The Thanatos Syndrome

Irish.”
    â€œBogs, Notre Dame, Pat O’Brien, begorra—”
    â€œOkay. Blacks.”
    â€œBlacks?”
    â€œNegroes.”
    â€œBlacks, Africa, niggers, minority, civil rights—”
    â€œOkay. Jew.”
    â€œIsrael, Bible, Max, Sam, Julius, Hebrew, Hebe, Ben—”
    â€œRight! You see!” He is smiling and nodding and making fists in his pockets. I realize that he is doing isometrics in his pockets.
    â€œSee what?”
    â€œJews!”
    â€œWhat about Jews?” I say after a moment.
    â€œPrecisely!”
    â€œPrecisely what?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œWhat about Jews?”
    â€œWhat do you think about Jews?” he asks, cocking an eye.
    â€œNothing much one way or the other.”
    â€œMay I continue my demonstration, Doctor?”
    â€œFor one minute.” I look at my watch, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
    â€œMay I ask who Max, Sam, Julius, and Ben are?”
    â€œMax Gottlieb is my closest friend and personal physician. Sam Aaronson was my roommate in medical school. Julius Freund was my training analyst at Hopkins. Ben Solomon was my fellow detainee and cellmate at Fort Pelham, Alabama.”
    â€œVery interesting.”
    â€œHow’s that?”
    â€œDon’t you see?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œUnlike the other test words, what you associated with the word Jew was Jews, Jews you have known. Isn’t that interesting?”
    â€œYes,” I say, pursing my mouth in a show of interest.
    â€œWhat you associated with the word sign Irish were certain connotations, stereotypical Irish stuff in your head. Same for Negro. If I had said Spanish, you’d have said something like guitar, castanets, bullfights, and such. I have done the test on dozens. Thus, these word signs have been evacuated, deprived of meaning something real. Real persons. Not so with Jews.”
    â€œSo?”
    He’s feeling so much better that he’s doing foot exercises, balancing on the ball of one foot, then the other. Now, to my astonishment, he is doing a bit of shadowboxing, weaving and throwing a few punches.
    â€œThat’s the only sign of God which has not been evacuated by an evacuator,” he says, moving his shoulders. “What sign is that?”
    â€œJews.”
    â€œJews?”
    â€œYou got it, Doc.” He sits, gives the azimuth a spin like a croupier who has raked in all the chips.
    â€œGot what?”
    â€œYou see the point.”
    â€œWhat’s the point?”
    He leans close, eyes alight, “The Jews—cannot—be—subsumed.”
    â€œCan’t be what?”
    â€œSubsumed.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œSince the Jews were the original chosen people of God, a tribe of people who are still here, they are a sign of God’s presence which cannot be evacuated. Try to find a hole in that proof!”
    I try—that is, I act as if I am trying.
    â€œYou can’t find a hole, can you?” he says triumphantly.
    â€œBut, Father, the Jews I know are not religious. They either do not believe in God or, like me, they don’t attach any significance beyond—”
    â€œPrecisely!”
    â€œPrecisely?”
    â€œPrecisely. Probatur conclusion as St. Thomas would say.” He seems to have finished.
    â€œRight,” I say, reaching for the rung of the trapdoor. I think I know what to tell Father Placide.
    â€œHold it!” He waves an arm out to the wide world. “Name one other thing out there which cannot be subsumed.”
    â€œI can’t.”
    â€œPine tree?”
    â€œHow do you mean, pine tree?”
    â€œThat pine tree can be subsumed under the classes of trees called conifers, right?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œTry to subsume Jews under the classes of mankind, Caucasians, Semites, whatever. Go ahead, try it.”
    â€œExcuse me, Father, but I really—”
    â€œDo your friends still consider themselves Jews?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou see. It does not matter whether they believe. Believe or not, they are still Jews. And what are Jews if not the actual people originally chosen by God?”
    â€œExcuse me, Father, but is it not also part of Christian belief that the Jews did not accept Jesus as the Messiah and that therefore—”
    â€œMakes no difference!” exclaims the priest, throwing a punch as if this were the very objection he had been waiting for.
    â€œIt