“No, you answer my question first.”
She sighed, resigned to my inquisitive nature. I had no inkling whatsoever of what an overwhelming relief it would be to her to finally tell me the truth.
I now believe that many of her idiosyncrasies — particularly her constant fretting over the opinions of others and stern insistence on decorum — were the direct result of the need for secrecy both inside and outside her home. That she saw herself obliged by circumstance to lie to her only child must have seemed a cruel fate at times, given her devotion to me.
“Come sit with me, John, and I shall answer all your questions,” Mama said warmly. On her insistence I sat in Papa’s chair. “You’re so big now that if I tried to sit you on my lap I’d be crushed,” she said, laughing.
She looked at me as though greatly relieved simply to see me alive. “John, we were … we were waiting to tell you. Until you were a bit older.”
“Then I
“It isn’t that simple. There are — how shall I put it? There are people, who are neither one thing nor another.”
“Neither Christian nor Jewish?”
“That’s right. Perhaps … perhaps I’d better start with some history. A long time ago, before you were born — ”
“Grandfather Joao came from Constantinople,” I interrupted. “His ancestors were Jewish. They fled the Inquisition. People were being burnt. I know all that.”
“Who told you?”
“Luna and Graca. I was with them when the necromancer came.”
“Yes, I know. They came to find me at the market.”
“If you knew what they said, why did you ask?”
“On the contrary, John, they only told me a little of what happened. They said that you had been very brave and that certain secrets had been revealed to you.”
“Did they take something from me?” I asked impetuously.
“Who?”
“The Jews?”
“Which Jews?”
I shrugged. “I’ve no idea. But you know what I’m trying to say.”
“I most certainly do not.”
I wished to broach, in the most delicate manner possible, the possibility of my penis having been disfigured. I said, “I don’t know what they took. A horn perhaps.”
“A horn?”
“From somewhere … from my head. They removed it.”
“Please, John, this is no time for one of Midnight’s stories. You are not a goat. Though there have certainly been times when you have smelled like one.” She smiled at her own joke, which irritated me enormously. “Forgive me, John,” she said. “I know I’m being silly, but I wanted to put you at ease.”
“Maybe they took something else?” I said.
“Such as?”
“Well, from my tip.” I squirmed in embarrassment.
“Ah, I see now where this conversation is heading. Yes, when you were eight days old, a surgeon came and took a small and unimportant piece of skin from your … your tip, as you so nicely put it.”
She said this as though it were a trifle, but I must have looked sick, since she added reassuringly, “A very small piece. Nothing essential, I assure you. You are perfectly intact in that area.”
“Why was a piece of skin taken?”
“It is our tradition. A surgeon comes and the baby sits on his grandfather’s lap while the surgeon cuts away a small piece of skin that serves to hide things. It’s called the
“Does it hurt?”
She shrugged. “It must have. You cried. We put some brandy on your gums to soothe the pain.”
“Brandy in my mouth to slice off the tip of my penis?”
She slapped her hand in her lap. “It was just a very tiny and useless piece of skin.”
“Does Father still have it?”
“Yes.”
“But why didn’t he have it cut off?”
“John, your father is a separate subject. Perhaps we ought to discuss one thing at a time.”
“You said I could ask anything.”
She sighed. “John, listen, I’m afraid the truth is that your father is not Jewish.” She looked away, as though it saddened her to admit it.
Far from upsetting me, I felt relieved. “Then I must only be partially Jewish.”
“In a sense.”
“Half-Scottish and half-Jewish.”
“I think it would be more correct to say half-Scottish and half-Portuguese. As well as half-Christian and half- Jewish, of course.”
“Mama, I cannot be four halves. Then I would be two persons.”
“Indeed, John, I have often believed you to be several children, and each one more difficult than the one before. Honestly, it is like trying to converse with a bumblebee.” She shook her head. “Look, you are Portuguese and Jewish at the same time. Like me. Just as you are Christian and Scottish at the same time. Like your father.” She leaned toward me. “But here’s where things get tricky — the Jews are of the belief that religion is inherited through the mother. So, by our laws, you are completely Jewish, and the Christians agree. One drop of Hebrew blood makes you utterly Jewish, they say.”
“Hebrew?”
“That is what the Jews are called in the Bible.”
“So what things did I inherit?”
“Jewishness, you might say.”
Now I felt we were headed where I had been trying to go for some time. “But what is Jewishness?”
My mother sighed deeply. “My goodness, I wish my father were still with us. I am quite certain he could explain all this much better than I can. John, dear, the Jews believe certain things that Christians don’t. That’s what it means to be Jewish.”
“For instance?”
“For instance, that Jesus was not the Messiah. You know who the Messiah is?” I shook my head. “Well, he is a kind of savior. Now, the Christians believe he was Jesus. But we say that the Messiah has not yet come.”
“Papa does not believe that Jesus is the Messiah, yet you just said that he was a Christian.”
“He was born a Christian, but he is an atheist by conviction. Jews and atheists do not believe that Jesus was the Messiah.”
This last point seemed to improve my situation even further. “So people can change? I could decide I am not half-Jewish and become one-quarter Jewish … or … or even less?”
“I fear that is not the way it works. Father remains a Christian by tradition, if not by belief. Just as you will remain a Jew by tradition, but not by belief, if that’s what you decide.”
“What tradition?”
“Well, now, this is where things become difficult, John. I am ignorant of many things — too many. I only know what my father told me. You see, I was raised here in Portugal, where such things as Jewishness remain largely a secret. There is much I have not learned, but I shall tell you what I know….”
My mother then went on to discuss at great length such mysterious subjects as God, the soul, afterlife, possession, demonic spheres, angels, and hell. She used such complicated clauses and was forced into so many tangled rephrasings that after forty-five minutes of labor, when she finally gave herself a welcome rest and inquired “Do you understand now?”, it was my turn to confess to being totally lost.
As far as I could determine, the Jews believed that a single God would revive them in body and soul when the Messiah came and that they would rise up from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem and live in paradise.
