The Spinoza Problem (43 page)

“I warned you about studying with Jews long ago. I warned you of entering this Jewish field. I warned you of your great danger.”

“You may rest at ease. The danger is past. All the Jews in the psychoanalytic institute have left the country. As has Albert Einstein. As have the other great Jewish German scientists. And the great German non-Jewish writers—like Thomas Mann and two hundred fifty of our finest writers. Do you really believe this strengthens our country?”

“Germany grows stronger and more pure every time a Jew or a lover of Jews leaves the country.”

“Do you believe such hatred—”

“It’s not a matter of hatred. It’s a matter of preserving the race. For Germany, the Jewish question is only solved when the last Jew has left the Greater German space. I wish them no harm. I just want them to live elsewhere.”

Friedrich had hoped to force Alfred to look at the consequences of his goals. He sensed the pointlessness of going down this trail but could not
control himself: “Do you see no harm in uprooting millions of people and doing—
what
with them?”

“They must go elsewhere—Russia, Madagascar, anywhere.”

“Use your reason! You think of yourself as a philosopher—”

“There are higher things than reason—honor, blood, courage.”

“Look at the implications of what you’re proposing, Alfred. I urge you to muster the courage to look, to
really
look, at the human implications of your proposals. But maybe you do know at some level. Maybe your great agitation stems from the part of your mind that knows the horror—”

A knock on the door. Alfred stood, strode to the door, opened it, and was startled to see Rudolf Hess.

“Good day, Reichsleiter Rosenberg. The Führer is here to visit you. He has news for you and awaits your presence in the conference room. I’ll wait outside and escort you.”

Alfred froze for a moment. Then he stood more erect; strode to his closet, from which he removed his Nazi uniform; turned toward Friedrich—and seemed almost surprised to see him still there. “Herr Oberleutnant Pfister, go to your room. Await me there.”

Quickly donning his uniform and putting on his boots, he joined Hess. They walked in silence to the room where Hitler awaited.

 

 

 

H
itler rose to greet Alfred, returned his salute, pointed for him to be seated, and indicated to Hess that he wait outside.

“You’re looking well, Rosenberg. Not at all like a hospitalized patient. I am relieved.”

Alfred, flustered by Hitler’s affability, mumbled his thanks.

“I’ve just reread your
Völkischer Beobachter
article last year on the award of the Nobel peace prize to Carl von Ossietzky. An excellent piece of journalism, Rosenberg. Far superior to the pallid stuff published in our paper during your absence. Just the right tone of dignity and outrage at the Nobel committee awarding the peace price to a citizen who is in prison in his own country for treason. I entirely agree with your position. It is indeed an insult and a frontal attack upon the sovereign Reich. Please prepare Ossietzky’s
obituary. He is not tolerating the concentration camp very well, and we may have the good fortune to report his death shortly.

“But I am visiting today not only to inquire after your health and to give you my greetings but also to give you news. I very much liked your suggestion in the article that Germany should no longer tolerate the arrogance of Stockholm and should instead initiate our own German equivalent of the now-odorous Nobel prize. I have taken action and have created a selection committee to consider candidates for the German National Prize for Art and Science, and commissioned Müller-Erfurt to design an elaborate diamond-studded pendant. There will a prize of 100,000 reichsmarks. I want you to be the first to know that I have nominated you for the first Deutscher National-preis. Here is a copy of the public statement that I shall release shortly.”

Alfred took the sheet and read greedily:

“Thank you. Thank you,
mein
Führer. Thank you for the proudest moment of my life.”

“And when will you be going back to work? The
Völkischer Beobachter
needs you.”

“Tomorrow. I am now entirely fit.”

“The new doctor, that friend of yours, must be a miracle worker. We should commend and promote him.”

“No, no—I recovered before he arrived. He deserves no credit. As a matter of fact, he was trained in that Jew-run Freud institute in Berlin and weeps tears that the Jewish psychiatrists have all left the country. I’ve tried, but I don’t think I can get the Jew out of him. We should watch him. He may need some rehabilitation. And now I go to work.
Heil, mein
Führer!”

 

 

A
lfred marched briskly to his room and quickly began to pack. A few minutes later Friedrich knocked on his door.

“Alfred, you’re leaving?”

“Yes, I’m leaving.”

“What’s happened?

“What’s happened is that I have no further use for your services, Herr Oberleutnant Pfister. Return immediately to your post in Berlin.”

Bento read Franco’s letter a second and then a third time. He grimaced at the portentous phrase “it no longer matters”? What did that mean? And he grimaced again at the mention of the new Messiah. Sabbatai Zevi was in the air. Only the day before, he had received a letter about the coming of the Messiah from one of his regular correspondents, Henry Oldenburg, corresponding secretary of the British Royal Society of Science. Bento fetched Oldenburg’s letter and reread the pertinent passage:

Bento paced as he thought. His tile-floored room was more spacious than his Rijnsburg room. His two bookcases, now filled with over sixty large volumes, occupied one of his four walls; his slashed greatcoat hung next to the two small windows of a second wall; and the two remaining walls were adorned with borders of Delft tiles of windmills and a dozen fine Dutch landscapes by Dutch painters collected by Daniel Tydeman, his landlord, a Collegiant and an admirer of his philosophy. It was at Daniel’s insistence that Bento had left Rijnsburg three years earlier to rent a room in his house in Voorburg, a charming village, only two miles from the seat of government in The Hague. Moreover, Voorburg was also the home of a valued acquaintance, Christiaan Huygens, the eminent astronomer, who often praised Bento’s lenses.

Bento slapped his forehead as he muttered, “Sabbatai Zevi! The coming of the Messiah! What madness! Will there ever be an end to such foolish gullibility?” Few things irritated Bento more than irrational numerological beliefs, and 1666 was awash in fantastical predictions. Many superstitious Christians had long held that the great flood occurred 1656 years after the Creation and that a second coming or some other world-changing event was to occur in 1656. When that year passed uneventfully, they merely transferred expectations to 1666, a year given significance by a statement in the book of Revelations naming the number of the beast as 666 (“six
hundred three score and six”—Revelations 13:18). Hence many had predicted the coming of the Antichrist in 666. When that prediction failed, latter-day prophets had set the ominous date one millennium ahead, to 1666—a belief given more credibility by the great fire of London only three months earlier.

The Jews were no less gullible. The messianists, especially among the Marranos, were fully anticipating the imminent coming of the Messiah, who would gather all the dispersed Jews and return them to the Holy Land. For many the arrival of Sabbatai Zevi was the answer to their prayers.

On Friday, the appointed date of Franco’s arrival, Bento was unusually distracted by the sounds of the bustling Voorburg marketplace, only thirty meters from his room. This was odd for him—ordinarily he concentrated on his scholarly work despite all noises and outside events—but Franco’s face kept dancing through his mind. After a half hour of rereading the same page of Epictetus
,
he gave up, closed the book, and returned it to the bookcase. This morning he allowed himself to daydream.

He tidied up the room, straightened the pillows, and smoothed the down blankets on the four-poster bed. He stepped back to admire his work and thought,
Someday I shall die upon that bed.
He eagerly anticipated Franco’s arrival and wondered if the room were warm enough. Though he himself was indifferent to temperature, he imagined Franco would be chilled after his journey. Hence he gathered two armfuls of wood from the woodpile behind the house but tripped as he entered the house, scattering the logs on the floor. He collected them, carried them into his room, and bent to light a fire in the fireplace. Daniel Tydeman, who had heard the clatter of the falling logs, gently knocked on his door. “Good morning. A fire? Are you not feeling well?”

“The fire’s not for me, Daniel. I’m expecting a visitor from Amsterdam.”

“Amsterdam? He’ll be hungry. I’ll tell the
huishoudster
to prepare some coffee and some extra dinner.”

Bento spent much of the morning looking out of his window. At midday, spotting Franco, he joyously rushed out to embrace him and lead him into his room. Once inside, he stepped back to admire Franco, who was now dressed as any proper Dutch citizen, with a tall, broad-brimmed hat, a long greatcoat, a jacket buttoned to the neck with a square white collar,
and knee britches and hose. His hair was brushed and his short beard neatly trimmed. They sat together silently on Bento’s bed and beamed at one another.

“Silence today,” Bento said in familiar Portuguese of years past, “but this time I know why. There is simply too much to be said.”

“And also great joy often overwhelms words,” added Franco.

Their sweet silence was fractured by Bento’s short coughing fit. The phlegm that he spat into his handkerchief was speckled brown and yellow.

“That cough again, Bento. You are ailing?”

He waved his hand to dismiss his friend’s concern. “My cough and congestion have taken up lodging in my chest, and they never wander too far from home. But in all other ways, my life is good. Exile suits me, and, today excepted of course, I am grateful for my solitude. And you, Franco, or should I say
Rabbi
Franco Benitez, you look so different, so groomed . . . so . . . so Dutch.”

“Yes, Rabbi Aboab, kabbalistic and otherworldly though he be, nonetheless wishes me to dress as the everyday Dutchman and even insists I trim my beard. I think he prefers to be the only full-bearded Jew in the community.”

“And how have you possibly managed to arrive here so early from Amsterdam?”

“I came yesterday on the
trekschuit
from Amsterdam to The Hague and spent the night there with a Jewish family.”

“Are you thirsty? Coffee?”

“Perhaps later, but now I am famished for only one thing—conversation with you. I want to know of your new writing and thinking.”

“I’ll converse more easily if I first ease my mind. A line in your letter gave me great concern.” Bento walked over to his desk, fetched Franco’s letter, and looked at it. “Here it is: ‘Even though Rabbi Aboab continues to examine my every move, it now no longer matters.’ What has happened, Franco?”

“What happened was that which
necessarily
happened—and I believe I use your term ‘necessarily” correctly, in that things could not have happened otherwise.”

“But what?”

“Don’t be alarmed, Bento. For once we’re not rushed. We have until two this afternoon, when I must take the
trekschuit
to Leiden, where I shall visit
some Jewish families. We have ample time to go over the story of my life and of your life. All will be told, and all will be well, but stories are best told from the beginning rather than from the end backward. You see I still love stories and persist in my campaign to increase your respect for them.”