congratulated me on some ridiculous mechanical contraptions I had thought up in my leisure hours.
Señora Rebeca said:
‘Yes, I saw it. Here you go.’ And she held out a newspaper and pointed to an advert with her dirt-haloed finger. She said:
‘My husband told me to come and tell you. Read it.’
With her fists on her hips she stuck out her bust towards me. She was adorned with a black hat whose mangy feathers hung down in a lamentable fashion. Her black eyes examined my face ironically, and every now and then, lifting a hand from her hip, she would scratch her curved nose with her fingers.
I read:
‘Apprentice aviation mechanics required. All enquiries to the Military Aviation School. Palomar de Caseros.’
‘Yeah, if you take the train to La Paternal, tell the guard to let you off at La Paternal, you need to take the 88. It’ll leave you right by the door.’
‘Yes, you should go today, Silvio, it would be better,’ my mother said, smiling hopefully. ‘Put the blue tie on. I’ve ironed it and mended the lining.’
With a single bound I was back in my room, and as I got dressed in my suit I listened to the Jew describing, lamenting, a quarrel she’d had with her husband.
‘Oh, what a to-do, Frau Drodman! He comes back drunk, pretty well drunk. Maximito wasn’t there; he’d gone to Quilmes to see about a painting job. I’m in the kitchen, I come out, and he says to me, shaking his fist like that: “Food, pronto… And why didn’t that swine of a son of yours come to work?” What a life, Frau, what a life… So I go into the kitchen and put the gas on, sharpish. I thought that if Maximito came along then there’d be a real row, and I was scared, Frau.
Dios mio
! So I bring him the frying pan quick with the liver and the eggs fried in butter. Because he doesn’t like oil. And you should have seen him, Frau, he opens his eyes wide open and screws up his nose and says: “Bitch, this is rotten,” and the eggs fresh that morning. What a life, Frau, what a life!… Even the nice soup tureen, do you remember, Frau? Even the nice soup tureen got smashed. I was scared and I left, and he comes after me, bom bom bom, beating his chest with his fists… How horrible, and he was shouting things at me that he’s never said before,
Frau
: “Pig, I want to wash my hands in your blood!”’
Señora Naidath sighed deeply.
I found the woman’s tribulations diverting. While I tied my tie, I smiled to imagine her gigantic husband, a salt-and- pepper-haired Pole, with a cockatoo’s nose, shouting at Doña Rebeca.
Señor Josias Naidath was a Jew more generous than a Sobieski-era
hetman
. 23 A strange man. He hated Jews so much it made him sick, and his grotesque anti-Semitism displayed itself in an elaborately obscene vocabulary. Of course, this was a generalised hatred rather than a dislike of anyone in particular.
Friends trying to get one over on him had cheated him many times before, but he didn’t want to believe this and in his house, to the despair of Señora Rebeca, one could always find fat badly-turned-out German immigrant adventurers, who stuffed themselves at his table with sauerkraut and sausages, and who laughed slobbery great laughs, rolling their inexpressive blue eyes.
The Jew looked after them until they found work, making use of the contacts he had as a painter and a freemason. Sometimes they robbed him; there was one scoundrel who disappeared over night from a house they were renovating, taking with him ladders, planks and cans of paint.
When Señor Naidath found out that the night watchman, his protégé, had run off like this, his cries reached up to heaven. He was like Thor in a fury… but he didn’t do anything.
His wife was the prototype of the sordid, avaricious Jewess.
I remember that when my sister was younger, she went to visit them in their house one day. She openly admired a beautiful heavily laden plum-tree and, understandably enough, wanted to taste its fruit, and asked
Señora Rebeca said:
‘Yes, I saw it. Here you go.’ And she held out a newspaper and pointed to an advert with her dirt-haloed finger. She said:
‘My husband told me to come and tell you. Read it.’
With her fists on her hips she stuck out her bust towards me. She was adorned with a black hat whose mangy feathers hung down in a lamentable fashion. Her black eyes examined my face ironically, and every now and then, lifting a hand from her hip, she would scratch her curved nose with her fingers.
I read:
‘Apprentice aviation mechanics required. All enquiries to the Military Aviation School. Palomar de Caseros.’
‘Yeah, if you take the train to La Paternal, tell the guard to let you off at La Paternal, you need to take the 88. It’ll leave you right by the door.’
‘Yes, you should go today, Silvio, it would be better,’ my mother said, smiling hopefully. ‘Put the blue tie on. I’ve ironed it and mended the lining.’
With a single bound I was back in my room, and as I got dressed in my suit I listened to the Jew describing, lamenting, a quarrel she’d had with her husband.
‘Oh, what a to-do, Frau Drodman! He comes back drunk, pretty well drunk. Maximito wasn’t there; he’d gone to Quilmes to see about a painting job. I’m in the kitchen, I come out, and he says to me, shaking his fist like that: “Food, pronto… And why didn’t that swine of a son of yours come to work?” What a life, Frau, what a life… So I go into the kitchen and put the gas on, sharpish. I thought that if Maximito came along then there’d be a real row, and I was scared, Frau.
Dios mio
! So I bring him the frying pan quick with the liver and the eggs fried in butter. Because he doesn’t like oil. And you should have seen him, Frau, he opens his eyes wide open and screws up his nose and says: “Bitch, this is rotten,” and the eggs fresh that morning. What a life, Frau, what a life!… Even the nice soup tureen, do you remember, Frau? Even the nice soup tureen got smashed. I was scared and I left, and he comes after me, bom bom bom, beating his chest with his fists… How horrible, and he was shouting things at me that he’s never said before,
Frau
: “Pig, I want to wash my hands in your blood!”’
Señora Naidath sighed deeply.
I found the woman’s tribulations diverting. While I tied my tie, I smiled to imagine her gigantic husband, a salt-and- pepper-haired Pole, with a cockatoo’s nose, shouting at Doña Rebeca.
Señor Josias Naidath was a Jew more generous than a Sobieski-era
hetman
. 23 A strange man. He hated Jews so much it made him sick, and his grotesque anti-Semitism displayed itself in an elaborately obscene vocabulary. Of course, this was a generalised hatred rather than a dislike of anyone in particular.
Friends trying to get one over on him had cheated him many times before, but he didn’t want to believe this and in his house, to the despair of Señora Rebeca, one could always find fat badly-turned-out German immigrant adventurers, who stuffed themselves at his table with sauerkraut and sausages, and who laughed slobbery great laughs, rolling their inexpressive blue eyes.
The Jew looked after them until they found work, making use of the contacts he had as a painter and a freemason. Sometimes they robbed him; there was one scoundrel who disappeared over night from a house they were renovating, taking with him ladders, planks and cans of paint.
When Señor Naidath found out that the night watchman, his protégé, had run off like this, his cries reached up to heaven. He was like Thor in a fury… but he didn’t do anything.
His wife was the prototype of the sordid, avaricious Jewess.
I remember that when my sister was younger, she went to visit them in their house one day. She openly admired a beautiful heavily laden plum-tree and, understandably enough, wanted to taste its fruit, and asked
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