“That’s too bad,” Xavier mumbled, and he felt himself growing sadder.
“Be a sport,” Awromele said. “I promise I won’t laugh.”
But it wasn’t laughter Xavier was worried about.
Outside, the street was being broken up. The sound of the jackhammer could be heard in Mr. Schwartz’s bedroom. Every once in a while it stopped, only to go on even louder a few seconds later.
“That’s impossible,” Xavier said, holding his hands over his fly. “I can’t.”
Xavier’s father had been buried only recently. It was already hard for him to remember the day his father died, except that it was a Sunday. The day on which his grandfather had always refrained from death, to honor the Lord. Did that fall under historical irony, or was it a coincidence? Was coincidence ironic?
“You have to get undressed anyway,” Awromele said. “So what difference does it make? Or did you think you could wear your swimming trunks?”
Xavier shook his head.
“So do it already,” Awromele said.
“I’m not in the mood right now.”
At the funeral, the colleagues of Xavier’s father had spoken kindly of his achievements as an architect, a great-uncle had mentioned the toy trains the dead man used to collect, and an aunt blew him kisses as he lay in his grave. Then it was over. Xavier had not said a word, and his mother had spoken only one sentence: “I will let Beethoven do the talking for me.” Beethoven was always a sure bet at a funeral.
“Please,” Awromele said. “Do it for my sake. I’m just curious, that’s all. Without me you still wouldn’t have been circumcised, not even ten years from now.”
Xavier took off his shoes and socks. Emotional blackmail is the best form of blackmail. He was wearing a pair of black jeans.
Imagine, you’re a reasonably normal person, in your own eyes and in the eyes of your surroundings, an unobtrusive person, but not so unobtrusive that people really start to wonder. You have everything other people have. And one day you discover that you enjoy cruelty. That’s an altogether different thing from enjoying steak; there’s probably a certain amount of cruelty involved there as well, but it doesn’t have to show up on the outside, it can remain hidden.
Xavier pulled down his jeans. They didn’t go very quickly — his jeans were tight. Out in the street, the drilling continued.
It had been five minutes since Mr. Schwartz had said that such procedures were all a matter of technique, which you didn’t forget at the drop of a hat.
Imagine that you not only enjoy the products of cruelty, the steak, but also the cruelty itself. Even though you’ve never done anything that might be considered unacceptable. From the moment you discover that, you see yourself differently.
Xavier’s underpants had the word “happiness” printed on them. A nice word.
The problem wasn’t the cruelty itself, because all kinds of cruelty were considered acceptable as long as you didn’t enjoy them in public. Xavier was afraid that a person like him, who enjoyed life so intensely, would also start enjoying cruelty.
The underpants were pulled down hastily, as in a locker room. The haste that comes from shame.
Awromele stared unashamedly. He even came a step closer, in order not to miss anything.
“Jesus,” he said, “what a bunch of skin.”
“That’s how we’re made; that’s how you were made, too. This is the product of evolution.”
“Yeah,” Awromele said, “a weird thought. Evolution, I mean. Can I feel it?”
Awromele fingered the skin the way you finger the sleeve of a shirt in a clothing store, to see if the material is light enough for the summer.
“So where’s the smegma?”
“I don’t have smegma,” Xavier said. He was still wearing his sweater, a sweater his father had given him. Dressed on top, undressed down below. He looked ridiculous.
“I wonder how much of it’s going to be taken off,” Awromele said, Xavier’s skin still between his fingers.
Xavier stared straight ahead, at Mr. Schwartz’s dressers. He had told his mother that he was going for a walk with friends. “Be careful,” she had said. “They’re predicting a thunderstorm.”
“What did you ever do with those pictures you took of me?” Awromele asked. He had let go of the skin for a moment, but now he took hold of it anew and pushed it back to see what was hidden beneath.
“They didn’t turn out. I’m sorry. I’ll take new ones, if you like.”
He didn’t know what was so special about what was under his skin, but Awromele found it interesting; he was plucking at it as if it were the scab on a wound.
“Let go of me,” Xavier said.
“Before long you won’t have it anymore,” Awromele said sadly. “Then it won’t be yours anymore, it won’t be part of your body, just a piece of skin that gets thrown in the garbage; maybe later it will be processed into cat food.” He let go and went back to sit on the stepladder.
“You could save it,” Awromele said, already sounding happier. “You could put it in a glass jar and keep it in the cupboard to show important visitors. You can ask your visitors; Would you like to see my foreskin? And then you pull out the jar. And if you ever become famous, you can put it up for auction. It wouldn’t surprise me if you got a bunch of money for it. Who knows, by that time maybe you could even buy a second home from the proceeds.”
The idea seemed to appeal to Awromele. His smile spread until he was beaming, but he stopped talking. The drilling outside had stopped. The silence was oppressive.
“Is it really true,” Xavier asked, “that the Jews control the media?”
“I don’t know,” Awromele said. “The media? I wouldn’t know.”
Xavier noticed that the subject didn’t interest Awromele much. Where in the world was Mr. Schwartz? Was he chickening out?
“What gives you that idea?” Awromele asked.
“My mother said something along those lines.”
“Does she work for the media?”
“No, not that. Her friend is a soundman. She wants to start working again, though.”
“What kind of work is she looking for?”
“Something with children.”
“That’s always nice, working with children. Do you want to work with children, too?”
“I don’t know,” Xavier said. “I like children, though.” And he covered his sex organ with his sweater, which was fortunately a bit too large for him. It made him look like he was wearing a dress that had been washed at the wrong temperature. “In fact, I don’t think so,” he said. And, after a brief pause, “Awromele, aren’t you interested in higher things?”
“Higher things?”
“I never hear you talk about classical music. For example. Or about opera. Or museums. About the fine arts. About beauty.”
“No, I don’t talk about those things much. Now that you mention it.” Awromele got off his stepladder. “But if you’d like to me to talk about them more often, just say so.”
“Have you ever been to the opera?” Xavier asked.
“Funny question,” Awromele said. “No. Never.” He pushed up Xavier’s father’s sweater, 100 percent cashmere, and began absentmindedly petting Xavier’s member. The way you pet a dog while talking to its master about international affairs.
“Do you talk a lot about classical music?” Awromele asked.
“I’d like to talk about it more,” Xavier said. “With you, too. I think it would be great to talk to a Jew about Beethoven. Or Wagner.” He blushed slightly. “At my father’s funeral they played Beethoven,” he said quickly.
“We never play music at funerals,” Awromele said. “We don’t like that fancy-schmancy stuff. A funeral is a funeral. I’ve never met people as assimilated as you. It’s a wonder you even know you’re a Jew.”
Awromele was stroking the uncircumcised member more forcefully now. “It is different,” he said, “I can tell now. You can do more with it, you can apply more force, because there’s less tension in it. A foreskin might be less hygienic, but it also has its advantages. Evolution probably knew what it was doing. They say that everything in evolution is there for a purpose, don’t they?”