Yoram Kaniuk - The Last Jew

When I told him about Boaz he was silent a long time and I saw three things at the same time. He envied Ebenezer, whose existence he didn't admit, he envied Boaz, and he felt a profound fear. He said: That's nonsense! I was the only son of the Last Jew. Licinda is the incarnation of Melissa. Melissa is the love of my stepfather's youth. He said that, since he knew very well that I know they're brothers. But he chose not to relate to that and I didn't press him. I'm afraid of those combinations, he said, those crossroads, of you and of me. The real world doesn't exist anymore and we're its last witnesses. Why embellish them? Melissa is dead so we'll act for her the death of the Jews as she sits at the throne of honor and sells lampshades for ten percent profit. If God were dead, said Sam, we wouldn't have to suffer so much, but He's not dead, He exists as long as Jewish suffering exists. And then I did the irrational act I alluded to earlier, I write you now, and my hand shakes. I did something like Ebenezer's request, when he told you to ask me for his two daughters, something like Renate's desperate attempt with the fortuneteller, I went to Connecticut.

I came to Washington Depot at noon and went to the official Ford dealer. Mr. Brooks was sitting behind a glass wall reading a newspaper. When I looked at him, he turned his chair around, took off his reading glasses, and tried to see me. I walked around the gigantic show room and a smiling woman came up to me, and said: Aren't you the German writer we saw on television? I read your last book, she said after I said yes. You want to buy a car? At that moment, Mr. Brooks came out of his office and approached us. An old man dressed meticulously, his hair white, his nose thick and some thread of taut harshness around his eyes, he introduced himself to me, and said that an honored guest like me-he had also seen me on television-warranted special attention, and I said: That's fine, your assistant was friendly and generous, and she smiled, maybe even blushed. I looked at him, I spoke, but I tried to think of my son. What arose in the back of my mind was an impossible blend of Boaz, Sam, Friedrich, and Menahem. He looked at me as he spoke and I'm not sure I heard what he said, I tried to understand his mourning, but his mourning was hidden under so many masks that I could almost see myself in his eyes. I was moved to pity for him, I can't explain why, never did I pity you, Henkin, or myself, or even Renate. I said: I came to meet you Mr. Brooks, and please forgive me, I wanted very much to see the house where Melissa grew up, but I can't explain why to you.

He made a gesture as if to stop me, and I stopped talking. He seemed to be trying to digest my words, to understand them. After a bit, he said: My brother's granddaughter, Priscilla, is a student at Smith College in Northampton, not far from here. A very distinguished college… When the Catholics came to Northampton, they built a splendid church there, next to the college dorms. Do you know what the scholars of Smith College did? They put the chemistry lab in a building next to the church. The windows of the chemistry lab face the windows of the church, and for fifty years, sir, the Catholics, now the majority of the population in the city, except for the members of the college, have had to suffer the stench…

I nodded as if I understood the parable, even though I didn't yet completely fathom what he was talking about, I felt the shining chrome of a new Pontiac and now, in his sterile church, between a Ford coupe, an elegant Mercury and a big white Lincoln, Mr. Brooks tried to smile. I saw the lines of his face refuse to illustrate a real smile. The layers of his face interwoven with thin red threads expressed some grievance, maybe anger, maybe even a threat, but under the threat I made out lines of serenity. He said: Melissa died years ago… I don't read books, sir, but I saw you on television and I read about you in Time. You look and sound like a rational and honorable man, you come from a country I admire for its practicality, its culture, its industry. Do you know how much I wanted to sell BMW and Mercedes? Listen, he said, and now at long last he managed to smile, I'd be glad to have you over to the house, let's go there, you'll have lunch at my house, but sir, Melissa no longer is, she's not in me, and now he almost raised his voice, she's not in the house, she's not in my wife, she's not finally and definitely, it's been many years since I stopped missing her, I've got two sons and one of them will surely take over my business, Priscilla can stay at her college, in the chemistry department and know she's still fighting an ancient war against Catholics, and with us, that's a rare, maybe desirable, case of a sequence of generations, sir… We're not like you, and it's too bad, he added sadly.

He took me to his office overlooking the showroom, ordered coffee for me, and went out. I munched a crunchy cookie, I drank the coffee, and I waited. He came back, we put on our coats, and went out into the harsh cold. We got into his white Lincoln Continental, the heat came on immediately, he started the motor and we glided to his house.

I won't weary you with the details of the meal. There were whispered conferences, the mounted hides are still there. We drank sherry, Melissa's mother is a charming, gentle old woman, much harsher than her husband. One of the sons asked me a lot of question about the two Germanys and I tried to answer him to the best of my understanding. The lemon mousse (after the ribs and roast potatoes) was excellent, and the more we talked, the more perplexed we became. Why am I here, they weren't the only ones who wondered, I also wondered myself and didn't know what to say…

I knew the moment of truth was approaching, I was worried, and so were they, and Mrs. Brooks, with that cleverness our wives call "feminine intuition," told me a young man came years before and then they found out that his name was Sam Lipp, and now everybody's talking about him. I told her: I'm doing research for a new book, maybe not so new, and I met a lot of people, including Sam Lipp. Mrs. Brooks showed signs of restrained excitement. For a moment she looked both desirable and shriveled, like some mounted hide of insatiable passion. She drank a lot of wine and her tongue became faster and maybe a little inarticulate. She talked about Sam Lipp, about the articles she read, that he isn't interviewed, that there aren't any photos of him, and nevertheless she said: I recognized him, I knew that was him. Maybe she recalled that dog, called her dog to come to her, it was a new dog, she patted his curly head with a sense of mastery, of revenge for Sam Lipp, some terrible sense for chilly melodrama. And then she got up, paced back and forth, and Mr. Brooks lit a giant cigar, smoked it slowly, and belched clouds of white smoke, and the maid brought a tray with coffee cups. Sam Lipp, she said, also went to the cemetery and we chased him. The dog betrayed us, we should have caught him, that famous stage director, what is he doing? I'm afraid to go to the play, Bud and Priscilla tell wonders and miracles about it. He patted the dog. The dog melted in his hands. I'm talking a lot. What hatred there was in him. Anger. What did I do? That anger of his. Melissa isn't his. He loved her, he said. Jesus!

I was silent and looked at the crease in my pants. Mr. Brooks was quiet and pensive and his look was caught in the smoke wisping up from the cigar. His face was impassive, and then suddenly, something in Mr. Brooks's dead face lit up. That flash I sensed in him before, something that would look inside, immune, creating stories about the chemistry department turned from an alloy of tiny red gills and miniature lizards into an almost savage audacity, and the shriveled silence turned into genuine rage. He said: There is in them that anger, the stubbornness, the cleverness, the nerve to get into the wrong places, where they're not wanted. There are reasons, natural reasons, aren't there? And you know, who knows better than you.