See Under, page 48
The second encounter with Munin took place when Fried stood despairingly at the window of Otto’s pavilion [see under: HEART, REVIVAL OF THE CHILDREN OF THE] and saw the peculiar Minotaur—half sheep, half man—crossing the path. Fried pursued him, limping furiously on his cane past the crocodile pool, took a secret bypath, and collided head-on with the terrible creature. Munin collected himself and zipped his trousers over the bird-cage lining of cloth and belts and buckles. The big ewe took off with a mournful bleat (Munin: “The bleating of bitter disappointment”), and Fried, spitting hellstone and fire, rose heavily from the grass, raised his hand like an angry prophet, demanding an explanation. In self-defense Munin claimed, “What is there to explain? You have to hurry! Time is running out and there is much to do, Pan Doctor, and there are no women here, except for Mrs. Hannah [see under: ZEITRIN], who obviously belongs to God, and Frau Doctor Paula, who belongs to your honor.” Fried: “How dare you, hooligan, utter the lady’s name?!” Munin: “Forgive me, but I always tell the truth. And now the total is one thousand one hundred and thirty-eight. All recorded! Perhaps the doctor would care to see my receipts? Every deed is registered, you see, and there is also a map. Yes, you can rest assured, Pan Doctor, that Yedidya Munin never betrays his art!” Fried, who had a vague recollection of Otto mentioning some other number, a lower one, almost choked with rage when he thought with revulsion of the old satyr’s exploits in his zoo. Fried: “But please explain, why?” Munin: “Why? In order to control myself. What, Pan Otto has told the doctor nothing at all?” “No!” “Ah!! And I thought you knew everything, sir! That you were here among us to preside over the faithful execution of our art! So this is why you are so angry! You simply do not know the story, sir!! I will tell you something quite explicit, as we say, we Jews, that is: I will tell you all. Because there is no shame in it. It is all for the sake of heaven. And it is very simple, for I, your honor, weigh approximately sixty kilos, or even a bit less, because there is not much food here, begging your pardon for allowing me to point this out, but—” “What does your weight have to do with what you did to the ewe?!” “Ah yes … the ewe … a darling creature … Listen: you see, each time I … nu … you are a doctor, sir, and have probably heard many such things, no?” Fried: “Du yassni choleria, do you want to drive me mad? What am I supposed to have heard?” “Na na na, that isn’t nice, Doctor. More anger, more grief … Ha! Ha! A joke, sir … And the sperm, your honor surely knows that sperm, a drop of semen is more than a drop of semen …” “It is?” “Absolutely so! It, too, contains a divine spark! And the organ, the smitchick, all the more. And we find in the compilation of Rabbi Nachman that the whole world was created for the sake of Israel, and even for the lesser ones of Israel, such as I, for instance, and even for the least of organs, and all this so that Israel may be redeemed and build the chariot, and his honor has perhaps heard about the cabalists of Safed in the Land of Israel, who wrote in the Zohar that every movement made in the lower spheres sets the higher spheres in motion! And what of the cobbler, even the cobbler, yes, who sews the sole and fastens high to low, then how much more so is it with me!” Fried: “Please, I beg you, stop rubbing yourself when you talk to me. And talk like a human being! What are you doing here in my zoo!!” Munin: “But I already explained to your honor! It, sperm, that is, shoots out of the body with a terrible force! Whewww! And I am not speaking in vague generalities either! No, I, Pani, am familiar with the most learned scientific journals! And I read therein that the force of sperm flying is equal to the piston head on an airplane in the sky! Relatively speaking, of course.” Fried: “Of course … and what about—Will you stop rubbing!” Munin: “Now I discovered such a thing, and I, sir, am a simple man. The least in Israel. Vinegar begot of wine. Baba Yaga’s cat. I have not received much learning in my life. In my father’s house—nu, of course, the psalms by heart, and later, here and there, the compilations of the Moharan, and a little of the Zohar, and someone let me peek at The Angel Raziel, and the book of Transmigrations; nor did I forswear secular learning often deemed forbidden, treif, yes, in Warsaw, the capital, my eyes were opened to the wonders of creation, and I also read many a scientific journal and looked upon wonders and miracles therein! And in the libraries I sat and read the latest scientific studies! Of Tsiolkovsky has your honor heard? He hasn’t heard. Nu, yes. I have heard. This man was the greatest Russian naturalist and scientist. The meekest and humblest of men! And he invented the idea of flight in space through the use of rockets! Nu, admit: a genius, no? Rockets! And I also read, of course, the complete writings of Goddard the American and Obert the German, and out of these hints gleaned—” Fried: “Maybe you would be good enough to explain so that I can finally understand?” Munin: “But I already explained! Why don’t you listen instead of watching me down there! I told you that sperm leaves the body with a terrible force, but perhaps, that is—if I saved this force … Now do you understand, your honor?” Fried, weakly: “No.” Munin: “The doctor is joking, of course, heh heh! Not once, but hundreds of times. Thousands of times, yes yes! And it is known that a man, even the least of men, has many thousands of sperm in his body, numerous as the stars in the sky, as it is written, and if I saved them up and stored them inside, and if once, just once, I let myself go, that is, a kind of let my people go, what a great and mighty people it would be! For this powerful thrust alone could send even a lightweight such as I—sixty kilograms or less on account of, begging your pardon, the food here—in short, it could send me all the way, you see?” Fried: “All the way where?” Munin: “Nu, wherever it takes me … and the sons of light will fly high …” Fried: “But where? Where will you fly—to God?” Munin: “Who is wise enough to know? If He takes me to Him, I will go. Whither He sends me, I will fly. Perhaps to God, and the important thing is that I will fly high. Above these mortals here called men. It is a mistake. And I know there is a different place for me. Not here. Here not.” Fried: “You mean to say you’re going to fly up like that? To God?” Munin: “Nu, have you ever seen anyone so stubborn? I have told you a thousand and one times already: He, blessed be He, is contained in every seed. In the soul of every living being.” “And you really believe it? That you’ll get there, that you’ll be able to ascend a single centimeter?” “With all my heart, your honor, like a homing pigeon returning to its master.” “But God—is holy! Transcendent and all that, while you—foo! It’s too revolting!” Munin: “Only seemingly, your honor! Seemingly indeed it is revolting, but God’s glory is everywhere, as they say in the Zohar, Munin’s commentary—there is no place where God is not, He pervades even that which is called sin, and the sparks that fell from on high are tarnished now and sullied in every kind of corruption, in the drop of semen, too, and we, the children of Israel, are commanded to worship the Holy One, blessed be He, with devotion, in order to bring those sparks back to their rightful place, and even the most terrible sinners will be His support, for who if not He, may His name be praised, tempted the heart of King David to count the people? As it is written in the Book of Samuel: ‘God tempted him,’ but the Book of Chronicles says, ‘Satan!’ Does your honor understand? And I, I have the soul of a beast, already in my childhood they called me ‘the calf,’ but even the bestial soul of someone as lowly as I has its roots in the luminous shell, and can turn from bitter to sweet, and here on this map I write on all the streets of Warsaw, the capital, the word ‘luminous,’ a kind of system I myself devised, here in this forehead! And they call me calf. Nu, well, why should I be angry, shortly my lot will no longer be with theirs, a different world awaits me, a world of winged beings! Of angels! Do you see? Come closer! Don’t be shy! Come closer and look at the map! Here now, everywhere I rubbed but controlled myself I drew a little Star of David, and here, all along Gensha Street and Lubctzky Street I have most of an L, and from Nizka and Zamanoff Streets I almost fashioned an entire U, but I will fill that out soon on Wellinska Street … and the I is still faulty. Now do you understand, sir?” Fried: “Bozhe moi! And that’s what you do to my sheep! You play with them to control yourself? And for that you think God will take you in?” Munin: “Oh yes, your honor, nu, at long last this Gentile is catching on. With us, with us Jews—” Fricd: “Will you stop making up stories! I, too, am a Jew!” Munin: “Your honor is one of ours? One of us? And I never knew! Welcome home! You don’t look it, though … and Mrs. Paula shares a room with you … who would have guessed?! One of ours! Nu, now I can explain wholeheartedly. One of us. Think of that! And so you probably know, sir, that even wicked thoughts, if properly exploited, become a kind of Grandfather Archimedes lever, a kind of eagle organ, an awakening of the soul. You are a little tired. Sit here on the rocks … (A Jew he may be, but he thinks like a Gentile) … Yes, and now you understand, sir, what I intend to do; from childhood I have had the evil inclination, and I suffered torments, and I was small and pitiful. A little fertel. And an organ I had, nu, as tiny as the prayer for dew and rain in the little siddur! But my inclination, ha! Like fire in the bones, my wicked thoughts disturbed the prayers and mitzvahs, and though my parents of blessed memory took great pains to find me a wife, the thoughts would not leave me … and my poor wife was very sorry for me, she was weak and could not satisfy half my desires … and in the end I ran away. I deserted her, a living widow with six chicks, because a voice said unto me, Go, go, run away, a wanderer you will be in the land; yes yes, I will not weary you further, Doctor (it’s clear he’s an ignorant Jew, a head that never lay tefillin!), and I only hope that my deeds are deemed worthy by the Holy One, blessed be He, because even the Holy Ari of Safed said that the Torah has seventy facets, each of which is revealed in its generation and time, but it has six times more that number of facets, and every son of Israel has his own secret way of reading the Torah, as a living body adhering to the holy speech, a secret way that envelops the roots of the individual soul in the upper spheres, known to him alone, yes, and each man worships God according to his way and manner, and I in my way, this is my prayer, I know no other, and perhaps of me it was written that prayer is the arrow shot heavenward, and this because it is not the evil inclination I believed it to be in my youth but a holy angel, as Rabbi Nachman says, as one who has known God has this evil inclination which must be overcome and tempered with justice, till it becomes goodness, as the candlelight shines and the wick that turns to fire is destroyed, so the light of the Shekhina shines on the godly soul by destroying the bestial soul and turning it from darkness to light, and from bitter to sweet among the saintly ones, and do not think, your honor (A Jew! Who would believe it!), that it is easy to do that which I have taken upon myself! It is not at all easy! And sometimes so much control could make a person lose his mind! And there are other dangers, too …” Fried: “Dangers?” Munin: “Dangers, grave dangers indeed! What did you suppose, sir? Lilith, cursed be her name, dogs me, hoping a drop of sperm will hatch her some demons, the holy lambs! And every time I put my hand out to my little shofar she flies out of hell with a whistle, wheeeee! But I, as you already know, control myself. I bite my cheeks! Any second … but I control myself! And I am not obliged to perform a penance, as do those wretches who yield to temptation and spill their seed!” Fried: “Enough! Shut up! My head is splitting from all your talk! How long have you … that is, how many years have you—” Munin: “Controlled myself? More than seven years, your honor, since everything went bad.”
MIN
SEX
1. See under: LOVE
2. An unusual discussion on the topic took place between Wasserman and Neigel while Dr. Fried was plunged in grief and longing for his Paula, who had died [see under: EDUCATION], and Marcus drew the doctor’s attention to the “sad and banal contradiction in our nature”; that is, “All the powers of love, all the mighty forces of passion, and at whom do we aim them? At a single soul, a smile, a dimple, a mere cluster of habits and opinions, a whim-filled bag of flesh, it would seem. How wonderful it is, ah, how wonderful: one person loves another person. Nothing more and nothing less.” At this point Wasserman put down his notebook and sank in thought. Then he began to tell Neigel things which were not at all relevant to the subject. He quoted Zalmanson, his adulterous friend, who had once confessed that in the streets of Warsaw, especially in springtime, when women walked through town wearing high-heeled shoes and all their finery, he was often seized with a terrible passion. Zalmanson: “At such times I want to ravage the whole world! To flatten it under me! And I walk along, groaning shamelessly, and the women … they look at me and smile, the bitches! And I walk among them in the street like a satyr, and at such moments—how strange it is—I feel an enmity, a strange enmity toward them …” Wasserman, who listened to Zalmanson’s confession with mixed emotions (“The brute had almost raped my wife! And I sit before him in the darkened office, and a smile rises to my lips … a smile of agreement, feh!”), asked Zalmanson what he meant exactly by “enmity,” and the editor, who had lost his usual stinging arrogance for the moment, said he felt enmity not because of something any particular woman had done to him, heaven forbid, for women had always dealt charitably with him, all of them, and he was a sworn lover of womankind (the editorial staff is prepared to wager that Anshel Wasserman smiled approvingly at this). No, he felt enmity because of what they compelled him to be by their very nature. By his very nature. Because he, if anybody cared to know, could love anything, everything. Zalmanson: “I could love the whole world and love nothingness with the same passion,” in order to learn fresh nuances, the subtleties of falling in love with a flowering lilac tree or a mad flight of butterflies, or the sound of the accordion. Zalmanson’s ideas here are a bit vague. One may suppose he felt degraded because of his lust for women, because he was a rebel by nature, and in his warped mind the desire to love them was a limitation. He felt degraded like Aaron Marcus [see under: FEELINGS] when he realized that we are all imprisoned by our limiting emotions, and therefore we—Marcus: “have our ears pierced like slaves against the door of the pale world that speaks to us in its one, halting language!” Zalmanson, with a sigh: “Women, they drive me crazy, you know; I adore them, the way they move, the way they smell, their marvelous bodies, yet what are they but the small, monotonous, finite, and limited materialization of the superhuman passion imprinted inside me, inside us all … for they are the jail, the narrow channel, the impoverished speech into which I must translate all the abundance in me.” Wasserman, with nonexistent strength: “And they, too, women, I suppose, feel the same toward you; that is, toward us.” And Zalmanson: “But of course! I’m certain of it! We and they—like prisoners condemned to uninspired exile together on a desert island.” And having said this to Neigel, Wasserman was silent, while upon his face played all the human expressions that signal tough decisions are being reached somewhere deep inside, and suddenly, driven by some inscrutable urge, Wasserman told the German something very intimate, which even the editorial staff was embarrassed to hear, let alone Neigel. Wasserman told the German about his sexual embraces with his wife. It is possible that he did so because he had grown accustomed to speaking to Neigel as one speaks to oneself. Or perhaps there was a different reason, totally incomprehensible. In any case, he expressed amazement: “Tell me, Herr Neigel, you are an intelligent man, after all, how is it that with such great love between man and woman, and such passion that consumes the heart and flesh, all you do is stick a little smitchikel into a hole and that is that! But only that? The woman’s body should divide before you like the Red Sea! A raging Sambation River should flow between you and drown you seven times, and you should rise gray as ashes, your eyes dim, unable to utter a single word for a year to come, having reached the land of love! As if once having seen the face of heaven-knows-what you were saved by a veritable miracle!” Neigel nodded in silent agreement. For a moment he appeared to be distinctly envious of the Jew for his ability to say all this out loud, for having such confidence in another human being. Marcus said, “Do you hear, Rabbi Anshel? I say, about love I say that a man may love anything, anything in the world, but true love, ah, he can feel for only one person.” Wasserman: “You yourself, if I am not mistaken, love music very much. And sometimes it even brings you to tears?” “Ah, a great love that, yes. But abstract. And therefore, not a true love. It is lacking, it is too noble and ideal.” Fried: “And I prefer to turn your formula around, Mr. Marcus, and say that a man may hate anything, anything in the world, but he can never hate anything as much as he hates another person.”
MALKODET
TRAP
Twice during the course of their meetings Neigel claimed Wasserman “led me into a trap.” The first time was when Wasserman brought Hitler and the Nuremberg Laws into Fried and Paula’s relationship [see under: HITLER, ADOLF; see also, THIS SWINISHNESS], and Neigel demanded that Wasserman remove his provocative anti-German references. It should be noted, too, that Neigel flew into an almost childish rage: he stomped around the room with big, violent steps, pounded the open door of the office cupboard, leaned over his desk, and pressed all ten fingers against it. Wasserman looked away, rebelling inwardly against this censorship. He smiled an embittered smile at Neigel’s empty chair and, tugging irritably at his wispy beard, avowed that “the story will lead us whither it will.” Neigel insisted, his back to Wasserman and his face to the curtained window, that Wasserman had hidden intentions he wasn’t prepared to overlook. He was furious with Wasserman for pretending to have made a purely arbitrary choice to write about the war all of a sudden, “when you know that’s not the type of thing you wrote about in the old days! You used to write about American Indians and floods in India and Beethoven and Galileo—a different type of story! With different settings! You never used to write about real things! I already know about our lousy life here! That’s what I want to forget when I hear a story! What do you think we have stories for, anyway?” Wasserman, who listened angrily but with great interest, replied into the palms of his hands covering his mouth, “It is always the same war. Always. And my tales are its written history. Indeed.” Neigel stamped his foot, as though trying to level the wooden floor, and screamed at the writer to “get rid of those Nuremberg provocations!” He hurled the word “trap” at the crack in the wooden wall before him. Wasserman, of course, did not understand which trap the German was referring to, but as they swelled and contracted in a kind of ludicrous pantomime of rage at the various objects in the room, never for a moment at each other, the Jewish writer felt that Neigel was not referring to the trap he had set for him, the trap of humanity. No, Neigel was not yet thoroughly enough infected with humanity to satisfy Wasserman. Neigel feared something far more immediate and tangible, and Wasserman could not imagine what it was. It made him nervous that the German was suddenly relating to the story with such fateful seriousness, when only a few days before he had told Wasserman that he was deluding himself about the power of words!
