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.’