Thein Pe Myint (26)

The following text and translation covers page 26 of Thein Pe Myint's short story "ငွေစိန် လှေလှော်ရင်း တက်ကျိုးခြင်း", which I have scanned from page 354 of "ဝတ္ထုတိုပေါင်းချုပ်သစ်" [A new collection of short stories].

Vocabulary:

ခါးခါးသီးသီး ။ bitterly, rudely, inconsiderately
အသွင်အပြင် ။ appearance
ဖြတ်လမ်း ။ shortcut
တိမ်းပါး ။ deflect, deviate, go astray
ချွတ်ချော် ။ to err, to deviate from a certain course
လုပ်ကိုင်စားသောက် ။ to live from hand to mouth
မသင်္ကာစရာ ။ something suspicious
အနည်းငယ် ။ a little
ယမန်နေ့ ။ yesterday, the day before yesterday
အလွန်အကျွံ ။ exorbitantly, exceedingly
လိမ်းကျံ ။ to smear
ခြယ်သ ။ to paint
အစွန်းအစ ။ ability, potential
အိပ်ရေးပျက် ။ to lose sleep
ငုတ်တုတ် ။ sitting without moving
ဖျတ်လတ် ။ active, nimble, brisk
ဆင်ခြေ ။ argument, excuse
ဖူလုံ ။ to be sufficient
ရွှင်ပျ ။ joyous, happy
အောက်မေ့ ။ be of opinion; think; consider

Translation:

When I inconsiderately refused Ngwe Sein’s eyes became displeased. I said that I would accept the cherry coloured bag when the case was completed.

Every time I saw Ngwe Sein I could with certainty make an assessment based on her appearance. Did she take a short-cut while confronting troubles? During the many times that I saw her, whether at my office or at the law court, she did not deviate in her appearance and clothing. I never saw her behavior deviate. It was just Ngwe Sein who simply and honestly worked to live from hand to mouth. As for the times when I saw her at her shop I could not notice any little suspicious thing. The night of the day before yesterday, I saw her [face make-up] painting ability. If someone saw her face from miles away they would happen to worry that it was because they had lost sleep. However, for a person who sits and sells for the whole day without moving, where could they be clear and active? Sometimes, I was able to see that she did not open the shop and just stayed. Later, when I saw her and asked I could see that the excuses that she gave were sufficient.

One day in her shop we met and I could see that Ngwe Sein was more happy and active than at any other time. When she looked with success and with a motivated facial expression [she said]

“Sir, I’ve done it. Ba Tote and his group have cowered in fear.”

“Eh, that’s good. How did you do it?”

“It’s confusing, sir. You don’t want to listen.”

“Heh! Due to attachment to you husband and wife, one foot [of mine] has already entered into your great confusing world. Of course I want to know.”

“Hah, you don’t want to know, sir. Please stay calm, sir. With a mindset of watching over me it has come to be like this and the trouble that has shown itself is at peace. Sir, please don’t accept any more trouble.”

“As for me I don't consider trouble. I only consider general knowledge of the world. I want to know how you got those guys to cower in fear.”