Arnon Grunberg - The Jewish Messiah

“Awromele,” Xavier said. He didn’t feel like explaining what Awromele really was to him.

“Awromele — a strange name, but pretty. I’m Gesine. That’s not a strange name, but it’s not a pretty name, either. I’ve thought about changing it — to ‘Sophie,’ for example, or ‘Marlene,’ like Marlene Dietrich, but then I met someone who was actually called Marlene and I thought: No, ‘Marlene’ isn’t right for me, so I stuck to ‘Gesine.’”

Without waiting for the boys, she and Armin started walking. “There’s a department store near here — I know we’ll find a warm sweater there.”

Xavier slowly rolled the wheelbarrow along behind her. He couldn’t go any faster; his hands hurt, he had no strength left in his arms. To Awromele he said: “We’ve found a nice lady who’s going to help us. She’s going to buy us a nice warm sweater.”

AS THEY WALKED along the shopping street, Xavier and his wheelbarrow received quite a few more looks than they had in the park. Fortunately, it wasn’t too busy yet. People didn’t start spending their hard-earned money until later in the day. In the early-morning hours they restrained themselves. Xavier was glad about that: he didn’t like being stared at.

Gesine and Armin kept walking faster. She was pleased about having met the boys, the tall one had looked at her so gratefully. Like a dog — they could look so grateful, too. Every once in a while, she stopped to wait for Xavier and his wheelbarrow. She thought about how she would tell the other choir members what had happened to her. This was better than their stories about vacations. Now they would have to listen to her, they would have no excuse to shut her up.

The door of the department store was being watched by a uniformed guard. She felt flustered, and decided it would be better for the boys to wait outside. You couldn’t take a wheelbarrow on the escalator.

“I’m going to pick out two nice sweaters for both of you,” she told Xavier. “I know what young people these days like. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

Xavier parked the wheelbarrow against a blind wall in a dead-end alley beside the department store and waited there for Mrs. Müller. After a couple of minutes, the uniformed guard came and stood at the top of the alley. He stared at Xavier. Using his walkie-talkie, he informed his superiors that a couple of suspicious individuals were hanging around the service entrance.

Meanwhile, Gesine Müller and her dog were searching the men’s department for a turtleneck, but the prices were shocking. Then she went to the children’s section. There she was accosted by a salesgirl. Salespeople got on her nerves, so she snarled, “Don’t bother, I’ll wait for the end-of-the-year sale.” She poked around a table full of remainders, but there were no affordable sweaters there, only T-shirts. That would be of no use to the two boys outside. That was more of a summertime thing.

FOR THE FIRST TEN MINUTES,the uniformed guard of the department store ignored Xavier and his wheelbarrow. Then he decided that he’d been lenient enough. He walked up to the boys, holding his walkie-talkie in one hand. He hadn’t been working security for very long and was afraid that, at crucial moments, he might not exude enough authority. “Hey, you there,” he said. “You’re not allowed to park vehicles here.” It may have been a blind wall, but no vehicles were supposed to park there.

“This isn’t a vehicle,” Xavier said, “this is a wheelbarrow.” He was slapping his arms against his chest to keep warm.

“A wheelbarrow is also a vehicle,” the guard said. “I’ve been tolerant — I let you stay here for a while, I gave you enough time to beat it — but you’re still here. So now I have to act. I gave you a finger, now you’re trying to take the whole hand. Now I’m giving you two minutes.”

“This is a wheelbarrow,” Xavier said. “To carry my friend in. We’re going to see a doctor. He was beaten up. And Mrs. Müller just went in to buy us a sweater.” His lips had turned blue; he kept waving his arms to keep warm.

Xavier believed there was no reason to be ashamed of the truth. Before long, Mrs. Müller would come out of the department store with two sweaters; then he’d see the look on the guard’s face.

A crackling sound came out of the guard’s walkie-talkie, and he raised it to his ear. There was no voice, just more crackling.

He sighed, turned down the volume of the walkie-talkie, and took a good look at the half-naked boy. He recognized him from somewhere; the kid had probably been picked up a few times before. The hard nuts to crack always came back. No matter what you did to them, they were like junkies. The hard nuts to crack didn’t scare easily, you had to lock them up.

“Maybe you think,” the guard said, printing the boy’s face in his memory, “that I don’t know about your kind.” He was young, twenty-three, but he was ambitious, and he had a child.

“I studied petty crime,” the security guard told Xavier. “I know all about shoplifters. Ask me a question about shoplifters.”

The guard looked expectantly at Xavier, but Xavier had no questions in mind.

“Come on,” the guard said, “what do you want to know?”

“I’m waiting for Mrs. Müller,” Xavier said quietly.

“Then I’ll ask myself a question. How does the shoplifter operate? The shoplifter operates in groups of four or five. Lots of Southern Europeans or Bulgarians, often young Gypsies too, who learned it from their parents, who learned it in turn from their parents. There’s nothing they can do about that — it’s in their blood. And this is where it happens.” The guard looked around, as though finding himself in the zoo, before a cage full of rare birds. “In this alley is where I deal with the shoplifter.”

A crackling sound came from his walkie-talkie again. He turned down the volume. “Where was I?” he asked.

Xavier hopped from one foot to the other, but that didn’t help against the cold, either. He laid his hand on Awromele’s head and hoped Mrs. Müller would show up soon with those sweaters.

“The professional shoplifter does not operate alone. That’s where I was. The seventeen-year-old girl who steals rouge, that’s shoplifting, too, but the major damage is done by the professional. One group causes a fuss, the other group makes their move. It’s an old trick. I think you’re here to cause a fuss. That’s why you’ve got a wheelbarrow, that’s why you’re half naked. That’s why there’s some guy dying in the wheelbarrow. I can tell from your face that I’ve got it right. Are you the shoplifter who’s supposed to cause a fuss?”

“I’m cold,” Xavier said, pounding even harder on his bare chest. There was still some mud sticking to his back. Arguing made no sense in cases like this, especially not in the state he was in. “Mrs. Müller is buying us a sweater; she’ll be right back. Then we’ll leave. I’m not here to cause a fuss.”

“I do not,” said the guard, taking another step forward, “and I’m being completely honest about this, I do not have the authority to arrest you. As long as nothing has been stolen, we’re not allowed to lay a finger on you.” There was melancholy in his voice.

“Yes,” Xavier said. “You’re right about that.” He needed to stay on this man’s good side, especially looking the way he did now. Friends, that was the most important thing in a squeeze. He prayed to King David for friends. More friends.

“Are you trying to run away?” the guard asked. And he took another step forward. He had chased many a shoplifter before. If necessary, he was prepared to run all the way to the next tram stop. He’d trained for it, too. Other people trained in order to lose weight. Not him, he was skinny enough already; he trained in order to keep up with the shoplifter, to jump one when the time was right.