‘Now let’s see what it looks like,’ said Dr Keppelshnaier as he deftly removed the bandage. It was a week to the day since he had circumcised Dr Koekentapp. He stood back to admire his handiwork.
‘Well, without blowing my own horn, I must say a plastic surgeon couldn’t have done a better job.’
Dr Koekentapp gazed sadly at the exposed tip of his penis. It was encircled with blue nylon sutures. He thought it looked starkly pathetic; a cerulean-garlanded martyr, condemned to lifelong nudity. In stoical silence he accepted the sharp spikes of pain as Dr Keppelshnaier cut and removed the stitches.
‘I wouldn’t try and use it for a while yet, if you know what I mean,’ said Dr Keppelshnaier.
Dr Koekentapp stared gloomily into space. The thought of coercing his defrocked appendage into zealous activity was obscene.
‘I’m sure I’m going to be impotent,’ he muttered with rapidly increasing self-pity. ‘I don’t believe I will ever be able to live a normal life. I might as well become a monk.’ He held his head. ‘A circumcised monk,’ he added, glowering at Dr Keppelshnaier.
‘You can’t,’ said Dr Keppelshnaier gracelessly. ‘You’re Jewish.’
Dr Koekentapp’s despondency wasn’t helped at all that evening. Mrs Levy was serving Greenstein’s guaranteed fresh kosher sausages. Sitting at the Levy dinner table, Dr Koekentapp picked spiritlessly at his food. Mrs Levy regarded him anxiously. Anything less than a hearty appreciation for her meals implied serious illness.
‘Are you feeling alright, Jeremiah?’ she queried. ‘You are eating like a bird.’
‘I’m alright,’ he answered, lifting a hand in a wilted gesture of reassurance. ‘I’m just feeling a little blue.’
Mrs Levy grabbed her opportunity. ‘Speaking of colours,’ she said brightly, ‘I have decided to wear pink for the reception.’ She held up her sample and smiled at Dr Koekentapp. ‘I think the wedding should be in November. The jacarandas in the garden will be in purple bloom and will make a perfect background for the wedding pictures.’
‘Pink and purple?’ questioned Levy, glancing at the material in his wife’s hand. ‘I’m not so sure about that.’
‘Have you never heard of artistic licence?’ Mrs Levy flourished her pink fabric like a national flag. ‘If it was good enough for Picasso, it’s good enough for me. Haven’t you heard of his purple period?’
‘You mean his blue period,’ retorted Levy. ‘He painted everything in blue, especially drunks, beggars, blind people and prostitutes.’
Mrs Levy released her breath noisily. ‘So now you think I look like a blind-drunk begging prostitute? Thanks very much! Purple is still close enough.’
‘Mind you,’ mused Levy, ‘his rose period did follow the blue.’
‘You see! I knew that,’ lied Mrs Levy. ‘I’m wearing pink, the jacaranda stays, and that’s that.’
She stood up and, ignoring Dr Koekentapp’s despairing pleas, determinedly replenished his plate.
‘You must eat to keep up your strength,’ she said. ‘I can’t wait to have a whole houseful of grandchildren here. I hope they will look like me.’
Dr Koekentapp slowly put down his fork. Suddenly, he was acutely aware of the background noises of the house. Dozens of children, all duplicates of Mrs Levy in miniature, seemed to be whispering behind every door, every wall and every room of the house. Dressed in pink, they were cooking or carrying platters of food to sustain Daddy, who was frantically mating with a bloated Sylvia. He shook his head to clear it, then stared with numb fascination at Sylvia’s arm resting negligently next to him on the table. For the first time he noticed the fine hair bleached by the sun to an almost invisible down.
‘Perhaps we should wait a little before starting a family,’ he mumbled.
‘Wait?’ exclaimed Mrs Levy. ‘Wait? Why, at Sylvia’s age, I had already been pregnant twice! Hadn’t I?’ She turned for confirmation to Levy, who simultaneously managed to swallow a potato and nod definite witness to double conception. Mrs Levy shook her head sadly. ‘Unfortunately, I miscarried with both pregnancies. But then Sylvia came, and all my worries about having a family were over.’ Her eyes shone as she looked lovingly at her daughter. Sylvia smiled at Dr Koekentapp and squeezed his hand. His pupils dilated as he diverted his attention from his motherin-law to Sylvia’s face. His eyes focussed on the delicate fuzz in front of her ears and just visible beneath the gleaming curl of her hair. Sylvia’s smile became a quizzical quirk and a light flush tinged her cheeks as she endured his steadfast gaze.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘Why are you staring at me like that?’
Dr Koekentapp sighed. ‘It’s nothing. I was thinking about bees.’
‘Bees?’
Dr Koekentapp quickly opted for a more acceptable explanation.
‘Well, the birds and the bees,’ he said.
Mrs Levy smiled understandingly. ‘You’ll make beautiful babies,’ she said, ‘and by the time the two of you get married everything will be perfectly healed.’ She glanced briefly at Dr Koekentapp’s lap. ‘If you follow my meaning.’
‘Jerry!’ Sylvia shrieked. ‘I forgot. You had your stitches out today! No wonder you’re sitting so far away! How did it go? What does it look like?’
Levy slowly looked up from his sausages and regarded Sylvia distastefully. ‘It? What does it look like? What do you think it looks like? What kind of question is that for a nice Jewish girl to ask in front of her parents and at the dinner table?’
Sylvia blushed. ‘Oh Dad, you know what I mean. Jerry, is everything all right?’
Dr Koekentapp avoided her anxious gaze and looked mournfully at the floor as flaccid penile martyrdom loomed. ‘Everything is fine, but I think it may take a while to heal. Days, weeks at least. Maybe even months.’ He stopped short of mentioning years.
Mrs Levy nodded sympathetically and Sylvia leant closer to whisper to Dr Koekentapp. Her tongue flicked out and lapped intimately at his ear.
‘We’ll see about that,’ she murmured.
Dr Koekentapp looked at Sylvia in alarm. Once again, despite his fears and despite Dr Keppelshnaier’s warning, he was sitting with a florid erection at the Levy dinner table. For a frantic moment he waited, mentally probing with millimetric precision the circumference of his newly healed wound as it took the strain, then carefully smoothed the serviette on his lap.
‘Why have you gone so pale, Jeremiah?’ asked Mrs Levy. ‘Are you sure you don’t want another sausage? They are full of lovely meat. That’s why they are so good for your blood, you see.’
Dr Koekentapp shook his head and surreptitiously glanced at his lap. His blood was the last thing he wanted to see.
‘I am so happy we can officially announce the engagement now,’ gushed Mrs Levy. She gave Dr Koekentapp a meaningful look. Being preoccupied with the shearing strain of healing skin, he ignored her. Mrs Levy came to the point.
‘So when are you getting the diamond?’ she asked.
Sylvia stretched out her left arm and speculatively examined her bare ring finger.
‘Nothing too flashy, of course,’ Mrs Levy went on hastily as Dr Koekentapp shifted in obvious pain in his chair, ‘but diamonds are still a wonderful investment.’
She waggled her left hand and, delighting in the fierce coruscations that played from the heart of her engagement ring, held it in front of Dr Koekentapp’s face. ‘Of course, my diamond is a one-point-six carat pure white,’ she went on nonchalantly, ‘and flawless, naturally. We bought it from Yankel Cohen. He’s a wholesale jeweller, you know.’
Dr Koekentapp smiled wanly. ‘Yes,’ he said, fiddling very carefully in his trouser pocket and retrieving a small wrapped box. He held it out to Sylvia and pressed his hand around hers as she slowly and with dawning understanding accepted it.
‘Oh Jerry,’ she cried. ‘Oh Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!’
‘So open it!’ exclaimed Mrs Levy. ‘Let me see!’
Her hands were poised to grab, fingers curling and uncurling and nails clattering together like a crab’s pincers nabbing at an irresistible delicacy just beyond reach. With trembling hands, Sylvia peeled the paper from her gift and clutched the simple black box to her heart. Her eyes, brimful with tears, sparkled with a blue fire that put Mrs Levy’s ring to shame. Levy stood up and joined his wife. Her fingers were now fully extended in twittering anticipation, her eyes wide and locked on her daughter as Sylvia opened the box. Arctic flame, refractions in ice and blue, flared from a bed of white satin, flecked with whirling glimpses of diamondspun light.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Sylvia whispered.
‘Beautiful? It’s a blue-white!’ squealed Mrs Levy without a second’s hesitation. ‘Take it out! Put it on! Let me see! Let me see!’
Sylvia reluctantly closed the box and returned it to Dr Koekentapp.
‘What are you doing?’ shrieked Mrs Levy. ‘Have you gone mad? She turned frantically to Levy. ‘Aaron, say something! Do something! Don’t just stand there like a stale beigel!’
She whirled to plead with Dr Koekentapp about Sylvia’s inexplicable and believe-you-me guaranteed temporary rejection of such a gorgeous ring. Her mouth snapped shut at the sight of the empty box on the table. Dr Koekentapp was holding the ring in one hand and Sylvia’s left hand in his other. Their eyes were locked with promise. Mrs Levy held her breath as the ring slipped like an azure flame onto Sylvia’s finger. Sylvia’s eyes blazed as she stared at her hand and then slowly held it up for her mother to see.
‘I’m really engaged,’ she said rapturously, while Mrs Levy, without need of scales or lenses, performed an instantaneous jeweller’s evaluation. ‘I’m actually going to get married,’ Sylvia continued.
Mrs Levy didn’t hear her. She was staring in astonishment at Dr Koekentapp.
‘But where did you get such a ring?’ she managed. ‘Not from Yankel Cohen?’
‘It belonged to my mother,’ Dr Koekentapp said softly, ‘and her mother’s mother before her. My father gave it to me last week. He’s kept it all these years since her death – since my birth.’
For a few seconds, Mrs Levy allowed her face to reflect tribute to tragedy, but her enthusiasm, relieved of harangue, religious circumstance and family disbelief, would not be denied. ‘A diamond heirloom! A tradition! A guarantee! Mazeltov!’ she screamed and rushed to hug him. Halfway through the hug, a thought struck her, a thought so dulcet, so smacking of sweet revenge, that she stiffened with expectation. Mrs Levy confronted her family. ‘Sylvia, behave like a wife! Give your future husband a kiss! Aaron, give our son-in-law a drink! I am going to phone the critic! I am going to phone Naomi!’
Even before Levy could shake Dr Koekentapp’s hand, Mrs Levy was dialling. While Levy poured the drinks, Mrs Levy ogled Dr Koekentapp with proprietary delight.
‘The maid answered the phone,’ she confided with one hand over the mouthpiece. ‘I’m still waiting for Naomi.’ Her expression changed to one of intense anticipation as Mrs Finkelstein’s voice came through the receiver. ‘Hello, Naomi,’ Mrs Levy said, ‘I’m sorry to phone at supper time, but I’ve got some very, very important news.’
Dr Koekentapp shook his head bemusedly when Mrs Levy spat three times and said that of course no one had died.
‘It’s about Sylvia,’ she went on. ‘No, she’s not sick. She’s engaged! What? To Dr Koekentapp, of course. To whom else did you think? You should see the diamond. It’s a Koekentapp–Levy family heirloom, you know. A blue-white. Well, I really haven’t had time to look at it properly but, at a rough guess, I’d say at least 2.36 carats; 2.34 minimum. The ring? Eighteen carats definitely. Of course it’s worth a fortune. But I am sure you will be the first one to agree with me when I say that, for my Sylvia, nothing is good enough.’ Mrs Levy winked conspiratorially at Dr Koekentapp to soften the blow of his implied worthlessness, then returned her attention to the telephone. ‘Yes, now the engagement is definitely official. The wedding? In November. What? Me?’ Mrs Levy’s expression was one of utter joy. She was oblivious to everything except personal delight. Her eyes closed for a moment, then opened wide. ‘Naomi, now that you just happen to mention it, I’ll be wearing silk. Pink silk.’