Notes from a trailing spouse

The mosques are calling to prayer again. First a muezzin to the north. Then one west. The north again. I put down the book — Markens grøde, farmers and nature and long summer nights and sheer Norwegianness — and listen. Some weeks ago, I thought about attending prayer in one of the mosques, probably the one to the west, the adhan has grown on me and I catch myself humming the tune while making pasta at lunch — but it doesn’t feel right. I am not a muslim, not even religious, and even if I had been allowed in, it would have felt like a violation. Not big, but still. 

The muezzins weave their adhans in the heavy, saturated air, over the opulent mansions and the slightly less ostentatious bidonvilles, soon to be torn down. The guard outside our gate is chatting with someone, maybe a farmer passing by or a gardener on his way to the Egyptian embassy. Inshallah, they say, over and over. Inshallah. It’s the only word I recognize. 

The kids will come back from school with the school bus in four hours. My wife will come home three hours later. Till then I don’t have any plans and don’t know anyone with plans, at least none they have shared with me. Time crawls. A donkey hee-haws from behind the neighbour’s gate. A stray cat runs across our garden, a too, too green patch in a brown, brown world. I open the book again and read about snowy trees and wintery lakes and the cold, eager air.