“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t doubt the seriousness of your commitment. Believe me, I don’t doubt it. But you see, Herr Langhof, you were never in the Youth Group, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, in most cases only former members of the Youth Group can be considered for the Special Section.”
“I had hoped that you might recommend me, Dr. Trottman. I realize that I have been somewhat negligent in the past. I admit that politics up until now has played only a peripheral part in my life. But now I wish to correct that lapse.”
“I see.”
“Do you think it possible for me to find a place in the Special Section?”
Dr. Trottman stared thoughtfully over the upper rim of his glasses. “Perhaps.”
“That is all I can ask.”
“It is quite a lot,” Dr. Trottman said curtly.
“I don’t mean to be arrogant in my request, Doctor. It’s simply that I am anxious to perform what I now see clearly to be my duty.”
“I’m not offended by your arrogance,” Dr. Trottman said. He smiled. “You are a man of great ability. And you know it. You also know that small matters should not stand in the way of your advancement. That is not arrogance, my dear Langhof, that is virtue.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Dr. Trottman stood up. “Be assured that I will do what I can for you.”
The man of great ability rose quickly to his feet. “I am greatly in your debt, Dr. Trottman.”
Dr. Trottman shook his head resolutely. “You are in no one’s debt, Herr Langhof,” he said. “The world is changing. There is no place for false modesty, for slave moralities. Most certainly, you will learn this in the Special Section.”
“I look forward to it.”
“The eyes of the world are upon us,” Dr. Trottman said stentoriously. “But our eyes are on the stars.”
“You will never have cause to regret doing this for me,” Langhof said.
“I never expect to, Herr Langhof,” Dr. Trottman said. He rose from behind his desk, stepped back slightly, and raised his arm rigidly in salute.
Langhof stood transfixed, not with wonder or admiration, but with astonishment. For the gesture, so melodramatic, so ridiculously perfervid, so quintessentially burlesque, was made with such complete seriousness by Dr. Trottman that it was all the ambitious student could do to keep from laughing.
But Dr. Trottman stood completely still, his eyes staring hotly at Langhof. Finally our hero grasped what was expected of him. He brought himself to his full height, clicked his heels together and, as he had seen the others do, raised his arm. They stood for a moment facing each other, the tips of their fingers stretched out to make a triumphal arch over Dr. Trottman’s littered desk.
“You will be hearing from me, Herr Langhof,” Dr. Trottman said as he let his arm fall slowly to his side. “I trust the news, when it comes, will be favorable.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Good day.”
“Good day, sir.”
And then Langhof, our hero, turned smartly toward the door and marched out, closing it behind him. In the hallway he did not tremble as he had that evening in the park when Anna fled away. Nor did he hear music, martial or otherwise. He did not see a vision of perfect order or fall upon his knees, a stricken, sweating Saul of Tarsus. He did not goose-step down the hall, but merely turned slowly, strolling past the darkened professorial offices with a little smile playing on his lips. And if any thought came to him at all, it was of the laughable gullibility of people, even quite intelligent people like Dr. Trottman. How easy it seemed to charm and beguile them, to use the insufferable silliness of the times and yet rise above it all, trip lightly over it — even as he now tripped down the hall with perfect insouciance.
HERE IN THE REPUBLIC there is much insouciance. In the village square the men and women leap in a furious guaracha, kicking yellow dust into each other’s eyes. In the bars, the old men lean toward the candles and drink mescal down to the worm while the young ones nod drowsily outside the brothel door. And in the capital, the ermine-coated and bejeweled wives of the ministers of state sit in steamy halls and watch endless fashion shows with strained and calculating faces.
And yet, from my verandah I can see the foothills of the mountainous northern provinces, a place where, it is said, humor still exists in the form of low-minded jokes about El Presidente. Huddled around their dying fires, the insurrectionists talk of El Presidente’s teeth. It is said that they are made of gold and that he has inserted a small homing device to assure their quick recovery, should anyone be fool enough to steal them. In the northern provinces, every part of El Presidente’s body comes in for ridicule. There is much talk of a silver rectum that makes the sound of a cash register when El Presidente makes his toilet. It is said that his urine is tested by a chemical refinery built exclusively for that purpose and that the four-word motto of the Republic has been inscribed on the lead plate in his head. Just beneath the stitched scalp, it reads in elegant script: FREEDOM OBEDIENCE COUNTRY VULGARITY.
In the far hills of the northern provinces they laugh like jackals in the blinding heat. They laugh as they flip the sticky pages of Casamira’s
In the Camp, they laughed at the milky soup and rotten bread. They laughed at the striped uniforms and the blue tattoos. They laughed at prayer and mourning. They laughed at the ridiculousness of their ever being born. They laughed, while they had strength to laugh, at the slough of their despair.
And in the small amphitheater that the Special Section used for scientific displays, they laughed.
The dedicated hygienist could barely keep from smiling himself at the pitiful figure in the loose-fitting gray smock who stood before the two officers while the doctor poked at his ears and nose and legs with a thin wooden pointer.
“One has only to observe a member of the vermin race in order to understand their inferiority,” the doctor said matter-of-factly. He turned the cringing figure before him slowly around, then told the two officers to remove the smock. They stepped forward and pulled it over the vermin’s head so that he stood naked except for a wrinkled loincloth.
“There, now,” the doctor said. He looked up at the rows of silent, uniformed Special Section initiates. “All of you, observe for a moment.”
They observed the figure as the doctor had commanded. Some of them scratched short entries into their notebooks. Others grinned humorously and whispered into each other’s ears.
Rudolf Schoen leaned toward Langhof. “What do you make of that?” he asked lightly.
Langhof pretended to nod thoughtfully. “Interesting,” he said.
Below them, the interesting specimen of the vermin race made a weak attempt to wrap his arms around himself, but the doctor slapped at him lightly and the arms returned to their positions at his sides.
“Now,” the doctor said, “let me make a few observations of my own.” He raised the pointer slowly up from the vermin’s foot to his waist. “Note the shortness of the legs and their spindly construction.”
A few of the students nodded appreciatively and scratched their chins.
“Observe the length of the legs as compared to the trunk,” the doctor went on. “As you can see, they are short in comparison. Thus, whereas the waist should be the approximate midpoint between the top of the skull and the bottom of the foot, here we have a definite and unmistakable disproportion.”
Langhof suppressed a smile. This was not science. This was aesthetics.
“Now,” the doctor continued, “we must concern ourselves, always concern ourselves, with the question of proportion. Proportion is the key, gentlemen. Arms that are too long appear to us as apeish. It is the same with legs, such as these, that are too short.” He watched the students. “What are we to gather from this?”
