If you have seen the film Forrest Gump you might recall the scene at the wedding when Lieutenant Dan surprises the couple and the congregation by standing upright and managing to walk with his prosthetic legs.
But just park that for a moment as I tell you what happened at my son’s engagement party last month.
The newly engaged couple, Max and Devora, serene and sated with the celebratory sunny garden soiree, stood at the table on the terrace behind their creamy dreamy engagement cake.
There they waited, all smiles, for the signal for the right time to cut that glorious cake. The moment when all the blessings would be said, all the speeches made, and all the cameras were ready to capture the magic moment. I made a speech, then my goyfriend made a speech, followed by one or two relatives and friends. Then I turned to my mother and, courteously – knowing how good a raconteur she is that she really loves to bestow elaborate, deeply emotional, heartfelt blessings, and how much she loves a simchah – I asked her if she too would like to say a few words. Sometimes her blessings are proclaimed so violently that those who do not understand Hebrew think she’s declaring her intention to murder someone.
To be really honest with you, as an aside, sometimes she is actually vowing to murder my dad but she avows it in such a way that makes you think she thinks everyone should think it is actually a blessing.
Anyway, when I asked her if she would like to speak before the cutting of the cake, she glared at me angrily and snapped: “No! I am tired. Why are you always bothering me? Leave me alone. For God’s sake. Enough already.” Then she muttered under her breath some of her current favourite swear words, which at the moment are Arabic curses. She once lived in Aden for a year after marrying my dad, and impressively picked up a respectable smattering of some very disrespectful phrases.
Despite being born in London, sharmuta and majnun are words I understood in Arabic before I knew them in English.
“OK, that’s fine,” I said pleasantly as though my mum had just said, “No thank you darling. I’m just enjoying listening.”
A few more people came forward to make informal speeches. The guests applauded, although perhaps with a little less gusto each time because there were so many people who wanted to and the cake looked pretty magnificent and was clearly calling out to be eaten.
Finally all the words were said and the guests settled expectantly. With dozens of cameras and glasses now raised, the couple held the knife together, smiled lovingly at each other, and slowly lowered it to make the first cut. With timing that would make a bomb disposal genius envious, just as the knife was a millimetre away from contact, my mother shouted: “WAIT!”
All eyes fixed to my mother, questioningly. My son and his fiancée, faces now puzzled, stood frozen with the knife hovering.
“I must speak,” said my mother dramatically. Slowly and strenuously she rose from her wheelchair. (Remember the scene from Forrest Gump now?)
With great effort she made her arduous journey to the cake table. The crowd watched with bated breath as my mother calmly wrestled the knife from the hands of the confused couple. My mother turned to survey her audience. Nobody said a word. For a moment, my diva, sorry, I mean my mother, said nothing too. She just stood there with the knife. The tension heightened. She knows how to work a crowd.
We waited for the great pearls of wisdom. Then, conversationally, gesticulating with her hands whilst gripping the knife, she said: “You know, when I was a child and we had cake we used to sing a song. It went like this: Ooga ooga ooga, bamagalnachuga,….”
My mother sang the Hebrew children’s song over and over again becoming more and more animated. Despite most not understanding the lyrics, the guests began, nervously, to join in, especially with the ooga ooga ooga parts. As my mother sang with increasing energy, she swung the knife vigorously from side to side, like a demonic maestro, getting closer and closer to my son and fiancée with each swing.
By now my son’s fiancée was looking, frankly, terrified. And by the time my mother had sung the song six times the couple were having to duck every few seconds to avoid possible decapitation.
Eventually my mother was satisfied she had said what she needed to say (ooga ooga ooga), handed back the knife to the traumatised couple and made her heroic trek back to her wheelchair. Welcome to the family, Devora.
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