by Sam Apple
“But it is much too far,” Andrea said.
In the village of Wuggau, roosters ran free. The mass was outdoors beneath a pristine blue sky. The choir sang round after round of beautiful Ave Marias, and an elderly priest in a white robe and tinted glasses ceremoniously fed wafers to the faithful. Then the oversized beer steins came out and the celebration began. Full-bellied men in Alpine attire played folk ditties on the accordion. Children munched on sausages as big as their arms. After downing a few jelly doughnuts, I asked Andrea if we could interview the anti-Semite. The anti-Semite said he would join us in ten minutes. In the meantime, Andrea pulled aside a thick-boned elderly woman. When I worked my way to my World War II questions, she described how she had lain flat on her back in the vineyards when the Russian soldiers had come through the region. She said that in 1938 her father had warned, “They cheer now, but afterward they will weep.” Before walking off, she told me to “ess, ess” (eat, eat)—an order I hadn't heard since Bashy used to bark it at me after school every day. If Bashy was here with me, I thought, she and I would be the ones lying on our backs in the vineyards.
By now twenty minutes had passed, and the anti-Semite still hadn't left his table. I was getting anxious that he had changed his mind. I walked over and brandished my tape recorder. He appeared to nod his consent but then made no move to get up. Ten minutes later he stood up and walked in the opposite direction to speak with someone else. After another ten minutes it became clear that he was doing his best to avoid me. Andrea finally dragged him over to a bench with the two of us, but by the time I took out my notebook and tape recorder, the anti-Semite was already up again and walking over to a hunched old man.
“He says you absolutely must interview this elderly gentleman,” Andrea said.
“But I want to interview him,” I said.
“He says he will do this later,” Andrea said. And then the anti-Semite was gone. The old man was a farmer and an organ player. He told me that he had thirty-six cows and that he admired Haider for his intelligence. “Anti-Semitism had always existed since Christ, and I think it still exists,” he said. “I think there is now only a little anti-Semitism, but I am afraid it gets worse, because when the Jews get too strong and have too much influence, the people get angry.”
“Do you think the Jews have too much influence now?” I asked.
“I don't know,” he said. “It's what is reported in the media. Personally, I think we need Jews because even in the former days, if there is no Jew, there is no business. A society can't function without Jews.”
I wasn't leaving without my interview with the anti-Semite. It was no longer about what he actually had to say, but about the battle of wills to get him to sit down.
I wandered around until I found him singing in a circle with three other men. I put my hands on my hips and tapped my foot, and when the song ended, the anti-Semite walked back to the bench with me.
Thirty-seven
Meet the Anti-Semite
Tell me your favorite thing about Austria,” I said to the anti-Semite. Andrea sat between us on the bench.
The anti-Semite turned to Andrea and she translated. “He says that he will not speak in English because it's the language of Americans and Israel.”
I pointed out that English is not, in fact, the language of Israel.
“Yes, but America is a supporter of Israel,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. I had wanted it and now I was getting it. The anti-Semite told me his favorite thing about Austria was “the Austrian mentality.” “The Austrians are a modest and praying people,” he said.
“And your least favorite thing?”
Ten-second pause. In the distance a commotion began to form around the new chapel. The anti-Semite looked downward, his face twisted in thought. He stroked his chin. “There is nothing that I dislike about Austria,” he said. “I like my homeland so much that I can't help but love all the people here.”
“Does that include the immigrants and Austrian Jews?”
Thirty-second pause. I began to wonder if the anti-Semite would continue at all.
“I like the way Austrians encounter non-Austrians.”
“Yes, but I am asking you about Austrians citizens who are Jews and immigrants. Do you love those Austrians too?”
Fifteen-second pause. More stroking of the chin. “Self-evidently.”
An announcement came over a speaker, and then the bell atop the new chapel was rung for the first time. Everyone cheered.
“Is there a lot of anti-Semitism in Austria?”
Twenty-second pause. I looked to Andrea and she shrugged. “It is very difficult how we handle this word ‘anti-Semitism,’ ” the anti-Semite said. “Considering the actual situation between Israel and Palestine, I don't understand the word anymore. Peace would be easily constructed if Israel would retreat from the occupied areas.”
“I'm not asking about Israel. I'm asking about Jews in Austria who have nothing to do with Israel.”
“Yes, but you can't divide the Austrian Jews from Israeli Jews. By these politics of Sharon, the old anti-Semitism is revived.”
“So you think all Jews are the same and have the same political opinion and the same ideas?”
Five-second pause. “Certainly not.”
“So the only Jews you don't like are those who support the Sharon government?”
Audible sigh. Twenty-second pause. “The whole world is ashamed by the politics of Sharon.”
More ringing of the bell and more cheering.
“Maybe there is a misunderstanding. My question is whether you have any problems with Jews who don't support the Sharon government, considering you just said yourself that not all Jews are of the same opinion.”
“If you look at these people here, nobody knows who is Christian, who is Jewish. For me all men are equal whether they are Jews, Muslims, Incas, Christians, or Saudi Arabians.”
“So the Jew who doesn't support Sharon is the same to you as any other Austrian?”
“But the Jews support Sharon.”
I was beginning to feel like a character in an existentialist play. I was ready to give up. Andrea stepped in and rescued me. “Can I ask you,” she said to the anti-Semite, “when you shout at me and call me a Jew, what do you mean by that?”
“I say this because the Jews always feel better than others as the chosen people, the anti-Semite said. Two times for four weeks in my life I worked in Jewish cemetery in Berlin as a volunteer, and the Jews of Berlin treated the volunteer group very badly.”
The anti-Semite was now barking as much as speaking. Amid the hard German sounds I didn't understand was the unmistakable Juden pronounced like two words: “You! Den!”
“How many Jews did you meet?” I asked.
“Maybe thirty or forty.”
“And all of these thirty or forty Jews treated you badly?”
I never got an answer to that question. The anti-Semite took off on a rant that brought to mind footage I'd seen of Mussolini giving a speech. His fist came down on his own knee and out came “You! Den!” several times along with several rounds of “absolut, absolut arro-gant!”
Andrea translated the tirade as a listing of the anti-Semite's complaints about the arrogant Jews of Berlin. The first time he went, the volunteers weren't given enough to eat. The second time, the Berlin Jewish community had not found a place for them to stay, so the volunteers had to take a long bus trip to and from the cemetery each day.
“So,” I asked, “if a handful of Austrians are rude to me, is it fair for me to assume that the Austrians are a rude people?”
“I worked fifteen summers of my life for social projects all over Europe, and never was I treated so poorly.”
“But you would agree that you shouldn't judge a whole community by a few?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so then you shouldn't be saying that all Jews are arrogant, but rather that the Jews you met and worked with in Berlin were arrogant.”
The
anti-Semite nodded.
“I just can't understand how in this country people can make such haphazard anti-Semitic comments,” I said. “Don't you think it's dangerous to say these types of things? Isn't it one of the lessons of the Nazis that violence can start with language?”
Loud sigh. “I just can't understand what Sharon does. What is your opinion?”
“I'm happy to answer that, but first I'd like you to answer my question. Isn't it dangerous, especially in this country, to make anti-Jewish comments?”
“But this is just restaurant talk.”
I started to respond, but the anti-Semite cut me off. “I think that I've learned something from this interview,” he said, “and I will consider changing my attitude.”
Now I was the silent one. I felt a rush of adrenaline, what I imagine a boxer feels after delivering a knockout punch. Probably the anti-Semite was just trying to shut me up, but for a moment I was able to enjoy the delusion that I had done something important, that I had lowered the overall amount of anti-Semitism in the world. This was what I had been craving all along, I thought: not just for the Austrians to be anti-Semitic, but for the chance to do battle against their anti-Semitism. In fact, my antics over the previous months had almost certainly increased the amount of anti-Semitism in the world. But on that afternoon, in the little village of Wuggau, where the roosters ran free, I had scored one for the Jews.
“I'm happy to hear you will reconsider these things,” I said.
The tension evaporated. I think for a split second I even liked the anti-Semite. Andrea referred to me as “Herr Apple,” and the anti-Semite said, “Ah, yes, Big Apple,” and he laughed.
In the car on the way to the train station, Andrea told me that the anti-Semite would like to see me again the next time I'm in the region.
“Um… I… yeah,” I said.
Thirty-eight
Wandering Dreams
The Wandering Jew is in Vienna in the 1930s, and, all things considered, he is having a pretty good time. Sometimes anti-Semites chase the Wandering Jew along the Ringstrasse and throw rocks at him, but mostly he is well liked by the Austri-ans. In the afternoons he goes from café to café, drinking coffee and engrossing himself in the great intellectual debates of the day (the Wandering Jew is a Freudian). At night the Wandering Jew gathers crowds around him and performs magic tricks. For thirty schillings he tells people stories about his travels in strange lands. Usually he makes up the stories because it's hard to remember things that happened 700 years ago.
When 1938 comes along, the Wandering Jew is still making the rounds in Vienna, and with each night, he watches the Viennese grow more drunk on their hatred. Now as often as not his shows are drowned out by shouts of “Juden raus.” Teenagers who had clapped for his magic tricks as young children now yank on the Wandering Jew's long beard and laugh. Old men spit on him.
The Jews of Vienna are shocked. They stand before their shattered storefronts and wonder how their neighbors could have turned so vicious. The Wandering Jew knows the Aus-trians better. He was there in 1348 in Mühldorf [in the archbishopric of Salzburg] when 1,400 Jews were burned alive; there in 1421, when Archduke Albrecht V had the Jews of Vienna who refused baptism burned to death outside of the city walls; there in 1670 to see thousands of Viennese Jews expelled from the city. And some things you don't forget no matter how many years have passed.
So when the Nazis come for him, the Wandering Jew is not surprised and makes no effort to resist. He is put on a train and sent to a camp. At night while the other Jews sleep their exhausted sleep, the Wandering Jew walks in circles, round and round, along the edges of the barbed-wire fence.
The Nazis don't like all this walking. A young guard takes the Wandering Jew by the arm and drags him into a line of people in front of a concrete building.
“You're making a mistake,” the Wandering Jew cries out. “I'm the Wandering Jew. The one you've heard about. I can't die.”
“Into the showers with you, old man,” the guard says. The Wandering Jew is stripped of his robe. Naked, he follows the line into the building.
The door to the building is closed, and minutes later, when it is opened again, the corpse of the Wandering Jew is dragged out with the others.
Thirty-nine
Dizzy
When I returned to Vienna, Irene was home. We spent the next week traveling to Budapest and going to museums. Hans came into the city the following weekend and met Irene and me at a café. Somehow Hans and Irene ended up singing the Spanish folk song “Gracias a La Vida” together, and when they were done, Irene said it was the most beautiful song she had ever heard.
“I guess you've never heard Yiddish music,” Hans said.
We said our good-byes. “I don't know if you will really write a book,” Hans said, “but this does not matter. I like having you here.” I realized, for the first time, that Hans was onto the fact that I had no idea of what I was doing in Austria. All along he had been humoring me. I gave him an awkward pat on the arm. Then I hugged him.
At around midnight on my last night in Austria, Irene took me to a spa that was part of a communal living project in a building that had once been a coffin factory. Irene was a member of the spa and had her own key. We were the only ones there, and we stripped naked and got into a large bubble-churning hot tub. Irene carried two “noodles”—four-foot Styrofoam sticks—into the tub with us.
“What are those for?” I asked.
“I'll show you,” she said. She took one of the noodles, curled it behind my neck, and told me to hold the edges. “Lean back,” she said. I did, and she placed the other noodle under my knees so that I was floating naked with my arms spread and knees bent, crucified and crippled. Irene took my feet in her hands and began to pull me around in slow circles. I closed my eyes and listened to the bubbles in my ears. Every few seconds the hot water splashed into my mouth, making me feel as though I was about to drown. I began to imagine I was a captain on a sinking ship, the water about to overtake me. In my head I started to shout out commands to my crew: Grab whatever food you can! Release the emergency boats! As I grew dizzy, it began to feel more and more real, almost as though I were hallucinating. It started to scare me and I opened my eyes. Irene was still there, pulling me round and round.
Postscript
The next summer I went back to Austria to visit Hans and to do a little more research. A few months after this second trip, the political landscape in Austria would change with the Freedom Party suffering a major blow and taking only 10 percent of the vote in the 2002 national elections. The Freedom Party nevertheless held on to its position in the government by again forming a coalition with the conservative People's Party, which saw its share of the vote rise to 42 percent. Shortly after the election results came in, Peter Sichrovsky resigned from the Freedom Party, saying that he had “always thought [Haider] was not an anti-Semite” but that he had changed his mind after Haider's latest round of inflammatory comments. In the state elections of March 2004, the Freedom Party maintained control over Carinthia with 42.5 percent of the vote, a 0.4 percent increase over the party's 1999 total. Haider remains the Carinthian governor.
Austria felt very much the same in the summer of 2002. The mountains were still stunning, and the news was still full of debates about Haider's outrageous antics. And, at least in some respects, I hadn't changed much either. I once again failed to bring appropriate boots or wool socks or a raincoat. But I did bring something much better: my girlfriend, Jennifer.
She was the woman I had been involved with during my senior year of college and then separated from. When I returned from Austria, Jennifer had just moved to New York to work as a lawyer, and on our first date several months later, I felt no moral qualms about my long-term intentions. She had dark blond hair and the softest skin you've ever felt and lips so full and alluring that it required concentration to not impulsively kiss them. When we weren't working or writing, we'd sit around one of our apartments playing “Would you still
be my boyfriend/girlfriend if…” I'd ask Jennifer if she'd still be my girlfriend if she found out I regularly drank the liquid broth that comes in a jar of gefilte fish. She'd ask me if I'd still be her boyfriend if I discovered she regularly wrote passionate fan letters to Regis Philbin. And on it would go. The answers would usually be “yes,” but the answers weren't the point. The point, for me at least, was that I had figured out what was missing from my previous relationships: a shared devotion to the absurd, a shared sense that there was as much fun to be had in imagining as in doing. Only later did I realize that to share a sense of the absurd is also to share a sense of the un-absurd. When the laughter stopped, as it inevitably did, Jennifer and I sat around in Central Park and talked about the pain that sometimes simmered beneath the surface of our comic routines. She understood that even as I was joking about my hypochondria, I was also not joking. I understood how truly miserable it was to be a corporate lawyer.
Irene was also involved with someone else. We met briefly for coffee in Vienna, and I learned she had taken a part-time job as a Web programmer for a Jewish organization. It was a little awkward for both of us, but it was good to see her after so long. She told me that she had also worked for the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance in the last year and had learned much more about Austria's Nazi years. “Now when I ride my bike around the city, I can't help but think about the horrible Nazi that lived in this building or the people who were killed at that building,” she said.
Irene asked me if I remembered the song we had sung: “Hey ho, leistet Widerstand.” I did. We sang it together and laughed at my pronunciation, and then I left.
When Jennifer and I first arrived in Austria in August, Hans was already on the Aim. I was anxious to finally see the promised land Hans had raved about—to drink the Alpine milk that he had said tasted like no other milk, to see the rocks he had described as having “soft glowing colors.” The Aim was high in the mountains near the Styrian town of Neumarkt in der Steiemark, not far from the Carinthian border. Hans picked us up in the van at the bottom of the mountain and drove up a long winding road until we arrived at a sloping green plateau.