The Street Sweeper

  *

  ‘And what of Dietrich Bonhoeffer?’ Adam Zignelik asked his ‘What is History?’ class rhetorically. ‘His visit to New York in 1930 played an important part in the evolution of his thinking. In addition to that friendship with a black student at Union Theological Seminary, he befriended a French theology student, the pacifist Jean Lasserre. Lasserre’s pacifism and his insistence on the centrality – to all branches of Christianity – of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount affected him deeply. In conversations in the streets around here where you walk, Lasserre led Bonhoeffer to the conclusion that this was it; the Sermon on the Mount was the whole point.

  ‘This stayed with Bonhoeffer when he returned to Germany in the summer of 1931 and found seven million people unemployed. It was still with him on 30 January 1933 when, shortly before noon, Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. You can safely assume it was with him on 1 April of that year when it became government policy to boycott Jewish stores and businesses. You will have seen the photos of the store windows with the Jewish Star of David painted on the windows and the stormtroopers from the SS and the SA patrolling the streets outside, enforcing the new law. It wasn’t difficult to enforce. It met with little resistance.’

  *

  There was a knock at the door of the apartment Diana shared with Adam Zignelik. It was the man with the moving van. He had come for the boxes. Diana was holding a photo of Adam as a toddler in quilted overalls. Was there something she should have said? Was there some form of words that she hadn’t thought of, a form of words that could have made Adam see that they were never likely to love anyone else more than they loved each other so questions of jobs and salaries and location were all secondary? The man knocked on the door again. It was only for so long that it was polite to pretend not to have heard the knock. She couldn’t pretend to be surprised he was there. They’d already spoken over the intercom. She looked around the living room. What about the bathroom? What about the bedroom? She’d been through each of them several times since Adam had gone to work but should she look one more time? Could she take the photo? ‘Just a minute,’ she called. Could she take the photo? For a moment she thought to ask the man who had come for the boxes.

  *

  Professor Charles McCray, Chair of the History Department, was on the phone in his office with the door slightly ajar when his father William arrived to see him. William looked at the young woman who sat outside his son’s office and who stood to greet him.

  ‘Hello, Mr McCray,’ she said warmly. ‘Lovely to see you. How are you today?’ Not only could he not remember her name, he also couldn’t even remember her title. Was she his son’s secretary or his personal assistant? Did she work for him, for a few professors or for the department generally? None of this mattered as much as her name when greeting her but since he couldn’t remember any of it and there wasn’t time to look for clues around her workstation, he just smiled before shaking her hand with an enthusiastic hello. She would be able to guess at his age to within ten years and would therefore go on to assume he was declining intellectually and she would therefore deem him incapable of offending her. Everything was just fine.

  ‘I’m sure he won’t be long. He’s just on a call at the moment. I’ll tell him you’re here.’

  ‘Thank you,’ William said. The thought occasionally crossed his mind on these visits that Charles didn’t hurry with the tasks he had to complete before he invited him into his office. But even as the thought would cross his mind he was aware he had no evidence to support this and was ashamed of ever thinking it.

  ‘Sorry, Dad, I couldn’t get off. It was someone from the President’s office and I –’

  ‘Bush?’

  ‘No, the President of the university. Nearly as big.’

  ‘What have you done now, Charlie? You in trouble again?’ his father asked through a gentle smile.

  Charles stretched in his chair. ‘Yeah, there’s always something going on around here and I always seem to get dragged in. It’s like they want to stop me from getting my work done. Somebody does. That’s the real conspiracy around here.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Someone’s invited one of those 9/11 conspiracy theorists to give a talk.’

  ‘What, one of those guys who says the Neo-cons were behind it and when he says Neo-cons he means “the Jews”?’

  ‘Kinda … That and a bit more. Apparently this guy says 4000 Jews stayed home from the World Trade Center on 9/11 ‘cause they got tipped off.’

  ‘Oh, I hadn’t heard that one.’

  ‘You’re slipping, Dad. That one’s not so new.’

  ‘Tell me nobody involved with this is black.’

  ‘I wish I could.’

  ‘Oh no, they are black?’

  ‘Well, that phone call is the first I’ve heard of it so I don’t know. But –’

  ‘Let me guess. The President wants you to look into it?’

  ‘The President’s asked me to be on an ad-hoc subcommittee to look into this thing so you can bet your bottom dollar somebody involved in this is going to be African American. You can sort of hear it on the phone even before they say it. I’m telling you, this is the last thing the university needs right now. This is the last thing I need right now.’

  ‘Well, you just got to stop this guy from coming, Charlie.’

  ‘It’s not that simple, Dad; you of all people know that.’

  ‘Yes, it is. It is that simple.’

  ‘There’s a little thing called the First Amendment, which I know you’ve heard of.’

  ‘Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom to intimidate and whip up racial hatred.’

  ‘Then there’s academic freedom to consider.’

  ‘Don’t tell me this guy was invited by a faculty member?’

  ‘I don’t know yet but I’m going to know soon, like it or not. The President’s going to make sure I know and,’ he said, leaning back in his chair and stretching again, ‘that’s why I already know that somebody in this picture is going to be, just has to be, African American.’

  ‘All the more reason you’ve got to stop it, Charlie.’

  ‘All the more reason?’

  ‘We don’t need another nutcase. Stamp it out, Charlie, if it is as it sounds. Do what you can to stamp it out fast.’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe the sheer absurdity of this guy’s argument is the best weapon against it.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard that one. But that’s allowing it to cloak itself in the respectability of the university. Don’t mess around. Pull it out by the roots, Charlie.’

  ‘Oh, the roots go much farther and much deeper than I’ve got time to dig. I’d have to quit my job and go digging deep as a coalmine to look for all those roots. And that’s assuming I have any real sway in this anyway.’

  ‘Don’t shirk it, Charlie.’

  ‘I could just be the spokesperson here.’

  ‘Well, there’s precedent for that, I guess. Give an African American a PhD, make a mess and get him to clean it up, like they did with Condi and Colin.’

  ‘I think you’re letting them off a bit lightly. And no one gave me anything!’

  ‘It’s a figure of speech, Charlie, especially when it comes from me. I’m just telling you not to be anybody’s patsy and definitely don’t be the guy who shirked it.’

  ‘Dad, I’ve just had the phone call about it now, only one brief phone call. I hardly know anything –’

  ‘Do what’s right here, Charlie.’

  ‘Geez, now I’ve made a rod for my back with you, haven’t I?’

  ‘A rod for your back?’

  ‘Another one.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m tired, Dad. Just let me find out what this is all about first. There’s no way ‘round it though. I’m their man. There will be plenty of time for us to argue about this. Let’s just have a nice dinner tonight. Okay?’

  *

  ‘In April 1933 with the boycott of
Jewish businesses already under way,’ Adam explained to his class, ‘Bonhoeffer was asked to deliver a talk to his clerical brethren. He chose as his topic “The Church and the Jewish Question”.

  ‘The country was a sea of swastikas. It was in this environment that Bonhoeffer wrote what was in fact really a challenge to the Church, his own Church. He said that the Church had three possible courses of action. First, it could question the State as to the legitimacy of the State’s actions. Second, the Church could help the victims of the State’s actions. The Church, he said, was unconditionally obliged to do this. Remember, anti-Semitism was now State sponsored and opposition to the State was extremely dangerous.

  ‘On 7 April 1933 legislation was passed promoting an “Aryan Church” that excluded not only Jews, whom Martin Luther had, from the time the German Church was established, wanted to convert but also Christians of Jewish descent. They were now to be excluded too. Luther’s problems with the Jews had been doctrinal. Now Hitler added the insurmountable layer of racism. It was in the midst of all of this that Bonhoeffer wrote and delivered his challenge to the Church with its three possible courses of action, the third of which was really quite astonishing. The third possible course of action for the Church, Bonhoeffer wrote, was not merely to bandage the victims of the wheel, but to stop the wheel. Imagine saying that. We could stop the wheel. We should stop the wheel. That’s what he was saying.’

  *

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Diana said, opening the door to the Hispanic-looking man with the moving van who had come to move her boxes, ‘I didn’t hear you. I mean, I heard you on the intercom. I didn’t hear the … the knock. I’m just … you know … not quite … nearly though.’ The man looked at a piece of paper that he’d taken out of his pocket.

  ‘You’re … Diana, right?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘So how many you got?’

  ‘I haven’t counted. You can come in and take a look.’ The man took two steps in and didn’t seem to need to count the boxes to be able to ask, ‘Can I start taking them down to the van now?’ She didn’t want to go. Other than having children, she thought her life with Adam had been close to all she had wanted as an adult woman. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Okay.’ Her breathing sped up.

  ‘Anything fragile?’ the man asked.

  *

  ‘Adam and Diana coming tonight?’ William McCray asked his son Charles later that day as they sat trying not to argue in Charles’ office in Fayerweather Hall on the campus of Columbia University.

  ‘Adam is.’

  ‘Something wrong with Diana?’

  ‘I don’t know. He left a message saying she wasn’t going to be able to make it.’

  ‘Is she unwell?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Maybe she has an after-hours school obligation. They’re working teachers harder than ever these days. But they still won’t pay them any more.’

  ‘I don’t know. He didn’t say on the message. You know, I think he calls me on this line when he knows I’m not here.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he call you at home?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think he’s avoiding me. I don’t think he wants to talk to me.’

  ‘You two have some kind of problem?’

  ‘We haven’t had an argument but we’re going to have a problem. He has a problem all right. It’s professional. It’s … it’s awful. Dad, he is … Adam’s in big trouble.’

  ‘What is it? You know you’ve got to give him the benefit of the doubt. Start that way at least –’

  ‘No, no, no one’s accusing him of doing anything unethical. Problem is, for the longest time, he hasn’t really done anything … at all. I mean he is fulfilling his teaching obligations, gives lectures, grades papers, turns up to departmental meetings. But he’s not doing any of his own work. He’s not doing any original research.’

  ‘Well, people have their ups and downs, Charlie. No one can be productive all the time. Has he got a project?’

  ‘No, that’s part of the problem, I don’t think he has.’

  ‘Haven’t you talked to him about it?’

  ‘I’ve tried but … Dad, he’s not going to be offered tenure.’ William didn’t seem to hear the end of the sentence.

  ‘What do you mean you tried? You’re chairman of his department. And you’re his friend, a very old friend.’

  ‘Dad, there’s a lot going on around here … as you can see. I’ve tried to talk to him but he’s not the easiest person to get a hold of these days.’

  ‘Neither are you so I guess that ought to bode well for his academic career.’

  Charles tilted his forehead into his right hand. ‘I know there’s some kind of subtext here, Dad. I don’t know exactly how you’re attaching the blame for Adam’s predicament to me, but I’ve got a feeling you’ll tell me. Or are we talking about something else?’

  ‘No, I’m talking about Adam. Listen, you’ll see him tonight, take him to one side, explain the situation, how urgent it is for him to get something on paper and then give him extra time.’

  ‘Dad, you don’t understand. It’s not like that.’

  ‘Charlie, you must have some discretion at least as far as time is concerned. Cut him some slack. It’s Adam.’

  ‘I can’t do anything for him that I couldn’t do for anyone else. You’re a lawyer. You ought to know that better than most people.’

  ‘It’s because I’m a lawyer that I understand the nature of the decision-maker’s discretion. I’m sure you have some discretion in all this. I’m just suggesting you apply it favourably, especially since it would appear you’re late getting on top of this. It’s Adam, Charlie.’

  ‘Dad, I couldn’t do anything for anyone in his situation. He’s been here for over five years. One book in five years won’t cut it. And he knows that. I think that’s why he’s leaving messages for me when he knows I’m not here.’

  ‘At least he wrote about his father in his one book. He wrote about your father too in that book. It’s a fine book.’

  ‘You’re not a hundred per cent kidding with this, are you?’ William waved his hand dismissively. ‘I’m a historian of the Reconstruction. If you’d been around then I’m sure I too would have got around to writing about you by now. Sadly, you’re just not that old.’

  ‘I nearly am. I feel it … sitting here.’

  ‘Dad, between the administration, the teaching, the departmental politics and the university politics, I’m having trouble getting round to doing my own work too. All I want to do … Hell, I’m a historian of the Reconstruction and I –’

  ‘Yes, you said, Mr Chairman.’

  ‘Dad, what do you want me to do? I just want to be left alone to do … to read and write on my own area. But I keep getting waylaid and blindsided by all this other crap all the time.’

  ‘Adam’s not “other crap”!’

  ‘Dad, please, how can I confide in you if you’re going to be like this? Please, you know what I’m saying.’

  ‘I do know what you’re saying. You’re saying things are very hard for you and you wish someone would cut you some slack.’

  ‘Why do I feel like you’ve just boxed me in?’ The phone started to ring. ‘Don’t worry; I’m not going to take it.’

  ‘You can take it.’

  ‘I’m not going to.’

  ‘You can take it.’

  ‘I’m not going to.’

  ‘Take it!’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Charlie, it could be Adam. You’re here now. Take it!’

  The phone stopped ringing. The two men looked at it and neither of them spoke for a few moments.

  ‘Charlie, listen to me. You talked about a coalmine before. Remember, a little while ago you said something ‘bout a coalmine? The canary in the coalmine gives you its life and you don’t even know.’

  ‘Oh, here we go,’ Charles said to a third person who wasn’t there. ‘A canary!’

  His father continued. ‘Did you even know it was dead? I
t looks dead but actually it isn’t. It’s you now. You’re the canary. You think you’re out of the coalmine but you’re not. No doubt about it. You’re still in the coalmine. Only question is: who’re you going to save?’

  *

  Adam continued the lecture. ‘The Lutheran Church in Germany was divided in protest against the “Aryan Church” legislation. By May 1934 a breakaway group had established a new church, the Confessing Church. Bonhoeffer, then only twenty-eight, was one of its leaders.

  ‘Badly needing to train new pastors, the Confessing Church established an illegal seminary. It was led by Bonhoeffer. Where was it? In Finkenwalde in Stettin on the Oder River in what is now Zdroje in Szezecin on the Odra. This is where between 1935 and 1937 a group of German students were taught, among other things, “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”. Bonhoeffer talked to his students about his experience in New York and about the position of African Americans, saying that he saw parallels between the situation of blacks in the United States and the Jews in Germany.

  ‘In 1937, the Gestapo closed Finkenwalde. In 1938, equating Jews simultaneously with Bolshevism and with international finance, and then attributing to them super-human conspiratorial powers, Hitler threatened that “If the international Jewish finance people inside and outside Europe, if they succeed in getting the nations of the world into a world war, the result will not be the Bolshevism of the world and so the victory of the Jewish people. No, the result will be the destruction of the Jewish race in Europe.” After Kristalnacht, the night of broken glass, on 9 November 1938, a pogrom in which Jews were killed, taken away and Jewish property was confiscated, not even the Confessing Church would dare protest and its members remained silent. All but Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who said, “Only he who cries out for the Jews may sing Gregorian chants.” He continued to maintain the centrality to Christianity of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount but now, when confronted with the evil of Nazism, he jettisoned Jean Lasserre’s pacifism and Gandhi’s belief in non-violent resistance. He felt that in this situation he had no choice. His brother-in-law, Hans Von Dohnanyi, had already by this time recruited him to the Abwehr, the office of military intelligence and the secret centre of resistance to Hitler.’