“Who was that?” she asked.
“Some girl.”
“From school?”
He nodded.
Xavier withdrew to his room, where he practiced declining a few Latin words to the accompaniment of klezmer music. He had trouble concentrating, because the term “illegal circumcision” kept running through his mind.
How many people each year, in a city like Basel, underwent illegal circumcisions?
You-Know-Who
BECAUSE HIS PARENTS had decided that everything would turn out all right once Xavier had a girlfriend, Xavier went looking for one. His eye fell on Bettina. She was in his class at school, a senior. She had been born in the canton of Graubünden. Bettina had a button nose and an active social life. She looked like a real woman.
In her bed, where she had taken the virginity of two other boys, she took Xavier’s virginity as well.
Along with her family, Bettina had adopted a village in India. And because that had gone so well, they were planning to adopt another one, also in India.
After his deflowering, she told Xavier: “For ten francs a month you can be part of it. That’s barely two glasses of wine — less money than you’d ever miss — and it can save an entire village.”
Quid pro quo, Xavier realized. So he said: “Sure, where do I sign up?” Even though all the deflowering had left him with was the feeling of having been punched in the stomach, hard.
Still naked, she began rummaging around in a desk drawer. She pulled out a few forms in triplicate that he, also still naked, had to sign and furnish with his bank-account number. That way the ten francs could be deducted automatically from his account each month. She was a real go-getter, in more ways than one.
“Okay,” she said after he had signed the papers. “That’s another hundred liters of clean water.”
He put on his clothes. Only then did the feeling of having been punched in the stomach go away, and he asked, “So — do we have something going?”
“Of course we have something going,” Bettina said, tucking away the forms he’d signed in a file. “We’re a couple.”
“Good,” he said. “My parents will be pleased.”
Fortunately, the perforator jammed right then, so she didn’t have time to think about his remark.
Bettina was good at gymnastics, Xavier remembered as he left the house.
And so it happened that, at the age of sixteen, Xavier adopted a village in India.
XAVIER’S FATHER RETURNED from Singapore. Because he suffered lower-back pain, the architect had had himself massaged there by an Asian lady. That was so moreish that he’d had himself massaged again the very next day, by a young Asian boy. Barely thirteen years of age, yet already physically mature.
The architect noticed that his body felt like it was tied in knots — probably from all those hours at the drawing board. So, a few hours before leaving for Basel, he’d had himself massaged again, this time by two twelve-year-old gentlemen, old hands at their trade.
He could, of course, have had himself tucked and rolled in Basel, but somehow that seemed less fitting. He was a man with a highly developed moral sense. One did not do such things in one’s hometown.
Back in Basel, he called his wife during lunch hour.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Aren’t you coming home for dinner?” Whenever he called, it was to say he wouldn’t be coming home for dinner.
“No,” he said, “it’s just that I think it’s time for us to bring things out in the open.”
She knew right away what he was talking about.
That weekend, the Radeks went to the Jura. They stayed at a good hotel with a sauna, a solarium, a tanning bed, and a fitness center.
On Saturday afternoon, when it started to rain, the architect said, “Come on, let’s go to the sauna.”
They undressed in their room, put on their bathrobes, and took the elevator to the basement. It was not a big sauna, just big enough for the Radeks.
They spread out their towels on the wooden benches and lay down — Mr. Radek on the top shelf, his wife and son down one lower.
“It smells like eucalyptus in here,” the architect said. “Nice and tangy. Come on, Xavier, take off those swimming trunks.”
“I’d prefer not to,” his son said.
“You’re not supposed to wear swimming trunks in the sauna; everything has to air out. We don’t have to keep any secrets from each other.”
“Oh, leave the boy alone,” the mother said.
There was an hourglass hanging in the sauna. Xavier turned it upside down. The sand was pink.
“We need to talk to you,” the architect said. “I’m sure you know what it’s about, don’t you?”
“No,” Xavier said. That was the truth. He had no idea what his parents wanted to talk to him about. He couldn’t remember their ever having talked to him about anything.
“About your grandpa,” the architect said. “Your mother’s father. You never knew him. He died long before you were born. But I’m sure you’ve wondered at times: What kind of person was my grandfather?”
“Not really,” Xavier said after a moment’s pause. Such thoughts had never bothered him, and he had no reason to believe this would change.
The sand trickled down slowly. Xavier’s cheeks tingled from the heat. He felt as if he couldn’t breathe anymore. What he had often thought was: Exactly what kind of people were the enemies of happiness? Were they all like Awromele? He had often been troubled by that, but not by his grandfather.
“Xavier, everyone wonders on occasion: What kind of man was my grandfather? Or: What did my grandmother look like? Did she bake nice pies? That’s completely normal. A person needs to know more about the blood that flows through his veins. A person needs to know where he comes from.”
“I come from Basel,” Xavier said.
“Of course, but before that. Once you were a sperm cell. And an egg. Isn’t that right? You know all of that, but it’s good to stop and think about it sometimes. Look, at a certain point you become interested in your family history, the way you used to be interested in your miniature steam engine.”
The architect rubbed his chest. He didn’t know how to go on. He rarely talked so much or for so long, especially not with his family. He thought about the masseurs he had met in Singapore. What a service they provided, what excellent knowledge of the human body they possessed! They were privy to all the special spots. The young gentlemen knew their way around the male body, without ever being arrogant about it. And, like all respectable people, they barely said a word.
“In any case, your grandfather was a hardworking man who loved his family a great deal.”
“And a patriot,” his mother said.
“And a patriot,” his father echoed. “In principle, your grandfather was a kind and sensitive person. But then, well, then You-Know-Who came along.”
“He had friendly eyes,” the mother said.
The pink sand kept trickling down. Xavier couldn’t stop looking at it. He seemed mesmerized.
“And soft hands,” the mother said. “Very soft hands.”
“You can’t judge customs, rites, and morals from the perspective of our times, from the point of view of what we know now,” the architect went on. “To give you an example: In the Middle Ages they burned witches; people thought that was completely normal. No one minded. People even thought it was a good thing.”
Sweat gushed from the architect’s pores. A sauna purifies the body.
Someone knocked on the door. “Occupied,” the architect shouted, “it’s occupied. We’ll be finished in a bit.”
Xavier thought he was going to faint. He was glad that he was already lying down: if he fainted, at least he wouldn’t hurt himself.