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najat el hachmi
always revisiting this image
I find so amusing: the voices
of women from such small
villages, with such small lives,
crossing continents along
telephone cables. So much
technology to chat about
so much trivia on a Sunday
afternoon.
I don’t know what she told
me while we were having
breakfast, I was striving so
hard to capture her as she is
now, so I would remember
her like that forever, I paid
no attention to what she was
saying. I wanted to register
the way she grasped the
pieces of bread in a pincer-like
movement of her first three
fingers while she rested the
other two on the surface of
the soft dough in the frying
pan. Yes, I know, it’s not a
frying pan, it’s an
imsajja
or
imsajjar,
because the final r
is silent, but so what at this
point in time? Why worry over
such a homely word.
I found it hard to swallow
the
irqqusen,
the scraps of
bread soaked in oil, there
was an unbearable pain in
my throat, the kind you feel
when you want to cry but
stop yourself because it
would be out of place. She
got up, leaving me to collect
the dishes, and disappeared
down the dark passageway.
I thought: goodbye, mother,
thanks for everything, though
I thought that in Catalan, not
in her language. A thought
that suddenly didn’t ring true.
There are thoughts I have only
had or can only recall having
had in the language that is not
hers.
There was still a chill in the air
when I walked down Baixada
de l ’Eraime. I could have
opted for Carrer del Cloquer,