“No,” Xavier said, “not really. Not to speak of.”
The rabbi held his tongue tactfully. Or perhaps he was merely bored. His beard was long, there were spots on his black jacket, and when Xavier came close to him he smelled the smell of food that had been on the stove all day. But Xavier didn’t let odors put him off.
Along with a few of the gentlemen from the synagogue, they were now strolling towards the rabbi’s house. “What is it you would like to learn?” the rabbi asked. Two children had won the struggle for his hand, a girl and a boy. The girl had white skin with the occasional freckle, and hair that was more red than blond, particularly in sunlight. She wore white tights, black patent-leather shoes, and a plaid skirt.
Xavier couldn’t imagine how he had put up with the steam engine and the chemistry set for so long. What did a steam engine really signify, anyway?
“What do you mean, rabbi?”
“Don’t call me rabbi. I’m Mr. Michalowitz.”
“Mr. Michalowitz.” Xavier ran over that name a few times in his mind, so he would not forget it.
“Would you like to learn something about Judaism, about the customs of your ancestors? Where do they come from?”
“Who?”
“Your parents. Where are they from? Are they Ashkenazim?”
How it had happened he was never able to figure out. Perhaps it was the color of his hair, his eyes, his physique, his white shirt, his gestures, his lips that seemed always on the verge of a smile, but in the synagogue at Basel no one doubted that Xavier Radek was a Jew. That was how he gained a culture, and a tradition; it was all that simple. This, too, could be no coincidence. He thought of his grandfather’s photo, the resemblance, the words he had whispered to the photo on quiet Sunday afternoons, the questions he had asked him, the most important of which had to do with the sense of suffering.
“Poland.” It was the first thing that came to mind. While they were swimming in the Rhine one evening, Mr. Salomons had told him that his parents came from Poland. It was in the Rhine that the fraternization had begun.
“From Poland, yes,” the rabbi said. “Of course, but where in Poland?”
Xavier thought for a moment. “Central Poland,” he said.
Apparently this was enough to place his parents, for the rabbi asked no further questions — at least not about that.
“And what is it you would like to learn?”
“I want to learn about suffering,” Xavier Radek said.
The rabbi stopped in his tracks. The children were pulling on his arms. The lonely men who, just like Xavier, had been invited to have lunch at the rabbi’s walked on. They didn’t notice a thing, immersed as they were in a discussion of the political situation in the Middle East.
“Which suffering?”
“Your suffering,” Xavier said. “Suffering in general.” He realized that his throat was dry, as though he were alone in a room with a woman for the first time and, halfway through some bland conversation — about the Rubik’s Cube, for example, she had suddenly removed a crucial item of apparel.
“Can you read Hebrew?” the rabbi asked.
“No.”
“Well, start with that.”
Then the rabbi walked on, and said nothing more to Xavier the rest of the way to the house.
The wind had come up. Occasionally Xavier had to put his hand on his head to keep the skullcap from blowing away. And because he was a social animal — there was no helping that — he joined in the single men’s discussion. He felt like a trained pig that had just found itself in the vicinity of truffles. He said: “The Jews need Lebensraum, too.”
AT THE TABLE, he sat between two of the rabbi’s sons. The oldest boy went by the name of Awromele; the other one’s name he only half understood, and half-names were impossible for him to remember. Across the table from him was a girl with braces on her teeth, who stared at him throughout the meal. He ate with relish, this food of the Jews. You couldn’t call it refined — they would have to wander at least another forty years in the wilderness before getting to nouvelle cuisine — but they did have a healthy appetite. Heroism didn’t need to be anything huge; this was good enough for starters. Xavier decided he should do this more often. Visit their homes.
He had washed his hands in ritual fashion, just like the others. He had heard the wine being blessed, he had drunk of the sweet wine itself, and he reveled in his new role. There was singing. At first Xavier Radek was prudent enough to keep quiet, but he had a good feeling for music, and the second time the refrain came around he could restrain himself no longer. He hummed along. He felt at ease amid the enemies of happiness, and so he hummed more and more loudly all the time, until his humming drowned out all the others, except for the rabbi. The girl with the braces tossed him glances of annoyance, but Xavier didn’t notice. He enjoyed the music; he lost himself in it.
The chosen people liked to sing at the table, just like the Boy Scouts. All details that he had never stopped to think about before, and that you never read about in the paper. The enjoyment bothered him, though. Enjoyment is shallow. You can enjoy yourself all morning, but around noon the tristesse of superficiality always strikes.
When the singing was over, Awromele, who had curly blond hair down over his ears, asked him: “Do you speak Yiddish?”
“No,” Xavier said, “I’m afraid not.”
Fortunately, the rabbi was not paying attention to them, he was busy explaining that a man does better to leave the choice of a wife to others who can be more objective. “That’s too bad,” Awromele said. “When you speak Yiddish, you can tell the filthiest jokes in the tram and no one understands you.” He shook his head ruefully when his father said: “I’ve helped more than twenty men to find a bride; they were happy then, and they are happy today. I can help you men find a bride as well, but you will have to be open to my counsel. You can’t turn down every bride I come up with — you mustn’t start finding fault in advance.”
“You know what?” Awromele said. “Tell me a dirty joke, and I’ll translate it into Yiddish. What’s the dirtiest joke you know?” He beamed, his face glowing red. It was not a blush, it was the excitement of life itself rushing through him, as though Awromele had no other reason to exist than to translate jokes sneakily into a slowly dying language.
Xavier felt a shiver run through him, without knowing why. He thought: That’s surrendering to life, what this fellow’s doing, surrendering to life head over heels. That’s what a warrior must do. But he said: “I don’t know. It’s not really the kind of thing I’m very familiar with.”
“A joke so dirty people would go nuts if they heard it.”
“I’ll think about it,” Xavier said. He didn’t know any jokes like that. He barely knew any jokes at all.
When the misfits got up to say goodbye — no agreement had yet been reached concerning their brides-to-be — Xavier got up as well. He thanked the rabbi profusely, and murmured something along the lines of “we must do this again sometime soon.” He tried to shake hands with the rabbi’s wife, but she didn’t respond. All she said was “Gut Shabbes.” He went down the steps in a daze.
When he was outside he realized that he was still wearing the black skullcap. He put it in his pocket.
AT DINNER THAT EVENING, the skullcap was lying like a huge insect in Xavier’s white soup-bowl. By the time he arrived at the table, his father and mother had already dished up asparagus soup for themselves. His own bowl was standing there, half filled with something that, in this setting, was clearly obscene.
He looked at it and realized that his parents had gone through his pockets. Undoubtedly with the best of intentions. Parents do everything with the best of intentions.