“Will you allow me to demonstrate,” says the priest triumphantly, as if he had already demonstrated.
“Of course,” I say with fake psychiatric cordiality.
“The signs out there”—he nods to the shaggy forest—“refer to something, don’t they?”
“Right.”
“The smoke was a sign of fire.”
“That is correct.”
“There is no doubt about the existence of the fire.”
“True.”
“Words are signs, aren’t they?”
“You could say so.”
“But unlike the signs out there, words have been evacuated, haven’t they?”
“Evacuated?”
“They don’t signify anymore.”
“How do you mean?” From long practice I can keep my voice attentive without paying close attention. I wonder if Lucy—
“What if I were to turn the tables on you, ha ha, and play the psychoanalyst?”
“Very good,” I say gloomily.
“You psychoanalysts encourage your patients to practice free association with words, true?”
“Yes.” Actually it’s not true.
“Let me turn the tables on you and give you a couple of word signs and you give me your free associations.”
“Fine.”
“Clouds.”
“Sky, fleecy, puffy, floating, white—”
“Okay. Irish.”
“Bogs, Notre Dame, Pat O’Brien, begorra—”
“Okay. Blacks.”
“Blacks?”
“Negroes.”
“Blacks, Africa, niggers, minority, civil rights—”
“Okay. Jew.”
“Israel, Bible, Max, Sam, Julius, Hebrew, Hebe, Ben—”
“Right! You see!” He is smiling and nodding and making fists in his pockets. I realize that he is doing isometrics in his pockets.
“See what?”
“Jews!”
“What about Jews?” I say after a moment.
“Precisely!”
“Precisely what?”
“What do you mean?”
“What about Jews?”
“What do you think about Jews?” he asks, cocking an eye.
“Nothing much one way or the other.”
“May I continue my demonstration, Doctor?”
“For one minute.” I look at my watch, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“May I ask who Max, Sam, Julius, and Ben are?”
“Max Gottlieb is my closest friend and personal physician. Sam Aaronson was my roommate in medical school. Julius Freund was my training analyst at Hopkins. Ben Solomon was my fellow detainee and cellmate at Fort Pelham, Alabama.”
“Very interesting.”
“How’s that?”
“Don’t you see?”
“No.”
“Unlike the other test words, what you associated with the word Jew was Jews, Jews you have known. Isn’t that interesting?”
“Yes,” I say, pursing my mouth in a show of interest.
“What you associated with the word sign Irish were certain connotations, stereotypical Irish stuff in your head. Same for Negro. If I had said Spanish, you’d have said something like guitar, castanets, bullfights, and such. I have done the test on dozens. Thus, these word signs have been evacuated, deprived of meaning something real. Real persons. Not so with Jews.”
“So?”
He’s feeling so much better that he’s doing foot exercises, balancing on the ball of one foot, then the other. Now, to my astonishment, he is doing a bit of shadowboxing, weaving and throwing a few punches.
“That’s the only sign of God which has not been evacuated by an evacuator,” he says, moving his shoulders. “What sign is that?”
“Jews.”
“Jews?”
“You got it, Doc.” He sits, gives the azimuth a spin like a croupier who has raked in all the chips.
“Got what?”
“You see the point.”
“What’s the point?”
He leans close, eyes alight, “The Jews — cannot — be — subsumed.”
“Can’t be what?”
“Subsumed.”
“I see.”
“Since the Jews were the original chosen people of God, a tribe of people who are still here, they are a sign of God’s presence which cannot be evacuated. Try to find a hole in that proof!”
I try — that is, I act as if I am trying.
“You can’t find a hole, can you?” he says triumphantly.
“But, Father, the Jews I know are not religious. They either do not believe in God or, like me, they don’t attach any significance beyond—”
“Precisely!”
“Precisely?”
“Precisely. Probatur conclusion as St. Thomas would say.” He seems to have finished.
“Right,” I say, reaching for the rung of the trapdoor. I think I know what to tell Father Placide.
“Hold it!” He waves an arm out to the wide world. “Name one other thing out there which cannot be subsumed.”
“I can’t.”
“Pine tree?”
“How do you mean, pine tree?”
“That pine tree can be subsumed under the classes of trees called conifers, right?”
“Right.”
“Try to subsume Jews under the classes of mankind, Caucasians, Semites, whatever. Go ahead, try it.”
“Excuse me, Father, but I really—”
“Do your friends still consider themselves Jews?”
“Yes.”
“You see. It does not matter whether they believe. Believe or not, they are still Jews. And what are Jews if not the actual people originally chosen by God?”
“Excuse me, Father, but is it not also part of Christian belief that the Jews did not accept Jesus as the Messiah and that therefore—”
“Makes no difference!” exclaims the priest, throwing a punch as if this were the very objection he had been waiting for.
“It doesn’t?”
“Read St. Paul! It is clear that their inability to accept Jesus was not only foreordained but altogether reasonable and is not to be held against them. Salvation comes from the Jews, as holy scripture tells us. They remain the beloved, originally chosen people of God.”
“Right. Now I—”
“It is also psychologically provable.”
“It is?”
“Jews are naturally skeptical, hardheaded, and, after all, what Jesus was proposing to them was a tall order.”
“Yes. Well—” He’s standing on the trapdoor and I can’t lift it until he gets off.
“What do you think Peres would say if Begin claimed to be the Messiah?”
I have to laugh.
“No no.” The priest hunches forward, almost clearing the trapdoor. “You’re missing the point.”
“I am?”
“How many times in your work have you encountered someone who claims to be Napoleon, the Messiah, Hitler, the Devil?”
“Often.”
“How often have you encountered a Jewish patient who claimed to be the Messiah or Napoleon?”
“Not often.”
“You see?”
“Yes.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I don’t?”
“You still don’t see the bottom line psychologically speaking?” My nose has started running seriously. He is standing on the trapdoor and my nose is dripping.
“One, a Jew will not believe another Jew making such a preposterous claim, right? But — But—!” Now he has come to the bottom line sure enough. For he has stopped doing isometrics and throwing punches and has instead placed both hands on the azimuth and lined me up in the sights. He speaks in a low intense voice, pausing between each word. “Is it not the case, Doctor, that if a Jew speaks to a Gentile, speaks with authority, with sobriety, as a friend—the Gentile — will — believe — him! Think about it!” He has leaned over so close I can see the white fiber, the arcus senilis, around his pupil.
I give every appearance of thinking about it.
“Even an anti-Semite! Did you ever notice that an anti-Semite who despises Jews actually believes them deep down — that’s why he hates them! — and isn’t that the reason he despises them?”