That is how the grandson generally spoke to the late SS officer, though on some afternoons he tried to keep the conversation a little lighter.
“Stop acting so crazy,” his mother would have said. But she was never there when her son talked to her father’s photos. It was one of the things he did in seclusion. He loved his parents, and he didn’t want to upset them.
Former teachers and friends have characterized him as an unassuming boy. But in front of the mirror, with his grandpa’s photo in his hand, he did not feel unassuming. He felt his genetic material trying to tell him something. His appearance was a part of Nature’s, or the Creator’s, plan: in his appearance a message lay hidden, and all he had to do was decipher it.
BECAUSE HE WAS a sensitive boy, he realized that it must have been hard for his mother to grow up without a father, and indeed without a mother, either, for Grandma had survived only two years longer than the Third Reich. On occasion he would put an affectionate arm around her shoulder. Or, on his way to bed, he would sometimes keep his mouth pressed to her cheek a little longer than necessary. When he had time left, he would go with her to the supermarket and help her carry bottles of mineral water. She was a slight woman, and when the weather turned humid her knees began hurting.
He kept his dark hair combed neatly (there was always a little comb tucked away in his pants pocket), even after he had dyed it blue. He had gone to this latter extreme only because the young people he associated with had switched en masse that month, it was in May, to a brighter hair color, and he felt it was his duty to support them not only with words but with deeds. By nature, he felt the need to make others comfortable; he had a knack for politics and diplomacy. But the thing that drew him most was beauty. The beauty of the uniform, of the human being, of art. The beauty of blood.
He joined a Jewish youth association, after having a dream in which the phrase “international Judaism” appeared. There were definitely not many young people who dreamed about international Judaism, and the fact that he did backed up his idea that he was different from others. Called. Chosen. Branded.
The student members of the association were being prepared for their forthcoming emigration to the Jewish state, and he was welcomed with open arms. The Jewish state could use all comers.
That summer, when the weather allowed, he would often jump into the Rhine in late afternoon and allow himself to be carried along a ways before swimming to shore, running back to where he had started, and repeating the whole ritual. He convinced the leader of the youth association that it would be good for them to all jump into the Rhine together on a warm evening, and to let themselves be carried off downstream. Physical exercise was absolutely essential preparation for life in a young country still under constant threat.
That was music to the ears of Mr. Salomons, the leader of the youth association. At last, a potential emigrant who showed a little initiative. That summer, one could often see him swimming in the Rhine with a group of Zionists. It was a fine sight: he out in front, behind him about twenty youthful bodies, some of them a bit nervous, others fast and bold. There were pretty girls among them who could summon up little interest for ideology but knew all there was to know about the latest bathing fashion.
His first encounter with Zionism was very much to his liking. He didn’t have much real contact with the other young people, but that would change; for the time being, swimming in the river together was more than enough. Beauty is a fine thing, but a person needs ideals that go further than aesthetics alone. Zionism was an ideal that fit him, a suit made to measure.
The Irony of History
MR. RADEK, the grandson’s father, was a hardworking architect. The grandson’s mother, Mrs. Radek, was a housewife, but hardworking as well. For generations his father’s side of the family had lived in Basel; his mother’s came from Saxony. After the war, his mother had fled, arrived in Basel after a great many detours, and ended up in a foster home. She fell in love and became pregnant, or vice versa. A child came wriggling out of her belly. They called him Xavier. And that was it: no other children came out of her belly.
Xavier Radek. The name said it all. Sometimes he wrote out his name twenty times on a scrap of paper, as though he couldn’t believe it went with his body.
Xavier’s parents did not demand a great deal from him. As long as he went to school and kept a low profile in public, they were at peace. His visits to the synagogue, which could not remain a secret in a city like Basel, were tolerated. His parents would rather have seen him visit prostitutes, if he absolutely had to go in search of the exotic, but one had to make do: at least their son was healthy and not some heroin addict.
On a lovely summer evening, after he had been swimming in the Rhine with his young Zionists again, his mother said during dinner: “The Germans are the modern Jews. Look what a burden they have to bear.”
Xavier’s father, who never said much, but who could always be counted on for a clever remark at the right moment, said: “That’s the irony of history.”
Swimming with Zionists was a phase, his parents figured. Just like the blue hair, which had already grown out almost completely. Other children his age struggled with homosexuality, or suffered sudden attacks of kleptomania. It would blow over, would vanish as though it had never been. Just like Xavier’s grandfather.
AT THE SYNAGOGUE, he sat on a bench all the way in the back, where he occasionally entered into a conversation with a misfit. Houses of prayer tend to attract misfits. They were places where one could smell that death had once walked abroad. And perhaps that was the Almighty’s intention, because only death points unequivocally to Him.
Because Xavier was well mannered and, of all the misfit men, the most interested in Jewish rites and customs, and because he did not stink or walk around dressed improperly, one Saturday morning the rabbi struck up a conversation with him.
The rabbi asked him to come to his house for lunch. God expects His people to be hospitable, especially on Saturdays and other holy days.
“I’d like that,” said Xavier Radek.
“What’s your name?” asked the rabbi, who had thirteen children and the fatigued air of a man whose patience was often tested by his offspring, but more often by God, to say nothing of his wife.
“Xavier,” he said. He would rather have given a different name, David, for example, or Aaron — good biblical names. But he did not possess the art of lying.
“Xavier what?” the rabbi asked.
“Radek.” He slicked his neatly combed hair down even flatter. On his head was the crumpled skullcap he had been handed by the doorman of the synagogue. The man was from Armenia, and he watched over the synagogue to earn a little money on the side. He had bad teeth. Because he himself wasn’t Jewish, he was able to do what the Orthodox Jews did not allow themselves on the Sabbath. In actual practice, his duties as guardian were marginal; he peered through the peephole (which was senseless, because he let everyone in anyway), he turned up the heating when it was cold, and he passed out crumpled skullcaps to misfits who didn’t have their own. Misfit men who probably all had real problems, all except for Xavier, who felt glad to be alive.
Later, when Xavier became a radical but successful politician in Israel, he would think back on the synagogue in Basel, the smell of death and the doorman’s teeth, and he thought of the future as a set of Armenian teeth that would make even a dental hygienist throw up his hands in despair.
“Xavier,” the rabbi repeated, while a group of children fought to take his hand. The rabbi let them fight. “Xavier Radek, have you had a religious upbringing?”