Journal Kyaw Ma Ma Lay's "Coffee"

This post presents (the start of) my translation of the short story "Coffee" by Journal Kyaw Ma Ma Lay. (This copy of Myanmar text is taken from Jon Fernquest's Burmese Language and Literature blog).

 

Vocabulary:

စိတ်ရှိလက်ရှိ ။ as much as one wishes
အနီးအနား ။ vicinity
နေဝင်ဖျိုးဖျ ။ dusk
ဖုံးလွှမ်း ။ be covered with; overcast; be clouded with; be dominated by
ငိုကြွေး ။ weep loudly, wail
ချောက်ချား ။ be badly shaken; be alarmed; be agitated
လမ်းထောင့် ။ (of a place) be out of the way.
ထွက်ပြူ ။ to peep out, begin to appear
တဲပုတ် ။ small hut
ကျောခိုင်း ။ to turn one's back, ignore
ငယ်သံပါ ။ to shriek, cry out in a shrill tone
ခါးပန်း ။ belt; girdle; sash; board band added as exterior trim to conceal floor edges and joists
အားရှိပါးရှိ ။ strongly, vigorously
ဆုပ်ကိုင် ။ to grasp
ကွဲအက် ။ crack
ဖြေဆည် ။ find solace; console oneself (usually used in the negative)
အူအူသဲသဲ ။ resoundingly; uproariously
မြည်
ဟည်း ။ sound loudly
ခေါင်းပြု ။ to place someone in command
ဝမ်းဗိုက် ။ abdomen
ဖေါရောင် ။ swollen
လှမ်းလှမ်း ။ distance
မြင်မို့ ။ pregnant, plump
မချိမဆံ့ ။ beyond endurance; excruciatingly
တွန့်ရှုံ့ ။ wrinkled
ကြွင်းကျန် ။ to remain, be left over
ရုပ်ကလာပ် ။ corpse
မဲမဲသဲသဲ ။ in a determined way
ခုံး ။ arched, convex
ဖောရောင် ။
စွပ် ။ put on
သွတ် ။ put on
ခြေရင်း ။ the direction of feet
ထုံးကျောက် ။ limestone
ကြေ ။ crumpled
နွမ်း ။ worn-out, faded
ပျော့ဖတ် ။ pulp
ရစ်ပတ် ။ wind (thread or cloth around sth)
လူထဲသူထဲ ။
အသုံးအဆောင် ။ utensils, articles for use; paraphernalia
လူရာဝင် ။ attain social acceptance; attain social standing
တွဲလောင်း ။ in a dangling position
စွန့်ပစ် ။ to throw away, discard
ဖျော့လျော့ ။ relax
အသားအရေ ။ complexion
နက်ကြုတ် ။ jet black
ဒရဝမ် ။ watchman
ဟောက် ။ sunken, hollow
ချိုင့် ။ concave, dented
မှီ ။ to lean
တောင်ဝှေး ။ a staff

Translation:

Coffee

Journal Kyaw Ma Ma Lay

Daw Lon Ma Kyi thumped her chest.

As she was thumping her chest she hollered as loud as she could: "Ko Bo Chet... Oh, Ko Bo Chet!" The neighbours who were within earshot of Daw Lon Ma Kyi's voice knew instantly that U Bo Chet had died.

At dusk, the sound of weeping that suddenly became dominant agitated the whole neighbourhood. From the top floor of a brick building at an out of the way place the heads of three women peered out of a window and looked down at Daw Lon Ma Kyi's small hut.

From the rear windows of the brick houses in from of Daw Lon Ma Kyi's little hut people came out and were looking. While Daw Lon Ma Kyi turned her back to the road outside of the hut, after thumping her chest and hollering with a shrill voice, she vigorously bent over and grasped the hut's wooden trimming with both hands, as though to hit her forehead against the floorboard, crying out as much as she could with a loud voice cracking with pain, "Oh Mother! Who will I live with... Oh, Ko Bo Chet..."

Since the death of her husband Daw Lon Ma Kyi became unable to console herself. And she voiced that which was in her heart. Hollering in a voice that she could not restrain, she spoke very quickly and great sobs were mixed in with her words. And with the rising intensity of the [sound] heard by the people who had left to go to Ma Tha's house, [the sound] in their hearts became loud. A young woman from among the three women on the top floor of the brick house became troubled in her heart.

While turning to the side of the road whereat lay the hut, as soon as the body of U Chet Kyi who had lost his breath was nearing death, while looking to the distance for the swollen abdomen, that pregnant abdomen which was plump like a hill was hidden from view. The dying person was contorted with a face of excruciating suffering. As though experiencing pain half of his mouth was gaping open.

The corpse that was left behind displayed a decrepit form. It displayed a form that was in pain. The cessation of his heartbeat was the most visibly distinct.

Especially, the legs and arms were not like a person's but were bloated and tight like the arms and legs of an elephant. U Chet Kyi, for whom it was quite difficult to put on a shirt, wore no shirt at the time of his death. When going outside, since his single short-sleeve shirt could not be put on [his corpse] after having become swollen, [the shirt] stayed hanging on the bamboo wall at the side of the house away from the shrine.

On the shirt was hung a part of a lime coloured ပုဝါ [ပဝါ? = towel]. The little towel was worn-out. If there was traveling to be done, winding [the towel] around his head, because it was an item with which he would go among people, among U Chet Kyi's paraphernalia that towel was an piece of property with which he attained social standing. The little worn-out towel could not be untied from its dangling position on the hut's bamboo wall in order to be thrown away with his body. Faded and crumpled, it wept as it fluttered.

Since he had had few clothes during all three seasons--hot, rainy and cold--the complexion of his corpse's abdomen and chest was like the skin of a water buffalo:
black, rough and thick. Due to doing night watch for his livelihood when he was old and weak, with death his eyes that showed a loss of sleep became hollow.

Beside the corpse leaning against the wall of the hut there was a staff and a hand-held lantern that his employer had given him in order to walk around the storage building at nighttime.

The staff and the lantern followed after Daw Lon Ma Kyi who was wailing "Since [he] has left me behind who will I live with" and drops of tears were falling.