my struggle with the german tongue began in mid-october and lasted nearly the full academic year. as the mostprominent figure in hitler studies in north america, i had long tried to conceal the fact that i did not know german.
i could not speak or read it, could not understand the spoken word or begin to put the simplest sentence on paper. theleast of my hitler colleagues knew some german; others were either fluent in the language or reasonably conversant.
no one could major in hitler studies at the college-on-the-hill without a minimum of one year of german. i wasliving, in short, on the edge of a landscape of vast shame.
the german tongue. fleshy, warped, spit-spraying, purplish and cruel. one eventually had to confront it. wasn'thitler's own struggle to express himself in german the crucial subtext of his massive ranting autobiography, dictatedin a fortress prison in the bavarian hills? grammar and syntax. the man may have felt himself imprisoned in moreways than one.
i'd made several attempts to learn german, serious probes into origins, structures, roots. i sensed the deathly powerof the language. i wanted to speak it well, use it as a charm, a protective device. the more i shrank from learningactual words, rules and pronunciation, the more important it seemed that i go forward. what we are reluctant to touchoften seems the very fabric of our salvation. but the basic sounds defeated me, the harsh spurting northernness of thewords and syllables, the command delivery. something happened between the back of my tongue and the roof of mymouth that made a mockery of my attempts to sound german words.
i was determined to try again.
because i'd achieved high professional standing, because my lectures were well attended and my articles printed inthe major journals, because i wore an academic gown and dark glasses day and night whenever i was on campus,because i carried two hundred and thirty pounds on a six-foot three-inch frame and had big hands and feet, i knewmy german lessons would have to be secret.
i contacted a man not affiliated with the college, someone murray jay siskind had told me about. they were fellowboarders in the green-shingled house on middlebrook. the man was in his fifties, a slight shuffle in his walk. he hadthinning hair, a bland face and wore his shirtsleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing thermal underwear beneath.
his complexion was of a tone i want to call flesh-colored. howard dunlop was his name. he said he was a formerchiropractor but didn't offer a reason why he was no longer active and didn't say when he'd learned german, or why,and something in his manner kept me from asking.
we sat in his dark crowded room at the boarding house. an ironing board stood unfolded at the window. there werechipped enamel pots, trays of utensils set on a dresser. the furniture was vague, foundling. at the borders of theroom were the elemental things. an exposed radiator, an army-blanketed cot. dunlop sat at the edge of a straightchair, intoning generalities of grammar. when he switched from english to german, it was as though a cord had beentwisted in his larynx. an abrupt emotion entered his voice, a scrape and gargle that sounded like the stirring of somebeast's ambition. he gaped at me and gestured, he croaked, he verged on strangulation. sounds came spewing fromthe base of his tongue, harsh noises damp with passion. he was only demonstrating certain basic pronunciationpatterns but the transformation in his face and voice made me think he was making a passage between levels ofbeing.
i sat there taking notes.
the hour went quickly. dunlop managed a scant shrug when i asked him not to discuss the lessons with anyone. itoccurred to me that he was the man murray had described in his summary of fellow boarders as the one who nevercomes out of his room.
i stopped at murray's room and asked him to come home with me for dinner. he put down his copy of americantransvestite and slipped into his corduroy jacket. we stopped on the porch long enough for murray to tell thelandlord, who was sitting there, about a dripping faucet in the second-floor bathroom. the landlord was a large floridman of such robust and bursting health that he seemed to be having a heart attack even as we looked on.
"he'll get around to fixing it," murray said, as we set out on foot in the direction of elm. "he fixes everythingeventually. he's very good with all those little tools and fixtures and devices that people in cities never know thenames of. the names of these things are only known in outlying communities, small towns and rural areas. too badhe's such a bigot.""how do you know he's a bigot?""people who can fix things are usually bigots.""what do you mean?"'think of all the people who've ever come to your house to fix things. they were all bigots, weren't they?""i don't know.""they drove panel trucks, didn't they, with an extension ladder on the roof and some kind of plastic charm danglingfrom the rearview mirror?""i don't know, murray.""it's obvious," he said.
he asked me why i'd chosen this year in particular to learn german, after so many years of slipping past the radar. itold him there was a hitler conference scheduled for next spring at the college-on-the-hill. three days of lectures,workshops and panels. hitler scholars from seventeen states and nine foreign countries. actual germans would be inattendance.
at home denise placed a moist bag of garbage in the kitchen compactor. she started up the machine. the ramstroked downward with a dreadful wrenching sound, full of eerie feeling. children walked in and out of the kitchen,water dripped in the sink, the washing machine heaved in the entranceway. murray seemed engrossed in theincidental mesh. whining metal, exploding bottles, plastic smashed flat. denise listened carefully, making sure themangling din contained the correct sonic elements, which meant the machine was operating properly.
heinrich said to someone on the phone, "animals commit incest all the time. so how unnatural can it be?"babette came in from running, her outfit soaked through. murray walked across the kitchen to shake her hand. shefell into a chair, scanned the room for wilder. i watched denise make a mental comparison between her mother'srunning clothes and the wet bag she'd dumped in the compactor. i could see it in her eyes, a sardonic connection. itwas these secondary levels of life, these extrasensory flashes and floating nuances of being, these pockets of rapportforming unexpectedly, that made me believe we were a magic act, adults and children together, sharingunaccountable things.
"we have to boil our water," steffie said.
"why?""it said on the radio.""they're always saying boil your water," babette said. "it's the new thing, like turn your wheel in the direction of theskid. here comes wilder now. i guess we can eat."the small child moved in a swaying gait, great head wagging, and his mother made faces of delight, happy andoutlandish masks, watching him approach.
"neutrinos go right through the earth," heinrich said into the telephone.
"yes yes yes," said babette.
