10
Saturday,
August 15, 1970
1960-61
He woke up early that morning, and got out of
bed and went downstairs while Brigitte slept. He thought of getting back to his
essay, but could not focus his mind on its subject matter. The relaxed feeling
that he had gone to bed with, after the evenings nightclubbing, was gone.
Being without a passport if
only temporarily, as he believed gave him the strange sensation of being a
man without a country. He had, of course, been technically stateless while he
was a displaced person, but at that time he was a fervent Zionist and believed
that the Land of Israel was his country. But living in Israel drained the
Zionism out of his system, and after his return to Bad Harzburg and into
Brigitte Bechmeyers arms, it did not take long for him to feel that Germany,
or at least West Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany, was his homeland,
and that he was, at least in the western sense according to Seipel, a German,
if not as his English friend Helen had suggested a Germanian, which
he had translated into Deutschländer.
But now he had no document in
his immediate possession that identified him as any of these. Since having a
passport exempted him from the legal obligation to have an identity card, he
had not bothered to acquire one.
Then he remembered how
could he have forgotten? that he had in his possession a receipt for his
temporarily confiscated passport, with its number and his personal data, signed
by a Kriminalkommissar Stracke in Stuttgart and countersigned and stamped in
Mikis presence by Kriminalmeister Benzinger. It was something that he could,
as Benzinger told him, present as an identity document if required to do so.
He felt relieved, but not
enough to get back to writing. He stepped outside to get the MoPo that
had been introduced through the slot in the gate.
Back in his study, he browsed
through the paper, but did not find much to interest him. He heard Frau
Schmidts first footsteps, and thought that it might be time to finish
planning, with her, the evenings dinner.
* * *
Helmut and Margot quickly found that one of the interests
that they had in common, and that their previous spouses had not shared, was
going out to music and dance clubs. Such clubs were now proliferating in St.
Pauli, on the Reeperbahn and Grosse Freiheit, and while the districts famous
brothels were not being displaced, they were no longer its only attraction.
The first time that Helmut
and Margot went out as a couple, it was to the Indra Club, the oldest of the
lot, and there they heard a brand-new English skiffle band billed as The
Beatles. They went back to hear them time and again, and urged their friends to
join them. They continued to do so after the Indra Club was closed by police
and The Beatles moved to the Kaiserkeller. But all that autumn the Wilners were
busy.
In September, while Brigitte
Wilner was working on The House of Birds, Michael Wilners Human
Freedom in the German Mind from the Enlightenment to the Present appeared
as a book, published by Lehndorff, a small publishing house that specialized in
doctoral dissertations. To ensure the publication Miki had agreed to buy one
hundred copies, of which he submitted the requisite number to the dean of the
faculty, to the members of his dissertation committee and to the university
library. He also sent copies to university libraries in West Germany, Austria
and German Switzerland, to some of the scholars whose work he had cited
(including, with dedications, Karl Jaspers and Hannah Arendt), to Braune and a
few other staff members at MoPo, and to Leon. He thought of sending a
copy to Hanna Kidron (whom he cited with gratitude on his acknowledgments
page), but the idea of renewing any sort of contact with the kibbutz that he
had left under such unpleasant circumstances filled him with an anxiety that
still resonated in the pit of his stomach, and he did not do it.
Regarding the staff of Die
Zeit, Margot suggested that he bring the dedicated copies in person to the
Press House. She also named the people to whom the book should be given,
including M-M but not the Countess, who would not be there, as she was spending
one of her habitual three-week vacations on the island of Ischia in Italy.
When he arrived, he was
directed to the conference room, where Margot had arranged a surprise party for
him, and the people present were precisely the intended recipients of the book.
There was a banner reading Dr. Wilner, and Müller-Marein made a short and
humorous speech in which he welcomed him under his new title.
The only reviews that the
book received were brief ones in academic journals, and they were almost
exclusively by historians. Most of them were quite critical of the notion that
political freedom was not present in the nineteenth-century German mind. Miki
realized that he had neglected to specify in his introduction that by the
German mind he meant the minds of poets and philosophers, not those of jurists
and politicians of the sort associated with the liberal revolution of 1848,
precisely the ones that the critics of his book cited as counterexamples. He
felt peeved that Professor Kuhnstein, the historian on his dissertation
committee, had not warned him against such a misreading, but at this point he
did not really care. As far as he knew, his academic career was over.
* * *
He would do all the shopping himself, he decided, and he
would do it the old-fashioned way, with meat from the butcher shop, vegetables
from the vegetable store, bread from the bakery. As a rule he enjoyed
supermarket shopping, and resented the German resistance to self-service that
had condemned supermarkets to failure when they were first introduced. But on
this day the traditional form of shopping would be another welcome distraction.
Brigitte told him over
breakfast that she did not feel like driving into the city on that warm day,
lest she arrive at the studio coated in sweat, and that she would rather take
the train and then a taxi.
Then Ill take you to the
station before I go shopping, Miki said, since you would get sweaty walking there.
What time will you be finished?
Probably around four, she
answered.
Then I can come and get you,
since I dont need to put the meat in the oven until half five.
Dont bother, darling, she
said, I can come back the same way. It may not be exactly at four.
Then at least call me from
the station and Ill pick you up. I dont think you will feel like walking in
your dress shoes.
All right, Ill call you
unless its exactly at half five. By the way, arent you going into Hamburg to
pick up Hanna?
Yes, but that will be around
noon, when she checks out.
After he dropped Brigitte off
at the Blankenese station, he parked his car and began making the rounds of the
business district.
It was feeling quite warm
already, and he decided to make the butcher shop his last call. He was going to
make a stuffed breast of veal, so that what he needed to get at the bakery,
besides the bread for the table, was some stale bread cubes for the stuffing;
he knew that the baker usually kept a supply of those just for such a purpose.
The stuffing would also include some chopped ham, of which there was enough at
home, as well as a combination of mushrooms, shallots, and parsley. At the
vegetable store he found not only white mushrooms but also some nice freshly
picked wild ceps and chanterelles. He wondered if the flavors of the last two
might clash, but the storekeeper assured him that they would blend together
just fine she had often combined them in her own cooking so that he got
some of each, not only for the stuffing but to serve them sautéed as a side
dish, with green beans and carrots. He also got some new potatoes that Frau
Schmidt would cook in her special way, and some cucumber, tomatoes and an
assortment of small lettuces for the salad.
As the butcher was boning the
breast of veal and cutting the pocket for the stuffing, he suggested to Miki
that the finely cut-up bones and gristle would make an attractive garnish on
the baked breast. Miki, who had never cooked this dish before, remembered that
he had seen it so served in restaurants, and accepted the suggestion, though it
was not mentioned in the cookbook recipe that he had read. He asked the butcher
if he had any more suggestions, and the butcher gave him a rambling description
of how his wife prepared the dish.
The guests were due at six
oclock. Helmut and Margot were very punctual people, and Miki suspected that
so was Max Schwab. He therefore calculated that if the roasting was completed
at that time, then Frau Schmidt could make the sauce with the drippings after
the guests arrived, while they were having drinks and appetizers.
* * *
By the time The House of Birds was released, its
title had been changed in postproduction to The Songbird House, to
better reflect the fact that several of the characters, all members of the same
family, were singers. A key element of the plot was that Brigittes character,
named Lola, was considered too pretty to be taken seriously as a singer, even
by the conductor who was her love interest, until a blind musician gave his
favorable judgment of her talent.
The triteness of the plot was
overcome by the cleverness of the dialogue and the imaginative cinematography,
and the film was generally well reviewed, with unanimous praise for Brigitte on
her beauty, her acting and her singing.
The front pages of the
newspapers that carried the reviews bore banner headlines reading Eichmann
Trial Begins in Jerusalem. But Miki, having already contributed some printed
words about the matter, felt curiously detached from the looming trial. He told
Margot that not only would he not want to cover it as Müller-Marein and the
Countess had suggested but that in all likelihood he would not write about it
at all while it went on. He had philosophical reservations about it, he told
her: was it really right that crimes committed in Germany and Poland should be
tried in Israel? Did the State of Israel really have the legal and moral
standing to represent the victims of those crimes, if only the Jewish ones? He,
for one, did not feel represented by Israel in his desire for retribution for
the loss of his family. Eichmann had, moreover, been turned from a man into a
symbol, and symbolic retribution did not interest him. The man that he wanted
to see punished was named Axel Hemme.
But he would write about the
trial once it was over, or, better yet, once Eichmann was dead, which Miki was
sure would happen soon enough.
A few days later Brigitte
told him that The Songbird House would be shown at the Cannes Film
Festival, not in the prize competition but with the purpose of finding
international distribution, and that Brigittes presence would be necessary for
that purpose. If that happens, Miki said, then you will be dubbed in French
and Spanish and
; Ill do my own French, Brigitte said laughing, and
proceeded to recite some lines from the film in a spontaneous and quite fluent
French translation, but for Spanish, I dont know. She repeated the French
lines with what she thought might be a Spanish accent and the addition of vowels
to the words. Ill have to teach you Spanish, Miki said.
He then called Margot to tell
her that he would rather report on the Cannes Festival than on the Jerusalem
trial. And do you expect Die Zeit to pay your expenses? Margot asked.
No, thanks, he said, Ill go undercover as Brigitte Wilners companion.
By the way, Margot said,
The Beatles are back, this time at the Top Ten Club.
Well try to join you, but I
cant promise.
Before leaving for Cannes
Miki contributed an article on the Bay of Pigs invasion, based on what he could
glean from the often-conflicting news reports (some of which reflected the
American position and others the Cuban one).
Sophia Loren and Silvia Pinal
were the stars of the festival that year, and, on seeing them in the flesh,
Miki had to admit to himself for the first time that perhaps there were women
in this world whose beauty matched Brigittes. Of course had no doubt that if
he were faced, in fairy-tale fashion, with a choice among these women, he would
choose Brigitte. Somehow the presence of the other beauties gave him a better
understanding of her appeal. She was a blue-eyed blonde, to be sure, but not
particularly German-looking, whatever that meant; her tawny skin, her face, her
expression, her manner had more in common with those dark, earthy, sensuous
Latin women than with her fellow Germans.
The French newspapers did not
devote nearly as much space to the Eichmann trial as the German ones; their
pages were dominated by events in Algeria. The generals putsch in Algiers had
just taken place, and though it was quickly put down by De Gaulle, right-wing
elements associated with the generals had formed themselves into the Organisation
de lArmée Secrète referred to in the press as OAS and were carrying
out terrorist attacks in both Algeria and France against those they regarded as
traitors to the cause of Algérie française.
The most balanced coverage of
world events that Miki could find while in Cannes was in the European edition
of the New York Herald Tribune. It was there that he read about the
first rumors that Ulbricht was planning to erect a wall separating East and
West Berlin, and about the burgeoning election campaign in West Germany, in
which Willy Brandt was the SPDs candidate for the chancellorship. The paper
pointed out that, for the first time in German history, such a candidate had
actually been nominated by his party, in the American fashion, rather than the
candidacy being automatically assumed by the partys parliamentary leader.
The fleeting impression of
American newspapers that he had received during his brief stay in New York
seven years before that there is a sharp division, easily discernible in
style, between news reporting and opinion was confirmed, all the more so
since he was now a journalist. The Trib, as he heard Americans call it,
was available in their hotel, and he made a point of reading it every day.
He was also fascinated by the
newspapers coverage of events in America, which at that time were dominated by
the freedom rides, actions in which volunteers Negro and White, many
of them university students rode public buses into southern states. Their
purpose was to test the previous years Supreme Court decision outlawing racial
segregation in interstate transportation facilities, including bus stations and
railroad terminals. The rides followed the previous years sit-ins, with
some of the same participants, and constituted the next step in the emerging
movement for civil rights in the United States. This, Miki felt, was a subject
that he could sink his teeth into, though perhaps not before taking another,
longer trip to the United States. He, too, had been a victim of racism, and
while being a Jew might not qualify as a racial category in American terms,
discrimination and segregation and oppression on the basis of any ethnic trait
amounted to the same thing.
The reading, along with jotting down sketches for future articles,
provided a pleasant relief from the cloying frenzy of Cannes. In the end, the
festivals odd mix of true art (as exemplified by Luis Buñuels Viridiana,
of which Silvia Pinal was the star and which shared the Golden Palm with a
strange French film called Une aussi longue absence) with commercialism,
pretense and politics left Miki with a feeling of distaste, as though he had
gorged on an overly rich layer cake. It was good for an article or two, but,
should Brigitte ever be called to go there again, he would not accompany her.
Brigitte, for her part,
shared his feelings. No foreign deals were secured for The Songbird House;
it was judged too German a judgment that struck Miki as ironic in view of his
reflections about Brigitte. She, however, felt relieved. She also told Miki
that she had been approached by an important Italian producer with a part in a
film that he was preparing, in which her voice would be dubbed in Italian, and
that her response had been No, grazie!
But on their last night in
Cannes, at a dinner party with assorted actors, directors, producers and other
film-industry types from various countries, Brigitte received another offer,
this time from a French producer sitting not by accident next to her. It
was not a starring role but an important one, and not only did it seem
interesting, but she would be speaking in both German and French in her own
voice. When she said that she was interested, the producer asked for the name
of her agent, and when she told him that she had no agent, he seemed
astonished. Vous navez pas dagent! he exclaimed, but Miki,
overhearing their conversation in fragments, misheard agent as argent,
and found it curious that the producer thought that Brigitte had no money. But
by then he had had too much wine for it to matter.
* * *
When he entered the lobby of the Vier Jahreszeiten, Hanna
was already waiting for him, her suitcase beside her.
He had called her the
previous evening to tell her that he would not be flying to Israel with her,
but that she was still welcome to stay at the house and he would gladly take
her to the airport the following morning.
She had taken the news of the
confiscation of his passport in stride, but regretted not being able to make
the return journey with him. She was grateful for the opportunity to visit
Blankenese, where she had not been since her teenage years.
I would love to take a walk
around the Steps Quarter, she said as they were driving along the Elbchaussee.
Is it still as picturesque as it used to be?
Yes, he replied, its been
very well preserved.
Good. You know, for you it
may be too hot to take a walk, but for someone like me, who lived in the Negev
for thirty-five years, its just warm enough. Im sure you have work to do.
Youre right. I have to make
dinner.
You cook! Thats wonderful.
Its a hobby. We do have a
housekeeper.
Of course, Hanna said with
a laugh. I cant quite imagine your wife as a housewife, though Im sure she
could play one quite well on television.
Yes, she has done that.
When they reached the house
and Miki parked his car inside the gate, Hanna said, I believe I know this
house. I think I once came to a birthday party here, when I was a girl.
Thats possible, Miki said.
The original owners were Jews. But when he told her the name she did not
recognize it.
It must have been a friend
of a friend, she concluded.
Miki took her suitcase and
led her inside. The first thing Hanna noticed was the grand piano in the living
room.
Do you still play the
piano? she asked him.
A little, he said. Its
another hobby.
Will you play for us
tonight? she asked as he led her upstairs to her guest room.
If there is overwhelming
demand. I would rather accompany Brigitte in some Broadway songs she does
them beautifully but thats up to her. He gave Hanna a set of keys and said,
Make yourself comfortable, and take your walk whenever you feel like it. Do
you remember how to get to the Steps Quarter?
As if I had been there
yesterday. I walk along the Blankeneser Landstrasse towards the station, and
then turn right towards the Elbe. Right?
Right, he said, and left
her in the room to go downstairs into the kitchen. Frau Schmidt was not back
yet. He opened the refrigerator and began taking things out.
* * *
Back in Hamburg, Brigitte asked among her fellow actors
for a talent agency, and found that in Hamburg there was really only one that
mattered, HKA. They were quite happy to sign her up as a client, and assigned
her to Hertha Goldschmidt, known as Hetty, a middle-aged half-Jewish woman who
had spent the Nazi years in California and learned the tricks of the trade in
Hollywood. She was one of the firms partners, and the assignment was
practically by default, since her specialty was artists who were based in
Hamburg and did not work for Real-Film. Hetty, like Ida Ehre, did not get along
well with Walter Koppel.
The relationship between
agent and client got off to a rough start when Brigitte told Hetty of her
turndown of the Italian producer, and Hetty responded peevishly. If you pardon
my frankness, she said, that was stupid. As they say in America, Italian
cinema these days is where its at, baby. Look at all the people who
have worked with Fellini and Antonioni and Visconti: Maria Schell, Jeanne
Moreau, Anouk Aimée, Anita Ekberg theyve all been dubbed, and its helped
them become international stars!
Good for them, Brigitte
rejoined, but my voice is a part of who I am, just like my eyes and
; and my
legs. I speak English and French very well, and I know a little Italian, and I
am good with accents. I can learn enough Italian to speak my own lines, if
necessary.
You dont understand,
darling. The Italians dub even their own people, if necessary. If Sophia Loren
plays a part that doesnt call for a Roman or a Neapolitan accent, then she
gets dubbed by some stage actress.
If you pardon my
frankness, Brigitte said, I think that that is stupid. If someone
writes a screenplay with a part for a German woman who speaks Italian with an
accent, Ill take it.
I see. And what will you say
if a finished film is dubbed in its entirety, as they do in Spain, where Franco
uses dubbing as a form of censorship?
Nothing. By then my work is
finished, and the matter is out of my hands.
All right, Hetty said, her
tone suddenly turning cheerfully soft, I think we can work together. You have
principles and you think about things logically. Now lets talk about that
French offer.
Hetty proved her mettle by
negotiating a contract for Brigitte that would pay her, even after the
deduction of the agents fee, some 8,000 marks more than the original offer.
Even more importantly, the contract included a provision for something called residuals
that had recently been introduced in Hollywood. It meant that there would be
additional payments, somewhat like royalties, when the film was shown on
television.
The shooting schedule would
not be too difficult. Studio work would take three separate weeks in Paris,
about a month apart, with location work in Lorraine in between. The film would
be titled La Grande paix and its action took place just before, during
and after the First World War, which the French still called La Grande
Guerre. Brigitte would play a German woman in love with a Frenchman.
Still, for Brigitte and Miki
the separations, though never longer than eight to ten days at a time, would be
the longest they had experienced since their marriage. Miki would hardly be
able to spend any time with her in France. Writing about French affairs was
something that Müller-Marein reserved for himself, and since Miki had declined
to cover the Eichmann trial, he would be writing editorials and editing other
writers work until something came up that the senior editors thought should be
assigned to him, unless he came up with something first.
When the new American
president, John F. Kennedy, announced the formation of an organization to be
called the Peace Corps, in which young people university students or recent
graduates would serve as volunteers in foreign countries, Miki wrote an
article speculating about its prospects. His judgment was mostly favorable, in
the face of a rather skeptical reception by most other analysts; his only
concern was about the naiveté that young Americans might bring to their task.
Writing about America was the
Countesss specialty, but she approved the article, judging that the subject
required a young persons point of view. He now thought that, once the program
was put into action, it would behoove him to follow it and write about its
progress.
On returning from Cannes Miki
had noticed that the New York Herald Tribune could be found at
newsstands in the center of Hamburg, and he began to read it regularly. The
Peace Corps, it seemed, was being organized from the top, with a director (the
Presidents brother-in-law) and a high-level staff coming first, while the
deployment of volunteers would not start until August. Miki would have to wait
until then before continuing with the subject.
Meanwhile, the freedom rides
continued with a violent crescendo. The paper reproduced photographs from Life
showing the beatings inflicted on the riders.
He decided to write something
about the freedom rides and their significance without waiting for his return
trip to America. He tried to imagine something that European Jews in the 1930s
might have done that was comparable. If Nazi Germany was the South, could Jews
who were citizens of, say, France or Great Britain have ridden there and openly
flouted the Nuremberg laws? Of course not, he concluded. Such defiance can be
effective only under a regime that is, at least formally and however
imperfectly, a democracy.
He showed a sketch of the
article to Margot, wondering once again how the Countess would feel about
someone besides her writing about American matters. Marion Dönhoff was away at
the time, but Margot checked with Theo Sommer, the political editor who was the
staff member closest to the Countess (and, it was rumored, her
two-decades-younger lover). Theo did not think that the noble lady would have
any objections, since her interest was in high-echelon politics and academia
her American friends were the likes of George Kennan, the noted diplomat, and
Henry Kissinger, a professor at Harvard and not grassroots movements or
popular culture.
Miki finally wrote the
article in the form a fantasy, titled A Freedom Ride into Nazi Germany. He also wrote, with Müller-Mareins
permission, an articles about the Cannes festival lightheartedly asking why no
West German feature films, directors or actors ever won awards there (Helmut
Käutners The Last Bridge, which in 1954 shared an international prize
with eight other films, was an Austrian production). Miki speculated that
perhaps this was payback for Germans traditional preference for Nice over
Cannes.
* * *
With the roast prepared, he finally felt ready to get back
to the essay. He had not written anything since he was interrupted by Billungs
call two days before, but the situation had changed. He would write as much as
he could this afternoon, and finish on Sunday, since he was not going to
Israel. But he would be in Stuttgart on Monday, and unless he was placed under
arrest, he could go to the Merkur offices and deliver the typescript
there himself.
He looked at the last
paragraph he had typed and realized that the moment of truth had come.
There is one
place, however, where a postmodern radical nationalist movement not only
disputes a states monopoly of violence, but rejects the states very
existence. To characterize this form of fanaticism we need a descriptive
adjective, and I have chosen to adapt an English term, rejectionist.
That place is, or course,
the area historically known as Palestine, and the state in question is Israel.
Israel is, as we know, a
Jewish state. But in what sense? Well, in the same sense that, for example,
Iran is a Persian state (though it has non-Persian citizens such as Azeris,
Kurds and Baluchis), or, to bring it closer to home, in the same sense that
West Germany, East Germany and Austria are German states, though each one has a
small minority of indigenous citizens who are not members of the German nation,
that is, they are not ethnic Germans: Danes, Sorbs and Slovenes. (I wrote a
number of years ago that such citizens of Germany could be called Germanians
in English or Deutschländer in German.) And, to give a final but highly
relevant example, in the same sense that Israels neighbors are Arab states
(both Egypt and Syria have Arab Republic as a part of their official names),
though they may be home to indigenous non-Arab citizens: Copts and Nubians in
Egypt, Kurds and Assyrians in Syria, and so on.
There were a few
lines left on the paper, but he knew that the next paragraph would be a long
one, so began another page.
In other
words, Israel is simply a national state in the Central and Eastern European
mold, which is also valid for many Asian states: it has a majority ethnic or
cultural nation that gives the state its primary character, alongside citizens
who belong to minority nationalities (and who enjoy, at least on paper, full
civil and cultural rights comparable to those of minority nationalities in
Central and Eastern Europe). This national state is quite different from
the nation-state of Western Europe (and the overseas lands that were
settled by Western Europeans), in which the nation is defined by citizenship.
Thus Luxembourg and Switzerland also have majority populations that are
ethnically German, but they are not German states; a Luxembourger belongs only
to the Luxembourg nation, and a Swiss whatever language he may speak to the
Swiss nation. The French Swiss, the Italian Swiss and the Romansh Swiss are not
minority nationalities; they are simply Swiss who happen to use languages
different from that of the majority.
The rejectionism that is
specific to Israel is generally known as anti-Zionism.
What next? He would
begin by citing Jewish anti-Zionism, both the religious kind and the kind
represented by advocates of a binational state. Then he could proceed to the
various movements making up the Palestine Liberation Organization.
He heard the key turning in
the lock of the front door. Was it Hanna or Brigitte? As the door opened, he
heard the voices of both of them, carrying on a friendly chat punctuated by
laughter. They must have met along the way.
He had done enough writing
for that day. It was time to attend to other matters. Besides, he thought as he
turned off the typewriter, the conversation at the dinner party, and especially
Hanna and Max, might give him ideas for the conclusion of the essay.
He turned the typewriter off.
He got up and stretched. The womens voices faded. Brigitte had obviously led
Hanna into the garden.
* * *
Brigitte was still in France when the construction of the
Berlin Wall began. The event was covered by the Countess in person, accompanied
by Theo Sommer, with whom she rushed to Berlin on the first available flight
out of Hamburg. The next day the Eichmann trial ended, and Miki began to
reflect on it in writing on the basis of his collection of reports that he had
clipped from the Herald Tribune. He was not interested in Eichmann himself,
or even in the minutiae of the trial itself, but in the worldwide image that it
produced of the fate of the Jews in Nazi Europe.
He found out in his reading
that none other than Hannah Arendt had been engaged by the literary magazine The
New Yorker to cover the trial. To see the trial under that great Jewish
philosophers critical lantern would be priceless, he thought. He called the
library of the American consulate and found that copies of the magazine could
be found there, and he took a walk along the Alster it was only about twenty
minutes from their apartment house to the consulate building with the
intention of reading the reports.
The experience proved a
frustrating one. He began looking through the issues of The New Yorker
beginning about two weeks after the start of the trial, but found that the
magazine had no real table of contents, only a listing about three centimeters
high that had such titles as Books, Letter from London, Letter
from Paris or A Reporter at Large with their corresponding page
numbers but with no authors listed. He looked through four or five issues and
found no Letter from Jerusalem. He tried the articles written by the Reporters
at Large, but there too no authors name was shown before the very end of
the article, and in order to find it he had to leaf through endless pages of
advertising. He did not find Hannah Arendts name.
The librarian behind the
desk, a pleasant-looking redhead in her forties, seemed to sense his
frustration. She asked him in excellent German, with only the barest trace of
an American or perhaps Irish accent, if there was anything that she could
help him with. He told her that he was looking for Hannah Arendts reports on
the Eichmann trial.
As far as I know, the
librarian said, Hannah Arendt was not actually reporting on the trial, the way
a reporter would. Shes not a journalist, after all. I understand that she
attended it and will write a series of essays on it when its all over.
Thats too bad, Miki
said in English. The woman laughed. If you want reports, she said in German,
we have Time and Newsweek.
Thank you, Miki said. That
would be nice.
Times coverage of the
Eichmann trial was remarkably well balanced. In the very first article there
was a lengthy quotation from Die Zeits editorial Miki did not
remember who had written it about Germans mixed feelings of shame and guilt.
It was also reported that Jewry itself was divided on the case, and the
pros and cons filled pages of the Israeli press. To many, the trial seemed
vitally necessary to educate the younger generation of both Israel and Germany.
But other Jews were deeply disturbed by the illegal kidnap-arrest of Eichmann
in Argentina. Many were shocked that Eichmann had found it impossible to
recruit ex-Nazi colleagues to serve as defense witnesses. Reason: the Israeli
government had refused to promise that they themselves would not be arrested if
they set foot on Israeli soil.
In the following issue there
was a story that stunned Miki, one that had not been reported in the German
press at all, and that he seemed to have missed in the Herald-Tribune:
the arrest on espionage charges of Israel Beer, the very man that Miki had,
five years earlier, suspected of such activity
Subsequent articles on the
trial continued reporting on both German and Israeli ambivalence, and gave a
vivid portrait of Eichmann himself: a thin, balding man of 55 who looked
more like a bank clerk than a butcher
; On the job, he exemplified the
characteristic that Germans call Kadavergehorsam
; Adolf Eichmann but for
his glass cage might have been a minor court bureaucrat during the first eight
weeks of his trial
; Bureaucrat Eichmann had performed meticulously; anything
outside routine offended him
; All this was in stark contrast with
Eichmanns portrayal by the prosecutor, Gideon Hausner, as more evil than
Hitler.
There were some inaccuracies,
to be sure. Miki was startled to come across a reference to the Belsen
extermination camp, but it soon became clear to him that what was meant was
Belzec. Obviously, the reporter had misheard.
It also seemed strange to see
Yom Hashoah, the day of the calamity, which had been established in
Israel two years before in order to commemorate the victims of Nazism, referred
to as the Day of the Holocaust. Miki wondered if the Holocaust
was in the future going to be the standard English word for the experience that
he had lived through. Was he, then, a Holocaust survivor? It didnt make
sense to him; a holocaust, in its traditional meaning, would have no survivors.
There was more news about
Israel Beer as well: that everything that he had told about his life before
coming to Israel, including his record in the Spanish Civil War, had been a
lie; that Mikis hunch that Beer had given the Soviets advance information
about the Sinai campaign and, presumably, the coordinated Franco-British
attack on Suez had probably been correct; that he had needed money because of
an affair with a much younger woman with expensive tastes; and that he was not
circumcised. Stunned Israelis could only wonder, the article
concluded, if it were possible that the man known as Dr. Israel Beer was
not even a Jew.
* * *
The dinner party was balanced not only by gender, but also
by the fact that three of the six diners were Jews and the other three were
not. Miki could not remember being, since he had become a German citizen, at
another gathering in Germany at which half the attendees were Jews. Not only
Jews: all three had spent a significant length of time in Israel (or, in Max
Schwabs case, in pre-Israel Palestine). Nor was this unimportant, since he was
going to tell them about the events of the past week of his life the Ora
incident and the summons to Stuttgart and at least one of the two was still a
resident of Israel
He was curious, before the
conversation started, about which group he would identify with more, should the
need for such an identification arise: with his age group, in which he was the
only Jew, or with his fellow Jews, who were of another generation.
Or does it matter? he asked
himself.
Max arrived a few minutes
before six oclock. Brigitte and Hanna were still chatting in the garden, and
Miki had gone over all the serving details with Frau Schmidt, so that he
decided to take advantage of a moment alone with Max.
I may have another book
project, Miki said after an exchange of greetings. I am writing an essay for Merkur
that Im calling Postmodern Fanatics
;
I love the title, Max said.
Its almost done, Miki
continued. Ill send you a copy of the draft when its finished. Im in the
midst of strange business that Ill tell you about at the dinner table, but
when thats over I can get to work on padding it, with your help, of course.
Brigitte and Hanna came in
from the garden, still laughing. But at some point, Miki realized, Hanna must
have gone upstairs to change, because she was now wearing a dress a
sleeveless bluish-gray frock and not the habitual blouse and slacks that she had
on when she went on her walk. Brigitte had also changed from the dress she had
worn to the studio to a skirt and blouse.
So, Miki addressed them,
have you told each other everything that you know about me?
Brigitte looked at Hanna.
About him? she said. Hanna laughed, and Brigitte turned toward Miki. It
never occurred to us, she said. Your name never crossed our lips, Hanna
seconded, and both women burst out laughing again.
Do you understand women?
Miki asked Max.
Perfectly, Max said. I
just reverse whatever they say. Yes means no, no means yes
;
This is just what they call sexism
in America, Hanna said.
Then Im a sexist,
Max said. Ive been many an ist in my life, an atheist, a Communist, a
Zionist, even an onanist, so you can add sexist to my ist list.
The doorbell rang, and Miki
pushed the button to open the gate for Margot and Helmut. He wondered if the
verbal sparring between Hanna and Max was indicative of an attraction, and if
it would continue at the dinner table.
The Danish teak dining set
that the Wilners had bought for their Blankenese house included a round table
with a diameter of 1.4 meters that could comfortably if cozily seat six and
that could be extended with up to three 70-centimeter leaves so that it could
seat twelve. There were consequently twelve matching chairs with padded seats
and backs. Normally, only four were kept around the table while the other eight
were stored in the basement. This time Miki brought up two of the extra chairs.
They had not made any
arrangements for the seating, but, as was their habit whenever they
entertained, Miki and Brigitte sat across from each other. Hanna and Margot
spontaneously sat down flanking Miki, and the other men took the remaining
seats so that Helmut, as usual, faced Margot and Max faced Hanna.
Whether it was from the
effect of sitting between two beautiful young women and across from an
attractive older one, or of the pre-dinner schnapps that Brigitte had offered
to the assembly but that Max had been the only one to accept, his volubility at
the table was greater than Miki had ever witnessed.
As soon as they sat down, he
began by continuing to expand his ist list. Also a hedonist, a violinist
once upon a time I played professionally, for a short time and, naturally, my
wife calls me an egoist, he said.
This was not the first time
that Miki heard Max Schwab refer to his wife, though he had never seen any
evidence that Max actually had one. But the references had not piqued Mikis
curiosity enough to make him pursue the subject.
And where is your wife, Herr
Schwab? Margot asked pertly as Frau Schmidt began serving the appetizers while
Miki poured the wine.
Max seemed unprepared for the
question. She
; she is in New York, he said. We havent lived together for
many years.
But she still calls you an
egoist, Brigitte said with an ironic half-smile.
I
; I should have put that in
the past tense.
What about Zionist? Hanna
asked. Is that also in the past tense?
Yes, Im afraid so, Max
said. I left Palestine before it was Israel, but I remained a Zionist, until I
went back to visit a few years later when it was already Israel. And then, the
moment I stepped off the gangplank in Haifa, poof! My Zionism evaporated.
Would you call yourself an
anti-Zionist? Miki asked.
No, Max said, that implies
being against Zionism, or against the very existence of Israel, which of course
Im not. I just think that, since Israel is there, a state like any other,
Zionism is obsolete.
Miki wanted to ask Max to expand
on his notion of anti-Zionism, but he could see that Hanna was gathering her
thoughts to prepare a retort, and he decided to bide his time.
I beg your pardon, Hanna
said, but I dont think that Israel is a state like any other.
Max would not let her go on.
Because it is surrounded by enemies who want to destroy it? he asked
rhetorically in a defiant tone.
Yes, Hanna began, and
also
;
So look at what Israel does:
it follows the American saying Do unto others before they do unto you. It
seemed curious to Miki that in this exchange it was Max, not Hanna, who came
across like the stereotypical aggressive Israeli.
Do you blame them? Helmut
asked.
No, of course not. I would
do the same, but thats what I mean by its being a state like any other.
Lets get back to Zionism
for a moment, Margot said. As our friend Miki has so eloquently written in
his book, to the Arabs Zionism is still very much a reality.
Yes, Max said, but to them
its just a code word to avoid saying Israel.
There is more to it than
that, Miki said. They dont actually avoid saying it, they say and I quote
the Palestinian National Covenant, which Ive been rereading recently that
Israel is the tool of the Zionist movement.
I know, Max said with a laugh,
they think that there still is a Zionist movement.
But Max is right, Hanna
said just as Frau Schmidt set the platter with the neatly sliced roast and its
accompaniments in the center of the table. For the most part they say the
Zionist entity when they mean Israel. Having diplomatically disarmed Max with
her concession, she finally felt free to go on while Frau Schmidt gathered up
the salad plates and the forks that were left on them, producing a gentle
clatter. And anti-Zionist is therefore just another way of saying
anti-Israel. But, at least from the point of view of those of us who live in
Israel, it seems that here in the West anti-Zionism is becoming a mask for a
new anti-Semitism. I remember reading that even Martin Luther King said something
like that.
Yes, Miki said, he said When
people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism.
But that applies only to non-Jews. What about Jewish anti-Zionists?
Hanna smiled just as she
filled her plate with the main course being the guest of honor, she was the
first to do so and passed the serving utensils to Helmut. Oh yes, she said
while pouring the gravy on her roast, we have those in Jerusalem. It was a
shock for me when I moved there!
Tell us about them, Margot
said.
They are called Haredim,
which means those who fear. In other words, they are ultra-religious. If you
drive a car through their neighborhood on the Sabbath, they will stone it. If
they see a woman in short sleeves, they will shout Whore! at her.
Has it happened to you?
Brigitte asked. She had just received the utensils from Helmut and was serving
herself.
Yes, Hanna said. Only
once, because I didnt know about it. Whats more, they dont shout it in
Hebrew but in Yiddish; they say prietze. They refuse to speak Hebrew,
because its the holy tongue, and can be used only for prayer and study. And a
Jewish state can be brought about only by the Messiah. She took her first bite
of the breast of veal and turned to Miki. Im sorry to change the subject,
she said, but this is absolutely delicious.
Yes, it really is, Helmut
confirmed, but Margot and I are familiar with Mikis wonderful cooking.
Thank you, Miki said. But
werent we talking about the Messiah?
Everyone laughed. They arent
all quite like this, Hanna said. Some of the Haredim, the more
practical-minded ones, have accepted Israel in fact if not in theory. They have
a political party, they work for the state, they even speak Hebrew
;
So they call you a whore in
Hebrew! Brigitte said just before taking her first forkful, which she did with
an expression of utter delectation, closing her lips around the fork
lasciviously and pulling it out with a flourish.
Hanna was now busy eating and
replied only by nodding with a smile.
When I lived in Jerusalem,
Max said while serving himself, before there was an Israel, they were all
anti-Zionists. Looking at the food on his plate and passing the utensils to
Margot, he added, Enough about Israel. Lets see if I can get our host to
write a cookbook next.
Ive been trying for years,
said Margot.
I like to think, Miki said,
that at least some of the ideas that I write about are original. But my
recipes are not.
Do you think Paul Bocuses
recipes are original? Max said. He probably learned most of them from Fernand
Point, who learned them from someone else, and so on.
But they all added something
original to them. I dont bother with that. This breast of veal, Miki said as
he finally took his first morsel, which really is delicious, was made
approximately as my butcher recommended, based on his wifes recipe, and who
knows where she got it from.
From that point on the
conversation served only as punctuation for the main activity of eating. When
they were about halfway through with the main course, Miki suddenly remembered
something.
Now that were no longer
starving, he said, would you all do me a favor and look up from your plates
at the camera over there. He had mounted his Leica on a tripod that was
discreetly lurking in a corner beside the piano, about six meters away. He had
previously set the focus, aperture and shutter speed, and he had so placed the
chairs around the table that no ones head obscured any others. Frau Schmidt,
please, he said in a loud voice. Frau Schmidt, who had performed this service
before, sneaked in, snapped the time release, and walked right out. Miki
counted down from five, and the flash went off just after he shouted, in
English, cheese!
After dessert, washed down
with port, Helmut recited a humorous monologue from a comedy that Miki did not
know. During the performance Miki noticed that Margot was whispering to
Brigitte, whose wordless response, expressed only with her face, showed that
the information had affected her deeply. Lastly Brigitte, accompanied by Miki,
sang a medley of Broadway songs, beginning with I only have eyes for you
and ending with Always true to you in my fashion, first in English and
then in German.
As the evening drew to an
end, Miki realized that no opportunity had come up for telling his guests about
his personal predicament. He didnt mind. It had been an enjoyable, cheerful
dinner party, made all the more so by Maxs boisterous character. And, knowing
that he needed to get up early in order to drive Hanna to the airport, neither
he nor Brigitte made any attempt to draw it out.
As soon as the guests had
left, Hanna exchanged farewells with Brigitte and went to her room to finish
her packing. In particular, the dress she was wearing needed to be packed away.
Miki and Brigitte chatted briefly with Frau Schmidt, who insisted on doing the
dishes right there and then, since she would be taking Sunday off. It was not
even ten oclock yet, but neither Miki nor Brigitte could think of a reason for
not going up to bed.
As they were walking up the
stairs, Brigitte said, Margot told me something that she didnt want to
announce in front of people that she didnt know. Well, she knows Max, but not
that well.
I noticed, Miki said. What
was it?
Ill tell you after I come
out of the bathroom.
As he was brushing his teeth,
Miki tried to guess what Margots announcement might have been about. Were she
and Helmut finally getting married? Then it would not have been her
announcement alone. He could come up with nothing else.
Margot thinks she is
pregnant, Brigitte said on coming into the bedroom. Miki was already
undressing. Shell tell me more when we have lunch together on Thursday.
Really! He didnt know what
else to say.
She and Helmut have been
trying for years, Brigitte said as she began to undress without the least
trace of the seduction that was so characteristic of her movements during her
bloodless times. Didnt you know that?
No, Miki said. Neither of
them ever told me.
Perhaps they thought that it
might make you envious. With me, they know perfectly well that it wouldnt.
Why would they think that of
me? he asked.
Perhaps because youve never
been so clear about not wanting children as I have. To them, I mean, she added
with a smile as she slipped under the lightweight comforter that covered their
bed in summer.
And to you? he asked,
snuggling up to her.
She kissed him lightly and
smiled enigmatically as she turned off the light. Good night, she said.
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