Arnon Grunberg - The Jewish Messiah

“I’m not religious,” Xavier said. “I’m assimilated, as you know, and I’m not feeling too hot. I can’t even think anymore.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Awromele, who clearly had no intention of getting into a theological squabble. “As long as you spread a little joy on this earth, then He’s satisfied. And so am I.”

Xavier staggered over to the gutter and threw up his lunch.

Awromele came up behind him, patted him on the shoulder, and asked: “Are you okay? Are you feeling better now?”

“No,” Xavier said, “I’m feeling worse than ever.” He grabbed hold of Awromele’s right leg with both hands and looked up at him. The way Isaac looked at his father raising the knife. The way the ram must have looked when it was sacrificed.

“So you’re saying we need to spread joy on this earth?” Xavier asked.

“That’s right,” Awromele said. “That’s exactly what we need to do. And we shouldn’t put off doing that too long. Because the Almighty hates dawdlers.”

Then Xavier’s breakfast hit the gutter as well.

MR. SCHWARTZ LIVEDin a ground-floor apartment at the edge of Basel. He was short and rather stooped. His skull shone through the little bit of hair that was left on his head. What worried Xavier most was that, as it turned out, Mr. Schwartz was practically blind. Mr. Schwartz showed his visitors into the living room and said, “Please, sit down, I have to finish this article.” Then he picked up the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and a huge magnifying glass, sighed deeply, and went back to reading the paper.

It was still early afternoon, but the curtains were closed. Though there were a few lights on, the apartment was quite dark.

As soon as they came in, something told Xavier that Mr. Schwartz found his way around this house largely by feel. The huge magnifying glass only deepened his misgivings. “Is this the guy who’s going to circumcise me?” he whispered in Awromele’s ear.

“Yes, that’s Mr. Schwartz; he said he’ll do it for a pittance because your story moved him so deeply.”

“But he’s almost blind.”

“He’s not blind, he’s visually impaired.”

“How can someone who’s visually impaired circumcise me the way it has to be done?”

Xavier had been feeling a little better, but now a new wave of nausea came rolling in.

“To circumcise a Jew, you don’t have to see well. To circumcise a Jew, all you need is neshome. ”

For a moment Xavier felt like admitting that he wasn’t a Jew, not even one-eighth Jewish, not even one-sixteenth, so that it might be better for them to look for a circumciser who could see clearly, and forget about the neshome. But all he said was “What’s neshome? ”

“Soul, feeling,” Awromele said. “But stop talking so loudly. Mr. Schwartz hates noise when he’s reading the paper.”

Xavier kept his mouth shut and took a good look around. He noticed that there were cheeses lying everywhere. His uneasy feeling kept growing, a feeling he couldn’t really explain. In itself, of course, there was nothing wrong with the fact that a circumciser had cheeses all over his living room. Still, Xavier would rather have seen Mr. Schwartz’s living room decorated with books, a bouquet, or a few nice paintings.

“What are all the cheeses for?” Xavier whispered.

“Mr. Schwartz imports.”

“Imports what?”

“Cheese.”

“Oh.”

“Kosher cheese.”

“I see,” Xavier said.

Everything begins and ends with longing. He who lives on longing must learn patience. Xavier had no patience.

“In fact, he’s closed down his business,” Awromele said. “These are the remainders. He still imports cheese for friends, family, and acquaintances. Kosher Emmentaler, kosher Gouda, kosher Roquefort, kosher Gorgonzola, kosher cheese spread.”

Just then Mr. Schwartz put down the paper and his magnifying glass and gave Xavier a long, hard look.

“Well,” he said. His hands trembled. He hadn’t shaved for a few days, maybe a week. His head was round, his nose was thin; he had piercing eyes.

“Well,” Mr. Schwartz said again, and then a long silence descended, a silence so silent that Xavier could hear a faucet dripping in the kitchen, a silence so long he had time to think: If I have to listen to this much longer, I’ll go mad.

Then Awromele said: “Mr. Schwartz, this is Xavier, the one I told you about.”

On the table where Mr. Schwartz had been reading the paper stood an old-fashioned pair of scales, and beside them a few pencils and a stack of wax paper.

“I could offer you something,” Mr. Schwartz said, “but I take it you’ve just had lunch, and you’re too old for a gumdrop.”

Then Mr. Schwartz stuck his hand in his pocket and popped something into his mouth that Xavier thought looked suspiciously like a gumdrop.

For a man who had lived through the Holocaust, Mr. Schwartz looked cheerful. Almost too cheerful. An ambitious comforter strives to care for the worst cases, the hopeless ones. Those who can care for themselves have little need of comfort, and Mr. Schwartz, by the looks of things, was one of those.

“No, thank you,” Awromele said. “You don’t have to offer us anything, you’ve already done enough for me and my parents. Mr. Schwartz, do you remember me telling you last time about Xavier? His parents are assimilated, they don’t take part in anything, they haven’t even had him circumcised.”

At the word “circumcised,” Mr. Schwartz’s eyes began to sparkle.

“Ah yes, I remember now. Poor boy. But it’s not too late, it’s never too late for a circumcision. If you’re in good health you can have yourself circumcised at eighty, no problem. I once heard about a man in Minsk, a traveling salesman, who decided at the age of ninety-two to have himself circumcised. He said: I’m a yid, I don’t want to go into the world of the future uncircumcised. He had been circumcised for one day, the bandages were still on, when he died.”

“What a wonderful story,” Awromele said.

Xavier crossed his legs. Most of the blue dye had been washed from his hair; all that was left was a bluish shadow on the back of his head. He didn’t think Mr. Schwartz’s story was wonderful at all, more like extremely depressing.

“Yes,” Mr. Schwartz said, “it’s a wonderful story. In Minsk people called it a miracle, because if they’d circumcised him two days later it would have been too late. What’s your name, son?”

“Xavier.”

“Xavier what?”

“Xavier Radek.”

Mr. Schwartz’s eyes began sparkling again. “Were your parents communists?”

“No,” Xavier said, “just liberal.”

“Always liberal?”

“Always liberal.”

“I was a communist,” Mr. Schwartz said, “but I saw the light in time, and then I started importing dairy products, kosher dairy products. Would you like to taste some?”

Xavier hesitated. He had the feeling there was someone else in the house, someone who was hiding. The next thing that occurred to him was that he really did want to taste everything that was kosher, or that had gone through the hands of the people he was going to comfort like no one had ever comforted before. None of which detracted from the fact that he had no desire to eat a piece of cheese right now. Less than half an hour earlier he had been vomiting into a Basel gutter.

“What I’d really like to know…” Xavier said.

“Would you like to taste some?”

Mr. Schwartz stood up from the table. From a bookcase he pulled out a piece of cheese, and quickly cut off two slices with a cheese slicer. He held them out on the palm of his hand, like sacramental wafers.