The Spinoza Problem (5 page)

“Strange,” said the headmaster as he rifled through Alfred’s file. “He elected to come to our school rather than the gymnasium, where he could have studied the classics and then been able to enter the university for literature or philosophy, which seems to be where his interests lie. Why is he going to the Politechnikum?”

“I think there are financial reasons. His mother died when he was an infant, and his father has consumption and works only sporadically as a bank clerk. The new art teacher, Herr Purvit, considers him a reasonably good draftsman and encourages him to pursue a career as an architect.”

“So he keeps his distance from the others,” said the headmaster closing Alfred’s file, “and yet he won the election. And wasn’t he also president of the class a couple of years ago?”

“That has little to do with popularity, I think. The students don’t respect the office, and the popular boys generally avoid being class president because of the chores involved and preparation required to be the graduation speaker. I don’t think the boys take Rosenberg seriously. I’ve never seen him in the midst of a group or joking around with others. More often he is the butt of pranks. He’s a loner, always walking by himself around Reval with his sketchbook. So I wouldn’t be too concerned about his spreading these extremist ideas here.”

Headmaster Epstein stood and walked to the window. Outside were broad-leafed trees with fresh spring foliage and, further off, stately white buildings with red-brick roofs.

“Tell me more about this Chamberlain. My reading interests lie elsewhere. What’s the extent of his influence in Germany?”

“Growing fast. Alarmingly fast. His book was published about ten years ago, and its popularity continues to soar. I have heard it has sold over a hundred thousand copies.”

“Have you read it?”

“I started but grew impatient and scanned the rest of it. Many of my friends have read it. The trained historians share my reaction—as does the church and, of course, the Jewish press. Yet many prominent men praise it—Kaiser Wilhelm, the American Theodore Roosevelt—and many leading foreign newspapers have reviewed it positively, some even ecstatically. Chamberlain uses lofty language and pretends to speak to our nobler impulses. But I think he encourages our basest ones.”

“How do you explain his popularity?”

“He writes persuasively. And he impresses the uneducated. On any page you may find profound-sounding quotations from Tertullian or St. Augustine, or maybe Plato or some eighth-century Indian mystic. But it’s just the appearance of erudition. In fact he has simply plucked unrelated quotations from the ages to support his preconceived ideas. His popularity is helped, no doubt, by his recent marriage to Wagner’s daughter. Many regard him as the successor to Wagner’s racist legacy.”

“Crowned by Wagner?”

“No, they never met. Wagner died before Chamberlain courted his daughter. But Cosima has given him her blessing.”

The headmaster poured more tea. “Well, our young Rosenberg seems so thoroughly taken in by Chamberlain’s racism that it may not be easy to peel him away from it. But when you think about it, what unpopular, lonely, somewhat inept adolescent would not purr with pleasure to learn that he is of superior stock? That his ancestors founded the great civilizations? Especially a boy who never had a mother to admire him, whose father is on death’s doorstep, whose older brother is sickly, who—”

“Ah, Karl, I hear the echoes of
your
visionary, that Viennese doctor Freud, who also writes persuasively and also dives into the classics, never failing to surface without a tasty quote clenched between his teeth.”

“
Mea culpa
. I confess that his ideas seem ever more sensible to me. For instance, you just said a hundred thousand copies of Chamberlain’s anti-Semitic
book have been sold. Of the legions of readers, how many dismiss him like you do? And how many are electrified by him like Rosenberg? Why does the same book elicit such a range of responses? There must be something in the particular reader that leaps out to embrace the book. His life, his psychology, his image of himself. There must be something lurking deep in the mind—or, as this Freud says, the unconscious—that causes a particular reader to fall in love with a particular writer.”

“A pithy topic for our next dinner discussion! Meanwhile my little student, Rosenberg, is, I suspect, fretting and sweating out there. What shall we do with him?”

“Yes, we’re avoiding that. We promised him assignments and need to come up with some. Maybe we’re overreaching. Is it even remotely possible to assign a task that could exert a positive influence in just the few more weeks we have? I see so much bitterness in him, so much hatred for anyone but the phantasm of the ‘true German.’ I think we need to get him away from ideas onto something tangible, something that he can touch.”

“I agree. It’s harder to hate an individual than a race,” said Herr Schäfer. “I have a thought. I know one Jew he must care about. Let’s call him back in, and I’ll start with that.”

Headmaster Epstein’s secretary removed the tea dishes and fetched Alfred, who resumed his seat at the end of the table.

Herr Schäfer slowly filled his pipe, lit it, drew in and exhaled a cloud of smoke, and began, “Rosenberg, we have a few more questions. I am aware of your sentiments about Jews in broad racial terms but surely you have crossed the paths of fine Jews. I happen to know that you and I have had the same personal doctor, Herr Apfelbaum. I have heard he delivered you.”

“Yes,” Alfred said. “He has been my doctor all my life.”

“And he has also been my close friend all these years. Tell me, is he poisonous? Is he a parasite? No one in Reval works harder. When you were an infant, I saw with my own eyes how he worked day and night trying to save your mother from tuberculosis. And I have been told that he wept at her funeral.”

“Dr. Apfelbaum is a good man. He always gives us good care. And we always pay him, by the way. But there can be good Jews. I know that. I speak no ill of him as a person, only of the Jewish seed. It is undeniable that all Jews carry the seeds of a hateful race, and that—”

“Ah, that word again, ‘hateful,’” Headmaster Epstein interrupted, trying hard to restrain himself. “I hear a great deal about hate, Rosenberg, but I hear nothing about love. Do not forget that love is the center of Jesus’s message. Not only loving God but loving your neighbor as yourself. Don’t you see some contradiction between what you read in Chamberlain and what you hear about Christian love in church every week?”

“Sir, I am not in church every week. I’ve stopped going.”

“How does you father feel about that? How would Chamberlain feel?”

“My father says he has never set foot in a church. And I read that both Chamberlain and Wagner claim that the teaching of the church more often weakens, than strengthens, us.”

“You do not love the Lord Jesus?”

Alfred paused; he sensed traps everywhere. This was treacherous ground: the headmaster had already referred to himself as a devout Lutheran. Safety lay in staying with Chamberlain, and Alfred struggled to recall the words in his book. “Like Chamberlain, I admire Jesus greatly. Chamberlain calls him a moral genius. He had great power and courage, but unfortunately his teachings were Jewified by Paul, who turned Jesus into a suffering, meek man. Every Christian church shows paintings or stained glass of Jesus being crucified. None show images of the powerful and the courageous Jesus—the Jesus who dared to challenge corrupt rabbis, the Jesus who single-handedly flung moneychangers out of the temple!”

“So Chamberlain sees Jesus the lion, not Jesus the lamb?”

“Yes,” said Rosenberg, emboldened. “Chamberlain says that it was a tragedy that Jesus appeared in the place and time he did. If Jesus had preached to Germanic people or, say, to Indian people, his words would have had quite a different influence.”

“Let us return to my earlier question,” said the headmaster, who realized he had taken the wrong trail. “I have a simple question: whom do you love? Who is your hero? The one whom you admire above all others? Besides this Chamberlain, I mean.”

Alfred had no immediate answer. He deliberated long before answering. “Goethe.”

Both Headmaster Epstein and Herr Schäfer straightened a bit in their seats. “Interesting choice, Rosenberg,” said the headmaster. “Your choice or Chamberlain’s?”

“Both. And I think Herr Schäfer’s choice too. He praised Goethe in our class more than any other.” Alfred looked at Herr Schäfer for confirmation and received an affirming nod.

“And tell me, why Goethe?” asked the headmaster.

“He is the eternal German genius. The greatest of Germans. A genius of writing, and science, and art and philosophy. He is a genius in more fields than anyone.”

“An excellent answer,” said Headmaster Epstein, suddenly energized. “And I believe I now have come upon the perfect pregraduation project for you.”

The two teachers conferred privately, whispering softly to one another. Headmaster Epstein left the room and returned shortly carrying a large book. He and Schäfer bent over the book together and flipped through the pages for several minutes scanning the text. After the headmaster jotted down some page numbers, he turned to Alfred.

“Here is your project. You are to read, very carefully, two chapters—fourteen and sixteen—in Goethe’s autobiography, and you are to write down every line that he writes about his own personal hero, a man who lived a long time ago named Spinoza. Surely, you will welcome this assignment. It will be a joy to read some of your hero’s autobiography. Goethe is the man you love, and I imagine it will be of interest to you to learn what he says about the man
he
loves and admires. Right?”

Alfred nodded, warily. Baffled by the headmaster’s good spirits, he sensed a trap.

“So,” the headmaster continued, “let us be very clear about the assignment, Rosenberg. You are to read chapters fourteen and sixteen in Goethe’s autobiography, and you are to copy every sentence he writes about Benedict Spinoza. You are to make three copies, one for you and one for each of us. If we find you miss any of his comments about Spinoza in your written assignment, you will be required to do the whole assignment over again until you have it right. We will see you in two weeks to read your written assignment and to discuss all aspects of your reading assignment. Is that clear?”

Another nod. “Sir, may I ask a question? Before, you said two assignments. I have to do genealogical research; I have to read two chapters. And I have to write three copies of the material on Benedict Spinoza.”

“That’s correct,” said the headmaster. “And your question?”

“Sir, isn’t that three assignments rather than two?”

“Rosenberg,” interjected Herr Schäfer, “twenty assignments would be lenient. Calling your headmaster unfit for his position because he is Jewish is sufficient grounds for expulsion from any school in Estonia or in the Fatherland.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Wait, Herr Schäfer, perhaps the boy has a point. The Goethe assignment is so important that I want him to do it with great thoroughness.” Headmaster Epstein turned to Alfred. “You’re excused from the genealogy project. Concentrate fully on Goethe’s words. Meeting adjourned. We will see you here in two weeks exactly. Same time. And be sure to turn in your copies of the written assignment to me the day before.”

G
ood morning, Gabriel,” called Bento as he heard his brother washing in preparation for the Sabbath services. Gabriel merely grunted in response but reentered their bedroom and sat down heavily on the imposing four-poster bed that they shared. The bed, which filled most of the room, was the one familiar remnant of their past.

Their father, Michael, had left all the family possessions to Bento, the elder son, but Bento’s two sisters protested their father’s will on the grounds that he had chosen not to be a true member of the Jewish community. Though the Jewish court had decided in favor of Bento, he then startled everyone by immediately turning over all the family property to his siblings, keeping for himself only one thing—his parents’ four-poster bed. After the marriage of his two sisters, he and Gabriel were left alone in the fine three-story white house that the Spinoza family had rented for decades. Their home fronted the Houtgracht, near the busiest intersections in the Jewish section of Amsterdam, just a block from the small Beth Jacob Synagogue and the adjoining classrooms.

Bento and Gabriel had, with regret, decided to move. With their sisters gone, the old house was too large and too haunted by images of the dead. And too expensive as well—the 1652 Dutch-English war and pirate raids of ships from Brazil had been disastrous for the Spinoza import business, obliging the brothers to rent a small house only a five-minute walk from the store.

Bento took a long look at his brother. When Gabriel was a child, people often called him “little Bento,” for they had the same long, oval face, the same
piercing owl eyes, the same powerful nose. Now, however, the fully formed Gabriel was forty pounds heavier than his older brother, five inches taller, and far stronger. And his eyes no longer seemed to peer far into the distance.

In silence, the brothers sat side by side. Ordinarily, Bento cherished silence and felt at ease sharing meals with Gabriel or working together in the shop without exchanging a word. But this silence was oppressive and begat dark thoughts. Bento thought about his sister, Rebekah, who in the past had always been loquacious and bubbly. Now she, too, offered him silence and averted her glance whenever she saw him.

And silent, too, were all the dead, all those who had died cradled by this very bed: his mother, Hanna, who had died seventeen years ago, when he was barely six; his older brother, Isaac, six years ago; his stepmother, Esther, three years ago; and both his father and his sister Miriam, only two years ago. Of his siblings—that noisy, high-spirited, band who played and quarreled and made up and sorrowed for their mother and slowly grew to love their stepmother—there remained only Rebekah and Gabriel, both quickly receding from him.