Whatever suited him, said Haffner, simply wanting to end the evening: and he walked out into the benighted dawn.
And carelessly, without thinking, the hand of fate or the world-soul nearly placed a man in a bowler hat, Haffner's twin, his arms by his side, like a sentry, at the end of Haffner's day, as Haffner turned the corner into the town's main square. But luckily this world-soul managed to arrange it so that Haffner changed his mind, did not proceed briskly back home, but lingered, looking in the window of a shop which sold domestic cleaning products, ironing boards, Hoovers, dog baskets, plastic and multicoloured clothes pegs; then the window of an adjoining lingerie shop in which was fixed a row of disembodied and cocked legs, like the Platonic ideal of a cancan.
Finally, Haffner reached the hotel. He ignored the greeting of the woken receptionist — clutching a paperback and a serrated freshly burning plastic cup of coffee — walked into the lift, and pressed the wrong button, so that when he turned as normal to the left and tried to move his key in the lock, it would not work. Finally, after three minutes, he realised his mistake — oblivious to the scene he had left behind the door: a man in pyjamas, wielding an umbrella; a woman whimpering in the bed; a marriage teetering.
Haffner went to sleep, dressed in the tracksuit which now doubled as his pyjamas. Commas of white chest hair nestled in the gap above the jacket's open zip. He wanted to talk to Livia. He wanted to tell her about that conversation he had had in Chinatown, twenty years earlier, with Goldfaden. The conversation about sports. And she would turn to him, sleepy in her velvet nightgown, and tell him that of course Goldfaden was wrong. He knew that. For Livia, like Haffner, understood the majesty of sport.
Yes, it was Livia who had watched the 1980 Wimbledon tennis final with Haffner one weekend, in the early morning, in Florida — where they had gone for a summer break: featuring the American kid with the curls, and the Swedish man with the blue-eyed stare. And it was Livia who had pointed out to Haffner the obvious symbolism of the fight: the two versions of machismo. And which one, did Haffner think, was him? He thought, he said, that he was possibly the kid with the curls. And which one, asked Livia, did he think that she would go for?
The likeable kid with the curls? asked Haffner, hopefully.
No, unfortunately for Haffner, Livia's preference was instead for the resourceful and quiet man: whose machismo needed no theatricality. Even though as she said it Livia kissed him on the cheek, and grinned at him. And Haffner was glad that as he looked at her blouse — one button wrongly fastened so that the fabric bunched out and Haffner could see the beginning of a breast, the lace florets of her bra — his lust was unabated.
But Haffner's audience was gone. So Haffner lay there, on his left side, then shifted, to give solace to his heart, so placating the superstitious aspect of his soul. The aspect of his soul which believed in a soul at all.
PART THREE
Haffner Interrupted
The next morning, Haffner woke up late, to hear Benji in conversation outside his door.
Perhaps it was a bad dream. He tried to wake up further.
He couldn't. The dream was real.
— Me, Benji used to say, to his friends, his admirers, I have the greatest breasts of anyone I know. If I were a woman, said Benji, I'd want me. I mean yeah. I mean absolutely.
Yes, Benji was huge.
The hugeness had caused so many miniature aspects of Benji. It was, for example, one reason why he hadn't really had girlfriends. His emotions were distractedly doodled with shyness. Self-consciousness possessed him. This was also a reason why Benjamin was beauty-obsessed. He was always a sucker for the grand beauty. When it came to female beauty, his standards were strict. And finally, the size was why he had been forced to teach himself survival through wit.
— You want to know something? Benji said to our mutual friend Ezekieclass="underline" Ezekiel, known as Zeek.
— They look at my penis in the urinals, continued Benjamin, and they can't see it. It's like I'm pissing from my belly, you know?
— You shouldn't be too hard on yourself, said Zeek. It's not so bad. I mean, you're not circumcised, are you?
— No, said Benji.
— So you've never tried to masturbate when you're circumcised? said Zeek.
— How could I try it? said Benji.
— So then. The thing is this, said Zeek. It needs a lot of Vaseline.
— Vaseline? asked Benji.
— Or something similar, said Zeek.
— I don't need Vaseline, said Benjamin.
— But you're not circumcised, said Zeek.
— Yes, I know, said Benjamin. I told you that.
In the grey dawns after parties, we would sit out in the garden and talk: while in the living rooms, the bedrooms, the girls dozed in each other's arms, the junkies talked to themselves.
The issue of circumcision used to worry Benjamin. Once, Benjamin had talked to a girl whom he dearly wanted to kiss. As so often in the imperfectly Jewish life of Benjamin, the conversation had turned to penises, and their foreskins. She really did think, she said, that circumcised penises were preferable. They lasted longer, she smiled at him. And Benjamin, with his yarmulke, his deep knowledge of archaic law, wondered if by this she meant to flirt with him. It was possible. Come on, kid, it was possible, he said grimly, to himself. Even if, as only he knew, her hope was utterly misguided. He had to be honest. Sadly, Benjamin admitted to the intact nature of his penis, its shroud of flesh: its headscarf. It was the only way in which Esther had resisted Esmond's Orthodoxy: the practice of circumcision, she used to say, was barbaric. She couldn't countenance it for her darling son. But of course, Benji's girl then added, the circumcised penis had its own charm too. She looked at Benjamin. Confused, he looked back at her, and was quiet.
This was the boy whom Haffner could hear outside his room: while Haffner struggled to extricate himself from the placid dreams of his sleep, into the more unnatural dreams of Haffner's Alpine existence.
Haffner picked up the phone. He was sorry, said the receptionist to this newly bedraggled version of Haffner: his whitely blond hair awry, uncombed; his beard sprouting. Haffner asked him what he was sorry for: the receptionist explained that his grandson had said that his grandfather should be expecting him.
— No problem, said Haffner, exhausted. No problem.
And it was nearly lunchtime, added the receptionist, pedantically.
It could hardly get worse, thought Haffner. But then, as he struggled with the sheets, his shoes, the elongated dimensions of his washing routine in the bathroom, he was interrupted by the realisation that it was, in fact, worse. Benjamin, Haffner suddenly realised, was not talking to himself. Though why he had thought the boy would be talking to himself, he didn't know. No, there wasn't just Benjamin. There was also Frau Tummel. They were engaged in conversation outside his door.
And why not? thought Haffner, in dismal jubilation. Why wouldn't Frau Tummel be here as well?
It was as if the farce of his life were repeating itself, just on a diminishing scale. The interruptions of the real — the unwelcome real — which had marked his life continued even here, when Haffner was nowhere.
In the corridor, Frau Tummel was telling Benjamin that such devotion to a grandfather was rare in his generation. It was admirable, she said.