The Deathsong of Ahmed Al-Gara
(Originally published September 26, 2001)
Author's notes:
Explanatory notes on Chaucer’s story
This is a modern version of the Prioress’ Tale.
The real action in ‘The Canterbury Tales’ takes place between the tellers and their tales, not within the ‘tales’ alone. The General and individual Prologues are crucial to one’s understanding.
The Prioress’ tale itself is a virulently anti-semitic tear-jerker. A Christian boy walks to school through the Jewish district singing ‘Alma Redemptoris Mater’. Jews hear the boy singing, take offense, murder him and dump the body in a sewer. The widowed mother searches for him. He is found because his corpse continues to sing. The culprits are executed. When the boy is laid out for burial, a grain is discovered in his throat. He stops singing, releasing his soul to heaven, once it is removed.
Without actually denting medieval rationalisations of anti-semitism, Chaucer does cast subtle doubts on his storyteller. The posh Prioress is no ecclesiastical con-artist (like the Pardoner) but Chaucer makes it look as if her marriage to the Church is largely one of convenience. She barely succeeds in displacing her sexuality onto a Maryan fixation and is highly sentimental (British gooey-ness over animals starts here). Chaucer makes sure we know that her tale resembles other ‘Jewish murderer’ stories going around. The juxtaposition - or connection - of sentimentality and vitriol is highly disturbing.
In the modern context of Palestine/Israel, some groups characterise Jews ‘à la Prioress’. Distinguising Jews from Israelis, and anti-Zionism from anti-semitism, is a very complex matter. Not everyone manages it, whichever ‘side’ they’re on. It is this confusion that drove me to tackle this Tale in particular.
My ‘boy’ is a Muslim Palestinian living near the Separation Wall. His name is compiled from an online list of Palestinian martyrs. His story has a few things in common with the case of Mohammed Al Dura, a twelve year old killed in crossfire in 2000. To match Chaucer’s point about unreliable narration and a story’s power to spread hatred, I describe the same event twice, from opposing viewpoints. This reflects current battles over representation of events between Pro-Palestinians and Pro-Israelis (including the death of Al Dura). The songs are ‘child-orientated’ reworkings of a) Arab-muslim prayers b) verses said to come from Hamas propoganda videos. The name of the young Israeli soldier means “melodious son of the wolf”.
I have repatterned the Tale’s imagery and events: the walk to school, the grain in the boy’s throat, his ignorance of what he’s actually singing about, the older boy’s instruction, the idea of ‘eternal life’, the authorities’ ‘need’ for Jews, a realist version of the song’s persistence after the murder, the punitive division of the Jews’ bodies - are all there, but substantially transformed. The Prioress herself gets a cameo based on her appearance in the General Prologue to the Tales - “…impeccable source: an Amnesty worker stationed in the settlement - the type who can eat falafel without getting a speck of harissa on her chin, and whose conscience is equally spotless.”
I make no claims to ‘journalistic’ truth: this is an openly ‘constructed’ fable. Like Chaucer’s tales, it ends with a moral. In this context, it’s a cautious one.