PROFESSOR JAFFA'S PROGNOSIS
"Again! Deep breath! ... Hurt?"
'Yes.
"Good.... This hurt?"
"No, sir."
"Also good. Like the needlework?"
"1 can't see back there, Doctor Jaffa."
'Schwester, the mirror please -"
"Wow! "
"What does that mean, 'wow'? Saw worse in France, didn't you?"
"Much worse. You've done a wonderful job."
"I have done a wonderful job and you had 'Schwein', as we say in Berlin. You know what that means?"
"Good luck."
"Very damned good luck. Don't know why we call it that... Hole in the front won't show much. Clean entry, surprisingly. Three stitches. Hole in the back a different story. And the lung tissue. You won't become a marathon runner but the breathing should get easier now. Your father will approve, 1 believe."
"You know about my father?"
"Had a letter from him. Professor of Surgery, University of Pennsylvania. Wanted an exact description of the wound, diagram of bullet path, course of treatment. Write it in German, he said. Served under Hofmeister in Munich, he said. '95-'96."
"I have not heard from my father -"
"He seemed interested in your condition. I have told him you will live."
"But not in Germany, Doctor Jaffa."
"You're American. Why live in Germany? As a matter of fact, I have sent my son to do his residency in New York. With Dr. Walter Kuhn, Lenox Hill Hospital."
"Why, Doctor Jaffa?"
"If he prefers to live in America, he will have to take your examinations-"
"Why would he prefer to live in America when he's German?"
"Schwester Gertrud, will you get us both some tea, please? ... Does 'Jaffa' sound like a very German name to you? Do you think the gentleman who put that bullet through you would consider my son a German? He's our youngest, and the only doctor. One of his brothers fell on the Marne, the other at Verdun. But that doesn't matter, we're not German to the friends of Herr Kaspar Keith. And how many friends do you think he has out there? Did you see the photographs from Munich? Thousands marching, thousands wearing the swastika."
"But the army put them down. Hitler ran away, and now he's in jail."
"Yes, Hitler's in jail. You know how many they actually arrested, out of those thousands? A few dozen. You know how many they will put on trial? One dozen--maybe. You know what's going to happen to them? A few months in jail, at the most. Now if they had been Communists --you have heard what happened in Munich in 1919, what happened right here in Berlin?"
"Yes, I have. But you're not in favor of Communism?"
"No, young man, I'm certainly not in favor of Communism, but Communism is not the danger to this country. Did you read what Chancellor Wirth said after Rathenau was shot? The Enemy stands on the Right. And if the Republic doesn't destroy that Enemy, that Enemy is going to destroy the Republic."
"You think that's going to happen?"
"Am I a fortune-teller? I have mortgaged this building to Waldsteins so that my son can study medicine in New York."
"You know, I don't think the Waldsteins feel that enthusiastic about the Republic, or that concerned about the Right."
"Correct. The Waldsteins rest their faith in Herr Generaloberst von Seeckt and his Reichswehr. The army will keep order in the country. Dr. Schacht and Dr. Strassburger will restore the economy, with some help from Herrn Stinnes and Herrn Thyssen and Herrn Kirdorf and Herrn Krupp von Bohlen and the rest of those gentlemen. Dr. Stresemann will persuade the Allies to reduce their demands for reparations and the French to get out of the Ruhr. The sun will shine again on Germany, and on Waldstein and Co."
"You don't believe that, Dr. Jaffa?"
"That the sun will shine again? My dear young man, I'm not only the Waldsteins' customer, I'm the Waldsteins' doctor. Known them all my life. Admire them. Perhaps I envy them. But I also worry about them, I get angry about them. Want to know why? I will tell you why. Because the Jewish people in Germany need leaders - need them desperately - and the Waldsteins ought to be those leaders, perhaps they were born to be those leaders. But are they? They are not! On the contrary: They have persuaded themselves that they are not Jews at all. With their titles, with their poet - and now their novelist - their friendships with three Kaisers, their relations with Bismarck, their mansion on the Pariser Platz, their palace on the Havel, their Huguenot and Junker wives, their Christmas trees ... surely the Waldsteins are not Jews! But what did the man who shot his own brother think they are? What does that Austrian corporal in Fortress Landsberg think they are? ... I'm sorry for this outburst, I can only permit myself such remarks to a man from another country. You will not repeat them....Here is our tea."
PROLOGUE - THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1922
I. HOW I GOT THERE
1. PARIS 1922
2. VERDUN 1916
3. IT'S STEALING MONEY, ISN'T IT
4. WHERE WERE YOU IN 1919?
5. RELIABLE TROOPS
6. AN ISLAND
7. BISMARCK FOUND THEM USEFUL
8. INTRODUCTIONS
9. THE LITTLE HOUSE
10. INDIAN CROSSES
11. ANOTHER PART OF TOWN
12. A VIEW OF THE GENDARMENMARKT
13. TWO FOR TEA
14. ON THE TOWN
15. A VIEW OF THE HAVEL
16. REIGEN
II. WHAT HAPPENED
17. THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1922
18. MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1922
19. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 1922
20. FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1922
21. SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1922
22. WHAT HAPPENED?
III. THE WITCHES' SABBATH
23. SILENCE WITH VOICES
24. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS
25. SAME SONGS, DIFFERENT SINGERS
26. THEY'RE ONLY GOING TO HIRE HIS VOICE
27. INFLATION WORKS IN DIFFERENT WAYS
28. SMALL CHANGE
29. WHY NOT PAINT LILI?
30. COLD WIND IN MAY
31. ROLLING THUNDER
32. WALDSTEIN'S VOICE
33. THE MATTER OF A DOWRY
34. A RUSSIAN WORD AND A GERMAN WORD
35. THE MARCH ON BERLIN
36. A PIG LOSES MONEY ALL THE TIME
37. THE ARTISTS' BALL
IV. STRIKE TWELVE ZEROs
38. AMYTAL DREAMS
39. LETTERS
>40. PROFESSOR JAFFA'S PROGNOSIS
41. THE OTHER SUBJECT
42. ROLLING HOME