Starry Laughter

0

Overture

["Arabesque No. 1" by Debussy]

1

At Mauthausen

            A river of bitter water slithers across the Earth. It lays in great labyrinthine loops like a slack rope, lassoing mountains and branding fields with cursive initials. Its path is so pervasive that no one can go far in life without the river eventually blocking their way.

            On its pale shore lies a black cup. It was carefully crafted from obsidian, and set with onyx stones that gleam in the moonlight. It is filled to the brim with the river's bitter water. You will find your name on its base, written like an artist's signature: the cup was made just for you, filled just for you, and someday you must drain it to the silty dregs.

            That will be your darkest hour, a private hour of pain and suffering, an hour when there is only you and God. Thus in every life's play there is a reenactment of Oedipus; we cannot escape our fate any more than he. And if by some anomaly of fate, one dodged their tragedy, escaped the intercepting river, and ran away from every errant shore, then they would be all the worse off: they miss out on starring in a beautiful play. But more importantly, they will never know the dearest friend they could have ever had, or a family that they could love eternally. Love and its sealing bands are finished in furnaces of despair.

            I once traveled to just such a furnace of despair. It is called Mauthausen. It was built by the Nazis in northern Austria as a concentration camp. Prisoners of war from all over Europe were deported to Mauthausen to mine the quarries there. During its seven years of operation, half of its prisoners died while working: about ninety thousand men and women. I came to Mauthausen many years after it was shut down and turned into a memorial. I was a young man of only twenty, and I came to Mauthausen to answer a question that festered like a wound.

            When I arrived it was slightly humid, and the grass, which blanketed the countryside, looked greener than I had ever seen. The sky also was very blue, and the clouds, though a bit hazy, seemed to me, on the whole, healthy and well.

            But the walls of Mauthausen were cold and gray and bare. They jutted out of the earth like old teeth. I suppose an ignorant child could approach the walls from afar, and not wonder, poetically, whether blood and bodies made the grass grow so well. But I do not believe that anyone, however ignorant, can enter the prisoners' bunkhouses and not at least smell something rotten still lingering in the summer air.

            The back yards of the camp hold the old stone quarry. The grass carpet wanders down a quarter mile away from the main buildings, before dropping into a wide, steep pit, at least a hundred feet deep. A rough-cut, stone staircase winds along its sides to the pit's floor, where the old, gnawed rock is now half-buried under weeds.

            I knew before my visit how the quarry operated: the prisoners were loaded with heavy burdens of stone, and forced to carry them up the hundred and eighty-six uneven steps. The guards would bet on the prisoners; that is, on who would reach the top first. With their rods, they would beat the slow and trip the fast; the latter would stumble backwards, like helpless turtles, crushing their fellows as they tumbled down the steps, leaving bits of brain behind. The guards thought this was good fun. They thought it was worth a good laugh. And when a prisoner reached the top and unloaded their stone, the guards would sometimes shove them off the cliffs, and watch them paint the jagged rocks red and yellow, all the way down to the granite floor. And sometimes the prisoners did not need to be pushed, but leapt willingly, rather than descend into the pit once again. The guards called these "parachuters", and laughed some more.

            My grandfather was among the guards who laughed.

            My father disclosed it to me on my twentieth birthday. Before then, I had been taught that my grandfather was a gardener in the German countryside, far from all the fighting. But as I grew older and learned more about history, the inconsistencies contained in this story became impossible to ignore. And finally, one ironically beautiful afternoon, I confronted my father and learned the truth, not just in words, but in photographs and journals and records, all locked away in a little wooden box in the back of my father's sock drawer.

            In one of the photos, my grandfather was caught laughing at a joke. He was charming and handsome. I bet he had a rich laugh.

            More than anything, that photo wounded me. And no matter how I bandaged myself, the gash would not scab. I read every book I could find on Nazi psychology. I watched interviews, I talked with cousins and friends, and I mapped out my thoughts and feelings on a thousand pages of lined paper. But in vain: every day my wound grew more infected, more irritable, and more frightening. And with waves of nausea, a question began to form in my heart: how much of my grandfather's awful laughter still ran through my blood?

            The photograph image held a power over my mind that I was helpless to defeat, unless I could counter it with something even more present and pressing on the senses. Finally, I realized what I must do: I found means to visit Austria, to visit Mauthausen. I thought to myself, that if I could just touch the gnawed rock at the bottom of the pit, if I could touch it for myself, then perhaps I would have my answer. Perhaps, I thought, the ghosts of Mauthausen would speak to me, and finally bind up my wound.

            This was my last hope, as I descended those haunted steps at Mauthausen.

2

The Greek Scholar

            As I made my way down, I thought of a story I once heard. It was told to me with a sort of reverent humor (the rare kind, used with the most delightsome subjects):

            There was once a preeminent scholar of Greek, who, in his early childhood, received an extensive classical education while huddled in a German bunker during World War II. Since then, he memorized Plato's dialogues and could act as their index. This was a tremendous advantage for him in academic pursuits, and he became widely applauded. Despite this, he deliberately taught at a small university in Colorado, because he found that the elitism at Harvard offended his taste.

            Now, at the Colorado University where he taught, a young man looking for academic work was invited to speak before the faculty, as a kind of job interview. If he demonstrated intellectual and rhetorical prowess he would almost certainly be hired. He was a recent PhD in Greek and Latin literature. He chose to speak on the motif of "walking" in ancient writings, and to help his audience, he took the time to make copies of all his translations of the relevant texts. These made up a respectably thick packet, which was proffered to each member of the audience for their reference.

            All through the presentation, the old Greek scholar thoroughly annotated his copy of the packet. Then, at the end of the lecture, as the young PhD welcomed questions, the old Greek scholar enthusiastically hailed to be first. Once called upon, he stood up, the packet in his hands like a choir book, and through his thick German accent began, "I have looked through your translations, and I saw some problems." He then proceeded, line-by-line, showing all the errors in the man's translations, of which (he claimed) there were many. He concluded, with a grin, that "your dissertation council must have been asleep."

            The young PhD began to cry, and abruptly left the room. As he did so, the entire audience began applauding, and the old German scholar of Greek, his grin quite broad now, bowed repeatedly, before sitting back down.

            The man who told me this story seemed to take a certain delight in it. In fact, he told it to me on two occasions, having forgotten that I had already heard it, so absorbed was he in its contents. To him, I suppose, it was a story about a young, pretentious fool having to learn that he couldn't breeze through life, and that honors and awards meant nothing in the long run, compared with hard-won skill.

            This was not the message I received. I only saw a young man being made a laughing stock, a young man who was being told a lifetime of work and money had been wasted. A man in crisis: newly born from the university, willing to translate and synthesize and present before a seemingly willing audience, an audience of alleged teachers, who applauded as the best and brightest among their ranks slew a child for their entertainment. The entire audience applauded. They thought it was worth a good laugh. And the professor -- unmatched in skill, to be sure, and even brilliant, hardworking, wise, dignified, principled -- that professor did not have a particle of true charity in his soul, and is as worthless to humanity as a fruitless fig tree.

            As I walked down the staircase, I thought I passed him by: he was there on the side of the staircase, a baton in his hand, and dressed in uniform…I thought I saw his ghost at Mauthausen, doing what he thought was right.

3

Menis

            My blood runs hot, filling my head with anger, rich anger. Images stream before me: why, if I had been in that university's audience, I would have made that German fiend swallow his own cracked teeth. I would have shown him justice; O how I would have shown him justice…for a man cannot do that and get away with it. This fool, this sophist, this Pharisee -- I cannot stand by, I will not be indifferent. I will care. I must care. I will see justice done.

            I suppose this is the same attitude Dante had, as he described his own political enemies, vicious persons to be sure. He found them in the pits of hell, subjected to the realized fantasies of a sadomasochistic pornographer. With a slight smile (I tend to imagine), the great Italian poet called for Filippo Argenti to be further tormented: dismembered alive in the slime of a Stygian bog.

            Was this the terrible satisfaction I felt, to see blood in the mouth of that old German?

            And what was so terribly funny about the blood of the Jews?

            The wind grows still to listen, and the sun shines brighter on my back, and the ghosts of Mauthausen lean in to hear…no sooner did my blood run hot with anger than it turned cold as a winter stream. But take courage, my heart, and show me the wound: Was it not in you, however silently and in secret, to punish that German as if on the steps of Mauthausen? Was it not in you, heart, to punish the Nazis as on the steps of Mauthausen? Was it not a secret delight in you, crying out for consummation, to beat down your humanity and submit to ruthless calculation just for once in your life; just for once, not to let injustice strut proudly by, but to render six thousand years of payment on its messengers and send them back howling to their master…systematically, coldly, impersonally, justly…?

4

What is natural?

            Disturbing to the mind, that I should crave such vengeance -- that I should crave cruelty and the gross discharge of passion, a vomiting up of the injustice forced down my throat. I used to ignore these flashes of anger, just like everyone else. But now I cannot feel safe doing so. Now I cannot help but wonder, with every little bout of anger, whether my grandfather's blood is welling up, and some transformation is taking hold. These are not things to be trifled with, they demand serious answers. And serious answers demand serious reflection. So let us be calm, let us be reasonable with ourselves.

            For what is most strange and disturbing to the mind is not the anger itself, but its motivation, which so beguiled my secret passions forth from hiding. In the very same moment, did I not host both a dark lust for vengeance and a deep, primal compassion? I wanted justice for the scholar, yes, but that entailed mercy for the young man; and, more disturbing, in neither case was it a matter of conscious thought or reflection at all!

            Am I mistaken in this? Well, let me examine it again.

            Yes, here is the feeling; I have caught the little fire salamander between my fingers, pinching it so it will not ignite. Yes, I know that I cannot, I will not, nor would I ever allow that young man to be so disgraced again, may God Himself strike me down with worms if I did. And I should hope dearly to God that I would have -- the instinct? the mindfulness? -- to run, however vainly, at those Nazi's guns, determined to halt their depravity, to halt those prisoners' sufferings, to unleash an unabashedly unbridled fury on just one of them, and may God never let the blood of the dead and the weeping of ghosts let up in my ears...no, not for eternity…

            And how now! -- what dances in the salamander's fire, burning my fingertips? I can see myself at the pulpit, preaching before hundreds of thousands:  impassioned, inflamed, and thrusting my arm skyward in salute -- for the children of Germany, the starving children of Germany --!

            Enough of that, enough! Enough --! People are giving me strange looks --! If only I could reach the bottom of the pit, maybe then a miracle will happen, maybe then I will have peace…

           

5

For dust thou art

            How unbearably pale this "cold" reflection seems to me. How sickly, pampered and bureaucratic, how comically pathetic it is, like a psychologist soothing a Julius Caesar. It does not recognize the gravity of the situation; it does not respect the weight of these feelings, the burden of these stakes. Tell me, poor reflection; tell me, weary reason: what could I become, what horrors could I do for the sake of a good? Never mind the atrocities others have committed! What am I to do with the evil acts I know, someday, I will do, I will contribute and have contributed and am contributing to this wretched maelstrom of bile? I cannot bear the image: the sight of these hands made filthy. Do we have true pity for Oedipus? Do we understand his plight? The pain with which he cried, when he realized that even in his well-intent, he had committed just those things he so feared and reviled?

            And even as I ponder on it now, long after my visit, I wonder: by writing this book, this very page, some other fool out there will be saddened and angry with me. Perhaps it will send some poor unbalanced soul over the edge? Perhaps it will inspire some cherry-picker of a reader to beat his enemies for an ill-perceived injustice? Yes, perhaps someone will love the book more than they should, and become infected with all its flaws.

            Thus I thought then, as well: Perhaps I could be doing something practical right now. Perhaps some homeless widow is floundering in the gutter, and I was supposed to be there, but instead I am enjoying the luxury of existential investigation, and pondering fruitlessly on nihilism.

            Think on it! Actually think for once in your life: the paper on which I write these words was a living being, cut down in its majesty. The clothes on my back, I am told, were made by foreign slaves. My trash becomes cancer in the Earth's skin. My luxuries come at others' expense. My own skin is an affront. My very thoughts are not examined enough; they perpetuate the secret prejudices of millennia. And when humanity cries out in the throes of death, will it not curse my name too? As a moderate parasite who did not walk away from Omelas?

            Indeed, do not forget: I was born from the pains, little and great, of pregnancy, and its awful consummation in the tailbone-breaking, genital tearing inferno of birth, pains which, by the blind partiality of nature, I will never experience, and never be able to empathize with. And more: my infant wailings at night, my tantrums and ignorant rebellions…

            What right have I to be here? How can I expunge this pain I have already caused? How can I justify myself? What good could I possibly do, when every good I try to do has the potential for evil? In prison until I pay the utmost senine…Why, just sitting here I slaughter bacteria -- do you think me foolish for caring about them, too?

            My own blood bites me -- it is now cold as ice. Do not tell me to sit still -- I am shivering from the inside. And now my demon is back again, cooing malice in my ear: "Oh, did you forget what you really are, actor? Did you dare look your culpable face in the mirror again, without that mask of pride the crowd gave you? Did you not like what you saw? Well, at least you have the good taste to reject yourself…"

                       

6

Einsamste Einsamkeit

            I was in the pit of Mauthausen. I placed my hand against a rock.

            I felt nothing.

            I tried a larger rock, an older rock.

            I felt nothing.

            I sat on the grass and let the sun burn my forehead as it dove behind the rim of the pit. I sat for many hours, almost in a dream. No staff from the memorial bothered me. No one sought to escort me out. Perhaps they thought I also worked there.

            All the patrons gradually disappeared until the pit was empty, and dusk was slinking ever closer. I could not tell if I was awake or dreaming or both. All I could hear was the wretched sound of my inner voice.

            What foolishness I ponder. What idiocy, what dust!  What presumptuous dust!

            Here I sit in the pit of Mauthausen pondering on nihilism and evil? What idiocy, what presumption…what am I, a philosopher? What am I, some great one? Some historic superman? Is that not what my heart craves? To be great? To think great thoughts that resound like thunder across the world?

            Ah, here we have the truth, crawling out into the cheerless sun. It is a horrid, translucent cavern serpent -- on its back is written "Arrogance". Arrogance that I write this way…who do I think I am? Nietzsche?

            Arrogance too, that I presume to name my little warts, my foibles, "Arrogance", as if the soliloquies of a flea could be anything but parody!

            And here is the worse truth: I don't care about Mauthausen. Is that not true? Are my feelings genuine or contrived? Aren't I pushing myself to feel something, because I want so badly to be profound? All I really wanted to do was write a book, is it not so? My grandfather was merely an opportunity to overcome writers' block! Wasn't this whole enterprise nothing but research for some little arrogant, exploitative, presumptuous book? Haven't I sought to exploit my grandfather and all of Mauthausen simply so that I might be profound? I know the ways of the great writers, I have read them well, watched them work. I know their tricks and secrets; I know how to sound great; I know the rhetoric of greatness. Speak of some holocaust or other; speak of it starkly -- they're sure to pay attention then!

            O God, I even presume to know the rhetoric? Can I ever escape these wretched habits? Couldn't I dare write badly? For maybe then it would be goodly, by virtue of its badness in my perverted taste.

            I hate it. I hate it all.

            What loathing.

            What is this nonsense, this sound of bells…am I mad…? How presumptuous I am, to go mad…

6.5

Intermission

[Saint Vitus' Cathedral bells]

["Albumblatt" by Friedrich Nietzsche]

7

Bread and Medicine

            A ghost approached me where I sat. I did not see him at first, for I was looking at the ground. But from nearby I heard him say with a young, healthful, and rich baritone, "Dear fellow! What cause do you have to weep? My friend, I could hardly recognize you: the great friend of Nietzsche, are you not? But with your face so glum you are assuredly no disciple of mine, should I have disciples, which I dare say, I would rather not. Only our mutual friend warrants that."

            There he was before me, as I looked up to view: an angel, dressed in black and white, with a curtly striped tie and starched collar, but otherwise quite comfortable looking in his suit and coat. His face was young again, and without his mustache or glasses I could hardly recognize him. But the hair was the same, thick and ruffled, gleaming in the sunshine. His lips were gently lifted and his brow upturned in an expression of gentle, encouraging concern, and his eyes gleamed, like the stars of Orion in the clear winter sky.

            "What a place," he said, as he surveyed the pit. "'Groanings that cannot be uttered…' That was how Paul said it. Ah, how I hated him, but that was so long ago…

            "Bah, I am not here to talk about myself," he continued, sitting down next to me, knitting his hands together on his knees, "The Christian, our mutual friend, sent me to help you. He'd like to speak with you directly, but He realizes that will be quite difficult so long as you're in this state of distress…well, we can get to that later. Do you need anything, my friend? Bread, medicine, some more time alone? We have plenty of time, and if we didn't I'd surely make it for you."

            I was not ready to move at that moment, and so we spoke for many hours in the pit of Mauthausen.

8

Stardust

            "Do not fear, child of the starry lights," he said. "I admit, there will be many cycles of suffering for the entire Earth, and you with it; much spilt blood baked under the cruel sun, until even it turns to dust; much injustice, much evil, many poisoned wells, many rivulets of rancid oil, many tyrants and evil priests usurping the throne of the gods -- bad experiments, your experiments; mistakes and transgressions, cuts, burns, bruises, ruptures, and all the pilfers of disease --  and yet, star child: many baptisms of the moon in the velvet lake of night, and the rebirth of the sun each dawn -- to the gods, all these are as the flare of a shooting star, compared to what they have seen.

            "Tell me, laden-head: where do the stars come from? Dust. And what are you made of, star-child? Dust. And so I will declare your true inheritance: yonder lights, sparkling like splendid champagne, are your family. Your peculiar people declared it before me, that perchance, while in depths of sky, this dust, which that lying angel of misery so despises and denounces, shall begin to burn? That this chaos…is the stuff of a star --?

            "And if I may be so presumptuous, my friend, to presume in the presence of the presumed master presumer --" but he began chuckling at that, and I laughed, and I thought I heard the gleaming stars sigh with relief at it. Then the good European continued, "I am praising the raw material in this body of yours. The anger, the misplaced justice, the self-cruelty and self-contempt; you owe this fine clay to your grandfather: it is fresh and cold, red as Achilles' flush. From this, a skilled hand could make the most beautiful vases and the smoothest pots, and fill them with sweetened waters to heal the parched tongue of travelers.

            "Yes, your God is resourceful, and your grandfather's sins could not ruin you any more than he could destroy clay with his hands. The material remains, and his mistakes have merely fermented into your spices. Understand that many men have no material in them at all, for they sought to root it out of themselves, like the man who buried his talent, rather than risking its exchange for more! Or like a man gifted a great work horse, but because it did not immediately obey him, he locked it up with the hogs, rather than train it. What else could justify them, what else could justify all of this, save what it will become?

            "It is ungracious, my friend, to so despise the raw materials your God has allowed you, has gifted you -- the anger, the passion, the will to punish -- only because they are not yet refined. Does one clean the dust and dirt from a plant's roots, and expect it to grow? No, the minerals must be transfigured into the beauty of the blooming flower. Do not condemn, but consecrate; do not salt, but garden. Then many will be in your debt for the fresh fruits you grow, and all the more praise for our Father sun!"

           

9

Born Again

           

            "But what you are saying?" I cried. "That even Mauthausen was a school? That it was all part of the plan? Then why not just go out and cause evil? Is Satan in league with Jehovah? Did they shake hands in the beginning, the one to torment and the other to redeem, like a pair of con men? Why, if anything is redeemable, is it not sin, then, to sin? And is it the privilege of children to suffer? Were these Nazis prankish schoolboys? And why did you even come to me, then? Why did you interrupt my pains? Were they not good schooling for me? Would it not be good schooling for the German to suffer from me? Where is the boundary to suffering? When is it enough? When does it cease being good…?"

            All through my great wind and fire of feeling and words, the good European sat patiently, but with a look of profound sadness and understanding in his Sagittarian eyes that finally disarmed me. And with cold, pure, clear words, he replied:

            "There is so much I have seen, dear friend. So many wonderful redeeming things; Oh, how I yearn to laugh with you, another friend, another honey gatherer…Oh friend, could we not laugh some more, as we were just minutes ago? Alas, there will be time enough for that; come, let us return up these wretched stairs. My Zarathustra has too long gone down; why not finally go up again?"

            And as we reclaimed the old steps at Mauthausen, he spoke calmly and seriously. "I hope you would agree that the purpose of pot-making is not to slime one's hands, but to create something beautiful. Nor is it the purpose of painting to ruin one's smock. All good things come from mud and slime, all good things were redeemed from the evil, but does that make evil any more desirable in itself? For you, all this pain will be nothing until you take it into your life and write it into a book for others. I'm sure you understand; pots are finished by adding more clay, which at first is bulbous and ugly, but is over time smoothed into a greater whole. But the woman who does not finish her pots, we must call a bad potter. Granted: some of her clay is far easier to work with, being better or more refined material, while some is worse and poorer, so much so that any potter would throw their hands in the air, angry and frustrated -- I surmised this was the case with many men, that many men were unworkable or limited clay. That is, until I met a true master of sculpture, the genius artist of men: the potter whose hands can turn the worst clay into magnificent Grecian vases surpassing anything seen on Earth…

            "But here, then, is what you ask, in a parable of sorts: there was once a father who flung his young children into a lake, to forcibly teach them to swim. He did not want his children to grow up sickly and whining; therefore, he initiated suffering for them, for their own good. But could these young children have agreed to this plan? Did they ever choose to suffer in this way? Where is the recorded ordinance of their covenant with such a father? Indeed, clay does not care whether it is a lump or a jar, but children most certainly do care what they are made into, what we try to make them into.

            "Here is another parable: suppose that a scientist, by means unknowable to us now, successfully generated sentient life forms in his laboratory; indeed, more than this: intelligent agents, with free will and complex thought, capable of communicating effectively with human beings. This scientist then began breeding the creatures in a terrarium, and, for their own benefit and learning, would generate natural disasters for their environment, and would rarely intervene to help them, even when they murdered and raped each other. No, he would simply observe and record their progress. And at night, he had to place the terrarium inside a soundproof room, so that their lamentations would not wake him from sleep.

            "Now, even if the scientist succeeded in fostering spiritual and moral growth in his creations, would he still be justified, much less lauded? For every one of those beings could cry in justified anger that their god had no right to create them, no right to make sensitive beings in a painful world, much less to cause and allow pain to befall them, regardless of the end, for they had no say in it. It was not their choice to come.

            "Well then, here is your question, my friend: Is this not God?

            "I tell you: no. For our God did not so create us.

            "For we wandered in dark and cold spaces, through swamps and dreary mists, wrapped in homely jackets and scarves, warming our hands by driftwood fires, eating the scraps left by buzzards, gnawing the marrow out of bones, unwashed, sick, and silent. When one night, a man in white and beige, beard trimmed, skin clean and tastefully fragrant, not overdressed, not pretentious, but self-respecting, confident, kind, and generous too! For upon seeing a group of us there on the shore of dark and brooding waters, he blew a magnificent horn, and there gathered around us a whole host of beautiful men and women, enrobed and ennobled, laughing and jolly, who brought new clothes and fresh food and warm blankets and supplies, and with patient smiles endured our bad humor and rude manners. Finally, the time came when they had to go, and one among us asked, 'how, noblemen, did you become this way? So clean, so great and happy and profound?' And the foremost among them smiled; his eyes, deep and blue as a clear summer's zenith roof, but crinkled with unfathomable age and suffering; those eyes caused the inquiring spirit to quiver and shake at the heights and abysses held within them, and then implied in his invitation: 'The way is not easy,' said the man in white, 'But if you truly desire, I can teach you how to become as we are.'"

10

Agápi

           

            "Why did that godly family come to us on that lonesome beach? I will tell you: love. And what should this profaned word signify for us, my friend? Ah, what poetry I could write, such terrible, but terribly honest poetry!"

            Insofar as I like Herr Nietzsche's poetry, I was not sure if I should laugh with him. In any case, he continued. "The noblest kind of discharge of power, I think, is that great shining wonder swilling in the cesspool of banalities and profanities now attributed to that word, 'love'. But here is what I will call it: Strength! Well of power! The running over of one's chalice, the generosity of an infinite wealth, the courage, the self-confidence, the great lightning of one's soul that cannot care for its own safety, for it knows the secret -- that it is invincible.

            "Who can touch the man who truly 'loves'? Who could truly harm him? What did any of those men or women have that they could lose? What did they even 'have'? No, no, my friend; gods do not have anything: gods simply are. They have become. They have become what is greatest, what is most powerful, what is strongest, what is noblest, what is most beautiful; and what is the lightning that discharges from their marvelous and lovely cloud? Love.

            "What feelings must have been in those gods' hearts! Such power and freedom, such yearning, such weight within themselves, such honey and pleasure…how could they fear us, we wet dogs contented with bugs on a cold and gloomy shore? How could they fear anyone or anything? With love they walk through fire and water, they enter the fearsome homes of the damned and speak to them as friends, they sojourn even in hell. Yes, even hell is blessed with these gods' shafts of light, though they burn those hiding in the dark."

11

The German Doctor

            "Here, my friend: we are high up and alone, and I will tell you a truth that makes many men cry with childish resentment. It's a little devilishness for them, if I may say so. Ah, I'd call Him the devil of the wicked, if He didn't give me that stern look over His shoulder for it. But come now, the Man dines with murderers, given they can stand it! He certainly can, it's part of His good taste: those who buried themselves in sin as in the depths of Nova Scotia, those the adversary thought were as good as his, yet who climbed, broken and bloody, from that valley of death -- they have the greatest stories ever told over dinner, and Christ has the greatest of them all. Any man who sojourned in hell can drink long and deep of conversation with Christ."

            And with a bit of exuberance, my friend leaped several steps ahead of me, and leaned down to look at me with a harmless satyr's grin on his face.

            "Yes," he said, "as sure as the son of the morning is fallen, the angel of death is now risen: that monstrous, miserable, evil Auschwitz doctor became one of the most good after his death. What, you say Herr Mengele is in hell? Surely he was for many years, but if you take issue with Christ going down there personally to get him out, then you can take it up with Him. I have yet to learn love for those who curse God as unjust for not thrusting some spirit into hell, but then when they feel the thinnest sliver of hellfire across their little finger, when their glimpse into torment subsides, and their near-extinguished breath is regained, they then curse God as unjust for allowing such pain to exist. They might as well curse the Earth because of the laws of gravity! And still that Man's heart groans day and night to mold us to his breast, as He did when we were in our first lessons of nobility, little children in His arms…

            "'Mengele!' the Christian cried in the caverns of hell: 'Mengele! Please, I will not burn you; I paid the price that it need not be so. Mengele, please come out. We can salvage this, we can still salvage this; do you doubt my prowess with a paintbrush? Do you doubt my sculpting hands? I promised you that I could save you; you were a sick spirit, even then, but you wanted a chance on Earth, and I hoped you would change, but you didn't, and I don't care. I will make another Earth if I have to, and do the payment over again. Mengele, my heart yearns to shatter eternity for you, but I would not; I yearn to walk with you again, you had so much in you that was beautiful, but you never brought it forth. But you still can! Even now! Even you! You still can! Mengele?'

            "That was the first time…ah, my friend, have you seen a god weep? I used to mock such an idea, I hated pity, but far be it from me to turn down another opportunity to learn, another feast of honey…

            "'Mengele,' the Christ cried, 'I don't know if I can bear losing another old friend, another son. Do you remember the beach, Mengele? I remember the light and spark in your eyes that day, that beautiful day…how you progressed, how you learned, but you grew proud, you grew brutal, and I told you about it and you grew angry…Ah, Mengele, could we not laugh again, like we did in the old days? No, the future rushes ever onward, even on the gods. Even on the gods...'"

            My German friend grew silent, and the wind leaned in close to listen. The sun was setting, and the first stars, bright, sparkling jewels, were appearing in the deep, deep blue of dusk. We stood for a few minutes, looking out over the whole pit of Mauthausen, wretched as it is. Yes, we stood right where the parachuters would drop to their death, perhaps even where my wretched grandfather pushed prisoners off the cliffs.

            In the last rays of sunlight, I saw tears welling up in Nietzsche's eyes, which he quietly wiped away. "Even this," he said, "even this will bloom like Eden; when Christ conquers Babylon, its hanging gardens will be ours again."

            "Friend," I asked gently, "Is there an end to Doctor Mengele's story?"

            He smiled, with the warmth of a midsummer's twilight. "Mengele decided to come out in the Christ's presence. And with that, the rest was history! Ah yes, the rest was not as important as the first step, that first honest step. Maybe you'll meet the good doctor for yourself, and he can tell you the whole tale. But come, I want to show you something else, something last. I think you will like to write it in your book."

           

12

Orange Trees and Sunshine

           

            And the good European, with a graceful gesture, split the veil of man's dream, as one draws back a theater's curtain. And there, in this new, revealed space, was a beautiful, fruitful garden. It filled the pit of Mauthausen with the fragrance of ripe figs, oranges, plums, cherries, and apricots, of morning mist and damp earth, of soft redwood bark and a cool breeze in the spring sun. There, there before me, was a lovely, full garden, a well-tended wood hosting seeds of every kind. And it was painted with cool browns and greens, and bright, delicious flowers in pools of yellow sunlight.

            And there, there before me, was a man and a woman: both were tall, broad shouldered, with short, self-cut hair; and both were naked, their sexes unabashed. They were, to me, the Forms whose many shadows are still cast on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. And yet, despite each other's peerless excellence and beauty, their loins remained bloodless, and though it may sound obscene, I felt, despite myself, that this lack of response was nearly a sacrilegious affront. Thus, one can imagine my surprise when these magnificent beings committed even greater hubris, by hiding their members with loin cloths sown raggedly from fig leaves.

            There was something terrible in the whole scene, something unnerving and unsettling -- I might have been watching the violent abuse of a child inside a temple dedicated to God. The man and woman grew more and more visibly distressed as they made their aprons: many times the man nearly sunk to the ground, head in his hands, had not the woman embraced him tenderly and held him on his feet, and the rivulets of tears and snot running down his bare shoulder and chest witnessed to the many times he did the same for her, helping to soothe her uncontrolled sobbing. Doubts, fears, confusion, the sound of bells, the vertigo of self-contempt…

            "My friend," I cried, "Why do you show me this scene?" And Nietzsche replied, "Just as it troubles you, so it troubles me. Do you know your sin, my friend? Why, even the immoralist Nietzsche is telling you your sin: for you hate yourself. You hate your very blood. But let me tell you, my friend: it is not your blood to judge. No, someone far more patient and gracious than you claims that right.

            "See now, this man and this woman hate themselves. They think all is lost. They were given a stewardship by their god, a kingdom to rule over, and commandments concerning it, and yet, despite the simplicity of the task, they transgressed, they were deceived, they failed. Yet tell me, friend: could your great god be genuinely surprised by this failure? Or, to ask the same question, are you at all surprised when an infant, just gifted their body, falls while they try to walk? And do you think god is surprised that you weep bitterly on the steps of Mauthausen? I assure you; if the god of this world were not so tender in all these cases I would not remain anywhere near Him.

            "Why then, does the child try to walk, if they will fall again and again? Why does the parent encourage them to try, knowing they will fall? And why, indeed, do so many hypocrites, calling themselves teachers, punish those who try to do what they ask, and fail? Of course if a child wants to fall down, or if a fellow wants to sin, he will have no trouble there, but neither can he gain much experience in the way of walking, nor of living well. It is only by seeking something that one finds it. It is only by aspiring to someone that one becomes like them."

            And as he spoke, I realized the scene had changed: now the man and woman were enthroned, framed by shimmering stars, wrapped in elegant white robes, and gleaming, emerald fig leaf aprons…what is this? Who made the leaves so beautiful? Who made even these signatures of suffering sacred garb?

            Ah, there, there: another Man and Woman stand behind them, with the most magnificent smiles, crowned with the halo of the gods, Father and Mother dressed in the same elegant white…and there, do I see even the shimmering of emerald on them as well…?

["Claire de Lune" by Debussy]

FIN