Howard Jacobson: Shylock Is My Name

She despaired of him.

And he of her. Would she want to take him to hear music like this when they were married? Jews, or at least people with Jewish names, sawing and fiddling.

He grew even angrier when he saw the bill. “We’ve only had coffee,” he said.

“And we’ve listened to Viennese music, and watched the world go by, and been in Venice. Compared to the sums people pay to see you miss penalties and give Nazi salutes I’d say it’s cheap.”

“I’ve stopped giving Nazi salutes,” he said.

—

That night, in the casino, she played roulette, putting her chips again and again on les voisins du zéro, with whom she felt an affinity, and losing eight hundred euros of his money.

“I wouldn’t have minded,” he said, “had they been your father’s.”

“Well in a manner of speaking they were,” she said. “You still haven’t paid for me.” He wasn’t amused.

The following morning, to make it up to him, she bought him a stuffed monkey with her own money. A Venetian Carnival monkey wearing a black pointed mask.

He still wasn’t amused.

—

Shylock wanted to talk to Strulovitch about painting, commend his taste, urge him to stop describing the works he collected as Jewish art since all art was in origin Jewish art, was it not? — let the others make the distinction if they must: call what they did post-Pauline art — but first there was another matter he needed to broach. His exchange with Plurabelle.

He hadn’t hurried to tell Strulovitch about this. He needed to choose his moment. And besides: everyone else was thinking how events would best serve their interests; did he not have the right to wonder what would best serve his?

But he couldn’t keep Plurabelle’s offer to himself for ever.

He went searching for Strulovitch and found him sitting in a deep chair, sunk in black reflection. There was barely an inch of wall that didn’t have a painting on it, but Strulovitch looked at not a one.

“If you want to milk this they will let you,” Shylock said abruptly.

“ This ?”

“You know what this is.”

“Who’s they?”

“The Madame, the keeper of the bawdy house, or however she styles herself. And, I gather, by implication, D’Anton himself.”

“You gather ?”

“I have spoken to her. It was she who hand-delivered the note. I believe I was to understand it as an act of considerable condescension.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I judged you had enough on your plate deciding how to respond to the note itself. In my view, practical arrangements could come later.”

Shylock folded himself deliberately into an armchair next to Strulovitch’s. Both chairs had views of Alderley Edge on which a light snow was falling. Living here was like living in a snow globe, Shylock thought. Art or no art, he suddenly wanted to be gone. He missed the heat and the commotion of the Rialto. The brutality, too. This was no place for Jews. He had said as much to Leah. They live with their nerve-ends exposed in this country, he’d told her. You can maim with a look, in this place. You can kill with a word. Our friend Strulovitch has lost the robustness native to our people. He could be the spinster sister of a country clergyman, he is so sensitive to slights. And as a consequence of that, he cannot judge what’s worth going to war for. So he goes to war, mentally, over everything. He had heard Leah laughing at him. “As though you’re an example of moderation,” she said. And she was right. Jews went to war over everything wherever they washed up. The bellicosity just showed up more obviously here, where the contours of the landscape were gentle, where footfalls in the snow were silent, and where the provocations were more subtle.

Strulovitch sat with his hands over his eyes. He no more wanted to look at Shylock than he wanted to look at the snow. The inside of his hand contained all that he could bear to look at of the physical world.

Shylock wondered whether he was going to be thrown out, snow or no snow. Get thee gone!

In the absence of such an order, he sat quietly, listening to the thump of Strulovitch’s bad thoughts.

“So what’s she like, this Madame?” Strulovitch asked at last. But he couldn’t be bothered to wait for an answer. “And what do you mean when you say I can milk it if I choose?”

“If you want a spectacle they will give you a spectacle. You have not let me into your thoughts about the practicalities of getting the flesh you want, so I am not up to date with your intentions. How it will be done. Where it will be done. Who will do it. Who will weigh it.”

“Its weight is of no interest to me.”

“Symbolically weigh it.”

“Symbols are of no interest to me either. What I ask for is literal to the point of tedium.”

Shylock wasn’t going to argue with that. “How it will be corroborated, then. Do you want an affidavit from a doctor? Or will you be wanting to inspect the offending tissue with your own eyes? I never paused to consider such questions myself. I let the moment take me. I’d advise against that. It is better to be a master of events. In this case you have the opportunity to be the master of ceremonies. They seem to think you might favour a party. Or at least the woman does. She will throw it, she said, in her grounds.”

“Did she say whether there’d be dancing?”

“Whatever you desire. Fireworks, if you wish them. I believe she is in the catering business, so the food should be good. She is also offering a slot on her television programme if that appeals.”

“Stop, stop, stop. Are you saying they want to film the operation?”

“I think more the debate.”

“What debate? A debate implies there is something further to be decided. There isn’t.”

“If I understood what the woman was telling me—”

“I don’t for a moment doubt that you understood her. Tell me something you don’t understand.”

“ If I understood her, the question of whether D’Anton should be circumcised in place of Gratan would be put to a public vote.”

“And if the public says yes?”

“We didn’t get that far.”

“And if it says no?”

“We didn’t get that far either. I took the liberty of turning down television. I felt I was empowered to make that decision for you since you seem to think it was I who got you into this.”

“But you said OK to the party?”

“I said I would relay the offer.”

“When it suited you to do so?”

“None of this suits me. I am not here on some whimsical personal errand. Allow me to remind you that it was you who found me in a cemetery and invited me back to your home. For which…”

“ I found you ? I think you misremember. I had business of the heart in that cemetery. I needed to be there. You have still to tell me what brought you.”

Shylock who never removed his fedora did so now and ran his hand through his hair. He had the look of a man who might just walk out into the snow of his own accord, whatever his host wanted. Walk out and not be seen again. Enough, his expression said. Enough of this.

He will never be my friend, Strulovitch thought. But then I will never be his.

He owed it to his guest, however, to remember his manners. “Forgive me,” he said. “I am grateful for your counsel.”

“Counsel is not what I’d call it.”

“I am grateful for whatever you call it. Your attention. Your time.”

“Then in my judgement,” Shylock answered, “you should accept the invitation, not to please them, but to please yourself. There is much mirth for you here—”

“Mirth!”

“Mirth, if you seize the opportunity to look upon it in the right spirit. Think of it as one for the Jews. View it sardonically as a giant outdoor bris .”