Shylock Is My Name

TWELVE

“I’m not,” the footballer said, “before you ask, what you think I am.”

“A Nazi?”

“I’m not.”

“So why did you bring it up?”

“Because I know it’s what you’re thinking.”

“Why do you think it’s what I’m thinking?”

“Because it’s what everybody’s thinking.”

“And why is everybody thinking it?”

“Because I gave a Nazi salute.”

“So easy to be misconstrued,” Strulovitch said with a sigh but, before he could say more, Beatrice interposed her presence between the two men. “Correction,” she said, tapping Howsome’s wrist, as though with an imaginary fan, “because you gave a parody of a Nazi salute.”

“Right,” Howsome said. “Plus I didn’t know it was a Nazi salute.”

“Then how,” Strulovitch patiently pursued, “could you have been parodying it?”

Again Beatrice saw this as something she was better equipped to answer than her boyfriend. “Come on, Daddy,” she said, “you know as well as anyone how ironic referencing works.”

Howsome smiled at her in pride and nodded. This was what he’d fallen in love with the first time he heard her speak.

Strulovitch, too, was proud. He suppressed a pang for poor Kay, missing out on these flashes of smartness from a daughter who most of the time played dumb. So was it the smart Beatrice or the dumb Beatrice who had fallen for Howsome? He was surprised not to be more appalled by the footballer. He could half see what Beatrice saw in him. A sort of chthonic innocence, was it? He didn’t look like a Nazi. But then one never really knew what a Nazi looked like until it was too late. He was touched by something in him, anyway. Maybe it was the sight of so much muscle constrained by an expensive suit made to look cheap by so much muscle. He sat on the edge of the sofa like a boy dressed up to meet his grandparents. His tie, with its big, perfectly triangular knot, had him uncomfortably by the throat. A tattooed green and scarlet dragon also had him by the throat. It was a wonder he could breathe. Though brought up to be a wearer of ties himself—“A tie shows respect,” his father, who wouldn’t ever wear a skullcap, used to say — Strulovitch forsook them when he became an art collector. He had thought about digging one up for this occasion but decided against, whatever its formality. There was no fine point of etiquette that said a father interviewing an accidental Nazi sympathiser who wanted to sleep with his daughter had to wear a tie. Should carry a pistol or brandish a horsewhip, but no mention of a tie. So he wore his customary black suit and a white shirt with long, soft, pointed collars buttoned at the neck. I hope he sees a connoisseur, he thought. A connoisseur of art, and men. I hope he sees how much I see and how little impressed I am by empty assurances. Or by tattoos, come to that.

For some reason or clutch of reasons he was not sure he wanted to investigate he had asked Shylock to make himself scarce while the interview was in train. Maybe stay in his room. Maybe not sing along to George Formby.

“Are you frightened I will put the wind up him?” Shylock wondered.

“Of course not.”

But then what was he frightened of?

“Just call me if you need me,” Shylock said, as much to help Strulovitch out of his embarrassment as anything else.

“Why would I need you?”

“Should he turn violent…”

“It’s more likely to be Beatrice who turns violent.”

“Ah, well then I’ll be no use to you at all.”

They laughed together — Strulovitch’s laughter a bitter jeer, Shylock’s a death rattle from the back of his throat — at what wasn’t funny.

Unworthy daughters betrayed unworthy fathers. Where was the joke in that?

“What, Jessica? Why, Jessica, I say?”

He would never forget his last words to her. Do as I bid you. Shut all doors after you. Don’t thrust your head into the street.

Was that really so much to ask?

He knew he should not have left his house. He could go on blaming her through all eternity, but he should have stayed home. There was some ill towards him brewing. He’d smelt it.

What news on the Rialto?

Why so jumpy? And if so jumpy, why go out?

I am right loath to go. Then don’t.

Drawn to danger, like a cat, he went anyway, to eat a supper he didn’t relish, in company he hated. There was, though, more than one kind of dining. Admit it, admit it to yourself, you went for the pure malicious fun of it, to dine on Christians. To feed, like a cannibal, your ancient grudge.

And while you were out…

And while he was out they fed on him.

Who, as a matter of dramatic interest, hated whom the more?

Not a wafer’s thickness between them—

You called me dog…

I am as like to call thee so again…

But since I am a dog, beware my fangs…

They couldn’t tear themselves apart from each other. A bond of mutual fascination. The magnetic force of indurated revulsion. Money the pretext. This one lent at interest; that one would do no such thing — although I neither lend nor borrow by taking nor by giving of excess, yet on this occasion — for someone else, a person dear to me — I will break my custom. Called having your cake and eating it, Shylock thought, remembering the fathomless impertinence of Antonio’s “yet.” As though he were doing Shylock a favour by asking. O father Abram, what these Christians are!

But if money was the battlefield on which they fought their ancient grudges, it was not the origin of their war.

Who, as a matter of historical interest, hated whom the more? A chicken-and-egg question. Attend that word “ancient.” The villainy each saw in the other — the proud exclusiveness on this side, the proud pretence of loving kindness on that — pre-dated the rise of capitalism and usury. What movement of men and ideas, you might ask, didn’t it pre-date? The divisive words of Paul the Apostle, maybe. Before Paul, peace. But then before Paul there were no Christians for Jews to hate or be hated by.

Well, if villainy was all the Gentiles saw, villainy would be what he’d show them more of.

And they? They would show him villainous mercy, dropping like poison rain, in return.

Does that mean he was ironic-referencing villainy?

And does that mean they were ironic-referencing mercy?

One thing he knew: they hadn’t ironic-referenced stealing his daughter.

—

“I love Beatrice,” Howsome said, tightening and then loosening his tie. Beneath his collar the green and scarlet dragon writhed.

“She’s sixteen.”

“Like that’s some big deal,” Beatrice said.

Howsome looked from one to the other, wanting to agree with both.

“Sixteen!” Strulovitch repeated.

“Play another tune, Daddy,” Beatrice said, “you’ve been harping on about how old I am since I was born. She’s thirteen. She’s fourteen. She’s fifteen. You’ll still be saying it when I’m sixty.”

“At sixty you’ll have seen something of the world, and I won’t be here.”

“Me neither,” Howsome said, which Beatrice’s expression told him was ill-advised. You don’t stress age difference when you’re trying to prise a daughter from a parent.

It’s time, Strulovitch thought, I spoke to my daughter’s suitor in the old way — without the daughter present.

“Beatrice, you are making both of us uncomfortable,” he told her. “Why don’t you leave us for a little while. I promise I won’t offer Mr. Howsome money to disappear from the country.”

Which only went to show he’d thought of doing precisely that.

“There is no sum of money that would make me part with Beatrice, sir,” Howsome said.

Beatrice rose and smiled at him. Good boy. Good answer. She could see her father thought so too. “I’ll make tea then,” she said, feeling confident. “And don’t be horrible to him in other ways either, Daddy.”

Such as what? Strulovitch thought.

“I want my daughter,” he said, when Beatrice had left them, “to finish her education.”

What he really meant was I want my daughter to start her education, but now was not the time to be discussing the merits of performance art.

“I want the same for her,” Howsome said.

Strulovitch nodded. Good answer again. He could see what his daughter liked in the man. He was compliant. He made good use of the few words he possessed. He had a gentle smile, despite his bulk. And even his bulk — at least as he had disposed it among the soft fabrics of Strulovitch’s sofa — was more protective than aggressive. What else she saw in him — whether or not he was sexually attractive — was a question that exceeded Strulovitch’s fatherly brief. A man should not put his mind to what arouses his daughter, no matter that Strulovitch had put his mind to little else since Beatrice turned whatever age it was when he first knew her to be in danger.

Now sixteen, she was old enough — not legally, no, but in society’s eyes, and certainly in her own — to decide for herself. But he’d got her to this age without serious mishap, hadn’t he? He’d navigated the dangers for her. Maybe she was secretly grateful to him for that. Maybe it wasn’t only to avoid upsetting her poor vegetating mother that she didn’t just up and go. Maybe she loved him too, and wanted his love in return. But since she had stayed, and was suddenly playing at being an old-fashioned daughter, wanting Daddy’s blessing, he would go on playing the old-fashioned father.

“What else do you want for her?” he continued, looking hard into the footballer’s swimming eyes.

Howsome was puzzled, on the lookout for trick questions. Daddy’s devious, Beatrice had warned him. Be careful.

“In what sense?” he asked. “Do you mean like children?”

“Good God, no. Not yet. She’s sixteen for Christ’s sake. But you want her to be happy, I presume.”

“Obviously.”

It was a footballer’s word. “Obviously.” At the end of the day. At the end of the day, obviously, I want your daughter to be happy in the back of the net.

“And you want her to make her parents happy?”

That was less obvious, but Howsome acceded to it anyway. “Obviously,” he said. He even nodded, Strulovitch thought, upstairs in the direction of poor Kay, as though he knew what had befallen her and where she was kept. And therefore as though he knew that this imposed a still greater obligation on him to look after Beatrice.

“You will understand then that the fact you’ve been married several times before doesn’t make us entirely happy. In fact it makes us anxious.”

He was glad Beatrice had left them. Who’s this us suddenly, he could imagine her thinking.

“I made some silly errors,” Howsome admitted. “I was young and had more money than sense. I am a different man now. In fact I’m a man now, full stop. I was a boy then.”

Strulovitch nodded, not listening. He was preparing the only question that mattered. “You know, of course,” he said, taking his time, “that ours is a Jewish family.”

“I love Jews,” Howsome said, bringing his body to the edge of the sofa. He loved Jews so much he was prepared to fall at their feet. “In fact…”

He stopped. He was about to say that the proof of his love of Jews was his having already married one, but decided in the nick of time not to. Jews appreciate being liked, but not collected, Beatrice had explained when he’d first tried wooing her with the line that she was not the first Jew he’d loved.

“…in fact,” he went on, “I’ve read many books on the subject.”

Remembering the Nazi salute, Strulovitch tried not to picture the contents of Howsome’s bookshelves. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Der ewige Jude? Bound copies of the Guardian?

“We make interesting reading,” he allowed.

Howsome wanted to go further than that. “The Jews are wonderful people.”

“Some of us,” Strulovitch agreed.

Howsome had the look of one who had said all he had to say, had conclusively proved his suitability, and now awaited the go-ahead to carry Beatrice off to his bed.

But Strulovitch was not quite finished. “Since you know so much about us,” he said, “you will know that we worry when our children fly the coop. I don’t just mean leave home but, you know, leave the…clan.”

A funny word “clan,” but he couldn’t say religion. Religion wasn’t what he meant. It hadn’t been in the name of religion that his father had buried him when he married out. What was it then? Faith? No, not that. And he couldn’t say tribe. He’d heard Shylock fulminating against tribe. Culture? Too secular. If culture was all it was about, why the worry? So he let “clan” hang there, a poor substitute for a word he couldn’t find.

Too late he remembered covenant.

“I so respect that,” Howsome said. “And obviously I wouldn’t expect Beatrice to stop being Jewish.”

“That’s good of you,” Strulovitch said sarcastically. He marvelled at the magnanimity of his prospective son-in-law, a man who was happy to take Jewish women as he found them. “If nothing else, young man,” Strulovitch thought about saying, “it sits smiling to my heart to know that the future of the Jewish people is secure in your benign consideration.” But he held back. Why waste irony? Howsome was doing his best, considering the circles he’d been known to move in.

“If you eventually give your permission she can even keep her name,” Howsome said.

“Beatrice?”

“No, her other name.”

“Again that’s good of you,” Strulovitch said. “I think she’ll be relieved to know that. But this isn’t quite what I’ve been getting at.”

The footballer apologised. “I’m sorry, I thought that was what you wanted to hear.”

“It is. Indeed it is. But when I say I don’t want my daughter to leave, I mean I don’t want her to have a husband who isn’t himself Jewish.”

Howsome looked nonplussed. He opened the palms of his big hands piteously. I am who I am, his gesture said. I cannot be what I am not.

It was then that Strulovitch explained how he could be made what he was not.