Geistmann

by Singer, Ron

  “You’ll have to decide that for yourself.”

  “Don’t be miffed, John. Okay, suppose we play a little game. Games are an enjoyable way to exchange serious ideas, don’t you think? So … let’s see which of us knows more about … hmm … you’re the guest. Literature? History? What will it be?”

  Feeling on fimer ground, without preamble, Robinson opened play with a sentence in Russian.

  A barking laugh. “Oh, ho, I do know that one. And very true, indeed! ‘It’s always a pleasure speaking with an intelligent man.’ And your accent is wonderful, you sound exactly like a Russian intellectual! As for the source of the quotation, Dostoevsky, of course, the vile bastard Smerdyakov, using code to confront the proud Ivan Karamazov with his complicity in the plot to murder that odious beast, their father.” (Whatever he says…)

  Robinson ventured his own little jab of condescension. “Good for you, Armande, I’m impressed.”

  There was no reaction to the name. “And very apt, if a little ham-fisted of you, wasn’t it?” Robinson could tell that Geistmann was warming to the game. His features had grown animated, his voice, loud and blithe. “I’ve heard you have an eidetic memory, John, which may give you an unfair advantage. Oh! Is it my turn? Suppose I try a less obvious quotation? Ready? ‘He lived and died with the courage of a purpose which reaches far beyond himself and which effectively destroys the barbarism and defeatism of the age we live in.’ Ah ha! Well? You’re on the clock, John.”

  Robinson knew the answer, but thought it would be a good idea to hesitate. “Yes, well ... that would be … yourself? Sorry, just kidding. Louis McN ... no, Stephen Spender.”

  Geistmann laughed with pleasure. “Cor-rect! My, my.” At that moment, they could have been a couple of old friends sitting in the lounge of a university club. “You have such … courage for a civilian.” Like the perspiring Robinson, the sarcasm dripped. “But do you also happen to know the context for the quotation?”

  Struggling to cope with the roller-coaster ride of polite psychopathic conversation, Robinson was not thrown off too much by the sudden shift to interrogation. Suddenly he had a useful insight: the name of this game was “Trivial Self-Justification for Unspeakable Pursuits.” For the moment, at least, his fear retreated into a corner. Avoiding eye contact, he answered promptly.

  “Yes, of course. Spender was referring to the recent death of John Cornford, poet, and son of poet Frances Cornford, a few days before his twenty-first birthday, and two days before New Years, 1937, in a skirmish outside Cordoba.” He teased out his thesis. “And you think...?”

  “And I … I think the ‘purpose’ to which Spender alluded, the cause of democracy in Spain –well, we all know what happened to that one. Spain was brutally and cynically betrayed by Stalin, then crushed by rising Fascism.” He stopped and looked Robinson in the eye, boring into his small comfort zone. “Do you really want to know about me, John? Very well, then, all you have to do is listen. This is what I believe.”

  Through his veil of fear, Robinson dared to hope they were finally approaching the revelations for which he had requested this interview. He was about to be shown the ideological bedrock on which the bizarre violence of this complicated maniac rested.

  Geistmann sped up, his voice growing angrier and angrier, more and more mechanical, until he sounded like a talking machine gun. “After the betrayal of Spain, those strangest of bedfellows, Stalin and the western democrats, crushed Fascism. Hoo-ray! Fast-forward to our own times, my friend. ‘Change your partner, one-two-three.’ We arrive at the final –some people hope-- defeat of Butcher Stalin’s heirs, at least in their Soviet incarnation, by western, hypocritical, no-longer democratic capitalists –- by the ‘whited sepulchers.’” With a rictus-like grin, he lurched insanely, his voice dropping to a murmur. “They cut off my son’s finger, you know, John.” (Whatever he says…) “But, since the Spender was so easy, here’s another one that should also be child’s play. ‘If there be’…”

  Robinson flashed on the airplane dream. By the time he could regain self-control, he realized he had missed most of the new quotation. All he had heard was the end, “to combat it.” Geistmann seemed to be waiting for the answer. “Sorry. Would you mind repeating that?”

  Geistmann roared. “Oh ho! This is like a game show, isn’t it? For sixty-four billion yuan, then –or was that pesos? ‘If there be any among us who would dissolve this Union or wish to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated when reason is left free to combat it.’ “ He did not wait for Robinson’s reply (which would have been correct). “Jefferson’s First Inaugural, of course. Ha! ‘… the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated.’ Not these days.” With his head jerking from side to side, faster and faster, Geistmann raced ahead.

  “And so the zweikampf gives way –-gives way, that is, in places that have avoided the criminal anarchy of failed states –Congo, Somalia, and, if you like, nearby Transniester– to the ascendancy of totalitarian theocrats –Iran—and of the thug-ocracy, of pigs like the central Asian dictators and that vicious little bastard, Putin, and his poodle Medvedev. These are all monsters, part of the witches’ brew of totalitarian, and other varieties of, state capitalism that is rampaging across the so-called ‘present world order.’ Monsters! Our only hope now is another Great Depression!” He came up for breath, to reload, and presumably to let Robinson say something in reply. Was he insane? Of course. Then why did this rant sound so sane? Robinson’s inner clock told him they had used up about ten of their thirty minutes.

  Episode Twenty

  Friday, April 11, 2008, 11:25 a.m. (Chisinau time)

  The best defense might be a cautious offense. Robinson chose his words with extreme care. “Well, yes, that was quite a speech. A lot of truth there --although I wouldn’t like to have to diagram your last sentence.” Geistmann did not visibly react to the lame joke. For the moment, at least, Robinson’s fragile sense of self-control held.

  “You’d better take a deep breath, Armande, you look apocalyptic, I mean, apoplectic, I mean, er, red. But I get your drift. ‘To destroy the barbarism and defeatism of today, we must …’ Yes, of course.” He threw in a short dramatic pause. “But that brings us to the tired old question: in the name of what?”

  His tone even and rational, Geistmann replied instantly. “I suppose I’d have to call it naked idealism, John, the thing in itself. I know, that sounds so ... tired, so ... pathetic. But there are no other standing idols before which I can fling myself. The only other option, Dr. Robinson, which I refuse, but which you obviously accept, is liberalism –in its political, not its economic, sense, of course.” Robinson drew breath. Was the ground about to open again beneath his feet?

  “Somehow, John, you’ve managed to retain your self-respect by playing a small role in what you consider the pursuit of knowledge. Not that I exactly despise you for the choice.” Suddenly, he sounded profoundly sad, as if he were about to cry. “I, myself, was betrayed by education, badly betrayed, John … still, we all honor the pursuit of knowledge, don’t we? Of course.” With that, he appeared to gather his forces for what Robinson anticipated would be the peroration. “But I’m afraid that what your life amounts to, John, is a very energetic, attractive kind of quietism. That’s what it comes down to.”

  Robinson’s dander was up. Was he supposed to feel sorry for Geistmann? Was he supposed to be cowed by this condescending maniac’s sophomoric attempt to undress his values? He had always hated condescension, whether he was the dispenser or the target. But where had his fear gone? Surprising himself, he spoke softly, but with his most biting sarcasm. “Thank you so much for that clarification, Monsieur. Nor do I disrespect you. No, I admire your ... elan vitale, your apparently boundless energy, your …something or other. But ultimately –if we’re going to be ultimate here, in what may turn out to be your ultima thule—what you are is an anarchist. And anarchists accomplish exactly what t
hey believe in: nothing. Off go the bombs, bang, bang! ‘Wipe the slate clean.’ Yes? And then? Then, nothing at all. Nothing.”

  As he reached the end of this diatribe, Robinson grew panicky again, fearful of a murderous reaction. Had he really said all that? But, when he glanced at his interlocutor, to his surprise, Geistmann still seemed profoundly still and sad.

  “You know,” he said softly, “that’s all true. Yes, you’re right, I’m afraid. Philosophically speaking, my friend, we amount to the same thing. Nothing.”

  Robinson was both disarmed and shaken. “Oh, well,” he said insouciantly, “flesh is grass.” (Whatever he says…) “But now that we’re finished baring our souls, Armande –may I call you that?” No reaction. “How about a fact or two? For instance, you wouldn’t care to confirm your real name, would you? At the moment, ‘Armande Amrouche’ is the one they –we—have. I mean, you should at least give me that much to take back to my minders. After all, I’d seem like a fool if all I had to tell them is that you think the world is fucked up. They know that already. Everybody knows that.”

  Suddenly, for the first time since he had been in the cell, he felt guilty for the manipulation in which, however reluctantly, he felt he was engaged. True, he was here to satisfy his own curiosity, but he had also known all along that any new information he might manage to tease out could ultimately help Geistmann’s judges condemn him, if not to death, then to a life sentence in some god-forsaken prison or mental hospital, which, to Geistmann, would have been worse than death.

  Whatever he says… The rage finally exploded. Before Robinson even had time to be terrified, let alone react, Geistmann’s chair had shot across the cell floor, and, somehow, the madman had tipped his, Robinson’s chair, over backward. He expected to hear footsteps from the corridor. Where was the guard? Lying on his back on the floor, Robinson looked up into Geistmann’s dead eyes, which loomed above him. Then, with the flick of a toe, still secure in his bonds, Geistmann was back where he had been before. Picking himself and his chair up, and plopping back down on it, Robinson struggled to stop hyperventilating. Although he was shaking violently and drenched in cold sweat, he was relieved to find that, at least, he had not wet his pants.

  Once again, Geistmann subsided, this time into what might have been catatonia. His head was bowed, his body, absolutely still. After several seconds, he said, in a flat, singsong murmur. “After all that, he asks me my name. No, thanks. But when Scott Peters does discover it --Amrouche, Destouches, Les Bouches, Vrai Mouche, de la Souche, whatever, which will be very soon --he’s hot on the trail now-- he’ll also discover that, well … that I’m already dead.”

  Robinson could not even begin to process this cryptic utterance. A still-functioning corner of his brain said their time was, thank God, almost up. “Okay,” he managed to reply in a trembling voice, “I guess we should just say ‘goodbye,’ then.”

  Geistmann sneered and seemed to disappear completely into himself. It was almost as if Robinson were alone in the cell. He squeezed his clammy left hand into a fist and rang the buzzer connected to the front desk. Now the guards would appear, and they would deliver Geistmann to Peters.

  Exhausted, smiling miserably at no one, and feeling more than a bit like Judas, while he waited, Robinson tried desperately to comfort himself by becoming dismissive. He told himself he would look back on this conversation as a revival of those late-night college bull sessions he had once so enjoyed. Now he understood why most grown-ups stopped having them. They reeked of bad faith. His famous curiosity seemed to be in tatters.

  A second or an hour later, he heard footsteps, and the door swung open. Swiveling on his chair, instead of the several guards he expected, he saw … Diodor Fedoruk. The Ukrainian was prodding forward the police thug who had brought Robinson down to the cell. They were wearing identical uniforms, but Fedoruk was waving an FBI standard issue Sig Sauer over the man’s shoulder in Robinson’s direction. What was happening? He wondered if Fedoruk was about to say something stupid from the movies, like “Sorry to interrupt, gentlemen,” or “Hands up, John.”

  “Stand up and don’t turn around, John.” Robinson obeyed in time to hear the butt of the gun crack against the policeman’s skull. He heard a thud, then jingling and rustling sounds as Fedoruk presumably extracted the handcuff keys. Then, he heard him slowly cross the room to where Robinson stood, his back to him, still, his hands raised. “Sorry, John,” he said, and he swiped him across the back of the head with the gun. Perhaps, he really had been sorry, for the blow was too light to knock Robinson out immediately. As he was losing consciousness, he heard Fedoruk’s voice say something that sounded like, “L'Abbaye attend en bas avec la voiture.” [The Abbey is waiting downstairs with the car.]

  The very last thing he heard was Geistmann screaming, his voice echoing off the walls of the bare cell. “That sneaky little bastard! He ruined our whole conversation. I swear to God, the next time I see Scott Peters, I’ll tear his fucking heart out.”

  When Robinson woke up, his head was pounding. He was no longer wearing the FBI jacket, but someone had kindly placed a pillow under his head. He was not bleeding, either, but something cold had been stuffed into his mouth. He also felt something cold around his eyes. Everything was a blur.

  For a few moments, he lay still. Then, he gathered himself and began to sort things out. The object in his mouth was the buzzer. He removed it. The cold around his eyes came from the handcuffs, which had been laid on his face as if they were big eyeglasses. He removed them, too. He was able to make out, on the floor to his left, his own neatly folded glasses. He sat up, reached over, put them on, and blurrily examined the pillow: it was the FBI jacket. Next, he noticed the guard, who was still unconscious, lying parallel to him a few feet to his right. The man was wearing only his underclothes (which were in deplorable condition), but there was no visible bleeding, and his heaving chest indicated that he was alive. The wire that had bound Geistmann to the chair now bound the guard’s hands in front of him.

  Using the jacket as a pillow again, Robinson lay back down and thought about what had, and had not, been done to him. He felt a severe chill. Was it the cold cement floor and shock from the blow? Or was it because he had already figured out the obvious, terrifying meaning of Geistmann’s latest little tableau?

  The gist of it was that Robinson’s vision had become impaired when he agreed to act as an FBI stooge. But, like the rubber frog on the bed in Virginia, this tableau also implied what Geistmann might have done, and might still do, to him. If Robinson did not “see the light,” if he did not wise up and stop aiding and abetting his enemies, Geistmann would reluctantly treat him like one, which meant he would –ceremoniously-- destroy him. He would shove his job down his throat.

  Robinson had figured out this much when Peters, Neugeborn, and five or six other Agents whom he did not recognize burst through the open door of the cell, all pointing their guns. Robinson raised himself on an elbow. He had been positioned facing the door. Neugeborn was shaking his head. He looked concerned, but said nothing. Almost in unison, the men all lowered the guns.

  “Jesus wept!” Peters cried. Where had he heard that one before?

  Five minutes earlier, Geistmann and Fedoruk had burst from a freight entrance in an alley behind the prison. Both were now wearing the uniforms of Moldova’s finest. A battered gray Dacia sedan was waiting, Piet Dkystra at the wheel, the little barber in the passenger seat, both of them also wearing the police uniforms. Fedoruk ran around the car and squeezed in behind the driver. Geistmann jumped in beside Fedoruk.

  “Bien, Arnold,” he said, “celui était un rasage étroit!” [Well, Arnold, that was a close shave.]

  “La fois prochaine,” Weatherbee replied, “je le couperai!” [Next time, I’ll cut if off.]

  As they all laughed, Geistmann saw Weatherbee signal almost imperceptibly to Piet, who calmly unfolded himself from behind the wheel, opened Fedoruk’s door, and, pushing an automatic pistol in his face, gestured for him,
too, to get out of the car. Silently, he did, and Piet closed the door behind him.

  “Pas, ne le tuez pas,” Geistmann cried, without knowing quite why he did so. “Laissez-le leur.” [Don’t kill him! Leave him to them.] Piet glanced at Weatherbee, who nodded. Then, Piet gestured with the pistol for Fedoruk to turn around. When he obeyed, he struck him hard on the back of the head with the butt of the gun. Fedoruk crumpled, his policeman’s cap flying off. Peter removed the Sig Sauer from Fedoruk’s jacket pocket and handed it through the window to Weatherbee, who checked the safety catch, then put the gun into the glove compartment. Folding himself back into the driver’s seat, Piet slammed the door, let in the clutch, and stomped on the accelerator.