Book of My Mother

III

THE MEMORIES I have just called to mind are of the time when my mother was old and I was an adult disguised as an international official. I would go from Geneva to spend part of my leave in Marseilles with my parents. My mother was happy to see that her son, who had such a grand position with the Gentiles — her own highly exaggerated view of the facts — went with a good grace to the local synagogue on the Sabbath. I can hear her speaking to me.

“Tell me, my son, do you go up to the House of the Lord in Geneva as well? You should, really. You know ours is a great and holy God. He is the true God. He saved us from Pharaoh — it’s a well-known fact and the Bible says so. Listen, my son, even if you don’t believe in our God because of all those clever men — curse them and their figures — go to synagogue once in a while just the same. Do it for me,” she entreated sweetly. Actually, my participation in religious ceremonies even as an atheist was to her mind mainly a kind of insurance against the bronchitis from which I suffered each winter.

“Now, tell me, eyes of mine, this job of yours in their International Labor Office, now, what’s it called?” (“Attaché in the Diplomatic Division,” I replied. She beamed.) “That means, I suppose, that customs officials can’t touch you? You pass through and they bow. What a wonder of the world! Praise be to God for letting me live to see this day! If your grandfather — bless his memory and may he rest in peace — yes, if your grandfather were alive, how pleased he would be! Because even he, the royal notary of Corfu, revered by all, why, even he had to open his bags at the customs. He was a man of learning; you would have enjoyed talking with him. Anyway, if you like, I’ll make you some sesame-seed nougat tomorrow. Build up your strength, my darling, while you’re back here with us. God knows what badly washed food they put on your plate in those top-class restaurants in Geneva. Tell me, my child, in Geneva you don’t eat the Unmentionable, do you?” (Translation: pork.) “Well, if you do, don’t tell me — I don’t want to know.”

“And now, my son, mark my words, because old women give good advice. In that Division of the Diplomats you have a chief, I suppose? Well, if he sometimes gets a bit cross, don’t lose your temper, try to put up with it, because if you answer him back, his bile will rush up to his brain and he’ll hate you and God only knows what viper’s tongue he has and what dagger he’ll prepare for your back! Our people have to put up with things — that’s how it is. That hat does suit you.” Seeing my smile, she added with a sigh, “How could the pretty little creatures possibly resist that smile?” Ever partial, she gave me a fond, searching look, imagined my love life, and shuddered to think that I might stop a bullet from the revolver of one of those daughters of the Gentiles who were glamorous and clever but jealous and bold and when they got carried away by passion were in the habit of killing off a mother’s son in a couple of seconds on the slightest pretext. Absolutely deadly, those daughters of Baal, who did not shrink — so she had been told — from stripping naked in front of a man who was not their husband. Stark naked and smoking a cigarette! They were tigresses! “Tell me, my son, would it not be a good idea to pay a little call on the Chief Rabbi? He knows some nice, quiet girls who are wonderful housekeepers. You’ll be under no obligation. Just have a look, and if they don’t take your fancy, you can put on your hat and walk out. But who knows, perhaps God has destined one for you? You know it’s not good for a man to live by himself. I could die in peace if I knew you had a good woman to look after you.” Faced with my silence, she sighed, strove to repel the vision of a revolver flashing out of the handbag of a half-naked tigress, and decided to trust in the Lord, the Almighty God of Jacob, who had saved the prophet Daniel from the lions’ den. Surely He would save me from the tigresses. She vowed to go to synagogue more often.

She was old by then, short and rather stout. But her eyes were magnificent and her hands were dainty and I loved to kiss those hands. I would like to reread the letter her little hand wrote from Marseilles, but I cannot. I am afraid of those signs which still live. When I come upon her letters I put them away again with my eyes shut. And I dare not look at her photographs, for I know that in them she is thinking of me.

“My son. I haven’t studied like you, but I can tell you that the love they write of in books is nothing but the goings-on of heathens. I say they’re playacting. They only see each other when their hair is nicely done and they’re smartly dressed like in the theater. They adore each other, they cry, they kiss each other on the mouth — it’s sickening — and a year later they get a divorce! So what happened to their love? When marriages start with love it’s a bad sign. Those great lovers in the stories you read, I wonder whether they would go on loving their poetess if she was very ill, always in bed, and if he — the man that is — had to care for her like you care for a baby — well, you see what I mean: if he had to do everything for her. Well, I believe he would stop loving her. Do you want me to tell you what true love is? It’s being used to each other and growing old together. Would you like peas or tomatoes with your meatballs?

“My son, tell me what pleasure you find in going to the mountains. What pleasure is there in watching all those cows with their sharpened horns and great big staring eyes? What pleasure do you see in all those rocks? You might fall, so where’s the pleasure? Are you a mule to go climbing up those rocky places which make you giddy? Isn’t it better to go to Nice, where there are gardens and music and taxis and shops? Men are meant to live like men and not among rocks and snakes. Those mountains are like a bandit’s lair. Are you an Albanian? And how can you like all that snow? What pleasure is there in walking through bicarbonate of soda which wets your boots? My heart trembles like a little bird when I see the skis in your room. Those skis are the devil’s horns. Putting yataghans on your feet is madness! Don’t you know that all your skiing devils break their legs? They like it, they’re heathen and thoughtless. Let them break their legs if they like, but you are a Cohen, a descendant of Aaron, the brother of Moses, our master.” At that point I reminded her that Moses had gone to the top of Mount Sinai. She was taken aback. That was obviously no mean precedent. She thought for a while, after which she explained that Mount Sinai wasn’t a very big mountain, that Moses had only been there once, and, what was more, he had gone there not for pleasure but to see God.