By Don­al McLaugh­lin — Rajarasa: in San­skrit poet­ics, the supreme, intu­itive under­stand­ing of a poem (from: Suhayl Saa­di, Psy­choraag)

1. A Papal Mem­o­ry

The Pope is com­ing to Bern this month, if God spares him. God will­ing, he’ll address the Catholic youth. He’s not in the best of health, & a wee nun, God love her, is giv­ing up her bed that he might have suit­able accom­mo­da­tion. She’ll get her reward in Heav­en, as my Granny would’ve said.

The Pope & I have coin­cid­ed once before. In what­ev­er year it was he vis­it­ed Ire­land, I was hol­i­day­ing there too. All the CÉAD MILE FAILTEs were out & my Granny took me to Knock to see him. The Free Staters were mak­ing a mint. Every field or gar­den became a carpark, & the prices they were charg­ing made Switzer­land look cheap. The land­la­dy even charged for me to sleep in our car. — No, I tell a lie, Ita & Bernie slept in the car, but your woman charged for a blow-up mat­tress for me. It was a new bun­ga­low, I remem­ber, and it wasn’t a bit of won­der they could afford a new bun­ga­low, the prices they were char­gin. Cup-a-soup, sold out through liv­in­groom win­dows, cost a quid. The Free Staters — my Granny cursed them; swore she was nev­er going back.

The Pope was late for the Mass he cel­e­brat­ed — two hours late — and I was real­ly shocked. If there was one thing you nev­er were, it was late for Mass. We stood & stood & wait­ed & wait­ed. We’d passed on the Cup-a-Soup, but when we saw folk in the con­gre­ga­tion round about us hav­ing love­ly fish & chips, my Granny sent my Aun­tie Ita (I don’t have an Aun­tie Ita; don’t have an Aun­tie Bernie, either) off to get some for us. To afford them, she took out a mort­gage. The Pope, need­less to say, turned up before she got back, and it was like a sin on Ita’s soul, miss­ing the start of Mass. By the time he start­ed his ser­mon, in his heav­i­ly accent­ed Eng­lish, we were fair­ly tuck­ing in. I was just a teenag­er, but I mind think­ing this was a form of Catholi­cism I wouldn’t have expect­ed. It was kin­da fun. The chips were awright too.

Even­tu­al­ly, the Mass was end­ed, but we didn’t go in peace — not imme­di­ate­ly, any­way. The Pope’d to dri­ve round in his pope­mo­bile first. We could see the wee roof & the bub­ble under­neath work­ing its way round, and were des­per­ate for him to get to where we were. This was his­to­ry, some­one kept insist­ing (with an Irish accent, of course), and we were there. Bernie, I remem­ber, gave me a Papal Vis­it penant which would go up beside the St Mir- ren one, above my bunk bed. Final­ly, the Pope drove past us. It should’ve felt holy, but all I could think of was how it was an anti-cli­max: he was late, he’d kept us wait­ing, & now all you saw of him was this.

Just two years lat­er, of course, some­one took a pot-shot at him. The boy in ques­tion hit his tar­get & the whole world watched, stunned, as his Holi­ness crum­bled on TV. Il papa sur­vived. God is good, as the Charis­mat­ics say. Right enough, at least that day in Ire­land, I didn’t have to won­der which mem­ber of the con­gre­ga­tion round about me could maybe try the same. Their hands were too full, sure, wi fish & chip wrap­pers, for any o that non­sense.

Evening then fell, I remem­ber, & John Paul moved on — to Dun­dalk, or Gal­way, or wher­ev­er he was head­ing next. We spent the night in that extor­tion­ate B&B. The next morn­ing, you could walk onto the altar where he’d stood. Unusu­al thing was: they didn’t think to charge for it. The car­pet was indi­goey-blue, I remem­ber. You stood there & it was almost as if he hadn’t been at all. All that excite­ment, and already it was over and done with.

Before we left, my Granny showed me the spot where the Blessed Vir­gin had appeared; where the Pope’d knelt down to pray to her. You couldn’t see any­thing. After that, we squared up at the B&B & head­ed back to the bor­der. God knows how many flags in Vat­i­can colours British sol­diers got waved at them that day.

But I digress: I wasn’t plan­ning to write about the Pope at all — rajarasa & (not) not-Eng­lish, my theme was due to be.

2. Trans­lat­ed Accounts

The great James Kel­man has a new nov­el out this month — You Have To Be Care­ful In The Land Of The Free (Hamish Hamil­ton) — and I’m in Bern & can’t get my hands on it.

Jim’s a writer I wouldn’t be with­out; a writer I wouldn’t be a writer with­out. His last book, the crit­ic- defeat­ing Trans­lat­ed Accounts, came back to mind recent­ly. In the nov­el before that, the Book­er Prize win­ner, How Late It Was, How Late, he’d writ­ten from the per­spec­tive of a new­ly blind man: a tech­ni­cal chal­lenge, for sure, if done hon­est­ly. Trans­lat­ed Accounts upped the stakes in terms of degree of dif­fi­cul­ty. For this book, Jim imag­ined life under an uniden­ti­fied repres­sive regime & pro­duced fifty-odd accounts, trans­lat­ed (sup­pos­ed­ly) into Eng­lish by non-native speak­ers & smug­gled out of the coun­try. In one chap­ter, the text is gar­bled & spewed out amidst much code by a com­put­er pro­gramme gone wild. What might have appeared arbi­trary or gim­micky in less­er hands instead reflects the skills of a mas­ter sto­ry-teller. These fic­tion­al accounts, writ­ten in the voice of non-native speak­ers, reach parts oth­er nov­el­ists don’t begin to reach. We access the very breath­ing pat­terns of those per­se­cut­ed. And — once again — are left to mar­vel at where this author goes, at what he achieves, tech­ni­cal­ly.

I was remind­ed of Jim’s book in March. On 11‑M, I was in Switzer­land, work­ing on some­thing set in Latvia, a project I start­ed in France before Christ­mas. The geog­ra­phy of writ­ers’ res­i­den­cies can real­ly scram­ble the brain, even at the lev­el of try­ing to remem­ber which lan­guage, which cur­ren­cy, you’re oper­at­ing in each time you close down & pre­pare to step out­side. What you’re involved in seems more sur­re­al still when an incom­ing email alerts you to major explo­sions in Madrid, but assumes you already know. One of my best friends, as it hap­pens, is from Madrid. And just last Septem- ber in Slove­nia, I befriend­ed two poets — Vic­tor Sun­y­ol & Kir­men Uribe, from Cat­alo­nia & the Basque coun­try, respec­tive­ly. Three nicer guys, as they say, you couldn’t hope to meet. Con­tin­u­ing sim­ply to work, with­out know­ing they were okay, wasn’t an option.

With Victor’s gen­er­ous per­mis­sion — “you asks me for pub­lish my let­ter? my let­ters are of you. make all you whish­es” — I repro­duce below four emails received in the days that fol­lowed. Even in Slove­nia last year, Vic­tor was apol­o­gis­ing for his “hor­ri­ble” Eng­lish. In his most recent email, he refers to it as “not-Eng­lish”. For me, it is not hor­ri­ble; not not- Eng­lish at all. Look at the heart & soul & pas­sion & pol­i­tics which come across! Mach’s na! Go on, try to match it! For me, these real-life emails were eeri­ly rem­i­nis­cent of Jim’s fic­tion. It’s salu­tary to read them again now, as per­haps, already, — and as we always do — we begin to for­get.

Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 11:30:10 MET
Sub­ject: re: you ok?
yes ok
i wish writte well eng­lish for explained you every­things in spain.

only a few words: the spain gou­verne­ment actues as a true fas­cist gov­ern­ment: manip­u­la­tion and ocultación of infor­ma­tion, .. Sun­day there are elec­tions and if is con­firmed that the attack is work of the islamist ter­ror­ism the gov­ern­ment will be seen dam­aged, because is the fruit of its pol­i­tics of war. But if is work of the ter­ror­ism bas­co, its polit­i­ca of hard hand will have jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. There­fore hid­den the infor­ma­tion.

On sun­day there are elec­tions. After the mas­sacre the par­ty of the gov­ern­ment decid­ed to sus­pend the elec­toral acts.The oth­er par­ties also did that. And now does nobody it speak, No politi­cian can accuse al gov­ern­ment of every loque does. And that is the silence more accom­plice.

Every­one knows the com­mu­niqué of the teror­ism islam­ic that is attrib­uted the acts, and the com­mu­niqué of the ter­ror­ism basc, that denies it. Every­one gives them cred­i­bil­i­ty, except the Span­ish gov­ern­ment.

The Tv of the gov­erne­ment, and the pri­vate TV that con­trols, hide data, are liars…

The atti­tude of gov­ern­ment is arro­gant, pre­po­tente, does not lis­ten any­one. does not accept aids, as for exam­ple, that of the gov­ern­ment of Is- rael, that offers it spe­cial­ists in Ara­bi­an attacks..

In the pop­u­lar demon­stra­tions of yes­ter­day (Fri­day) the peo­ple asked respon­si­bil­i­ties al gov­ern­ment and accused of it to be the cause of all. In Barcelona the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the par­ty of gov­ern­ment, atthe end­ing of the demon­stra­tion, to leave among shouts, accu­sa­tions and boo­ings..

is that. (by the moment)

thank you for you let­ter

Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2004 00:16:41 MET
Sub­ject: re: you okj?
Don­al:

thank you for your words.

Now 11’30 p.m.
Has 8 hours after­noon the gov­ern­ment min­is­ter spoke, but it did not say all. it said that one took 5 or 7 per­son­es (mar­ro­quins, hin­dus and Span­ish hin­dus), but it has not say that eta is not the author of the slaugh­ters, and iln’a does not say a word about al quae­da.

Has the fine all pop­u­la­tion has gone out has the street. in madrid and barcelona mil­iards of per­sons are again to the fore­head of the hous­es on the par­ty gov­ern­ment while scream­ing, and in the exact­ing one the whole truth and the dimis­sion. And also in all the big citys of the coun­try.

Some mem­bers of par­tys of the opo­si­tion say that they had the news that the gov­ern­ment did not do pub­lic, and one says also as high mem­bers of the intel­li­gence ser­vices of Spain not his hap­py because the gov­ern­ment don’t says has the pop­u­la­tion all that its ser­vices says to the gov­ern­ment.

Has madrid e has barcelona, espe­cial­ly, every time sev­er­al and sev­er­al of per­sons are has the street. 7.000 or 8.000 has barcelona, and as that has madrid and has besides quot­ed. the gent does noise with cook­ing instru­ments (as has buenos aires, has the argenti­na, or as xile) and screams:

”Before going has the elec­tions we want the truth”. “The deaths his ours; the war has is your” “we said it before: not war!” “you, the Fas­cist, you are the ter­ror­ists” mur­der­ous, liars, suf­fices already, manip­u­la­tors

The peo­ple does not obeys the orders of a par­ty. the assem­bly has done him­self by sms and by and- mails.

The gov­ern­ment has denounced these demon­stra­tions al coun­sel of the elec­tions because today is day of reflec­tion of the elec­tions of tomor­row, and them­selves not polit­i­cal opin­ions can be giv­en. The demon­stra­tion is Pacif­ic, and is a hap­py demontsra­tion. But if the elec­toral coun­sel says that it is ille­gal, what will do the police?

And the par­ties of the opo­si­tion one does only small words but no have said noth­ing impor­tant with respect to what does the peo­ple or what should do.

In spain there is again a lot of peo­ple, a lot, that would be hap­py with a Fas­cist regime, and the par­ty of the gov­ern­ment did big ser­vices has this per­sons for 12 years. the elec­tions of tomor­row are impor­tant but very dan­ger­ous. and with the pop­u­la­tion in rage, more dan­ger­ous again.

This is not sim­ple. I remem­ber a lot of the years of the Fas­cist sys­tem of Fran­co. and very peo­ple think that can they not one fin­ished.

With a gov­ern­ment that it occu­pied the judi­cial pow­er (judges, fis­cal, lawyers of state. ..) (strength and that orders on him), a gov­ern­ment that dom­i­nates the media of com­mu­ni­ca­tion , a gov­ern­ment that put the Span­ish pop­u­la­tion against the Basque coun­try and against the Cat­alo­nia, a gov­ern­ment that buy with mon­ey the votes of the poor class­es.. that is that one can do?

And what can be done tomor­row if win in the elec­tions?

(now, 23:55)

to soon

Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2004 21:33:36 MET
Sub­ject: thank you

thank you for your words.
now, to the 21:27, seems that the results of the elec­tions have pun­ished al par­ty of the gou­verne­ment and pos­si­bly we have it thrown out of the pow­er the par­ty of the gov­ern­ment. and the cat­alon­ian polit­i­cal groups have enlarged its votes. but nev­er is sure in this coun­try. we will have to wait for tomor­row but the hope is great.

thank you again.

Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2004 23:23:07 MET
Sub­ject: thanks
dear don­al:
Good!

for the time being seems that the things go to change. Real­ly, the par­ty of the left social­ist Span­ish and Cat­alon­ian has con­quered in the elec­tions. you can see at: http://www.elec_gen04.mir.es/congreso/ DCG999999.htm

(psoe : social­ist
pp: aznar & bush
ciu : the cat­alon­ian nation­al­ist (right)
erc : a small par­ty cat­alon­ian nation­al­ist & repub­li­can (left)
pnv : nation­al­ist basque (right)
iu : span­ish comu­nists
cc : canari­an par­ty (right)
bng : gali­cian (left)
..

The hope is that change the for­eign pol­i­tics, the eco­nom­ic pol­i­tics, the social pol­i­tics, the pol­i­tics respect to Europe and Amer­i­ca, the politic respect to basque coun­try and cat­alo­nia..

that change all, please

Tomor­row is day to reflect, of pacts, of pol­i­tics..

Per­haps is day of future.
that thus be
thanks for your atten­tion

3. PSYCHORAAG

Suhayl Saadi’s anoth­er writer who knows what he’s doing with lan­guage — lan­guage & its dif­fer­ent forms. His short sto­ry col­lec­tion the burn­ing mir­ror appeared in 2001, but I‘d been fol­low­ing his work avid­ly long before that. At a time when, in my own sto­ries, I was com­bin­ing North­ern Irish & Scot­tish Eng­lish, up popped Suhayl, using Eng­lish & Urdu & urban Scots & Gael­ic. This man dou­bled my dou­ble- palette & it was thrilling to see.

The pub­li­ca­tion of his debut nov­el, Psy­choraag (Black & White Pub­lish­ing), is rea­son to cel­e­brate, grand-style. The cen­tral char­ac­ter — a radio DJ called Zaf — is eas­i­ly the most intrigu­ing I’ve encoun­tered in a while. Suhayl appeals to all the sens­es as he depicts this Asian-Scot. Alone, for the most part, in his booth, Zaf broad­casts through the night. The six hours on air — for some rea­son, Zaf’s last six & Radio Chaandnii’s last six — are sure to suck you in. Zaf refus­es to take requests, his pro­gramme isn’t planned. We read what he broad­casts. And the mem­o­ries which return as his music selec­tions play. His past, his rela­tion­ships, & his hopes & fears sur­face as we get to imag­ine a Glas­gow, a P‑A-K-I-S- T‑A-N (quote), & a Scots-Asian com­mu­ni­ty I, for one, haven’t read about before. With organ­ised crime in the back­ground, there’s a scary sense of men­ace. This, read­er, is a nov­el with a raga-rock sound­track (a playlist & discog­ra­phy close the vol­ume). The writ­ing — the inti­ma­cy — the rhythm — the pace — the voic­es — the mix — are breath-tak­ing. Right now, I’m one-third through — but by the time you read this, I’ll have fin­ished. 438 pages have rarely seemed so short. Already, I’m pre­dict­ing inclu­sion in the Book­er short­list. The Whit­bread First Nov­el while they’re at it. If Suhayl’d retained his pen-name, he could even have gone for the Orange. Swiss read­ers & pub­lish­ers, take note. This is one not to miss out on. I’d get trans­lat­ing into Ger­man, French, Ital­ian, if I were you, — now.

Rajarasa — it’s great there’s a word for it, even if it’s not Eng­lish, eh no?

© Don­al McLaugh­lin
Bild: Mar­tin Zel­me­nis, Riga
ensuite, Juni 2004