The Finkler Question Read Online Free PDF Page B

example, when they weren't listening to music, they had discussed the Middle East, Treslove staying out of it because he believed he had no right to an opinion on a subject which wasn't, at least in the way it was to Sam and Libor, any business of his. But did they truly know more than he did - and if they did, how come they disagreed about every aspect of the subject - or were they simply unabashed by their own ignorance?
    'Here we go,' Finkler would say whenever the question of Israel arose, 'Holocaust, Holocaust,' even though Treslove was certain that Libor had never mentioned the Holocaust.
    It was always possible, Treslove conceded, that Jews didn't have to mention the Holocaust in order to have mentioned the Holocaust. Perhaps they were able by a glance to thought-transfer the Holocaust to one another. But Libor didn't look as though he were thought-transferring Holocausts.
    And Libor, in his turn, would say, 'Here we go, here we go, more of the self-hating Jew stuff,' even though Treslove had never met a Jew, in fact never met anybody, who hated himself less than Finkler did.
    Thereafter they went at it as though examining and shredding each other's evidence for the first time, whereas Treslove, who knew nothing, knew they'd been saying the same things for decades. Or at least since Finkler had gone to Oxford. At school, Finkler had been so ardent a Zionist that when the Six Day War broke out he tried to enlist in the Israeli air force, though he was only seven at the time.
    'You've misremembered what I told you,' Finkler corrected Treslove when he reminded him of that. 'It was the Palestinian air force I tried to enlist for.'
    'The Palestinians don't have an air force,' Treslove replied.
    'Precisely,' Finkler said.
    Libor's position with regard to Israel with three 'r's and no 'l' - Isrrrae - was what Treslove had heard described as the lifeboat pos-ition. 'No, I've never been there and don't ever want to go there,' he said, 'but even at my age the time might not be far away when I have nowhere else to go. That is history's lesson.'
    Finkler did not allow himself to use the word Israel at all. There was no Israel, there was only Palestine. Treslove had even heard him, on occasions, refer to it as Canaan. Israelis, however, there had to be, to distinguish the doers from the done-to. But whereas Libor pronounced Israel as a holy utterance, like the cough of God, Finkler put a seasick 'y' between the 'a' and the 'e' - Isra y elis - as though the word denoted one of the illnesses for which his father had prescribed his famous pill.
    'History's lesson!' he snorted. 'History's lesson is that the Israyelis have never fought an enemy yet that wasn't made stronger by the fight. History's lesson is that bullies ultimately defeat themselves.'
    'Then why not just wait for that to happen?' Treslove tentatively put in. He could never quite get whether Finkler resented Israel for winning or for being about to lose.
    Though he detested his fellow Jews for their clannishness about Israel, Finkler couldn't hide his disdain for Treslove for so much as daring, as an outsider, to have a view. 'Because of the blood that will be spilled while we sit and do nothing,' he said, spraying Treslove with his contempt. And then, to Libor, 'And because as a Jew I am ashamed.'
    'Look at him,' Libor said, 'parading his shame to a Gentile world that has far better things to think about, does it not, Julian?'
    'Well,' Treslove began, but that was as much of what the Gentile world thought as either of them cared to hear.
    'By what right do you describe me as "parading" anything?' Finkler wanted to know.
    But Libor persisted blindly. 'Don't they love you enough for the books you write them? Must they love you for your conscience as well?'
    'I am not seeking anyone's love. I am seeking justice.'
    'Justice? And you call yourself a philosopher! What you are seeking is the warm glow of self-righteousness that comes with saying the word. Listen to me - I used