‘Now,’ Janki turned around, ‘of course we can consider the problem from two sides. On the one hand . . .’
‘On the one hand . . .’ Melnitz mimicked.
‘On the one hand, of course, I quite understand the desire to cause an animal as little pain as possible. But on the other . . .’
‘On the other . . .’ parroted Melnitz.
‘. . . our religious laws require us . . .’
‘I too have signed,’ Herr Ziltener said all of a sudden. He had sat in his seat almost mutely for the whole evening, giving only given very curt answers to direct questions, so his unexpected intervention now seemed very loud. ‘You may dismiss me if you wish, but I have a right to my conviction.’ He held his brandy glass between the palms of his hands as a farmer might hold his warming cup of coffee on a cold day. He seemed to have said what he wanted to say, but after a pause he added, ‘My wife loves animals too.’ It was the first time in his life that Ziltener had found an opinion of his wife’s worth mentioning.
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.
‘It was a disaster,’ he said.
‘Even though we weren’t thirteen at table?’
‘A social disaster.’
‘There’s something else you should know,’ Chanele began.
But Janki wasn’t listening. ‘A disaster,’ he said over and over again. It sounded like one of the prayers with the many repetitions that one growls to oneself on certain feast days, until the last shred of meaning has been worn away. ‘A disaster that can never be rectified.’
‘Mathilde Lutz told me . . .’
If, after the defeat at Sedan, Napoleon III had been asked which shirt he wanted to wear the following day, he could not have looked at the questioner with greater contempt. ‘I’m not interested in that,’ said Janki, stressing each syllable individually.
‘Do you understand? I don’t want to know! Right now your little problems with the shop are as unimportant as . . . as . . . as . . .’ In search of a suitable comparison his eye fell on an ashtray. He tipped the mixture of grey ash and wet, chewed cigar butts onto the good damask tablecloth, where it formed a dirty little heap, of the kind that street-sweepers make in the early morning. ‘There!’ he said. ‘That’s how unimportant it is for me right now.’
‘It’s not about the shop,’ said Chanele.
‘I don’t care what it’s about.’ The dramatic gesture – or the stomach powder – seemed to have given him new strength, and the apathetic despair that he had just revealed turned to voluble fury. ‘You weren’t there! You don’t know what has happened! While you were chatting peacefully with the ladies, about sewing or recipes or who knows what all else, while you were having a lovely evening . . .’
‘Nebbish!’ said Chanele.
‘. . . while you’ve been enjoying your life, everyone’s been tearing into me. Even Ziltener! And it wasn’t a coincidence, believe me, things like that don’t just happen on their own. They must have agreed in advance! Did you see Rauhut, that toss-pot, that shassgener, whispering with Bugmann? Of course you didn’t. You wouldn’t notice anything like that. They come to my house, they eat my food, they drink my wine, and then . . .’
‘What’s happened?’
Janki’s fury subsided as quickly as it had flared up. ‘There’s no point,’ he said, and pressed his hand to his body as if he were suffering not from heart-burn but from a deadly wound. ‘You can do what you like, you’re never a part of it.’
‘What a ridiculous party.’ François came into the room with the ostentatiously springy elegance of a ballet dancer who goes on striking poses after the curtain has fallen.
‘Shmul, I need to talk to you straight away about . . .’
‘One moment,’ said François and looked searchingly around. ‘So much politeness makes you thirsty.’
‘Right now!’
‘I will be at your disposal straight away.’
And he had gone out again.
‘It’s all Salomon’s fault,’ Janki complained. ‘If he hadn’t got involved! Why, today of all days, did he have to . . .?’
‘Ask him!’
Salomon had come in, his new shirt unbuttoned so that the tzitzits of his arba kanfes hung over his trousers. ‘It’s a shame the word “tie” doesn’t appear in the Bible,’ he said. ‘I’m sure it would have the same numerical value as “goyim naches”.’ Goyim naches are all the things that non-Jews for some unfathomable reason find pleasurable.
‘It’s your fault,’ said Janki.
‘I don’t know what it is,’ Salomon replied, ‘but if it makes you feel better I’ll happily take the blame for it.’
‘Why did you have to attack him like that? Councillor Bugmann of all people.’
‘He asked a question, and I answered it for him. Should I have been rude?’
‘You shouldn’t have been there at all!’
‘Believe me,’ said Salomon Meijer and smiled peacefully, ‘if I’d known who you’d invited I’d have stayed in Endingen. I prefer my shnorrers.’
‘You called them hypocrites!’
Salomon spread his arms. ‘Nu,’ he said. And in this instance it meant, ‘I’ve grown as old as this and I’m not allowed to tell the truth?’
‘What did you want here anyway?’
‘To bring this letter to Chanele.’ Salomon drew a piece of paper, folded several times and no longer quite clean, out of his trouser pocket. ‘I’ll soon have been carrying it around for two months.’
‘It must be an anonymous letter,’ was Chanele’s first thought. ‘About the pregnant salesgirl.’
But it was something quite different.
‘Since Golde, may she rest in peace, is no longer with us,’ said Salomon, ‘every day I have the feeling that I have to put things in order. My life. Has it ever occurred to you that the word “viduy”, the confession of a sin, has exactly twice the numerical value of the word “love”? That is trying to tell us: only if we admit our mistakes . . .’
‘Leave me in peace with your gematria!’ cried Janki.
Salomon laid the letter on the table and took Chanele by both hands. ‘Throughout your life I have always been in your debt,’ he said.
‘You have always been good to me.’
‘Perhaps this will change your opinion,’ said Salomon. ‘Here . . .’ He held the letter out to her. The paper rustled as she unfolded it.
There was complete silence in the room.
Until Shmul came in. He had opened the outsize champagne bottle that Strähle had brought, and was drinking it from the neck. ‘I know,’ he said, no longer elegant, ‘I know this stuff’s not kosher. But I need it now.’ He planted himself, legs apart, in front of Chanele. ‘So. What did you want to say to me?’
‘Nothing,’ Chanele replied. ‘It doesn’t matter any more.’
19
Mimi loved spoiling Hinda.
The girl wasn’t really her niece, admittedly, and strictly speaking she wasn’t even a relative, but who else could you call ma fillette if you didn’t have any children of your own.
Had it been meant to be, back then, it would have been a boy. ‘It was a boy,’ they told her, and with that single sentence a living future had become a dead past. Golde tried to console her by telling her of her own misfortune, but Mimi didn’t listen. During those days she hated her mother, who of all the qualities she could have left to her, had passed on precisely this one: the inability to conceive a son. ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean anything, the doctors said and nodded encouragingly. ‘Next time everything might be fine.’ Mimi didn’t believe them, They just wanted to comfort her, they wanted to prettify the gloomy picture of her life, but she wasn’t one of those weak people that you have to lie to, not her, she could look facts in the face, and if that was how it was to be, then that was how it was to be.
And she had been right.
Pinchas, who was a dreamer, a hardworking shochet, but a dreamer, told her stories about wom
en who had become mothers only after ten or twenty years, and she let him slog away at the topic and thought, ‘Just go on talking!’ She didn’t even wonder whether he got his chochmes out of the Talmud or from one of the many newspapers that he read every day. He loved arguing, except it didn’t change the facts. It was the way it was.
She had adjusted her life according to it. Childlessness filled her days as completely as motherhood would have done. She brought up her sorrow, let it grow and develop, became ever more familiar with its demands, sometimes struggled with it, as with a child that threatens to suffocate you with its constant demands for attention, then pressed it to her again and couldn’t have lived without it, not for so much as a minute. When other women talked about their children or even brought them on visits – often they didn’t – then Mimi’s fingertips drew circles on her temples and she talked about her migraine.
Childlessness gave her life content, and herself a role. She wasn’t like all the others, she had something to endure and did it bravely, and her misfortune, although she would have contradicted anyone who had dared to say as much, made her happy. She had – one went to the new municipal theatre and knew the specialist terminology – become a character actress, no longer the naïve young girl no one remembers once the performance is over. She had found her theme, and now lived it out in ever new variations.
When Hinda came to visit – and it was only right that she came often, her aunt was a lonely woman with a sorrow, and needed company and distraction – then Mimi experienced all the motherliness she assumed lay within her, she was a best friend and a discreet confidante. She would have liked to give Hinda advice in matters of love, and was repeatedly disappointed that her niece still seemed to show no interest in the matter. ‘That will be down to Chanele,’ Mimi thought often. ‘Such a dry old stick – where would the daughter get it from?’
It was Mimi’s greatest dream to find Hinda a shidduch, not just anyone, but the perfect shidduch, an affluent, educated, very special husband. Chanele would have to thank her, and she would say, ‘Mais de rien, ma chère. You live away off in Baden, so remote from polite society – someone had to take care of things.’ Janki would see them standing side by side, his Chanele, as colourless as the headmistress as a girls’ boarding school, and Mimi, a lady of the world who knew how to behave and dress herself. She would smile at him, smile at him as a sister might, and say, ‘I hope you’ve found happiness.’ She also knew exactly which hat she would wear to that chassene, nothing conspicuous, certainly not, a childless woman whose life is filled with sorrow doesn’t doll herself up, but she had seen black swan feathers at her milliner’s, soft, sad feathers.
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