— Yes, Grandmother, without any of those cat-and-mouse tricks from the detective stories. Because not only didn’t we share a common language in which to beat around the bush, I had decided in any case that direct shock tactics were the best way of showing him and his wife that I knew everything, even if I didn’t yet know what to do about it. And then, Grandmother, Citizen Mani squared his shoulders, threw a desperate glance at his wife to see if she understood what was happening, looked brightly back at me, and said (I’ll never know, Grandmother, if he thought it up on the spur of the moment, or if it was something he had prepared well in advance, perhaps on the morning he came across his father lying dead by those big urns, and had now finally found the occasion for), these were his very words, Grandmother, which came out in a kind of stammer: “I was Jewish, but I am not anymore… I’ve canceled it…”
— I know, Grandmother… just a minute… I know…
— I know, Grandmother… hold on a minute… for God’s sake… can’t you listen for just once…
— Yes, Grandmother, yes. He even said it again in the same broken, embryonic German that he had learned during the six months of occupation, which were the equivalent of a few days of Berlitz lessons in Berlin. At first, Grandmother, I must admit that I was so stunned by his answer that I couldn’t get a word out. I just stood there, like you, fuming and indignant. But then, Grandmother, I remembered what you taught me yourself whenever we listened to his speeches on the radio, that a fool is frightened by absurdity while a wise man finds something to learn from it, and so I just smiled at him, and took his dead father’s passbook from my pocket, and opened it, and put my finger on the Greek word, and asked in the same easygoing German, “And have you canceled Jerusalem too, sir?” That was already too much for him. He stepped toward me clumsily with the little boy in his arms and grabbed the passbook away from me, as if now that his father had shrunk to the size of a small book he could finally free him from my clutches, looked desperately at his wife again, and then turned back to me, waved his arms in search of the German words, and said in much the same vein, “We have been in Jerusalem, but no more…” At which point, Grandmother, are you listening, I felt almost blissfully happy…
— Yes, yes… to the point that I actually bowed my head to Citizen Mani in grateful acknowledgment, made a little circuit of the room, a kind of pantomime house search, saluted the whole family, and left at once…
— An ordinary salute, like any well-mannered policeman would give a family of law-abiding citizens…
— I was happy for two reasons, Grandmother, the first being that my intellectual diagnosis had indeed been razor-sharp, and the second, that the infection had already cured itself, so that the blue womb that we had returned to was as pure and uncontaminated as ever…
— I assumed, Grandmother, that sooner or later I would hear that nasty word from you, and I’ve been bracing for it for the last half-hour…
— But you know perfectly well that I’m not that type.
— Because I’m not stupid, Grandmother, I simply am not and never was, neither in your opinion nor in anyone else’s…
— If that’s so, we should investigate how and when I became one, but it isn’t…
— But for God’s sake, Grandmother, will you listen to me…
— I hear you.
— Fine. I hear you.
— Fine, go ahead…
— I’m listening.
— Yes…
— Yes…
— Yes…
— Yes…
— Can I say something now?
— Hold on there…
— All right.
— I hear you.
— Now listen carefully, Grandmother. No, just a minute. I heard you out quietly, now you hear me out and tell me if it isn’t ludicrous and in poor taste to talk like that, in such biological or zoological terms, about people and even whole nations. Why, it’s humiliating even for us Germans… as if we were all different strains of dogs or monkeys. No, Grandmother, please, that was never the intention of our Daemon, because the word “race” was an allegorical reference to another, more respectable word, namely, nature, which is what counts, and what is nature if not character, both human and national, which can be described and changed… Why, didn’t Hider himself speak of the danger of the Jew in each one of us?
— He did, I swear… he did too… in the youth movement, in Flansburg, there were those who knew his every word by heart…
— Of course… of course he did… which is why Citizen Mani Junior’s answer made me so happy, because I understood that if that stubborn, beastly essence of Jewishness can cancel its own self, then there’s hope for us too, Grandmother…
— Once more for two reasons, Grandmother. The first is that we won’t have to hunt down every last Jew in order to destroy him, because each Jew will cancel himself. And the second is that, when the time comes, we’ll be able to do the same thing…
— Because suppose there’s another Judgment Day, Grandmother, and they’ll want to make us pay like after the first war, when they caused you such aggravation. We too will be able to say then, “We were Germans but we are not anymore… we’ve canceled it…”
— But hold on there, Grandmother, hold on, you’re losing your temper for no good reason. You’re angry and you keep calling me names as if I were attacking you personally, but I’m not that stupid and I’m not that crazy… it’s true that sometimes, I admit, I have strange ideas, but reality has always been kind enough to put them into practice for me…
— No, I’m not pulling your leg, heavens, no. Far from it, I’m simply telling you my story in proper sequence, and who knows, it may cause you pleasure in the end… perhaps even joy… because wait, I haven’t come to the last surprise yet…
— In a minute… I’m getting to it… but first let’s walk a few more meters to that big white box over there, in those trees up ahead of us… over there, do you see it?
— Yes, over there… that white box… which is… come on, Grandmother, guess…
— Never mind, just say the first thing that comes to mind…
— A mailbox? That’s a good one, ha ha… No, Grandmother, who would come all the way up here to mail a letter? It’s got to be something else…
— But here, Grandmother, take a look: it’s simply a miniature little church, a pocket church, with a glass wall, and a tiny little altar behind it, and a teeny dish of oil for the dead, and a little doll of the Virgin holding her baby Savior who’s no bigger than a needle. The Greeks put these sweet little churches everywhere, Grandmother, to prevent travelers and passersby who are in a state of ecstasy from the sun, or the sea, or the sky, from backsliding to the paganism of the ancients and going down on their knees, God forbid, before trees and stones. It keeps them honest and faithful to the religion of their forefathers… but don’t look at me, Grandmother, look at the sky, because now begins its grand moment, just look at it blushing for you…