The Railway (2 page)

A particularly striking chapter evokes the nomadic Turkic tribespeople who were press-ganged, during the last decades of the Tsarist regime, into building the first railway to Central Asia. At the cost of their lives they struggle to assert the vertical dimension of spiritual belief, repeatedly tearing up small sections of track and transforming them into the ladders the souls of their dead need in order to climb up to heaven. The novel's most truly redemptive moment, however, occurs in one of the chapters about the character known simply as “the boy.” Angry and depressed after running away from home, the boy wants “to get his own back” on a train that has startled him as he stands dreamily beside the line; in the event, however, he surprises himself by throwing a kiss and calling “I love you” to an unknown girl standing by the door of one of the carriages. The boy is still free; he is the only character whose identity has not been fixed by a name; and it is his gradual initiation into the adult world that constitutes the heart of the novel. His unexpected “I love you” is central to this process of initiation; his simple and spontaneous words transform a Soviet iron road – the unyielding way of linear thinking and material progress – into a Sufi path of Love.

If the boy can also be thought of as a passenger on this train, then the self-contained anecdotes that constitute many of the chapters can be imagined as scenes glimpsed by the boy – and the reader – in the course of a long journey. As Hamid wrote in a letter to me, “each individual story is like a station flashing by. Some of the stories disappear without trace, others wander from chapter to chapter; sometimes the reader can get down from the train, look at people's faces, hear words, take something away in his memory.” And if the individual chapters are scenes glimpsed by the boy, stories heard by the boy, it is possible that it may be the boy himself who has written them down.

The general tone of
The Railway
is exuberant, even if this exuberance sometimes seems to mask a pain so deep that the narrator cannot allow himself to dwell on it for long. There is an exuberant humour in most of the individual stories, and there is an exuberance in the way that the stories multiply; one story, or even just the beginning of a story, quickly generates another. Many sentences seem so full of energy that they are reluctant to settle down and come to a full stop. The wordplay is dense; its unruliness exemplifies an important theme of the novel, that words – whether they are the words of magic charms or of Communist slogans – are endowed with an autonomous power. We read how Granny Hadjiya writes an Arabic charm on a scrap of paper, wraps a bit of cloth round it and hangs it from a tree in a cemetery; her magic charm then terrifies a group of schoolboys. We read of people who collect stories, people who collect manuscripts, a man who collects slogans, a man who collects words…

I soon understood that an adequate translation of
The Railway
must recreate this exuberance – even, if necessary, at the expense of literal meaning. There is often an element of paradox in the work of a translator; I have never before had to work so hard to understand the literal meaning of the original text – and I have never before allowed myself to depart from the literal meaning so often and so freely. Not every pun in the original is translatable, and I have omitted jokes that needed too much explanation; I have compensated, I hope, by gratefully accepting any appropriate pun that English offered. Sometimes these puns seemed to arise without any effort on my part; it would have been hard, for example, for an English translator to avoid a pun (a pun not present in the original) in the passage where the sight of Nasim's huge “male member” makes Khaira “remember” facts about her life that she had forgotten for decades. And it would have required a restraint out of keeping with the spirit of the novel to have refrained from adding the words “trans-oxianic” to a sentence about a couple from the USA who are about to travel to a part of Central Asia once known in English as Trans-Oxiana:
2
“And so the young couple set off on their trans-oceanic – and even trans-oxianic – travels.” The words between the dashes are my addition, approved by Hamid.

Sometimes, however, even when wordplay seemed to arise of its own accord, it took many revisions before a passage felt right. The last sentence of the following passage did not come easily: “Trying to forget Froska behind a veil of words, ex-Master-Railwayman Belkov succeeded in forgetting everything except her act of betrayal; losing his whole life to oblivion, he struggled to recapture it in a web of words. But his webs and veils were in vain; his verbal virtuosity was to no avail.” “Veil,” “avail” and “in vain” are all literal and obvious translations, but it took me a long time to find a way of taking advantage of the sound pattern they create; at first its insistence seemed not to buttress the meaning but to distract from it.

There were many other comic moments that came to life only after patient but determined coaxing; humour, of course, tends to be what gets lost most easily in translation. We speak of jokes being “barbed” or “pointed,” and jokes do indeed have something in common with darts or arrows. If a joke is to survive the journey into another language, if it is to hit the mark even when its cultural context can no longer be taken for granted, its point may need to be adjusted or somehow re-sharpened. A sentence about Bolta-Lightning the town electrician sounded irritatingly plodding even after several revisions. It was only after Liz suggested replacing the literal “explained to” by the wittier “explained over the heads of” that the English version began to seem as funny as the original: “Bolta-Lightning climbed the column in the middle of the square, hung the banner on the loudspeaker and explained over the heads of the entire backward bazaar both the progressive meaning of the slogan and the precise time the proletariat was to unite.”

Just as puns sometimes seemed to appear of their own accord, so did instances of alliteration; once we had hit on the phrase “gloom-dogged Gogolushko,” we soon found that this unfortunate Party functionary (a caricature of Nikolay Gogol) was “struggling doggedly” on one page and “gazing glumly at every bit of garbage” on another. And on one occasion I went home from a meeting with Hamid and noticed that the letters “f” and “l” occurred surprisingly often in the notes I had made while he explained a particular passage. The alliteration seemed in keeping with the tone required, and so I expanded a shorter original into the sentence “Something inside him really did seem to break off and fall – fulfilled or perhaps full of failure – to the ground”; almost every word here is Hamid's, but not all of them are in his original text.

There were occasions when I incorporated oral explanations in the text of the translation. Once, merely as an aside to me, Hamid said “enough money to buy two Volga cars” while we were discussing some other aspect of a sentence about two fantastically rich Chechens. I at once asked if I could include these words. The English version of the sentence now reads, “and they had once bought ten thousand roubles' worth of goatskin coats and astrakhan hats in a day – enough money to buy two Volga cars or for Granny to live on for the rest of her life and still leave something behind.”

Curses and swearwords present a particular problem for translators into contemporary English. Our lexicon of abusive language is oddly limited, and the more florid curses still common in Russian tend to sound laughable if translated at all literally. Reluctantly, I have simplified much of the foul language. In one chapter I have tried to compensate for this impoverishment by adding my own brief evocation of the essence of Russian
mat
or foul language: “those monstrous, magnificent, multi-layered and multi-storied variations on pricks and cunts and mother-fucking curs.”

Many people hold oddly absolute views about translation. Some see translators as unsung heroes; others see them as inveterate traitors. Some believe that translators should concern themselves only with literal meaning; others believe that nothing matters very much except tone and readability. My own view is that translation is an art, and that no art can have absolute and universal rules. Every book, every stanza or paragraph, every phrase may have its unique requirements.

The Railway
reminds me in some ways of a jazz improvisation or the paintings of Paul Klee. Hamid keeps to a delicate balance between imposing order on words and staying open to suggestions from them, between telling a clear story and allowing words to dance their own dance. In translating the novel, I have tried to observe a similar balance – both to be attentive to precise shades of meaning and to listen out for unexpected ways in which English might be able to reproduce the music of the original. Fidelity, after all, is never simply a mechanical matter. To stay faithful to people or things you love, there are times when you need to draw on all your resources of creativity and imagination. If I appear to have taken liberties with the original, it has been in the hope of being faithful to it at a deeper level. I have never – I hope – simplified anything of cultural importance. The character known as Mullah-Ulmas-Greeneyes, for example, is not really a mullah; “Mullah” is a nickname, given to him by people around him because it alliterates with “Ulmas.” One reader suggested I omit this “Mullah,” arguing that English readers are not used to Muslims using religious terms so light-heartedly and would find the word confusing. This had the effect of bringing home to me how important it was to keep the “Mullah.” The Muslim world has never been monolithic; Central Asia has nearly always been religiously liberal – with Sufis having the upper hand over dogmatists – and during the Soviet period secularism made considerable inroads. Even believers tended not to take their religion over-seriously.

The same wish not to simplify has also led me to include more than 150 notes. Soviet Central Asia is an alien world to a modern Anglophone reader, perhaps no less alien than the Spain of Cervantes. We take it for granted that there will be notes in a new edition of
Don Quixote
; it is my view that notes are no less necessary in a translation of
The Railway
. This short novel can be read as an encyclopaedia of Central Asian life. Its pages are doors into many realms; I will be glad if my notes make these doors easier to open.

Robert Chandler
September 2005

The Railway
is, in a sense, a collective work. Hamid made free use of stories told him by friends, relatives and colleagues; I have heard him describe the book as “a folkloric novel.” This translation is still more of a collaborative work. First, as well as answering countless questions, Hamid has read through the translation several times and made many suggestions and criticisms. Second, I have twice read the entire translation out loud to my wife Elizabeth, and there are many sentences we must have discussed twenty or more times. She drew my attention to passages that were unclear and helped me formulate questions to put to Hamid; she also contributed many phrases and some elegant puns herself, as well as making a crucial suggestion about the order of chapters. Third, I sent drafts to Hugh Barnes, Olive Classe, Mel Dadswell, Gill Gregory, Mark Miller, Dzhanna Povelitchina, Caroline Sigrist and John Spurling; all made valuable contributions, as did Katerina Grigorak, Eleanor Yates, Danirand Rano Ismailov and – above all – Stuart Williams at Harvill Secker. A translator is more likely than an original writer to have to find words for realms of experience outside his or her imaginative grasp; this is part of the reason why so many translations sound wooden. I send drafts to as many readers as possible, hoping they will draw my attention to passages I have failed to make clear or bring to life.

I should also say that Hamid abridged the original by around twenty per cent before I began work; I later agreed with him on a few further cuts.

I am grateful to the journals
Index on Censorship
,
In Other Words
and the
TLS
for publishing earlier versions of parts of my preface; and I am grateful to
Moving Worlds
for publishing the final chapter and to
Index on Censorship
for publishing earlier versions of the Obid–Kori chapters. I also wish to thank Robina Pelham Burn and Christopher MacLehose for their faith in
The Railway
.

Most of the characters bear Uzbek names, and these are stressed on the final syllable. Where the stress falls in a Russian word, however, is unpredictable. In the following list stresses that do not fall on the final syllable are indicated by italics:

Abdulhamid: childhood friend of Mahmud-Hodja. Becomes a poet and is shot.

Abubakir-Snuffsniffer: school caretaker.

Adkham-Kukruz-Popcorn: gypsy who sells popcorn in Gilas. Aisha-Nogaika: a Nogai Tatar, mother of Saniya.

Akmolin: driver of shunting locomotive.

Alihon-Tura: a cousin of Mahmud-Hodja the Younger and also of Oyimcha.

Ali-Shapak: younger brother of Tolib-Butcher.

Alyaapsindu: old Korean man. His name means “Greetings!” He is called this because, being very polite, he is constantly repeating the word.

Amon: nephew of Faiz-Ulla, who brings him up after death of his mother. (See Zainab.)

Artyomchik: a friend of the boy.

Ashir-Beanpole: Gilas station announcer.

Asolat: the elder sister of Hadjiya; the wife of Pochamir-Hodja; and the boy's great-aunt.

Asom-Paraff: half-Uzbek, half-Tadjik, sells paraffin in Gilas.

Bahriddin: famous Sufi singer.

Bahri-Granny-Fortunes: gypsy fortune-teller, mother of Lyuli-Ibodullo-Mahsum.

Bakay-Croc: son of Mukum-Happy-Trigger. A double-amputee. Uchmah transfers her powers of prophecy to him and he becomes the leader of a disabled movement. His name is that of one of the heroes of the Kirghiz epic
Manas.

Banat-Pielady: wife of Oktam-Humble-Russky.

Basit-OrgCom: disciple of Gogolushko during his phase of mysticism. Appointed First Secretary of the Gilas Party Committee after the dismissal of both Gogolushko and Buri-Bigwolf.

Belkov: Master-Railwayman and caretaker of Gilas Party Committee Building.

Belyalov: the first “capitalist” to appear in Gilas, under the Brezhnev regime.

Boikush: half-blind old woman, mother of Tadji-Murad. Her name, the standard name given to folk-tale owls, means “rich bird.”

Bolta-Lightning: electrician; husband of Vera-Virgo.

Buri-Bigwolf: First Secretary of the Gilas Party Committee.

Chilchil: Garang-Deafmullah's main competitor with regard to the carrying out of circumcisions.

Chinali: the fabulously rich director of the main warehouse; father of Soli-Stores.

Demo
cri
tis-Chuvalc
hi
di: son of Aristotilis Chuvalchidi, a Greek Communist exile.

Djebral-Semavi (Gabriel of Heaven): fled the 1905 Iranian revolution; father of Huvron-Barber.

Djibladjibon-Bonu-Wagtail: wife of Kun-Okhun. Dolim-Dealer: trades in cattle; heir to Oppok-Lovely.

Elias: a guard in the Bukhara jail; he employs Pochamir to make boots.

Ezrael: a son of Huvron-Barber and grandson of Djebral-Semavi.

Faiz-Ulla-FAS: one of the two sons of Umarali-Moneybags. The suffix FAS indicates that he is the director of the Factory Apprentice School.

Father Ioann: Russian priest responsible for the Apostolic Church of St Thomas; known to the inhabitants of Gilas as Old Vanka.

Fatima: one of two Uighur twins made pregnant by Kara-Musayev.

Fatkhulla-Frontline: a veteran of the Second World War, during which he lost one eye.

Froska: wife of Belkov; sells fizzy water in railway station.

Fyo
kla-Whispertongue: works at small shop attached to the cotton factory; a notorious informer.

Garang-Deafmullah: the only mullah to remain in Gilas. So as not to offend the authorities, he limits himself to carrying out circumcisions.

Gazi-Hodja (Fighter on the Road of Faith): husband of Hadjiya; poisoned in 1930

Gogo
lush
ko: Second Secretary of the Gilas Party Committee; turns mystic.

Guloyim-Pedlar: a sharp-tongued Uighur woman.

Gulsum-Khalfa: homeless old woman in a story by Hoomer. She brings up an orphaned boy.

Gumdjadain-Bangamtsaray: Mongolian mother of one of Mefody's “brothers.”

Habib-Ulla: an alcoholic poet.

Hadjiya (“born during the Hadj”): daughter of Mahmud-Hodja the Younger; wife of Gazi-Hodja, and then of Israel-Warder; grandmother and guardian of the boy.

Hoomer: the Homer of Gilas.

Huvron-Barber: son of Djebral-Semavi; father of Ezrael, who marries and murders Shah-Sanem, and of Hussein, who is murdered by two gypsy boys.

Ibodullo-Mahsum: the son of Bahri-Granny-Fortunes.

Ilyusha-Oneandahalf: a Korean friend of Rizo-Zero. When he was a child, half of one of his ears was bitten off by Rizo's donkey.

Ishankul Ilyichevich: surgeon at the Gilas War Commissariat.

Israel-Warder: second husband of Hadjiya.

Izaly-Jew (Izaly Rabinovich): director of the Papanin Tailoring Co-operative, which is later renamed “Indposhiv” or “Individual Cut.”

Janna-Nurse: falls in love with Nasim-Shlagbaum.

Kara-Musayev the Younger: Gilas head of police, married to the daughter of Kuchkar-Cheka. He goes mad after being dismissed from the police, after which he is known as Musayev-Slogans.

Kazakbay-Happytrigger: caretaker at the wool-washing shed.

Khaira Gavrilovna Huzangay: a lost Chuvash who lives, for unknown reasons, with Bahri-Granny-Fortunes.

Kobil-Melonhead: friend of the boy.

Kuchkar-Cheka: deaf in one ear; an informer.

Kukash-Snubnose: interrogates Obid-Kori after the latter's arrest.

Kumri: wife of Kara-Musayev the Younger.

Kun-Okhun: a deaf Uighur who works at the station as a freight handler; “Okhun” is the Uzbek for “Uighur.”

Kuvandyk: Oppok-Lovely's son, a car mechanic. Kuzi-Gundog: buys cartridges on the black market.

Lobar-Beauty: a lame and beautiful woman who runs the Culture and Recreation shop in Gilas.

Lyuli-Ibodullo-Mahsum: gypsy rag-and-bone man.

Mahmud-Hodja the Younger: great-grandfather of the boy.

Mahmud-Hodja the Elder: a successful merchant; uncle of Mahmud-Hodja the Younger.

Maike: a Kirghiz who accompanies Mahmud-Hodja on the Hadj, is granted a vision and becomes an incomparable poet in many languages.

Mashrab: youngest son of Obid-Kori.

Mefody-Jurisprudence: the town intellectual, an alcoholic ex-lawyer who has spent many years in the Gulag.

Mirzaraim-Bey: father of Obid-Kori and great-grandfather of the boy;
bey
means leader.

Mukum-Hunchback: son of Umarali; owner of chaikhana.

Mullah-Ulmas-Greeneyes: brother of Kuchkar-Cheka and husband to Oppok-Lovely. The name “Ulmas” means “immortal”; “Mullah” is a nickname, evidently given to him simply because it alliterates with “Ulmas.”

Murzin-Mordovets: a driver.

Murzina-Mordovka: sister to Murzin-Mordovets and mistress to Timurkhan. Murzin and Murzina are from Mordovia – one of the many constituent republics of the Russian Federation whose inhabitants are predominantly Turkic.

Musayev-Slogans: see Kara-Musayev.

Muzayana: daughter of Said Alihon-Tura. Her grandmother was one of Oyimcha's sisters.

Nabi-Onearm: propagandist.

Nafisa: daughter of Hadjiya and Israel-Warder; step-aunt to the boy.

Nakhshon Shtonner: wife of Hoomer.

Nasim-Shlagbaum: grandson of Tolib-Butcher, famous for his huge penis.

Nat
ka-Pothecary: daughter of Bolta-Lightning and Vera-Virgo; works as a pharmacist; confidante of Janna-Nurse; eventually she marries Nasim-Shlagbaum.

Nozik-Poshsho: the youngest wife of Mirzaraim-Bey and mother of Obid-Kori.

Obid-Kori: Originally known as Obid-Bey (Obid-Leader). Grandfather of the boy; a mullah, executed in 1938. The suffix
Kori
indicates that he is a “Preserver” of the Koran, someone who knows it by heart.

Oktam-Humble-Russky: an accidental revolutionary. Marries Banat-Pielady.

Oppok-Lovely: daughter of Oktam-Russky and wife of Mullah-Ulmas-Greeneyes. First Secretary of the Station Komsomol Committee; then Head of the Kok-Terek Bazaar; then Gilas passport officer.

Ortik-Picture-Reels: runs the Gilas cinema.

Osman-Anon: KGB officer.

Oyimcha (Beautiful Moon): wife of Obid-Kori and grandmother of the boy.

Ozoda: niece of Oppok-Lovely; runs the small bazaar by the station in Gilas.

Pinkhas Shalomay, later Pyotr Mikhailovich Sholokh-Mayev, then Pete Shelley May: Mullah Ulmas's companion.

Pochamir-Hodja: a Bukhara Jew, who is imprisoned first in Bukhara and then in Gilas. He marries Asolat.

Rakhmon-Kul: one of Chinali's younger sons.

Rif: Tatar gravedigger in the Russian cemetery.

Rizo-Zero: son of Fatkhulla; an engineer, supposed to have instigated a terrible eclipse.

Robiya-Baker: daughter of Garang-Deafmullah and aunt of Kobil-Melonhead.

Rukiya: mother of Kobil-Melonhead; in charge of Selpo – the shop for the sale of clothes and household items.

Ruzi-Crazi: lives in Mookat. When Oyimcha comes to Gilas to take care of the boy, she comes to stay with them, to their annoyance.

Ryksy: inspector in charge of shops and all forms of State trade; father of Kutr.

Sabir and Sabit: two gypsy boys, who rape and murder Hussein.

Said Alihon-Tura: the son of Oyimcha's sister; born in Mookat, he escapes across the mountains from the Bolsheviks and ends up living in Brooklyn.

Said-Kasum-Kadi: father of Oyimcha. The suffix
Kadi
indicates that he is a judge.

Sami-Rais: Chairman of the “Fruits of Lenin's Path” collective farm.

Saniya: widowed daughter of Aisha.

Satiboldi-Buildings: in charge of all housing and public buildings in Gilas.

Sevinch (Joy): head of Gilas music school, Soginch's great rival. Nicknamed “Moisey” or “Musa.” After losing his memory, he becomes an artist.

Shanob: youngest daughter of Oppok-Lovely.

Shapik: son of Uchmah, a mad boy who looks like Hoomer.

Sherzod: son of Tordybay-Medals.

Shir-Gazi: Obid-Kori's nephew; First Secretary of the Mookat Village Soviet.

Soginch (Desire): conductor of Gilas brass band, Sevinch's great rival. Nicknamed “Aaron.”

Sohrab-Sharpie: homosexual son of Temir-Iul; lover of the Greek Democritis Chuvalchidi.

Soli-Stores: the elder of Chinali's two sons and heir to his great riches.

Suleiman-Haberdasher: father of Abdulhamid, the revolutionary poet.

Tadji-Murad: son of half-blind Boikush; Akmolin's assistant at the station.

Temir-Iul-Longline: regional railway boss, son of Umur-Longline, the builder of the local railway line.

Timurkhan: a wall-eyed Tatar. Dies after being run over by a train.

Togolok Moldo-Ullu: father-in-law of Shir-Gazi.

Tolib-Butcher: a womaniser.

Tolik-Nosetalk: an alcoholic.

Tordybay-Medals: First Secretary of the Gilas Soviet.

Uchmah-Prophecies: fortune-teller, daughter of Saniya and granddaughter of Aisha, both of whom were single mothers. In old Turkish “Uchmah” means “Paradise.”

Ulkan-Bibi: the eldest wife of Mirzaraim-Bey.

Umarali-Moneybags: old inhabitant of Gilas, who became rich through money-lending.

Usman Yusupov: First Secretary of the Uzbek Party Central Committee.

Vamek ben Hasan: a Moroccan prince, engaged to Muzayana.

Vera-Virgo: a prostitute; the wife of Bolta-Lightning and mother of Natka-Pothecary.

Yormuhammad: basmach leader.

Yusuf-Cobbler: a kind man who for some reason regularly pisses against the wall of Huvron-Barber's booth.

Zainab: daughter of Faiz-Ulla. She is named after the heroine of
Zainab and Amon
, a poem about the love of two collective farm workers by Hamid Olimjan (1909–1944), the most famous Soviet Uzbek poet.

Zakiya-Nogaika: daughter of an eminent member of the modernising Jadid movement in the Crimea; she ends up in Gilas, working as a wool-washer.

Zamira-Bonu: wife of Mahmud-Hodja the Younger.

Zangi-Bobo: sells
nasvoy
by entrance to Kok-Terek Bazaar. He has compiled a huge dictionary of all the words he has ever heard in Gilas.

Zebi: the beautiful wife of Fatkhulla-Frontline, mother of Rizo-Zero and Zumurad-Barrenwomb.

Zukhra: one of two Uighur twins made pregnant by Kara-Musayev.

Zukhur: manager of grocery store.

Zumurad-Barrenwomb: Fatkhulla-Frontline's beautiful but childless daughter.