She sat down beside the other members of the Committee of Vigilant Jews. The Egyptian put the glass of cola down in front of her and whispered in her ear: “You’re still young; you’ll get married, you’ll have children, that’s how things go. But you shouldn’t shave yourself. The Creator gave us hair. And everything we have, we have for a reason.” And then he said, a little louder now: “Women shave themselves too much, and what do they get for it? Rashes. I used to have a beard, I used to have bad skin. Now I don’t have bad skin anymore, so I don’t really need the beard. My skin is old, but it’s not bad. My wife wants me to go along to the cosmetologist — she says there are little black spots on my nose and cheeks — but I’m not going to any beautician. Women are always seeing little black spots, because they have nothing better to do. I’m going to close the place. So drink up and go home.”
The two members of the committee nodded groggily. There was still a little whisky in their glasses. It was too late — or, rather, too early — to go by the rabbi’s house and inform him of their findings. They could do that tomorrow, once they’d caught up on some sleep. The Egyptian clutched Bettina’s head to his chest; he didn’t want to disappoint his customers.
When he let go, Bettina finished what was in her glass. She was falling apart — she had already fallen apart — so she needed to go to bed. First get some sleep, then go to the doctor.
The Egyptian looked at her and felt bad. She was still so young. He whispered: “I have responsibilities of my own, you understand? I have my responsibilities — I’m a married man, I run this place — but someone has to tell you. You shave yourself in places where a razor has no business going.”
She stared at him, at this man, this foreigner. No one had every talked to her like this before — you didn’t say things like that. What did he know about the laws of the razor? The razor could go wherever it liked.
Without a word, she got up and walked out of the kebab place. She was a wreck, a wreck from the provinces. Everything she had promised herself seemed ridiculous now. Going to the doctor, driving the Egyptian crazy, India, women’s studies, an active role in the Committee of Vigilant Jews — she wasn’t even Jewish.
She walked down the street amid the first commuters of the day. At a tram stop she paused for a minute; she still had a strange taste in her mouth.
The Egyptian showed his last customers to the door. He opened his refrigerator and looked at his stock, back behind the bottle of condensed milk. He thought about Bettina, and decided to make an extra contribution to Hamas. They could use it.
The guilt was more than he could take. He had already lost so much — money, women, kebab places, business partners, brothers, himself. As he stood in front of the fridge, it seemed to him as though all he had lost was himself. “Father,” he said, “listen. Only money gives us love, only money.” He clenched his fist, punched the refrigerator, hurt his hand, then punched the refrigerator again.
Worse than the guilt was the shame. The shame remained; it didn’t run away from the money that flowed to the family members of freedom fighters. It was always there, just like his mother.
I Decide What’s Anti-Semitic
THE WHEELBARROW was parked beside Awromele now, and Xavier was panting. It was brighter now, despite the low cloud cover. Morning had broken, people were going to work, taking children to school, but Awromele still wasn’t in the wheelbarrow.
Xavier called to him, but nothing was getting through. “We have to get out of here,” Xavier said, with no real hope of a reply. He pulled on Awromele’s legs, no longer afraid to hear the popping of bones, the scraping of chafed skin against dirt. He lifted the feet first, then one leg, then the other, and so he was able to work Awromele’s lower body into the wheelbarrow. But his torso and head were still lying on the ground.
I need help, Xavier thought, but no one’s going to help me the way I look now. I’m half naked, I’ve got a black eye, I have cuts on my hands — they’ll think I’m crazy. They’ll laugh at me and lock me up, that’s what they do to crazy people.
He tipped the wheelbarrow onto its side and tucked Awromele up into a ball as well as he could, as though the injured boy were a pile of clothes that had to be forced into an undersized suitcase. Xavier did his best not to bump against Awromele’s swollen hand. He used his hands and knees to push the rolled-up body into the wheelbarrow, and when he had done that he tried to push it upright. “Help me, King David,” he cried.
Xavier was able to raise the wheelbarrow with Awromele in it off the ground a little, but not to push it upright. He worked harder than he had ever worked before. Sometimes, in his frustration, he kicked at the wheelbarrow, but each time he apologized afterwards and said to the rolled-up body, “I’m sorry, that was my fault.” He found a big broken branch and tried to use it as a lever. He tore his hands open even more.
After a few minutes, he stopped and planted little kisses on Awromele’s forehead — the head the boys had kicked in order to express their admiration for Kierkegaard, in order to share with a stranger their esteem for that thinker. Even after a night in the park, Awromele’s head still smelled nice.
Xavier cursed, leaned against the wheelbarrow, and pushed, but it didn’t help. He went to the other side and pulled. For a moment, it looked as though Awromele was going to roll out onto the ground, but finally he was able to pull the wheelbarrow upright. Despite the cold, sweat was running down Xavier’s back. His jogging pants and his stomach were muddy. His hands were covered with smaller and larger cuts, his face was streaked with dirt. He struggled to tear his dirty T-shirt into strips, then wrapped them carefully around both hands. “Now we’re going to the doctor,” he said. “We’re going to get you some help.” He caressed the hair of the boy who was tucked up in the wheelbarrow like the remains of cannon fodder that had to be brought to a final resting place. Xavier loved those remains, he longed for them. “Dearest,” he said.
Xavier heard the sound of hoofbeats. Not far from the park was a riding school. He seized the handles of the wheelbarrow and turned in his thoughts to King David. The wheelbarrow was so heavy now that Xavier had to put it down and rest every three steps. Slowly, he succeeded in leaving behind the sacred place, the bare spot beneath the pine tree. The spot where he had taken Awromele’s penis in his mouth, where he had been given a black eye, where he had listened to his friend’s bloodcurdling screams, and where he had come to the conclusion that without Awromele his life would end.
AWROMELE’S MOTHER FIXED breakfast for her remaining twelve children, and said quietly to her husband, “It’s our fault, Asher; we should have taken better care of him.”
“What do you mean?” the rabbi said. “Take better care of him? Who should have taken better care of him? Me? I don’t have time. How can we hope to protect ourselves against the anti-Semite? The anti-Semite is strong, and we are weak. The anti-Semite is big, we are little; the anti-Semite is everywhere, we are nowhere. What were we supposed to do? We can’t lock up our children, we can’t turn their bedrooms into prisons, can we?” He had spent a sleepless night and was even grouchier than usual, early in the morning.
“Dirty Jews,” his wife said, sprinkling cornflakes in the children’s bowls.
“What did you say?”
“Dirty Jews.”
“Who?”
“All of you,” the rabbi’s wife said.
“What do you mean? What are you trying to say?”
“What have these dirty Jews from the Committee of Vigilant Jews done for us? They sat here, drank our coffee, drank our vodka, emptied the cookie jar, and now they’re laughing at us behind our backs. Especially at you, because you’re autistic. And have they found my Awromele? Have they found even one hair of his head? Even one little shoelace? Maybe they didn’t even go looking for him. I wouldn’t put it past them, those dirty Jews.”