In any case, I needed to talk to someone, and I was alone. This is my habitual condition, by choice—or so I tell myself. Mere acquaintanceship leaves me unsatisfied, and few people are willing to accept the burdens and risks of friendship as I conceive of it.
People say that I’m sour and misanthropic, and I tell them they’re probably right. Argument of any sort, on any subject, has always seemed like a waste of time to me.
The next morning I woke and thought: “Even so, it could be a dream. One can sleep in a dream, even have dreams in a dream.” As I went through the motions of making breakfast, eating, and washing up, my heart was pounding furiously. It seemed to be saying, “How can you pretend not to be terrified?”
The time passed. I drove downtown. The building was still there. The office at the end of the hall on the ground floor was still there and still unlocked.
When I opened the door, Ishmael’s huge, meaty aroma came down on me like a thunderclap. On wobbly legs, I walked to the chair and sat down.
Ishmael studied me gravely through the dark glass, as if wondering if I was strong enough to be taxed with serious conversation. When he made up his mind, he began without preamble of any kind, and I came to know that this was his usual style.
TWO
1
“Oddly enough,” he said, “it was my benefactor who awakened my interest in the subject of captivity and not my own condition. As I may have indicated in yesterday’s narrative, he was obsessed by the events then taking place in Nazi Germany.”
“Yes, that’s what I gathered.”
“From your story about Kurt and Hans yesterday, I take it that you’re a student of the life and times of the German people under Adolf Hitler.”
“A student? No, I wouldn’t go as far as that. I’ve read some of the well-known books—Speer’s memoirs, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and so on—and a few studies of Hitler.”
“In that case, I’m sure you understand what Mr. Sokolow was at pains to show me: that it was not only the Jews who were captives under Hitler. The entire German nation was a captive, including his enthusiastic supporters. Some detested what he was doing, some just shambled on as best they could, and some positively thrived on it—but they were all his captives.”
“I think I see what you mean.”
“What was it that held them captive?”
“Well … terror, I suppose.”
Ishmael shook his head. “You must have seen films of the prewar rallies, with hundreds of thousands of them singing and cheering as one. It wasn’t terror that brought them to those feasts of unity and power.”
“True. Then I’d have to say it was Hitler’s charisma.”
“He certainly had that. But charisma only wins people’s attention. Once you have their attention, you have to have something to tell them. And what did Hitler have to tell the German people?”
I pondered this for a few moments without any real conviction. “Apart from the Jewish business, I don’t think I could answer that question.”
“What he had to tell them was a story.”
“A story.”
“A story in which the Aryan race and the people of Germany in particular had been deprived of their rightful place in the world, bound, spat upon, raped, and ground into the dirt under the heels of mongrel races, Communists, and Jews. A story in which, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, the Aryan race would burst its bonds, wreak vengeance on its oppressors, purify mankind of its defilements, and assume its rightful place as the master of all races.”
“True.”
“It may seem incredible to you now that any people could have been captivated by such nonsense, but after nearly two decades of degradation and suffering following World War I, it had an almost overwhelming appeal to the people of Germany, and it was reinforced not only through the ordinary means of propaganda but by an intensive program of education of the young and reeducation of the old.”
“True.”
“As I say, there were many in Germany who recognized this story as rank mythology. They were nevertheless held captive by it simply because the vast majority around them thought it sounded wonderful and were willing to give their lives to make it a reality. Do you see what I mean?”
“I think so. Even if you weren’t personally captivated by the story, you were a captive all the same, because the people around you made you a captive. You were like an animal being swept along in the middle of a stampede.”
“That’s right. Even if you privately thought the whole thing was madness, you had to play your part, you had to take your place in the story. The only way to avoid that was to escape from Germany entirely.”
“True.”