Paris, February 2013, subway line 8
The woman in the picture was worried.
She cried every now and then, she talked fast, in Arabic,
aspirating, sucking, trilling consonants.
Her sorrow consisted of a mystery
and we were her non-existent audience,
anonymous flesh, motionless passers-by.
At some point, a tiny French lady,
with a pointed face and a bag full of defeats,
turned her face towards her and said:
(tr. Can’t you try and speak in a lower voice, please? It’s inexcusable!)
Then she uttered that Parisian sound that resembles
a pocket fart and composed herself
like some corpses do when they are still alive.
The Arabic lady continued to vent
her sorrow, by that time magnificent characters
were flying in the carriage, drawing things about Allah
on windows and walls.
I looked at her and thought that I was very fond
of her little noise, much more than of the silence
of those desolated human beings.