Kurt Vonnegut - Mother Night

It was going to be about the love my wife and I had for each other. It was going to show how a pair of lovers in a world gone mad could survive by being loyal only to a nation composed of themselves — a nation of two.

On a bench across the path from me a middle-aged American now sat down. He looked like a fool and a gasbag. He untied his shoelaces to relieve his feet, and he began to read a month-old copy of the Chicago Sunday Tribune.

Three handsome officers of the S.S. stalked down the walk between us.

When they were gone, the man put his paper down and spoke to me in twanging Chicago English. 'Nice looking men,' he said.

'I suppose,' I said.

'You understand English?' he said.

'Yes,' I said.

'Thank God for somebody who can understand English,' he said. 'I've been going crazy trying to find somebody to talk to.'

'That so?' I said.

'What do you think of all this — ' he said, 'or aren't people supposed to go around asking questions like that?'

'All what?' I said.

'The things going on in Germany,' he said. 'Hitler and the Jews and all that.'

'It isn't anything I can control' I said, 'so I don't think about it'

He nodded. 'None of your beeswax, eh?' he said.

'Pardon me?' I said.

'None of your business,' he said.

'That's right,' I said.

'You didn't understand that, when I said 'beeswax' instead of 'business'?' he said.

'It's a common expression, is it?' I said.

'In America it is,' he said. 'You mind if I come over there, so we don't have to holler?'

'As you please,' I said.

'As you please,' he echoed, coming over to my bench. 'That sounds like something an Englishman would say.'

'American,' I said.

He raised his eyebrows. 'Is that a fact? I was trying to guess what maybe you were, but I wouldn't have guessed that'

'Thank you,' I said.

'You figure that's a compliment?' he said. 'That's why you said, "Thank you?"'

'Not a compliment — or an insult, either,' I said. 'Nationalities just don't interest me as much as they probably should.'

This seemed to puzzle him. 'Any of my beeswax what you do for a living?' he said.

'Writer,' I said.

'Is that a fact?' he said. 'That's a great coincidence. I was sitting over there wishing I could write, on account of I've thought up what I thinks a pretty good spy story.'

'That so?' I said.

'I might as well give it to you,' he said. 'I'll never write it.'

'I've got all the projects I can handle now,' I said.

'Well — some time you may run dry,' he said, 'and then you can use this thing of mine. There's this young American, see, who's been in Germany so long he's practically a German himself. He writes plays in German, and he's married to a beautiful German actress, and he knows a lot of big-shot Nazis who like to hang around theater people.' He rattled off the names of Nazis, great and small — all of whom Helga and I knew pretty well.

It wasn't that Helga and I were crazy about Nazis. I can't say, on the other hand, that we hated them. They were a big enthusiastic part of our audience, important people in the society in which we lived.

They were people.

Only in retrospect can I think of them as trailing slime behind.

To be frank — I can't think of them as doing that even now. I knew them too well as people, worked too hard in my time for their trust and applause.

Too hard.

Amen.

Too hard.

'Who are you?' I said to the man in the park.

'Let me finish my story first,' he said. 'So this young man knows there's a war coming, figures America's gonna be on one side and Germany's gonna be on the other. So this American, who hasn't been anything but polite to the Nazis up to then, decided to pretend he's a Nazi himself, and he stays on in Germany when war comes along, and gets to be a very useful American spy.'

'You know who I am?' I said.

'Sure,' he said. He took out his billfold, showed me a United States War Department identification card that said he was Major Frank Wirtanen, unit unspecified. 'And that's who I am. I'm asking you to be an American intelligence agent, Mr. Campbell.'

'Oh Christ,' I said. I said it with anger and fatalism. I slumped down. When I straightened up again, I said, 'Ridiculous. No — hell no.'

'Well' he said, 'I'm not too let-down, actually, because today isn't when you give me your final answer anyway.'

'If you imagine that I'm going home to flunk it over,' I said, 'you're mistaken. When I go home, it will be to have a fine meal with my beautiful wife, to listen to music, to make love to my wife, and to sleep like a log. I'm not a soldier, not a political man. I'm an artist. If war comes, I won't do anything to help it along. If war comes, it'll find me still working at my peaceful trade.'

He shook his head. 'I wish you all the luck in the world, Mr. Campbell,' he said, 'but this war isn't going to let anybody stay in a peaceful trade. And I'm sorry to say it,' he said, 'but the worse this Nazi thing gets, the less you're gonna sleep like a log at night.'

'We will see,' I said tautly.

'That's right — we will see,' he said. 'That's why I said you wouldn't give me your final answer today. You'll live your final answer. If you decide to go ahead with it, you'll go ahead with it strictly on your own, working your way up with the Nazis as high as you can go.'

'Charming,' I said.

'Well — it has this much charm to it — ' he said, 'you'd be an authentic hero, about a hundred times braver than any ordinary man.'

A ramrod Wehrmacht general and a fat, briefcase carrying German civilian passed in front of us, talking with suppressed excitement.

'Howdy do,' Major Wirtanen said to them amiably.

They snorted in contempt, walked on.

'You'll be volunteering right at the start of a war to be a dead man. Even if you live through the war without being caught, you'll find your reputation gone — and probably very little to live for,' he said,

'You make it sound very attractive,' I said.

'I think there's a chance I've made it attractive to you,' he said. 'I saw the play you've got running now, and I've read the one you're going to open.'

'Oh?' I said. 'And what did you learn from those?'

He smiled. 'That you admire pure hearts and heroes,' he said. 'That you love good and hate evil' he said, 'and that you believe in romance.'

He didn't mention the best reason for expecting me to go on and be a spy. The best reason was that I was a ham. As a spy of the sort he described, I would have an opportunity for some pretty grand acting. I would fool everyone with my brilliant interpretation of a Nazi, inside and out.

And I did fool everybody. I began to strut like Hitler's right-hand man, and nobody saw the honest me I hid so deep inside.

Can I prove I was an American spy? My unbroken, lily-white neck is Exhibit A, and it's the only exhibit I have. Those whose duty it is to find me guilty or innocent of crimes against humanity are welcome to examine it in detail.

The Government of the United States neither confirms nor denies that I was an agent of theirs. That's a little something, anyway, that they don't deny the possibility.

They twitch away that tid-bit, however, by denying that a Frank Wirtanen ever served that Government in any branch. Nobody believes in him but me. So I will hereinafter speak of him often as 'My Blue Fairy Godmother.'

One of the many things my Blue Fairy Godmother told me was the sign and countersign that would identify me to my contact and my contact to me, if war should come.

The sign was: 'Make new friends.'

The countersign was: 'But keep the old.'

My lawyer here, the learned counsel for the defense, is a Mr. Alvin Dobrowitz. He grew up in America, something I never did, and Mr. Dobrowitz tells me that the sign and countersign are part of a song often sung by an idealistic American girls' organization called 'The Brownies.' The full lyric, according to Mr. Dobrowitz is: