Read Online Shylock Is My Name by Howard Jacobson - Free Book Online

human if I didn’t wonder that. Some days I think I only want her to be happy. Some days I don’t. But it’s vain. There is no ‘is.’ Her story, too, stopped when it stopped. She and the vile layabout she ran off with—and for all I know their monkey—inherit my wealth, but they won’t ever see it. That’s some consolation. But I can’t help myself. I imagine her remorse. I am ashamed to say I pray for her to suffer agonies of remorse. I picture it. I see her ravaged face. But that’s to ask for something that can’t eventuate—might never have been, and certainly won’t ever be now.”
    Strulovitch shook his head. “There must have been the seeds of remorse in her actions even as she took them. Who can set out on any journey without at the same time wishing they’d stayed at home? She must at times have looked back longingly.”
    “Those are Old Testament misgivings.”
    “Well who’s to say Jessica didn’t give in to them the minute she left the house?”
    “The minute she left the house she bought a monkey.”
    “That’s a sort of looking back.”
    “Yes, but not a looking back to me. The monkey once and for all made her not my daughter. She found living in a Jewish house something worse than prison. But yes, yes, it’s always possible she didn’t like what she had become when she became it and experienced, if not remorse exactly, then something like the regret you speak of, if only for her dear mother’s sake. But I mustn’t give in to fancy. She grew to hate me and I dare say her mother too for dying. It’s crossed my mind to wonder whether the manner of her leaving was meant to mimic the manner of her mother’s—for she died abruptly, my beloved Leah. As was done to Jessica, in her perception, so Jessica did. Certainly the manner in which she eloped was cruel to the highest degree. Cruel, disdainful and blasphemous. Had she wished to show me how badly she’d fared without a mother, or a father who could better play the mother—how inconsiderate she’d grown under my tutelage and example, how brutal even—she could not have made a better job of it. My hope now is that the ill treatment she’s receiving makes her see things differently, though I will never know if it does or doesn’t. But this is not what a father should want—for his daughter to suffer so that she should understand how much suffering she has caused. I should wish her happiness, should I not?”
    “You should. But now you are asking too much of yourself. No father can completely want his daughter to be happy.”
    Shylock sucked air in through his teeth. “That’s harsh philosophy.”
    “No, it’s harsh psychology.”
    Shylock eyed Strulovitch stealthily, as a snake might. I have shocked him, Strulovitch thought. Good. I have shocked myself.
    He asked Brendan to open the car windows briefly. He wanted to feel an invigorating air blow in off the fields, even if it was only Cheshire out there. It is civilised to accept the violence of our natures, he thought. It is justice that makes us human, not forgiveness. We are things of blood, not things of milk.
    Then he asked for the windows to be closed again.
    “I am complimented to be thought too harsh by you,” he said.
    “You shouldn’t be,” Shylock said. “It does no good to confirm Christians in their suspicions that we are lost to loving-kindness.”
    Strulovitch took the liberty of tapping Shylock’s knee. He nodded in the direction of the chauffeur. Was Shylock up to date enough to know that a black man could be a Christian? Strulovitch hoped his expression told the story and served to warn him. In front of a Christian of whatever colour we should not talk slightingly of Christians.
    Shylock apologised. “I am not accustomed,” he said under his breath, “to minding my ps and qs. I am used to abusing in the spirit I’m abused. The times have grown nice.”
    “Appearances,” Strulovitch said in a whisper, “can be deceptive.”

S IX
    T he chauffeur