Arnon Grunberg - The Jewish Messiah

“Grab him,” the nurse he had bitten shouted. “He bit me on the arm. Grab him, before he bites someone else.”

Xavier opened a third door.

“Save your strength,” he heard the doctor say to Awromele. “Don’t get so wound up, you’re still very weak.”

Despite the bandage around Awromele’s head, Xavier recognized him immediately. “Awromele,” Xavier cried. “Here I am. I don’t feel anything, do you hear me? I don’t feel a thing. I’ll never feel a thing, I promise. I’ll never feel anything again.”

He tried to get to the bed where Awromele was lying, but the four male nurses got to him first. They threw themselves on him and applied pressure to his throat, to discourage him from struggling.

“THIS IS THE DOOR to happiness,” the tall boy said to Danica. “Now you know how the door opens.”

The girl was kneeling in front of him, in a corner of the schoolyard with trees all around and bushes on which cheerful berries hung in spring. The girl gagged. The braces got in the way, but she probably would have gagged even without the braces.

The tall boy said: “This is pleasure. Do you understand?” The gagging was an integral part of the pleasure. Where pleasure begins for one, gagging begins for the other. Danica couldn’t reply. “You can tell me later,” the boy said. “Remember the question and take your time thinking about the answer.”

The tall boy’s friends watched with interest. Soon it would be their turn.

“You have passed the test,” the tall boy said, and laid his hand paternally on the girl’s head. “From now on, you’ll enjoy our protection. You are ugly. That’s a euphemism; you are hideous. Yet we still love you. Anyone can love the lovely — there’s no trick to that. But to love the monster, that is man’s true challenge. That is what we understand Kierkegaard to say. Love the monster, then the monster will come to love you. We have given you love, we will give you our sex, so that you can do something in return. Real love is in the giving.”

Then he took the girl by the ears and moved her head back and forth as though it were a machine. It couldn’t take too long — the free period was almost over, and his friends still had to have their turns.

The Snoopy pencil case was lying on the ground beside Danica. She had put her hand on the pencil case while her head was being moved back and forth. She didn’t taste anything anymore, she didn’t feel much anymore, at most the pain in her ears, which felt as if they were being torn off her head, and the feeling that she was going to vomit, that she would vomit as soon as they took that thing out of her mouth.

She wouldn’t let them take her pencil case. Her pencil case had to be protected. They could do anything to her as long as they stayed away from her pencil case, because Snoopy understood her, Snoopy was her friend.

IN HER ROOM, Bettina was arranging papers and other documentation in a new ring binder. She had stayed home sick from school, and wanted to use the day to straighten up her files. Along with her parents and a few close relatives, she had recently adopted a third village in India.

As she looked through the account book in which she had entered the expenditures and revenues for aid to India, she could not help feeling a certain satisfaction. She was finally able to forget the Egyptian.

She was young still, but her life had already made a difference.

THE MALE NURSESdidn’t have to apply much pressure to discourage Xavier from struggling, but, just to please the wounded nurse, they roughed up the patient for a minute or two before giving him a shot of sedative. It was Xavier’s second shot of sedative that day.

As he collapsed slowly, the nurses dragged him to a room where he would be given the opportunity to recover.

The nurse complained again about how he had bitten her, and showed the bite to her colleagues, who regarded it with more than professional interest. She was young and attractive, and that lent her complaint a certain added value.

Later that morning, the hospital called Awromele’s house. Rochele awakened with a start from her daydreams about the pelican, and answered the phone.

“Mama,” she yelled, “Mama, it’s the hospital.”

The rabbi’s wife, who had spent the last hour wailing by the kitchen wall, waiting for news of Awromele, tore herself away from the comfortable monotony of her indictment against God.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, this is she.”

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked. “Where is he?”

“I’ll be right there, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

She hung up. The receiver fell beside the phone, but she didn’t notice.

“Come on,” she said, taking Rochele by the hand. Then: “No, you stay here. Watch the baby.” She leaned down to kiss Rochele, but changed her mind again. “No,” she said, “we’ll drop the baby off at the neighbors’ house. You’re coming with me.”

She lifted the baby from its cradle, stuffed some diapers and baby food in a bag, and rang the neighbors’ bell.

The neighbor lady, who always slept late, opened the door in her bathrobe.

“Could you please take care of him for just a little while?” she said. “I have to go to the hospital, it’s an emergency, I’ll be right back.”

Before the neighbor could say a thing, she found herself holding the baby.

“Where’s your coat?” the rabbi’s wife shouted to Rochele. “Hurry up, get your coat and scarf.”

They ran down the steps, the mother pulling her daughter along behind. “He’s alive,” she said, “Rochele, he’s alive, he’s been saved.”

She picked up her daughter, although Rochele was actually too big for that anymore, and pressed the girl to her breast. “Awromele is alive,” she said again.

“But I knew that already,” Rochele replied. “It’s because of the pelican.”

ON THE LITTLE BED that reeked of massage oil, the rabbi, secretly and in utmost desperation, addressed himself to the Almighty. He said: “Let it happen, God, please let it come, please. It’s always come before, so why not today, of all days?”

Lucy paused. “My jaw muscles are starting to hurt,” she said. “This is better than going to the gym.”

“This is the gym,” the rabbi said. “For me, too. What did you think? That there’s some other gym I go to?”

AT THAT MOMENT, his wife was racing through the streets of Basel, holding Rochele by the hand. Her first thought had been to go by tram, but when the tram didn’t come she thought: We’ll walk, it’s not that far. They ran along in silence, mother and daughter. The rabbi’s wife’s wig was a little crooked from all the wailing and head-shaking in despair, but she didn’t care. Rochele had her coat on inside out; no one noticed that, either. They paid no attention to traffic lights at the crossings, but sometimes they had to stop for a moment anyway, and then she would say: “He’s alive, Rochele, he’s alive. It’s a miracle.”

Twenty minutes later, they arrived at the hospital.

“Awromele Michalowitz,” the rabbi’s wife said at the desk. “Quick. He was brought in today. He’s alive.”

The receptionist looked at her a little pityingly, then searched about and gave her the room number.

The rabbi’s wife dragged her daughter down the hospital corridors. Rochele dropped her scarf, but her mother didn’t notice.

They had to take the elevator, but the rabbi’s wife couldn’t wait, so they took the steps. She found room 534 and threw open the door.

A nurse was busy fixing the drip.

“Awromele,” the rabbi’s wife cried, “Awromele!”

She threw herself on the boy. “Careful for his ear,” the nurse said, but Awromele’s mother didn’t even hear her. “Ow!” Awromele shouted. Then the rabbi’s wife let go of him and simply said, “You’re alive, you’re alive.”