Arnon Grunberg - The Jewish Messiah

“It’s horrible,” he said, and he smiled because it was unpleasant to say that to a young woman. “It’s unnatural.”

“What?” she asked. “Nino, what’s unnatural?” She lifted her skirt again, as though she wanted to show him how cute it was: all you had to do was get used to it, like a new dress, and after a while you’d start seeing how cute it was.

“Have you got some kind of a problem?” he asked.

“No. Do you?” She’d had men with sexual problems before. She was used to it. She solved them, those problems. They went away. She had known a man once who told her, “I had sexual problems all my life, until I met you.”

The Egyptian no longer had his head turned; he was looking at her, straight in the eye. Problems, what was she talking about? Who did she think he was?

“Your cunt is a baby cunt,” the Egyptian said.

Bettina looked at him, puzzled. She felt like kissing him, but she was afraid that might not be a good idea. Instead, she said, “It’s awfully wet.” She had read that in Cosmopolitan, that you should say that, to make an impression on the man you wanted to please.

“Like a little kid’s,” the Egyptian said. He didn’t have children — they hadn’t been able. He had two dogs, he and his wife from Rapperswil. First they’d had one dog, and when that turned out okay, they bought a second one. He turned around and started washing his hands.

“Everyone does this,” Bettina said. “All the magazines say so. Bald is in fashion, and it’s hygienic, too. When you have to wash up, you can get to everything. There’s nothing to get in the way.”

Again she laughed her most seductive laugh. She widened her eyes, as wide as she could, she tried every trick in the book, but Nino wasn’t looking at her, he was washing his hands carefully with soap and thinking about the money he had brought home to his parents. The money he was supposed to be ashamed of, because there was so little of it. His father was dead now, his mother was ill; he didn’t have to be ashamed of his money anymore; he earned so much he could even donate to Hamas. But the shame had remained, the shame conquered all. This Jewess’s cunt reminded him of chicken cutlets in the supermarket, chicken cutlets on special.

“You make me horny, Nino.”

He didn’t like meat from the supermarket; he bought everything from the Islamic butcher. Not because he was religious, but from force of habit.

Bettina searched for words that would drive him crazy, this man in his white shirt, with all that hair on his chest, his thick eyebrows, this man who smelled of sweat and fried falafel balls. She wanted him, without knowing why. There was no reason for it. There was only that desperate longing of hers. “I haven’t felt like this for a long time; I’ve never felt like this, Nino,” she said, “so excited, so wet.”

The Egyptian dried his hands. A dog, his mother was right. Look, look at him standing here in the restroom at his kebab place. No, less than a dog; a dog would be shamed by this; a dog had its own bowl, knew what loyalty came from. His dogs knew that, but did he? What did he know, anyway?

He looked at the young woman and shook his head. “Chicken cunt,” he said quietly, hanging the towel back on its hook.

“What do you mean?” Bettina asked. “You don’t think it’s nice? That doesn’t matter. Once you’re in it, you don’t see it anymore. Everyone at the gym has it like this, but it grows back. It’s blond when it grows back, dark-blond. Kind of like my hair, but then a little darker.”

“Ugly things discriminate against me,” Nino said, leaning back against the little sink. “You understand? Ugly things discriminate against respectable people. Ugly things discriminate against you, too, because deep down inside you’re a respectable person.”

“You’re right,” she said. “But shall we do it now?”

“Your cunt is ugly,” Nino said, and his words made him even sadder than he already was. “Your cunt discriminates against me.”

The Egyptian was disappointed. Disappointment was a cumulative thing: each new one breathed life into the old. He had been robbed of his masculinity, his pride, his dignity. He had been robbed of his pride long ago, but now it was happening again. He didn’t want a baby cunt, he wanted a woman’s cunt, a real one. Although he had his doubts about that now as well. He had been in so many cunts, and it hadn’t helped a bit.

Bettina started crying, but she didn’t give up. “This is in,” she said. “All my girlfriends wear it like this. And their boyfriends are happy about it. Just try it. Once you’re in there, you won’t notice it all.” She felt like a saleslady chasing a customer around with something off the back shelf.

She took a step forward, and, as much as it frightened her, as scared as she was of doing something wrong, she did it. She put her hand on the Egyptian’s crotch. She mustn’t be left alone. The Egyptian couldn’t ditch her now; she didn’t want to stay behind alone in this restroom. Anything, but not to stay behind here. Not to be left alone like this, like a wet rag that wasn’t worth the trouble to wring out. As seductively as possible, she said, “My pussy doesn’t discriminate against anyone.” “My pussy”—she’d read that somewhere, too. That it helped to say “my pussy” during love play. When it came to love play, what hadn’t she read? She’d read everything, even though the magazines all contradicted each other.

The Egyptian raised his big hands to emphasize his words. “Ugly things discriminate,” he said. “Everyone hates the Arabs, everyone hates the Jews. I hate the Jews, I hate the Arabs. But I’m Nino from Rapperswil. You understand what I’m trying to say? The only one who doesn’t discriminate is money. You understand that, girlie? No, you don’t know about that. You couldn’t know about that yet. But money loves everyone. The one thing that Allah, Jesus, the Almighty, and whatever else their names are promised to people but never gave them, money gives them: love. You’re still young, you don’t know about the way people look at you when they hate you, the women who look at you and don’t like you because you’re an Arab. Money is the only one who always likes you. Money doesn’t have an accent and doesn’t hear accents, because money doesn’t have ears. Your cunt…” The Egyptian choked back a little excess spittle; he was getting wound up. The sadness was growing inside him, turning everything gray, his business, women, the Palestinians, even his two dogs.

“Somebody has to speak the truth. I’m telling you the truth, I get sick when I look at you. With no hair.” He pointed at her skirt.

This wasn’t the moment for her to start crying again, and she didn’t. She concentrated, she tried to remember the bits of advice she’d read, bits of advice with which she had won victories in the past.

“Shall I…?” she asked. She couldn’t speak the words, but she made movements with her lips that made her meaning clear.

The Egyptian pushed her hand from his crotch. He shook his head.

“Is there something else you want? Tell me what you want. I’ll do anything.” And as she said this, she saw herself standing on the bridge over the Rhine in Ilanz once more.

Nino shook his head again. “Leave me alone,” he said. “Just forget it. Would you like something to drink? A cola? I’ll get you a cola. Get dressed, then we’ll drink a cola together. Let’s just forget about it. Bald cunt, no bald cunt, you’re alone, I’m alone. That’s all that matters, that’s why I’m going to treat you to a cola, a nice cold cola, courtesy of the house.”

He unlocked the door and left Bettina alone in the restroom.

In the kitchen, he poured a cola, and a glass of peppermint tea for himself. In his mind’s eye, he kept seeing the bald pudenda. He stared into space and murmured curses in his mother tongue, addressed to the Westerners, the decadence that was spreading like the plague, and finally to himself. Then he went back to the bar. The two men from the committee were still sitting there. Instead of looking for Awromele, they were carrying on a conversation about apartheid.