chauthi04



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38) "Oh, what can I do, Auntie?"

39) "Why don't you talk with Rahat Miyan?"

40) "Auntie [bhayyah], I'm embarrassed."			= In her previous speech she called herself 'I', and here she calls herself, literally 'we'; this is just a colloquial variation.

41) [D54] "Ai hai -- he'll rip you apart and eat you, won't he?," Bi Amma used to say in irritation.

42) "No, but-- but-- " I became unable to reply. And then silence fell. After much thought and reflection, oil-cake kababs were made. Today even Bi Apa smiled several times. She spoke softly:

43) "Look-- don't laugh! Otherwise the whole game will be spoiled."

44) "I won't laugh," I promised.

45) "Please have your dinner," I said, placing the tray of food on the wooden platform [chauka]. Then, while washing his hands from the water-jug kept beneath the wooden board, when he looked me over from head to foot-- I fled from there.

46) My heart began to pound: 'God forbid-- what diabolical eyes!'			= She 'says' this to herself, with the traditional Urdu fondness for direct discourse.

47) "Go on, you worthless wretch-- will you just get in there and see the expression on his face! Ai hai, the whole pleasure will be spoiled!"

48) [notes12] Apa Bi gave me a single look. In her eyes there was a plea, there was the dust of looted wedding processions, and there was the faded sorrow of old "fourth-day outfits." Bowing my head, I again [N9] went and leaned against the pillar.

49) Rahat kept eating in silence. He didn't look toward me. Having seen him eat the oil-cake kababs, what I ought to have done was that I would make a joke of it, would burst out laughing: "Bravo, hail to the 'bridegroom'! You're eating oil-cake kababs!" But it was as if someone had squeezed my throat shut.

50) Bi Amma, growing angry, summoned me back, and under her breath began to curse me. Now what would I have said to him? --since he is eating with pleasure, the wretch.

51) "Rahat bhai, did you like the koftas?" I asked, on Bi Amma's instructions.

52) No answer came.

53) "Tell me, won't you?"

54) "Oh, go and ask him properly!" Bi Amma gave me a shove.			= It seems as if this remark and the previous one ought to be in reverse order.

55) "You brought it and gave it to me, and I ate it. It must surely be tasty."

56) "Oh, great, you boor!" Bi Amma couldn't help herself. "You didn't even realize-- with such relish you ate oil-cake kababs!"			= In Naim's text, it appears that Bi Amma says all this, presumably to Rahat himself. In some other texts, the second remark is made by Hamidah to Rahat, which seems more plausible.

57) [D55] "Oil-cake kababs? Why, what are they made from every day? I've become accustomed to eating oil-cake and straw."

58) Bi Amma's face fell. Bi Apa's lowered eyelids were unable to raise themselves. The next day Bi Apa did twice as much sewing as usual, and then when in the evening I went to take the food in, he said, "Tell me, what have you brought today? Today it's the turn of wood-chips."

59) "You don't like the food in our house?" I said angrily.

60) "It's not that. It just seems a bit strange. If it's sometimes oil-cake kababs, then it's sometimes a chaff curry."

61) [N10] I was overcome with fury. That we ourselves would eat dry bread, and feed him up like an elephant! That sometimes we would [notes 13] stuff him with ghi-dripping parathas! That my Bi Apa doesn't get medicine, and we would pour milk and cream down his throat! I was boiling, and went away.

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