I’d recognize it anywhere, you can forget trying it on with me about the Wannsee, I know it like the back of my hand, no other stretch of water seen from above can match the shape of the great Wannsee with her Peacock Island and her outlying lakes, why the clouds parted at the precise instant that the plane swerved to its supposed left so as to reveal the Wannsee I have no idea, I’d thought we were already much further from Berlin but we were still only flying over the Wannsee. And seeing it appear all at once like that socked me yet another attack of acute interior bellowing, I bellowed as hard as I could without outward expression, all the while projecting perfect serenity, pinpointed the Wannsee’s beach, bovine bellow, the Berliners bathing in the summer-blue water, those renowned Berlin family picnics with baguettes and Berlin camembert and Berlin Coca-Cola, beneath trees lining that beach of sand imported from the North Sea, warm water rippled by the completely naked swimmers who’ve been the majority for more than a century, Berliners in their birthday suits, in fact, doing gymnastic moves on the imported sand, after practicing their sidestroke and their German crawl, reputedly so dynamic and powerful, were hopping about on the artificial beach in the buff, touching their left hands to their right feet and right hands to their left feet, but as for the Wannsee Conference I hadn’t the first notion; the pianist has always known exactly what to think about it, he comprehends the substance of the word Wannsee, has no need to be reminded about the conference nor what was decided on the 20th of January 1942, the conference date is branded on the pianist’s brain, never flies out of his pianist’s head while in mine occupying only a tiny and un-synched mental broom cupboard; the 20th of January is my sister’s birthday nevertheless that never reminds me of 20th January 1942, every 20th of January I think of my sister’s birthday, a date which fatally recalls my own approaching birthday and vile time that keeps on passing but not once on that date have I thought I am wishing my sister a happy birthday on the Wannsee Conference; for the pianist the date of that conference is, should a single date be called for, the only one to remember, no other date is more significant than that 20th of January 1942, not for him but for the whole of humanity, as he tells not absolutely everyone but he does tell anyone who’ll listen, he knows who was there and why on that twentieth day in January of that year, 1942, who was sitting around the table, sitting and playing their part in the decision, knows the name of each of the participants though I don’t. I spotted the Wannsee from my porthole but instead of remembering first of all the 20th of January 1942, I thought first of the Berliners who go to bathe there every summer since they brought in that fine sand from the North Sea shores, of the Berliners stretched out on that artificial beach chatting about the weather and love and the fine Berlin lifestyle without worrying again and again over Heydrich whose father was a composer and director of the conservatorium, both one and the other and who had given his son the worst of bad educations, the pianist said pointedly more than once, a bastard of a dad will make scum of his son, educated him in such a way that one day, that notorious day of my sister’s birthday whose date I remembered only out by a few years, his son along with his pal Goering, yes Goering was his pal, one day he organized a conference for his friends. The pianist cannot play at all nor the composer compose without recalling that conference on the Wannsee, and Heydrich: the name is not only familiar to him but this name, Heydrich, is on his mind every moment of the day, forgetting a single Heydrich, father or son, would have immediate consequences for his interpretation of Beethoven and of Liszt, the pianist said to whoever would listen, immediate consequences for his composition and for everything else, you can’t play any of that romantic, so-called classical music as if the Heydrichs had not existed, he would say giving his angelic smile before launching into Beethoven, without letting up would explain in his polite and respectful manner to the Auditorium audience which was there to listen to classical music and not to hear a pianist saying that to play Beethoven you must know not only Beethoven but also the Heydrichs, not only Heydrich the son but Heydrich the father too, the composer, der Komponist with a big K, a second-rate capital-letter composer nonetheless a craftsman of German music, you do follow my meaning, as director of the conservatorium, the pianist explained to the girl who was keen to listen, and thus director of musical minds, and thus instructor of young people with bright futures such as Germany was mass-producing at the time, instructor to the musical youth that would only, from one day to the next, turn into Hitler Youth, verstehst du? She did understand, the pianist saw in the girl’s eyes, the training of musical consciences means nothing to anyone but for this girl it does,
