scenic festival was repeated every Wednesday with the same details that emphasized the importance of the receiving and farewell bidding rituals among the residents of Katyusha.

Men’s hats and women’s handkerchiefs, were slipping away from sight along with the houses, and sinking in a red twilight river, while we were heading north to Cuenca through Guadalajara, the rocky valley that our ancestors used to pass through with their cattle to the fertile ground of the Savanna. This valley turned to a streaming river during rainy seasons, which sometimes lasted more than three months. I had no curious desire to observe the road or know the landmarks.  I also missed the sight of Ojos Del Sol, the mountain known to have the sun slide through a wide orifice at its peak, but later I read about it in some travel books.

I used to wonder about my mother’s strange ability to sleep all through the annoying vehicle movement caused by the bumpy road. It felt as if we were on a howdah, a top of an Arabian camel, and what helped intensify the feeling was a red piece of clothe ending with embroidered velvety strands, Amado used as a decorating ornament dangling from the ceiling of his car. Suddenly, my mother awoke in panic and made the sign of the cross with her hand in a mechanical worshipping way when Amado suddenly cried “Lourdes…Lourdes”. I wondered about the sudden devoutness that engulfed them while they were looking at something outside. I looked out of the window to see while smiling at the contagious curiosity I contracted from Mrs. Corbin. I only saw a pyramid shaped building with a cross at the top. It looked like a monastery, the designer of which probably did not select the right location. I looked at my mother, she was still in her catholic religious fervor, and I asked her “what is this place?”, but she signaled to me to keep quite. However, Amado smiled at me, pulled me from the arm, and sat me next to him.

Son, I’ll tell you the story … it had been said that a teenaged catholic girl called Bernadette Spyros came to Grotto of Massabielle, which you can see in front of you over there, withdrawing from life and people, and asked the Virgin Mary to appear for her if she could do that

And did the Virgin Mary really appear to her?

I guess so!

Although I liked tales that involved ancestors and long gone people, this particular one was very depressing and lacked interesting details, and so I resorted to my childish imagination to add more dramatic and interesting twists to Amado’s abridged story.

Despite the privacy of sitting in the front seat and its bourgeois significance, I did not feel comfortable, for I could not stretch or make the slightest move without getting one of my mother’s hard line looks. She was very keen for us to look very polite in front of others, especially grownups and I used to work hard to meet her expectations, but all she could notice was the rare slips.

Amado stopped the car, turned down the engine, and announced a half hour rest. We all got out of the car, and some started stretching and unfolding their bodies, while others were on their knees peeing nearby. It was very cold and men were breathing out white vapor clouds like mystic dragons, while women wrapped their faces with cotton shawls. I liked the sight of white clouds and it gave me a perverted idea; I exhaled through my first and second fingers pretending to look like a professional smoker. What I liked most about this was that I was not afraid of my mother. Juanita was begging mother to take her to the front seat compelled not by a bourgeois flair, but seemingly, she got bored of the company of Mrs. Corbin. I enjoyed my mother’s firm position, although I felt pity for Juanita. Some of the passengers gathered in circles and started talking and laughing, disturbing the calmness of this desolated place. Amado was sipping on his evening coffee from a pot that he neatly hid away. I used to wonder about adults’ addiction to coffee and tea, things that I never developed a taste for. It seemed as if they were meant for grownups, and having a cup of tea was a sign of being an adult. For us children, our mothers cooled the tea in a very laborious way, and sometimes they added cold water to it. Anyway, I never drank tea in my life, saving this adventure to later.    

 Out of somewhere, we heard the voice of a young girl shouting, cursing, and name-calling someone. We later found out that he was hitting on her while she was peeing. Quietness then prevailed, while some were gossiping and making fun of the event. I pitied the girl as her mother smacked her on the face and grounded her for the rest of the journey. I could not understand why the mother punished the girl, since she was the victim, and why no one condemned the incident, and instead everyone just raised their eyebrows in displeasure that vanished in few minutes. This incident caused all other mothers to do the same with their daughters. I felt that they were like helpless flocks of sheep, that had no way but to befriend wolves, which played double roles; protecting them and devouring them at the same time.

المزيد