Howard Jacobson - The Very Model Of A Man

‘It could be,’ replies Asmar, ‘that he is tiring of our company already and is planning to take leave of us.’

Asmar is Babel’s most treasured potter and ceramist, the recipient of a Life Fellowship which entitles him, among other civic benefits, to the best of seats at whatever theatrical representation, recital or dog fight happens to be taking place within the city boundaries at a time when he is not occupied at his wheel. As a rule, Asmar’s pots are bigger than Asmar, but for all that he is daintily formed and squeaks like a field-mouse, he too is stretched out in the manner of a sultan on a bamboo elbow-chair, and seems to fear the intrusion of no man’s gaze or inquisition.

The custom of discussing absent parties in public places is well advanced in Babel, and is understood to be a concomitant of that broad curiosity which makes the city a haven for wandering actors and musicians.

‘I don’t th… ink so,’ Naaman muses lazily. ‘I suspect that the instruction he has so kindly given us in the art of listening is not the only business he means to have with us. I have heard it whispered that he may be looking for labourers.’

‘To instruct?’

‘To labour. And handicraftsmen as well — sculptors, silversmiths, wood-turners, mosaicists, potters… But don’t look so alarmed. If he has not approached you, that can only be because he has so far approached nobody.’

Naaman has a mouth which is as soft and perfect as a baby’s, but he plumps it wickedly in anticipation of sherbet and Asmar’s discomfort. It is well known that Asmar cannot hear of a commission being offered, even for work that does not fall within his scope, without wondering why it has not been offered to him.

‘I assure you —’ The potter’s little voice rises to a squeak, but he is spared having to protest further by the arrival of his tormentor’s daughter, Zilpah, a girl paler and narrower than an ear of corn, who wears her hair in a single pigtail, plaited exquisitely, but is otherwise ostentatiously unornamented.

‘We are discussing the Edenite,’ says her father. ‘I believe you know the one?’

She nods, sending a perceptible thrill down the pendicle into which her hair has been woven. ‘I have even heard him.’

‘What woman has not heard him!’ observes Asmar.

‘We are speaking,’ Naaman continues, ‘of his rumoured ambition to lure away our artisans for the purposes of building a rival city.’

‘Rumours!’ retorts his daughter, with a contemptuous survey of the over-peopled square. She is sitting cross-legged in her chair, her toes tucked under her. Bedouin women sit like this, on carpets of shifting sand far from Babel. It is their distant simplicities that Zilpah is pictorially quoting. ‘This city is nothing but rumours,’ she goes on. ‘Especially where the Edenite is concerned. According to rumour he conceals a sulphurous tail beneath his gown. According to rumour he has horns that sprout whenever the moon is crescent. According to rumour a monstrous fiery letter has been burnt into his flesh by a god he’s wronged, which smokes him awake the moment he lies down to sleep.’

Naaman smiles at Asmar. ‘Now you know why he hasn’t approached you,’ he says. ‘The fellow is queasy around kilns.’

In his amusement he throws back his head again, showing a throat that is arched like a scimitar.

Asmar wipes imaginary clay from between his fingers. ‘All I’ve heard,’ he says, ‘is some nonsense about his wanting to live higher than any other man. At the top of a temple or somewhere.’

‘Then he’s come to the right place,’ says Zilpah.

‘Y… es,’ Naaman agrees. ‘But why does he want it? To enjoy a superior view of us, do you suppose?’

‘I’ll tell you my theory,’ Asmar offers. ‘He is looking for a burial plot for himself. He has a mind to lie somewhere conspicuous, and since he has riches — you only have to look at how he dresses — it’s my belief he will purchase a mountain as soon as he finds the right one.’

‘And how will he know when he has found it?’ laughs Naaman, allowing a bubble of mirth to form where his wet lips are fractionally parted.

‘By its height. Can you see him consenting to lie lower than another man?’

Zilpah wonders that Asmar can be so sure of Cain’s vanity on so brief an acquaintance.

‘Vanity! I’d be surprised if this country has a mountain high enough to satisfy him. He’ll have to build his own on top of one of ours.’

‘So that he can be close to the god who branded him?’ Naaman wonders.

‘So that he can be as far as possible from you two,’ Zilpah says.

The sun having gone down behind a temple, Naaman straightens up in his chair and shakes his shoulders. ‘Whatever the truth of the matter,’ he reflects, ‘the man is without question restless. I don’t need to be told that repose is the last quality one should look for in those who choose to earn a living baring their souls to strangers. But I maintain that our Edenite is distracted over and above what is usual even in his profession. Have you seen him eat?’

‘Have I heard him, do you mean!’ snorts Asmar. A simple golden ring hangs from the potter’s ear. In appreciation of its owner’s jest it swings a little and would sparkle in the sun, were there any sun left for it to catch.

‘I do not think it should be held against a foreigner that he is not accustomed to our diet,’ says Zilpah. In moments of absent-mindedness she reaches for her plait, pulls it over her right shoulder, and smoothes it. In moments of distress she does the same, except that instead of stroking her hair, she plucks at it.

This evening she does both.

Her father watches her with care.

‘I have heard him say,’ she continues, ‘that until he came to Babel he had never fed on creeping things that creep upon the earth.’

‘What, never on weasel or on mouse?’ marvels Asmar. ‘Never on tortoise or on ferret? Never on chameleon?’

‘No, nor on lizard. Nor on snail. Nor mole. And what is more,’ she goes on, ‘he has never dined on stork either. Nor on heron. Nor on lapwing. And never once, not even as a side-dish, has he tasted bat.’

‘You misunderstand me,’ says her father. ‘When I speak of the perturbation of his temper around food I am not referring to his inexpertness. This can be forgiven on the very grounds you cite. But have you not noticed how he rises from the bench in extreme urgency, on the pretext of some forgotten errand or sudden indisposition, in pursuit of mustard, pepper, bread, more wine, or in order to procure a sharper knife or shorter fork, or so that he may relieve himself — not as you and I might, in advance of the meal’s appearance, in that quiet hour given over to preparation and expectancy, but at the very moment, and only at the very moment, that his dish is put before him? Precisely as everybody else’s head goes down, his snaps up.’

‘Might it not be,’ suggests Zilpah, ‘that he mistrusts communality?’

‘Or that his appetite is so stimulated,’ Asmar ventures, ‘that he wishes to prolong his ecstasy? Think of it, a man who has never before tasted chameleon —’

‘No,’ says Naaman, ‘I have observed him too long to be satisfied with either explanation. It is not other people he fears. Any more than it is the too quick conclusion of a gratification he wishes to go on indefinitely. I believe it is anticlimax itself he dreads. So intimate must be his acquaintance with disillusion, so complete his foreknowledge of the disappointment which waits on all pleasures of the flesh and palate, it is my view that he would rather never expect at all, than expect and be sorry.’

‘You mean he would forestall even anticipation?’ Zilpah wonders.