Arnon Grunberg - The Jewish Messiah

“Yes, please,” Awromele said.

Marc turned to go into the living room, but thought better of it. “He’s painting right now. He can’t be disturbed. Could you come back tomorrow? Tomorrow afternoon, perhaps? Perhaps you should call first, to make sure he’s in.”

Awromele clutched his plastic bags a little tighter. He should have put the cookies in the bigger bag as well. “Couldn’t I come in for just a moment?” Awromele asked. “Just for a second? I can wait in the hallway, but I need to talk to Xavier. It’s urgent. It won’t take long.”

Marc hesitated. Letting this boy in while Xavier was working might not be such a good idea. But he decided to let the strange creature into the house anyway. The Orthodox Jew probably spoke the truth. Xavier had peculiar friends, and maybe he wanted to use the boy as a model. That was a good idea. An artist needed to work with a few different models. Painting the mother all the time had to get a little old. This boy wouldn’t make such a bad model after all, with his blond locks, his authentic getup, his religious headgear.

Marc said: “If you can be quiet and not disturb Xavier, you can come in. He’s painting; he doesn’t talk to anyone then. Then he’s in a kind of trance.”

Marc showed Awromele into the living room.

When Xavier saw Awromele, he shouted, “Jesus, Awromele!” He dropped his brush. Fortunately, he had put old newspapers on the floor under the easel.

The mother was sitting motionless at the table with the testicle in her hand, but it had not escaped her notice that an Orthodox Jew had entered her living room.

“Who is that, Xavier?” she asked. She put down the jar with the testicle in it — she had a cramp in her hand. “And pick up that pencil.”

“A friend,” Xavier said, “an acquaintance — nothing to get excited about. And that isn’t a pencil, Mama, it’s a brush.” It pained him that Awromele had ignored his admonitions, that he had come by unannounced. His friend’s presence stirred up a panic in him that he could overcome only by concentrating on his painting. On the other hand, he was so happy to see Awromele that he felt like running to him and licking him from head to toe, like a playful young puppy.

“I’m not getting excited,” the mother said. “I only asked who it was. I suppose I’m allowed to know who has come to visit me at such an hour.”

Xavier picked up his brush.

“Don’t let us ruin your concentration, Xavier,” Marc said. “Go on with your painting.”

Marc turned to Awromele. “He’s working on a series, a wonderful series called Mother with Testicle. It’s got everything, the whole gamut of human emotions and fears. Have a seat. But be quiet.”

Marc showed Awromele to a chair, diagonally across from the mother, and nodding at Xavier he whispered in the boy’s ear: “Do you see those hypnotic eyes? You can really see it when he looks straight at you. He can make you do anything with those eyes. With those eyes, he has you in his power. Mrs. Radek did not just bear a child, Mrs. Radek brought something very special into the world.”

“That’s my bad ear,” Awromele whispered back. “I can’t hear you unless you sit on the other side.”

While Marc now whispered into his good ear, the mother stared at Awromele. The boy’s face was fascinating, there was no denying that. He did seem to exude a rather strange odor, though. She liked his hair, too. Blond, curls, funny — she’d never imagined that. Her father had always talked about black-haired Jews. Maybe the blond ones were better. People also said that light-skinned Negroes were higher on the social scale than the dark-skinned kind. There had to be a good reason for that. Nothing was without a reason.

“Mama,” Xavier said, “if it bothers you that I have a visitor, I can also take him to a café.”

“No,” the mother said, “it’s interesting to meet one of your acquaintances. What’s your name?”

“Awromele,” Awromele said.

“Aha,” said the mother. She picked up the jar with the testicle again. She longed for her knife.

“And you are an Israelite, if I may be so free?”

Awromele clutched his two plastic bags between his knees and said: “Yes, an Israelite, you could say that. I believe so. But so are you, aren’t you? Xavier, isn’t your family—”

“Aren’t we what?” the mother asked.

“Ah, rats,” Xavier said, seeing that he had messed up his painting. His concentration had left him — his surrender to the colors, the brushes, the canvas — it wasn’t working. All he could think of was Awromele. “What Awromele means is that we’re all Israelites. We all come from the same fountainhead. That’s what you mean, isn’t it? The same patriarchs, the same myths, the same mistakes. If you go back far enough in time, there’s only one father and one mother.”

“Oh,” the mother said. “Oh. I never looked at it that way. That’s news to me. Xavier, is this going to take long? I need to go to bed.”

“Almost finished, Mama.”

Marc stared breathlessly at the magic Xavier worked in paint, and the mother said to Awromele: “I see it differently. I’m not so sure that we all come from the same fountainhead. I’m not sure that there is only one father and one mother if one goes back far enough. A person who was born in Nepal and grew up in Nepal is fundamentally different from me. His culture isn’t my culture, his history isn’t my history, his primal father is not my father. Not that his primal father is any better or any worse than mine, but he is fundamentally different.”

“Mama, stop moving your hand,” Xavier said. “I can’t paint you like this.” He was trembling himself; he couldn’t keep his hand steady anymore. He was afraid, although he wasn’t exactly sure of what. And he was dripping paint. He had begged Awromele not to come by unexpectedly, he had spoken at length of his mother’s migraines, but he knew that everything had changed since what had happened in the park. It was no use forbidding Awromele to do anything anymore; besides, it didn’t matter much, he wouldn’t be living here much longer anyway. Soon he would be living in the Venice of the North, with Awromele. Together they would do a lot of bicycling. Everyone did that there, he had read — cycling, cycling, and more cycling.

“I don’t know how my son met you,” the mother said, doing her best not to move her hand. “He’s such a closed book, just like his father, my late husband. He’s interested in other cultures, but that’s all I know about him. My late husband was a closed book as well, but he wasn’t interested in other cultures, although he did go to Singapore often on business. He always said, There’s so much we don’t know about our own culture. That’s how my husband was. In the last few years, my son has sought contact with Israelites, and I have nothing against that in principle. Some people study birds, others raise rabbits, still others seek contact with Israelites. At one point I phoned the school psychologist about it, and he said: It’s a part of adolescence. Fine, Xavier tried to keep it a secret from me. That must be a part of adolescence as well. But he couldn’t, because a mother knows everything. He went swimming, for example, in the Rhine with Zionists. Things like that, you know. I try to think: Oh well, contact with other cultures can perk up an individual. You obviously learn something from it, about yourself as well. But that sword is definitely two-edged.”

She fell silent. She reminded herself of her late husband, who would remain silent for months and then suddenly launch into a speech. She missed him sometimes, his silent contempt, his ineffectual aggression. She had never thought it could happen, but on occasion she longed for him and his all-pervasive coldness. The scornful way he’d looked at her, not so very different from the uninterested, somewhat arrogant gaze with which he had viewed the world in general. Yes, he had been disgusted by her, her late husband, she had no more doubts about that, not only after her child was born, but before that too. From the very beginning. Kissing, for example, was something he’d never done — he just took her right away. That was all. “Taking” was perhaps not the right word for it. He assaulted her. He didn’t like kissing. He had no time for that. Yet that was precisely why she had fallen for him, because he was disgusted by her. The way she was disgusted by herself.