Mother Night Part 22

"Yes," I said.

"Do you know who I am-where you are?" he said.

"Yes," I said.

"Have you ever been like this before?" he said. "No," I said.

"You need a psychiatrist," he said. "I'm no psychiatrist."

"I told you what I need," I said. "Call up somebody-not a psychiatrist. Call up somebody who wants to give me a trial."

Epstein and his mother, a very old woman, argued back and forth about what to do with me. His mother understood my illness immediately, that it was my world rather than myself that was diseased.

"This is not the first time you've seen eyes like that," she said to her son in German, "not the first man you've seen who could not move unless someone told him where to move, who longed for someone to tell him what to do next, who would do anything anyone told him to do next. You saw thousands of them at Auschwitz."

"I don't remember," said Epstein tautly.

"All right-" said his mother, "then let me me remember. I can remember. Every minute I can remember. remember. I can remember. Every minute I can remember.

"And, as one who remembers," said his mother, "let me say that what he asks for he should have. Call someone."

"Who will I call?" said Epstein. "I'm not a Zionist. I'm an anti-Zionist. I'm not even that. I never think about it. I'm a physician. I don't know anybody who's still looking for revenge. I have nothing but contempt for them. Go away. You've come to the wrong place."

"Call somebody," said his mother.

"You still want revenge?" he asked her.

"Yes," she said.

He put his face close to mine. "And you really want to be punished?" he said.

"I want to be tried,"I said.

"It's all play-acting," he said, exasperated with both of us. "It proves nothing!"

"Call somebody," said his mother.

Epstein threw up his hands. "All right! All right! I will call Sam. I will tell him he can be a great Zionist hero. He always wanted to be a great Zionist hero."

What Sam's last name was I never found out. Dr. Epstein called him from the front room of the flat while I remained in the kitchen with Epstein's old mother.

His mother sat down at the table, faced me, rested her arms on the table, studied my face with melancholy curiosity and satisfaction.

"They took all the light bulbs," she said in German.

"What?" I said.

"The people who broke into your apartment-they took all the light bulbs from the stairway," she said.

"Um," I said.

"In Germany, too," she said. "Pardon me?" I said.

"That was one of the things-when the S.S. or the Gestapo came and took somebody away-" she said.

"I don't understand," I said.

"Other people would come into the building, wanting to do something patriotic," she said. "And that was one of the things they always did. Somebody always took the light bulbs." She shook her head. "Such a strange thing for somebody always to do."

Dr. Epstein came back into the kitchen dusting his hands. "All right-" he said, "three heroes will be here shortly-a tailor, a watchmaker, and pediatrician-all delighted to play the part of Israeli parachutists."

"Thank you," I said.

The three came for me in about twenty minutes. They had no weapons, and no status as agents of Israel or as agents of anything but themselves. The only status they had was what my infamy and my anxiousness to surrender to somebody, to almost anybody, gave them.

What my arrest amounted to was a bed for the rest of the night-in the tailor's apartment, as it happened. The next morning, the three surrendered me, with my permission, to Israeli officials.

When the three came for me at Dr. Epstein's apartment, they banged on the front door loudly.

The instant they did that, I felt enormously relieved. I felt happy.

"You're all right now?" said Epstein, before he let them in.

"Yes, thank you, Doctor," I said. "You still want to go?" he said.

"Yes," I said.

"He has has to go," said his mother. And then she leaned closer to me, across the kitchen table. She crooned something in German, made it sound like a fragment of a ditty remembered from a happy childhood. to go," said his mother. And then she leaned closer to me, across the kitchen table. She crooned something in German, made it sound like a fragment of a ditty remembered from a happy childhood.

What she crooned was this, a command she had heard over the loudspeakers of Auschwitz-had heard many times a day for years.

"Leichentrager zu Wache," she crooned. she crooned.

A beautiful language, isn't it?

Translation?

"Corpse-carriers to the guardhouse." That's what that old woman crooned to me.

45.

THE TORTOISE AND.

THE HARE ...

So HERE I AM HERE I AM in Israel, of my own free will, though my cell is locked and my guards have guns. in Israel, of my own free will, though my cell is locked and my guards have guns.

My story is told, and none too soon-for tomorrow my trial begins. The hare of history once more overtakes the tortoise of art. There will be no more time for writing. Adventuring I must go again.

There are many to testify against me. None to testify for me.

The prosecution intends to begin, I'm told, by playing recordings of the worst of my broadcasts, so the most pitiless witness against me will be myself.

Bernard B. O'Hare is in town at his own expense, annoying the prosecution with the feverish irrelevance of all he has to say.

So, too, is Heinz Schildknecht, my erstwhile best friend and doubles partner, the man whose motorcycle I stole. My lawyer says that Heinz is full of venom for me, and that Heinz, surprisingly, will make a credible witness. Whence this respectability for Heinz, who, after all, worked at a desk next to mine in the Ministry of Propaganda and Popular Enlightenment?

Surprise: Heinz is a Jew, a member of the anti-n.a.z.i underground during the war, an Israeli agent after the war and up to the present time.

And he can prove it.

Good for Heinz!

Dr. Lionel J. D. Jones, D.D.S., D.D., and Iona Potapov alias alias George Kraft, can't come to my trial, both serving in a United States Federal Prison, as they are. They have both sent affidavits, however. George Kraft, can't come to my trial, both serving in a United States Federal Prison, as they are. They have both sent affidavits, however.

The affidavits of Dr. Jones and Kraft-Potapov aren't much help, to say the least.

Dr. Jones declares under oath that I am a saint and a martyr in the holy n.a.z.i cause. He says, too, that I have the most perfect set of Aryan teeth he's ever seen outside of photographs of Hitler.

Kraft-Potapov declares under oath that Russian intelligence was never able to turn up any proof that I had been an American agent. He offers the opinion that I was an ardent n.a.z.i, but that I shouldn't be held responsible for my acts, since I was a political idiot, an artist who could not distinguish between reality and dreams.

The three men who took me into custody in Dr. Epstein's apartment are on hand for the trial-the tailor, the watchmaker, and the pediatrician-on an even more bootless junket than Bernard B. O'Hare's.

Howard W. Campbell, Jr.-this is your life!

My Israeli lawyer, Mr. Alvin Dobrowitz, has had all my New York mail forwarded here, hoping unreasonably to find in that mail some proof of my innocence.

Hi ho.

Three letters came today.

I shall open them now, reporting their contents one by one.

Hope springs eternal, they say, in the human breast. It springs eternal, at any rate, in the breast of Dobrowitz, which is, I suppose, why he costs so much.

All that I need to be a free man, says Dobrowitz, is the barest proof that there was such a person as Frank Wirtanen, and that Wirtanen made me an American spy.

Well now-about the letters for today: The first starts off warmly enough. "Dear Friend" it calls me, in spite of all the evil things I am said to have done. It a.s.sumes that I am a teacher. I explained in an earlier chapter, I believe, how my name happened to find its way onto a list of supposed educators, how I became recipient of mail promoting materials useful to those in charge of training the young.

The letter at hand is from "Creative Playthings, Inc."

Dear Friend: [Creative Playthings says to me, here in a Jerusalem jail] Would you like to foster a creative environment for your students in their own homes? What happens to them after they leave school certainly is important. You may have a child under your direction an average of 25 waking hours per week, but the parents guide him for 45 hours. What a parent does with these hours can complicate or facilitate your program.We believe the kind of toys Creative Playthings sponsors will genuinely stimulate-in the home-the creative environment you, as an early childhood leader, are trying to foster.How can Creative Playthings' toys in the home do this?Such toys can provide for the physical needs of growing children. Such toys help a child discover and experiment with life in the home and community. Such toys promote opportunities for individual expression which may be lacking in the group life of the school.Such toys help the child work off aggressions. ...

To which I reply: Dear Friends: As one who has experienced extensively with life in the home and community, using real people in true-to-life situations, I doubt that any playthings could prepare a child for one millionth of what is going to hit him in the teeth, ready or not.My own feeling is that a child should start experimenting with real people and real communities from the moment of birth, if possible. If, for some reason, these materials are not available, then playthings must be used.But not bland, pleasing, smooth, easily manipulated playthings like those in your brochure, friends! Let there be nothing harmonious about our children's playthings, lest they grow up expecting peace and order, and be eaten alive.As for children's working off aggressions, I'm against it. They are going to need all the aggressions they can contain for ultimate release in the adult world. Name one great man in history who did not go boiling and bubbling through childhood with a lashed-down safety valve.Let me tell you that the children in my charge for an average of twenty-five hours a week are not likely to lose their keen edge during the forty-five hours they spend with their parents. They aren't moving hand-carved animals on and off a Noah's Ark, believe me. They are spying on real grownups all the time, learning what they fight about, what they're greedy for, how they satisfy their greed, why and how they lie, what makes them go crazy, the different ways they go crazy, and so on.I cannot predict the fields in which these children of mine will succeed, but I guarantee success for them without exception, anywhere in the civilized world.Yours for realistic pedagogy, Howard W. Campbell, Jr.

The second letter?

It, too, addresses Howard W. Campbell, Jr., as "Dear Friend," proving that at least two out of three letter writers today aren't sore at Howard W. Campbell, Jr., at all. The letter is from a stockbroker in Toronto, Canada. It is addressed to the capitalistic aspect of me.

It wants me to buy stock in a tungsten mine in Manitoba. Before I did that, I would have to know more about the company. I would have to know in particular whether it had a capable and reputable management.

I wasn't born yesterday.

The third letter? It is addressed direct to me in prison here.

And-it's a curious letter, indeed. Let it here be seen whole: Dear Howard:The discipline of a lifetime now collapses like the fabled walls of Jericho. Who is Joshua, and what is the tune his trumpets play? I wish I knew. The music that has worked such havoc against such old walls is not loud. It is faint, diffuse, and peculiar.Could it be the music of my conscience: That I doubt. I have done no wrong to you.I think the music must be an old soldier's itch for just a little treason. And treason this letter is.I here violate direct and explicit orders that were given to me, were given to me in the best interests of the United States of America. I here give you my true name, and I identify myself as the man you knew as "Frank Wirtanen."My name is Harold J. Sparrow.My rank at time of retirement from the United States Army was Colonel.My serial number is 0-61134.I exist. I can be seen, heard, and touched almost any day, in or around the only dwelling on Coggin's Pond, six miles due west of Hinkleyville, Maine.I affirm, and will affirm under oath, that I recruited you as an American agent, and that you, at personal sacrifices that prove total, became one of the most effective agents of the Second World War.If there must be a trial of Howard W. Campbell, Jr., by the forces of self-righteous nationalism, let it be one h.e.l.l of a contest!Yours truly, "Frank"

So I am about to be a free man again, to wander where I please.

I find the prospect nauseating.

I think that tonight is the night I will hang Howard W. Campbell, Jr., for crimes against himself.

I know know that tonight is the night. that tonight is the night.

They say that a hanging man hears gorgeous music. Too bad that I, like my father, unlike my musical mother, am tone-deaf. All the same, I hope that the tune I am about to hear is not Bing Crosby's "White Christmas."

Goodbye, cruel world!

Auf wiedersehen?

Mother Night is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fict.i.tiously. is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fict.i.tiously.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.