The Jewish Messiah

In sh’ Allah

EVEN THOUGH THE MOON wasn’t full, the Egyptian sneaked out of his house in the middle of the night. He took his dogs into the garden, scratched them behind the ears, and in one corner crouched down beside them, on all fours, and cried with them at the moon that wasn’t full.

He did that for at least ten minutes. All that time, he was thinking. He weighed the advantages against the disadvantages, until all advantages and disadvantages had disappeared, and then he made up his mind.

But he himself had the feeling that he had done nothing, that the decision had been made for him. Life had rolled over him like a wave; he had allowed himself to float along. Now he was in the process of washing ashore — he didn’t know where. Soon he would feel dry land beneath his feet again. He went back into the house: he was wearing his gray slippers, so as not to wake his wife. He took his cell phone down to the basement, where there were a few bottles of wine, a washing machine, and some furniture they no longer used, and dialed the number the bald man had given him. It took a while for someone to answer.

“It’s me,” the Egyptian said, “from the kebab place.”

There was no reaction.

“From Jerusalem Kebabs,” the Egyptian said. “Nino. You two were there yesterday.”

“Where?” asked a woman’s voice he didn’t recognize.

“At my place,” the Egyptian said, “yesterday. I want to talk to her; she said I should call this number if I wanted to talk to her, twenty-four hours a day. The woman who was at my place — the blonde one. I want to talk to her.”

He had been given this number to call if he had something to tell, if he heard anything important. That was the job of the informant, that was his job now. But he didn’t have anything to tell, he just wanted to see her. He thought he was going crazy. He had been lying awake half the night beside his wife, but he didn’t see her, all he saw was the Zionist with the blond hair who actually liked women. Wherever he looked he saw her, he heard her voice. He saw himself sitting on a chair at the back of his restaurant, felt her hands running over his stomach again. He mumbled into his pillow, “I am an informant.” And he was being driven crazy by the thought of dying without seeing her again.

“Later today, the same time, the same place,” the woman’s voice said, and she hung up.

The Egyptian went back to the dogs in the garden. He lay down beside them in the cold grass and looked at the sky. There were no stars to be seen. They licked his hands and his face, nibbled gently on his fingers. I have to see her, the Egyptian thought. I smell of desert and dog, I’m different from the other informants. When I see her again, I’ll explain everything.

MARC AWOKE T o the sound of loud talking in the room next to his. He went to see what was going on, and found Awromele and Xavier in a fervent embrace. “What’s going on?” he asked. “What are you two doing?”

“We’re leaving,” Awromele said, without letting go of Xavier.

“We’re going to the Venice of the North,” Xavier said. “We’ll take the train, we’ll be there in eight hours. We’re not going to wait any longer. Waiting any longer would be a waste of time. Now is the moment.” He looked around triumphantly, almost ecstatically.

Marc thought about it. He sat down beside them on the bed. He was wondering; he could always take a day off, or even two, but he wasn’t sure the mother would be very happy about that. He could just call in sick. He was never sick otherwise, they wouldn’t make any fuss about that. And the mother would understand, too. When you were the mother of an artist, you had to think big. He had to think big, too, because he was the mother’s boyfriend.

“You know what, I’ll take you to Amsterdam,” he said. “In the Alfa — that’s a lot more fun. That way we’ll be there in a few hours, and we can get a bite to eat together. I was there a long time ago with some friends. There’s a great club there, it’s called The Milky Way.”

Then he hugged both boys, as though they had been the best of friends for years. As though they’d slept in the same bed for years. Xavier, in fact, was the one he wanted to touch. Awromele was simply part of the package. It was nice to hug them. He wouldn’t mind hugging Xavier fervently more often, but the opportunity never presented itself. Sometimes he put his hand on the back of Xavier’s neck, but usually Xavier didn’t seem to appreciate that.

Marc went to his bedroom and quickly stuffed a few things into his weekend bag. Feeling cheerful, he hummed a song he’d heard on the radio a few days ago; he could only remember part of the lyrics. Yes, he had done well to stay with the mother. He had discovered his sexual identity, but he was taking it nice and easy, all in good time, no sense in rushing things.

In the room beside Marc’s, Xavier asked, “What are you taking with you, anyway?”

“A plastic bag, the one that’s downstairs,” Awromele said.

“Is that all?”

“That seemed handier to me, to take as little as possible — it seemed practical.”

“How long are we going to stay?” Xavier asked. As though he hadn’t come up with the plan, as though he weren’t the one who wanted to attend the art academy in the Venice of the North.

Awromele shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe forever. I have no idea.”

Xavier decided then and there that he would take only his paintings, or at least the paintings that were dry, and a few pairs of trousers. What else was there to take when you went away forever? When you went away forever, you had to leave a lot behind — that was how it worked.

He rolled up the paintings, folded some trousers and two T-shirts, and put them carefully in a sports bag. It all went so quickly that he had no time to say farewell to anything — his knickknacks, his bed, his mother, his easel — and that was for the best. Leaving without saying goodbye was the most pleasant way to go. Leaving as though running out of a burning house, that’s how you had to do it; otherwise it would never happen at all.

The mother was still in the kitchen. She had pulled up her pajama pants, But she was unable to move.

“I’m leaving,” Xavier told her. “I’m going to the Venice of the North; I’m going to dedicate myself seriously to my painting. It’s now or never. I can finish school some other time. Art won’t wait.”

“Oh,” the mother said. “Art.”

He laid his hand on hers. She was still holding on to the counter.

“We’ll see each other soon,” Xavier said. “I’ll call when I get there. Marc is taking us. You’re the sweetest mother I know. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I know.” Her son patted her hand, but she barely felt it; her thoughts were elsewhere, although she had no idea where.

Xavier did not find it difficult to say goodbye to the mother, yet he still felt a lump in his throat at the sight of her standing there, so fragile. She had been his model. He had painted her. That was the one thing she could do, the one thing she really liked to do, pose for him.

Now that the one who had painted her was leaving, it seemed as if her life had become drained of purpose, as if all she could do was stand in the kitchen, her hands on the counter, her gaze fixed on a lover who had always been silent and always would be.

“Well,” Xavier said, and he hugged his mother. She let him do it. She even put her arms mechanically around her son. “I’ll let you know what the admissions board thinks of the paintings I made of you,” Xavier said. “I’ll tell you all about it.”

And with those words, he left the mother behind in the kitchen.

He’d noticed that something was flowing down the inside of her pajama pants, but it was better to ignore that. You couldn’t keep confronting people with their peculiarities.

In the living room, his eyes rested on King David. He was still on the table, a remnant of the past, the remains of a still life. Xavier picked him up and held him in his hand for a moment. “King David,” he said to the testicle, “blessed King David. Of course, you’re going with me. Where I go, you go. And vice versa.”

He didn’t put him in the sports bag — that would be too risky; the jar might break. He would carry him like this, in his hand, the way you carry a little pet.

“I’m going to give the boys a lift,” Marc told the mother in the kitchen. “I’ll be back in a day or so.” He pecked her on the cheek. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

She didn’t reply. She was standing at the sink; she could feel that her left leg was wet, but she felt no pain. All she noticed was a slight dizziness. She wondered what day it was, whether she had any appointments, and if so, with whom.

“You don’t mind, do you?” Marc persisted.

“No, of course not,” she said. “Go on. Be careful.”

It was early in the morning — still night, really. The mother didn’t know whether to go back to bed or to stay in the kitchen like this. Maybe she could make some tea. But she didn’t have the strength for it.

Marc hesitated. His girlfriend was being awfully quiet, he thought, standing there so still. “You’re all right, aren’t you?” he asked. “Does it upset you, having Xavier go away like this? He’ll be back. Children always have to leave the nest. It’s good for them. The sooner the better. I stayed at home for too long myself, but, then, it was awfully easy there. And pleasant — that, too.”

She nodded, staring at the knife. It was so beautiful — of all the objects in this world, the knife was the most beautiful.

“Yes,” she said, “that’s fine.”

Then she looked at Marc. He hadn’t washed his face yet; there was still sleep in his eyes. “Did you know that I wanted to poison him?” she asked.

“Oh,” Marc said, and poured himself a glass of water. His hand bumped against the knife, lying lonely in the dish rack. But he didn’t notice. He was thinking about the drive with the boys. “Who?” he asked.

“My son,” the mother said. “When he was still a baby. I had actually bought the poison and mixed it in with his milk. It doesn’t take long for it to dissolve in warm milk, rat poison. The pellets are big, though — you have to stir well.”

“I have to get going,” Marc said. “While it’s still quiet on the road. We’ll talk about it some other time.” He gave his girlfriend a soothing little kiss — she was a brave woman. Then he walked away. In the doorway, he turned and waved. And although the mother didn’t really have enough strength to do so, she waved back.

Marc closed the door and walked briskly to his car. He was looking forward to this. They could stop along the way someplace, at a romantic restaurant.

HER DAY’S WORK was over. In the cellar where she lived, Lucy’s owner chained her to a heating pipe, so she wouldn’t run away and do crazy things.

The owner looked at her for a moment as she settled down in her sleeping bag. “You’re lucky,” he said tenderly. “Other people have to sit in the car for hours to get to work. But where you are is where your work is; you take your work with you everywhere, no matter where you go. You’re a privileged person.”

He sighed deeply a few times and left Lucy alone. It wasn’t easy, always having to find new people from exotic countries to massage the working population. They worked long hours, true enough, but they were better off than in their own countries, and they never had to sit in traffic.

AWROMELE AND XAVIER were in the back of the Alfa. It was cozy in Marc’s car. Marc was sorry that Xavier wasn’t sitting next to him, but in Amsterdam there would be time enough for farewells. Never give up hope, he told himself. Looking on the bright side of life was half the battle.

They drove down the street. “Here we go,” he said, and looked at the boys in the mirror. They were holding each other tight.

THE MOTHER WAS standing in the kitchen. The blood had started clotting; her pajama pants were sticking to the wound. Later, on she would have to pull it loose. That felt unpleasant. She put it off for a little while.

She noticed that the house was quiet, and because there was no one at home anymore, she lay down on the cold kitchen floor. That was nice, to lie down for a bit. She had to recover from the act of love. She closed her eyes.

Across town, the rabbi’s wife awoke. She tiptoed immediately to her eldest son’s room; the bed had not been slept in. Although she knew it was no use, she looked under the blanket and then, just to be sure, under the bed. “Awromele,” she whispered. “Awromele, are you there?” As though he might be hiding in the closet.

Then she went back to her bedroom and shook the rabbi. “You ran him out of the house,” she said, “you chased him away, you’ve ruined us.” She pounded her fists on his chest, but all he did was mumble: “Leave me alone. What do want from me? Stop blaming me for everything. I’m not God.”

IT WAS STILL EARLY when the Egyptian drove to his kebab restaurant, to prepare himself for the meeting with the woman who thought he smelled of desert and dogs. He could hardly wait. His own wife was still asleep; he had left a little note for her in the living room. He had fed the dogs.

He tapped his hands on the wheel of his old Mercedes, to the rhythm of Um Kalsum. Something was reminding him that he was alive. Amid everything that was dead — and almost everything was dead — there it was all of a sudden, life. Overwhelming, almost incomprehensible, but pleasant, terribly pleasant.

He opened the restaurant, sat down in his regular spot at the back with a few Egyptian papers he hadn’t read yet and several ledgers that he kept up for the sake of appearances. Despite everything, they pleased him, the ledgers — the appearance of order seemed like quite a feat to him at his age. He didn’t know what he was looking forward to, but he was looking forward, there was no doubt about that.

The city was slowly waking up. The Egyptian made coffee, and thought about opening early, since he was here anyway. He liked seeing the customers come in, the schoolchildren, the tourists doing Europe on a budget that left little room for a healthy diet, the office clerks in a hurry. Because he was hungry, he looked in the fridge and found a plate of falafel balls he had made the night before. He was thinking about the woman who had seduced him for her country only a short time before, and who’d had to admit that he was different from the others she’d caressed on her country’s behalf.

Since he was waiting for her anyway, for the woman who had given him something he had never received before, he decided there was no reason not to fry up a few falafel balls. No better breakfast than falafel. He used to eat them for breakfast all the time, back when he had just started the kebab place.

He picked up the can of oil and poured a big puddle of it into the fryer. He had enough oil — he always kept up his stocks. He turned on the radio. The music was something he vaguely recognized, something Spanish, and he tried to whistle along with it. He thought about the parties he’d gone to in France when he worked there, parties where the music was too loud and there was too much smoke. Yes, he had been a partygoer once. Long ago.

He watched the oil heat up slowly. It took so long for oil to heat up. He liked to watch it. He rubbed his cheek; last night, before going to bed, he had shaved carefully, and even used the nail scissors to trim the hairs in his nostrils.

The Spanish song began to irritate him. He turned off the radio and picked up a tape — the piano concerto by Beethoven, always a good choice. He turned on the tape player and sat down in a chair beside the fryer, a plate of raw falafel balls in his hand. He tried to summon up a picture of the woman who had come to visit him yesterday. He didn’t have anything to tell her, nothing new, nothing she didn’t already know; he was the informant without a story. At first she would be disappointed, but she would understand. She wouldn’t mind. His story was his body. That’s what she would say to him, too, as she held him in her arms. Your body is your story, your smell is the information you’ve collected for us.

IN BASEL IT was now ten o’clock in the morning. The mother lay in her kitchen and dreamed about her son as a baby, about how he had sat on her lap, how she had breastfed him, her wedding party, the knife. The dreams were brief and vivid. Occasionally she awoke with a start and realized that she was lying on the floor of her kitchen, but that didn’t bother her. Nothing was worth getting bothered about. She didn’t get up. It was good this way, the way it should always be.

THE OIL IN the fryer was slowly growing hot, gradually reaching the point where the frying could start. The Egyptian dropped in the falafel balls one by one. He was almost happy. It was wonderful to watch them turn brown. The piano concerto soothed him; he had nothing to worry about; it hadn’t been a mirage; he knew what she had said to him, and she would know what he smelled like. She would be drawn to his smell. She could pick him out of the crowd, she could locate him blindly.

IN THE CLASSROOM, the tall boy and his friends were bent over a math exam. They were concentrating; for the moment, their thoughts were not on Kierkegaard or the girl with braces whom they’d recently taken under their wing. But halfway through the assignment, the tall boy’s thoughts began wandering anyway. Next time I see her, I have to tell her that, he thought, the girl with the braces. It’s not Snoopy who understands us. I have to tell her that: Girlie, it’s not Snoopy who understands us.

THERE WAS A KNOCK on the door. Maybe she’s early, the Egyptian thought. Yes, she was early. She couldn’t wait to see him, either, the informant unlike other informants. She had raced to him, on a moped perhaps, or one of those Italian scooters, the kind you saw in commercials. He couldn’t remember what the commercials were for, only that the people in them raced around on scooters and found each other.

He walked away from the deep-fryer.

As soon as he opened the door, two men in almost identical gray suits knocked him to the floor. A third man locked the door behind him. He was wearing a gray suit, too.

There were three of them, the Egyptian had time to think, feeling his ribs. The men were hurting him.

“My, doesn’t it smell nice in here,” said the man who had locked the door, while the other two remained seated on top of the Egyptian. The man inhaled deeply. He strolled around the restaurant, from back to front, front to back. Then he walked from back to front again, and at last he said: “Yes, that’s wonderful. You don’t smell anything like that very often.”

He took a chair and put it down next to the Egyptian, who was lying on his back with the two men on top of him. He had a beard, the man who thought it smelled so wonderful, the man who radiated calm and confidence.

“He who betrays his brothers,” the man said, “is less than a worm. A worm is sacred compared with the traitor.” He spoke slowly, not without a certain flair, not without humor, either; he seemed to grasp the irony of his own words.

The Egyptian couldn’t speak; he was having trouble breathing; he feared for his heart. He saw his dogs before him, the dogs that ran after him, the dogs that cried with him at the moon. The bald man had been right: his dogs and nothing else. Only his dogs remained. Nothing more to his life than two dogs.

The man with the beard got up from the chair and bent down until his face was close to the Egyptian’s. The Egyptian could smell him: he smelled of soap, soap from a bottle, hotel soap probably. He had washed himself well before going to the kebab place to carry out his assignment. Those accursed assignments. The Egyptian knew about them, had heard about them. He had seen them from close up, the tasks people assigned themselves.

The man pulled out a pistol and stuffed it in the Egyptian’s mouth, while the other two remained seated on his stomach.

At first the Egyptian had tried not to open his mouth, but the man with the pistol had pinched his nose shut, and then he had to. When he opened his mouth to breathe, the man had quickly stuffed the pistol into it. Then the man wiped it on his trousers, the hand that had pinched the nose.

The barrel was cold in the Egyptian’s mouth, and big, bigger than he’d ever imagined. The Egyptian tried to swallow, but couldn’t. His gums hurt, his tongue; he tasted the barrel in his mouth, the bitter tang of metal. So he was still able to taste — at least that was something.

He’d never had the barrel of a pistol in his mouth before. He thought: They’re trying to scare me, that’s it, just scare me, I have to stay cool. Just stay very calm, as though this happens every day. That’s what I need to keep telling myself: all they’re trying to do is scare me.

Still, he had the feeling he couldn’t breathe anymore. No matter what he told himself, the choking remained. He made a noise that sounded like gargling. And again he saw his dogs. Why did he keep seeing his dogs all the time?

Then he thought about his heart. He was afraid his heart would stop beating.

“You know,” said the man who had stuck the pistol in the Egyptian’s mouth, “what we do to collaborators. What we have to do to them. Because they’re collaborators.”

The Egyptian had to pee; he couldn’t hold it in anymore.

The man laid his hand on the Egyptian’s head. It was a big hand, a heavy hand. The Egyptian felt the pressure on his head. “War is a terrible thing, little brother,” the man said. “But for traitors there is only one punishment. A traitor, after all, is not a man. A traitor doesn’t deserve a grave. And you’re a traitor. As long as there is a war going on, there’s no time to hear witnesses, to hear you, to explain our side of it, to wait for a decision. No time, you understand? We have to intervene before you become dangerous, little brother.”

The Egyptian tried to say something, but the only thing that came out was more gargling. The hand was still resting on his head.

The man pulled the pistol out of his mouth.

The Egyptian panted for breath. There was spit everywhere, it ran down his lips; his tongue hurt, his gums, his throat, the corners of his mouth. He tried to swallow. The only thing he tasted was metal. He smelled the odor of burning falafel balls. He drooled.

The man with the beard held his weapon loosely in his hand, like a big key he wanted to stick in the lock again, because the door wouldn’t open.

“Don’t do it,” the Egyptian whispered. “Please, don’t do it. I didn’t tell them anything.” Then he couldn’t help himself, he peed in his pants. The urine seeped through his underpants and then through his trousers. The floor became wet.

Only at that point did the two men on top of him notice the Egyptian’s urine.

They dragged the Egyptian to his feet, sat him down in a chair, and hit him in the face a few times. Not hard, more by way of a warning.

“Enough,” the man with the pistol said. He moved his chair over, right in front of the Egyptian’s.

“Little brother,” the man with the pistol said, “oh, little brother.” He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the Egyptian’s lips. His movements bespoke a kind of tenderness.

“Oh, little brother of mine,” the man said, “was it worth all this? How much did they give you? Was it a lot? Was it enough? Enough for you to be treated like this, enough for what we have to do to you now because you’ve betrayed us, because you didn’t think about us when you should have been thinking about us? I’m afraid not. This place looks shabby. They gave you too little. Much too little. How long has it been going on? You know, I don’t even want to hear about it; the details disgust me. I don’t want to know. Don’t say a thing. Because nothing is worse than betrayal. When you open your mouth, the betrayal starts.”

Then the man took a deep breath and said: “My, doesn’t it smell wonderful in here? Almost enough to make you hungry.”

But the only smell was that of burned falafel balls in the deep fryer. That stench was more powerful than the odor of piss that layered around the Egyptian.

“Please,” the Egyptian whispered, “please. I didn’t say anything. I wouldn’t know what to say, because I don’t know anything, I don’t know anything because no one takes me seriously. I didn’t get anything, and I didn’t say anything. I just want to live a little longer, that’s all. Just live a little longer.”

The man with the pistol put a piece of chewing gum in his mouth. The other two held the Egyptian in his chair, even though that wasn’t necessary. No one had to restrain him. He restrained himself. He always had, and now more than ever.

The man stuffed his pistol in the Egyptian’s mouth again. A tooth broke off. Nino’s teeth weren’t in such good shape anymore; he needed to go to the dentist, but he kept putting it off. He dreaded it, he was afraid of it.

The Egyptian screamed, insofar as he could scream with the barrel of a pistol in his mouth. He spat out his tooth onto the floor. The man with the beard glanced at it, then kicked it away. “Shut up!” he shouted. “Shut up, or I’ll blow your brains out.”

The Egyptian stopped screaming. He saw himself again, lying in the wet grass with his dogs. It hadn’t been mowed for a long time; he had no time for it, and his wife said it was too hard for her, mowing grass. He could almost feel the dogs’ tongues; their tongues were rough and hungry. He should have stayed at home — no, not at home, they would have found him there, too — he should have left Basel, gone into hiding, disappeared, the way others had disappeared. A different name, a different country, a different language.

“He who betrays his brothers once,” said the man with his finger on the trigger, “betrays his brothers again and again; his life is nothing but betrayal. He has betrayed himself. The betrayal makes everything that happened before that time betrayal, too. He starts with it, and he doesn’t stop. It’s greater than all the other things he’s done. That’s why he is nothing more than that: a traitor. Little brother, I’m sorry. That’s what you are, and that’s what I’ve come here to tell you.”

The Egyptian reached out and grabbed the arm of the man facing him. The gray suit of the man with the beard, 100 percent wool, that’s what he grabbed. “No,” the Egyptian mumbled, “no, please.”

Red drool was running from his mouth, making him look pitiable.

XAVIER, AWROMELE, AND MARC were already close to Karlsruhe. Awromele was sleeping with his head on Xavier’s shoulder; he was exhausted. Marc glanced at them occasionally in the mirror. They were pretty, both of them, yes, very pretty. Extraordinarily attractive.

THE MAN WHO was chewing gum shook his head slowly, without taking the pistol out of the Egyptian’s mouth. He was struck once more by how stupid people looked when you pushed a pistol into their mouth. Stupid and hideous. Like dolls. Life-sized dolls with batteries that were slowly running down.

“This isn’t my decision,” he said; the chewing gum was gradually losing its flavor and becoming an unpleasant ball of rubber. “Other people made this decision, but I can’t contact them. And even if I could contact them, they wouldn’t change their minds. That’s how things go, little brother — you made a decision, too. And you didn’t go back on it, either. Betrayal is a decision like all the rest.”

He looked around.

“I didn’t tell them anything,” the Egyptian mumbled. The barrel of the pistol made it almost impossible for him to talk. “I don’t know anything. I donated money because I support you people. Your struggle is my struggle.” His hand was still on the sleeve of the man with the pistol, but now the man brushed his hand away, the way you brush off an animal, a spider that has fallen out of a tree onto your suit. You don’t want to kill the spider, just get rid of it.

The man took the chewing gum out of his mouth and stuck it under his chair. His other hand tensed. The Egyptian felt the pistol being pushed farther into his mouth. His throat hurt; the skin on his lips felt like it was peeling off; his whole mouth hurt. Again he forced himself to think, They’re only trying to scare me. But it didn’t work. No matter what he thought, something was more powerful than his thoughts.

He pooped in his pants. It was diarrhea, and he thought about his dogs, where they were now, how they jumped up to greet him when he came home. He thought he was crying, but that was his imagination. Why could others die with their heads held high, proud and dignified, but not him, why couldn’t he do that? Because he didn’t believe in anything, that was why. That was why he did it in his pants, why he had to die like an animal. Everyone hated him. Money was the only thing that didn’t discriminate against him, but it wasn’t here to help him now, now it was nowhere in sight.

The man pulled the pistol out of the Egyptian’s mouth. He took a few steps back, stopped in front of the tape player for a moment, then looked into the kitchen and acted as if he was listening to the music. Maybe he actually was listening.

The Egyptian followed him with his eyes, without moving; his eyes were the only thing that dared to move. The man lifted the basket from the deep-fryer. The eight falafel balls had turned black.

The man brought the basket to the Egyptian, who was still sitting in his chair. The other two men were holding his arms behind the back of the chair. They were silent; they didn’t make a sound.

“Look,” said the man, “look, is this all you have to offer us?”

The Egyptian looked into the basket and saw the black balls.

“Is this how you welcome your guests? Is this what you call hospitality? Is this how your mother raised you?”

The Egyptian didn’t speak; he didn’t know what to say; he didn’t know the right answers anymore. A punch landed on his face.

With a careless gesture, the man tossed the burned falafel balls into a corner. As though he did it all the time, as though he were the chef in a big restaurant and this was how he rejected the mistakes of his apprentices.

“We’re hungry,” the man said. He sat down in his chair again, rubbed the barrel of his pistol over the Egyptian’s lips, his nose, his cheeks. “We’re hungry, because we haven’t eaten anything for a long time. And it’s been a very long time since we’ve had anything nice to eat. Why don’t you make us something nice?”

The Egyptian felt the feces in his pants; he could smell his own excrement. “Please,” he whispered. “Please.” And he reached out his hand again to the man with the pistol. But the man had no patience with him anymore. He batted the hand away.

“Hungry,” the man said. “Do you understand? We are hungry.” He paused for a second between the words, so the Egyptian would understand that now he would really have to put something on the table.

The two other men picked up the Egyptian. He couldn’t stand on his feet anymore: he was shaking too badly, he was too weak, or too scared; maybe it was his heart, too. They had to hold him upright. That’s how he stood before the judge, or at least before the proxy his judge had sent, because he couldn’t be here himself.

Once he was upright, the excrement ran down his legs to the floor.

He seized the sleeve of the man with the pistol again. Like a drowning man, like a madman. He looked like a madman, too, with that red drool coming out of his mouth. “I didn’t say anything,” he whispered. “Please, I want to live. I didn’t say anything.”

The man took another piece of chewing gum out of his pocket, hesitated, and put it in his mouth. Then he pushed away his prisoner’s hand.

“I believe you,” he said. “You’re too stupid to lie. Isn’t that right, aren’t you too stupid to lie?”

The Egyptian nodded like he’d never nodded before. He was too stupid to lie, sure, much too stupid.

“That’s right,” the man said, “too stupid to lie. Too stupid for anything. What did the Zionists promise you? Money, of course. You believe in money, little brother, and look how you’ve ended up. Look at you now. What can money do for you now? Nothing. Even if you had all the money in the world, it still wouldn’t help you. You bet on the wrong horse, little brother, you and millions of others, on the wrong horse.”

The man with the pistol couldn’t help laughing a little at the strange situation in which they found themselves. Laughing seemed to mellow him a bit.

“You’ve won your life, little brother,” he said, once he was finished laughing. “You’ve won it back.” He patted the cheek of the trembling Egyptian; there was still a little blood on it.

“Yes, I’m giving you back your life, brother,” he said. “I don’t want it. I don’t want to have it. Because you’re too stupid to lie, I’m giving back your life. So now fix something for us to eat. It makes a man hungry, giving life back. And thirsty. Do you have some water?”

The Egyptian tried to grab the hand of the man with the pistol, but he pulled it away. “Don’t touch me,” he shouted. “Stop touching me!”

“Thank you,” the Egyptian whispered, “thank you.” He felt like kneeling down, to thank him, to show how grateful he was for this gift, his life. But he couldn’t kneel, because the two men were holding him up between them. So he asked: “What can I do for you? Tell me what I can do for you. I’ll do anything.”

“We’re hungry,” the man said. “We just told you that. We are terribly hungry.”

The two men dragged the Egyptian to the back of the restaurant, to the kitchen, where the oil was still boiling. They had to drag him; he couldn’t walk by himself, because of the emotions and the shock.

The man with the pistol picked up the plate of falafel balls the Egyptian had kneaded the night before, and sniffed at them.

“This is still edible,” he said. “Where’s the basket? Where are your pitas?” One of the men went and fetched the basket from the front of the restaurant, from the spot where the two of them had sat on the Egyptian and where they had punched him in the face because he had peed his pants.

At that moment, there was a knock at the door.

“Don’t open it,” the Egyptian whispered. “Don’t open it.”

The man with the pistol wormed the barrel back into the Egyptian’s mouth, but this time he didn’t break a tooth.

Another knock sounded.

The Egyptian shivered like someone with a high fever. He missed his dogs’ fur, the warmth of their fur; he thought he would never feel that fur again. Crazy to think about that now, about his dogs’ fur, how they jumped up to greet him.

The men heard footsteps going away. The Egyptian heard it, too. The man with the pistol waited for a minute, then pulled his weapon out of the Egyptian’s mouth.

“Okay,” he said.

His assistant came back with the basket, but the man with the pistol put it down casually on the bar. He didn’t even bother looking at the basket.

“He who collaborates with the Zionists becomes one himself,” the man with the gun said. “Look at him, look at him shake. Only women shake like that.”

The Egyptian felt filthy, and therefore unworthy as well. A befouled person is an unworthy person. Unworthy to stand before his judge, who, due to a shortage of time and personnel, was also his executioner. He was afraid that his filthiness would detract from the force of his arguments. He felt that they would have listened to him better if he hadn’t been so filthy. That they would have understood him if he’d been a little cleaner, if he hadn’t peed and pooped in his pants, if no blood had dripped from his mouth. His pleas would have made a much greater impression if he had looked a little more respectable. Suddenly he felt ashamed of his broken tooth. He was ashamed of how easily his teeth broke.

“I support the struggle,” he mumbled. “I always have. You people know that, don’t you? I’ve always donated money. I opened accounts for you, I acted as your intermediary in this country. I helped you. As much as I could. I support your struggle.”

The more he mumbled, the more blood ran out of his mouth.

The man with the pistol said: “If you had been a man, we would have killed you. But you’re not a man. You’re disgusting. That’s why we’re letting you live, do you understand? We’re letting you live because you deserve to live like a worm. Take off his shoes.”

The man who had fetched the basket bent down and began taking off the Egyptian’s shoes.

The Egyptian was suddenly very fond of his shoes. He had bought them on sale not so long ago, one afternoon while he was taking a walk, but not because he’d really needed them. Nice black shoes. The soles were leather, so they made a pleasant sound when you walked down the street. At least, it had sounded pleasant to him — he liked it. Click-clack, that kind of sound, like a horse.

“And his socks,” said the man with the pistol.

Those were pulled off hastily as well. The socks were a dark blue.

The Egyptian’s feet were white. Shockingly pale. There was hair growing on the Egyptian’s toes. Dark hair. You could see the veins beneath the skin. The men looked at his feet as though his feet weren’t really a part of him, as though they were two separate animals that had somehow ended up in Jerusalem Kebabs. Pale and hairy vermin. The Egyptian looked at his own feet now as well. And for the first time he realized how old he really was, and how ugly his feet were.

“Because you’re not a man,” the man with the pistol said, “but a traitor, you will live. But you will mourn every moment of your life; you will always regret being alive. You will feel the pain that you have caused your brothers, and then you must realize that your pain is nothing compared with theirs. We feel more pain than you will ever experience. You’re getting off lightly. Pick him up.”

The men pulled up two chairs. They stood on the chairs. Then they picked up the Egyptian. They had rolled up his pants legs first, then washed their hands right away. They were clean men, and they liked to stay clean.

The Egyptian was hanging in the air now. He was dangling in the hands of the two men. “Please,” he murmured, “please.” But his murmurs sounded less and less convincing. He himself couldn’t believe in them anymore. For a moment, in a flash, he thought about the woman he had been expecting, the woman who hadn’t come. Three men had come instead. He realized that he no longer smelled of desert and of dog; he was no different from the other informants, he was simply one among many. He could lay no claims to anything. In the end he was a traitor; to that led all the roads he had followed, all the cocaine he had sold, all the falafels he had fried, to that moment, to that point, to that day. The day he had become an informant.

Still, he couldn’t rid himself of the impression that he had never betrayed a thing.

Then he peed in his pants again. This time the men paid no attention. “To make sure that you will crawl on your belly like a worm,” said the man with the pistol, “we are going to fry your feet.”

The men held the Egyptian above the deep-fryer. It was hard, but they did it, because they were in excellent shape. They went to the gym on a regular basis, to keep from growing fat, but also to be able to deal with traitors. It was part of their job.

The Egyptian had almost no strength left, but he pulled his legs up to his chest. He kicked. He kicked like a child. “Please,” he whispered, “I beg you.” He tried to turn his head to look at the man with the pistol, and hurt his neck.

The man with the pistol was standing behind the Egyptian; in front of him was the door of his kebab place; the music played on; and for one second, for a fraction of a second, the thought flashed through his mind: Who is this pianist, anyway? What is his name again?

He looked down and saw the oil like a black hole. The boiling oil had no color anymore — no smell, either, although there were still pieces of burned falafel ball floating in it. A reflecting hole, it was, no more than that, a reflecting, boiling hole.

The Egyptian screamed: “No, no, not like this. Please. I beg you.”

But the more he begged, the more ridiculous he appeared in the men’s eyes. The lower their esteem for him, the more he disgusted them.

The man with the pistol grabbed the left foot, slid his hand up to the shin, and dipped the Egyptian’s foot in the fryer.

He didn’t hold it in the boiling oil for very long — five or six seconds at most — just long enough to achieve the desired effect.

Then he did the same with the right foot.

The Egyptian’s screams were horrific. The men actually grimaced at the sound of them, as though they could feel the victim’s pain. It was the most horrific screaming they’d ever heard. They hoped they would never hear anything like it again.

When the operation was over, they let the Egyptian fall to the floor. He landed behind the bar. Beside the light switches, under the tape player. The piano concerto by Beethoven played on steadily. The whole thing hadn’t taken long — a few minutes at most.

The Egyptian’s feet had not turned brown, not even black, more like a slimy white, with pink spots here and there. The flesh had become stringy. The flesh stank.

The men climbed down from their chairs and put them back neatly where they had been. They washed their hands again. There was no towel, so they had to dry them on a roll of paper towels.

The men walked to the door. Behind them walked the man who had dipped the feet in the oil.

“That wasn’t easy,” he told his colleagues. “But it had to happen. You can be proud of yourselves.”

He nodded and put away the pistol.

Then he offered them a piece of chewing gum. They put the gum in their mouths. All three of them were chewing gum now.

It was ten-thirty-five in Basel, cloudy; rain was expected, but it would take a while to come.

JUST AS THE Egyptian had thought, she showed up early. It was only around eleven. She found the door standing ajar and opened it cautiously. She went in. Wearing jeans and a sweater, carrying a backpack, she looked more like a tourist than ever — a young tourist, like so many others. It was the perfect disguise, and perhaps it was more than a disguise. She was a young tourist, more that than anything else. Her work — well, what did her work really involve? What did it add up to, anyway? When viewed in the cold, clear light of day?

“Hello,” she called out.

There was no answer.

She had seen a few spots of blood in front of the kebab place, so she knew that perhaps no answer would ever come. That silence reigned here, and that here silence would continue to reign.

She smelled the odor of fried meat.

She walked over to the bar. And saw the Egyptian lying there.

She squatted down, wiped his lips with her bare hand.

Only then did she see the paper towels on the bar, and used them to wipe his face. She laid one hand on his hot cheek, but didn’t dare to touch his feet and ankles.

She fought down the urge to gag, to vomit, to run away.

“Mmm,” the Egyptian said. She couldn’t understand him.

She poured him a glass of water, turned off the heat under the oil, which was still boiling. The stench in the kebab place was overpowering. It was almost more than one could take. She tried to give the Egyptian a sip; he had a hard time keeping the water in his mouth. It ran out again almost right away. The corners of his mouth were torn.

Then, at last, she heard what he was mumbling: “Kill me.”

She took his hand, held it, pressed it to her breast. But the Egyptian kept murmuring: “Kill me. Please, kill me.”

Again, he saw his two dogs — no, he didn’t see them, he felt them. He felt their fur, their wet fur after they had rolled in the grass. You could give them a bath as often as you liked, they still loved dirt. Those dogs. But it wasn’t the fur of his dogs he was feeling, it was the breast of the woman who had said that he smelled of desert and of dog. She had pushed his hand up under her sweater and laid it on her bare breast.

She squatted down there beside him, without a word.

Every once in a while, the Egyptian closed his eyes. He didn’t really close them, they fell shut, the way a door suddenly slams shut in a gust of wind.

He remembered how she had sat across from him two days before. That had been a different world, another age. He couldn’t look at her again, ever again. If only he weren’t so filthy now, but he was horribly befouled. Despite the pain, which seemed to grow only more intense, he was ashamed of lying beside this woman in his own filth.

“Finish me off,” he said, and squeezed her breast. “Can’t you see the shape I’m in?”

She shook her head slowly, without really knowing why.

She kept shaking her head, and when the door of the kebab place opened and the bald man came in, she was still shaking her head, gently, to the rhythm of the music, it seemed.

She didn’t stand up; she heard him coming, the bald man, she recognized his footsteps; and quietly, very quietly, he said her name, the name she used in Basel. She remained squatting down beside the Egyptian, his hand on her bare tit. He squeezed; it hurt a little, but she paid no attention to that. She dabbed at his lips.

The bald man came and stood beside her. He looked at the Egyptian.

He looked at the bar. The piano concerto by Beethoven appealed to him. It was nice. Serene. Peaceful. Slightly melancholy, but not overdone.

The Egyptian stared at the bald man. The first time he’d been carrying a video camera, but not today.

“Kill me,” the Egyptian said to him.

His voice was the voice of a machine that doesn’t work well anymore. His voice faltered. His voice rasped. It came from another world.

The bald man gestured to the woman. She took the Egyptian’s hand, removed it from her tit, held it for a moment. It was warm, but not sweaty.

The Egyptian looked at her. She noticed that. She wanted to say something, just quickly. But she didn’t. He opened his mouth, wide open, as though he wanted to scream, as though he was expecting the barrel of the gun to be shoved into his mouth again. Then he had to close his eyes, and he saw his dogs. He wondered who would take them outside now to cry when the moon was full. He wondered whether they would miss him. And, whether it was the thought of the dogs or seeing the bald man, he no longer wanted to die. He didn’t want to be finished off anymore, no matter what shape he was in, with or without feet, with or without legs, crippled or not, it didn’t matter. He just wanted to live, no more than that, just live.

The woman took a few steps away from him, walking slowly to the door. She had seen people die before. She tried to recall the exact number; she was precise when it came to death, when it came to her work; she was fond of facts. Still, there was something about this dying, something that made this death different from the others. Not all dying looked alike.

The bald man pulled out a gun. It had a silencer on it. He looked at the Egyptian; the Egyptian looked at him. There were the dogs again, the garden, the grass, and the videotape, too. The videotape bearing the purpose of his life. When he was no longer around, that would still be there. It would survive him, and probably still be looked at in a future of which he would no longer be a part. That was his eternity, actor in an erotic film made by amateurs.

Maybe that was what all eternity looked like: eroticism by and for amateurs.

The Egyptian didn’t whimper, he didn’t say, “Please, no, not like that.” All he thought was, I want to live, it doesn’t matter how, I just want to live, I want to see my dogs, I want to take them into the garden in the middle of the night and cry with them at the full moon. But he didn’t dare say that; he didn’t dare say anything anymore; anything he might say would only make things worse. He was silent, out of shame.

The bald man shot without hesitating. Hesitating caused pain. Pain was perhaps nothing but hesitation.

He fired three times: twice in the Egyptian’s chest, once through the head.

Then he put away his gun carefully.

The bald man went over to the woman. “One less informant,” he said quietly. He put his hand on the back of her neck, caressed the little hairs on the back of her neck. Only for a moment, not too long, never for too long. There was no intimacy between them; no intimacy must be allowed to exist.

The woman saw something on the floor. She looked at it but couldn’t see what it was. Just for the hell of it, just to have something to do, or perhaps actually out of curiosity, she bent down and picked it up. It was a tooth. It had a gold filling.

She looked at it, hesitated, started to put it down on one of the tables, but stuck it in her coat pocket instead.

The bald man was ready to go.

They went outside.

The woman looked at the trees. She straightened her sweater. She turned left; the bald man went in the other direction.

Two minutes later, a woman walked into a department store and disappeared into the crowd. In the women’s department she looked at a few summer dresses, and although she was hardened and had seen many people die, she still smelled the odor of desert and of dog.