Gregor von Rezzori - An Ermine in Czernopol

Our closed, rounded world grew layer after layer—“ We were like an onion ,” was how Tanya put it later on, shortly before she died,

“ Whatever became of us? ”—and Solly burst into this world, raucous and robust, full of lively cheerfulness. Of course our dealings with him had no trace of the heavy disposition people so often mistake for “soulful.” We have these two Jewish children to thank for the realization that the seat of the soul is found in the forehead and not the stomach, although we didn’t quite know at the time they were Jewish.

At least, back then this was of no account to us. Doubtless after all that I’ve said up to now it sounds surprising to say the least, and yet it was true. At home we constantly heard remarks about Jews that were disparaging but also stretched into a grotesque or burlesque form that couldn’t be taken seriously, and which left us with an exaggerated impression of their essential nature — a notion that was contradicted by the reality we were now experiencing, despite all of Solly Brill’s characteristic traits.

Naturally we had known other Jews before, and not just from hearsay. Every day swarms of peddlers, so-called hondeles , descended on our house to buy up whatever junk we might otherwise throw away, and in our neighborhood there were also Jewish families who had sufficiently expanded our minds and freed our imagination from the cliché of kaftans, peyes , crooked backs, protruding ears, and unrestrained gesticulation. But we had never had any personal contact; to be sure, we had heard them speaking among themselves, but had never spoken with a single one of them. And so Jews, by which I mean the concept of “Jews,” seemed like a species of clown, constantly on the move, devising their clever and comical — if also somewhat repugnant — plans to coax money from the pockets of Christians, but not humans with generally human traits. In his outward appearance, Solly Brill did indeed fit this image, but not in his character, which we found endearing. The fact that Miss Rappaport had been called “the Jewess,” and more or less openly teased with the insinuation that she really was Jewish, always struck us as one of Uncle Sergei’s ideas, as absurd as it was funny, and we never really believed it.

Nor did the speech of many of our classmates, in particular our friend Solly, startle us out of our innocent and unbiased amusement. In Czernopol every language was corrupted, and none more than German: the communal barking of the ethnic Germans, their dreadful maiming of their mother tongue, sounded more unpleasant to us than the patter of the Jews, in which now and then an old, powerful, and wonderfully patinated expression or a richly picturesque turn of phrase emerged out of the linguistic sludge, and even the degradation of the language showed a spirit — admittedly a repulsive one, but a spirit nonetheless.

But, as I say, the most important thing was that we came to converse with our friends in the first place, and only later — quite a bit later — did we find out that they were Jews. So we didn’t make the usual discovery that Jews are also people , but rather the reverse, that people are sometimes also Jews. This was one of the most beautiful of the invaluable discoveries that we owed to Madame Aritonovich and her Institut d’Éducation, as well as to our parents’ temporary inattentiveness.

In this way we learned that what these people known as Jews shared was not so much a common character, but rather common forms of expression: in other words, that there were no “typically Jewish” traits, but rather a characteristically Jewish way of expressing traits that were simply human.

For the moment I’m not even talking about Blanche. Solly Brill with his shock of red hair, his freckles and protruding ears could have easily been the son of thoroughbred Prussian parents, the “bright lad” that would have occasioned much delight and a host of proud anecdotes. The only one thing likely to have gone missing was his sharp wit, which made common platitudes sound persuasive, absolute, and irrevocable, and which legitimized his cheekiness as a time-honored, effective means for probing and testing — and that is not only a characteristic of Jews, but also of other older peoples. Thus not a racial trait, but a character marker of specific races.

From earliest childhood we had been brought into contact with the concept of race, whether in connection with our dogs, horses, or the colorful fowl in the countryside, or else with the ingrained overestimation with which our family fed its feeling of self-worth, and we understood the idea of race as something that applied equally to all human types, as a collection of specific physical and mental peculiarities. Consequently a “thoroughbred” Chinese was more closely related to a “thoroughbred” Negro or European than to a compatriot of lesser breed. After we made the acquaintance of a few Jews of remarkable intelligence and beauty, we were inclined to think that Jews were considered a race apart because the specific characteristics of their race found more frequent and stronger expression than was usually the case among Christians.

Madame Aritonovich took care to cultivate our friend Solly Brill’s cheekiness, coaxing it out of him but never failing to challenge it in some way, almost in the manner of a gymnastic exercise. We felt reminded of certain theories of Herr Alexianu.

“I can’t help think, Fiokla Ignatieva, that you are raising this specimen precisely to help advance the anti-Semitic cause,” said Uncle Sergei during one of his occasional visits to the Institut d’Éducation.

“You are mistaken,” she replied. “I am treating this child exactly as I do the others. I myself had the unhappiest childhood, because people tried to give me an upbringing . Even then I knew that children can’t be brought up. In the worst case they can be trained; in the best case their characters can be fostered. You can’t implant anything, you can’t develop anything that isn’t already inside them; in fact, I am of the opinion you that can’t suppress what they’re born with, either. Even if I were to succeed in pruning this little boy, by clipping off his brazenness — and I consider the attempt hopeless — I would only break him in doing so. Then there would be one more ape in the world and one less character. And that would be regrettable. My children come to me so late that I’m never able to teach them what is known as good breeding. They either bring it from home or they will never attain it. Well-bred and embarrassed is a delightful mixture; ill-bred but happy and cheeky is the same. The combination of ill-bred and embarrassed, however, is a deadly one. Avoiding mistakes in life is not as important as not making something out of the ones we commit. In this matter you’ll admit I’m right, my dear Sergei, won’t you?”

Strangely — and to this day it’s a riddle to us exactly why — Madame Aritonovich and Blanche avoided each other. Did Madame Aritonovich realize she was no match for this girl? Not that it would have ever come to a test of strength that she might have been afraid to lose. That was out of the question. The reason for Madame’s reserve may have had more to do with the fact that she, too, couldn’t help feeling secretly guilty about the girl — and Madame Aritonovich hated the very idea of guilt, as she expressed in no uncertain terms and with telltale vehemence. Whenever some anonymous prank or a question of responsibility triggered the judicial question “Who is the guilty party?” she would intervene forcefully and declare: “No one is at fault. It happened; it did not amuse us; let’s forget about it!”

But perhaps the association between Madame Aritonovich and Blanche — which while not hostile did show a certain tense distance — was one of those inexpressible relationships, which if anyone had ever dared ask her to explain, Madame would have answered by glancing at Tanya and asking, “You understand, don’t you, Tanya?” There was a furtive, mutual sizing-up, and not such as between teacher and student, or between grown-up and child — Madame once declared that the “envy that grown-ups have for the richness of childhood can never fully be eradicated”—but rather between two women. Tanya herself stayed silent on the matter, like any other woman.