The Jewish Messiah

King David

ONE WEEK AFTER being separated from his inflamed testicle, Xavier was still the talk of the town in Basel. But Awromele didn’t talk about him, he only thought about him and wondered whether he should try to call him. It was a dilemma. Xavier had asked him never to phone, because of the situation at home.

Awromele longed to see Xavier. In Xavier he had come across something he had never found anywhere else: willpower, vision, energy, endurance.

“I miss you,” he whispered to the little scrap of paper with Xavier’s phone number on it. After he had whispered that a few times, he decided that this was an emergency: his longing had become too great. His father had told him that Xavier was in the hospital, and he had seen his picture in the paper.

The Committee of Vigilant Parents organized information meetings each evening, and was busy by day as well with the recruitment of new members.

Awromele decided that the time had come to evaluate with Xavier the events of the last few days, to hear his voice, to hold his rather large hand, to see how his circumcised penis was coming along. That circumcision, after all, had in a way been Awromele’s circumcision as well; he had arranged the whole thing, he had been there, he had held Xavier’s feet. Awromele picked up a siddur and recited the prayer for the dead. Of all the prayers he knew, that was his favorite.

When the phone rang, Xavier’s mother was examining her broken nose in a hand mirror. Not another journalist, she thought. In the last few days, she had been inundated by calls from the press, and one time she had even appeared on TV, for twenty seconds. But all the attention and sympathy had done nothing to allay her fears. On the contrary, her honorary membership in the Committee of Vigilant Parents was hard for her to bear. She couldn’t sleep at night. She was afraid that the rank and file would find out that she didn’t love her son enough. Although she believed that all parents had the right to hate their children if they liked, she realized that such feelings did not jibe with her honorary membership in the committee. She was less than wildly enthusiastic about her semi-celebrity status. She often thought: Give me anonymity, I’m just a normal woman, and that’s what I plan to stay. Fame, even local fame, did nothing but keep the pain at arm’s length.

Since the punch in the nose, she had stopped opening herself to her boyfriend. On one occasion he had caressed her between the legs. Another time he had lain atop her tenderly. But she had pushed him off. She had told herself: I’m not going to let him come right inside me, not for the time being; that will teach him.

All these things she was pondering in her heart when she heard Awromele’s voice.

“I’m a friend of Xavier’s, I’d like to visit him. Can you tell me where he is?”

The mother gave him the name of the hospital and the room number. She was pleased to hear that it wasn’t another journalist on the line.

“Thank you,” Awromele said. “I’m going to visit your son soon.”

“How nice,” the mother said. She would be going there the day after tomorrow herself.

Marc had urged her to visit Xavier more frequently. But the mother said: “It’s not good to lavish attention on him, or he’ll never become independent. He has to learn to stand on his own two feet.”

WHEN AWROMELE SAW Xavier lying in the hospital bed, he felt calm for the first time in days. He kissed him on both cheeks, and once on the lips by accident. “I’m so glad to see you,” Awromele said. “You’re looking pretty good.” Just to be safe, he had taken off his yarmulke before entering the hospital. His father always took off his yarmulke when he visited a massage parlor. Sometimes it was better to remain incognito.

Xavier tried to smile. It didn’t work; they had stopped giving him painkillers, and his member still hurt quite badly. “I missed you,” he said.

Awromele lifted the jar from the side table and took a good look at it. “So that’s the one.” He examined the amputated body part. “It’s actually only a little thing, isn’t it? When you look at it like this, I mean. It doesn’t add up to much. Is this what they call an epididymis?”

The head nurse had told Xavier what was in the jar. Whenever she came into his room, she would say: “Your testicle is famous, did you know that? You should be proud of it.” She had urged him to look at it often, in order to speed up the process of closure. Repression could be fatal, and closure had to take place quickly, or your life would be over while the closure was still going on.

“Do you know what you’re going to do with it?” Awromele asked.

“With what?”

Awromele held up the jar with the testicle and shook it back and forth.

“Bury it, maybe,” Xavier said. “Or keep it.”

“I’d keep it if I were you,” Awromele said. “Even if it’s only for your grandchildren.”

Then he pulled a chocolate bar out of his coat pocket and said: “Oh, I almost forgot. This is for you.” Awromele laughed shyly.

“Thank you,” Xavier said. Despite the pain, he pulled Awromele down close and kissed him three times on the cheek and then, quickly, once on the lips and on the nose. Awromele was the sweetest Jew Xavier had ever met. If his grandfather had been able to meet Awromele, history would have looked very different indeed.

“How long do you have to stay here?” Awromele asked. He took a good look around. The hospital had put Xavier in a room of his own because of all the journalists, city officials, and representatives of the Committee of Vigilant Parents.

“For a little while, I think,” Xavier said. “The pain is going away, but slowly.”

“I’ve got good news for you,” Awromele said. “I’ve found a publisher. He’s enthusiastic.”

“About what?” Xavier asked.

“What do you think? About our Yiddish translation of Mein Kampf. He thinks the time is ripe for it, but he says we’ll have to aim for the high end of the market. He thinks it’s a book for the highly educated, which means it can be a fairly expensive edition.”

“Highly educated?”

“Don’t ask me how high,” Awromele said, sounding a bit rankled. “The man I talked to, he’s never read the original, but he said he could tell that it was a book for a literate audience. The high end of the market is still a growth market, he said. The time is ripe for a Yiddish translation of Mein Kampf.”

“We’re in luck,” Xavier said. But he didn’t succeed in looking happy.

“I wrote it all down for you,” Awromele said. “I knew it would cheer you up.” He pulled a notepad out of his pocket and began leafing through it. “Here we go. He says the time is ripe. Or did I already say that? That we shouldn’t wait too long. Before long no one will remember who Hitler was.”

Xavier moaned loudly. It gave Awromele the feeling that his friend was being circumcised all over again.

“Don’t mention that name,” Xavier said. “You have to say You-Know-Who. Just like we’re not supposed to say God’s name, let alone write it down, it’s the same thing with You-Know-Who.”

Awromele was immersed in his notepad. He wasn’t really listening to what Xavier said. “The publisher says we’re entering an era void of taboos, and that it would be good to grab one of the final taboos by the scruff of the neck. He wants to lighten up the book a little, with artwork from the period itself. But nothing abstract. Just so you can see what it’s supposed to be saying. He’s thinking about a first run of ten thousand. Great as a handout for doctors, judges, historians, linguists, journalists. Maybe the book clubs will pick it up, too — that’s what he says.” Awromele peered closely at his notepad; he was having trouble reading his own handwriting. “What’s this?” he mumbled. “Christmas hampers. Oh yeah, that was another idea. To include the book in Christmas hampers. What do you think?”

But at that point Xavier wasn’t thinking anything. He was having a pain attack. When it was over, he said, “I’m very pleased, Awromele, but what kind of a man is he?”

“Who?”

“The publisher.”

“The publisher? He has a background in TV. He used to make clips for music programs, things like that, but he wants to do something different. He’s very successful. But I have to go home now — they’re waiting for me for dinner.”

“What about Mr. Schwartz?” Xavier asked.

“He’s in prison,” Awromele said. “What, don’t you read the paper?”

“Couldn’t we do something nice for him?” Xavier asked. When he was a little boy, his mother had always told him: “Forget the nasty things and remember all the nice things. That’s the secret of being cheerful.” The thought of Mr. Schwartz in prison made Xavier nauseous. He grabbed Awromele’s hand. “Don’t go away,” he said. “Stay for just a little while.”

“As soon as you’re back on your feet again, we’ll go visit Mr. Schwartz,” Awromele said. He leaned over and kissed the patient at various spots on his person. Then he hurried home, where he locked himself in his room and sat on his bed for forty-five minutes. Longing cuts you off from others. The more you long for someone else, the more cut off you become. Awromele realized that. If you wanted to free yourself from your isolation, you had to stop longing. But no matter how hard he tried, it didn’t work.

When evening came, Xavier took the jar off the side table and clutched it in his arms. He started talking to the testicle. He said: “You are my rod and my staff, you have to help me.”

When people answer a cry for help, it’s almost always a disappointment. Compared with that, the testicle’s silence was a miracle of hope and optimism.

Xavier decided that his severed body part should have a name. That would really speed up the closure. It’s easier to say goodbye to things with a name than it is to say goodbye to the nameless.

“I’m going to call you King David,” Xavier said to the blue testicle. “King David was the King of the Jews, and someday you will be, too.”

He clutched the jar tightly to his chest, fearing that King David would be taken away from him, and closed his eyes.