Is there only an either-or? Are you either a man or a woman, a child or an adult? Either German or American, Christian or Jew? Are words pointless because they help you to understand another person, but not to tolerate him, and because what really counts isn’t understanding but tolerance? But as for tolerance—do we ultimately tolerate only those who are like us? Of course we can deal with differences, presumably we couldn’t get along without them. But doesn’t that have to be kept within certain bounds? Can any good come of it if our differences call fundamentals into question?

  No sooner had he put the question to himself than he was afraid. We tolerate only those who are like us— isn’t that racism or chauvinism or religious fanaticism? Children and adults, Germans and Americans, Christians and Jews—why shouldn’t they tolerate each other? They tolerate each other all around the world, at least wherever the world is the way it’s supposed to be. But then he asked himself if they tolerate each other only because one side or the other abandons what they are. Because children become adults or Germans become like Americans or Jews like Christians. Doesn’t racism or religious fanaticism begin wherever someone is unwilling to do just that? Like my own unwillingness to become an American and a Jew for Sarah?

  The next day turned out just as he had imagined it would. Sarah was interested in everything that he showed her, expressed her amazement and admiration of the construction on Potsdamer Platz, of the determination with which Friedrich Strasse and the Reichstag area were being rebuilt. But she also asked him about the wounds and scars and why the city couldn’t put up with them and if the planned monument to the Holocaust wasn’t a way of repressing it. She asked him why Germans can’t tolerate chaos and if something essentially German had not found characteristic expression, though admittedly in an abnormal way, in the Nazis’ fanatic passion for tidiness and order. Andi didn’t like Sarah’s questions. But after a while he liked his answers even less. He was tired of his efforts to weigh his words and provide differentiated responses. In fact, he himself didn’t like what he was showing Sarah, didn’t like the pomposity and haste with which every hole was being crammed full with buildings. Sarah was right—why did he go to battle for things he didn’t believe himself? Why had his uncle’s words resulted in complicated explanations, instead of his simply saying that he found them outrageous and offensive?

  That evening they went to the Schauspielhaus to hear Bach’s Mass in B Minor. She didn’t know it and he was afraid—the way you always are when you first share your favorite books and music with someone you have fallen in love with. He was afraid that she would find the music too Christian and too German. That she would sense that this music didn’t belong in a concert hall but in a church, and that she would feel he was trying to deceive her, trying to play down his churchly, Christian, German world. He would have liked to talk with her about all this. But he was afraid of doing that as well. He ought to have explained why he liked this music so much, and yet he could not have done so. Incarnatus est, crucifixus, passus et sepultus est et resurrexit—the text carried no significance for him, and yet the music composed for it touched him, filled him with happiness as no other music did. If he were to describe these feelings, wouldn’t Sarah have to think their strangeness to one another was even greater than she had ever realized, since with him it had its roots in depths that he could not understand or put into words?

  But as they emerged from the subway, the Gendarmen Markt lay bathed in the soft light of the sun low on the horizon. The two churches and the Schauspielhaus, a trinity of elegance and modesty, spoke of another, better Berlin, and since the shops were already closed and the evening’s revelers were not yet under way, everything was deserted and quiet, as if the city were holding its breath. “Oh,” Sarah said, and stopped in her tracks.

  During the Kyrie she looked around. Then she closed her eyes, and after a while she took his hand. Toward the end she laid her head on his shoulder. Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum—“Yes,” she whispered to him, as if to join him in the expectation of the resurrection of the dead or their own resurrection out of all the difficulties in which they kept getting themselves entangled.

  8

  THE NEXT DAY they flew back to New York. They had spent every day together for three weeks, often with a sense of perfectly normal, natural intimacy, as if it always had been, always would be that way, would always have to stay that way. The feeling was never stronger than on the flight back. Each knew how much rest the other needed, just how close each wanted to be to the other, what little gestures of affection would delight the other. They argued over the in-flight movie—because it was such fun to celebrate the ritual of arguing over a topic with no explosive force. He spent the night they arrived in New York at her place. Both were too tired to make love, but as they fell asleep she took his penis in her hand—it went hard and then soft again, and he felt as if he were at home.

  It was summer. In Chinatown and Little Italy, in the Village and in Times Square and Lincoln Square, Manhattan was filled with even more people than usual. It wasn’t as crowded in the area around Columbia University where Sarah and Andi lived. Tourists seldom made their way there, and the students and faculty had left town. The days were sultry; a few steps out on the street and your clothes clung to your body. It was a little cooler in the evening and at night. But the air was warm and humid, no longer that light element you take for granted, but thick and heavy, offering your body gentle, sensual resistance. Andi couldn’t understand why New Yorkers left town, why they would choose to do without these evenings and nights. Since he couldn’t stand the hum and hiss of the air conditioning in his office, he worked on a park bench. He would work until late in the evening, a little battery-powered lamp clipped to his book or notepad. Then he would go to Sarah’s, exhilarated by his love for her, by his work, by the sultry air, by the shimmer of lights on the asphalt. The air resisting his body made him feel light. He felt as if he were floating effortlessly, moving in great long strides across the Milky Way.

  He would have been content to take a walk with Sarah without saying much, or to sit at one of the tables outside the restaurants along Broadway, or to see a movie, in a theater or on video. But Sarah, always more of a talker than he, needed conversation after a lonely day at the computer. She wanted to hear what he had read and written and to report about the progress she was making on her computer game. While she programmed, a thousand things would come to her that she wanted to talk with him about. When he concentrated on his work, he was incapable of thinking about other things at the same time or in between, and so had nothing but his own work to talk about come evening. But he didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to risk the argument it had led to once already.

  His thesis dealt with how the concept of law and order had been developed in utopian communities in America—from the Shakers, Rappites, Mormons, and Hutterites, on down to Socialists, Vegetarians, and advocates of free love. Andi found the topic fascinating. He found it fascinating to learn about these utopian plans, to track down the letters, diaries, and memories of the utopians and to learn from yellowed newspapers how they were viewed by the world around them. Sometimes he was touched by utopian projects, saw them as a collective form of quixotism. Sometimes it seemed to him as if the utopians had known how futile their enterprise was and merely wanted to give a collective, creative form to a heroic nihilism. Sometimes they seemed like precocious children, living out a satire on society. When he told Sarah about his thesis and his fascination with it, she thought a while and then said, “That’s very German, isn’t it?”

  “The topic of American utopian projects?”

  “The fascination with utopia. The fascination with transforming chaos into cosmos, with perfect order, with the pure society. And maybe also a fascination with futility—what was that saga you told me about, where in the end everyone commits heroic and nihilistic suicide together? The Nibelung?”

  Andi didn’t hear the argument, he heard an attack and fought back. “But there are a thousand times more American articles on the topic than German, and as for collective suicide, the Germans have nothing on the Americans at Little Big Horn or the Jews at Masada.”

  “Oh yes they do. That saga is your most important one, you said. Little Big Horn and Masada were just episodes. And it’s not a matter of the number of published articles. I know the American literature on the topic without ever having read it—histories of this or that utopian society, about the people, their families, their work, their joys and sufferings, stories written with enthusiasm and sympathy. The German literature is thorough and factual, builds categories and systems, and any passion you find in it is the passion of scientific dissection.”

  Andi shook his head. “It’s just a different scientific style. Do you know the joke about the scientific study of the elephant done by a Frenchman, an Englishman, a Russian, and a German? The Frenchman writes about, ‘L’éléphant et ses amours,’ the Englishman about ‘ How to Shoot an Elephant,’ the Russian about—”

  “I don’t want to hear your stupid joke.” Sarah stood up and went to the kitchen. He heard her furiously tug open the dishwasher and the clatter of plates and glasses being put away and silverware banging on the counter. She came back and stood at the door. “I don’t like it when you make fun of me when I’m talking seriously with you. It’s not about scientific styles. Even when you’re not being scholarly, but just talking with my friends and family, you don’t empathize, or at least not what we understand by that; all you do is analyze, use your curiosity to dissect things. That isn’t bad, and it’s the way you are, and the way we like you. In other situations and in other ways you’re full of empathy. But when it comes to conversation . . .”

  “You’re not trying to say, are you, that what I get from your friends and family is empathy? At best it’s curiosity, and very superficial at that. I—”

  “Don’t nitpick, Andi. My family tries to meet you with curiosity and empathy, just as you do them, and all I said was—”

  “Above all they meet me with prejudices. You already know everything about the Germans. And so you already know everything about me. And so you don’t have to be interested in me beyond that.”

  “We’re not interested enough in you? Not the way you’re interested in us? Why do we so often have the feeling you’re examining us at arm’s length? And why do we recognize this kind of cold reception only from Germans?” She was talking loud now.

  “So how many Germans do you know?” He knew that the calm tone he was taking would upset her, but he couldn’t help it.

  “Enough, and along with those that we’ve been happy to get to know, there are the ones we’d have rather not got to know, but got to know anyway.” She was still standing at the door, arms akimbo, gazing defiantly at him.

  What was she talking about? With whom was she comparing him? With Mengele and his cold, inhuman, dissecting, analytic curiosity? He shook his head. He didn’t want to ask what she meant. He didn’t want to know what she meant. He didn’t want to say or hear anything, he just wanted peace and quiet, with her if at all possible—but without her if that was the only way to have peace at all. “I’m sorry.” He put on his shoes. “Let’s talk on the phone tomorrow. I’m going to my place.”

  He stayed. Sarah begged so hard he really couldn’t leave. But he decided not to talk with her about his work ever again.

  9

  AND SO HE trimmed his love smaller and smaller. Ticklish subjects not to be talked about were: their families, Germany, Israel, Germans and Jews, his work, and hers, which easily led the conversation back to his. He got used to censoring what he wanted to say, to keeping silent, restraining himself from this or that critical observation on life in New York and from comments on her friends’ remarks about Germany or Europe that he found inaccurate or presumptuous. There were enough other things to talk about, and there was the intimacy of weekends and the passion of nights together.

  He got so used to censoring himself that he no longer noticed it. He enjoyed the way being together was becoming easier. He was looking forward to the extension of his fellowship and his stay. As a newcomer, he had often been lonely the previous fall and winter. The coming fall and winter would be happy times.

  Until for no real reason at all, everything fell apart again. Sarah had holes in all her sweaters and pantyhose. It didn’t matter to her, and ever since Andi had called her attention to a hole one time, he knew that she didn’t want it to matter to him, either. But one evening when she had changed clothes before they headed out to see a movie, she appeared wearing a sweater with holes under both arms and pantyhose with holes in both heels, and Andi laughed and showed Sarah the holes.

  “What’s so funny about my holes?”

  “Forget it.”

  “Just tell me why my holes are so interesting and amusing that you have to show them to me and laugh at them.”

  “I . . . Do I have to . . .” Andi made several starts at it. “It’s what we do at home. If someone’s clothes have a hole or spot, you tell him. You assume he wouldn’t have put it on if he’d seen the hole or the spot, and is glad to know. So he doesn’t put it on again.”

  “Aha, that’s the interesting aspect. And what about the amusing part?”

  “Good lord, Sarah. Four holes at once—it seemed funny to me.”

  “Are holes also funny when someone earns so little that he can’t choose to be so picky about his clothes?”

  “Darning holes doesn’t cost a fortune. It’s not a matter of witchcraft. I even darn my own holes.”

  “You like everything in good order.”

  He shrugged.

  “Oh, but you do. Tina would say it’s the Nazi in you.”

  He said nothing for a moment. “I’m sorry, but I’ve had enough of all that. The Nazi in me, the German in me—I’ve had enough of it.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “What’s wrong? Why the violent reaction? I know that you’re no Nazi, and I don’t hold it against you that you’re German. Tina can say—”

  “It’s not just Tina who keeps looking for the Nazi in me and finds it, it’s your other friends, too. And what’s that supposed to mean, that you don’t hold it against me that I’m German? What’s there to hold against me that you so generously don’t hold against me?”

  She shook her head. “There’s nothing to hold against you. I don’t, and my friends don’t either. You know they like you, and Tina wants to bring Ethan to the shore with us next summer—you don’t think she’d do that if she thought you were a Nazi. That people we meet wonder about you being German, that they ask themselves how German you are, what’s German about you and if that’s something bad—that’s nothing new to you.”

  “Do you wonder about it?”

  The look she gave him was full of surprise and love. “Hey, sweetheart! You know how much I enjoy the music and books that you like, and how happy I was with you on our trip to Germany. I love you and all the beautiful things you’ve brought into my life, including whatever is German about them. Don’t you remember? I was head over heels in love with you after three days, even though you’re German.”

  “Don’t you understand what upsets me?”

  Now her look was full of love and worry. She shook her head slowly.

  “How would you feel if I were to say to you that I love you even though you’re Jewish? That my friends look for what is Jewish about you? That they actually think it’s a bad thing that I’m going with a Jewish girl, but still like you anyway? Wouldn’t you think that’s anti-Semitic idiocy? So why is it so hard to understand that I find anti-German prejudice equally idiotic, and when I hear it from the woman I love, and her friends—”

  “How dare you compare the two.” She was trembling with outrage. “Anti-Semitism . . . the Jews never hurt anybody. The Germans killed six million Jews. That somebody might start to wonder about things when he has to deal with one of you—are you really that naive? Or insensitive or in love with yourself? You’ve been living in New York for almost a year now and you’re trying to tell me you don’t know that the Holocaust still has hold of people?”

  “What have I got to do with . . .”

  “What do you have to do with the Holocaust? You’re German, that’s what you have to do with the Holocaust. And that sets people wondering, even if they’re too polite to show it. They are too polite, and besides, they don’t think they have to show it because you know it yourself. Which doesn’t mean that they don’t give you a chance.”

  He passed his hand over the slipcover of the sofa, where they were now sitting at opposite ends—she with her legs crossed under her and her whole body turned toward him, he with his feet on the floor and only head and shoulders turned toward her. He smoothed out the creases, made new creases, little waves and stars, and smoothed those out as well. When he looked up from the sofa he gazed briefly into her eyes and then at her hands, lying folded in her lap. “I don’t know whether I can handle being liked or loved even though I’m German. My comparison with anti-Semitism appalled you. I’m too tired to come up with another one right now, too confused—you may not understand that, but I don’t understand not being taken for the person I am, but some abstract idea, some construct, some creature of prejudice. With the chance, but also the burden of exonerating myself.” He paused. “No, I can’t handle it.”

  Her look was sad now. “If we meet someone—how can we forget what we know about his world and the people he’s descended from and with whom he lives? I used to think that talk about a typical American or Italian or Irishman was chauvinistic. But there really is such a thing as typical, and it’s part of most of us.” She laid her hand on his, which continued to make and smooth creases in the sofa slipcover. “You’re confused? You have to understand that my friends and family are also confused by what the Germans did, and ask themselves what is typically German about it and if this or that part of it is in every German, including you. But they’re not nailing you to the wall with it.”