The Jewish Messiah

I Decide What’s Anti-Semitic

THE WHEELBARROW was parked beside Awromele now, and Xavier was panting. It was brighter now, despite the low cloud cover. Morning had broken, people were going to work, taking children to school, but Awromele still wasn’t in the wheelbarrow.

Xavier called to him, but nothing was getting through. “We have to get out of here,” Xavier said, with no real hope of a reply. He pulled on Awromele’s legs, no longer afraid to hear the popping of bones, the scraping of chafed skin against dirt. He lifted the feet first, then one leg, then the other, and so he was able to work Awromele’s lower body into the wheelbarrow. But his torso and head were still lying on the ground.

I need help, Xavier thought, but no one’s going to help me the way I look now. I’m half naked, I’ve got a black eye, I have cuts on my hands — they’ll think I’m crazy. They’ll laugh at me and lock me up, that’s what they do to crazy people.

He tipped the wheelbarrow onto its side and tucked Awromele up into a ball as well as he could, as though the injured boy were a pile of clothes that had to be forced into an undersized suitcase. Xavier did his best not to bump against Awromele’s swollen hand. He used his hands and knees to push the rolled-up body into the wheelbarrow, and when he had done that he tried to push it upright. “Help me, King David,” he cried.

Xavier was able to raise the wheelbarrow with Awromele in it off the ground a little, but not to push it upright. He worked harder than he had ever worked before. Sometimes, in his frustration, he kicked at the wheelbarrow, but each time he apologized afterwards and said to the rolled-up body, “I’m sorry, that was my fault.” He found a big broken branch and tried to use it as a lever. He tore his hands open even more.

After a few minutes, he stopped and planted little kisses on Awromele’s forehead — the head the boys had kicked in order to express their admiration for Kierkegaard, in order to share with a stranger their esteem for that thinker. Even after a night in the park, Awromele’s head still smelled nice.

Xavier cursed, leaned against the wheelbarrow, and pushed, but it didn’t help. He went to the other side and pulled. For a moment, it looked as though Awromele was going to roll out onto the ground, but finally he was able to pull the wheelbarrow upright. Despite the cold, sweat was running down Xavier’s back. His jogging pants and his stomach were muddy. His hands were covered with smaller and larger cuts, his face was streaked with dirt. He struggled to tear his dirty T-shirt into strips, then wrapped them carefully around both hands. “Now we’re going to the doctor,” he said. “We’re going to get you some help.” He caressed the hair of the boy who was tucked up in the wheelbarrow like the remains of cannon fodder that had to be brought to a final resting place. Xavier loved those remains, he longed for them. “Dearest,” he said.

Xavier heard the sound of hoofbeats. Not far from the park was a riding school. He seized the handles of the wheelbarrow and turned in his thoughts to King David. The wheelbarrow was so heavy now that Xavier had to put it down and rest every three steps. Slowly, he succeeded in leaving behind the sacred place, the bare spot beneath the pine tree. The spot where he had taken Awromele’s penis in his mouth, where he had been given a black eye, where he had listened to his friend’s bloodcurdling screams, and where he had come to the conclusion that without Awromele his life would end.

AWROMELE’S MOTHER FIXED breakfast for her remaining twelve children, and said quietly to her husband, “It’s our fault, Asher; we should have taken better care of him.”

“What do you mean?” the rabbi said. “Take better care of him? Who should have taken better care of him? Me? I don’t have time. How can we hope to protect ourselves against the anti-Semite? The anti-Semite is strong, and we are weak. The anti-Semite is big, we are little; the anti-Semite is everywhere, we are nowhere. What were we supposed to do? We can’t lock up our children, we can’t turn their bedrooms into prisons, can we?” He had spent a sleepless night and was even grouchier than usual, early in the morning.

“Dirty Jews,” his wife said, sprinkling cornflakes in the children’s bowls.

“What did you say?”

“Dirty Jews.”

“Who?”

“All of you,” the rabbi’s wife said.

“What do you mean? What are you trying to say?”

“What have these dirty Jews from the Committee of Vigilant Jews done for us? They sat here, drank our coffee, drank our vodka, emptied the cookie jar, and now they’re laughing at us behind our backs. Especially at you, because you’re autistic. And have they found my Awromele? Have they found even one hair of his head? Even one little shoelace? Maybe they didn’t even go looking for him. I wouldn’t put it past them, those dirty Jews.”

“Why do you keep saying ‘dirty Jews’?” The rabbi was wearing a wrinkled white shirt; his coat was still hanging over a chair in the living room.

“Because they’re dirty Jews, Asher. Dirty Jews they are, and dirty Jews they’ll remain.”

“Don’t talk like that. That’s the language of the anti-Semite.”

His wife put the box of cornflakes down on the counter, picked up a pack of low-fat milk, and upended it into the bowls, so that it splashed all over. “I’ll say ‘dirty Jews’ whenever I feel like it. I’m not going to let you tell me what to do anymore. What I’m allowed to say, what I’m not allowed to say. What kind of shopping I’m supposed to do, and when I’m supposed to do it. Cursed be the day I met you, cursed be the day the Almighty created the world, cursed be the dirty Jews, cursed be me for being a dirty Jewess, cursed and cursed again.”

And then the rabbi’s wife picked up a dishcloth, smacked it on the counter a few times, and cried out: “I want my Awromele back. Oh God, I want my Awromele back, give me back my Awromele!”

She put the bowls of cornflakes on a tray and took it to the living room, where most of her children were already waiting at the table. Some of them were still in their pajamas, others were already dressed. “Eat,” she shouted, “eat. And don’t let everything fall on the floor the way you always do.” She went back to the kitchen, where the rabbi was still standing speechless. His wife had never called him a dirty Jew before. “You,” she said, “you. Go do something. Go look for Awromele. Get out of the house. Cheating on your wife with her sister, you’re man enough for that, and if my sister had been prettier than me I could have forgiven you, but she wasn’t, she was ugly as sin. And she had a bad personality, too, no personality at all, she was as fickle as the wind, she was always like that. God rest her soul, but I don’t know what you saw in her; I don’t know, and I don’t want to know, either. And now you’re getting out of the house, now you’re finally going to go do something, go look for your firstborn, because I want my Awromele back.”

She pushed him out of the kitchen, grabbed his overcoat, threw it over his shoulders, and pulled him towards the door.

There he put up a little resistance, but it was more for show. He said, “Shouldn’t we wait to see what the Committee of Vigilant Jews has to report?”

“Stop it!” she shouted. “Enough already with those dirty Jews. Go find your child.”

Then she pushed her husband out the door and bolted it.

The rabbi stood on the pavement. His wife went back to the living room, where the children were spooning loudly at their cornflakes.

Rochele said: “Mama, mama. Now I know. The Messiah is a pelican.”

The rabbi’s wife couldn’t take it anymore; years of grief came rushing out. She hit Rochele over the head with the box of cornflakes, so hard that the box tore and the cornflakes rained down on Rochele’s head. “Stop it,” she shouted. “A pelican. Knock it off. I don’t want to hear any more about it. Dirty Jews. A pelican! Shut your mouth and eat.”

“Don’t call us dirty Jews, Mama,” said Jehoedele, one of Awromele’s brothers, stirring his cornflakes listlessly. “We’re not dirty Jews. That’s anti-Semitic.”

“Mama,” said the girl with the braces — Danica was her name. “Jehoedele’s right. You shouldn’t call us that. That’s really nasty.” Danica wasn’t pretty, but she was intelligent. That was why she didn’t go to Hebrew school: she was allowed to go to the Gymnasium.

“But you’re all a bunch of dirty Jews anyway!” the mother shouted. “Just like your father. And I’m the one who decides what’s anti-Semitic around here. You don’t have any say in the matter, so shut up and eat. I don’t want to hear another sound — it’s too much for me this morning.”

Then she went into the kitchen and sank down in a chair. She closed her eyes and began to pray.

The rabbi wandered the streets of Basel. He didn’t feel too great; he’d been wearing the same clothes for the last twenty-four hours. And he didn’t get a lot of searching done. Every once in a while he looked in a doorway, but he didn’t see Awromele anywhere.

XAVIER HAD ROLLED the wheelbarrow onto a path. They were still in the park, but at least it was a path. He checked Awromele’s pulse and thought he detected a little movement there. That gave him hope. “Here we go,” he said.

More people were out now, not only dogs with their masters but also joggers wearing headphones. A couple of commuters were cutting through the park. They looked strangely at Xavier but didn’t stop cutting through the park, not even when he waved his arms.

“They’re afraid of us,” Xavier said, leaning over the wheelbarrow. “But soon we’ll get to the doctor, and then we’ll take a shower. I know it’s not very comfortable for you, dearest, but I can’t carry you.” He took three steps and had to put the wheelbarrow down again.

A young woman in a pink jogging suit came running up. Xavier shouted, “Can you help us for a minute?”

The young woman in the pink jogging suit started running even faster. Ever since she was a girl, she’d been hearing stories about rapists who pretended to be people in trouble.

Xavier looked into the wheelbarrow as though it were a baby carriage and said, “We’re almost at the doctor’s, Awromele, hang in there.” The jacket of his jogging suit, which he had first draped across Awromele like a blanket, he now rolled up and tucked behind Awromele’s head.

The strollers were moving past quickly. The day was becoming brighter, and the more the people saw, the faster they walked.

A woman in her fifties with a spaniel was the only one who seemed intrigued by the sight of a half-naked boy pushing a wheelbarrow. She didn’t pick up the pace, she didn’t turn and hurry away — she stopped to look. Then she slowly walked up to Xavier.

“She’s coming towards us,” Xavier said to Awromele. “She’s coming towards us. She’s going to help us.” He had put the wheelbarrow back down; he had to stop and rest every two steps now. He pulled the strips of T-shirt around his hands a little tighter, so the cuts wouldn’t show.

“Ma’am,” Xavier shouted when she was only ten yards away, “I need your help.” He took Awromele’s hand, the one that wasn’t broken, and squeezed it gently. “I’m giving you strength,” he said quietly. “Do you feel it? I’m giving you strength. The worst is behind us now.” He hardly believed it himself.

The woman was rummaging through her purse for change. She sang in a church choir, and she liked giving away money.

“Come a little closer,” Awromele shouted. “We won’t hurt you.”

More and more psychiatric patients had to live out on the street these days. The spaniel’s mistress took that as a personal affront: her own sister was a psychiatric patient. Fortunately, though, she didn’t live out on the street.

At last she found a couple of coins, which she held clutched in her right hand.

“You can come closer, ma’am,” Xavier called out.

These were psychiatric patients, she was sure of it. The face of the half-naked boy somehow seemed familiar. Maybe she had seen him in the park before. She came here often with her dog, Armin, and before that with her husband, who had spent half his life in a wheelchair. The ones people called bums were actually psychiatric patients. She talked about that often with the other members of the choir.

“Come on, Armin, don’t dawdle.”

She dragged the dog along behind her.

The boy’s face really did look familiar. He looked awful, almost naked; he had a black eye, and his hands were bleeding. It was terrible to see what happened when the mental-health people didn’t arrange for shelter. Her sister ended up in an isolation cell sometimes, but even that was better than how these boys had to walk around in the park. She had told the director of the psychiatric hospital: “I’d rather have my sister put in isolation than have you people let her go. Once she starts wandering around town, she’ll go downhill fast.” She never said so, but she actually felt relieved when her sister was put into isolation, because at least then she didn’t have to visit her. It took forty-five minutes to get from her house to the hospital by public transport. He looked young, this boy. And that child in the wheelbarrow, maybe that was his little brother. That’s what you got when you started making cuts in the welfare system: children living in wheelbarrows. She voted a socialist ticket herself.

She took a few steps towards the boys, the coins held tightly in her right hand. They could use them to buy themselves a nice hot cup of tea.

“Don’t be afraid,” Xavier said. “Don’t be afraid, ma’am. Please. We won’t hurt you.”

And then she saw it, at last she saw it: she knew this boy. But not from the park; she knew him from someplace completely different. She was relieved that she’d finally remembered.

“Armin,” she shouted, “stop it. Be good.”

She dragged the dog along another foot or two.

“I know you,” she said. “Or am I mistaking you for someone else? You were in the paper, weren’t you?”

“That’s possible,” Xavier said. “I don’t remember.”

“You’re the one who was molested, aren’t you?”

“The Jew was beaten up,” Xavier said. “By four boys. Just like that. For no reason. He needs to see a doctor.”

“That’s right, I know you,” Armin’s mistress said in a tone that allowed no contradiction. “I saw you on television, too. You were the one who was attacked by that man, weren’t you, that strange man?”

Now she understood completely. This poor child had been molested, and then he had become confused. That happened so often, much more so than people realized. That’s what she told the other people in her choir all the time: once molested, always molested. No wonder they were so confused — when you were abused like that, it turned you into a psychiatric patient. Her sister hadn’t been molested, and she’d still become a psychiatric patient. But that was something genetic. The doctors had explained it to her. She should count her lucky stars that she hadn’t turned out like her sister.

“What was his name again?” she asked. “That man who molested you? He had such a famous name.”

“The papers blew it all up,” Xavier said. “It wasn’t that bad. I need to get him to a doctor — he’s been lying in the park all night. He was beaten up.”

She glanced at the wheelbarrow. “His name is right on the tip of my tongue,” she said. “The name of that man who molested you. Wait a minute, don’t tell me, I’ve almost got it. It was Lenin, wasn’t it, isn’t that what they called him? Pedophile Lenin, that was it, wasn’t it? I’ve got a memory like a steel trap; that’s important, it keeps you from going senile. People who remember a lot, who have to remember a lot of things for their profession, take longer to become senile. That’s why I do crossword puzzles all the time. Not because I like them so much — they bore me to death — but they help against senility. If you don’t do anything and then you get it, you have only yourself to blame. You have those people who sit in front of the TV all day and never bother to remember anything — well, no wonder one day they can’t even remember their own names.”

She peered at the wheelbarrow. Poor little things, that’s what they were, poor little things.

“Ma’am,” Xavier said, “I would really appreciate it if you would…”

She looked at Xavier. He looked different from how he’d looked on television: he wasn’t as tall as he’d seemed.

“On television you looked a lot taller,” she said. “But I guess people say that all the time, don’t they?”

She wasn’t sure whether she should give her money to the boy. She put the coins back in her purse. Maybe it would be better to buy him a sweater, or a nice warm coat. There were special department stores where you could buy perfectly good clothing for very little.

She had nothing to do that day — her husband was already dead, Armin had a heart condition and slept almost all day — there was no reason why she couldn’t buy the boy a warm sweater, or two sweaters; then his little brother would have one, too.

“Yes,” she said, “I read all about you. I even saw you on TV. You were molested by Pedophile Lenin. It’s so nice to meet you in real life. I think you put up a brave fight. I don’t know whether I would have been as courageous as you. I’ve never been molested, but if it happened I don’t know what I’d do. Maybe I’d scream, maybe I’d scream real loud, but maybe I wouldn’t. You never know. It’s so easy to lean back in your chair and say: If I were molested, I’d do this or that. When I read about you in the paper, I often wondered: What would I do if an old man like that started fiddling with me? And, to be perfectly honest, I just don’t know.”

“Ma’am…” Xavier said.

“Müller,” she said, “I’m Mrs. Müller. Oh, I can tell, you’re all confused. And who is that? Is that your little brother?” She bent over the wheelbarrow and saw the ear that was full of clotted blood.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, how awful.”

Then she brought her face up close to Xavier’s, as though to make absolutely sure that this really was the victim of Pedophile Lenin.

“We were attacked,” Xavier said, “by four boys; we need help.”

“Yes,” she said, “I can see that. What can I do for you?”

She rummaged through her purse, but found nothing useful.

“You know what? I’ll go and buy two warm sweaters for you boys. I know what you’ve been through. My sister is in a psychiatric hospital, and she should count her lucky stars. At least I’m happy she’s there. There isn’t enough room for most psychiatric patients, not with all the spending cuts. What did you say your brother’s name was?”

“Awromele,” Xavier said. He didn’t feel like explaining what Awromele really was to him.

“Awromele — a strange name, but pretty. I’m Gesine. That’s not a strange name, but it’s not a pretty name, either. I’ve thought about changing it — to ‘Sophie,’ for example, or ‘Marlene,’ like Marlene Dietrich, but then I met someone who was actually called Marlene and I thought: No, ‘Marlene’ isn’t right for me, so I stuck to ‘Gesine.’”

Without waiting for the boys, she and Armin started walking. “There’s a department store near here — I know we’ll find a warm sweater there.”

Xavier slowly rolled the wheelbarrow along behind her. He couldn’t go any faster; his hands hurt, he had no strength left in his arms. To Awromele he said: “We’ve found a nice lady who’s going to help us. She’s going to buy us a nice warm sweater.”

AS THEY WALKED along the shopping street, Xavier and his wheelbarrow received quite a few more looks than they had in the park. Fortunately, it wasn’t too busy yet. People didn’t start spending their hard-earned money until later in the day. In the early-morning hours they restrained themselves. Xavier was glad about that: he didn’t like being stared at.

Gesine and Armin kept walking faster. She was pleased about having met the boys, the tall one had looked at her so gratefully. Like a dog — they could look so grateful, too. Every once in a while, she stopped to wait for Xavier and his wheelbarrow. She thought about how she would tell the other choir members what had happened to her. This was better than their stories about vacations. Now they would have to listen to her, they would have no excuse to shut her up.

The door of the department store was being watched by a uniformed guard. She felt flustered, and decided it would be better for the boys to wait outside. You couldn’t take a wheelbarrow on the escalator.

“I’m going to pick out two nice sweaters for both of you,” she told Xavier. “I know what young people these days like. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

Xavier parked the wheelbarrow against a blind wall in a dead-end alley beside the department store and waited there for Mrs. Müller. After a couple of minutes, the uniformed guard came and stood at the top of the alley. He stared at Xavier. Using his walkie-talkie, he informed his superiors that a couple of suspicious individuals were hanging around the service entrance.

Meanwhile, Gesine Müller and her dog were searching the men’s department for a turtleneck, but the prices were shocking. Then she went to the children’s section. There she was accosted by a salesgirl. Salespeople got on her nerves, so she snarled, “Don’t bother, I’ll wait for the end-of-the-year sale.” She poked around a table full of remainders, but there were no affordable sweaters there, only T-shirts. That would be of no use to the two boys outside. That was more of a summertime thing.