“Mama,” Xavier said. “Don’t talk so much and don’t move so much. I can’t concentrate.”
“Yes, you might be right,” Awromele said thoughtfully.
“What?” the mother asked. “What might I be right about?”
Awromele sniffed loudly; he hadn’t brought a handkerchief. He felt like eating a cookie now; the long walk had made him hungry.
“About being despised. That’s what I mean. There’s a lot of despising going on. It’s something people like to do. My parents, for example, despise each other. My mother’s family, for good reason, despises my father’s family, and they’re quite vocal about it. But since you’re an Israelite, as you put it, yourself, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. You’re Xavier’s mother.” Awromele glanced at Xavier, who was finishing up the shading on King David. Awromele remembered the promise they’d made in the park not to feel a thing. He didn’t feel a thing, he knew that for sure, he couldn’t feel a thing, and that was precisely why he wanted to be with Xavier.
The mother looked at him expectantly.
“Obviously, you’re one yourself,” he said. “As Xavier’s mother, I mean. An Israelite. But don’t worry. If you’d rather not have people know, I won’t tell anyone. There are plenty of people who’ll tell you, Oh no, not us, absolutely not. But often enough they are. They just keep it a secret, because they don’t like it, because they’re afraid of the consequences. Because they don’t speak the right language. You have Orthodox Jews who look down on assimilated Jews, and vice versa. That’s true. But as far as your son goes, for example, I never had any problem with the fact that he didn’t know anything. That he didn’t know the prayers, that until recently he was uncircumcised, that he didn’t know any dirty jokes in Yiddish. That’s never mattered to me. I accepted him the way he was, I love him the way he is. If that’s what’s worrying you, I can put your mind at ease.” Awromele rubbed the hand in the cast. It itched.
The mother choked on her own spittle, which she often did when love was mentioned. The testicle trembled in her hand. She started coughing. She popped something in her mouth, a yellow lozenge, and started sucking on it. The tickle in her throat faded.
“But take me, for example. When I look at you, the way we’re sitting here,” said Awromele, “when you see me looking at you, do I cause you pain?” Awromele looked the mother deep in the eye and thought: This woman is the mother of my sweetheart. I must never forget that when I talk to her, I have to remember that. That forges a bond: no matter what she says, whatever else she may claim, that unites me with her.
“Would you like some tea?” Xavier asked. “Mama, shouldn’t we offer Awromele a cup of tea? Isn’t there a kettle on in the kitchen? A little tea, Mama, don’t you think we should offer our guest a little tea?”
His voice was wobbly, as though he were going through puberty all over again.
The mother held up the testicle with both hands. She was serious about her task as a model. “In a minute,” she said. Her arms hurt. Posing for a painting wasn’t as easy as it looked. She hated her son, but she did want to stimulate him to paint. “Yes,” she said to Awromele, “you cause me pain. What did you say your name was again? Exactly?”
“Awromele,” Awromele said. “Awromele Michalowitz.”
“You cause me pain, Awromele Michalowitz,” the mother said. “Your presence, your eyes, your look, the odor you exude — because you smell different, I’m sure you’re aware of that. You cause me pain, everything about you causes me pain, everything about you tears me in two, makes me, I’m sorry to have to put it like this, nauseous. I’ve never had the chance to talk to anyone about this, but I can talk to you, because you’ve come here of your own accord. I don’t know what’s gotten into me, but the moment you came in here I thought: I can tell him about it.”
“But I don’t despise you,” Awromele said, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “I hope you believe me. I don’t despise you, not in the slightest; on the contrary, I respect you, because you’re Xavier’s mother.”
The painter tried to lose himself in his canvas, tried with the help of his brushes to forget the conversation going on around him. And the mother said: “So you don’t, well, all right, that’s what you say now, while you’re sitting on my couch, breathing my air, now that you’ve walked on my wooden floor, touched my doorknobs. It’s only logical that you should say that. But the other ones do. You told me that yourself — my sixth sense didn’t deceive me. They despise us. When you said that, I thought: Well, there you have it. So now I know. I’m not trying to justify what’s happened in the past — I can’t do that, I mustn’t do that — but behavior does have its consequences. Those who despise their hosts cannot go on expecting a free meal. We’ve done our best to please the Israelites, we’ve tolerated their synagogues and their slaughterhouses, their clubs, their ritual baths, and whatever else they need. And don’t get me wrong when I say that I’m not judging them. Fundamentally different is neither fundamentally better nor fundamentally worse.” She took a deep breath.
Xavier’s painting was becoming increasingly Expressionistic. The painting now contained the irony of history — he could hear his father say that — and his emotions, they were in it, too, his love for Awromele. So that was the name he would give the painting: The Irony of History and My Love for Awromele. He would show it to the ladies and gentlemen at the art academy in the Venice of the North, and they would have no choice but to admit him then. It was desolate, this painting, desolate as a mountain landscape above the timberline.
The mother took a deep breath and said: “Of course, because we hoped to ward off danger, that’s why we gave the Israelite so much. You have to give your enemy a lot, and not merely because we’ve been raised to turn the other cheek to our enemies, an important ethical principle and one I have always lived by, no matter how difficult that was for me. I have turned my other cheek, each day anew. I haven’t complained, because complaining is for the weak. But what I mean to say is: I’ve always known that you should wrap your enemy in a warm towel and gently rub him dry, that you should give him love and nourishment and something to drink, for that is the only thing that renders him helpless. You have to know your enemy, that’s the start. My father used to say that no one is more to be pitied than the one who doesn’t know his enemy, the man who thinks he has no enemies and is therefore no better than a sitting duck. I have never wanted to be anyone’s sitting duck. I smelled them, the enemies; I heard their footsteps, their voices; I knew they could be in places you wouldn’t expect — in your own home, for example. Your own husband can be your enemy, your own child. The biggest mistake fascism made was to turn against the Israelite. If fascism had absorbed the Israelite, if fascism had said to the Israelite: Come, let us join forces, then fascism would still be a vital movement, it would be the most important movement in Europe. Look at the Palestinians. The Israelite is a fascist by nature — it’s in his blood, it flows through his veins. I’m a member of the Committee of Vigilant Parents, as you may know — an honorary member, because my son was molested and lost his testicle.” She moved the jar a little closer to Awromele, as though she wanted to show him all her son had lost.