William Gass - Middle C

Guilt is very Jewish, Mother.

Die Schuld … no … not me … now Jews do nasty naughty things and are as black with Schuld as a stove with soot and still go on burning with their business as if they had no more breast to beat. The guilt goes up the flue. Schuld bore your father down, Joey, I could see his knees in a bend like an old bow that can’t return to straight, nor did I help him with his load because I added to it every day, I complained whenever I saw him, back turned or not, dressed or not, asleep or not, I said I am not a Jew, Rudi, I want to go back to Graz, the war is over, there’s no reason to remain here, in this country where people ski down the slopes of their noses, in this ruin of a city, in this mountainless town where every window’s broken and they boil only big roots.

How could Father disappear so … like a smoked cigar?

Your father didn’t smoke, Joey, he was a good man in his habits, he didn’t overdrink either, or pinch bottoms.

He gambled.

Oh, that was a shock, when they told me, because he never bet even on a fight among roosters.

Well, he bet on the ponies one time, Mother — and won — it must have felt as though he’d been touched by the gods.

He never said a word, he never showed me a happy face, all that time while he must have been waiting for his forgers to forge a passport for him, steal a vehicle permit, make a birth avowal — whatever it was, his money, his winnings — what do they say? — burning a hole in his socks, he never let on to anybody that he’d bet or, having bet, that he’d won, or having won that he was going to leave us like we were not people but a place, like Graz, an embarrassment to him — old ways, old folks, old days — those of us he’d said he loved and held tight in a dark Tube — a cellar that shook as if it were solid but not solid enough — a piece of us broke off like shaken brick — he wasn’t solid enough — he divided himself from his family and sailed away as if we were the shore and he a so-long ship.

We can’t be sure of that, though, Mother.

I should have known, I should have known, because Rudi changed; he, who was soft like a patch of moss, grew hard and harsh as bark; he’d glare at me full of rage all up in his face; not that he ever hit me, but where a smile once went the boils of a pot were; and there was anger also in his throat, his eyes; his eyes never brimmed anymore or went wide to take things in; his silence scared me into silence, too; I couldn’t say a clear word.

He changed before he won his bet, you mean, not after?

Rudi thought of himself as a prophet, not as a modest decent printer with a wife who let him do what he wanted with her, to be happy in her arms, and calm after, snoring as softly as a purr.

Father just disappeared, Mother, that’s all anyone knows: he was here, he was there, then he was nowhere at all.

They told me — the police did — that he was seen collecting his bet, so we know he had some money on him; then they told me — those detective men — that one of the crooks — those counterfeiters of Canadians the police had taken in — admitted selling Rudi a passport as well as a black-market steamship ticket, and another officer later told the father—

Him?

• about a license, Joey, the father guessed it was, that Rudi had also wanted.

He?

• the holy father, yes, he liked my round face, I think.

• So Rudi had the money, the passport, and the ticket …?

• Das Gelt — der Passkarte — der Zettel … he had them while he was living with us still and sometimes kissing me on the mouth.

Of course, Mother, the police didn’t pursue the matter very energetically, did they?

If there was ever a false-paper man, Rudi was it, or rather Fixel was, the slyboots he became, so of course officialdom did little, after all who were we? unwanted emigrants, driven from our land our living and our loves by Evil, Evil that couldn’t have a capital large enough in father’s old print box to stand for it and consequently had to be let in and cared for like a stray font, but then … because we were Jews, that is, Persecuted People, and so on, and were bedraggled, misspoken, confused … because we were Jews and therefore the subject of jokes and other forms of embarrassed amusement …

You were too young, Joey, to ever wonder how much or how little Joseph Skizzen was Yussel Fixel, but it was a lot harder for Trudi Skizzen to become the Dvorah of that name; your sister suffered, I can tell you, having to answer to Deborah Scofield, too, before she came to rest on Debbie Skizzen.

Now that she’s married to Roger, Mother, she has his name, so she’s had to change again.

That’s the way it should be, Joey, as it was long ago set down; the one time a woman gained was when she gained a name, just as you will give a girl yours and lighten her load in life, because I know, I have been a girl born Rouse, a wife who was Skizzen, then a widow called Fixel, and I know it is easier, it is better altogether, to be married and settled and fruitful and safe, as the Lord’s will is spelled out by the church. Because a girl, Joey, is searching for her real name; the name she is born with is only her maiden name, a name for someone so far unrealized; and I, stupid unfortunate that I am, I thought I had found in Rudi my real name, the name I would lose my flower under, the name I would enable him to pass on through you and you through another — and so and on — it would be proof he was here on this earth and had done God’s good bidding; that was my duty and my hope, that the Skizzens would fill out, fatten, and come to be people that would be noticed, that pride could be taken in …

When Father took his name away from you, it was like being divorced, wasn’t it, Mother? I mean, you were no longer a Skizzen.

Yes … yes … and I never married Herr Fixel, who was he? had I said vows to him? hung on his words, cooked his food, swept his house, had I? no, I had a stranger in my arms, shaming me in front of my husband.

And you weren’t a Rouse either, Mother, because you were no longer a maiden.

Oh, Joey … you are making me sadder by the minute.

Debbie married a Boulder.

Shut up, smartie.

Father went to Canada, you think?

He went to hell.

He might have meant to send for us after a bit.

Oh yes, a letter all smoky like ham would arrive to say please join me in the flames; oh sure, many times he told me how he’d won some money, how he’d got a ticket and a passport, and how he’d send for us as soon as he got to Halifax or as soon as he’d found a job or as soon as he’d made a million and had a mansion with a long yard and a dozen dogs; oh sure, I should dream it, of the many times he told me, many times till I got a sore ear from hearing how he’d won some money, how he’d got a ticket, how he had a passport, sure, if he’d done these things he’d certainly tell his wife of them, tell her and tell her till her ear withered at the root, I sure should dream it; so he can’t have got to Halifax, can he? he can’t have found a job, can he? he can’t have made a million, can he? and since he didn’t really consult me about calling myself sappy names, wearing a wig, and traipsing to London with nothing but a belly swelling for my luggage, why should he start now by asking me how to spend his winnings — I should dream it — for an instance, to rent an apartment with windows, with a bath, with a pair or three of beds, please, with a stove — that would be nice — with a picture of a town in Austria on one wall? or how about a family rate on train tickets home? sure, I should, I should dream it.

Maybe he didn’t want to argue with you, Mother; he knew you’d be upset if he left you with us in London to fend for yourself, and he knew he had only one chance and one ticket …