Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [33]
“How about crowd psychology in the Sahara?”
“Wonderful,” Belbo said.
Diotallevi nodded. “You should join us. The kid’s got talent, eh, Jacopo?”
“Yes, I saw that right away. Last night he constructed some moronic arguments with great skill. But let’s continue. What did we put in the Oxymoronics department? I can’t find my notes.”
Diotallevi took a slip of paper from his pocket and regarded me with friendly condescension. “In Oxymoronics, as the name implies, what matters is self-contradiction. That’s why I think it’s the place for Urban Planning for Gypsies.”
“No,” Belbo said. “Only if it were Nomadic Urban Planning. The Adynata concern empirical impossibilities; Oxymoronics deal with contradictions in terms.”
“Maybe. But what courses did we put under Oxymoronics? Oh, yes, here we are: Tradition in Revolution, Democratic Oligarchy, Parmenidean Dynamics, Heraclitean Statics, Spartan Sybaritics, Tautological Dialectics, Boolean Eristic.”
I couldn’t resist throwing in “How about a Grammar of Solecisms?”
“Excellent!” they both said, making a note.
“One problem,” I said.
“What?”
“If the public gets wind of this, people will show up with manuscripts.”
“The boy’s sharp, Jacopo,” Diotallevi said. “Unwittingly, we’ve drawn up a real prospectus for scholarship. We’ve shown the necessity of the impossible. Therefore, mum’s the word. But I have to go now.”
“Where?” Belbo asked.
“It’s Friday afternoon.”
“Jesus Christ!” Belbo said, then turned to me. “Across the street are a few houses where Orthodox Jews live; you know, black hats, beards, earlocks. There aren’t many of them in Milan. This is Friday, and the Sabbath begins at sundown, so in the afternoon they start preparing in the apartment across the way: polishing the candlesticks, cooking the food, setting everything up so they won’t have to light any fires tomorrow. They even leave the TV on all night, picking a channel in advance. Anyway, Diotallevi here has a pair of binoculars; he spies on them with delight, pretending he’s on the other side of the street.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Our Diotallevi thinks he’s Jewish.”
“What do you mean, ‘thinks’?” Diotallevi said, annoyed. “I am Jewish. Do you have anything against that, Casaubon?”
“Of course not.”
“Diotallevi is not Jewish,” Belbo said firmly.
“No? And what about my name? Just like Graziadio or Dios-iaconte. A traditional Jewish name. A ghetto name, like Sholom Aleichem.”
“Diotallevi is a good-luck name given to foundlings by city officials. Your grandfather was a foundling.”
“A Jewish foundling.”
“Diotallevi, you have pink skin, you’re practically an albino.”
“There are albino rabbits; why not albino Jews?”
“Diotallevi, a person can’t just decide to be a Jew the way he might decide to be a stamp collector or a Jehovah’s Witness. Jews are born. Admit it! You’re a gentile like the rest of us.”
“I’m circumcised.”
“Come on! Lots of people are circumcised, for reasons of hygiene. All you need is a doctor with a knife. How old were you when you were circumcised?”
“Let’s not nitpick.”
“No, let’s. Jews nitpick.”
“Nobody can prove my grandfather wasn’t Jewish.”
“Of course not; he was a foundling. He could have been anything, the heir to the throne of Byzantium or a Hapsburg bastard.”
“He was found near the Portico d’Ottavia, in the ghetto in Rome.”
“But your grandmother wasn’t Jewish, and Jewish descent is supposed to be matrilineal...”
“And skipping registry reasons—and municipal ledgers can also be read beyond the letter—there are reasons of blood. The blood in me says that my thoughts are exquisitely Talmudic, and it would be racist for you