Noah's Child by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt Page B

Skirting round theoutside wall, I pushed open the rusty door in the clearing and went to the disused chapel.
    The door was open. So was the trapdoor.
    As I thought he would be, Father Pons was down in the crypt.
    He opened his arms wide when he saw me. I threw myself at him and unburdened all my emotion.
    â€˜You deserve another slap from me,’ he said, hugging me gently.
    â€˜What’s got into you all?’
    He waved me to a chair and lit some candles.
    â€˜Joseph, you’re one of the last survivors of a glorious people that has just been massacred. Six million Jews were assassinated . . . six million! You can’t hide away from all those bodies.’
    â€˜What have I got in common with them, Father?’
    â€˜You were brought to life alongside them, and threatened with death at the same time as them.’
    â€˜And then what? I’m allowed to think differently to them, aren’t I?’
    â€˜Of course you are. But, now that they no longer exist, you have to testify to the fact that they did exist.’
    â€˜Why me and not you?’
    â€˜I do too, just as much as you do. Each in our own way.’
    â€˜I don’t want a bar mitzvah. I want to believe in Jesus Christ, like you.’
    â€˜Listen, Joseph, you’ll have a bar mitzvah because you love your mother and respect your father. As for religion, you can see about that later.’
    â€˜But . . .’
    â€˜It’s really important that you accept that you’re Jewish now. It’s nothing to do with religious faith. Later, if you still want to, you can be a converted Jew.’
    â€˜So still a Jew, a Jew for ever?’
    â€˜Yes. A Jew for ever. Have your bar mitzvah, Joseph. Otherwise you’ll break your parents’ hearts.’
    I could tell he was right.
    â€˜You know, Father, I liked being a Jew with you.’
    He burst out laughing.
    â€˜Me too, Joseph, I liked being a Jew with you.’
    We laughed together for a while. Then he took me by the shoulders.
    â€˜Your father loves you, Joseph. He may not love you very well or it may be in a way you don’t like, but he still loves you as he’ll never love anyone else and as no one else will ever love you.’
    â€˜Not even you?’
    â€˜Joseph, I love you as much as any other child, perhaps a bit more. But it’s not the same love.’
    From the sense of relief washing over me, I knew that these were the words I had come to hear.
    â€˜Set yourself free from me, Joseph. I’ve finished my job. We can be friends now.’
    He waved his arm around the crypt.
    â€˜Haven’t you noticed anything?’
    Despite the poor light, I could see that the candlesticks had gone, so had the Torah, the picture of Jerusalem . . . I went over to the piles of books on the shelves.
    â€˜What! . . . They’re not Hebrew any more . . .’
    â€˜It’s not a synagogue any more.’
    â€˜What’s going on?’
    â€˜I’m starting a collection.’
    He fingered a few books with unfamiliar characters on them.
    â€˜Stalin will eventually kill the soul of Russia: I’m collecting works by dissident poets.’
    Father Pons was giving up on us! He must have seen the reproachful look in my eye.
    â€˜I’m not abandoning you, Joseph. You are there now for the Jews. You’re Noah from now on.’

Six
    I ’m finishing writing this on a shady terrace, looking out over a sea of olive trees. Instead of withdrawing inside for a siesta with my friends, I have stayed out in the heat, because the sun injects some of its happiness into my heart.
    Fifty years have passed since these events. In the end I did have a bar mitzvah, I did take over my father’s business and I didn’t convert to Christianity. I took up the religion of my forefathers with passion, and passed it on to my children. But God never showed up . . .
    Never in all my years as a pious Jew and then an indifferent Jew have I found