The Jewish Messiah

The Unjustly Neglected Principles of Streicher and Himmler

ALTHOUGH HE HIMSELF would never have admitted it, after years of chaos in moderation, electoral victories, crises, and power that had been increasingly perpetuated, ha-Radek began tiring of politics. He had learned Arabic, he had brought down Cabinets, he had campaigned and been re-elected, he had been maligned but re-elected nonetheless, yet still he missed something. And that missing became increasingly active; it grew like a wound that becomes more inflamed with each passing day.

The number of people who saw King David as the Redeemer no longer increased, but it didn’t decrease, either. And those who did believe in the King did so with a rare fire and conviction. Children wrote letters to King David, grown-ups prayed to him, and photos and drawings of King David hung on the walls of living rooms and bedrooms all over the world.

After years of tenderness and tenderness deferred — Awromele still couldn’t say no, but he always came back, even if it meant coming back from Cape Town — after all those years, Xavier lay in bed one night and dreamed of his grandfather, in the uniform he had once found so manly.

It was February, and it was snowing in Jerusalem, a rare event. And snow that fell and did not melt right away was rarer still. Xavier awoke. He looked to see whether Awromele was lying beside him. He was. That happened more and more frequently lately; it was almost as though Awromele had finally learned to say no. Xavier got up and went to the window to look at the snow. His official residence in Jerusalem had a little garden that he never used. His two dogs were the only ones who ever walked around in it.

He stared at the snow. He was feared, hated, and, by those who believed in King David, loved as well, yet he still had to admit that when it came to comforting he had made little headway. He could no longer blame it on the need to keep perpetuating his power. Power could never become much more perpetual than his. He was a master in the creation, manipulation, and control of seemingly boundless chaos, but that mastery no long produced happiness or excitement, only a dull sense of reluctance at best. He had already taken every step; his speeches reminded him of speeches he had made years ago, only in a different form. He had seen opponents come and go. He had survived attacks on his life. He was still there. In this world of eternal struggle, ha-Radek was a survivor, there was no denying that. His grandfather would have been proud of him.

Atop a dresser in his bedroom lay the translation of the book by You-Know-Who. He still worked on it in his free time, along with Awromele. The end was in sight, though it had taken them a long time. His free hours were limited.

“Xavier,” Awromele called out to him from the big bed. “What are you doing? Why don’t you get some sleep?”

Xavier didn’t reply. He looked at the snow: he pressed his nose against the windowpane and looked at the mark his nose had made.

It had been a month or two since he had called the mother. Not that she had said anything. She was living in a nursing home these days. The nurse who came on the line brought him up-to-date on the situation that hadn’t changed in years. The mother didn’t talk to anyone, she remained silent. But she ate well, she was strong. She, too, unlike her father, had proved to be a survivor.

Awromele got out of bed, put on the slippers Xavier had given him two years ago at Hanukkah, and came over to stand beside him. He was wearing light blue pajamas. “What is it?” Awromele asked. “Why are you standing here? It’s the middle of the night.”

“I’m looking at the snow,” Xavier said.

Awromele looked, too, but snow didn’t interest him. Then Awromele said: “There’s something wrong. I know you. I can tell when there’s something wrong.” He put his arm around Xavier.

“I’ve mastered this,” Xavier said quietly. “All of this, the politics, this life, I can do it, I know how it works. I’ve carried out negotiations, I’ve dragged art out of its preserve, I’ve raised the body counts and lowered them again. I know it like the back of my hand, this life. But it’s not enough.” He turned around. “It’s nothing, Awromele. This, here, is less than nothing. Art gives meaning to pain. But is this meaning? And is this pain? And if it isn’t pain, then what is it? I’m afraid of becoming embittered, and I don’t want that. My father was embittered. I don’t want to end up like him. That’s not why I came here, that’s not why I achieved what I’ve achieved.”

“Well, then, what do you want?” Awromele asked. “What do you want? You’re trembling.”

“It’s cold,” Xavier said. “I want to astonish people.”

Awromele looked at him. The man with whom he had gone to the Venice of the North and then, albeit unwillingly, followed to the Promised Land. The man whose campaign manager he had become, for whom he had come up with slogans the way he had once come up with jokes while stocking shelves, the man with whom he had stayed despite his inability to say no. He tugged on Xavier’s ear, tickled his neck, and kissed spots he had kissed before. “You’ve astonished me,” he said. “Me.”

“You? You’re my friend. You’re only one person. That’s not enough. One person is nothing.”

“Put something on, you’ll catch cold.” Awromele rubbed Xavier’s back and put his hand under Xavier’s T-shirt. He felt moles, thicker than the rest of the skin. He knew them the way a person knows a hotel room in which, owing to circumstances beyond his control, he’s been living for the last eighteen months.

“Start a flower shop — that’s what they said. But is this really so different from a flower shop? I send soldiers to their deaths, children, families. I feel nothing. It’s as though I’m arranging flowers and cutting off the dead leaves. I know what to say, what to cover up, I play the game better than the rest, I know the pitfalls. I could go on like this for years, but when I came here I had something else in mind. Is this it, Awromele, is this what happens when you drag art out of its seedy preserve? When I was still painting, thoughts like that never bothered me. I had hope; I was a different person.”

Awromele grabbed Xavier by the shoulders, the way you grab hold of a child. “Stop talking about art and preservation all the time. That nice Hamas man can’t stand listening to it either, anymore. Just stop thinking about it. It only makes you sad, and other people have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“They know exactly what I’m talking about,” Xavier said, yanking himself free.

But Awromele wasn’t about to be put off. Gently, he began kissing Xavier on the neck.

“They know exactly what I’m talking about. They understand me perfectly, the ones who need to understand me. You remember when you told me why you couldn’t say no? Because I would betray you, that’s what you said. Because I had something you didn’t. That’s why you had to go with everyone who wanted you, that’s why you couldn’t say no, because I had talent. Is this talent, Awromele? Look around you — is this talent? Is this what it does to you? Is that what it makes of you?”

“You’re blathering,” Awromele said, and he caressed Xavier more firmly. The way he used to caress him. “We weren’t going to feel anything. That’s why we were able to stay together, that’s why we stayed together. Don’t feel anything. You promised. There’s nothing else you have to do. Feel nothing. That’s surviving.”

“What do I need to do?” Xavier asked.

“What do you mean? Right now?”

“No, not now. It’s nighttime now. What do I need do in order to leave the world behind different from the way I found it? Because, if I don’t do that, I haven’t comforted anyone, and then we could just as well have stayed in the Venice of the North, with a flower shop, or maybe two.”

“Go back to bed. You’ll get sick.”

Xavier shook his head. “Just take a look,” he said. “Look at who we’ve become.”

“Who have we become? I see the same thing I’ve been seeing for years, what I saw when I first met you, at lunch at my parents’ house on the Sabbath. That’s all I see.” Awromele squeezed the back of Xavier’s neck, and Xavier shivered even more, as though he had come down with a fever.

“It stinks in here,” Xavier said. “Don’t you smell it? What kind of cleanser do they use when they clean this place? Or is it you? Is it your deodorant? The stench is driving me crazy.”

Awromele ran his fingers through Xavier’s hair. It didn’t matter what Xavier said; he was used to his tantrums, with the smashed furniture, the torn clothing, and the vases thrown across the room. “You haven’t been getting enough sleep lately,” he said. “You’ve had a hectic program these last few weeks, all those foreign ministers coming to visit. It would drive me crazy, too. You just need to take it a little easier.”

“No,” Xavier said, “that’s nonsense — too hectic, take it a little easier. Listen to you spouting clichés. Nothing but laziness, like something out of the self-help books. The point is not to compete with the mediocre. Competing with the mediocre is only an alternative form of being dead. You have to compete with the ones who have really made a mark on this world, the ones who left it behind different from the way they found it.”

“But you’ll leave me behind different from when you found me,” Awromele said. “Can’t you see that? Isn’t that enough?” He stopped running his fingers through Xavier’s hair; he took off his pajamas. “Take me,” Awromele said. “Then you can feel that I’m here. Take me the way you used to, right after we met.”

“But I don’t know if I’m here,” Xavier said. “I don’t know.” He looked at the secret-service man who was walking through the garden. It was still snowing. What’s that man doing there? he thought. Why can’t they ever leave me alone? Why do they have to walk through my garden when I’m trying to look at the snow? Why are they always there? “You once told me,” Xavier said, “that loneliness is nothing to be ashamed of. Do you remember that?”

“Yes, of course I remember that,” Awromele whispered. “I remember everything, but let’s not talk about that again, not now, not tonight.”

“The only thing I see anymore is the shame,” Xavier said. “That’s the only thing I see. No matter where I go, wherever I am, whatever bed I lie in, whoever I’m with, whatever Cabinet minister I talk to, whatever general comes to talk to me, I see the shame, I smell the shame, I taste it, even when I’m eating. And why is that man walking through my garden? Is that security? Is that what they call security these days, a little walk around the garden?”

Awromele was standing in front of Xavier, naked.

“So come up with something new,” Awromele said. “Make peace, start a new war, start painting again, come up with something — but look at me. Look at me the way you used to look at me.”

“But how, but who?” Xavier shook his head; he didn’t look at Awromele, he was looking at the security man in the garden. This was a new one, just a boy.

“You need a common enemy,” Awromele whispered, running his hand over Xavier’s back, down his leg. “If you want to turn your enemies into allies, you need a common enemy. You know that — you told me that once.”

Awromele was shivering now, too; it was cold in the bedroom when you weren’t under the blankets. “All peace, every alliance, every pact starts with a common enemy,” he whispered, laying his hand on Xavier’s crotch.

For the first time, Xavier felt old, truly old. In the light of the flood lamps that had been set up in the garden to protect the prime minister against intruders, he looked at his hands, he saw how old his hands had become. They had changed color.

“But who?” he asked. “What common enemy?”

“How should I know?” Awromele said. “The West, as far as I’m concerned. Look at me. Don’t make me wait any longer.”

But Xavier kept looking at the secret-service man in the snow. He was standing perfectly still in the garden now, almost like a dummy. As though he had seen something.

“The West,” Xavier said. “Okay, the West. As far as I’m concerned.”

“Take me now,” Awromele said. “Please, take me now. Can’t you see how I’m standing here? Really, can’t you see that? Take me the way you used to. Before it’s too late.”

Xavier turned to look at Awromele. He had heard something in his voice that worried him. “Why are you crying?” he asked. “I thought we weren’t going to feel anything.”

“I’m crying without feeling anything,” Awromele said.

“Put on some music.”

Awromele put on some music, then Xavier took Awromele.

Afterwards, they lay in each other’s arms, exactly the way they used to, and Xavier said: “The West, okay, the West. Where are the dogs, anyway?”

“In their room,” Awromele said. “Where they always are.”

TO MAKE IT EASIER to find a common enemy, ha-Radek began selling nuclear weapons. First to Turkey, and later a couple of little ones to Armenia, in order not to disturb the balance of power in the region, and because of historical sensitivities.

Then he sold a few to Colombia — he got along very well with the president of Colombia — and to Argentina. It cheered him up; his somberness began melting away. And he became too busy to be somber anymore.

The special envoys from the EU and the United States, who were not pleased with ha-Radek’s latest ventures, were thrown out of the country.

And Xavier told the leader of Hamas, who occasionally met Xavier and Awromele for tea at a discreet location, and who always played discreetly with Awromele afterwards: “Who’s to blame for our being here? Who got us into this mess? Who created this stupid situation? It wasn’t us. I wouldn’t have been the one to come here. If I’d known all this beforehand, I would never have come here. We’re here because of Europe. Because of the United States. The United Kingdom was here long before we were, and look at the way they left your country behind.”

“I’m too ill to be particularly interested in the past,” the leader of Hamas said. “Too old.”

“You shouldn’t think that way,” Xavier replied. “You should think about the oppressors, you must never forget the oppressors, even if they have left your country, because you’re still living with the mess they left behind.”

The leader had his head in Awromele’s lap. He always did that when he was visiting ha-Radek. “I’m not sure,” he said, “what are you trying to pawn off on me now?”

Whenever the leader came to visit ha-Radek, Xavier tried to pawn something off on him. Sometimes it was only a special tea that helped against rheumatism, sometimes a few weapons, other times a few garden implements.

“I’m not trying to pawn anything off on you,” Xavier said. “I’m trying to make something clear to you.”

“We’ve already talked about everything there is to talk about,” the leader said. “I’m tired. And your friend is so quiet today.”

Xavier got up. He knelt down beside the cushions where Awromele was sitting with the leader’s head in his lap. The leader had been smoking the nargileh, and was pleasantly drowsy. Ready to surrender himself to Awromele’s still-youthful body.

“I’m trying to explain to you that we have a common enemy.”

“A common enemy?” said the leader, baring his bad teeth. “Thousands, tens of thousands. Nothing but enemies. Everywhere.”

His hand was resting on Awromele’s stomach, which had grown a bit plumper — not much, just a little. But the leader of Hamas didn’t notice that. These days, the leader mostly smelled things — he didn’t taste much anymore, either, but he could still feel, with his hands he felt everything.

“We’ve been divided and conquered,” Xavier whispered. “We’re nothing but lightning rods. Without us, the whole region would go up in flames, from Egypt to Syria, from Bahrain to Saudi Arabia, but things don’t have to stay that way. Right now we’re still pawns. We’re messenger boys, don’t you see that? But do you know what scares them most? That we’ll start working together. My mother said, if fascism hadn’t turned against the Israelites, it would still be a vital European movement. We’re not doomed to play this bit part forever, we don’t have to protect other people’s interests until the end of days.”

“I’m too old for that,” the leader said, licking lightly at Awromele’s nipple. “Let’s go on doing what we’ve always done, a few attacks each month, a few reprisals. We can do that — it works out quite well. And it has been working out well for years. My Gaza Strip is full of NGOs, full of sweet, young, enthusiastic Westerners who wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if they didn’t have us around. When I look out my window, I see them driving around in their jeeps. Their lives would be empty and meaningless without us. Without us they would have no goal — think about them. The first time I visited you, you told me we must take the shapeless pain, the meaningless pain, and provide it with meaning. That’s what we’re doing. Let’s go on doing that.”

“But don’t you see?” Xavier asked. “Is it really that hard for you to see?”

The leader was planting kisses all over Awromele’s stomach. He liked kissing the stomach, pushing his tongue into the navel — that’s why he liked to visit Xavier and his friend at this discreet location. There really wasn’t much left to talk about anymore. They’d already said everything there was to say.

“So who is this enemy?” the leader asked, after he had done enough kissing for the moment. “He’s the enemy,” he said, pointing to Awromele, and he laughed. “Come, show me your buttocks, don’t make me wait any longer. I’m tired. And old. I want to see them now. I want to feel them.”

“The West is our common enemy,” Xavier said. “If you’re able to see that, then I do indeed have something to offer you. Something you might find particularly interesting. Everything is finite, but we poets, we artists, we have to give form to the finite, to keep it from sinking away in a formless mush.”

Xavier had to pee. So he left the leader of Hamas and Awromele alone. They found each other blindly, Awromele and the leader, they knew each other’s bodies like old lovers.

That same month, ha-Radek and a group of prominent Israeli scientists and businessmen traveled to Mexico. The president of Mexico was one-third Indian.

“Your ancestors,” Xavier told him after the state dinner, “were annihilated by the Spanish. Isn’t it about time to do something in return, to restore the imbalance? I have a couple of nuclear weapons for sale. They amount to an extremely good bargain. For you, only for you. Because I think you’ll know how to use them. And, if I may be so free, I certainly don’t want to meddle in your affairs, but wouldn’t it be a good idea to aim a missile with a unconventional warhead at, say, Madrid? They’d find out soon enough. Not even actually to use it, just so they can feel a little bit of what your ancestors must have felt. Just a little bit. You remember what they did to your ancestors? If they failed to bring in their quota of gold, they cut off their arms. The road to the riches of the West is paved with severed arms. In fact, it’s sort of like what they did to my ancestors. First comes the labor, then the annihilation. Again, it’s up to you, but it’s never too late to strike back. You can count on my support. As far as the weapons go, I’ll supply them now, you can pay me later. Money should never get in the way of friendship.”

“I’ll think about it,” the president of Mexico said.

But he didn’t have to think about it long. In order to perpetuate power, you have to expand it. Standing still meant lagging behind.

THE MORE NUCLEAR weapons ha-Radek sold to various countries, the more rumors began flying concerning a Jewish conspiracy. There were people, and, not the least among them, often people who had published interesting articles about Schopenhauer, who said: “International Judaism must distance itself from the policies of ha-Radek; otherwise it will be impossible for us to distinguish between ha-Radek’s politics and international Judaism. We would regret that terribly, but we have no choice.”

“Don’t let it worry you,” Awromele said to Xavier in the bedroom. “Remember what your mother told me? It’s love, the hatred of the Jews is love. It’s the only love deserving of the name.”

But Xavier said: “They don’t get it. I am lending meaning to meaningless pain. I have finally started comforting; when it comes to comforting, I have put my shoulder to the wheel at last.” Earlier that day, he had delivered nuclear weapons to Bangladesh, under the slogan: “Even one of the poorest countries in the world should be able to join our coalition.” Because Bangladesh didn’t know how to operate the weapons, ha-Radek had supplied them with technicians as well.

By this time, the European and U.S. ambassadors had left Israel as well. Before they left, they had stated, “We have nothing against the Jewish people, but their leader is a threat to world peace.”

A prominent Irish intellectual wrote in The Guardian that — in the light of events in recent years, perhaps even of recent decades — Hitler’s war against the Jews had to be seen as a pre-emptive war. “All war is abhorrent,” he wrote, “as was that of the Nazis. But had they won their pre-emptive war, we would not have to fear for our lives today. And that is something for all peace-loving people to consider.”

His public appeal to review afresh the ideas of Streicher and Himmler met with support. Criticism of this renewed interest in a vanquished ideology was also voiced here and there, but mostly by older thinkers and politicians who refused to admit that they had been clinging to unrealistic ideas all those years.

RIGHT-MINDED PEOPLE all over the world agreed: Hitler’s war had not been proper, but it had been pre-emptive. And those who viewed him without prejudice had to admit: he’d had his lesser moments, but he was a visionary.