Malta and Muslims

Egyptian saying:

زي اللي بيأذن في مالطة
Like a call for [Muslim] prayer in Malta

Maltese saying:

Ix-xita u x-xemx, twieled Tork
With simultaneous rain and sun, a Turk (Muslim) is born.

1942 on the island of Malta

The Information Officer is a new thriller by bestselling author Mark Mills. The story takes place in Malta and the protagonist is a Max Chadwick, information officer, who becomes embroiled in a murder mystery and decides to embark on a private investigation all of his own.

Max Mills spoke here of the motive behind the choice of setting:

The reason for setting the third book in Malta during the second world war is very simple. As I was nearing the end of The Savage Garden, I was looking for some displacement activity, cause I wasn't having a very fun time of it, and I went to our local junk shop and as always I was browsing through the second hand books and I plucked out a little memoir, a dusty little memoir, and it was written by someone who had been in Malta in 1942. Although I knew that Malta had suffered terribly during the second world war, I didn't know to what degree. I went home, I should have been writing the other book but I was so hooked by this memoir that I read it in one sitting. I knew at that moment that I had the setting for my third novel.

On the question of his book's female character he said:

I've always really enjoyed writing my female characters and they figure large in all of the books. I guess they're all pretty feisty and pretty rounded individuals. I have sometimes been asked why that is. I don't know what the reason to that is other than that I come from a family of strong and willful women. I have a mother who is a force of nature and three very feisty sisters so it seems pretty normal for me that the women that I portray should have those characteristics. They should be real people and not wall flowers.

The Bakery (Tal-ħobż)

My uncle and aunt ran a bakery in Żabbar. Their day started early before sunrise and aunt Berna drove around town in a white van delivering their freshly baked bread. I very much recall as a child being sent to our local bakery in Tarxien to buy bread. Wicked rascals such as my young self would dig out a hole in the soft core of the bread, annoying our mothers no end. It was also common for households that lacked an oven in the home to make use of the services of the bakery to cook their Sunday roast or their għaġin il-forn (oven baked pasta). This is from a short story by Carmen Debono in a book printed by Midsea Books - Top Ten Tales of Malta 1977.

The bakery was cosy and warm. There were long low trestle tables where people placed their dishes and were given metal tickets for receipts. Long muslin-like sheets covered the tables to keep the food clean until it was time to be put in the oven. There were about six women gossiping when I went in. One of them detached herself from the group and came forward to meet me. She wore a white overall and looked both brisk and efficient. So this one was the one in charge of this bakery, I thought. I was relieved as I had expected a man to be in charge. I was soon to change my mind, however, about her. She lifted the sheet on one of the tables and showed me where to place my dish. She then stopped an stared.

'You's better change that dish,' she said, 'as it will break in the oven.'

Very sure of myself, I said that it was oven-proof and there was no question of it breaking. The lady pursed her lips and looked at the other women, who had stopped talking in order to listen. I thought she was going to insist on my changing the dish but, instead, she took another look at the contents. I squirmed, thinking that I might have left an eye or two while peeling the potatoes. But no.

'You'd better add some liquid to the dish,' she added. 'This oven is hotter than the ones in home cookers, and things dry up quickly.'

Ommi ma

On the occasion of Mother's Day, please allow me to digress. My favourite two mother varieties in cinema and literature can possibly be represented by Harvey Fierstein's Jewish mother (Aren't Maltese and Jewish mothers frighteningly similar?) interpreted so magnificently by Anne Bancroft in Torch Song Trilogy and by the thoroughly selfish mother in Jacqueline Wilson's The Illustrated Mum. I would like to point out that this fascination with strong matriarchs probably says more about me than it does about my mother.

I've bought Wilson's book for my niece, hoping my sister wouldn't mistake it for a direct criticism of her mothering skills. In the excerpt below it's the mother's birthday and the children make her a card in the shape of a marigold.

Marigold gave us both big hugs and said we were darlings but her great green eyes filled with tears.

'So why are you crying?' I said.

'She's crying because she's happy,' said Star. 'Aren't you, Marigold?'

'Mm,' said Marigold. She sniffed hard and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She was shaking but she managed a smile. 'There. I've stopped crying now, Dol, OK?'

It wasn't OK. She cried on and off all day. She cried when she listened to the Emerald City CD because she said it reminded her of old times. She cried when I combed her hair out specially and twisted it up into a chic pleat with her new green clasp.

'God, look at my neck! It's getting all wrinkly,' she said. She touched the taut white skin worriedly while we did our best to reassure her. 'I look so old.'

'You're not old at all. You're young,' said Star.

'Thirty-three,' Marigold said gloomily. 'I wish you hadn't written that right slap bang in the middle of your card, darling. I can't believe thirty-three. That was the age Jesus was when he died, did you know that?'

Marigold knew lots about the Bible because she was once in a Church Home.

'Thirty-three,' she kept murmuring. 'He tried so hard too. He liked kids, he liked bad women, he stuck up for all the alternative people. He'd have been so cool. And what did they do? They stuck him up on a cross and tortured him to death.'

'Marigold,' Star said sharply. 'Look at Dol's card.'

'Oh yes, darling, it's lovely,' Marigold said. She blinked at it. 'What's it meant to be?'

'Oh, it's stupid. It's all a mess,' I said.

'It's all the things you like most,' said Star.

'That's beautiful,' said Marigold, looking and looking at it. Then she started crying again.

'Marigold!'

'I'm sorry. It's just it makes me feel so awful. Look at the pub and the high heels and the sexy tops. These aren't mumsie things. Dol should have drawn . . . I don't know, a kitten and a pretty frock and . . . and Marks and Spencer's. That's what mums like.'

'It's not what you like and you're my mum,' I said.

To all mothers, including those who do not fit in a straightjacket definition of family, I salute you.

Irish parallels

From time to time, I shall be highlighting favourite books which have a particular connection to my notion of Malta.

A few years ago I read a book that had me in fits of laughter. Michael Carson's 1988 book Sucking Sherbet Lemons has stood the test of time. Any homosexual brought up in a fervently Catholic country will relate to Benson, an overweight teen, racked by guilt struggling to come to terms with his blossoming sexuality, but any Maltese is bound to find the accurate observations on Ireland strangely familiar.

He had been kneeling in front of his open wardrobe in his room putting the finishing touches to an altar, the centrepiece of which was a plaster statue of Saint Maria Goretti. This child Virgin and Martyr stood atop a copy of the complete works of William Shakespeare which had been covered with a gent's white linen handkerchief, one of three Benson had been able to raise little enthusiasm for when he had received them the previous Christmas from Auntie Muriel whose son was a White Father in Fiji. Around Maria Goretti he had ranged in obeisance a number of Holy Pictures. Medals hung from the ceiling of the niche and he had fashioned gold stars cut out from the paper inside Cadbury's Bournville wrappers.

Saint Maria Goretti held a special place in Benson's affections. She had been knifed to death at the age of sixteen while attempting to fend off a rapist. For this lethal defence of her honour, the culmination of a short life of quiet piety, she had been canonised by the Pope in Rome. Her body lay somewhere in Italy in a glass coffin and hadn't gone bad. Her killer, following many years in gaol, had been present at her canonisation and then had resided in a monastery. He too died in the odour of sanctity.

Only two years older than Benson whe she died, he found Santa Maria Goretti extremely inspirational in his uphill struggle to preserve his own Holy Purity.

He had just added a torch with red cellophane wrapped round the business end to give the correct ambience to the altar when mum announced Eric's arrival.

'O my God! Saint Maria Goretti! Pray for me! It's Eric Jenkins!' whispered Benson to the sadly smiling saint. 'Ask him what he wants!' he shouted.

'You ask him what he wants. I'm your mother, not the maid, and don't you forget it!'

'All right! Coming!' Benson shouted. Then he added to the crimson altar in the wardrobe. 'Sweet Jesus, save me! Saint Maria Goretti, intercede for me!'

He got up off his knees and went slowly downstairs to face the fidgeting temptation on the step.