L'amico ritrovato

E’ per questo che, in fondo al cuore, mi considero un fallito. Non che questo importi molto. Sub specie aeternitatis tutti noi, senza eccezioni, siamo dei falliti. Non ricordo più dove ho letto che “la morte intacca la nostra fiducia nella vita mostrandoci che in fin dei conti tutto è ugualmente futile se visto in rapporto alle tenebre che ci attendono.” Sì, “futile” è la parola esatta. Eppure non posso lamentarmi: ho più amici che nemici e ci sono momenti in cui sono quasi felice di essere al mondo – quando guardo il sole che tramonta e la luna che spunta, o vedo la neve sulla cima della montagna.

He came into my life in February 1932 and never left it again. More than a quarter of a century has passed since then, more than nine thousand days, desultory and tedious, hollow with the sense of effort or work without hope- days and years, many of them as dead as dry leaves on a dead tree. I can remember the day and the hour when I first set eyes on this boy who was to be the source of my greatest happiness and of my greatest despair.

When I had almost reached him he turned and smiled at me. Then, with a strangely gauche and still hesitant movement, he shook my trembling hand. "Hello, Hans", he said, and suddenly I realised to my joy and relief and amazement that he was as shy and as much in need of a friend as I.

How would he in all his glory ever be able to understand my shyness, my suspicious pride and my fear of being hurt?

Un giorno un nazista ricevette l'incarico di piazzarsi fuori dalla porta dello studio di mio padre con un cartello su cui era scritto: "Tedeschi, attenti. Evitate gli ebrei. Chiunque avrà a che fare con un ebreo sarà rovinato." Mio padre, allora, indossò l'uniforme da ufficiale, vi appuntò tutte le sue decorazioni, tra cui la Croce di Ferro di prima classe, e andò a mettersi di fianco al nazista. Questi aveva l'aria sempre più imbarazzata, mentre, pian piano si radunava attorno a loro una piccola folla. All'inizio la gente rimase in silenzio, ma, man mano che il numero dei presenti cresceva, cominciarono a udirsi dei borbottii che si trasformarono ben presto in grida di scherno. L'ostilità era diretta al nazista tanto che questi, poco dopo, pensò bene di andarsene, Non tornò più, né fu sostituito. Trascorsi alcuni giorni, mentre mia madre dormiva, papà aprì il gas.

His pleasure at seeing me was so genuine, so unmistakable, that even I, with my inbred suspicions, lost all fear.

Until his arrival I had been without a friend. There wasn't one boy in my class who I believed could live up to my romantic ideal of friendship, not one whom I really admired, for whom I would have been willing to die and who could have understood my demand for complete trust, loyalty and self-sacrifice.

Now the crucial question no longer seemed to be what life was, but what one was to do with this valueless, yet somehow uniquely valuable life?

I can't remember much of what Konradin said to me that day or what I said to him. All I know is that we walked up and down for an hour, like two young lovers, still nervous, still afraid of each other; but somehow I knew that this was only a beginning and that from now on my life would no longer be empty and dull but full of hope and richness for us both.

All I knew, then, was that he was going to be my friend. Everything attracted me to him.

I studied his proud, finely carved face, and indeed no lover could have watched Helen of Troy more intently or could have been more convinced of his own inferiority.

It shook me as nothing had shaken me before. I had heard about earthquakes that engulfed thousands, about streams of burning lava that buried villages, about oceans that swallowed up islands. I had read of one million people drowned by the Yellow River, of two million drowned by the Yangtse. I knew that a million soldiers died at Verdun. But these were mere abstractions — numbers, statistics, information. One couldn't suffer for a million. But these three children I knew, I had seen with my own eyes — this was altogether different.

Then his proud bearing, his manners, his elegance, his good looks — and who could be altogether insensitive to them? — powerfully suggested to me that here at last I had found someone who came up to my ideal of a friend.

To claim Palestine after two thousand years made no more sense to him than the Italians claiming Germany because it was once occupied by the Romans.

Standing quite still I looked at him. Needless to say Konradin hadn't giggled. He hadn't clapped either. But he looked at me.

Everything about him aroused my curiosity: the care with which he selected his pencils, the way he sat — erect, as if at any moment he might have to get up and give an order to an invisible army — and how he stroked his blond hair. I only relaxed when he, like everyone else, got bored and fidgeted whilst waiting for the bell for the interval between lessons.

Many of our discussions took place as we walked up and down the streets, sat on benches or stood in doorways taking shelter from the rain.

So I went through the whole list except the names beginning with H, and when I had finished I found that twenty-six boys out of the forty-six in my class had died for das 1000-jährige Reich.

A few days later it was the turn of the "Caviar" of the class. Three boys, Reutter, Müller and Frank, were known by this sobriquet because they kept strictly to themselves in the belief that they, and they alone among us, were destined to make their mark in the world.

I had no fear, only one will and one desire. I was going to do it for him.

I know my Germany. This is a temporary illness, something like measles, which will pass as soon as the economic situation improves. Do you really believe the compatriots of Goethe and Schiller, Kant and Beethoven will fall for this rubbish?

I made sure about their past before shaking hands with them. You have to be careful before you can accept a German.

I once overheard him saying to my mother that, in spite of the lack of contemporary evidence, he believed a historical Jesus had existed, a Jewish teacher of morals, of great wisdom and gentleness, a prophet like Jeremiah or Ezekiel, but that he could not for his life understand how anyone could regard this Jesus as "Son of God". He found blasphemous and repellent the conception of an omnipotent God who could passively watch His Son suffer that bitter and lingering death on the cross, a Divine "Father" with less than a human father's urge to come to his child's assistance.

Wouldn't it be better to avoid the thrust of the dagger which, I knew, with the atavistic insight of a Jewish child, would in a few minutes be plunged into my heart?

I was alone before you came and would be still more alone if you threw me over, but I can't bear the idea of your being too ashamed of me to introduce me to your parents.

También teníamos intereses menos trascendentes, que parecían mucho más importantes que la certidumbre de que la Tierra se extinguiría, para lo cual faltaban millones de años, y de que nosotros mismos moriríamos, para lo cual parecía faltar aún más tiempo.

Did I really want or need to know? What difference would it make if he were dead or alive, since dead or alive I should never see him again? But could I be certain? Was it completely and utterly out of the question for the door to open and for him to walk in? And wasn't I even now listening for his footstep?

For half an hour I kept up the pretence, but I knew perfectly well that he knew what was going on in me, or he would not have kept off the subject of the greatest importance to us both; the evening of the day before.

So, in my heart of hearts I look on myself as a failure. Not that this really matters. Sub specie aeternitatis we all, without exception, are failures.

And if you want the whole truth, I've had to fight for every hour I've spent with you; and the worst of all, I didn't dare talk to you last night because I didn't want to hurt you.