“I bought these trousers in Paris,” Mr. Schwartz said, “in 1972, but you can keep them. I have trousers enough. How often can one person change his trousers? And what difference does it make if no one sees him anyway?”
For a moment, Xavier was able to forget everything — the operation, the smell of sour cream, the taste of slivovitz, the pain, Mr. Schwartz’s accent. He was back with his father in a gigantic fitness center.
But that didn’t last long: the pain came back with twice the intensity, as though avenging itself for Xavier’s attempt to forget it. Pain is like a lover who grows surly when you stop paying attention to him.
Even after Awromele and Mr. Schwartz had fastened the trousers with two safety pins, they still sagged so badly that Xavier would have to hold them up with one hand if he didn’t want to parade down the street naked. He wasn’t wearing underpants. The two men had tried to put a pair of underpants on him, but the pain had made him scream.
Xavier in Mr. Schwartz’s trousers looked something like a cross between a bum and someone trying to imitate an old vaudeville comedian. He lay on the bed while Awromele did his best to put on his socks and shoes.
“Help!” Xavier shouted.
“Am I hurting you?” Awromele asked.
In the living room, Mr. Schwartz was busy cutting off a piece of Gorgonzola and wrapping it in wax paper.
It wasn’t the pain that made him shout. Xavier was having visions again. His grandfather often played a prominent part in his visions, but in this last vision a supporting role had also been reserved for Mr. Schwartz. Xavier had shouted “Help!” because he remembered that he wanted to comfort Awromele, and he wasn’t convinced that he would be able to.
MR. SCHWARTZ CAME into the bedroom, feeling more triumphant than he had in years. He was no longer tormented by a sense of uselessness. In the last few hours, he had proved himself quite useful.
“What does the Jew want?” he asked. “The Jew wants to be healed, the Jew wants to go skipping down the street, the Jew wants to take a nice nap, and when he wakes up he wants to nibble on a piece of Mr. Schwartz’s Gorgonzola.”
He tried to hand the cheese to Xavier. Xavier was having more and more trouble seeing where the visions stopped and reality began.
Awromele took the Gorgonzola in its wax-paper wrapping. He said to Xavier, “We really must allow Mr. Schwartz to get some rest now.”
Xavier was able to get up from the bed, with Awromele’s help, and limped out of the room on his friend’s arm. The limping hurt, and so did talking, swallowing, looking, breathing. Xavier felt like a dying rat.
The old Parisian trousers kept falling down around Xavier’s knees, but Awromele deftly pulled them back up each time.
“Well, boys,” Mr. Schwartz said, “we’ll be seeing you. Get well quick.” He planted a quick kiss on Xavier’s forehead, and Xavier caught a vague whiff of alcohol before staggering and falling to the floor.
He was lying in Mr. Schwartz’s vestibule, moaning quietly.
“I can’t do this,” Xavier said.
“Don’t give up,” Awromele said. “You’re almost there. You’ll be home before you know it; then you can lie down in your own bed.”
Melancholy took hold of Mr. Schwartz once more. A few minutes of cheerfulness never go unpunished. He had done his very best. Okay, the knife had slipped, but it had slipped in the past as well, and that had never been a problem. Skin heals so quickly. The skin cells replenish themselves faster than you could imagine. Before you knew it, there was no sign of where the wound had been.
Awromele said: “Listen, you’re the one who wanted to be circumcised. And that’s what you got.”
Xavier’s moans grew louder. “But I didn’t know it was going to hurt like this.”
“It hurts for a little while,” Mr. Schwartz said. “Everything hurts the first time around.”
Mr. Schwartz and Awromele pulled Xavier to his feet. They ignored his grievous cries; neither of them knew how to stop his suffering.
Awromele rushed Xavier out the door in a hurry. Other people’s moaning could get on your nerves.
Mr. Schwartz stood in the doorway for a long time, looking after them in the hope that they would turn and wave, but it didn’t happen. Then he closed the door, slid closed the four deadbolts, and lay down on his bed without changing the sheets. He was finished. The dark-red, almost purple spots on the sheets escaped his notice.
I’m On Fire
XAVIER WALKED straddle-legged through the streets of Basel, like an animal that has been hit by a car and is dragging itself to its lair. Every once in a while, his trousers fell to his knees. Awromele hitched them up quickly, so passersby wouldn’t see the little mummy. A woman crossed to the other side hurriedly, fear in her eyes, when she saw the boys coming.
From one moment to the next, nothing is left of you but the pain. At a Biergarten, Awromele called a taxi. Under the circumstances, public transport did not seem like an option. The first cabdriver who showed up refused to take them. The second one was more tolerant. In the backseat, Awromele sang Yiddish songs to keep Xavier from losing courage. But Xavier had already lost it.
The cabdriver, a foreigner, stopped in front of Xavier’s house.
It was important that his mother not see Awromele — the time wasn’t ripe for that yet. “You go on,” Xavier whispered, “I’ll be okay.” He wormed his way out of the cab. His shame was stronger than his pain, but not much.
Only when he reached the door did he realize that his keys were in the pocket of his jeans, still hanging over a chair at Mr. Schwartz’s house.
He rang the bell. Then he was finished. He tried to sit down, but he fell, flat on his face at his own front door.
Xavier’s mother heard the bell, but she made a point of not opening the door for strangers. Just like her late husband — he had always been opposed to that, too. Right after he had started practicing as an architect, he had seen A Clockwork Orange, and had decided then and there never to open the door for strangers again. Not even in wartime. Particularly not in wartime.
Xavier tried to get to his feet a few times, but couldn’t. It felt as though a novice acupuncturist were jamming a thousand needles into Xavier’s sex organ. The paralyzed feeling grew stronger. Maybe Mr. Schwartz had accidentally severed something important.
Because Xavier had not come home for dinner as he usually did, the mother decided after a few minutes to go and see who was ringing the bell. She opened the door, but saw nothing. She was about to close it again when she noticed her son lying on the doorstep at her feet. On his back. Like an animal. The boy reminded her of an overgrown alley cat. She didn’t like alley cats.
“Xavier,” she said, “what on earth do you think you’re doing?”
Only then did she see that her son was wearing a pair of unfamiliar trousers. She couldn’t see the mummy under the trousers, which was probably just as well.
“What are you wearing?”
“I lost my pants,” Xavier whispered.
She started to bend over, to take a better look at the trousers, but caught a whiff of alcohol. She was no fool. She knew exactly what alcohol smelled like, even though she didn’t drink much herself.
“Lost your pants,” she said. “Don’t make me laugh! You didn’t go hiking in the mountains at all, you went out carousing with those so-called friends of yours. You’re a drunkard. I’m so disappointed.”
Then she closed the door and went back to the table. She had waited for Xavier before starting with dinner, but she had no intention of waiting any longer. She dished out the food and shouted, “Marc, dinner’s ready!”