Howard Jacobson - Kalooki Nights

‘Are you telling me she’s in cahoots with Kennard Chitty? I have to tell you she hasn’t tried to missionarise me yet.’

‘Wait a minute, wait a minute. We were at Chitty’s last week, having dinner. He buys his wine from me, not that that’s relevant. This Francine bird was there. Sexy woman. I can see why you might be interested—’

‘Errol—’

‘Let me finish. There were a couple of your cartoons on the wall. One Jew saying this or that to another Jew. Signed. Not that they needed to be signed for me to recognise the hand of a master.’

‘If you’ve rung me to discuss my work, Errol—’

‘I haven’t. You know what I think — half of what you do I love, the other half wouldn’t be out of place in Hitler’s bedroom. But never mind that. “This is a coincidence,” I said, “Maxie Glickman’s my best friend. We grew up in the same street. We went to the same school.” “You think that’s a coincidence?” Francine says. “He ‘s doing work for me this minute.” “A cartoon?” “A script.” “Maxie writes scripts?” “Well, a treatment anyway.” “Subject?” “Confidential at this stage. But it’s based on the story of someone Max knew who murdered his parents. You might even remember the case yourself.” “Jewish?” “As it happens, yes.” As it happens, fuck you, lady. Max, of course I remember that meshuggeneh friend of yours, and what you want to do with him is your affair. What do I care? He got what he deserved. For all I know his poor parents, alevasholam, got what they deserved. But why with this woman? Couldn’t you smell it on her? I knew as soon as I saw her. Maybe her name rang a bell. Maybe I’d even seen her picture. And I’m prepared to concede that I was suspicious of the theology of anyone I might find at Kennard Chitty’s table even before we got there. But I swear I sniffed it in the room the minute we entered. They say they smell it on us — you know James Joyce’s joke: “the fetor judaicus is most perceptible”. I say the fetor anti-judaicus is just as perceptible on them. Max, she reeks of it.’

‘If you’re telling me she’s an anti-Semite you’re not telling me anything new. Of course she’s an anti-Semite. They’re all anti-Semites. They can’t help it. They drink it in with their mothers’ milk. And compared to some of the anti-Semites I’ve been married to—’

‘Max, I’m not talking your ordinary friendly neighbourhood anti-Semite. This one’s a Nazi. She’s the real thing, Max. She’s one of them. I’ve dug up more stuff on her than you’ve got years left to read. Do you know what her other current project is, beside you?’

‘I seem to recall her mentioning Vanunu.’

‘Well, that should have told you something in itself. Who else would want to do Vanunu? But this is better. You know that our civilised allies the Egyptians serialised The Protocols of the Elders of Zion for television recently. . Well, your new friend has been trying to buy the rights to distribute it selectively here and in America. For the public good, needless to say.’

‘It’s an argument. Someone needs to show us what the Arab world thinks a Jew is.’

‘Don’t be naïve, Max. We know what the Arab world thinks a Jew is. They think a Jew is whatever the Nazi bastards tell them he is. They’re just a bit slow catching up with the literature. What I’m saying to you is that you have to look at what she’s up to altogether. Put The Protocols libel with Vanunu. Put the two of them with what she’s getting you to do — the story of a frum Yiddisher boy with his tzitzis hanging out who kills his family. That sound like a portfolio of even-handedness to you? She’s a conspiracist, Max, and doesn’t even try to hide it. Did you ever take a look at what she’s made? A nice nasty little earner about Jews controlling Hollywood, but not so nasty that only the crazies would watch. A docudrama about the Rosenbergs, ditto. A socalled science programme about the Jews who made the bomb. And a film, still to be released, detailing the greater cruelty shown to Jewish prisoners by Jewish Kapos than by the SS. Put them together and what have you got? — Bibbitty Bobbitty Boo. Plus she’s a paid-up revisionist, and if she doesn’t admit to being a straight-down-the-line Holocaust-denier she spends a hell of a lot of her time fucking with people who do. Remember Zundel? Distributor of Did Six Million Really Die?. She visited him in prison in Toronto. I’ve got a snap of her standing outside the gates holding roses. White fucking roses, Max. I’ll email it to you. And I’ll email you another one of her shmoozing with Klan members at a hate rally in Mississippi. I’m not joking. And you want to see the way they’re looking at her. Even under their fucking hoods you can see they’re smitten. Now I’m joking. But in fact I’m not joking.’

‘I believe you’re not joking,’ I said. ‘But if what you say is true, how does she think she can get away with it? She’s not exactly an invisible person.’

‘Who’s checking? As long as she isn’t found on her knees in a Jewish cemetery with a can of spray paint in her hand, no one cares. So she shmoozes with racists? Big deal. That’s not exactly going to make her stand out in this country. The Mitford sisters canoodled with Der Führer in public view, and we still have a soft spot for them. The English like a girl to show a bit of spirit. Had Hitler cut a deal with us, Unity might have been our first lady.’

‘She’s a programme-maker, Errol. They might like a girl to show a bit of spirit, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to transmit a hate programe.’

‘Don’t be a shmuck all your life. She won’t be making hate programmes. Would she have come to you for a hate programme? She ‘ll just whittle away, Max. A dig here, a wound there. Undermine, undermine. And the more often she can find a willing Jew like you to do it for her — Jew eat Jew — the cleaner her hands will look. She’s lethal, Max. She’s lethal because she’s white, because she’s English, because she’s educated, because she’s plausible, because she’s not frightened, because she fits in, because she’s beautiful, because she’s got a middle-class voice, because she’s got nice tits, and because she’s a woman. That’s enough to fool a lot of people into believing they’re talking to a reasonable, warm-hearted educated human being who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Especially the woman bit. It fooled you.’

Did it? Or had I nosed her out as well? Had I nosed her out and not minded? Or even nosed her out and liked it, whatever I smelt?

A queer, weightless sensation of surpriselessness floated through me like lethargy. At the last there are no revelations. Everything has been there at the beginning, always will be there at the beginning, everything you will ever need to know, waiting in the baby fist of time. You prise the fingers open or you don’t. Good for Errol. He’d rip the hand off if he had to. I–I was a gentler soul.

‘I’m listening,’ I said.

‘You want more? I’ve finished. That’s it. You can have all I’ve got on her. I’m not making a word of it up. If you want my advice I’d shtupp her and then get the hell out.’

‘We always did things differently, you and me, Errol.’

‘What does that mean? You’re going to go on working with her?’

‘No. But I won’t be shtupping her either.’

‘Pity,’ Errol said. ‘I’d hoped you might bring her round to watch a video.’

6

I rang the next day and asked to take her out for lunch. You don’t hang about when you know the Nazis are after you. For old times’ sake I suggested the rabbit-hutch restaurant in Soho, halfway down the passage a dog wouldn’t piss in.

‘It’s not happening,’ I told her.