Odyssey In A Teacup (16 page)

Although my friends and I could laugh about it now, at the time, what made it so much worse was that Joe thought the whole thing was funny. The humiliation stuck. And after that, I was terrified of accidentally farting in class.

‘So ... your phobia became, er, shall we say, inflated as a result?’ Ralph asked.

‘Huh?’

‘Well, wind is wind, whether it’s blowing up your dress or out of your heinie or—’

‘Or you’re swallowing it!’ Seems my anemophobia had become more broad-spectrum. And at Maxi’s granny’s funeral, it became cast in stone. I turned to look at Maxi. I was about to spill the beans.

CHAPTER TEN:
AN ILL WIND SUCKS

Maxi’s eighty-year-old grandmother’s funeral was the first one I’d been to. Both Sylvia and Joe provided a buffer against death when we were growing up. If one of their friends or acquaintances died, it was discussed in hushed tones, and it was taken for granted that we kids would not go to the funeral. That’s just the way it was back then. But at twenty-four, I was an adult and my friend needed me.

I was told it’s a good idea to get to a funeral early so you can pay your respects to the bereaved. I was inside the chapel fifteen minutes before the service was due to start and I followed everyone’s cue as they filed past the mourners. Of course, the family members were upset—particularly Maxi’s father. Granny Ida was his mother.

Like me, Maxi grew up thinking her father was God. But she thought his mother was Godzilla; she loathed her. Yet, as I stood in front of Maxi, she teared up, a sob catching in her throat. I was thrown at first, but then I hugged her tightly and made soothing noises.

‘Blood’s thicker than water,’ she whispered and a keening wail escaped her lips.

What!
What was this? Cliché-ing and drama queening were out of character for Maxi. Then she discreetly pinched my bum, looked at me and winked. And I knew that for as long as the funeral took, Maxi would be more like Sylvia’s protégée than I could ever be. I was almost jealous. Theatrics—one more thing I wasn’t good at.

I solemnly walked back down the chapel to about the tenth pew, which was empty. I sat at the far end next to the stained glass window, but realised too late that it was probably a stupid, ill-considered choice just like at Zelda’s wedding ceremony. The pew filled up and the service was about to begin.

We Jews generally operate on JMT (Jewish Mean Time), which is GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) plus half an hour. In other words, late. If an invitation says a function is to start at five-thirty (even if it says five-thirty
sharp
) and you arrive at five-fifty, you’ll most likely be amongst the first guests. But I was warned that funerals always started at the appointed time. We don’t want to keep the dead waiting.

The service began dead on eleven-thirty, right on schedule. The rabbi started with a reading of biblical passages, which was followed by silent prayer. The silence was shattered by a very loud noise. It sounded like the blowing of the shofar. This is a ram’s-horn trumpet, kind of like a bugle, used during the Jewish New Year. It’s a bit like a trumpet sounded at a king's coronation, only we’re asking God to be our king again for the New Year. I knew this much, but I didn’t know the shofar was also blown at a funeral.

It isn’t. I figured this out from the reaction around me. Many gasped; some tittered.

‘Good God, what a despicable man!’
a woman behind me whispered to the person sitting next to her.

‘Yes, passing wind at a funeral, no less!’
agreed her neighbour.

I looked to the front and saw Maxi staring in horror at her Uncle Ernie, the reptilian herald. People were whispering, but I heard music (just like at Zelda’s wedding):
‘The whole production started when Uncle Fester farted’
(to the tune of
The Addams Family
theme song) was playing in my head.

‘Shhhh.’ The rabbi called for quiet.

The whispering stopped; the music didn’t. I smiled. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the woman on my left watching me. It felt uncomfortable, but I didn’t dare look back.

At this point, Maxi interrupted my narrative. ‘I have a confession to make. That was actually me. I tried to sneak out a small one. How was I to know it would be so loud? Anyway, I just turned to look at creepy Uncle Ernie in disgust. Everyone knows he has questionable morals.’

‘How come you never said anything?’

‘I was ashamed.’ We all looked at Maxi in shock. ‘Yes, I know, I know. But I
do
know the difference between right and wrong.’

And yet, you deliberately farted at a funeral.

I could relate to her feelings of shame, which is why I hadn’t told her about my experience at the funeral. Anyway, the timing hadn’t been right, and then I forgot about it. I continued with my story.

I don’t know what I expected, but ten minutes into the service, I was antsy. Granny Ida was resting on quilted satin, while we had to park our arses on a hard wooden pew. Where’s the bloody logic in that? And the rabbi rabbited on in Hebrew, which I still didn’t understand (Hebrew was taught in Gerard’s Sunday school lessons but you don’t catch much of it standing outside the classroom). I looked around and noticed the seats behind me had filled up. In keeping with tradition, men sat on the left side of the chapel; women sat on the right. Vette was interstate, and couldn’t get back in time (Jewish burials take place the day after death). But Ralph was there, next to the aisle in the second pew from the front. He was also looking around. As we made eye contact, he sombrely acknowledged me with a nod, and then slowly scanned the women’s section. Again, he looked at me, this time with tears unashamedly streaming down his face.

‘Are you kidding?’
I mouthed.

What a ham! Ralph barely knew Maxi’s granny. Still, he didn’t respond because he wasn’t looking at me, as such—he wasn’t reaching out to me. In his pseudo display of grief, he just wanted to be seen. Ralph was between relationships and thought that funerals were a good place to pick up, on account of everyone dropping their defences and being more open. Also, he knew that a Sensitive New Age Guy appeals to girls, hence the faux tears. I rolled my eyes and continued looking around. I saw some familiar faces, but no one that I knew all that well. It would be slim pickings for Ralph because there weren’t a whole lot of young women.

Now I was bored shitless. It was approaching midday so I started imagining lunch (my on-off relationship with food was back on at the moment). Maybe spanakopita (spinach and feta pie)? Maybe Melba toast spread with chicken liver pâté? Perhaps a bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese, sprinkled with black pepper? ... Yum yum! My mouth was watering, my stomach rumbled. I was getting hungry.

The congregants rose. I don’t know why. But I followed suit. I’d envisaged a beautiful lunch. I felt good, and it showed—I had a beatific smile on my face.

Vette now cut in. ‘Wait, wait, wait ... back up!’ She was looking at Ralph. ‘You were trying to pick up at a funeral? Isn’t that a little, um, irreverent?’

‘Under normal circumstances, probably. But Maxi cut one at her own grandmother’s funeral. Ruthie was thinking about lunch and looking like she’d hit a high spot. How is what I was doing any worse?’

Vette thought about this for a bit. ‘Point taken. Go on, Ruthie.’

‘Anyway, the woman on my left was unimpressed.’

I hadn’t paid her any attention when I was looking around, and I might have ignored her the first time I sensed her staring, but now I felt her eyes boring into me. I turned to face her and instinctively jerked back. Never mind that she was giving me a Sylvia look; she was a sight!

Short and dumpy, she was wearing a tight grey dress—austere, yet with a plunging neckline. I gawped at her mammoth Dolly Parton-like breasts pressing against the fabric, with a slash of a cleavage that kissed her collarbone. I was also transfixed by her face. Toffee apple red, Clara Bow lips were painted over her thin, almost non-existent pair. In contrast, severe, thin Elizabethan eyebrows were pencilled-in like a pair of bell curves high above over-plucked ones. She turned away but her scorn hung heavily in the air between us. Still, I continued to stare. Equally distracting was her hair: jet black, thick, tight, sausage-like ringlets stuck out all over the place.

Oh God, I’m sitting next to Medusa
.

In Greek mythology, Medusa was the butt-ugly, man-hating gorgon with greenish skin and bloodshot eyes. This woman beside me didn’t have green skin (although it was sallow), her eyes weren’t bloodshot and she wasn’t ugly, but she was no oil painting. Or maybe she was—a poor composition, though, because there were too many distracting elements that could throw the viewer. I almost envied
her
mirror, which was obviously blasé. I tried to focus on the bigger picture; wondered if her name was Zola, as in ... gorgon-zola, ha ha ha! I chuckled aloud.
Bugger!
That got the attention of this overwrought oil painting. She stared at me icily, sending chills down my spine. Where was Sylvia’s turquoise blue glass bead to ward off evil spirits when I needed it?

I quickly looked away. According to the myth, if you gazed directly into Medusa’s eyes you would be turned to stone. I may have become adept at converting, and even though I loved playing the game ‘Statues’ as a kid, it was never my dream to end up as one permanently. And … I was hungry. If by some misfortune I was going to turn to stone, it at least had to be on a full stomach. Thankfully, as we all sat down again, Zola stopped staring. But then, my stomach growled again.

Zola’s head snapped around and she glared at me. With the sudden movement, every tightly coiled ringlet concertinaed, snake-like, and hissed—
‘Shhh!’
Well ... not her hair exactly; that was her mouth silencing me.

Really? It was an involuntary rumble, you ridiculous person!

But the roiling obeyed and shushed. It began moving south, though, where it dropped into the large intestine and cramped. Soundlessly. These were no longer hunger pains. A downdraft intensified.
Oh dear Lord,
I was making methane!

I must have swallowed a lot of air with the spinach and cheese pie in the sky that I’d only imagined eating! Now I needed to ... cut the cheese!
Quelle honte
(What shame)! I didn’t want to be in the same category as Uncle Ernie—no one knew it had been Maxi—and what would the women behind me and the rest of the congregation think? I sure didn’t want to be known as my father’s daughter.

Meanwhile, Typhon of the devastating winds, who had a stranglehold over Joe’s ‘back door’, was threatening to lose his foothold in mine. And while Typhon might have known his way out of the darkness, I didn’t.

Please God, help me. It’s not Sunday. Give me some sign you’re here.

He heard me. I knew it—I had a feeling in my gut, because I no longer had a feeling in my gut. Instead, I felt a deep calm. I sat in silence and listened to the rabbi, who’d finished with the prayers and was in the middle of eulogising Ida.

‘ ... It’s now time to let go and to entrust her soul to God’s care.’

What?
Let go? Let go! What kind of dumb-arse sign was that?
God was toying with me. God was mocking me. Well two can play at
that
game! I can figure this out on my own, God! I can ...
anal
-yse the situation. Ha!

Option 1: Get the hell out of here!

Not so easy. Just like at Zelda’s wedding, I was next to the window—this time, stuck between (someone who could turn me to) a rock and a hard place.

Option 2: Breathe!

Not advisable. I didn’t need to swallow any more excess air (feared it, even).

Option 3: Draw on memories of a past solution.

When I was seven, Joe backed up against my freshly ironed school shirt, which was hanging on the linen closet door. He deposited a fart in the shirt pocket. ‘For safekeeping,’ he’d said. The teachers didn’t think it was too funny that day when I told them I had a fart in my pocket.

This was a useless option as there were no children in school uniform.

Option 4: Buckpass.

(a) scapegoat an inanimate object

An ex-employer had let a monstrous one rip as he approached the door to his reception area. He then tried to lay the problem at the reception door’s door, shaking the ‘culpable’ knob accusingly.

A lame option. A loose, shaken doorknob does not sound like any of the variety of fart noises (there are many). Plus, I wasn’t sitting near a door.

(b) scapegoat a living being (one for whom farting is life-giving)

Other than Joe (or Uncle Ernie), the only kind of person who would fart without compunction at a funeral was sitting right under my nose in the row in front of me. Beulah Chojnacki was a wizened, weather-beaten little old lady with snow-white hair and a dowager’s hump. Everyone knows all really old people are flatulent; it’s almost a speech form for them. We expect it, but it’s still gross. So, I could let rip, look pointedly at her in disgust and indicate my distaste by harrumphing, making a display of shaking my head and scrunching up my face (subtly, though, because overkill tends to point the finger at the overkiller).

Not an entirely foolproof solution: Zola seemed to be highly-strung. If she was put out by an involuntary tummy rumble, there’s no telling what a fart would do. Plus, I had a pang of conscience: I hated being blamed for something I didn’t do, so it wasn’t nice to do the same to someone else.

Option 5: Cough really loudly and fart at the same time.

Not the best one. Something to do with quantum physics. My mouth is close to
my
middle ear, no one else’s, so even though I wouldn’t hear the fart because the sound of the cough would drown it out, everyone else would.

Option 6: Accept the inevitable and find a reason to justify it to myself (I was down to the wire here).