Denial by Jessica Stern Page B

Hitlerjugend. I was very passive and did everything I was told in school—I imbued any authorities with German power. I was afraid of them. Of the principal. That was with me until I got to be thirteen or fourteen….. Even then I deferred to authority.”
    I hear again my father’s words: “I didn’t know I was terrorized.” I wonder now, was he terrorized by the police in Concord, Massachusetts? So determined to get them off the case that hetold them we had forgotten about the crime four months after it occurred?
    â€œSo only some of your fear left when you left Germany?”
    â€œMy anxiety left. But those other fears were bred into me…. It took a long time to realize they weren’t founded on anything. Another fear is that I didn’t ever want to stand out, so I feared for a long time huge visible success—I didn’t know that I was smart. I didn’t try to get prizes or anything like that because I was afraid I’d be exposed. In college. And even professionally for a while. It did have a lasting effect, living through that terror.”
    Is this why my father never praised us when we did well in school? I wonder now.
    â€œThis quality that you write about”—he changes the subject—“of not feeling afraid during a crisis. I know exactly what you mean. In a frightening situation I become very clearheaded. I assess the situation and try to maneuver within the constraints of the situation.
    â€œWhen we had the car accident, I lost control of the car,” he says, referring to a serious accident he and my stepmother suffered in 1994. “The car did not respond to the steering wheel, but I wasn’t frightened. I tried to create a trajectory to cause the least damage. I didn’t just throw my hands up.
    â€œSame thing when I’m mountain climbing. If I get into trouble, I suppress everything that I’m concerned about…. I’m not afraid. It’s gone.”
    â€œHow does it feel to go into that state?” I ask.
    I’ve only recently realized that there is something unusual about this capacity to slip into an altered state that makes me more efficient, even smarter. I am not sure how to feel about my father’s admission that he can do the same thing.
    â€œIt doesn’t feel good or bad. I feel competent. I feel I’m in control,” he says.
    â€œAfterward, do you feel burned out?” I ask.
    â€œPhysically exhausted,” he says. “I feel tired and emotionally low.”
    â€œDid you ever ask yourself why you could do that?” I ask.
    â€œNo,” he answers, simply, honestly.
    We will return to this subject later.

chapter three
The Investigation
    O nce I read the complete file, I had to learn about the man who raped me. I needed to do this to tame him—but also to tame a wild, nameless feeling inside myself.
    I have always been a spy. Whenever I sense pain that I don’t understand, my own or others’, I feel compelled to research the source. I become a detective.
    This is embarrassing to admit, but I am insatiably curious about the half-known truths that motivate people’s lives, often in ways they do not realize. If I met you today and sensed you have a secret—especially a secret you keep from yourself, especially a secret that might hurt someone—I would start trying to find the key from the moment I laid eyes on you. I might not even know that I was doing this. I might not want to do it, but I can’t stop myself.
    I have been spying on violent men for much of my life. Notjust men who have hurt me, but also men who have hurt others. I have traveled all over the world to talk to terrorists. I am compelled to understand men who hurt people, as if by understanding what motivates them, I can tame them; as if by taming them, I can make my world safe. But, perhaps for the first time, I am aware that my curiosity could make me sick. Sara tells me that she