The Jewish Messiah

Customers’ Memory

IT WAS FRONT-PAGE NEWS in the country’s biggest tabloid: “Pedophile Lenin Hangs Himself in Cell.”

The executive board of the Committee of Vigilant Parents bought ten bottles of champagne in order to throw a little party. The executive board felt that death was never a reason to celebrate, but that, in this gruesome exception, Schwartz had brought it upon himself. Xavier’s mother, the honorary member, did not show up. A member of the board called her and urged her to come — he said the mother was “indispensable” on an evening like this — but she wasn’t feeling well. “I’m sorry,” the mother said, “I’d be pleased to join you some other time.”

Awromele and his father were deeply affected by the death of Mr. Schwartz. Awromele’s father said, “There was no way I could have helped; no matter what I did, it would only have made things worse.” He said that to his wife, then to a few of his children, and finally he said it only to himself.

Awromele sat on his bed, under the blankets, and thought. He thought about Xavier’s circumcision, and knew that it had not been a particularly good idea to let Mr. Schwartz carry out that procedure. Somewhere along the line he had made a mistake. Overlooked something important.

He waited for the sorrow to come, but it didn’t, so he addressed himself instead to Mr. Schwartz, even though he could no longer hear him. Empathy that arrives too late is better than no empathy at all. “Dear Mr. Schwartz,” he said. Then he said something unintelligible, the unintelligible words turned to humming, and then the sorrow came anyway. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered to the wall beside his bed. The wall was yellowed and badly in need of paint. “I’m so sorry.” He kept repeating those words until he felt that all the regret had flowed out of him.

We don’t speak for other people, only for ourselves. We speak to ourselves without pause. The idea that anyone else hears us is an illusion, the way color is an illusion to a blind man and Mozart an illusion to the deaf. The world is filled with endless monologues, Awromele realized. Then he had a practical thought: if any more circumcising was to go on, he would wield the knife himself. He had no experience, but his hands didn’t shake, or hardly at all, and that was something in itself.

Awromele had smoked hash on occasion. He’d never really liked it much, and a boy from the synagogue had warned him: “Never become friends with your dealer. Before you know it, your dealer’s in prison, and then you’ve got a problem. Then you have to visit him, and bring him fruit and matzos at Pesach.”

Never become friends with your dealer. That had been an important lesson in life for him, maybe the most important lesson of all. The rest was elaboration and frill.

MR. SCHWARTZ WAS hurriedly interred in a windy, deserted corner of the Jewish cemetery. The corner for dubious corpses. There weren’t many people there, only a few pesky reporters who had decided that even Mr. Schwartz’s burial was news, Awromele’s father and Awromele himself, that was all. Mr. Schwartz had had no friends or family. He had had customers — many customers, in fact — but customers have a short memory. Awromele realized that, there in that windy corner of the cemetery. He felt it not only as theory but as an incontrovertible truth.

While Awromele was saying the prayer for the dead, quickly and embarrassedly, he realized that he had hastened Mr. Schwartz’s demise, and that that was putting it mildly. Awromele was the kind of Jew who ran through the rituals too hastily because he did not believe in their power to heal, but who also dreaded the horrifying emptiness of a life without them. He thought about Xavier’s legs, which he had held tightly while Mr. Schwartz performed the procedure with shaky hands. Mr. Schwartz had had to fetch a magnifying glass in order to see what he was doing. Missing Xavier caused him more pain than Mr. Schwartz’s death. The thought of that put him to shame. As soon as the funeral was over, he combated that shame by crawling back under the covers.

WHEN XAVIER’S LETTER arrived at last, Awromele dragged it to his bed the way a predator drags a carcass to its lair. He ate four of his mother’s homemade cookies before opening the letter under the blankets. Reading the letter made him happy. It was a feeling he’d never had before, at least not in this way. He had been content before, but really happy, no. Later, he would call it one of the most wonderful moments in his life. The Jews were not particularly sold on the devil, but angels existed — lots of them, in fact — and Awromele had heard that the devil was nothing but a fallen angel. He had heard that the devil wore beautiful garments that didn’t smell of cholent or perenkugel, that he was more charming than the best Jewish marriage candidate you could imagine. Awromele had dreamed that the devil would bring him to life, because he wasn’t really living yet — translating jokes with clits in them into Yiddish was amusing, but it wasn’t living. And after that he would tame the devil, the way his mother had finally tamed the rabbi.

When Awromele read in the letter that Xavier’s mother had tried to poison her son as a baby, it didn’t disturb him. To have escaped death at such an early age was a sign of strength. He was used to people’s being floored by adversity. It had floored them all — his father’s autism, the war, his brothers and sisters, who were, in his eyes, often little more than walking adversities, his religion (safe enough to say, his origins) — it was all adversity. His whole life, Awromele had been looking for a sign of strength. He longed to have normal parents, like Xavier’s.

Awromele tidied himself and his bed, drank two cups of tea without sugar at a nearby coffeehouse, and, purely out of nervousness, ate a bar of chocolate. Then he read Xavier’s letter three more times. He felt like writing back right away, he felt like writing: “I’ll be there, Xavier, I’ll be there. From now on, on the Mittlere Rheinbrücke, any hour of the day, even on Yom Kippur.”

He felt like calling Xavier to shout that same message through the phone, but he remembered his friend’s admonition and realized that he should keep a low profile. It wasn’t a good idea to seem too eager. It would be better for him to hide his eagerness.

He waited for Thursday the way other Jews wait for the Messiah. Never before had waiting made him so happy. To make the waiting even more pleasant, he bought himself a white shirt and a pair of gym socks. He still looked like an Orthodox Jew, but when it came to his socks he was already pretty well assimilated.

He also placed a call to the publisher who had expressed interest in the Yiddish translation of Mein Kampf. Awromele thought it would be a good idea to give his meeting with Xavier at least a semblance of something businesslike. And he would urge Xavier to resume his Yiddish lessons, he resolved. Xavier hadn’t learned the future and past tenses yet, and it would be a waste to stop so soon.

This time, it was Awromele, not Xavier, who arrived early at the bridge. He had washed his hair; he was wearing his gym socks and his new shirt. He paced in circles on the bridge like a leopard in a zoo.

One hour before they were to meet, Xavier had launched into a new painting of the mother with testicle in hand. He now had three mothers with testicle, but it seemed wise to him to create an entire series. The creative energy that coursed through his veins knew no moderation, and he considered that to be his strength. Once he’d decided to have himself circumcised, he’d had himself circumcised; once he came up with the plan to paint a whole series of mothers with testicle, he painted a series, and having come up with the brilliant idea of comforting the Jews, there would now be a whole lot of comforting going on.

The time did not seem ripe, however, for a series of mothers mutilating themselves in the kitchen. For all his immoderacy, he was a practical being.

The mother was sitting perfectly still in her chair. “Use me for your art,” she had told her son.

Xavier was looking forward to his rendezvous with Awromele, but he had other things on his mind as well. His newly discovered talent for painting; the mother, who got up in the middle of the night to do strange things in the kitchen; the rat poison she had once mixed with his milk. Strangely enough, though, that only made him love her more. Even though he couldn’t help wondering, each night at dinner, whether she might have sprinkled poison on the rice, or whether the croutons floating in the soup might not actually be chunks of rat poison. That made life more exciting, more intense.

The idea that each night could be his last, even if it was only an illusion, gave his life something he had missed in his parents’ house: Vitality. Tragedy. Redemption from the desperate sense that this was nothing but a pointless game.

But the mother had no intention of sprinkling poison: that period of her life was behind her now. She had found happiness in the arms of the bread knife. Her son had no way of knowing that — her son didn’t want to know that, not really. In that respect he was like so many others: it was all right to see something, all right to catch a glimpse of the abhorrent, the unspeakable, but not to let it get through to you, no, that would not help.

“I’m going out in a minute,” Xavier said. “We’ll finish this painting another time, okay, Mama?”

He had asked her to look at the jar while she was posing, and she had done so. She had kept looking at it, too, even while he was trying to talk to her. He took King David out of her hand and put him back in his usual place. She hardly seemed to notice.

“Mama, are you listening?” he asked, just to be sure. “I’m going out in a minute; we’ll finish it some other time.”

He put the easel in the hall, so no one would bump into it. Then he went back to the living room, where the mother was still sitting in her chair. She was staring at King David. What a measly testicle my son had, she was thinking, what a joke, that testicle. That the Committee of Vigilant Parents could have made such a fuss about that.

She thought about saying this to the boy. It would only help to toughen him up. But she decided it was too much bother. Besides, what good would it do?

The boy put away his brushes and paint.

“What’s it like to love someone?” the mother asked, still staring at King David. Her hands were folded in her lap. She liked posing; it may have been her real calling, even though her son’s paintings didn’t seem to her to amount to much. But perhaps Xavier, unlike King David, would grow to a kind of fullness. You could never tell. You could always hope for a miracle.

“What it’s like?” Xavier asked. He looked at the dried paint under his fingernails. He had to clean them before meeting Awromele. “I don’t know,” he said. “You should know better than I do. You’ve been married, you have a boyfriend. What Bettina and I had was never really serious, dear Mama.”

Ever since she had told him about the attempted poisoning, he had started addressing her as “dear Mama.” A mother who was prepared to poison her son had to love her son a great deal. Murder, as far as Xavier could see, was the logical extension of love. In fact, without murder, how could you really be sure that love had ever existed?

“Yes,” she said, “you’re right. I should know that. Where are you going?”

“I’m meeting some people from school.”

In the bathroom, he quickly cleaned his nails, washed his face, brushed his teeth, and decided: Even if Awromele isn’t waiting at the bridge, that’s okay, too. You can comfort people, but you can’t force them to be comforted.

AWROMELE WAS WAITING. He was pacing back and forth, and when he saw Xavier approaching in the distance, he ignored his own counsel, his concealed eagerness spurted out on all sides, and he ran towards Xavier, as though the comforter of the Jews were a train that might pull out of the station any moment.

The boys kissed each other on the nose and cheeks. Then Awromele said, “Look, gym socks.” He pulled up his pant legs a little to show Xavier the socks.

“Nice,” Xavier said. “Nice socks.”

Then Awromele unbuttoned his jacket and said, “New shirt.”

“Also nice, very nice. You’re looking good.” But even as Xavier said that, all he could think of was: How many strange men’s weenies has Awromele had in his mouth since I last saw him? How many were there? Twenty, thirty? Fifty, maybe?

Awromele remembered what he had resolved to do, and said: “I talked to the publisher. He’s getting more enthusiastic all the time. The spirit of the age is changing, apparently. Have you heard about that? I haven’t, but, then, I don’t read the paper.”

“I don’t, either, not much; I only flip through it sometimes,” Xavier said, casually taking Awromele’s soft hand in his. The obsessive thoughts had him in their grasp.

“How’s it coming along, anyway?” Awromele asked, pointing at Xavier’s crotch.

“Much better, thank you. I can barely feel it anymore. I’m so happy we had that done. I’m a new man. And better than before. I feel like a complete Jew now, with all the trimmings. But I was wondering. Maybe it’s kind of a weird question, but in the last few weeks have you by any chance had the weenies of strange men in your mouth?”

“Strange men? What do you mean?” Awromele stole a quick glance at his socks. He thought they were sexy.

They stood there on the bridge. Sometimes they took a few steps to the left, then a few seconds later a few steps to the right. They circled each other like dogs that don’t know where to begin.

“Men in general. Boys. That’s what I mean.”

“In my mouth? No, of course not! What makes you think that?”

“Well, you put mine in your mouth, so I thought maybe you did that more often.”

“No. I only did it to you out of curiosity. You weren’t circumcised yet, and I’d never seen smegma; I’d never tasted it, either. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t want just to see things, I want to taste them, too. My brothers are more abstract, but I’m the practical one. I want to touch things, and once I’ve touched them I often want to taste them, too. Do you really like my socks?” Awromele pulled up his pant legs again, so Xavier could see his socks.

“Yeah, they’re great. But do you, for instance, want to touch me?”

Awromele let his pant legs fall back into place. “Yeah, in principle, yeah. I’m very inquisitive.” He pressed his lips to Xavier’s for a moment, but caught himself and said: “We need to talk about those Yiddish lessons. You don’t learn a language by taking a couple of lessons and then stopping for a few weeks. Continuity, that’s extremely important. If we’re going to translate Mein Kampf together, we’re going to have to meet a few times a week — in the park, for example — and then we’ll have to buckle down and teach you some Yiddish.”

“You’re right,” Xavier said. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do. But first we’re going to go for a walk.” He took Awromele’s hand. “You have thin wrists.”

“It runs in the family. My mother’s wrists are also very thin.”

“What kind of woman is your mother, anyway? I don’t have a very good picture of her.”

“What kind of woman is she? What do you think? She gave birth to thirteen children — she’s tired. That’s the kind of woman she is.”

They crossed the bridge in the direction of town. There they caught a tram. In one of the outlying districts, they hopped off and walked through a park that was unusually quiet, because the weather was so drizzly.

“I missed you,” Xavier said. “I really missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” Awromele said. He took Xavier’s head in his hands, and as he did so, he broke. That was how it felt: he tore loose the way wallpaper tears loose, he peeled off like paint. As though he had been broken in two by Xavier’s words, by the head he was holding, the indescribable scent of a person that he would recognize in any case because he had held Xavier’s legs for so long while Mr. Schwartz performed his operation. As though his weakness refused to be concealed any longer, as though he could no longer hide the pain he’d hidden from the eyes of the world so successfully all this time, as though he’d sprung a leak, as though now, finally, for the first time, he coincided with the pain he didn’t feel, the way a deaf person sees lips moving but doesn’t hear the sound, as though he had forgotten that it even existed, that anything like pain even existed at all. Behind his endless joking, his lightheartedness, his energy (at least to the outside world; when the outside world wasn’t looking, he climbed into bed with his clothes on and ate chocolate), behind all his stories and plans, there turned out to be something, something horrible, a sickness, a hole better left unopened. In a flash he caught a glimpse of who he was, a glimpse of himself from head to toe, naked, no more stories, no plans, no jokes, and what he had seen was a missing person. Missing in action, that was him, he saw someone who was no longer there, who had actually never been there at all, and who never would be there. It was this that made him feel nauseous, that made him deathly ill, in fact; he screamed like an animal at the slaughter. In the quiet park he screamed, holding Xavier’s head in his hands for just a moment, then pushing it away. His screaming was high and loud; it cut through everything, then it died out. “Go away,” Awromele shouted. “Go away, don’t come to me with your feelings. We have a business agreement: I give you Yiddish lessons, then we’re going to translate Mein Kampf, and in return I was allowed to taste your smegma. And that’s it, do you hear me, that’s it!”

Then Awromele took off running.