point, Herr Neigel. The only one. You were standing there with the selfsame gun in your hand. My daughter ran to the buffet and reached for the chocolate. And then, nu, well, it happened, you see … you shot her. That is all, Herr Neigel.” Neigel turned pale. His face gleamed unnaturally for a moment, as though a magnesium bulb had exploded inside him. He wobbled. He leaned against the cupboard. (Wasserman: “Only then did he begin to fear me. He understood what was in the balance.”) Neigel groaned: “And you never said a word?” “What could I say?” The German gripped his knees and pressed them as hard as he could. His lips contracted with pain. Then he looked up. His eyes were red and scared. “Believe me, Wasserman,” he said, “I love children.” Outside, the engine was running. [Editorial comment: Up till now the staff has found it difficult to decide (see under: DECISION) what kind of car to give Neigel. It was a choice between a black Hork convertible and a massive BMW, pride of Munich’s Bayerische Motorenwerken plant. Actually the editorial staff feels inclined to choose (see under: CHOICE) a BMW as the epitome of power. The staff has never had the occasion to drive one, but the manufacturer’s elegant brochure was enough to intoxicate even a cautious driver like the staff. The description it gives of the car makes you feel the pedal under your foot and the scream of tires as you gallop away on a wild and magnificent beast, and with the manufacturer’s full guarantee and responsibility no less! Yes! The staff has therefore selected the BMW!] Neigel and Wasserman now stood facing each other. Wasserman’s beard bristled and his eyes flashed. “Now go home, Herr Neigel, and tell your wife my story. Tell her about Otto and Munin and Zeidman and Ginzburg and Hannah Zeitrin and Paula and Fried and Kazik. Tell her about them all, and about the simple chalk hearts drawn on the trees. And tell her about the only war there is. I think she will understand. Tell her frankly that it is a story for adults, a story for an ancient people, more ancient than any party, church, or state. Tell it well, Herr Neigel, for it is my talc, and I ask you to care for it and nurture it as you would a tender child in your keeping. Many hours lie before you on your journey home to see your wife, and while you are riding in your car and on the train, tell yourself the story over and over, till you know how to make her believe that it is really yours, that you have devised it deep in your heart, till it has the ring of truth, though it fails to conform to fact.” Neigel was already at the door with his valise in hand. He turned heavilyto Wasserman, with the look of a great lonely beast staring into the hunter’s rifle. “And remember, Herr Neigel, there is only one way to tell the story as it should be told.” “How?” asked Neigel voicelessly, and Anshel Wasserman, almost inaudibly: “By believing in it.”
PRUTA, PHILOSOPHIA BE
PENNY PHILOSOPHY
This is what Wasserman called Neigel’s ramblings on the last few days before his LEAVE [q.v.]. It was surprising and even a little embarrassing to hear Neigel—a simple, uneducated man—suddenly involved in hollow, abstract reflections. Wasserman saw this as one more sign of his coming victory. Neigel frequently referred to the New Age that would follow the current Age of Blood and War. He even ventured to draw a clumsy comparison between his son Karl and the world (!): “When he’s ill, the illness seems to be a springboard for a period of growth and development, and Germany, too, will soon experience a new spurt of progress, I am sure.” Wasserman: “You mean at present you are ill?” “Perhaps, perhaps. But it’s necessary, like a childhood disease. The German character is being tested. We have chosen to fight the germs that are trying to invade our body.” “Thank you!” Neigel then became involved in a discussion of nature’s hidden motives, and suggested that perhaps mass extermination of a certain human type is the fulfillment of nature’s will. “Like the eliminative process, or something like that. It purges itself.” He based his hypothesis on an irrelevant argument: “The world is resigned to this. So many people can’t be wrong. I remember there were moments when I had some doubts, like five years ago, in November ’38, while I took part in the burning of your synagogues and stores. Everything went up in flames. Everything, everything. We went wild, we killed people in the streets for no reason at all, without a trial or anything, without even bothering to cover our tracks. For weeks after that, I remember expecting something to happen, I don’t know what, maybe for a hand to reach out of the sky and smack us in the face. But you know what? Not one church, Catholic or Protestant, made a sound. Not one bishop in all of Germany wore the yellow star in protest. We’re simple folk, Wasserman, what were we supposed to think? That’s why I tell you: It’s the will of God and nature. The world is getting ready for the New Age.” (Wasserman: “Esau istrying to knot two lockshen. He is split inside. All this prattle sounds like the wailing of a frightened child. Wait a moment, Neigel. You are lost.”) And on the subject of the New Age, he told Neigel about “Duvidel, our king, whom God would not allow to build the second temple, because his hands were soiled with blood.” Neigel: “Ha! You and your Jewish God!”
PROMETHEUS
1. A figure of Greek mythology. A Titan. When Zeus punished man by confiscating fire, Prometheus stole it from the gods and gave it back to man. 2. What AARON MARCUS [q.v.] called
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