“…hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans.”
Herman Melville, excerpt from Moby Dick
“‘Goodness! What have we here?’ I enquired, full of wonderment at what appeared to be a toy boom-box shaped like a great gilded book with a golden speaker on each side. The many buttons and Arabic calligraphy adorning it gave me a clue as to its purpose.
‘Could it be,’ I asked hesitatingly, ‘a Koranoblaster?’
‘Look, Madame,’ said Ahmed, fumbling with the gilded toy, pushing one of the primary coloured plastic buttons that lined up in rows below golden Arabic script.
‘Do call me Jane.’
‘Does it need batteries?’ enquired Charles. The answer came in the boom of a bass line; a standard rap rhythm tolled darkly as a Koranic caller wailed scratchy sounding verses, rolling out the tajweed, as it were, the prayer of the faithful. The strangulated voice lifted then dropped,in serpentine undulations: Allah u Akbar. God is great, God is good, let us thank him… No, nothing poky. Here there is no god but God. Ruler of a rhythm box. Charles pressed a green button and the rhythm shifted to a salsa beat. Ahmed hit a red one. The opening verses, the Al-Fatiha moaned with mysterious meaning. I took Honoré’s index finger and pressed it down on a blue button, for we were curious Christians being offered a lesson in Islamic recitation: a peal of women’s ululation rang out to greet us. With delight we found that with each push of a button a door opened into the chambers of an inspired, battery operated chapter of the great Mohammedan book.”
Excerpt from The Baby of Belleville
Yesterday the month-long fasting of Ramadan came to its natural end and the feasting began. I had hoped to get pictures of the food vendors selling home-made breads, honey pastries, garden herbs and buttermilk along the Blvd de Belleville, but I just never made it past the Café Chéri(e) this week. It’s la rentrée here and like every other working mom in the city, obligations have defined my trajectories. Nevertheless I did manage to get a picture of a group of good folks getting ready for their Eid Al-Fitr bash in the Buttes Chaumont park.
(What you can’t see in the picture is that they’ve created a food heap in the middle of the blanket space spread out on the lawn. At the God-given hour all will pounce on it. And hunger shall be assuaged.)
Last week, I started writing this little piece about hearing the Koran’s verses soaring through the night air after dinner. I didn’t finish it, but how little this matters in the life of a mother. Nothing gets finished and the show goes on.
As is:
My husband and I are sitting out in our garden, lingering after dinner, listening: a toddler herded to bed shrieks pas dodo! pas dodo!, a young woman on the 4th floor shouts congratulations into the phone, a Chinese neighbor makes a preparatory hawking noise before he spits, presumably out his window beneath which no-one, God-be-willing, is standing, and Old Man Joli on the 6th floor has turned his TV to full volume so that his retired ears can register a vibration. Or two. He’s watching a western and judging from the manic gunfire it sounds like a Pekinpah flick. Then, beneath all this, lower in volume but more persistent, we hear chanting, in Arabic. It comes from the project next door.
“Could that be…,” I ask my husband, “a… Koranophone?”
“It’s the Koran,” he replies, “in any case.”
“Whoever is listening to it is very quiet. Do you think it’s time for them to eat yet?”
“The sun’s not quite down…but I really don’t know.”
“Well, maybe they can have their soup for starters. Would that make God mad… to jump the gun just a bit?”
“Why are you even concerned?”
“Because I hate being hungry and thinking that other people – right across the way for that matter – might be hungry makes me anxious. I just wish they would start eating. They haven’t had a bite since six a.m. or something.”
“Leave it.”
“I’ll try.”
And I do, truly, but then, unable to override my anxiety, I blurt out: “I’m glad I’m not a Muslim!” My husband opens his eyes wide.
“Comment?”
“Well, first of all, I would never want to wear a veil tight around my head. It’s just not becoming – on anyone. Remember Sally Fields in The Flying nun or Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music? OK, they’re playing Catholic nuns but you’ll have to admit the wimple didn’t do them any favours, looks-wise. Secondly — and this is a very important point –I couldn’t give up wine with dinner…”
“Is that all?”
“For now, yes, I suppose it is. Cheers,” I say lifting my glass.
We toast and listen some more. The radiophonic Koran drones on, its listeners, our neighbours, remain quietly reverent. Or are they just weak and weary from the daily starvations? We hear no clanging of cutlery, or shouts of steam piping through a pressure cooker’s jigger valve. No conversation, no laughter. It’s very peaceful, or would be if Old Man Jolie would turn down the gunfire.
“You can travel with your ears, you know,” I say. “It doesn’t take much. Listen, we’re in several places at once. Ubiquity!”
But my husband, a musician, often finds himself at six places at once; for him it’s a daily affair. For him, the ear is an organ of pluri-location.”
“Oui,” he says, “C’est ça” as he corks the bottle of Bordeaux.
Our little garden in Paris, currently invaded by Jewelweed which are keeping the bees mighty busy.
Our cat in the clover.