3
Saturday,
August 8, 1970
1953-54
After breakfast he accompanied Brigitte to
the garage and kissed her before she drove off to her meeting. A minute after
the gate closed behind her he heard the intercom buzzer, and the muffled voice of
Frau Schmidt as she answered it. He was just reentering the house.
Its the young lady, Herr
Doktor, she said.
Let her in, please. I just
have to go upstairs for a moment.
He went up in order to fetch
his camera. He was going to take the film that morning to Albers photo shop
for processing. He heard the front door open and shut.
When he went downstairs, his
camera slung over his shoulder, the girl was there.
Hello, he said in
English.
Shalom, she said and
went on in Hebrew. Are you Michael Wilner who was called Miki in Kibbutz
Refadim?
Yes, and I am still called
that, he said with a laugh.
I am Ora, she said,
reaching out her hand.
He took her hand. Ora who?
he asked.
It doesnt matter, she
said, breaking the handshake. I want to know if you remember Nili.
Nili Osher?
Yes.
Of course I remember. I
remember everyone I knew there.
Do you remember the last
time you saw her?
Of course. Just before I
left, in June 1952.
I was born on the eleventh
of March 1953, she said with a smile. She really was very pretty when she
smiled.
His first response to hearing
her birthdate was to calculate that she was seventeen. By what he remembered of
female university students, from his own student days and from the invited
lectures that he had recently been giving, he would have given her at least
twenty, as had Frau Schmidt, whose daughter Ingrid was that age. Only after a
few seconds did the meaning of the date hit him personally.
Are you Nilis daughter? he
asked. She continued to smile, saying nothing.
He, too, remained silent for
a while. Am I your father? he finally asked.
I have a mom and dad, she
said, sounding like a little girl. They adopted me when I was a baby, she
went on, now sounding very adult. I always knew I was adopted. They are much
older than the parents of my friends and I dont look at all like either one of
them, but it never mattered. They are modest people, they own a little grocery
store in Jerusalem, and they work hard, but they always had money for whatever I
needed, or whatever I wanted, even if I didnt need it: clothes and Ive
always liked pretty clothes, even when I was a little girl and shoes and
books and a bicycle and cosmetics and trips and so on. At first it seemed
normal, but when I got into high school I noticed that most other kids couldnt
afford the things that I took for granted. I began to wonder, but not too
much.
She paused. He wondered why
she was telling him all that.
Come and sit down, he said,
pointing in the direction of the breakfast room. Would you like some juice?
Sure, she said. He called
out to Frau Schmidt, asking her to bring two glasses of orange juice. When she
did so, he said to Ora, Fresh juice, from Israeli oranges.
She took a long sip of juice.
Let me go on, she said. Last year, on my sixteenth birthday, I came home
from school, and my parents were there they had closed the store for the
afternoon with a guest, a very beautiful, very elegant lady, wearing the kind
of clothes that one never saw in Israel. Shalom, Ora, she said to me, and
suddenly all became clear to me. I am Nili, she said, or rather I was Nili,
and she told me what her name was.
What is her name? he asked.
Im sorry, I dont think she
would want me to tell you that.
All right, he said.
So I said to her, You are
my natural mother, arent you? and I went to shake her hand. She held my hand
for a long time, then both hands, and then she said, These are your parents.
They raised you. I gave you life, yes, but I had to leave you. I see that I
left you in good hands. I was very young, only sixteen, just as you are now, so
youll understand. I said, I understand. She said, Im very happy to see
you, what a lovely young woman youve grown up to be, etcetera etcetera.
What did she tell you about
herself?
That she was living in
London, and she wanted me to spend the summer with her. I was thrilled. London!
Mary Quant! The Beatles! The Rolling Stones! I looked at my parents to see if
they approved, but it had all already been arranged. So I spent last summer in
London with Nili, and I had a wonderful time. She knows a lot of important
people, and I got to go to parties and to clubs, and I got to meet
But you
dont want to know whom I met. One day we were walking by a bookstore, and
there in the window was a book called The Long Seventh Day by Michael Wilner,
and Nili pointed at it and said, Do you see that name? We called him Miki. I
asked her why she was telling me that, and she said Can you guess? So I
guessed.
She paused for another draft
of juice. He, meanwhile, had been sipping his slowly.
When I read that your book
was coming out in Israel and you were going to give lectures, I followed you
around. I wasnt ready to approach you yet. But this summer Im traveling
around Europe with my boyfriend hes older and has already finished his
military service and when we made our plan I insisted that we make a stop in
Hamburg, for as long as it took.
Where are you staying?
We were staying at the youth
hostel, but now that Ive met you, were ready to go on.
I dont know what to tell
you
he said, realizing that she had not asked him any question about him.
I know, she said, I should
have written you to prepare you
No, he said, this way its
more
more dramatic, the way it would be in an old-fashioned novel. But I would
like to have a chance to get to know you, and for you to get to know me, and my
wife
I hear that your wife is a
famous actress here in Germany.
Yes.
I saw her driving out. She
looks like Brigitte Bardot.
I know.
Anyway, she said, it will
have to be another time. My boyfriend is waiting for me at the station.
Which one?
The little station, here in
how do you say it
Blankenese, the one that is one kilometer from here. Were
going to Copenhagen today.
Let me give you a lift to
the station, he said. He had a pretext ready in case she declined the offer
the errand to the photo shop, which was near the station but she accepted
readily, asking only to use the bathroom before leaving. Since Frau Schmidt was
cleaning the one downstairs, he led her to the one in the upstairs hallway.
What a beautiful house! she
said as they came down the stairs.
The book that you saw in
London helped pay for it. Did you read it?
Some parts, she said. But
I borrowed it, I didnt buy it, so I didnt help you to buy the house.
He laughed. Its the
American edition that brought the money.
But doesnt your wife make a
lot of money as an actress?
Yes, but when it came to
buying a house we wanted us both to contribute equally.
Thats nice, he said.
Just before they got into his
car, he remembered his camera. May I have a picture to remember you by?
Sure, she said, and she
flashed her lovely smile, squinting slightly from the sun in her face, as he
snapped.
Along the way she said, Its
beautiful here, but Im curious how a Jew like you can be happy in Germany.
I am not a Jew like me, he
said, trying not to sound defensive. Im just me, who happens to be a Jew.
But you went through the
Shoah
Precisely, he said just as
they reached the station plaza. Maybe some day Ill get a chance to tell you
more about myself.
Yes, she said, I would
like that, too. We will be coming through Hamburg again, so give me your
telephone number, and I will call you.
He hesitated. Which number
should he give her? The one for the answering machine or the one for his
private line? He was reluctant to give the latter to anyone he didnt know and
trust. But if she called the answering machine and if she was staying at a
youth hostel then there might not be a number where he could call her back. She
was a stranger, true, but she was also his flesh and blood; he was experiencing
the realization of that fact almost as a physical sensation. He fished a slip
of paper from the glove compartment, wrote his private number on it, and gave
it to her. She smiled and put it in her jeans pocket. Good-by! she said as
she stepped out of the car and began walking toward the station. He looked up
to see if anyone was obviously waiting for her, but saw no one.
Have a good journey, he
called after her. She turned and smiled
again, and kept walking. He turned his car around.
* * *
With Brigitte away in Hanover, he had a chance to get
closer to his fellow Oberprimaner (while the school did not officially use the
traditional Latin designations of the grades, pupils used them among
themselves). He had first met most of them when he began attending the school
in the ninth grade, but he had not had much contact with them since becoming
close with Brigitte.
Among his classmates when he
began school, one of the first after Brigitte to make an impression on him
was a girl named Ulla. What struck him about her was her extreme thinness. Her
breasts seemed unless she stuffed her brassiere, as he suspected she might
to be of normal fullness, but the rest of her body, from her face to her
calves, reminded him of the walking cadavers who had peopled the concentration
camp and who were called Mussulmans, except that the skin that covered her
bones seemed quite healthy. The triangular shape of her bony face was actually
attractive, and if it had been paired with a normal body she might even have
been pretty, but as she was he found her appearance repulsive.
As the new school year began,
he began to have more conversations with fellow pupils who had expressed
curiosity about his past as a concentration-camp survivor, which he neither hid
nor flaunted. The nuanced, sometimes humorous way in which he talked about it
made them comfortable, and even open to talking frankly about their parents
involvement with the Nazi regime.
Among his best friends were a
boy named Bernd and a girl named Karin, who had been boyfriend and girlfriend
since the tenth grade. They, in turn, formed part of a circle that included
Ulla. He was surprised by how flirtatious she was, and even more so by how
responsive the boys were to her flirting. He felt uncomfortable in her
presence, and therefore he generally refrained from joining the conversation
groups in which she took part. Her laughter was loud, and her presence in a
group could be detected a good distance away.
The autumn vacation, in the
second part of October, was his first chance to spend some time with Brigitte
other than her one-or-two-day home visits. He stayed with her in Hanover, in
the apartment she shared with fellow students at the Academy, but the communal
setting which reminded him of the kibbutz and her lack of free time, due to
readings and rehearsals, did not leave much room or time for the kind of
intimacy he craved.
On returning to Bad Harzburg,
he noticed a distinct change in Ulla; she was no longer the bony presence that
he had come to avoid. Her calves were still thin, but there seemed to be flesh
on her hips, waist and sides.
When he saw Bernd and Karin
walking together after school, he approached them.
Ulla is looking different,
he said.
Bernd and Karin exchanged
smiles. How so? asked Karin.
Well, a little fuller, Miki
said.
It seems she lost a game of
Vatican roulette, Bernd said.
Miki had no idea of what that
meant. Whats that? he asked.
You know, Karin explained,
the calendar method, that the Pope recommends.
You mean Knaus-Ogino?
Yes, said Karin, thats
the technical name.
Then why is it called
Vatican roulette? Miki asked.
It isnt very reliable,
Bernd said.
Especially if one is like
Ulla, Karin filled in, with irregular periods.
Miki had to think for a
moment. So, he asked, is she pregnant? Is that why she looks different?
Bernd and Karin smiled at
each other and nodded to Miki. They had reached the intersection where Karin
would turn to go home. She gave Bernd a quick kiss and said Tschüss! as she
rounded the corner.
As the boys continued on the
main street, Bernd asked Miki, Have you ever played it?
Once, Miki said. It was
the girls idea.
Did anything happen?
I dont know, said Miki.
It was when I was in Israel, about a year and a half ago.
And you havent heard
anything from her? Then I think youre safe.
Does anyone know who Ullas
I mean who the father is?
I think Karin knows, but she
hasnt told me yet.
So, will Ulla have an
abortion?
No, she cant. Shes
Catholic. Thats why its called Vatican roulette.
* * *
He parked his car directly in
front of the photo shop. Fräulein Albers, the owners spinsterish daughter, was
running the shop that morning, and she promised Miki that the developing and
printing would be done in three quarters of an hour, if he wanted just one
9-by-13-centimeter print of each negative. He agreed, and decided to wait for
it. There was a café across the street from the shop, but he first walked to
the station and looked around to see if Ora was still there; she was gone. He
returned to the café, went inside to order coffee, picked up the cafés copy of
the Morgenpost, and sat down at a sidewalk table. It was now almost ten
oclock. Brigitte would, in all likelihood, be having her mid-morning coffee at
her meeting, perhaps this very minute. He
began to leaf through the paper. He had already glanced at the headlines at
home, and so he immediately turned to the Germany/World Panorama section and
searched for a Stuttgart dateline. He quickly found it.
7 August. In
the matter of the murdered Axel Hemme, a resident of the village of
Unterriexingen, police authorities have determined that the victim, a refugee
from the former Sudetenland, is not the same as the onetime SS officer Axel
Hemme, who disappeared from sight after the Second World War and has not been
located. The Stuttgart States Attorneys Office has, however, not ruled out
that the act may be a revenge killing based on a case of mistaken identity, and
has announced that one line of the investigation would proceed on that basis.
Thats a relief,
he thought. There will be no need to call Wehrle, at least not right away.
Passing to the sports
section, he saw an item that caught his attention: it was reported that Uwe
Seeler the great Uwe, the hero of Hamburg, but also Mikis friend would
shortly be announcing his retirement from the West German national team. To be
sure, in the World Cup that had recently ended, as well as in the Bundesliga
season, he had been upstaged by that prancing Bavarian, Gerd Müller, but as a
sportsman in the true sense of the word Uwe had no peer.
He relived his memory of that
night in June, when the semifinal between the West German and Italian teams was
played in the afternoon in Mexico City, and he watched the match in a bar
in Venice because it was night there and Brigitte, who had just finished
shooting a film, was exhausted she was having her period and needed to
sleep. Italy had scored an early goal and kept the lead despite relentless
attacks by the Germans, who were clearly in better physical condition, until
Schnellinger equalized the score in the ninetieth minute.
He expected groans of
disappointment from the Italians in the bar, but what he heard to his amazement
was applause and the comment E ben meritato, Its well deserved. That
display of sportsmanship was to him, personally, the highlight of the game and
indeed of the entire tournament. The overtime in which Müller scored two
goals but the Italians managed three, earning the right to be blasted by Pelé
and Company in the final was an anticlimax. But Uwes sincere embrace of the
Italian captain after the final whistle was also something to remember.
He checked the time; the
photos would not be ready for another twenty minutes.
He had run out of
distractions. He could no longer block from his mind the fact that he was, in
some strange sense that he had not yet come to fathom, a father, and had been
one for seventeen years, eighteen if gestation was included.
Animal species have various
patterns of reproduction, he thought. Some have monogamous couples that tend to
their offspring together; there are even some in which only the father does so.
In yet others, the alpha male rules over a harem of females, and the young are
under his charge as well. But in most, the act of fertilization is a random
one, and the biological father has no connection with his progeny. In mankind,
all of these patterns are present. Most societies have developed a cultural
preference for monogamy, but
Stop philosophizing, Doctor
Wilner, he told himself. Look at yourself! Well, he was in a monogamous
pairing, but one that, as he knew and accepted from the outset, was to produce
no issue. Such an arrangement, he was sure, was uniquely human. But he had also
taken part in what was little more than a random mating, driven solely by
biological urges. Or had it really been that? He and Nili had been, during
those last few months, going out with each other exclusively, flouting the code
of their adolescent community. On his part, the biological urge had been the
only factor, since he had never stopped loving Brigitte. But what about Nili?
What had motivated her to play Vatican roulette, as Bernd had called it, on
that farewell occasion? Or had she lied to him, and intended to have a child?
If so, why? As a means of getting away from the kibbutz, where she no longer
fitted in? At the time, he remembered, he was expected to come back to Refadim.
What if he had returned to find a pregnant Nili? But kibbutz policy in such
cases was to provide an abortion. Why, then, did Nili have her baby? Did she
leave the kibbutz? There was some investigating to be done. And Nili had not
made things easier by changing her identity. So now he had two unrelated
mysteries to solve: Axel Hemme and Nili Osher.
The forty-five minutes were
up. Fräulein Albers was just placing the prints in the envelope as he walked
into the shop. He paid and thanked her, and, as he walked out, he looked at the
last three photos he had taken. He liked the one of Ora; it conveyed enough of
her personality that Brigitte would get a sense of her by looking at it.
Regarding the ones he had taken of Brigitte on the bed, she had been right; the
fraction of a second that he had spent on focusing had cut down the spontaneity
of her pose. He would look into getting a Pentax or a Nikkor.
During his drive home he
imagined several scenarios for telling Brigitte about Ora; each one began with
showing her the photo.
At home, seated at his desk,
he looked at the rest of his photos, and was pleased with them on the whole. He
then looked at his mail, and decided to open the envelope from Wegner first.
The envelope contained only
one letter. It was from Israel, and the sender was H. Korn, with a post-office
box in Jerusalem. He opened it nonchalantly, and was surprised to see that it
was in German, and written in the old German script that only older people
still used. It was written on both sides of one sheet, and when he turned to
the second page, he was startled at seeing the signature. It was Hanna.
He read the letter slowly.
4th July, 1970
Dear Michael,
I will try to keep this
letter short, and limited to facts. As you will see, we will soon have an
opportunity to exchange feelings, views and opinions.
First, some facts about
me. When I reached the age of sixty-two and the time to retire from teaching, I
decided to make a complete break with the kibbutz and move to Jerusalem. I
have, for a number of years, been growing ever more dismayed (all right, I am
writing about feelings after all) with the rightward drift of Mapam and of the
Kibbutz Artzi, especially after Mapam joined in the expansionist policy
represented by Golda Meir and her friends. I have also decided to reclaim my
original name.
Now, about you. When you
wrote me that you were not coming back to Israel, I of course informed the
school, and the school informed Refadim. The reaction was as though you had
committed high treason. Your name was wiped from the collective memory, and I
would have been guilty by association if I had replied to your letter. You must
remember that Stalin was not only still alive in the flesh, but his spirit
still hovered over the kibbutz; the news from Prague and Moscow was just
beginning to come in, and it took a while to digest.
When, many years later,
you were becoming known as a writer, any mention of you in Al Hamishmar would
be like something that Pravda might write about Trotsky. But on my occasional
visits to Jerusalem I would sometimes look at a copy of Haolam Hazeh, and
there I got a very different impression of you. I began to feel a certain pride
(feelings again!) in having contributed to the wisdom that I saw in you.
I happened to be in
Jerusalem when your book The Long Seventh Day came out in Hebrew, and a
friend lent me a copy. To say that I was impressed is a great understatement. I
ordered a copy of the German original sent to me in care of my Jerusalem
friend, and once again I felt proud. I began to sympathize with your point of
view about Israel and its neighbors, and this was what led to my eventual
leaving of the kibbutz.
The last result of the
changes that I have undergone is that I feel once again ready to visit my
hometown, Hamburg. I will be arriving on the 11th of August, and I will be
staying at the good old Vier Jahreszeiten; my travel agent, Joseph Lauer, is
very clever and got me an excellent rate.
I am very much looking
forward to seeing you again, and to meeting your beautiful and famous wife.
Hanna
The eleventh of
August! he exclaimed inwardly, almost out loud. Only three days from today! How
will I be able to contact her?
He looked again at the date
of the letter; it was July fourth. Had she delayed mailing it? A glance at the
postmark on the envelope told him she had not: it was 6.7.70. Clearly, the
letter had sat on someones desk at Wegners for almost a month.
It struck him with blinding
force that Hanna could give him information about Nili. It was not that he
expected Hanna to remember all of her old students, but no one could forget a
girl as striking as Nili Osher.
How could he get in touch
with her? No telephone number was given. Besides, she might not be in Israel
any more; her clever travel agent might have arranged a trip for her that
included other places in Europe besides Hamburg.
The travel agent! He would
try to find out if there is a listing in some directory for a travel agent
named Joseph Lauer, so that he could contact him in order to find out Hannas
itinerary. But this was Saturday; any office in Israel that might give him such
information would be closed. He would like to be there when she arrived, but
where? Would she be coming by plane or by train? If by train, then the most
convenient station for the hotel would be Dammtor and not Hauptbahnhof, and as
a native Hamburger she was sure to know that, but people forget things. Besides,
he did not know where she would be coming from, nor what time. And she might be
flying in
He would call Israel
information tomorrow and find out if there is a listing for a travel agent
named Lauer in Jerusalem. If not, he would call the Israeli travel agents
association and get the name of Lauers agency
It seemed to him that his
past was pressing upon him like some sort of three-jawed vise there must be
such a tool, he thought with Hemme, Nili (in the form of Ora) and Hanna each
coming from a different direction, like the dreams that beset him when he slept
in what had been Renates bed.
* * *
During his thirteenth-grade year at the high school, Hanna
was on his mind a lot. There was disappointment over her not having replied to
his letters, but there was also the sense that much of what he was being taught
in preparation for the Abitur, especially in German and in history, he had
already learned from Hanna. And not only in substance, but in style as well.
As far as he knew, none of
his teachers was a graduate of Hamburg University. Perhaps, he speculated,
there was a certain style or spirit that was common to the universities of
northern Germany in the late twenties and early thirties. In Hamburg, as Hanna
had told him, the spirit had been informed by the presence of the many Jews who
were there from the founding: Cassirer, Aby Warburg, William Stern, Erwin
Panofsky. It was their influence, she further told him, that stimulated her and
her fellow students to think for themselves, to challenge established
authority, even to argue with their professors. She thought that it might have
been their Jewish background, with its tradition of questioning, that kept them
from turning into the hallowed German stereotype of the authoritarian Herr
Professor.
Miki wondered if that
influence had spread across the Lüneburg Heath to Göttingen, and if any of its
spirit had survived the Nazi years. Most of all, he wondered if he would find
an academic environment similar to what Hanna had described to him. But what if
it turned out otherwise? Would he look for it at another university? Of course
not. Göttingen would be it. He could not be at a place that was not a short
train ride away from where Brigitte was.
* * *
Brigitte came home a little before noon. She took a quick
look at the photos that Miki presented her (he had previously removed the one
of Ora and placed it in a desk drawer), smiled approvingly, and said that while
the meeting had been successful she would do the series it had been tense,
and she would need to do twenty minutes of yoga before she could be good
company again.
I have a lot to tell you,
he said.
Give me a preview, she
said. He told her briefly about the letter from Hanna, and about his desire to
contact the Israeli travel agent. He had already decided to postpone, for now,
telling her about Ora, until after he had spoken with Hanna.
Maybe Billung can help, she
said.
Thats brilliant! he said.
Paul Billung, their travel agent, was a veteran of the business, into which he
had been born; he had inherited his agency from his father.
Go ahead, call him while I
get myself refreshed, she said as she kicked off her high-heeled shoes,
stepped into the slippers that were waiting for her at the foot of the stairs,
and went up.
This is Michael Wilner, he
said to the young woman who answered the telephone at the Billung agency. May
I speak to Doctor Billung, please? Paul Billung had obtained a doctorate in
geography before taking over his fathers business, and liked the fact
acknowledged.
Of course, Herr Doktor, here
he is. And then Paul Billungs voice said, Good day, Doctor Wilner. So, where
and when are we traveling this time?
This is not about my travel.
I need your help. I need to contact a travel agent in Israel. Do you have a
list of them?
Yes, but not complete. What
is this agents name?
Lauer, in Jerusalem.
Joseph Lauer?
Yes.
I know him very well. He
grew up in Hamburg, you know. It made sense that Hanna would use a fellow
Hamburger as her travel agent. He learned his business from my father, before
he moved to Palestine, and we still work together.
Do you happen to have his
private telephone number? Today is the Sabbath, and I wouldnt be able to reach
him at his agency today.
No, Billung laughed, we
are not that close. But what is this about? Perhaps I can help.
Well, he made travel
arrangements for someone I know, and I would like to contact that person. He
arranged for her to stay at the Vier Jahreszeiten here in Hamburg.
If he did that, it was
probably no, certainly through me. What is this persons name?
Hanna Korn.
Let me see. Yes, Frau Hanna
Korn, arriving on Tuesday from Vienna. So she was probably in Vienna at that
moment. At seventeen hours, on Lufthansa.
You wouldnt happen to know
where shes staying in Vienna?
I dont have that
information, but if I know Lauer, he puts up his clients at the Josefshof.
Thank you, Dr. Billung, you
help has been invaluable.
Its my pleasure, Dr.
Wilner. And let me give you Lauers agency telephone number. He did so. You
can call him tomorrow, he added, since Sunday in Israel
but you know that
already. By the way, if you didnt know Israel so well, then your arrangements
when you travel there would probably have been made by Lauer.
What an amazing coincidence.
Well, thank you again, Dr. Billung.
He opened the drawer and
sneaked another look at the picture of Ora. He tried to see if there was
anything in the girls face that seemed connected to the image he had of
himself, but she remained a stranger. He pondered the seeming lack of
resemblance when he heard Brigittes footsteps on the stairs. He replaced the
photo and closed the drawer.
So, did Billung help?
Brigitte asked.
More than you can imagine.
Dont underestimate my
imagination, she said with a laugh.
Youre right, he laughed
back at her, I should never do that. Let me just tell you that I know exactly
when shes arriving, and probably where she is right now.
And where is that?
In Vienna, at the Hotel
Josefshof.
I know that place, she
said. Its in the theater district, and I stayed there once when I played at
the Josefstadt. Billung booked it for me. Dont you remember? You called me
there.
Billung had, in fact, for
years been booking Brigittes travel whenever it was related to personal
engagements that had been arranged by her agent, Hetty Goldschmidt, and only in
the last few years did Miki entrust his own travel arrangements to him. At
first he let him book his flights but continued to reserve his own hotel rooms,
until the time that a hotel in Rome, which had been highly recommended by an
acquaintance who had previously stayed there (and by the Michelin guide as
well), turned out to be a dump. From then on, whenever his destinations were
fixed in advance, he let Billung book his hotels. In Israel, however, he needed
to move around freely, and continued to make his own arrangements.
Of course I remember, he
said. It was when I was in Israel with Leon. I called you there to wish you a
happy birthday and to let you know about his death. And I missed seeing you in The
Glass Menagerie.
Its a lovely old place, she said, but with creaky floors. She
took a few steps toward him, her throat making a convincing creaking sound with
each one. He laughed again. So, are you going to call her?
Yes, darling, he said. She
went out for a walk in the garden.
* * *
While there were direct trains between Bad Harzburg and
Hanover, by way of Hildesheim, they were the kind that stopped at every
station, and it often seemed more convenient to take a train to Braunschweig,
on the historic line that was opened in 1843 by the duke of the time the main
streets of Bad Harzburg are still named for the dukes of Brunswick and then
take the express, or else to take one to Kreiensen and continue to Hanover on
one that was coming from Göttingen, as Miki would be doing the following year.
He got to memorize the departure and arrival times of these trains, and became
so expert at reading timetables that Helga and her friends and acquaintances
anointed him as their private travel agent.
On his nineteenth birthday
Brigitte told him that, on the advice of a fellow student at the Academy, she
had gone to see to see a gynecologist named Dr. Krause, who specialized in
dysmenorrhea and who found a treatment for hers, so that her periods were no
longer painful. But when Miki asked her if this meant that they would no longer
need to abstain during those times she told him without further explanation
that no, the monthly times of abstinence would continue.
Shortly thereafter he
received a letter from Leon, inviting him to visit him and Fela in Montreal;
Leon would foot all the expenses. After a thorough study of maps and timetables
that he found in the municipal library, Miki made his own arrangements for that
trip: he would take the Gripsholm, which had just been taken over by the North
German Lloyd (and, as he found out once he was aboard, would shortly be
rechristened as the Berlin), from Bremerhaven to Halifax, and continue by a
Canadian National Railways train to Montreal. His return would be by a New York
Central train to New York, then aboard the Liberté (which had once been the
Bremen) to Le Havre, and finally back by train to Hanover by way of Paris
(where Brigitte would join him), Brussels and Cologne. Neither of them had ever
been in these places, and they would make stopovers there.
He went to Hamburg with his
brand-new West German passport to get the necessary visas from the consulates.
He had lived in Hamburg some years before, in a home for Jewish DP children in
a villa in Blankenese while Leon was in a spa in the Alps, but Brigitte, who
went with him, had not been there before. She fell in love with the city, and
vowed that some day she would live there. In a villa in Blankenese, of
course, Miki said. Why not? she seconded.
* * *
Frau Hanna Korn was indeed staying at the Josefshof, but
was out sightseeing, and would probably not be back until late that night, since
she was due to attend a concert that evening. He was about to leave his private
number for her to call back, but realized that if she did so at a time when
Brigitte was near him, he would not be able to ask her the questions about Nili
that he was so anxious to have answered. He therefore left his
answering-machine number, insisting that the number could be called at any time
of day or night, and the message that, in any case, he would meet her at the
airport upon her arrival.
It was only then that he remembered
that the mornings distractions had kept him from listening to the messages
that had gathered on the magnetic tape during the week.
When he rewound the tape and
began to play it, it turned out that there were, as usual, some confused
messages from callers who, unfamiliar with the new invention, left some
apologetic words and despite clear instructions, in Mikis voice, on the
outgoing message no callback number. There were three meaningful messages.
One was from Paeschke, asking him for an idea of when a first draft of the
essay would be ready, so that they would know its expected length and be able
to plan an issue around it, if necessary. Another was from the University of
Göttingen, reminding him that he was to give the lecture inaugurating the new
academic year two months hence, and requesting that he meet with the rector, as
previously agreed, on August 25th. The third caller did not identify himself,
but clearly addressed Michael Wilner and left a number for him to call. Miki
did not recognize the area code right away, but he wrote the number down for
future reference he did not usually respond to anonymous calls but this one
struck him as strangely ominous and, after rewinding the tape, walked out to
the garden to join Brigitte. Thinking about when to tell her about Ora was
foremost on his mind.
But when he joined her he
only asked how the meeting had gone. It turned out that preparations for the
series had gone further than she had believed. Directors, writers and costars
had already agreed, tentatively, during the week of their vacation.
Why tentatively? he asked.
Well
she said, putting on
a falsely modest smile.
Because it all depends on
you?
She smiled again to confirm
his surmise. She really is a star, he thought.
So, he asked, is it a done
deal?
Pretty much. I already have
a working script, and some preproduction work, here in Hamburg at NDR, starts
on Tuesday. But I still cant tell you much about it until ARD holds a press
conference, on the 25th.
Thats when I have a meeting
in Göttingen!
Well, I will have to be in
Frankfurt for the press conference. We can take the train together as far as
Göttingen. And then, if you watch television there, youll find out.
So what can you tell me now?
Will there be location work?
Yes, mainly in and around
Paris. Its a coproduction with French Television.
He wanted to know more
whether it would be made in both a German and a French version, for example
but held his tongue. The anxiety about telling her about Ora was beginning to
fade, and he felt an urge to get back to work. He did so, right after lunch,
when Brigitte went back to the garden to begin reading her script.
* * *
During her first year at the Academy, Brigitte did not
perform in any plays; she and her fellow first-year students only practiced
scenes, all from the classics. In the first semester, it was two-character
scenes: the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, the asp scene from Antony
and Cleopatra (in which she played Charmian rather than the queen), the
rose scene from Emilia Galotti, the Hamlet-Ophelia scene following the
soliloquy. In the second semester, it was scenes with two or three others, such
as the garden scene from Faust I and the letter scene from Minna von
Barnhelm (with Brigitte, for a change, as the maid Franciska rather than as
Minna).
Miki attended the all the
performances of these scenes, sometimes coming into Hanover only for a few
hours in order to do so. In the course of seeing her on stage, he became so
impressed with Brigittes comic talent that at one point he told her, I am
more than your lover, I am your fan!
He had seen her in Minna
von Barnhelm, which after all was a comedy. But when in the balcony scene,
in which there was no physical balcony, Brigitte came out, she leaned over an
imaginary railing and pantomimed holding on to it to keep from falling down,
making the audience of students laugh heartily. And in the Faust scene, in
which the part of Mephistopheles is clearly written as comical, it was
Brigittes interpretation that brought out the humorous side of Gretchen,
reducing Faust to a straight man.
During his train ride back to
Bad Harzburg after seeing that scene, he began to think that perhaps Goethe had
intended Faust as a comedy all along. In thirteenth-grade English, the book
that he was reading at the time was Ulysses, and he found it almost as
funny as Don Quixote. It occurred to him that a number of the worlds
most revered works of literature were comedies, starting with the one that
Dante frankly called a comedy, or perhaps even with the Odyssey. He
might write a paper on that some day.
Miki was not alone in being
impressed by Brigitte. She impressed her teachers enough that one of them, who
directed a touring company during a summer, offered her on the recommendation
of the director of the Norderney company, a friend of his her first
professional engagement, in Minna von Barnhelm. Brigitte knew her lines,
of course, but this production was quite different from the previous one. It
was in relatively modern dress; the action had been transposed from the Seven
Years War to the First World War, because, in the directors opinion, it was
the last period when the aristocratic values represented in the play honor,
fidelity to ones superiors still mattered. But when Brigitte, at her
pro-forma audition, presented a photograph of herself in rococo costume and
with her hair sporting the ringlets, the director insisted that she keep that
hairstyle.
At the time when Miki went to
Bremerhaven in order to sail on the Gripsholm, Brigitte was already in
rehearsals, and could not accompany him. He attended a rehearsal the night
before he left, and noticed the lack of rapport between Brigitte and the actor
playing Tellheim. In contrast to the vibrant performance he had seen two years
before, this time her comic gifts did not seem to find an outlet. He knew, of
course, that it was unfair to compare an early rehearsal with a finished play,
but he felt anxious. He had high hopes for his beloveds future, and wanted her
professional debut to be successful. He told her of his anxiety at their
farewell at the Hanover station, but she merely said, Dont worry, darling.
And she handed him a magazine.
He looked at it when he sat
down in his compartment, after the train began to move and after he had
finished waving at her through the window. It was obviously a womens fashion
magazine, bearing on its cover the photograph of a prim-looking young woman who
resembled Audrey Hepburn perhaps it was Audrey Hepburn wearing a cloche hat
and white gloves. But the magazines title was Brigitte! Was that why
she had given it to him? He could think of no other reason; why in the world
would he be interested in the kind of fashion featured there? The magazine, he
noticed by looking at the issue number, had begun appearing only recently. But
he also noticed that one of the pages had a paper clip attached to it, and when
he opened the magazine to that page, he found an article on hair styling, with
photographs of models displaying various styles, and one of those models was
none other than his Brigitte in her Minna style. No names were given, of
course.
* * *
He looked at what he had typed on the sheet in the
typewriter. To the right, on the desk, was La rebelión de las masas,
with paper clips on the pages containing lines that he would quote. He had not
bothered acquiring the German translation, which was first published in 1936.
He would translate as he went along.
The formation of modern mass movements was observed at
first hand by the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset (La rebelión de
las masas, The Revolt of the Masses). As regards the kind of person
who could join such a movement an hombre-masa or mass-man Ortega has this
to say:
The mass-man that this volume deals with has
emerged everywhere, a rapidly made type of man who is put together only on a
few poor abstractions and who therefore is identical from one end of Europe to
the other. To him is due the sad aspect of asphyxiating monotony that life
throughout the continent is taking on. This mass-man is the man who was
previously emptied of his own history, with no past inside him, and hence
docile to all the disciplines that are called international. More than a man,
he is only a shell of a man constituted by mere idola fori; he lacks an
inside, an inexorable and inalienable intimacy of his own, a self that cannot
be revoked. This is why he is always available to pretend to be anything. He
has only appetites, he believes that he has only rights and no obligations: he
is the man without the noblesse that obliges sine nobilitate snob.
Another end of a page. Another sheet quickly inserted.
As regards the mass movements that such a man could
join, Ortegas judgment is as follows:
Anyone can notice that, for years now,
strange things have started happening in Europe. To give a concrete example
of these strange things, I will name certain political movements, such as
syndicalism and fascism. It must not be said that they seem strange simply because
they are new. The enthusiasm for novelty is so inbred in the European as to
have produced the most restless history of any that are known. What is strange
about these new facts must therefore not be attributed to what is new about
them, but to the bizarre aspect of these novelties. Under the banners of
syndicalism and fascism there appears for the first time in Europe a type of
man who wants neither to give reasons nor to have reason on his side, but who
simply shows himself as resolved to impose his opinions. Here is what is new:
the right to have no reason, the reason of unreason.
And further:
To have an idea is to believe that one
possesses its reasons and, therefore, to believe that there exists a reason, a
world of intelligible truths. To form ideas or opinions is the same thing as to
appeal to such an authority, to submit to it, to accept its code and its
sentence, to believe, therefore, that the superior form of living together is
the dialogue in which the reason of our ideas is discussed. But the mass-man
would feel lost if he accepted discussion, and he instinctively rejects the
obligation of obeying that higher authority that is outside him. [...] All the
normal dealings are suppressed and one proceeds directly to the imposition of
ones wishes.
Thats enough quotes, he thought. Its time for
some reflection.
The more we come to understand Ortegas
analysis of mass behavior, the less likely it appears that a mass movement is
either a necessary or a sufficient condition for the development of group
fanaticism. What Ortega saw, in fact, is in many ways the opposite of the
fanatic analyzed by Hoffer. Far from being an expression of deep-seated
beliefs, for the mass-man it is the imposition of ones wishes that matters,
not the ideas underlying it. And such ideas as form a mass movements credo are
shallow. They are formed by the propaganda that is fed to the mass.
He had changed
sheets, machinelike, in the middle of the last paragraph. I need to elaborate,
he thought as he looked at the blank paper below it. He penciled in the number
3 on the bottom of the page he had just taken out, and put the numbers 1 and 2
on the ones that were lying face down to the left of the typewriter.
It is really
only in the twentieth century that the mass media that can, consistently and
reliably, deliver such propaganda to masses on a large scale have developed.
The media that can do so what in the terminology of the Canadian theorist
Marshall McLuhan (Understanding Media, in German translation Magical
Channels) are the hot media are mass-circulation newspapers and
magazines, the radio, and film. McLuhan includes books in this category, and,
exceptionally, a book may have sufficient circulation to be a mass medium in
this sense. (An example of such an exception is Uncle Toms Cabin, which
made abolitionism into a mass movement and helped fuel the American Secession
War.)
He stopped
typing and reached for the French book on his desk, perused it quickly to
refresh his memory, and resumed.
At this
point, it is valuable to point to a distinction between mass and crowd. The
title of Gustave Le Bons La psychologie des foules has been translated
into German as The Psychology of the Masses, but Le Bons book
dates from the nineteenth century, before the creation of the modern mass
phenomenon, and the crowd as he defines it is quite different from Ortegas
mass. It is compact rather than dispersed, and it can develop a personality of
its own, unlike the amorphous quality of the mass. A crowd can be stirred into
action, including violent action, by a fiery speech delivered to it, for
example Mark Antonys speech in Shakespeares Julius Caesar, or a sermon
that might lead the congregation of a church to carry out a pogrom. In past
centuries, such a sermon might have to be repeated over and over to many crowds
in order to form a mass movement (as for example Peter the Hermits preaching
that led to the Peoples Crusade).
Now, looking at it from the other perspective, we observe
that a member of a fanatical group be it an extreme religious
sect, a nationalist terrorist organization, or even a gang of football hooligans has characteristics that in many ways are the
opposite of those of the hombre-masa.
He was at the end of page 4. He began another, not certain if it would
begin a new paragraph. That would be decided in the course of editing.
His beliefs, in his mind, have come to him from a higher source
a deity, a leader, the destiny of having been born in Liverpool
and not from the fact
that everybody else has them. He wears his extreme convictions proudly, and
does not try to smooth them so as to make them blend in.
This was as good a place as any to stop. He put the number 4 on the
sheet he had taken out
and placed it face down on top of the others.
|