The Best American Mystery Stories 2005
- Автор: Хиггинс Джордж, Камински Стюарт Мелвин
- Год: 2005
- Язык: английский
- Год: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- ISBN: 978-0-618-51744-2
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Best American Mystery Stories 2005». Краткое содержание книги:
Anna’s presentation was well crafted. She reviewed the state of research in German studies, modestly mentioning her own contributions and interests. She paid tribute to the work of the faculty, including that of the outgoing head. She said nice things about my work, and even complimented Nick Jonas on his most recent research grant. It would be a privilege to lead such a distinguished body. Her role would be to encourage and support her colleagues in making this one of the most respected centers of German studies in the country. She sat down to prolonged applause.
The dean, chairing the meeting on behalf of the president, opened the questioning by asking her to talk about her plans for obtaining a greater share of money for research. She scored additional points by stating her intention to tap research funds in West Germany. Other members of the committee were then invited to participate, and two or three tame questions were asked. Then the dean asked if there were any questions from visitors. At the back of the room, Nick Jonas rose.
“I’d like to alter the line of discussion a little, if I may,” he began. “Your own work, Dr. Scheinberg, has focused very perceptively on the interaction of the personal and the public in modern German literature. For many of us, one of the events of twentieth-century history when the personal and the public interacted most critically was the German election of July 1932 which gave Hitler a plurality in the Reichstag. May I ask how you voted in that election, Dr. Scheinberg?”
Izzie Neumann, sitting next to the dean, spoke up immediately: “I don’t think—”
But Anna was already replying. “I was twenty-three years old in 1932. I voted for the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei.” I felt a rush of adrenaline.
“I deplore that type of interrogation,” Izzie was declaring. “For one thing, in this country, we honor the principle of the secret ballot. For another, very few people realized in 1932 how National Socialism would develop. Germany was in economic and social chaos. Hitler promised order, economic development, and recovery of national honor. I don’t think we should pillory people on the basis of a historical judgments made with benefit of hindsight.” Izzie, who had lost two grandparents and innumerable other relatives in the Holocaust.
“I second Dr. Neumann’s point,” I said. “I myself was a soldier in Hitler’s army. I fought for the Reich. I acknowledge my own interest in this question. All of us who grew up in Germany struggle with the issue of collective guilt. Certainly those who lack that experience are entitled to draw their own conclusions. But it’s not as simple as a single question and answer might suggest.’”Jonas had done his job, and I didn’t need him any more.
The dean tried to bring the meeting back to its earlier mood of bonhomie, and one or two people asked helpful questions, but the atmosphere had become deflated. There was applause for Anna when the meeting closed, but little conversation as people drifted out of the room.
Not everyone showed up that evening at the party Izzy was hosting for Anna. “They’re waiting to read the editorials before they know what to think,” Izzie observed disgustedly as he poured me a drink in the kitchen. “As for that little shit Jonas, I’d like to kick his sorry ass to kingdom come. Trying to create one more victim for Hitler.” He handed me a glass and took my elbow as we went back into the living room and joined the group standing with Anna by the fireplace.
When there was a pause in the conversation, I remarked, “That was real style this afternoon, if I may say so, Anna. Just hang in there. Lot of people behind you.” There was a chorus of agreement.
Anna was lighting a filter-tip cigarette. She had lost none of her customary dignity and composure, refusing the easy options either of defiance or of apology. “I can understand people’s concerns,” she said. “How can anyone recapture the way things were in 1932? Even we who were there. Our memories are so conditioned by later events.”
The conversation remained supportive. There was a lot of talk about honesty, integrity, and retrospective justice. I looked around Izzie’s living room at my intelligent, liberal colleagues, and reflected that in a community of reasonable people, power devolves on the one who is prepared to be most ruthless.
I understood this principle long before I read von Clausewitz’s remark that “He who uses force unsparingly, without considering the bloodshed entailed, will achieve superiority over a less determined adversary.” Like myself, Karl von Clausewitz saw his first military action as a teenager. He served in the Russo-German legion against Napoleon, and rose to the rank of major general and chief of staff of the Prussian army. He died of cholera at the age of fifty-one, and his magnum opus, the thirteen-hundred-page Vom Krieg, was published posthumously. My own work, which was on the ways in which his thinking was influenced by Immanuel Kant’s notion of universal principles, had been supported by grants from foundations that were ultimately funded by the Pentagon.
Clausewitz is best remembered today for his statement that “war is a mere continuation of politics by other means.” (“Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln.” Politik can also be translated “policy.”) The reverse is also true: politics is a species of warfare.
President McKay asked me to drop by his home the following evening. He lived in one of the fine brick and white clapboard houses that lined the leafy streets around the university.
“Scotch, isn’t it, Tomas?” he said. “Stopped off in London on my way back last week. There’s a little shop in Soho, sells five hundred single malts. I think you’ll like this one. Stag’s Breath.” He poured me a generous slug. McKay was tall and silver-haired; he was wearing a tweed jacket with a tie in the navy and maroon Harvard colors. A grand piano stood at one end of his living room. The walls were hung with pleasant landscapes in watercolor painted by his wife.
“How did things go in Bonn, Alistair, if I may ask?”
“Very well, Tomas, thank you. Many compliments on the paper. Your translation must have been faultless. And I don’t think I made too many errors of pronunciation, thanks to your coaching.”
We talked a while about McKay’s increasing involvement in the UNESCO Forum on Higher Education. I was very happy to be his translator. I took an interest in him and his work, partly because I intended to be a university president myself one day.
McKay topped up my glass and said, “We have a problem with Anna Scheinberg’s candidacy for the headship of German Studies. You and I both know that she would be a popular head. A solid scholar, even if her best work is behind her.”
“And extremely good with students,” I commented.
“Quite. There’s really not much problem internally. A few of the more radical students might carry on a bit, but nothing she couldn’t deal with. The problem is external.”
“You mean her having voted National Socialist?”
“Exactly. It was a very small item in the local paper yesterday. But I’ve been fielding calls all day from the national media. If that was all, we could deal with it. Take a firm line on academic freedom. Now this is in the greatest confidence, Tomas.”
“Of course.”
President McKay filled his pipe and lit it. “I had a call this afternoon from Ivan Belinsky.”
“The Belinsky Foundation?”
“The same. We’ve been in dialogue for almost a year. We were all set to go public at the beginning of next month. Twelve point five million for a new library, along with a seven-point-five million endowment.”