16
Friday,
August 21, 1970
1965-66
It was the first time in at least five nights that he
woke up with the feeling of having slept well. The good feeling lasted until he
looked at his watch, which showed a quarter to seven, and realized with a dash
of panic that he had neglected to set it to Israeli time and it was really a
quarter to eight. He was due to meet Nili in three quarters of an hour.
He
bolted out of bed, took the briefest of showers, shaved, and gargled with the
mouthwash provided by the hotel. He fished some clean clothes out of his bag
and put them on without bothering to look at the shirt he had taken. He then
put on his disguise and left the room. It was now eight oclock. The
fifteen-minute walk to Nilis office left him just enough time for a quick
breakfast at the first café he found along the way, accompanied by a quick
glance at the copy of the Jerusalem Post that he had bought just outside
the Dan Hotel. To have a full Israeli breakfast at the hotel would have taken
far too long.
He
knocked on the door bearing the shingle N. Rosen, Attorney-at-Law and heard
Come in! from within. It was definitely Nilis voice, and it gave him a warm
feeling inside, complementing that of the coffee he had just drunk. He opened
the door and walked in.
She
was seated in her chair, but had rolled it away from behind the desk so that
she was in full view. Her jet-black hair was cut short, but stylishly. She was
wearing a navy-blue short-sleeved dress and high-heeled shoes, with her bare
legs crossed. Her breasts were as small as Miki remembered them, and she seemed
to be wearing no brassiere.
She
quickly got up and walked, quite gracefully, to the door to meet him. Shes
obviously learned to wear high heels, he said to himself. She seemed a little
nonplussed by his appearance. He pulled off the beard and the sunglasses and
put them, together with the newspaper, on a little table that stood beside the
door and that was probably intended as a place for women clients to put their
purses.
A
little late for Purim, isnt it? she said. He laughed, and so did she.
Shalom, Miki, she said.
Shalom,
Nili. They met in a warm embrace.
Whats
with the disguise? she asked.
Did
Hanna tell you why Im here? he asked in return.
A
little bit. She was calling long-distance from Germany, so she kept it short,
but there was something about a girl claiming to be my daughter.
Yes,
he said, and, after they both sat down facing each other, he told her the rest.
He could think of no reason to withhold any details from her. By the way, he
asked after finishing, what is your daughters name?
Its
Ora He said nothing. I should be amazed, she added, but I really am not.
You obviously have some enemies here. And the crowd that governs this state,
since the Six-Day War, they think they can do anything they want. Even supposed
intellectuals like Abba Eban.
But
to concoct a story about you and me having a daughter? Somebody must have known
that we once did it without a condom, in order to be able to create a hoax like
that and have me believe it. Can you think of who it might be?
She
thought for a long time before a smile of enlightenment came over her face. Yes,
there is one person who knows about it. I am ashamed to admit it.
He
waited.
Its
Tzvi, she said, lowering her eyes.
Tzvi?
Yes,
she said. Do you remember how he was always pestering me to go out with him? I
couldnt stand him. I would tell him that he smelled like a fishpond, but he
only laughed. And, after you left and it turned out that you werent coming
back, he was the first one to tell me about it. He told me that you had a piece
in Germany who looked like Brigitte Bardot. He thought that that would make me
angry with you, and that it would give him an advantage. But it only made me
angry with him. I got a little too blunt with him. I told him that he could
never compare with you, that you had left me with beautiful memories that he
couldnt even imagine, and I mentioned in passing, just to goad him, that you
and I had even done it without a condom. He asked if I wasnt afraid of getting
pregnant, and I told him that it was none of his business. He seemed to be
really angry, but I didnt care, since I already knew that I was leaving the
kibbutz.
Because
of the beauty contest?
Nili
laughed. That was a joke. It was just an excuse for getting away from there.
But, honestly, I cant think of anyone, besides Tzvi, who could be behind this
business.
But
why would he do that? And why now?
For
one thing, he is probably still angry with you, after what you did to his
sister. So hes killing two birds with one stone.
What
I did to Ruti? You mean, raping her?
Rape?
What rape? She was a virgin, and maybe you were a little rougher than your
usual self, but thats not unusual. No, its that you dropped her after the
first time. A girl doesnt like that.
That
didnt happen to you, did it?
She
smiled. In all modesty, she said, I could always get anyone I wanted. No one
ever dropped me. Not even you, she
added with a smile. Going away isnt the same as dropping a girl.
I
agree, Miki said.
But
I understand how girls feel. Im a divorce lawyer, you know.
But
Tzvi
Ill have to find him.
Today
is Friday
It wouldnt be very difficult if you went to Refadim tomorrow. But
be very, very careful.
What
do you mean?
Do
you know who Tzvi is?
Hanna
told me that he works in the Security Office.
Thats
true, technically. Hes in the Mossad. Its a secret, but an open one.
A
kind of fog, one of which he had not even been aware, began to lift.
The
Mossad
he said. So, when you said two birds with one stone, you implied
that theres another side to this, which is not so personal, but rather
official.
Nili
said nothing, but uncrossed and recrossed her legs as she nodded. Do you mind
if I smoke? she asked after a while.
Thank
you for asking, he said. Frankly, I do mind. I am very sensitive to tobacco
smoke.
I always liked your frankness, she said,
laughing. I remember that about you. We Israelis pride ourselves on our
frankness, but its really just rudeness. Not you. Always a gentleman.
What
else do you remember about me?
A
lot. What I said before about beautiful memories
theyre still with me. Ive
never stopped thinking about you.
I
have them too. I have had many dreams about you. Some of them very erotic, I
should add.
Dreams,
reality
Nili said, speaking slowly and in a husky voice, they are not so far
apart, are they? She came closer to him.
I am a married man, he said.
She
laughed. To most men that doesnt matter. Not even ones married to a beautiful
woman, like you.
Your
ex-husband, for example?
Probably.
I left him before I had a chance to find out.
So
you left him because of something else?
Id
rather not talk about it. You see, Im not as frank as you.
It
was his turn to laugh. He looked at the clock on her wall; it read 9:20.
You
have a client coming soon. Its time for me to become Etzel Andergast again.
Etzel
Andergast! What a great name. You know, I read those novels, by Yaakov
Wassermann.
Was
that under Hannas influence? he asked as he reattached his beard, making her
laugh again.
Yes!
she exclaimed amid her laughter. How did you guess? You know, after I left,
she was the only person from the kibbutz that I stayed in touch with, besides
my parents.
I
didnt know. She didnt tell me that.
Isnt
it a miracle, she said as she took his hands in a farewell gesture, that she
came at just the right time?
Speaking
of miracles, he said, do you know if she already has a telephone?
Not
that I know of. When she calls me its from a public telephone, or from her
neighborhood grocery store. When was she due back?
Last
Sunday.
I
havent heard from her. If you want to find her, youll just have to go to her
house. Good luck.
Thank
you. Shalom, Nili, he said.
Shalom,
Mi
I mean Etzel. Its funny: it sounds as if your name were that of a former
paramilitary organization, just as mine is. It had not occurred to him before
that moment that Etzel was the Hebrew acronym of the Irgun Tzvai
Leumi, the National Military Organization from which the Herut party had
sprung. But, he remembered, Nili always had been observant. A good quality for
a lawyer, he thought.
She
let go of his left hand in order to open the door for him with her right, and
he used his free hand to take hold of his newspaper. She slightly leaned
forward in his direction and he knew that if he were to do the same, she would
continue leaning until they met in a kiss. He remembered their farewell kiss
eighteen years before and the sudden, powerful surge of desire he felt at the
time. He did not want to repeat the experience, and he remained upright. He
shook the hand that he still held, dropped it, and turned away from her in
order to pass through the door into the hallway. As he walked away, he did not
hear the door close behind him. She must have remained in the doorway, watching
him leave her again.
As
he waited to cross Ben Yehuda Street, a military truck, its bed filled with
kafiya-wearing Arabs, roared by. Who were they? Captured Fatah fighters?
Workers like the one in Bathtub Queen?
* * *
When he received Leons itinerary, he calculated that
Brigitte would need to go to Vienna directly from Paris. He found that Air
France had a flight going there less than an hour after the one that he, Leon
and Fela would take to Tel Aviv, the morning after their arrival. He
immediately made the reservation for her, without waiting for Billung to do so.
Just
before leaving for Paris, Miki received a copy of a new book, titled Beyond
Guilt and Atonement, by the same Jean Améry whose essay Torture he
had briefly written about the previous year. An expanded version of the essay
was, in fact, one of the books five chapters. Miki was not interested in
reviewing the book, and neither was Reich-Ranicki. In the end, the review was
assigned to Horst Krüger, the literary editor of Southwest Radio in
Baden-Baden. Miki did, however, take the book with him to Israel, thinking that
he might have something to say about the final essay in it, On the Necessity
and Impossibility of Being a Jew.
The
trip to Paris in the first-class sleeping car of the night train, their first
such trip together, was like a belated tenth-anniversary honeymoon. Miki was
able to forget his anxiety about Leons condition, and arrived in Paris relaxed
and rested.
The
euphoria lasted only until they saw Leon.
The
emaciated figure that emerged from the Air France gate at Orly reminded Miki so
forcefully of the one who, newly liberated at Buchenwald, made his way to the
Bergen-Belsen DP camp in search of surviving family members that, for a moment,
he felt himself to be the ten-year-old boy who could barely recognize his
uncle.
Leon,
who was not yet sixty, looked to Miki at least seventy-five, and any unknowing
onlooker would take Fela, walking beside him and looking just like the
well-preserved mid-forties woman that she was, to be his daughter. It was only
when Leon smiled, displaying the benefits of excellent dentistry, that he came
closer to looking his age.
In
order to avoid the traffic between Orly and Paris, they had booked rooms at the
recently opened Hilton Orly Airport Hotel. For Leon such accommodations were
what he was used to in his business travels, but Miki and Brigitte were put off
by the hotels sterile environment. To think that Elizabeth Taylor was once
married to a Hilton
Brigitte remarked.
At
dinner, Miki sat facing Leon, and Brigitte, on his left, faced Fela. The
conversation somehow devolved into two separate face-to-face encounters, with
the women speaking in English and the men in a free-flowing mixture of French
and Yiddish. Leon, Miki noticed, ate very little of his food.
In
the course of talking with Fela, Brigitte managed to find out at last what Leon
was suffering from: an inoperable gastric cancer that was diagnosed too late.
One of the several reasons for the trip to Israel was the presence, at Tel
Hashomer Hospital in Ramat Gan, of an oncologist who had been recommended by
one of Leons Montreal doctors as someone who might have a miracle cure for his
condition.
Leon,
for his part, told Miki only that he and Fela had rented a house in Ramat Gan
for an indefinite stay, and that he expected Miki to stay with them there. The
Israelis call it a villa, he said, but Ive seen the photos, and its just a
house. I remember thinking the opposite when I was at your house in
Montreal, Miki remarked, and Leon replied, Eh! A house is a house.
Otherwise,
their conversation dwelt mainly on the past and on Mikis career since their
London visit. Have you made any money from your book? Leon asked. Not much,
Miki replied, but its a succès destime. Thats how my coffee was at
first, Leon said, a succès destime, until the good restaurants began
to use it, and then it became a succès dargent.
Miki
thought that staying in a house in Ramat Gan, away from the places haunted by
journalists, might be a good way to take the pulse of what was going on in and
around Israel.
The
first thing that they found after settling down in Ramat Gan, after Miki had
made some telephone calls, was that Dr. Gartenberg, to whom Leon had been
referred, was not actually on the medical staff of Tel Hashomer but only had
admission privileges there. Nor was he a certified oncologist, but a general
practitioner with an office in his large house, one that, at least from the
outside, could honestly be called a villa. Both Leon and Miki were reminded of
the villas in which the doctors of Bad Harzburg lived and practiced.
Dr.
Gartenbergs practice was evidently very successful. The house had two wings: a
public, clinical one, with a large, crowded waiting room, examining offices
(there were two associates) and a laboratory, and a private one that included
besides the family residence a consulting room for special patients. Leon was
one of these.
The
taxi ride from the rented house to Dr. Gartenbergs house the driver did not
need to be told the address was a short one, and when they were dropped off
Miki decided that there was no need for him to accompany Leon and Fela into the
clinic. He hugged them and wished Leon good luck.
It
would have been a short walk back to the house, but the free time that Miki had
was a good opportunity to hang out among ordinary Israelis and listen in on
their conversations. He stopped at a busy café on Rambam Square.
The
talk that he overheard, when not personal, was full of anxiety. Since the
spring there had been a series of border crossings by Fatah fighters from
Syria, with both Arabs and Israelis killed in the process. And the common theme
that he heard was that something must be done with the Arabs.
He
got into the conversation to the extent of asking, What do you think can be
done? When one of the men they were all men suggested a preemptive attack,
he was immediately contradicted by someone else who said, No, the Soviets are
on their side, and the Americans are too busy in Vietnam to help us. You
sound like Eshkol, a third man said with a sneer. Yes, seconded the first
one, we need a real man in office, like Golda Meir! A fourth man then said,
Dont count the Americans out. Eshkol and Johnson have a good relationship.
When
Miki got back to the house, Leon and Fela were already there. Leons pallor was
suffused with an optimistic glow, beyond his usual cheerful self. Fela who
was wearing a large, obviously expensive gold-and-diamond brooch that Miki had
not seen on her before explained that the doctor had found him a perfect
candidate for the treatment, which would begin the next day. It was to be a
nutritional program, using extracts that Dr. Gartenberg had developed, combined
with intestinal cleansing. And the doctor would make a special time to begin
Leons treatment, since the clinic would be closed for the first day of Sukkot.
The treatment would take place in stretches of five days, which would be
followed by five days off during which the patient would be encouraged to eat
his fill, and so on.
Miki
felt skeptical, but did not voice his feelings. He complemented Fela on the
brooch, and Leon told him that it came from a jeweler named Kleinberg, who had
beautiful jewelry at great prices. In case you want to get something for
Brigitte
he went on but did not finish. A sudden bout of pain seemed to
strike him.
By
the second day of treatment, however, Leons condition had improved so
dramatically externally and, according to Leon, internally that Miki was
ready to take back his skepticism.
When
the first five-day course of treatment ended, Leons skin no longer looked
cadaverous. He was still feeble, and he still looked unmistakably like a sick
man, but not frighteningly so. What in Leons view was best of all was that Dr.
Gartenberg was satisfied with his progress, and held out hope for another round
of improvement when the treatment was resumed.
Miki,
meanwhile, took daylong excursions to Tel Aviv of which Ramat Gan is
practically a suburb as well as to Jerusalem and Haifa. He went there by
train; he found that he could easily walk to Arlozorov station in Tel Aviv,
which was just across the city limit from the diamond dealers district of
Ramat Gan. Along the way he noticed Kleinbergs jewelry store.
He
liked Haifa, which he had not visited before, the best. Besides enjoying the
citys beauty one day, he knew, he would be back there with Brigitte he was
heartened by the way the citys Jewish and Arab residents managed to live
together. He ate lunch in an Arab restaurant, and the friendliness he
encountered there impressed him, as did the waiters and customers fluency in
Hebrew. With one another, of course they spoke Arabic, and he could not
participate in political discussions with them as he could with Jews.
Back
in Ramat Gan he noticed, in a bookstore on Rambam Square, a teach-yourself book
of spoken Palestinian Arabic for Israelis, with the Arabic written in Hebrew
letters. He bought the book and resolved to learn the language.
On
the day before Leons treatment was to resume, disturbing incidents occurred on
Israels borders. Fatah launched two cross-border attacks from Syria. Bomb
explosions in West Jerusalem injured three Israeli civilians. A mine explosion
south of the Sea of Galilee injured four more.
Two
days after treatment resumed, Leon suddenly took a turn for the worse. Dr.
Gartenberg admitted the failure of his program, and stopped it. Another
physician was called in, but by the time he showed up Leon was in a coma. The
new doctor estimated Leons life expectancy at three or four days.
Fela
immediately made some telephone calls to Montreal. On Friday, about half a
dozen of Leons closest friends showed up in Ramat Gan, all of them about his
age, and most of them with their wives. There was also Felas cousin Renée, who
had lost her husband the year before, and two younger men, about Mikis age. It
did not feel like a time for introductions.
Leon
never regained consciousness, and died, seemingly free of pain, on Saturday.
The burial took place on Sunday. One of the younger men, of medium height,
turned out to be the rabbi of their congregation, and he managed all the
arrangements and the ceremony with the practiced skill of one who had already
handled several Israeli burials for his congregants. He asked Miki to say a few
words at the burial, and Miki did so like a man dazed by emotion, with no
thought about what he would say, and no memory afterwards of what he had said,
but the people in attendance were visibly moved.
After
the ceremony the other young man, who was very tall, approached Miki and
introduced himself in as Greg Berman, an attorney in the firm handling Leons
estate. He asked Miki if he had a copy of Leons will with him. When Miki said
the had not thought of bringing it, Greg Berman said that it was just as well,
because that will was obsolete. He went on to tell Miki that by dint of hard
work, a good business sense and some luck, Leon had managed to amass a sizable
estate, one half of which was to go to his widow (in addition to jointly held
assets such as the house), one fourth to various charities, and one fourth to
his beloved nephew, Dr. Michael Wilner of Hamburg, Germany. But this quarter
was in trust, in an investment account at the Bank of Montreal, until Dr.
Wilner turned thirty-five, at which time it would be transferred to his
control. The idea is, Greg Berman went on as Miki listened in silence,
is that
Miki wondered briefly if the repetition of is was as
peculiarity of Montreal English or an individual speech habit, but he listened
to the gist of the idea, which was that Mikis portion, worth a little under a
million Canadian dollars, was to grow to a cool million by his
thirty-fifth birthday. For the time being it seemed that, the way the trust was
invested, it was growing faster than necessary for this goal, and Miki would
receive the fruits of this excess growth as income. Greg was not sure of how
much this would be, but told Miki not to be surprised if he received quarterly
checks of at least five thousand dollars during the next three-plus years.
Miki
thanked Greg Berman for the information. He asked him if the terms of the trust
meant that he could not use any of the principal before the age of thirty-five.
Thats correct, Greg answered. In principle it could be used as
collateral for a loan, but, Dr. Wilner not being a resident of Canada, in
practical terms that would be difficult.
Miki
suddenly found himself transported to a mundane world. He felt like a child who
was punished for a nonexistent transgression. Why had Leon picked the age of
thirty-five? Was it only in order to let the trust grow to a round million, so
that he could have the posthumous satisfaction of having made his nephew a
millionaire? But Miki did not need a million, only a fraction of one, in order
to buy, with Brigitte, the house of their dreams.
He
could, of course, let Brigitte pay for the house, and he would pay her his
share after he got the money. But that, somehow, did not feel right. He did not
want to be his wifes debtor, and he did not think that she would want to be
his creditor.
He
decided that on her thirty-fifth birthday, three years hence, he would tell her
about his fortune. He would buy her an obviously expensive piece of jewelry as
a present, and explain that he could now easily afford it.
They could start their house hunting
immediately, since it would be only four months until the principal was his.
* * *
He was back at the Dan in time for the breakfast
service. An Israeli hotel breakfast was not something he liked to pass up.
The array of fresh breads and rolls, fruit, eggs,
cheese, smoked fish, yogurt and Israeli salad was something that had even
impressed Brigitte during their visit, three months earlier, and nowhere more
so than at the Basel, where they had stayed in Tel Aviv.
Compared
with the Basel, breakfast at the Dan looked more mass-produced. The cheese
slices, for one, did not seem to be freshly cut from a slab but extracted from
packages. The fruit did not look orchard-fresh, nor did the bread look
bakery-fresh, as they did at the Basel. But, as he had already concluded,
staying at the Basel was too risky.
The
Avis office was about two hundred meters away. He needed to pick up the car by
noon, since the office would be closing for Friday afternoon.
By
half past ten it was already quite warm at least thirty degrees, he estimated
when he stepped outside the hotel for a walk along the beach and he was
looking forward to the cooler air of Jerusalem. No need to wait till noon, he
told himself. He went back to his room to prepare what little baggage he would
need for his journey. He would, of course, not check out of the Dan. He had no
idea of how long he would be away, or of whether he would find either Hanna or
Tzvi. But this time he found the uncertainty exciting.
* * *
As a
nephew, Miki was not technically obligated to sit shiva for Leon, but
he felt with all his heart that he had to do so. He was the only blood
relation, and the nearest thing that Leon had to a son. He was, moreover,
Leons heir. But most of all he felt that he owed it to himself, to his newly
found self-awareness as a Jew. Not as a matter of faith for nothing had
occurred to shake his atheism but as a matter of belonging to the Jewish
people, something that he fully felt for the first time since he had, fifteen
years before, returned to Germany from Israel. Being a Jew was now an integral
part of his being, not merely a badge that he could flash when he wanted to
write something that might outrage the German reader.
The
seven days of mourning would be over on Sunday, but there were no more seats on
that days flights to Vienna. There was a tourist-class seat available on the
Monday morning flight, and Miki booked it, forfeiting the first-class premium.
By then, Brigittes turn as Laura at the Josefstadt would be over he was
sorry to miss it, but not too much, since The Glass Menagerie was not a
favorite play of his and she would already be back in Hamburg, working on Germelshausen.
Miki would, then, simply change planes in Vienna and go on to Hamburg. The
layover would be a long one, some four or five hours, but it didnt matter.
For
the first three days, the house was full of visitors. But on Wednesday, all the
Canadian contingent left, except Renée. It happened to be Brigittes
thirty-second birthday. He called her as soon as the hubbub of the farewells
was over. It was nine in the morning. She was still in bed, but awake. After
wishing her a happy birthday, which she acknowledged with a forced yawn, he
told her that he would not see her in Vienna. Thats too bad, she said. I
would have liked you to see me as Laura. Ive been having a constant fight with
the director: he thinks Im making her too sexy. Now he was really sorry to
miss Brigittes performance.
For
the rest of the shiva the two widows kept each other company. Miki had
plenty of time to himself, and he finally read Amérys book from beginning to
end. When he finished it he knew that he had to write a reply to the last essay
in it, On the Necessity and Impossibility of being a Jew.
On
the Sunday before his departure he went to Kleinbergs and bought Brigitte a
pair of diamond earrings for eighty dollars (In New York they would be a
hundred and fifty, Kleinberg told him) as a belated present for their tenth
wedding anniversary and though of course he would not tell her that as a
foretaste of what he would give her on her thirty-fifth birthday.
When
he boarded the flight at last, he made sure to pack the book and his Olivetti
in his carry-on bag. When the seat-belt sign went off, he had the gist of the
article in his head, ready to type. It took a bit of maneuvering to get the
typewriter out of the overhead bin it would have been far easier in first
class and to set it on the tray table, but, with some help from his neighbor,
he managed.
Typing
while flying turned out to be more difficult than he had supposed. There were
far more typographic errors than was usual for him. About halfway through the
flight, he gave up. In Vienna he took advantage of the long layover and of his
first-class ticket to find a seat in the VIP lounge, where he finished the
article. By the time the flight to Hamburg was announced, it was ready for
submission.
Whose Guilt? Whose Atonement?
Last
year I had the occasion to write a few lines about a most moving essay titled Torture
by Jean Améry.
The
essay has reappeared, in slightly extended form, as one of five chapters in a
book by Améry that, under the title Beyond Guilt and Atonement: Attempts to
Overcome by One Who Was Overcome, has taken West Germany by storm.
The
book has already been reviewed in these pages by Horst Krüger, but since I seem
to have a few things in common with the author, I was asked by the editors to
give the readers some of my reactions to the book. I am publishing them with
somewhat of a delay, because I have recently spent some time in Israel,
witnessing the grave deterioration of the political and military situation
there as well as, on a personal level, the terminal illness of my uncle, the
late Leon Rozowski.
As
I read the book, I discovered that what I have in common with Améry does, in
fact, more to distance me from him than to bring us closer.
While
I have not personally experienced physical torture, I found much to admire in
Amérys analysis of his own experience thereof (which, as he readily admits,
was of a relatively benign nature and did not leave any permanent scars), and
it bettered my understanding of others who had experienced it.
But
our common experiences are another matter. They reduce to two things: being a
Jew and being a concentration-camp survivor (including being liberated at
Bergen-Belsen).
Amérys
reflections on being a Jew are contained in the last essay in the book, On
the Necessity and Impossibility of being a Jew.
As
Shakespeare wrote in What You Will, Some are born great, some achieve
greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
Shakespeares
formulation can be applied to other qualities than greatness; for example, that
of being a Jew.
Some
are born Jews, by the simple fact of having a mother who is already Jewish. I
belong to this category, and so, I daresay, do most of us.
Others
achieve Jewishness: by conversion; by being raised in a Jewish community; by
immersing themselves in Jewish culture.
And
others still have Jewishness thrust upon them, as, for example, by a regime
decreeing that they are Jews according to some so-called laws.
Améry
is one of those who had their Jewishness thrust upon them. As he tells us, his
mother was Catholic and in fact opposed his marriage to his Jewish girlfriend.
He also tells us that he was quite ignorant in Jewish lore, and that his
biblical knowledge comes from reading Thomas Manns Joseph novels. No, he had
Jewishness thrust upon him by a reading, in a coffee house during his Vienna
student days, of the Nuremberg laws. And his understanding of anti-Semitism
comes not from having experienced it (except in its most extreme form) but from
another reading, that of Sartres Réflexions sur la question juive.
Moreover, he accepts Sartres dictum that the Jew is who the anti-Semite
defines him to be.
In
other words, what he knows about being a Jew comes from non-Jewish writers. He
seems to have an aversion to hearing Jewish voices such as those of Hannah
Arendt and Martin Buber.
What
is more, Amérys assumption of his identity as a Jew is simultaneous, if not
synonymous, with that of being a victim, or as he puts it, a dead man on
furlough.
It
seems curious to me that Amérys stance of Jew-as-victim has found such
resonance in present-day Germany. But perhaps it should not. A little over a
year ago I reported on the cool reception that West Germans gave the opening of
the Israeli embassy in Bonn. The State of Israel is the very embodiment of the
Jew-as-actor, diametrically opposed to what Améry represents. Could it be that
Germans are more comfortable with the one than with the other? And if so, why?
Could it be that the image of the Jew-as-victim, referring to the past a past
that will eventually be buried is easier to deal with than that of the
Jew-as-actor, who is here in the present and probably also in the future?
Let
me skip back to the beginning of the book, which is the essay titled At the
Minds Limits and whose
subject, as announced in the first sentence, is the intellectual in Auschwitz.
I
found that I had two problems in reading this essay. One is Amérys curiously
confining definition of an intellectual, which excludes any interest in natural
science or technology. The intellectual à la Améry has no interest in the physical process that leads to a short-circuit,
and if he is asked to name a famous person whose name begins with Lilien- he
will respond with the minor poet Detlev von Liliencron, not the aeronautical
pioneer Otto Lilienthal. I must confess, then, that to Améry I with my
Göttingen doctorate in philosophy, German literature and modern history am
not an intellectual.
My
other problem is deeper, however. Améry bemoans the fact that in Auschwitz, or
more specifically in the labor camp of Auschwitz-Monowitz where he was
imprisoned, the privileged men were skilled workers such as locksmiths,
electricians, plumbers, cabinetmakers and carpenters. After them came the likes
of tailors and shoemakers, masons and mechanics, all of whom could find
bearable work with a chance of survival. Even among the learned professions,
chemists (like his fellow prisoner Primo Levi) or physicians had it better than
university professors, librarians, art historians and economists, who were soon
removed from the labor pool and sent to the main camp with its gas chambers and
crematories. Nor was their situation, according to Améry, any better within the
camp community, in which, unable to master the inmates slang, they could not
even find friends.
Somehow,
though Améry never says so explicitly, the impression comes through that this
situation if it is true is, in his view, a Nazi-generated perversion of the
natural order of things. I am no more a Marxist than Améry is, and I do not
believe in the superiority of the working class. But I believe in the equality of
man, or at least in the Jeffersonian dictum that all men are created equal. I
was in the camps as a child and not at Auschwitz, but my late uncle was of
Amérys generation and passed through Auschwitz, and he, a well-read socialist
who had studied economics, had no difficulty either in learning whatever manual
skills were needed under the circumstances or in making friends among inmates
from all walks of life, even intellectuals who could pass Amérys test with
flying colors.
I
find myself forced, to my great discomfort, to judge Amérys analysis in
negative terms, to think of such qualities as self-pity, arrogance or
egocentrism. I would be greatly comforted in being found wrong.
After
all, I forgot to mention a third thing that I have in common with Jean Améry:
being human.
It was only when his response to Améry was out of his
viscera and on paper that, back in the first-class comfort of Lufthansa on the
Vienna-Hamburg flight, he allowed himself to take stock of the ways in which
the month in Israel had changed him.
He
lost the only blood relative that he had left.
He
became a rich man, or at least learned that he would be a rich man a few years
hence.
He
found himself again as a Jew who was, above all, devoted to the survival of
Israel as a state at peace with its neighbors. One of these neighbors would be
a sovereign Palestinian Arab state.
He
was still in the midst of these reflections when the plane landed. It was five
oclock, and a little before six the taxi dropped him in front of the apartment
house. As he entered the lobby he realized that this was his first homecoming
to their new dwelling. Alone with his bags in the elevator, after a month of
returning to the house in Ramat Gan, he did not quite feel that he was coming
home.
Once
he was in the apartment, Frau Schmidt was there to greet him and to tell him
that Frau Wilner had herself come home just a short while before, and was
probably taking a shower. She was already at work, Frau Schmidt informed him,
on the filming of Germelshausen, shooting outdoor scenes in a village
that stood for the one in the story and that was located, miraculously (as
befitted the story, Miki thought), only forty kilometers down the Elbe from the
center of Hamburg. Frau Schmidt knew the place, for she had been there with Klaus,
who lived nearby. Its name was Haselau, it was surrounded by woods and marshes,
and it had a thirteenth-century church (another perfect fit) and an old inn
with excellent food that had been owned by the same family since 1700. Speaking
of food, Frau Schmidt concluded, dinner would be ready at any moment.
He
thanked Frau Schmidt and walked toward the master bedroom. As he passed the
bathroom he heard the running water and visualized Brigitte standing under it.
He felt at home at last. He left his bags in the hallway, just outside the
bedroom door, and went back to tell Frau Schmidt that dinner could wait an hour
or so.
During
that time, from the moment that Brigitte entered the bedroom in her terry-cloth
robe and slippers to find Miki waiting for her, they did not exchange any words
other than each others names, even when in the end they were getting dressed
after he had presented her with the earrings.
Over
dinner of roast chicken, fried potatoes and mixed vegetables, they finally talked.
Miki told her briefly about what had happened in Israel, and promised to tell
her more details as he settled down. Brigitte, in turn, told him that she had
impressed the Viennese enough to receive several film offers from Austrian
producers. Hetty advised her to accept the one in which she would not need to
affect an Austrian accent: a comic parody of L'Année dernière à Marienbad,
to be titled Last Year at Bad Ischl, in which Brigittes character was
that of a visiting North German woman. Brigitte protested that she could speak
perfect Viennese, and gave Hetty a demonstration. To me you sound Viennese,
Hetty replied, and you would sound fine if you were cast as an Austrian in
anything except an Austrian film taking place in Austria. Perhaps Marie-Antoinette!
she added with a laugh. But Brigitte did not really need convincing; she liked
the Bad Ischl outline better than the others, anyway.
The
Améry article, as soon as it appeared in the following weeks Die Zeit,
sparked a storm of controversy in the German media. Jean Améry had, in the two
years since his tape-recorded essays began to be broadcast on the German radio,
become almost a cult figure. He had been invited to lecture and to sign books
all over West Germany, and West German intellectuals somehow found his
lone-voiced, existentialist-tinged writing on the Nazi past easier to swallow
than that of more accusatory writers who had closer ties with the Jewish
community. To criticize him seemed somehow un-German, and Michael Wilner was
attacked on the grounds of not being German enough to understand the reasoning
of someone like Améry, on the grounds of being too young, and even on the
grounds of envy over Amérys meteoric success.
There
was no reaction from Améry himself, and Miki chose not to respond publicly to
the attacks. He was no longer interested in fighting in the German cultural
battleground. His interest now lay in Israel and its neighbors, and his future
as a journalist would be in that domain. The task he now set for himself was to
learn some Arabic: colloquial Palestinian from the book he had bought in Ramat
Gan, and the written standard from the classic little textbook published in
the same series as the one from which he had taught himself Spanish by Ernst
Harder. He bought a new edition, revised by Rudi Paret, a noted Islamic and
Semitic scholar whose works on Islam Miki occasionally consulted.
The
counterattack came in the form of letters to the editor from Jews all over West
Germany and Austria, and some German Jews living abroad. They all expressed
their resentment of the undeserved representative status that the German media
had given Améry, as well as their gratitude to Michael Wilner for having voiced
it for them. The controversy died down quickly.
A
few weeks later, as he was picking up the mail while Brigitte was at the
studio, he found two envelopes addressed to him and bearing stamps with the
image of Queen Elizabeth II. One was from England, and the London return
address had above it the name A. & H. Lightman. It meant nothing to him.
When he opened the envelope he found a brief letter, and between its folds a
color photograph of a well-dressed young couple with a little boy. Both the
woman, who was quite pretty, with light-brown hair in a braid that hung down
one shoulder, and the man looked vaguely familiar to him. He began to read the
letter, which was of course in English.
London, 19 November 1966
Dear Mickey,
I am writing to express our deepest sympathy on the
loss of your uncle Leon Rozowski.
I hope you remember us. I am Helen Lightman, née
Kaminsky, and my husband Alan and I were among the young people recruited by
our fathers (as in my case) or bosses (as in Alans) to keep you company on the
occasion of your late uncle Leons and your visit to London in 1958.
We have fond memories of that occasion, because not
only did we make your acquaintance and a most enjoyable one it was but also
each others. One thing led to another, and three years later we were married.
We now have a three-year-old son whom we named Michael and whom we call Mickey
(yes, in part after you), though if he grows up to be a rock star and he is
showing indications of that he will probably change it to Mick. In any case,
you may regard yourself as a godfather in absentia.
We sent you an invitation to our wedding, but it was
to the address in Goettingen, and it was returned to us after a long delay, too
late to try to find out your correct address and re-send the invitation.
This time, it so happened that my fathers cousin
Henry, who lives in Montreal and was your uncles friend (it was he who made
the business connection between Leon and my father), stopped off in London on
his way back from the funeral in Israel and told us about you. He also advised
us on how to get your address (through a law firm in Montreal), and so we did.
Once again, please accept Alans and my condolences.
Sincerely
yours,
Helen
Mikis first, altogether involuntary, response to the
letter was to imagine Alan and Helen having sex while saying their
similar-sounding names to each other: Alan-Helen-Alan-Helen-Alan-Helen
He then
tried to remember if he himself had fantasized about Helen when he was in
London, but could not dredge up the memory, which in all likelihood had been
erased as soon as he was back with Brigitte.
Finally
he reflected on the fact that there was in London a child who was in part
whatever that meant named after him. He was a godfather in absentia! This
was probably the closest he would ever get to being a father. So be it.
But
the idea of his childlessness closed a circuit with his recently renewed
consciousness of being a Jew. It occurred to him that, not having children, he
would need to have no concern about their Jewishness.
The
second envelope came from Canada and its sender was the Bank of Montreal. It
contained a check, made out to him, for a little over six thousand Canadian
dollars. Though Greg Berman had prepared him, it still took little time for the
realization to sink in that he would henceforth be receiving this amount, worth
more than his annual salary from Die Zeit, four times a year.
He
was now financially independent. He could be a free-lance journalist, and write
only about what interested him. And that, from this point on, was the fate of
Israel and of the Palestinian Arabs.
But
then he had already told Margot that this was what he wanted to write about,
and she, after checking with M-M and the Countess, told him that it was fine
with them. He would not, he decided, leave Die Zeit just yet.
He would,
however, in the course of the coming year, write an essay about Leon, part
biography and part tribute. It would be longer than his usual articles. Perhaps
Merkur would be interested in another contribution from him.
* * *
When he entered Jerusalem, about half past twelve, he
turned left off Jaffa Road in order to skirt the Haredim neighborhoods
on the north. Eventually he came to Nablus Road, where he turned right, heading
south in the direction of the Damascus Gate, until he came to the InterContinental
Hotel, where he was going to spend the night. He had decided that he would be
best off in the Arab section, since he was going to be in Jerusalem Friday
night and Saturday morning, and wanted nothing to do with religious Jews on a
Sabbath.
He
found a free parking space on the street, almost directly across the street
from the hotel, and decided not to bother with the hotels garage. He entered
the hotel, checked in, and climbing two flights of stairs rather than taking
the elevator, carried his bag up to his room, declining in deliberately
rudimentary Arabic the services of the bellhop who had offered to do it for
him, but tipping him a pound nonetheless, for potential future services. The
man thanked him profusely in Arabic, and Miki felt gratified at understanding
all of what he said..
The
room was pleasant, with a view of the Dome of the Rock. He still had the
newspaper, and had not read much of it. What he would have liked to read was Davar,
where he might have found an article by Amos Oz, a talented young writer whom
he had met the year before and who had recently published a novel titled My
Michael. When they met, Miki had jokingly told Oz that he took the title
personally. In Amos Oz in person, and in his articles that Miki had read
previously, he detected a kindred spirit on matters of Jewish-Arab coexistence.
But
he had to maintain the pretense of not knowing Hebrew, so that he had to buy
the English paper, whose pro-Labor editorial position was similar to Davars.
Between the main part of the paper and the Friday supplement there was enough
to keep him occupied until he got hungry for lunch.
He
decided to forgo the hotels dining room and went out for a walk. Emerging from
the crowd thronging the Damascus Gate into the Christian Quarter of the Old
City, he found a pleasant-looking café where he had a lunch of shawarma, salad
and rice, with a bottle of Goldstar beer. He continued through the old city,
running across of group of Polish pilgrims carrying a cross on the Via
Dolorosa, until he emerged again into the New City through the Jaffa Gate. He
found his way to the Yemin Moshe neighborhood and the street where Hannas
house was. He rang the doorbell of her apartment. There was no answer, but a
woman, about Hannas age, came out from the apartment next door.
Are
you looking for Hanna Korn? the woman asked. He wondered if it wasnt obvious
what he was doing, but before saying anything he reminded himself that he
didnt understand Hebrew. The womans accent was German; the way she pronounced
Korn was pure Berlin. He asked her if she spoke German. She smiled and
repeated her question in German.
Yes,
he said.
She
isnt here. That, too, seemed obvious, but the woman went on. She is still in
Europe.
Wasnt
she due to come back last Sunday? he asked.
Yes,
but she telephoned to say that she missed her connecting flight and decided on
the spur of the moment to go to Greece. She will be back this coming Sunday.
Good
for her, Miki said.
Would
you like to leave a message for her?
No,
that isnt necessary. I dont know if Ill have a chance to come by again. But
thank you, and Shalom.
Shabbat
shalom, the woman said. He wondered if she assumed that he was a Jew.
On
his way back he went first to the New City center. The Steimatzky bookstore on
Jaffa Road was already closed, as were most other stores. A year before, he
could find the Hebrew edition of The Long Seventh Day in the display
window. Now there was not a trace.
He
went back into the Old City. He had a Turkish coffee, and found a bookstore selling
English books. Prominently displayed was a new arrival, a paperback edition of A
Small Town in Germany by John Le Carré. He had seen the film based on The
Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and had enjoyed it, but he had not read the
book, or any other espionage novels. He now felt that this was a good time to
begin, since was engaging in a bit of espionage himself. This book, he thought,
might be a good introduction into the genre, since it dealt with West German
politics, a topic he knew something about, rather than the Cold War. He bought
the book it turned out that the display copy was the only one the store had
and retraced his steps back to the hotel. It was the hottest time of the day,
and while he tried to find the shady side of the street wherever he could, by
the time he got into his room he felt that he needed a shower. He took off his
wig and beard, shaved again, and let the lukewarm water spray him like a spring
rain.
* * *
The first time that he stayed at the InterContinental
was when the hotel had just reopened after the Six-Day War. He had arrived in
Israel five days into the armistice, and immediately headed for Jerusalem. He
wanted to witness the joy at the conquest of the Old City and at the liberation
of the Western Wall, and the InterContinental, by its location in East
Jerusalem, near the Damascus Gate, proved convenient. He would then write an
article, or more likely a series of articles, about his impressions. He had
been encouraged to do so by Theo Sommer, with whom he was now working directly
while Margot was on vacation.
Under
Jordanian rule, the InterContinental had been a favorite with Western
journalists. It even provided Latin-letter electric typewriters that could be
used in ones room. Miki decided to rent such a typewriter. Though he was a
journalist, and though he had written reports on events that he had covered, he
did not think of himself as a reporter. His usual modus operandi was to gather
impressions, taking notes only on details, and then write his articles on his
own time, on his typewriter, in the comfort of his study.
But
this situation was different. He had met the expected joy among the Jews,
though not all: he found skepticism among the likes of Uri Avnery, the one
Israeli journalist whom he admired. And while he expected to find bitterness
among the Arabs that he met in and around the hotel, and on his walks through
the old city, it was of an intensity he had previously encountered only among
his Jewish fellow survivors after the war. It was something that he had tried
successfully, he believed to contain within himself by focusing his hostility
on individuals such as Hitler and Hemme. He wondered what an Arab who was like
him could do. Dayan, Eshkol, Rabin were, after all, not evil men.
The
whirlwind of impressions, and the feelings they generated in him, were so
powerful that he felt the need to write about them immediately, as they came
upon him, still raw. He could edit what he wrote once he was home.
He typed
some test sentences in which the letters Y and Z abounded, in order to accustom
himself to the English keyboard, on which the positions of these letters are
the opposite of what they are on German typewriters. Once he felt ready, he
inserted a new sheet of paper, and decided that he would begin in a detached,
scholarly style, like his memory of the way preachers in American Negro
churches would begin their sermons. He began to type single-spaced.
And he stood still on the seventh day from all his
work which he had made.
My
translation of this clause, from the second verse of the second chapter of
Genesis, is different from that of Luther, who wrote And he rested
My
reason for the change is not theological but linguistic. It is not that I have
a different representation of God (I have none whatsoever), but of the language.
Our
German word weapons standstill (what in English or French is called armistice)
is, in Hebrew, shvitat neshek. Neshek means weapons, and shvita
(which also means strike) comes from the verb shavat, which is
precisely what God is said to have done in the original version of the verse.
And, needless to say, the word Sabbath also comes from the same verb.
But
now we shall take a leap from linguistics to theology after all.
When
modern theologians, Christian or Jewish, try to reconcile the Biblical account
of creation (in what they call the E version) with a scientific point of
view, they interpret the six days of creation as Gods days or long days.
Some even go so far as equating them with the geological eras, conveniently
grouped so as to come out six in number.
But
they do no such thing with the seventh day; they leave it as an ordinary day.
No wonder: if the seventh day were also a long day then it would extend up to
the present moment. Theologians, who for the most part represent the
established order, cannot allow that we should be living in a permanent
Sabbath. Otherwise, no work would ever get done.
And
now, let us take the final disciplinary leap: to contemporary history.
For
the just-concluded war, which is already becoming known as the Six-Day War, the
days must be counted in the opposite way to those of creation.
The
six days of active fighting were ordinary days, the kind we read off on the
calendar. But the seventh day, that of the weapons standstill, will be a
relatively long one.
How
long? I cannot answer that question quantitatively, in terms of calendar days.
But qualitatively, the answer is simple, even tautological: until the weapons
standstill comes to an end.
It
can come to an end in one of two ways. For a weapons standstill is a state that
is neither war nor peace, and it will end when it is replaced by one or the
other. I am not referring to sporadic violations, like those that went on
during the nineteen years preceding the Six-Day War and that, in fact, led to
it. Such violations, of greater or lesser intensity, will resume almost
immediately, and may already have occurred by the time you are reading these
lines. They will be a characteristic of the long seventh day.
He came to the end of the page and immediately
replaced it with another.
Which alternative do I foresee for the end of the long
seventh day? I am afraid that there is only one.
There
is no doubt in my mind that, sooner or later, war will break out again between
Jews and Arabs. In the last war the Arabs have been humbled and shamed. And the
Arab people is not a humble people, and cannot long live in shame. In poverty,
yes; there has been no economic miracle in the Arab world (except where the
miracle of petroleum has occurred). In ignorance, yes; there have been no
scientific breakthroughs in the Arab world since the Middle Ages. And, by the
way, when I say these unflattering things, I am only quoting Arabs who have
said them to me.
What
am I basing my pessimistic prediction on?
I
like to think that I am, by nature, an optimist. When I came here, to visit
Israel and its newly occupied territories, a few days after the war had ended,
my intention was to look for signs of hope. And, I thought, the smiles that I
saw on Israeli faces when I first arrived were just such signs.
But
it did not take long to realize that those smiles, when contrasted with the
scowls on the faces of the occupied Arabs, were not of cheer but of gloating. I
have old memories of gloating smiles, and they are not pleasant ones.
He was not sure if what he would write next would
follow what he had just written sequentially, but the thoughts that were
crowding his mind as he was typing needed immediate expression. He started
another page.
Many other impressions have crowded into my mind
during my few days here, and they have all contributed to my pessimistic
outlook.
But
before I describe them in detail I would like to point out that their validity
may be restricted by two factors.
First
of all, I am not, by training or experience, an on-the-spot investigative
reporter. Those who are familiar with my work know that my articles have
usually been the result of long and I hope careful reflection. It may be
that seasoned reporters have tricks for checking quickly, under the pressure of
a deadline, just how valid their impressions are. I dont know any such tricks,
and the deadlines that I operate under are self-imposed. The situation that I
am reporting on is one of disequilibrium, fluid and dynamic, and the
impressions that I wish to share with my readers are such that they may become
irrelevant in a short time.
A
second restricting factor is that the actors in the drama that I am witnessing
are Jews and Arabs, but while my Hebrew is fluent (I lived in Israel as a
youth), my Arabic is extremely limited. It was less than a year ago, when I
realized that my attention would be henceforth focused on this part of the
world, that I began the study of Arabic, using a textbook on the Palestinian
vernacular, intended for use by Israelis, in which Arabic is written with
Hebrew letters. Only some months later did I begin to learn Arabic script and a
smattering of classical Arabic grammar, to the point that I can now get the
gist of articles that I read in the Arab press, but I must rely on translators
in order to get the full meaning, just as I still need interpreters in order to
engage in anything but the most perfunctory conversation.
I
have therefore decided, as the trained philosopher (Göttingen, Frankfurt,
Hamburg) that I am, that I would put the validity of my impressions to the test
by making predictions based on them. This is simply the scientific method in
action; I do not mean to become, here in the land of prophets, yet another
prophet. The risk in making predictions in these circumstances is not that they
may be falsified; that would only tell me that my impressions were wrong, and
it would teach me something. No, the risk is of a journalistic nature: that
they will be verified or falsified
before they have been published. I will therefore try to publish my articles in
this series at great speed, and forgo the refining touches that I usually like
to indulge myself in.
He realized, on rereading the last sentence, that he
had definitely committed himself to writing a series of articles. He would
finish the first one right there, at the InterContinental, as quickly as
possible, and send the typescript to Hamburg by courier. He would then discuss
details by telephone with Margot, or whoever took her place if she was still on
vacation.
He
looked at the text. It did not quite fill the page, but it seemed to be
complete in itself, so that he unrolled the sheet and inserted yet another. He
felt eager to have his predictions, at least in provisional form, down on
paper. He would splice them into the finished articles, as appropriate.
Here are some of the things I predict.
My
first prediction is that East Jerusalem, where I am sitting as I am writing this,
will be unilaterally annexed by Israel, as soon as the necessary legislation,
which will have to determine, among other things, the status of the Arabs
living here, can be drafted in the Knesset. This action will be seen by the
Arab world and its sympathizers as such a provocation that it will make
peaceful coexistence impossible in the foreseeable future.
My
second prediction follows from the last conclusion: that hostilities short of a
formal war will begin again in due time. The Soviet Union, having dropped its
pretense of neutrality and gone over fully to the Arab side, will help the Arab
states rearm after the losses of the last war, and as soon as one of them feels
ready it will begin some sort of armed cross-border activity. A likely target
is the Israeli troops massed on the east bank of the Suez Canal, within view of
their Egyptian counterparts, forming yet another provocation to Arab pride.
Sporadic shelling that will be excused as defensive is likely to begin within a
year. This will probably be echoed by similar activity across the Jordan and
the Golan.
Another
possibility of attack is in the canal itself, or even the Mediterranean Sea. If
an Israeli ship is judged as trespassing on what Egypt, or, for that matter,
Lebanon or Syria, regards as her territorial waters, it will be another
potential shelling target.
Israel
will thus be engaged in something that will not qualify as a war but that, the
Arabs hope, will gradually bring it down from its present euphoria to a state
of exhaustion.
And
so the long seventh day will continue.
He now had about almost one hundred fifty lines. It
was enough for the first article, though the Countess had given him up to two
hundred. He might as well include the predictions, in summary form, in this
one, and elaborate on them in subsequent articles. He was sure that by the next
day he would have it completed, with the words To be continued at the
bottom.
* * *
When he felt clean and dry, he shaved and put his
disguise back on one never knew if someone might knock on his door
unexpectedly and he would have to open it and lay on the bed.
He
opened the book to the copyright page, which informed him that the original
hardcover edition had been published two years earlier, the same year as his
own book. From the introduction he learned that the small town in the title
was, unsurprisingly, none other than Bonn. The man writing as John Le Carré
had, according to the blurb on the back cover, worked in the British embassy
there, and Miki knew that diplomats liked to refer to Bonn as a small town.
This was especially true of European ones, who tended to think that only places
like London, Paris or Rome were worthy of their presence; not so much the
American ones, who were used to a federal capital that was but a minor star in
the constellation of their cities.
The
introduction also told him that the action took place in the recent future.
This was a strange use of recent; Miki wondered if this was an English
usage that he was unfamiliar with, or a coinage by the author. But, as he began
to read the book, he understood that it meant the recent past, but from a
reference point sometime in the near future. The time described was then,
essentially, the present. The historical background was that of Britains
negotiation for admission to the European Community, which was still going on.
This
book was therefore making predictions about the near future just as his book
had done, but in the form of fiction. There was nothing new about future
fiction, but usually the future described there was a distant one, not so close
that its validity could be tested while the book was still in print.
The
action took place almost entirely within the confines of the British embassy.
Miki found the dialogue among members of the embassy staff, in the early
chapters, confusing, but could not help noticing references to student
demonstrations. These demonstrations were joined to a kind of a populist,
quasi-Nazi movement led by a fictitious character, an industrialist named
Karfeld. Miki could think of no real German to whom Karfeld bore even the
slightest resemblance, certainly not the likes of Thielen or von Thadden, who
were active in electoral politics. It struck him as strange, moreover, that the
movement of student demonstrations that was really forming in Germany, probably
at the very time when John Le Carré was writing his book, was of an almost diametrically
opposite nature, using slogans taken from second-hand Marxism.
He
decided that he would put his critical instincts to rest and try to pay no mind
to any relation the book might have to reality. An investigator named Turner
made his appearance, with the mission of investigating the disappearance of a
low-ranking embassy official named Leo Harting and of some secret files.
The book became a detective novel, to be
enjoyed as such, and, at least at first, Miki enjoyed it.
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