Xavier noticed that he was growing short of breath. Like that time he’d vomited on the street. “If the Jews don’t control the media, then who does, in your opinion?” he asked. His voice peeped, as though he had asthma.
“It’s probably not the Muslims,” Awromele said. “They don’t control much of anything.”
“Now you’ve got to stop,” Xavier said, trying to pull his father’s sweater down farther. “That’s enough.”
“Your foreskin’s got neshome,” Awromele said, going on with his powerful caresses, as though it were his profession and he’d been doing it for years. “Do you know what neshome is?”
“You told me once,” Xavier said, “but I forgot.” He pulled harder on his father’s sweater, but it didn’t help much. The sweater had been bought in Milan, back when they were still a happy family, the Radeks. A happy family with a little secret.
“Soul,” Awromele said. “That’s what nesjome is, soul.”
The drilling in the street started again. Awromele bent down; he took the foreskin and what was attached to it in his mouth.
Awromele’s got my soul in his mouth, Xavier thought. He cleared his throat. “I know you’ve done a lot for me. But I don’t know if I like this.”
Awromele was making smacking sounds, the way wine tasters do when there are other wine tasters around.
“Funny,” he said. “You taste funny.”
The door flew open. Because of the drilling, they hadn’t heard Mr. Schwartz coming. Mr. Schwartz was nearsighted, and so absorbed in the prospect of the task he would be performing in a few minutes that he didn’t notice the situation in which the boys found themselves. He had two stirrups with him, stirrups he said had been given to him by a gynecologist friend who had closed shop. “A former communist, just like me,” he said. “We former communists have to stick together.”
With Awromele’s help, he attached the stirrups to the sides of his bed. Then he looked around, as though wanting to make sure he was still in his own bedroom. He patted his hands together softly and said, “I’m ready; just let me wash my hands.”
Awromele casually stroked Xavier’s member a few more times. “It will work out,” he said. “Mr. Schwartz used to be the most famous mohel in all of Basel. They said he could perform miracles.”
“Will I get an anesthetic?” Xavier asked.
“A little, I guess, but you won’t need much. Babies are circumcised without an anesthetic. Yours is a bit bigger, of course, but it’s the same principle.”
Xavier blew his nose. “So now I’ll be part of the covenant,” he said. “The holy covenant.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.
“Holy,” Awromele said, “you’re right about that. I hope Mr. Schwartz hurries up a little.”
“Do you do that often?”
“What?”
“What you just did?”
“What do you mean?”
“What you did. With your mouth.”
“Oh no, never. Only watched. How other people did it.”
“You seemed so proficient at it.”
“It’s not all that difficult.”
Xavier stared at the rotten apples on the windowsill, and then at the old-fashioned stirrups that had been mounted with such difficulty on Mr. Schwartz’s bed. He couldn’t help thinking about Mr. Schwartz’s love of Christmas trees, and how that had caused him a crisis of conscience when he was young.
“Are you sure,” Xavier asked, “that we shouldn’t have this done in a hospital?”
“That would be more expensive. And less authentic. Jews are always circumcised at home.”
“And what if something goes wrong?”
“Then we can always go to the emergency room.”
“But then maybe it will be too late.”
“A young body can survive a great deal. Don’t worry.”
Xavier wasn’t so sure about that. What, after all, had his father’s body really undergone in the way of trauma? He had lain beneath the punching bag, and a few hours later it was all over. Okay, he hadn’t been that young anymore, but he wasn’t that old, either.
Mr. Schwartz’s instruments looked old-fashioned, but fortunately they were clean.
“I have to pee,” Xavier said. “Excuse me for a moment.”
He wasn’t sure how long he’d still be able to do that. While he was peeing he imagined what it was like to have the clap, or other sexually transmitted diseases. It doesn’t help to worry about things over which you have no control, but the imagination is more powerful than reason. Though Xavier’s imagination was exceptionally powerful, he didn’t want to turn back, he couldn’t turn back, he didn’t want to be a coward.
When Xavier came out of the bathroom, Mr. Schwartz was waiting in the bedroom with a tub of water and some towels.
“Do your parents know about this?” he asked.
“My father is no longer alive.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“And it’s going to be a surprise for my mother.”
“She’ll be very pleased,” Mr. Schwartz said. “Just like your father, wherever he is now. I’m sure that he can see us, and that he’s nodding in approval. So let’s get started. Lie down and make yourself comfortable.”
Xavier crawled onto Mr. Schwartz’s bed. The smell of sour cream became overpowering. He wondered whether Mr. Schwartz had ever lain in this bed and longed for someone else, or whether you stopped doing that at a certain point.
Mr. Schwartz moved the reading lamp and leaned over him.
“Put your feet on the stirrups,” he said.
But Xavier’s feet kept sliding off the stirrups, and Awromele had to help. He held Xavier’s feet tightly in place.
Xavier lay there, spread-eagled on the not-so-clean bed, feeling as if he were at the dentist’s.
“Do you want to pay now, or later?” Mr. Schwartz asked, handing his patient a glass of water.
“Later,” Xavier said. He had a hard time holding the glass upright.
“I’m going to give you some Valium,” Mr. Schwartz said, “that should be enough.” There were three little tablets in the palm of his hand, and Xavier gulped them down greedily. The faster the narcosis started working, the better.
Awromele watched with interest as Mr. Schwartz lifted the Italian sweater and leaned down close to Xavier’s lower body. The patient felt the old man’s breath against his navel.
“Everything looks fine,” Mr. Schwartz said, “everything looks just dandy. Exactly the way it should. I’m not going to put on gloves, because I just washed my hands.”
Xavier didn’t feel the narcosis much, so he closed his eyes and prepared himself for the operation by concentrating on his grandfather in uniform. He felt Mr. Schwartz’s hand lifting his sex organ a few centimeters, he heard someone make a clacking noise with his tongue, then he felt something cold against his sex organ, and after that there was only pain.
Pain that took his breath away. He didn’t even notice that he was screaming. For a split second the pain seemed to subside, and he thought about the phrase he had come across in a comic book as a child: “Accept, O Lord, this humble sacrifice.”
Then the pain came back, redoubled.
Xavier tried to pull his feet out of the stirrups, he tried to get up, but someone was holding his feet. Someone was squeezing his ankles.
He hoped he would lose consciousness, so terrible was the pain. But Xavier’s consciousness remained alert, as though it didn’t want to miss a single one of these precious moments. He screamed, he couldn’t stop screaming, he lost control of his voice. Fortunately, Mr. Schwartz’s neighbor was deaf; otherwise he would have certainly called the police, or come to take a look for himself.