People were polite and said, ‘Me neshuma!’ and ‘Is it possible?’ and Mimi kept her head held very high when she walked through the village. At home she was as unbearable as she had been as a fifteen-year-old when she had discovered that Mimolette was the name of a cheese. She had made herself ridiculous, and because she knew that it was her own fault, she couldn’t forgive the others. She locked herself in her room for hours, and when Pinchas, as custom thoroughly permitted, came by for a visit, she let him know that he would have plenty of time to fill her head with nonsense when they were married.
Then Pinchas would sit, often until late in the evening, in the parlour with Salomon, and they talked together about all the things that were needed for a kosher butcher’s shop in Zurich, because people now found this plan, which Mimi had actually only concocted to get away from Endingen and from prying eyes, worthy of serious consideration. Salomon got on well with his surprising new son-in-law, and even taught him to take snuff, a habit that Janki had always resisted, and laughed warmly when Pinchas, trying to do it only too well, stuffed an enormous amount of Alpenbrise up his nose and then sneezed so hard that his yarmulke fell off his head. When he also started taking an interest in the breeding guide for Simmental cows and even made a very sensible suggestion for how the complicated lists could be drawn up more comprehensibly, Salomon was finally won over by him.
‘He has a good head head on his shoulders,’ he said in bed to Golde, ‘even though you can’t tell at first. But once they’ve given him that pivot tooth, he’ll stop looking like Schippe Siebele. You could be a bit nicer to him, you know.’
Golde didn’t reply. When Salomon had already been snoring for ages, she went on staring into the infinity of the dark ceiling and chewed around at her lower lip. Pinchas, and there was nothing she could do about this, would always be a changeling as far as she was concerned, an invader who had driven away her Janki, her Janki, that’s right, there’s nothing you can do about your feelings. And if Schippe Siebele, the lowest card in the game, had made the trick, well then, she would get used to it eventually, as she had got used to lots of things in life, but being pleased about it, no, unfortunately no one could demand that of her, not that. As she fell asleep she tried to improve her mood by imagining all the festivities of the impending wedding, but she saw only empty tables, a chuppah without guests and a musician who couldn’t scrape a single note out of his violin.
Chanele had gone to bed, in her chemise, which wasn’t made of cambric. Next to her lay Uncle Melnitz, who smelled of damp dust and cold earth, pressed himself against her back as a night-snail nestles against a green leaf, and talked away at her in his toneless, old man’s voice.
‘Good,’ said Uncle Melnitz. ‘Very good. So you’ve decided to become a martyr. How lovely. How delightful. You deserve praise for that, yes. We Jews love martyrs. We have to love them. We have so many. Sadly no one will sing for you. “Didn’t want this man, allowed herself to be buried alive.” Oy, oy, oy. You can be proud of yourself. Everyone will be proud of you. They will tell your story to the young girls when they fall in love with the wrong man. The story of Chanele from Endingen, who didn’t take Janki because she wanted the big love and he had only the small one for her. A bad deal he offered you there, Chanele. You were right to turn it down.’
He embraced her with thin, cold arms and pressed her to him. ‘You did the right thing,’ he whispered to her back. ‘You didn’t compromise. Your honour is saved, that’s the important thing, the only thing that matters. A martyr, just as we like them. Like the women of Massada who took their own lives before the fortress fell. Like the women of Worms who jumped off the roofs when the crusaders overran the city. Like the women of Lublin, who barricaded themselves in their burning houses lest they fell into the hands of the Cossacks. You are a heroine, Chanele. One of them. No, you’re an even greater martyr than that, because you must go on living with your heroism, yes. You will be an old maid, you will go on washing your plates and scrubbing your pans and always saying to yourself, “I didn’t take him because he didn’t lay paradise at my feet and I wouldn’t settle for less.” Good, Chanele. Very good. If you can’t have heaven, then you mustn’t have the earth either.’
His hands, dusty parchment, slipped under her nightshirt, which was not cambric, and his voice went on whispering. ‘We are gifted at martyrdom, we Jews. We carry it in us like a sickness. And do you know why, Chanele? Because we haven’t the courage to drink dirty water, and would prefer to go thirsty. We are chosen, and he who is chosen may not want less than everything. You understand me, don’t you, Chanele? You’re proud of your renunciation? Is it not a lovely feeling, suffering like that?’
He crept inside her, he rubbed his desiccated body against her youthful one, fingered her breasts and her useless belly, and wouldn’t stop talking. ‘I’m proud of you, Chanele. They’re all proud of you. They would be proud of you if they knew what you’ve done. No one will say, “She was stupid to let him go.” Not a soul. Certainly not. They will admire you. Admire you. Children will be named after you. Other people’s children, because you won’t have your own. Are you proud of yourself, Chanele? Are you proud? Yes?’
When she woke up, she felt those musty hands still on her, pulled the nightshirt, which wasn’t made of cambric, from her body and couldn’t stop washing.
Janki had learned to pack, in Monsieur Delormes’ drapery shop and in the army. He had got hold of a basket, a big basket with cloth handles that you could load on your back like a military rucksack. He hadn’t borrowed it from Golde, but bought it at the market in Baden and taken it home. No one asked any questions when they saw him with it; one looks away when a coffin is carried into the house. When he said he had now rented a flat, not the big one from Herr Bäschli, just a garconnière with two cramped rooms, they nodded and quickly changed the subject. Only Golde said, ‘Then you’ll definitely need…’ and left the sentence hanging in the air, a paper kite caught in a tree.
Janki folded his uniform trousers, each bend in exactly the right place. And the red and black jacket, with the flash that they had had to sew on themselves; the only time in the military that he had been better at something than his comrades. Chanele had washed the old bandage and rolled it neatly up again, and he packed it up too, a souvenir of times that he would only enjoy talking about when their reality was forgotten. The yellow neckerchief that no longer suited him; only pimply boys whom he woudn’t take on as clerks put things like that around their necks, not a businessman with his own shop. He had more shirts than he needed. Three waistcoats with pockets, big enough for a silver watch — eventually he would buy one like the one Monsieur Delormes had had, with a pendant on the heavy chain. His shaving things. First he would have to buy a bowl for the soap. And towels of course. Bed linen. He had never thought about needing bed linen, he had only bought a bedstead from Herr Bäschli, and a mattress, and Herr Bäschli had rubbed his hands and said, ‘Only one bed? Not very much for a new household.’ And he would need plates, too, but that wasn’t urgent, first he had to…
‘Let me do that.’ Chanele had come in without knocking, as if into a room where no one lives. She carefully inspected the clothes that he had neatly laid out side by side on the bed, picked up the uniform jacket, shook it out and set it carefully down again, folded slightly differently; in her concentration she looked as if she were bending over a patient.