Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

If a domestic animal had suddenly started speaking, the general surprise could not have been greater. Herr Rauhut raised his glass in such impetuous agreement that the liquid, which had been poured far too generously in any case, slopped over the brim and he had to lick his fingers. Councillor Bugmann murmured something about ‘ Parturiunt montes ’, and Director Strähle, who had long since forgotten his school Latin, produced a short, barking laugh just in case it was supposed to have been a joke. Herr Laurenz Schnegg took a monocle from his pocket, held it in front of his right eye and looked at the accountant with such appalled surprise as a bather might look at an undesirable object washed up on the beach. François looked at the ceiling and twisted the tips of his moustache with ostentatious lack of interest.

Melnitz laughed until he choked on the smoke from his cigar.

‘Why would I want to dismiss you, my dear Herr Ziltener?’ asked Janki. ‘I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to run my businesses without you.’ He loved the phrase ‘my businesses’, that wonderful plural of social success.

‘I couldn’t care less.’ Like many people unaccustomed to contradiction, Ziltener adopted an exaggeratedly combative posture. With his chin poking out from between his shoulders, he looked like an irritated lapdog.

‘Woof!’ said Rauhut. ‘Woof! Woof! Woof!’

‘Your cognac is really terrific,’ said Director Strähle, trying to guide the conversational ship into less stormy waters. ‘You will have to tell me where you…’

‘Animal cruelty is animal cruelty, and we Christians have a duty…’ Ziltener’s courage failed him as quickly as it had taken hold of him. In his excitement he had half leapt from his seat and now shifted from one foot to the other with his bottom in the air, a guilty little dog begging for forgiveness with its tail between its legs.

‘Oh, sit down,’ said Councillor Bugmann, and Herr Schnegg hissed, ‘Riffraff.’ Ziltener lowered his head, a chastised schoolboy.

An embarrassed pause followed, which Herr Strahle tried in vain to fill with a chuckle.

Finally Councillor Bugmann tugged his ascot straight and cleared his throat. ‘To be able to discuss something sine ira et studio ,’ he said, ‘to weigh up the pro and contra serenely, that is the true trademark of democracy.’

‘Trademark,’ Rauhut repeated. ‘Democracy.’ He smiled proudly as the words left his tongue without stumbling.

‘And the opinion of our charming host on this issue carries particular weight. Sua res agitur . So if you would be so kind, dear Monsieur Meijer… You have the floor.’

‘Tell them, Janki,’ giggled Uncle Melnitz and blue a perfect smoke ring in the air with each syllable of his laughter. ‘You must be able to that. You as an honorary goy.’

‘Well then.’ Janki played nervously with the handle of his walking stick. ‘There are certain traditions…’

‘Certain traditions…’ Uncle Melnitz bleated an echo.

‘… which may not, by the standards of our enlightened times…’

‘Heeheehee,’ said Melnitz.

‘… and under the aspect of a modern humanity…’

‘Hehehe.’

‘If slaughtering by shechita is forbidden,’ said François, once again wearing the smile that struck terror into the heart of his own mother, ‘then you will all have to make do with carrots at our next soirée.’

‘Which would be a terrible shame,’ Director Strähle used the opportunity to scatter a quick compliment on to the table, like salt on a red wine stain. ‘The veal chop particularly…’

Rauhut nodded. ‘And the Burgundy,’ he said. ‘With the shechita-slaughtered grapes.’

‘There is only one point,’ Councillor Bugmann insisted, ‘on which vox populi strikes me as curious. The advocates of the initiative…’

‘Riffraff,’ said Herr Schnegg.

‘The advocates of the initiative are arguing on the basis of their love of the tortured animals…’

‘My wife also…’

‘… and that is an argument that cannot quite…’

Salomon had been drumming on the table all the while, and now struck such a drumroll that everyone looked at him. ‘I will happily explain it to you, Herr Councillor.’

‘Please don’t start with your gematria again!’

‘Gematriwhat?’ asked Rauhut.

Salomon rested his palms on the table. ‘I am, as you know, a cattle-trader, and I have learned not to buy a cow just because it is offered with fine words. One should do the same, if I may give you some advice, Herr Councillor, in political matters as well.’

Janki saw with horror that Bugmann’s face had turned crimson. But perhaps that was simply down to his apoplectic nature.

‘The thing about the tortured creature, my esteemed Herr Councillor, is this: no one is as kind to animals as a butcher without anything to slaughter.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Herr Schnegg.

‘It often happens that an animal, although it corresponds to all health police requirements, turns out after shechita to be ritually impure and can therefore not be eaten by Jews. So it must be sold to a Christian butcher. Hence the people’s initiative.’

‘Aha!’ said Director Strähle, and tried to make a face as if he had understood.

‘As the animal has already been slaughtered, the sale must go through quickly. And hence at a very low price. The butcher who does the deal is of course delighted; everyone else is envious. They are all fearful that their more fortunate competitor might bring their prices down. And out of that fear they suddenly discover their love of animals and want to ban shechita entirely. It’s as simple as that.’

‘Are you trying to claim that concern for the welfare of the tortured creature is only a pretext…?’

‘The purest hypocrisy,’ said Salomon. ‘You as a politician must know something about that, Herr Councillor.’

‘Omeyn!’ said Uncle Melnitz.

Herr Bugmann stood up, and it was not simply a man rising to his feet, it was a demonstration. ‘I am going home now,’ he said.

Director Strähle immediately followed suit. ‘It was an extremely pleasant evening. Really, very, very pleasant.’

‘I am most grateful to you for the hospitality you have shown me,’ said Herr Ziltener.

As he left, Herr Schnegg stopped in front of Salomon and studied him through his monocle. ‘You could be a man after my own heart,’ he said. ‘It is really a shame that you…’

He didn’t finish the sentence, but Janki thought he heard Uncle Melnitz laughing.

At last Herr Rauhut, the newspaper editor, rose unsteadily. ‘I shall now sing a few Schubert Lieder,’ he said. But there was no audience left to hear him.

When all the guests ad been helped into their coats — ‘allow me, Frau Strähle, it was an honour, Frau Schnegg’ — when the last compliments had been paid, like tokens being put back in their box after an evening of card-games, to be distributed again on the next occasion, when even the exhausted Christine had received her traditional thank-you present — a pair of fine embroidered gloves, which she had asked for but would never wear — Chanele went back to the dining room in search of Shmul. She had still not had a chance to talk to her son.

Janki was sitting all alone at the long table. No, he wasn’t sitting, he was slumped in his upholstered chair, a general after the battle has been lost. The black silk kerchief hung like a funeral crape from his shirt collar. His mouth was pursed, as if to whistle or sing, his left hand was flat on his belly, and with his right he tapped impatiently and furiously against it, as one goes on hammering at a door that should have been opened long ago. Chanele, who was all too familiar with this pantomime, filled a glass with water from a jug, took the tin of sodium bicarbonate prescribed by Dr Bolliger from the drawer in the sideboard and set them both down in front of Janki. He tipped too much of the white powder into the glass and looked at Chanele reproachfully when the mixture foamed over the brim. After he had drunk, he burped without putting his hand over his mouth. It didn’t matter any more.