The Jewish Messiah

Sperm Dies Fast

IN THAT SAME PARK, a group of four boys were taking a walk after school, to smoke a cigarette and talk about friendship. They did that quite regularly, smoking, walking, and talking. They weren’t very old, fifteen or sixteen at most. A little younger than Awromele and Xavier. They were likable boys who viewed the five minutes to come with the same fear and trembling as they did the remote future, but who carried on nevertheless, the way boys their age do.

The tallest of them, a boy with a wispy mustache and a gray ski jacket, said: “Hey, do you guys hear that?” He had heard someone scream in the distance. Screams like that weren’t heard often in the park. Sometimes a dog’s name was called loudly. A mother running after her child and desperately calling out her pet name for him — they’d heard that often enough. But screams like the one they’d just heard were new. And exciting.

The boys were fond of the out-of-doors; they had carved their names in tree trunks and sometimes in the benches that had been donated by older, wealthier citizens of the town of Basel. Eternity to them was a wooden bench in a park.

The boys paused to light their cigarettes, and heard more screaming. It wasn’t far away now. Still passing the lighter from hand to hand, they looked at each other. They heard it and they shivered, the way you shiver when you see a needle penetrating flesh.

“Let’s take a look,” the tallest boy said. Life was boring enough as it was; when you had a chance to take a look, you shouldn’t miss it. They were fond of looking. At each other, at other boys, and at women whom they tried to imagine without clothes, or at least in a swim suit. All dreams are a prison, but the sexual dream is the smallest prison of all — a badly lit cell that always reeks of human excreta.

It didn’t take them long to find the source of the screaming. It was a disgusting source, they were in agreement on that right away — no need to waste breath about that. They sneaked up closer and looked at what was lying there on the ground. Two boys. One of them was lying on top of the other. They weren’t fighting, although it looked like they’d fought. But the fight was over now. The one on top had beaten the other. The boys looked at it the way you look at an animal you’ve hit on a deserted country road. What were you supposed to do with it? Drag it away, take it along, drive off? Skin it?

They sneaked up even closer. Horror has the drawing power of a rare butterfly.

What they saw then stirred their emotions. They had never seen anything like this, not in the park, and not outside the park, either.

Xavier thought again, Accept, O Lord, this humble sacrifice — even as Awromele’s sperm was dying in his mouth. Sperm dies fast. He no longer heard a thing; he was absorbed in his thoughts, in the heat of Awromele’s body, in the taste of the spittle, the scent of the earth; that was why he hadn’t heard the boys approach. He was immersed in his illusion. A few seconds, then a few seconds more, just one more moment, please, just a moment.

The tallest boy leaned down and tapped Xavier gently on the shoulder. Xavier looked up. All four of them grinned; you could see their teeth, flawless teeth; they had been raised with fluoride tablets, and they all flossed at least once a week. The tallest one nodded to Xavier reassuringly, as though to say: Don’t worry, we only showed up here by accident anyway.

Xavier swallowed the sperm and rose quickly to his feet. He arranged his clothing, looked at the strange boys, and wiped his mouth, an instinctive gesture.

The tall boy who had tapped Xavier on the shoulder said, “Hi.” And he held up his hand, a clumsy, almost poignant gesture.

Awromele saw none of this; he was still lying on the ground, his pants still pulled down awkwardly around his knees. He was stunned. His thoughts were elsewhere — on the promise they had made, Xavier and he. If we start to feel something, we have to stop. That was how it was, that was how it had to be.

“Hi,” the tallest boy said again. He looked reticent, as though he felt uncomfortable about the whole situation. As though he was sorry about having crept through the bushes, but now that he was here anyway, it wouldn’t be polite to just walk away. The other boys said hi as well. They felt the overwhelming excitement of the unknown.

Xavier had swallowed, but he could still taste the sperm in his mouth. He knew what the boys had seen, even better than they did. He would never forget what they had seen. He took a step back.

They looked at him thoughtfully. They stood in front of him the way people stand in front of a painting in a museum: they’d seen the reproductions, but the real thing is so much more impressive.

“We’re not interrupting you, I hope?” the tallest boy asked.

Their faces were shining with joy. They radiated vitality.

Xavier shook his head slowly, and stepped back a few more inches.

Now the boys took a step forward. The hijinks they had witnessed had given them new energy. They were feeling reborn. They wanted to get closer to Xavier.

“We don’t want to interrupt anyone,” the tall boy said. His friends nodded. The tallest one spat on the ground, and one of his friends, who had borrowed his father’s blue raincoat that morning, pulled the belt a little tighter.

“If we’re bothering you, just tell us,” the tallest of them said. And he spat on the ground again.

They were smoking, all four of them. They smoked and they looked. They were well dressed for boys their age. A little too primly, perhaps, but these boys liked to dress well. They were not afraid of work; what they wanted was eternal friendship, a house, a child, and a wife, no more than that, perhaps a car or two. One for shopping, the other for longer distances. Everything they wanted could be achieved, if only one worked hard enough; that was why they dressed so neatly when they went for walks in the park.

“We said hi,” the tallest boy said. “We don’t say hi to just anyone.”

“We don’t say hi to almost anyone,” said the boy in the blue raincoat, inhaling greedily. Never had a cigarette tasted so good to him.

“Hi,” Xavier said. More to himself than to the boys. It dawned on him how wonderful Awromele’s mouth had tasted. Bettina’s mouth had always had something dry and cheesy about it, as though the drought of the subcontinent had stuck in her craw. He noticed how special the sperm of the Jew tasted when one let it melt on one’s tongue. Melting was perhaps the wrong word — sperm didn’t melt. It wasn’t ice cream, more like a little bonbon.

“We want to talk to you guys,” the tallest boy said. He tossed his cigarette on the ground and stepped on it. “At least, if you want to talk to us. Would you like that, to talk to us? Are you two guys a little lonely?”

The other boys tossed their cigarettes on the ground now as well.

On the ground, Awromele was busy pulling up his pants.

Xavier looked at Awromele, at his legs, his hands, his pretty hair, and all he could think about was that one desire: to forget everything. That was the best he could hope for. To lie between Awromele’s legs and forget everything.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” the tallest one said, “being lonely. It happens to the best of us. The important thing is how you deal with it, what you make of it. There are so many ways to be lonely.” He sniffed; the cold air was making his nose run, and he didn’t have a handkerchief.

The other boys chimed in. “We’re all lonely sometimes,” said a smaller boy, whose voice was still changing. And the boy in the blue raincoat said, “Come on, let’s shoot the breeze a little, no obligations.” He made little jabbing moves, like a boxer. His friends pounded him on the back till he choked.

“Would you guys mind going away?” Xavier asked. His voice sounded timid, but he knew what he was asking. His voice at this moment sounded like that of his father, the architect, who preferred to be silent and used his voice primarily for handing out orders. Always remain polite: your subordinate is a person, too.

“That’s not very nice,” the boy in the blue raincoat said, looking around at his friends as though trying to assay the degree of Xavier’s unniceness.

“We don’t appreciate that,” the tallest boy said. “We come here to offer our friendship, and the only thing you can do is ask whether we’ll go away? We’re just as fond of these bushes as you guys are. No, that is really not nice, the way you’re treating us.”

At that same moment, the tallest boy lashed out. He hit Xavier in the eye. Unexpectedly, and not very expertly.

The tall boy was furious. The senseless suffering of others filled him with hatred. To him, the time seemed ripe for meting out blows.

Xavier staggered but didn’t fall. He stood bent over, holding on to a branch. First there had been only amazement, then shock. The pain came only later, the pain skipped along behind.

“We came here to talk to you,” the tallest boy said. “But then you guys have to let us talk. A good conversation is a two-way street.” He rubbed his hand. The punch had hurt him. It was never pleasant to have to punch someone in the eye.

Xavier saw that Awromele was still lying on the ground, trying now to fasten his trousers. The boys approached slowly, like a bride and groom coming down the aisle. Then Xavier did what he should have done before, long before, maybe even at the moment Marc had moved in with him and his mother: he started running. Away from the boys, away from here. Away from everything.

He ran as fast as he had when chasing Awromele, but this time he didn’t shout that it was all a misunderstanding. Xavier ran without a word.

He could still hear how Awromele had screamed, how he’d screamed when Xavier was lying between his legs, high and loud, as though he would never stop screaming. As though, for the rest of his life, this was how we would approach the world: by screaming. Xavier ran, propelled now not by a fantasy, but by the only thing stronger than fantasy: fear.

Two of the boys started after Xavier, but the tallest one said: “Let him go. We still have this one to talk to.”

Awromele had buttoned his pants by now, but he still lay shivering on the ground, waiting for what was on its way. The thing that was usually on its way was sorrow. Indefinable, and for no clear reason. But now something else was on its way, something stronger than sorrow, with clear boundaries, with a precise time limit, something about which you could say: It lasted from four-oh-five to four-oh-nine.

“Why do you scream so weird?” the tallest boy asked.

The four boys were standing around Awromele, and seeing this peculiar figure lying on the ground added to their joy: His gym socks with their mud spots, his torn and spattered shirt, his excessively long hair, his too-pale skin. His youth. Talking to older people is nice as well, but talking to young people is much more pleasant; young people are less set in their ways.

So familiar but so horribly strange — that’s the way Awromele lay there on the ground. But to their questions there was no reply.

Awromele tried to get up. They used their feet to push him back onto the spot where he had lain with Xavier on top of him.

“Are you sick in the head?” the tallest one asked. “Is that what it is? Are you sick in the head, is that why you scream so weird? Don’t be afraid, you can tell us.”

His voice sounded gentle, as though the idea of Awromele’s being sick in the head made him feel melancholy. And that was true. So many people were sick in the head. And people who were sick in the head were pathetic.

A strange excitement took hold of the boys, the excitement of life itself, the excitement that accompanies the crossing into borderlands. What stopped here, and what began? Where would it go wrong, how far could you go before breaking something, which branches would hold your weight, which others would snap and break?

“Spit it out,” the boy with the wobbly voice said. “Are you sick in the head? Do you want us to help you?”

Awromele had no answer to their questions.

“Loneliness is nothing to be ashamed of,” the tallest one said, and spat in Awromele’s face.

Then the other boys began spitting on Awromele as well, in his face but also on the rest of him. They gathered spittle in their mouths and spat without pause, like people with a task to perform.

Then they started laughing. Quietly and shyly, later loudly and with abandon. They felt free; their unbearable lives seemed bearable for the moment, although they couldn’t have told anyone what was so unbearable. Probably that one thought in particular, the one they couldn’t shake: That life could be different. That they were missing the best of it. That they had already missed the best of it.

Between gobs of spit, they asked Awromele questions and whispered to him encouragingly. “We’re your friends. Now that you’ve met us, you’ll never have to be lonely again.”

The tallest boy was particularly adept in his attempts to soothe Awromele. “We will always be one of your warmest memories.” He had soothed so many people, he knew how it went. He was standing close to Awromele’s head.

When they were finished spitting, when spitting had lost its charm the way a new love ultimately loses her charm and becomes as horrifying as the one before, the tallest boy took a few steps back. Then he ran up and kicked Awromele in the ear as hard as he could, as though Awromele’s head were a football.

Awromele was too late to raise his arm and protect the side of his head. Blood came dripping out of his right ear.

“Our friendship is everlasting,” the tallest one said solemnly. “Nothing can detract from that friendship. From now on, we belong together. You enjoy our protection.” It was important to reassure people. They needed that, in whatsoever state they found themselves, come rain or shine. Reassurance.

The tallest boy swung his foot back again and kicked as though taking the definitive penalty shot in an important match. But this time Awromele protected his ear with his hand, so the tall boy’s shoe hit the hand instead of the ear.

A bone in his hand broke. Unnoticed. In passing.

“A good conversation is a two-way street,” the tallest one said. “We communicate with our feet. Do you understand? Can you hear us?” He saw the blood dripping from Awromele’s ear and wondered whether the boy could still hear him. Maybe the ear was clogged with blood. He wasn’t a specialist when it came to ears, so he began speaking slowly and clearly: “Kierkegaard said that the surest way to say nothing was not to be silent but to speak. That’s why we talk with our feet. We’re afraid of saying nothing. What do our mouths have to offer you? Empty promises, the devil’s whispers. Our feet offer you true friendship. Don’t say no to the friendship of our feet.”

The boy whose voice was still changing whispered, “Yeah, Kierkegaard.” As if it were goat cheese from the Bern highlands, available only a few months a year.

The other boys, too, said quietly, “Kierkegaard.” They giggled.

A boy’s bone isn’t hard to break, especially when one is being a bit playful. It starts off as a game and, whoops, there goes the bone. The language of feet is a wonderful, albeit rudimentary, thing.

The other boys could not stand by idly; they kicked Awromele in the ribs, the legs, the stomach, the head, but with less conviction than the tall boy. They did it hurriedly, as though they actually wanted it to be over soon.

Awromele’s body rocked like a ship on the high seas whose captain has lost control of the rudder. But he had stopped screaming. His left hand had swollen like a balloon.

Then the boys stopped. They spat one last time, but the magic was over. Finally, they threw dirt on Awromele’s body, though they didn’t go on with that for long. The ground was too wet — they didn’t want to get dirt under their nails.

“We’ll be going now,” the tallest boy said. He looked for the last time at his new friend, lying still on the ground. “Loneliness is nothing to be ashamed of,” he said quietly. “But from today on, you’ll never be lonely again. Wherever you go, you’ll always think of us, you’ll never forget us. We will be your best friends, even if you never see us again. We will always be with you.” Saying these words made him feel good. He brushed a few strands of wet hair from his forehead.

“Man is a social animal,” the tallest boy said to his friends as he searched for his lighter. “Life is all about communicating. It doesn’t matter what part of your body you use to communicate, as long as there’s communication going on. We need each other, we can’t go off sneaking through the jungle alone.” He breathed deeply, in relief. He had found his lighter, a gift associated with some fond memories.

The boys walked away. When they got back to one of the paths, they all lit their cigarettes. They were filled with wistfulness. A gentle rain was falling.

AWROMELE’S BODY WAS lying beside the mandarin-orange peels. It didn’t move. He had his arms crossed over his face. Blood was dripping from his ear. The ear and the hand hurt. The rest felt numb.

After a minute or two, when he was sure that the boys were gone, he took his arms away from his face.

There were scrapes all over his body. His body looked like one big scrape.

“Xavier,” he shouted hoarsely. But there was no reply.

“Xavier,” he shouted again. Nothing.

Darkness was falling slowly.

“Xavier,” Awromele screamed, as loud as he could, but the screaming hurt his ribs.

“Come out. Where are you?”

Xavier couldn’t come out, for at that moment he was running through the streets of Basel as though he were being chased, as though they were coming after him to blacken his other eye as well.

When he got to his house, he stopped, searched for his keys with shaky hands, opened the door, and ran upstairs, without saying hello to his mother.

Xavier took off all his clothes, avoiding the mirror, and took a hot shower. Only when the water was pouring over him and he stared at his own body did he think about Awromele. How had lain there in the park, under the tree, his pants down around his knees.

“Awromele,” Xavier cried then, “Awromele.” But the sound of the water drowned out his words.

In the kitchen, his mother was breading a schnitzel.