not just another Jew for me like the others out there!” He indicated the windows behind the closed curtain. “No, Wasserman. Forget it. I can’t do it anymore.” And he fell silent, alarmed by what he had just blurted out. Wasserman, trying him to the limit: “You are a German Offizier, Herr Neigel, paragon of the Third Reich, and I am the lowest of the low, an Untermensch! [see under: INFERIOR MAN]. Shoot me, Neigel, for if you do not, I will stop telling you my story!” Neigel screams: “But you can’t! You must continue to tell it!” “So? Why do you think I torment myself before you every night? Because I like the color of your eyes?” Neigel, breaking down: “Because you enjoy telling the story! You love it!” “No! Because I wish to die, Neigel! Shylock the Jew demands his pound of flesh! Shoot, Herr Neigel!” Wasserman’s shout brought Neigel back to his wits. Or perhaps it had had an immediate effect on that part of him which was trained to obey. He stood up, pale as whitewash, took out his gun, cocked it, and pressed it to Wasserman’s temple, where the barrel danced (Wasserman: “Like a wedding entertainer before the bride). Wasserman harshly told Neigel to control himself and stop trembling that way. Neigel admitted that he could not stop. That nothing like this had ever happened to him before. Anxiously he asked, “And what if I lose you this time?” And Wasserman smiled to himself and demanded almost martially, “Shoot, Neigel! Release a bullet! I am only a Jew, a Jew like all the others!” But it took a few minutes for Neigel’s hand to stop trembling, and steadying his gun, he suggested meekly, “Humph, maybe … that is—would you mind facing the other way? In the direction of the door, say.” Wasserman: “What lies in that direction? The Mecca of murderers?” And Neigel: “No, it’s just that … anyway, why should I break the window again, right?” Wasserman began to laugh. A moment later Neigel also caught on to the ludicrousness of his excuse and began to laugh with him. It should be stressed: they laughed together. For a brief moment they sensed how well they understood each other. Wasserman once said that man is made of flexible stuff, and he was right: killing seems to be something that can be gotten used to, as can non-dying. And little deals are madewith the miracle. When their laughter died down, Wasserman said gently, amiably, “And now, I beg you, shoot me.” Neigel closed his eyes and fired. Wasserman: “The buzzing flew from car to car, and as it did, I learned what Neigel had been writing as I told the tale. Ai! Neigel dropped the gun and began to laugh again, both because I was still alive, but also because a miracle had occurred: the bullet had hit the doorframe, ricocheted to the window, and shattered the pane. The miracle refused to make a deal.”
3. As Kazik’s end drew near [see under: KAZIK, THE DEATH OF], and the hopes invested in him by the artists seemed about to be disappointed, because the Children of the Heart had not succeeded in their final mission, Neigel and Wasserman spoke in whispers that rang with defeat. They tried to understand the root of the failure. Wasserman supposed that the cause lay in the nature of miracles. “Miracles?” Neigel wondered. “What’s all this about miracles?” And Wasserman: “Ah, well, nu, both you and my own Children of the Heart have tried to work a kind of miracle … an exaggeration of human nature … you in your way and my Children of the Heart in theirs. We were both trying to create a new man … and we failed. Everything is lost … You, by your actions, have caused … nu, you already know what you have caused, and I, by my actions, nu, et, as usual: for once I hoped to tell a beautiful story. A well-wrought story, a moral lesson, a philosopher I tried to be, feh! Old fool that I am! For that, of course, you need talent, gifts of intelligence and heart! Whereas I, what have I produced here these weeks? Only a poor joke. A pitiful jest. A Munin or Zeidman or Hannah Zcitrin … Your wife was right, Herr Neigel: I am a curio. Your wife saw through me all along! And I, I wanted miracles here! A man who would fly up to heaven, a woman after the heart of God! A Moses of Warsaw I tried to be! Ai, no, Herr Neigel. There is no hope in miracles, neither in miracles of evil nor miracles of mercy. Out of the leaven of humanity one cannot bake a miracle! One must take it step by step, nebuch, and get along with the barest necessities, yes, by loving and hating what there is, yes, love thy neighbor as thyself and hate thy neighbor as thyself, this is the whole law. And have COMPASSION [q.v.]. Our glory will not come shining through a miracle, Herr Neigel …”
NEURIM
YOUTH
The time of life between childhood and maturity.
At 0300 Kazik reached the age of eighteen. He had just awakened from his cocoonlike sleep [see under: ADOLESCENT DORMANCY] and was once more firmly entrenched in time. A difficult period followed. He was harrowed by tyrannical forces, hurled between shifting moods that left him depleted, depressed, and depraved. Even when he was happy it was a turbulent kind of happiness. Dressed only in a diaper, his body suddenly sprouted hair that made him feel ashamed. His voice turned husky, his face coarse. Fried, who never left his side, heard tiny popping sounds and in the lamplight discerned ugly pimples breaking out all over Kazik’s face and bursting with pus. The vital force was bubbling up under the skin. A whitish foglike down appeared on his cheeks. Kazik was suspicious of everyone, including Fried. When the
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