Like Fine Clockwork
Oh no, I wouldn’t dream of tearing you away from your dear Hungarian friend, how could I, replied Otmar Baron von der Schuer when he heard Baroness Thum’s feeble protestation, and amid the throng streaming from pretty St. Anne’s Church in Dahlem he stopped unexpectedly.
Please forgive my thoughtlessness, he added, speaking loudly in the sunny, cheerful cacophony that followed the somber service. He had it easy, since he towered over the crowd, but the two ladies had to make quite an effort to resist politely the thrust of the human current around them.
The late-August morning was redolent of resin; people who wanted to chat had to shout over the two bells ringing their farewell to the faithful.
Which made a peculiar impression on them.
Both of you are more than welcome at our table, nothing could be more obvious, of course, naturally, without a doubt. And he briefly bowed his handsome, smoothly chiseled soldierly head to Countess Auenberg, whom he had just met for the first time in his life. He sincerely hoped it was not for the last time; if she would be kind enough to oblige him by accepting such a hasty though heartfelt invitation, he said more quietly after the two bells fell silent, having sounded two small belated rings, please believe me, and above the human hubbub one could hear the singing of fieldfares, guarding their second batches of eggs.
Countess Auenberg had no idea what she should believe and why the baron was padding out his speech so much, but that wasn’t what she was thinking about. Silent and bewitched, they looked into the depths of each other’s eyes, seeing through their cambered lights and reflections, which Baroness Thum did not fail to notice; indeed, their lack of restraint all but took her breath away.
The fieldfares singing on high, the wrens whistling at shoulder level, and the flocks of sparrows twittering at ground level amplified their sense of the space around them.
They gained a good insight into each other in a twinkling of the eye, as it were.
Yes, surely, with pleasure, replied the countess with some reserve and also some confusion about the depth of their mutual gaze and the capacious feeling of her inner space. Almost with reluctance. Which she must have heard in her own voice, because she tried to balance it with bubbly but not completely convincing freshets of enthusiasm. She lifted her voice above her own sentiments because she saw clearly that Schuer was not at all the decent fellow he wanted the world to see him as. The throng was carrying them along the meanwhile, and each of her sentences sounded like her last. She’d be separated from the one she had just come to know. She hadn’t counted on being the guest of such an important scientist, an unhoped-for honor.
But despite what she had seen in the depths of his eyes, she could not deny her attraction to him, and that made her edgy.
She owed him her gratitude in advance, she said, accompanying her words with a nervous little laugh, which made her face even prettier, because she wouldn’t be able to resist flooding him with questions. The baron might not believe her, but she was greatly interested in race biology and genetics research.
But Schuer found the countess’s enthusiasm neither amusing nor fawning; in fact, he did not believe she could be interested in anything, for in the depth of his soul he never seriously believed women would ever have a prolonged interest in any scientific topic or subject. For a moment he stared inexpressively at this shocking feminine phenomenon and then stopped listening to her altogether. Anyway, he had never heard of a family such as hers, which made him distrust the Hungarian woman with a German name. Regarding women, the most he was willing to concede was that they had patience for details or were good at collecting data. At any rate, he continued in an entirely different, rather soldierly manner as he turned to Karla Baroness von Thum zu Wolkenstein, I must exchange a few very personal and at the same time strictly official words with you.
You will understand, I’m sure, he added, but this too was more because of the presence of the foreign woman. The relationship between the baroness and him had been very tense, so he measured his words; they had to avoid arguing. Although it would not have occurred to the baroness that the unexpected invitation to lunch could be refused or that the baron might provide some explanation for his uncivil behavior. At the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, the research workers were terrified of Schuer’s threatening countenance. There was actually nothing threatening in his appearance — on the contrary, everything about his mood, his manner, his attire was smooth, flawless, and poised — but with his perfection he reminded them of their own human imperfections, and almost all of them felt this.
They hastened to satisfy his every wish.
At this moment, Baroness Thum, with some anxiety, was hoping that her old wish would come true and that she would be sent to Rome. Her boss was not known for personal conversations or insignificant invitations, and given his high position, his house ran on a busy schedule and he had his share of social obligations.
There could be no other reason for this sudden lunch invitation but that the professor wished to give her confirmation of her mission to Rome.
At least the baroness could not think of any other.
Indeed, in Schuer’s life obligation had a larger part than pleasure. Like fine clockwork, he was reliable, quick, dutiful to the point of humility because he wanted to satisfy his idolized father’s never-uttered demands for quality; and for the same reason he was diligent and painfully impartial in his judgments; it would be very difficult to accuse him of cringing before authority. He had the reputation of being a deeply God-fearing man, and in some way he may have been one. To this day, he feared nothing more than the withholding of love, though he himself was more likely to do anything than to express love.
His pagan experiences had compelled him to be an even more perfect Christian.
Whenever he agreed with the Nazi leaders, he was basically obeying the commands of his own conscience, expressing his own convictions, but he was far from agreeing with them about everything. Because he always kept a higher scientific or religious standpoint in view, his opinions had great persuasive power, which allowed him occasionally to resist or be blunt.
The prestige of his science increased steadily, for it proposed many direct or indirect solutions to problems concerning growing human populations, problems to which the governments of fast-growing mass societies throughout the world, whether aristocratic or democratic, were but helpless bystanders. There was a need for definitive solutions to a number of provocative issues concerning population hygiene. And the more pressing the demands for his science became, the more rapidly did his career blossom. His fairness and selflessness were above suspicion, and with his powerful insights he unerringly separated the essential from the unessential and was excellent at managing and controlling things. He also had long experience. After his professor and mentor Eugen Fischer* retired, they could not have found a more energetic and ambitious man for the delicate job of running the world-famous institute.
One might say he had the proper education and expertise to take the helm.
Of course, his appointment would not have been even considered had his origin, traced back to the distant past, not been pure Aryan. He instinctively kept his distance from racist groups because of his deep contempt for the hoi polloi, and he favored neither absolutism nor anarchy, although he had an aversion to the physical proximity or even spiritual presence of Jewish persons. The characteristic traits of Jewish thinking disturbed his composure and indeed his entire mentality — their penchant for emotional exaggeration, their spectacular ideas, their fiery gesticulations, their scientific bluster, their effeminate features, and their hedonism — but he never talked to anyone about these reactions of his and in fact fought them heroically, mustering the full power of his Christian conscience, as if he were trying not to feel toward Jews what he felt about people beneath his rank, and he was loathe to wind up being influenced by other people’s extreme expressions.