And then Lionel noticed Samuel Lipker. Between the excerpts, Samuel praised the Last Jew who was appearing here before this distinguished audience, as he put it. He spoke like a person reporting on percentages of interest or a rise in stocks, restrained and aloof, and all the while his face was thrust at the audience, he had to know who his real enemy was, he had to overpower them and Lionel understood his look better than he understood Lily's enthusiasm at hearing the things Ebenezer was reciting. Lionel hated the covetousness he discerned in Samuel's eyes. He saw in him something that reminded him of the awful moments of his life, when he saw in the mirror a person he himself didn't know. And then Ebenezer said: I now list essays on the history of the hostility to the repulsive Jews (he didn't say that mockingly, he said it dryly, as if he had no opinion)Distinguished gentlemen, set your watches a thousand years back. I'm trying again, I said then boldly: the news according to Benbas, the dialogue with Trifo by Justin Martyr, the pamphlet against the heretics by Iraeneus, I'm sorry about the whisper, reading from a distance, dead letters torn in my mind, a smell of a distant church, a ringing that deserted the bells and remains hovering in the air, torturing Jews by Tertullian, calling God by Lactinius, and that fool Kramer thought only about the essay by Isidor of Sevilla and his pamphlet against the Jews. A great expert you had there! Kramer… removing all the heretics and an explanatory essay against Jews by Hippolyte, tasteless kinds of flesh of Jews by Novatian and a selection of testimonies by Nissa and testimonies from the Old Testament against the Jews, proof of the Good Tidings, history of the church by Eusebius. Eight sermons against the Jews and proof to the Jews and the Christians that Jesus is God by Chrysostom, a pamphlet by Saint Augustine, his Heavenly City… Rhymes against the Jews by Ephraim the Syrian, Sergei de Abraga: the Torah of Jacob and the proofs against the Jews by Ephrat, the sermons of Masrog, the Sabbath against the Jews by Isidore… Something is omitted here, and the book of Orthodox faith, a dialogue of Jason and Papikies, a dialogue of Timothy of Aquilla, a dialogue of Asnasius and Pepsicus, and Philo, and Lily thought Ebenezer was singing. When she said that, Lionel looked at her and suddenly couldn't recognize her. Inside him, a melody he knew from childhood began singing in him. Melissa is listening to my father's melody, thought Lionel, who was my father? But when Ebenezer started quoting poems by eighteenth-century Polish poets, the ruddy-cheeked old man with the red flower in his lapel was moved to tears and frenziedly wrote down every word in a big notebook in front of him. His hand flew over the paper, his eyes were almost shut and some coquettish smile spread over his face. When Ebenezer moved to the stories of the Cadet from the Zohar and then to the stories of the Brothers Grimm, the old man said: Forty years I've been investigating forgotten Polish poetry, both of us, he and I, the only ones in the world who still remember. I sit in London, sir, investigate, encyclopedias empty of that poetry, no books, there was a man who remembered and passed it on to Ebenezer, in his mind he holds onto that sublime poetry, I copy it to publish it. Is there anything more awful than a nation forgetting its songs, Lord! Of all the dozens of poets he knows-I follow him from city to city-only three are still known to scholars of Polish literature. Who was the man who taught him that poetry? Could it have been a Jew? How does a Jew who died know that poetry? And the man wept and Lionel didn't know exactly what he was weeping about. He covered the notebook so the tears wouldn't melt the words he wrote and he started shaking the rattle. I don't know, if he'd ask me I'd be amazed, do I really know those poems? Maybe Germanwriter knows. The man stopped shaking the rattle and again wrote something. Lily swallowed a piece of orange Lionel gave her.
And then Ebenezer stood up to the cheering rattles. A bitter smile flickered in the corners of his mouth. Those who didn't just want to shake the rattles applauded. Ebenezer looked tired and pale. Samuel Lipker gave him a glass of beer. Lily said: That lad looks like you! Lionel, who had known that from the first moment, glared at his venomous beauty, he shifted his eyes to Ebenezer and thought: Ebenezer and I are the same age. I'm with Lily Schwabe and he's with Samuel Lipker, and he envied Lily's beautiful eyes that saw that beauty.
Anger at himself made him shiver and he diverted his hostility to war against Lily.
And Lily was an easy enemy, thought Lionel with his characteristic bitterness. And then a murderer who had been dormant in him ever since Melissa shut her eyes was kindled in him. His hands reached out to Lily to strangle her. There was a lot of noise. A flush rose onto Lily's cheeks. She saw the hands reaching out to her. Samuel Lipker stared long and wantonly at Lionel, who felt his look. He dropped his hands and buried his face in them. Lily sidled up to him and caressed his hand, shook the rattle exaggeratedly, and sipped the beer. The Pole stood up and went to sit someplace else. Lionel wanted to get up. Ebenezer was standing on the side of the stage and looked like a grasshopper stuck to a blackboard in a biology class. Lily is watered by an artificial rain, he thought, and Melissa, my angel, you died before my eyes. Samuel Lipker now told how he had met Ebenezer, how Ebenezer learned his knowledge. He told how they had crossed borders and countries, and said: This performance is designed to collect money for our families, we glean pennies to save souls from death. He didn't expatiate on what death and only the smiling expression of Ebenezer's eyes clarified for Lionel the disgrace of the moment. When they passed the baskets among the audience, Samuel's eyes examined the room carefully but kept coming back to Lionel. When the basket came to Lionel, Lily wanted to pay, but he caught her hand, held the basket for a whole minute, looked at the money heaped up in it and passed it on. Samuel looked at the basket that dropped out of Lionel's hand, and his eyes expressed some contempt and then Samuel said, his eyes staring into Lionel's eyes: Ebenezer has to save his daughters! But Lionel knew and didn't know how he knew that Ebenezer had no daughters. Now he wanted to see Samuel's defeat but maybe even then that love for that bold and attractive lad stirred in him, and the closeness he felt for Lily made him shiver even more, he had to kiss or die, her or him, he went outside and threw up. Then, he took the rattle and shook it in the street until they came to Lily's house. People dressed in rags sitting huddled at bonfires next to what once were their houses looked with characteristic loathing at somebody who had lost them their palaces, and he yelled: I piss on you and the dream girl of the Third Reich also laughed. At home, Lionel said: I'm forty-four years old and I weep without tears. And you, a daughter of the thousand-year Reich-and you laugh! You're an ad for Ritesma and Simon cigarettes, a painting of the great German school, sitting with a kike born in Poland and wanting children he doesn't have to give you.