“Wrong! He’s the survivor. Another word for winner. Where are the Hittites? Where are the Phoenicians and all their fine fleets? Gone—while some Jew teaches his child the same Hebrew alphabet taught to Joseph by his father.”
Gilliatt was feeling pressed. I had seen him that way and I recognized the signs. His face was flushed by more than cold. He beat his skinny arms against his sides for warmth but also in a flurry of irritation. Barbara sat on a stone ledge next to Max. Her eyes never left his face. “Solitary,” Gilliatt all but shouted. “He is the most solitary of men. Loneliness is his natural state—as natural to him as exile.”
Max lost his finesse. “You’re crazy,” he said. “Jews are gregarious as sheep. They understand the meaning of the word tribe. When you wander in the desert for forty years you learn to stick together. The family is the first God of the Jews.”
“And the second?” Parry from Gilliatt.
“The Jews themselves!” Thrust from Max.
“Idolatry,” Gilliatt cried out with a mad laugh. “Humanism. One and the same!”
Unexpectedly Max took the lead. I had never heard him speak so well. He was controlled, not excited the way Gilliatt was. Perhaps he had made love to Barbara. The exhaustion of physical love sometimes brings a certain residual control. The thought troubled me—not because of jealousy. I had no proprietary interest in Barbara; only, at the moment, an institutional and executive one. It was Jewel who worried me. She did not seem to be listening at all. Her gaze floated around her and us without direction; she appeared mindless, abstract as one of the fountain nymphs.
“They’re a superstitious people,” Max said. “The Messiah who is to come is more real to them than today’s sunrise or sunset. To them all history is a dialogue between themselves and God.”
“Nonsense!” Gilliatt assumed the defensive position. “A Jew is a Jew even if he never sees the inside of a synagogue. Not God or sunrises! Business, politics! Modern atheism was practically invented by them.”
“They consider themselves unique. God’s chosen people. Therefore, superior. And they have chosen themselves as spokesmen for man. The only problem is—they’re lousy spokesmen. The ultimate masochists. Naturally acquainted with pain. They speak for pain, not joy; death, not life.”
“Ridiculous,” Gilliatt said. The real danger of the Jew is his secret of renewal. We learned the idea of Easter from this damned Jewish Phoenix. He invented resurrection while on the earth because he had to—he was always being destroyed. The country they call Israel is only the latest style in resurrections. There will be others.”
Gilliatt had regained his ironic composure. While his manner was more naturally suited to the attack he was discovering a certain grace in the defensive response. Max was an habitual attacker of many targets; nihilism was his mother tongue. But Gilliatt’s thought, his imagery and his passions had been profoundly engaged by only one antagonist. He had the technical security of the professional.
“Why be afraid of his renewal?” Max said. “The Jew is passive to the point of paralysis.”
“You misunderstand his subtle style of activity. When you push against him, he gives—only to mislead you. His bags are always packed.”
“Except that he assimilates. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” Max hesitated. “When the exile ended in—” he came to a complete stop.
“Babylon?” Gilliatt suggested helpfully.
“Sixty percent stayed. Only forty percent went back to rebuild the temple.”
“One percent would have been enough,” Gilliatt replied. “Our recent German buddies understood that. It is always the small, select minority that survives Jewish suicide—by which I mean assimilation—or murder—by which I mean murder. What you might have said,” he was taking the lead again, “is that they survive because they’re loyal to nothing but each other.”
“False! Since Judas,” Max said, “they’ve sold each other down the river for a dollar.”
“A dollar doesn’t buy what it used to.”
Apparently sensing the subtlety of Gilliatt’s seeming ambivalence, Max tried to imitate it. It came out clumsily. “They are a subtle and devious people,” he said. “They understand patience and silence.”
Gilliatt roared into laughter. It was a strange sound in that quiet white afternoon. It broke something, some invisible webbing that had tied this unlikely group together on the edge of a frozen fountain. Max sat down next to Barbara and began turning a knob on his camera. Above them the nymphs and shepherds continued their frigid chase. Jewel looked at me helplessly; she was asking something of me. She no longer bloomed under my gaze. It was as if the few moments of forbidden smiling she had indulged in with me had aged her decades, instantly. The child she carried was aging, too. The years and centuries of Jewish history that were the subject of this mad debate had aged us all.
“Silence?” The word was the tag end of Gilliatt’s laughter. “But they talk endlessly. Words are their mother’s milk—and their weapon. They think they can get anything they want through language—and they speak them all. They would drown the world in words if they had their way. The people of the book? No! The people of the word. One hundred billion words. Words without end, forever and ever. Amen!”
A dryness in the corners of my mouth, a distant, internal pulse hinting at anger revealed Gilliatt’s not very hidden method. It had not occurred to me that the insane dialogue could anger me—enough, perhaps, to make me lose my control. It had undoubtedly occurred to Gilliatt. He saw Max and Jewel as godsends, aids in his campaign to unseat me. If the most sustained of his vitriolic monologues had always failed, perhaps a dialogue would succeed: particularly one performed before my ex-wife and her new husband—correction, her new … what?
What pleasure a smashing punch in the mouth would give my ambitious assistant! With what triumph he would lick the salty blood from his lips! I had a sudden urge to strike out. But it would not be a physical blow. My desire was childish—perhaps designed to inspire respect in Jewel’s eyes. The weapon I chose was the one Gilliatt had just been describing with such bitter zest: words.
I raised my hand as if to indicate that I wished to make a statement. “If the object may become the subject for a moment,” I began, “I’d like to say a few words—of agreement.” I paused for the suitable effect of surprise. Gilliatt sat down on the rim of the fountain without bothering to brush off the snow. “I am more ambitious than either of you. I accept both of your arguments, on every point. But never just one! I will take upon myself the arguments of all my enemies—but it must be all. If I am devious I insist on being open in my speech. If I speak for pain instead of joy, I also rise endlessly with hope from my ashes. And I mean this sincerely—” As I spoke I realized that a literal sincerity had overtaken me as I spoke. My voice rang with it. “The Jew is everything you say—but never half of what you both accuse. In short, he embodies all.” (While poor Solomon was being clubbed down in his strike for justice, some Leipzig banker died for his money.) “We have been chosen, if not by God then by man, to be completely human … and to be refused humanity. What kind of life is it to be asked every day: who are you? Or: what do you want to be? Surely such things can be settled once and for all. But, no, not us. And whichever way we might decide, they’ve been burning us—one way or another and at pretty decent intervals—for our decision. It’s been centuries and even fires don’t stop the process. I am the Burning Bush.” (This directly to Gilliatt.) “Even while I’m burned by the fires around me, I speak and I’m not destroyed.”
The mid-day bells began to ring, surprising the snow-filled air. There was a slow and heavy fall now of thick flakes. They filled the air like hundreds of small white birds, silent in their descent. “You see, then,” I continued to the accompaniment of the clanging bells, “why I am well-fitted for my present position. Choosing life, choosing death—that’s second nature to me.”
As I spoke Max had been scooping up snow from the balustrade of the fountain and abs
ently packing it, tossing it from one hand to another. Suddenly he executed a half-turn and lightly threw a small snowball at Gilliatt. It caught him on the shoulder.
“It’s not just words,” Max said to Gilliatt, as if he had thrown the snowball to attract his attention. “It’s the goddamned morality.” Taking his cue, Gilliatt grabbed a handful of snow and started to mold it. He was grinning his favorite skeletal grin.
“There’s no morality without words,” he replied. “Not even for them.” He threw his swiftly packed snowball at Max, but missed him entirely. It landed on Barbara’s leg. Max was already at work on his second one. Barbara giggled softly.
“They’re the moral bug to the world. They can’t let people just live.” Max threw this one with enough force against Gilliatt’s chest to make him stand up and back away as he groped on the ground for more snow.
“That’s their mission: the gadflies to you and me.” Splat! Gilliatt’s missile landed on Jewel’s arm. He had terrible aim. Jewel jumped up and took refuge around the curve of the fountain. Barbara followed her. They crouched there like two nymphs fallen from the statuary.
“Hey,” I called out. But no one listened. It was war!
“Your trouble is: you take them seriously.” Smash! Direct hit on Gilliatt’s nose. The first on-the-nose score of the skirmish.
“I refuse to take them at all!” Squash. This one landed right on Max’s left ear. It turned bright red.
“They’re the last gasp of the past,” Ouch! A crotch shot that made Gilliatt double over. He straightened up and unleashed a response that smacked Max on the temple.
“They’re always the last gasp,” Gilliatt grunted. “That’s why they survive.”
The snowballs were flying like giant hailstones. From their protected vantage point the two women were hurling their own at random. It was a mad scene—a white slapstick of spraying snow and muttered philosophical curses. I decided it had gone far enough. I ran into the center and started to yell something, I didn’t quite know what. But it didn’t matter, because a fat snowball caught me right on the mouth and splattered all over my face. It was a bitter cold wetness that stung my cheeks and burned my right eye where some snow seeped in under the too-slowly-shut lids. But the natural reaction of rage never came. Instead, as the blood rushed to my face I realized the insane nature of the game I was playing with Gilliatt. As if to underscore my rush of fear, the doors of the Administration Building opened and the guests began to file out. Their lunch was over and a most unusual sight was about to greet them. I didn’t know which guides were on duty but I did not want to encounter them in any case. Unless I regained my control over the day, Gilliatt would have an uncontested victory at the Board of Management meeting. Max and Jewel’s arrival had been just the distraction he needed. Across the fountain I caught a glimpse of Jewel. Her eyes were wide and frightened. She looked stunned, stricken; yet her manner was somehow independent of the recent event. I whirled around stumbling in the loose snow and stalked off, as if summoned by the bells back to my difficult but reasonable tasks.
Part Two
1
BARBARA CAUGHT UP WITH me outside of the long ramp that connected the Main House with the activities area. Her face was flushed; her eyes were half-sealed with an expression I can only describe as the cunning of suicides. I thought then that I should retire Barbara for the day, place her in the hospital, perhaps. On a more sane day I might have done just that.
“Wolf,” she said, breathless from running and excitement. “Jews love children—that’s what they say.”
But I was exhausted with the theme. Enough!
“Everyone loves children, Barbara,” I replied. “Don’t let Max get you all carried away.”
She stared at me boldly. “He understands,” she said.
“I’m sure he does.”
Her tone softened. “He said you have a special kind of family feeling—”
“That’s true,” I said, trying to be patient. “But it’s also true of Armenians, Italian Catholics and lots of white Protestants.”
“You bastard,” she said. “You just don’t want the responsibility, that’s all!”
“Responsibility?”
“You’re playing dumb.” She was in a rage. I would never have guessed from our pallid sexual relationship that she would be capable of such passions. I remembered the poor child she was mourning. It was strange. Barbara was a bitter young woman. She rarely had a kind word for any of her co-workers. She was devastatingly sarcastic about everyone, including the guests to whom she lectured and whom she guided. She had been a schoolteacher, and in spite of her rather pretty, thin face, her future had spinster written all over it. Her toughness was one of the reasons I felt safe in our affair. I figured she’d give as good as she’d get. Why this sudden overriding concern about a child-suicide? An excess of sentimentality was something the psychological testing was supposed to reveal. Had the covering bitterness of the future spinster outfoxed the testers? Surely it must be a psychological commonplace that bitterness in the extreme often covers a dangerous sentimentality. No—it couldn’t be that simple. But I had no patience to puzzle it out. I was eager to regain contact with the day, so I simply ordered her to the assignments room for instructions and entered the ramp.
Walking swiftly toward the activities area I tried to purge my thoughts, but it was difficult. At first there had been no children allowed here: on the grounds that the element of choice in children was underdeveloped. Then, as always, the ambiguities began. At what age was one no longer a child? Naturally, the legal age was worthless as a guide.
There was a paper written by an Allan Rhoad, a member of the Board of Management, in 1921 on the question of choice in relation to age. Rhoad’s thesis was that childhood was the most authentic period of choice—that the so-called choices made in later years were the products of those earlier decisions. The infant in the bassinet opts, among other things, for activity or passivity; such a choice goes deeper than consciousness. All later directions are echoes. There is some belief in learned Academy circles that Rhoad was actually Freud himself. (One of the oldest Academy legends is that Freud was one of the original founders. Countless studies devoted to proving this theory are to be found in the library and archives. Anagrams of the names Freud and Rhoad exist that make the Bacon/Shakespeare games look like simplicity itself.) But, after all, children had been committing suicide for centuries.
No mystery here, Max had complained during his first wild outburst. But he was wrong. There were days when I found nothing but mystery at the Academy. Those were the bad days. It was clarity, an impossible lucidity I was after. Now, however, I was grateful for the distraction. To regain the day it was necessary first of all to regain the present. And my thoughts kept being drawn to the magnetic pole of earlier times—times with Jewel.
The “Beauty Parlor” was an antidote. The title was a pet name the staff had given to the room in which electronic research was conducted. The sight of the guests seated under large devices which fitted around the head, something like an old-fashioned hair dryer, was amusingly reminiscent. These were electronic scanners—portable computers, in effect, equipped with receivers to find patterns that would indicate an authentic prognosis. The material gathered in the Beauty Parlor was then translated onto punched cards and fed into the IBM computer. It was one of the unpleasant ironies of the Academy that much of the material gathered from the guests during their one day with us was of value only in helping us to figure the prognosis of future guests.
I went to the observation post knowing precisely what I was after. I knew the feeling I could count upon while observing a session. The semi-hypnotic trance the equipment induced made them all seem so vulnerable. I looked at them with compassion—with a loving admiration. Of all the people in the world these were the ones who were testing their outer limits. Even the fakes, the exhibitionists, the sentimental slobs who wanted nothing more than confirmation of their own self-pity—even they were involuntary
poets of mortality. All of them, lined up in neat rows in their half-sleep—murmuring banalities or curses to each other or themselves—or sitting in silence—they were all attempting to be involved in final choices: in freedom. Their dialogue stilled for the moment, they were all beautiful in tormented repose. In a world of easy forgivers of selves and others, these held fast to their bitter resentment. Only beyond that barrier was freedom. Some of them—one perhaps—might get past it. Somewhere among these might be found those rare souls who faced a choice of madness, religious belief or suicide.
Somewhere in this debris thrown up by illness, lost illusions, broken hopes, unfaithful wives and husbands, loneliness, the desperation of poverty, somewhere among all these might be a few of those elite souls who were at the end of a rope that stretched from the empty sky all the way down to our snow-covered hills—perhaps even further below.
No mystery? Max was madder than mad! Mystery was woven into the fabric of this place. Even its connection with the larger events of the outside world was splashed with mystery. For instance: I had been there only three years, yet the historical references I personally had heard, referred to figures whose lives covered a much broader period of time. Was there a deliberate derangement of the time sense? It was not prescribed. But were there, then, disorderings of the senses and mind that took place in the guests because of the nature of the Academy experience; something independent of our plans for them? It is possible, of course. But if so: mystery!
What do you think of the spiritual qualities of Franklin Delano Roosevelt?
“I hate unions. They bleed you dry.”
Who do you think is the noblest person living today?
“Gandhi.”
Gandhi’s dead.
“That’s how he can be so noble.”
What do you think of socialism?
“My father voted for Eugene Debs. But he was a bastard.”
Suicide Academy Page 7