“Do you have smegma? I’m so curious about what it looks like, but no one will show me. Apparently it looks a little like sheep cheese. But that doesn’t say much to me, either.”
Xavier reached for a bowl of nuts, put two of them in mouth, and ground them slowly between his molars.
“I wash myself carefully,” he said after both nuts had been ground to a pulp. Then, just to change the subject, he asked, “Do you mean grass cheese?”
“Grass cheese?”
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t that a real white kind of cheese?”
“That’s right,” Xavier said, “that’s it exactly.” Cheese was the only thing his father ate on bread, so he knew a lot about it.
“No, I mean sheep cheese, real sheep cheese. Do you have to scrape it off, or does it fall off in the shower? I’ve never met anyone who has smegma. You’re the first.”
Xavier choked and started coughing.
Awromele got up and pounded him on the back. That morning, Awromele had locked himself in his room and smoked a cigarette. After that he had trimmed his hair with a pair of manicure scissors. For a few minutes he had entertained the hope that, from now on, everything would be different. The worst thing about life was the endless repetition, the same holy days each year, the same Day of Atonement, the same matzos, the same hut roofed with branches, the same God who could write people’s name in the Book of Life or in the Book of Death. The repetition was the worst, but the rest wasn’t too great, either. Despite his age, Awromele had the sneaky feeling that there was nothing new, that there never would be anything new, that he already knew everything, and that the things he didn’t know yet he could easily guess about. Then he lay down on the bed with his clothes on and studied the lines on his hand. He’d had his palm read at a fair once and was fascinated by fortunetelling. If you knew the future, there was no longer any need to change it. All you had to do was know it, and then hide from it. That, in fact, was what Awromele saw as his task in life, and in the lives of others.
“What about blow jobs — isn’t that a problem?” Awromele asked after he sat down again.
Xavier’s coughing had become the hiccups. “I have to be going,” he said. Despite his size and the interest shown in him by a lot of girls, he was still a virgin. “Could I ask you one final question?”
“Of course.”
A waiter interrupted them to ask if they wanted anything else, but Xavier simply asked for the check. The way his father always did, sounding slightly irritated at having to think about anything as banal as a check.
“How do you deal with the Holocaust?” Xavier asked.
“Deal with the Holocaust? What do you mean?”
“Nothing special. How you deal with it. Do you talk about it a lot at home?”
“Twice a week.”
“Only twice a week?”
“In the winter, three times a week.”
“And then? Do you try to cope with it?”
The ice in Awromele’s glass had melted completely. A piercing, almost inhuman giggling came from Awromele’s mouth — inhuman in the way his beauty was almost inhuman. Too lovely. Too soft. Too glorious. Too wonderful. Not that everyone could see it. A lot of people probably didn’t notice, they only recognized as beauty a picture in a fashion magazine. But Xavier was a frequent visitors of museums, both those of natural history and of medieval art. He had seen countless pictures of the saints and the Redeemer. Some beauty, but not much, was changeless. And it was one single drop of that changeless beauty that he recognized in Awromele. In this young Jew he recognized something that destroyed his appetite, that frightened him to death.
“I want to ask you one more thing,” Xavier said. “Or, actually, I want to make you a proposal.” He feigned distraction for a moment; the hiccups had finally stopped; he paid the check.
“Would you consider tutoring me?” he asked. “I’ll pay for it, of course. I want to learn Yiddish.”
Awromele looked concerned, like an older brother, almost suspicious.
“Yiddish? Why do you want to learn Yiddish? You’re not even circumcised.”
“I want to be circumcised as well. But first I want to learn Yiddish.”
“First you’re going to learn Yiddish, then you’re going to get circumcised. Are you feeling all right? Why?”
“Because.”
“Just because? Nobody just wants to learn Yiddish. Have you had enough of being assimilated, is it getting old?”
“I want to write a book.”
“A book? What kind of book?”
“A book that will comfort people.”
“What people?”
“You know, people. You, for example.”
“Me?” Awromele looked disgusted. “What do you want to comfort me for?”
“For…well, for everything.”
Awromele got up. Xavier did, too. They walked to the entrance. People were watching them go — Xavier could tell even without looking back. The talking would start now. Out on the street he said, “Thanks for a pleasant afternoon.” They shook hands.
Awromele’s fingers were soft. If there was anything soft and feminine about Xavier, it wasn’t his hands. He had the hands of a workman; in the winter, his fingers quickly turned ruddy from the cold.
“Are you serious about this?” Awromele asked.
“About the lessons? Yes, completely serious. See me as a friend.”
Awromele looked amazed, then started laughing loudly. “That’s a good one, I have to remember that. You know what my father always says? He says it so often it makes you sick, but, then, he says everything so often it makes you sick. He says: Jews have no friends.”
Awromele’s laughter was contagious.
Xavier started laughing a little himself. But not wholeheartedly. He leaned forward. Without asking himself what he was doing, he kissed Awromele on his milky-white cheek. “Teach me, Awromele,” he said quietly. “Teach me.”
Xavier walked home with a bounce in his step. The Jews had a friend at last. If passersby had seen him walking along, they would have known: there he went, the friend of the Jews.
A Little Roughhousing
SOME PEOPLE ARE in search only of a home, a few molecules of happiness, a daily conversation about the weather; they’re content with a little chamber music and a bit of social status, but definitely not too much, for that only produces unrest, and unrest is the enemy of the family. For them the world is the size of their home, including front and back yards, supplemented perhaps by a swivel chair. As long as the world doesn’t interfere with them, they won’t interfere with the world. Perhaps they will vote now and again, but that is not really interfering with the world, it’s more like an innocent ritual. And then you have people in whom there dwells a burning ambition. The chamber music of happiness means little to them; they’re out to make their mark in the world, rearrange that world, and are willing to pay a high price to do so.
Xavier Radek was of the latter sort, even though he had no name for that burning ambition and barely knew that it dwelt within him. His parents had always sung the praises of modesty, in fact of nothing less than anonymity. For lack of a better way to put it, Xavier referred to his ambition as comforting a lost people. Comforting Awromele. Soothing the body part where the pain was located.
Xavier ran from the Drei Könige am Rhein Hotel all the way home. When he came close to the villa where his parents lived, he remembered that he had left his camera on the hotel patio. But that wasn’t important right then. What he had asked for, Yiddish lessons, would be given unto him.