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Short Story: "Suspicion" by Zunun Qadiri

This is a translation of "Kuchukke Hujum", a short story by Zunun Qadiri. It was translated by Michael Fiddler as part of the Advanced Uyghur class taught by Dr. Akbar Amat at the University of Kansas as part of CESSI.



***


Suspicion

Zunun Qadiri, 1957



There are many reasons for a smile. People smile when they are happy; they smile when they are delighted. They also smile if they’re surprised, or proud, or mocking, being sarcastic, flattering, or feeling pity. They smile if they’re embarrassed; and there are people who throw smiles out, whether warranted or unwarranted, for the most trifling of things. There are even those who pass their time happily with constant grinning, swaying this way and that like a sunflower. There are very few people who don’t smile at all; perhaps that kind of person cannot be found anywhere.


For perceptive people, it seems easy to know why people are smiling. But even they can get confused when they’re in certain moods. We will discover this from the conclusion that is drawn with great perceptiveness regarding two smiles which I shall tell you about below.


Around six in the evening, a husband and wife were seated in chairs at opposite sides of the table eating dinner together. They pulled the leghmen noodles off their plates and put them in their mouths, not saying as much as a single word, not even looking at each other. Alimjan periodically shakes his chopsticks from side to side, mixing the noodles and vegetables together. Mestura, for her part, senses in this movement that there is something bothering him and thus his bile is rising. She chews reluctantly, with no real appetite, on the noodles which she is pinching with three fingers and placing into her mouth. By this point it had been exactly a day and a night since the start of this silence, this wordlessness.


In this deep silence, Mestura was sensing for the first time the bitterness that had been put in her heart by the fact that her cheerfully chatty, smiling spouse had gone silent, not making any sound, as if he had fallen down a well.

 

She couldn’t think of what she had done that could have made Alimjan so upset:


There was one time two days ago when I pushed him, just having fun. Yesterday I dropped a dish and broke it. Oh, right, and this morning I didn’t have the tea ready on time, and he was a little late for work. No, he wouldn’t be this upset about that either. Maybe I said something that was a little rude? I can’t remember anything…he’s so touchy…


With all these thoughts running through her head, she was perplexed. At last, it seemed like the only thing to do was just ask Alimjan directly.


“You seem unusually glum, what’s going on with you?”


Instead of answering, Alimjan raised his eyes at Mestura, his head still facing down at the table. “Hm, hm,” he said, with a wicked grin. His short eyebrows pulled together, and his sharp eyes gleamed like a hawk’s. His oval eyes became intimidating and severe.  


Mestura looked first at the red hollyhock flowers piercing the sky-blue curtain in front of the window, then at the pictures and postcards on the triangular table in the corner, and let out a deep sigh. These things reminded her of the sweet memories of their wedding fourteen months ago. The postcards were gifts from Mestura’s friends to celebrate her. On them were written good wishes and friendly notes expressing their belief that Alimjan and Mestura would have a fruitful, blessed life together, that their life together would always be blissful and joyful, that their true love for each other would thrive.


“Who was that hanging out in front of our door yesterday evening?” asked Alimjan, looking at Mestura with disgust.


Slightly panicked at this sudden question, Mestura answered, “Oh, that was Tohti.”


“Where do you know him from?”


“We were in seventh grade together.”


We,” Alimjan repeated sarcastically. “So that’s why you looked so elated.”


“Whoa, what are you trying to say? Don’t old classmates talk to each other?”


“Inseparable friends certainly talk together, smile at each other, hang around in convenient places to have sweet conversations.”


“What in the world are you talking about? I don’t understand you at all.”


“Oh, I understand.”


“Understand what?”


“I understand smiling while looking each other in the eyes! I understand lovers!”


These words stabbed Mestura like a scalpel. Her breast heaved up and down, and the blood began to rush to her face. Her voiced trembled somewhat, as if something were stuck in her throat.


“My God, if you aren’t easily offended!” she said.


“Oh, so I’m easily offended, huh? Well then, why was he looking into your eyes and smiling? Of course I’m going to have a problem with it if you two are staring into each other eyes and smiling!”


“You have a problem with it any time a man and woman just look at each other and smile? That’s complete nonsense!”


Alimjan’s face went white. He glared at Mestura with rage in his eyes.


“Nonsense indeed! Watch what you’re saying, you devious, shameless…”


Mestura didn’t know what to say. She fell silent. She threw herself onto the bed, trembling as if suffering from malaria, and cried with her face buried in her hands.


Alimjan slammed the front door in a rage and went out into the street somewhere. The banging sound of the door struck Mestura’s heart, and it woke their three-month-old baby, who was sleeping in the crib. The baby’s crying won out over Mestura’s. As she nursed the baby, tears welled up in her long-eyelashed jet-black eyes, and the last tears fell down onto the baby’s face.


As she sat rocking the baby, her relationship with Alimjan passed through her memory.


For probably five or six months after they got married, Alimjan still used the polite form of ‘you’ when addressing Mestura. Although Alimjan was not especially handsome, he was a polite, considerate young man in the way he talked to people. In particular, he had always been gentle and pleasant like a lamb in front of women. His personality had delighted the cheerful, kind Mestura, who had grown up in a teacher’s family that lived an amicable life with no quarrels and arguments.


After they got married, though, something had gradually happened…yes, devious, this was a strange, unfair word to Mestura. Wasn’t he respected among his friends for his truthful words? He never cursed at anyone. So nobody ever said insulting things to Mestura. But now, these insulting words from Alimjan—which were on account of her just meeting Tohti, her old classmate, in front of their door, smiling and talking cheerfully with him—hurt her badly.


At any rate, this interaction showed Mestura the jealous side of Alimjan’s personality. Actually, it should have been obvious long ago. Mestura’s naïve and honest heart had not noticed it until it came to a sharp conflict like the one today, but indeed, things such as the following had happened before.


There was one evening, on a day when it had rained and the roads were a bit muddy, when their courtyard gate seemed to have been opened, but some time went by and nobody came up to the house.


Mestura came out to see what was going on. Alimjan was bent over, examining something on the ground.


“Are you looking for gold under the ground, or what?” Mestura joked, smiling. 


Alimjan hid the slight embarrassment that had appeared on his face with a smile. “Ah, what would gold be doing here? Some strange creature…” he said, and went into the house. Mestura looked at the spot on the ground he had been examining. She did not see any sort of creature, nor footprints of a creature. What was there was not the footprints of a creature, but the prints left by the neighbor lady who had just come over asking to borrow some yeast, wearing galoshes over her bare feet.


On another day, Mestura had gone to visit her mother, and was coming home in the evening, around nine o’clock. As she was walking along the dark road alone, a dirtclod landed at her feet, evidently thrown by someone standing behind one of the poplar trees beside the road. Mestura shuddered, and not without a word she continued on her way. Soon after that, she heard somebody whistling behind her. Supposing it was some drunk person making a joke, she ran on silently. But suddenly a laugh made her stop running. She felt like it was a laugh she recognized. Mestura was not mistaken; Alimjan came out in front of her in a happy mood.


“What are you doing?” asked Mestura, somewhat angry.


“Just having a little fun,” said Alimjan. Mestura getting scared and starting to run had apparently drawn an inadvertent laugh out of him. If it hadn’t happened like that, regardless of whether he would have revealed himself, or gone home and then engaged Mestura in conversation as if nothing had happened, either way it is a bit unclear to us what the idea was behind his taking the trouble to do this. But it was obvious that his laughter was also somewhat out of embarrassment, because his teasing game wasn’t all that funny.


On another day, Alimjan was surprised by something and asked a strange question…


Seeing the big down pillow wrinkled up on the bed at noontime, he said, “What’s the pillow doing in this spot?”


“I put the baby down to sleep there, that’s all,” answered Mestura.


“A tiny baby barely the size of a fist sleeps on a pillow that big?”


“You cherish your pillow more than your child? I mean, it sounds like your pillow is more precious to you than the baby.”


“No…”


“Well, what are you trying to say then?


“I just mean it’s going to hurt the baby’s neck.” The sign of surprise on Alimjan’s face remained under a weak, embarrassed smile.


Now the secret behind these incidents opened up clearly before Mestura.


It was also clear that this secret was the reason Alimjan had made various excuses to put off her requests to continue her studies or get a job in society.


These ridiculous things Alimjan had done out of such baseless suspicions began to make Mestura’s blood boil. I didn’t say a word before because I didn’t realize what was going on. Why don’t I have a direct conversation with him about it today? Thinking about how she was still hesitant, and how she never knew what to say in a conflict with another person, she was annoyed at herself. But she resolved to have a talk with him once and for all about this insulting suspicion. 


Mesture stopped thinking and raised her head. Her ears were ringing and her heart felt tight. As she went and opened the window, the ice-cold wind of late autumn struck her face. She breathed until she was full of the cool air, gave a deep sigh, and looked up at the even tops of the trees in the street, and then up at the countless stars in the clear sky.


Some of the stars were as pure and as beautiful as Mestura. Fluttering their long, long eyelashes of light, they looked smilingly down at her. Alimjan’s pampering words came to her memory, from back when they had just met… “Your hair is like a beaver pelt, your eyes are like smiling stars.”


Mestura smiled, relieved. But where can he be at this hour? she thought, casting a worried glance outside.


It was nearly twelve o’clock. There were no people’s voices to be heard. Only the weak, hoarse voices of dogs barking far away, and the sharp, husky sound of those nearby, made the heavy pressure of the night rock heavily on her heart.


***



Alimjan’s heart was much lighter after he had seen a show at the theater. No trace of his anger remained. Opening up like a flower, he spoke kindly and pleasantly to the girl who was walking by his side. “Your voice is so beautiful, it’s at the level where people who listen to you sing just totally lose themselves in the music.”


“Oh, you’re exaggerating, Alimjan Aka[1],” the girl said with a mixture of embarrassment and happiness.


“There—didn’t I say you don’t believe in yourself?” Alimjan said, looking meaningfully into the girl’s eyes. “Honestly, you sang so beautifully on the stage today, it was like you pulled my heart right out of my chest.”


The girl beamed proudly. Her eyes sparkled like glistening, jet-black grapes.


Ah, you’re coming like a falcon to the falconer’s call, thought Alimjan. But the fact that her talent related to her dream had finally received praise had the girl intoxicated. Though she couldn’t actually sing as magically as Alimjan had praised her for, she did have a pretty decent voice. However, she had yet to learn how to use her voice well and master the rules of singing. Her heartfelt dream was to become an actress, and she had joined a certain amateur theater arts group.


She stopped walking. “You have good taste, Alimjan Aka. Tell me the truth, do you really think I can become an actress?” she asked.


“Of course you will! With a beautiful voice like yours, if you can’t become an actress, who can? You heard how much applause your songs got today, look, the cheering was ringing so loud the whole club was shaking. Me too, I clapped till my hands turned red. Pretty much everybody loved it.”


“It isn’t always that way, though.”


“A person has to believe in their own talent. Look, you have so much talent. You’re beautiful too. You’re perfect for the stage. I was paying careful attention today. When you walked to the front of the stage and straightened up to face the hall like that, it was like a bouquet of roses blooming on stage.”


Alimjan’s sugar-sweet praise lifted the amateur girl’s heart up as high as a mountain. Pleased with her own progress, she thought, Other people just don’t appreciate the true value of my talent like Alimjan does. When they say, ‘You made a mistake here, you made a mistake there,’ they’re just trying to attack me emotionally. Maybe because the sweet words made her head spin, she walked some distance past her door.


“Oops, my house is back there behind us,” said the amateur girl. “Goodbye, Alimjan Aka, I’m going home now.”


Looking at Alimjan with an expression to convey her gratitude, she smiled pleasantly and stretched out her hand to bid him farewell. Grasping her hand and not letting go, Alimjan looked her in the eye and said, “Why are you in such a hurry?” and pulled her hand closer, intending to embrace her.


The girl shook her hand free and pulled it back. Sparks of rage flew from her eyes. No trace remained of the smile on her face now. “What are you doing? I think of you like my own brother!”


“What’s the matter, it’s love!”


“Love?!! Look what shameless words you’re saying!”


Alimjan was going to put the blame on the amateur girl, but instead he just said in an embarrassed, low voice, “Well, why were you looking at me and smiling like that?”


“So anyone who looks at you and smiles has to have some other motive? You’re such a devious man!” the amateur girl said, then turned around and ran quickly towards her house.


Alimjan was now uncertain about smiles. He had prided himself in having a sage-like power to look into a woman’s eyes when she smiled and discern her motive, but this had exposed the true extent of his ability.


Almost as if she had discussed it beforehand with Mestura, this girl had given the same answer to his evaluation of people looking at each other and smiling. Shameless, devious…those words of undeserved insult which he had spoken to Mestura were returned back to him deservedly by the amateur girl.


Alimjan walked into his house with a meek smile on his face. Mestura too gave a brief smile when she looked at him. If you looked at these smiles inattentively, you would see a nice reconciliation between a husband and wife who had let go of their anger. But if a pair of sharp eyes could see all the way to their emotions, Mestura’s smile would show that she was laughing at him, and Alimjan’s that he was embarrassed.




[1] Translator’s note: Aka literally means ‘older brother,’ but it is often used as an affectionate but respectful term for a male friend who is older than the speaker.

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