6
Tuesday,
August 11, 1970
1956-57
Miki was awake at dawn. It had been a lovely
night. He thought that he would always remember it as the night of the stolen
kisses, but then every night of love that he would have with Brigitte when her period
was overdue felt like a stolen kiss.
Brigitte was sleeping. Miki
felt torn between his desire to wait for her awakening and his curiosity about
any new developments in the Hemme case. Curiosity won the tug-of-war. He got up
quietly, dressed quickly and padded downstairs in his slippers. Frau Schmidt
had not brought the newspaper inside yet; she was probably asleep herself. He
stepped outside the house into the driveway and to the gate in order to
retrieve the MoPo from its slot.
He looked at the front-page
headlines as he walked back to the house, and sat down on the living-room sofa
in order to browse. He did not have to search long for a story datelined
Stuttgart, August 10, and titled Württemberg Murder Mystery Grows.
In the matter of Axel Hemme, who was found murdered in
the village of Unterriexheim last week, the Stuttgart State Attorneys Office
has issued a communiqué including some new and surprising elements.
In examining the body, police authorities in Ludwigsburg (the district
seat) have determined that the bullet that killed the victim came from a
high-powered long-range rifle, rather than a pistol as at first supposed.
Moreover and this is the great surprise they have found, in conjunction
with the Baden-Württemberg State Criminal Office, that the victim had undergone
extensive facial plastic surgery. On this basis, the State Attorneys Office
has retracted its previous assertion that the victim is not the same Axel Hemme
who had been an SS officer in Poland. When asked why, if he had altered his
appearance to avoid prosecution, Axel Hemme had not changed his name, the State
Attorneys spokesman replied that, since Hemme had not been charged as a war
criminal by the Allies during the immediate postwar period, he was, at least
until 1967, exempt from prosecution by the Federal Republic of Germany, and
consequently did not feel the need for doing so.
The State Police is conducting an inquiry among all plastic surgeons
practicing in Baden-Württemberg to determine if any one of them had performed
the surgery.
In another line of the investigation, a tip from an undisclosed source
has led to the provisional arrest of a suspect, a foreigner with an extensive
criminal record. The impression is growing among the authorities that the
killing was done for hire. A revenge motive has not been ruled out, possibly by
someone who had suffered at Hemmes hands.
The last clause
struck deep in his heart. It was just such revenge fantasies that he himself
had harbored in his younger days. But how could hiring a killer to shoot Hemme
from a distance, without ever confronting the monster, be anyones idea of
revenge? No, it didnt seem plausible. And while this article was not
accompanied by a picture, his memory of the one that he had seen on Norderney
was clear, and, plastic surgery or not, this was not the same Axel Hemme. He
remembered those ice-cold eyes too well; they were not the same.
He was also struck by the
coincidence that the police investigating the crime was based in Ludwigsburg,
the seat of the Central Office of the State Justice Administrations for the
Investigation of National Socialist Crimes, which he had visited a few times
while covering the Auschwitz trials in Frankfurt.
He did not feel like reading
any more of the paper. He went back upstairs to join his wife, still peacefully
asleep, in bed.
* * *
The theater season began, as usual, in September. The
first play that they attended was the premiere of a German version of The
Diary of Anne Frank, which was being produced simultaneously in cities
across West Germany.
Brigittes reaction to the
play was cautious, as though she were waiting for him to express his reaction
first. He, after all, had been in Bergen-Belsen at the same time as Anne. But
when he remained silent as they walked out of the theater, she asked him
outright: What do you think about the play?
Its a nice American play,
he said, about a nice American girl named Anne Frank, whose family, for
some reason, has to hide from the SS. There is nothing about their being
Jewish, or about concentration camps. It isnt clear why the SS are bad.
But people know that!
Here in Europe, perhaps, at
least those people who would go to see the play. In America, Im not so sure.
And what can be more American than in spite of
everything, people deep down are really good?
I
think I agree with you, she said, but most people in the audience seemed
deeply moved. Some were in tears.
Perhaps
it brought out feelings of guilt, like a church service. I wouldnt be
surprised if a critic tomorrow compares it to a religious experience. And, by
the way, didnt I see tears on your lovely cheeks at Renates wedding, falling
down onto your lovely breasts? Brigitte, who had been careful to dress
conservatively at Leon and Felas wedding in order not to upstage the bride,
showed no such compunction when the bride was her sister.
She
mock-slapped him with the rolled-up program.
* * *
When he awoke again, Brigitte was not in bed. He could
hear her movements in her room; she was probably getting dressed. This was her
first day of work on the new series. He wondered what she would wear.
He did not need to wait long
to find out. She came into the bedroom just as he was sitting up, wearing a
revealing mauve halter-top summer dress. He knew this dress; it had a matching
short-sleeve jacket for cover-up purposes that she might put on when she went
into an air-conditioned room at the studio. On her feet she still had mules.
She leaned over to kiss him, giving
him a delicious view of her cleavage. Good morning, darling, she said as she
straightened up. I saw that you have
already read the paper. Whats new in the world?
Pretty boring, for the most
part. The peace between Israel and Egypt is holding. A peace treaty will be
signed tomorrow between West Germany and the Soviet Union. Even in Indochina
things are pretty quiet.
Spoken like a true
journalist.
Yes, we are a bloodthirsty
lot, arent we? Speaking of blood
Not yet, Brigitte said with
a mischievous smile.
That is not what I mean,
Miki said primly.
Of course not.
No, at least not at this
very moment. Im talking about the murdered Axel Hemme in Württemberg.
Axel Hemme in Württemberg,
Brigitte sang to the waltz tune from Goose-Liesel, the film that made
her a star. She then turned serious. Is there news about him?
He gave her a summary of the
article and his own reflections on Hemmes identity.
I trust you more than the
police in this matter. She glanced at the antique clock on the dresser. Youd
better put on some clothes so we can have breakfast, she said. Im due at the
studio in an hour.
After she was gone he was
back at his desk. He was on page 9, ready to begin a new topic.
Now let me
focus on another category of movements representing postmodern fanaticism:
those advocating national liberation.
He sat in
thought for a moment, then he rolled his chair to the bookcase that held the
latest five-volume Brockhaus he was waiting for the completion of the
twenty-volume edition before buying it and looked up a few entries. He liked
using the oversized one-volume Columbia Encyclopedia, on the shelf below, but
for the subject at hand the current edition, from 1963, was outdated. He
browsed through a few other books and rolled back to the desk. He resumed
typing.
Several of these movements have borrowed both
rhetoric and tactics from the successful Algerian National Liberation Front
(FLN) and some of the other anti-colonial struggles in Africa and Asia. But
these were classic struggles for the independence of a country from a colonial
power, with the modern goal of forming a sovereign nation-state in the western
sense, in the mold of the American Independence War. Such struggles normally
have a clearly defined rationale based on the illegitimacy of the colonial
occupation, as expressed, to repeat the American example, in the Declaration of
Independence. What typically has happened in such cases is that, in time, the
ruling class of the colonial power comes to accept the illegitimacy of the
occupation, and eventually the independence of the colony is recognized in a
formal agreement, examples of which range from the Treaty of Paris (1784) to
the Evian Accords (1962)
In the postmodern
movements the nation whose liberation is pursued is, typically, defined not
territorially but ethnically, and, as a rule, forms a national minority within
an independent state. While there may be a territorial subdivision of the state
in which the nationality in question forms a majority, the movement does not
see itself as representing the territory (even when it advocates independence
for the territory) but the ethnic nation.
Examples are found, at
present, mainly in Asia, from the Karen National Liberation Army in Burma,
which has existed since the country attained independence in 1948, to the Moro
National Liberation Front in the Philippines, which was formed only last year.
There is no doubt that such movements will also spring up among the Kurds in
Turkey and Iraq, among the Tamils of Ceylon, and among the Malays of the Patani
region of Thailand.
He helped
another sheet find its way onto the platen.
In Africa it
is probably too soon for such movements to arise. While the recently concluded
Biafra secession may have been fueled by ethnic nationalism on the part of the
Ibo, it was not the result of a popular movement but of a military coup. In the
future, however, we may see such movements among the Somalis of the Ogaden in
Ethiopia; among the Berbers of Algeria (though Arabs and Berbers fought side by
side in the FLN) and Morocco; and any other places where those who regard
themselves members of a minority ethnic group (and that is often a matter of
personal choice) feel themselves to be culturally, politically or economically
oppressed because of their ethnicity (another subjective evaluation).
Once again, it is the
fuzzy subjectivity of the ethnic notion of national liberation, as distinct
from the concrete goal of territorial sovereignty, that makes these movements
postmodern.
Perhaps the height of
fuzziness is reached by the black nationalism or black liberation movement
in the United States as represented by the Black Panther Party and similar
organizations.
He was at the
midpoint of page 10. He felt the need to take a break, and more specifically
the urge to piss. On his way back from the bathroom the memory of a recent news
item caused his mind to sidetrack. He added a parenthetical sentence to the
last paragraph.
(Just a few days
ago, a judge in California was killed in an attempted prison breakout for one
of the partys leaders.)
They are the postmodern
counterpart to the civil-rights movement led by the late Martin Luther King and
his colleagues, which is the very model of a modern movement: rational in its
conception, nonviolent in its execution, open to discussion and negotiation.
And its successes have been remarkable, comparable to that of the modern
independence movements: the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, the Nobel Peace
Prize for Dr. King.
By contrast, the
postmodern movements espouse vague, essentially unattainable (because they are
undefinable) goals such as a social revolution that would entail
self-determination for minority groups. The goals are subsumed by the means:
militant, often violent tactics. Yet another instance of the medium is the
message that is so characteristic of postmodernity.
* * *
Just as the semester was getting underway, Mikis
attention was distracted from his studies by events taking place in the world
at large. An anti-Soviet student demonstration in Budapest quickly turned into
a popular revolt that toppled first the ten-meter statue of Stalin in the city
center and then the Communist government. When Soviet tanks entered the city
they were met with armed resistance for which the Red Army was unprepared, and
after a few days a ceasefire was arranged with the new government headed by
Imre Nagy, which the Soviet Union recognized.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops invaded
the Gaza Strip and the Sinai, heading for the Suez Canal. They were soon joined
by French and British forces marines and paratroopers operating from
aircraft carriers; Great Britain and France were still smarting over Nassers
nationalization of the canal. Also, news leaked out that troops of the Israeli
Border Guard had perpetrated a massacre in an Arab village in Israel.
While the world was
preoccupied with the Suez crisis, a second Soviet invasion of Hungary took
place, and this time the Hungarian resistance was brutally suppressed. It was
evident that international reaction, which had been vocal during the first
intervention, had become muted. To condemn an invasion by the USSR while Great
Britain and France were invading Egypt would have been hypocritical at best.
Miki wondered if the timing
of the two events had been coincidental. Perhaps the Kremlin knew about the
impending Suez attack and used it as a cover for its own action. There were
Soviet spies everywhere, after all. Just a few months before, Burgess and
Maclean, who had been spying for the USSR while working in the British Foreign
Service, had reappeared in Moscow after being out of sight for five years. But
this kind of information required a spy who was in the high echelon of the military,
and it was more likely that such a spy would be found in Israel. Many
high-ranking officers were Mapam members, like those in his kibbutz, and there
was a chance that some of them had not lost their old Stalinist sympathies,
even after the Prague and Moscow trials.
Miki remembered a man named
Israel Beer, a lecturer in military history at Tel Aviv University, who had
come to Refadim to give a lecture on the War of Independence. Beer had served
in the war, and while he was no longer active in the IDF, he spoke in a
bragging tone about his exploits and about his close relationship with Ben
Gurion. But he had been a Communist in his native Austria and fought on the
Communist side in the Spanish Civil War. And Miki did not fail to notice the
worshipful gaze that he had furtively directed at the portrait of Stalin that
hung on the dining-room wall.
Now Ben Gurion was in power
again. If Beer was truthful about his closeness to the old man, he might have
been in position to know about the plans for the invasion. And if not Beer,
then some other man like him.
Miki talked casually about
his concerns and suspicions with Brigitte. She was interested, though these
matters lay outside her sphere of knowledge. The times that were most conducive
to talking about world affairs were those of her periods. Now that they were
husband and wife, they spent all their nights in bed together, chastely if so
ordained by her calendar, and conversation served as a distraction from the
continence.
Brigittes usual response,
when Miki brought up some political issue on his mind, was to interpret the
situation in terms of a personal drama, and she would improvise dialogues among
the likes of Khrushchev, De Gaulle, Adenauer and Ben Gurion with the
appropriate accents. It was enjoyable,
but he missed having someone with whom he could discuss world affairs
seriously.
But at the university there
was no one with whom he could do so. General theories of society, mostly
Marxist, and the more abstract the better, were the order of the day in
Frankfurt. He missed the common-sense pragmatism of Northern Germany that
pervaded even the universities, and that for him had first been embodied by
Hanna.
* * *
They recognized each other the instant she walked through
the gate. She was still her trim self, sporting the same slacks-and-blouse
style that flattered her trimness. Her skin, though it no longer had the
surprisingly youthful glow of her forties, was still remarkably firm for a
woman of her age. Her dark-brown, almost black, hair seemed unchanged, though,
as the famous American advertisement put it, only her hairdresser knew for
sure how much of that might be due to his help.
Miki, as he ran up to her,
wondered how much he had changed since the age of seventeen. He had grown about
two centimeters, and he wore his hair a little longer, though not as long as he
had worn it five years before (or as Brigitte would still have liked). That had
been his only concession to the style of the sixties. He had never sported a
beard or mustache, keeping his face smooth with a succession of ever more
efficient Philips shavers since the single-headed one that Leon had given him
for his fifteenth birthday. He wanted to feel free to kiss and nuzzle every
square centimeter of the velvety sweet nougat of Brigittes skin and of her
other, even more delicate, tissues without fear of irritating her with a
stubble. All in all, he concluded, he had probably not changed too much.
Hanna gave him a maternal hug
and said, Miki! Its so good to see you! She was, quite naturally, saying du,
as she had back in Israel, where he had done the same to her, but now he
hesitated before responding. She immediately noticed his hesitation. Youre
wondering if you should say Sie to me, now that Im an old lady! she
said, laughing.
Not old lady, he said, but
an old teacher. Former teacher, rather.
If Im still Hanna, and not
Frau Korn, not to mention Fräulein Korn, then it should be du, shouldnt
it?
Of course, Hanna. How has
your trip been?
Wonderful. I had wanted to
go by ship to Venice, as you did you see, I remember! but there are no more
passenger ships on the Mediterranean, so I flew to Rome, which was wonderful,
and then went by train to Milan, and from there to Venice. I spent three days
there, then took a night train very nice to Vienna, and I spent four days
there. And here I am, in my hometown, after thirty-four years thats more
than half of my life! And tell me, have you become a good Hamburger?
Completely. Ive even
learned how speak Platt, even though there arent many people I can
speak it with.
Thats something I never
learned, though my brother spoke it fluently. There was a pause, as she seemed
to remember that she had lost her brother in Auschwitz. As she had told him at
one of their meetings in Lehavot Hadarom, she had absolutely no relatives left
anywhere. She swallowed, took a deep breath, and said, Do you know the first
place I would like to see, even before you take me to the hotel? He tried to
guess, but she wouldnt let him. The Jews Aquarium! Do you know what that
is?
Of course, he said. The
Alsterpavillon. But thats only two hundred meters from the hotel, so that you
can get yourself checked in and we can walk over.
Good, she said, as long as
we get there by six oclock, before its too late for me to drink coffee.
They had reached the baggage
claim, where the bags from the Vienna flight were just beginning to arrive.
That depends on how long your baggage takes, he said. How many pieces do you
have?
She raised her right index
finger, and immediately used it to point at a seemingly brand-new navy-blue
suitcase. I have mazel today, she said.
They continued with some more
chitchat until she got into the passenger seat of his car and closed the door
behind her, its slam being followed a second later by that of the trunk cover
after Miki had put the suitcase there. He entered the car and turned on the
engine.
Im sure, she said as he
started driving toward the garage exit, that you would like to hear about the
people you knew at the kibbutz.
He felt relief at not having
to bring the matter up. Of course, he said.
You know how it is with
teachers, she said. Every year there are some pupils that one keeps in ones
memory, and one forgets the others.
Whom have you kept in your
memory from my class?
Well, you, she said, and
they both laughed. From Refadim, she went on, I can tell you about Marcel,
and Nili, and Yossi Tal, and Tzvi Kaplan
He felt even more relief over her
naming Nili with no prompting from him. Marcel and Nili, and you, of course,
she added, were the ones who did not come back for the twelfth grade. This
was getting interesting.
Marcel! he said. As I
remember, he insisted on being called Moshe. I tried practicing my French with
him, but he wouldnt speak anything but Hebrew.
Thats true, she said, but
then he decided that he was tired of being the only Moroccan, and he
transferred to a kibbutz that was mostly North African.
And Nili? Miki asked with
feigned nonchalance.
Ah, Hanna began with a
smile, Nili the beauty queen
Yes, she was quite
beautiful.
No, Hanna said, I mean
that literally. She was in a beauty contest.
What? he almost shouted,
flabbergasted. When?
In twelfth grade, Hanna
answered. Miki began to feel confused. You remember, perhaps, that beauty
contests had just recently begun in Israel
Of course I remember. The
very first one had taken place a little before I got there, and I remember the
reaction in Refadim. Capitalist exploitation! Bourgeois decadence! Judging
women like cattle!
Just imagined what happened
when one of their own girls decided to enter it. In Israel, a girl has to be at
least seventeen and a half to enter, but most girls wait at least until they
finish high school. Not Nili. She calculated that she would turn seventeen and
a half just when the contest would begin, which was in the middle of the school
year. Miki remembered that Nili was four or five months younger than he, so
that this would put the moment just about the time that she would be giving
birth to Ora! Something didnt fit.
So, Hanna continued, she
moved to Tel Aviv to live with an aunt and uncle. Her parents agreed; Nili
usually got what she wanted.
Are you sure youre talking
about Nili Osher, who was in my class?
Of course I am sure. Shes
Nili Rosen now, by the way. Your friend Tzvi was the only one who supported her
decision; he argued about it in class, with everybody against him.
Yes, he liked to argue.
I think he was in love with
Nili, but she didnt want him. There was now no doubt as to which Nili she was
talking about. She liked you, didnt she? And she smiled.
He ignored the last remark.
So what happened to her? he asked, trying to hide his embarrassment and
confusion.
She got something like
fourth or fifth place in Miss Tel Aviv. She couldnt compete against the city
girls, who knew how to dress and how to use makeup and even how to walk. Nili
had never worn high heels in her life. If Im not mistaken, the judges
encouraged her to come back the following year, but I think she lost interest.
She finished high school, went into the military, went to university the Tel
Aviv Law School, which later became Tel Aviv University and now she is a
lawyer in Tel Aviv. She used to visit me regularly, while her parents were
still in Refadim. Now they also live in
Tel Aviv, but she still writes me occasionally. And since Ive moved to
Jerusalem we have talked on the telephone.
You said her name was Rosen
now. Does that mean she married?
Yes. I believe that he was
also a lawyer, and she had a child a daughter, I think but they got
divorced. But the last time I saw her, she seemed happy.
Do you happen to know her
daughters name? he asked, feeling as though he were grasping at straws.
No. I think shes about
ten.
I have a strange story to
tell you, he said after a pause. But what happened with Tzvi?
Tzvi Kaplan? Hes still a
member of Refadim, though he doesnt spend much time there, just weekends. He
became an officer, distinguished himself in the Sinai War, and made a career in
the military. Now he is a macher in the Misrad habitakhon. Into
her German Hanna had managed to mix the Yiddish (though German-sounding) word
for big wheel and the Hebrew name, literally security office, of the
Israeli Ministry of Defense.
Does he still tend the
fishpond?
I think so, Hanna said with
a laugh.
They had reached the Alster.
Miki glanced to his right as he turned onto the Neuer Jungfernstieg, and saw
Hannas face well up as the view of the sunlit lake struck her for the first
time in a third of a century. He heard her murmur Fausts line, Abide a while,
you are so fair! He slowed to a crawl in first gear to let her linger over the
sight. She took a handkerchief from her purse to wipe her eyes, sniffled, and
turned to him with a smile. We must be arriving, she said.
The Ora story could wait
until they were seated at the Alsterpavillon. If the check-in went quickly and
there was no reason why it shouldnt then they could be there a little before
her coffee deadline. He wanted to by home by seven, to meet Brigitte for
dinner, so that he would have to tell the story briefly, even summarize it, and
there might not be enough time for Hanna to offer any clues to explain what now
seemed to be a hoax. It was just as well, perhaps; he would let Hanna think
about it and dig into her memory to explore possible lines of exegesis.
* * *
By the beginning of spring, when Brigitte was starting
work on the fourth and last film under her contract, they knew that Frankfurt
was not their place. Brigitte was itching to get back on the stage, and the
Frankfurt theater scene did not impress them. Hamburg was quite another matter.
There, Gustaf Gründgens was artistic director of the Deutsches Schauspielhaus,
and Ida Ehre was running the Kammerspiele. It so happened that Ida Ehre had
appeared that year in a television film based on Zolas Thér`se Raquin,
which aired about the same time as the second of Brigittes films, and Brigitte
had written the great Jewish actress an admiring letter, not neglecting to
mention that her husband was a Jew who, like Frau Ehre, had been in a
concentration camp. She received an admiring letter in return, hinting not too
subtly that if Brigitte ever wanted to return to Northern Germany, she would
find welcome in Hamburg. Idas friend Gustaf Gründgens had already engaged a
young Swiss woman for juvenile leads in his theater, which mainly did classics,
but if Frau Wilner wanted the challenge of modern theater with something to say
about society, she would find herself at home in the modest Kammerspiele. The
pay would not be what television work had accustomed her to, and, since NWDR
had just split into WDR and NDR, it would be a year or two before such work
would resume in Hamburg, but she had no doubt that Brigitte had the makings of
a star. And then there was the
possibility of film, since Hamburg was the home of Real-Film, where such great
directors as Geza von Cziffra and her friend Helmut Käutner plied their craft.
Here, however, Ida Ehre cautioned Frau Wilner that she unfortunately would not
be of much help, since she was not on the best of terms with the studios two
bosses, both of whom were her fellow Jews and concentration-camp survivors.
When Brigitte read the letter
to Miki, he commented, with a laugh, Clashing Jewish egos! Nothing new about
that! For he, too, was by this time disenchanted with the Frankfurt School,
and, in particular, dismayed by its overemphasis on Marxist theory as
interpreted by the clashing egos of Adorno and Horkheimer, with poor Habermas
caught between them. The only enjoyable part of their seminars was the
participation of a young Hamburger named Ralf Dahrendorf, who, after getting
his doctorate in philosophy from his home university, went on to study
sociology at the London School of Economics he spoke with reverence of his
teacher Karl Popper where he was completing his dissertation for a second
doctorate. While in London he seemed to have developed a kind of English wit,
and he did not hesitate to use it when confronting Marxist dogma. But he did
not stay in Frankfurt for the whole time; before the summer semester was over
he moved to Saarbrücken for his habilitation.
Miki also felt the positive
attraction of Hamburg. For one thing, the atomic physicist Carl Friedrich von
Weizsäcker, one of the eighteen signers of the just-promulgated
Göttingen Manifesto against the nuclear arming of the Bundeswehr, had just been
given a chair in philosophy there, and the philosophy of science was an area
that Miki had not explored yet. For another, history was taught, as in
Göttingen, in the philosophy faculty, and with the great historians Fischer and
Zechlin who were known to be at odds with each other still active there, he
could complete the requirements of his minor subject in modern history by
attending their lectures and seminars.
* * *
And how did it go with Hanna? Brigitte asked at dinner,
after giving him a sketchy précis of her activities at the studio, which
appeared to combine art and business, and the fact that she would need to
return the next morning for a live interview.
It was wonderful seeing her.
She wants very much to meet you. She saw Last Year in Bad Ischl in Vienna.
I hope she had a good
laugh.
She loved it. I suggested we
have lunch together, after your interview.
I dont see any conflict,
Brigitte said after reflecting for a moment.
Before I tell you any more
about Hanna, there is something else I need to tell you, something that Ive
been meaning to tell you for three days, but Im glad I didnt, because I would
have had to change everything.
It sounds mysterious, she
said with a mischievous smile.
It is, very much so. Tell
me, how would you feel if I told you that I am the father of a
seventeen-year-old daughter?
Seventeen
nineteen-fifty-three
fifty-two
Israel
Perhaps a little bit surprised, but
not very.
Really? He was the
surprised one.
There is something Ive
never forgotten. When we lived in Bad Harzburg you once asked me about the
Ogino-Knaus method, and then you changed the subject to talk about Hanna. Do
you remember?
Vaguely, he said, not as
truthfully as he would have liked.
Since I cant get pregnant,
I am sensitive about anything that has to do with it. And so I thought that
there might have been something personal about the question.
He said nothing, lost in
admiration of his wifes perspicacity.
So, she went on, do you
have a seventeen-year-old daughter?
No, he said, but for three
days I thought that I did. You know, the mysterious girl with the big
earrings
Yes? Brigitte was now
wide-eyed with curiosity.
He finally told her, between
spoonfuls of pudding, the full story of the past four days, from Frau Schmidts
report of the girls first visit to Hannas clarification. He also told her
that he had taken a photograph of the girl.
Id like to see it, but
first its my turn to ask you a question, Brigitte said when he finished. How
would you have felt if you found out that you really are the father of a
seventeen-year-old daughter?
I was afraid you would ask
me that. Frankly, I dont know. He was being evasive, as he always had been on
this subject, and Brigitte knew it, and he knew that she knew it. He decided on
a different track for his evasion. But youre quite good at figuring out how
other people feel, he said. How do you think I would have felt?
They had finished eating.
Brigitte put her dessertspoon down and gave Miki a long look before speaking.
If, as you say, Im good at
figuring out how people feel, its when I can detach myself and use my
imagination. Thats what acting is, for me at least. But in this situation Im
not sure I can do that. Ive always been comfortable, even content, with not having
children. Ive never really felt the desire to be a mother, and Im happy
giving all my love to you. Besides, speaking pragmatically, my career has moved
more slowly than with other actresses my age, and having children would have
slowed it even more. But with you Ive never been sure. Youve never expressed
or shown any regret at not having children, but if my condition had been
different
But I chose to be with you,
knowing exactly what your condition was.
Yes, but we were seventeen.
Now were thirty-five, he
said, and I feel the same, only more so. He reached his hand across the
table, and it was met by hers. The track of evasion was returning to its
habitual course. Clasping her hand firmly, he stood up and began to move away
from the table, pulling her along. That pudding was sweet, he said, but
whats next will be even sweeter.
He felt her resisting his
pull. He looked at her quizzically. She stroked the arm that was trying to pull
her with her free hand. Wait, she said with a smile.
What is it? he asked.
You havent shown me the
girls photograph.
He let go of her hand,
quickly went to his study and brought back the photograph. Brigitte looked at
briefly and said, She has a pretty smile. But if she is not your daughter,
arent you curious about who she is?
Of course I am.
Are you going to try to find
out?
Id like to, but, you know,
Im really not that kind of journalist.
But you could go to Israel,
take the photograph with you, show it to people that you know, and see if
anyone knows who she is.
Yes, he said, I could do
that.
Now, she said as she took
his hand, about that pudding
He vaguely remembered that he
had not done any writing that day, but in short order all thoughts of doing any
typing that evening evaporated from his mind.
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