Citation - Constructing citations on the streets of Ajaccio

Citation - Constructing citations on the streets of AjaccioXK

#fiction, #ajaccio, #wordgames, #exoticism, #travels

I don’t know how Ajaccio became this thing for us, but it did. The day before our arrival we constantly talked about it. Together we fantasized over seeing its silhouette for the first time, and how it would feel visiting Napoleon’s birthplace. It started as a joke, and maybe it kept on being a joke all the time, but it felt more and more as something relating to something else. Because in the midst of all the jokes, such as when the prince with a twinkle in his eyes laughed ‘I’m going to Ajaccio to find inspirations on how to make the best of the Hashemite kingdom’, truly beautiful things were said, such as by Muhammed: ‘Why are we going to Ajaccio? To find the roots of our longing, to find a bed for our dreams and find peace in all our desires, that’s why we’re going to Ajaccio, to Ajaccio, Ajaccio.’

The prince was very fond of Eritrean coffee and the Eritrean coffee ceremony. He said he loved the spiciness, and that popcorn really works unsurprisingly well with coffee. Every evening we joined the prince in his beloved coffee ceremony, this was one of the core routines of the yacht, and the coffee turned quite often into something more Irish. This particular evening before we arrived in Ajaccio, when we all gathered at the deck, we started to play an association game: A children’s game, in which one person says one thing and the other says something associated with it and the third one says something associated with that, and so it goes on in an endless chain of associations. We decided to add a rule this evening before Ajaccio: Each association had to contain the name Ajaccio, preferably in the form ‘I’m (or We’re) going to Ajaccio to … or Ajaccio is …’ For instance: ‘Ajaccio, Ajaccio why have you abandoned me?’ (referring to the crucified Christ), ‘If Ajaccio can’t come to Napoleon then Napoleon has to come to Ajaccio?’ (referring to the chiasm about Muhammed and the mountain), or ‘He said he’s going back to find a simpler place and time, on the midnight train to Ajaccio’ (referring to the famous song by Gladys Knight and the Pips). After a while, the quotations we knew by heart started to become fewer and fewer, and more and more we started to refer to song lyrics and popular culture, which generally seems to get stuck in our memory easier than other things. We also started to mix these references more and more with our own ideas, words, and feelings; sort of quoting ourselves. And sometimes after something beautiful had been said, such as ‘I’ll find rest, where I breathe, I’ll find peace, where my heart beats, in Ajaccio, Ajaccio…’ someone would ask – ‘That’s lovely, who said that?’, whereby the one who said it would burst into a smile and say – ‘Oh, I just made that up.’

I talked about this poetical and intimate aspect of the game with Muhammed later the next day, after we had arrived in Ajaccio, while the staff from the yacht hurried into town to find fresh groceries for the coming days, and some locally produced ice cream which the prince had promised us for dinner. As we walked towards the center of the city, in couples or trios, Muhammed asked me if I wanted to join him in looking for pomegranate juice. I have always felt a little awkward walking in bigger groups like this, as if you’re part of a parade of wealth, so I was happy for his question and replied enthusiastically – ‘Let’s find it’. He said to the others that we’re going for pomegranate juice and that we will join them at the house of Napoleon. Sakhr laughed – ‘I see, I see pomegranate juice, that’s good for the semen.’ I saw that Muhammed started to blush so I felt obliged to draw attention away from him, so I said – ‘If it’s good for the semen, shall I buy one for you Sakhr?’ The prince, who had been walking with Sakhr, laughed to Sahkr – ‘Be careful my friend, she’s faster than a falcon hidden by clouds.’ Sakhr took my hands, looked me in the eyes and said theatrically – ‘Would you? Old dear Sakhr would need some pomegranate juice.’ Whereby we all laughed. Normally I would have been scared of my fast tongue, which I sometimes can’t control, especially when someone close to me or someone whom I feel responsible for is at risk of being made a fool. But not with Sakhr, he really knows how to handle these situations, so I joined his theatricality and replied – ‘I’ll have two myself, my friend, my youth is no longer what it was.’

It was when we had left the others, on our hunt for a juice shop or stand, that we started to talk about the previous night and the association game we had played. Whilst our quotes became more and more banal and simple, drowning in references to popular culture, such as when one young woman who worked, or works as a model (I always forget which) said ‘Hit my Ajaccio, one more time’ (referring to Britney Spears). The sayings and quotes, if we can call them quotes, that we made up ourselves became not only more poetic, but also more honest and even revealing. I thought it was touching. First, Muhammed suggested the scale as a metaphor – how one side becomes lighter so that the other side can become heavier. I thought, though, that both sides were revealing somehow; quoting Britney Spears is in some sense much more brave than, for instance, quoting Shakespeare or Leibniz. It is definitely connected to class, but also to what is shared within a culture and between cultures. Britney Spears is surely more directly widespread and known culturally and interculturally than Leibniz, even though most of us would say he is more important.

Sometimes quotes really express things better and more clearly than if you would try to say what you want to say with your own words. But the feeling I had yesterday night was that the main effect of qoutes was to give birth to our own words. First, we used them instead of our own words, then they became this bridge to our own creativity, assets, and languages. The quotes became the spark for our own

selves to take form and reshape, through putting ourselves in relation to history and to what has been said. A being in relation to history does not only constitute a sense of seeing oneself within history, but it requires a place for oneself as well as a physical situation of oneself within history itself. In that sense quoting, citing, reading or experiencing cultures which gives you this inner emotional archive of quotes, isn’t only a capital, nor solely history and knowledge, but also, and maybe foremost, a way of getting into time, by giving oneself time. That’s why reading, for instance, has these feelings and sensations of timelessness. The act of reading materializes time while the act of writing grounds the self in time. They’re performed even when they’re not pursued.

I told Muhammed that I had read an essay by Montaigne the other day and how this made me think of quotes as layers of traces of presence within someone. In this essay Montaigne quotes Plato – ‘We read harshly and inconsiderately, because like ourselves our reason has in it a large element of change’, and for some reason, I wondered who I would quote if I would like to quote this quote by Plato when I read the quote in Montaigne and not in Plato? And it gets even more puzzling when I think about it, because the quote is something the character (or person) Timaeous says in the dialogue with the same name. The academica always have a solution, but that’s neither my point nor what I’m trying to get at here. It’s this aspect of meta-meta-quoting and what this can tell us about language and the constructions of the self that fascinates me. Because, even if Timaeus is a fictional character, it’s the character who affects me. I approach him as if he were real, which brings what he says to life.

Walking on these stone laid streets in the shade from the summer striking sun; seeing the back of Muhammed in front of me, watching his hands and fingers making the small gentle movements – back and forth – that he always makes while walking, made me feel at peace somehow, and it struck me there and then that we actually were walking in Ajaccio. I burst out – ‘I can’t believe we’re in Ajaccio now!’ He stopped, had a look at the buildings surrounding us and smiled. I don’t know if it was a good idea of me to say what I then said to Muhammed – ‘Before last night, I felt a little bit like this whole trip was some sort of ballyhoo, something extravagant and funny, but since yesterday night, it feels totally different, it feels serious, and it feels like we know each other more than we do. I don’t know what to say, and I don’t know what I’m saying, but it feels like we all came much closer to each other last night.’ He looked at me and said – ‘I’m so happy you came with us Jenny, I felt we came closer to each other too.’