Story for performance #500
webcast from Sydney at 07:24PM, 02 Nov 06

All his life he has been obsessed with languages, voices and accents. Perhaps it is because he only really speaks one language that his preoccupation with others has been so strong. Perhaps it is the fact that his grandparents spoke ten languages between them. Part of the attraction of speaking a language other than the dominant one, is the implication that by speaking in a ‘foreign tongue’ he can immediately create an alternative past for himself. But maybe these voices aren’t so distant. Maybe they are a kind of trans-generational haunting of the voices of his forefathers from different parts of the globe.

Visiting his grandparents who lived in the capital, he would enjoy going shopping with his grandma. On one trip when he was about twelve, he and his grandma were wandering through a large department store just to see what was around. They passed a counter selling very expensive watches with a particularly officious-looking sales representative attached. Perhaps it was nerves, or arrogance, or thrill, but he announced with some grandeur and half an eye on the assistant, some gobbledygook like: ‘Onnara combanista ot rom dil somby’, to which his grandma replied, quick as a flash and with equal sincerity, ‘Rotil mosen sil pan droor!’

The manipulation of his voice has always been a private pleasure as well as a public exhibition. On a trip from London to New York he became the only audience member for a solo performance titled ‘Transatlantic Accent’ in which he boarded the plane speaking in the most pronounced BBC English received pronunciation: ‘Good afternoon, thank you so much, a cup of tea would be delightful’; the vowels of which would shift over the course of the flight on each successive encounter with cabin crew and those travelling with him, until he arrived in New York speaking in an aggressive down town droll: ‘Yeah, what-evuur. Fuck you!’

This voice-hopping, inventing languages or deploying accents, is in some ways a reaction to people thinking that he must be ‘foreign’ even when he is on home turf; people thinking he is an Arab for example; which he is. Sort of. He will often respond nervously by speaking in a suspiciously overbearing English accent: ‘Oh do you think so? Do you? How do you do? Do you do? Do you?’

The ability to morph into another tongue has proved particularly useful with the growing plethora of clipboard-wielding charity workers seeking one’s monthly direct debit of ‘just three pounds will make a difference’. Now he is not against good causes but he studiously avoids all contact with the clipboarders with a loud address to his travelling companion in some fake language or other—‘zubeebe dolit troll lambra ba’—the sound at which the clipboarders fearfully look elsewhere. If he is travelling unaccompanied, he will respond to ‘Have you got a second for a chat’ with a broken ‘I sorry, no speak the English’. If he is being particularly blasé he forgoes the accent altogether and merely responds: ‘I’m sorry, I don’t speak English’ which can be a bit unsettling for the clipboarder.

But the recuperative powers of fake language speaking must not be forgotten. Recently it saved his life. He was visiting San Francisco with his friend Stacy and they found themselves after a few too many Mojitos with someone even drunker than they were, much, much drunker in fact, for whom they were responsible in the depths of the Mission (one of the less salubrious areas of downtown San Francisco) at 2am. Let us call this friend Lisa and let us imagine that she had just bought a round of drinks which everyone was sensible enough to refuse and she was stupid enough not to want to waste and had thus disposed of down the nearest hole available: her own mouth. He had to half carry, half drag her along the streets as he and Stacy, suddenly desperately sober, had to try and get her home, to an address she drunkenly refused to give, in a city they did not know. There was no point in getting in a taxi as they didn’t have the address, not that one would have taken them, the state they looked. So there they were, practically in tears, with a heavy drunk person who wouldn’t tell them where she lived. At one desperate moment he pushed Lisa up against the wall and shook her violently: ‘Look Lisa this is really fucked, where the fuck do you live, just give us the fucking address, this is dangerous, we’re really vulnerable out here like this.’ To which she drunkenly replied: ‘Yes, it’s all fucked up, that’s the way it is, fucking fucked.’

Just as they were about to give up and try and drag her the several miles to their hotel, she gave them the word: ‘Sycamore, 8 Sycamore.’ They had an address. ‘And where is that Lisa?’ ‘It’s here, in the Mission.’ ‘Yes, we fucking know that, where in the fucking Mission is your fucking house?’

After hours of traipsing up and down with their drunk burden, they found themselves in some really dodgey back streets. At one point someone actually came up to them and said: ‘You guys are really putting yourselves at risk at the moment’ which did not help. They were getting increasingly desperate. Suddenly he had a rush of fake Japanese. He went up to two fearful Japanese Americans parking their car and in his best lost tourist said: ‘Ah help prease, Sy-ca-more-ooo? Sy-ca-more-oo? Rost! We rost. Prease help us.’ At which they took pity and looked it up on the GPS system in their car. Finally they got Lisa back to her toilet where she could throw up the night and they could leave her having not been killed.

Adapted for performance by Barbara Campbell from a story by Joshua Sofaer.