Who was Cassandra?
In the Iliad, she is described as the loveliest of the daughters
of Priam (King of Troy), and gifted with prophecy. The god Apollo
loved her, but she spurned him. As a punishment, he decreed
that no one would ever believe her. So when she told her fellow
Trojans that the Greeks were hiding inside the wooden horse...well,
you know what happened.
the cassandra pages
words, pictures, and a life
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Winter sunset over Lake Champlain last Monday evening, seen from the Vermont side; those are the Adirondacks in the distance.
It begins in the senses, it is done with words, its end is communicated insight. And when it is truly successful the insight is communicated to the reader with a pang, a heightened awareness, a sharpening of feeling, a sense of personal exposure, danger, involvement, enlargement. It is hard to believe that even the most intellectualized poets and novelists want their messages to come through cold. An emotional response in the reader, corresponding to an emotional charge in the writer - some passion of vision or belief - is essential, and it is very difficult to achieve. It is also the thing that, once achieved, unmistakably distinguishes the artist in words from the everyday user of words." From On Teaching and Writing Fiction, by Wallace Stegner.
We went to see my father-in-law the evening we got back from Montreal. “I don’t know about that - he’s had a bad day,” said my sister-in-law on the phone. She has taken on a kind of gate-keeper/doomsday role after her mother died; the latter had been the repository of negative energy and "whatever-can-go-wrong-will"- thinking in the family.
“He sounded fine to me,” I said. “We just called him and he said to come on over.”
“OK – whatever,” she said.
We took off, and fifteen minutes later found him sitting in his favorite chair, resplendently attired in a dark blue fleece bathrobe, barefoot. He looked glad to see us. “Sit down, sit down,” he said, gesturing magnanimously toward the sofa. “How are you?”
“Fine. How are you?” we asked.
“No good!” he said, cheerfully. “Nothing’s working. And the day is fast approaching when I just won’t get out of bed in the morning.” A wide grin spread across his face, and a look of great contentment. “Bed is so wonderful! When I lie there I haven’t a care in the world! My legs don’t hurt, my back doesn’t hurt…it’s heaven.” Now an evil grimace: “And then I force myself to get up, and I’m reminded of gravity. Aaach!” We all laughed; this is becoming the litany with which each encounter begins; once we get it out of the way we can start talking about something else.
Before Thanksgiving I bought him an orchid plant in the supermarket; he loves his plants and enjoys taking care of them, and this one was a major hit. What we have only come to realize slowly is that the plants – and their flowers or fruit – have become a sort of currency for him. For two summers he has used the cherry or grape tomatoes grown on his balcony as small gifts for other residents of the retirement home – usually women who have been kind to him – putting one perfect fruit in a small basket that he’s scrounged from somewhere and accompanying the gift with a witty poem composed for the person and occasion. Now he told us that he has given orchid flowers to several people. “I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of them!” he admitted. “People LOVE them.” He also gave away his entire amaryllis plant to a friend who had had a bad fall, announcing bluntly, “I told her I wanted it back after it finished blooming.”
He said he wanted to give another orchid flower to a woman who had helped him in the dining room that day. “She saw me struggling to carry my dishes back to the kitchen, and she came running all the way from the other end of the dining room to help me. I must have looked really pathetic for her to do that! But I was so touched about the way she did it –she was so kind. And she’s an old woman who ought to be dead herself! So I must do something for her to tell her I appreciated it. But I don’t know her name!”
Later on we talked about his sister and how she got married. Her husband had been in love with another woman whose family would have none of it, because he was from an unimportant family in a small village. My father-in-law’s father got wind of it, and sent word to the man’s family that they had an eligible daughter with none of the encumbrances – and eventually the two families worked out the arrangement. “He never got over Alice, though,” he said, laughing. “To the end of his days his eyes would get misty whenever she was mentioned. She was some girl, too – one of the first women to matriculate at the American University in Beirut. Very beautiful, very intelligent. Her last name was “Teen”, and her family was very anxious to be something important. They had someone research the name in England or Scotland and they found that Teen was an old name there and so they somehow concocted a story that they were connected to this old English family - I think they even had some papers drawn up - and people believed it. Amazing.” He shook his head in disbelief. “'Teen’ means “fig” in Arabic, you know.” We didn’t, and shook our heads. “Oh, yes,” he said. “One of the other boys at AUB wrote a poem for Alice that we all quoted."
He looked up at the ceiling, shut his eyes, and recited the first few lines in Arabic, and then translated: “O fig, O apple, O pomegranate, O grape!” “These are all fruits that have ‘feminine connotations’ in Arabic,” he explained, looking at us conspiratorially.
After we went home I looked up “al Teen”, which does mean “fig”, and found that there is a sura in the Qu’ran, the 95th sura, which is called “al Teen, the fig.” Of all the fruits he remembers, my father-in-law becomes the most sentimental and nostalgic when he speaks of the figs, drippingly ripe, bending down the branches of trees. Today when we went back for lunch, I asked him for a copy of the Qu’ran, found the sura, and asked him to read me the Arabic. He took the book and read the verses line by line, a slow smile of pleasure coming over his face as he translated.
“By the fig and the olive, By Mount Sinai, And this city made secure" ("By that Mohammad means Mecca," he said) "We created man in the best design And then made him the lowest of the low. Except those who believe and do good, So they shall have a reward never to be cut off, Then who can give you a lie after this about the judgment, Is not Allah the best of the Judges?”
It looks very different in Vermont than it did on Sunday, in the courtyard of Montreal's Christ Church Cathedral (above). There's no snow here! It's very cold though, and dropping - about 10 degrees below 0C.
So I'm back, feeling much improved, and have spent the day working on business stuff, wrapping a few packages that needed to get into the mail, and hauling some Christmas decorations out of the attic. J. went out early and came home with an enormous poinsettia, and I put some candles in the center of our Advent wreath, so the house is beginning to look Christmasy, even if the scene outdoors is not exactly a picture-postcard of New England holiday scenery.
Soon after getting back here last evening we went over to see my father-in-law, and tomorrow I'll write another installment about our talk with him. Tonight he called here, and when I answered the phone he said, "There's a beautiful new moon for you tonight," and we talked about the moon over the phone; he said he could see it from his room - "So delicate! So lovely!" The moon had accompanied us all the way home after sunset yesterday, its tiny points looking as if they were piercing one cloud, as its bottom curve rode lightly, sidesaddle, on another.
Thank you to everyone who sent get well wishes - they were very much appreciated! And I want to say welcome and bienvenue to readers who may not have commented here before, especially to new readers from Canada. Please don't be shy - I'd love to hear from you, in English or in French. This is a friendly, multi-cultural place where your comments are welcome and discussion is encouraged; please join in and help me improve my knowledge of my new second home and second language.
