“He was just surprised. In front of all the people. It’s a—shock. So many years. It’ll get better.”
“But he’s one of them. Not just a guard. One of them,” she said, not looking at Alex, talking to herself. “How often I thought about this, what it would be like. Was he alive? What had they done with him? But I never thought this. That they would make him one of them.” She stared at the ground for a minute, then looked over to the car, the escort holding the door. “Well, my carriage. Cinderella, that’s what it felt like. I should have known. Are you all right, he asks. Can’t he see?” She touched her skin. “Why do you think they released me? He doesn’t see that. Only the old crime. What crime?” She looked up. “I forgot to ask you—your parents?”
He shook his head.
“No, of course not. Jews. And you came back.” Not a question, brooding. She looked around “And so did I. And now what? He’s one of them. And everybody else is dead. Kurt, my friend Irina, everybody. And what was it all for? You know, it was me. I wanted to go there, after Kurt was killed. Away from the Nazis, what was going to happen here. I was right about that. So I took him, Markus, I was the one. On the train. I told him how wonderful it was going to be.”
* * *
Martin had arranged a lecture for Alex at the university and a radio talk later in the month, but now needed him as a last-minute replacement for a broadcast with Brecht. Anna Seghers was in bed with flu. “You know how difficult it is to schedule Brecht. A casual conversation only. Your life in exile. Maybe even better this way. Comrade Seghers was never in America, only Mexico, and everyone wants to know what it’s like in America.”
“And Bert is going to tell them.”
Martin looked at him, caught off guard. “What do you mean? Oh, it’s a joke? Please. You know on the radio it’s important to be serious.”
Brecht was serious enough for both of them: capitalism reduced everything, everybody, to the level of the marketplace, commodities for sale to the highest bidder, a system of inevitable debasement. “Life is not a transaction,” he said, and Alex smiled to himself. One of those Brechtian lines it paid not to look behind. He imagined listeners nodding, like the congressmen, pretending to follow Brecht’s testimony, befuddled but too cowed to try to pin him down. California, he said, had been the perfect example of this—hollow, a marketplace trading in souls. Didn’t Alex agree?
Afterward they had a brandy at a local near the station, grimy, thick with smoke, Brecht’s element. Away from the microphone he became the private Bert again, familiar.
“So now we’re part of the cultural offensive,” he said, underlining the words. “They always bring out the artists when they’re up to something. Look, German culture, back again. Still, it’s good for Courage. They want a cultural moment, and we open tomorrow. So the timing is there for us. Wait till you see Helene. We gave a closed performance last night for the workers from the Hennigsdorf steelworks. Not even the sound of a pin. Completely engaged. Steelworkers.”
“What do you think they’re up to?” Alex said.
Brecht drew on his stubby cigar. “You heard about Aaron?”
Alex nodded.
“It’s a good time to be quiet. Write a book. The country, maybe. Then, when it’s over, at least you have something.”
“Unless you have a play to open.”
“Well, me. I’m harmless.”
“And Aaron?”
Brecht looked away. “The Russians. This mania they have for housecleaning. Where does it come from? And the acolytes are even worse. Ulbricht. One word and he’s on his knees scrubbing.”
“That’s what they’re doing, cleaning house?”
“Think how useful. A good broom can sweep so much away. Old nuisances. People in the way. Someone maybe too ambitious. Pouf. Gone. And the Party is pure again. So now it’s the SED’s turn. Maybe a test of loyalty for them, see how high they can jump when Stalin claps. And they will. Our new German masters. I knew them in the old days, when they were altar boys. Grotewohl, Pieck, Honecker, well he really was a boy then. Now look.”
“Altar boys.”
Brecht nodded. “Now priests. You don’t see it? It’s not like before here—no more marketplace.”
“Try in front of the Reichstag. Every morning.”
Brecht dismissed this, waving his cigar. “It’s a church now. And what do priests do? Defend the faith. Root out sin. Never allow doubt. Once that begins, everything crumbles. You know, really it’s the same. I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe there’s a play. I knew these men. All early converts, young. Some go to the seminary. In Moscow. Now they never doubt. If they did, what would happen to them? How would they keep their power? Then the religion itself falls. Someone raises a hand, asks a question. Aaron, maybe,” he said, lifting an eyebrow. “He resigns. In protest. Protesting what? The religion? Maybe just the priests. But the questioning starts, who knows where it spreads? No religion can survive doubt. And, you know, they don’t doubt. Not the Ulbrichts. What else do they have now? They live for the church. Who can be as pure as they are? Who can ever be so guiltless?” He smiled, then pointed a finger up. “Except the infallible one. It’s all the same, isn’t it? Rome, Moscow. So, now a little Inquisition. And then it’s back to normal.”
“But Aaron burns.”
“Well, a metaphor—”
“Not for him.”
“What do you expect me to do?”
“Help him.”
Brecht looked at him through the smoke. “You know, it’s very difficult to do that. Sometimes you have to work with things as they are. Look at the church, the real one. All those crimes, so many years, and yet there’s the music. The art. We’re not priests, we’re artists. We accommodate, we survive.”
“Ask the guy at the stake if the music was worth it.”