The Right

After the printing this afternoon a familiar face found at the window table, chap by the name of Yemani. Earlier something about the man had suggested a Christian. A loner. Many of the Christian Eritreans were best buddies of their Muslim compatriots. Not Yemani. And nothing in the name to do with the country over the Red Sea. In Tigrinya yemani is “right hand.” Not a case either of shared Arabic according to the man. A Muslim presumably was unlikely to have a name such as this deriving from something other than the Qur’an, but that might be wrong. The history of the right hand was of course widely known. Not only were slaps administered by parents and teachers for left-handed writing attempts on the Horn, left-handed passing of articles and such like (pointing forget it), a person would also earn a slap for resting a cheek on a left palm. Yemani’s demonstration suggested he might have suffered for the latter. The left was used for cleaning oneself of course. Never on an Eritrean table did the left stray toward the plate. A haunting presence at the café over so many years, together with such a stretch in the Muslim lands of S-E Asia, must have had Yemani wondering about his tablemate. A cultural Orthodox Christian difficult for Yemani to get his head around. Swiveling chin, unsteady eyes, halting and broken phrasing. With converts one needed to tread especially carefully, Yemani knew. Or thought he knew.