The Jewish Messiah

Accept, O Lord, This Humble Sacrifice

MR. SCHWARTZ’S BED had not been made for a long time, and had not been cleaned for even longer. The sheets had probably once been blue.

This was how an old man lived if he no longer had a wife, or had never had one to start with. The neglect came creeping in, every week a bit more, every month a little of the illusion of cleanliness lost.

On the yellowed wall, Xavier saw a lighter rectangle where something had once hung.

“Do you know what I used to have hanging there?” Mr. Schwartz asked. “A portrait of Lenin. I’ve never felt the urge to paint over it. A waste of money.”

This was the day for which Mr. Schwartz had been saving his instruments, ever since he’d officially stopped working.

“Besides,” he said, “you need something to remind you of the past; otherwise you start questioning your own sanity.”

Other old men sometimes went out to eat in a cafeteria or a soup kitchen, where they were welcome after a lifetime of hard work, or went to buy a paper at the newsstand. They could dress up a little to draw a smile from a waitress, freshen up for a friendly conversation with the owner of the newsstand. Mr. Schwartz subscribed to the daily news, and ate his meals in his kitchen. He could remain unfreshened; the world would never notice.

A cave, that’s what his home felt like, even more than the first time Xavier had visited it. A cave in which a dying animal had holed up, knowing full well how gruesome it must look to those who had no clue about dying, who knew about it only by hearsay.

Awromele was sitting on a little stepladder beside the dresser. He had asked whether he could sit in, or whether Xavier would prefer to be alone at the moment itself. Xavier had said that he would greatly appreciate Awromele’s presence. That he would need him, particularly during and after the procedure.

“Sure, why not,” Awromele said. “When my little brothers were circumcised, I was there, too. I stood right up close and watched the whole thing. I thought it was wonderful. Disgusting, but wonderful. Until my mother pulled me away.”

Lust has a bad name. Perhaps Xavier and Awromele could rehabilitate lust. The way Xavier hoped on his own to rid the Jews of their bad name.

Lust and suffering, those were the main ingredients of life. The rest was detail, subset, delusion.

Even Mr. Schwartz’s bedroom smelled, of sour cream. Mr. Schwartz had set up a reading lamp beside his bed. He was pottering about nervously, as though inspecting his stock of cheese. His instruments were laid out on a handkerchief.

“Six years ago,” he said, “was the last time I did this. I remember it well, six years ago. In August. It was a swelteringly hot day. There was no one else in town to do it, so they came to me. Always babies, if you know what I mean — you’re my first adult — but the principle remains the same. I was a specialist, and once you become a specialist you never forget how to do it. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an eighty-year-old man or an eight-day-old baby, it’s all a matter of technique. I’ll be right back. Remain seated.”

Xavier wasn’t sitting down, and he didn’t feel like sitting down. Never before had he been so conscious of what was between his legs.

He was, he had to admit, frightened. Frightened of pain, infections, complications. Of decisions he would later regret. The way some people regretted their whole lives, but steeled themselves and went on watering the plants.

In a little basket on the windowsill lay three rotten apples. Mr. Schwartz obviously couldn’t see them anymore. But couldn’t he smell them?

Xavier had no qualms about losing a piece of foreskin. That loss, after all, would grant him admission to an exclusive confederation.

His grandfather had also belonged to an exclusive confederation. It wasn’t good to go through life as an outsider. It was important not to. At some point you had to go looking for your partners in adversity. During the last telephone conversation Xavier had had with his father, the architect had said, “They say that in Russia you need money or connections to get anything done, but Switzerland is no different.” A striking statement, coming from the architect. Now his father could make no statements about the forthcoming circumcision, and Xavier regretted that. He had dreamed of walking up to his father, circumcised but chipper as ever, and saying: “Look! Take a good look, Dad. Notice anything different?” Then he would wave his penis around and ask his father, “You see it now?”

If his mother heard about the circumcision, she would go crazy. She had kept her feelings under control till now, but she wouldn’t be able to take this. Sooner or later he would have to tell her. First he would let her get used to the idea. Bit by bit, step by step. The way you teach a child to walk.

At the library, Xavier had leafed through a medical encyclopedia to find out about the risks. Going for a ride in a car had its attendant risks as well, but in a car you could at least wear a safety belt.

You had to convince yourself. You had to tell yourself that it had to be this way and no other. People who couldn’t do that had friends to do it for them, or social workers.

That weekend, Xavier had taken a good look at himself in the mirror. He didn’t look bad, there was no denying that, but after a while he began seeing someone else. A man wearing a cap, boots, holding a dog on a short leash. Xavier liked uniforms. And, in theory, he was not void of a certain degree of cruelty, although it hadn’t expressed itself in practice yet. At nursery school he had once pulled a little girl’s hair, hard — she’d had long black hair — but you couldn’t call that cruelty. At least, not unusual cruelty. Given, he watched the violence in films and on television with a businesslike, almost eager interest, but watching was largely passive.

Cruelty had to come from somewhere; perhaps it sprang up, the way rivers did. High in the mountains. At the foot of a glacier.

“Show me,” Awromele said.

“What?”

“While it’s still there. I want to see it.”

“You mean…?”

“Yeah.”

“The thing he’s going to take away?”

“Yeah.”

“But why, why now?”

“Because afterwards it will be too late.”

“I’d rather not. If you don’t mind.”

“I’ve never seen an uncircumcised one. Except for my brothers, when they were eight days old, but that doesn’t count. In films you sometimes see them uncircumcised, but mostly circumcised.”

“I never really noticed,” Xavier said. “I don’t watch films like that much.”

“It’s not easy to find an uncircumcised one.”

“That’s too bad,” Xavier mumbled, and he felt himself growing sadder.

“Be a sport,” Awromele said. “I promise I won’t laugh.”

But it wasn’t laughter Xavier was worried about.

Outside, the street was being broken up. The sound of the jackhammer could be heard in Mr. Schwartz’s bedroom. Every once in a while it stopped, only to go on even louder a few seconds later.

“That’s impossible,” Xavier said, holding his hands over his fly. “I can’t.”

Xavier’s father had been buried only recently. It was already hard for him to remember the day his father died, except that it was a Sunday. The day on which his grandfather had always refrained from death, to honor the Lord. Did that fall under historical irony, or was it a coincidence? Was coincidence ironic?

“You have to get undressed anyway,” Awromele said. “So what difference does it make? Or did you think you could wear your swimming trunks?”

Xavier shook his head.

“So do it already,” Awromele said.

“I’m not in the mood right now.”

At the funeral, the colleagues of Xavier’s father had spoken kindly of his achievements as an architect, a great-uncle had mentioned the toy trains the dead man used to collect, and an aunt blew him kisses as he lay in his grave. Then it was over. Xavier had not said a word, and his mother had spoken only one sentence: “I will let Beethoven do the talking for me.” Beethoven was always a sure bet at a funeral.

“Please,” Awromele said. “Do it for my sake. I’m just curious, that’s all. Without me you still wouldn’t have been circumcised, not even ten years from now.”

Xavier took off his shoes and socks. Emotional blackmail is the best form of blackmail. He was wearing a pair of black jeans.

Imagine, you’re a reasonably normal person, in your own eyes and in the eyes of your surroundings, an unobtrusive person, but not so unobtrusive that people really start to wonder. You have everything other people have. And one day you discover that you enjoy cruelty. That’s an altogether different thing from enjoying steak; there’s probably a certain amount of cruelty involved there as well, but it doesn’t have to show up on the outside, it can remain hidden.

Xavier pulled down his jeans. They didn’t go very quickly — his jeans were tight. Out in the street, the drilling continued.

It had been five minutes since Mr. Schwartz had said that such procedures were all a matter of technique, which you didn’t forget at the drop of a hat.

Imagine that you not only enjoy the products of cruelty, the steak, but also the cruelty itself. Even though you’ve never done anything that might be considered unacceptable. From the moment you discover that, you see yourself differently.

Xavier’s underpants had the word “happiness” printed on them. A nice word.

The problem wasn’t the cruelty itself, because all kinds of cruelty were considered acceptable as long as you didn’t enjoy them in public. Xavier was afraid that a person like him, who enjoyed life so intensely, would also start enjoying cruelty.

The underpants were pulled down hastily, as in a locker room. The haste that comes from shame.

Awromele stared unashamedly. He even came a step closer, in order not to miss anything.

“Jesus,” he said, “what a bunch of skin.”

“That’s how we’re made; that’s how you were made, too. This is the product of evolution.”

“Yeah,” Awromele said, “a weird thought. Evolution, I mean. Can I feel it?”

Awromele fingered the skin the way you finger the sleeve of a shirt in a clothing store, to see if the material is light enough for the summer.

“So where’s the smegma?”

“I don’t have smegma,” Xavier said. He was still wearing his sweater, a sweater his father had given him. Dressed on top, undressed down below. He looked ridiculous.

“I wonder how much of it’s going to be taken off,” Awromele said, Xavier’s skin still between his fingers.

Xavier stared straight ahead, at Mr. Schwartz’s dressers. He had told his mother that he was going for a walk with friends. “Be careful,” she had said. “They’re predicting a thunderstorm.”

“What did you ever do with those pictures you took of me?” Awromele asked. He had let go of the skin for a moment, but now he took hold of it anew and pushed it back to see what was hidden beneath.

“They didn’t turn out. I’m sorry. I’ll take new ones, if you like.”

He didn’t know what was so special about what was under his skin, but Awromele found it interesting; he was plucking at it as if it were the scab on a wound.

“Let go of me,” Xavier said.

“Before long you won’t have it anymore,” Awromele said sadly. “Then it won’t be yours anymore, it won’t be part of your body, just a piece of skin that gets thrown in the garbage; maybe later it will be processed into cat food.” He let go and went back to sit on the stepladder.

“You could save it,” Awromele said, already sounding happier. “You could put it in a glass jar and keep it in the cupboard to show important visitors. You can ask your visitors; Would you like to see my foreskin? And then you pull out the jar. And if you ever become famous, you can put it up for auction. It wouldn’t surprise me if you got a bunch of money for it. Who knows, by that time maybe you could even buy a second home from the proceeds.”

The idea seemed to appeal to Awromele. His smile spread until he was beaming, but he stopped talking. The drilling outside had stopped. The silence was oppressive.

“Is it really true,” Xavier asked, “that the Jews control the media?”

“I don’t know,” Awromele said. “The media? I wouldn’t know.”

Xavier noticed that the subject didn’t interest Awromele much. Where in the world was Mr. Schwartz? Was he chickening out?

“What gives you that idea?” Awromele asked.

“My mother said something along those lines.”

“Does she work for the media?”

“No, not that. Her friend is a soundman. She wants to start working again, though.”

“What kind of work is she looking for?”

“Something with children.”

“That’s always nice, working with children. Do you want to work with children, too?”

“I don’t know,” Xavier said. “I like children, though.” And he covered his sex organ with his sweater, which was fortunately a bit too large for him. It made him look like he was wearing a dress that had been washed at the wrong temperature. “In fact, I don’t think so,” he said. And, after a brief pause, “Awromele, aren’t you interested in higher things?”

“Higher things?”

“I never hear you talk about classical music. For example. Or about opera. Or museums. About the fine arts. About beauty.”

“No, I don’t talk about those things much. Now that you mention it.” Awromele got off his stepladder. “But if you’d like to me to talk about them more often, just say so.”

“Have you ever been to the opera?” Xavier asked.

“Funny question,” Awromele said. “No. Never.” He pushed up Xavier’s father’s sweater, 100 percent cashmere, and began absentmindedly petting Xavier’s member. The way you pet a dog while talking to its master about international affairs.

“Do you talk a lot about classical music?” Awromele asked.

“I’d like to talk about it more,” Xavier said. “With you, too. I think it would be great to talk to a Jew about Beethoven. Or Wagner.” He blushed slightly. “At my father’s funeral they played Beethoven,” he said quickly.

“We never play music at funerals,” Awromele said. “We don’t like that fancy-schmancy stuff. A funeral is a funeral. I’ve never met people as assimilated as you. It’s a wonder you even know you’re a Jew.”

Awromele was stroking the uncircumcised member more forcefully now. “It is different,” he said, “I can tell now. You can do more with it, you can apply more force, because there’s less tension in it. A foreskin might be less hygienic, but it also has its advantages. Evolution probably knew what it was doing. They say that everything in evolution is there for a purpose, don’t they?”

Xavier noticed that he was growing short of breath. Like that time he’d vomited on the street. “If the Jews don’t control the media, then who does, in your opinion?” he asked. His voice peeped, as though he had asthma.

“It’s probably not the Muslims,” Awromele said. “They don’t control much of anything.”

“Now you’ve got to stop,” Xavier said, trying to pull his father’s sweater down farther. “That’s enough.”

“Your foreskin’s got neshome,” Awromele said, going on with his powerful caresses, as though it were his profession and he’d been doing it for years. “Do you know what neshome is?”

“You told me once,” Xavier said, “but I forgot.” He pulled harder on his father’s sweater, but it didn’t help much. The sweater had been bought in Milan, back when they were still a happy family, the Radeks. A happy family with a little secret.

“Soul,” Awromele said. “That’s what nesjome is, soul.”

The drilling in the street started again. Awromele bent down; he took the foreskin and what was attached to it in his mouth.

Awromele’s got my soul in his mouth, Xavier thought. He cleared his throat. “I know you’ve done a lot for me. But I don’t know if I like this.”

Awromele was making smacking sounds, the way wine tasters do when there are other wine tasters around.

“Funny,” he said. “You taste funny.”

The door flew open. Because of the drilling, they hadn’t heard Mr. Schwartz coming. Mr. Schwartz was nearsighted, and so absorbed in the prospect of the task he would be performing in a few minutes that he didn’t notice the situation in which the boys found themselves. He had two stirrups with him, stirrups he said had been given to him by a gynecologist friend who had closed shop. “A former communist, just like me,” he said. “We former communists have to stick together.”

With Awromele’s help, he attached the stirrups to the sides of his bed. Then he looked around, as though wanting to make sure he was still in his own bedroom. He patted his hands together softly and said, “I’m ready; just let me wash my hands.”

Awromele casually stroked Xavier’s member a few more times. “It will work out,” he said. “Mr. Schwartz used to be the most famous mohel in all of Basel. They said he could perform miracles.”

“Will I get an anesthetic?” Xavier asked.

“A little, I guess, but you won’t need much. Babies are circumcised without an anesthetic. Yours is a bit bigger, of course, but it’s the same principle.”

Xavier blew his nose. “So now I’ll be part of the covenant,” he said. “The holy covenant.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

“Holy,” Awromele said, “you’re right about that. I hope Mr. Schwartz hurries up a little.”

“Do you do that often?”

“What?”

“What you just did?”

“What do you mean?”

“What you did. With your mouth.”

“Oh no, never. Only watched. How other people did it.”

“You seemed so proficient at it.”

“It’s not all that difficult.”

Xavier stared at the rotten apples on the windowsill, and then at the old-fashioned stirrups that had been mounted with such difficulty on Mr. Schwartz’s bed. He couldn’t help thinking about Mr. Schwartz’s love of Christmas trees, and how that had caused him a crisis of conscience when he was young.

“Are you sure,” Xavier asked, “that we shouldn’t have this done in a hospital?”

“That would be more expensive. And less authentic. Jews are always circumcised at home.”

“And what if something goes wrong?”

“Then we can always go to the emergency room.”

“But then maybe it will be too late.”

“A young body can survive a great deal. Don’t worry.”

Xavier wasn’t so sure about that. What, after all, had his father’s body really undergone in the way of trauma? He had lain beneath the punching bag, and a few hours later it was all over. Okay, he hadn’t been that young anymore, but he wasn’t that old, either.

Mr. Schwartz’s instruments looked old-fashioned, but fortunately they were clean.

“I have to pee,” Xavier said. “Excuse me for a moment.”

He wasn’t sure how long he’d still be able to do that. While he was peeing he imagined what it was like to have the clap, or other sexually transmitted diseases. It doesn’t help to worry about things over which you have no control, but the imagination is more powerful than reason. Though Xavier’s imagination was exceptionally powerful, he didn’t want to turn back, he couldn’t turn back, he didn’t want to be a coward.

When Xavier came out of the bathroom, Mr. Schwartz was waiting in the bedroom with a tub of water and some towels.

“Do your parents know about this?” he asked.

“My father is no longer alive.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“And it’s going to be a surprise for my mother.”

“She’ll be very pleased,” Mr. Schwartz said. “Just like your father, wherever he is now. I’m sure that he can see us, and that he’s nodding in approval. So let’s get started. Lie down and make yourself comfortable.”

Xavier crawled onto Mr. Schwartz’s bed. The smell of sour cream became overpowering. He wondered whether Mr. Schwartz had ever lain in this bed and longed for someone else, or whether you stopped doing that at a certain point.

Mr. Schwartz moved the reading lamp and leaned over him.

“Put your feet on the stirrups,” he said.

But Xavier’s feet kept sliding off the stirrups, and Awromele had to help. He held Xavier’s feet tightly in place.

Xavier lay there, spread-eagled on the not-so-clean bed, feeling as if he were at the dentist’s.

“Do you want to pay now, or later?” Mr. Schwartz asked, handing his patient a glass of water.

“Later,” Xavier said. He had a hard time holding the glass upright.

“I’m going to give you some Valium,” Mr. Schwartz said, “that should be enough.” There were three little tablets in the palm of his hand, and Xavier gulped them down greedily. The faster the narcosis started working, the better.

Awromele watched with interest as Mr. Schwartz lifted the Italian sweater and leaned down close to Xavier’s lower body. The patient felt the old man’s breath against his navel.

“Everything looks fine,” Mr. Schwartz said, “everything looks just dandy. Exactly the way it should. I’m not going to put on gloves, because I just washed my hands.”

Xavier didn’t feel the narcosis much, so he closed his eyes and prepared himself for the operation by concentrating on his grandfather in uniform. He felt Mr. Schwartz’s hand lifting his sex organ a few centimeters, he heard someone make a clacking noise with his tongue, then he felt something cold against his sex organ, and after that there was only pain.

Pain that took his breath away. He didn’t even notice that he was screaming. For a split second the pain seemed to subside, and he thought about the phrase he had come across in a comic book as a child: “Accept, O Lord, this humble sacrifice.”

Then the pain came back, redoubled.

Xavier tried to pull his feet out of the stirrups, he tried to get up, but someone was holding his feet. Someone was squeezing his ankles.

He hoped he would lose consciousness, so terrible was the pain. But Xavier’s consciousness remained alert, as though it didn’t want to miss a single one of these precious moments. He screamed, he couldn’t stop screaming, he lost control of his voice. Fortunately, Mr. Schwartz’s neighbor was deaf; otherwise he would have certainly called the police, or come to take a look for himself.

Later, Awromele would swear he had never known that a human being could shriek so pitifully.

As regards the sacrifice, no one had asked for it, and there was no one to receive it. Nevertheless, Xavier kept repeating it in his mind, like a mantra: “Accept, O Lord, this humble sacrifice.”

But Mr. Schwartz was there, and he did what Xavier had asked of him, to the best of his ability, peering nearsightedly through his reading glasses; and Awromele was there, keeping a tight hold on Xavier’s feet.

Xavier still had his eyes closed. He dreamed of his father, working off his excess fat in a gigantic fitness center.

By the time the dream was over, Mr. Schwartz had removed the foreskin, once and for all.