Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

‘Gentlemen!’ The schoolmaster would probably have liked to smack them all. ‘These are not the tones I wish to hear hereafter. Sober and peaceful, that’s how it’s to be done. Who lives by the sword dies by the word.’

‘Of course,’ said Gubser and smiled. ‘Peaceful. Absolutely peaceful.’

When, in response to an invisible sign, the two doormen stepped aside, allowing access to the hall, there was a great rush, as if there were really — how had the coachman put it? — something for free in there. An elderly man lost his hat in the crush and tried to bend down for it, but the flood of people would not be stemmed by a single individual. Still bending, unable to straighten up in time, he was simply swept along.

In an instant, the table at which Pinchas had so reluctantly taken his seat became the only one where people were still drinking. On the others the glasses and jugs stood empty or at best half-full, so sudden had the general decampment been. Only the men from the league — it had taken Pinchas a while to notice the badge that they all wore on their lapels — sat motionless, like dignitaries on the platform of honour in a festival procession. ‘No one takes our seats away,’ said Gubser, and the schoolmaster beamed all over his old face and said Alois always thought of everything. It would never, he had to admit, have occurred to him on his own that one would need ushers at such an event, but then he was more a man of intellect than a man of action.

The two ushers who had been guarding the door for so long were stood a beer each by Gubser. They drank them standing to attention in the military style, and had exactly the same foam moustaches above their mouths afterwards.

‘Don’t we also need to…?’ Pinchas was about to get to his feet, but Gubser shook his head.

‘Not yet. Keep the people waiting for a while, and they’ll pay more attention.

‘In school it’s exactly the other way round,’ said the schoolmaster. ‘If you leave them alone too long they become unruly.’

Everyone ignored him.

The door of the inn opened and a few stragglers came in. Because the sunlight was behind them, they were at first seen only as silhouettes. It was only by his umbrella that Pinchas recognised Salomon Meijer. Chanele had come in with him, and a man he didn’t know. He must have been from the East, because he wore a kaftan tied with a black cord. The red payot that framed his bearded face seemed to be fastened to the brim of his oversized hat.

‘This is Reb Tsvi Löwinger from Lemberg,’ said Salomon, introducing the stranger. ‘He has come to Switzerland to collect for his yeshiva, and has done me the honour of being my guest over Shabbos.’

The shnorrer nodded his head loftily.

‘Reb Tsvi is interested in this event that you are having here. So if no one objects…?’

‘We welcome all those who for knowledge strive!’ squeaked the schoolmaster. ‘What does it say in Faust ? “I may know much, but I would fain know all.”’

‘Yes,’ said master butcher Gubser, and looked the man in the kaftan up and down. ‘I’m happy for him to be here. You can’t imagine how happy I am.’

His animal-protection friends giggled, even though Gubser hadn’t said anything the slightest bit funny.

Loud laughter echoed from the hall, as if the people in there had been listening to what there were saying.

Salomon turned his face to the door of the hall. ‘A lot of people?’ he asked.

‘You will find a seat, Herr Meijer,’ said Gubser. ‘I have no worries on that score. You people are practised enough at pushing your way in anywhere.’

Laughter from the hall again.

Salomon waved Pinchas aside. ‘It’s not looking good,’ he whispered.

‘I know.’ Everyone at the table now drained their glasses as if on command. ‘It’s not going to be easy.’

But Salomon’s concern had nothing to do with the League. ‘Reb Tsvi and I took a look at the gematria. You’re going into a discussion, a pilpul. Numerical value two hundred and twenty six. But it will be a discussion without a lev, without a heart.’

‘It’s time!’ called Gubser.

‘Nu!’ said Salomon, and in this instance it meant, ‘They will be able to wait a moment longer.’

‘I really have to…’ Pinchas began, but Salomon wouldn’t let him finish.

‘Take care,’ he said, talking more and more quickly. ‘Lev has the numerical value of thirty-two. Take that away from two hundred and twenty-six and it leaves one hundred and ninety-four. And what word in the tenach has the gematria of one hundred and ninety-four? Nu?’

‘Perhaps you could tell me later, after the…’

‘Vayiboku,’ Salomon said triumphantly. ‘“And they were parted.”’

Pinchas stared blankly.

‘The waters of the Red Sea. During the exodus from Egypt.’

‘Herr Pomeranz!’ cried Gubser.

‘You understand what that means,’ Salomon said. ‘In a discussion held without a heart, there can be no agreement.’

‘Enough words have been exchanged, let us at last see deeds.’ The schoolmaster had pushed his way between them and pushed Pinchas in front of him like a schoolboy who ignored the bell for the start of the lesson.

‘So let’s go in,’ said Chanele, and wanted to hold out her hand to Salomon. He looked at her as if she was a meshugena, gripped his umbrella more firmly and nodded to Reb Tsvi. The two of them formed the rearguard of a little procession making its way into the assembly.

In the doorway Gubser let Pinchas step in ahead of him.

In the hall of the Guggenheim the men sat closely packed together at long tables; their shoulders touched, and they could hardly reach for their freshly filled beer glasses. They stood side by side along the walls as well, obscuring the sight of the laurel wreaths and club flags in the glass cases.

On the stage a big Swiss flag hung from the ceiling. The man standing in front of it at the lectern looked almost tiny in comparison.

‘Has it started already?’ Pinchas asked, baffled.

‘Of course not,’ said Gubser. ‘Of course not. It’s just a bit of entertainment so that people don’t get bored.’

A wave of laughter made it clear that people actually weren’t getting bored.

The man at the lectern was reading a poem from a slender volume:

‘Here stands the Jew, with dross to sell,’ he recited,

To his Christian clientele.

And though he knows for trash they pay

Herr Levi sells it anyway.

‘Exactly!’ called a voice somewhere in the hall, and the agreement of the others was one big shared exhalation.

And while the Jew counts out his gold,

The Christian’s produce goes unsold.

You fool! Behave like Jacob’s seed!

Devote yourself to fraud and greed!

This time it was not an exhalation, but a common shout.

‘This is wrong,’ Pinchas said furiously.

‘Why? It has nothing to do with the subject at hand.’ Gubser assumed the suffering face of a man who is constantly obliged to explain the simplest things in the world to others. ‘Or did you want to talk about Jewish shops?’

‘Of course not!’

‘Then I don’t understand what you’re getting so worked up about, Herr Pomeranz. You people are always so thin-skinned.’

To sit more comfortably, the audience had pushed their benches far back, and now, a rampart in its Sunday best, blocked the passageways between the table. If two ushers had not created a path for the speakers, it would have been impossible for them to get through.

The little man in front of the big flag saw Gubser coming, snapped his book shut and held it aloft. ‘This is all in the songbook of Ulrich Dürrenmatt,’ he called into the hall. ‘Get hold of it if you want to learn something!’ Then, to thunderous applause, he stepped away from the lectern.