Howard Jacobson - The Mighty Walzer

‘It’s hilarious,’ I said.

‘That’s what I thought,’ Sheeny said.

I could have saved myself a lot of trouble later on had I attended to what was salient in that story. Sabine Weinberger had not put to sleep the Vulvick in her. She was still as anti-pig as her mother’s side had ever been. Therefore there would still be traces of virulent Vulvicitis in any children we conceived together. Had I thought of that I would never have risked it. Because who wants a pious chuntering little frummy for a child? It’s some consolation that it’s a long time since either of my chuntering little frummies called me father. But I would still rather not have given them the option.

What stopped me attending to the most important element of Sheeny’s anecdote was what you might call a side issue. The little matter of his putz in her mouth. She hadn’t done that to me. She hadn’t invited me to put two fingers in her cunt either, come to that. Was that why she’d insisted on seeing to me first? To whether appetite for Sheeny? Was I just the appetizer and Sheeny the main course?

What’s the expression — out of the frying pan and into the fire? I was out of the shell and into hell. Sexual jealousy in regard to someone you love is a monstrous thing; but sexual jealousy in regard to someone you couldn’t give two hoots for is far worse. There are no counterbalancing imaginings; you do not look forwards to the time when she will do the things to you she did to him; your mind does not revel in a futurity of forgivenesses and restitutions. You are left entirely to your own devices. Insulted in your own single self. Unpreferred. Just that. The only other time I had felt washed up in this way was when I lost my first ever ping-pong matches to Cartwright and Battrick of the Allied Jam and Marmalade factory. And if I am to be to true to what was going on inside my sick little head I would have to admit that I was luxuriating in the same rotting sweetness of self-pity that came with those defeats. What was the pleasure in that pain? Why did it feel so good to feel so bad? What was it about losing that I liked so much?

One good thing was that I no longer rummaged in my filthy mutilated-aunty box, otherwise I’d have had Fay out again, in suspenders, kneeling between Sheeny Waxman’s knees. The other good thing was that just as a new week in the league brought a new opponent to beat, so a new day in the street brought a new chance to get even with Sabine Weinberger.

She must have been a bit of a glutton for punishment herself, because she was the one who came knocking on my door. To wish me long life, ostensibly. My father answered, therefore it must have been a non-gaff day. I’d like to think it must have been a balmy summer’s day too, because he immediately ushered everyone into the back garden so that I could have the house to myself — to myself and Sabine Weinberger — but I know he’d have ordered everybody out even if there’d been ten inches of snow on the ground. Oliver had to have his oats.

In fact he turned quite nasty soon after this when he suspected that I really was getting my oats from Sabine Weinberger. ‘Not with a Jewish girl, you tsedraiter,’ he told me. ‘Not with someone from across the road. Not with a Vulvick.’

‘Who with, then, Dad?’ I asked him.

But he wasn’t going to answer that. He made a gesture with his hands, meaning them, out there, in the cory-crowded oceans, in the shikse-sheltering streets.

So what did he think I was going to do with Sabine Weinberger once he’d cleared the house for us? Not pop my dick in her mouth, that’s for sure. And not demand that I be allowed to insert two fingers in her cunt either.

Neither of which things, as a matter of incidental fact, I did. But I made it clear to her how sore I felt.

‘I’ve been talking to Sheeny Waxman,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘You must have known Sheeny would tell me,’ I said.

‘Tell you what?’ she said.

‘Oh, come on.’

‘I didn’t think it would make any difference,’ she said.

‘Who to?’ I said.

‘To you,’ she said.

‘What about to Sheeny?’

‘I don’t care about Sheeny. I don’t care if I never see Sheeny Waxman again in my life.’

‘Is that why you sucked his dick?’

‘I sucked his dick because he asked me to.’

‘What if I’d have asked you to suck my dick?’

‘You didn’t.’

‘No. But what if I had?’

‘I wouldn’t.’

‘Ah!’ I said.

‘I want to see you again.’

‘Ah!’ I said.

‘I respect you,’ she said.

‘So I don’t get my dick sucked?’

‘Not yet. Not right away.’

‘Because you respect me?’

‘Yes.’

‘But if you didn’t respect me you would?’

‘Yes, because afterwards it wouldn’t matter if you didn’t respect me.’

‘Ah,’ I said — and I saw the beginnings of another misogynistic essay for my English teacher here — ‘so this is all actually about whether I respect you, not whether you respect me.’

‘If I didn’t respect you I wouldn’t care whether you respected me.’

‘Why do you think I wouldn’t respect you if you sucked my dick?’

‘Because they never do.’

What I wanted to say was in that case stop sucking dicks, but I saw that that might not be the best way to serve my cause.

‘There’s always a first time,’ I said instead.

She fell quiet. Then she said, ‘I’d like to …’

I detected the but. ‘But?’

She shrugged. She’d said it all. ‘Later,’ she said. Meaning, when we’d settled the question of mutual respect. In other words, when it was too late to matter.

But if she thought we’d sorted things out, I didn’t. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘So that’s the dick. Now what about the cunt?’

I now see that as it related to sexual relations between ourselves — the Tiskers and the Taskers — Sabine Weinberger’s ethical position differed not a jot from my father’s. Do unto others what you wouldn’t do unto your own. There was a time when I abominated such a system and took it to be monstrous abuse of those who were not us. ‘What are they, these shikses and shaygetsim, these yoks and yekeltehs?’ I remember shouting at my father, ‘scrap paper to practise on?’ In fact my indignation could not have been more misplaced. What we were practising was nothing less than charity, which is supposed to begin at home. We were giving the best of ourselves to the gentiles — here, have, swallow — and saving nothing but the left-overs, the lees, the bitter lees, for ourselves.

And now I’m sounding like my children, Baruch and Channa, except that they would never use the language I use.

Regarding the matter of whether Sabine Weinberger was or wasn’t going to suck my dick, all speculation came to an end about a week later in her bedroom when I knelt on her shoulders and pushed it in. Here, have, swallow. I didn’t like the me whose reflection I saw in her glass eye. I didn’t look gentlemanly. I didn’t look a mensch. But you have to do what you have to do. Her fault, for doing what she didn’t have to do with Sheeny. I couldn’t be expected to go through life getting nothing from women because they wanted to see me again. I was prepared to take my chance. I’d settle for them not liking me and just sucking my dick instead. My loss.

As for respecting Sabine Weinberger after she’d sucked my dick, of course I didn’t.

A wonderfully interesting field is open to the young girl entering into serious table tennis. If she is keen, there is no lack of teachers. Whereas a man may have to travel far to find good practice partners, a girl can always find a stronger man player to practise with.