The Jewish Messiah

Venice of the North

THREE DAYS AFTER he was brought in, Awromele was taken off the drip. He had told no one exactly what had happened in the park. They had urged him to press charges of assault, but he had refused.

The Michalowitz family was relieved to find that their eldest son had emerged from the ordeal relatively unscathed. He had only 70 percent of his hearing left, true enough, but there was so much screaming in the Michalowitz household that that wouldn’t be much of a problem.

The rabbi decided to do penance, and for three whole days he did not go to any massage parlor whatsoever. He also resolved, for two whole weeks, until the full moon arrived and with it a new month on the Jewish calendar, not to think about transsexuals.

The Committee of Vigilant Jews decided to patrol more often, under the rabbi’s leadership. The members of the committee were advised to take a baseball bat with them when patrolling in the evening; if they did not have one of those at home, an old tennis racket would suffice.

Although Bettina was still a member of the committee, she decided not to join the patrols. She wanted to start leading a healthier life. And until her hair grew back, she didn’t want to stay out so late anymore.

Xavier was sent home the same day he’d been brought into the hospital. The goodwill he had accumulated as a victim of Pedophile Lenin he had squandered by biting the attractive nurse on the arm.

The rumor of Xavier’s actions had spread throughout the hospital. “You see it happening all around you,” a neurologist said in the cafeteria as he wolfed down a bowl of granola. “The victims start resembling the culprits. You see it with the Jews, you see it with the pedophiles — lots of pedophiles were once abused themselves. And now look at that boy; he’s barely recovered from being molested, and he attacks a nurse. If I went back to college now, I wouldn’t study medicine. The more you help people, the more they hate you.”

His colleagues nodded in agreement.

WHEN HE GOT HOME, Xavier was received in silence by his mother, who later served him his dinner in silence as well. Even when Marc said, “Say something to your son, none of this is very easy for him; you can tell that by looking at him,” all the mother said was “So why don’t you talk to him, if you’re so fond of him?”

After dinner, Xavier said he was tired and wanted to go to bed, but while his mother was doing the dishes he secretly called Awromele at the hospital. The rabbi’s wife was still at his bedside — she paid no attention to visiting hours — but Xavier and Awromele were still able to exchange a few words.

“Maybe you should try painting your mother again,” Marc said after Xavier had hung up. “She doesn’t show it much, but she really enjoys being painted.”

Xavier was actually too tired, but he set up his easel anyway. When the mother sat down at the table, as she always did, to drink a cup of tea, he said: “Here, hold the jar with my testicle in it. Then I’ll make a nice painting of you.”

The mother let him force King David on her, and said, “No more than thirty minutes, I need to go to bed.”

While Marc watched in admiration, Xavier painted with broad, restless strokes. Maybe it was Marc’s admiration, or maybe it was the serene manner in which the mother sat there with the testicle in her hand, but Xavier felt the artist in himself even stronger than before.

“Were you off with your Zionists again?” the mother asked after twenty minutes had gone by.

“I was in the hospital, Mama. You remember, don’t you?”

She nodded, as though to make clear that she was not about to be fooled. She seemed to be deep in thought.

“Are you going to paint me with the knife now?” she asked.

Xavier was startled, but didn’t show it. “What knife?”

“You know very well what knife,” the mother said.

He went into the kitchen, found the bread knife, and handed it to the mother. She put the jar with the testicle on the table and held the knife up proudly.

Xavier began painting.

“This is my lover,” she said to Marc. “Look at my lover.” But Marc pretended not to be listening. He said to Xavier: “Don’t you think it would be a good idea to go to the art academy? Autodidacts always have a little catching up to do. Maybe Paris would be a good place for you. Or Amsterdam. I’ve heard good things about the academy in Amsterdam, from a colleague of mine. The avant-garde of the future is gathering there. There the artist is his own work of art. The Venice of the North is what they call it. I wish I could go with you. But I could take you there anyway, in the Alfa.”

Xavier painted on and thought about Awromele, how he had been lying beside the mandarin-orange peels in the park.

The silence that followed lasted a few minutes, until the mother said: “The Venice of the South has been overrun by the Japanese. I was there with my late husband — not an Italian in sight. Asians everywhere.”

She looked at her son. “Don’t forget to paint my lover,” she said. “You promised.” And she held the knife up even more proudly. “He’s very faithful, and brimming with love.”

She uses that to cut my bread, too, Xavier thought. But he painted on. Even though he felt exhausted and feverish, it didn’t matter to him. An artist has no need for sleep.

When the painting was finished, he showed it to the mother. Her only remark was “Reasonable,” but Marc said he had outdone himself again.

In bed that evening, Xavier decided: I’m going to the Venice of the North, and I’m taking Awromele with me. We’ll be alone there. And once we’re alone, the comforting can begin.

ONE WEEK LATER, after Awromele was healing well enough to satisfy the family doctor—“The bruises will go away by themselves,” he said, the ear was the only thing that still worried him a bit — and after the rabbi had forgotten his oath not to think about transsexuals until the moon was full, Xavier told Awromele of his plan to go to the Venice of the North and enter the art academy there.

“Will you go with me?” Xavier asked.

“But what about translating Mein Kampf into Yiddish?”

“We can translate Mein Kampf in the Venice of the North as well. We don’t have to stay in Basel to do that.”

A tram rattled past; they were sitting on the patio of the wine bar that Xavier had avoided at first, because of the gossip it might cause at school. Since he had achieved fame as the victim of Pedophile Lenin, though, he no longer lived in fear of gossip. He had become unassailable — there was already so much gossip circulating about him.

Xavier was holding the forbidden book in his lap.

“Listen to this,” he said. “This is really fascinating.”

“You have to sit on my right side,” Awromele said. “That’s my bad ear.”

Xavier got up and moved to Awromele’s right side. They’d never talked about what had happened in the park. Xavier had always meant to bring it up, but didn’t know what to say.

“Listen,” he said. “How about this: ‘The part played by Jewry in prostitution, and even more in the trade in young girls, can be seen more clearly in Vienna than in any other Western European city, with the exception perhaps of the ports of southern France.’”

“It’s a fascinating book,” Awromele said. “It’s got pace, it’s got momentum, it’s full of humor, and I think the writer has a story to tell. We’ve struck gold.”

“I think so, too,” Xavier said. “So why don’t we go on translating in Amsterdam? It’s an international city, and they say it’s the place to be for the pure avant-garde.”

“But what about your school?”

“Oh,” Xavier said. “My school? From now on, you’re my school. I’ve learned more from you in a few months that in five years of Gymnasium. At first I thought I’d comfort you people with a novel. But now I think I can comfort you even better with a translation and paintings.”

Awromele thought about it. He’d never really understood what Xavier meant with this “comforting” stuff. He still didn’t.

They kissed. Xavier laid his hand on the back of Awromele’s neck and whispered: “Do you know that I still don’t feel a thing? Nothing at all? I couldn’t if I wanted to. I’m keeping my promise.”

“Me, neither,” Awromele said. “That’s what binds us. That’s our covenant.”

A few people from Xavier’s school came and sat on the patio. They stared at him, but he ignored them.

Awromele sipped at his tea. You could still see what a beating he’d taken in the park, but Xavier had grown so accustomed to the bruises and scrapes that he no longer noticed them.

“I’ve never been to the Venice of the North,” Awromele said.

“Neither have I,” Xavier said. “But that doesn’t matter. Apparently, the art academy there stimulates the artist’s inner development.”

“I’ll have to talk to my parents about it.”

“And what if they say no?”

Awromele shrugged. “Then I’ll go anyway,” he said. “What about you, have you told your mother yet?”

“I’ll do that the night before I leave,” Xavier said. “Otherwise she’ll worry too much.”

“Okay,” Awromele said. Good thing that they’d had Xavier circumcised already: that would be one less thing to do in the Venice of the North. Awromele didn’t know any circumcisers there; in fact, he didn’t know anyone there at all. He thought about Mr. Schwartz, and felt sad.

Xavier said, “You’re my dearest, my very dearest.”

Awromele smiled and looked at Xavier as though he were a gift from God. “You know,” he said, laying his hand on Xavier’s thigh, “did you know that the surest way to say nothing is to speak?” He began caressing Xavier’s leg.

“What do you mean?” Xavier asked.

“I heard that somewhere,” Awromele said. “I don’t remember where it was, but when you want to say something you should do it with your feet, or with your hands.”

Awromele pressed his lips to Xavier’s and kissed him. This would never have happened if they hadn’t circumcised him. That alone was enough to justify the circumcision, and Mr. Schwartz’s suffering. Awromele kissed him with all the strength he had in him. It made a noise, but because Awromele was partially deaf he couldn’t hear it. He kissed the way you can kiss only when you’re not sure about the other person, when you don’t have him yet, when you feel that you might lose the other person any moment.

Two girls who had come out onto the patio were looking at them. They had once been in the same class as Xavier. That their former classmate did it with men was one thing, but that he did it with a man who was also a devout Jew was more than they could fathom.

“I don’t get it,” one of them said, not very quietly.

“My father says that our morals are decaying,” her girlfriend said.

They turned around and looked at the boys. Nothing was more wonderful than looking at filth. It made you feel so clean.

Xavier wrapped the book in a plastic bag and handed it to Awromele. “Take it with you,” he said. “Then you can work on it a bit. At your house, no one will notice a book like that.”

AFTER AWROMELE TOLD them at the dinner table that night that he had lost his heart to Xavier and planned to go traveling with him, the rabbi couldn’t eat another bite. His son’s announcement made him feel like vomiting; his wife’s eyes filled with tears, and red blotches appeared on her hands; and Awromele’s brothers and sisters all began shouting at the same time and throwing food at each other. Danica was the only one who didn’t shout. She didn’t throw food at anyone, either. She sat quietly with Snoopy in her lap and ran her tongue across the inside of her braces.

The rabbi pounded on the table, as he often did, but this time he pounded so hard that his whole family fell silent. Even the baby in the other room stopped crying. “Listen,” the rabbi said, “Hitler tried to destroy us, but if you go to Amsterdam with this boy you’ll be doing the same thing, you’ll destroy your family. There will be nothing left of us.”

Awromele tried to say something, but the rabbi pounded on the table again. “Listen,” he said, “let me finish. Everyone loses his heart sometimes; God gave us a heart so that we could lose it. And everyone loses his heart sometimes to a man — that can happen. And what can happen does happen, but when it happens, God help us, on a given day, when you can’t do anything about it, then you keep it a secret. You resolve it discreetly, and you don’t go trotting off to Amsterdam with that man and leave your parents to be the laughing stock of the entire Jewish community in Basel. And if the Jewish community in Basel knows about it, then within two days they’ll know about it in Zürich as well, and then there’s no life for us here. Then I can start all over somewhere else. Be discreet, Awromele, be discreet. Isn’t that what I’ve always tried to teach you? Look for pleasure, but look for it discreetly. Because only discreet pleasure remains; only discreet pleasure has the right to exist.”

“That’s enough of that!” the rabbi’s wife shouted. “I don’t have to listen to this. I don’t want my children listening to this. This is slander, Asher. This is scandalous, what you’re preaching here. How can you say things like that? Awromele, don’t listen to your father. Your father is a cheating fraud and he always has been — listen to me. This boy is no good for you. This boy will drag you down into misery, this boy attracts misfortune, this boy lets himself be circumcised at an age when respectable men are already circumcised, this boy saw to it that Mr. Schwartz ended up in prison. What am I saying? This boy saw to it that Mr. Schwartz is no longer alive. This boy is not one of us; my feelings don’t deceive me; this boy is bad. If you absolutely have to run away with a boy, then I can’t stop you, but find a nice, decent boy who you can adopt children with, because I know you, Awromele, you’re my son, one day you’ll want to have children, and maybe later you’ll change your mind, maybe later you’ll suddenly want a woman. That happens sometimes. But if you change your mind, don’t wait too long. Do it while you still have all your teeth. If you go to Amsterdam with that boy, you won’t be able to do that anymore, you’ll never be able to change your mind, because I’m telling you: you’ll never be able to escape this boy. He’ll never let you go. He’s after your money.”

“But I don’t have any money,” Awromele said without raising his voice, “and I’m going with him, Mama. I want to be with him. He’s going to the Venice of the North, and I have to go along. Where he goes, I’ll go; where he dies, I’ll die.”

“Awromele,” the rabbi shouted, “it’s because the anti-Semite got hold of you — you’re all confused.”

“I’m not confused,” Awromele said. “There’s nothing else I can do. I’m actually thinking more clearly than ever.”

“That’s because you don’t have any experience in life,” the rabbi’s wife said. “Later, you’ll be sorry.”

“I will not allow you to go,” the rabbi said. “As long as I live in this house, as long as I am a rabbi in Basel, as long as I am your father, you will not see that boy again. I’m going to lock you up.”

Awromele stood up from the table. “I don’t feel anything,” he said, “but I’m going now, I’m leaving tonight, and I won’t let you stop me. Because I don’t feel anything, I’ll never feel anything again. I won’t let you lock me up. Lock yourselves up if you want. That’s the only way you two know how to avoid trouble. Lock yourselves up, bolt all the doors, shut the windows — and look what it’s brought you, look at what you’ve become. Despicable, that’s the only word for it. You two talk all day, all you do is talk, you don’t produce anything — okay, children who do the same thing you do — you don’t produce anything, only words, misleading words. Words that come from your mouths are dead words. The language of the future is the language of the shoe, of the knee, of the hand, of the whip. That is communication, honest communication.”

“You’re not going!” the rabbi shouted. “You’re not leaving this house, or you’re no son of mine. We’ll sit shiva for you. And if you stay, the two of us will go out on the town, the way we used to.”

“Stop it!” the rabbi’s wife shouted. “Don’t say things like that; you going there is bad enough already. How can you drag your children along to a den of thieves like that?”

“But, sweetheart,” the rabbi said, “sweetheart, darling, my dearest wife, I do it for you, I go there out of respect for you, respect and love. When I’m there, I’m close to you; I’m never that close to you anywhere else. I need the masseuse in order to love you more. To come closer to you, I need a mediator, the way the Christians need a mediator to come closer to God. The Christians have never understood that, but Jesus is the masseur of God.”

“Stop it!” the rabbi’s wife cried. “I don’t want to hear this. This is blasphemy, this is an insult to God. How can you call yourself a rabbi?”

“That’s what I mean,” Awromele said. “Talking, raping the language, turning it inside out, turning it around, then inside out again. It’s parasitism. That’s why they call you parasites, because you don’t speak the language of human beings. The language of human beings is the language of the shoe — that’s plain speaking. That’s clear talk; people can do something with that. That’s why they tried to exterminate you, because you’ve raped the language. Every word is something to be haggled over, every word can mean something else; you people are even prepared to haggle over your own death.”

Awromele ran to his room, gathered together his favorite trousers, his favorite shirt, his gym socks, the notebook with the Yiddish translation of Mein Kampf, and the book itself. Then he stuffed it all into a plastic bag. It’s starting, he thought. He didn’t know what was starting, all he knew was that it was starting, that something incredible was on its way. The rabbi’s wife knocked on his door. When she didn’t hear anything, she opened it and said: “Awromele, if you’re going to go, don’t go like this. Wait a little bit, until you’ve calmed down.”

“I have to,” he said. “Papa wants to lock me up. If I stay here, I’ll become like him. Something important is going to happen, and I have to be there. I’m part of the future; you two are only part of the past. A horrific past, a stinking past.”

“Awromele,” the rabbi’s wife said, “stop babbling; you’ve got me all worried. Future, past — what are you talking about? Everything repeats itself, everything has already happened and is going to happen again. If the past stinks, the future will stink even worse. Keep your head down — that’s the best thing you can do. Keep your head down, and don’t make too much noise. Stay here; you’re my firstborn son.”

“No, Mama,” Awromele said, “I have to go. The surest way to say nothing is to speak. I have to go, in order to say something.”

He headed for the front door. He didn’t want to wait for the elevator, so he took the stairs.

In the kitchen the rabbi’s wife was stuffing cookies into a plastic bag. She shouted: “Rochele, hurry up, Rochele, come here. Run after your brother and give him this. And tell him not to talk nonsense: he can always come back, we’ll be waiting for him, I’ll be waiting for him.”

Rochele grabbed the bag and ran down the stairs. She didn’t catch up with Awromele until they were out on the street. She threw her arms around his waist.

“Here,” she said, “here. This is from Mama. She said I should give it to you. Please come back, Awromele, please. No one knows what to do without you. Papa doesn’t mean anything bad by it, you know that. He’s just autistic, that’s what Mama says: he can’t help it. People who are autistic can’t do anything about anything.”

Awromele took the bag of cookies. He lifted his little sister on his arm.

“Don’t go away, Awromele,” she whispered in his ear. “Don’t go away. The pelican is coming. The pelican will help us.”

He smiled a little and put her back down. He ran his hand over her hair.

“Language is in your feet, Rochele,” Awromele said. “Language is in your shoes. Anything that comes out of your mouth is useless. The language of the future is in the knuckles of both hands.” He showed her his knuckles, and for a moment Rochele laid her fingers on her brother’s knuckles. “Awromele,” she whispered.

Then he walked on, the bag of cookies in one hand, in the other the plastic bag with his most valued possessions.

“Awromele,” Rochele cried, “Awromele, come back, we need you.”

But Awromele kept walking, because the language that came from people’s mouths was dead.

Rochele knelt down on the pavement. She looked at the sky, at the trees, the clouds, the windows hung with curtains, and the windows hung with nothing at all.

“Pelican,” she said softly, “look at me. I know you can see me. Look at me.”