The telephone was also bad news for me personally. It took away my lucrative business—a source of much-needed income. Before, I used to hang around Im Kaleem's courtyard and play marbles with the other kids, waiting for some man to call down from a window and ask me to run to the store for cigarettes or liquor, or to deliver a message to his wife, such as what he wanted for supper. There was always something in it for me: a ten or even a twenty-five-piaster piece. On a good day, I ran nine or ten of those errands, which assured a steady supply of marbles that I usually lost to other boys. But as the days went by fewer and fewer men came to Im Kaleem's, and more and more congregated at Abu Raja's to wait by the telephone. In the evenings, the laughter and noise of the men trailed off and finally stopped.
电话的到来对于我个人来说也是个坏消息。它夺走了我有利可图的生意——一种我非常需要的收入来源。以前，我常常在伊姆·卡里姆家的院子里闲逛，和其他孩子们玩弹子，等着有某个男人从窗口喊我，要我跑腿去商店买烟、买酒，或者给家里老婆捎话，比如说晚饭他想吃什么之类的。我总能从中得到一点报酬：10比索甚至25比索的硬帀。运气好的话我一天能跑上九到十次，这就会保证稳定地供应我常输给别的孩子们的弹子。但是，随着时间的推移，到伊姆·卡里姆家里的男人们越来越少了，越来越多的人聚集在阿布·拉贾的店里，等在电话旁。晚上，男人们的笑声和喧闹声越来越轻，最终安静了。
At Abu Raja's dikkan, the calls did eventually come, as expected, and men and women started leaving the village the way a hailstorm begins: first one, then two, then bunches.
在阿布·拉贾的店里，正如人们所期盼的，电话终于来了，男人们和女人们纷纷离开村子，就像天降冰雹一般，先是一个人，然后两个，然后成群结队，他们都加入了外出务工大军。