Over lunch at Nisaba's, Ori introduced Hani as a 'friend from home' and summarised their lack of success with the City Council.

'Typical,' was the consensus of the lunchtime round table.

'I guess Jonah needs to go to the open platform night at the Fish-in-House, then,' said Nisaba. 'Everyone's welcome. It's pretty informal.'

'It would be a bigger hit if he could bring the whale along,' commented the cook. 'But I guess that's out of the question. Maybe the donkeys? Animal acts are usually well-received.' Nisaba's donkeys, listening in as always, seemed to agree.

'Not on your life!' protested Jonah. 'A practising prophet from home always told me: never work with kids or animals. Stick to visual aids, like cow horns¹ and iron griddles².'

'Leave the horns, kitchen utensils, and livestock at home,' advised Ori.

'Yep,' agreed Hani. 'Just be your own sweet self. You'll have 'em rollin' in the aisles.'

Jonah shot Hani an offended look but went off into a corner to practise while the others relaxed by playing the Royal Game of Ur. It passed the time until the dinner rush. Hani and Ori pitched in when the place got crowded and turned out to be surprisingly good waiters – especially Hani, who had a knack for pushing appetisers.

'Ladies, gentlemen, and worshippers of Inanna³! Welcome to the Fish-in-House! Tonight we have for your delectation and enjoyment singers, dancers (yes, we've got the one with the veils!), the very best joke-tellers in Mesopotamia…' Groans from audience, 'No, seriously, they're not bad at all, once you get used to them, and later, a special feature guest appearance that you won't want to miss! To start us off, please welcome Santana the Juggler!'

Santana juggled well while the house band played the latest hits. He juggled balls. He juggled scarves. He juggled rings and fruit. He juggled eggs – until one of them 'hatched' and a small duck flew away. There was laughter and applause, and people tossed the performer coins.

'Oh, look!' Haniel nudged Ori. 'If he does good, Jonah might make a right smart of money.' Ori favoured Hani with an eyeroll.

The next act was Sher – an extremely tall, slender woman with enormous dark eyes. She was obviously an audience favourite: the crowd sang along on the choruses of what seemed to be her greatest hits. Ori and Hani particularly appreciated this one:

Ninkasi, Ninkasi, she makes beer,

Up in heaven like we make it here,

Oh, Ninkasi, make mine good,

Make it the talk of the neighbourhood.


Ninkasi, beer-lady, handles dough,

Into the pit the bappir goes.

Piles up high the well-hulled grain,

Waters the malt like the winter rain.

The song went on for several verses, step by step, as Ninkasi, the beer goddess, made everybody's favourite drink. Her heavenly dogs guarded the precious brew even from kings… The audience happily sang along, stamping their feet and clapping their hands, on the rousing chorus.

Ninkasi, Ninkasi, she makes beer,

Up in heaven like we make it here,

Oh, Ninkasi, make mine good,

Make it the talk of the neighbourhood.

'They sure like beer,' said Haniel in Ori's ear. 'Makes me wish Ninkasi was real. I'll bet she wouldn't wish that-air date wine upon us.' Ori almost choked laughing.

Next came the Dancing Grandpas, about a dozen extremely wiry elderly men who danced in a line, bounced up and down, did handsprings, jumped through hoops, and made everybody laugh. Again there was much clapping along and singing of choruses. More money was thrown: the audience was well aware that the Grandpas lived in a nearby old folks' home and danced for beer money.

The next person to take the stage was completely different. He was outrageously dressed by Sumerian standards, with glittering, shiny beads all over his tight-fitting vest and baggy trousers, and he had beautiful, elaborately coiffed hair that glistened with fragrant oils. He was behung with what Ori felt to be an excessive amount of jewelry – the pinky ring was particularly ostentatious. He obviously thought of himself as a charmer. His name, he announced, was Elivipres.

'I'm proud to be back here in the Big Pomegranate,' Elivipres announced in a deep voice with a bit of a Lower-Euphrates accent. 'Are you ready to ROCK, Nineveh?'

There was a smattering of applause. Apparently Elivipres wasn't too popular at the Fish-in-House. Several people decided now was a good time to hit the privy or go outside for a quick pipe.

The house band started up with a familiar tune.

'Oh, no!' groaned Ori and looked at Haniel accusingly. 'You didn't put them up to that, did you?' Hani replied with a vigorous shake of the head and a laugh.

'I didn't have nothin' to do with it! That song sure gets around, though.'

Elivipres opened his mouth and sang – if you could call it that, which Ori doubted.

My girl on a dare took me to the public square,

A player entertained us with his music there.

We danced, he sang, we filled our cup,

My girl and I got all shook up

We let down our hair in the moonlit public square.

He really crooned on the higher notes. Ori and Hani winced: Elivipres was about a half-tone off on most of the notes. Worse, when he danced, he shimmied, rocking to and fro and shaking all over so that the glittery beads on his costume shone in the lamplight. He was having a great time.

Unfortunately, the audience wasn't. Suddenly something round hurtled toward the stage. Elivipres dodged the missile expertly and kept 'singing', while the soft, squishy fruit splattered against the painted wooden backdrop. The first fruit hurled seemed to be the signal for the rest of the disgruntled customers at the Fish-in-House: soon the air was thick with flying figs, plums, peaches, even slices of watermelon, all overripe and messy. Elivipres' routine became even more elaborate, involving a combination of gyrations and avoidance manoeuvres.

'I call that first-rate evasive dancing,' was Hani's comment.

After the second chorus the stage started getting too slick to walk on safely, let alone do the dances which Elivipres assured the audience 'were a big hit in Warka.' Ori, who had been there, merely laughed.

Finally the management had had enough. They brought out The Hook – an oversized shepherd's crook designed to snag, not woolly lambs, but woolly-headed performers who didn't know when to get offstage. In the case of Elivipres it was safer to use The Hook than to allow stagehands out onto the stage, which was now dangerously slippery. Elivipres was dragged off to much laughter and applause.

The emcee stuck his head out from the wings and made a couple of announcements.

'Elivipres has left the building. There will be a brief intermission while we clean up the stage. In the meantime, your wait staff will come around and take your orders.'

While the cleanup was going on, Hani ordered drinks and snacks for everyone, and Ori slipped backstage to see how Jonah was doing.

Ori sidestepped a team of cleaners busy using sand and brooms to soak up the fruit juice on- and backstage. 'Sorry, man,' said one of them. 'That stuff gets everywhere. Watch where you step.' Ori's queries as to the whereabouts of Jonah resulted in shrugs and a lot of 'Who?'

Finally, one of Sher's backup dancers said, 'Oh, him! Try Gili's dressing room. He's busy crying on her shoulder.'

Gili turned out to be the dancer with the seven veils – and, indeed, there was Jonah, sitting in a corner surrounded by veils and feather boas. He looked deeply unhappy. Gili was plying him with tea and cakes and talking to him in a soothing voice.

'I'm afraid to go out there!' the prophet wailed.

'There, there,' she was saying. 'They're not that bad. They won't throw things at you. They just hate that Elivipres and his smug attitude.'

'Not to mention all the wrong notes,' said Ori. 'Look, Jonah: man up. Look what you've been through already. You've survived three days and nights inside a whale. You've adventured across half of Mesopotamia. You're finally here. You can't let a few fruit-throwing drunks intimidate you!'

'You've got to learn to deal with hecklers,' said Gili. 'It comes with the gig.' She shrugged elegantly, which caused several dozen yards of shiny material to swish.

Ori patted Jonah on the shoulder. 'Just tell them your story. Don't editoralise so much on the message. And remember: we'll be out there, too.'

It took most of the interval, but by the time Ori left to join the others, Jonah had brightened up and was more cheerful. It helped that he was surrounded by sympathetic chorus dancers.

'Ladies, gentlemen, and worshippers of Inanna! Welcome back to the second half of our entertainment! Are you ready for some jokes?'

There were cheers. There were also groans. Ori and Hani exchanged looks of resignation.

'Please put your hands together for Allan the Funnyman!' There was a smattering of applause from a particular group near the stage. These were obviously Allan's friends. Allan came out, a very large man with long, very curly hair wearing a multicoloured robe and hat. He greeted the audience like old friends, calling out a few names, who shouted back. Ori thought this might be a good way to stave off criticism and ingratiate himself with the crowd.

I hope it works, Ori thought. Otherwise the stage will get slippery again and Jonah will fall coming out.

'Hello, Fish-in-House People, I'm Allan. As you know, my name indicates a very noble tree⁴. But my mama called me that because the day I was born she looked at me and said, 'That kid is squirrelly.'

Much to Hani's amusement, this 'punchline' was punctuated by a beat from the house band drummer. 'They're letting us know when to laugh,' Hani told Ori.

'Good thing, too,' replied Ori. But the audience didn't seem to mind.

Allan went on. 'A dog walks into a bar, but he doesn’t see anything. And so he asks: shall I open one?' Ba-DUM-pum! from the drummer.

To the angels' surprise, the audience laughed on cue. 'What the heck does that mean?' demanded Hani.

Nisaba shrugged. 'You kind of had to be there,' she said. Hani and Ori gave up and braced themselves for more Sumerian humour.

'You like my new haircut?' Cheers, boos, and catcalls. 'I got it over at Adibi's, you know, near the fish market. I suspect he uses fish oil as an aftershave. Anyhow, Adibi says to me, How do you want your haircut? And I says to him, In silence.' Ba-DUM-pum!

More laughter, especially from Adibi's customers. Hani commented, 'That's a two-eyeroll joke, feller.'

'While I was at the barber's, guy comes in and says, Is anybody here educated? I say yeah, I've been to the School of Hard Knocks. He seems impressed. So he holds out this clay tablet, see? And he says…' Pause for effect. 'And he says, What does it say? And I say…' Bigger pause.

The whole audience yelled, 'IT DOESN'T SAY ANYTHING! YOU GOTTA READ IT!'

There was a scuffle in one section of tables: apparently some audience members were brandishing rotten fruit but were suppressed by Allan's fans.

'Aha!' said Hani. 'That's the trick! Bring your own claque.' Nisaba nodded knowingly.

'I tell him the tablet says, Don't buy from Ea-Nasir.' Laughter. 'He says, This tablet's full of old news, what's it good for? I say, you can use it to shore up that hole in your garden wall.' Ba-DUM-pum!

'Those guys at Adibi's are big gossips, the biggest. One of them's going on about this one, that one, who's taking bribes, whose wife is, you know, what they got up to over at the Temple of Inanna (no disrespect intended), and such. He dishes all the latest dirt. Finally he says, Did you hear the story about the butter?' Pause. 'What? What about the butter? He says, well, I'm not gonna spread that one.' Ba-DUM-pum!

Groans, howls of laughter, and a couple of angelic eyerolls. A lone apple went plop! on the stage.

In the sudden silence that followed the 'joke', Allan stared at the apple as if he'd never seen one before. Everyone waited.

The rotund comedian approached the apple as if it were Ori in the Garden of Eden. He prodded it with a sandaled toe as if to see if it would move. He squatted down, picked it up, sniffed it. There were titters in the audience. Allan inspected the apple: it wasn't that overripe, just a few spots. Allan stood up and walked back to the centre of the stage, all the while polishing the apple on his sleeve.

When he reached his spot again, he calmly took a bite out of the apple. 'Um, dinner,' he said.

The crowd roared with laughter.

'And that's how you handle hecklers,' said Nisaba.

Ori and Hani laughed and resigned themselves to another twenty minutes of horrible Mesopotamian jokes.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

03.07.23 Front Page

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