The Jewish Messiah

A Dying Rat

IN XAVIER’S DREAM he could smell sour cream, and it took a while for him to realize that the smell was not a dream. He heard voices he didn’t recognize, coming from the kitchen. What are they talking about? he wondered.

It was not so strange that he didn’t understand them, for the voices were speaking Yiddish. Thanks to Awromele’s lessons, Xavier was able to form simple Yiddish sentences. But he was nowhere near being able to follow the excited conversation between Awromele and Mr. Schwartz.

Right after the shameful realization that he was unable to understand Yiddish, the pain returned, inescapable and overpowering. He was still lying on Mr. Schwartz’s bed, but his feet were no longer on the stirrups. He could see a few dark-red spots on the sheets.

Mr. Schwartz had slipped.

The screaming had unnerved him. “That kid screeched like a stuck pig,” he told Awromele later. “You can’t expect anyone to work like that.”

The sex organ was wrapped in a white bandage; the testicles were bandaged, too. It looked as though that afternoon a mummy had grown between Xavier’s legs. A cute little mummy.

Xavier had no time to think about that. The pain was searing, so sharp that he couldn’t relax enough to think. He wondered what time it was; he had promised his mother he would be back in time for dinner.

And he was thirsty. “Awromele?” he cried out, but he didn’t have the strength to shout loudly.

Before long he would be dead, without having had a chance to comfort the Jewish people. There he lay, without a foreskin but with good intentions, a couple of Yiddish lessons, the deep desire to become part of the holy covenant, and despite all this his chief concern was that he might be too late for dinner with his mother.

“Awromele,” he shouted again, a little louder this time.

He tried to move. He couldn’t.

Voices came from the kitchen again; he thought one of them was Awromele’s, but he wasn’t sure. He heard someone laughing, too.

The workers out in the street had put aside their jackhammer. What time could it be? Xavier closed his eyes. He had no idea how long he had been lying there. When he opened his eyes again, he saw Mr. Schwartz and Awromele leaning over him.

“You’re awake,” Awromele said. “Finally.”

Mr. Schwartz ran his hand through Xavier’s hair. “There you are, boy,” he said. “There you are.” As though Xavier had just come crawling out of the womb.

“You’re circumcised—mazel tov,” Awromele said.

“It took longer than I expected,” Mr. Schwartz said. “I had to get the hang of it again. But then it all came back to me.”

“Could I have some water?” Xavier asked.

“Of course,” Mr. Schwartz said. He stumbled out of the room.

Awromele squeezed Xavier’s hand. “You’re looking a little pale, but that will go away,” he said.

Xavier was afraid it would never go away; he felt as if all the blood had run out of his body.

What a strange phenomenon, pain. It makes the world so small, tiny, no bigger than the point of pain itself.

Mr. Schwartz stumbled back into the room with water in a plastic cup.

“I found a straw, too,” he said. He held the straw up triumphantly.

Xavier gulped down the water. Then he said weakly, “I have to go home.” With Awromele’s help, he sat up. But when he sat up straight, it felt as though he was paralyzed from the waist down, and all he wanted to do was fall back onto Mr. Schwartz’s dirty bed and sleep for the next twenty hours. At that point, what he wanted most was never to wake again.

The only way he could remain upright was with Awromele’s help.

“There’s something wrong,” Xavier said. “Does it always hurt like this?”

“It will go away,” Awromele said. “This is part of it.” And he squeezed Xavier’s hand again.

Mr. Schwartz said, “For special occasions, I keep a special bottle.” He bent down and pulled something from under the bed. A bottle indeed. “Pure as nature itself,” he said. “Plums and alcohol, that’s all it is. This will have you back on your feet in no time.” He poured the liquor into little glasses that he kept under the bed in cardboard boxes.

“I have to go home,” Xavier said, after Awromele and Mr. Schwartz had helped him to knock back two glasses of slivovitz and he felt himself growing nauseous. “What time is it?” Xavier tried to get out of bed, but couldn’t. “I’m dizzy,” he said. “Everything’s spinning.”

“Of course,” Mr. Schwartz said. “I just circumcised you. People who have just been circumcised often feel a little dizzy.”

There were dark-red spots on the bandages now as well.

The hard liquor had relieved the pain for a moment, or, rather, had deflected it to other parts of the body, to stomach and throat. Xavier hadn’t eaten much that day. He had read that it was better to go into the operating room with an empty stomach.

Outside it was already dark. He had to hurry; he didn’t want to cause his mother unnecessary sorrow. Whenever he showed up late for dinner, she would look at him so sadly and ask, “Did you forget about me?”

His black jeans were lying on the floor. He tried to pick them up, but Awromele was too fast for him. He was still sitting on the bed. He felt he might faint any moment.

Mr. Schwartz stood there helplessly, as though he didn’t know what to do now that his work was finished.

Xavier tried to push his foot into the trouser leg, but couldn’t.

“If you like, you can sleep here tonight,” Mr. Schwartz said. “If that would make things easier for you.”

“No,” Xavier said, “I have to go.” And he eased himself slowly off the bed. Then he fell onto the floor.

His legs couldn’t support him; they were like those of an old man half consumed by death. Maybe his legs would never support him again. There was a carpet on the floor. He didn’t quite dare to look at the little mummy between his legs, but whenever he gave it a quick glance it seemed to him that the red spots were getting bigger.

He tried to crawl.

“Give him some more slivovitz,” Mr. Schwartz said. “Quick.”

Awromele poured the remains of the bottle into one of the little glasses and tossed the stuff down Xavier’s throat. Then he wiped Xavier’s mouth with his hand.

From the dresser Mr. Schwartz pulled a pair of gray trousers that probably fit him well but were a few sizes too big for Xavier. “You’ll be able to get into these,” Mr. Schwartz said. “Put them on, if you really need to go home so badly. But if you want to sleep here, that’s no problem. There’s enough food in the house.” He rummaged through his nightstand, looking for safety pins with which to fasten Xavier’s new trousers.

Awromele strained to pull Xavier off the floor. “Come on,” he said. With Mr. Schwartz’s help, he was able to roll the newly circumcised boy onto the bed, and together they wormed Xavier’s feet into the trouser legs.

“I bought these trousers in Paris,” Mr. Schwartz said, “in 1972, but you can keep them. I have trousers enough. How often can one person change his trousers? And what difference does it make if no one sees him anyway?”

For a moment, Xavier was able to forget everything — the operation, the smell of sour cream, the taste of slivovitz, the pain, Mr. Schwartz’s accent. He was back with his father in a gigantic fitness center.

But that didn’t last long: the pain came back with twice the intensity, as though avenging itself for Xavier’s attempt to forget it. Pain is like a lover who grows surly when you stop paying attention to him.

Even after Awromele and Mr. Schwartz had fastened the trousers with two safety pins, they still sagged so badly that Xavier would have to hold them up with one hand if he didn’t want to parade down the street naked. He wasn’t wearing underpants. The two men had tried to put a pair of underpants on him, but the pain had made him scream.

Xavier in Mr. Schwartz’s trousers looked something like a cross between a bum and someone trying to imitate an old vaudeville comedian. He lay on the bed while Awromele did his best to put on his socks and shoes.

“Help!” Xavier shouted.

“Am I hurting you?” Awromele asked.

In the living room, Mr. Schwartz was busy cutting off a piece of Gorgonzola and wrapping it in wax paper.

It wasn’t the pain that made him shout. Xavier was having visions again. His grandfather often played a prominent part in his visions, but in this last vision a supporting role had also been reserved for Mr. Schwartz. Xavier had shouted “Help!” because he remembered that he wanted to comfort Awromele, and he wasn’t convinced that he would be able to.

MR. SCHWARTZ CAME into the bedroom, feeling more triumphant than he had in years. He was no longer tormented by a sense of uselessness. In the last few hours, he had proved himself quite useful.

“What does the Jew want?” he asked. “The Jew wants to be healed, the Jew wants to go skipping down the street, the Jew wants to take a nice nap, and when he wakes up he wants to nibble on a piece of Mr. Schwartz’s Gorgonzola.”

He tried to hand the cheese to Xavier. Xavier was having more and more trouble seeing where the visions stopped and reality began.

Awromele took the Gorgonzola in its wax-paper wrapping. He said to Xavier, “We really must allow Mr. Schwartz to get some rest now.”

Xavier was able to get up from the bed, with Awromele’s help, and limped out of the room on his friend’s arm. The limping hurt, and so did talking, swallowing, looking, breathing. Xavier felt like a dying rat.

The old Parisian trousers kept falling down around Xavier’s knees, but Awromele deftly pulled them back up each time.

“Well, boys,” Mr. Schwartz said, “we’ll be seeing you. Get well quick.” He planted a quick kiss on Xavier’s forehead, and Xavier caught a vague whiff of alcohol before staggering and falling to the floor.

He was lying in Mr. Schwartz’s vestibule, moaning quietly.

“I can’t do this,” Xavier said.

“Don’t give up,” Awromele said. “You’re almost there. You’ll be home before you know it; then you can lie down in your own bed.”

Melancholy took hold of Mr. Schwartz once more. A few minutes of cheerfulness never go unpunished. He had done his very best. Okay, the knife had slipped, but it had slipped in the past as well, and that had never been a problem. Skin heals so quickly. The skin cells replenish themselves faster than you could imagine. Before you knew it, there was no sign of where the wound had been.

Awromele said: “Listen, you’re the one who wanted to be circumcised. And that’s what you got.”

Xavier’s moans grew louder. “But I didn’t know it was going to hurt like this.”

“It hurts for a little while,” Mr. Schwartz said. “Everything hurts the first time around.”

Mr. Schwartz and Awromele pulled Xavier to his feet. They ignored his grievous cries; neither of them knew how to stop his suffering.

Awromele rushed Xavier out the door in a hurry. Other people’s moaning could get on your nerves.

Mr. Schwartz stood in the doorway for a long time, looking after them in the hope that they would turn and wave, but it didn’t happen. Then he closed the door, slid closed the four deadbolts, and lay down on his bed without changing the sheets. He was finished. The dark-red, almost purple spots on the sheets escaped his notice.