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And, “The difference between the French and the English can be seen in their cooking. The English throw a head of cabbage into boiling water and then eat it. The French have a thousand sauces—each a work of art. Thus: the English have no disguises; the French disguise everything.”
But, “The French are right about one thing, Agnes. Oil is the blood of victory. There are pools of oil near Mosul—on the surface of the land, like rain puddles. They burst into flame, all on their own. The British know this, of course, and will find a way to keep the Kurdish territory for themselves. From now on, oil will be at the heart of everything that happens in the Middle East.”
After a time, we went on to more personal things. When I told Karl of my reaction to the fakery in Jerusalem, I expected him to approve of my new cynicism. Well, of course, I thought he’d say, that’s why Jews don’t believe the stories. We know they’re all nonsense.
To my surprise, he laughed and told me, “You make a poor atheist. You were angry, not indifferent.”
“It wasn’t faith that angered me,” I lied. “It was the way the people there preyed on the simple and the credulous.”
For the first time that morning, he stopped to look at me directly. “You have seen Palestine, Agnes. What do they have? Stones, sand, and weapons! They have to earn a living somehow. Tourism is not the worst choice they could make,” he said reasonably, and we continued with our stroll. “Tell me, what did you do immediately after you left the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?”
Not sure why he asked this but certain he had some good reason, I did my best to remember. I could easily call up the Reformation outrage, the fury of Jesus overturning tables in the Temple, but what happened next? I had pushed through the crowds until I reached the exit doors, stumbled blindly in the sudden brilliant glare. When I could open my eyes again, I left by way of the Damascus Gate, where I was accosted by yet another group of beggars— The light dawned, as the saying goes. “I opened my purse,” I told Karl, “and gave all the money I carried to the lepers.”
“Then you learned what Jesus had to teach you,” he said simply.
Just then Rosie came to a sudden halt and began to growl. A few yards ahead, a man sat on the pavement next to a writhing canvas bag. “A snake charmer,” Karl said, picking Rosie up before she could pounce.
Loving as she was, Rosie was still a dachshund, and dachshunds are not lap dogs. The standards were bred to follow badgers down holes and destroy them in their lairs. Even the miniatures are quite athletic; despite their size, the drive to capture and kill prey remains strong. For a few minutes we stood and watched a cobra bob and sway, but Rosie continued to produce a low tense whine that sometimes became a snarl. If Karl had lost his grip on her, she’d have attacked without a moment’s hesitation.
We left the snake charmer two piastres and walked on to the shoe bazaar, close by and picturesque. Long, neat lines of leather slippers lit up tiny shops with vivid reds and yellows. “Come in! Come in!” each craftsman called. “No charge to look, madams!” I bought a pair in red, and Karl carried the package for me.
Toward noon, the strengthening heat demanded shade. We sat and ordered lemonade and a dish of water for Rosie. While we waited, I told Karl about British admiration for progress in the Jewish enclaves. I believed their approval would please him, but Karl dismissed it all as politics mixed with fantasy.
“There are Christians in the British Cabinet who believe that they can hasten the Second Coming by encouraging Jews to return to their biblical lands. If we’re all in one place, the theory goes, we can be converted wholesale. And if the Messiah tarries?” He cocked a ca
As for the kibbutzim, they were mainly populated by Jews eager to leave Russia, where they had lived in abject poverty, subject to endless harassment and periodic violence. Karl didn’t expect the Bolsheviks to change those conditions anytime soon. For Russian Jews, Zionism was an immediate solution to age-old problems.
“Anywhere is better than Russia,” Karl agreed, “but for Western Jews, Zionism is a trap, I think. Once Jews are permitted a territorial center, it will be too easy to drive the rest of us from every other nation on Earth. ‘Go back where you belong!’ ” he cried dismissively, jerking his thumb toward Palestine. “ ‘Oh, by the way, leave all your possessions behind.’ ”
There were others who truly needed a nation of their own. “Look what the Turks did to the Armenians,” he said. When I admitted I had no idea what he was talking about, he explained, “They were massacred, and the remnants driven from place to place, like cattle, until they died on their feet. And the Kurds—they are Muslim, but never safe from their Turkish or Arab cousins. But I have no need of some artificial homeland invented by the British. I am not a German Jew, Agnes, but a Jewish German.”
Things had been difficult in the past, but since the war had ended, everything in Germany was different, he told me. The Roaring Twenties were not just an American phenomenon. In Germany, too, everything was changing. There was a new government, a new way of thinking, new art, new theater, new music.
“Germany is shaking off the dead past,” Karl said, “and I am part of that, Agnes. Why would I leave Germany now, when I can help to build the future in my own nation?”
He finished his lemonade and lit a pipe. For a while we watched the crowded street life around us, but where I still saw the exhilarating kaleidoscope of cultures Karl had introduced me to, he saw as well mille
“The Middle East is a paranoid’s paradise,” he said quietly. “If the Zionists settle here with Christian backing, Arabs will believe it is all a plot against Islam. Jews will be blamed for every act of violence that follows. Black seeds have been sown these past few weeks, Agnes. I fear we shall harvest a tainted crop for generations.” For a time, he stared into the middle distance. Then he glanced at me. “When you get home, buy stock in munitions,” he suggested with a grin that left his eyes sad. “I promise, you shall become very rich!”
With that, he leaned over to lift Rosie onto his lap, as he had so many times before. Propping her upright against his chest, he ran his palms along her back, from head to haunches, slowly, rhythmically, absentmindedly.
Her eyes closed and she relaxed under the waterfall of sensation, blissful as a Buddha. I watched his hands, and stood. Without a word, we went back to the hotel.
Later on, when Karl was out on the balcony smoking an evening pipe, I could not help noticing his travel documents lying next to his wallet on the little desk. Curious, I opened the passport, and out fell a photograph of his family, which he’d tucked inside it for safekeeping. Had he left it there so I would notice it? Certainly he’d taken no steps to conceal it.
When he came back inside, I said, “Your wife is very beautiful.” And neither dead nor discarded. “Your daughter takes after you, I think.”
“Yes,” he said, and nothing more.
I knew without asking that he had no intention of leaving them for me. There had been no declaration of love, no talk of a future together. I didn’t care. Nor was I ashamed of my behavior. I was surprised only by the strength of my desires. At last, I had shared my bed with a man I loved, and in so doing, I had discovered a physical ruthlessness I had never suspected. It was like a heartbeat, that selfishness: I want. I want. I want …
Beneath the surface I sensed an element of commerce between us that had not been there before: some quid pro quo that I could not yet articulate, and willfully ignored. Karl even warned me, in one of those offhand political remarks he made often. “British colonialists establish their superiority and then save you from your ignorance and ineptitude,” he said. “The French are quite indifferent to those they colonize, as long as the colony pays.”