St. Urbain's Horseman

by Mordecai Richler

  “That Arnie. Wow!”

  “Where’s Nicklaus?”

  “Hold it.”

  Artfully, Jake brought the conversation around to Cousin Joey and Baruch.

  “When they brought Baruch over, you know, the nut, he had never seen a banana before. Paw gave him a banana and he ate it with the peel.”

  Uncle Abe, chuckling with fond remembrance, said, “On the ship that gangster came over on, another Jew was robbed of his wallet. They searched high and low and couldn’t find it. Two special cops were waiting at the foot of the gangway, looking into all the hand luggage. Baruch comes sailing down the gangway with his satchel already open for inspection. He is eating an apple and whistling. Inside the apple is the money from the wallet.”

  “That Baruch. Boy!”

  And all at once, Jake, come to sit with the Hershes in mourning for his father, feeling closer to them than he had in years, felt obliged to honor the Horseman in his absence. Without preamble, he turned on Uncle Abe, reminding him of Joey’s last visit to Montreal, the men waiting in the car outside the house on St. Urbain, the gutted MG in the woods, and Jenny’s abiding hatred. “You turned him in, didn’t you, Uncle Abe?”

  Uncle Abe’s face flamed red. “What are you talking about, you drunken fool?”

  “All I want is a straight answer.”

  “Here it is, then,” and he slapped Jake hard across the cheek, stomping out of the living room.

  “Well,” Jake said, startled, trying to smile into hostile faces, faces all saying you deserved it.

  The room was choked in silence.

  “Hey,” Uncle Lou said, “have you heard the one about the girl who wouldn’t wear a diaphragm because she didn’t want a picture window in her play room?”

  “I’ve had enough of your puerile jokes, Uncle Lou.”

  “Well, pip pip, old bloke. And up yours with a pineapple.”

  Rifka shook a fist at him. “You come here once a year maybe and you booze from morning until night and stir up trouble. Then you fly off again. Who needs you anyway?”

  Herky, roused, demanded, “What ever happened to that James Bond film you were supposed to direct? Big shot.”

  “Flush, flush, flush,” was the most dazzling retort Jake could come up with before he fled indignantly to the balcony, lugging his brandy bottle with him.

  Unfortunately Cousin Irwin was already there. Mountainous Irwin, huffing, as he clipped his fingernails. Irwin, having once peered into Jake’s hot indignant face, retreated, wiggling his eyebrows ingratiatingly.

  “Say something, you prick. Say something to me.”

  “Can do.”

  “Well. Go ahead.”

  Irwin pondered, he screwed his eyes. Briefly, he contemplated a gasoline pool in the Esso service station opposite. He scratched his head and studied his fingernails. Finally, as if pouncing on the words, he demanded, “Got many irons in the fire?”

  Oh, my God, Jake thought, and he bounded back into the living room, where heads bent together to whisper leaped apart.

  “Look here,” Jake pleaded, “we’re all going to die –”

  “What have you got?” Sam asked.

  “– sit down, you fool, it’s not contagious. Oh, hell, what am I sitting shiva for anyway. I don’t believe in it. Why should I try to please any of you?”

  “Out of respect for your father.”

  “I never respected my father.”

  “Whoa, boy.”

  I loved him, Jake added to himself, unwilling to say as much to them.

  “He’s not dead a week,” Rifka howled, “and he doesn’t respect him. You hear, do you all hear?”

  “He didn’t leave any money, dear. There’s no need to come on.”

  “Rotten thing. Animal. The day you married that shiksa you broke his heart.”

  Uncle Abe was back, his slippers flapping.

  “I shouldn’t have slapped you. I’m sorry, Jake.”

  “No. You bloody well shouldn’t have slapped me. You should have given me a straight answer to my question.”

  “Can you not,” Abe asked wearily, “take an apology like a gentleman?”

  “Did you tell them where they could find Joey?”

  Sighing, Uncle Abe led him into the kitchen, shutting the door after them.

  “Do you see Joey in London?”

  “I think he’s in South America now. I haven’t seen him since I was a boy.”

  Uncle Abe’s eyes flickered with relief. Or so it seemed to Jake.

  “You’re lucky, then. Because he’s rotten.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “You think the world of your cousin. Is that right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Joey did fight in the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, I’ll grant him that –”

  “And in Israel in forty-eight. He rode in the last convoy into Jerusalem.”

  “Good. Fine,” Uncle Abe said, his smile dubious. “And if that’s enough to make him a hero for you, let’s leave it at that, shall we?”

  “No. Let’s not.”

  “Tough guy. O.K. He came crawling back to us, in 1943, with his tail between his legs, because he was in trouble with gangsters. He drove all the way from Las Vegas, without daring to look back.”

  “What sort of trouble was he in?”

  “Nothing grand, Jake, nothing stylish. Squalid trouble. With bookmakers, mostly. He gambled, O.K., so do a lot of people. He didn’t pay his debts. O.K., he’s not the first. But he was also a gigolo. He was a blackmailer. He squeezed women for money, sometimes even marrying them. Do you remember the women who used to come to the house on St. Urbain?”

  Jack nodded.

  “Well, to begin with they were fast types, bar flies, with husbands overseas in the army. Then there was a young Westmount girl, he met her at a horse show, I think, and that led to more society types, looking for kicks. After all, Joey was a colorful fellow. He’d been a stuntman in the movies. He’d played professional baseball. And when it came to horses, he could ride with the best of them. But he was also a roughneck, you know. No education. He got too ambitious for his own good, he got beyond himself. He began to hang out at the Maritime Bar, in the Ritz, you know, making time with married women. They bought him clothes, they gave him money, and when he didn’t have enough he signed for credit, using me as a reference. I must have settled more than two thousand dollars in debts after he skipped town.”

  “You put the men on to him after the trouble at the Palais d’Or. You betrayed him.”

  “Cock-and-bull, that’s what you’re talking. It wasn’t like that, Jake. Your cousin suffered from a swelled head. He got involved with the wife of somebody important here, a man of real quality and position, with an influential family. The wife had a drinking problem and hot pants for Joey. She was most indiscreet, to say the least. When the husband was out of town, Joey stayed in the house. Right on top of the hill. He didn’t leave with empty pockets. Jewels disappeared, so did some of the family plate. The husband came to see Joey. He offered him money, but it wasn’t enough. They quarreled. Joey hit him. Then your hero got cold feet, but it was too late to run. The woman’s husband wanted him taught a lesson. What could he do, he had become a laughingstock. So he hired some ruffians to give Joey what for.”

  “I’ve been to see Joey’s wife in Israel,” Jake said, hoping to startle him.

  “Joey’s wife. One of them, you mean. There are others.”

  “He told her the family was responsible for his father’s death and his, almost.”

  “His words. Golden words. The man is a congenital liar.”

  Jake told Uncle Abe about the Mengele papers he had discovered on the kibbutz. He told him about Deir Yassin, the Kastner trial, and how, after seeking the Horseman in Munich and Frankfurt, he had become convinced that Joey was trying to track down Josef Mengele in South America. To his immediate regret, he also told him about Ruthy.

  Uncle Abe shook his head, amazed. He guffawed. “De
la Hirsch,” he said, “that’s a hot one.”

  “I am not amused. Neither am I convinced by your tales of Joey’s philandering. You turned him in, Uncle Abe.”

  “I wish I had. I could have done it without batting an eyelash.”

  “In God’s name, why?”

  “You have no idea how close we were to a race riot here. Those days weren’t these days. Those days they were painting À bas les juifs on the highways, the young men were hiding in the woods, they weren’t going to fight in the Jews’ war. We could all be shoveled into a furnace, as far as they were concerned. And now, they have the chutzpah to say how much they admire the Zionists. The Separatists say they are no more than Zionists in their own country and the Jews should support them. Over my dead body, Yankel. They get their independence today and tomorrow there’s a run on the banks. Why? Because of the Jews; and it will be hot for us here again. Listen, you don’t live here. In your rarefied world, film people, writers, directors, actors, it hardly matters this one’s a Jew, that one’s black. God help me, I almost said Negro. You lead a sheltered life, my young friend. We live here in the real world, and let me tell you it’s a lot better today than it was when I was a youngster. I rejoice, I celebrate it, but I remember. And how, I remember. And I’m on guard. Your zeyda, my father, came here steerage to be a peddler. He couldn’t speak English and trod in fear of the goyim. I was an exception, one of the first of my generation to go to McGill, and it was no pleasure to be a Jew-boy on campus in my time. Those days weren’t these days. In my time we were afraid too, you know. We couldn’t buy property in the town of Mount Royal, we smelled bad. Hotels were restricted, country clubs, and there were quotas on Jews at the universities. I can remember to this day driving to the mountains with Sophie, she was four months pregnant, a young bride, I got a flat tire on the road and walked two miles to a hotel to phone a garage. No Jews, No Dogs, it said on the fence. I close my eyes, Yankel, and I can see the sign before me now. But today, I’m a Q.C. I serve on the school board. The mayor has come to an anniversary dinner at our synagogue, he wore a skullcap. Ministers from Ottawa, the same. There are Jews sitting on the bench. Why, today we even have Jews who are actually members of the University Club. Three members already.”

  “And you’re flattered, are you?”

  “Flattered, no, pleased, yes. My Irwin hardly knows anything of anti-semitism. He’s a fine boy, you know, you should have a chat with him. He’s serious, and he’s got respect for his elders, not like some of them, his age, they’re on drugs now. I lectured at McGill, you know. The peddler’s boy, how about that? I spoke on Talmudic law, and those kids, my God, my God, Jewish children, I see them, they’re taller than we were, big, healthy, the girls a pleasure to look at, dressed like American princesses, the boys with cars, and I think to myself, we’ve got reason to be proud, we’ve done a fine job here. The struggle was worth it. And what do they want, our Jewish children? They want to be black. LeRoi Jones, or whatever his name is, and this Cleaver nut tell them the Jews are rotten to the core, and they clap hands. It’s a mechaieh. Not that they know a Yiddish word; French, that’s what’s groovy. Their hearts are breaking for the downtrodden French Canadians. Well, only two generations earlier, these same French Canadians wanted only to break their heads. And if it’s not the blacks, or the French Canadians, it’s the Eskimos. They can’t sleep, they feel guilty about the Indians. So there they are, our Jewish children, wearing Indian headbands. Smoking pot. It’s the burden of being white, it bugs them. How long have we even been white? Only two generations ago, who was white? We were kikes, that’s all.

  “Some bunch. What’s Israel to them? An imperialist outpost. And World War II; that’s when we wiped out Hiroshima, and the beautiful city of Dresden, we poor old sinners. We Philistines. You know I saw a Jewish kid on a motorcycle, Bernstein’s boy, wearing his hair Ritz Brothers style and on his head there’s a German soldier’s helmet. Shame, I said, shame. ‘It’s campy,’ the girls squeal. ‘Why are you so uptight, Mr. Hersh?’ And they lay into me about Harlem, the tzoris of the Eskimos, Indian braves without hope. Vietnam. Cuba. Look here, I said, this is Abraham Hersh you’re looking at. I am a reasonably good fellow. I am responsible for none of the world’s ills. Whatever I got, I earned. Napalm’s not my invention. I never lynched anybody. I’m sorry you’re not black and beautiful, but only a Jewish child. For me, it’s the thoughts of Rabbi Akiba, not Chairman Mao. And this pisherke pipes up, he says, they’re the love generation, they’re for peace, they give each other flowers. Big news, eh, Yankel? What am I, I say, the hate generation? A war-monger? When I was chasing after girls, did I hand out poison ivy, I said it with flowers too. No, no, I don’t dig it. This kid says when they have a rock concert, thousands of them from miles around, there’s no rough stuff. I answered him, listen here, shmock, if I go to an affair at the synagogue, or a Mozart concert, we don’t pour out of the halls with clubs, splitting heads. Why should you be amazed that your concerts don’t end in a riot? What’s so special? But he’s not finished yet, this latter-day savant. After all, I don’t strut down Sherbrooke Street with FUCK painted on my forehead. If I jerked off, I’d feel guilty. I wouldn’t kiss another man. Feh, I said. Their bodies are beautiful, he tells me. When they swim nude, the sun shines out of their asses. Listen here, you little prick, you think I was born fat and bald, with a heart condition. Wasn’t I young once, and aren’t you going to grow old too? Aren’t we all made of flesh?

  “Oh, it was exasperating. Beyond belief. But my Irwin’s got a head on his shoulders,” Uncle Abe said, knocking wood, “and both feet planted on terra firma. I must remind you once more, Yankel, this is our home. We live here, you don’t. I am a respected citizen. My daughter has married well, she doesn’t lack for comforts. She phones her mother every day, she calls me at the office. We adore our grandchildren. One day Irwin will marry a good girl, God willing, and there will be more grandchildren. I brought them up, Irwin and Doris, and when the day comes they will bury me. I wear my father’s talith in shul, next Irwin will wear it, and then his son and his son’s son. It’s a good life. I enjoy it. I am not one of your bitten Hershes, a wanderer, coming home only to poke snide fun and stir up trouble. A shit-disturber.”

  “Like Joey,” Jake asked, “or me?”

  “I do not compare you with him. You’re a good Jewish boy. Look inside your heart, Yankel, and there’s yiddishkeit.”

  “Don’t claim me, please. At least not in that fashion. Because as amusing as you are, and plausible, the Hersh family honor rides on Joey’s back, not your complacent shoulders, and my heart belongs to him.”

  “In Paraguay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Putz. Let me ask you this, as I’m the villain in your books. What has Joey ever done for his wife? Or Hanna? Or Jenny? Or Arty? Me, the complacent one, I took them all in when they were in rags, Arty’s head crawling with lice. I paid the rent and the doctor’s bills. I put Arty through dentistry school, and I’m not sorry, let me tell you, because he’s turned out a respectable man, highly thought of in the community.”

  “Don’t you community me any communities. Because you, my dear, the peddler’s number one son, were one of the community leaders who signed an obsequious letter to the Star saying no stone would be left unturned to find whoever had beaten up the French Canadian student.”

  “Yes, I’m the guilty one. All he did was beat up an innocent boy and leave him lying unconscious in an alley.”

  “When Jenny left town she said no more money from Uncle Abe, sweet fucking Uncle Abe. Why?”

  “Because she’s a foul-mouthed whore and she hates us. Don’t you even know that much?”

  “You had Joey beaten up and ridden out of town, Uncle Abe. You know it and I know it.”

  “I sleep with a good conscience. The only thing that ever keeps me awake is heartburn.”

  “Oh, what’s the use?”

  “Yankel, let’s get something straight here. We are talking about a blackmaile
r. About a gambler and a bigamist and a liar. You and I are discussing a gigolo. A man who moves from country to country under assumed names, certainly with good reason. De la Hirsch,” he said, snickering. “Josef Mengele yet. Paraguay. O.K., no more burning looks from you, please. Joey is the Golem. He’s Bar-Kochba. A one-man Maccabee band. He is searching the jungles for Mengele. After all, somebody caught Eichmann. But if he finds him, what then? How old would this obscenity be? Sixty? Seventy? Joey finds him, he slits his throat. Does that balance any books? No, sir. It makes trouble for the Jews in Asunción, that’s all.”

  “Like Joey made trouble for you here?”

  “All right, then. Chew on this, my young friend. From what I know of your cousin, if he is actually searching for Mengele, which I don’t believe for a minute, if he is hunting this Nazi down and finds him,” Uncle Abe shouted, pounding the table, “he won’t kill him, he’ll blackmail him.”

  Outside, it was still stifling. But it looked like rain. Cousin Irwin was leaning against the family Cadillac, umbrella in hand, waiting to drive his parents home. Irwin was licking a triple-scoop, double-coned ice cream. Strawberry, chocolate, and pistachio. A baseball cap (Go, METS, Go!) hooded his eyes. His arms had been boiled lobsterred by the sun. Instead of elbows, dimples. He wore a yellow jersey, his nipples showing through. His enormous belly spilled over his tartan Bermuda shorts.

  Jake bore down on him, glowering.

  “Want a lick?” Irwin asked, heaving with laughter.

  Jake knocked the ice cream out of his hand. It spattered against the Cadillac, sliding to the pavement. “How many states in the Union?” he demanded.

  “Forty-eight.”

  “Fifty,” Jake shot back.

  “Fifty, then.”

  “Name them.”

  “What?”

  Jake raised his foot and brought his heel down as hard as he could on Irwin’s toes.

  “Oregon, Idaho, North Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Illinois, Michigan, New York, North Dakota –”