When everything had been discussed and sorted out, and when, as is often the case during the last days of a shiva, a little boredom was already beginning to spread, Pinchas suddenly cleared his throat and said he had something important to tell the family. Now of course everyone knew about Mimi’s pregnancy, even if no one had officially mentioned it, and they were therefore preparing to put on the expressions of fake surprise that people like to wear so as not to spoil the joy of the bearer of good news. But Pinchas wanted to say something quite different.
‘Now that the prohibition on shechita has been introduced — and we have the anti-Semites to thank for that! — much in my job will change. One will have to travel abroad once or twice a week, to Strasbourg, perhaps, that remains to be seen, to perform shechita there and then import the meat back into Switzerland. That will take a great deal of time. Or else we will not be able to do our own slaughtering at all any more, and will have to prepare meat brought in from somewhere else. Either way, I will no longer be able to be a butcher as my father was.
‘He could still be proud of the fact that he was a shochet. But I… After that meeting in Endingen, after the terrible atmosphere there, which may be partly to blame for Salomon’s death, who can say, after all that hatred that one encountered there — Chanele, you were there and can confirm it — and now, after the result of this plebiscite, after this decision, which was not made for the protection of animals, we all know that, and not out of love of God’s creation, but simply out of a dull feeling of hostility because the Jews are bad people who need rapping over the knuckles… After all that I simply don’t want to do it any more. I will sell the butcher’s shop to my co-partner. Elias Guttermann is a hard worker, and he makes smoked meat even better than I do.’
‘And you?’
‘Kosher groceries. There’s also a need for such a shop. I’ve discussed it with Mimi. She thinks I’m meshuga…’
‘Un tout petit peu fou,’ said Mimi without a hint of reproach.
‘… but I think that now is the right moment to start something new. One will perhaps earn less, but what is very important to me right now: I will have more time. For Mimi and… Well, I’m sure you’ve all noticed.’
Now at last they were allowed to say ‘mazel tov!’, they could slap Pinchas on the shoulder and kiss Mimi on the cheek.
Only Uncle Melnitz made a serious face and said, ‘You’re running away. But that’s our style, of course.’
35
Arthur’s bar mitzvah wasn’t as big a party as might usually have been expected. On Friday they had still been sitting shiva and receiving visits of condolence, and on Shabbos they were supposed to be suddenly cheerful? What sort of impression would that make? The people in the community would think their grief for Uncle Salomon hadn’t been genuine. ‘We’ll do what’s absolutely necessary and not a step beyond,’ Janki had decided. ‘Arthur will understand that, he’s a sensible boy.’
The actual reason was that they had just had enough of shared experiences, happy or unhappy. On Sunday morning Salomon had died, and that same afternoon Mimi and Pinchas, summoned by telegram, had arrived in Baden, and since then they had all been crammed into the same flat, which while it might have been spacious, wasn’t in fact all that spacious, they sat side by side on their mourning stools all day and got far too close to one another at mealtimes; at the little tables that were only really designed for drinking tea, you almost bumped each other’s elbows. On Friday afternoon, when the men from the chevra at last collected the low stools again, and kindly helped bring back the long dinner table from the store-room, everyone tried to hide their relief, but each one of them in his own way longed for the everyday. Chanele wanted to get back to her shop and Pinchas to his butcher’s business, where much needed to be discussed because of the planned handover to Elias Guttermann. Mimi worried at length about whether Gesine Hunziker, who hadn’t been working for her for long and had not been properly introduced to her tasks, whether this girl from the country had paid due attention to business, perhaps they would return to a veritable brouhaha, ‘et tout cela dans mon état’.
Throughout these days, François had worn his guardedly polite expression, the mask he always took out when something wasn’t to his liking. For him, the week of mourning was only a continuation of the strict regime that Janki had imposed on him and which, quite contrary to François’s expectations, hadn’t simply been cast into oblivion. When he wasn’t even allowed to go to the pub in the evening, with a few other young people who all had exactly the same moustache as he did, when it was quite certain that no more mourners were due to arrive, he complained that in this family you were treated like an under-age child, at any rate he couldn’t wait to get out of this musty prison as soon as possible, regardless of how. When Chanele merely smiled, he was insulted and didn’t say another word all day. The visitors who saw him sitting there with a pinched face took it for grief.
Janki had been given the task of informing all outside guests who had been invited to the bar mitzvah seudah that they very much regretted not being able to enjoy their company, but in view of their tragic loss they had decided to spend this day in thought, and in the closest family circle. The letter was also sent to Herr and Frau Kahn from Zurich, who were on the list along with their daughter Mina. Even though Chanele had taken a great deal of trouble to persuade Janki that personal contact with the biggest silk importer in the country might be useful for his companies, she didn’t protest when he declined. One must take things as they are. On the other hand, Hinda, who was otherwise always the family’s little ray of sunshine, did not seem to have responded well to her enforced proximity to her relatives. She argued with her father about the letter of refusal, and even raised her voice. All because the same letter had also been sent to Zalman Kamionker.
But Kamionker came anyway, just turned up at the door on Friday evening and explained quite harmlessly that the letter had never reached him, so he would have to have a serious word with the postman, he was indeed a peaceful man but such a thing simply could not be allowed to happen. He couldn’t even be sent away, because how could he have travelled back to Zurich, so soon before Shabbos? In any case, he had brought a present for Arthur, wrapped quite casually in a Yiddish newspaper whose front page showed the picture of a worker bursting his chains. The present was a tallis, not a new one, but made of wonderfully finely woven material, and with a decorated collar the like of which no one here had ever seen. He had made it for himself in Simon Heller’s weaving mill in Kolomea, Kamionker said, and only the best had been good enough for him.
Arthur had had the whole week off school, even though the religious rules did not oblige him to take part in the shiva. Chanele had talked to his class teacher, because she was worried about her youngest. At his age, experiencing the death of a person in such proximity, let alone with the dying man in a room, such a thing could not help but leave a trace on a child, she argued, let alone so sensitive and even often sickly a child as Arthur. Her request was not in line with school policy, but because of the outcome of the plebiscite the teacher had a vaguely guilty conscience with regard to all Jews, and therefore made an exception on this occasion.
In the night before his bar mitzvah Arthur slept badly. His big day fell on the Jewish date of 14 Elul, in the middle of the month and on a full moon. He was no longer afraid — he was a man now, after all — of the shadows of the plane trees, hadn’t been for ages, but the fading light still kept him awake, and his thoughts turned endlessly in a circle. When he had got to sleep at last, the shrill cry of a bird outside his window woke him up again. It was a magpie, which actually had no business being in town. He had learned to tell the birds and their calls apart from Uncle Salomon, just as he had learned everything important, it seemed to him at that moment, only from him. Salomon had also told him a story about magpies: a farmer had once caught one and put it in a cage which he took into the field, so that it would lure its fellows with its tuneless cries for help. A second magpie flew down, the farmer grabbed it and wrung its neck. ‘And at that moment,’ Uncle Salomon had said, ‘at that precise moment the magpie in the cage keeled over and died as well. And do you know what it died of? Of a broken heart.’ Perhaps Salomon’s heart was broken too, Arthur thought, you couldn’t tell by looking.