"عاجل : العثور على مقبرة جماعية بالقرب ..." “Breaking news: mass grave discovered nearby . . .”

"عاجل : العثور على مقبرة جماعية بالقرب ..."

 
 
البارحة ذهبت إلى الطب العدلي. طلبوا بصمة مطابقة للحمض النووي. قالوا أنهم عثروا على بعض العظام مجهولة الهوية. وفي كل مرةٍ أدور مثل برتقالة على سكينة الأمل.
 
الآن أنا في المنزل يا أخي، أمسح الغبار عن الزهور الاصطناعية التي تحيط صورتك، وأسقيها بالدموع.0
 
* * *
 
يقول التقرير الطبي بأن كيس العظام الذي وقّعتُ على استلامه اليوم هو "أنت". ولكن هذا قليل. نثرتُهُ على الطاولة أمامهم. أعدنا الحساب: جمجمة بستة ثقوب، عظم ترقوة واحد، ثلاث أضلاع زائدة، فخذٌ مهشّمة، كومة أرساغ، وبعض الفقرات.
 
هل يمكن لهذا القليل أن يكون أخاً؟
 
يشير التقرير الطبي إلى ذلك. أعدتُ العظام إلى الكيس. نفضتُ كفيَّ من التراب العالق فيهما، ثم نفختُ بالتراب الباقي على الطاولة، وضعتكَ على ظهري، وخرجت.
 
* * *
 
في الباص أجلستُ الكيس إلى جانبي. دفعت أُجرة لمقعدين (هذه المرة أنا الذي يدفع). اليوم كبرتُ بما فيه الكفاية كي أحملكَ على ظهري وأدفع عنك الأجرة.
 
* * *
 
لم أُخبر أحداً بأني استلمت هذا القليل. أُراقب زوجتك وأطفالك يمروّن بالقرب من الكنبة التي تركتكَ عليها. أردتُ أن يفتح الكيس أحدهم. وددت أن يروكَ للمرة الأخيرة. لكنك كنت عنيدا حدّ العظم. فيما بعد تساءلوا عن بقعة الدمع التي على الكنبة...!
 
* * *
 
منذ ساعة وأنا أرتّب هذه العظام الرطبة في بطن التابوت، محاولا اكمالك. وحدها تدري المسامير التي على الجانبين بأن هذا قليل.
 

“Breaking news: mass grave discovered nearby . . .”

Yesterday I went down to Forensics. They asked me for a sample for DNA matching. They said that they had found some bones, as yet unidentified. I turn and turn like an orange on the knife of hope.
 
Now I am at home, brother, wiping the dust from the artificial flowers around your picture, and watering them with tears.
 
***
 
The medical report says that the bag of bones that I signed for today is “You”. But this is little. I laid him out on the table in front of them. We counted again: a skull with six holes, one clavicle, three cervical ribs, a shattered femur, a pile of wrist bones, and a few vertebrae.
 
Is it possible that this little is a brother?
 
The medical report indicates that it is. I put the bones back in the bag. I brushed the earth from my hands, then blew the rest from the table, put you on my back, and left.
 
***
 
On the bus I sat the bag beside me. I paid for two seats (this time it’s me who pays). I grew up today, enough to carry you on my back and pay your bus fare.
 
***
 
I didn’t tell anyone that I had received this little. I watch your wife and your children brush by the sofa that I left you on. I wanted one of them to open the bag. I wanted them to see you one last time. But you were as unyielding as a bone. Afterwards they asked about the tearstains on the sofa.
 
***
 
For an hour I have been arranging these damp bones in the bottom of the coffin, trying to make you complete. Only the nails in either side know how little this is.
 

“Breaking news: mass grave discovered nearby . . .”

Yesterday I went to forensic medicine. They asked me for a fingerprint
for DNA matching. They said that they had found some bones of
unknown origin. And every time I turn like an orange on the knife of
hope.
 
Now I am at home, Brother, wiping the dust off the artificial flowers that
surround your picture, and irrigating them with tears.
 
***
 
The medical report says that the bag of bones that I signed for receiving
today is “You”. But this is little. I spread them out on the table in front of
them. We have the account: a skull with six holes, one clavicle, three
additional ribs, a shattered femur, a pile of wrist bones, and a few
vertebrae.
 
Is it possible that these few are a brother?
 
The medical report indicates that it can. I put the bones back in the bag.
I rubbed my hands of the earth sticking to them, then I blew the rest of
the earth off the table, put you on my back, and went out.
 
***
 
In the bus I sat the bag beside me. I paid the price of two seats (this
time it’s me who pays). Today I grew up enough to carry you on my back
and pay your bus fare.
 
***
 
I didn’t tell anyone that I had received this little amount. I watch your wife
and your children pass by close to the sofa that I left you on. I wanted
one of them to open the bag. I wanted them to see you for the last time.
But you were as stubborn as a bone. Afterwards they asked about the
traces of tears that were on the sofa . . .!
 
***
 
For an hour I have been arranging these moist bones in the bottom of
the coffin, attempting to complete you. Only the nails in the two sides [of
the coffin] know that this is little.
 

Setting out to translate this poem, we knew that the harrowing
experience it narrates is one which Kadhem Khanjar has himself gone
through. From the first reading of the literal, even covered in notes and
comments and possible substitutes, it was powerful and intensely
moving.

The detached voice
The steady, almost drawn out rhythm.

The list of bones, for instance, uses for the most part the Latinate, medical
terminology – the equivalents of clavicle rather than collarbone. These formal,
distancing words seemed a huge part of the poem’s powerful play with language,
so we attempted to retain them as much as possible. However, we kept skull
(rather than cranium) with holes (rather than perforations) because it seemed
important to retain the momentum of the dreadful list.

The odd similes – ‘turn like an orange on the knife of hope’ and ‘as
unyielding as a bone’ immediately leapt out, and discussing them with
Alice, our Arabic translator, it seemed they were just as odd and striking
in the original.

We thought about whom the poem addresses. On the one hand, it
directly speaks to the ‘brother’. On the other, its exacting recounting
(echoing the re-counting of the bones) recalls an internal retelling, a
desire to deal with the experience by asserting chronology on actions:
‘Yesterday I went’, ‘Now I am at home’. In other places the sense is less
obvious, with some initially perplexing uses of ‘him’, ‘them’ and ‘we’. This
is something that after discussion we decided should remain part of the
translation.

I think it is fair to say that we were all moved by this poem and felt privileged to
spend time with it so closely. It’s immediacy and plain-speaking belie the artfulness
of its construction. It both shocked and surprised us. For instance, while discussing
the names of the bones had to look up ‘cervical ribs’; these are extra ribs which not
everyone has that grow across the back, just below the neck. Some people have
none, some one or two. No one has three cervical ribs. The indication is that there
are the remains of another victim mixed in. I like to think I might have interrogated
this to uncover this ingenuity, but the great thing about workshop translation is that
it naturally leads you to such insights.

Emily Hasler, Poet facilitator

Original Poem by

Kadhem Khanjar

Translated by

Alice Guthrie with Poetry Translation Workshop - Torquay Language

Arabic

Country

Iraq