ohad

20.1.09

So I’m sitting in the French embassy in The Hague, waiting to apply for my French passport.

Along a long table The French are seated.

2 Madams. 2 Messieurs.
One lady is with her baby.
Everybody is talking. French.
There is one guy standing. He is the consul.
 
I’m here because of my father.
Actually because of my fathers father.

During the Second World War my grandfather was busy tanning, playing the guitar and hitting on young girls on an island called Corsica. As my dear friend Magdalena says, he was a vagabond.

One sunny day he was recruited for the French army in order to participate in the resistance to the German forces.

When the Germans came and defeated the French forces my grandfather, being
a Jew, decided to throw away his documents as he was afraid to be sent to one of the death camps. Knowing Arabic he decided to impost his identity and said he was a Muslim fighting for the French forces. The Germans believed him and sent him to one of the soldier camps, together with other French prisoners.

In the camp he acted like a Muslim to the extent that he even prayed with the Muslims every day 5 times a day. This kept him alive.
In the camp he also wrote a diary for 2-3 years which is now in the attic of my parents’ place in Israel.

After being sent around different camps in France and Germany my grandfather got sick and was enrolled in a soldier hospital from which he escaped. He then went back to tanning, playing the guitar and hitting on young girls in Corsica. Later on he met my grandmother in Algiers whom he married 2 weeks later and together they traveled and settled down in Israel.
 
Now why am I telling all of this?
What am I trying to say?

I take some pictures out of my school bag Sander and I took on our last trip to The Ruhrgebiet. In one of them I’m giving a pseudo-lesson in The Folkwang Art Academy in Essen. In the other Sander is eating one of his famous Ham and Gouda cheese sandwiches in the kitchen of Almira, an Iranian girl we met in a British-Electro-Pop party, who invited us to spend the night at her place. In a third picture me and Sander are posing for the camera in the middle of the night in a snow blizzard on one of the main highways of Germany.

What are we doing there for god sake? Why are Sander and I, even now that we are not really working together anymore, still there? Still walking the streets; still taking stupid pictures of ourselves in stupid situations? Why am I, now that I’m not even planning to workout the Ruhrgebiet project as my final exam project, still present there, still searching for something - there? Why is my absence of interest in it so present? What am I doing here in the French embassy in The Hague looking at these pictures? What am I trying to get at? What am I trying to say?

I think again of my grandfather that had to hide, disguise, restrain, his own voice, his own language, in order to remain alive. I imagine him performing the Salah, the Islamic prayer, trying to communicate with god; how he thinks he is fooling everybody around him, how fearful he must have felt with his own identity being disguised; how devoted he must have been to his diary, his page, his word, which was the only place he could unveil his true voice.     

 

sander

I’m waiting for the ferry to get me across the IJssel. I’m still in Holland, and I’m already lost. Germany seems a million miles away, but I can’t imagine a better place to get lost than here. Big old horses come up at me while I’m drinking my hot tea at the side of the road. Around me everything is white with snow. Slowly, I see the ferry approaching from the other side of the river.

“Entschuldigung, can you tell me, is this town part of the Ruhrgebied?”
The postman from Hoerstgen looks surprised.
“Some say it is, some say this is still Niederrein”.
“I’m looking for the exact border of the Ruhrgebied.”
“Ha! Good luck. Everybody around here tries to push the border just a little bit further outside of his town. If you cross the Rhine, that’s the Ruhrgebied for sure.”

I’m stuck in a gas station at the southeastern border of the Ruhrgebied. I’m waiting for a local mechanic to help me get back on the road again. In the mean time I’m drawing different maps of the Ruhrgebied in my notebook. Next to me at a corner table an old man is drinking his coffee. Candies, cookies and motor oil surround us. The man asks me if I’m working and I tell him that “yes, I am”.
“Don’t let the pastor see it”, he says, “men are not allowed to work on Sundays.”
I can’t tell whether he is serious or joking. I’m guessing somewhere in between.
A guy with a Robin Hood hat and dirty boots covered with mud and ice walks in.
“Are you working too?” the old man asks. Robin Hood replies he’s free now, but that he has worked this morning in the forest.
“I’m surrounded by two sinners”, the old man exclaims. I laugh, so does the old man. Robin Hood gives us a suspicious look. He pays and quickly leaves.
My neighbor orders another coffee. “Machine coffee has improved over the years”, he remarks. “Or maybe it tastes so good because of the delicate hands of the lady serving it.” The girl behind the counter blushes.
A taxi pulls up. The passenger’s side door opens and a man rushes in. His face is red; he’s talking to himself and doesn’t seem too steady on his feet. He checks out the wine cabinet, then walks over to the fridge and takes out two Krombaucher beers. When he pays, some coins fall on the floor. He leaves them there and stumbles outside, still mumbling to himself. The taxi drives off.
The old man next to me has been watching the scene in silence. He now turns to me and raises his eyebrows. “Another sinner”, I whisper.

I’m dining with the rich. I drove to the end of a road and found myself in the small village of Grietherort, at the banks of the Rhine just before its waters roll into the Ruhrgebied.  A big stone structure with a smoking chimney invited me in.
Fat fancy cars fill the parking area that belongs to this place; there is a Michelin star on the glass door. I dive in, not being able to resist the temptation of hot fluids.
My throat is sore, so I order a pot of tea.
“Nothing to eat for you, sir?”
I take off my hat and my gloves.
“No, just tea.” I look around and see about thirty people eating from their enormous plates. I lick my lips and take off one of my sweaters.
“It’s hot in here”, I tell the waitress. I take off another sweater.
“We have a 3 euro tomato soup,” she says. I look at her. She smiles.
“That sounds good,” I say, “One 3 euro tomato soup please.”

“Excuse me, madam –do you live in the Ruhrgebied?”
“…”
“Madam, entschuldigung, can you tell me whether you are living in the Ruhrgebied?”
“Wass meinen Sie? What do you mean?”
“Do you live here, in this town?”
“ehm…yes I do.”
“and is this still part of the Ruhrgebied, or is it just outside?”
“I’m sorry but I don’t know what you’re…why I…”
“It’s a simple question, madam, that I’m asking you: are we at this very moment in the Ruhrgebied, or are we not?”
“Sir, I…this…what are you looking for?”