Howard Jacobson - Kalooki Nights

‘I don’t see,’ I said, ‘that my narrative is any more far-fetched than yours. Except maybe for the blow job.’

‘OK, so do we know that Asher was a love rat?’

‘We don’t know anything. Manny glides away from any discussion of Asher and Dorothy as they are now, if they are now, or even as they were when he was put away. I think they stopped for him when his parents stopped. It’s them we should ask.’

‘Easier said than done. First find them.’

‘Isn’t that Christopher Christmas’s job?’

‘I’ll speak to him. But in the meantime, Max, can we get the Jewish angle back?’

‘This isn’t about religion, Francine. I’m coming round to your way of thinking — it’s about love. I’m even wondering if we shouldn’t make them all Gentiles so as not to get sidetracked.’

‘Trust me, Max,’ she said, ‘it’s about religion.’

2

There’s a simple rule about temper: if you can’t lose it with one person you lose it with another.

In the brief but bruising time I was married to Alÿs — I accept it was brief and bruising for her too — I behaved abominably to my mother. ‘If this is what you’re like married to a nice Jewish girl,’ she said towards the end of one of my more vitriolic Crumpsall visits, in the course of which I’d attacked everything she did and everyone she knew, ‘I can’t wait for you to be divorced and going out with a shikseh again.’

‘Amen to that,’ I said. ‘And Alÿs isn’t a nice Jewish girl. There are no nice Jewish girls. The first Jewish girl I ever touched gave me crabs—’

‘Max!’

‘Well, it’s the truth. And this one wants me to become a Palestinian. They’re either lewd or they’re self-righteous. Or they live in the mikveh. Or they play kalooki.’

‘Well, that’s a variety for you to choose from.’

‘But none of them are nice. I’ve never met a nice Jewish girl.’

‘What about your sister? Isn’t Shani a nice Jewish girl?’

‘Yes but she’s my sister, and she plays kalooki.’

‘Will you shut up about kalooki!’

‘I can’t. Why if you must play cards don’t you at least play bridge? Or poker even. Why don’t you go to the theatre? This house used to be full of intellectuals. They talked Marx in the garden, Ma. Where are they now?’

‘Dead, Max.’

‘So find some more.’

‘There are no more. They don’t make Jews like that any more. And anyway, they came for your father, not me.’

‘That isn’t true. They came every bit as much for you. I remember how their faces lit up when they saw you.’

‘You can hardly call that intellectual.’

‘Yes, you can. Since they weren’t, I assume, all having affairs with you, they were in love with the idea of you. And you have to be an intellectual to be in love with the idea of beauty.’

‘Thank you, Max. But I was young then. I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to stay young for you for ever.’

‘Ma, it’s not just about being young. You used to dance in the living room with trade unionists. And when you weren’t dancing you were arguing. Now you watch soap operas on television and go to see Phantom of the Opera with your girlfriends.’

‘Twice!’

‘Exactly.’

‘What’s wrong with Phantom of the Opera ?’

‘Everything. But the main thing wrong with it is that it’s not Jewish. It’s goyisher. You should have some pride.’

‘So what are we supposed to do? Watch Fiddler on the Roof every night?’

‘I don’t mean that.’

‘You marry shiksehs and I watch Fiddler on the Roof to make it right! Here’s an idea — why don’t you stop marrying shiksehs and let me enjoy Phantom of the Opera ?’

‘Because I lose my temper when I’m not married to a shikseh.’

‘You’re not exactly happy when you’re with them, Max.’

‘I know. But at least my unhappiness isn’t Jew-centred. I can be unhappy and not think it’s the fault of our religion. I don’t have to be disappointed by another Jew. What’s happened to us, Ma? Why are all the Jews up here either make-believe goyim or Hassidim in fancy dress? In hiding, or not in hiding enough. Where did our Jewish seriousness go?’

‘The Hassidim you are so rude about are serious. How can you say they aren’t? They wouldn’t think you were much of a serious Jew.’

‘Because I’m a cartoonist?’

‘Because you’re not a serious Jew. What do you do that is Jewish?’

‘What do I do that is Jewish? That’s a laugh. What do I do that isn’t Jewish? And everything I do is more Jewish than anything they do. They’re a sect. They’re two centuries old, tiptop. And they’re as flaky as Mormons. I’m the real thing, Ma. I go back to the Old Testament. I’m what a Jew is supposed to be. I don’t forgive. I separate things. I argue with the Almighty. He likes that. He likes what I do more than he likes their blind obedience or all that ecstatic dancing they go in for. Every time anyone danced in the seeing of the Lord in the good old days He sent down thunderbolts to burn them up. He’d have Hassids for breakfast if He were still around. They’re not serious. They’re hysterics. Serious was what happened in our garden.’

‘Don’t upset me.’

But I needed to upset her.

‘I want my dad back, Ma.’

‘So do I, Max.’

And in the same way, for the very reason that I couldn’t tell Francine what I thought of her — not least because I didn’t know what I thought of her — I took it out on Manny.

‘Look, I enjoy having you here,’ I told him, when he finally surfaced for breakfast. He hadn’t bothered to change out of his neurovegetative pyjamas. His curiously unlined face was crumpled from sleep. He looked like a boy who had gone to bed forty years ago, and woken up an old man.

But not old enough to respond gracefully. No Thank you very much, I am enjoying being here myself. No shy smile of gratitude if words were beyond him. But then what the hell! — he never did have manners.

‘You can stay for ever if you like,’ I went on. ‘To my surprise I find your company soothing. But come on, Manny. You know perfectly well what the gesheft is here. You agreed to it. Yes, you said, yes you’d talk to me. And all I get, when I get anything, when you haven’t gone into hiding for a week, is Horst Schumann, Oscar fucking Wilde, guns, swords, you shooting Dorothy—’

‘Who said anything about shooting Dorothy?’

‘You asked me to guess who you might have fancied pointing your little gun at. So that’s my guess. Dorothy. Or that was my guess. Today I don’t think you fancied pointing a gun at anybody.’

‘Why would I have wanted to s-ssschoot Dorothy?’

He was growing agitated, banging the tips of his fingers together.

‘I’ve just told you, that isn’t any longer what I think. You were winding me up. I let myself be wound. OK?’

‘But you let yourself think I wanted to kill Dorothy?’

‘Manny, for God’s sake — I did, I do, I will, think anything. I am not proof against thoughts. Particularly when another person’s prompting them as you were. Don’t make anything of this.’

I passed him the toast. Peace.

He took two slices and cut them into narrow segments, like the soldiers children dip into their eggs. Then he stared down at what he’d done. Two hands, of five fingers each.

‘Why, of all people, did you choose Dorothy? I was Dorothy’s friend. If you want to know, I liked her more than Asher.’

Did he mean he liked her more than Asher liked her, or he liked her more than he liked Asher? You don’t ask. You don’t quibble over syntax when someone’s making human hands out of toast. But it did matter, what he meant. It made a difference.