When Ori and Hani came downstairs at Maranineveh for what was advertised as 'dinner and live entertainment', they marvelled at the collection of diners. Arranged around the mismatched, scuffed, low tables were equally scruffy couches where diners reclined to eat. There was certainly enough food: the tables were covered with dishes. Some of the food was familiar: bean paste, cucumber in yoghurt sauce with garlic and dill, barley cake and, of course, beer. But some of the dishes puzzled Ori. Did Maranineveh specialise in exotic food?

'Get a load of the picture on the wall,' whispered Hani. 'What in the infernal drum solo is he eating?'

Indeed, it was a puzzle. The gaudy (tasteless) painting showed a diner ingesting, with obvious enjoyment, something in a long barley roll, end foremost.

Kingu appeared at Ori's elbow. He noticed the two 'dignitaries' staring at the picture with expressions he naturally mistook for admiration.

'Great picture, eh? I had War-holi of Halab paint that for me,' said Kingu. He poked Ori in the side. 'He owed me a favour, if you take my meaning. I managed to get him to leave out the cats. Nasty things, cats. Don't you agree the painting dresses up the place?'

Hani asked, 'Er, just exactly what is the man in the picture supposed to be eatin'?'

Kingu grinned. 'It's a Maranineveh specialty! That's what makes the painting so good.' He preened. 'I call it a hot dog. I was the first one to name them. Now everybody says hot dog.'

Hani nearly choked. 'Tell me y'all ain't eatin' dogs in here?'

Kingu looked annoyed. He batted away the question. 'Of course not! It's just a colourful expression. Because the barley bun is long, like one of those silly dogs they have in North Nineveh. The meat is actually ground desert vole. Fresh-caught.'

The last time angels had stared at anyone like that was when Ophaniel had tried to explain the enfolding of the N-dimensional Euclidean space through N-dimensional spheres, about ten seconds after the Big Bang – so, a long time ago. Oblivious, Kingu went on to tout the merits of his other 'specialty day lah mason', the Hamb-herder, which was a round fishcake breaded and deep-fat-fried. He urged his guests to try it. Ori made ambiguous noises, while Hani surreptitiously looked around for places of food concealment should the proprietor follow through on the threat to send either alleged comestible in their direction.

Fortunately, just as he'd steered them to a table, their host's beady eyes, always scanning the room for someone more important to talk to, lighted on an overdressed matron he mistook for Princess Gratia of Eridu. So Kingu left them in the relatively capable hands of the wine steward, while he hustled off to see if he could impress the princess with some creative name-dropping.

'Would you like to see the wine list, sirs?' asked the unctuous waiter whom they recognised as a former city hall official. Ori was about to send him on his way when Hani grabbed the clay tablet and began to study it, utterly ignoring Ori's frantic gestures.

Hani pointed. 'This Shatoh de Gilgamesh looks innerestin'. What's in it?'

'Oh, good choice, sir,' the waiter purred. 'This vintage is made of dates from the Euphrates region. Aged a full six weeks.' Paying no attention to Ori's eye-rolling, Hani ordered a carafe and two winecups.

'You'll be sorry,' warned Ori. 'That date wine is nasty stuff.'

Hani shrugged. 'You gotta try the local specialties, right?'

'Not if they contain ground vole,' growled Ori.

Their attention was drawn to the stage, where an ear-splitting but mercifully brief fanfare had erupted from a musician giving a squeaky blast on a small brass trumpet. Kingu took the stage, also briefly and mercifully. He held up his hands to forestall applause, although there wasn't any.

'Friends, distinguished guests, welcome to this evening's show! (Waiters, keep working!) Tonight we have some really high-class entertainment for you. I know, we always have classy entertainment here at Maranineveh, everybody says so. First off, here are the Ninevettes to dance for you. They're all really, really beautiful girls, every one a 12, if you know what I mean,' he winked in a way that managed to be both sad and lascivious at the same time. 'Give 'em a big hand!'

With that, he backed into the wings, leading the (half-hearted) applause, until he managed to trip backwards into the arms of a decorative statue. Two stagehands, looking as unsurprised as if he did this every night (which, in fact, he did), extricated their boss as the music began to play a familiar tune.

Ori groaned and Hani laughed.

'Will that song never go away?' Ori wondered aloud as Hani sang quietly, 'And they dance to the gods like the people in Akkad. . . '

'Stop that!' Ori fussed. Then the waiter brought the wine, and another the menu, and Ori concentrated on querying every single item on it to make sure it was safe for a couple of lacto-vegetarians to eat, while Hani watched the gyrations of the soloist with considerable appreciation.

'What?' Hani said when Ori complained. 'It's culture! One day it will be historical! Besides, I'm memorising the moves for future performance.'

'That's what I was afraid of,' said Ori drily. They tried the wine: Ori made a face, still not liking date wine. 'Saying the gods drank this stuff is akin to blasphemy.'

'I dunno, it's kind of fruity,' said Hani. 'I think I like it. Maybe we'll try the beer later.'

'No, you won't,' retorted Ori. 'You'll stick to this stuff all night. Bier nach Wein, das lass' sein, remember?'

'I understood that completely,' said Hani. 'Why is that? That Tower of Babel trick of Prajapati's was really something.'

Thank you, said a voice that was only in both of their heads. I try. Don't drink too much of that wine. Even angels get tipsy. I'll say good-night now. I'm going to go and play with the cats: the floor show is starting in earnest.

'I'll drink to that,' toasted Hani as the lights focused on a single spot in the centre of the stage – where a familiar figure began to sing.

I wrote a letter to my girlfriend,

I pricked it front and back,

Signed at the bottom with a rolling seal,

Next day, it came right back.


Return to sender,

There's no such place,

At the bottom of the Tigris,

Or up in outer space. . .

Hani and Ori groaned. 'Elvipres!'

'I wondered where he'd got to,' added Hani. 'It seemed like the music in Nineveh had got better lately.'

Food arrived. Even a suspicious Ori was satisfied – there was no sign of fish or flesh, and the cucumber sauce was actually tasty. It almost made up for the singing.

The moral of this story,

Don't annoy the gods!

And if you have a girlfriend

Don't let her move to Akkad. . .

The angels looked at each other and both reached for the wine. Ori sighed, and ordered another carafe.

Elvipres sang all his 'greatest hits' – including the one about the dog, the one about the sandal. . .

. . . but my sandals of sky-blue leather, do not touch. . .¹

. . .the song about the bad neighbourhood in Warka, the one about being arrested for catnapping in Halab. . .and, surprisingly, the one about Jonah:

It's better than the story of Daniel or Ruth,

Although it is fishy, it's nothing but truth. . .

'Hey, that song gets around,' commented Hani, whose musical taste was mellowing in parallel to the wine intake.

'Where did you learn that song, anyway?' Ori asked.

'Gabriel. Horn players know all the good ones.'

Finally, Elvipres reached his grand finale – the one for which his stage show had become famous in the less-discriminating venues. We refer, of course, to his stirring 'Mesopotamian Trilogy', the song medley that managed to be maudlin, patriotic, and depressing, all at the same time. It began with what was usually an upbeat, peppy song about life on the Tigris – only now, slowed down to a dirge. Elvipres sang dolefully:

In Nineveh we lived in style

'Til Mama got eat by a crocodile,

Look away, look away, look away, to the Tigris. . .

'Is this stuff affectin' my hearin'?' mused Hani.

Hush, little baby, don't you cry,

There'll be pancakes in the sky by and by. . .

'Wake me up when this is over,' begged Ori.

After what appeared to the angels to be millennia, the finale reached its apotheosis.

Glory, glory, jubilates,

My enemies have drowned in the Euphrates. . .

Everybody in the dining room stood and sang along. Most had tears in their eyes. Hani and Ori struggled to their feet, not wanting to be conspicuous. They stood there silently while the entire assembly sobbed audibly and sang 'as we go rolling on!' The fact that they were both swaying gently in time to what Elvipres called music was taken by those around them as a sign that even foreigners were moved by the plight of the former rulers of Nineveh.

In actual fact, both angels were fairly drunk.

This was probably good, in a way: neither was tempted, as they might otherwise have been, to yell at these people that they had NOT been hard done by. That nobody in Nineveh missed them. That the place was better off without them. That, in fact, all they appeared to be good for was sitting around a run-down resort hotel, feeling sorry for themselves. If they had said all this, they might have felt better, but it would have done no earthly (or heavenly) good. People like the former rulers of Nineveh appeared to be ineducable.

As soon as the song was over, the crowd broke into thunderous applause. Ori and Hani clapped politely, and then sat back down for the inevitable encore about the blue sandals. Feeling slightly dizzy, they both declined dessert and went outside for some fresh air.

The night sky above Mesopotamia was, as always, a deep velvet blue-black. A dazzling array of stars made the heavens magic. Hani took a long look and inhaled deeply the scent of night-blooming flowers. 'No wonder everybody on earth is always makin' up stories about the pictures in the sky.'

Ori stretched, staggered a bit, and then giggled. 'Yes. There's at least one dog up there, and a hunter, and some queen on a throne, and sea creatures and a horse and. . . '

'. . . US!' finished Hani, launching into the night and seeming to aim for the brightest star. Ori shrugged and followed. Together, the two shook off alcohol and the lingering tones of cheap music, both of which had left a bad taste in their mouths.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

21.08.23 Front Page

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