100
ERIC BENTLEY
sequences that aren't there, forcing a meaning on a speaker that is ob–
viously contrary to the intention. There is so much misleading talk of
the diabolical efficiency of the totalitarian systems! Actually we owe our
lives
to
their inefficiency and silliness.
If
they were not as inefficient
and silly as ourselves they would have won the last war.
Take the Wall. Take this very corner of the Bahnhof Friedrichstrasse
where I am sitting. A few weeks ago a young British friend of mine was
here. He had come to Berlin to put on a show and had all his wages in
his pocket-they amounted to a couple of hundred dollars. He knew no
German, didn't fully understand what he was told about papers, thought
it all didn't matter much anyway, and failed to mention on these papers
how much money he was carrying. That was on the way East. Returning
at 11 :00
P.M.,
after seeing a play at the Berlin Ensemble, he gave a
confusing account of what he now had. Then, to show how honest he
was, and how there was nothing at stake, he produced
all
his cash for
the customs officials to see. Result: he was immediately taken into
custody for fraud. They held him till 5: 00 the next morning. Kafkaesque
scenes were enacted. An interpreter was called in whose chief interest
was fishing for compliments from my friend on his good English. He
was absurdly friendly. But the watches of the night were jogging by,
and Bahnhof Friedrichstrasse is a very grim place, especially when
you
are under guard and confined in what is virtually a solitary cell.
My friend got his money back, but only some months later, and
after all kinds of wires had been pulled by all kinds of VIP's and Or–
ganizations. He got his money back: that's my point. The whole operation
was inefficiently conducted and in any case futile. Had my friend
really been breaking the rules he would have been in no trouble at all.
He would have hidden the money they didn't want
him
to have some–
where on his person. For, normally speaking, no one is ever searched.
Which of course makes nonsense of the view that the wall is there to
stop traffic in money.
Why
don't they search people, by the way? Are they just staggered
at the thought of how many man-hours it would take up? Are they
reluctant to add to the already considerable irritation people feel at
procedures at the wall? Is their fear of black-marketering in money not
really all that great?
I don't know the answers to these questions, and that too is my
point. The natural response to this "world of the wall" is not the bluster–
ing indignation of the politicians and the reporters of the popular press
but rather bewilderment. The American
press-Time,
especially-seems
lacking in real reporters, preferring philosophers-bad philosophers. What
is said emanates from a theory, not from observation. A recent instance
