The same panel on the left as well.
In the middle the cross.
The tseylem.
An empty cross, with no one hanging from it. They no longer needed the image because it was already in their heads. Later on, that was also an important factor in his decision. François could never really have got used to a naked man on the cross.
So this was a church. Disappointing, all in all. Well, anyway, it had nothing to do with him.
‘It’s customary to remove your hat,’ a voice said. It was the first sentence that Pastor Widmer uttered to him.
Widmer was as unadorned as his church. He might have been mistaken for the shammes, or whatever they called it here. A black suit and a black tie. A peasant face, far too healthy for the murky room. His round glasses didn’t fit the rest of his face, as if he’d only put them on to make himself look more dignified.
‘I’ve never seen you here before,’ said Widmer.
That was how they fell into conversation.
Quite by chance.
If Widmer had had anything even slightly priest-like about him, anything solemn or unctuous, François would have put his hat back on and left. He would have continued his walk and thought no more about the matter. Or thought about it and done nothing. If Widmer had been just slightly different. If he had shown the merest hint of the thrill of the chase. The slightest bit of interest in winning a new sheep for his flock.
But it wasn’t like that. Not at all. He wanted nothing from François, and François wanted nothing from him. Two reasonable human beings talking reasonably to one another. Talking about similarities and differences, possibilities and impossibilities. Very generally. As if it didn’t really concern either of them.
And it didn’t concern either of them. It concerned a property. The perfect property in the perfect spot. It concerned Landolt.
When it could no longer be kept a secret, François said to Mina, ‘No one converted me. It’s not about that at all. There’s no point clinging to outmoded traditions that bring you nothing but disadvantages. That was always your opinion. You have never worn a sheitel, and the world didn’t end. My father stops eating kosher as soon as he’s out of the house. Such things aren’t important these days. We’re living in the twentieth century. And what does it change? I haven’t been to synagogue for two years. Now I won’t go to church instead. Now say something!’
But Mina was only listening. She had sometimes expressed her opinions as a young girl, but had grown up in the meantime.
‘If you think about it properly, these are all just outward appearances. I no longer get dressed like Grandfather Salomon. You have to conform. You have to forge ahead, not creep along behind. We will have the most modern department store in Zurich, if that property . . .’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Mina. ‘The plot of land.’
‘That was just the pretext. Even without it I would sooner or later . . . If only because of Alfred. You want him to have the best chances too. You want him to be able to study and join a fraternity.’
‘There are Jewish student fraternities.’
‘They’re not the same thing. I want him to be able to do anything he wants. And so do you.’
‘I want my son to know where he belongs.’
‘He’ll get used to it. At his age it isn’t a problem. You put the candles on a fir-tree instead of a Chanukah menorah. The difference isn’t that great. A child does what its parents do.’
‘I’m not going to get baptised,’ said Mina.
‘But . . .’
‘And another thing, François: I’m not going to get divorced.’
39
What do you wear to your own baptism? They don’t tell you that sort of thing. Frock coat and top hat? That would have given the matter a fake solemnity. When a businessman starts working with a new partner, he doesn’t go into the office in morning dress and striped trousers. On the other hand: you can’t look too everyday either, it would have been impolite. People mustn’t think he didn’t know how to behave in church.
But there wouldn’t be any people there. Just Widmer and Alfred and him. Don’t make a fuss, he had insisted on that. No fuss, on any account. Ideally he would just have signed a piece of paper, a declaration under oath, and that would have brought the matter to its conclusion. But if Widmer was also a reasonable person and not a creeping Jesus, certain forms, he thought, should be simple. Of course in the end it came down to faith and nothing else, Herr Meijer was right about that, but the church was made for people, and people needed rituals. ‘On this point the Catholics are far ahead of us. I sometimes think the organ converted more people than the most eloquent sermon ever did.’
Please God no organ! François had put his foot down on that one. He couldn’t have borne organ music, and although the similarity would never have occurred to him, in this respect his thinking was not very different from that of Pinchas, who had switched congregations because of a harmonium. ‘Plain and simple,’ he said when they discussed the ceremony, ‘above all I want it to be plain and simple. And with no people.’ He had even been able to talk Widmer out of having a sponsor. They weren’t really indispensable, he had admitted in the end.
That was one advantage of the new religion: you could strike deals with it.
In the end they decided on a Tuesday morning at half past eight. ‘The men are still being shaved, and women are at the market.’ François opted for a plain single-breasted suit of salt-and-pepper Marengo, with a silver-grey tie, which was quite solemn enough. Alfred wore his sailor suit; at his age that was always correct. François had requested a day off school for him, on the grounds of unpostponable family matters.
Mina could just have slept a little longer, could have let them go and get the thing out of the way and never talk about it again afterwards. But when the time came she was standing in the doorway, quite naturally, as if she were just going to the shops or to school, she smoothed the ribbons of Alfred’s sailor cap and straightened François’s tie. Then she stopped in front of him and said, ‘You can still change your mind.’
François didn’t change his mind. When a reasonable person has made a reasonable decision, it would be unreasonable of him not to carry it out.
Widmer was already waiting for them. He was wearing the same black suit as always, in which he looked like his own sacristan. Yes, François had learned the word for a Christian shammes in the meantime. The parson had assumed a solemn expression that suited his peasant face no better than his wire-framed glasses. He kept his hands folded in front of his belly as if to hide from François the black book that he was holding ready in preparation. His jacket stretched across his torso. ‘Badly cut,’ thought François.
The three of them stood around the font. The basin, polished red granite, grew from a pair of carved hands, the only graven image that François had been able to discover in this austere church.
Judaism, he reflected, had no graven images either. The difference wasn’t so great.
When you thought about it rationally.
‘Shall we start?’ asked Widmer.
François switched his hat from his right hand to his left. He didn’t know if he would have to cross himself later, and he didn’t want to look clumsy.
‘Let’s start,’ he said.
Alfred held his head lowered, a schoolboy before an exam that he hadn’t revised for.
Widmer opened his book. Between the pages there were lots of silk ribbons in various colours. François hoped he wouldn’t need all the marked passages.
‘I shall read from the gospel of Matthew,’ said Widmer. ‘Chapter twenty-eight, verses eighteen to twenty.’
Now he did have that unctuous priestly voice. Had he been pretending until now?
‘And Jesus came and spake unto them saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’
‘He’s explained that thing about the
Holy Ghost to me five times,’ thought François. ‘I’ve never understood it.’
‘Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.’
Parson Widmer closed his book with such vigour that the silk ribbons flapped. ‘That didn’t take long,’ thought François, and felt slightly disappointed.
But Widmer hadn’t finished yet. It was just that he didn’t need a template for what came next.
‘Our Father, which art in Heaven. Hallowed be Thy Name.’
François had grown up with Hebrew prayers, of which he had understood only scraps. ‘That makes it easier,’ he thought now.
‘Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’
The organ struck up with a great roar of thunder. A storm in the empty church.
‘Give us this day our daily bread.’
François knew the tune. It is sung three times on the eve of Yom Kippur, the most solemn prayer of the whole year.
The prayer with which one frees oneself from religious vows. So that God does not lay claim to promises made to him too lightly. So that he does not punish one.
The organ played ‘Kol Nidre’.
The organist was sitting somewhere up in the loft, screened by the handrail, but François saw him sitting there, all in black, and his hands, hammering down on the keyboard, were those of an old man.
The organ sang ‘Kol Nidre’. ‘Ve-esarei, vacharamei, va konomei.’ François knew the voice, he had always known it.
As he played, Uncle Melnitz rocked his torso back and forth, as a devout person would do, or a musician immersing himself in his music, he stretched his arms aloft, as one dances behind the Torah scroll, he clapped his hands, ay, ay, ay, and didn’t leave out a note, not one, he made the organ sing and he himself sang along, and François understood every word, even though it was in Aramaic and foreign and concerned him not at all.
‘Vechinuyei, vekinusei ush’vuot,’ sang Uncle Melnitz.
A little louder each time, as custom decrees.
‘All vows, prohibitions, oaths and consecrations,’ he sang, ‘let them be permitted, abandoned, cancelled and null and void.’
‘And forgive us our trespasses,’ said Widmer.
‘I regret them all,’ sang Uncle Melnitz.
And sang it again and then again.
‘As we forgive those who trespass against us.’
And then Melnitz stood next to François and clapped his hands in time to the music, the organ played a dance and Uncle Melnitz took François by the shoulders and whirled him in a circle and kissed him on the forehead and was glad because the oaths were not oaths and the vows not vows. ‘You can have your Jewishness washed away,’ he said – a step to the left, a step to the right – ‘but it will do you no good. It has never done anyone any good. They have always waved it around in front of our noses with the greatest freedom,’ he said – a step forward, a step back – ‘but when we tried to touch it, they had always meant it differently.’
‘The Jews in Spain,’ said Uncle Melnitz. ‘You remember? The proud Sephardim. “Have yourselves baptised,” they said to them. All smiles. “It will spare you the pyre and purgatory, and everyone will love you. Just a few drops dripped on your foreheads, and you will be Spaniards like all the rest. Then you can be doctors and ministers and whatever you like. You can buy plots of land and build department stores with doors that stand open to everyone, with sales staff who are always friendly, and paternoster lifts. Just a few drops,” they said.’
‘And lead us not into temptation.’
‘And then they called them Marranos, which means swine, and all that lovely baptismal water did them no good at all.’
Uncle Melnitz stuck his bony finger in the font and licked it. At home in Baden fat Christine had tested the soup like that.
‘It tastes bitter,’ said Melnitz and pulled a face. ‘If you pour salt water into a person, keep pouring one jug and then another and another, if you hold his nose closed so that he can decide with his God-given free will whether he wants to drink or suffocate, and then if you ask him if he has secretly remained a Jew, at least in his thoughts, then baptism will protect him no longer. Then the Jew comes back out of him again. You may have to jump on his belly, but he will come out.
‘You can also pull out his nails or break his fingers. You can hang him up by his arms and twist his joints apart until he dances in the air and sings the song that goes with it, ay, ay, ay. There are lots of things you can do to tickle the Jew back out. Fat books have been written on the subject. When you have to hang him up and when twist him apart. So that everything has its order. And then, if he is burned – and he was always burned – then they didn’t do it themselves. They left that task to the worldly courts, full of regret, and they themselves always stood sympathetically by his pyre, Bible in hand, and said to him, “Repent! Convert! So that you go not to Hell as a dead Jew, but to Heaven as a dead Christian.” They didn’t even keep that promise, oh no.
‘No ministerial hat did any good. No doctorate, and no bright fraternity ribbon. And no department store in the best location, with the most beautiful window displays in the whole city. None of it did any good. A Jew remains a Jew remains a Jew. Yes. Regardless how often he has himself baptised.’
And he sat back down in the loft and rocked to the tune, ay, ay, ay, hammered his ancient hands down on the keys, trod the pedals with his feet and pulled out the stops, vox humana and vox angelica, and made the very deepest bass notes thunder.
‘Kol Nidre’, he made the organ sing. ‘May our oaths be no oaths and our vows no vows.’
‘And lead us not into temptation,’ said Widmer, ‘but deliver us from Evil. For Thine is the kingdom, the power and glory, forever and ever. Amen.’ He looked expectantly at François.
‘Amen,’ said François. And nudged Alfred, who also said, ‘Amen.’
‘And now the declaration of faith.’ Widmer made that solemn face again. ‘If you don’t mind, I will speak it on your behalf. For you too, Alfred. It’s enough that you think along with the words. God recognises his own by their hearts.’
By their hearts.
‘I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and the earth,’ said the man with the peasant face.
‘Think along with the words like a nice chap,’ whispered Melnitz.
‘And of Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who was conceived through the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried, he descended into hell, on the third day he rose again from the dead, he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.’
‘Remember all that,’ whispered Melnitz.
‘I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.’
‘That’s a lot,’ said Melnitz, and made the organ sound again.
‘Amen,’ said the man with the round wire-framed glasses.
‘Amen,’ said François.
And Alfred repeated, ‘Amen.’ But only after his father had given him a nudge.
‘Omeyn,’ said Uncle Melnitz.
When Widmer poured water over his head for the third time, some of it dripped onto his silk tie. François would have liked to wipe it off, but didn’t know if that would have been correct or not.
All of a sudden it was so strangely quiet. Or had it been as quiet as that for a long time?
‘Why are you stopping, Landolt?’
‘We’re there, Herr Meijer.’
The flat smelled of chremsels, the sweet pastry without which Pesach can never be quite complete – ‘Ah, yes, Pesach,’ thought François – and from the kitchen, where fat Christine had not reigned for some time, there came the distant clatter of a frying pan.
Time and again the room in the Baden fl
at had assumed new functions, like a person without any particular gifts whom life drives from job to job. It had been a sewing room and the dying room of Uncle Salomon. When Chanele had had her kidney complaint and needed round-the-clock care, the nurse had lived in it, a severe woman who, it turned out later, had the curious habit of marking her presence with a pencilled line on the wallpaper beside the bed, a prisoner waiting to be released.
Now it was Janki’s office; by the window there stood a desk covered with papers, and hanging on the wall was the picture of François Delormes that had hung for all those years in the back room of the French Fabric Warehouse, the portrait of a saint. It wasn’t a painting, just a cutting from an illustrated magazine, but Janki had still had it very lavishly framed.
‘Where is Mama?’ asked François.
‘She’s bringing Arthur to the station.’
‘Arthur?’
‘He paid us a surprise visit. Because it’s Chol HaMoed. You remember?’
Of course François remembered. Chol HaMoed is the time between the ‘front’ and the ‘back’ feast days, where the yontev takes a break but everyday life isn’t yet quite in control again.
‘And what did he want?’
‘To convince me that the French Fabric Warehouse should donate a flag to his gymnastic association. That would be a good advertisement, he said.’
‘Did you tell him you don’t need any more advertisements?’
Janki shook his head. ‘It’s not signed yet.’
‘But you’re going to sign?’
‘I want you to take another look at the contracts. You know these things better than I do.’ Janki took a narrow bundle of papers from the desk and walked to the dining room ahead of his eldest son.
‘He’s getting old,’ thought François.
The walking stick with lion’s-head handle was still the same, but when Janki Meijer used it to support himself, it was no longer an elegant gesture, but instead an unpleasant necessity. His right leg, which had always dragged a little, had been really painful for some time, and had simply bent several times for no discernible reason. The stick, once an ornament and now a tool, proved less than suited to its new task. When Janki, fighting to keep his balance, gripped the handle too tightly, the carved mane of the lion’s head left painful marks in the palm of his hand. None the less, Janki would never have swapped his stick for another; it would have been like giving up a part of his character.
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