responsibility on you?â
âYou see how you are? Same thing. You get so angry at Rita. But now whoâs being mean, now whoâs nasty-minded and suspicious? And then what do you know about it? I have the entire hospital on my side. A stack of parents of former patients who have come forward to testify on my behalf. I have the president of the faculty who has publicly defended me, in more than one newspaper . . . not to mention the college of docents, and even the rector . . . Itâs not my fault if all this keeps me calm. Or if itâs a moment when I want my friends around . . . â
Yes, that was him, her Leo, the least malicious man she had ever met. What a strange talent, to have so much faith in others! But was it only a talent? Or also an extremely grave defect? Something to guard against? Her husbandâs magnanimity (some would have given it a different name, much more trivial). The disadvantage of not knowing what defeat is. Of not having lived as a loser. Exaggerated faith in the benevolence of destiny.
Well, she had been brought up in terror. The reason she had so disliked Rita the first times she met her was that she seemed the extreme version of herself, transported, besides, into higher-class locales. All that distrust, all that circumspection, all that fear. They were things that Rachel knew. Things that had been inculcated from the cradle. To the point where at times she wondered if among the many reasons she loved her husband so intensely was the fact that he seemed a sort of delightful, bracing antidote to all that fear she had grown up in.
It was as if her husband, who by profession joined battle daily with the irrational, perverse, and usually evil whims of the human body, when it came to grabbing the reins of his own life, gave in to a sort of philanthropic idealism. How was it possible? Had his work taught him nothing? Is there a harsher lesson than the one imparted by a ward where children fight against death? Dirty beds, vomit, blood, all that childish pain and adult despair . . . But evidently this had taught him nothing. Evidently this was not for him proof of anything. Evidently all this had not made him wiser or injected him with the cynicism that aided the majority of his colleagues.
You would say that of the two of them it was he who loved to play the part of the plain man without God: always full of words that to Rachel were pompous and empty of meaning, words like âLaicism,â âenlightenment,â âagnosticism.â And yet, if you looked closely, he was the true religious one in the family. Of the two of them, only he truly believed in a kind of Higher Order, for the most part benign, capable of setting everything right.
âUltimately, in the end the Nazis lost. The Nazis always lose,â he pointed out to her every so often when she told him there were more anti-Semites around than he thought. (And Rachel couldnât help wondering: Really? Did the Nazis lose? But how? Arenât we the ones who lost?)
And now, with respect to the horrible things that had been written about him and the crimes attributed to him, it was as if Leo were content with the certainty that he hadnât committed them. Or at least not deliberately. In his view this was sufficient. Because in the end the truth would emerge without impediments.
More and more often his wife wondered if this unconditional trust in the world had to do with a life that had functioned too well: a fairy tale of dreams realized and promises kept. Ultimately, if thereâs something thatâs always in danger itâs perfection.
The Pontecorvos were the only Jews she knew who, while Hitlerâs thugs and their stupid German shepherds were hunting Jews throughout Europe, stayed in Switzerland, in safety, in warmth, without dying of fear like all the others, like Rachelâs mother and father. Leo was three at the time. And from that lucky Swiss start in life things had continued
âYou see how you are? Same thing. You get so angry at Rita. But now whoâs being mean, now whoâs nasty-minded and suspicious? And then what do you know about it? I have the entire hospital on my side. A stack of parents of former patients who have come forward to testify on my behalf. I have the president of the faculty who has publicly defended me, in more than one newspaper . . . not to mention the college of docents, and even the rector . . . Itâs not my fault if all this keeps me calm. Or if itâs a moment when I want my friends around . . . â
Yes, that was him, her Leo, the least malicious man she had ever met. What a strange talent, to have so much faith in others! But was it only a talent? Or also an extremely grave defect? Something to guard against? Her husbandâs magnanimity (some would have given it a different name, much more trivial). The disadvantage of not knowing what defeat is. Of not having lived as a loser. Exaggerated faith in the benevolence of destiny.
Well, she had been brought up in terror. The reason she had so disliked Rita the first times she met her was that she seemed the extreme version of herself, transported, besides, into higher-class locales. All that distrust, all that circumspection, all that fear. They were things that Rachel knew. Things that had been inculcated from the cradle. To the point where at times she wondered if among the many reasons she loved her husband so intensely was the fact that he seemed a sort of delightful, bracing antidote to all that fear she had grown up in.
It was as if her husband, who by profession joined battle daily with the irrational, perverse, and usually evil whims of the human body, when it came to grabbing the reins of his own life, gave in to a sort of philanthropic idealism. How was it possible? Had his work taught him nothing? Is there a harsher lesson than the one imparted by a ward where children fight against death? Dirty beds, vomit, blood, all that childish pain and adult despair . . . But evidently this had taught him nothing. Evidently this was not for him proof of anything. Evidently all this had not made him wiser or injected him with the cynicism that aided the majority of his colleagues.
You would say that of the two of them it was he who loved to play the part of the plain man without God: always full of words that to Rachel were pompous and empty of meaning, words like âLaicism,â âenlightenment,â âagnosticism.â And yet, if you looked closely, he was the true religious one in the family. Of the two of them, only he truly believed in a kind of Higher Order, for the most part benign, capable of setting everything right.
âUltimately, in the end the Nazis lost. The Nazis always lose,â he pointed out to her every so often when she told him there were more anti-Semites around than he thought. (And Rachel couldnât help wondering: Really? Did the Nazis lose? But how? Arenât we the ones who lost?)
And now, with respect to the horrible things that had been written about him and the crimes attributed to him, it was as if Leo were content with the certainty that he hadnât committed them. Or at least not deliberately. In his view this was sufficient. Because in the end the truth would emerge without impediments.
More and more often his wife wondered if this unconditional trust in the world had to do with a life that had functioned too well: a fairy tale of dreams realized and promises kept. Ultimately, if thereâs something thatâs always in danger itâs perfection.
The Pontecorvos were the only Jews she knew who, while Hitlerâs thugs and their stupid German shepherds were hunting Jews throughout Europe, stayed in Switzerland, in safety, in warmth, without dying of fear like all the others, like Rachelâs mother and father. Leo was three at the time. And from that lucky Swiss start in life things had continued
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