Thein Pe Myint (30)

The following text and translation covers page 30 of Thein Pe Myint's short story "ငွေစိန် လှေလှော်ရင်း တက်ကျိုးခြင်း", which I have scanned from page 358 of "ဝတ္ထုတိုပေါင်းချုပ်သစ်" [A new collection of short stories].

Vocabulary:

မှိုင် ။ to mope
ဘယ့်နှယ် ။ how
လမ်းစ ။ beginning of a road; source; clue; starting point
အဖိုးတန် ။ to be constly, valuable, precious
ထိုက်တန် ။ to be suitable, fit
မစင် ။ excrement, feces
ပုပ် ။ rotten
နစ်မွန်း ။ to be drowned; go under
ထိုက် ။ to be suitable
ခေါင်းတုံး ။ clean-shaven head
ကွက် ။ to make a circle or round spot; have a spot; be spotted
ထူ ။ to erect
ပူ ။ hot; suffering in body or mind
ကယ် ။ to rescue, save
ရုန်းကန် ။ to struggle violently

Translation:

“Yes, yes. I understand, mate. Really, now if you see her again, will you be able to forgive all of her bad affairs?”

Htun Khin who had fallen into a disheartened mope breathed in and out and [said]

“How can I say, sir?” Should I not forgive her? Wherever she has arrived, I have her love. I completely believe that, sir. The difficulty is that the start of the road to meet her is closed. If I knew, I would immediately go and call her.”

And I wanted to search for Ngwe Sein and present her to to Htun Khin’s hand. A precious woman like Ngwe Sein was suitable with a person who was simple and honest like Htun Khin. It is not suitable for Ngwe Sein to drown in rotten feces.

“Hey, Htin Khin. In her letter she said it in this way. ‘Because I am afraid of a tiger I depend on you. You are worse than a tiger.’ She said to me that she had made Ba Tote [and his colleagues] cower in fear. As for what she did, she said that she had joined with people who could defeat Ba Tote. Consider in what she could join with these guys. As for these kind of guys, strength in [numbers of] people and strength in money would be good. And relations with wealthy and powerful people would be better. Therefore, the place where Ngwe Sein is would be [with] a gang ‘with circles on their shaven heads’ [a gang of thugs] that could defeat Ba Tote’s gang, mate.”

“Hah, sir! I know. Earlier I was suffering in my mind and could not think. I will search to find and rescue her.”

“Eh, search to find and rescue her, mate. While Ngwe Sein was struggling hard to prevent this affair, while working hard for you, while rowing a boat her oar broke, mate.”

“And if I see her again, I will not stay in the vicinity of Theingyi Market, sir. In the prison I was friendly with a wealth man who was in custody. He will give work to the two of us. We will go and do that work. I will stay far way from the life of market selling on the road, sir.“

“Yes, yes. It would be good for you to stay away. However, you must of course think [about that] later. Now what is important in to search to find Ngwe Sein...“