Dietrich sighed. “I haven’t written Sabine since our shared birthday on February fourth, over three months ago. I’ve been too ashamed.”
Bell began to laugh softly and clapped Dietrich on the shoulder.
“What?” Dietrich said.
“February fourth is also my birthday. It would seem my connection with you in some way partakes of the mystical.”
Back in his room, Dietrich took out his notebook and sat at the small writing table. He wrote, Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace.
He read this over, scribbled EXPAND in the margin. Below he wrote, Costly because it costs a man his life and grace because it gives a man the only true life.
This he also read over several times. At the top of the page he scrawled DISCIPLESHIP. Then, feeling somewhat easier, he stretched out on the bed and slept until teatime.
THEY HAVE COME FROM AFTER-DINNER DRINKS, in evening dress, to stand before the high altar of the cathedral.
(Dietrich unwillingly, for he has hoped all day for a call from Martin Niemöller, waited in vain for news of the day’s meeting with Hitler. Only the lateness of the hour and the promise of a summons from the butler tears him away from his room.)
The cathedral gates have long since been shut against tourists and the odd soul who might wander in to pray. The altar is lit by banks of candles bending and wavering and throwing up shadows twenty feet high that leap across stone and dart between ancient pillars.
Eliot has insisted upon the setting even though it is only dear dull Chichester rather than bloody Canterbury. He has insisted upon the evening dress as well. He must see his first act because he is stuck again, unsure how to proceed, and so he wants a performance, needs the intensity. He is responsible for the casting. Dietrich must be Becket. Nothing else will do. And Dietrich must not read the script beforehand, must come to it as fresh as Becket himself.
He stands alone, typescript dangling forlornly from his hand, while Eliot and the Bells confer in the transept, hears voices like the distant scurrying of mice. When he turns toward them his glasses flash like a signal in the candlelight.
All is silent.
Hettie Bell approaches slowly, almost luxuriantly, with a rustle of her skirt. She speaks in a light, fluting voice, tosses her silver hair, urges, Be easy man! The easy man lives to eat the best dinners.
Dietrich has been thinking how much younger she looks in the candlelight. He glances at his manuscript, mildly disconcerted. “‘You come twenty years too late,’” he tries in his best actor’s voice.
He has begun to like Becket and waits with more enthusiasm for the Second Tempter. Eliot himself, slinking from the shadows with glowing red cigarette in hand, a sly courtier come to urge complicity in the King’s intrigues. He speaks his lines from memory, staring Dietrich directly in the face.
Think, my lord, Power obtained grows to glory. Power is present. Holiness hereafter.
Dietrich/Becket looks away from the script and leans forward.
“‘No! Shall I, who keep the keys to heaven and hell, descend to desire a punier power? No! Go.’”
Leans back, satisfied. Eliot leaves him with a look that says, Yes, very nice.
In comes Bell, sauntering, jacket askew, tie loosened and top button of shirt undone. Third Tempter.
I am no courtier. I know a horse, a dog, a wench; I know how to hold my estates in order, a country-keeping lord who minds his own business. It is we country lords who know the country and we who know what the country needs. It is our country. We are the backbone of the nation.
Becket gathers himself majestically, declares, “‘Pursue your treacheries as you have done before: No one shall say that I betrayed a king.’”
Bell exits with a bow and an ironic flourish.
A Fourth Tempter. Eliot again, nonchalant this time, slow with his approach. An unexpected visitor, Dietrich learns from the script.
“‘Who are you?’” he asks, and thinks (growing a bit bored), These nocturnal visitors smack too much of Dickens. “‘Say what you came to say.’”
Eliot comes closer. His eyes glitter in the candlelight. Sets out Becket’s plight, claims there is no hope of reconciliation with the state yet opposition will lead to sure death.
“‘What is your counsel?’”
Fare forward to the end.
Dietrich looks down at the script, feels a sudden thrill of fear.
Think, Thomas, think of glory after death. When king is dead, there’s another king.
Dietrich waits. Does he hear a voice say, softly, And there’ll be another Hitler after? He looks up. Eliot watches him, shadows stealing across his face.
Saint and martyr rule from the tomb. And think of your enemies, in another place.
(Along with your fellow pastors? Eliot whispers. Or does Dietrich imagine it?)
He clutches the manuscript, forces himself to stare at Eliot, says, “‘I have thought of these things.’”
Eliot’s voice rolls on, cajoling deriding. Of course time will pass, and even the most revered martyr be forgotten. Who cares now about Becket? A dreary name for bored schoolchildren to memorize. That’s all. Nothing left.
Becket asks, “‘What is left to be done? Is there no enduring crown to be won?’”
The Tempter circles so close behind, his breath warms the back of Becket’s neck.
Yes, Dietrich, yes; you have thought of that too.
Dietrich pulls away at the sound of his own name and flings down the script. “What are you doing?” he cries. “What the hell are you doing?”
Eliot calmly rescues the scattered sheets of typescript. As the Bells hasten from the shadows of the transept, he is reading, “‘Seek the way of martyrdom, make yourself the lowest on earth, to be high in heaven. And see far off below you, where the gulf is fixed, your persecutors, in timeless torment, beyond expiation.’” He looks at Dietrich. “Then you say, ‘You only offer dreams to damnation’ And I answer, ‘You have often dreamt them.’”
Dietrich cries, “You know nothing of me, or the state of my soul, to judge me like this!”
Bell steps in. “By God, Tom, you’ve gone too far.”
“Don’t misunderstand,” Eliot says. “I owe you a debt, Bonhoeffer. You’re teaching me what I need to know to write my second act, and by way of penance I’ll tell you what I believe. True martyr after all, Becket. In the end, he wins through because he stops trying to be right and simply is. Suffering is action, and action suffering. There. Have I made amends?”
“What does this have to do with me?” Dietrich says angrily. “I have no desire to be a martyr, nor do I expect to be one.”
“No,” Eliot agrees, “it’s not likely. But you’re no stranger to spiritual pride, are you? And that’s what I needed at the moment. Now if you’ll excuse me—” bows over Hettie’s hand—“there are a few more writing hours left before sleep overwhelms me. Good night.”
He disappears into the darkness, footsteps receding along the nave. A distant door creaks open, then shuts with the finality of a coffin lid.
MARTIN NIEMÖLLER SITS BESIDE THE TELEPHONE in the brick parsonage in Dahlem. He longs to ring Bonhoeffer but is afraid to pick up the receiver. He sits for hours, despite his wife’s entreaties to come to bed. Now and then he rises to peer out the window, careful not to disturb the lace curtains in a manner that might draw attention. The black Mercedes still lurks in front of the Annenkirche.
At last he takes a sheet of paper and writes in a circle of lamplight.
Dear Dietrich,
You will be wondering why you have heard nothing from me, and will think it is because I have lost patience with you once and for all. That is not true. Here is what has happened.
We had our meeting with the Führer. Thirty bishops and pastors, torn between fear and admiration, squirming on folding chairs in a tiny room in the Prinz-Albrecht-Straße. We had hardly begun to raise our concerns when Hermann Goering burst into the room, brandishing
a sheet of paper.
“My Führer,” he cried, “I must make a most astonishing report, though—” pausing to survey the room contritely—“it is upsetting to expose wicked deception before such reverend company.”
He handed the paper to Hitler, who made a show of studying it carefully, his face variously registering curiosity, concern, and astonishment. (The man really should have gone on the stage.) Then he looked up and said in the most injured tone, “My dear gentlemen, I hold here a scandalous communication concerning one of your members”—and fixed his gaze upon me. “The authorities have intercepted a telephone conversation between Pastor Niemöller and another of your number who disdains to live in the Fatherland.” Of course, I knew this must be you, Dietrich. Hitler continued, “These two talked at length about their plans to bring about a break with the state church. To such renegades it does not matter if our talks succeed today. They have already made up their minds to this rupture. What motives could they have other than to embarrass Germany before the world?”
He proceeded to read, word for word, excerpts of our conversation. Then he turned his full attention to me. “Shame, Pastor Niemöller! Shame! I have come to these talks in all good faith, at risk of ridicule from my own supporters who would have me take a harsher line, and you have stabbed me in the back.”
The others were stunned, of course. As was I, since I hadn’t the least idea it was possible to record someone’s telephone conversation. We live, it seems, in peculiar times.
The consequence was immediate chaos. The others, especially the bishops, declared themselves “shocked by the insolence and duplicity of Pastor Niemöller.” The result is not only the collapse of the talks. I have been dismissed from my post. I am no longer pastor of the Annenkirche and I am forbidden to hold any other pastorate in Germany or to preach from any pulpit. Don’t concern yourself about that. I have my naval pension, and my wife has a modest inheritance. We shall be comfortable financially. I am well aware that if I were a country parson with eight children I would not have the luxury of defiance I now possess.
For I am defiant. There shall be a new church, I promise, without the bishops if necessary. There are still dissenters, more than Hitler realizes, who will come out of Babylon with me.
I must close by giving you your due. You saw this coming, my friend. I thought you a radical. Now it is I who look to you.
I am sending this letter by diplomatic post through your brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi, so that it will escape the eyes of the Gestapo.
Your brother in Christ,
Martin Niemöller
Doppelgänger
SS-HAUPTSTURMFÜHRER ALOIS BAUER is on retreat at the Windberg monastery with a new friend, SS-Scharführer Adolf Eichmann. The retreat is Eichmann’s idea. He is beginning work on a pamphlet for Section II 112 of the SS, a treatise about Zionist plots to revive the League of Nations and create a one-world government. He knows from experience that the retreat will be just the thing to get the creative juices flowing.
“I go on retreat at least twice a year,” he tells Bauer, who steers the rented Daimler along a narrow road through the Bavarian Forest. “Though this is my first time at Windberg. Usually I go someplace alone, on silent retreat. But with you along, well, we’ll want to converse. The other monasteries I visit won’t allow that.”
Their rooms are at opposite ends of the cloister but are otherwise identical, bare save for a bed, chair and desk, washstand, pitcher and basin, and crucifix on the wall. Eichmann spends his mornings in meditation and works on his pamphlet in the afternoons. Bauer, whose only motive for the retreat is to escape the noise and pressure of Berlin for a few days, takes long hikes through the woods. He has brought a pair of binoculars for bird-watching, and two books, Gibbon’s Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire and Moby-Dick by the American Melville. Eichmann has glanced at the covers, said, “Good Lord, you’ve got patience to plow through such stuff.”
In the evenings after attending Compline with the monks, they sit on a bench in the refectory garden and smoke until dusk.
“The only thing I miss right now,” Bauer says, “is my phonograph.”
That is when Bauer tells Eichmann of his passion for Mozart.
“Mozart?” Eichmann thinks a moment. “You know he was a Freemason.”
Bauer shrugs.
“I’ve just been writing about them. ‘A worldwide conspiracy of Jews, Freemasons, and Bolsheviks lurks at the dark edges of the world, waiting for a hint of German weakness,’ or some such thing. I can’t recall now exactly how I phrased it. Of course, the Freemasons of Mozart’s day were probably another thing altogether. Harmless.”
“No doubt.”
“I must confess,” says Eichmann, “I once considered becoming a Freemason myself. Joined the SS instead, and that’s when I learned it’s not a good idea to espouse Freemasonry these days. Didn’t realize that at the time, you see.”
They smoke awhile in silence. “What about this?” Bauer asks, and waves his arm to take in the monastery. “Do you take it seriously?”
“Oh yes,” Eichmann says, surprised at the question. “Oh, absolutely. Don’t you?”
“I don’t believe in God,” Bauer admits. “Or at least, I don’t think I do.”
“How can you not believe in God? How can you go for your walks and enjoy nature and not believe in God?”
“Of course there’s beauty in the world,” Bauer agrees. “But look at the rest. So much evil. If there’s a God, why does He allow it?”
“That’s not ours to know,” Eichmann says. “Not ours to question.”
“But I do question it,” Bauer says. “And the lack of an answer is a bar to my belief. Do you pray?”
“Of course,” Eichmann says.
“I’ve tried, now and then. But it’s like facing down the wind. Nothing behind it. And look at those who claim to be our spiritual leaders, the clergy. My section is having to deal with a pack of them this week, preparing for a meeting with the Führer. I was only responsible for background, thank God, that part’s done. One reason I was glad to get out of Berlin. There’s a pack of charlatans for you, the clergy, and useless to anyone. You should include them in your pamphlet.”
“Perhaps I shall,” Eichmann says. He looks around quickly to see if they’ve been overheard. “But not the monks. Actually, I’m quite fond of monks.”
“I’ll tell you where I find spiritual solace,” Bauer says. “In music. Nowhere else.”
“Mozart again,” Eichmann says. He is losing interest, but stifles a yawn so that Bauer won’t guess. He is pleased to have been befriended by a superior officer and anxious to remain in the good graces of the Hauptsturmführer.
In this manner they pass a pleasant enough week. On Saturday Eichmann will not leave until he signs the monastery guest book.
A. Eichmann. “Faith for faith.” May 7, 1934.
GERMAN CHURCH
GROUNDS FOR FOREIGN UNEASINESS
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES
SIR,—In Germany today we are witnessing the cruelty of a regime based not on democratic principles but upon a leadership principle supported by force and intimidation. The German government is undertaking disciplinary measures against dissenters and has employed measures of racial discrimination against its Jewish citizens. Such practices are now being extended to the German Church in a manner without precedent, and in direct opposition to true Christian principle….
Yours faithfully,
GEORGE CICESTR. †
The Palace, Chichester, June 15, 1934
BISHOP BELL AND DIETRICH BONHOEFFER met once again over drinks in the library of the Athenaeum.
“I’ve had a letter from Niemöller,” Dietrich said. “It’s official. There has been a separation, and those who have come out of the Reich Church are calling themselves the Confessing Church. They’re moving now to set up their own institutions, find places to worship, train their own pastors. Niemöller’s very grateful for your support, and, needless to say
, so am I.”
“Glad to help,” Bell said with a wave of his hand. His letters to the Times had cost him little, he reflected, except patience with some of his fellow club members, who chastised him for scaremongering. He also wondered if the letters had done any good. He shrugged, said, “We’ll keep pounding away. Now tell me, how have you been keeping yourself?”
It was a question that needed no answer. Dietrich was thinner and his face was drawn with weariness. There had been no relief from his spiritual malaise.
“Still writing?” Bell asked.
“A little,” Dietrich said. “I’ve got two chapters roughed out, that’s all.”
“That’s something,” Bell said.
Dietrich smoked, forgot to tip his ash, and a white nub fell into his lap. He swiped his leg absentmindedly.
“I’ve been to hear Gandhi’s people speak,” he said, “at the Albert Hall. I met C. F. Andrews afterward. He says he knows you.”
“Charlie Andrews? Good Lord, yes, known him for years. And Madeline Slade, Mira Bai she calls herself now. Her father’s an old friend.”
“You never told me you’d met Gandhi.”
“Well.” Bell coughed. “You never asked. Only met the man twice, actually. But we’ve corresponded through Charlie. Gandhi’s interested in the ecumenical movement, thinks it has great potential. A very ecumenical faith, you know, Hinduism. A natural for them.”
“I want to meet him,” Dietrich said.
“Meet Gandhi?”
“Yes. Not just meet him. I want to go to India and study his movement, stay a year or two, then take what I learn back to Germany.”
Bell considered this.
“Andrews suggested I should study at the University of Rabindranath Tagore,” Dietrich continued, “but that’s not good enough. I thought with your help I could get straight to the man himself. Look here, the Indians are trying to throw out the British, yet two of Gandhi’s leading supporters are English. They should be the enemies of Gandhi, and yet they’ve been to prison with him. Imprisoned by the authorities of their own country. Here they are now, touring Britain to gather support for the cause of Indian independence. Traveling freely—”
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