Both nodded, exchanging glances, and rose to follow Bento, who carefully put the chairs back in place and locked the shop door before escorting them to his home.
CHAPTER EIGHT
REVAL, ESTONIA—1917–1918
Headmaster Epstein’s prediction that Rosenberg’s limited curiosity and intelligence would render him harmless proved entirely wrong. And wrong, too, was the headmaster’s prediction that Goethe and Spinoza would instantaneously vanish from Alfred’s thoughts. Far from it: Alfred was never able to cleanse his mind of the image of the great Goethe genuflecting before the Jew Spinoza. Whenever thoughts of Goethe and Spinoza (now forever melded) appeared, he held the dissonance only briefly and then swept it away with every ideational broom at hand. Sometimes he was persuaded by Houston Stewart Chamberlain’s argument that Spinoza, like Jesus, was of the Jewish culture but did not possess one drop of Jewish blood. Or perhaps Spinoza was a Jew who stole thoughts from Aryan thinkers. Or perhaps Goethe had been under a spell, mesmerized by the Jewish conspiracy. Many times Alfred contemplated pursuing these ideas in depth through library research but never followed through. Thinking, really thinking, was such hard work, like moving heavy trunks about in the attic. Instead, Alfred grew more adept at suppression. He diverted himself. He plunged into many activities. Most of all, he persuaded himself that the strength of convictions obviates the need for inquiry.
A true and noble German honors an oath, and as his twenty-first birthday approached, Alfred remembered his pledge to the headmaster to read Spinoza’s Ethics. He intended to keep his word, bought a used copy of the book, and launched into it only to be greeted on the first page by a long list of incomprehensible definitions: I. By that which is Self-Caused, I mean that of which the essence involves existence, or that of which the nature is only conceivable as existent.
II. A thing is called Finite After Its Kind when it can be limited by another thing of the same nature; for instance, a body is called finite because we always conceive another greater body. So, also, a thought is limited by another thought, but a body is not limited by thought, nor a thought by body.
III. BY SUBSTANCE, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived Theologically through itself; in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception.
IV. BY ATTRIBUTE, I mean that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance.
V. BY MODE, I mean the modifications [“Affectiones”] of substance, or that which exists in, and is conceived through, something other than itself.
VI. BY GOD, I mean a being absolutely infinite—that is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality.
Who could understand this Jewish stuff? Alfred flung the book across the room. A week later he tried again, skipping the definitions and moving to the next section of Axioms:I. Everything which exists, exists either in itself or in something else.
II. That which cannot be conceived through anything else must be conceived through itself.
III. From a given definite cause an effect necessarily follows; and, on the other hand, if no definite cause be granted, it is impossible that an effect can follow.
IV. The knowledge of an effect depends on and involves the knowledge of a cause.
V. Things which have nothing in common cannot be understood, the one by means of the other; the conception of one does not involve the conception of the other.
These were equally indecipherable, and again the book took flight. Later he sampled the next section, the propositions, which were also inaccessible. Finally it dawned on him that each successive part depended logically upon the preceding definitions and axioms, and nothing would come of further sampling. From time to time he picked up the slim volume, turned to the portrait of Spinoza facing the title page, and was transfixed by that long oval face and those gigantic, soulful, heavy-lidded Jewish eyes (which stared directly into his own eyes regardless of how he rotated the book). Get rid of this cursed book, he told himself—sell it (but it would fetch nothing, being much the worse for wear after several aerial excursions). Or just give it away, or throw it away. He knew he should do this, but, strangely, Alfred could not part with the Ethics.
Why? Well, the oath, of course, was a factor but not the compelling one. Had not the headmaster said that one had to be fully grown to understand Ethics? And did he not have years of education still ahead of him before he was fully grown?
No, no, it was not the oath that vexed him: it was the Goethe problem. He worshipped Goethe. And Goethe worshipped Spinoza. Alfred could not rid himself of this cursed book because Goethe loved it enough to carry it in his pocket for an entire year. This obscure Jewish nonsense had calmed Goethe’s unruly passions and made him see the world more clearly than ever before. How could that be? Goethe saw something in it that he could not discern. Perhaps, someday, he would find the teacher who could explain this.
The tumultuous events of the First World War soon pushed this conundrum out of consciousness. After graduating from the Reval Oberschule and saying farewell to Headmaster Epstein, Herr Schäfer, and his art teacher, Herr Purvit, Alfred began his studies in the Polytechnic Institute in Riga, Latvia, about two hundred miles from his home in Reval. But in 1915, as the German troops threatened both Estonia and Latvia, the entire Polytechnic Institute was moved to Moscow, where Alfred lived until 1918, when he handed in his final project—an architectural design for a crematorium—and received his degree in architecture and engineering.
Though his academic work was superior, Alfred never felt at home in engineering and preferred, instead, to spend his time reading mythology and fiction. He was fascinated by the tales of Norse mythology contained in the Edda as well as the intricately plotted novels of Dickens and the monumental works of Tolstoy (which he read in Russian). He dabbled in philosophy, skimming the essential ideas of Kant, Schopenhauer, Fichte, Nietzsche, and Hegel and, as before, shamelessly took pleasure in reading philosophical works in conspicuous public places.
During the chaos of the 1917 Russian Revolution Alfred was appalled by the sight of hundreds of thousands of frenzied protestors taking to the streets, demanding the overthrow of the established order. He had come to believe, on the basis of Chamberlain’s work, that Russia owed everything to Aryan influence through the Vikings, the Hanseatic League, and German immigrants like himself. The collapse of the Russian civilization meant only one thing: the Nordic foundations were being overthrown by the inferior races—the Mongols, Jews, Slavs, and Chinese—and the soul of the real Russia would soon be lost. Was this to be the fate, too, of the Fatherland? Would racial chaos and degradation come to Germany itself?
The sight of the surging crowds repulsed him. The Bolsheviks were animals whose mission was to destroy civilization. He scrutinized their leaders and grew convinced that at least 90 percent were Jews. From 1918 forward, Alfred rarely spoke of the Bolsheviks: it was always the “Jewish Bolsheviks,” and that double epithet was destined to work its way into Nazi propaganda. After graduation in 1918 Alfred was thrilled to board the train taking him across Russia back to his home in Reval. As the train chugged westward, he sat day after day staring at the endless Russian expanse. Transfixed by the space—ah, the space—he thought of Houston Smith Chamberlain’s wish for more Lebensraum for the Fatherland. Here, outside his second-class train window, was the Lebensraum that Germany so desperately needed, and yet the sheer vastness of Russia made it unconquerable unless . . . unless an army of Russian collaborators was to fight side by side with the Fatherland. Another germ of an idea took hold: this forbidding open space—what to do with all of it? Why not put the Jews there, all the Jews of Europe?
The train whistle and the clenching and squealing of the brakes signaled that he had arrived home. Reval was as cold as Russia. He donned all the sweaters he owned, knotted his scarf tightly around his neck, and with bags in hand and diploma in briefcase, exhaling clouds of mist, he walked the
familiar streets and arrived at the door of his childhood home, the dwelling of Aunt Cäcilie—his father’s sister. His knock was welcomed with shrieks of “Alfred,” broad smiles, male handshakes, and female embraces, and he was ushered quickly into the warm fragrant kitchen for coffee and streusel while a young nephew was sent galloping to fetch Aunt Lydia living a few doors down the street. Soon she arrived laden with food for a celebratory dinner.
Home was much as he recalled it, and such persistence of the past offered Alfred a rare respite from his tormented sense of rootlessness. The sight of his own room, virtually unchanged after so many years, brought an expression of childlike glee to his face. He sank into his old reading chair and basked in the familiar sight of his aunt noisily beating the pillow and fluffing the down coverlet into place on his bed. Alfred scanned the room: there was the handkerchief-sized scarlet prayer rug on which, for a few months, years ago (when his antireligious father was out of earshot), Alfred said his bedtime prayers: “Bless Mother in heaven, bless Father and make him well again, and heal my brother, Eugen, and bless Aunt Ericka and Aunt Marlene, and bless all our family.”
There on the wall, still glaring and powerful and blissfully unaware of the faltering fortunes of the German army, was the huge poster of Kaiser Wilhelm. And on the shelf under the poster were his lead figures of Viking warriors and Roman soldiers, which he now picked up tenderly. Bending down to examine the small bookcase crammed with his favorite books, Alfred beamed to see them still aligned in the same order he had left them in so many years ago—his favorite, Young Werther, first, then David Copperfield, followed by all the others in order of descending merit.
Alfred continued to feel at home during dinner with aunts, uncles, nephews, and nieces. But when everyone had left and silence descended, and he lay under his down coverlet, his familiar anomie returned. “Home” began to pale. Even the image of his two aunts, still grinning, waving, and nodding, slowly receded into the distance, leaving only chilly darkness. Where was home? Where did he belong?
The next day he roamed the streets of Reval searching for familiar faces, even though all his childhood playmates were grown and scattered, and, besides, he knew deep in his heart that he was searching for phantoms—the friends he wished he had had. He strolled to the Oberschule, where the halls and open classrooms looked both familiar and uninviting. He waited outside the classroom of the art teacher, Herr Purvit, who had once been so kind to him. When the bell rang, he entered to speak to his old teacher between classes. Herr Purvit searched Alfred’s face, uttered a sound of recognition, and inquired about his life in such general terms that Alfred, walking away as the students for the next class scampered into their seats, doubted he had been truly recognized. Next he searched in vain for the room of Herr Schäfer but noted the room of Herr Epstein, no longer headmaster but once again a history teacher, and slipped by quickly with his face turned away. He did not wish to be asked about keeping his Spinoza vow or learn that the vow of Alfred Rosenberg had long ago evaporated from Herr Epstein’s mind.
Outside again he headed toward the town square, where he saw the German army headquarters, and impulsively made a decision that might change his entire life. He told the guard on duty, in German, that he wished to enlist, and was directed to Sergeant Goldberg, a hulking figure with a large nose, bushy mustache, and “Jew” writ large on his face. Without looking up from his paperwork, the sergeant briefly listened to Alfred and then gruffly dismissed his request. “We are at war. The German army is for Germans, not for citizens of combatant occupied countries.”
Disconsolate, and stung by the sergeant’s manner, Alfred took refuge in a beer hall a few doors away, ordered a stein of ale, and sat at one end of a long table. As he raised his stein for his first sip, he noted a man in civilian dress staring at him. Their eyes met briefly, and the stranger raised his stein and nodded to Alfred. Alfred hesitantly reciprocated, then sank back into himself. A few minutes later, when he again looked up, he saw the stranger, tall, thin, attractive, with a long German skull and deep blue eyes, still staring at him. Finally, the man arose and, stein in hand, walked toward Alfred and introduced himself.
CHAPTER NINE
AMSTERDAM—1656
Bento led Jacob and Franco to the house he shared with Gabriel and directed them to his study, passing first through a small living room furnished with no trace of a woman’s hand—only a rude wooden bench and chair, a straw broom in the corner, and a fireplace with bellows. Bento’s study contained a rough-hewn writing table, a high stool, and a rickety wooden chair. Three of his own charcoal sketches of Amsterdam canal scenes were pinned to the wall above two shelves bending under the weight of a dozen sturdily bound books. Jacob immediately headed to the shelves to peer at the book titles, but Bento beckoned for him and Franco to sit while he hastily fetched another chair from the adjoining room.
“Now to work,” he said as he lifted his well-worn copy of the Hebrew Bible, set it down heavily in the center of the table, and opened it for Jacob and Franco’s inspection. Suddenly he thought better of it and stopped, letting the pages fall back into place.
“I shall keep my promise to show you precisely what our Torah says, or doesn’t say, about the Jews being the chosen people. But I prefer to begin with my major conclusions resulting from years of Bible study.”
With Jacob and Franco’s approval, Bento began. “The Bible’s central message about God, I believe, is that He is perfect, complete, and possesses absolute wisdom. God is everything and from Himself created the world and everything in it. You agree?”
Franco nodded quickly. Jacob thought it over, stuck out his lower lip, opened his right fist to show his palm, and offered a slow, cautious nod.
“Since God, by definition, is perfect and has no needs, then it follows that He did not create the world for Himself but for us.”
He received a nod from Franco and a bewildered look and outstretched palms from Jacob that indicated, “What does this have to do with anything?”
Bento calmly continued, “And since He created us out of his own substance, His purpose for all of us—who, again, are part of God’s substance—is to find happiness and blessedness.”
Jacob nodded heartily as though he had finally heard something he could agree with. “Yes, I’ve heard my uncle speak of the God-spark in each of us.”
“Exactly. Your uncle and I are entirely in agreement,” said Spinoza and, noting a slight frown on Jacob’s face, resolved to refrain from such remarks in the future—Jacob was too intelligent and suspicious to be patronized. He opened the Bible and searched the pages. “Here, let’s begin with some verses from the Psalms.” Bento began reading the Hebrew slowly while pointing with his finger to each word that, for Franco’s sake, he translated into Portuguese. After only a couple of minutes Jacob interrupted, shaking his head and saying, “No, no, no.”
“No what?” asked Bento. “You don’t care for my translation? I assure you that—”
“It’s not your words,” interrupted Jacob. “It’s your manner. As a Jew, I am offended by the way you handle our holy book. You don’t kiss it or honor it. You practically threw it on the table; you point with an unwashed finger. And you read with no chanting, no inflection of any sort. You read in the same voice as you might read a purchase agreement for your raisins. That type of reading offends God.”
“Offends God? Jacob, I beg you to follow the path of reason. Have we not just agreed that God is full, has no needs, and is not a being like us? Could such a God possibly be offended by such trivia as my reading style?”
Jacob shook his head in silence, while Franco nodded in agreement and moved his chair closer to Bento.
Bento continued to read the psalm aloud in Hebrew and translate into Portuguese for Franco. “The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.” Bento skipped ahead in the same psalm and read, “‘The Lord is near unto all them that call upon Him.’ Trust me,” he said, “I can find a host of such passages clear
ly stating that God has granted to all men the same intellect and has fashioned their hearts alike.”
Bento turned his attention to Jacob, who again shook his head. “You disagree with my translation, Jacob? I can assure you it says ‘all men’; it does not say ‘all Jews.’”
“I cannot disagree: the words are the words. What the Bible says the Bible says. But the Bible has many words, and there are many readings, and many interpretations by many holy men. Do you ignore or not even know the great commentaries of Rashi and of Abarbanel?”
Bento was unflustered. “I was weaned on the commentaries and the super-commentaries. I read them from sunup till sundown. I have spent years studying the holy books, and as you yourself have told me, many in our community respect me as a scholar. Several years ago I struck out on my own, acquired a mastery of ancient Hebrew and Aramaic, put the commentaries of others aside, and studied the actual words of the Bible afresh. To truly understand the words of the Bible, one must know the ancient language and read it in a fresh, unfettered spirit. I want us to read and understand the exact words of the Bible, not what some rabbi thought they meant, not some imagined metaphors that scholars pretend to see, and not some secret message that Kabbalists see in certain patterns of words and numerical values of letters. I want to go back to read what the Bible actually says. That is my method. Do you wish me to continue?”
Franco said, “Yes, please go on,” but Jacob hesitated. His agitation was evident, for as soon as he heard Bento emphasize the phrase “all men,” he sensed where Bento’s argument was heading—he could smell the trap ahead. He tried a preemptive maneuver: “You haven’t yet answered my pressing and simple question, ‘Do you deny that the Jews are the chosen people?’”