Writers need to swim in a language, like wicked sharks in the deep. Take us out of the ocean of words and we start to die.
– Rose Tremain in Rosie.
– Rose Tremain in Rosie.
The pilot asked us not to use phones until we were out of the aircraft, but no-one took any notice. Ringtones from familiar to esoteric ring out and echo down the aisle.
“Hello Mummy I’ve landed.” I look round uneasily. Thirty-five years ago my parents and sisters left England to make Israel their home. At that time, it was natural for us all to call Mummy Mummy. A middle class British family thing. But now I am almost sixty. My children call me Mum at home, Ma as a joke, Mother in public. But over the years I have found it hard to stop calling my mother Mummy. I`ve worked out as follows. My sisters, Rina and Tamar, held on to Mummy because in Hebrew mothers begin as Ima and remain Ima forever. No need for a change of name.
I am squashed in the aisle, hemmed in by teenage boys on one side, a woman with a baby on the other, a loud-voiced business-man in front of us.
“Muki!” he barks to his purple phone, “Tafsik! Maspik!” Stop it. Enough.
The taxi-ride to Jerusalem is like a colour film even though it is night-time. Beside me two Russian women appear to be in love. I envy their language, it sounds so rich.
“Sh-zj stdrazniet nayo szjink masskvitchka!” One of them...
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