Philip Roth - The Professor of Desire

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Contents

For Claire Bloom

Temptation comes to me first in the conspicuous personage of Herbie Bratasky, social director, bandleader, crooner, comic, and m.c. of my familys mountainside resort hotel. When he is not trussed up in the elasticized musclemans swim trunks which he dons to conduct rumba lessons by the side of the pool, he is dressed to kill, generally in his two-tone crimson and cream-colored loafer jacket and the wide canary-yellow trousers that taper down to enchain him just above his white, perforated, sharpies shoes. A fresh slice of Black Jack gum is at the ready in his pocket while another is being savored, with slow-motion sassiness, in what my mother derisively describes as Herbies yap. Below the stylishly narrow alligator belt and the gold droop of key chain, one knee works away inside his trousers, Herbie keeping time to hides he alone hears being beaten in that Congo called his brain. Our brochure (from fourth grade on composed by me, in collaboration with the owner) headlines Herbie as our Jewish Cugat, our Jewish Krupaall rolled into one!; further on he is described as a second Danny Kaye, and, in conclusion, just so that everyone understands that this 140-pound twenty-year-old is not nobody and Kepeshs Hungarian Royale is not exactly nowhere, as another Tony Martin.

Our guests appear to be nearly as mesmerized by Herbies shameless exhibitionism as I am. A newcomer will have barely settled into a varnished wicker rocker on the veranda before one of the old-timers arrived from the hot city the previous week starts giving him the lowdown on this wonder of our tribe. And wait till you see the tan on this kid. Hes just got that kind of skinnever burns, only tans. And from the first day in the sun. This kid has got skin on him right out of Bible times.

Because of a damaged eardrum, our drawing cardas it pleases Herbie to call himself, particularly into the teeth of my mothers disapprovalis with us throughout the Second World War. Ongoing discussion from the rocking chairs and the card tables as to whether the disability is congenital or self-inflicted. The suggestion that something other than Mother Nature might have rendered Herbie unfit to fight Tojo, Mussolini, and Hitlerwell, I am outraged, personally mortified by the very idea. Yet, how tantalizing to imagine Herbie taking a hatpin or a toothpick in his own handstaking an ice pick!and deliberately mutilating himself in order to outfox his draft board.

I wouldnt put it past him, says guest A-owitz; I wouldnt put anything past that operator. What a pistol he is! Come on, he did no such thing. That kid is a patriotic kid like anybody else. Ill tell you how he went half deaf like that, and ask the doctor here if Im not right: from banging on those drums, says guest B-owitz. Oh, can that kid play drums, says C-owitz; you could put him on the stage of the Roxy right nowand I think the only reason he aint is that, like you say, he doesnt hear right from the drums themselves. Still, says D-owitz, he dont say definitely yes or no whether he did it with some instrument or something. But thats the showman in him, keeping you hanging by suspense. His whole stock-in-trade is that hes crazy enough for anythingthats his whole act. Still, even to kid around about it dont strike me right. The Jewish people have got their hands full as it is. Please, a kid who dresses like that right down to the key chain, and with a build like that that he works on day and night, plus those drums, you think he is gonna do himself serious physical damage just out of spite to the war effort? I agree, one hundred percent. Gin, by the way. Oh, you caught me with my pants down, you s.o.b. What the hell am I holding these jacks for, will somebody tell me? Look, you know what you dont find? You dont find a kid who is good-looking like this one, who is funny like he is too. To take that kind of looks, and to be funny, and to go crazy like that with the drums, that to me is something special in the annals of show business. And what about at the pool? How about on the diving board? If Billy Rose laid eyes on him, clowning around in the water like that, hed be in the Aquacade tomorrow. And what about that voice on him? If only he wouldnt kid around with itif only he would sing serious. If that kid sang serious he could be in the Metropolitan Opera. If he sang serious, he could be a cantor, for Christ sakes, with no problem. He could break your heart. Just imagine for yourself what he would look like in a white tallis with that tan! And here at last I am spotted, working on a model R.A.F. Spitfire down at the end of the veranda rail. Hey, little Kepesh, come here, you little eavesdropper. Who do you want to be like when you grow up? Listen to thisstop shuffling the cards a minute. Whos your hero, Kepaleh?

I dont have to think twice, or at all. Herbie, I reply, much to the amusement of the men in the congregation. Only the mothers look a little dismayed.

Yet, ladies, who else could it be? Who else is so richly endowed as to be able to mimic Cugies accent, the shofar blowing, and, at my request, a fighter plane nose-diving over Berchtesgaden and the Fuehrer going crazy underneath? Herbies enthusiasm and virtuosity are such that my father must sometimes caution him to keep certain of his imitations to himself, unique though they may be. But, protests Herbie, my fart is perfect. Could be, for all I know, replies the boss, but not in front of a mixed crowd. But Ive been working on it for months. Listen! Oh, spare me, Bratasky, please. It just aint exactly what a nice tired guest wants to hear in a casino after his dinner. You can appreciate that, cant you? Or cant you? I dont get you sometimes, where your brain is. Dont you realize that these are people who keep kosher? Dont you get it about women and children? My friend, its simplethe shofar is for the High Holidays and the other stuff is for the toilet. Period, Herbie. Finished.

So he comes to imitate for me, his awestruck acolyte, the toots and the tattoos that are forbidden him in public by my Mosaic dad. It turns out that not only can he simulate the panoply of soundsranging from the faintest springtime sough to the twenty-one-gun salutewith which mankind emits its gases, but he can also do diarrhea. Not, he is quick to inform me, some poor shlimazel in its throesthat he had already mastered back in high schoolbut the full Wagnerian strains of fecal Sturm und Drang. I could be in Ripleys, he tells me. You read Ripleys, dont youthen judge for yourself! I hear the rasp of a zipper being undone. Then a most enviable stream belting an enamel bowl. Next the whoosh of the flush, followed by the gargle and hiccup of a reluctant tap commencing to percolate. And all of it emanating from Herbies mouth.

I could fall down and worship at his feet.

And catch this! This is two hands soaping one anotherbut seemingly in Herbies mouth. All winter long I would go into the toilet at the Automat and just sit there and listen. You would? Sure. I listen even to my own self every single time I go to the can. You do? But your old man, hes the expert, and to him its only one thingdirty! Period! adds Herbie, and in a voice exactly like my old mans!