Language Lessons

“He who digs a hole shall fall therein.”
It is the first proverb on everyone’s lips.
Perhaps because there are so many holes
in the pavement, the roofs, the borders,
the law. I sit across from a man who is
living his father’s life again, and contentedly.

Stray whiskers from his brillo pad mustache
wander lonely down the sides of his lips
toward the scruff on his chin. His North
African genealogy has failed to provide him
with the means of growing the full beard so
important for manhood, as says the East.

His tutelage exerts itself over such topics as
card games, the best place to buy a cell
phone charger, and shadiest sheesha bars.
He rocks back slightly, and his head bobs so
faintly that I imagine its rhythmic motion to be
imperceptible to all but me – himself included.

Now is that lull in the language lesson which
can only be diverted by a technique as
clever as stating the obvious: “It rained a lot
last night,” I say. “A lot,” he says. The head-
bobbing continues. I say, “There were large
holes full of water in the street this morning.”

“Yes.” He says, continuing to nod, wearing
the vague smile of a partygoer who expects
entertainment to begin at any moment.
When I fail to provide, he seizes upon one
of my words, and with an unflinching lack of
subtlety, he shares a proverb from memory:

“The person who digs a hole for his friend
to fall in, after a while he will forget that he
dug it and when he’s walking, he’ll fall into
it, himself.” I feel my breathing grow heavier
in the tiniest shade of a chest-swell, like a
secret sigh. “Yes,” I say, my head bobs a bit.