another war
by Douglas Messerli
Moacyr Scliar The War in Bom Fim, translated from the Portuguese by David William Foster (Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech University, 2010)
Often described as the major Jewish author of
Brazil, Moacyr Scliar, who grew up in the South of the country in Porto Alegre,
died this year on February 27, soon after Texas Tech University had published
his earliest fiction, The War in Bom Fin
in English.
Originally published in 1972, this fiction appears, at first, to be a kind of magical realist tale of the mostly Jewish immigrant community of Bom Fim during World War II in the 1940s. And in that context the work, at times, might remind one of a kind of mix between Sholom Aleichem and Neil Simon, as the story weaves in and out of descriptions of the poor Jewish citizens and their lives, involving two young boys, their father Samuel, his loveable and somewhat resistant mare, Malke Tube, their fearless mother Shendl, and magical events that define this Yiddish-speaking society, including the omnipresence of Chagall and his “floating violinists,” whom the narrator transports to the streets of Porto Alegre along with the possibility of Kafka living nearby. On the other side of this somewhat nostalgic vision exists the games of the young brothers, Joel and Nathan, as they and their neighborhood friends imaginatively fight a war against the Nazis, who unknown to the adults, have invaded a nearby beach. With Joel as their leader, Nathan as a flying savior, and every child and beast at their side, the city of Porto Alegre is amazingly saved again and again, even when, at the end of the war, Hitler attempts to hide out in a nearby mansion.
This part of the story, which takes up a larger portion of the book,
presents a sort of wonderfully and innocently benign picture of the dying
Jewish community; but as the boys begin to grow up, and the older parents begin
to leave the neighborhood, things gradually turn grimmer, finally collapsing
into a series of absolute horrors that demonstrate that despite their primarily
symbolic battles with hatred, this community is affected as well by
anti-Semitism and the abandonment of social and religious values.
From the earliest pages of the book, moreover, there are clues that not
everything in Bom Fim is right. The local dog, Melâmpio, hates Jews, and barks
on winter nights to point the way to their house for Stukas and Messerschmitts.
The author’s insistence of mentioning—every time he describes the large
tree-lined Redenção Park in the middle of town—the benches of waiting pederasts
seems almost homophobic; and, ultimately, one of the children, Alberto, is
described as letting "himself be buggered." Rosa, a young girl, is
raped in the park and leaves home. With the end of the war, new shops and
high-rise apartments come to Bom Fim, making it more and more difficult for
Samuel to sell his meager wares from his cart.
But these are only the rumblings of far more terrifying events that
bring down the curtain on Scliar’s seemingly rhapsodic recollections. The
younger, frailer brother, Nathan, suddenly dies. Joel’s mother goes insane and
is locked away in an institution. His father, Samuel, is grotesquely trapped
under his beloved mare, and must disembowel the beast to escape. Joel, himself,
leaves Bom Fim as he becomes increasingly assimilated into a non-Jewish world,
and ends up selling jewelry. One by one the poor homes of Bom Fim are torn down
to be replaced by newer and larger structures.
Near to where old Samuel now lives is a German bartender, who, trying to
keep a low profile, endures the occasional tirades of Samuel and other Jewish
customers. For his birthday, however, his two reprehensible sons, capture
Samuel, hoping to show him off their father, as they threaten to burn him as in
the Nazi death camps. The terrified old man attempts to run off, but falls,
hitting his head, and dies. To hide the crime, the sons cut up the body into
pieces at the very moment that their mulatto mother returns home from a night
of sexual pleasures, and, witnessing the pieces of meat before them, is
insistent that they continue with what she perceives to be a barbecue. Inviting
several other friends, she, her friends, and the speechless, now sickened
brothers, sit down to a cannibal feast.
In another part of the city, Joel attempts to entice a wealthy young
girl to have sex. Ultimately, realizing that any relationship with her will be
impossible, he steals a car and, in with a strong sense of nostalgia and
self-pity, determines to visit his father to talk in Yiddish with him about the
old times. So ends Scliar’s memorial to his Jewish past, none of which now
appears to be salvageable or to represent any possible salvation.
Joel’s ending realization that “the war is over,” may also signify his
inability to perceive that another war—a war to win back his heritage and
meaning—has just begun.
Los
Angeles, May 23, 2011
Reprinted from Rain Taxi (Summer 2011).
