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.
Greetings from Anne Frank
HIS HANDS WERE black with mud, as though he’d been working in the garden, and there was blood on his wrists. His jacket was wrinkled, his shirt torn, he hadn’t bathed in two days. He had delivered an ultimatum to the world, then withdrawn to his bunker. There were people who had not understood him, allies who had abandoned him. NATO had its armies on immediate standby, ready to finish the job and lop off the head of the Jewish-Palestinian serpent in the Middle East. But they wanted to give diplomacy one final chance, to prevent unnecessary bloodshed.
Friends had stopped calling him; business contacts with whom he had been on intimate terms for years no longer answered his calls and letters. Yet there were exceptions, people who understood what he was doing, and who supported him.
Even the Jewish people, whom he had hoped to comfort as no other people had ever been comforted before, whom he had served, for whom he had lived, had turned against him, because they were afraid of dying. Fear did not bring out the best in people. Fortunately, there were still a few courageous individuals who said: “This is how King David wanted it. Redemption is now at hand. Those who are willing to heal themselves will now be healed by King David.”
Awromele’s body, wrapped in a blanket, he dragged behind him. Awromele had refused to listen to him; he had been unable to say no, he still couldn’t. He had gone out into the street.
“They won’t hurt me,” Awromele had said. “They won’t even recognize me. I’ll come back, you know that, I always come back. We don’t feel anything, that’s why I can come back to you, that’s why I’m safe with you. And you’re safe with me.” Then he had kissed Xavier and gone out the door. In his hand he’d had a shopping bag from the supermarket chain he had once worked for.
It had taken the army three hours to free Awromele. They had been forced to wrench his remains by force from the hands of a furious crowd. At the back of the crowd there had been an old, bald man and a woman with gray curls — she was old, too. They had once worked together. They glanced at each other, but they said nothing. In the pocket of her jeans the woman felt the tooth she had carried around with her for years, like a talisman. They saw Awromele’s mutilated corpse, then parted ways without a word. And, for the first time in years, the woman smelled the smell she had never forgotten, the smell of dog and desert.
THE FOREIGN PRESS spoke of a revolution. International observers reported that ha-Radek had lost control over his people. That was an exaggeration: the wish was father to the thought. The fear of dying had made some people hysterical, that’s all it was, hysteria. Lynching was a distraction. It provided temporary relief; lynching was their aspirin. The crowd had poked out Awromele’s eyes, cut off his hands, beaten him with shovels and garden implements, even after he was dead.
When Xavier got to his desk, he stopped. He let go of the blanket. This was how the secret-service men had brought Awromele to him. In an old gray blanket.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t look in it,” they had said.
He only shook his head. He had not opened the blanket with Awromele in it, which was now lying at his feet. He had made a peeping sound when he breathed, like an asthma sufferer; the ventilation in the bunker didn’t work well, or at least not well enough. Then he had said, “Go. I need to think.”
The security men had left. Every civil servant who still supported his democratically elected leader was needed out on the street.
Only when they had pulled the door closed behind them did he bend down.
“Awromele,” he said, “Awromele.” He pulled open the blanket. He tried to wipe the mud and the clotted blood from Awromele’s forehead. But it was hopeless, it only made things worse.
He had no idea how long he had been in the bunker. He knew that the ultimatum he had issued would expire within a few hours; he knew that the stale air tickled his throat unpleasantly, that the dust brought on fits of coughing that sometimes lasted for five minutes. But he also knew that he could not give up, not now, now that he had finally started taking the comforting seriously.