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birds. After that, he prays. He prays five times a day, sometimes
more when he chooses to. He informs me that even the tiniest
creatures pray like him, "only," he says, "we do not know how they
pray; we do not understand the way they communicate, but they form
societies like us and they have their own language."
2000-2001 www.arttoday.com
In his room, he has pinned a punch on a parchment where, through
bluish and rosy clouds, a young Japanese girl reads poetry. It is
astonishing to see an Asian woman in an Arab setting, but it is
comprehensible if one thinks about it. Most Muslims live in the East,
and Muslims have a long history of commercial exchanges with the
Chinese. Even their traditional dress looks astonishingly alike. I look
back at the picture. Only the guesha's hands and face emerge among
dresses of silk. She holds the scroll with dexterity, her head delicately
bent over under a thick hair bun held back with sticks of sandalwood.
Next to the bed, there is a book in which Japanese characters from
the Kanji are explained as following the evolution of their creation. I
read for example:
'the process of Time', Jikan,
“day after day the days are running away”. The course of time is
almost perceptible with the image of the sun rising above the horizon
[the floor], in the direction of the zenith [the roof] and its
disappearance under the horizon. It makes even more sense if we
know that the number three in Japanese Kanji is represented by three
bars one on top of the other:
Three strokes: the number of
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heaven,
earth, and
humanity
This means to me that the passage of time is independent from what
goes on in the heavens or what happens to humanity; it just goes on
and on, without stopping. Time is also measured in relation to the
rotation of the earth, so the Kanji symbol makes sense.
I interviewed Ibrâhim about the mnemotechnic process of learning the
Kanji offered in his book. The man's fine lids slightly shade away as if
the veil of the time went passing by his eyes. He remembers his last
voyage to Japan:
“I think there is something that impresses me: the Japanese
language itself, the writing. Somehow, it is a mystery, something that...
somewhere... that holds a message of an ancient culture and at the
same time scheming. It is difficult to comprehend its meaning."
He asked me: “Is the Japanese language an illusion or a reality? Is
it a medley of sounds and nice penmanship? No, the population itself is
close to us or otherwise we would be incapable of communicating
with it. No, their language is not an illusion, the writing has a meaning!
But the meaning is concealed from us; we do not know its evolution
so it escapes our understanding. Furthermore, Japanese do not need
words to communicate; they express all by the movement of the eyes,
by the impressions, by the eyesight. The natives will not declare: 'I am
mad about you.' This would be improper. Instead, they would say:
'You look like a dewdrop on a flower where a bird likes to fly over,' or
'our communion, our link of love is no more no less than this link of the
nectar exchanged between a bee and a flower’s pollen.' They do not
use a poetical expression in order to describe more precisely a well
defined feeling, no, they prefer to hide the feeling itself inside the
piece of poetry. For that matter, it is improper to show feelings at all.
The word 'love' will be uttered in the way of speaking. This requires
you to know the culture, to assimilate the whole thing. I have always
imagined I could see a Japanese family without being seen, i.e., if I
could only become an invisible man and enter their privacy. Then I
would know if they ever kiss one another. I do not think so. I imagine
well this absence of communication, this absence of words that
implies that a man who has not seen his wife for six months will greet
her with a nod of his head and she with a discreet smile. We, we
would hug each other, wouldn’t we?
It is a silence with regard to us.
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