Day 7

06.02 Unable to sleep
Subject: Brava!

Dearest Darling Forsythia,

I am truly speechless! So soon, and you have already nailed down no less than two A-list celebrities as spokespersons. So wise of you to realise that we need people who the public will still remember in two months time. So boring to have to continually replace already interchangeable faces, don’t you think? You are a veritable genius, did you know that? And so persuasive. I bet offering our celebs (our celebs! How blissful that sounds) my Aunt Mathilde’s patented groin warmer as part of our special incentive package (with extra camels) did the trick. Better than any goodie bag I’ve ever seen! How gloriously sneaky of you! I am impressed!

In answer to your query, no, communion bagels are not the norm, but providing we stick to the proper channels and maintain an image of utmost sanctity in all things, we might have identified a whole new market. Consider this: how about each communion bagel containing a bubble of wine? We could call it Communion in a Bagel®, or even more lugubriously, Jesusbodyandbloodabagel® (especially popular in the southern American states). To attract the more secular market, how about we consider Bagewino®, and for the really libertine among us, Winobagel®? I do believe, by the end of the week another immense fortune will have been stashed in our lovely offshore bank accounts.

I have been seeing generic matzobagels on the market. Highly suspect matzobagels. Highly inferior and downmarket. Check the legal position, for it is my understanding that we hold all possible patents. Please be so kind as to sue the fuck out of any and all scum daring to bake or sell anything with either flour or matzomeal as the principal ingredient. Don’t you feel that such action might solidify our market position and convey just the correct amount of gravitas?

To return to marketing strategies, how does our director of marketing feel about making use of the Seven Plagues? You do recall “let my people go” and the other catchy slogans? Mightn’t it be an idea to take full advantage of the authority conveyed by our news presenter mascot, the former heinous deposed ex-president and celebrity spokesman (and weren’t we lucky to step in and buy him before his scheduled execution)? He is, after all, known for possessing the only really knowledgeable and correct point of view in the world. Think about it. If it doesn’t work out, for whatever reason (a loss of credibility or a possible dalliance with a goat), we could hire some Druses to stomp around looking eloquent and mystical. It might be appealing, at least as a stopgap.

You do remember, don’t you, that I finagled copyrights on all the tales of the Torah, just to save time and heartache.

Please ask the legal department to check into charging royalties for all groups and individuals who have been reading the Bible for free. Cadgers they are! Fucking cadgers! I want all charges to be retroactive. They must pay for each and every time they’ve set their hand upon the good book or have even thought about it (going back seven generations and even the seven before that). Niceness and generosity can go just so far. We’ve got to think of our own interests. If everyone picks up the gospel every time they’re depressed and doesn’t pay for the privilege, we’ll be bankrupt in no time.

I nearly forgot to ask you a favour. I did write it down, but I keep losing my little bits of paper. God knows where – it’s not as though I go anywhere or change my trousers. Anyway, will you please send me a tiny feather of, say, no more than four centimetres in length? I need it to search for hametz. Don’t worry about a receptacle for it. I’ve got plenty of space inside my foreskin and shall keep it in there until I do my spring-cleaning, at which point I shall borrow a tiny vacuum cleaner. Or, alternatively, I could ask you to suck out the contents of my little home with a straw.

Again, I have reminded myself of something vital. Don’t you think you need a more efficient and determined rabbi than Garner Finkelberg to help you prepare for Pesach? I do not entirely trust his sincerity, at least not since he proclaimed his wish to become a hermaphrodite and run for president of the republic, all in the same week. The question is, would he be able to devote sufficient time to your needs?

I apologise apologise apolgise for bringing up the subject of dust. Why do you get so uptight? Dust must not be taken as a personal insult. Indeed, it is to be respected, adored, even revered. There is even a Virgin somewhere who cures millions and millions and weeps dust to show her solidarity with the ordinary housewife. Not kosher dust, of course, but Holy dust, which is very sacred indeed and which may never, under any circumstance, be swept under the carpet. But as to your predicament, as long as you promise not to eat it with a lobster sauce, dust is not covered by the laws of Kashrut. So enough with the beebling already?

I am happy that you are building a mikvah in your garden, though I’m not sure about its being suitable for moonlight jelly baths. Even if the practice is recommended by Rabbi Finkelburg as being therapeutically beneficial, I should check your facts.
***

09.37 Craving a jelly doughnut
Subject: Your message

Dearest Darling Forsythia,


As to your message:


“Alvin Nikolais doid a ballit featurinf multicoloured elestic. Thiog ob thr pissibilitirs. We shuop organise ebenifs the bagl-waltz; the fuxtrol-with-a-bigot; firmentation bagel dacinb etc to the stains ob a thiusind lazmer violinits ina bigal-shell.” Don’t you think you are leaving yourself wide open to disturbing interpretations? Would you be too too angry if I asked you to interpret for me? You know how thick I can be at times.

I wish to point out, since my mood is foul, that you neglected to request fresh anchovies on last night’s pizza order. The tinned ones were far too salty and I passed an unfortunate night.
hg

11.23 Wishing I could see someone
Subject: More about your message

Dearest Darling Forsythia,

At long last, I deciphered the rest of your communiqué. You know - the final passages - wherein were located all the interesting and illuminating leaps of intellect and imagination. Hard going, but ultimately worthwhile. Thank you for reminding me about those vast brick and stone ovens one finds in quaint villages. I agree, we should send for specifications. For the ovens, that is, not the villages.

With regards the monumental Bagel That Will Feed Paris campaign, could be not boil it and bake it in sections, and glue the individual parts together with cream cheese? I do realise it’s cheating, but wouldn’t it work better than turning Sacré Coeur into a gigantic nuclear-powered bagel oven? And I’m not sure we could heat the Seine sufficiently to poach the dough, either. To give you credit where credit is due, I suppose using a two kilometre high stack of earthmover inner-tubes and painting them bagel colour might fool a certain percentage of the population, and I dare say it would prove most effect. However, if it goes wrong, it might also bring down the country, along with the government, and we wouldn’t want those other people in power, would we? Please ask our director of marketing for a couple of ideas. She has been far to quiet as of late and we are, after all, planning to pay her an obscenely bloated salary. In the fullness of time, of course, and all going well.
***

14.58 Suffering from indigestion

Subject: A transcript of your latest message

Dearest Darling Forsythia,

Word for word, I am quoting your email, leaving nothing out and changing not one word:


Ø what garden?

Ø I expect the rabbio uny tume.

Ø Mumsy inetinds to jump nekked into ha bigel. How lurge iz your ovin?

Ø Th siven plagues… the sivem bagel-veils… thu sebel bagel dwarfs an thu lucky seven bagils… in cn see it nu…

Ø I too hed a dreem: the bagel themepark stafft exclusibly by neeked gradiates ob our bery own bagelacademmy… am designing thu begl-ghost train as I wriote…

Ø Prise by to the himn in heaven!

Ø Liver, Forsythia Featherstonehawe-ffolt, JD.

***

15.03 Having regained my composure

Subject: OY

Dearest Darling Forsythia,


Having returned your email to you out of a sense that there was not room enough in my computer for both it and my sanity, I shall deal with its contents:

“Prise by to the himn in heaven?” What, pray tell, is a himn? Do you, perchance, mean a himnanany? Or is it a himninininy? What language are we speaking? I’m hopeless when it comes of languages, my own included, so please don’t make my life any more complicated than it already is.

Those of us in the know are trying to ascertain whether or not your beloved Mumsy might qualify as an Immaculate Conception. There is no doubt whatsoever about her personal-wise. She’s as immaculate as they come. However, what about her Mamamumsy and Papasudsy? Has anyone looked into their lives?

I have another matter for your next discussion as regards the reformed rabbinate, and that involves women rabbis and the mitzvah of metzitzah. On her role as Beloved and Effervescent Madonna of Eternity, your Mumsy will soon issue a definitive promulgation. But, until then, you much search you heart for guidance.

Did you remember to burn your hametz? I am happy to say I got by with only the slightest bit of singeing and plastic meltdown. Thanks, by the way, for the feather. Next time, however, you may detach it from the bird. They don’t mind really. It’s quite a painless operation, and they do grow back. Promise promise hope to die.
***

17.03 Don’t send Brazil nuts as attachments
Subject: Logo Uglies

Dearest Darling Forsythia,


Forsythia, I grovel in depair. I daily resort to increasingly désespéré (or is it prêt à tout?) measures in my quest to capture the essence of your most effluvient Mumsy for our logo. In case you have forgotten or otherwise put it out of your mind, said logo should be inspired by the cow jumping over the moon, with the moon re-imagined (in the most tasteful manner possible) as a naked and pink Mumsy, her hair streaming behind her, and leaping over a full and luminous – and not in the least bit lecherous – bagel. My problem is, I need photos to scan so the mighty computer might begin its miraculous morphing. We do have models of various configurations of bagels and moons and imagined naked Mumsys (as they might appear in a pre-Raphaelite dream and, therefore, possibly suitable for cheap, rip-off, merchandise), but the original Mumsy is urgently desired for the sake of authenticity. Kindly speak to her and explain the situation, because I – for one – do not believe she entirely comprehends either our beautiful concept or the purity of out genius.

I am considering hidden cameras in her shower. Do you envision cosmic repercussions? Would she really mind? - L.
***

19.45 My soul is increasingly dark
Subject: Immaculidity and Mumsy

Dearest Darling Forsythia,


I feel reasonably certain we can prove beyond a shadow of doubt that Mumsy possesses the very essence of spotlessness. Did I tell you? By sheer luck, we located the Jerusalem taxi driver who, twenty-five years ago, mistook her for the Virgin Mary. Of course, you remember the story (God only know how many time she dined off it). She was in Israel, demonstrating her kosher ghetto blasters and rabbinical ringtones, and happened to be travelling between Tel Aviv and Jersusalem. We all know how she prefers talking to sitting down and wearing a seatbelt, don’t we? Well, there she was - leaning out the door, hurling insults at a family of Palestinians who were camped on a sprig of native vegetation - when the bus swerved and she fell out. Miracles upon miracles, before she could be savaged by a pack of marauding dogs, a rattly taxi pulled up and it’s driver gazed with longing stupification at her huddled and bruised figure. “My name is Mohammet”, he yelled, “you wanna ride in my new car?” Being delirious, she got in immediately, and muttered a thousand thank-yous. He immediately drove off in a cloud of dust, and before Mumsy knew what was happening, they were pulling up in front of the Mishkenot Sha’nanim. Mumsy reached for her bag of shekels, but the taxi driver shook his head and waved his hands in a furious manner. “No, my dear lady, I cannot accept your money. I had a dream, and in that dream I saw the Virgin Mary. She was sprawled on the side of the road, her wide bottom stuck in dying agave. She gave me her blessing, and said my life would be as sweet as a tray of Turkish Delight. It was you, my mother, in my dream! You, who are indeed the Virgin Mary, the most Holy of all Holies.” To cut a long and somewhat tedious story short, we managed to locate not only the dying agave, but that very same taxi driver, complete with the same rattly taxi, as well! Ah, success! It rests lightly upon my shoulders. How sweet it is!

How is it to be the daughter of the Miraculous Ruchl Immaculata Ultimata (as she is to be known from now through eternity)?

You know what that means, don’t you? It means we should waste no time in erecting a worldwide chain of Miraculous Ruchl Immaculata Ultimata® shrines, each featuring miraculous bagel merchandise such as hats, T-shirts, weeping beads, and plastic busts of the Miraculous Ruchl Immaculata Ultimata® spouting one-syllable words and interchangeable phrases of inconsolable wisdom. What is our director of marketing planning to do about it? Please phone her wherever she is and light a fire under her bum.

For some reason, I am suffering from severe diarrhoea, which means you must anticipate of couple of days of relative silence while I tend to things. I will be thinking of you, but not for that reason.
***

23.15 A pitiful growling in my nether regions
Subject: In the matter of Mumsy

Dearest Darling Forsythia,

Here, once again, I have seen fit to return to you, verbatim, your latest email”


Ø beware. The world is ful of maculate pipple and rain-mac-ulate types eating big-mac-ulates. We shall surve big-bagel-immacs.

Ø I im ocsidering your implications end conslutting On My Road To Troth in Contininsy by P. Roddly physbokk, d.phil.

Ø Glove to yours and yours, Forsythia Featherstonehawe-ffolt, JD, Prosecuting Magistrate.
hg

23.32 Impossible to sleep with the roaring thunder in my gut
Subject: Last time I dreamt

Dearest Darling Forsythia,


During the last ten minutes, I dreamed of the old Ladino songs and longed to join in – only I couldn’t remember the words. I woke in a cold sweat and have been severely depressed ever since. Please do not feel compelled to point out there is no reason why I should recall the words, and that I’ve never knowingly listened to an old Ladino song – not once - in my entire life. You are such a nudge and pedant. I need sympathy and understanding, not facts. Facts are things suppressed by oppressed wives of stupid of brutish fat men with conservative tendencies. Kindly bear with me whilst I cogitate. Should I survive the night, I shall write on the morrow (so great is our passion for one another).