CHECKMATE

For Moinuous and Namredef

Ola, ola, ola, bola, bola, bola. This is not exactly Parsifal. Moinous and Namredef like Parsifal. After a lot of singing, there is a lot of dying. “I don’t want to go to Dachau,” I tell them. I just want the singing. Namredef blurts at me and almost tells me to go fuck myself. “Don’t get so worked up,” he says, “I’m Jewish too, you know,” he further says. “Ya, sure,” I say, and start thinking about what would have happened to Malcolm X’s philosophy had he gone to Europe to visit the old concentration camps instead of Mecca. I’m getting twofold vibrations. I wonder if Federman’s family had a brief encounter with Max Ernst and Peggy Guggenheim while in there, at that place, the place that Wagner never wanted to mention. Peggy and Max got out. Then Max married Peggy and then he married that American who still wants a lot of colors in her dreams. I see them playing chess in one of Inverarity’s framed photographs. Malcolm said: “Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.” Moinous and Namredef understand this very well, but only when pronounced in another language. They love their reactions to such statements to end with Halleluiah and Amen, but since they are more cultivated than most Baptists, they like an ending that goes Latin. Thus their favorite is: nec plus ultra. Oy, boy! Before the king goes into checkmate, the Queen gives him a kiss under their gazes. M & N approve.