“Peter, maybe they can help!”
“No!” He stopped walking, grabbing her arm to stop her as well. Several people-collided with them, and it was a moment before he could continue,“No fuckingway!”
“But—”
“Was this all your idea? Bring me here for these interviews just so you could get some head doctor to look at me? Was it?” He tightened his grip on her arm.
With deliberate, calm strength, she removed his hand from her arm. “Don’t do that again,” she warned quietly. She waited a few seconds so her warning could sink in; a sea of people flowed around them as they stood in silent confrontation. “It was not a plot. I just thought it might help.” She raised her hand to silence his nascent objection.“Let me finish! I know our bringing you here hasn’t helped, but you’re getting almost paranoid. It has got to stop. Isn’t it about time you got over it already?”
The words he had only just read played through his mind. Anyone who has suffered torture never again will be able to be at ease in the world. . . . Is that what someone had said to the author, thirty-two years later? Get over it already? He lowered his head. His shoulders rose and fell with each deep breath. “I wish I could,” he said at last.“But the one thing I know is that I need to do this on my own.”
“I know you’ve always been self-reliant, but maybe this is the one time you really need help. I’ve tried to give it but I don’t know how and I’m afraid all I’ve done is make things worse. Maybe it’s time to accept outside help?”
Faith in humanity . . . is never acquired again. He shook his head. “They won’t be able to help if I don’t trust them,” he whispered.
“All right. I’m sorry. Let’s just go.”
56
OTHER THAN FOR his appearance on the current-affairs program, Peter’s visit had not attracted as much media interest as Alex had hoped. The network show was, nevertheless, a genuine accomplishment and would in itself have beenworth the visit. It was the result of Alex calling in a few favors and the producer’s own background: his family had fled Austria in 1938 and had lost everything they owned. The reputedly irascible old man would do anything to embarrass the Nazi regime, including airing a risky and possibly audience-losing interview with a strange and eloquent Englishman.
Once the old man saw samples of the footage, he decided to take an even greater risk and asked the reporter to put together an hour-long show. Marcia Long was more than happy to oblige. She knew that not only the man’s story but the man himself was intriguing. And who could blame her if she gloated at the prospect of an hour-long show to herself! Her reputation was well established, her interviewing techniques superb, her background work impeccable, and now—now the payoff! The show would win an award, she was sure of it. She and her staff worked feverishly and together came up with an hour-long segment with all the appropriate background footage.
The network advertised the program, and it drew a reasonably large audience, which, surprisingly, grew as the hour progressed. Peter could not watch the show for embarrassment, but the rest of America did. It struck a chord. All the protectionist, isolationist whining had raised the hackles of a silent majority of Americans, and they had felt a growing sense of shame at their inability to act on the world stage. What was this withdrawal into rural utopia? Were they not a world power? Were they not the most advanced country—or countries—in the world? Was their word, given long ago to their defeated allies, worthless? Calls flooded into the station, and telegrams, faxes, and electronic mail. The word came from across the continent: the people were interested! And the media sat up and noticed that there was news to be had here. Good, easy news: no dangerous travel, no difficult background to understand, no complex issues to uncover, just a man and his story. They lapped it up as the free information-entertainment that it was.
Overnight Peter became a celebrity. Overnight the great American publicity machine kicked into gear and looked for a way to make a profit. Overnight, his calendar for the rest of the month became booked solid and he lost his privacy to a host of sympathetic, concerned journalists, television reporters, handlers, and interested onlookers.
Within a week the media ceased to report explicitly on him; rather they filled their pages and shows by reporting on the media attention given to him. Then there was the analysis of what it all meant, what the American people wanted, and what the politicians should do. It worked like a charm. The agenda was set, and the debate was heavily weighted against the isolationists. Luckily for them, the isolationists rapidly evaporated from the political scene. The Nationalists took a nosedive in the polls, the Republicans restated their policies, more carefully explaining that they had never meant to abandon America’s brave allies, and the Democrats rallied to the obscure plank of their platform that had always supported international involvement. Politicians rushed to be seen with the appropriate freedom-fighting support organizations, and the debate ended in adraw: everybody agreed that withdrawing support had never really been an issue and that the foreign governments in exile were not only welcome but had the full sympathy and support of the various American governments. At least for the time being.
Peter bore the attention with stoic calm. It was a flash in the pan and he would be forgotten not long after he left, but the damage to the isolationists would be done, and with that he could feel some satisfaction. He did not fool himself into thinking he was important; it was not his story that had fueled the political firestorm—the tinder had been there waiting for ignition, and Alex had been right, his story was the perfect match but indeed nothing more than that. He would, at the end of it all, go back home and sink into obscurity.
An obscurity that was looking ever more blessed, he thought, as he walked onto the set of a very popular and extremely crass live talk show. This one would be tough, but it was going to reach the widest audience, and as Alex put it, low IQ or not, they still had a vote, they still had money.
Peter waited in the comfortable little room provided while the first guest chatted to the host. He had a TV set in the room and could follow the dialogue onstage if he so desired, but he preferred sipping the coffee and daydreaming as he looked at the tasteless art on the wall.
“. . . And finally, what do you think of all the fuss being made about our next guest?” the host asked his guest.
Fuss sounded rather pejorative, and Peter listened with interest to see if the guest took the bait.
“Just another diversion from the true issues which are dividing this country,” the woman asserted. “Why should Americans be concerned about what happens over there when every day there are thousands of crimes against people of color in this country? We’re facing genocide—we cannot and must not divert precious resources from solving our problems at home to policing the world!”
She continued for some time in her diatribe, repeating in various ways the same theme and misquoting history and statistics. Peter looked more carefully at the screen and noted for the first time that she was what Americans referred to as black or African. Judging from her words, she seemed to be a professional at it. Since his first encounters with Africans had been at diplomatic functions where he had served canapós, he had come to associate the term African with the extremely dark skin of the people he had served; it was something of a shock to him to discover that so many African-Americans were incredibly light-skinned and looked not at all like the stereotype promulgated in Reich propaganda. He reached over and picked up the photocopy of the guest list and read her credentials. An academic trained in sociology and an author of some note. Well, she had not been required reading at the Horst Wesel Academy.
There was a light tap on the door, and a well-dressed young woman came to escort him to the stage. He groaned inwardly and smiled in response. She brought him to the edge of the stage, indicated when he should step out, andthen left him to proceed alone. The host announced him, and Peter stepped out, aware of the awkward distance he had to walk under the scrutiny of so many unseen viewers. His legs hurt wors
e than usual, and in spite of his best attempts, or perhaps because of them, he could not hide his limp. The host grinned at him with big, white, shiny teeth. He shook Peter’s hand, introduced him to their first guest, and indicated his seat.
“So what do you think of Miss Whitmer’s assertions?” the host asked.
“I’m afraid I didn’t hear them,” Peter responded, determined to stay outside any messy all-America issues.
Dr. Whitmer, infuriated not least because of the host’s mistitling of her, broke in with, “Certainly you realize it is inappropriate for a white man to lecture us on slavery!”
“I’m just recounting my experiences,” Peter replied evenly.
“What could any white man understand about slavery!” She imbued the words white and man with such derision that she had no need of further adjectives to give her opinion.
Peter, seeing a minefield of possible answers, decided on, “And what could you?”
“You ignorant man! Don’t you know what the black experience has been? Don’t you know what my people have suffered? And are still suffering at the hands of the white power structure?”
“What have you personally experienced?” he asked calmly.
“I have seen my share of pain!” she boomed.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he responded quietly. “So have I. Perhaps we can learn from each other.”
“We have learned enough from the white man throughout history—to our cost! You could never understand the black experience!”
“Because I am white?”
“Yes!” she answered, infuriated.
“And you can?”
“Of course!”
“Even things you have not personally seen or experienced? Even things in the distant past?”
“Don’t act stupid!”
“My apologies. I’m just curious. You see, I’m afraid I don’t ascribe to racial theories of guilt or hypotheses of tainted blood, but I do know some people who do. Maybe you’d enjoy talking to them?” he asked disingenuously. The audience tittered.
“You!” Dr. Whitmer responded. “You with your blond hair and blue eyes! You weren’t oppressed, you weren’t targeted for your skin color or your religion! You brought your troubles down on yourself! You have no understanding of racism, you—”
“You’re right,” Peter interrupted forcefully. “I could have fit in and I chose notto! That’s exactly the point, isn’t it? Don’t be fooled by the nonsensical ideas of Nazi mythology, they’ll happily change their tune whenever it serves their purposes. If it suits their needs, they’ll flatter and wine and dine representatives of peoples they claim are inferior—I know, I served the damn drinks! They’ll imprison and torture and enslave anybody who disagrees with them—no matter how pristine a pedigree they might have! That’s the way of these gangsters, they nd oppress anyone who stands in their path, anyone who disagrees with them. if you could, for just a few seconds, detach yourself from your precious groupthink politics—”
“You’re a fool! My people are oppressed as a group, they must react as a group!”
“And that makes you their ally!” he spat in reply, suddenly understanding Katerina’s anger during their first discussion. “The Nazis and their ilk would like nothing better than to have you think of yourselves as different! If you can’t see that we are more than just a member of a group, that we aren’t defined by hair or eyes or—”
“Get real! You’re a member of the ruling class! Even the way you are treated here shows that! Do you think you would be listened to if—”
“You don’t get it, do you? Why do you think I am speaking out? You have a substantial movement in this country to tolerate these criminals, to treat them as acceptable. You have people here who believe they would be immune from oppression because they belong to the right group or because they are Americans. They don’t know that their actions, their beliefs, the things they take for granted here, would be enough to mark them out as enemies there! Like me I did nothing but disagree with them, nothing at all! No one is safe when intolerance, any sort of intolerance, is accepted! That’s what makes us alike, more alike than any of our superficial differences that you’re so intent on pointing out!”
“We’re not alike!” she almost howled. “One pathetic man’s experiences do not compensate for the oppression of centuries!”
“Who’s talking about compensation?” Peter began, but then he stopped. He was getting into exactly the sort of argument he had promised himself he would avoid. He frowned as his head throbbed with pain. What, he wondered, could he say to back out of the situation?
Dr. Whitmer used the pause to good effect, launching into a tirade against his uneducated, insensitive bigotry. Peter rubbed his chin thoughtfully and answered tersely on occasion, never saying more than that he had nothing but his own story to tell, refusing to again take the bait. After ten minutes had passed in this manner, with Dr. Whitmer showing no signs of letting up, the host finally restrained her.
“Let’s let Mr. Halifax here speak a bit. I think the audience would like to ask a few questions. I know I certainly am curious as to what he thinks about us and American society.”
At the prompt Peter launched into a pat speech about the wonders of the Land of Opportunity, and with a brief nod to his fellow guest he acknowledgedthat there were problems to be solved but that America was a great continent, and with such a brave and dedicated people there was no reason why they could not offer help to their brethren overseas even while addressing the inequities that might exist at home.
He was then prodded by the host to briefly recount his life history for the “one or two hermits” who had not yet heard about him. He dutifully did that, concluding with, “But I managed to survive by holding on to the hope that one day we might be free, that we might one day be like America, and that one day the Americans would rise up as a people to help us in our hour of need.”
Dr. Whitmer rolled her eyes and made a slight snorting noise, but did not dare to interrupt. She had bargained for her position as the opening act on a highly publicized show only on the understanding that Halifax would be allowed to speak when it came to his turn. She had made the pact in order to have a huge public forum, and now she had to stick to her part of the bargain in the interests of future speaking engagements.
Peter found himself silently agreeing with Dr. Whitmer’s snorted opinion: it was crap, but he had learned that such sentiments went down well with audiences, and indeed, the audience was soaking it up.
As his guest spoke, Jerry Mann worried a bit. He was rightfully famous for the controversial nature of his shows, and this little festival of warmth would kill his reputation and eventually the ratings. Yet, to turn on a debate between his two guests seemed unwise; for one thing, the Englishman seemed uninterested and nearly unprovocable on the race issue—he honestly felt no white man’s guilt and would not even pretend to feel it. Nor would it help to let that Whitmer woman rant at him—she was just plain boring without opposition. He should have got a member of a Nazi sympathy group to go on opposite, but after last year’s onstage melee and murder, the government had vetoed the idea. Damn censorship. So, the job was left to him to provoke something. The question was, what would get a response? As Peter finished speaking and the audience applauded warmly, Mann came to a decision.
“Very interesting, very interesting. But certainly you could have avoided such unpleasantness?” Mann asked.
“Which part in particular?” Peter asked, unwilling to rehash every detail.
“I mean, someone as bright as you. You are hardly typical or average, now are you?”
“I’m not sure who is typical,” Peter responded, confused by the direction of the questioning.
“Certainly not someone as educationally elite as you! We all heard about your doctorate from EUM. And in mathematics!” Mann gasped his astonishment.
“The English University of Manhattan doctorate was honorary,” Peter explained. “Just part of my visit.”
“Ah, yes, but I heard it was truly earned. You have an extensive education in some very arcane subjects, isn’t that true?”
Peter wanted to ask if there was supposed to be something wrong with that, but then he saw the direction that Mann was heading. Add elite and overeducated to Dr. Whitmer’s denunciation of him as a white European male and the next logical step was pampered, whining aristocrat who pined for lost privilege and did not merit the support of the honest, simple, and hard-pressed American working class.
“Perhaps,” Peter answered carefully, “I had no opportunity to compare my experience with others since higher education is essentially forbidden to my class.” He let slide that his class was essentially self-defined by an unwillingness to collaborate. In any case, it was sufficiently true in that higher education, and in many cases any education, was denied to numerous people. “You see,” he continued, turning toward the audience, “that is one of your freedoms that we value so highly. The right to learn. We know how hardworking Americans educate their children and work to put them into university so that they might better themselves and make this a strong and just country.”
Dr. Whitmer opened her mouth to say something, but Peter, acknowledging her with a nod, continued, “And we recognize, as you do, that equal access to education is crucial. We recognize your struggle to make your educational system fair and available to all your citizens, just as you recognize the hardship our children must endure as they read illegal books in dark cellars, as they study forbidden texts, fearing arrest at any minute, fearing that their parents will be taken because of their commitment to learning . . .” Peter continued, weaving a tale of two noble peoples separated by an ocean: the one society struggling to regain basic rights, the other striving relentlessly for a better, fairer society.
Mann tried other questions, tried different accusations. He laid them subtly, never daring an outright attack, and Peter answered them just as subtly, never taking offense, never noticing the way the host tried to twist Peter’s words or reinterpret his message. With each answer, Peter tightened the web around Mann, and the audience loved it—their love-hate relationship with the host having swung toward hate for the moment.
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