“A favor in return?” Jakob asked.
“A trifle,” Nietzsche responded. “You will do a little job for me. If you don’t deny that it is only your doing me a favor in return. . But of course. Only in that case. Otherwise. .”
“Otherwise what?” Jakob asked. “Otherwise what?”
“Otherwise I can remind you of the favors I’ve already done you. By way of the fact that you’re still alive, for one. . But I don’t believe you would show me such ingratitude. I don’t believe you would walk away just like that. Without a rematch.” And then the doctor went on, still bearing arms, albeit merely a wooden, gold-plated sword: “But it’s still too soon for good-byes. I think it is too soon indeed. . so let me get to the point.”
“I’m listening,” Jakob said; then Dr. Nietzsche:
“I’m talking to you above all as a scientist and a doctor. Bear that in mind. As a Nazi doctor, of course.”
“But of course,” Jakob said. “I’m listening.”
“You know about the collecting of Jewish skulls and skeletons?”
“I’ve heard about it.”
“So much the better. I had assumed as much; it means at the very least that you’ve already thought about all of this,” Dr. N. said, “. . and that you have, naturally, your own opinions about it all.”
“Actually. . ” but Jakob couldn’t finish his sentence.
“At this time I have no intention (after all I’ve just told you) of inquiring after your personal opinion on the matter. I only want to remind you that the bottom line is that that these collections number among the favors that I mentioned to you a moment ago (to your prodigious amazement), which I undertook on your behalf. .”
“For me?”
“For your nation,” Nietzsche said. “Same thing.” Then he corrected himself: “For your race, actually.”
“I don’t understand,” Jakob said. “For my race. .?”
“It amazes me the way your intuition. . But let’s drop it for now. — It is, I believe, obvious to you that should genocide be carried out (as has been planned — something you also know full well), nothing would remain of your race except this collection of skulls.”
“It’s not clear to me—” Jakob said, “I’m not completely clear on what it is you want from me. Even if I could intuit what you’re getting at with this talk of favors you’ve done for my race, as you put it, it remains unclear to me what my return favor should, in concrete terms, consist of.”
“Simple,” Dr. Nietzsche said in confidence. “I want you to do whatever you can to keep the collection from being destroyed, if this becomes necessary. I think you understand me. It is especially important (and this is part of your assignment) that your rescue only be attempted. .” Then he stopped, looking for the right word: “. . at the right time. Yes. At the right time. I think you understand me. I am speaking in the interests of science more than anything (which in this case are also the interests of your race): Do not allow this collection to be destroyed.”
“I don’t understand,” Jakob said. “I truly do not understand.”
“This means nothing to you?” Dr. Nietzsche asked, almost offended.
“That’s not the point,” Jakob said. “I simply don’t understand what my assignment actually consists of — nor my favor in return.”
“Well then,” Dr. Nietzsche continued, after a brief, strained silence: “I will have to leave the matter up to you. It’s up to you to convince yourself that I am not in a position to act contrary to an order even when my personal opinion runs contrary to it. Or if I have individual scientific reasons to disobey.”
And so Doctor Nietzsche was now breathing rapidly and sounded asthmatic:
“From the highest level,” he said as if he were speaking the first lines of Genesis. “From the highest level we have received orders for all traces of our experiments, including the collecting of Jewish skulls and skeletons, to be destroyed. Not yet, of course, but as soon as it proves necessary”; he was gaining momentum: “Well, so now I too am delivered into your hands. . Do you know what they call what I just told you? — Treason!” His pathetic whisper continued: “Betrayal of military secrets at the highest level. . As you can see, we’re not talking here about adherence or non-adherence to professional ethical principles but about military, wartime accountability. I am telling you this only because I want once more to underscore the delicacy of the situation and the untenability of my own individual initiative. . ”
“In concrete terms, wherein does my individual initiative lie?” Jakob asked. “In my violation of a direct order from Himmler?”
“C’est ça,” Nietzsche said. “. . In the interests of science. And (perhaps, in the event that the wind begins to blow in our favor again) also of your race. There isn’t a Nazi anywhere who would do this: it contravenes, you know. . contravenes our conception of autocracy.”
“All right,” Jakob said. “What is it that I have to do?”
“You have to wait,” Nietzsche replied. “And to keep quiet. . For now, that’s it.”
“And after that. . ”
“Providing that it becomes apparent to you that our side has completely collapsed, the German side — you know exactly what I mean — and if I am absent from the scene (and you should assume this will be the case), then there is nothing for you to do, and there is no need for you to prevent anyone from doing what he will with the collections.” Then, after a short pause in which he took another breath, he continued with pathos: “But if it seems to you — according to your own findings — that the time for that has still not come, then endeavor to prevent the destruction of these valuable collections that could wind up being the only remaining evidence of your extinct race.”
Nearly twenty-four hours would have to pass before Jakob could explain to Marija the meaning of this whole tragicomedy, titled “The Fanatic: or, in the Service of Science,” because Dr. Nietzsche wanted, as Jakob said, to have in him (that is, in Jakob) a reliable witness in case he should one day fall into the hands of the Allies, a likelihood that he’d now had time to think through. But it was not as the strange case of Dr. Nietzsche that all this mattered to her; rather, the experience was for her a sign and an omen, because, as Jakob said, something serious had happened; but Jakob expressed at the same time the fear that the Germans prior to evacuating would indeed destroy every trace of the camp so that one day they could stand before the Eyes of History, innocently shrugging their shoulders, and so that same evening (the very day after Nietzsche’s nocturnal visit), Jakob said for the first time:
“We must try to prevent this.” Then he added what she in slightly modified form had told Žana earlier, in a distant echo of this same sentence of Jakob’s uttered nearly a year earlier: “But we cannot put anything at risk. Now is a very bad time to die.”
Chapter 5
When Dr. Nietzsche finally said Perhaps it was too early for this visit and stood up from his chair, she thought: At last, because it seemed to her that if he stayed a minute longer she would have given herself away, probably by passing out. Then she heard the rustling of straw from the bed, from which she could conclude that Jakob had already stood up, and then his footsteps, the key in the door, Nietzsche’s conspiratorial and practically confidential Auf Wiedersehen! and she sensed her legs abruptly giving way beneath her as she slipped down the wardrobe: the last thing she felt was a sharp pain in her shoulder blades as she slid down the plank, and then there was a dull thud and, after that, darkness. .