The Sun can t be obscured by the Hem

Перевод на английский язык произведения "Солнце подолом не заслонить"

http://proza.ru/2007/04/27-221


Автор перевода Городинский Иван. Ученик 10"Г" класса Школы-гимназии№ 38 Илийского района Алматинской области Республики Казахстан.


As a sign of respect to Risalat


 Today, we have the high school graduation ceremony. All the people in the city have been preparing for this holiday for almost a week. The parents of the graduates are congratulating each other with a smile on their faces. They have already bought lots of beverages and food for the festive table. 
   Jarkent is a small town. I’ve run all its streets bootlessly. Everybody knows everything about each other here.
   It’s very loud in the Assembly Hall of the Uyghur school. My classmates have ordered their outfits from Almaty, whereas I’m wearing a modest pink dress, which was sewed by Nazira from old silk that was kept in her chest for years. One of my classmates, Gulbanu, looked at me with a grin when she was passing nearby. She always called me a «grey mouse».
 Husnihan has 6 dresses, but she doesn’t suit with any of it anyway. “There is a Uyghur proverb,” Nazira said quietly, noticing my confusion. I smiled forcefully at her. Nazira always found a suitable folk warning or proverb for almost any situation. Another of my classmates that was standing next to us, has specially deliberately nudge me with her elbow and snorted contemptuously. I haven’t any friends in my class. The only person I communicated with was my neighbor, who moved to Urumchi a year ago. My father is a typical driver, so we have always lived modestly.
   (The schoolmaster Maksim-aka and the new head teacher of the school, Mandjanbuvi-ada, have got up on stage. All the participants applauded.)
   *«-aka» is a respectful address to an older man (Uyghur language)
    *«-ada» is a respectful attitude towards older women. (Uyghur language
- «Today is a significant date in your life» - the schoolmaster began to speak. All the participants got silent.
After the schoolmaster’s beautiful speech, the head teacher of the school began to read out the names of the graduates one by one, loudly pronouncing the names of their parents. The director handed out certificates. The hall alternately fell silent and applauded. Finally, it was my turn.
-«Congratulations to you Guzal! » – Maxim-aka said, shaking my hand. I smiled shyly.
- « We also congratulate Guzal’s parents - father Nariman-aka, and mother Amajan-ada » said Mandjanbuvi-ada, reading the names on my birth certificate. She did not know every participant in the Assembly Hall by name, because she arrived in our city six months ago, and she collected certificates from us only two days before the graduation party.
The head teacher was clapping her hands. The hall was silent. I began to looking for my father among the participants in the Hall. He was standing in a few meters from the stage with his head down. There was confusion on the faces of all the participants. I looked at Nazira. A cold shiver came over me. I felt like I was slowly falling through the stage. Nazira stood up abruptly and, holding back her tears, almost ran out of the hall, pushing people aside along the way. I jumped off the stage and ran after her. On the street, I saw the retreating silhouette of Nazira. She was walking slowly, covering her face with her hand and crying. I was slowly following her. I didn’t know what I had to do in those minutes. I didn’t notice children passing, I didn’t see all the old soviet apartment buildings. My past was running before my eyes in accelerated frames...
   When I got 2 years old, my mother left me and my father, got married and went away. My father heard about how happy she was from mutual friends. My father started drinking. He grew up an orphan and had no relatives. I remember how the neighboring women would braid my hair and take me into their homes to feed and wash me. My father disappeared for weeks. He showed up dirty and tired, sit on his knees in front of me, and sob, closing his eyes.
-« Someone else’s grief is on the hem, but my own is in the heart » - he said, half-drunk, burying his face in my children’s palms.
  We lived with my father for 5 years in this way. Then Nazira came into our lives.  In our half-empty house, flowers appeared on the windowsills. The sheets and towels smelled of chamomile. She is ten years younger than my father. Two years later Nazira gave birth to a son, Tair.  My father forbade me to say his ex-wife's name out loud. “Whoever is not in front of your eyes is not in your heart,”- he said once when I asked to tell me about my mother.
   All these years my mother did not look for us. I don't remember her. People say that she was a very beautiful woman. Despite the insults, misunderstandings and condemnation of people, I expected that someday I would see my mother. I often had the same dream in my sleep. In this dream, a woman who called herself my mother stroked my head and, holding me tightly to her, kissed me. I vaguely saw the woman's face. She spoke some words to me. I don't remember these words. I only remember that I asked her about the Sun. I was looking on the streets of Jarkent for a woman similar to the one in the dream. But I have never met someone closely similar to the one who appeared in my dreams. So, another ten years passed.
  And now I’m following the crying Nazira near the old mosque. It was built two centuries ago. Without a single nail. This is the main attraction of Jarkent. In addition to the past, bats live in this mosque.
-« Ada! » - I called out to Nazira quietly.  She stopped, but didn't turn around, as if she was waiting for something. There were about 20 steps between us. I respected Nazira all these years: I listened, I helped around the house. But something prevented us from feeling each other as mother and daughter. “No matter how hard you try, you can’t replace her mother!” - the neighbor’s old woman repeated every time in Nazira’s back. To which Nazira answered only once: “A snake rarely stings, but people sting constantly.” Nazira loved my father. All these years I called her «- ada»... She called out. Didn't ask for more.
- “Your mother is who your father married” said Nazira’s mother, putting me to bed. But I couldn't understand her words. And I continued to call Nazira “ada.”
At these moments, I felt her pain. All the years to love me like my own daughter, and to hear people call the name of the woman who abandoned her two dear souls.
- « Wait! » – I shouted, seeing Nazira run. Nazira didn't stop.
- « Mother! » – I shouted in fear. My heart has never beat like this in my life. I uttered this word for the first time. I didn't know how to pronounce this word correctly. Nazira stopped. Slowly she turned around. Her eyes were full of tears. We stood and looked at each other. There were no more than five steps between us.
- “Say it again” Nazira asked. I cried and rushed to her shouting « Mom! » I wanted to say this word louder and louder. I realized that now there is no one in the world closer to Nazira for me. My tears soaked into the satin of her colorful dress. It seemed to me that at that moment we had one big heart for two.
- “Guzal, daughter” she said, sobbing with me.
We stood hugging each other for a long time. At that moment, I realized that the woman who came into my dreams was Nazira.
Holding hands, we entered the assembly hall. When the people saw us, they became quiet. Everyone in the city knew that Nazira was my stepmother.  Everyone except the head teacher. We walked excitedly through the crowd, which obediently retreated. When we found ourselves next to the stage, one old woman, barely walking, came out of the crowd, and, kissing me, began to cry. One of the girls looked at me with a grin. I looked at Nazira in confusion.
- « Whoever bowed to you, you too bow down to him: he is not your servant; whoever turned up his nose, and you lift it up: he is not your God » said Nazira, holding back tears. We still had a reserve of tears that had accumulated over all these years, which we had to hold back in front of people. I bowed to the old lady, and squeezing Nazira’s hand even tighter, I went up to the stage. Approaching the microphone, I saw my father in the crowd of people. He stood apart from everyone and waited for something. I smiled at him. He smiled back at me.
- «I have the honor to introduce you to my parents. My father Nariman - aka. And this is my mother... This is the best mother in the world,” I said confidently, as never before in my life. » 
The audience gave a standing ovation. Nazira smiled with tears in her eyes.
The next day, Nazira tore open one of the pads that her mother had sewn up several years ago. In Jarkent there is a custom of carefully putting various things in a cloth bag and making small pillows. Over the years, these bags are ripped open and the necessary things appear from them as a surprise. The next pillow contained a piece of blue silk. Nazira smiled and, throwing a cloth over my shoulders, said:
 -« We'll sew you a dress for your birthday »
I held back my tears so that Nazira wouldn’t cry with me. At that moment I wanted to thank all the angels for sending this woman into our lives.
I put my birth certificate in the nightstand. This is just evidence that I was born. And there was life - in every window of our house, and in every breakfast that Nazira prepared all these years. The pain that lived in my heart for many years has died.
- «When joy comes, sadness goes away. Fortunately, the path is short, but the journey is long» - Nazira liked to repeat. I know that her heart also calmed down.
I fell asleep happy for the first time in my entire life. Outside my window the leaves were whispering, the language of which I have understood since childhood.
- Happiness is when there is a mother. The world becomes kinder if there is a mother, they whispered to me.
The morning woke me up with rays of sun dancing on my face. Nazira entered the room. I smiled at her.
«Good morning, my dear» she said.
- « Mom, is the sun big? » - I asked stretching.
- «The Sun can't be obscured by the Hem» - Nazira answered, in our native Uyghur language. I remembered that these were the words she spoke to me in a dream...
   I got up from the bed, opened the window and looked into the sky and repeated to myself:  The Sun can't be obscured by the Hem.