JOYCE CAROL OATES
587
It
is no longer clear to Cecilia what the men are arguing about,
if indeed they are arguing. It seems that Rudolph is only courting
Philip, in his brash childish manner.. . . In the flickering candle–
light he looks disconcertingly young; his face is long and lean and
feral, his eyes hooded, his lips fleshy. Stylized wings of hair frame his
bony forehead, stiff as if lacquered. The
enfant terrible
of the Mainz
circle, petted , over-praised, spoiled, he has nonetheless a charming
air of self-mockery. (Unfortunate, Cecilia thinks, that he isn't quali–
fied to be a Fellow at the Peekskill Foundation- he and Philip would
certainly liven things up there. But it is Dr. August Burger, the
philologist-poet with the impressive credentials , whom Philip has
been interviewing in Mainz.) Now Rudolph and Philip are speaking
animatedly together, for the benefit of the entire table, of the folly of
German submersion in "European civilization"- that phantasm
which had no existence, could never have had any existence, since
Europe is by nature many Europes, nation-groups, language- and
dialect-groups, clamoring for autonomy but, for the most part, fated
to be slave states. Slave states!- Does Cecilia hear correctly? Or is
she simply exhausted, depressed? The expression arouses a good
deal of comment on all sides, but Philip and young Rudolph pay no
heed.
Hans, sighing, draws a large white handkerchief out of his coat
pocket and wipes his gleaming face and says in an aside to Cecilia: "I
am teaching four courses each term, Fraulein Heath, elementary
and intermediate and advanced English, and am not given to idle
speculation , but what of the new Pershing II rockets , Fraulein,
which your country is so generous as to wish to store with us? Ger–
many has become a land-mine, Fraulein, in payment for its sins . Do
you agree? Are you informed? The Soviets boast that they will
destroy us how many times, and the Americans are to retaliate by
destroying them how many times ... ? Forty, sixty, one hundred,
five hundred? Yes , Fraulein," he says, showing his teeth in a broad
damp smile, "it is only a joke, no offense is meant, we have here not
the privilege of offense after all . For Rudolph and his comrades the
destruction of Germany is perhaps no loss, as for your President
Reagan also , just payment for our sins . Please, Fraulein, on the eve
of your departure from Mainz, do not take offense- I am but mak–
ing jokes printed in the newspapers every day, a commonplace."
Cecilia, flushed, slightly light-headed, would say that she favors
peace and disarmament, she doesn't favor war, or even the stock–
piling of weapons; but so banal a statement might provoke mocking
laughter. Even now Rudolph is laughing with a hearty brutality at
