“Stop it!” the rabbi’s wife cried. “I don’t want to hear this. This is blasphemy, this is an insult to God. How can you call yourself a rabbi?”
“That’s what I mean,” Awromele said. “Talking, raping the language, turning it inside out, turning it around, then inside out again. It’s parasitism. That’s why they call you parasites, because you don’t speak the language of human beings. The language of human beings is the language of the shoe — that’s plain speaking. That’s clear talk; people can do something with that. That’s why they tried to exterminate you, because you’ve raped the language. Every word is something to be haggled over, every word can mean something else; you people are even prepared to haggle over your own death.”
Awromele ran to his room, gathered together his favorite trousers, his favorite shirt, his gym socks, the notebook with the Yiddish translation of Mein Kampf, and the book itself. Then he stuffed it all into a plastic bag. It’s starting, he thought. He didn’t know what was starting, all he knew was that it was starting, that something incredible was on its way. The rabbi’s wife knocked on his door. When she didn’t hear anything, she opened it and said: “Awromele, if you’re going to go, don’t go like this. Wait a little bit, until you’ve calmed down.”
“I have to,” he said. “Papa wants to lock me up. If I stay here, I’ll become like him. Something important is going to happen, and I have to be there. I’m part of the future; you two are only part of the past. A horrific past, a stinking past.”
“Awromele,” the rabbi’s wife said, “stop babbling; you’ve got me all worried. Future, past — what are you talking about? Everything repeats itself, everything has already happened and is going to happen again. If the past stinks, the future will stink even worse. Keep your head down — that’s the best thing you can do. Keep your head down, and don’t make too much noise. Stay here; you’re my firstborn son.”
“No, Mama,” Awromele said, “I have to go. The surest way to say nothing is to speak. I have to go, in order to say something.”
He headed for the front door. He didn’t want to wait for the elevator, so he took the stairs.
In the kitchen the rabbi’s wife was stuffing cookies into a plastic bag. She shouted: “Rochele, hurry up, Rochele, come here. Run after your brother and give him this. And tell him not to talk nonsense: he can always come back, we’ll be waiting for him, I’ll be waiting for him.”
Rochele grabbed the bag and ran down the stairs. She didn’t catch up with Awromele until they were out on the street. She threw her arms around his waist.
“Here,” she said, “here. This is from Mama. She said I should give it to you. Please come back, Awromele, please. No one knows what to do without you. Papa doesn’t mean anything bad by it, you know that. He’s just autistic, that’s what Mama says: he can’t help it. People who are autistic can’t do anything about anything.”
Awromele took the bag of cookies. He lifted his little sister on his arm.
“Don’t go away, Awromele,” she whispered in his ear. “Don’t go away. The pelican is coming. The pelican will help us.”
He smiled a little and put her back down. He ran his hand over her hair.
“Language is in your feet, Rochele,” Awromele said. “Language is in your shoes. Anything that comes out of your mouth is useless. The language of the future is in the knuckles of both hands.” He showed her his knuckles, and for a moment Rochele laid her fingers on her brother’s knuckles. “Awromele,” she whispered.
Then he walked on, the bag of cookies in one hand, in the other the plastic bag with his most valued possessions.
“Awromele,” Rochele cried, “Awromele, come back, we need you.”
But Awromele kept walking, because the language that came from people’s mouths was dead.
Rochele knelt down on the pavement. She looked at the sky, at the trees, the clouds, the windows hung with curtains, and the windows hung with nothing at all.
“Pelican,” she said softly, “look at me. I know you can see me. Look at me.”
Eye to Eye
IT WAS TEN O’CLOCK in the evening by the time Awromele rang Xavier’s doorbell. In the hand that hadn’t been broken, he held the plastic bag with his most valued possessions and the bag of cookies. He was sweating from his walk across town.
Awromele had stuffed all his savings into his pants pocket. He didn’t know how he would get by in the Venice of the North, so he had decided to be frugal. No more public transport, no more candy, and he would jot down all his revenues and expenditures in a notebook.
Marc opened the door.
Awromele was standing there in his black suit and pin curls, the tzitzit hanging out of his pants.
“Have we met?” Marc asked the Orthodox Jew. He wasn’t the kind of person to be flustered by strangers showing up at the door at ten o’clock at night. The way other people eat what’s set before them, that’s the way Marc accepted the world.
“I’m a friend of Xavier’s,” Awromele said. “Xavier Radek.” Awromele hoped that Xavier would hear his voice and come running out. But Xavier didn’t hear anything: he was painting, and when he painted he didn’t hear a thing. As was often the case at this hour of the evening, the mother was sitting across from him with his testicle in her hand.
“Yes, that’s right,” Marc said. “He lives here.” And he looked the devout Jew over from head to toe. It was hard for him to imagine that Xavier knew this boy, let alone that he was his friend. “Is he expecting you?” he asked. On the other hand, Xavier was an artist, and artists tended to have peculiar friends. Especially when they were young. The artist as a young man was an eccentric nonconformist. Conformity came only with success. Marc had read about that, and so he didn’t worry about Xavier’s strange hobbies. Everything would turn out just fine in the end. The people would love Xavier and forgive him everything, and in that way they would also love Marc a little, too. “Shall I call him?”
“Yes, please,” Awromele said.
Marc turned to go into the living room, but thought better of it. “He’s painting right now. He can’t be disturbed. Could you come back tomorrow? Tomorrow afternoon, perhaps? Perhaps you should call first, to make sure he’s in.”
Awromele clutched his plastic bags a little tighter. He should have put the cookies in the bigger bag as well. “Couldn’t I come in for just a moment?” Awromele asked. “Just for a second? I can wait in the hallway, but I need to talk to Xavier. It’s urgent. It won’t take long.”
Marc hesitated. Letting this boy in while Xavier was working might not be such a good idea. But he decided to let the strange creature into the house anyway. The Orthodox Jew probably spoke the truth. Xavier had peculiar friends, and maybe he wanted to use the boy as a model. That was a good idea. An artist needed to work with a few different models. Painting the mother all the time had to get a little old. This boy wouldn’t make such a bad model after all, with his blond locks, his authentic getup, his religious headgear.
Marc said: “If you can be quiet and not disturb Xavier, you can come in. He’s painting; he doesn’t talk to anyone then. Then he’s in a kind of trance.”
Marc showed Awromele into the living room.
When Xavier saw Awromele, he shouted, “Jesus, Awromele!” He dropped his brush. Fortunately, he had put old newspapers on the floor under the easel.