No little desk to set down books and tallis.
Stupid. As if they would need a tallis here.
Why shouldn’t François just sit down? He had been walking through the city for ages, and his legs were tired.
There was even a special board to rest your feet on. Not really comfortable, it seemed to him. But perhaps the construction had another purpose.
Of course.
‘I would never kneel,’ thought François. ‘I would feel ridiculous.’
A pulpit had been fitted to one of the pillars that held up the barrel vaulting. Stuck on like an afterthought. Among the Christians, François remembered, you weren’t born a priest, you could become one.
You could become anything you liked.
Old Kahn, as his name suggested, was a Kohen. François had always found it hard to see Mina’s father as being in any way holy just because he pulled his tallis over his head when giving the priest’s blessing. Perhaps the Christian system wasn’t all that silly.
Purely theoretically. Not that it had been his intention.
At the front to the right, where the rabbi would have sat in a synagogue, a panel of numbers was fasted to the wall. ‘124, 1–4, 19, 1, 2, 6.’ Every religion had its secrets.
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.