— Fine, call it the additional reason. We can compromise on that. You have your dander up, while I am simply trying to tell a story. Because there is a story here, Father — a little tale that I have brought you back from your Palestine — it is with me on this old sofa like a baby that will cry on and on until it is listened to… Well, the day went by and it was time for the opening of the congress. The two of us were real delegates and had to behave like ones, although it was far from clear whose delegates we were, what district we represented, and where exactly that was. Were we the spokesmen of your fields and forests? Of your flour mills? Or perhaps of all the tracks and train stations we had seen? Because certainly, of the families in our village, neither the Mendels nor the Hefners nor the Urbachs had authorized us to act in their behalf… Still, delegates we were: so it said and so we would be. It was a bright, a most intense evening, with the shining stars looking down on us from afar with a comforting glitter.
— The thought that there was something more eternal than our Jewish worries and Jewish commotions.
— Never mind. It does not matter. To get back to my story, there we were, striding along the streets of Basel with delegates who converged from all over the city — making for the Casino, where the congress was held — and indeed, we were gamblers of sorts, although most respectable ones. The bow ties and black tails blended quite nicely with the colorful outfits of the Swiss girls, the evening dresses, the bare arms of our Jewish delegatesses, the shopping baskets, the hansoms, the taverns — in a word, the local residents regarded us with such indifference — from such depths of normalcy — that it would hardly have made a difference had we been wearing Buddhist robes or Eskimo parkas. However you looked at it, we were Jews, here today and gone tomorrow… while as for our Linka…
— Theaterstrasse… so it was…
— Exactly as you described it a year ago… and Linka…
— Most assuredly it was, Father, that tavern with the golden rooster… exactly… but listen… our Linka…
— I was acutely aware of following in your footsteps all the time, Father… and of feeling most sorry for you… but our Linka, if I may be allowed to proceed
— Sorry that you could not be there yourself.
— Yes, the pastry shop with the whipped cream too…
— You gorged yourself there also? Ha ha, I like that…
— Of course… the synagogue in the Eulerstrasse is still where you left it… but our Linka…
— No, we had no time to visit it. If you will listen, you will hear everything. Because even there in the street our Linka stood out in festive splendor — she had about her a most portentous look that she had been practicing since Katowice and was clutching her delegate’s scroll in one hand like the Magna Carta — and a most bare-armed hand it was too, extending from a black dress that she secretly had made for herself without my knowledge. I do not know if you were privy to it, Father — a most flimsy, foolish, reckless, scandalous bit of sleeveless décolleté! And those arms, mind you, were still a child’s — still plump from a mother’s milk with their childhood freckles — those most discreet freckles, Father — now flaunted for all to see…
— No, no, I don’t mean the freckles themselves. They were simply a metaphor — something aggravating to think about during that grand walk to the Casino — which itself was but a brash overture to what followed — to that feminine promise she gave off wherever she went — you see, I am simply trying to help you to understand what happened later… are you with me?
— Are you with me?
— Ate you listening to me? There was a great crowd by the entrance, and lots of applause and hurrahs, and even my Russians — I mean my revolutionary, conspiratorial observers — were wearing clean shirts and began to clap the minute they thought they made out Herzl’s beard. And meanwhile, two other young men from the train who were lying in wait fell upon Linka and began pulling her toward them while I tried tugging her back the other way… except that at that very moment what did I see but the shining bald pate of Professor Steiner, from the pathology department of the university…
— Yes, he was. And Migolinsky was there too, decked out in black tie and looking quite splendid and earnest — and here I had thought he had baptized himself long ago…
— There was a rumor to that effect, anyway.
— Perhaps he had himself unbaptized again, ha ha…
— Who could have sent him? He was a delegate representing himself, as was everyone. But if a billiard-ball head like him could turn up at a Jewish congress and hug me enthusiastically — why, then, I tell you, there is hope — hope that infected even me — because the fact of the matter is that I was gnawed by doubt whether we were truly ready for this adventure — whether it was not premature to expose ourselves thus to the world — not a mistake, that is, to display the full extent of our weakness — because, after all, we could have gone on nuzzling a while longer at the Christian teat before deciding in all seriousness to rally round a flag and an anthem of our own…
— I believe one was chosen.
— Yes… I’m almost positive… blue and white on a field of gold stars…
— No. It is pointless to ask, because I do not remember. So much has happened since then — and of an entirely different nature — and all I recall is the crowd surging toward the entrance and Linka in her ridiculous dress being swept away by an ardent band of “observers,” with me trailing after her behind my bald professor, who was ushered to a balcony overlooking the stage while I was seated beside him directly in back of a column.
— No. Please, Father, don’t ask me now about the congress…
— An address? Of course… isn’t there always? It was actually more of a report…
— No, I don’t remember.
— Yes. About his meeting with the German Kaiser in Palestine…
— As far as I could make out, nothing. It was all very vague. Rather evasive. Perhaps I did not really understand it…
— About the country itself he said hardly a word.
— Well, perhaps a word. Something or other about Jerusalem. Something poetic about the night there and the moonlight. Having been there myself, I can tell you how little he understood. He is living an idea, not a reality. He talks about the moon, not about the streets — about the ramparts, not about the houses — about the Germans and the Turks, not about the Jews — about the future, not about the present. He is in love with the recipe, Father, not with the ingredients…
— Just three nights in Jerusalem, two of which, it seems, were spent tossing and turning on a billiard table in an inn called the Hotel Kamenitz…
— Apparently there was no bed for him, and so they made one on top of a billiard table. Perfectly symbolic…
— Sad? I would not say so. Not even pessimistic. Rather delirious, however. I was able to observe him from up close, even though I was not concentrating on what he said, because I had trouble following his Viennese accent — and suddenly, dear Papa, I felt a great wave of pity for him. He has not long to live, Father…
— Consider it a medical intuition.
— It is only an intuition — but why scoff?
— The way he perspires — his pallor — the barely restrained tremor of his arms — the black bags under his sunken eyes… If a patient came to me looking like that, I would be alarmed. I would send him at once for a blood examination, for a lung auscultation… he won’t last long — he is living on borrowed time — and who knows if the whole business will not simply go poof when he dies…
— Fine, call it a medical fantasy… Scoff…
— It was purely my own private diagnosis. I stole a glance at Steiner, to see if he was of the same opinion, but he did not seem to be thinking along medical lines. He was following the speech — he was quite carried away by it — there was something almost violent about the way he applauded…